• BBC coverage
• American Influence podcast: Pakistan’s reluctant war on terrorism

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MARCO WERMAN: The near-daily attacks aren’t just shaking nerves in Pakistan.  They’re undermining what had been one of Asia’s fastest growing economies.  The World’s Katy Clark reports.

KATY CLARK: Former Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, instituted a number of economic reforms after taking office in 1999.  Those reforms helped push Pakistan’s stock market index up more than a thousand percent by 2007, and annual GDP growth to a healthy average of six-and-a-half-percent.   But there’s been massive capital flight since those days, and the rupee < has lost a third of its value.  Moeed Yusuf is a fellow at Boston’s University’s Pardee Center.

MOEED YUSUF: Pakistan was doing really well macroeconomically in the past six to seven years. But now after the global financial crisis, the oil prices hike, and domestic governance issues most importantly, clearly its economy is in dire straits. It’s no doubt about that

CLARK: Since President Musharraf resigned a year ago, the new administration in Pakistan has gone on the offensive against Taliban forces, first in the Swat Valley and now in south Waziristan.  Yusuf doesn’t think the economic crisis drove the government’s decision to take on the militants, but he says it was a clearly a factor.

YUSUF: The military as well as the government understands if this instability continues, there’s no way country can get back on the trajectory of economic growth that it was under the Musharraf regime. The driving force is the law and order and public sentiment, which is now, you know, against the Taliban and wants the military to go in and take care of the problem.

CLARK: The problem, though, isn’t likely to go away any time soon, and it’s tough to bring economic stability to a country under siege.  Paula Newberg runs the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. She says Pakistan’s insurgency hurts the country’s economy in a number of ways.

PAULA NEWBERG: For one thing, what you see is massive movements of people from various areas of the country to those that are safer. So for example with the action in Swat you saw large, large numbers of people leaving Swat, a place that was actually once quite vibrant within a rural economy, but has become quite devastated, and its economy therefore pretty much implodes.

CLARK: Newberg says violence in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan has also interrupted vital trade between the two countries.  And as instability has spread across Pakistan in recent weeks, Newberg says transportation lines, key for maintaining a healthy economy, are also being disrupted.

NEWBERG: Under the conditions I’ve just described, it’s very hard for any country, any state to be able to continue to develop and strengthen its economy.

CLARK: The United States has recently authorized seven-and-a-half-billion dollars in aid to Pakistan over the next five years.  Past aid money was directed at the military.  This time, however, the money’s being earmarked for civilian use, things like health, education, and energy infrastructure needs.  That last one is a big problem in Pakistan.  Many factories there don’t have a steady supply of electricity and have been forced to shut down, adding to the country’s already significant problems.   For The World, this is Katy Clark.

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Andy Garcia as Georgian President Saakashvili (Photo: Irakli Gedenidze/AFP/Getty Images)

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Actor Andy Garcia is in Georgia to play the part of President Mikheil Saakashvili in a film about last year’s conflict with Russia. Shooting of the film directed by Renny Harlin gets under way this week and the capital city Tbilisi has been turned into a film set. Floodlights beam down on parliament as American and Georgian cast and crew members swarm outside the presidential palace. This multimillion-dollar film, the biggest-budget movie ever to be made on Georgian soil, tells the story of a journalist and a cameraman caught up in the unfolding drama of the war last August. Carol Hills reports.

• BBC coverage
• Georgia-Russia conflict

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MARCO WERMAN:  Hollywood has come to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.  Director Renny Harlin, whose previous films include “Die Hard 2″ and “Cliffhanger,” is in Georgia filming scenes for a new movie.  Andy Garcia plays the leading role.  The subject?  It’s something that’s still very raw for many Georgians and Russians.  It’s about last year’s conflict between those two countries over the region of South Ossetia.  Here’s more from The World’s Carol Hills.

CAROL HILLS:  The intention of the filmmakers seems to be vintage Hollywood.

GEORGE LASKU:  I think our main concern was just to kind of show war as a bad thing.

HILLS: George Lasku is the producer of the film, whose working title is “Georgia.”

LASKU:  You know, there’s a lot of wars going on and this one  kind of landed on us, and we had an opportunity to really make an antiwar film, and that’s, I think really our primary goal.

HILLS:  But we’re talking about Russia and Georgia.  These two countries loathe one another, and last summer’s conflict was serious. More than 850 people were killed in just 9 days.  So the “war is bad, let’s just all get along” approach may not work for everyone.  The film tells the story of a British journalist and a cameraman who get caught up in the dramatic events of last summer.

Andy Garcia plays Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

ANDY GARCIA: We are facing a massive attack by Russian forces.  We will stay here and protect our country and protect our capital!”

HILLS: The real president Saakashvili has given the filmmakers extraordinary access.  He loaned Andy Garcia his own office and let the crew shoot scenes at the presidential palace.  He even loaned them helicopters, fighter planes and tanks to recreate the war.  The Russian media has noticed.  Here’s one take from the English-language news channel “Russia Today”, which has a distinctly pro-Kremlin bias.

ANNOUNCER: Acclaimed Hollywood director shooting a movie about last year’s war in South Ossetia.  The blockbuster by Renny Harlin featuring Andy Garcia as the Georgian president, seems to present Tbilisi’s point of view on the events.

HILLS: The movie’s just the latest opportunity for sniping between Russia and Georgia.  That’s according to Monica Duffy Toft, a Georgia expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

MONICA DUFFY TOFT:  I think it’s fodder for the duking it out, the continued duking it out between Russia and Georgia on this war, that happened last year, and who’s to blame and who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.

HILLS: Just six months ago, the Georgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest ran into trouble.

The disco-flavored tune, called “We Don’t Wanna Put In”  was a thinly-veiled dig at Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

[MUSIC]

HILLS: You may not hear the dissing clearly but the Russians sure did and the song was withdrawn from the contest.  Russia is often perceived as the big bully on the block in central Europe.  And initial media accounts of last year’s war between Russia and Georgia went with the David and Goliath theme.  But that changed after the conflict and the latest report, issued last month by the European Union, puts  the blame for starting the war squarely on Georgia.  It does add though that both countries share responsibility for escalating the violence.   So, can a film made in Georgia with official Georgian support be objective?  Papuna Davitaia thinks so.  He’s a former filmmaker who is now a member of the Georgian parliament, from Saakashvili’s party by the way,  but he’s taking a break from government work to be a co-producer on the film. .

PAPUNA DAVITAIA:  I would not say that it shows only one side.  It is not propaganda movie.  It is from very objective point of view.

HILLS: Well, we’ll see.  This is a Hollywood film after all so it’s hardly expected to be terribly true to real events.   But maybe this is just Georgia’s turn.   Last year,  only seven months after the conflict, Russia released a state-financed action film, “Olympius Inferno” that featured an American scientist who finds himself caught up in the war.

ACTOR: What the hell is going on here?

HILLS: That film blamed Georgia for the conflict.  This new movie may give Tbilisi a chance to even the score.  For The World, I’m Carol Hills.

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MARCO WERMAN: Journalist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy splits her time between Pakistan and New York City.  And she’s been spending lots of time in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, where the Taliban have a stronghold.

SHARMENN OBAID-CHINOY: The predominant tribes that live in that area are the Wazir tribes, the Mehsud tribes.  They’re large tribes and there’s a structure.  So at the head of each tribe is what we call a malik, and the malik makes all the decisions for the tribe.  But the Taliban have systematically been trying to assassinate all the top leaders so as to create a power vacuum in that area.  There are women who live there, but, you know, you never see them.  In all my travels, I have rarely ever seen a woman venture out of the house.  There are hardly any schools there for young men, definitely no schools for young women.  Really, there are no hospitals there.  There is a main road that runs through most of the tribal areas, but 100 yards on each side of the tribal areas, it’s no man’s land, and anybody could be there.  So it’s a complicated area to understand.  It’s really an area, I’d have to do, that is at least 100, 200 years back in time.

WERMAN:  Right.  So I mean, it almost sounds like these are kind of clans, these groups.  And then you’ve got the Taliban.  Do the Taliban and their recruits actually walk around with impunity in these towns and villages?  Do you know who they are?

OBAID-CHINOY:  Absolutely.  They do walk around with impunity, and I think one has to take a step back and understand the code of conduct that exists in the tribal areas.  There’s a very strict code of conduct in which nobody can turn away a guest.  The tribes have to give refuge to the guests.  And based on that tribal code, all of the Taliban have enjoyed respect.  They’ve enjoyed a space to stay.  Many of the Taliban have married amongst the local tribes and the local tribes have sent young men to fight alongside the Taliban as well, because the Taliban ideology appeals to some of these people.  The Taliban ideology very much about bringing the sharia law that existed in Islam 1,400 years ago to Pakistan.  And as you drive through the streets of Waziristan, north Waziristan, south Waziristan and even Bajaur and other tribal areas, you find in the marketplace, you know, pickup trucks filled with young men, with their faces covered, some foreign fighters, most local fighters, kind of roaming about with full immunity and making it look like they control the area that they’re in.

WERMAN:  Now we’re talking in a kind of academic way right now, but I mean, in the films that you made that were shown on British and American television earlier this year, you saw firsthand what’s going on on the ground with this younger generation of people, children growing up there today. I mean, you’ve met kids who are burying their friends’ body parts.  Tell us about some of the people you met. This is very disturbing stuff.

OBAID-CHINOY:  Well, in my travels, I met two best friends, and the two best friends I think encapsulate what’s happening in Pakistan today. Wasif Fulla [PH] and Abdura Hehman [PH]. Wasif Fulla is 15 years old.  He comes from a small village in the tribal areas.  He described in detail how one morning, there was an explosion in a village next to his village.  There was a missile strike that hit a school and he lost his 12 year old cousin.  He describes in detail that when he arrived at the scene, there were dogs eating– stray dogs eating body parts, and that he saw a torso and a leg.  And then suddenly the Taliban arrived on the scene, and they started talking about how the Americans are killing off the Muslims and riled up the local population, and spoke about how innocent children are being killed in this war.  And all of a sudden, the Taliban had a hundred recruits.  So a missile strike had turned into a recruitment rally for the Taliban.  While I was having this conversation with him, his best friend, who also comes from the same village, had a totally different experience. He thought that the Taliban were militants who were trying to destroy the Pakistani government, the Pakistani way of life, and he wanted really to join the Pakistani army to fight these militants, he said, who want to destroy Islam.  And, you know, when I asked them, would they kill each other if ever confronted on the battlefield?  They looked at each other and they said, “We wouldn’t hesitate, because we each believe so strongly in what we want to do.”

WERMAN:  What are US policymakers supposed to conclude from that story?

OBAID-CHINOY:  You know, the drones that are used remotely from the United States to fire missiles into the tribal areas of Pakistan have had advantages and disadvantages.  They’ve often killed very high profile Taliban and Al Qaida leaders, but it does result in civilian casualties, and the Taliban film those civilian casualties.  They make propaganda videos out of them.  They rile up young boys to fight against the Pakistani army and eventually against NATO forces in Afghanistan.  So of course, you know, something that gets rid of a leader could potentially also get rid of civilians, and so it could be taken in any which way possible.  Having said that, I think that you can kill as many Taliban as possible, or Al Qaida leaders, but unless you address the ideology that permeates through them, sort out the problems at the grassroots level, there will be a thousand Taliban who’ll rise up from the ashes of these drone attacks.

WERMAN:  Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s latest documentary, “Children of the Taliban” aired earlier this year on the PBS program “Frontline World.”  We’ve got a link to it at The World dot org.  And Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, you’re returning to Pakistan next week.  Safe travels and thanks for speaking with us.

OBAID-CHINOY:  Thank you.

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American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman. This is The World.  We’re going to go to Kabul now, but if you think this another story about the insurgency in Afghanistan, or opium, or the runoff election, well it’s not.   We’re going to talk about a much bigger problem, on a global scale anyway.  We’re talking climate change.  There are Afghans who are thinking about it, despite the myriad problems they face on a daily basis.  Sayeed Masood is in Kabul. And he’s taking part in this weekend’s Big 350 campaign around the globe.  Demonstrations are happening in more than 170 countries. And Sayeed Masood, I’m kind of surprised to hear that Afghanistan is actually going to be part of this demonstration.

SAYEED MASOOD:  For us it is not a surprise.  As you know, that our country faces many challenges, most of which need no explanation to you.  But there is one crisis that looms large without much attention here in Afghanistan. This is, I think, that this is the greatest or the worse crisis, disaster, that humanity has ever faced.  We will be the leaders.  We will be those who will be impacted by the effects of climate change, and this is we who have to take the action and create awareness, draw the attention of the world, that youth, wherever, everywhere we’re all united in one voice that we want the world leaders and the world powers to accept our demands and go with 350.

WERMAN:  And just to let our listeners know what 350 means, 350 is the number that scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  In other words, 350 parts per million of CO₂.  The planet’s already reached 390.  Tell us what you are actually doing for these demonstrations, Sayeed.

MASOOD:  We, the youth, voluntarily have chalked a message on the side of a mountain in the range of the Hindu Kush Mountain, in a very large area, 400 meters to 20 meters. We have put there the white crushed stones, so that it could be read from even many kilometers away, a message of “Save the world from the effects of the climate change and play your parts.”  We have actually written that message in Pashto, [SOUNDS LIKE] “Narei wizh wolay” means save the world.  We have caused this disaster and this is we who can take action.

WERMAN:  Sayeed, tell me a bit about yourself.  How old are you?  Are you a student of environmental studies and why did you get involved in this?  Why is it important to you?

MASOOD:  I am 25.  Actually, I’m a graduate student.  I have done my bachelor in business administration from Pakistan.  What I’m involved– I’m not concerned with only environmental protection, but I’m concerned with all the issues affecting our societies and our youngsters.

WERMAN:  How many other Afghans are part of your movement there?

MASOOD:  Actually, right now, we have more than 60 people or partners, and this is those who are actually directly involved with us, and this can invite and can attract a large number of other youth, who are not directly involved with us, but indirectly, they are always with us.

WERMAN:  Of course, staging a climate change demonstration in Kabul is a bit different from staging it elsewhere around the world.  I mean, to get outside of Kabul, you need to presumably drive and a lot of people say it’s not good to drive any time after 12 if you can’t get back before dark.  What risks did you run, just going up to this mountain outside of Kabul to stack these stones and write this message?

MASOOD:  This is really the greatest problem and constraint that we had.  We coordinated with the government all the campaign, and they have really helped us.  This is the great thing that we actually enjoyed.  The government is a good partner of us, to make it secure, safe.  So hope that tomorrow, October 24, we could draw attention of lots of people and have lots of people there with us.  We are keeping our finger crossed for lots of people there.

WERMAN:  Sayeed Masood, an Afghan in Kabul who’s taking part in this weekend’s 350 campaign, demonstrations against climate change.  He’ll be demonstrating in Kabul. He’s also the president of the Afghan Youth for Social Development and Tolerance.  Thank you for your time.

MASOOD:  Thank you very much.  Nice talking to you.

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MARCO WERMAN: Beyoncé was supposed to perform in Malaysia this weekend, but the show was postponed, again.  And that’s led to speculation that singer was scared off by protests.  Some Muslim groups have pressing for the government to ban Beyoncé as “immoral.”  It’s one of many recent cases that women’s rights activists say has damaged Malaysia’s reputation as a model Muslim country.  Jennifer Pak reports from Kuala Lumpur.

ANNOUNCER: I want to welcome Beyoncé to Malaysia and I hope you guys will join us and watch the videos and practice the steps.  Get ready for Beyoncé.

JENNIFER PAK: It would have been her Malaysian debut, but fans of Beyoncé were let down when she postponed her concert in Kuala Lumpur. It was the second time she had done so.  Local organizers say it was the artist’s decision and had nothing to do with external reasons, which they refused to elaborate on.  But there had been intensive pressure from the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, which had called for an outright ban of her concert.  Sixteen-year-old Yasmin Adnin was about to buy tickets for Beyoncé’s performance when she heard it was postponed.

YASMIN ADNIN: If so it’s because of political reasons then I think it’s really unfair because although it’s like a Muslim country, but then it’s not just Muslims here you know.

PAK: Some Malaysians speculate that Beyoncé didn’t want to tone down her racy outfits, as was thought to be the case when she canceled her Malaysia concert in 2007.  The country has a dress code for female performers, stating that everything from the top of the chest to the knees must be covered up.  But for The Pan-Malaysian Islamic party, or PAS, toning down her dress would still not be enough. It has often lobbied the government to ban western pop concerts, deeming them to be immoral or un-Islamic.   Kamaruzaman Mohamad is the Secretary for the Youth wing of PAS.  He says he knows his party’s views are unpopular.

KAMARUZAMAN MOHAMAD: Such people says that we are Taliban. Actually we are not Taliban. We are fundamentalists. Fundamentalists is not extremists. Fundamentalists mean we are trying our best to hold our principles.

PAK: Over 50 percent of Malaysia’s population is ethnically Malay and the constitution states that they have to be Muslim.  Unlike the country’s large Chinese and Indian communities, Malays are subject to Islamic law, in personal and family matters.  In August, the government banned Muslims from attending a Black-Eyed Peas concert because it was sponsored by beer giant, Guinness. It then reversed the ban.   And then there was the case of a model sentenced to canning for drinking beer. That caused an outcry. Women’s activist Norhayati Kaprawi says it’s part of a worrying trend.

NORHAYATI KAPRAWI: I just worry that Malaysia, Muslims in Malaysia, turn into this sadistic kind of society, and as [INDISCERNIBLE] Islam means harsh punishment. Islam is a religion of mercy and compassion.

PAK: But arguments over alcohol and attending pop concerts are threatening to overshadow Malaysia’s image as a model Muslim state.   As for the Beyoncé concert, no future date has been set.  For The World, this is Jennifer Pak, in Kuala Lumpur.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  And this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  Things got murky today in the international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.  The United States and other countries are waiting to hear if Iran will accept a UN proposal.  It would reduce Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium by sending some of it to Russia for processing.  Instead of responding to that plan, Iran seemed to put forth a new proposal, through a statement on state-run TV.  Borzou Daragahi is following the story.  He’s Middle East correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, and is speaking to us from Beirut.  Borzou, what’s this new proposal from Iran and how did it come out?

BORZOU DARAGAHI:  Well, I can’t say that it’s a new proposal.  There was an anonymous comment on state television, attributed to an official involved in the nuclear negotiations.  And what they’re saying is I think something that would be totally unacceptable to the west and to Russia as well, which is, instead of shipping the bulk of their enriched uranium abroad for processing, further refinement and formatting for medical purposes, they would instead buy that further enriched uranium on the international market, using the IAEA as a conduit. On the other hand, it could just be a trial balloon.  It could be an extreme position, staked out in the media so that people will be relieved when Iran comes with another kind of counter proposal, which is more likely.  It’s often a frustrating experience.  As one diplomat told me, the real negotiation with Iran often begins after the agreement has been signed.

WERMAN:  So Iran would have, according to the UN plan, shipped its uranium to Russia and France for refinement. They now say they prefer to buy its enriched uranium directly.  Are there actually sources from which you could buy like a pound of uranium if you wanted to?

DARAGAHI:  Well, sure.  I mean, there’s an international market for this kind of stuff.  If you’re in the medical business, cancer treatment or something like that, and you are relying on these kinds of isotopes for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, you have to get it from somewhere, and there are in fact suppliers, heavily regulated, overseen by governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

WERMAN:  So in this limbo state between the western players the IAEA and Iran, I mean, without an agreement, is Iran kind of now free until there’s a concrete signed agreement to develop more enriched uranium?

DARAGAHI:  Well, regardless of whether this agreement would have gone through or not, Iran was going to continue to produce enriched uranium in defiance of five UN Security Council resolutions, so that’s not really the issue here.  What I think is kind of interesting is that what might be going on right now is a heavy, heated internal discussion among the various players in Iran, and that’s why you’re not getting anything definitive yet, is because they haven’t really decided what to do, and they’re kind of fighting it out among themselves.  That adheres to previous behavior patterns with regard to Iran on such sensitive matters.

WERMAN:  Just clarify for us finally, Borzou, Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but at this point, is there anything keeping Iran from developing nuclear warheads if it wants to?  I mean, there are no checks or controls other than what they actually let the International Atomic Energy Agency see.  Is that correct?

DARAGAHI:  Well, I think that’s a pretty big thing.  That’s a pretty big check and control.  Iran remains under international inspection.  It is a signatory to the non proliferation treaty.  Its nuclear facilities are under IAEA surveillance, and even the one secret facility that was uncovered recently, Iran argues that it had not introduced nuclear material into that facility and so it was under no obligation to reveal it to international inspectors.  So according to their own rules, they’re operating within the word of the law of international treaty obligations.  You know, I think that there’s that big question: does Iran have a parallel program outside of the sight of inspectors in which it is pursuing more explicitly a weapons capability?

WERMAN:  Borzou Daragahi reports from the Middle East for The Los Angeles Times. Borzou, as always, thank you.

DARAGAHI:  It’s been a pleasure.

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MARCO WERMAN: President Obama came into office saying he wanted to give the floundering Middle East peace process a jolt.  He’s not made much progress on that front, but that’s not discouraging to a relatively new lobbying group called J Street.  It describes itself as pro-Israel, pro-peace, and it’s holding its first big conference next week.  And as The World’s Matthew Bell reports, J Street’s coming out party has already caused quite a stir.

MATTHEW BELL:  The three-day J Street conference is titled “Driving Change, Securing Peace.”  I asked executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami to give me the short version of what that means.

JEREMY BEN-AMI: To make it really clear to Washington DC and the American Jewish community that there is a significant body of support among Jewish Americans for a serious American effort to end the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

BELL: J Street’s only been around for about a year and a half, but it’s generated a lot of buzz.   MJ Rosenberg writes for Media Matters.  He’s a veteran liberal activist on Middle East issues and an avid supporter of J Street.  Rosenberg says this organization’s moment has come, in no small part, because it has an ally in President Obama.

MJ ROSENBERG: We feel he’s on our side. We know he’s on our side.  We know that he supports our agenda and we will have his back.

BELL: President Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones will be keynote speaker at next week’s conference.  In some ways, J Street models itself as an alternative to the powerful, pro-Israel Washington-based group, AIPAC.  MJ Rosenberg says groups like AIPAC have become too hawkish for many American Jews.  He says liberals are troubled by things like Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza and the expansion of Jewish settlements.

ROSENBERG: So, what J Street offers, that it’s both an alternative to AIPAC, and in a way, you can say something that’s bigger than AIPAC, in that it’s saying to people, you know, you can hate the occupation and still love Israel, and there’s still a place for you.

BELL: Fans of J Street say what Israel needs from its Jewish friends in America is tough love.  In Israel though, that approach comes off to some as naive.  Isi Liebler lives in Jerusalem and writes a weekly column for the conservative Jerusalem Post.

ISI LIEBLER: It’s also, what I would call, it’s a Jewish word which you’re aware of in America, a chutzpah of Jews living in America, and having the gall to say to us in Israel, “We know better than you what’s good for you. We have to treat you the way parents who have drug addicts treat their children.”

BELL: Even less charitable is some of the criticism of J Street that’s been unleashed by the right-wing blogosphere.  Leading up to its conference, J Street has been called anti-Israel, soft on terrorism and an outright fraud.  There have been calls for members of Congress to stay away from the group’s conference.   Around a dozen lawmakers had their names removed from the list of honorary hosts, but about 150 others are still on that list.  Perhaps most stinging was criticism from the Israeli embassy in Washington that some of J Street’s policy positions are bad for Israel, and the Israeli ambassador has turned down an invitation to speak.  Professor Yossi Shain, an Israeli expert on Jewish diaspora affairs, says the recent controversy, along with the hype surrounding J Street itself, is probably more light than heat.

YOSSI SHAIN: They want to say, “Here we are.  We come. We are the new generation.  We are liberal Americans who are going to change the discourse.”  Now this is nothing new on the horizon. I assume however, and that’s my assumption, that these people are indeed concerned for the Jewish survival one way or another.  I disagree with the notion that they want Israel’s destruction.  They may be, one can argue, misplaced in their ideas or not.  But I don’t think they are misplaced in their conviction that Israel should exist in safety and secure boundaries, like most Americans are and of course every administration.

BELL: J Street’s executive director says the group is trying to do no less than change the dynamics of American politics on Middle East issues.   And when it comes to Israel’s security, Jeremy Ben-Ami says he’s not naive.

BEN-AMI: You know, I lived in Israel for three years. I came within about a minute of being blown up myself in a terror attack at a market in Jerusalem.  And so, you know, I understand the feeling, and I think that there is a side of this in which Americans need to recognize that this is America talking.  And that’s I think what gives us the legitimacy. There is a serious American interest in the end of this conflict.

BELL: Ben-Ami says he’s not surprised the Israeli embassy has criticized J Street, but he thinks it’s a mistake for Israel’s ambassador to skip next week’s conference, and miss an opportunity to engage with people who share the views of a large segment of the American Jewish community.  For The World, I’m Matthew Bell.

WERMAN: You can hear more of Matthew’s interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami The World dot org.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  A story about the weather in Moscow caught our eye today.   A Russian news agency reported that scientists in Moscow tested a device that can change the weather.  I must say, it sounds a little far-fetched.  We asked Moscow journalist Nikolay Veronin to look into it.

NICOLAY VERONIN: There was an interesting experiment held here in central Moscow in Arbrat [PH] Street, where Moscow government, with scientists from Russian Academy of Science tried to lift up the clouds to prevent rain from falling, or to prevent snow from falling in winter, to save on cleaning winter streets in central Moscow.  They say they usually spend some 180 million rubles to buy chemicals to clean the Moscow streets, so they turned on the device specially designed for this purpose, called Chizhevsky Chandelier.  In Russian, it is [SOUNDS LIKE] Lustre Chizhevskava. It’s named after its inventor, and they say it was raining in the morning when they started the experiment. And as soon as they did, the rain stopped falling, and the rain kept falling again as soon as they turned off the Chandelier.  The device is an ionizer, that ionizes the air and the clouds.  This prevents snow or rain from falling.  That’s the theory.

JEFF MASTERS:  Well, I’m highly skeptical.  <laughs> Yeah, that’s not going to work.

WERMAN: That’s Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.  He’s clearly not a fan of the Chizhevsky Chandelier.

MASTERS:  You can’t just take a little handheld device on the ground that shoots ions and expect it to do anything at all to the weather.  It’s not going to make the clouds dissipate.  And it reminds me of an experiment done back in the ’50s by an American scientist named Wilhelm Reich, and he designed this device called a Cloudbuster, which was essentially a long metal pipe with a wire that you’d put into a pond.  And you’d point the pipe at the sky, and supposedly be able to bust the clouds, so they wouldn’t rain.  Or you could actually make clouds if you pointed it a certain way too.  So the whole questions of weather modification has still not been proven.  There were experiments in the 1960s to drop silver iodide in the clouds and try and reduce the strength of hurricanes.  The trouble with all these ideas is that you might do some more harm than good, because we don’t understand these weather systems very well, and if we’re going to try and modify something we don’t understand, the potential for doing harm exists.  So all these ideas just plain old aren’t going to work.

WERMAN:  Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.  By the way, the forecast for Moscow calls for rain and snow before the weekend’s out.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.