A Middle East blog

NATO Crimes in Libya Unresolved

2012-03-03T11:07:00.000+02:00

U.N. Faults NATO and Libyan Authorities in Report

By Neil MacFarquhar
The New York Times
March 2, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — NATO has not sufficiently investigated the air raids it conducted on Libya that killed at least 60 civilians and wounded 55 more during the conflict there, according to a new United Nations report released Friday.

Nor has Libya’s interim government done enough to halt the disturbing violence perpetrated by revolutionary militias seeking to exact revenge on loyalists, real or perceived, to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the report concluded.

Published without publicity on the Web site of the United Nations Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, the report details the results of an investigation by a three-member commission of distinguished jurists. It paints a generally gloomy picture of the level of respect for human rights and international law in Libya, while acknowledging that the problem is a legacy of the long years of violent repression under Colonel Qaddafi.

NATO air raids that killed civilians in Libya have been criticized by rights groups, and the alliance’s refusal to acknowledge or investigate some of the deaths has been the subject of earlier news reports, including an extensive account in The New York Times last December. The new report represents the first time that NATO’s actions in Libya have been criticized under the auspices of the United Nations, where the bombing campaign in the name of protecting civilians from Colonel Qaddafi’s forces was authorized by the Security Council.

The report concluded that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces had perpetuated war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture and attacks on civilians using excessive force and rape.

But the armed anti-Qaddafi militia forces in Libya also “committed serious violations,” including war crimes and breaches of international rights law that continue today, the 220-page report said.

Through this past January, militia members continued with the mass arrests of former soldiers, police officers, suspected mercenaries and others perceived to be Qaddafi loyalists, the report said. Certain revenge attacks have continued unabated, particularly the campaign by the militiamen of Misurata to wipe a neighboring town, Tawergha, off the map; the fighters accuse its residents of collaborating with a government siege.

Such attacks have been documented before, but the report stressed that despite previous criticism, the militiamen were continuing to hunt down the residents of the neighboring town no matter where they had fled across Libya. As recently as Feb. 6, militiamen from Misurata attacked a camp in Tripoli where residents of Tawergha had fled, killing an elderly man, a woman and three children, the report said.

The commission remains “deeply concerned” that no independent investigations or prosecutions appear to have been instigated into killings by such militias, the report said.

“Libyan authorities can break with the Qaddafi legacy by enforcing the law equally, investigating all abuses — irrespective of the perpetrator,” the report said.

The commission members tried to ascertain how Colonel Qaddafi had died, but said the Libyan authorities did not give them access to the autopsy report, so further investigation was needed. Graphic videos of his last day alive on Oct. 20 suggest that the revolutionaries who captured him near his tribal hometown, Surt, beat him and executed him with gunfire.

There was no immediate reaction from the Libyan government to the United Nations report. Adel Shaltut, the deputy chief of the Libyan Mission in Geneva, said his government was studying the report.

The report gives some sense of the obstacles the Libyan government faces in trying to meet the lengthy list of recommendations that entail rebuilding the criminal justice system from the ground up. Government officials meeting with the commission emphasized the precariousness of the security situation, the weakness of the national police and the inability of the central authorities to enforce the rule of law, the report said.

It said the government was likely to face difficulty processing an estimated 8,000 detainees, with “many detainees” under the control of individual brigades and outside any legal framework. The report did note that the interim government had taken steps to set up institutions to address legal and human rights issues, including the National Fact-Finding and Reconciliation Commission.

The newest parts of the report were the questions raised about NATO attacks that killed and wounded civilians.

The commission of inquiry concluded in its report that NATO had sought to avoid civilian casualties in “a highly precise campaign” involving thousands of attack sorties.

But it also noted that in a few cases it had “confirmed civilian casualties and found targets that showed no evidence” of any military function. The commission investigated 20 NATO airstrikes, and it found that in five of them, a total of 60 civilians died and 55 were wounded. The most serious airstrike, on the town of Majer on Aug. 8, killed 34 civilians and wounded 38.

NATO identified four of the five targets as command-and-control points or troop staging areas, but the commission said that it found no physical evidence of this when it visited the sites and that witnesses denied that the five places had any military use.

The commission did not receive enough information from NATO to determine whether it had followed its own guidelines for avoiding civilian casualties when it processed the intelligence related to those sites before bombing them, the report said. It recommended that the organization carry out its own investigation.

Oana Lungescu, the spokeswoman for NATO, said the organization had reviewed its target selection and data collected during the airstrikes.

“This review process has confirmed that the specific targets struck by NATO were legitimate military targets selected consistently with the U.N. mandate, and that great care was taken in each case to minimize risk to civilians,” she said in a statement.

Hundreds of targets were rejected, and some strikes were aborted to avoid civilian casualties, she said, while noting that the Qaddafi government had often used civilian facilities to conduct military activities.

“The fact that observers were unable to detect evidence of military purpose or activity several months after the conflict cannot necessarily be taken to reflect the reality at the time of the strike,” Ms. Lungescu said.

English Translation of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's Speech 16 February 2012

2012-02-25T22:30:00.000+02:00

In his name.

The Speech delivered by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during the Ceremony of Loyalty to the Leader Martyrs on Thursday February 16, 2012.

I take refuge in Allah from the stoned devil. In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Peace be on the Seal of prophets, our Master and Prophet, Abi Al Qassem Mohammad and on his chaste and pure Household and on his chosen companions and on all messengers and prophets.

Brothers and sisters! Peace be upon all of you and Allah's mercy and blessings. I welcome you, and thank you for your participation in this annual anniversary in which we recall memories, stances, history, heroism and the martyrdom of a group of our leaders. They are the leaders of the Resistance: His Eminence the Sheikh of the Islamic Resistance martyrs – Sheikh Ragheb Harb, His Eminence the Sayyed of the Islamic Resistance martyrs – Sayyed Abbass Mussawi, and the great Jihadi leader Hajj Imad Moghniyeh.

However, allow me first and before ushering into the topics of my speech to express our condolences and our succumb at a time to the will of Allah Almighty and His fate and destiny as we miss today and for the first time in 20 years the presence of dear, blessed chaste Sayyed Abu Hussein Mussawi – the father of leader martyr Sayyed Abbass Mussawi (May Allah reward him in Heaven). At the same time, he is the uncle of Sayyeda Um Yasser – martyr Siham Mussawi. It is enough pride that this solemn Sayyed is the father of our master, leader, dear Secretary General Sayyed Abbass Mussawi (May Allah reward him in Heaven). In his bosom, this great jihadi leader was raised up. Following the martyrdom of his son, this solemn Sayyed Abu Hussein used to attend in all the squares of the Resistance. Despite his old age, he used to go the fighting axis since those days and especially following the martyrdom of Sayyed Abbass in 1992. He used to suffer from some diseases. I told him: Don't bother yourself, O Sayyed. He used to tell me: No. When I – the old sick man – attend with the men in the fighting axes, eat with them, sleep among them, feel cold as they feel and got thirsty as they do, that prompts their morals and spirituality as I am the father of Sayyed Abbass.

He used to visit the families of martyrs and the wounded. He used to attend all occasions despite his difficult health conditions. I bear witness that this blessed Sayyed did not spare attending any occasion in which he could take part to guard the Resistance, to support it, and to prevent harming it or weakening it.

As there is nothing called coincidence, and as every small and big detail in this existence is under the divine will of Allah, it is a kind divine manifestation of fate that Sayyed Abu Hassan passes away from this world on the very day on which his dear son Sayyed Abbass was martyred.

Inshallah, we promise the soul of this kind, merciful, compassionate father whose sorrow was in his heart, kind joke ever on his tongue, and smile on his face that we will guard his spirit and oath as well as the will of his son. We will continue on this path. On this painful occasion, I offer my condolences to all Al Mussawi family members especially his next of kin, brothers, sons, daughters, grandchildren, relatives, the residents of Nabi Sheath village, our people in Bekaa, all the adorers of Sayyed Abbass and this Resistances and his supporters. To his soul we offer the reward of Al Fatiha Surah and the prayers on the Prophet and his Household.

On the commemoration of the leader martyrs – on this very day every year – we talk about them, their Resistance, their cause, their jihad and their achievements.

Indeed talking about their personal virtues is endless. That's because, fairly speaking, everyone of them – whether Sheikh Ragheb, Sayyed Abbass or Hajj Imad – had supreme personal virtues. Fairly speaking, they were outstanding from more than one perspective. In the previous commemorations of February 16th, I used to tackle common virtues among these leader martyrs. In the past, I talked about many of the common virtues. Last year, I said that among the common virtues among these leader martyrs is that they are among the founders of this Resistance, this track and this party in particular – Hezbollah. They were among the pioneer founders who partook and worked in establishing this great and gigantic construction which was built for the sake of Allah and which was built on devoutness from the very first day. Thus it develops, grows, gains victories and makes achievements.

Today I want to add that among the common virtues is that these leader martyrs had a very great influence on deeply rooting the pillars, bases, culture, mentality, and – in a more comprehensive term – the methodology of this Resistance and this Party. These leader martyrs had great favors besides many of the alive brethrens whose favors we do not overlook. However, in our path, we talk about the virtues of the martyrs. As for the alive, we talk about them later. This group of real leaders could deep-root this methodology to which Hezbollah still and will always be committed. This is one the main reasons behind the firmness of this path and the firmness of this track, procedure, stances, alliances, vision and strategies. As for the tactics and details, this is among the available and acceptable margin which vary as conditions and situations vary and as squares and changes alter.

Brothers and sisters! With absolute simplification I say that we all know that if we build a house on the sandy shore without bases, any wave may eliminate it. If we build a house with weak feeble pillars, it could collapse upon the slightest quake. If we build a house with strong pillars it might stand in face of the fiercest tornados, the most powerful winds and the most violent storms.

In a country like ours and in a region like ours which is and has been all through history on the line of political, military and security quakes, we must always build an edifice with strong deep-rooted pillars so that this edifice could remain steadfast, so that its people and residents be guarded, and so that honor, serenity, welfare, and stability could be secured.

What applies to houses, applies to human communities whether we are talking about a family, a faction, a tribe, a clan, a sect, a component in a people, a people, a society, a government, a party, an organization, or a political current. Any human community, society, people or state which is formed but does not have a clear methodology, deep-rooted pillars, and firm bases, will, in the face of wind, any local, regional or international change, any storm, any weak or strong quake, collapse or crumble, retreat, or deviate and become something else.

This is among the divine rules that control human communities and history. Whoever does not have pillars, bases and principles on which he builds his vision, motion, methodology and speech becomes like the riffraff who do croak with every one who croaks and waver with every breeze.

With the blessings of those leader martyrs, their sacrifices, lives, words, acts, jihad, resistance, blood and martyrdom, pillars and bases of this resistance were deeply-rooted. Therefore, God willing, you see that the resistance, and after 30 years of its establishment and in the future, is still strong, solid, firm, clear and with a high degree of certainty. Its slogan is the title of this ceremony: The leader martyrs – an unbeatable will. This is the slogan of the resistance which was established by these leaders and who deeply rooted its methodology, pillars and principles.

Thus when we set out in all matters which I will talk about and which we used to talk about always, we do not set out from our tempers. So we do not take a stance according to our temper. If we are not satisfied we break alliances. If we are content we build alliances. So we do not set out from our tempers and emotions, feelings, personal interests, sectarian interests, party or factional interests. Rather the greater interests are always before our eyes; the interest of the nation, the interest of the homeland, the interest of the people whose honor, pride, sovereignty and independence we are defending and of whom we are a part.

At the head of these pillars, bases and principles – whatever you call them - is our stance from the Zionist project in the region.

First comes comprehending this project and its essence, motives, bases, targets, risks, plots, internal and external pillars, points of strength, points of weaknesses, present status, current milieu, horizons and future. So first comes understanding this project; after that positions are taken.

We understand that Israel – the entity which usurped Occupied Palestine – is the entity of this project and the state of this project, the army of this project, and the tool of this great and dangerous Zionist project in the region. Thus we specify our stance according to this understanding. We specify our stance according to our humanitarian, moral, ideological, patriotic, and national belonging; then we head to the resistance action against this offensive project. There is a point which must be highlighted here, brothers and sisters. The danger of the Zionist project which is embodied in Israel in this region dominates over the entire nation. Thus we take this absolute aggressive stance from this project and its entity, army and state because:

First, this project is occupying Palestine and the Muslim and Christian sanctities in Palestine, is working on Judaizing Al-Quds, and inflicted and is inflicting the Palestinian people with all these oppressions, catastrophes, and pains whether inside Palestine or in exodus.

Second, we consider and believe – and facts confirm the validity of this consideration and belief – that the Zionist project is a danger on this region and its states, governments, peoples and the components of these peoples regardless of their religious belongings whether Muslims or Christians and regardless of their races whether Arabs, Turks, Turkmen, or Persians and despite their cultural belonging. It is a danger on these governments, states, and peoples. Consequently, we must face this danger and this project and beat this project.

In fact, when every resistance man in any country in this region, whether in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran or any country especially in the countries surrounding Palestine, stands in face of Israel and resists the Zionists, he will be defending the entire nation. Our leader martyrs and all the resistance men and martyrs who fell in Lebanon were defending Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and every Arab and Muslim country in the region which is threatened by the dangerous aggressive Zionist project.

There is no need to talk again about this project because it is well known to you and for thirty years we have been talking about it. I want to make use of time to cover the other points. So this is the essential norm and scale through which we make our evaluations, studies, corrections, initiatives, alliances and positions. This is one of the most important norms through which we set out in this perspective. On these bases we first set our conduct. We in Hezbollah are the children of this resistance group or one of the essential resistance groups in Lebanon. Our conduct, performance, alliances, speeches and movements serve this track.

This cause, this priority and this central point come first. On this basis we make our considerations and corrections. Second through that we may evaluate and view others whether they are personalities, institutions, parties or movements whether in Lebanon or in the Arab region or in the Islamic world. Let's keep states aside. We will talk about states later. What is their stance from Palestine? What is their stance from Al Qods? What's their stance from the Zionist project? How do they act towards this stance? This must be the ruling norm in our time. Allow me to tell the Islamic parties and the rising Islamic movements in the Islamic world that this must be the first norm through which they must evaluate themselves and through which we evaluate ourselves and through which our Arab and Islamic peoples must evaluate us especially when I am an Islamist or an Islamic movement. There are some points which might be postponed. It might be acceptable that we do not express such points overtly speak about them indirectly. However, as far as the cause of the nation, the cause of Palestine, the cause of Al Qods, the danger of the Zionist project on the nation, on the religion of the nation on Muslims of this nation as well as the Christians of this nation and on Christianity are concerned, it is not acceptable that I be an Islamic movement in any Arab or Islamic country and my stance is not obvious, decisive, and certain towards Palestine, Al Qods, the Resistance in Palestine, Israel and the Zionist project in the region.

The same applies to states and governments. Let's evaluate, form our relations, and take our positions from these regimes and governments accordingly. For over 60 years since the establishment of this usurping occupation which occupied Palestine, some governments and regimes in our Arab and Islamic world have colluded with America, the West and Israel on the account of Palestine and the nation’s interests and worked on strengthening this entity and making the nation lose hope of triumphing over it. They tried to convince the Palestinian people and the peoples of the nations to accept a settlement with American and Israeli conditions. I may say that some of the regimes and governments in the Arab and Islamic world were very truthful and loyal to America and Israel. They exerted all efforts to achieve the goals of this project. Unfortunately, there is another category of governments and Arab and Islamic regimes – I mean they are Islamic countries – which took a neutral stance. That means they kept apart and got occupied in their internal causes and thus remained apart from this struggle. These countries are responsible for forsaking Palestine, the People of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan which had and still has occupied territories. There is still another category of governments and regimes which from the very first day had a resisting opposing stance, and consequently they bore repercussions, risks, sanctions, sieges and colossal conspiracies.

When I belong to this methodology, this cause, this understanding, this intellect – whether I am a Muslim or a Christian or whether I am Islamist on the intellectual level or on national or Arab level, would it be fair to view with the same eyes and have the same stance and evaluation towards the regimes which made everything possible so that Israel continues to exist and gain victory and the regimes which made everything possible so that Palestine continues to exist and gain victory? How is that possible?

Then, everything turned upside down, and he who remained silent, forsook, besieged, and conspired became the defender of the peoples and honor of the nation and vice versa. Is that possible?

We need this methodology to understand what is going on around us, and thus take the true position. Brothers and sisters! We are living in the time of ordeal. Why do they call it ordeal? If it is a true, clear evident right, it would not have been an ordeal. That's because people follow the true, clear evident right. If it is a true, clear evident injustice, it would not have been an ordeal. An ordeal is a mixture of what is right and what is unjust. Then some people look at what is right and they take a decision. Another group of people look at what is unjust and take a contradictory decision. What is correct is when man takes the cause as a whole and views it with scrutiny and objectivity and without any passivity, fanaticism and prior stances.

Setting out from this methodology, I would like to tackle briefly the situations in the region. I will wrap that by commenting on what we have heard lately. Thereof, I will usher into the Lebanese status quo before concluding with commenting on the bombings that took place recently abroad and aimed at Israeli targets.

When we are to tackle the situations in the region and what is taking place in more than one country in it from the true perspectives through which we must view and through which we must usher, we have to start first with Israel itself and its current status quo, strategic environment, how it evaluates threats and risks, how it behaves, and what the chances it looks forward to are. Brothers and sisters! To everyone who is listening: Where is Israel now from what is taking place in the region especially in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and above all in Palestine?

Indeed this is a sound perspective to view things in the region from. Today the Arab peoples and the Arab governments are unfortunately distracted from Palestine and what is taking place in Palestine. However the event that is attracting interests is Syria above all.

Indeed, I am not saying Bahrain because the people in Bahrain are left for their fate. Neither the Arab league nor the Organization of Islamic Conference nor the United Nations nor the Security Council nor anyone is bothering himself about Bahrain. This is a great show of oppression. The primary events and interests are in what is taking place in Syria and what is taking place in Egypt. This is very sensitive and very massive. Now let's see the Israelis. Today we are distracted from the Israelis but they are moving along in their project inside Palestine in Judaizing Al Qods, confiscating houses, establishing gardens in East Al Qods, and displacing the people of Al Maqdes. This is acceptable. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are suffering in Israeli prisons. Now many of them are having a hunger strike. Prisoner Khader Adnan has been having a hunger strike for over sixty days, and he is facing the risk of death through this stance and this challenge. Where is the Arab League? Where is the Arab world?

Was Khader Adnan Israeli, would the world have responded to this issue as it is acting with this man who is subject to death? He has rightful demands. Was Khader Adnan Israeli, the Arab official governments would have interfered on the highest levels. Was he an Israeli prisoner at one of the resistance factions, Arab kings, princes, and presidents would have contacted the resistance movements to provide guarantees to be assured of the safety of the Israeli prisoner. Isn't this among the things that must shake the conscience? This is continuing. However, if we went further in the recess of the Israeli mind, we will find that worrisome, ambiguity and confusion at least – I do not want to exaggerate in my evaluation – are controlling the Israeli mind as far as the developments in the region are concerned. This has been expressed by the Israeli political, military and security officials in more than one occasion.

Days ago an annual conference under the name of Herzliya was held. Senior political, military and military leaders and strategic experts from inside and outside Israel deliver their words in the conference. Unfortunately, some Arabs partook in this conference, and this is a condemned, unfortunate and dishonorable stance. So these men delivered their words, but there is no time to comment on that because I have a number of points which I have to tackle. However, it is enough to tell you that the headline was 'anxiety'. It is not strategic anxiety or security anxiety. It is rather anxiety over existence. It is enough to give some quick examples. In that conference, Israeli War Minister Ehud Barak spoke. He said: The security and political challenges that Israel is facing are more fateful than the challenges which confronted the fathers who established the state. He means the first days of the establishment of the state of Israel. He also means by the fathers Ben Gorion and the others founders. So the challenges nowadays are more dangerous than the challenges that faced the leaders at that stage, during the war of 1967, and during Absolution War in 1973. So during the three fateful stages in the history of "Israel", Barak considered that the situation now is the most dangerous and the threat now is more than in the past. This is at a time it is supposed that Israel be moving towards more strength and invincibility.

Indeed Israel today is speaking about anxiety and existence danger not as a result of poetry, literature, songs and concerts. That is rather due to the action of resistance, jihad, politics, steadfastness, will, martyrs and sacrifices.

Netanyahu is another example. The enemy Chief of Staff spoke of the same concept in that conference. However, he spoke of this concept before Netanyahu following July War in 2006. The regime of Husni Mubarak hadn't have fallen yet. The Americans hadn't have withdrawn from Iraq yet. What did he say then? He said: The War of 1967 was for Israel – which was established in 1948 – a turning point from a state with a questionable origin – Is Israel to continue to exist or not? – to an invincible state. So following this war and the Absolution War of 1973, it was permeated in the awareness of a part of the Arab world that Israel is invincible. Israeli victory and deterrence formed a decisive factor for Arab states to comprehend the necessity of acknowledging the existence of the state of Israel and to make peace with it. Thus peace agreements were made with Egypt and Jordan and signs of a settlement with the Palestinians were indicated. However, I call the Arab world and especially the Lebanese people and more precisely March 14 Bloc to listen: Following the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and from the Gaza Strip (These two withdrawals took place thanks to whom?) and after the second Lebanese War (meaning July War 2006), the track was reverted and it was clear then (It is Netanyahu, the enemy's Prime Minister who is saying so) that Israel is no longer an invincible state. Questioning its very existence lurked again not only among the enemies of Israel but also among its friends. This was before the fall of the Husni Mubarak and the US pullout from Iraq. So what is the case like today?

So anxiety is controlling the Israeli mind. This is natural because – and without exaggerating – there are regressions in the points of strength of Israel and the Zionist project.

Indeed this needs a long speech. However in a quick briefing I say that among the points of strength is American and western adoption and support. It is the investment of American political, security, military and financial influence in the support of Israel. Today America and the west are retreating in our region and also in the world.

Among the points of strength is the settlement which has advanced and was to be finalized. Now this settlement is almost null and void.

Among the points of strength is the presence of regimes which offered significant services to the Israelis, and extracted the greatest Arab state from the struggle – meaning the regime of Husni Mubarak. However, today this regime collapsed. I have previously said that no matter what the situation following the regime of Husni Mubarak is like, it won't be as bad as when under Mubarak. Thus they mourned Mubarak's fall. See they mourned Husni Mubarak and are happy for what is taking place in Syria. Iraq was a strong barricade which protects the eastern gate not to the Arabs but to Israel.

Netanyahu says: Iraq today has become an ally of Iran and the resistance axis. The Israeli military terror fell in Lebanon and in Gaza. Military power is among the Israeli points of strength. However, bargaining on this military strength retreated. The war on Lebanon and the war on Gaza proved that the aerial force that the enemy owns – and which is the most powerful air force in the Middle East – is unable to put a decisive end for the battle. The territorial force also falls short from putting a decisive end to the battle. For days it stood fighting heroes in southern Lebanon and in Gaza's fighting squares axis.

Among the points of strength for the enemy has always been the weakness of this nation and its regimes and peoples. Today the enemy talks about the points of strength in this nation, about the strength of the resistance and about the strength of the resisting and opposing states especially as far as rockets are concerned.

Meir Dagan is one of the important security personalities in Israel. He is the Mossad Chief. When he handed over – this piece of news was broadcasted again a couple of days ago – he told journalists that Hezbollah owns rockets and firearms which are not owned by 90% of the countries in the world. This is the Mossad Chief who is talking and not the Foreign Minister or a Knesset member or a journalist or a strategic expert. He is the Mossad Chief. Now whether this is right or wrong, God knows. However, it is enough that Israel believes that the Lebanese resistance has firearms not owned by 90% of the states in the world to prevent any aggression and protect this country.

Among the points of strength was internal adherence, conviction, culture and the willing to offer sacrifices. All of that retreated and we noticed the magnitude of internal crises.

The Israelis are facing today great threats which they speak about. However, they have opportunities. They still have opportunities. When I talk about opportunities, I do not do so to waste time but rather to prevent the Israelis from making use of these chances. They say – and it is not I who do this analysis – that the only available opportunity now for them is that a new president is elected in Egypt and that the president and the army make an alliance to cripple the will of the people or else chaos will prevail.

Dear Egyptians! In every security incident, chaos, crisis, or sectarian or factional incitement which take place now in Egypt, search for the Israeli and the American hand. So is the case in Iraq. The Israeli opportunity is chaos and internal fighting after the US failed to stay in Iraq. They also have a great opportunity in Syria which they talk about and which is toppling the regime. Here some valiant analysts referred to Barak as saying: The leadership is not always between two choices, the good and the bad. Sometimes it is before a bad and worse choice. Thus it chooses the bad instead of the worse. Today there is a consensus in Israel that any choice in Syria is better or not too bad as Al-Assad's regime. This is their chance. Now Israel is waiting and bargaining. It believes that the strategic environment which was formed in the region was at the expense of Israel. The only hope for Israel to turn the tables and the strategic environment is in toppling the regime in Syria. Some say that Israel is unsure about the alternative. However, any alternative in Syria is not too bad if not better as far as Israel is concerned. Only God knows what agreements, deals, and commissions are underway. That's because the group or side which is sponsored by the American, the west, and the Arab of the notorious history and the Israeli evoke anxiety.

Brothers and sisters! Muslims and Christians! I call upon you all to make some contemplation in quiet moments. Well, why does the whole world insist on toppling the Syrian regime? Why?

Isn't it weird that America, Europe, Israel, and the so called moderate Arab states – which assumes the responsibility for all the catastrophes which afflicted Palestine, the nation, Iraq, Iran and the peoples in the region for decades - as well as Al-Qaeda are all on one line? All of these meet on one aim and insist on achieving one goal which is toppling the Syrian regime.

As for us, and setting out from the methodology which we believe in, I say that yes we are now and we stood as I spoke to this effect first in Nabi Sheath village – the village of Sayyed Abbass – with Syria. Can anyone argue that the Syrian regime is not a resistant regime? This might not appeal to some. However, we are talking according to facts and events. This regime did not submit or yield to American and Israeli conditions. It did not forsake the resistance in Lebanon. It did not forsake the resistance in Palestine. It did not sell the resistance in Iraq.

When Colin Powell came with a long list, among his demands was calling on President Bashar Assad to give in dear brethren Khaled Meshaal, dear Professor Ramadan Abdullah, dear brethren Abu Jihad Jibril and dear brethrens so and so. It was demanded on him to take steps against the resistance in Lebanon, against the resistance in Palestine, against Iraq and against Iran. To which Arab country might a resistance man resort without fearing that this regime might hand him one day not if Colin Powell demanded that but if only Feltman talked to this effect? This regime stood in face of the American-Israeli project in the region. It supported the resistance movements. Yes, there are some negative points in this regime, and the leadership is acknowledging that. However, let's keep this aside. We will go back to this later.

The worst thing that might be tackled in any argument is that this regime did not open the Golan Front. No matter what the response of the Syrian leadership on the Golan Front is, I address those who evoke this argument saying: Did you open a front? Did you fight the Israelis? Did you resist? Did you support the resistance movements or closed the doors before it and besieged it and cut money from them and even prevented donation collection?

So we are before a regime of this kind. This regime needs reform. Everyone is calling for reforms including the people in power themselves.

Since the beginning, the leadership of this regime said it is ready to make reforms and started with reforms and issued laws: Parties Law, Media Law, Local Administration Law among other laws. A committee was formed to amend the Constitution as a whole. When I and my brethrens used to attend occasions or even in internal meetings, we were certain that the Syrian leadership wants reforms and will make massive reform steps. I still remember that in some meetings with some leaderships in Lebanon and the Arab world, some used to argue with me saying that he will not take any step. Will he cancel Article VIII? I used to say yes I am sure he will. This is information and not analyses. They used to tell me that I am mistaken. I used to tell them I am sure he will cancel Article VIII which says that Baath Party heads the state and the society. Will he accept that the President of the Republic be elected and not appointed through a referendum? Yes. Will he accept specifying the presidential tenure? Yes. Will they go for serious reform? Yes.

Since the very beginning, the regime said we are ready for reform and dialogue. It went far in that. What was meant by reform more than what took place? There is now a new Constitution and within 10 days it will be set to the referendum. Then they will head to parliamentary elections. Still on the other hand, we notice this insistence on armed confrontation, refusing dialogue and toppling the regime. What is the logic? Why is this insistence?

One of the greatest paradoxes which I call on everyone to contemplate is that these Arab governments – We are not talking about Israel and the West. Let's keep them aside – when asked about the form of a solution with Israel, they say the solution is political. There is no option other than negotiating with Israel. Well, is there any time table? No. For decades they have been negotiating with the Israelis who occupy, usurp and kill. They talk about an Arab Peace Initiative which was presented in 2000. Now we are in 2012 and it is still on the table. Where is it? It is still on the table. The Israelis are not showing their approval. With the Israelis they negotiate for decades and the choice is a political solution. Still they refuse a political solution with Syria. They say that there is no time. Things are over. Well, do explain that for us. Suppose that the regime in Syria is like Israel. You accept a political solution with Israel as well as dialogue, negotiations and a settlement. Why don't you accept a political solution with an Arab regime which has many positive points and which has negative points? Where is logic in that? I will tell you what the logic here is. Let no one tell me: O Sayyed! You are going too far in this stance. I do not take an emotional stance. Some say this is a show of loyalty. Yes, this is a show of loyalty but it is not only so. This is a vision, a methodology and the interest of the nation. Days will come and we will see and question each other.

Arms were barred from the resistance in Palestine and in Lebanon. However, arms could reach Lebanon. However, in Palestine it was barred. Those who used to smuggle arms were tried. Still, in Syria, they openly pay money and send arms so that the Syrians fight each other. Why? For whose interest is that? Doesn't this Arab-Western-American-Israeli insistence not to solve the crisis politically in Syria, on fighting in Syria, on toppling the regime deserve a pose?

Even in Bahrain, if adopting your methodology of being with the people in all cases, why aren't you with the Bahraini people? According to our methodology, the people of Bahrain are a people who support the resistance and the Palestinian cause, are committed to it, and are committed to confronting the Zionist project. I remind you that when the war started against Gaza, the first to hit the street in the Arab and Islamic world in a show of solidarity with Gaza were the people of Bahrain. I also know that the people of Bahrain are ready to do anything they can do for Palestine. When they used to demonstrate in solidarity with Palestine and Al Qods, live bullets used to be opened on them by the Bahraini authority. You can go back to the archives. If one day it is doomed that there be in Bahrain a government elected by the Bahraini people, you will find it absolutely backing the Palestinian people. As for the regime in Bahrain and the authority in Bahrain, we all know its stance from Israel, what is secretive and overt, and the interviews which were broadcasted. Still the people of Bahrain are left for their fate and the regime in Bahrain is being defended. Well, tell me what is the methodology that is being followed here and according to which mentality they act?

Hereof, I will conclude tackling the situation in the region before ushering into the Lebanese situation.

Today let's work for the sake of Palestine, Al Qods, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and the entire region. Israel's great chance is in chaos and ordeal in an atmosphere of provocation, insults, lies and the like. Will we give Israel this chance at a time it is experiencing true anxiety over its very existence?

Indeed Iranian development worries Israel a lot as far as the nuclear issue is concerned though it is an absolutely peaceful issue. However, the Israelis think 20, 30 and 50 years ahead. What does Iran owning peaceful nuclear power mean militarily and what does it pose in the regional balance? This is how the Israelis think. We must search for a political solution in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and in every Arab country. Even in Bahrain, we are searching for a political solution. We must let the Israelis lose this opportunity and we must not open the gates of our countries before ordeal.

Are the reforms which President Bashar Assad and the Syrian leadership undertook so far, the decisions which were taken, and the amendments which were made, to be taken by any king, prince, sheikh or president in any current Arab regimes? We find that the whole world on top of whom the Americans cheer and welcome any reforms in form made by any of them. However, when there are serious reforms, we see that the Americans mock them because they do not want reforms. They only want to destroy and devastate Syria. They want to destroy Egypt and Iraq. That's because as such Israel continues to exist, and as such America restores its control and deep-roots its control in the region after it was inflicted with weakness and feebleness.

In Lebanon, a couple of days ago, a memory dear to all the Lebanese was observed. It is the memory of the martyrdom of PM martyr Rafiq Hariri and a number of martyrs.

Indeed, we always express our sorrow and offer our condolences to his family and adorers. We also condemn every kind of assassinations and incidents. With time, this occasion turned to a memory in which it is commemorated. A ceremony is held and words and speeches are delivered. Perhaps some might say let's speak about something else. No! We show respect, we are a people of dialogue and logic, and we respect the minds of the Lebanese and the other side no matter what their rhetoric was. After all we do not call for making annulments, cancellations or crossing out. We acknowledge the other side and their existence. We talk with each other, and we talk through the media. I will comment on the issue of dialogue.

There is a public opinion which hears us and we must hear it. We must hear both viewpoints to reach the required outcome. I will tackle some points quickly but with transparency and clarity:

First: Any call for national dialogue without prior conditions is a good, kind, acceptable call which we support, back and participate in.

Let me be precise. We back, support and partake in any call for national dialogue. In any national dialogue, the parties in the dialogue agree on the agenda. No one imposes any point on anyone. No one imposes his conditions on anyone. If they accept, we are ready for discussing the points. Let's meet and go for dialogue to the farthest point. However, if the call for dialogue is a call with conditions, that will not be a call for dialogue but rather something else. It is a kind of scoring points. I do not want to impose my understanding to what I heard in the commemoration. Is it a call for dialogue with or without conditions? That's because the call was ambiguous. I hope I will hear a clear answer. Is the dialogue with or without conditions? Is it a dialogue with or without prior results which are supposed to be imposed through dialogue? The second option is not a dialogue; we are absolutely with the first option.

Second: In the ceremony, March 14 Bloc oriented the call and the speech, and I am concerned in responding because a great part of the attack was targeting Hezbollah. There is a great part which focused on Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian regime. I will mention some of the terms used in the speech and allow me as I have to mention names as well. When Mr. Geagea started talking, he started counting the names of massacres. Was it another person who counted the names of massacres that would have been better. Had they charged the head of the National Bloc, Carlos Eddeh, it would have been better. I do not want to go into this kind of argument. However, even mentioning Fatehallah Barraks is for and not against us. Recalling the martyrs of Fatehallah and the massacre of Fatehallah is for us and not against us. It also asserts that our relation with Syria is strategic and that our vision is strategic. Even when some Syrian officials wronged us, lined us on the wall and opened fire on us, we did not fight Syria. That was for the sake of Palestine, Al Qods and Lebanon. However, for whose sake were those who were killed by the militias and the forces of some of the speakers about massacres killed? For whose sake were they killed? Why were they killed? This is another point of study. I wished this door was not opened.

You focused your fierce and very harsh attack on Syria. The three speakers did that, and indeed the fourth speaker too. What do they say? I forgot the Lebanese proverb. If the crescent or the dawn of the Syrian National Council which viewed light in Istanbul charged Fares Saaed to be its official spokesman, that is a very good beginning. I actually do not mention names. However, I want to relieve the atmosphere a bit. That's because talking about strategies is hectic. According to which rule did you focus your campaign? Is this truly the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese people? Is this the interest of the Christians in Lebanon and the interest of the Muslims in Lebanon? I will go back a bit to the past. March 14 Bloc must have a methodology and united standards. They accuse us of not having united standards. No! I am ready for discussion. I have a sole standard through which I view Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Moscow, China, Paris, London, and Washington as well. Now, let me see you one standard.

Less than a year ago I spoke on the Arab revolutions and I talked about Bahrain. Indeed, March 14 Bloc felt uneasy. One of the brethrens furnished me with a text extracted from Annahar Newspaper and not any other newspaper. Here also I will mention names. President Saad Hariri – May he recover soon – then attacked us saying: "Days ago stances were issued by primary leaderships in Hezbollah which aimed at involving Lebanon amidst the movements witnessed by some neighboring Arab countries". He considered that as stances depending on double standards. Hariri believed that the stance taken by Hezbollah is the other face of the idea of exporting division to the Arab nation and exporting ordeal to the Islamic square. He thought that the Lebanese masses in general and the Islamic masses in particular with both its Sunni and Shiite sects will not stand still before these dangerous calls and will not allow opening the door before any adventure that puts at risk the interests of Lebanon and its relations with its Arab brethrens. This is Saad who is talking. I want you to listen well. He continues saying this is a policy unacceptable by most of the Lebanese who don't want Lebanon to be drowned in the policies of axes. He considered that the leadership of Hezbollah does not stop at the limits of intervention in the affairs of Bahrain but is founding the pillars for getting the Lebanese – or a group of them – involved in dangerous roles that export fatwas from so and so decision centers. Sheikh Saad added that showing solidarity with the Arab peoples is one thing and adding fuel to the fire of Arab conflicts is something else. Lebanon will not be a bridge through which conflicts are exported to any brethren Arab country. Annahar Newspaper (March 23, 2011).

Compare this to the speeches delivered in Biel. Where is the logic? Where is the methodology? Where are the united standards? Where are the bases? Why do you export fatwas, dispatch arms, and money and fight through the media and through politics? You – March 14 Bloc – are all involved in money, arms, media and the stances that evoke killing and conflict in Syria. You accuse us of that. Anyway, keep our accusation aside. Why do you follow this logic?

Even more, do you still remember when a dear brethren of ours was arrested in Egypt, and a case under the title of Hezbollah cell in Egypt was filed? You remember how absurd that was at that time: they accused the men of toppling the regime, changing the form of the authority, and spreading Shiism in Egypt among other absurdities. The issue was that of smuggling arms and ammunition to Gaza Strip. Then March 14 Bloc got furious: Hezbollah is involving Lebanon, Hezbollah is hurling Lebanon in conflicts, and Hezbollah is making Lebanon and the people of Lebanon bear what they can't tolerate…

I will take another example. Let's lessen the weight on Sheikh Saad and move to "Al Hakim". Here also listen to the text and then try it according to the speech delivered on February 14. He talked about the above mentioned issue and the members of Hezbollah etc. He added: "This incident can't pass unattended in any state no matter how good the intentions were. Moreover, no party may allow itself to violate the rules of the other states no matter what the stance of this party or that is from the policies and rules of these states". Do the rules of Syria allow you and March 14 Bloc to enter arms and money and to provoke the Syrians against each other? If conveying arms to the oppressed noble resistance fighters who are fighting the enemy of this nation was condemned – the enemy is unanimously the enemy of this nation and the fighters of oppression are irreproachable – how do you do this in a case which is at least equivocal and which comprises sedition, suspicion and needs contemplation? Thus I call on you to be calm and to try us according to your very standards.

The third point is also a kind of advice. Here I am telling you: You in March 14 Bloc have attached your choices to one bargain. You linked everything to one bargain. In fact, they had nothing to offer. There isn't any act which they may offer. There is one point they make use of which is some feebleness and weakness in the government. Well this is the case of the governments in Lebanon. Now what about you? What do you have? Things were clear in this speech. As in the previous bargains on foreign developments, here the bargain was "we are waiting for what will take place in Syria". We are sure the regime will fall in Syria. It is similar to the bargains they made in the past and still did not work with them. Isn't it wrong that you link Lebanon to these events? You are the ones who talk about neutralism and about having Lebanon first. I do not say Lebanon first only. I rather say I have Lebanon first but along there is second, third and fourth. It is not only Lebanon first and that is the end of the story. Yes, Lebanon comes first. But it is not Lebanon comes first and that is the end of the story. No! I never lied to people. Now it's you who talk about neutralism. Even with Israel you called for neutralism. Even with Israel you talked about neutralism and a truce saying Lebanon is a weak country and why it should bear the burdens of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Why don’t you stand aside as far as Syria is concerned? Be neutral in this case. We commit mistakes. Let us commit mistakes. You have linked everything to one and only one event which is the fall of the regime. Well there are two actual suppositions. What did you prepare for those two suppositions which have decisive repercussions on Lebanon? What have you prepared for that? Your masses? Your people? The country you said you care for? One supposition says that the regime and the Syrian leadership will respond to the Syrian people as far as reforms are concerned. Thus things will be addressed and the ordeal will be passed. On what will you bargain then? How will you behave? At the end, this aggression, this struggle, this instigation and this field participation will not leave its repercussions on the future of the Lebanese-Syrian relations. This is on one hand.

The second supposition is that things move towards a civil war in Syria – May God forbid. I think the first supposition is more probable, and I rule out the second supposition. So suppose that there is no regime and no alternative regime. The country headed towards a civil war. This is what America and Israel want and work industriously to achieve. I ask you: What have you prepared for Lebanon whom you accuse us of hurling in involvements and I tell you this is not true? It is you who are hurling Lebanon in this war. Why do you neglect these two suppositions? What have you prepared for them?

Among the conditions of dialogue is transparency and clarity among those who sit on the table or will sit on the table. After all the Lebanese have no other choice than sitting with each other on the table. It is good that we know each other and that everyone of us expresses himself with truthfulness and transparency and say what he thinks of and what he wants.

I will tackle two examples. The first example is on the financial issue.

Last week, I gave a speech and I said that I will talk with transparency and clarity. This is time for clarity and transparency. We are in fact clear. Our arms and support is from the Islamic Republic in Iran. We thank it as we pray on Mohammad and his Household. Some in March 14 Bloc considered that this stance is condemned. Well this is a great confession. Now what about you? Where is your money from since 2005 up till now – you men of March 14 Bloc? March 14 Bloc has spent on its events, parties, leaderships, personalities and parliamentary elections more than 3 billion dollars. If one day they wished, we would reveal the details on how much everyone received and collected. Well, where are these 3 billion dollars from? They say it is shameful? Well I don't say so. I say it is from Iran. You say where your money is from. I don't want to say where they are from. Well, what is the problem in that? Why don't you say? Be truthful with yourself and your people and your country. How is it that I am illegal and you are more than legal? Well, why and where is all of this money from? I would like to make an explanation. Iran did not give the money and arms to Hezbollah because it is a Lebanese political party but rather because it is a movement that is resistant to the Israeli occupation. Supporting the resistance movements with money and arms is legal and an international custom. The history of humanity is based on that, and world states support the peoples' resisting movements. As for you, you are a political organization. You are a political party which has nothing to do with fighting Israel. Where did these 3 billion dollars come from? The tap was locked a period of time ago and I do not know if it was opened again.

If they are from your economic projects, that is not apparent. If you have inherited them from your parents, this is not clear.

Second we come to the issue of weapons. Why shouldn't we be clear? We are clear. O people! We have weapons, and you may say poetry about that. In more than one occasion, we said we are multiplying our arms. Anytime we are able to get arms we do so. Our arms are increasing in quality and in quality.

There are weapons which are known and others are secretive and unknown too. Indeed the arms are hidden not because we are ashamed of that but on the contrary because we want to protect our country. So we must hide them from the Israelis. We must always have surprises. That's only why we hide them. Let's get through with this. Why don't you talk about arms? Say that you have arms. Acknowledge that you own weapons which appeared on the television, on fronts, in the street in fighting and in occasions.

One of the leaders from March 14 Bloc then shows up to say that Hezbollah is talking about the arms of the others to justify its own arms. This is untrue. Point at one man from Hezbollah who talked with such language and according to this logic. That never took place. When we talk about the arms of the resistance, we have one and only one justification which is: these arms are to defend Lebanon, to liberate the land, and to confront the Israelis and the Israeli threat. Well, it is another story whether the others own or don't own arms. Should none of the Lebanese own one piece of arms we adhere to our arms until another notice to defend Lebanon. So we don't justify our weapons with the possession of others with weapons. We justify our arms with defending Lebanon. Whoever has a counterproof let him present it. Do say that yes we have arms. What prevents building the state? Is it Zilzal rocket which hits Tel Aviv or as I said previously the machine gun, the RPJ, and the hand grenade which are used for robbing and stealing and through which ordeals are evoked and people are made to kill each other? Is this what threatens stability in the country and prevents establishing a state or is it the rocket which is erected to protect Beirut – or rather Dahiyeh – in face of Tel Aviv? So as far as arms are concerned, declare truthfully and with transparency that you possess arms. Let's discuss arms and see which arms serve the defensive strategy. Do your arms serve it or not? Do our arms serve it or not? Then we take a decision concerning arms.

Are you really convinced and you want to convince the people that the Arab Spring was launched or born from the womb of the Cedars Revolution? The Arab Spring came in face of the regimes ran by Condoleezza Rice, Mrs. Clinton, and Feltman. They are the very persons who used to direct you in 2005 and were still before the fall of Husni Mubarak. All of you went in line – the archives still bear witness – and some of you made long tours with former FM Abu Al Gheit in the foreign ministry. Did you topple the regime of Husni Mubarak and brought along the Arab Spring in Egypt?

Well I have a question: If Israel gained victory in its war against Lebanon in 2006 and in its war against the Gaza Strip in 2008, and if America managed to strike the Iraqi resistance and the Neo Middle East – which you were a part of – was established, was the Arab Spring to be given birth? Or were a fall and a severe winter to set in all Arab countries?

Finally I say: O leaders of March 14 Bloc! You are not in a position to put conditions.

If you depend on a definite regional reading and find yourself triumphant and believe it is a matter of days and thus you came to set your conditions, you are mistaken. You have set conditions in the Aggression of 2006, and the war ended without your conditions being implemented.

Secondly, O leaders of March 14! With showing respect to those who had truthful and faithful national intentions, I say that you are not in a position to give guarantees in Lebanon in face of the current changes because the game in the region is by far greater than you are. So is the decision in your hands so that you give guarantees?

Third, everyone who is interested in preventing ordeal between Sunnites and Shiites must work from now on silencing his deputies, media, allies and websites that provoke using despiteful sectarian language all day and night.

Taking into consideration these points, I reiterate saying: We are with dialogue without conditions. There's no problem in that. Let that be organized. We are ready for dialogue. We have logic, evidence and proofs. We are ready for openness. The option of the Lebanese is that they be with each other and make discussions with each other. We are also with political and security stability in this country despite all what takes place in the region. We are also with keeping the current government in office and addressing its crises and points of weakness. In fact, if this government doesn't have except one positive productive point which is security and political stability in this stage that would be a very great positive point on the national level which deserves to be guarded.

Now we come to the bombings which took place abroad. I can say decisively that we in Hezbollah are not involved in the explosions which took place in India, Georgia and Thailand and which were mentioned in the media. We don't say so because we are afraid or because we are greedy. I may remain silent and let the people go far in their imaginations to the effect that Hezbollah has started taking action to revenge Hajj Imad Moghniyeh. We are not concerned. Who is concerned? What is the analysis? I do not know and I have no information. There is also no reason to waste our time in analysis.

In this point, I would like to remind you of something I used to say in the past. Today I will reiterate it. Yes, the blood of martyr Hajj Imad Moghniyeh will remain haunting them in their consciousness, awakening and dreams. This blood will not rest. As for our revenge, they know from whom it will be. Our revenge is not from Israeli recruits, Israeli diplomats or ordinary Israelis. In fact, I tell you it is disgraceful that Hezbollah avenges the great jihadi leader by killing ordinary Israelis or a diplomat here or there.

As for those on target, they know themselves and take procedures and hide when they travel. They carry great and serious procedures. I tell them keep on as such because as long as there is a man, a woman, a child or blood moving in the veins of anyone of us in Hezbollah, the day will come when we will take an honorable revenge for Imad Moghniyeh.

Between a near unfitting revenge and a remote honorable revenge, we prefer the second.

I have a final word in which I will respond to what was said lately to wrap up the Israeli topic. I was hesitant whether I answer or not. However some advised me to approach the issue one way or another. With this I will wrap up my speech: Some have predicted a black image for the region. They considered that the region will change to the interest of America and Israel. This has always happened in the region. They have always made such analyses. Things will turn upside down. O people of March 8 and especially the resistance men and Hezbollah! See what you will do with yourselves. Some found out that before these changes in the region, the siege and the difficult circumstances that will come along – and in our viewpoint that will not take place – Hezbollah will resort and take refuge in the Israelis. Indeed, this is shameful. This is hurtful. I want to remind you and say that the Sheikh of martyrs – Sheikh Ragheb Harb – was killed because he refused to shake hands. This is our Sheikh. Sayyed Abbass, Hajj Imad and all our leaders and brethrens were martyred because this resistance refused to bargain. Bargains were proposed on it. I told you previously they did that in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and the Americans are ready now for bargaining.

However, I will mention the war in 2006 as an example. No conditions will be worse than those of 2006. The entire world was against us. The G8 were against us, and even Russia and China condemned us. Most of the Arab countries were against us. The Lebanese government was against us even if we were in the government but it was against us. Three fourths of the international and world media were against us. Locally some of the people were against us. There was shelling. Most of our people were displaced from their homes. Entire regions were evacuated. In few days every center and house for everyone in Hezbollah was shelled by warplanes. It was said that we had no choice: either you give in or you would be crushed.

One of the national leaders in Lebanon who is faithful and adoring in fact tried to mediate with some Arab states. Do practice pressure and stop the war. They said: Do not bother yourself. There is an international-Arab resolution to crush Hezbollah. Under such an atmosphere, they contacted us. Indeed Marc 14 Bloc leaderships in and outside the government said: There is a solution. Either Israel destroys everything and crushes you, or the solution would be that you accept to give in your arms, accept to hand the two prisoners, and accept the deployment of multinational troops in the South, in Beirut, in the Airport, in the Seaport and along the Lebanese-Syrian border. Then the war will end. You have to accept these three conditions so that the war ends.

This is the first time I say this in public. In broad internal mobilizing meetings with the young men, I have told the brethrens: I'm one of the people who from my early age I used to ascend the platform. I was then fifteen years old when I first ascended the platform and delivered a speech. Since then, I read, study and follow up. We have the issue of Imam Hussein (Peace be upon him), Karbala, and Ashura. Every year, we – the Shiites – lament the Imam and we have a mourning season during which we talk about Imam Hussein (Peace be upon him) and about Karbala. I do not claim that now I understood that comprehensively and correctly. However, I told my brethrens and now I tell you: never was I closer to understanding Imam Hussein (Peace be upon him) and Karbala more than in the first days of July War. Why? That's because they came and said: You have two choices. Either you go along in war and be crushed, or you succumb, give in your arms, hand the prisoners, forsake Palestine, abandon the sovereignty of your country, forsake the security and stability of your people, forsake the dignity of your people, and accept a new occupation under the title of multinational forces – i.e. similar to what was taking place in Iraq. So it is either a humiliating succumb or being crushed. Life is dear.

Now why do you every year and in every season hear me reiterating this phrase? In fact, in that moment, and before I consult my brethrens to give an answer, I instantly recalled in my conscience, mind and heart the tenth day of Muharram when Imam Hussein (Peace be upon him) stood and said: "The bastard son of a bastard has put us before two choices: either war or humiliation. Humiliation! How remote!

I tell him who said what he said: You know us more than others. I also tell everyone who thinks of this illusion: You know us. You know our history, mentality, culture and will. Humiliation! How remote! Neither Allah, nor His Prophet, nor the believers nor the kind and chaste bosoms, nor the prideful souls, nor the zealous men does accept that we choose obeying the ignoble to the death of the noble. Thus our martyrs are as noble as Abbass Mussawi, Ragheb Harb, and Imad Moghniyeh. We are the people of this resistance. I tell you: We will remain here. We will proceed in this methodology, vision, clarity and principles. Do not worry about the future. The Israelis and the Americans are the anxious ones today. The Americans and the Israelis are the weak ones today. This is ordeal. This is the chance for the Israelis and we together will be able to confront it with awareness, firmness and the undefeatable will.

Anthony Shadid's Last Words on Tunisia

2012-02-18T14:20:00.000+02:00

The tragic death of Anthony Shadid is a loss not only for journalism, but also for the American people more generally because of what more we could have learned from Shadid's empathetic and intelligent approach to telling other people's stories. My thoughts are with his family and friends.

Islamists’ Ideas on Democracy and Faith Face Test in Tunisia

By Anthony Shadid
The New York Times
February 17, 2012

This article was reported and written before Mr. Shadid’s death in Syria.

TUNIS — The epiphany of Said Ferjani came after his poor childhood in a pious town in Tunisia, after a religious renaissance a generation ago awakened his intellect, after he plotted a coup and a torturer broke his back, and after he fled to Britain to join other Islamists seeking asylum on a passport he had borrowed from a friend.

Twenty-two years later, when Mr. Ferjani returned home, he understood the task at hand: building a democracy, led by Islamists, that would be a model for the Arab world.

“This is our test,” he said.

If the revolts that swept the Middle East a year ago were the coming of age of youths determined to imagine another future for the Arab world, the aftermath that has brought elections in Egypt and Tunisia and the prospect of decisive Islamist influence in Morocco, Libya and, perhaps, Syria is the moment of another, older generation.

No one knows how one of the most critical chapters in the history of the modern Arab world will end, as the region pivots from a movement against dictatorship toward a movement for something that is proving far more ambiguous. But the generation embodied by Mr. Ferjani, shaped by jail, exile and repression and bound by faith and alliances years in the making, will have the greatest say in determining what emerges.

Their ascent to the forefront of Arab politics charts the lingering intellectual and organizational prowess of the Muslim Brotherhood, a revivalist movement founded by an Egyptian schoolteacher in a Suez Canal town in 1928. But intellectual currents that once radiated from Egypt now just as often flow in the other direction, as scholars and activists in Morocco and Tunisia, perched on the Arab world’s periphery and often influenced by the West, export ideas that seek a synthesis of what the most radical Islamists, along with their many critics here and in the West, still deem irreconcilable: faith and democracy.

More often than not, they are asking societies for trust that, given the experiences of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution or the Islamist-led coup in Sudan in 1989, authoritarian leaders and secular forces are reluctant to offer.

Mr. Ferjani, a 57-year-old self-taught intellectual as exuberant as he is pious, acknowledges the doubts. In one of several interviews, he declared that history — a word he uses often — would judge his generation not on its ability to take power but rather on what it did with power, which has come after four decades of activism.

“I can tell you one thing, we now have a golden opportunity,” he said, smiling. “And in this golden opportunity, I’m not interested in control. I’m interested in delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic, democratic system. This is my dream.”

A Chance Encounter

Nothing in Mr. Ferjani’s childhood really set him on the path to realize this ambition. Born in Kairouan, a town reputed by some Muslims to be Islam’s fourth holiest city, he was not especially pious as a child. His father, a shopkeeper, never managed to provide enough for his family. He remembered going three days without food once, and wearing cheap sandals to school. “Poverty, we tasted it,” he recalled.

By his own account, he was unruly and rambunctious until he turned 16. That year, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, an Arab nationalist turned Islamist who had studied in Egypt and Syria before returning to Tunisia, took a job teaching Arabic in Kairouan. Mr. Ghannouchi would stay only a year before setting out to eventually form the Islamic Tendency Movement, then the Ennahda Party, but he left a legacy with his students.

“He was always talking about the world and politics,” Mr. Ferjani said. “Why as Muslims are we backwards? What makes us backwards? Is it our destiny to be so?”

The questions posed by Mr. Ghannouchi have shaped successive generations of Islamists, a term that never captures their diversity. The theme was examined in the work of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose notion of missionary work proved so successful over 50 years. It was there, too, in the works of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian thinker whose writings resonated long after he was hanged in 1966, helping give rise to a militant Islamism that bloodied the Middle East. Later, “The Hidden Duty,” a text that laid the groundwork for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, tried to resolve the issue. So did Mr. Ghannouchi, who endorsed pluralism and democracy, even as revolution raged in Iran.

In Kairouan’s colonial-era Negra Mosque, Mr. Ferjani and a hundred other youths gathered to study them all. “Read, read, read, read,” he recalled. “Even when I walked, I read.”

Mr. Ferjani eventually made his way to Tunis, the capital, where he joined his old Arabic teacher’s group. “Politics was there from the beginning,” he said in the interview.

Tunisia was ruled at the time by Habib Bourguiba, who was so secular that he once made it a point to drink orange juice on television during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. Mr. Bourguiba, in power since 1957, cracked down on Mr. Ghannouchi’s followers, and with the prospect of many of them being executed, Mr. Ferjani said he helped in plotting a coup d’état. He met many of the organizers at a video store he ran in a low-slung building of white stucco and blue shutters, across the street from Parliament.

Seventeen hours before they were to carry it out, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Mr. Bourguiba’s interior minister, led his own coup. Ten days later, on Nov. 17, 1987, Mr. Ferjani was arrested. He spent 18 months in jail, where his interrogators strapped him to a bar in what he called “the roasted chicken” position and fractured his vertebra with an iron rod. Unable to walk, the pain searing, he would be carried by prisoners on their backs whenever he had to move.

“They were extreme experts in how to make the torture felt in every part of the body,” Mr. Ferjani recalled. “I would stay awake until 5 a.m. in the morning. I’d pray till dawn, then I’d sleep, and I’d only fall asleep because there was nothing left in me.”

Five months after his release, still in a wheelchair, he trained himself to walk 50 yards so that security would not notice him at the airport. He shaved his beard and borrowed a friend’s passport. Then he caught a flight to London and sought asylum.

Crucible of Exile

Islamists of Mr. Ferjani’s generation wear prison time like a badge of honor. But exile, especially for the Tunisians, was often no less formative.

The London where Mr. Ferjani traveled became a hub of sorts for Islamist politics in the 1990s. Mr. Ghannouchi soon arrived there, joining Mr. Ferjani. Salafis from Saudi Arabia mixed with their frequent adversaries, Shiites from Bahrain, finding more common ground in London than at home.

Ahmed Yousef, a scholar and Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, recalled a similar environment in the United States, where he made lifelong contacts at conferences in Washington. Among the connections: Saadeddine Othmani, a Moroccan scholar and politician; Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, a Syrian Brotherhood leader; Abdul Latif Arabiyat, an Islamist leader from Jordan; and Abdelilah Benkirane, a Moroccan who is now the prime minister.

The environment became less permissive after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, Mr. Yousef said, but until then, “it was like paradise.”

“In exile, people feel they need each other,” said Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian scholar and activist in London, who has written a biography of Mr. Ghannouchi. “Back home, the national environment imposes itself on you. Priorities become different.”

Mr. Ferjani compared his years in London to the intellectual awakening he underwent in Kairouan in the 1970s. Settling with his wife and five children in the neighborhood of Ealing, he remained in Islamist circles, soon embroiled in the debates over Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but broadening his horizons into civil society. He took classes on the history of Europe, democracy, the environment and social change.

He said he understood what Mr. Tamimi called the “common roots and common ground” of Islamist activists, many of whom never expected to return home.

“We know each other,” he said. “But knowing is one thing, doing things together in every sense — as many may think — is another. In politics, it’s not that we all agree.”

Embracing Democracy

Through Mr. Ferjani’s years in exile, the dominant image of political Islam was the bloody record of Egypt’s insurgency in the 1990s, the Algerian civil war and the ascent of Bin Laden, whose Manichaean view of the world mirrored the most vitriolic statements of the Bush administration.

But no less dramatic was the shift under way within various currents inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Ghannouchi, his own thoughts evolving in exile, became an early proponent of a more inclusive and tolerant Islamism, arguing a generation ago that notions of elections and majority rule were universal and did not contradict Islam. Early on, he supported affirmative action to increase women’s participation in Parliament, a break with the unrelenting notion of missionary work that so long defined the Brotherhood.

“Frankly, the guy who brought democracy into the Islamic movement is Ghannouchi,” Mr. Ferjani said. As Mr. Ghannouchi himself put it in an interview late last year, at a conference in Istanbul attended by Islamist activists from Tunisia to the Palestinian territories, “Rulers benefit from violence more than their opponents do.”

In debates that played out across the Arab world, though often ignored by the West, the questions of reconciling democracy and Islam raged from the 1990s on. In the middle of that decade, a young Egyptian Islamist named Aboul-Ela Maadi broke from the Brotherhood and formed the Center Party, declaring its support for elections and the alternation of power and, as important, dissent and coalitions with non-Islamic parties.

Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an enormously influential Egyptian cleric based in Doha, Qatar, often sided with the progressives. (In 2005, he turned heads by declaring on Al Jazeera satellite television that “freedom comes before Islamic law.”) Though the Brotherhood still resents Mr. Maadi for his defection, it has largely adopted his ideas, which had seemed so novel in 1996.

Those debates reverberated across the region. Mr. Yousef, the Palestinian, remembered the impact of reading Mr. Ghannouchi’s monthly magazine, Al Maarifa, as a student in Egypt. In Libya, Ali Sallabi, who once debated politics with jihadists in the prisons of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, cited Mr. Ghannouchi and Sheik Qaradawi as inspirations.

Critics view the shifts as tactical, even rhetorical. But the very essence of the debates has marked a fulcrum in the intellectual currents of today’s political Islam.

“Al-sama’ wa’l-ta’a,” went the old Brotherhood ideal, which translates as “hearing and obeying.”

“That’s over,” said Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Islamic scholar based in London and a grandson of Mr. Banna, the Brotherhood founder. “The new generation is saying if it’s going to be this, then we’re leaving. You have a new understanding and a new energy.”

He noted that in contrast to Mr. Ferjani’s earlier years, when Egypt was the source of new Islamist thought, the influences are now more pronounced of exiles in Europe, scholars in North Africa like Mr. Ghannouchi and Ahmed Raysouni, and Islamist parties like Ennahda in Tunisia and Mr. Benkirane’s Justice and Development Party in Morocco.

“It’s not coming just from the Middle East anymore,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It’s coming from North African countries and from the West. There are new visions and there are new ways of understanding. Now they are bringing these thoughts back to the Middle East.”

From his perch in London, Mr. Ferjani incorporated talk of Westminster when formulating his idea of a charismatic state, whether led by Islamists or others. After vehemently rejecting the left, he now embraces Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism.

Exile, he said, “changed me a lot, profoundly.”

Applying Theories

On a brisk winter day, Mr. Ferjani sat in Ennahda’s offices in Tunisia, a five-story building whose plastic sign inscribed with its name lent a sense of the unfinished.

Nearly a year had passed since he had returned to Tunis, draped in the red national flag and walking effortlessly through the airport. He carried a passport that was his. His beard had gone gray, save for a mustache that served as a reminder of his youth in Kairouan. About 200 people met him at the terminal.

“No place for traitors in Tunisia, only for those who defend her!” he sang, joining the crowd as it recited the national anthem. “We live and die loyal to Tunisia.”

On this day, his mood was more somber. In protests, secular activists were denouncing the caliphate that they believed was sure to rise from the victory of Ennahda in elections in October. Newspapers opposed to the party were full of stories of abuses by puritanical Islamists and Ennahda’s supposed tolerance of extreme practices. In well-to-do cafes, some Tunisians viewed Ennahda’s success in existential terms, talking of an inevitable intolerance sanctioned by religion that would extinguish Tunisia’s cosmopolitanism. The cultural debates seemed to overshadow what everyone agreed was more pressing: an ailing economy.

“Frankly, we’re on top of things,” Mr. Ferjani said.

But in a less guarded moment, he asked, “Can you really solve problems of 50 years in less than one month with a government that is less than one month old?”

In an interview, Mr. Ferjani had once quipped, “You know, power corrupts.” As he sat at the party headquarters on this day, he wrestled with those questions of power. Next to him were stacks of the party’s newspaper, The Dawn. One column railed against “counterrevolutionary media”; another darkly hinted at conspiracies. The front page declared, “Parliament is against sit-ins and for listening to the demands of the people.”

“We don’t fear freedom of expression, but we cannot allow disorder,” he said. “People have to be responsible. They have to know there is law and order.”

He suggested that protesters should obtain permission from the police. He worried that the news media was too reckless. He hinted that the forces of the ancien régime were still plotting. In the cramped room, his exuberance had turned stern, and his words were hesitant.

“Everybody has to be careful not to be dragged into a dictatorial instinct, no matter what happens,” he said. “We can’t lose the soul of our revolution.”

This, he said, was the test.

David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo.

A Decade Without Justice

2012-02-13T10:37:00.000+02:00

Letters Raise Fears for Last Briton in Guantanamo

By Paul Cahalan
The Independent
Monday, 13 February 2012

On the day he marks 10 years locked inside the world's most notorious prison without having been charged with an offence, the last UK resident in Guantanamo Bay pleads with his captors: "Please torture me in the old way ... Here they destroy people mentally and physically without leaving marks."

Speaking from his cell through letters and comments published for the first time in The Independent today, Shaker Aamer, who has never stood trial, reveals the torment of his captivity and removal from his family. Yesterday a senior British source close to the talks admitted that Mr Aamer's detention was "unconscionable". His plight was raised most recently with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week.

Fears are growing for the welfare of Mr Aamer, from south London, who is now 45 and has a wife and four children. He has never met his youngest son. His lawyers are particularly concerned by the deterioration of his mental and physical state, which Mr Aamer describes vividly in his letters. He has lost 40 per cent of his body weight and is suffering from health problems, aggravated by long periods in solitary confinement.

The Independent has seen dozens of handwritten letters from Mr Aamer to his wife and family and today publishes a selection of extracts. Heavily censored and containing scrawled drawings to entertain his children, they paint a portrait of his time in Guantanamo. On 19 August 2002, he writes: "You won't believe me, my hand is killing me from writing and also my back. I am getting old. I just became 41... but physically I'm 50. I got arthritis, kidney problems, hearing problems, eye problems, my hair has fallen, my heart is aching."

On 9 August 2008, he says: "My sweetheart, yes I lost a lot of weight, yes I have a lot of sickness, yes I got short sight, yes my bones are aching, yes I got white hair, yes I got old, but ... my heart is still young, my mind still strong, stronger than ever."

One of his lawyers, Cori Crider, who visited Mr Aamer in Guantanamo last week, said: "Shaker has dropped to perhaps 150lb [68kg], his face bears the marks of suffering, and while he has a nigh-irrepressible spirit, the authorities seem determined to grind him down to nothing." Clive Stafford Smith, another of his lawyers, said his client had been reading 1984 by George Orwell. "You must read this book because you need to understand what is happening here in Guantanamo," Mr Aamer told him during a visit late last year, the notes of which were declassified two days ago.

Captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and held in Kandahar and Bagram before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay on 13 February 2002, Mr Aamer claims he has been tortured over a number of years. He also alleges he was tortured in the presence of a British MI6 officer in Afghanistan. Mr Stafford Smith said Mr Aamer began his latest spell in isolation on 15 July last year.

A British resident, born in Saudi Arabia, Mr Aamer had indefinite leave to remain in the UK when he was reportedly sold to the US in 2001 by Afghan villagers for $5,000. He claims he was helping to build a school. The US claims he was fighting with the Taliban.

Mr Aamer is the only one of the Guantanamo detainees to allege he was tortured while a British Secret Intelligence Service agent looked on. He claims "John" was present in Afghanistan when his head was smashed against a wall. He also claims he was visited by agents three times in Guantanamo between 2002 and 2005 – by which time the use of torture was widespread knowledge.

It has been reported that Scotland Yard detectives are to fly to Guantanamo to interview Mr Aamer, but the UK Government has always denied complicity in torture. Mr Aamer's imprisonment was raised by the Foreign Secretary William Hague during talks with Hillary Clinton last December. A British source said the upcoming US election made the prospect of a quick release unlikely, but told The Independent the UK was committed to his release. "The UK takes the view his detention is unconscionable," he said. "We are conscious of the US political process, but 10 years is a very long time without charge." Another source familiar with the case reported a conversation with a senior US diplomat who expressed a desire to see Guantanamo shut down and Mr Aamer returned "because it was a source of embarrassment" and "a running sore that compromised the diplomatic mission". A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The Government remains committed to securing Mr Aamer's release."

Timeline: a decade without justice

1996: Moves to London and works as an Arabic translator for a firm of solicitors. Marries a British citizen and is eventually granted residency.

June 2001: Goes to Kabul to volunteer for an Islamic charity.

October 2001: US invasion of Afghanistan begins.

November 2001: Captured by the Northern Alliance and eventually handed to the Americans. Claims subsequently he was badly physically abused at Bagram, in the presence of a British intelligence officer.

February 2002: Brought to Guantanamo Bay, but is not charged with a crime, a situation which has not changed.

September 2005: Organises hunger strike among inmates and is placed in solitary confinement.

June 2006: Claims he was beaten for hours and asphyxiated during an interrogation on the same day three other Guantanamo inmates died.

June 2007: Cleared for release when the Bush administration acknowledges it has no evidence against him but remains interned.

February 2009: Becomes the last British citizen or resident at the camp when Binyam Mohamed is repatriated.

January 2012: The Independent reveals the UK Government has spent £274,345 fighting Aamer in court, including preventing his lawyers viewing evidence that may prove his innocence and end more than a decade in US custody.

From Camp X-ray... Shaker Aamer's letters home

19 August 2002

"I just became 41... but physically I'm 50. I got arthritis, kidney problems, hearing problems, eye problems, my hair has fallen, my heart is aching."

9 March 2005

"You are the soul of my life. You are the best of my heart. You are the light of my eyes. You are the oxygen in my lungs, you are the sun on my back, the sweetest taste of my mouth you are everything you are everything I need to live, to love, to be... Do you know how much you are important for my life. If you break I will break, if you become weak I will become weak and if you go I will go. You are my soul twin. I need you to be strong."

9 August 2008

My sweetheart, yes I lost a lot of weight, yes I have a lot of sickness, yes I got short sight, yes my bones are aching, yes I got white hair, yes I got old but I love to tell you my heart is still young, my mind still strong, stronger than ever."

Statement from Al-Khalil / Hebron

2012-02-13T06:01:00.000+02:00

“Under Attack”: the Golani Brigade's War on the Palestinian Population

February 12, 2012 Al-Khalil/Hebron, Palestine

Contacts:

Christian Peacemaker Teams, cptheb@cpt.org (927/0 59 810 4549) (972/0 54 342 0117)

International Solidarity Movement, palreportskhalil@gmail.com (972/0 59-550-02864)

A newly released report submitted to the United Nations by international organizations working in Al-Khalil documents a sharp increase in serious human rights violations against Palestinian civilians, particularly youth and children, living in the Old City and Tel Rumeida.

Since their arrival on December 27 of 2011, the Israeli Golani Brigade has shown signs of deliberate harassment and targeting of the Palestinian population of Al-Khalil. The report documents an increase in arrests and detentions of adults and children, serious physical injuries sustained while in military custody, home invasions, and an increase in the number and duration of arbitrary detentions of civilians at checkpoints. It also documents harassment of and attempts to silence international observers attempting to document these abuses.

Contrary to military justifications, these human rights violations have occurred without any observed provocation on the part of Palestinians. These eye-witness accounts, either reported to or witnessed by Internationals working in the city, are believed to represent only a small portion of the total number of abuses.

For example:

On Thursday, January 12th: Golani beat a developmentally disabled young man when he knocked on the checkpoint door after they closed it in front of him. That evening, they attacked his mother and severely beat the teenager’s younger brother, cracking his skull, and then arrested the two young men.

On Tuesday, January 17th: Golani entered a man’s home at night, pushed the family out of their house, including their 1½ year old son, and beat the father, for which he required medical treatment.

On Friday, January 20th: Golani held a 10 and 12 year-old boy behind the gate of the Beit Romano settlement. A witness said the boys had been wearing ski masks because of the cold weather, but had not been throwing rocks, as the soldiers claimed. The soldiers gave the boys’ parents a list containing the names of five other boys from the Old City, saying that if the parents brought those boys to the gate, the soldiers would release the other two.

Internationals working in Al-Khalil have called for an immediate withdrawal of the Golani Brigade, citing fears that the abuses will continue to escalate and make life unbearable for Palestinians should the soldiers remain another two to five months as expected.

The full report is available for viewing, along with video and photos, at http://www.cpt.org/underattack

The End to Military Rule in Egypt?

2012-02-10T14:11:00.000+02:00

Muslim Brotherhood Demands Military Cede Power in Egypt

By David D. Kirkpatrick
The New York Times
February 9, 2012

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood demanded Thursday that Egypt’s military rulers cede control of the government, stepping closer to a long-anticipated confrontation between the ruling generals and the Islamist-dominated Parliament.

In a statement on its Web site and a television interview with one of its senior leaders, the Brotherhood called for the military to allow the replacement of the current prime minister and cabinet with a new coalition government formed by Parliament, which would amount to an immediate handover of power.

The Brotherhood, the formerly outlawed Islamist group that now dominates Parliament, had previously said it was content to wait for the June deadline by which the generals had pledged to turn over power, which they seized with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last year. And signs were accumulating of a general accord between the military and the Brotherhood over the terms of a new constitution expected to be ratified before the handover. The Brotherhood’s shift comes on the eve of the Feb. 11 anniversary of Mr. Mubarak’s downfall, when other activists around the country have called for a general strike to demand the end of military rule — a call the Brotherhood has previously resisted.

But the group is also changing its position at a time when the military-controlled government appears overwhelmed by domestic and foreign crises, including a deadly soccer riot last week followed by five days of violent protests, a standoff with Washington that has imperiled billions of dollars in United States aid and international loans, and an economy teetering on collapse.

“We must start the formation of a coalition government immediately, to deal in particular with the economic situation and the state of lawlessness in this homeland,” Khairat el Shater, deputy to the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide and one of its most influential figures, said in the online statement, which quoted an interview he gave to Al Jazeera.

Mr. Shater pointed in particular to the government’s repeated use of deadly force against civilian protesters.

“Dealing with the demonstrators violently is a mistake, a sign of weakness and mismanagement by the Ministry of Interior,” he said.

The Brotherhood is effectively agreeing with street protesters and liberals on the need for the military to leave power at once. But in the polarized dynamics of Egypt’s nascent democracy, liberal party leaders said Thursday that they were unwilling to form a coalition with the Islamists even to remove the military.

“The liberals would prefer to be in opposition to monitor and leave it to the Brotherhood to implement their control,” said Emad Gad, a leader of the liberal Social Democratic Party.

At stake in the debate over the timing of the handover is who will hold power during the drafting of a constitution and election of a president. The military has previously sought guidelines giving itself permanent political powers and immunities, and its opponents fear that it could again try to shape the constitutional process for its own benefit.

In the early rounds of elections, Brotherhood leaders briefly threatened to challenge the generals over control of the government. But later, signs of accord emerged with the ruling military on delicate subjects like limiting disclosure of the defense budget.

Now, though, the military-led government appears paralyzed by crises. The generals have seemed unwilling or unable to resolve a dispute with Washington over criminal charges filed against 16 Americans, including the son of a cabinet official, in a politically charged case over foreign financing of nonprofit groups. (Egypt initially said that 19 Americans were being charged, but the United States says only 16 are citizens; of those, at least six are still in Egypt and barred from traveling.)

The dispute prompted President Obama and Congressional leaders to threaten to cancel Egypt’s $1.5 billion in annual American aid. Diplomats say American opposition could also make it harder for Egypt to obtain billions of dollars in badly needed foreign currency from the International Monetary Fund, as well as other international lenders and donors.

Last week, the deadliest soccer riot in Egypt’s history and the bloodiest in the world in at least 15 years left more than 73 fans dead. Many blamed the police for failing to prevent the violence, and tens of thousands of protesters swarmed Interior Ministry buildings in Cairo and Suez.

But 15 more were killed as a result of the response by the police, who used tear gas, birdshot, rubber bullets and live ammunition. Since beginning a crackdown in October, the security forces have killed more than 100 street protesters.

The soccer riot and its aftermath prove “that security in the country is in a state of grave instability,” a Brotherhood spokesman, Mahmoud Ghuzlan, said.

But the advent of a democratically elected Parliament has made it possible for the chamber to form a coalition government with the legitimacy to crack down on the disorder. “If the Parliament formed a government that represents the people, it could take harsh measures that would deter anyone who might dare to repeat such disasters,” Mr. Ghuzlan said.

He said the Brotherhood had changed its position toward the interim government in part because of the report of a parliamentary fact-finding mission. Lawmakers who visited the morgue found that the interior minister had lied to lawmakers when he said his officers never used birdshot or other ammunition against the demonstrators.

“He didn’t say the truth,” Mr. Ghuzlan said, explaining that the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary leaders were now moving toward a no-confidence vote to remove the interior minister. It could be a first test of strength between the elected Parliament and military leaders.

But he said the group did not seek a confrontation, and noted that the current interim Constitution backed by the military allowed it to name a new cabinet even after a parliamentary vote of no confidence.

If the military council refuses to let Parliament name a new cabinet, Brotherhood leaders said, they may seek a no-confidence vote on the whole government, or take to the streets.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

A Sad Indictment of Today's Libya

2012-02-09T18:13:00.000+02:00

Libya Struggles to Curb Militias as Chaos Grows

By Anthony Shadid
The New York Times
February 8, 2012

TRIPOLI, Libya — As the militiamen saw it, they had the best of intentions. They assaulted another militia at a seaside base here this week to rescue a woman who had been abducted. When the guns fell silent, briefly, the scene that unfolded felt as chaotic as Libya’s revolution these days — a government whose authority extends no further than its offices, militias whose swagger comes from guns far too plentiful and residents whose patience fades with every volley of gunfire that cracks at night.

The woman was soon freed. The base was theirs. And the plunder began.

“Nothing gets taken out!” shouted one of the militiamen, trying to enforce order.

It did anyway: a box of grenades, rusted heavy machine guns, ammunition belts, grenade launchers, crates of bottled water and an aquarium propped improbably on a moped. Men from a half-dozen militias ferried out the goods, occasionally firing into the air. They fought over looted cars, then shot them up when they did not get their way.

“This is destruction!” complained Nouri Ftais, a 51-year-old commander, who offered a rare, unheeded voice of reason. “We’re destroying Libya with our bare hands.”

The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that “freedom is a problem.” Much about the scene on Wednesday was lamentable, perhaps because the discord was so commonplace.

“Some of it is really overwhelming,” said Ashur Shamis, an adviser to Libya’s interim prime minister, Abdel-Rahim el-Keeb. “But somehow we have this crazy notion that we can defeat it.”

There remains optimism in Tripoli, not least because the country sits atop so much oil. But Mr. Keeb’s government, formed Nov. 28, has found itself virtually paralyzed by rivalries that have forced it to divvy up power along lines of regions and personalities, by unfulfillable expectations that Colonel Qaddafi’s fall would bring prosperity, and by a powerlessness so marked that the national army is treated as if it were another militia.

The government could do little as local grievances gave rise last month to clashes in Bani Walid, once a Qaddafi stronghold, and between towns in the Nafusah Mountains, where rival fighters, each claiming to represent the revolution, slugged it out with guns, grenades and artillery.

“It’s a government for a crisis,” Mr. Shamis said, in an office outfitted in the sharp angles of glass and chrome. “It’s a crisis government. It is impossible to deliver everything.”

Graffiti in Tripoli still plays on Colonel Qaddafi’s most memorable speech last year, when he vowed to fight house to house, alley to alley. “Who are you?” he taunted, seeming to offer his best impression of Tony Montana in “Scarface.”

“Who am I?” the words written over his cartoonish portrait answered back.

Across from Mr. Shamis’s office a new slogan has appeared.

“Where are you?” it asks.

The question underlines the issue of legitimacy, which remains the most pressing matter in revolutionary Libya. Officials hope that elections in May or June can do what they did in Egypt and Tunisia: convey authority to an elected body that can claim the mantle of popular will. But Iraq remains a counterpoint. There, elections after the American invasion widened divisions so dangerously that they helped unleash a civil war.

A sense of entropy lingers here. Some state employees have gone without salaries for a year, and Mr. Shamis acknowledged that the government had no idea how to channel enough money into the economy so that it would be felt in the streets. Tripoli residents complain about a lack of transparency in government decisions. Ministries still seem paralyzed by the tendency, instilled during the dictatorship, to defer every decision to the top.

“They’re sitting on their chairs, they’re drinking coffee and they’re drafting projects that stay in the realm of their imagination,” said Israa Ahwass, a 20-year-old pharmacy student at Tripoli University, which was guarded by a knot of militiamen.

“How can you change people overnight?” interrupted her friend, Naima Mohammed, who is also studying pharmacy. “It’s been 42 years of ignorance.”

“They’re not doing a single thing,” Ms. Ahwass replied.

Like Tunisia to the west and Egypt to the east, Libya is confronting a diversity Colonel Qaddafi denied so strenuously that he tried to convince the minority Berbers that they were, in fact, Arabs. The revolution has its variation on this theme, appeals that mirror the fears of social fracturing. “No to discord” and “No to tribalism,” declare slogans that adorn the streets.

They all hint at the truth that the Libyan author Hisham Matar evoked in his first novel, “In the Country of Men,” when he wrote, “Nationalism is as thin as a thread, perhaps that’s why many feel that it needs to be anxiously guarded.” Authority here peels like an onion, imposed by militias bearing the stamp of towns elsewhere in the west, neighborhoods in the capital, even its streets.

“Where is the rule of law?” asked Ashraf al-Kiki, a vendor who had gone to a police station, the Tripoli Military Council and a militia from Zintan in pursuit of compensation after militiamen shot holes in his car. The scent of the kebab he grilled wafted over speakers playing the national anthem. “This is the rule of force, not the rule of law.”

The force at the Tripoli airport is the powerful militia from Zintan, a mountain town south of the capital, which played a role in Tripoli’s fall and still holds prisoner Colonel Qaddafi’s most prominent son, Seif al-Islam. By its count, it has 1,000 men at the airport, and one of its commanders there, Abdel-Mawla Bilaid, a 50-year-old man in fatigues, parroted the cavalier pronouncements of the government he helped overthrow. “Everything’s going 100 percent right,” he declared.

Mr. Shamis, the prime minister’s adviser, acknowledged the government’s inability to do anything about the militia’s presence. “Let it be for now,” he said.

That was the sense of the commander, too. “There’s no reason for us to leave,” Mr. Bilaid said. “The Libyan people want us to stay here.”

The militias are proving to be the scourge of the revolution’s aftermath. Though they have dismantled most of their checkpoints in the capital, they remain a force, here and elsewhere. A Human Rights Watch researcher estimated there are 250 separate militias in the coastal city of Misurata, the scene of perhaps the fiercest battle of the revolution. In recent months those militias have become the most loathed in the country.

Residents say some of the fighters have sought to preserve law and order in the midst of government helplessness. Militias from Benghazi and Zintan are trying to protect a refugee camp of 1,500 people driven from their homes in Tawergha by fighters from Misurata, who bitterly blamed them for aiding Colonel Qaddafi’s assault on their town. Since the Tawerghans arrived in the camp, which once housed Turkish construction workers in Tripoli, Misurata militiamen have staged raids five or six times there despite the presence of the other militias, detaining dozens, many of them still in custody.

“Nobody holds back the Misuratans,” said Jumaa Ageela, an elder there.

Bashir Brebesh said the same was true for the militias in Tripoli. On Jan. 19, his 62-year-old father, Omar, a former Libyan diplomat in Paris, was called in for questioning by militiamen from Zintan. The next day, the family found his body at a hospital in Zintan. His nose was broken, as were his ribs. The nails had been pulled from his toes, they said. His skull was fractured, and his body bore signs of burns from cigarettes.

The militia told the family that the men responsible had been arrested, an assurance Mr. Brebesh said offered little consolation. “We feel we are alone,” he said.

“They’re putting themselves as the policeman, as the judge and as the executioner,” said Mr. Brebesh, 32, a neurology resident in Canada, who came home after learning of his father’s death. He inhaled deeply. “Did they not have enough dignity to just shoot him in the head?” he asked. “It’s so monstrous. Did they enjoy hearing him scream?”

The government has acknowledged the torture and detentions, but it admits that the police and Justice Ministry are not up to the task of stopping them. On Tuesday, it sent out a text message on cellphones, pleading for the militias to stop.

“People are turning up dead in detention at an alarming rate,” said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who was compiling evidence in Libya last month. “If this was happening under any Arab dictatorship, there would be an outcry.”

At the seaside base this week, the looting ended before midnight. Not much was left at the compound, which once belonged to Colonel Qaddafi’s son Saadi — a red beret, a car battery, a rusted ammunition case and an empty bottle of Tunisian wine.

But as on most nights, militias returned to contest other spots in the city, demarcating their turf. Like a winter squall, their shooting thundered over the Mediterranean seafront into the early hours. In the dark, no one could read the slogans in Quds Square. “Because the price was the blood of our children, let’s unify, let’s show tolerance and let’s live together,” one read. In the dark, no one knew who was firing.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Mahmoud Mgairish. He stood near the square the next morning, as a soft sun seemed to wash the streets. “I don’t know where this country is heading,” he went on. “I swear to God, this will never get untangled.”

Latest on the Global March to Jerusalem

2012-02-02T17:46:00.002+02:00

Palestinians Urge International Community to Join Global March to Jerusalem

By Sarah Marusek and Amith Gupta
International Solidarity Movement
2 February 2012

The recent Arab uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa have proven that the Arab people are no longer willing to tolerate oppression and tyranny. They send a strong message to Western hegemonic powers and their oppressive regional allies that a new wave of nonviolent civil resistance will ultimately prevail over injustice and occupation. In addition, the Arab uprisings also send an important message to all people of the world that armed resistance is no longer the only option for pursuing change.

One must acknowledge that the recent successes of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions are a reminder that this inspirational movement for nonviolent civil resistance was actually born in Palestine. As American University of Beirut Professor Rami Zurayk notes, “The Arab uprisings have of course taken their inspiration from the Palestinian Intifada.” But as he further clarifies, the reverse is also true: there is “a constant feeding in from the Arab uprisings to Palestine and from Palestine to the Arab uprisings.”

Professor Zurayk is one of the Lebanese delegates for the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), a groundbreaking nonviolent civil resistance initiative scheduled for March 30, 2012 in Palestine and the four neighboring countries: Egypt, Lebanon Jordan and Syria. The GMJ is comprised of a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Arab and international activists who are united in the struggle to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem from illegal Zionist occupation. While the GMJ is made up of grassroots movements in each participating country, the march is also internationalized through a central coordinating committee with elected delegates from each region. More than thirty of these delegates met in Amman last December and in Beirut in January to discuss plans for hundreds of thousands of people to peacefully march to the holy city of Jerusalem, or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each neighboring country, for not only Palestinian rights, but the rights of all humans.

In many ways the GMJ has the potential to be a movement of epic proportions, and thus coordinating the march will not be easy. Up until now, most political solidarity movements at both the global and grassroots level have failed to include the majority of Palestinians living in Palestine as well as those countries that border Occupied Palestine. And yet now Palestinians themselves are taking a leading role in the GMJ. Considering the scope of the initiative, internal disagreements are bound to happen. However Ali Ayoub, a Palestinian activist with the Right to Return Committee in Lebanon, stresses that while “there are differences in politics between the many Palestinian parties, what unites them is Jerusalem and Palestine.” Furthermore, he says that the movement also takes strength from the fact that “all the free people of this world are suffering” from what is happening in Jerusalem and in Palestine.

It is very important that a strong contingent of American activists participate in the GMJ. In the United States, American tax dollars are endlessly being funneled into war, military occupation, and dictatorship throughout the Middle East. In addition to financing and arming oppressive regimes that have already been challenged by the Arab uprisings, U.S. tax dollars also continue to finance Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem and other such crimes against the Palestinian people. This is why it is essential for Americans to remain active in the push for a free Palestine through non-violent means, and they increasingly are. College campuses across the United States are organizing students to oppose Israeli oppression through non-violent campaigns such as the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement. Hundreds of Palestine solidarity activists from around the U.S. converged last October for a student conference at Columbia University to organize a national campaign. Palestine continues to be a priority for those in the U.S. who seek justice in the Middle East. So while the U.S. government continues to harass American solidarity activists, they must remain steadfast in their support for their Palestinian counterparts through initiatives such as GMJ-NA, the North American division of the Global March to Jerusalem.

The GMJ is focusing on the particular issue of Jerusalem because the holy city has come to embody the violence of an enduring occupation. As Professor Zurayk explains, “What is going on in Jerusalem today symbolizes everything that the Zionist movement has been doing for the past 65 years,” where the state of Israel has “been trying to take the land of Palestine by force as well as through more insidious strategies and tactics.” In this way “Jerusalem symbolizes the struggles of the Palestinian people in opposing the Zionist control and hegemony over their land.”

While the international community has been concentrating on the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the United Nations, and solidarity activists have been engaged in the struggle to end the siege of Gaza, the situation for Palestinians living in the holy city of Jerusalem has been deteriorating at an incredible rate. Over the last few years, Zionist efforts to “Judaize” the city have quickened pace, erasing Jerusalem’s physical, cultural and spiritual characteristics. According to a report released by the Middle East Monitor, this process of Judaization has involved the unrestricted expansion and funding of illegal Israeli settlements, the continued dispossession and demolition of Palestinian property, and the construction of a Separation Wall surrounding the city, all of which have changed the demographics of the holy city from a Palestinian to Jewish majority.

In response, Palestinians have now called upon the international community to join them in this peaceful march on March 30, Palestine Land Day, so that they can preserve the status of Jerusalem as a holy city for all humans. Ayoub says that Jerusalem “means a lot to me as I am Palestinian,” but he also adds that it means something to “all of the humans and free people of this world.”

Indeed, the GMJ principles of unity assert the importance of Jerusalem politically, culturally and religiously to the Palestinian people and to humanity as a whole. These principles of unity also require a commitment to nonviolent civil resistance in this struggle to liberate Jerusalem from Zionist occupation.

The international participants of the GMJ represent a diverse coalition of voices from various Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and other religious and non-religious communities. The GMJ now has endorsements from individuals including Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, Palestinian democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti, who speaks about the GMJ and its urgency. Also joining these international participants is former US ambassador and counter-terrorism deputy chief Edward Peck, anti-war activist Medea Benjamin, international law professor Richard Falk, and public intellectual Tariq Ali.

As Indian solidarity activist and GMJ architect Feroze Mithiborwala says, “This year in Jerusalem.” We hope to see all of you there in spring.

Marusek and Gupta are both actively involved with GMJ-NA, an independent and autonomous coalition of North American groups planning to join this non-violent march. Details of this effort can be found at: www.gmj-na.org

Postcard from Damascus

2012-01-29T10:21:00.000+02:00

Syrian Snapshot I: A View From the Capital

By Sharmine Narwani
Al-Akhbar English
Wednesday, January 25 2012

Crossing over the Lebanese border into Syria was anticlimactic. It was the second week of January and the lines of people waiting to have their papers checked did not look markedly shorter than during my two previous visits, both having taken place well before popular Arab revolts broke out across the Middle East.

Even security checks – looking into the trunk of our car and the kinds of questions asked by immigration personnel – appeared, if anything, less probing than my earlier experiences.

But two things caught my eye. The first was the posters vilifying certain media networks – Al Jazeera, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, and the BBC – which dotted the walls of the border crossing. One to the right of the counter for “foreigners” hovered over the head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) crew in line in front of me. Ah, I thought – the rumors that foreign journalists are now trickling into Syria may be true.

The second noteworthy detail was the whispers among border personnel that a busload of Syrian soldiers being transported from their barracks had been bombed by a roadside IED near Zabadani, a town now claimed by the armed opposition. I have no confirmation of this.

I was worried about my stay in Damascus in the Christian quarter of the Old City. Just four days earlier, on Friday January 6, a suicide bomber had detonated his explosives in a crowded area in Midan – inside the capital – apparently targeting a bus with policemen on board, although the casualties were mostly civilians.

I was keen to see if there were tangible ramifications of this act of terror in the heart of Damascus – ten months into the protests, the city is still largely viewed as being supportive of the government. Damascus counts. No uprising will be complete unless this city of 2.6 million shifts that balance. The capital will eventually have to be a battlefield for any revolt to succeed, even if only a political one.

Syria is icy cold this time of year, which may account for some of the empty streets that are normally bustling with humanity. But the Friday after the suicide bombing, the streets were noticeably devoid of people and the number of cars driving about were minimal. Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, is usually spent with family, so it wasn’t altogether clear if the stillness was due to the previous week’s violence.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s voice greeted us on the radio as my friend and I drove into the country a few days earlier. He was delivering his fifth speech since protests broke out in March last year. It was long-winded and my companion translated every so often. I waited impatiently for these tidbits which kept coming in until well after we were sipping tea in a Damascus hotel lobby where guests and conference attendees were crowding around the TV screens to pass their judgments.

Later that day I met with the first person on my list of regime opponents, most of whom had served prison terms at some point in their lives. I will write in more detail about these men and women later, but they varied from those who desired an overhaul of the regime while keeping Assad’s presidency intact, to those who would not consider dialogue with any part of the existing government. There were some commonalities. All rejected any foreign military intervention and the militarization of the protests. The majority were scathing about the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and external opposition groups like the Syrian National Council (SNC), so liberally quoted by the Western media as the definitive voice of the Syrian “opposition.”

“Their decisions are made in America and Turkey,” said one regime critic about the foreign-based Syrian opposition. “I want decisions made in Syria.”

Another one parried: “The external opposition are not an effective part of the opposition. They don’t participate in any political parties here. We want to change the system in a safe way – we don’t want to pay a higher price than necessary. We want national cohesion, we don’t want a collapse of the economy and we don’t want to lose our sovereignty.”

Most of these domestic-based opposition figures I met were disparaging about international sanctions too: “Life is very expensive for the Syrian people now and [the sanctions] will take the country into a vicious cycle of poverty and violence and harm the democratic transition,” says Louay Hussein, leader of the Building the Syrian State movement, who spent seven years in prison during his 20s.

“Sanctions will not affect the authorities, but will affect the people,” claims retired political economist Aref Dalila, an organizer of the 2000-1 Damascus Spring (a period of unusual political and social openness in Syria immediately following Hafez Assad’s death) who was released from a seven-year prison term in 2008. “People are already paying a high cost – prices have risen dramatically, factories have shut down, imports have decreased by around half and unemployment has risen, especially in the tourism sector.”

Too true. I was the only guest staying in the charming 17th century converted Damascene house nestled along narrow cobblestone streets in Damascus’ Old City. The famed boutique hotel with intricately painted ceilings and carved mother-of-pearl-encrusted wooden doors is usually impossible to book.

The only apparent benefit of sanctions was that I could sit in my pajamas for my morning tea and croissant in the hotel’s petite courtyard, unencumbered by chiding looks from other guests or staff. There was one woman manning the place during the day, replaced by a gentleman in the evening. My second night there, he called me at 3am when I had not yet returned to the hotel to check on my safety: “I was worried,” he said, “you know, because of what’s going on.”

Worried they may be, but that didn’t stop reportedly tens of thousands of Syrians flooding into Ummayyad Square – named after the Ummayyad Caliphate whose capital was Damascus – in support of their president earlier that day. A makeshift stage was erected in front of the imposing Assad Library, where supporters chanted pro-regime slogans and condemned the machinations of foreign leaders against the Syrian state. Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were particularly singled out for derision.

The masses were in for a surprise though. Assad himself, accompanied by his wife Asma and two of their children, swung by to speak to the jubilant crowd – and some said also to quell long-circulating rumors that his family had fled Syria.

I had heard about this rally the night before from the young pro-Assad son of an anti-regime woman who had seen notices on Facebook. That surprised me – Facebook was not available, except via proxy websites, during my last visit. It had been re-introduced to Syrians in February 2011, the year of the Arab revolts.

I went to the square with low expectations. News reports in the West rarely cover pro-regime gatherings, and almost always suggest that participants are forced to attend, are engaging out of fear, or are bused in by the government – sometimes even paid to join the throngs.

I only managed to reach the square after the president’s departure, when many had already departed, and some were still trickling out of the square. Still, crowds lingered to chant pro-Assad songs, dance the traditional “dabke” and wave flags – including Hezbollah ones to mark support for the Resistance. They were women and men, young and old, religious and secular, soldiers and civilians, well-heeled and not – certainly, none looked “forced” to participate in the gathering.

By comparison, take a look at this YouTube video of the same square ostensibly filmed during Assad’s speech. The square looks almost empty and it appears his voice has been added into the footage, suggesting a low turnout even at the rally’s peak. I didn’t get to the square until after Assad’s departure, but even then, you can see the stark difference in crowd size between the two video clips – a testament to the ferocity of the media battle for narratives over Syria these days.

The celebrations went on long after my frozen hands decided to seek refuge indoors. An earlier meeting had been postponed because of road blocks around the square that cut off access to many parts of the city, so I met up instead with Ammar Ismail, persona non grata in the Western hemisphere and an online activist in the cyberwar over Syrian narratives.

Ismail leads a frenzied online presence via his web-based Damascus News Network (DNN) available on Facebook. Through video footage, pictures and articles, the social media site offers counter-narratives to Western-dominated ones on Syria, but Ismail, a self-proclaimed nationalist, is often critical of the regime too.

He claims a news article referring to him as the “head of the Syrian Electronic Army” caught the eye of the European Union, which accuses Ismail of hacking websites on behalf of the Syrian government – allegedly because “its IP addresses indicates that it is collocated in facilities which belong to the Syrian government,” according to a CNN Article. He was one of a handful of Syrian nationals whose assets were frozen by the EU in November – no hackers or cyberwarriors on the opposition side received similar punishment. His recent venture to encourage cooperation between the Italian and Syrian textile industries suffered, and Ismail was forced to shutter the business.

In the past few days, Ismail has been forced to relocate his young family as a precaution against death threats. His son will have to be home-schooled for a while, he says, exclaiming: “how does my right to exercise freedom of speech become an issue for the EU?” Ismail plans to file legal proceedings against the European Union shortly.

Damascus is bizarrely open for a city that has been the target of opposition groups intent on splintering the regime by first swaying the capitol from its pro-regime bent. The internet is bustling with competing narratives, the airways open to the vilified foreign media networks accused by Assad’s government of fueling and propagandizing the protests.

Walk into a Damascene café or business and you are likely to see television screens broadcasting the pro-regime Addounia network or state-sponsored Al Ekhbariya Soriyah alongside the much-maligned Al Jazeera or US-backed Al Hurra. It almost seems like the regime is saying “bring us your worst – we have little to fear.”

A world away, in Homs, Deraa, Idlib, Douma, Zabadani and other Syrian hot spots the battle for narratives is harder fought. These are the cities and towns where people are reportedly dying by the dozens each day. I had a trip planned to some of these places – one that did not materialize after France 2 cameraman Gilles Jacquier was killed by a projectile while on a government-accompanied tour of Homs. But although I felt as though I might actually be safer in the immediate aftermath of Jacquier’s death, some apparently thought otherwise.

This Syrian conflict has layers and layers that we have not yet peeled within the pages of our sanctified newspapers and online repartees. I have seen very little verifiable professional reportage from the main areas of conflict. Most of the “storyline” is taking place in capital cities where competing governments appear determined to decide Syria’s future. The Syrian people are just cannon fodder. I am not sure their lives are even considered, as long as their bodies, alive or dead, lying on streets or taking part in rallies/protests, provide these storylines a way to feed into their vying narratives.

Damascus is inexpensive. The food – even in hole-in-the-wall cafes – is better than in most cities out for a quick tourist buck. The people are hospitable, even chivalrous. You feel safe walking the streets and talking to strangers. Today, people discuss politics in the open – that is surely a step up for the authoritarian state. The mood though, is cautious, worried and even angry. But the rage swings both ways – there are those to the right of the regime who are threatening to take up their own arms if the Syrian government does not protect them against opposition gunmen. While there appears to be a domestic stalemate today, that could easily turn if sectarian battles escalate.

I have seen gruesome still photos of casualties that don’t inform me if the victim is Sunni, Christian, Kurd, Druze or Alawite, but the sheer volume of these photos and footage suggests to me that some in Syria now think nothing of making snuff films to further their narratives. Is the shooting soldier really a member of the regular armed forces or someone donning a uniform to make it appear so? Is the bearded guy with the weapon really a militarized gunman or is that a trick of the regime?

The answers may be a long time coming, but one thing is certain: there are efforts underway by both sides to sway public opinion, and that effort is not by any means limited to those inside Syria. What do the majority of Syrians want? That is still the million dollar question, and the answer appears to shift with each major development – sometimes with optimism, usually with pessimism. If I were to wager on the outcome of this crisis though, I would firmly place my bets on the Syrian people rejecting these interventions and reaching their own national consensus on a democratic transition that ensures sovereignty. If civil war is to be averted, there are only a few options out of this conflict after all – and the one that offers the least chaos is the one most likely to appeal to the Syrian majority.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

US Expanding Naval Warfare

2012-01-28T11:34:00.000+02:00

Navy Wants Commando ‘Mothership’ in Middle East

By Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post
Saturday, January 28 2012

The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.

In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.

Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade.

Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where, exactly, it will be deployed in the Middle East. Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.

Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf, where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for much of the world’s oil supply. A market survey proposal from the Military Sealift Command, dated Dec. 22 and posted online, states that the floating base needed to be delivered to the Persian Gulf.

Other contract documents do not specify a location but say the mothership would be used to “support mine countermeasure” missions. Defense officials have said that if Iran did attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, it would rely on mines to obstruct the waterway.

With a large naval base in Bahrain, and one or two aircraft carrier groups usually assigned to the region, the Navy has a substantial presence in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters. Adding the mothership would do relatively little to bolster U.S. maritime power overall, but it could play an instrumental role in secretive commando missions offshore.

The deployment of the floating base could also mark a return to maritime missions for SEAL teams, which for the past decade have spent most of their time on land in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other details of the project became public Tuesday when the Military Sealift Command posted a bid request to retrofit the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport docking ship, on a rush-order basis.

Until December, the Navy had planned to retire the Ponce and decommission it in March after 41 years of service. Among other missions, it was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea last year in support of NATO’s air war over Libya.

Instead, the ship will be modified into what the military terms an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Kafka said it would be used to support mine-clearance ships, smaller patrol ships and aircraft.

The documents posted by the Military Sealift Command in December, however, specify that the mothership will be rebuilt so that it can also serve as a docking station for several small high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEAL teams.

Among the vessels listed are Mark 5 Zodiacs, inflatable boats that can carry up to 15 passengers and can roll up into bags, and seven-meter-long Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats, which can carry an entire SEAL squad.

SEAL teams also deploy from regular warships, but most vessels in the Navy’s fleet must patrol or move around on a regular basis. A mothership can stay in one spot for weeks or months, effectively serving as a floating base for commandos as they monitor coastal areas or prepare for amphibious operations.

The U.S. Special Operations Command has sought a transportable floating base for several years, saying that a mothership would expand the range of commando squads operating from small speedboats, particularly in remote coastal areas.

Defense officials said the Ponce will serve as a stopgap measure until the Navy can build a new Afloat Forward Staging Base from scratch. In budget documents released Thursday, the Pentagon said it would fund that project starting next year.

The floating base also could be suited to the coast of Somalia, a failed state that is home to an al-Qaeda affiliate and gangs of pirates. A mothership there would give SEALs or other commandos more flexibility in missions such as Wednesday’s rescue of a pair of American and Danish hostages who had been held for months by Somali pirates.

The term “mothership” is also commonly used to describe a vessel used by Somali pirates. After hijacking a large container or cargo vessel, pirate crews often turn it into a floating base to extend the range of their skiffs or speedboats far into the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and Persian Gulf.

U.S. military officials declined to say what prompted them to give the Ponce a sudden new lease on life. But contract and bidding documents underscore the urgency of the project.

One no-bid contract for engineering work states that the military was waiving normal procurement rules because any delay presented a “national security risk.” Other contract bids are due Feb. 3. The Navy wants the conversion work to begin 10 days later on the Ponce, which is docked in Virginia Beach.

Report Finds no Evidence that Iran is Building a Bomb

2012-01-26T10:44:00.000+02:00

Iran won't Build Nuclear Weapon in 2012, Says Draft Isis Report

Analysis by Institute for Science and International Security says sanctions and threat of Israeli attack are having effect.

The Guardian
Thursday, 26 January 2012

Iran is unlikely to move towards building a nuclear weapon in 2012 because it cannot yet produce enough weapon-grade uranium and is being deterred by sanctions and the prospect of an Israeli attack, according to a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis).

The report by the institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offers a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Tehran.

The Isis analysis is revealed after a prediction that Israel will attack Iran in 2012 to try and stop any nuclear bomb programme.

"Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today," the report said.

The US and Iran are engaged in a war of words over sanctions, with Tehran threatening to retaliate by blocking oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has said it will not allow that to happen. There are concerns the situation might spiral into a military confrontation that neither side wants.

The Isis report, financed by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, says Iran had not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. USIP is an independent, non-partisan centre created by the US Congress in 1984 that receives federal government funding.

"Iran is unlikely to break out in 2012, in great part because it is deterred from doing so," says the Isis report, which has not yet been publicly released.

The report says sanctions and the fear of a military strike by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities have worked as a deterrent.

The institute has advised US and foreign governments about Iran's nuclear capabilities and Albright is considered a respected expert on the issue. The report tracks closely with what is known of official US government assessments.

US officials say Iran's leaders have not made the decision to build a nuclear weapon.

Much of what the Iranians are doing with their nuclear program has civilian uses but they are keeping their options open, which significantly adds to the air of ambiguity, US officials have told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Some conservative and Israeli analysts in the past have challenged these types of assessments, asserting that Iranian nuclear efforts are sufficiently advanced that they could build a bomb in a year or less.

But according to the Isis report: "Although Iran is engaged in nuclear hedging, no evidence has emerged that the regime has decided to build nuclear weapons."

"Such a decision may be unlikely to occur until Iran is first able to augment its enrichment capability to a point where it would have the ability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and secretly."

It added that despite a report last November by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency alleging that Iran had made significant progress on nuclear weaponisation, "Iran's essential challenge remains developing a secure capability to make enough weapon-grade uranium, likely for at least several nuclear weapons".

Some European intelligence officials have disputed a US national intelligence Estimate published in 2003 that said Iran had stopped working on a programme it had launched earlier to design and build a bomb.

The Europeans maintain Iran never stopped research and scientific development efforts that could be bomb-related.

Tensions spiked after Iran announced this month that it had begun to enrich uranium deep inside an underground facility near the holy city of Qom. The secretly built facility was publicly revealed by the United States in 2009.

The Isis report says a military strike to stop Iran building a bomb would be unlikely to succeed.

Limited military options, such as air strikes against nuclear facilities, are "oversold as to their ability to end or even significantly delay Iran's nuclear program," the report says. Limited bombing campaigns would be "unlikely to destroy Iran's main capability" to produce weapons-grade uranium.
Iran has taken precautions by dispersing the centrifuges it uses for enrichment to multiple locations, has mastered the construction of centrifuges, and has probably stockpiled extra centrifuges, the institute says.

A bombing campaign that did not totally eliminate these capabilities would leave Iran "able to quickly rebuild" its nuclear program and even motivate it to set up a Manhattan Project-style crash program to build a bomb, which would only make the region more dangerous and unstable, Isis says.

The report says clandestine intelligence operations aimed at detecting secret Iranian nuclear activities, including the construction of new underground sites, are "vitally important". Known methods used by spy agencies include the recruitment of secret agents, cyber spying operations, overhead surveillance by satellites and drones, and bugging of equipment that Iran buys from foreign suppliers.

The report says another "well-known tactic" used by western spy agencies against Iran has been to infiltrate Iranian networks that smuggle nuclear-related equipment and supply them with plans or items that are faulty or sabotaged. The report says this tactic has helped the west uncover at least one of Iran's secret nuclear sites and, according to official statements by the Iranians, has caused enrichment centrifuges to break.

Other more violent covert operations strategies, particularly the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists and engineers, have "serious downsides and implications", such as a high risk of Iranian retaliation through militant attacks that could be directed against civilian targets. The US has emphatically denied any involvement in killings such as the car bombing in January of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran.

The report says that since thousands of specialists are involved in the Iranian nuclear program, assassinations are unlikely to be effective in slowing it down. It warns that Iran could construe assassinations as acts of war and use them to justify retaliation.

Islamophobia, Zionism and the NYPD

2012-01-24T12:33:00.000+02:00

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

By Michael Powell
The New York Times
January 23, 2012

Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. ... This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.

In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers.

A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them.

None of the documents turned over to the Brennan Center make clear which police officials approved the showing of this film during training. Department lawyers blacked out large swaths of these internal memorandums.

Repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah.

Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.

“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.

“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”

The film posits that there were three jihads: One at the time of Muhammad, a second in the Middle Ages and a third that is under way covertly throughout the West today.

This is, the film claims, “the 1,400-year war.”

How the film came to be used in police training, and even for how long, was not clear. An undated memorandum from the department’s commanding officer for specialized training noted that an employee of the federal Department of Homeland Security handed the DVD to the New York police in January 2010. Since then, this officer said, the video was shown continuously “during the sign-in, medical and administrative orientation process.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was never used in its curriculum, and might have come from a contractor.

As it turned out, it was police officers who blew the whistle after watching the film. Late in 2010, Mr. Robbins contacted an officer who spoke of his unease with the film; another officer, said Zead Ramadan, the New York president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, talked of seeing it during a training session the previous summer. “The officer was completely offended by it as a Muslim,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for.”

When the news broke about the movie last year, Mr. Browne called it a “wacky film” that had been shown “only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual course work began.”

He made no more public comments. Privately, two days later, he asked the Police Academy to determine whether a terrorism awareness training program had used the video, according to the documents.

The academy’s commander reported back on March 23, 2011, that the film had been viewed by 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers. The department never made those findings public.

And just one week later, the Brennan Center officially requested the same information, starting what turned out to be a nine-month legal battle to obtain it.

“It suggests a broader problem that they refuse to divulge this information much less to discuss it,” Ms. Patel of the Brennan Center said. “The training of the world’s largest city police force is an important question.”

Mr. Browne said he had been unaware of the higher viewership of the film until asked about it by The New York Times last week.

There is the question of the officers who viewed the movie during training. Mr. Browne said the Police Department had no plans to correct any false impressions the movie might have left behind.

“There’s no plan to contact officers who saw it,” he said, or to “add other programming as a result.”

Egypt's Election Results Announced

2012-01-22T11:40:00.000+02:00

Islamists Win 70% of Seats in the Egyptian Parliament

By David D. Kirkpatrick
The New York Times
January 21, 2012

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities confirmed Saturday that a political coalition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old group that virtually invented political Islam, had won about 47 percent of the seats in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. An alliance of ultraconservative Islamists won the next largest share of seats, about 25 percent.

The military council leading Egypt since Mr. Mubarak lost power last February has said it will keep Parliament in a subordinate role with little real power until the ratification of a constitution and the election of a president, both scheduled for completion by the end of June.

But the council has assigned Parliament the authority to choose the 100 members of a constitutional assembly, so it may shape Egypt for decades to come, although the military council has sometimes tried to influence that process.

The election results were expected because of preliminary tallies after each of the three phases of the vote, but the confirmation comes in time for the seating of Parliament on Monday.

The tally, with the two groups of Islamists together winning about 70 percent of the seats, indicates the deep cultural conservatism of the Egyptian public, which is expressing its will through free and fair elections for the first time in more than six decades.

But the two groups have described very different visions and appear to be rivals rather than collaborators. The Brotherhood has said it intends to respect personal liberties and will focus on economic and social issues, gradually nudging the culture toward its conservative values. By contrast, the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, put a higher priority on legislation on Islamic moral issues, like the consumption of alcohol, women’s dress and the contents of popular culture.

Among the remaining roughly 30 percent of parliamentary seats, the next largest share was won by the Wafd Party, a liberal party recognized under Mr. Mubarak and with roots dating to Egypt’s colonial period.

It was trailed by a coalition known as the Egyptian Bloc. It included the Free Egyptians, a business-friendly liberal party founded by a Coptic Christian businessman, Naguib Sawiris, and favored by many members of the country’s Coptic Christian minority, about 10 percent of the public. The Egyptian Bloc also included the liberal Social Democratic Party, which leans further to the left on economic issues.

A coalition of parties founded by the young leaders of the revolt that unseated Mr. Mubarak won only a few percent of the seats, as did a handful of offshoots of the former governing party.

Beirut Meeting Focuses on Liberating Jerusalem

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001+02:00

Yesterday we launched the second international planning meeting for the Global March to Jerusalem, see below. Our hope is to get a million or more people marching peacefully to Jerusalem for Palestinian rights on March 30 2012. This is a multi-faith international call to join in our non-violent, human effort to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine. The official press conference will be today, so more to come...

Committees set date for Jerusalem Global March

The Daily Star
January 18 2012

BEIRUT: The International Committees of the Global March to occupied Jerusalem held a conference Tuesday during which they announced the launch of the march on March 30, 2012, which marks the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, the National News Agency reported.

The conference took place under the patronage of former Prime Minister Salim al-Hoss who gave a speech in which he stressed that occupied Jerusalem is a symbol of the Arab cause in Palestine and must remain as one city.

According to the coordinator of the conference, Rebhi Halloum, the march will embody a global peaceful movement toward occupied Jerusalem or the nearest possible point to it.

Former British MP George Galloway also spoke, stressing the importance of Jerusalem and stating that it is now time to call for justice to the Palestinian people.

Confab Condemns Judaization of al-Quds

Press TV
January 17 2012

The International Executive Committee of the Global March to al-Quds (Jerusalem) has condemned Israel's efforts to judaize the city, Press TV reports.

The organization expressed solidarity with the Palestinian residents in al-Quds during a two-day international conference that began in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Tuesday.

In December 2011, the organization held its first international conference, in which the participants agreed on forming an “international central committee,” representing all regions of the world regarding the issue of al-Quds.

Paul Larudee, one of the speakers of the conference, told Press TV that the meeting “expresses the will of not only the Palestinian people and the people of Lebanon, but the people of all the world to reclaim Jerusalem and to defend Jerusalem from the racist efforts that are being made to exclude everyone in the world from Jerusalem except one group; the Zionists want it all for themselves. This is not acceptable.”

“The world has decided that this will not happen and we are here today to make a peaceful march to Jerusalem, to plan this march and to execute it in such a way that the will of the people of the world is understood by everyone and that we will not be denied access to Jerusalem nor to the freedom of Jerusalem,” Larudee added.

The global march has been scheduled to be held on March 30, which marks the 36th anniversary of the Palestinian Land Day, in several countries including Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

On March 30, 1976, Israeli troops killed six Palestinians during a protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands.

A New Sovereign Iraq?

2012-01-16T23:55:00.000+02:00

Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors

By Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt
The New York Times
January 15, 2012

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month.

The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.

The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war.

Just after the last American troops left in December, the Iraqis stopped issuing and renewing many weapons licenses and other authorizations. The restrictions created a sequence of events in which contractors were being detained for having expired documents that the government would not renew.

The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.

Latif Rashid, a senior adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and a former minister of water, said in an interview that the Iraqis’ deep mistrust of security contractors had led the government to strictly monitor them. “We have to apply our own rules now,” he said.

This month, Iraqi authorities kept scores of contractors penned up at Baghdad’s international airport for nearly a week until their visa disputes were resolved. Industry officials said more than 100 foreigners were detained; American officials acknowledged the detainments but would not put a number on them.

Private contractors are integral to postwar Iraq’s economic development and security, foreign businessmen and American officials say, but they remain a powerful symbol of American might, with some Iraqis accusing them of running roughshod over the country.

An image of contractors as trigger-happy mercenaries who were above the law was seared into the minds of Iraqis after several violent episodes involving private sector workers, chief among them the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square when military contractors for Blackwater killed 17 civilians.

Iraq’s oil sector alone, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the government’s budget, relies heavily on tens of thousands of foreign employees. The United States Embassy employs 5,000 contractors to protect its 11,000 employees and to train the Iraqi military to operate tanks, helicopters and weapons systems that the United States has sold them.

The United States had been providing much of the accreditation for contractors to work in Iraq. But after the military withdrawal, contractors had to deal with a Iraqi bureaucracy at a time when the government was engulfed in a political crisis and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, fearing a coup, was moving tanks into the Green Zone.

The delays for visa approvals have disrupted the daily movement of supplies and personnel around Iraq, prompting formal protests from dozens of companies operating in Iraq. And they have raised deeper questions about how the Maliki government intends to treat foreign workers and how willing foreign companies will be to invest here.

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve,” the International Stability Operations Association, a Washington-based group that represents more than 50 companies and aid organizations that work in conflict, post-conflict and disaster relief zones, said in a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Doug Brooks, president of the organization, said in a telephone interview that the number of civilian contractors who have been detained was in the “low hundreds.” He added in an e-mail on Sunday, “Everyone is impacted, but the roots have more to do with political infighting than any hostility to the U.S.”

As Iraqi and American officials were negotiating last summer to keep American troops in Iraq into 2012, the Iraqis refused to grant American troops immunity from Iraqi law, in large part because of violent episodes like the one in Nisour Square. Although the contractors working for the embassy are doing many of the same jobs American troops had, including training, logistics, maintenance and private security, they are not protected from Iraqi law.

Mr. Rashid, the adviser to Mr. Talabani, said Iraqis are fed up with foreign contractors. “The Iraqi public is not happy with security contractors. They caused a lot of pain,” he said. “There is a general bad feeling towards the security contractors among the Iraqis and that has created bad feelings towards them all.”

Mr. Rashid said that traveling to the United States to work was no different. “Every time I go to the airport in New York they open my suitcase three times,” he said. “How long does it take to get an American visa?”

An adviser to Mr. Maliki said that as part of the current agreement between the United States and Iraq, no Americans should be in the country without the permission of the Iraqi government.

“Iraq always welcomes foreigners into the country, but they have to come through legally and in a way that respects that Iraq now has sovereignty and control over its land,” said the adviser, Ali Moussawi.

Last month, two Americans, a Fijian and 12 Iraqis employed by Triple Canopy, a private security company, were detained for 18 days after their 10-vehicle convoy from Kalsu, south of Baghdad, to Taji, north of the capital, was stopped for what Iraqi officials said was improper paperwork.

One of the Americans, Alex Antiohos, 32, a former Army Green Beret medic from North Babylon, N.Y., who served in the Iraq war, said in a telephone interview Sunday that he and his colleagues were kept at an Iraqi army camp, fed insect-infested plates of rice and fish, forced to sleep in a former jail, and though not physically mistreated were verbally threatened by an Iraqi general who visited them periodically. “At times, I feared for my safety,” Mr. Antiohos said.

In a statement, Triple Canopy, which denied any problems with documents, said that during the detention period, company officials were in contact with employees by cellphone, and brought them food, blankets, clothing, medical supplies and cellphone batteries. All were released unharmed on Dec. 27.

The detention drew the ire of Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee. His office was contacted by Mr. Antiohos’s wife on Dec. 19 seeking help to get the employees released. Mr. King criticized the United States Embassy in Baghdad for failing to help release the contractors caught in a drama that he said might have resulted in part from rival Iraqi ministries’ battling for political primacy.

“They could have been held as power plays by one Iraq department against another, but what adds to the problem is that it does not appear that the State Department is doing anything near what they could be doing,” Mr. King said in a telephone interview.

The United States Embassy in Baghdad, as well as senior State Department and military officials, say that no Americans are currently being detained, and they insist the detentions and visa delays are more the result of bureaucratic inexperience than malevolent intentions.

“The embassy has pushed for consistency and transparency in the government of Iraq’s immigration and customs procedures and urged American citizens to review their travel documents to ensure that they comply with Iraqi requirements to help avoid such incidents,” an Embassy spokesman said in a statement.

One senior American military official said that the current disconnect between the Iraqis and the contractors was “primarily an adjustment of our standard operating procedures as we adapt our people and they adapt their security forces to the new situation.”

Michael S. Schmidt reported from Baghdad, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

Internal Conflicts in Syria Worsen

2012-01-15T10:43:00.000+02:00

Fear of Civil War Mounts in Syria as Crisis Deepens

By Anthony Shadid
The New York Times
January 14, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The failure of an Arab League mission to stanch violence in Syria, an international community with little leverage and a government as defiant as its opposition is in disarray have left Syria descending into a protracted, chaotic and perhaps unnegotiable conflict.

The opposition speaks less of prospects for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad and more about a civil war that some argue has already begun, with the government losing control over some regions and its authority ebbing in the suburbs of the capital and parts of major cities like Homs and Hama. Even the capital, Damascus, which had remained calm for months, has been carved up with checkpoints and its residents have been frightened by the sounds of gunfire.

The deepening stalemate underlines the extent to which events are slipping out of control. In a town about a half-hour drive from Damascus, the police station was recently burned down and in retaliation electricity and water were cut off, diplomats say. For a time, residents drew water in buckets from a well. Some people are too afraid to drive major highways at night.

In Homs, a city that a Lebanese politician called “the Stalingrad of the Syrian revolution,” reports have grown of sectarian cleansing of once-mixed neighborhoods, where some roads have become borders too dangerous for taxis to cross. In a suggestion that reflected the sense of desperation, the emir of Qatar said in an interview with CBS, an excerpt of which was released Saturday, that Arab troops should intervene in Syria to “stop the killing.”

“There’s absolutely no sign of light,” said a Western diplomat in Damascus, a city once so calm it was called Syria’s Green Zone. “If anything, it’s darker than ever. And I don’t know where it’s going to end. I can’t tell you. I don’t think anyone can.”

The forbidding tableau painted by diplomats, residents, opposition figures and even some government supporters suggests a far more complicated picture than that offered by Mr. Assad, who delivered a 15,000-word speech on Tuesday, declaring, “We will defeat this conspiracy without any doubt.” The next day, he appeared in public for the first time since the uprising began in a Syrian backwater last March.

More telling, perhaps, was the arrival of a Russian ship last week, said to be carrying ammunition and seeming to signal the determination of the government to fight to the end.

“Day by day, Syrians are closer to fighting each other,” said a 30-year-old activist in Arabeen, near the capital, who gave his name as Abdel-Rahman and joined a protest of about 1,000 people there on Friday. “Bashar has divided Syrians into two groups — one with him, one against him — and the coming days will bring more blood into the streets.”

In the other Arab revolts, diplomacy and, in Libya’s case, armed intervention proved crucial in the unfolding of events. Even Bahrain had an international commission whose report on the uprising there was viewed by the United States and some parties in that gulf state as a basis for reform. Syria has emerged as the country where the stalemate inside is mirrored by deadlock abroad.

Syria still counts on the support of Russia and China in the United Nations Security Council. In the Arab world, Syria has allies in Iraq and Algeria, whose foreign minister said Wednesday that Syria “is in the process of making more of an effort.”

Another diplomat in Damascus was fatalistic. “There’s not much more that anyone, at the international level, can do,” he said. “There’s not much more the Arab League can, either.”

Syria’s agreement to allow 165 observers from the Arab League last month to monitor a deal that seemed stillborn even when it was announced — a government pledge to end violence, free prisoners and pull the military from cities — was viewed as one of the last diplomatic tools.

But last week, one of the monitors, an Algerian named Anwar Malek, resigned in disgust, saying the mission had only given Mr. Assad cover to continue the crackdown. Opposition activists say hundreds have died since the monitors arrived.

“Bashar was looking for a shield, and he found it with us,” Mr. Malek said in an interview. “The mission has failed until now. It hasn’t achieved anything.”

He said at least three other monitors were also quitting.

The mission’s leader, Lt. Gen. Muhammad Ahmed al-Dabi, who once ran Sudan’s notorious military intelligence agency, attacked Mr. Malek, saying he stayed in his hotel room rather than doing his job. But Nabil el-Araby, the Arab League’s secretary general, acknowledged where Syria might be headed, with or without the monitors.

“Yes, I fear a civil war, and the events that we see and hear about now could lead to a civil war,” he said in an interview with an Egyptian television station.

He echoed a growing sentiment in many capitals, the potential for Syria’s crisis to intersect with a combustible array of rivalries in the region.

Peter Harling, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group, said, “I’ve never seen something quite so ominous take shape in the region in 15 years.”

As with past speeches, Mr. Assad’s address on Tuesday was not meant for the protesters challenging his 11-year rule. His audience, analysts say, was his supporters, who were by many accounts buoyed by his projection of confidence and his suggestion of reform: a constitutional referendum and the prospect of a national unity government.

“They finally grasped it, and this is the first positive sign they’ve shown,” said a 28-year-old Damascus resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He tried to attend the rally on Wednesday but got stuck in traffic. “They’ve now moved from defense to offense.”

Mr. Assad still commands a largely loyal government. Unlike in Libya, defections from within the leadership, or even diplomatic service, have been few — so rare, in fact, that the departure of a mid-ranking cleric from the state’s religious establishment recently was hailed as a victory by the opposition.

For many, the calculus remains much as it did at the beginning of the uprising. Though some soldiers have defected from the military, the more essential security forces, dominated by Mr. Assad’s own Alawite clan, have remained cohesive. Their loyalty, along with support from nervous Christians — who with the Alawites make up more than a fifth of the country — means his fall is not imminent or even likely.

But residents and diplomats speak of the erosion of his authority, often framed as the diminishment of the prestige of the state. Embassies have drastically reduced their staffs, and residents in Damascus speak of a growing anxiety after twin bombings tore through a fortified part of the capital in December.

“There is nothing happening around us, but psychologically, the stress ... I don’t know, it’s hitting home now,” said a 29-year-old bank employee in Damascus who declined to give her name. “The last explosions were really close. It’s very stressful.”

In Homs, beleaguered but still famous for its humor, residents have poked fun at the grimness. A joke these days has a husband bringing home a chicken. He suggests his wife cook it in the oven. But there’s no gas, she tells him. The stove? No electricity, she says. Spared, the chicken declares, “God, Syria, Bashar and no one else!”

Activists admit to a growing vacuum in embattled streets, as the bitterly divided exiled opposition fails to connect with the domestic protest movement.

“They don’t understand the situation on the ground, and they have to be blamed for that,” said Wissam Tarif, an activist with Avaaz, a human rights and advocacy group. He warned about a growing armed presence in Syria, with no leadership. “It’s a very dangerous business. The vacuum will eventually be filled. By whom, we don’t know.”

Another resident in Damascus, where blackouts are becoming more frequent and longer, cast the future starkly.

“Each side is trying to eliminate or belittle the other,” he said. “They both refuse to acknowledge the other side. When you talk to them, they will convince you that, come on already, it’s a done deal, God is with them. God must be torn, I tell you.”

Hwaida Saad and an employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Beirut, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.

Global Solidarity Movement for Palestine

2012-01-12T08:16:00.005+02:00

Press Release

World Civilian Coalition Gathers for Global March to Jerusalem

Beirut - The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem announces the completion of the preparations for the Second International Conference where the representatives of the International Committees involved in the organization of the Global March to Jerusalem will meet. The conference will be held in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday 17th-18th January, 2012.

This meeting will be held to implement the decisions of the previous meeting, held in Amman last month, in which there was a consensus to form an International Central Committee representing all regions of the world and an International Advisory Board of eminent international figures for the march. The date for the onset of the March was agreed to be on the 30th of March, 2012, which marks the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, when peaceful protest against massive expropriation of Palestinian land was brutally met with deadly force by Zionist troops. About 40 delegates representing the International Committees throughout the seven continents of the world will be attending the meeting in Beirut.

The conference will adopt a structural process for the March, and its committee structure will be filled with appointees. The general policies for the international actions will be mandated in Beirut to ensure their success. The conference will also discuss the national events and actions that will be launched in all countries starting from mid January, 2012 and until the date of the march towards Jerusalem or the nearest possible point to it, from inside Palestine and the neighbouring Arab countries, as well as the convoys from Asia, Africa and Europe that will converge on the march date. In addition to that it will coordinate international activities that will coincide with the March in different countries.

The committee would like to confirm that the Global March to Jerusalem and all the accompanying local events and actions aim to shed light on the issue of Jerusalem (the City of Peace) as the key to peace and war in the region and the world. The racist Judaisation policies of the occupation and its ethnic cleansing practices against Jerusalem, its people and holy sites threaten this peace. Such practices are internationally recognized not only as crimes against Palestinians but as crimes against the whole of humanity.

The International Executive Committee also emphasized that through this peaceful march they envisage to mobilize Arab and Muslim nations alongside all freedom loving peoples of the world to put an end to Israeli violations of international law through its continuous occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian Land. Israel's persistence in continuing its racist and ethnic cleansing practices through the construction of the Apartheid wall, the expansion of settlements and the escalation of killing, destruction, displacement and Judaisation reveals the extent of its crime. This kind of behaviour demands an international rally to support the right of Palestinians to freedom, independence, self-determination and the right of return. This peaceful march is inspired by our belief and the belief of those who support our cause throughout the world that the massive participation of the people of the world is a practical, nonviolent way to achieve justice and preserve peace by ending the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.

The International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem GMJ-ICC January 10th 2012

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For more information, please contact: Zaher Birawi: +44 7850 896 057; OR Dr. Paul Larudee +1 510 224 3518.

Sanctions Hurt Ordinary Iranians

2012-01-10T10:30:00.000+02:00

Sanctions Begin Taking a Bigger Toll on Iran

The West's strategy has sent the currency, the rial, into a tailspin and pushed inflation higher. But the risks are high.

By Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim
Los Angeles Times
January 9, 2012

Reporting from Washington and Tehran—The West's campaign to punish Iran for its suspected nuclear weapons program has begun to inflict far more damage on Tehran's economy in recent weeks, spurring a new phase of a dispute that carries acute risks as well as opportunities for the United States and its allies.

Fear of potentially crippling new economic sanctions have helped send the Iranian currency into a tailspin, drive basic commodity and import prices sharply higher, and spark runs on Iranian banks.

As the United States and European Union prepare steps designed to cut the oil revenue that is the Islamic Republic's chief source of income, Iran has responded with threats of military retaliation, including warnings that it might close the Strait of Hormuz, a lifeline for oil and gas shipments from the Persian Gulf. Though Iran would suffer in a blockade of the strait, it appears to be gambling that the West has more to lose.

In the latest sign of mounting tensions, Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced Monday that it had sentenced Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent, to death for allegedly spying for the CIA. The White House denied that Hekmati was a spy and demanded his release.

Vali Nasr, a former State Department official, described the string of developments as "the start of a more dangerous phase in the West's attempt to curtail Iran's nuclear program."

Iran has decided "it wants to push back on the pressure, to show there's a price to pay for pressuring Iran," agreed Michael Singh, a former national security advisor in the George W. Bush administration. "This could lead to inadvertent conflict."

But Iranian officials also floated the possibility that they will accede to the West's top goal: resuming negotiations over their nuclear program. Talks broke down a year ago, and Western officials believe Tehran isn't yet serious about returning to the table, but rather is holding out the prospect of talks in an effort to stave off tougher sanctions or a potential military attack.

For now, the West would like to see Iranian oil continue to flow in order to maintain stability in world supplies, but to limit sales to fewer and fewer buyers who could demand discounts that would further starve the Iranian treasury.

Analysts nonetheless worry that stopping Iran from selling oil to its traditional customers in Europe and Asia isn't a surefire scheme and could easily set off a dangerous spike in prices. That could cripple already fragile economies around the globe, alienate key allies who depend on Iranian oil, or even lead to an unintended military confrontation with Iran.

World oil markets remain tight and traders are extremely sensitive to talk about reductions or delays in supply. The price of oil, now about $100 a barrel, could jump $50 a barrel if actions by either Iran or the West suggested a possible interruption or delay in gulf traffic, analysts say.

"The markets would react extremely quickly if there were a hint of a closure, or even a delay," said Jamie Webster of the PFC Energy consulting group in Washington.

A senior European diplomat said that although Western allies "are feeling some new confidence" in the sanctions strategy, "there is also a wide appreciation that this is balanced very delicately."

Iran insists its nuclear development program is only for generating electricity, but Western powers worry that the country intends to build a bomb. At this point, United Nations nuclear inspectors have not found evidence suggesting Iran is capable of building an atomic bomb, or has enriched uranium to sufficient purity to fuel one.

The West has been imposing arms, trade and economic embargoes on Iran since Muslim clerics and students overthrew the country's U.S.-backed government in 1979 and created the Islamic Republic. The U.N. has approved four rounds of sanctions specifically aimed at Iran's nuclear program.

Over the years, the efforts have had limited impact, in part because many countries ignored them.

But Washington and its allies imposed or threatened far harsher punishments recently amid rising concerns that Iran is dangerously close to gaining the know-how to build a nuclear bomb. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said last month that Iranian scientists might attain the knowledge in a year or less.

The European Union, which buys almost 20% of Iran's exported oil, reached an agreement in principle last week for an embargo on Iranian oil. The member governments are expected to approve the deal at the end of January.

President Obama signed legislation on New Year's Eve that could cut off from the U.S. economy any foreign companies that buy oil through the Iranian central bank. If implemented on schedule in June, that would make it much more difficult for Iran to sell its oil.

U.S. and allied diplomats also are trying to convince Japan and South Korea, which together buy about 25% of Iran's oil exports, to shift to other suppliers. Several senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top Asia envoy, have headed to the region to discuss the sanctions, among other topics.

The New Monroe Doctrine

2012-01-09T08:09:00.000+02:00

US Expels Venezuela Diplomat as Iran Leader Arrives in Caracas

Monsters and Critics
Jan 8, 2012

Washington- The United States Sunday said it would expel a Venezuelan diplomat, the very same day that Caracas prepared to receive a visit from Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Venezuela's consul in Miami, Livia Acosta Noguera, was declared 'persona non grata' and was expected to leave before Tuesday, according to an announcement by the US State Department.

The reason for expelling her was not clear. The Miami Herald reported there were allegations that she had discussed possible cyber attacks on US soil. The FBI had investigated the allegations that were contained in a documentary aired on Univision, a Spanish language broadcaster, about the 'Iranian threat.'

William Ostick, a spokesperson for the US Department of State, said the US had informed the Venezuelan embassy on Friday that Acosta Noguera had been declared persona non grata.

'We cannot comment on specific details behind he decision,' Ostick said.

On Friday, the US warned Latin American countries against strengthening ties with Iran as Ahmadinejad prepared to visit the region. He was to arrive Sunday in Caracas at the start of a five-day tour which will take him to Nicaragua Tuesday and then on to Cuba and Ecuador.

'We are making absolutely clear to countries around the world that now is not the time to be deepening ties, not security ties, not economic ties, with Iran,' she said.

Experts have noted that Iran is reaching out to Latin America, in particular the left-leaning countries within the region, in an effort to side-step economic sanctions against its refusal to comply with international demands about its nuclear programme.

In recent weeks, Tehran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, where some 35 per cent of the world's seaborne oil passes, if the West imposes new sanctions in reaction to Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

Muslim Brotherhood Advances Democracy

2012-01-07T18:11:00.000+02:00

Egypt’s Islamists Could Soon Challenge Generals

By Leila Fadel
The Washington Post
January 5 2012

CAIRO — The dominant showing by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt’s first post-revolution elections puts the country on a collision course, analysts say, with emboldened Islamists and the entrenched military set to vie for power.

The Brotherhood, which was the leading opposition force under now-deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, has emerged as the country’s most viable political power. While votes are still being counted in the last of three stages of elections for parliament’s lower house, the Brotherhood expects to take more than 40 percent of seats and could claim an outright majority on Jan. 23, when the new parliament is scheduled to convene.

Until now, the relatively moderate Islamist group had an uneasy alliance with the council of generals who took control of the country after Mubarak’s ouster on Feb. 11. But with the military leaders intent on protecting their political and economic interests as Egypt lurches toward democracy, some analysts say a clash between the two centers of power is inevitable.

The long-term interests of the military leaders and the Brotherhood “do not converge,” said Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Center. “The military wants to effectively stay in power behind the scenes. That certainly is not what the Brotherhood wants.”

The powers of the incoming parliament remain unclear and are to be laid out in the as-yet-unwritten constitution, a document that the ruling generals have said they want military-appointed bodies to influence. But the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is calling for real powers for the parliament, including the authority to appoint a prime minister and full control over the writing of the constitution.

A shift in U.S. policy

Under Mubarak, the Brotherhood was allowed to exist on a tight leash. Thousands of its members were arrested and tortured. Mubarak also pointed to the organization as the possible alternative to his autocratic rule and used that scenario to scare Western allies, who feared Islamist domination in the region and the unraveling of Egypt’s longtime peace treaty with Israel.

A senior legal adviser to the Freedom and Justice Party has said that elected officials from his party would reassess the $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid to the Egyptian military.

In an interview on Egyptian television, the adviser, Ahmed Abu Bakar, said U.S. aid to Egypt, including to the military, does not help the economy or Egyptians and would be subject to debate by the new parliament. The statements come at a tense moment in U.S.-Egyptian relations, after security forces stormed the offices of 10 civil society organizations, including three American pro-democracy groups, over accusations of illicit foreign funding.

“Anything that affects Egyptian political decisions and anything that constitutes as intervention in internal Egyptian affairs is something we blatantly refuse,” Bakar said.

In recent months, U.S. diplomats and other officials have met with members of the Freedom and Justice Party. Those meetings mark a shift in policy for the United States, which has long regarded the Brotherhood as a threat to regional stability. But the willingness of Americans to engage the group is a nod to the reality that the Brotherhood will be a decision-maker in Egypt and a major player on the international stage.

As part of a continuum of official U.S. visits, Jeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for talks with military and political leaders.

“We are going to judge these parties not by the names on their doors, the T-shirts they wear, but on their commitment to upholding universal democratic standards” and human rights, including for women and minorities, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. “Some of these parties have had quite moderate rhetoric,” she said, “but that rhetoric now has to be matched in the way they proceed.”

Short-term, uneasy alliance

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has inspired Islamist militant movements throughout the region, most notably the Palestinian group Hamas, which the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization.

Mohamed Beltagy, a leading member of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and a candidate for parliament, agreed with other members of his party that the peace treaty with Israel will be respected, at least during this rocky transitional period. But, he added, “the parliament has the right to revise whatever happened without the public’s consent.”

In the bloody run-up to the elections, which began in November, the Brotherhood faced a storm of criticism from more centrist and liberal revolutionary parties, which alleged that the group was too close to the ruling generals. The Brotherhood’s non-Islamist rivals have accused it of turning a blind eye to Mubarak-style human rights abuses at the hands of the military rulers and betraying the cause of the revolution for seats of power.

Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan only stoked the tension with a recent proposal to consider granting immunity to military leaders for crimes committed during the transition, which he said would prevent Egypt from further destabilizing. As many as 100 people have been killed in clashes in the past three months; in some cases, brute force was used against unarmed protesters in the capital and other urban centers.

But that reluctance to challenge the military rulers will change, analysts said, noting that the convergence of interest between the Brotherhood and the generals is only short-term.

Analysts say the Brotherhood is waiting to be part of a strong elected body, which the group sees as the only legitimate tool to push the generals out of power and to guarantee its own.

“They are purely political animals,” said Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University. “They think that the only way to unseat the [generals] is to create an alternative institution, a strong parliament with electoral legitimacy.”

Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

The Labor Roots of Egypt's Revolution

2012-01-01T18:07:00.000+02:00

An Act of Courage that Launched a Revolution

By Liz Sly
The Washington Post
December 30 2011

MAHALLA EL-KUBRA, EGYPT — Much was made of Facebook, Twitter and the role social media played in lending a sense of youth and modernity to the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Then came the ascendancy of political Islam, which seems to be leading Egypt in a different direction entirely.

But the real roots of the revolution may lie here in this crumbling cotton mill town in the Nile Delta, Egypt’s industrial heartland, and with an old-fashioned labor dispute over pay that began five years ago.

And, according to one reading of the events that unfolded, it all began with a little-known act of courage on the part of a matronly, middle-aged millworker who wears a head scarf and was inspired to act because she couldn’t afford to buy meat for her family.

It was she who helped organize the initial strike by disgruntled workers in December 2006 that culminated in a nationwide call for a work stoppage on April 6, 2008. The date inspired the 6th of April Facebook group, which was used to rally the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in January.

When the men of the mill balked at joining the banned strike action, she seized the initiative and led her female co-workers out into the factory grounds. Chanting “Where are the men? Here are the women,” they marched around the mill until the men were shamed into joining them. After three days, the workers won.

Amid the upheaval of the past year, the part labor played in the birth of the revolution has been largely forgotten. But workers joined the revolutionaries in the square in February and have continued to stage strikes throughout the year, taking on a far greater role in Egypt, with its strong industrial base, than labor has in other countries where uprisings have taken place.

The strikes continue to this day, and although they have been eclipsed by the far-better-publicized demonstrations in Tahrir Square, future Egyptian governments will need to address at least some of the demands of an increasingly organized labor movement if the country’s unrest is to be tamed.

This is the story of Wedad Demerdash, 44, a mother of four and, perhaps, the original revolutionary.

‘Mahalla sets the tone’

The Misr Spinning and Weaving Co. in Mahalla is Egypt’s biggest industrial enterprise and one of the largest cotton mills in the world. Founded in 1927, it was once the flagship of Egyptian industry, churning out high-quality cotton that was sold around the globe.

In recent years, its workforce has dwindled to 21,000 from a peak of nearly 40,000, and it operates at a considerable loss to the state. But to Egyptians, the mill is legendary. Known simply as Mahalla, it has become synonymous over the years with the militancy of its workers.

“Whatever happens in Mahalla sets the tone for Egypt,” said Hossam el-Hamalawy, a labor activist and blogger. “If Mahalla goes on strike and wins, you can be assured the rest of the country will go on strike too.”

So it was in 2006. Demerdash had gone to work there in 1984 at age 16, paying little attention to politics as she married and raised four children while holding down her job as a garment stitcher. The militancy of Mahalla had been muted by the repression of the Mubarak era.

But by the middle of the past decade, change was coming to Mahalla. Cheaper Chinese and Indian cotton threatened the mill’s competitiveness. Inflation was eroding the already pitiful basic wage of 300 Egyptian pounds a month — about $60. Fears were rife that the mill would be privatized and sold, and that all would lose their jobs, as had happened to many other enterprises.

By the end of 2006, when the management had not fulfilled a government promise to pay a bonus of 100 pounds — about $20 — the workers of Mahalla stirred again.

The price of chicken

Demerdash cannot explain what it was that pushed her to take a leading role in the strike that would unleash a revolution, except that it had to do with the price of chicken, a basic wage that had not risen in years and a burning sense of injustice that the bonus had not been paid.

“God has given you the ability to confront others, and you should go ahead with it,” she recalls her husband telling her. She says she discovered in herself previously unrecognized abilities to organize and to persuade.

She printed leaflets and argued with co-workers who were reluctant to take action that could land them in jail. Soaring food prices had pushed meat beyond the means of most. Chicken was a once-a-month treat. Soon, the women were eager to join the strike.

“The women were more militant than the men,” said Joel Beinin, a professor at Stanford University who has written extensively on Egypt’s labor movements.

At the moment called for the strike to begin, Demerdash led the women out of the building where they worked onto the sprawling grounds of the mill complex. They found themselves alone. Through the windows of the other buildings she saw the hesitant men.

“We could see that they were just standing by their machines. We could see they were afraid,” says Demerdash, recalling the moment when she burst into her chant. “So we decided to incite them in any way we could. We wanted them to be ashamed.”

It worked. The men spilled out to join the strike. For three days, the workers occupied the factory grounds. On the fourth day, management caved, and the bonus was paid.

The victory triggered a wave of copycat strikes around the country throughout 2007. Egypt was plunged into the most intensive period of industrial unrest it had witnessed in decades. The Mahalla workers took the lead again in the spring of 2008, calling for a general strike on April 6 to demand a national minimum wage. A group of young Internet activists named its Facebook page after the date, and in January this year, the 6th of April group became renowned around the world for its role in galvanizing the uprising.

The baton had passed, to a new and very different generation of revolutionaries.

But, for Hamalawy, who closely chronicles Egypt’s labor movement, it was that first strike that started it all.

“December 2006 was definitely the turning point that will be engraved forever as the start of the liberation of Egypt,” he said. “If that strike had not taken place and had not been victorious, I don’t think we would have witnessed all the revolutionary transformations we have seen.”

A tireless campaigner

Demerdash’s role also has gone largely unnoticed outside this dusty, decrepit town where almost everyone either works at the mill or knows someone who does. Here she has become something of a celebrity and a source of advice on labor issues. At a tea garden beside one of the tributaries of the Nile, a janitor recognizes her and approaches to ask how to improve his working conditions. She whips out a dog-eared copy of Egypt’s labor law from her purse and quickly finds the clause relevant to his concerns.

She continues to campaign tirelessly for better working conditions, while holding down her 48-hour-a-week job at the mill. She has also acquired a partner and soul mate, Amal Ahmad Said, 44, who is equally garrulous and passionate about her cause. They have become regulars on the labor activist conference circuit and traveled to Tahrir to participate in labor demonstrations.

But theirs is not the militancy of Marx or Che Guevara, the icons of the leftist, secular crowd that dominates the Tahrir protests. A Koran is on display in Demerdash’s living room, along with an abundance of pink- and lemon-colored teddy bears and white fluffy dogs that speak to the innocence she brings to her quest for decent pay and working conditions.

She dismisses as irrelevant the Facebook revolutionaries who named their page for the strike she helped inspire. “I don’t acknowledge them,” she says. “April 6 was born in Mahalla. It was a miracle that this corrupt regime was toppled, and it was to the credit of the workers.”

She holds in even greater contempt the Islamist parties that have emerged in the first rounds of Egypt’s elections as the revolution’s biggest winners. Though a devout Muslim who covers her hair, she thinks politics and religion shouldn’t mix. The Islamists, she says, “have hijacked the revolution.”

“I hate them,” she says. “The real owners of the revolution are the workers.”

But although she, like many Egyptians, feels the revolution has lost its way, at the close of a tumultuous year that has transformed her country almost beyond recognition, she cannot say it was in vain. A mini-revolt at the mill at the time Mubarak fell brought in new managers, who have been more sympathetic to workers’ concerns.

No longer does she fear that the company will be privatized and sold. The industrial action of those earlier years saw her basic wage increased to 500 pounds a month — she takes home about 900, including incentives and bonuses — and there is a promise, not yet implemented, of a national minimum wage of 1,200.

Whether it will be paid is in doubt, given the rocky state of Egypt’s economy. But there are other improvements. “We do our jobs now with high spirits,” she says. “Workers are being treated with more mercy these days, which is right because all the worker wants is to work to feed his family.”

For Demerdash, that’s what it has always been about. About pay, to be sure, but also respect, and the future of the mill to which she has given a lifetime’s work. Her eyes gleam when she talks about it.

“I love my work. I love and fear for my company. I love the sounds of the machines when I get to work in the morning, and I love the sounds of the machines going home in the evening,” she says. “As long as the machines are running, it means we can provide for our families and for our homes.”

Will Iran Stop the Oil Flow?

2011-12-29T16:30:00.000+02:00

Second Iranian Official Says Regime could Close Gulf to Oil Traffic

By Ramin Mostaghim
The Los Angeles Times
December 28, 2011

REPORTING FROM TEHRAN -- Iran’s top naval commander told Iran's English language Press TV on Wednesday that closing the Persian Gulf to oil tanker traffic would be "easier than drinking a glass of water" but added that Iran would not do so for now.

"Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or, as Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water," said Habibollah Sayyari. "But right now, we don't need to shut it as we have the Sea of Oman under control, and we can control the transit."

In response, the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet's spokeswoman warned that any disruption “will not be tolerated,” the Associated Press reported. The spokeswoman, Lt. Rebecca Rebarich, said the U.S. Navy is “always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation.”

Sayyari's statement followed by a day a similar threat from Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi to close the gulf to tanker traffic, potentially disrupting the flow of Middle East oil to world markets, if Iran faces any fresh sanctions. However, there were no immediate signs that their words were a prelude to any military action or any more than verbal jousting with Iran's international critics.

Iran is facing international sanctions imposed in response to its pursuit of a nuclear program, which it says has peaceful designs but which the West fears will lead to the creation of atomic weapons.

“What does the West expect us to do when we are threatened and attacked?” said Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a media advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Should we just throw our hands up and give in? Mr. Rahimi's reaction was a defensive reaction and we are right to do so."

Observers said the Iranian comments suggested that the Islamic Republic was feeling the effect of the international sanctions. Some suggested that further punishment could create a backlash.

“The reaction of Mr. Rahimi shows clearly the sanctions so far have been painful and pressure is increasing," said an Iranian reformer and analyst who did not want to be quoted by name for security reasons. "And it also indicates that if Iran cannot sell its oil then nobody in the Persian Gulf should do so, and it is a serious reaction."

But an oil expert, who also did not want to identified, said : "It is suicide if Iran seals off the Strait of Hormuz and I think it will never be realized.”

Nader Karimi Joni, economic and political analyst, said : “What Rahimi as vice president said is not a big deal or new. First of all, the commander of the Iranian naval force said that Iran does not intend to do it for the time being. Secondly, IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] commanders on other occasions in the past have said similar things.

"It is not serious," Joni said of the threat, "and it will not be in the near future.”

Reza Zandi, an oil industry expert and columnist for the reformist Sharq daily, added: “The impact of Mr. Rahimi's remarks was only one U.S. dollar in increased oil price per barrel, nothing more.

"I do remember Mr. Rostam Qasemi, the oil minister, in Vienna said that Iran will not seal off the Hormuz Strait and the Iranian commander of navy said that sealing off the strait is a decision that must be made by top officials," Zandi said. "So it means that Iran is only responding to a threat, nothing more.

"Practically," Zandi added, "neither complete oil sanctions on Iran nor the complete sealing off the strait are feasible.”

Silencing Dissent in Israel

2011-12-29T04:57:00.000+02:00

Israel TV Station’s Troubles Reflect a Larger Political Battleground

By Ethan Bronner
The New York Times
December 26, 2011

JERUSALEM — An Israeli television station reported last spring on numerous trips Benjamin Netanyahu had taken as an elected official to Paris, London and New York before becoming prime minister in 2009. Accompanied by his wife, he flew first class and stayed in baronial hotel suites. Mrs. Netanyahu had her hair styled and her wardrobe dry-cleaned. The bills, displayed on screen, were paid for by wealthy friends.

Traveling in luxury at the expense of others may violate public service rules and the law. It also doesn’t look good. But instead of accolades for its journalism, Channel 10 is now fighting for its life, and Mr. Netanyahu’s hostility toward it is being cast as part of a broader cultural and political war in Israel between the left and the right involving efforts to control the judiciary, the reporting of news and public discourse.

It is a battle that most immediately pits the rightist governing coalition against the liberal elite as the government refuses to postpone the station’s debt, which could force it to close.

“The fight over Channel 10 is partly a matter of revenge — Netanyahu wants to make them pay for what they did to him,” argued Nachman Shai, a member of Parliament from the opposition party Kadima and a former news executive who helped set up Channel 10 a decade ago. “But it is also part of a three-front struggle — over the courts, civil society and the media. The right wants to control every institution. Freedom of expression is at risk.”

Those around Mr. Netanyahu, who filed a million-dollar libel suit against the station, say Channel 10 is a failed business whose payments have been forgiven numerous times and is hiding behind political complaints and inflated concerns about free speech to make the public absorb its debts.

On its face, the request by Channel 10 is modest. It owes $11 million, most of it to an official regulatory body, the rest in taxes. Ayelet Metzger, deputy director general of the regulatory body, said both her agency and the Finance Ministry had agreed to postpone the debt for a year.

But a parliamentary committee this month voted against doing so. Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition obliged its members to vote no. This means that Channel 10 will, in theory, shut its doors at the end of January, when its 10-year franchise ends.

In practice, there will be a drawn-out battle to save it because of the belief that it plays a vital role in public debate through its crusading investigative news broadcasts. The only other independent station is Channel 2, which is also facing economic woes.

Otherwise, Mr. Netanyahu has strong influence over other media outlets: the state-owned Channel 1, State Radio and a freely distributed and successful newspaper, Yisrael Hayom, owned by a close American friend, the billionaire Sheldon Adelson.

President Shimon Peres, a member of Kadima, has weighed in, saying that the channel’s effort to survive is “a struggle for Israel’s democratic character.” In a related comment, he also declared himself “ashamed” of several bills being considered in Parliament that he believes chip away at democracy in Israel: an antidefamation law, one that silences loudspeakers issuing the Muslim call to prayer and another that prevents foreign governments from financing left-wing Israeli groups.

Last summer, Parliament passed a law making it possible to sue anyone who advocates boycotting things Israeli, including West Bank settlements.

Channel 10 infuriated the Netanyahus over the reports of lavish travel, when he was a member of Parliament and as finance minister, and spurred a continuing investigation by the state comptroller. But the channel also angered previous leaders, playing a key role in exposing the way the 2006 Lebanon war was conducted and publicizing suspicions of corrupt land deals in the family of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

It brought to the screen the fate of a Palestinian doctor in Gaza whose three daughters were killed in the 2008-2009 offensive there by Israeli forces, and showed a minister from the nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu arriving at the home of a woman suspected to be his mistress and leaving the house the next morning.

“I believe that if we die, the message will be clear that if you have the guts to open a critical news company, you will go bankrupt,” said Raviv Drucker, the station’s chief investigative reporter, who broke the story of Mr. Netanyahu’s travels.

An executive of Channel 10 who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that he had been told by a top aide of Mr. Netanyahu that if Mr. Drucker were given a long vacation, postponing the debt would be a lot easier. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said no such conversation had occurred.

In previous years, Mr. Netanyahu actually intervened to save Channel 10 twice because, he said, he favors increasing broadcast outlets to expand the marketplace of ideas and debate. The Israeli news media, he and his aides complain, lean to the left and what the country needs is an Israeli version of Fox News.

Some say that is what Mr. Netanyahu thought he was helping to create when about five years ago he persuaded his friend, the American billionaire Ronald S. Lauder, to invest in the ailing Channel 10. But the structure of the channel makes it hard for owners to intervene in content.

Nonetheless, after the broadcast on Mr. Netanyahu’s travels was shown, the prime minister cooled his friendship with Mr. Lauder. Mr. Lauder declined to comment.

Another owner of the channel is the Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. The third and largest shareholder is Yossi Meiman, an Israeli political liberal who has faced financial difficulties because of his investment in a gas pipeline from Egypt that has been repeatedly blown up since the Egyptian revolution.

Amnon Dankner, former editor of the newspaper Maariv and a veteran journalist, said that the threat to Channel 10 worried him deeply.

“For the first time, I fear the end of critical and investigative news as we have known it in Israel,” he said. “If Channel 10 closes, Channel 2 will grow tamer. Since childhood I have felt that freedom of the press was marching forward here. Now I feel it is retreating.”

But other journalists say the only thing that has changed is who is in power. Prime ministers from the Labor Party like David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin also held the press tightly, meeting with senior editors regularly.

“When the prime minister was ‘one of us,’ it seemed totally natural for him to silence his critics,” Ari Shavit, a columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, wrote in Thursday’s issue. “After 30 years of the media running roughshod over Likud, Likud is tyrannizing the media.”

Nahum Barnea, the main political columnist for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, said that while the Channel 10 problem was about a failed business, it was part of the struggle for control of public discourse in Parliament.

“Many of the proposed laws have a common denominator,” he said. “People in the coalition think it is time for them to change the rules — the rules regarding the Palestinians, the Arab sector in Israel, the left and the media. The Channel 10 story is part of that. And if we are left with only one commercial channel, we will be a weaker democracy.”

Bombs Explode in Damascus

2011-12-25T07:30:00.000+02:00

Attacks on Syrian Government Buildings Seem to Strike the Heart of State Security Apparatus

By Alice Fordham and Joby Warrick
The Washington Post
December 23 2011

BEIRUT — Twin car bombs ripped through the morning calm of Damascus on Friday, killing at least 40 people and casting doubt on the ability of a newly arrived team of Arab League monitors to stem Syria’s growing violence.

The explosions shattered two government buildings used by Syrian intelligence and security commanders and ushered in what some analysts feared is a new stage in the nine-month-old uprising. The Syrian government blamed al-Qaeda for the blasts, a claim that drew skepticism from Syrian opposition groups as well as Western governments and intelligence agencies.

But regardless of who carried out the bombings, the attacks marked a grim zenith in what was already the bloodiest week of the uprising. They were also a slap to international monitors from the Arab League, who began arriving this week to put pressure on Syrian authorities to halt attacks on opposition forces.

The bombings came as government troops were battling pockets of armed defectors in several parts of the country, despite an agreement with the Arab League to withdraw soldiers from populated areas. President Bashar al-Assad, who faces growing domestic opposition as well as tightening international sanctions, has been under international pressure to accept monitors and to allow independent media into the country.

The apparent targeting of Syria’s intelligence apparatus seemed to mark a significant escalation in unrest that has thus far seen the army deployed to quash protests in centers of opposition such as the city of Homs and that has included some clashes pitting the army against defectors and armed rebels.

Independent analysts said the attack could fuel panic and paranoia among an increasingly frightened population, particularly in Damascus, which has been largely spared until now.

“It signals that this conflict is getting much worse, not better and not simmering down,” said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The explosions in the Kfar Sousa area of the capital came after nine months of anti-government demonstrations that have grown increasingly violent, with soldiers defecting and rebels taking up arms in response to a heavy security crackdown.

Assad has blamed the uprising on extremists, foreigners and armed gangs. After the bombings Friday, the Associated Press reported, the government quickly escorted the Arab League team to the gory scene and said the attacks backed its claims that the turmoil is not a popular uprising.

“We said it from the beginning: This is terrorism. They are killing the army and civilians,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad told reporters outside the headquarters of the General Security Directorate.

In Washington, U.S. officials condemned the attacks while acknowledging uncertainty about who was behind them. Intelligence officials questioned the veracity of the government’s assertions — issued by Syrian-run news media — that al-Qaeda was responsible, noting that it would be difficult for al-Qaeda to carry out such an ambitious operation in the tightly controlled police state. However, some analysts noted that the attacks bore many of al-Qaeda’s hallmarks, including the coordinated use of suicide bombers against heavily guarded targets.

“For the moment, it’s unclear who did the bombings,” said a U.S. official privy to intelligence files from the region.

Syrian opposition groups denied any involvement in the bombings. Some opposition figures theorized that pro-Assad forces could have staged the attacks to discredit the opposition and buttress state claims that “terrorists” are behind the uprising.

The blasts came a day after a technical committee from the Arab League arrived in Damascus to discuss implementing an agreement for monitors to come into the country and the military to withdraw from centers of protest.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency reported that 44 people were killed and 166 wounded in attacks that “were carried out by two suicide bombers with two booby-trapped cars.” The agency published gruesome photos of the carnage on its Web site.

Mutilated and torn bodies lay amid rubble and burned cars outside the General Security Directorate and a building housing a branch of the military intelligence service, as bystanders and ambulance workers carried victims to vehicles, the Associated Press reported.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner expressed sympathy for the victims of the bombing, saying, “There is no justification for terrorism of any kind.” But he stressed that the violence should not derail the Arab League’s efforts to monitor human-rights abuses.

“We hope that this mission will proceed unfettered in an atmosphere of nonviolence,” Toner said. “The burden is on the regime to cooperate fully and quickly with the monitoring mission.”

Citing a slow shift in recent months from peaceful protests to violent opposition, some analysts said it was possible — though not certain — that the bombings were the work of an opposition group.

“We are not going to know unless someone makes a claim,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It could be useful for the Syrian government to blame al-Qaeda for such an attack, he added, even if there is no claim by the group or evidence that it was responsible.

“Just as Gaddafi found it convenient early on to blame everything on al-Qaeda,” Cordesman said, “so Assad finds it a very convenient way to say, ‘This is not a domestic resistance.’ ” He referred to Moammar Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman who was driven from power in August and killed by rebels who captured him in October.

Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, a branch of the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said he was “deeply skeptical” of claims that either al-Qaeda or an opposition group could have staged such an attack in Damascus.

“Syria doesn’t really have a record of this,” Shaikh said. “The security forces have not lost control of the situation to such an extent that this would seem likely.”

Shaikh also said it seemed suspicious that the media reported the attack so quickly, with pictures showing the car bombs already cleared away.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission called the bombings a “pathetic move” by the Syrian government and a “feeble attempt to plant fear and terror in the hearts of civilians.”

Warrick contributed from Washington.

Hamas Embraces non-Violent Resistance

2011-12-19T10:04:00.000+02:00

This analysis is shallow and offers a simplistic conception of what is moderate and radical. Resistance is always radical because it aims to dramatically alter the status quo in relation to not only Israel but also the existing economic, social and political structures. Thus many Islamist parties can be both democratic and radical. But still the news is important.

Hamas Moves away from Violence in Deal with Palestinian Authority

Islamic party that has controlled Gaza for five years is to shift emphasis away from armed struggle to non-violent resistance.

By Phoebe Greenwood in Gaza City
The Guardian
Sunday 18 December 2011

Hamas has confirmed that it will shift tactics away from violent attacks on Israel as part of a rapprochement with the Palestinian Authority.

A spokesman for the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, told the Guardian that the Islamic party, which has controlled Gaza for the past five years, was shifting its emphasis from armed struggle to non-violent resistance.

"Violence is no longer the primary option but if Israel pushes us, we reserve the right to defend ourselves with force," said the spokesman, Taher al-Nounu. On this understanding, he said, all Palestinian factions operating in the Gaza Strip have agreed to halt the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel.

The announcement on Sunday does not qualify as a full repudiation of violence, but marks a step away from violent extremism by the Hamas leadership towards the more progressive Islamism espoused by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.

The approach was concluded at recent talks between Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in Cairo. Senior delegations representing the two factions met again in the Egyptian capital on Sunday to forge ahead with efforts to form a reconciled Palestinian government.

Iran recently cut its financial support to Hamas in a punitive response to moves within the Palestinian faction to relocate its exiled leadership, including Meshaal, from its base in Syria. Many among the Hamas rank and file have criticised their former ally, President Bashar Assad's violent assault on Syrian civilians.

Hamas believes the events of the Arab spring, in which uprisings have thrown off the old autocratic order and ushered in democratic, moderate Islamic governments in Tunisia and Egypt, have changed the landscape of the Middle East and is repositioning itself accordingly away from the Syria-Iran axis that has sustained it for decades, closer to the orbit of regional lslamist powers like Turkey and Qatar.

"European countries in particular see that the Muslim Brotherhood is a special kind of Islamic movement that is not radical. It could be the same with Hamas," said Nouno.

In a further concession to international legitimacy, the Hamas leadership confirmed on Sunday that it could entertain discussions regarding a peace agreement with Israel if the Quartet of peacebroking powers agree to modify its preconditions. Hamas will accept the foundation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders but stands firm in its refusal to acknowledge the state of Israel.

This softened tone on the international stage is not yet evident in Haniya's domestic rhetoric. Speaking at a rally in Kateeba Square, Gaza City, to mark the 24th anniversary of the foundation of the movement last week, the prime minister vowed to continue the "resistance".

"The resistance and the armed struggle are the way and the strategic choice for liberating Palestinian land from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea," he said.

The next step towards reconciliation will be made on Tuesday when representatives from all Palestinian factions meet in Cairo. Despite the process, officials within both Hamas and Fatah are sceptical that the effort will be successful. Hamas cites Abbas' insistence that Salam Fayyad continue as prime minister in a reconciled government as an obstacle to unity.

Post-Election Violence in Egypt

2011-12-17T11:27:00.000+02:00

Egypt’s Military Clashes with Protesters in Cairo for Second Consecutive Day

By Associated Press
Saturday, December 17 2011

CAIRO — Egyptian soldiers clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in a resurgence of turmoil just days after millions voted in parliamentary elections.

The MENA state news agency said at least eight people have been killed in the clashes that have underlined the simmering tensions between activists and security officers. The violence also threatened to spark a new cycle of fighting after deadly clashes between youth revolutionaries and security forces in November that lasted for days and left more than 40 dead.

After a full day of clashes Friday, hundreds of protesters hurled stones early Saturday at security forces that have sealed off the streets around the country’s parliament building with barbed wire and large concrete blocks. Soldiers on rooftops pelted the crowds below with stones, prompting many of the protesters to pick up helmets, satellite dishes or sheets of metal to try to protect themselves.

Witnesses said that soldiers chased protesters through the streets, forcing them to retreat to nearby Tahrir Square, which served as the epicenter of the uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February.

The violence first began late Thursday after soldiers stormed an antimilitary protest camp outside the Cabinet building near Tahrir Square, expelling demonstrators demanding an end to military rule and an immediate transfer of power to a civilian authority. Witnesses said troops snatched a protester, taking him into the parliament building and beating him. The troops later moved in, burning protesters’ tents.

The military took over after longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular revolt in February. Rights groups and activists charge that the military is carrying on the practices of the old regime, including arresting and beating dissidents.

MENA said around 300 people have been injured in the ongoing clashes.

Funerals were expected Saturday for those killed a day earlier. Among the dead was Sheik Emad Effat, a cleric from Al-Azhar, Egypt’s most eminent religious institution. Effat had taken a pro-revolutionary position, criticizing the military and issuing a religious decree forbidding voting for former members of the regime in elections. He was shot in the chest after joining the protesters outside the Cabinet.

Many Egyptians have grown increasingly wary of the military and frustrated with its handling of the country’s transition period, and many activists accuse it of trying to hang on to power.

Mustafa Ali, a protester who was wounded by pellet shot in clashes last month, on Saturday accused the ruling generals of instigating the violence to “find a justification to remain in power and divide up people into factions.”

In a statement read on state TV Friday night, the ruling military said its forces did not intend to break up the protest and said officers showed self-restraint, denying the used any gunfire. It said the clashes began when a military officer was attacked while on duty and protesters tried to break into the parliament compound.

The young activists who led the protests against Mubarak have not translated that success into results at the polls, where Islamist parties won a clear majority of seats in the first round of voting last month over the more liberal parties that emerged from the uprising. Results from this week’s second round are expected in the coming days, with the rest of the country set to vote next month.

Images of troops protecting polling centers and soldiers carrying the elderly to the polls have served to boost the military’s image as guardians of the country. The military remains the ultimate authority on all matters of state in absence of a president.

The second round of voting took place Wednesday and Thursday in nine of the country’s 27 provinces. It covered vast rural areas where the religious stand of Islamist parties has strong support.

Revealing Documents about the Occupation of Iraq

2011-12-15T10:41:00.000+02:00

Junkyard Gives Up Secret Accounts of Massacre in Iraq

By Michael S. Schmidt
The New York Times
December 14, 2011

BAGHDAD — One by one, the Marines sat down, swore to tell the truth and began to give secret interviews discussing one of the most horrific episodes of America’s time in Iraq: the 2005 massacre by Marines of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha.

“I mean, whether it’s a result of our action or other action, you know, discovering 20 bodies, throats slit, 20 bodies, you know, beheaded, 20 bodies here, 20 bodies there,” Col. Thomas Cariker, a commander in Anbar Province at the time, told investigators as he described the chaos of Iraq. At times, he said, deaths were caused by “grenade attacks on a checkpoint and, you know, collateral with civilians.”

The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.

The documents — many marked secret — form part of the military’s internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers.

Haditha became a defining moment of the war, helping cement an enduring Iraqi distrust of the United States and a resentment that not one Marine has been convicted. That is one of the main reasons that all American combat troops are leaving by the weekend.

But the accounts are just as striking for what they reveal about the extraordinary strains on the soldiers who were assigned here, their frustrations and their frequently painful encounters with a population they did not understand. In their own words, the report documents the dehumanizing nature of this war, where Marines came to view 20 dead civilians as not “remarkable,” but as routine.

Iraqi civilians were being killed all the time. Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar, in his own testimony, described it as “a cost of doing business.”

The stress of combat left some soldiers paralyzed, the testimony shows. Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow soldiers snapped pictures, and were court-martialed. The bodies piled up at a time when the war had gone horribly wrong.

Charges were dropped against six of the accused Marines in the Haditha episode, one was acquitted and the last remaining case against one Marine is scheduled to go to trial next year.

That sense of American impunity ultimately poisoned any chance for American forces to remain in Iraq, because the Iraqis would not let them stay without being subject to Iraqi laws and courts, a condition the White House could not accept.

Told about the documents that had been found, Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, said that many of the documents remained classified and should have been destroyed. “Despite the way in which they were improperly discarded and came into your possession, we are not at liberty to discuss classified information,” he said.

He added: “We take any breach of classified information as an extremely serious matter. In this case, the documents are being reviewed to determine whether an investigation is warranted.” The military said it did not know from which investigation the documents had come, but the papers appear to be from an inquiry by Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell into the events in Haditha. The documents ultimately led to a report that concluded that the Marine Corps’s chain of command engaged in “willful negligence” in failing to investigate the episode and that Marine commanders were far too willing to tolerate civilian casualties. That report, however, did not include the transcripts.

Under Pressure

Many of those testifying at bases in Iraq or the United States were clearly under scrutiny for not investigating an atrocity and may have tried to shape their statements to dispel any notion that they had sought to cover up the events. But the accounts also show the consternation of the Marines as they struggled to control an unfamiliar land and its people in what amounted to a constant state of siege from fighters who were nearly indistinguishable from noncombatants.

Some, feeling they were under attack constantly, decided to use force first and ask questions later. If Marines took fire from a building, they would often level it. Drivers who approached checkpoints without stopping were assumed to be suicide bombers.

“When a car doesn’t stop, it crosses the trigger line, Marines engage and, yes, sir, there are people inside the car that are killed that have nothing to do with it,” Sgt. Maj. Edward T. Sax, the battalion’s senior noncommissioned officer, testified.

He added, “I had Marines shoot children in cars and deal with the Marines individually one on one about it because they have a hard time dealing with that.”

Sergeant Major Sax said he would ask the Marines responsible if they had known there had been children in the car. When they said no, he said he would tell them they were not at fault. He said he felt for the Marines who had fired the shots, saying they would carry a lifelong burden.

“It is one thing to kill an insurgent in a head-on fight,” Sergeant Major Sax testified. “It is a whole different thing — and I hate to say it, the way we are raised in America — to injure a female or injure a child or in the worse case, kill a female or kill a child.”

They could not understand why so many Iraqis just did not stop at checkpoints and speculated that it was because of illiteracy or poor eyesight.

“They don’t have glasses and stuff,” Col. John Ledoux said. “It really makes you wonder because some of the things that they would do just to keep coming. You know, it’s hard to imagine they would just keep coming, but sometimes they do.”

Such was the environment in 2005, when the Marines from Company K of the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton, Calif., arrived in Anbar Province, where Haditha is located, many for their second or third tours in Iraq.

The province had become a stronghold for disenfranchised Sunnis and foreign fighters who wanted to expel the United States from Iraq, or just kill as many Americans as possible. Of the 4,483 American deaths in Iraq, 1,335 happened in Anbar.

In 2004, four Blackwater contractors were gunned down and dragged through the streets of Falluja, their bodies burned and hung on a bridge over the Euphrates. Days later, the United States military moved into the city, and chaos ensued in Anbar Province for the next two years as the Americans tried to fight off the insurgents.

The stress of combat soon bore down. A legal adviser to the Marine unit stopped taking his medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder and stopped functioning.

“We had the one where Marines had photographed themselves taking shots at people,” Col. R. Kelly testified, saying that they immediately called the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and “confiscated their little camera.” He said the soldiers involved received a court-martial.

All of this set the stage for what happened in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.

A Tragedy Ensues

That morning, a military convoy of four vehicles was heading to an outpost in Haditha when one of the vehicles was hit by a roadside bomb.

Several Marines got out to attend to the wounded, including one who eventually died, while others looked for insurgents who might have set off the bomb. Within a few hours 24 Iraqis — including a 76-year-old man and children between the ages of 3 and 15 — were killed, many inside their homes.

Townspeople contended that the Marines overreacted to the attack and shot civilians, only one of whom was armed. The Marines said they thought they were under attack.

When the initial reports arrived saying more than 20 civilians had been killed in Haditha, the Marines receiving them said they were not surprised by the high civilian death toll.

Chief Warrant Officer K. R. Norwood, who received reports from the field on the day of the killings and briefed commanders on them, testified that 20 dead civilians was not unusual.

“I meant, it wasn’t remarkable, based off of the area I wouldn’t say remarkable, sir,” Mr. Norwood said. “And that is just my definition. Not that I think one life is not remarkable, it’s just —”

An investigator asked the officer: “I mean remarkable or noteworthy in terms of something that would have caught your attention where you would have immediately said, ‘Got to have more information on that. That is a lot of casualties.’ ”

“Not at the time, sir,” the officer testified.

General Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar Province, said he did not feel compelled to go back and examine the events because they were part of a continuing pattern of civilian deaths.

“It happened all the time, not necessarily in MNF-West all the time, but throughout the whole country,” General Johnson testified, using a military abbreviation for allied forces in western Iraq.

“So, you know, maybe — I guess maybe if I was sitting here at Quantico and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and gone — done more to look into it,” he testified, referring to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. “But at that point in time, I felt that was — had been, for whatever reason, part of that engagement and felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement.”

When Marines arrived on the scene to assess the number of dead bodies, at least one Marine thought it would be a good time to take pictures for his own keeping.

“I know I had one Marine who was taking pictures just to take pictures and I told him to delete all those pictures,” testified a first lieutenant identified as M. D. Frank.

The documents uncovered by The Times — which include handwritten notes from soldiers, waivers by Marines of their right against self-incrimination, diagrams of where dead women and children were found, and pictures of the site where the Marine was killed by a roadside bomb on the day of the massacre — remain classified.

In a meeting with journalists in October, before the military had been told about the discovery of the documents, the American commander in charge of the logistics of the withdrawal said that files from the bases were either transferred to other parts of the military or incinerated.

“We don’t put official paperwork in the trash,” said the commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas Richardson, at the meeting at the American Embassy in Baghdad.

The documents were piled in military trailers and hauled to the junkyard by an Iraqi contractor who was trying to sell off the surplus from American bases, the junkyard attendant said. The attendant said he had no idea what any of the documents were about, only that they were important to the Americans.

He said that over the course of several weeks he had burned dozens and dozens of binders, turning more untold stories about the war into ash.

“What can we do with them?” the attendant said. “These things are worthless to us, but we understand they are important and it is better to burn them to protect the Americans. If they are leaving, it must mean their work here is done.”

Yasir Ghazi contributed reporting.

Palestinians Rally for Hamas in Gaza

2011-12-14T15:28:00.000+02:00

Hamas' Gaza Anniversary Draws Tens of Thousands

By Ibrahim Barzak
Associated Press
Wednesday 14 December 2011

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Tens of thousands of Gazans turned out Wednesday for an anniversary rally of the ruling Hamas, a demonstration of strength for the Islamic militant movement ahead of Palestinian general elections tentatively set for the spring.

The annual rally has become an increasingly elaborate exercise in stagecraft since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 following internal fighting with forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The crowd faced a huge stage in the shape of a ship, meant to symbolize the Palestinian journey of return to all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, including what is now Israel.

A large replica of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque, built on the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples, served as a backdrop. "Oh, Jerusalem, we are coming," read one of the banners.

Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told the crowd that Hamas is "closer to liberating the holy land and holy shrines and closer to another great victory in coming elections."

Hamas, a branch of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, was established in Gaza in December 1987, shortly after the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. It adopted a militant ideology that called for armed struggle against Israel, with the eventual aim of reclaiming all of historic Palestine.

Hamas grew in popularity over the years, in part because of its social welfare system, and defeated Abbas' Fatah movement in parliament elections in 2006. It has accumulated a large arsenal of rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosives. As part of its anniversary statement, Hamas said its militants have fired more than 11,000 rockets and mortar shells at Israel since 2000, and that the group has killed more than 1,300 Israelis in scores of attacks since its founding.

In the statement, Hamas said it would continue "all forms of resistance against the occupation, until liberation, independence and the return of the Palestinian refugees."

However, Hamas has largely stuck to an informal truce with Israel in recent months, and has tried to prevent other militant groups from firing rockets at Israel from Gaza. Rocket attacks on Israel have dropped sharply since a major Israeli military offensive against Hamas in the winter of 2008-2009.

Hamas organizers said some 350,000 people attended Wednesday's rally. The estimate could not be confirmed independently, but the rally site, a large open area, was packed and an overflow crowd spilled into adjacent streets.

The rally came a week before another round of reconciliation talks between Abbas and Hamas' top leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.

The leaders said last month that they are ready for better relations, after years of acrimony, but failed to chart a clear path to new elections, tentatively set for May. Despite the apparent goodwill, gaps between the rivals are deep, and officials from both sides said it would be unlikely progress can be made at next week's talks in Cairo.

Since the takeover in 2007, Hamas has cemented control over Gaza, while a rival government reporting to Abbas has run parts of the West Bank, though Israel retains overall security control there.

On Wednesday, Israeli troops arrested a Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank, Ayman Daraghmeh, taking him from his home in the town of Ramallah, his family said. Israel has repeatedly detained members of the Hamas faction in the now-defunct Palestinian parliament, chosen in 2006 elections in the West Bank.

Of 47 Hamas legislators from the West Bank and east Jerusalem, 20 are currently in jail, the movement said. Daraghmeh, considered a Hamas pragmatist, was previously held for 20 months and released a year ago.

Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank contributed reporting.

Criminalizing Islam in America

2011-12-11T19:56:00.000+02:00

Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates

By Scott Shane
The New York Times
December 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — It is the other Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate.

An aggressive prosecution strategy, aimed at prevention as much as punishment, has sent away scores of people. They serve long sentences, often in restrictive, Muslim-majority units, under intensive monitoring by prison officers. Their world is spare.

Among them is Ismail Royer, serving 20 years for helping friends go to an extremist training camp in Pakistan. In a letter from the highest-security prison in the United States, Mr. Royer describes his remarkable neighbors at twice-a-week outdoor exercise sessions, each prisoner alone in his own wire cage under the Colorado sky. “That’s really the only interaction I have with other inmates,” he wrote from the federal Supermax, 100 miles south of Denver.

There is Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, Mr. Royer wrote. Terry Nichols, who conspired to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building. Ahmed Ressam, the would-be “millennium bomber,” who plotted to attack Los Angeles International Airport. And Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

In recent weeks, Congress has reignited an old debate, with some arguing that only military justice is appropriate for terrorist suspects. But military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly — $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.

The criminal justice system, meanwhile, has absorbed the surge of terrorism cases since 2001 without calamity, and without the international criticism that Guantánamo has attracted for holding prisoners without trial. A decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, an examination of how the prisons have handled the challenge of extremist violence reveals some striking facts:

¶ Big numbers. Today, 171 prisoners remain at Guantánamo. As of Oct. 1, the federal Bureau of Prisons reported that it was holding 362 people convicted in terrorism-related cases, 269 with what the bureau calls a connection to international terrorism — up from just 50 in 2000. An additional 93 inmates have a connection to domestic terrorism.

¶ Lengthy sentences. Terrorists who plotted to massacre Americans are likely to die in prison. Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the Supermax, as are Zacarias Moussaoui, a Qaeda operative arrested in 2001, and Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, among others. But many inmates whose conduct fell far short of outright terrorism are serving sentences of a decade or more, the result of a calculated prevention strategy to sideline radicals well before they could initiate deadly plots.

¶ Special units. Since 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has moved many of those convicted in terrorism cases to two special units that severely restrict visits and phone calls. But in creating what are Muslim-dominated units, prison officials have inadvertently fostered a sense of solidarity and defiance, and set off a long-running legal dispute over limits on group prayer. Officials have warned in court filings about the danger of radicalization, but the Bureau of Prisons has nothing comparable to the deradicalization programs instituted in many countries.

¶ Quiet releases. More than 300 prisoners have completed their sentences and been freed since 2001. Their convictions involved not outright violence but “material support” for a terrorist group; financial or document fraud; weapons violations; and a range of other crimes. About half are foreign citizens and were deported; the Americans have blended into communities around the country, refusing news media interviews and avoiding attention.

¶ Rare recidivism. By contrast with the record at Guantánamo, where the Defense Department says that about 25 percent of those released are known or suspected of subsequently joining militant groups, it appears extraordinarily rare for the federal prison inmates with past terrorist ties to plot violence after their release. The government keeps a close eye on them: prison intelligence officers report regularly to the Justice Department on visitors, letters and phone calls of inmates linked to terrorism. Before the prisoners are freed, F.B.I. agents typically interview them, and probation officers track them for years.

Both the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress often cite the threat of homegrown terrorism. But the Bureau of Prisons has proven remarkably resistant to outside scrutiny of the inmates it houses, who might offer a unique window on the problem.

In 2009, a group of scholars proposed interviewing people imprisoned in terrorism cases about how they took that path. The Department of Homeland Security approved the proposal and offered financing. But the Bureau of Prisons refused to grant access, saying the project would require too much staff time.

“There’s a huge national debate about how dangerous these people are,” said Gary LaFree, director of a national terrorism study center at the University of Maryland, who was lead author of the proposal. “I just think, as a citizen, somebody ought to be studying this.”

The Bureau of Prisons would not make any officials available for an interview with The New York Times, and wardens at three prisons refused to permit a reporter to visit inmates. But e-mails and letters from inmates give a rare, if narrow, look at their hidden world.

Paying the Price

Consider the case of Randall Todd Royer, 38, a Missouri-born Muslim convert who goes by Ismail. Before 9/11, he was a young Islamic activist with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society, meeting with members of Congress and visiting the Clinton White House.

Today he is nearly eight years into a 20-year prison sentence. He pleaded guilty in 2004 to helping several American friends go to a training camp for Lashkar-e-Taiba, an extremist group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. The organization was later designated a terrorist group by the United States — and is blamed for the Mumbai massacre in 2008 — but prosecutors maintained in 2004 that the friends intended to go on to Afghanistan and fight American troops alongside the Taliban.

Mr. Royer had fought briefly with the Bosnian Muslims against their Serbian neighbors in the mid-1990s, when NATO, too, backed the Bosnians. He trained at a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp himself. And in 2001, he was stopped by Virginia police with an AK-47 and ammunition in his car.

But he adamantly denies that he would ever scheme to kill Americans, and there is no evidence that he did so. Before sentencing, he wrote the judge a 30-page letter admitting, “I crossed the line and, in my ignorance and phenomenally poor judgment, broke the law.” In grand jury testimony, he expressed regret about not objecting during a meeting, just after the Sept. 11 attacks, in which his friends discussed joining the Taliban.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t come out and clearly say that’s not what any of us should be about,” he said.

Prosecutors call Mr. Royer “an inveterate liar“ in court papers in another case, asserting that he has given contradictory accounts of the meeting after Sept. 11. Mr. Royer says he has been truthful.

Whatever the facts, he is paying the price. His 20-year sentence was the statutory minimum under a 2004 plea deal he reluctantly took, fearing that a trial might end in a life term. His wife divorced him and remarried; he has seen his four young children only through glass since 2006, when the Bureau of Prisons moved him to a restrictive new unit in Indiana for inmates with the terrorism label. After an altercation with another inmate who he said was bullying others, he was moved in 2010 to the Supermax in Colorado.

He is barred from using e-mail and permitted only three 15-minute phone calls a month — recently increased from two, a move that Mr. Royer hopes may portend his being moved to a prison closer to his children. His letters are reflective, sometimes self-critical, frequently dropping allusions to his omnivorous reading. His flirtation with violent Islam and his incarceration, he says, have not poisoned him against his own country.

“You asked what I think of the U.S.; that is an extraordinarily complex question,” Mr. Royer wrote in one letter consisting of 27 pages of neat handwriting. “I can say I was born in Missouri, I love that land and its people, I love the Mississippi, I love my family and my cousins, I love my Germanic ethnic heritage and people, I love the English language, I love the American people — my people.

“He said he believed some American foreign policy positions had been “needlessly antagonistic” but added, “Nothing the U.S. did justified the 9/11 attacks.”

Mr. Royer rejected the notion that the United States was at war with Islam. “Conflict between the U.S. and Muslims is neither inevitable nor beneficial or in anyone’s interest,” he wrote. “Actually, I suppose it is in the interest of fanatics on both sides, but their interests run counter to everyone else’s.” He added an erudite footnote: “ ‘Les extrémités se touchent’ (the extremes meet) — Blaise Pascal.”

He expressed frustration that the Bureau of Prisons appears to view him as an extremist, despite what he describes as his campaign against extremism in discussions with other inmates and prison sermons at Friday Prayer, “which they surely have recordings of.”

“I have gotten into vehement debates, not to mention civil conversations, with other inmates from the day I was arrested until today, about the dangers and evils of extremism and terrorism,” Mr. Royer wrote in a yearlong correspondence with a reporter. “Can they not figure out who I am?”

A Scorched-Earth Approach

In 2004, prosecutors believed they knew who Mr. Royer was: one of a group of young Virginians under the influence of a radical cleric, Ali al-Timimi, whose members played paintball to practice for jihad and were on a path toward extremist violence. After Sept. 11, federal prosecutors took a scorched-earth approach to any crime with even a hint of a terrorism connection, and judges and juries went along.

In the Virginia jihad case, for instance, prosecutors used the Neutrality Act, a little-used law dating to 1794 that prohibits Americans from fighting against a nation at peace with the United States. Prosecutors combined that law with weapons statutes that impose a mandatory minimum sentence in a strategy to get the longest prison terms, with breaks for some defendants who cooperated, said Paul J. McNulty, then the United States attorney overseeing the case.

“We were doing all we could to prevent the next attack,” Mr. McNulty said.

“It was a deterrence strategy and a show of strength,” said Karen J. Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham University who has overseen the most thorough independent analysis of terrorism prosecutions. “The attitude of the government was: Every step you take toward terrorism, no matter how small, will be punished severely.”

About 40 percent of terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 attacks have relied on informants, by the count of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which Ms. Greenberg headed until earlier this year. In such cases, the F.B.I. has trolled for radicals and then tested whether they were willing to plot mayhem — again, a pre-emptive strategy intended to ferret out potential terrorists. But in some cases prosecutors have been accused of overreaching.

Yassin M. Aref, for instance, was a Kurdish immigrant from Iraq and the imam of an Albany mosque when he agreed to serve as witness to a loan between an acquaintance and another man, actually an informant posing as a supporter of a Pakistani terrorist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad. The ostensible purpose of the loan was to buy a missile to kill the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Aref’s involvement was peripheral — but he was convicted of conspiring to aid a terrorist group and got a 15-year sentence.

That was a typical punishment, according to the Center on Law and Security, which has studied the issue. Of 204 people charged with what it calls serious jihadist crimes since the Sept. 11 attacks, 87 percent were convicted and got an average sentence of 14 years, according to a September report from the center.

Federal officials say the government’s zero-tolerance approach to any conduct touching on terrorism is an important reason there has been no repeat of Sept. 11. Lengthy sentences for marginal offenders have been criticized by some rights advocates as deeply unfair — but they have sent an unmistakable message to young men drawn to the rhetoric of violent jihad.

The strategy has also sent scores of Muslim men to federal prisons.

Special Units

After news reports in 2006 that three men imprisoned in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had sent letters to a Spanish terrorist cell, the Bureau of Prisons created two special wards, called Communication Management Units, or C.M.U.’s. The units, which opened at federal prisons in Terre Haute, Ind., in 2006 and Marion, Ill., in 2008, have set off litigation and controversy, chiefly because critics say they impose especially restrictive rules on Muslim inmates, who are in the majority.

“The C.M.U.’s? You mean the Muslim Management Units?” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The units currently hold about 80 inmates. The rules for visitors — who are allowed no physical contact with inmates — and the strict monitoring of mail, e-mail and phone calls are intended both to prevent inmates from radicalizing others and to rule out plotting from behind bars.

A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, Traci L. Billingsley, said in an e-mail that the units were not created for any religious group but were “necessary to ensure the safety, security and orderly operation of correctional facilities, and protection of the public.”

An unintended consequence of creating the C.M.U.’s is a continuing conflict between Muslim inmates and guards, mainly over the inmates’ demand for collective prayer beyond the authorized hourlong group prayer on Fridays. The clash is described in hundreds of pages of court filings in a lawsuit. In one affidavit, a prison official in Terre Haute describes “signs of radicalization” in the unit, saying one inmate’s language showed “defiance to authority, and a sense of being incarcerated because of Islam.”

One 2010 written protest obtained by The New York Times, listing grievances ranging from the no-contact visiting rules to guards “mocking, disrespecting and disrupting” Friday Prayer, was signed by 17 Muslim prisoners in the Terre Haute Communication Management Unit. They included members of the so-called Virginia jihad case of which Mr. Royer was part; the Lackawanna Six, Buffalo-area Yemeni Americans who traveled to a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan; Kevin James, who formed a radical Muslim group in prison and plotted to attack military facilities in Los Angeles; and John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban.

An affidavit signed by Mr. Lindh, who is serving 20 years after admitting to fighting for the Taliban, complained that a correctional officer greeted male Muslim inmates with “Good morning, ladies.” (“No ladies were in the area,” Mr. Lindh writes.) Prison officials say in court papers that Mr. Lindh has repeatedly challenged guards and violated rules.

Unlike those at the Supermax, inmates in the segregated units have access to e-mail, and some were willing to answer questions. Mr. Lindh, whose father, Frank Lindh, said his son believed the news media falsely labeled him a terrorist, was not. In reply to a reporter’s letter requesting an interview, he sent only a photocopy of the sole of a tennis shoe. Since shoe bottoms are considered offensive in many cultures, his answer appeared to be an emphatic no.

There is some evidence that the Bureau of Prisons has assigned Muslims with no clear terrorist connection to the C.M.U.’s. Avon Twitty, a Muslim who spent 27 years in prison for a 1982 street murder, was sent to the Terre Haute unit in 2007. When he challenged the assignment, he was told in writing that he was a “member of an international terrorist organization,” though no organization was named and there appears to be no public evidence for the assertion.

Mr. Twitty, working for a home improvement company and teaching at a Washington mosque since his release in January, said he believed the real reason was to quash his complaints about what he believed were miscalculations of time off for good behavior for numerous inmates. “They had to shut me up,” he said.

Another former inmate at the Marion C.M.U., Andy Stepanian, an animal rights activist, said a guard once told him he was “a balancer” — a non-Muslim placed in the unit to rebut claims of religious bias. Mr. Stepanian said the creation of the predominantly Muslim units could backfire, adding to the feeling that Islam is under attack.

“I think it’s a fair assessment that these men will leave with a more intensified belief that the U.S. is at war with Islam,” said Mr. Stepanian, 33, who now works for a Princeton publisher. “The place reeked of it,” he said, describing clashes over restrictions on prayer and some guards’ hostility to Islam.

Yet Mr. Stepanian also said he found the “family atmosphere” and camaraderie of inmates at the unit a welcome change from the threatening tone of his previous medium-security prison, where he said prisoners without a gang to protect them were “food for the sharks.” When he arrived at the C.M.U., he said, he found on his bed a pair of shower slippers and a bag of non-animal-based food that Muslim inmates had collected after hearing a vegan was joining the unit.

He was wary. “I thought they were trying to indoctrinate me,” he said. “They never tried.” The consensus of the inmates, he said, “was that 9/11 was not Islam.” “These guys were not lunatics,” he said. “They wanted to be back with their families.”

Reflection

It may be too early to judge recidivism for those imprisoned in terrorism cases after Sept. 11; those who are already out are mostly defendants whose crimes were less serious or who cooperated with the authorities. Justice Department officials and outside experts could identify only a handful of cases in which released inmates had been rearrested, a rate of relapse far below that for most federal inmates or for Guantánamo releases.

For example, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a Kuwaiti Canadian who plotted with Al Qaeda to attack American embassies in Singapore and Manila, pleaded guilty in 2002 and began to work as an F.B.I. informant. But F.B.I. agents soon discovered he was secretly plotting to kill them — and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Nearly all of these ex-convicts, however, lie low and steer clear of militancy, often under the watchful eye of family, mosque and community, lawyers and advocates say. A dozen former inmates declined to be interviewed, saying that to be associated publicly with a terrorism case could derail new jobs and lives. As for Mr. Royer, he is approaching only the midpoint of his 20-year sentence.

Did he get what he deserved? Chris Heffelfinger, a terrorism analyst and author of “Radical Islam in America,” did a detailed study of the Virginia jihad case, and concluded that Mr. Royer’s sentence was perhaps double what his crime merited. But he said the prosecution was warranted and probably prevented at least some of the men Mr. Royer assisted from joining the Taliban.

“I think a strong law enforcement response to cases like this is appropriate nine times out of 10,” Mr. Heffelfinger said. Mr. Royer himself, in his long presentencing letter to Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, said he understood why he had been arrested. “I realize that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from terrorism,” he wrote, “and that in this post-9/11 environment, it must take all reasonable precautions.”

Today, Mr. Royer’s only battle is to serve out his sentence in a less restrictive prison nearer his children. In what he called in a letter “a heroic sacrifice,” his parents, Ray and Nancy Royer, moved from Missouri to Virginia to be close to their son’s children, now aged 8 to 12.

“I found it necessary to be a surrogate father,” said Ray Royer, 70, a commercial photographer by trade, in an interview at the retirement community outside Washington where he and his wife now live. When his son, who still goes by Randy in the family, converted to Islam at the age of 18, his parents did not object. Later, when he headed to Bosnia, they chalked it up to his active social conscience. “Religion is a personal thing,” the elder Mr. Royer said. “He’d never been in trouble.”

Ray Royer was at his son’s Virginia apartment in 2003 when the F.B.I. knocked at 5 a.m., put him in handcuffs and took him away. Now, years later, he alternates between defending his son and expressing dismay at what Randy got himself into.

“He did help his buddies get to L.E.T.,” or Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group later designated as a terrorist organization. “He admitted to it. He should pay the price.” Still, he added, “maybe he deserved five years or so. Not 20.”

Ray Royer sat at his home computer one recent evening, looking through a folder called “Randy Pics” — photographs tracing his son’s life from childhood, to fatherhood, to prison.

“He loved his family,” the father said of his son. “Why would he put this cause ahead of his family? I still don’t really know what happened. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

English Translation of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's Speech 6 December 2011

2011-12-09T12:58:00.000+02:00

In His Name

The Speech delivered by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Raya Square on the tenth of Muharram.

The word given on the platform

In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. May Allah reward you and us generously for our great catastrophe which afflicted us by the martyrdom of Abi Abdullah Al Hussein (Peace be upon him).

Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings. I liked to be among you for a few of minutes. They allowed me to do so for that long only or else I would have liked to be among you always.

I wanted to be with you on the tenth of Muharram for a few of moments so that we reiterate together and make the whole world hear us saying our final choice and reiterating our pledge to Al Hussein who stood all by himself facing 30 thousand men. He was a true manifestation of his father Ali Bin Abi Taleb (Peace be upon him) who used to say: "By Allah, were I to confront them all by myself and they were as numerous so as to fill the whole world, I wouldn't have cared or felt scared." Al Hussein was put before two choices: "The bastard son of a bastard has put us before two choices: war or humiliation". Forever and no matter what the challenges and the dangers might be we tell all those who bet on scaring us, weakening us or threatening us that we are the companions of Abi Abdullah Al Hussein (Peace be upon him) who said: Humiliation, how remote!

Brothers and sisters! On the tenth day of Muharram, we renew our pledge to Al Hussein (Peace be upon him). We say what his companions told him on the tenth night of Muharram: Shall we remain alive after your decease? Shall we remain alive after your decease? May Allah make life unpleasant after your decease O Hussein. By Allah, if I were to be killed then incinerated, then spread in air, then resurrected, then I fight and be killed, then incinerated, then spread in air – if that is to be made by me a 1000 times – I will not abandon you O Hussein. Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.

The televised word

I Take refuge in Allah from the stoned devil. In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, The Lord of the World. Peace be on our Master and Prophet – The Seal of Prophets – Mohammad and on his Chaste Household, chosen companions and all prophets and messengers.

Peace be on you my master and Lord Abu Abdullah and on all the souls gathering around your holy site. Peace be on you as long as I remain alive and as long as night follows day. May Allah make it not my last visit to you. Peace be on Hussein, Ali the son of Hussein, the children of Hussein and the companions of Hussein.

Peace be on you scholars, brothers and sisters. Peace be on you all and Allah's mercy and blessing. May Allah reward you and us generously for the catastrophe afflicted on the prophet of Allah and his Household peace be upon him.

First I would like to thank you all for this great attendance, for the faithfulness, the pledge, the commitment and the patience. You have spent last night awaken. Still you woke up early and spent all this time under the sun. As in all the previous years, neither the hot summer nor the cold winter hindered you from attending the meeting of faithfulness with your lord Abi Abdullah Al Hussein (Peace be upon him).

I thank you for your massive attendance. May Allah Al Mighty accept your efforts.

On the tenth of Muharram – on the day of the martyrdom of Abi Abdullah All Hussein and his Household and companion and what afflicted him – I along with you offer our consolation and solace to the Master – the Prophet of Allah (peace be on him) and the Household of the Prophet of Allah (Peace be upon him), our Imams (peace be upon them), our Master – Baqiyetullah on Earth, the grandson of Imam Hussein, the Lord of Our Time May Allah make his appearance near – his righteous deputy, His Eminence Imam Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenai (May Allah prolong his age), all our great religious authorities, our Islamic nation and all Muslims especially the followers of the Prophet (Peace be upon him and his Household).

We announce our consolation and solace on this day which we mark annually to renew our commitment to our line, faith, pledge, path, steadfastness, will and determination to continue on the path on which the prophets, messengers, good men and millions of martyrs died. Karbala is but a great prominent link in this historic, great prophetic track which will remain forceful until the Hour of Resurrection.

Brothers and sisters! As we have talked about Ashura on the past nights and postponed talking politics until today, I will say a couple of words in principle.

First: We must point out, highlight and remind that the true threat to this nation, all its states, peoples and governments is the US-Israeli project – the US administration whoever its president is. It's this enemy who occupies Palestine, violates its sanctities and attacks the Palestinian people and the peoples of this region. It's the greater plunderer of our wealth and the capabilities of our nation. It's this American. It's this Israeli. What is required from our people always is that it becomes aware of this truth and not be deceived by this new American deception.

The Americans tried during this year to present themselves as defenders of human rights, the freedom of peoples and the democracy of the Arab world. We know these crook hypocrites. We know their history which is pregnant with supporting dictatorships. All of these dictatorships enjoy the support of the US administration on the political, media, intelligence, military and all other levels. Now when the people revolted and America found that its followers are collapsing and tumbling, it renounced them.

Brothers and sisters! Do you know that this is the nature of Devil as Allah portrays him in the Holy Koran? On Doom's Day, the Devil does that. When the Devil reaches with his followers a dead end, he renounces them. He depicts himself as innocent. On the contrary, he says he had no power on them.

What asserts the devilish nature of the US administration is that it abandons its followers, allies and tools at the first turning point. It abandons them and searches for its interests and for means to lessen its casualties.

Our Arab and Islamic peoples must know that the US administration is the enemy and the threat. Didn't these peoples hear US president Obama days ago addressing the Jewish Lobby and the Jewish organizations in America saying: 'My administration gave the security of Israel what no other administration gave." That's true. Even more, under Obama, the CIA turned from a great inveterate intelligence body which works on essential cases to a detective in Lebanon for the Mosad and the Israeli security apparatuses? It spies on this fighter and on that fighter. It searches for an arsenal, a rocket platform, a leadership headquarters and the house of an official. The US intelligence apparatuses turned to small spies at the service of Israel and to defend Israel.

O Arabs! O Muslims! O peoples! O political forces! Do not be taken by the US administration. It is America which is occupying your Palestine and your Al Qods and threatening your holy shrine. It is America which is responsible before the Israeli enemy for detaining thousands of Palestinians in jails besides displacing, torturing and besieging thousands others in Gaza and the West Bank. It is this America which we must recall on the tenth of Muharam so that we do not mistake the enemy as a friend. He who doesn't have insight mistakes the enemy for a friend. We must remember that the enemy is this US administration and its tool in the region. Israel is not its ally but rather its tool. It uses Israel as a spearhead to humiliate the Arabs and the Muslims, to vanquish Arabs and Muslims, to impose the US will on Arabs and Muslims, to furnish itself with arms market and to plunder the oil in the countries of Arabs and Muslims. None of us must ever forget that.

Second: Also in this framework, all of us must remember that the US administration – after its former project of a Neo Middle East was frustrated by the resistance movements in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq and the awareness of the peoples in the region and the opposing resisting countries on top of which come Iran and Syria – woke up with the awakening and revolution of the Arab peoples to renew the Neo Middle East project but from another gate. It is the gate of ordeal, internal struggle, sectarian and factional sedition and tribal, national and racial strife. That's because this is the only option which is still available before America and Israel to reproduce its domination over the region. We must all be aware of that. In this framework, we stressed and we still stress that we must avoid sectarian and factional speech or instigation because that serves Israel, America and the enemy of this nation; it does not serve this nation. We must all respect each other's sanctities. Here I stress on the fatwa of His Eminence Imam Khamenai (May Allah prolong his lifespan) to respect all sanctities and symbols of every section and faction.

Third: In this framework, we come to Al Qods, Palestine, the central cause and the axis of the struggle in the region. Today we must warn against the judaization which is taking place. We are not talking about a judaizing project. There is actual judaization. Everyday new steps are taken for achieving total judaization of Al Qods. Days ago, houses were demolished in West Al Qods. They daily take decisions to build thousands of residential units. Now there are parts of Al Qods Mosque which are threatened of demolition due to reparation works. What we fear and what we must fear is that amid the occupation of the Arab peoples in their internal crises, that Israel ceases the opportunity and strikes a final blow to Al Qods Mosque. Anyway, that'll be the worst folly Israel ever perpetrates since the establishment of this usurping entity. However, the peoples must be aware, present and alert because there is a danger of this kind which is threatening sanctities. Palestine must be the primary central cause no matter how difficult internal national situations were and no matter how struggles and conflicts aggravated in any country. This is what we believe in and what we work for.

Fourth: As far as the Arab options are concerned, we bargain on the awareness of these peoples and the options of peoples. In Tunisia, the people gained victory over their tyrant and carried out elections. We hope that the Islamic and national forces live up to the expectations and ambitions of the honest and noble Tunisian people.

In Libya, the people gained victory over their tyrant. Here also the political forces are responsible for achieving the ambitions of this people who offered thousands of martyrs.

In Yemen, the great challenge still exists. Some are trying to tear Yemen and take it back to sectarian and factional ordeal to liquidate the revolution and its targets and ambitions. That requires great awareness.

In Bahrain, the people are carrying on their peaceful movement despite all aspects of suppression, deception and hypocrisy. They still insist on achieving their legitimate national goals.

In Egypt, great changes are taking place. This made Israel shake. Even Barak mentioned that with apprehension. We all look at Egypt with hope because any true change in Egypt is for the interest of the nation and the interest of Palestine. Any true change would turn the strategic milieu for Israel in the region as that would limit Israel's options in the region. That would put Israel before a historic crisis and a crisis of existence. This is the great challenge before the Egyptian political forces which win in the elections and form the new authority in Egypt. It's the challenge of Palestine, Al Qods, Gaza, the West Bank, Camp David and the stance from this entity. We hope and we bet that the Arab peoples won't be deceived with all of this US hypocrisy. When the Arab peoples overpass their internal ordeals, they will return to their normal posts where the forces of this nation and its peoples are mustered so as to face this central cause. As such these Americans will flop as they had already flopped. Hereof I move to Iraq and then to Syria and finally to Lebanon.

In Iraq today and within few days, it is supposed that the US pull out from Iraq be wrapped up. There is a US defeat in Iraq. It's a true defeat. The Americans didn't come to Iraq to pull out from it. Their goal and expectations were to stay in Iraq, control Iraq, and establish legally and field fortified military bases for scores of years. However the heroic resistance in Iraq, the steadfastness of the Iraqi people, the steadfastness of the political forces and the high expenses of the US occupation in Iraq imposed on it to take the decision of withdrawal. I will also tell you that the Iraqi resistance operations did not receive Arab and international media coverage and that many of the resistance factions used to circulate video tapes and CDs on its clear qualitative strong effective operations on Arab and international satellites. Still the world used to neglect these operations, and still a great number of the Iraqi resistance operations were blacked out to serve the morals of the US Army and the US administration. This asserts the nature of the media and satellites which control the Arab and Islamic world.

Anyway, what took place in Iraq is a true defeat. The resistance forces and the sacrificing people of Iraq must celebrate this great victory even if there are remarks on the endings. Still in general there is a very great historic victory which is achieved by the Iraqi people and the Iraqi resistance. This must be brought to light and uncovered before the whole peoples of the region. When Israel is defeated in Lebanon and Gaza, that means that Israel is being overpowered. When America is defeated in Iraq, that means America is being overpowered. As it was overpowered in Iraq, it might be overpowered in any other country. However the Americans want to lessen the impact of the defeat; thus they are depending on evoking smoke and misleading events. In this framework, what is taking place in Syria, the threats to Iran, the story of the Saudi Ambassador to Washington and all what is taking place in the region is to preoccupy the peoples of the region from eye-witnessing the defeat of the US Army which has presented itself as the only great power in the world but was defeated by the Iraqi men and the Iraqi fighters.

Unfortunately, I say that the Americans have managed to do so to a great extent. If you watch the Arab and international satellites where is the headline on the US withdrawal from Iraq?

Where are the footages of tanks and soldiers withdrawing? Yesterday I read in the newspapers that perhaps there are still 19 or 9 thousand or 900 US soldiers. I don't know. Well how did the 150 thousands withdraw from Iraq? No one felt or watched that. The Americans managed to cover that. In fact when we watch satellites we find that the first headline is Syria; the second Egypt; the third Libya; the fourth Tunisia; the fifth Yemen and I don't know what the sixth is. If it is still possible, they may talk about the US withdrawal from Iraq. This is deliberate and not by chance. Thus today the responsibility of the resistance forces in the Arab and Islamic world especially in Iraq, the responsibility of the Iraqi people and media and the responsibility of every faithful media is to show the defeat.

On the tenth day of Muharam, we felicitate anew the new historic event in which blood gained victory over the sword. The Iraqi people who were fighting with machine guns, RPJs, bombs and Katusha in the best circumstances could defeat the most powerful army in this world ever. If the Israeli Army is the most powerful army in the region, the US Army is the most powerful army in the world. Still it was defeated in few years. It was defeated with blood, jihad, resistance, determination and will. What is most important today is being alert to what might take place following the US withdrawal from Iraq, US devilry and the ordeal project it seeks in the whole region. That depends on the awareness of our Iraqi brethrens and their dialogue, mutual understanding and tolerance besides their commitment to their country and their unity.

Here I come to Syria. Our stance from the very first days is clear. We are with reform in Syria. We stand with the regime which resisted and opposed hegemony and supported resistance movements. We say yes for addressing all reasons and aspects of corruption or disorder. We say yes to all forms of reform which the Syrian leadership accepted in fact and which the Syrian people call for. However some do not want reforms in Syria. They do not want security, stability, civil peace or dialogue either. Some want to destroy Syria. Some want to make up for their defeat in Iraq. Syria is a partner in defeating the Americans in Iraq. So some want to make up for their defeat in Iraq and for their great strategic defeat which is very much possible – I'm not saying it is an absolute defeat but rather very likely defeat – in Egypt. The change of the regime in Syria is for whose interest? Is it for the interest of Palestine or the Palestinian people? Is the change they call for in Syria for the interest of Al Qods or the nation? No!

Anyway, whenever someone tries to hide something, it appears in the slips of his tongue and his features. The so called Syrian National Council which was formed in Istanbul and which some western and Arab states view as a legitimate representative and a converser in the name of the Syrian people is headed by Burhan Deeb Galyoun. He is a university professor. Two or three days ago he said: If we could change the regime and take power in Syria, we want to cut our ties with Iran. (That is quite clear). We want to cut our ties with the resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine. (He named Hezbollah and Hamas). Well, these are accreditation cards for whom? These are accreditation cards for the Americans and the Israelis. Well, Professor Galyoun, what will you do with Golan Heights? He said he will resort to the international community to see what they can do. We want to negotiate with the international community. This comes 20 or 30 years of negotiations which led nowhere. So it becomes clear that their expectations are to severe Syria's ties with the resistance movements in the region to which Syria represents a source of power and vice verse. They want to fall anew in the bosom of the international community for the sake of Golan Heights. This is the alternative proposal, the alternative authority and the alternative regime! There is even worse. I used to stop here. The brethrens used to have two viewpoints: whether we comment or not. However, making a comment overweighs according to me. One of the leaderships who considers himself belonging to an Islamist organization in Syria said if we managed to change the situation in Syria, we will cross the Lebanese borders and go to Lebanon to fight, punish and dwarf Hezbollah. Great! These are accreditation cards for whom? They are for America and Israel. That's because Hezbollah is the enemy of America and Israel. It's Hezbollah who defeated Israel and established for its defeats in the region. This is intended for the Syrian people. It is also intended for every Lebanese who tells you to have patience and wait because you are reading things in Syria in a wrong way. On the contrary, the past couple of days revealed that we were reading things in a very correct way. The essential point is attacking the resistance movements. It is not reforms and addressing corruption and multiplicity which are required in Syria. What is required in Syria is treacherous Arab regime. This is the truth. With our respect to those who demonstrate in Syria and those who fight having something else in mind we tell them to be aware because they will be exploited in a project of this kind. There is a project that goes against their conviction, religion, culture, national belonging, nationalism, Syrian identity and true belonging. However anyway, these statements and these positions made us more convinced in the validity of our position. We frankly say that we want and call for calmness in Syria, dialogue in Syria, peace in Syria and to address things calmly. We condemn sanctions. We condemn any form of ordeal or any aspect of sectarian and factional instigation. Indeed, I foretell all those who threaten from across seas and oceans that fleet, legions, convoys and battleships have come from behind seas and oceans but were destroyed on Beirut's shores.

Before all of these developments that are taking place in the region, we always insist that we do not deal with the Lebanese affair as if Lebanon is an isolated island. Indeed, this is an essential principle. No one can and it is not correct that any one deals with the situations in Lebanon or all what is taking place in Lebanon apart from what is taking place in the region. In fact, they are deeply and forcefully connected to what is taking place in the region. Hereof and from our understanding of priorities, we were always and we still insist on civil peace. We still insist in transgressing ordeal no matter what its reasons are and no matter how much the atmosphere is instigating and no matter how much oppression and falsehood there are. In Lebanon there is much oppression and falsehood. Others from abroad also help in that. For example, yesterday they were threatening. A figure from the Syrian Opposition showed up on a satellite outlet and said that Hezbollah in the North is breaking into hospitals and arresting the Syrian wounded. Does anyone believe such a speech! Still this is said with much indolence on essential Arab satellites… If anything takes place in this country, no matter how trivial it is, they blame Hezbollah for that. This is really a good indicator because it means that their true obsession and preoccupation is Hezbollah. Thus in everything whether trivial or important they hold Hezbollah responsible for what is taking place – and at times what is not taking place in fact. Still we show patience and tolerance. Some want to push things in Lebanon towards internal ordeal. Well we do not want any form of internal ordeal and we must face that with wisdom, patience, awareness, tolerance and overlooking things.

Indeed, we also call in Lebanon for addressing governmental disorder and to activate governmental action because this is a true national need. In this framework, we reiterate our assertion on the importance and the validity of the demands of the Reform and Change Bloc. The government and the Premier are Inshallah serious in assuming national responsibilities. These issues must be addressed so that governmental action dash in a good way.

We assert achieving justice as far as the false witnesses file is concerned. We assert on doing justice for the officers who were unjustly and aggressively arrested. These false witnesses must be punished because the issue was not that of false witnesses. Their role did not end with putting the officers in jail. They also caused great political events in the country. Some people are confused. They consider that the false witnesses file had to do with four respectful officers and a group of respectful citizens who were hurled to prison. That's not the whole story even though this is great oppression. The false witnesses led to enmity between Lebanon and Syria, to instigation in Lebanon, to sharp divisions, to factional and sectarian tension and to the killing of tens of Syrians unjustly.

What is strange is that political forces and personalities in Lebanon make a big uproar for some Syrian kidnapped who are not kidnapped. They say they are 12. However there are three who are lost. Well, where are the 12? Everyday they evoke the issue and condemn it while they were silent and they remain silent on scores or hundreds of Syrians who were killed in Lebanon due to false accusations and false witnesses. So this is not a trivial file. No one is underestimating it or belittling it. No one deals with it as something marginal or transient. Still what is most important is the continuous current Israeli intimidation whether through spies and collaborators or through CIA agents. That's because day after day, it is being proved that the CIA is mobilizing spies for Israel or spying apparatuses which the Resistance, the Army and the concerned security forces are discovering gradually among other Israeli violations and aggressions. We really don't know what Israel is preparing for Lebanon.

In this framework also, we stress on the threefold formula that provides Lebanon with invulnerability, strength and dignity: the Army, the people and the Resistance. These are the elements of power to which we adhere. As I said yesterday, we on Ashura like to deliver a message which is not new but decisive, clear and final to all those who conspire and nurture hopes or wait for changes. This Resistance in Lebanon with its arms, organization, fighters, mind, culture and presence will remain Inshallah. This Resistance in Lebanon Inshallah will carry on, and all your conspiracies, connivance and psychological, media, political and intelligence war will not be able to harm it. We will adhere to our resistance. We will adhere to the arms of the Resistance. On the tenth day of Muharam, I will tell you more. Day after day our number is increasing. We are improving. Our training is enhancing, and our confidence in the future is increasing. Our arms are developing. If anyone bargains that our arms rust, we are able to replace the rust arms, and we are able to modernize everything.

There is a true misunderstanding concerning arms. Some say that the arms of the Resistance are the reason for chaos and disorder or some security unrest in Lebanon. See how much deception there is in that! This is deviltry. Deviltry is the mission of the devil. What arms are used in civil war? What arms cause ordeal? What arms lead to killing, robbing and causing skirmishes? We are all Lebanese and we all know that the Kalashnikov, the M16, the gun and at most the BKC or RBJ and hand grenade are weapons which all Lebanese possess. Well did it ever happen that a security skirmish or a civil war ever take place and a Zilzal Rocket or a Raad Rocket or a Kheibar Rocket or rocket launchers or Rocket of (Haifa and far behind Haifa and even further behind than Haifa) was used in it? Never! If any skirmish takes place in the country in whatever region, the Kalashnikov, the RBJ, the BKC or the hand grenade is used. These are owned by all the Lebanese. Let no one say he does not own weapons. Arms of this level are possessed by families, clans and individuals. This is the problem of internal security and not the arms of the Resistance. Those who want internal security must seek to address the crisis of this kind of arms: how do we control them; how do we organize them? As for those who want to disarm us or thinks of disarming us from Zilzal Rocket, the far range rockets, rocket launchers, maritime defense capabilities or aerial defense capabilities, by that they would be offering a great service to Israel. That means what Israel failed to achieve in 33 days while backed with the whole world, world technology and satellites, air force, reconnaissance planes and the most developed weapons, they want to achieve through dialogue, through political talks or through the media. I will tell you that this will never take place and will never be achieved.

On the day of tough, decisive and historic choices, we wrap up the tenth of Muharram as we do every year. You and I will tell the whole world that here in Lebanon we took the initiative since 1982.

We conclude as we do every tenth of Muharram. You and I will tell the whole world. Here in Lebanon we took the initiative since 1982. We did not wait for the international community, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference or any one in the world. With our will, determination, youth, men, women and humble capabilities we resisted, fought, offered martyrs, restored our land, freed our prisoners and restored our dignity. With our resistance we will guard our land, dignity, honor and country against harm inflicted by anyone in the world.

No risks, threats, intimidations, events or changes will prevent us from performing this obligation and responsibility. We belong to the Imam who stood once all alone facing 30 thousand men. Every one of us is not alone facing these. We are tens of thousands in Lebanon. We are full-fledged trained fighters who are ready for martyrdom. We are the adorers of Abi Abdullah Al Hussein (peace be upon him). We are a force which is still ignored by the enemy. The enemy will remain ignorant of this power. Every enemy will be taken aback through its forceful presence and innovation in any field of confrontation.

Thus on the tenth of Muharram we say: Time of bargaining on our dignity, honor, presence, nation, land and sanctities for whatever price is over. Circumstances changed radically. Thus we wrap up renewing our pledge to Al Hussein (peace be upon him). We tell him: O our master! O our Imam! As you sacrificed everything for your great goals and preferred that you be killed along with your Household and companions for the sake of your aims, we will guard this path. However, we will also make a victory out of your blood, intellect and culture. Our call and pledge to you on the tenth of Muharram will persist to be.

Brothers and sisters! After all martyrs fell and Al Hussein remained all alone but still strong, tough and radiant, he made a call. The call was not for the army which was before him. It was rather a call to all those who are held in the loins of men and the wombs of women all through history until Doom's Day. His call was "Is there anyone willing to support me?" The answer will always be made with the blood, spirit, position, intelligence, jihad and resistance: "At your service, O Hussein!" May Allah reward you generously and bless your efforts. May Allah forgive you and us. Peace be on Hussein, the children of Hussein and the companions of Hussein. Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings.

Translated by Zeinab al-Saffar.

Reviving Bahrain's Lost Revolution?

2011-12-08T06:06:00.000+02:00

Bahrain Security Forces Break up Shiite Demo

Agence France Presse
7 December 2011

DUBAI — Bahraini security forces on Wednesday fired tear gas to disperse a demonstration by Shiites who were marching towards the centre of the capital, the opposition and witnesses said.

The protesters — who numbered in their thousands according to the opposition and 350 according to officials — were heading to Manama's Pearl Square, epicentre of an anti-government movement.

After setting out from the village of Al-Daih, the protesters marched towards the city centre chanting "We want the regime to fall" and "We are returning to Pearl Square," said a witness who requested anonymity.

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators, the witness said.

Mohammed al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, told AFP that security forces had also used rubber bullets.

"Many people were affected," Maskati said.

A protester who asked not to be identified said he had been wounded by a rubber bullet, but that he would not go to hospital for fear of being arrested.

In a statement on its Twitter page, the interior ministry said: "About 350 individuals took part in illegal procession on Al-Budaiya road after (Shiite Ashura) rituals in Daih. Police interfered."

Sunni-ruled Bahrain was rocked by Shiite-led democracy protests between mid-February and mid-March, when they were crushed by security forces backed by its Gulf neighbours.

Lebanon Commemorates Ashura

2011-12-06T16:56:00.000+02:00

Today Muslims commemorated Ashura throughout Lebanon. Ashura refers to the tenth day of the Islamic calendar and recalls a historical episode not long after the death of the Prophet Mohammad. After the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law Imam Ali was assassinated, there were disagreements in the Muslim community about rightful succession. Some believed the rule should be passed on to the Prophet's descendants, while others preferred a consensus candidate chosen by the learned community. The Shi’is, which in its original Arabic form shi’tu ‘ali means the followers of Ali, turned to Ali's sons Hasan and Hussein for leadership, while the Sunnis looked to the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus. Although Hasan attempted to mediate this disagreement by signing a treaty, he was ultimately poisoned.

In an act of resistance, Imam Hussein died in the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH / 680 CE when he and 72 of his Shi’i followers were killed by reportedly tens of thousands of Sunni Umayyad soldiers. As the story goes, for six days Hussein and his small army resisted the enemy. However when the Ummayyad soldiers blocked off the water supply, his army slowly started to perish. Nevertheless, rather than die in retreat, on the tenth day of the battle Hussein and his remaining forces charged the attacking army, leading them all to a dignified death. This amazing story of the Prophet’s grandson, who bravely committed to battle against all the odds, has become essential to contemporary Shi’i narratives. By historicizing this story, Imam Hussein and the Battle of Karbala inspire resistance against all forms of present day injustices, be they social, economic, political or military.

This morning tens of thousands of Lebanese Shi'is, as well as Sunni and Christian supporters of the resistance, assembled in southern Beirut for a procession and a poetic recitation of the Battle of Karbala. By remembering the martyrdom of Hussein, Shi'is have time to reflect on the meaning of sacrifice in the ongoing struggle against injustice, tyranny, and oppression. Following the religious rituals Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's Secretary General, was due to make a speech via satellite. Since the July 2006 war with Israel, Nasrallah rarely appears in public because of fears for his safety. But in a modern day act of resistance, Nasrallah joined the Ashura commemorations today in person. The crowd was ecstatic. Passion, loyalty and confidence swept young and old, women and men, all to their feet.

While he only spoke in person for a few minutes, Nasrallah's courage to appear at all is remarkable. Considering the current political situation in the Middle East—what with the increasing threats against Iran including targeted assassinations of Iranian scientists and the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, the espionage planes and networks being discovered and quashed, the domestic and international pressures related to the divisive Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the regional betrayal of Syria—Nasrallah's appearance today is a powerful statement to Hizbullah's enemies. His presence communicated that the resistance is strong, dedicated and defiant. That the people and party are one. Let us just hope that the hawks in Tel Aviv and Washington are reflective enough to listen.

English Translation of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's Speech 1 December 2011

2011-12-05T13:19:00.000+02:00

In His Name

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered a political speech at Sayyed Ashuhada Compound Thursday 1/12/2011 at night.

As I pledged yesterday my speech tonight would be on the political developments in Lebanon and the general political situation especially pertaining to the government, the STL, funding the STL and what is connected to it.

I am before two topics. The first topic is important and it helps as a prelude to usher to the second topic. The first topic has to do with the general political speech in the country because this topic in itself is requested, and it is in itself a prelude that helps me to approach the second topic with transparency and faithfulness.

First and as for the general speech, it is clear that not only lately but for years, there is a political party in Lebanon which uses political and factional speech while provoking the other party in various means and topics. This is a very dangerous issue which we must be aware of.

Brothers and sisters! This is a call to all the Lebanese: Let's agree on an essential basis which says that what is taking place here is a political conflict and a struggle on political causes which have nothing to do with religious and doctrinal affaires. So it has nothing to do with what this group or that group believes or what this faction or that faction believes, or what the followers of this sect or that sect believe. It rather has to do with the political ideas, political conceptions, political projects and political programs.

Second let's also agree that criticizing leaderships, political or even religious authorities, parties, forces, organizations or currents is not a criticism for the sect. For example, the President of the Republic is Maronite. If anyone has any remarks on him, whoever the President of the Republic may be, that would not be a criticism for the Maronite sect or the Christianity in Lebanon? As another example we say that the Speaker in Lebanon is Shiite. This is according to the composition in Lebanon. Criticizing the Shiite Speaker in Lebanon, whoever the Speaker is – is not a criticism to the Shiite Sect in Lebanon. We as Shiites must not act as such. The same applies to the Premier who is from the Sunnite Sect. Criticizing him must not be considered a criticism or an attack or an aggression on the Sunnite Sect.

The same applies as well to the parties and political movements no matter the scope it claims it represents. So if there is a political party which claims it represents its political majority, criticizing this party or having a conflict with it must not mean criticizing the sect or attacking the sect. That applies to the various sects including the Shiite sect. The same also applies to religious authorities with our respect to all religious posts. So criticizing any religious post is not an attack on the sect, the religion, the sect, the followers of this religion or the followers of this sect.

Here in Lebanon, there is fear from such issues. Thus when we differ with a specific political movement or political party, we disagree with it, we criticize it, and it criticizes us. We may take sharp stance and that may turn to a sectarian or factional struggle. Indeed personal insults to whoever is forbidden. That is not allowed legally, legitimately, morally and ethically. That has nothing to do with presidents, religious posts, parties or representation. It is forbidden to insult, abuse, debase, defame or accuse of lying any human being whether man or woman and of whatever social status he or she is. Still doing so must not be considered an attack on his or her sect, religion or faction. This is an insult on him personally. There are means to achieve these rights, and they are legal means. From our side, we stress that we are committed to such a speech. We also refuse that upon every story or incident that anyone shows up to say that we Shiites or we Sunnites or we Christians or we Druze or we whatever? What is such speech? And where to is such speech taking the country? Who owns the right to speak in the name of the entire sect even if there is an alliance within the sect and even if we are talking about Hezbollah and Amal Movement? As for us, you may observe, all our political speeches from the onset of these crises and our stepping into the political scene in the country in 2004 and 2005 till this very day. We never referred to ourselves as Shiites. We did not refer to others as the followers of a definite sect or definite sects. We rather always took pain to have our speech, terms and language committed to this stance. Accordingly, I do not want to remain talking in general. In what goes with this prelude, I want to address the Future Movement and its leaderships, deputies and media with this call or speech: Enough with this adopted media policy especially that they are utilizing sectarian and factional provocative language. They also at times make use of events to make baseless accusations to evoke sectarian ordeals in definite regions.

I will cast one example only because we have to go to our essential topic.

Some time ago, a Lebanese Army patrol or a Lebanese Army Intelligence patrol entered the village of Irsal or stepped the entrance of the village of Irsal. I do not want to go into details on whether they made arrests or not or whether people came and they assaulted them or not. That needs scrutiny. Well the event was over, and it was addressed. The Future Movement showed up to say that Hezbollah men were with the Army Intelligence and were breaking into the village of Irsal. Indeed the issue is sensitive. We are talking about the village of Irsal whose residences are from our Sunnite brethrens. Their story says that Hezbollah is attacking the people of Irsal and so and so... Then the first deputy showed up to say his word. A statement was issued by the Lebanese Army to clarify the issue. Still they did not respond to the statement of the Army. A second and a third deputy and – I believe – a fourth deputy showed up. Indeed these deputies are all from the North. At least the deputy I saw is from the North. I did not pay attention whether there was anyone of the Future Movement deputies in Bekaa who said anything of this sort. I did not pay attention. This is baseless. What is the goal from this uproar over the baseless event for days? This is sheer lying, deception and falsehood. Do the deputies of the Future Movement want the region of Baalbeck-Hermel for instance which lives in coexistence and harmony despite its diversity to be hurled into sectarian struggle? For whose interest is that? Does the Lebanese national interest require that? Does the unity of the Lebanese stance require that? Does the interest of the Arab Spring require that?

I want to ask the deputies of the Future Movement about that. I hope they will answer me not with insults but with logic. I will also cast one example only for if I am to give all examples I will stay to the morning.

In the same framework and even when they go to political speech with those who differ with them in their viewpoint on the political topic, they use the language which comprises insults and abuses. This allows me to tackle the issue of Tripoli with a couple of words. That's because in the past weeks and for several weeks all their work was on Hezbollah in Tripoli. Hezbollah is arming. Hezbollah is establishing security zones. Indeed all of that are lies. Hezbollah is provoking its allies and friends in Tripoli. So far that is not a problem. We can tolerate all of that. There is no problem in that so that some of those do us harm. No! In fact, as for media war, there is war between us and America, "Israel", NATO and all the west. As such, these turn into minute details. However, when they come to our allies, what terms do they use? They say they are tools or collaborators or the like. If The Future Movement considers its allies collaborators, our allies and friends are not as such.

First our allies and friends in Tripoli and in the North in particular are from wellborn political families. They are struggling political forces which existed in Tripoli and the North before the Future Movement existed and before Hezbollah was established in fact. They are far more ancient than you are. You are the new element in the field.

Second, our relations and friendships with these political forces and those allies and friends came before the establishment of the Future Movement and prior to our political dispute with the Future Movement.

Third: They are true popular forces which the elections of 2005 and 2009 showed that they have weighty popular representation despite the fierce confrontation of hundreds of millions of dollars which was waged against them including election bribery, a current of accusations that whoever votes for them would be voting or electing the killers of Premier Rafiq Hariri and the vast local, Arab and international media machinery. Still these friends and allies in Tripoli and the North proved that they enjoy a true, weighty, firm and deep-rooted popular base which might not be toppled by intimidation, dollars, insults or accusations. These are the true political forces that someone might bargain on. They also proved – and they are as such – that they are the ones who care most for their city, region and sects despite their varied sectarian belongings.

Here I call on the leadership of The Future Movement to draw the moral through an internal evaluation and not in newspapers. Let them say what they want in newspapers.

It seems that this provocation on our friends, allies and on us in the past few weeks in Tripoli and in the North and the accusation that there are some who want to evoke ordeal come in the framework of mobilization for the festival which they wanted to hold and which they wanted to be a historic turning point in the Lebanese political life. However that did not take place. I call on them to carry out a serious and true evaluation to draw the moral on the magnitude of popular participation. That's because that was a central festival from all of Lebanon. So it was not a festival in the north only. Let them also draw the moral from the magnitude of participation from the city of Tripoli where they daily show up and impose themselves as speakers in its name while neglecting the other forces, personalities and the true political families in Tripoli which differ with them in their viewpoint.

I wrap up the subtopic on Tripoli and the North saying: The relation which exists between us in Hezbollah especially and these national and struggling friends and brethrens whether families, parties, forces, movements and fronts in Tripoli and the North in particular is true and faithful. This relation is a source of honor to us and to them. The relation between them and between the party of resistance which fights Israel is a source of honor to us and to them.

To wrap up the first topic, we realize that this very logic is what is taking place in Lebanon and Syria together as concerning the Syrian events. This is what the Lebanese people and the Syrian people alike must notice.

There are some media outlets in Lebanon, some Arab media outlets and some international media outlets which are trying to depict the situation in Syria as if it is a sectarian struggle while it is not as such. Through watching some of the Syrian media opposition and some of the satellites you might form an idea about the future which those people are preparing for Syria. It is that simple. You don't even need me to make any explanations. Just watch once some of these satellites – some of which are not known and I will not name them so that they won't become famous – and listen to the speech and see some of the faces to know what future do those people promise Syria and the people of Syria and the people of the region with.

Why do they insist on sectarian and factional instigation though those who are being accused and killed do not use this logic or resort to this language? Here I will be talking from a Lebanese perspective. For example, there is insistence from some Arab media outlets or some Syrian Opposition media outlets that there are 3000 fighters (from Hezbollah) in Syria. See how precise their information is. Praise be to Allah for seven or eight months, their number never increased or deceased. Since the first day, they talked about 3000 fighters. Days ago they mentioned the same number. Their number does not increase or decrease. Never did any of them get tired, is martyred, is wounded nor run away (No one runs away as far as we are concerned). There is this insistence on 3000. We made a first and a second denial. Then they made a new claim that thousands of fighters from Al Mahdi Army from Iraq entered Syria. What are they saying then? They are saying: O Sunnites rise. The Shiites are coming from Lebanon and from Iraq to fight in Syria. Isn't this what is being meant? Isn't this factional and sectarian instigation? As-Sader Movement made a first, a second and a third denial. Still their media insists on this. That means an insistence on factional and sectarian instigation.

Here I wrap up the first topic saying the following: Where do those who make factional and sectarian instigation want to go?

As Lebanese, we must ask ourselves this question. At the same time, I hope all our Syrian brethrens would ask themselves where to do those want to reach, and what does and whom does that serve?

This is a true question. If these poles believe that through factional and sectarian evocation they may cause terror and bully the other poles to make them yield, to silence them and to make them announce their surrender, here I tell these instigators that you are deluded. You are deluded. Here I mean ourselves at least. We are a people who are not intimidated by instigation. This kind of speech does not harm the level of our faith and conviction, the level of our commitment, steadfastness, the strength of our hearts, the strength of our will and our deep-rootedness. That does not make any difference. No one must forget that during the 28 years of the life of the Resistance – and not only during July War – we were subject to the worst, harshest and fiercest psychological war whether through the media or through assassination. It was a war which harms one's determination and will. Still it never harmed our determination and will. Thus that does not lead anywhere. Do not bother yourselves then.

This then might be the goal of those who make sectarian and factional instigation. Some might have frantic ideas for example. Indeed so far I do not say that anyone has such an idea though true some talked about it. "So and so your turn is coming. Such and such is coming". So if they are trying to pluck up courage by some changes in the region – I do not believe this is a general position but if anyone is thinking that he may pluck up courage by someone in some place under a definite situation to uproot the other parties – I also tell them that you are really deluded. This stage is over. In Lebanon and apart from the regional and international equation, no one may uproot anyone especially according to the Lebanese formation.

Where to do those want to go? To ordeal? To civil war? What will the result be other than they be with their own hands, with our hands and with everyone's hand destroying our country, devastating our country and messing with our country as the Lebanese did at some times in the past. That only led to no winner and no defeater results. So let's make a settlement. Why do we go there?

I want to wrap this topic saying that this policy and this methodology is with a blocked horizon and it will lead no where. From our side, I would like to appease all and say to those who make lies and accusations: We do not want to go into a battle with anyone in the Lebanese internal. They talk about May 7th. May 7th had its own circumstances. You staged the attack on May 7th. It had its own circumstances.

We do not want to go into a struggle with anyone. However if anyone wanted or plotted or anyone is plotting to get engaged in a battle with us, he may know from now what the outcome of the battle would be.

I conclude this topic saying: Yes I call for being rational and calm and that the speech remains political. In politics say what you want. There is no problem. However let's evade sectarian and factional speech and sectarian and factional instigation. I wrap up telling them: He who prepares poison is the one who eats it.

As for the second topic, we come to the government, the STL and funding the STL.

Very briefly I will make a narration of a situation you experienced. However I will make this narration to complete the image and to reach the current position. We shared in the former government headed by PM Saad Hariri which was called the government of the national unity government. We were faithful. We acted with utmost faithfulness to make that government successful and to make it achieve something to the Lebanese through the cooperation of all of its components. Then it was said that the title of the government is the "priorities of the people". Indeed that government received a confidence which I believe no other former government in the history of Lebanon ever received. It is the government of PM Saad Hariri.

However practically and despite the support of the government, the parliamentary support and the political backing among others, the government did not manage to move in that direction. It took a different track.

With time we used to say never mind. Things do take time. Things will be addressed Inshallah. We were approaching a very great and important event which is the so called indictment which was due to be issued then. Indeed it was later postponed. It was postponed by politics and political efforts. Everyone knows that. We were approaching the issuance of the indictment which was issued in 2006, published in foreign newspapers and was issued as it was written in newspapers.

So the government was to become before a true problem. How will it deal with the indictment? Later on there will be funding, the protocol and the judges. How will the government deal with that? We then ushered into a governmental crisis.

Afterwards, Saudi-Syrian mediation took place. It was later known as the S-S mediation. The mediation moved on. They visited Lebanon and meetings took place in Lebanon. The mediation carried on for several months. There was a discussion even on the details but we were clear since the beginning that the time limit for this mediation is the issuance of the indictment. So even if that was not announced, if there were seriousness and sincere intentions to address the issue, that is supposed to take place before this time limit.

Everyone also knows – I do not want to go back to the near past and speak about it in details – who worked day and night to abort the S-S efforts. He is namely PM Saad Hariri and March 14 Bloc. Effective leaderships from March 14 Bloc were working day and night on all levels to cripple the S-S efforts. Syria was informed formally by Saudi Arabia that negotiations were over. There are no S-S efforts anymore. Let everyone assume his responsibility. Thus we – the Opposition in the former government – moved towards toppling the government because we considered that what is taking place is indeed against the national interests, the extended hands, the broad hearts, the willingness for negotiations and the search for ways out and settlements. We also felt that something great is being prepared for the government and that a new government will be followed in the next stage. Thus the previous government flopped and it was clear that the previous Opposition – meaning the current Loyalists – will head to naming another respectful Sunnite personality as Premier other than PM Saad Hariri.

Here a new mediation intervened. It is the Qatari-Turkish mediation. A Summit was held in a hurry in Damascus. Turkish PM Receb Taib Ardogan, Qatari Prince Sheikh Hamad, the foreign ministers of both countries beside other personalities met there and set a definite formula. Then both ministers came to Lebanon. It was supposed that they hold extended talks with political leaderships. Then was the meeting with Saad Hariri. Then there were several meetings with other political leaderships. Some meetings were cancelled because they stayed for more than four hours with President Saad Hariri. They agreed and then wrote this text which was written and printed at PM Saad Hariri's. My meeting with them was at 9:30 or 10 at night. However, we met around 12 after midnight because they were late and because they were to come with a comprehensive agreement.

This agreement was made, and indeed both ministers have the right to suppose that they made a very great achievement and that they brought along a solution to the current crisis in Lebanon – meaning the STL – and that was unexpected. They made a prolonged presentation and delivered this text. They said they hope we will respond to it.

There are two sections in the agreement. I will not read it all. I will rather read a part of it. There is a section which was supposed to be announced, will be read in a press conference and will be signed. The other section is not announced but it will be signed as well. It was supposed to be signed by the President, the Speaker and the supposed Premier. This section will remain secretive – meaning under the table. However all of us are committed to it. They were very optimistic to the extent that the moment we agree at midnight, a meeting will be held in the morning in Ankara at the level of the foreign ministers of Turkey, Syria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and France.

France intervened. On the light of the meeting in which all will bless this agreement, a press conference will be held in France, and it will be headed by President Nicola Sarkuzi. These details are very important. It will be attended by Turkish PM, Qatari Prince, a representative of the Saudi King as well as the US Secretary of State Clinton to bless the agreement. Now I say as scholars say in their books when tackling a sensitive issue: Now contemplate. Come on agree with us and tomorrow we will go for signing the agreement. In fact what is the deal presented in this agreement?

First, we – Hezbollah – will dispense with the STL. O Hezbollah, we will save you from the STL. Yes the first beneficiary of this agreement is Hezbollah and its allies. In fact, it is not known whether the allies of Hezbollah will benefit from the agreement. We asked them: What will you do to us?

First: Stop funding the STL. President Saad Hariri will commit himself to that when the government is formed. This is part of the agreement. If it was violated the government will collapse, and all the countries which sponsored the agreement will demand him of that.

Second: The Lebanese judges will be withdrawn from the STL.

Third: The protocol will be annulled – and not extended. So it is not that we wait until March 2012, we might then extend or not. This indeed needs discussion. The agreement is committed to that. They even told me more than that. This is written and was to be signed by the presidents. The states were to guarantee that. The man was willing to do more than that. They told me – No, I will postpone that to another time.

What does the text say? Clause 6: To preserve security and peace in Lebanon, the designate Premier Saad Hariri – when signing the agreement – will announce that the stance from the STL requires reconsideration. Then that will be inscribed as the first topic on the agenda of the first session for the government to take legal procedures – This is not debatable – on the withdrawal of the Lebanese judges, halting funds and stopping cooperation with the STL. That means annulling the Protocol; it does not mean not renewing the Protocol. Executing what was mentioned in the agreement must coincide with the steps which will be taken regarding the legal procedures on pulling out the three above-mentioned points.

Then it was required that the three presidents sign underneath.

So the two ministers came to tell us: O Hezbollah, we came to save you. An indictment will be issued against you, your brethrens and your men. There is the STL before you. There is so and so before you. We are extending the rope of safety to you. Any man, any rational man accepts. Let's see what is required in return.

In return, re-nominating PM Saad Hariri is required as well as having the majority of the government indeed from the other side, protecting the political, security, financial and judicial team of the Premier, addressing all the previous crises which have to do with laws and drafts… In other words: O Hezbollah and Hezbollah allies hand the country in to Saad Hariri (while regarding his title) and the allies of Saad Hariri. Be committed to guarding and not toppling the government. Be committed to protecting this economic, financial, judicial, political and security team whatever its performance is. In this way, we save you from the STL. If the day comes when there would be an interest in broadcasting the text in the media, we will circulate it. However we are being somehow precautious. This is what was presented to us.

In the meeting, they insisted on knowing my personal viewpoint indeed. I told them we have a collective leadership. Let me go back to the brethrens for discussion. We also have allies. So allow me to contact them. They said: No. We want to know your personal viewpoint. If you were positive, that gives us hope. I told them: I personally do not agree on this solution. They asked me why. I am furnishing you with this presentation because it later was the very evaluation of Hezbollah Shura and the very evaluation of our allies with whom we were and with whom we toppled the government together. I told them you are bargaining with us on our interest and the interest of Hezbollah. The interest of Hezbollah is clear in relieving me from the STL. Indeed I have interest in that. However you are bargaining with me on the interest of Hezbollah and the interest of the country. The interest of Lebanon – the state and the people – is being bargained for the interest of the Party. He asked me to explain that. I told him that this government came to power with the utmost number of confidence votes. It's the government of national unity, and most of the political forces in the country defends it and grants it a chance to work and make achievements. However, what did it do? What did it present? This government is fruitless and does not lead anywhere. Well in Lebanon there is an executive authority which is the government. The head of the executive government is the Premier. Well, the Premier – Here I am presenting a practical, moral and ethical evaluation which does not allow me to insult any person – proved after a year in post that he does not follow up, summon ministers to sit with, hear from them and ask them what they are doing. What are you doing with your files, administration, ministries, problems so that I address them at the government? There are no files which are being addressed. None of the people's causes are being addressed. On the contrary, things are being left to councils to tackle. There is no seriousness. There is no follow up. There is no responsibility assuming in a very difficult situation on the financial, economic, living, political and security levels and there is Israel in our neighborhood… Even more, on the day of Adeisseh incident – I gave them this example – the Lebanese Army was left alone. The head of the national unity government was in a vacation. He did not interrupt his vacation though the country was on the verge of war. Well a serious premier does not act as such. We add to that our evaluation to the performance of the team and its project and policy as well as our evaluation of the former government of PM Fouad Saniora. This is a well known evaluation.

Consequently, I am one of the people and a section of the people in this country – including you who are sitting here – who entrust me on their fate, future and the future of their children, dignity, livelihood, security and stability. I believe that should I agree on this bargain, I will be betraying this trust.

Still when they saw that, they said: Well, Sayyed, talk with your brethrens and try to figure out a way out or a solution. I told them that is great. Since the very beginning I told you I have to talk with my brethrens. And this was their evaluation too as well as the evaluation of our allies as well. We thus informed them that we can't carry on with this premier, this formula and this project. Look for another option. We were open to other options. I add that when I presented the evaluation – indeed I was frank and I gave details more than what I provided you with – both ministers could not defend. I am talking about events which are a year old and not 100 years old and which are narrated by so and so who is quoting so and so… All of us lived these events. They said you are right, O Sayyed, but there are priorities and there is something more important. Addressing the STL is more important and the only one who is able to address the STL is PM Saad Hariri. I told them: Your Highness! As for us the country is more important. For the sake of the country and its security, integrity and dignity we offered our much loved leaders, masters, brethrens, children and dear ones as martyrs. Consequently, I do not make a bargain at the expense of this country. Let the STL carry on no matter what happens. We reach that far. The story was over and after all a new government will take over in the country.

Before wrapping up this section, I would like to make clear that what took place later is a great oppression – meaning accusing the Syrian leadership and the person of President Bashar Assad of crippling the agreement in Lebanon. This is not true. I frankly tell you that the Syrian leadership hoped that the Turkish-Qatari mediation will work in Lebanon. It encouraged us, and it wished that would take place. Indeed we have our decision, and truly the Opposition in Lebanon takes its decision itself. Because some people are accustomed of being subordinate and tools, they do not believe that. Well, it is up to them. Even all what they say concerning the current funding issue is valueless. Then, Syria had an interest in boosting its ties with Qatar and with Turkey. Its greatest interest was in that. Second, it had an interest in boosting its relations with Saudi Arabia. There was a definite Syrian interest in that. However we in Lebanon put the interest of Lebanon above the interest of Syria. Thus we refused the bargain. I only say that for history.

Later PM Najeeb Mikati was nominated to form the government. Since the very first day we advocated a national unity government in which the other party partakes. You know that consultations lasted for a month between the designate PM and the other team, and they refused. However, from the very first day they accused the government and the designate premier of treason and betrayal and they demanded on him to resign. They announced the goal of his toppling and announced the slogan of funding the STL from the very first day. The man hadn't have come into power yet. They asked him what you will do concerning funding the STL and cooperating with the STL. However the essential event now is funding the STL because cooperation exists. Is there anything in the country which the STL did not violate? Everything was violated – the census office, car mechanics, cards, identity cards, fingerprints, professors, pupils and records of those who entered and left Lebanon since 1992. So everything was violated. In fact, is there still anything which the STL did not take yet and wants to take? Perhaps it is updating data which they daily demand.

They did not evoke the issue of funding because they want the STL to be funded. I followed the reactions yesterday and today. I was really lost whether March 14 Bloc are happy or sad with what PM Mikati did. We are not happy. Are they happy or sad? I do not know. I was lost. Since the very first day they asked him what you would do with funding the STL. They wage a war of funding with MP Mikati. The target was not funding the STL because they knew that the government would move on under all conditions whether it was funded by Lebanon or not. The story of funding the STL was a means to pressure and blackmail. Some days ago the official spokesman of the STL said that our financial needs of 2011 are covered. However, it is required that Lebanon lives up to its international commitments according to its logic. They know that the STL will carry on whether it was funded by Lebanon or not. If this government will achieve justice nothing will cripple it and it will carry on because funding will take place from other sources.

They also know that their head did not only give up funding the STL to remain in power, he rather gave up besides funding the STL, cooperating with the STL and accepted withdrawing the judges and even more and they know that.

Now when someone is shameless, he does what he wants.

Since the very first moment, they started asking: What about funding? What will you do with funding? They produced a factional sectarian atmosphere over this issue. Indeed here I am against PM Mikati in evaluating this atmosphere. I consider every state post as a national post above all. PM Mikati used to say: I am from the Sunnite sect. What will I do with my Sunnite sect, my Sunnite atmosphere and my Sunnite post? They let things reach that far. They made any PM who will come to power feel as a traitor to the Sunnite sect if he did not fund the STL. Who said so?

We have proven with facts, figures and indications that the STL is politicized, unfair, conspiring and leaking. Whom is it formed from? It is an American-Israeli court which targets the resistance and aims at causing a civil war in Lebanon. So if it was not funded, the PM will be considered a traitor of the Sunnite sect. What is this logic?

This was said and they worked on that for months.

The government continued. However the bargain of the other team – who did not believe in this government and its president one day and who was working to topple it for the first day and who refused to offer it a one-month-chance – was waiting for the funding to become due. So when funding is due, we'll see what will happen. Either the government will burst from within and they come back to power or if for example the government disagreed, funding will not take place. Then the Sunnite PM will be accused of historic treason. So all the options would return them to power.

Days before the interview with PM Mikati when he said that if funding did not take place he will resign, one of the senior figures from March 14 Bloc said that the solution in Lebanon is in forming a technocrat government. They did not hope and they were not definite whether PM Mikati will resign. So it was not clear to them how a way out will be figured out or whether a way out is possible or not. Nothing was clear to them. They were acting as if the government will continue to be. Then one of the senior March 14 Bloc figures said that this government must resign and a technocrat government must be formed to lead the country at this sensitive stage. When they heard PM Mikati threatening to resign, this very figure said some days ago that the only way out is in forming a government purely from March 14 Bloc. How did the whole world turn around in few days? How is it that the interest of the country was in something and no soon it became in something else? Anyway, they were waiting for this moment.

Here we come to funding and the course of events which took place before wrapping up my speech in a while and giving our stance.

Well, let me be transparent from the very first moment. Let me say what is with and what is against us, and what is with and what is against them – meaning our partners in the government:

First: Since the first steps of the formation we did not put any conditions on PM Mikati on funding the government or withdrawing the judges. Truly, if someone said we put these three conditions and he committed himself to them, the answer is no that is not true.

Second: As far as this issue is concerned, from the very beginning we agreed on addressing this issue and on cooperation and mutual confidence.

Third: In our evaluation we believe the PM Mikati embarrassed himself very much when he committed himself politically and in the media and in interviews that he is decisively committed to funding the STL apart from the wish of the constitutional institution which is so called the government while he knows that the majority of his government do not support this choice. Here we have the right to show admonition to the Premier because we are partners. He also led things in the last weeks to a very sharp and inappropriate point when he announced his intention to resign if funding the STL collapsed.

Well, here we ushered into a governmental crisis. This debate coincided with the seclusion of the ministers of Reform and Change Bloc for reasons which have nothing to do with funding the STL. The stance of the Bloc, its Head, its deputies and its ministers apart from their various political belongings from the STL is clear. However they announced that. They have their remarks from the very beginning. This is one of the points upon which debate between us took place during the previous period of time. It's the governmental performance. We have always called for having tolerance and granting time. They used to consider that as a waste of time. The government is wasting time and is not addressing the files. Thus they secluded themselves and they said why they did so. They are righteous in their demands and conditions when they talked about the judicial file, appointments, the living file, the economic file, the administrative file… They are righteous in that.

We have become in the government before a governmental crisis and before a due event. What about funding the STL? Should the government meet and funding the STL be put to vote – because it was put on the agenda of the government – and it did not pass, that will mean that the Premier will resign. Thus the government will fall. A weighty bloc of ministers in the government seriously thought that they would resign first before the Premier would resign.

Well for contemplation and reconsideration, let's see where things might reach. In this framework which I will say now, we were and we are still as far as the STL is concerned. Thus we say the following:

First: As for us, this tribunal is not constitutional and it is illegitimate. It's a US-Israeli tribunal. It is politicized and unfair. It will remain as such until the contrary is proved with evidence. We have presented evidence to a great extent. It is also an oppressive court.

Second: We used to and still refuse any form of funding and cooperating with it based on this evaluation and classification.

Third: Was the government to convene and was the funding of the STL to be presented in the session, we would have voted against funding. This is the position of the majority of the ministers in the government.

Fourth: Was this issue to be presented in the Parliament, we would have voted against it. We would have done the same in the Finance and Budget Committee.

Fifth: We refuse to pay the funds of the STL from the pockets of the Lebanese people. Do you remember that in the previous occasion I said that if anyone wanted to fund the STL, let them solve its problem as they would solve the problem of the UNESCO or go to the Arabs. They have money. The west has money as well. So that's your problem. Solve it then. It's not I who is concerned in this issue. However we refuse that the STL be funded from the pockets and money of the Lebanese people. This was our stance. This is still our stance.

Indeed, amid all this argument, we continue with our dialogue, meetings and cooperation with the Premier and all the components of the government. We have stressed on our desire that the current government remains, continues and that the flaws in its performance be addressed because we see in that a great and a definite national interest.

I do not want to talk about the uncertainties. Now the Premier took a decision on his own responsibility. He announced it yesterday (Wednesday). He said that he took his responsibility according to his competence. We later knew about the loan and the means of receiving this loan. He said he can spend from the money of the Higher Committee for Relief and that does not need the approval of the government or the Parliament. Rather he as a Premier may spend. Now he took the money as a loan from the Supreme Committee for Relief. Will he receive donations? This is another detail which I am not sure of. Days will clarify this. However what I understood today or what I was told is that it is sure that this money will be considered donations or grants given by sides, states or individuals to the Supreme Committee for Relief and through them the loan will be settled.

He considered that he took a stance and fulfilled his commitment and used his competence. I really do not know whether this procedure is legal or not and whether it is constitutional or not. That needs experts to say their word. The Premier also said that his goal is to protect Lebanon because he is convinced that if the government did not fund the STL, sanctions will be imposed on Lebanon and Lebanon will be isolated among other intimidations.

It is strange that the USA, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Syria were to sponsor an agreement to halt funding the STL, withdraw the judges and halt cooperation. We were to be rewarded for that. However later we became to deserve punishment for that.

So the issue is not that of justice and the government. It is rather a political issue. It has to do with who is in power and who is not in power.

Others in Lebanon share the very convictions of the Premier. We believe that much of what is said are sheer intimidations and we do not agree on this evaluation.

Anyway, the Premier took the decision yesterday on his own responsibility and away from the constitutional institutions in which we share in decision making – whether in the government or in the Parliament. After all this presentation, what is our stance?

While stressing on all what I said a while ago, I say the following:

In adherence to the political stability in the country and the persistence of the current government and its continuity and upon the condition of activating it, we say:

First: While stressing our firm stance on refusing the legitimacy and constitutionality of the STL and to all forms of funding it and cooperating with it, no crisis will be found in the country. We will put the supreme national interest above any other consideration as we did with the agreement which the two Qatari and Turkish ministers presented to us. We do not agree but we will not cause a problem.

Second: It is required or it is logical that if that is a loan, that this loan will have to be settled through grants and donations and not from the money of the Lebanese people of the Lebanese Treasury. If the issue will be evoked later in the government or in the Parliament, we are against it and we will refuse it to the end as we refused that the issue be agreed on in the government no matter what the results would be. This was our stance. Thus there used to be a search for ways out and solutions. Will the loan be settled through grants and donations? This is the business of the Premier anyway. Before moving to the final section in this topic, it is my obligation to thank the political forces that backed the decision of refusing funding the STL no matter what the repercussions would be and they are numerous on Lebanon. I thank our allies, friends and brethrens. I will not mention names so that I won't forget anyone. I also thank the parliamentary blocs who were committed with us and all the ministers who showed solidarity with us though some of these blocs or these ministers were intimidated on the personal level. They were terrorized in the sense of telling them that your names will be listed in airports, you will be prosecuted, and you will be summoned to the STL. Still the stance of these ministers remained firm. Was this to be evoked in the government, it would have toppled through voting for sure. So thanks to these ministers, their parliamentary blocs, their political forces and all those who stood by this issue from us and from our Resistance.

Indeed we understand that one aspect of this stance is pursuant to the conviction of these forces, blocs, ministers and deputies. This was their announced stance from the STL and this is how they evaluated the STL and its goals. The other aspect is an expression of faithfulness and honesty and this is the truth of the existing ties.

Well, we reach this far. We turned this page and we do not want to bargain. Bargaining on that was presented on us and on some of our friends whom we consult with at one stage of discussion. Neither we nor our friends ever thought of bargaining. Bargaining on the false witnesses, on appointments and on files will never take place. That means that we go to PM Mikati and tell him that you committed yourself to that and you embarrassed yourself and we want the government to continue to be. Well, let's evoke this issue in the government and we will pass it. An idea was presented to us to the effect that two ministers fail to show up, two ministers do not vote and two ministers accept among such Lebanese games. However we want you to commit yourself to so and so. This was impossible because this issue was to us an issue of a principle, and I do not bargain on my principles with anyone. This was the stance of our allies. Well, the decision was taken. Some people were sad. Others were happy. Others had prepared new neckties and suits. They wanted to become ministers. However that did not work. Anyway, we reached this far. Wrapping up my political address, I have two things to say to the Premier. This is his obligation. This is not a bargain for taking this decision.

As for the first issue, I hope that he is hearing me. In fact our delegation did not discuss this issue with him and he will hear it on the TV screen just like you. I also like to say it openly. All the terms PM Mikati used in his speeches during the past period showed that he is committed to justice. I do not want to discuss now whether this court will bring along justice or injustice. This is another research. He is committed to justice, and as a Premier and his national belonging might not permit him not to fund the STL. It was mentioned in his speeches that his Sunnite belonging does not allow him not to fund the STL. He had used such terms. From this very post, I call on PM Najeeb Mikati – who as well as we are accused unjustly of being the head of the government of Hezbollah. They will label all what is taking place as scenarios and giving out roles – that your commitment to justice and your national belonging and Sunnite belonging call on you to be just to other people who are oppressed. They are the four officers – two senior officers of whom by the way are from your honorable Sunnite Sect. So do them justice through personally putting on the agenda of the government a point in which you call for opening the file of the false witnesses, vote, call and seek so that the current government decide to refer the false witnesses file to the Judicial Court. Your justice, national belongings and Sunnite belongings require that from you, O Premier! If you consider yourself before a trial in funding the STL, you are as well before a trial in the file of the false witnesses.

In this atmosphere of all of these discussions, I am transparent and frank. I tell you: Yes, we were silent on this file so that we won't embarrass the Premier because we see the magnitude of pressure and attack he is being subject to. The world was all of a mess. However, things are over. You took the decision of funding the STL. Where are we going with this file? Isn't it pursuant to justice, national belonging and even sectarian belonging that this issue be settled one way or another?

The second point is that it is time this government be active and productive. It's time that it does not postpone files and do not bet on events and changes and waste time. It must rather assume its national responsibility. In this framework, all the demands of the Reform and Change Bloc are real, objective, true and logical demands which we fully back and which we must work to achieve because that helps us to have a productive government which assumes responsibility in the upcoming stage.

I have a final comment. Though we are in Ashura I will give this example. I heard yesterday and today that following: Well great! Since PM Mikati decided to fund the STL on his own responsibility, then Hezbollah acknowledged the legitimacy of the STL. Hezbollah does not have now except to cooperate and to hand in the accused whom I call oppressed and falsely accused. How was this conclusion drawn? When we were young students, they used to teach us logic. They always used to tell us that there must always be a relation between the introductions and the conclusions. This is what is called evidence. It is not right to say that the sun is shining and the sky is blue; so my father is right in his conflict with his neighbors! What does this have to do with that? If my father does not agree with his neighbors on a definite story, is that a proof that the sun is shining and the sky is blue? The evidences of March 14 Bloc are as such. They talk with such logic. They philosophize things and say this is an olive tree, and this house is strong and hard. Then this car is for me! What does this have to do with that? PM Najeeb Mikati was cautious. He did not evoke this point really in the government because he knew it would not pass in the government even if that led to his resignation. He knew that. We would have voted against it and brought the clause of funding the STL down apart from the repercussions which it evoked in the government. He went to a way out. He had his convictions. He acted according to his responsibility. He is free. This is his business. Does that mean Hezbollah acknowledged the legitimacy of the government? Then the car is mine and my father is righteous!

I hope Inshallah that we will manage before this event which is not over yet – meaning the government crisis and the governmental status – that all the components of the government cooperate, that we carry on working because the great national interest has always been above every other consideration. As for us, it is above every other consideration. This is what we always learn from Sayyed Ashuhada whose memory we are marking in this occasion – Abi Abdullah Al Hussein (peace be upon him).

In Gaza, Death by Remote Control

2011-12-04T18:32:00.001+02:00

This is an important article about how Israel regularly terrorizes Gazans from the air. But when I started reading the story something immediately jumped out at me. The reporter states that 825 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli drones in Gaza since 2006, most of them civilians. During the same time period 16 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets, again most of them civilians. 825 compared with 16. And yet only the Israeli dead are granted a human face, that of "56-year-old Moshe Ami, who died in a late October rocket strike on the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon." It is a small detail, but one that I think speaks volumes...

In Gaza, Lives Shaped by Drones

By Scott Wilson
The Washington Post
December 3 2011

GAZA CITY — The buzz began near midnight on a cool evening last month, a dull distant purr that within moments swelled into the rattling sound of an outboard motor common on the fishing boats working just offshore.

At a busy downtown traffic circle not far from the dormant port, a pickup truck full of police pulled up abruptly. The half-dozen men spilled into the streets.

“Inside, inside,” the officers, all of them bearded in the style favored by the Hamas movement that runs Gaza, urged passersby. Then, pointing to the sky, one muttered, “Zenana, zenana.”

The word is the Arabic term that Gazans have given to Israel’s drone aircraft, a ubiquitous and frightening feature of daily life in this crowded strip of land along the sea. Roughly translated, zenana means buzz. But in neighboring Egypt, a source of Gaza custom and culture, the term is slang used to describe a relentlessly nagging wife.

The light-hearted description belies the drones’ jarring effect on life in Gaza, where 1.6 million Palestinians live in cramped refugee camps, breeze-block houses and high-rise apartments built among olive orchards, palm groves and rolling dunes.

The landscape provides cover for Palestinian militants, who in recent years have fired thousands of rockets — some improvised, some military-grade — into Israel’s besieged southern towns and cities. In the call-and-response conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the missile fire has repeatedly provoked Israel to invade, its tanks and troops ebbing and flowing from the strip’s broken streets.

But the most enduring reminder of Israel’s unblinking vigilance and its unfettered power to strike at a moment’s notice is the buzz of circling drones — a soundtrack also provided by American drones over Pakistan’s tribal areas and, increasingly, parts of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

The U.S. drone war is largely invisible, carried out in remote regions sometimes beyond the boundaries of America’s battlefields. U.S. officials are reticent to discuss the program, which President Obama has relied on more than his predecessor to kill enemies. Israel’s close-quarters conflict with Palestinians in the relatively accessible Gaza Strip offers a vivid view of the remote-controlled combat, and of the lives of those affected by these tools of modern war.

Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in the summer of 2005, ending a nearly 40-year presence in a territory its forces occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. In 2006 Hamas gunmen captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit just outside Gaza’s fortified boundary, and since then, Israel has stepped up military operations and aerial surveillance in the strip.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights says 825 people have been killed by drones in Gaza since the capture of Shalit, who was released in October. Most of those killed, according to the organization, have been civilians mistakenly targeted or caught in the deadly shrapnel shower of a drone strike. By comparison, the New America Foundation says U.S. drones have killed at least 1,807 militants and civilians in Pakistan since 2006.

The Israeli military says it works hard to distinguish between militants and civilians, but that the task is made harder because many of those who fire rockets from Gaza operate amid the fields and houses of residential neighborhoods.

Since 2006, Palestinian rocket fire has killed 16 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, including 56-year-old Moshe Ami, who died in a late October rocket strike on the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon. As the Palestinian rocket arsenal improves, more Israeli cities, from the border town of Sderot to the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv, are sharing Gazans’ everyday fear of attack from the sky.

Across northern Gaza, the response to the arrival of drones overhead is swift and, for some, almost involuntary. Their near-constant presence shapes life beneath them in a thousand ways — from how Islamist militants communicate to the color of exercise clothes chosen for a morning jog to the quality of satellite-television reception.

When the buzz begins, an unemployed tailor in the hilltop village of Ezret Abed Rabbo walks to his window and opens it — one, then another, until the glass in all of them is safe from what he expects to be an imminent blast. The most recent rocked the area in late October when Israel responded with drones and F-16s to the attack on Ashkelon, killing nine Palestinian militants.

“For us, drones mean death,” said Hamdi Shaqqura, a deputy director of the human rights center. “When you hear drones, you hear death.”

Cradle of the drone

About 30 miles north of Gaza, on the edges of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, lies the cradle of the modern drone, a series of cavernous hangars and modest office buildings.

This is the well-guarded campus of Israel Aerospace Industries, a government-owned enterprise that for four decades has been a pioneer in the development of remotely piloted vehicles. One of the drone’s fathers is Shlomo Tsach, the company’s director of advanced programs.

Tsach was part of a small group that created the first surveillance drone in the bitter aftermath of Israel’s 1973 war with Egypt and Syria, where early intelligence failures and battlefield setbacks gave way to a lesson-filled Israeli victory.

Among those lessons was the danger posed to Israeli forces by a lack of real-time intelligence. Israel could not track Egypt’s mobile surface-to-air missile sites, leaving pilots and tank commanders with worthless days-old information on their locations. Tsach recalled a single searing day when Israel lost dozens of planes to anti-aircraft fire.

Before the war was over, Tsach and his crew, working around the clock, had developed a remotely piloted decoy aircraft to draw enemy fire.

Photos from the time show a group of shaggy scientists posing with a small red model aircraft, the decoy that would evolve into the drones of today. Among them was Abe Kerem, who later helped pioneer what became the armed Predator drone used by the United States.

“We tested a lot of very interesting things, but not all of them went up,” Tsach recalled.

By the time Israeli forces pushed into southern Lebanon in 1982, Tsach and his colleagues had developed the Scout, the first unmanned aerial vehicle used on the battlefield. The 120-pound drone could see over hilltops to track mobile artillery, surface-to-air missile batteries and troop movements. Israeli losses diminished significantly.

Not long after the invasion, a group of officers from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps arrived at the IAI headquarters to talk about drones. The visit marked the beginning of a long collaboration on drone technology between Israeli and U.S. officials, which in recent years has also become highly competitive as companies from the two countries vie for the world’s rapidly growing drone business.

“The United States was not in conflict at the time,” said Tommy Silberring, a retired Israeli colonel who heads IAI’s drone division. “So a lot of the battlefield experience came from here.”

Tsach recalled that “in 1974, when we created the market for drones, no one else wanted it.” Now the IAI hangars are filled with drones of various shapes and sizes — from the Heron TP with a wingspan the size of a Boeing 737’s to the Bird-Eye 65o, which fits in a soldier’s backpack and can be flown from a laptop or smartphone.

Some stay airborne for as long as 40 hours, at altitudes as high as 40,000 feet, while others are tethered to the ground, plugged into an electrical outlet to hover endlessly above any area Israel wants watched. Flying one is as easy as pointing and clicking a mouse on an electronic map, which sends the drone to the spot and instructs it to circle overhead.

Surveillance drones then watch and track, either during the day or at night with heat-detecting radar, or “paint” targets with a laser for F-16 and Apache missile strikes. Armed drones, which Israel, like the United States, keeps away from public view, are fitted with specialized missiles that can be guided by the drone’s own on-board sensors.

“I can see if your car is hot that you were just driving it, if you are smoking a cigarette,” said Lt. Col. R, commander of the drone squadron that flies over Gaza, who spoke on the condition that his full name not be used.

The officer has moved through different parts of the Israel Defense Forces — infantry, helicopters — but he said the drone program is now a highly sought-after branch. “It is the future,” he said, “there is no doubt about that.”

His drones take off from a runway shared with Apache helicopters at the Palmachim Air Force Base along the coast south of Tel Aviv, a site seemingly more suited to a Mediterranean resort than a military installation. A minutes-long flight takes them over Gaza, where they train, test and carry out a growing list of missions.

“The main idea is you tell me what to look for, and I’ll tell you what I see,” he said. “Because Gaza is a very dense urban environment, with civilians and terrorists mixed together, the only way to differentiate is by looking. And this is up to us to do that.”

Fathers and sons

The farming town of Beit Lahiya is a few miles of rough road north of Gaza City, through the trash-strewn streets of the beach camp, a U.N.-run refugee enclave, where on a blustery recent morning fishermen mended nets along the sidewalk.

A new mosque rises on a spit of land above a storm-tossed Mediterranean Sea, a mix of dark blues and greens. Small boys kicked a soccer ball along the dirt roadside, near the burned remnants of a police post bombed days earlier by Israeli military aircraft in retaliation for late-evening rocket fire. A distant Israeli F-16 rumbled overhead.

Gazans use a quick calculus to assess an attack: A destroyed building, such as the small police post, is the result of an F-16. A strike on a sedan, or a group of men clustered at an intersection, is the work of a drone.

Nabil al-Amassi, a mechanic, watched in the summer of 2006 as Israeli tanks rolled into Beit Lahiya in an operation designed to pressure the Hamas leadership to release Shalit in the days following his capture.

A half-dozen armed men stood at the bottom of his sandy street when, suddenly, the drone buzzing above fired. Three of them were killed, including one whose armless torso was carried by screaming survivors from the scene, observed also by a Washington Post correspondent.

That was the start of Amassi’s close relationship with drones. Nearly every day since then, at least one, and sometimes several, have circled above him.

“It’s continuous, watching us, especially at night,” said Amassi, a father of eight children. “You can’t sleep. You can’t watch television. It frightens the kids. When they hear it, they say, ‘It is going to hit us’.”

Among his children is Ahmed, a leery 3-year-old who patrols the street in a tiny track suit on fast-moving legs. When he hears the drone arrive, often in the early evening, Ahmed runs to his father and sits deep in his lap, frightened.

“We try to tell them it’s fireworks,” Amassi said.

Two streets away, not far from a grove of olive trees used in the past by Palestinian gunmen to fire rockets into Israel, Naim Dawoud worries about his 27-year-old son Walid.

Gazan men in their mid-20s face twin perils: They draw attention from Islamist militant groups seeking new recruits and from Israeli drones, whose operators seek out Palestinians who have joined the fight.

Short with a stubbly beard, Walid said that when his car breaks down with a drone overhead he leaves it rather than wait for other young men to gather and help.

“These drones — they don’t always know,” he said. “At night, if I hear one, I’ll cancel my plans to see friends. It’s easy — if one is above me, I won’t go out.”

The school on the hill

The Qasteen School sits on a sandy hilltop, a four-story building surrounding a broad courtyard. Murals of a smiling tooth promote dental hygiene, and in the near distance, the bombed-out Palestinian intelligence headquarters looms as a reminder of the dangers outside the campus walls.

In a second-story classroom, Hamza Abu Sultan, a small seventh-grader in a camouflage coat, raised his hand to describe the class reaction to the buzz.

“We feel tense,” he said. “We start to think about when it will hit. We start to think we are somewhere else — no longer in class.”

Ismail Ramadan, the school’s 40-year-old principal, has brought in psychiatrists several times a week to calm the children and explain that the sound of the drones does not mean war is imminent. International charitable organizations partially fund the effort to ease the children’s anxiety.

“They hear the sound and they hold their breath,” Ramadan said.

The head of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, Eyad Sarraj, said the drones’ noise is something “you can’t escape.” Whether intentional or not, Sarraj said their constant presence induces a sense of helplessness among Gaza’s residents.

“In the back of the minds of everyone here is fear — from the psychiatrist to the student, a sense that something terrible is going to happen,” Sarraj said. “The drones are part of that story. They are part of the conditioning — every time we hear them, we go back to those events of violence and death.”

Entrepreneur’s challenges

Gaza is divided, not only between Fatah and Hamas, the primary political parties in the Palestinian national movement, but between fans of the European soccer giants FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Mohammed al-Mabrouk makes a brisk living exploiting this split. He works in the Rannoush sports bar in downtown Gaza City, where patrons pack into the low-ceilinged rooms to sip bitter coffee, smoke water pipes and root for their side in the big games.

None is bigger than “El Clasico,” the Barcelona-Real Madrid match that comes along a few times year. He charges an entrance fee for those games, shown on a handful of high-definition televisions smuggled through the tunnels along Gaza’s southern border with the Sinai. With 220 patrons paying $5 each, the occasions yield a small windfall.

But the take from the November 2010 match was wiped out by a drone, whose looping patrol blurred out much of the match. He reimbursed more than $1,000 in cover charges to a roomful of angry patrons, and since then he has added expensive subscriptions to several other satellite signals. That has done little good. But now Mabrouk can change satellites, flip through channels and show his patrons that he has done all he can. “So at least they know it won’t be better anywhere else,” he said.

His customers still make for the doors at the first telltale signs the picture is fraying, as it did during a recent Chelsea and Liverpool match. For reasons that no one can explain, only Russia Today, an English-language channel promoting Russian views, is resilient enough to survive the drone interference.

“The problem is in the sky,” said Nahed Hammad, who sells satellite dishes from his dimly lit storefront a few doors down, “not in the receiver.”

To some, proof of occupation

Hamdi Shaqqura, the human rights advocate, came downstairs one recent morning in his Gaza apartment to find a note from his daughter, Bisanne, a 22-year-old medical student. She had counted four drones overhead, and she advised her father to skip his morning run.

“But I’m all dressed and I think, ‘I can’t not do this, I can’t change because of this,’ ” Shaqqura recalled. So he set off, only to turn back in fear after about 100 yards, as several drones buzzed above.

“So I get back to my door and I say, ‘Come on, Hamdi, this is Gaza,’ ” he scolded himself, and headed back out. He got as far as he had before when he noticed that, as usual, he was dressed in an all-black track suit — the color of choice for many Palestinian militants. Once again, he headed home, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the back-and-forth. “It affects every aspect of our lives, all day long,” he said.

For Shaqqura, though, the drones mean something else as well. In his view, they are proof that Israel still legally occupies the strip despite having pulled its soldiers and settlers out.

Israel has argued that it no longer occupies the area, meaning that it is not responsible for the health and welfare of its residents under international humanitarian law. But Israel controls the crossings between Gaza and Israel, the waters off its coast, and the airspace where the drones circle.

“This is the first meaning of the drones,” he said. “Israel’s military may not be on the ground anymore. But they are in the air — looking, always, at every square inch of Gaza. They don’t have to be here in Gaza City to affect every aspect of the lives of Gazans.”

The data collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights since the summer of 2006 reflect the up-and-down nature of Israel’s conflict with Gaza. In 2009, the year of the most recent war in Gaza, 315 people were killed in drone strikes, according to the center. The number so far this year is 60.

But Abu Ahmed believes the figures are too high, and that many of the deaths attributed to drones are actually the result of Apache helicopter strikes or F-16 missions, aided by drone surveillance. And as a leader of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Abu Ahmed, a big, bearded soldier in the movement’s war against Israel, has a closer-to-the-conflict view of those deaths.

Abu Ahmed is a nom de guerre, and he operates as much as possible away from the view of Israel’s drones.

His office curtains are drawn on a recent sunny day, his walls decorated with posters celebrating the deaths of Islamic Jihad fighters in combat. A ficus plant adds a bit of life in one corner.

In dealing with Israel’s military, Abu Ahmed abides by a basic rule: The higher-tech Israel goes, the lower-tech go the Islamist movement’s foot soldiers.

“When drones are above us, we must meet face to face,” he said. “We must not drive our own cars or take taxis. So we walk. It is obvious when we are being tracked.”

He lists the different names of Israel’s drones — the Hunter and Heron, among others — and cites their range and maximum altitude. A group within the Islamic Jihad works on collecting such information, although so far that intelligence, along with improved weaponry flowing through Gaza’s southern tunnels, has not bolstered the group’s defense against them.

They have never shot one down.

“We advise the people to think of this voice like the noise of rain, something light and humorous and part of life here,” Abu Ahmed said. “But we don’t have the ability to face these drones. The most important thing we can do is to alert our people that they are in an area and how best to avoid them.’’

He paused, resigned, and added, “We will adapt.”

Staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

Israeli Campaign Angers American Jews

2011-12-03T13:09:00.000+02:00

After American Jewish Outcry, Israel Ends Ad Campaign Aimed at Expatriates

By Isabel Kershner and Jospeg Berger
The New York Times
December 2, 2011

JERUSALEM — One video advertisement shows a Jewish elderly couple distraught that their Israeli granddaughter in the United States thinks Hanukkah is Christmas. Another shows a clueless American boyfriend who does not get why his Israeli expatriate girlfriend is saddened on Israel’s memorial day. A third shows a toddler calling “Daddy! Daddy!” to his napping Israeli expatriate father, who finally awakens when the child switches to Hebrew: “Abba!”

For many American Jews, the Israeli government-sponsored ads, intended to cajole Israelis living in the United States to come home, smacked of arrogance, ignorance and cultural disrespect of America. Jewish groups in the United States expressed outrage, saying they were causing a rift with American Jews who support Israel. On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aborted the campaign.

The ads — short videos and billboard posters — were intended to touch the sensibilities of Israeli expatriates and tap into their national identity, according to the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, which oversaw the campaign.

But critics said the ads implied that moving to America led to assimilation and an erosion of Jewish consciousness. The Jewish Federations of North America called them insulting. Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the videos “heavy-handed, and even demeaning.”

Israeli officials defended the desire to encourage Israeli expatriates to return, but the reaction of American Jewry, a crucial mainstay of support for Israel, clearly caused alarm.

“We are very attentive to the sensitivities of the American Jewish community,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu. “When we understood there was a problem, the prime minister immediately ordered the campaign to be suspended.”

The ads were placed by the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption, headed by Sofa Landver, who immigrated to Israel from Russia in 1979. She belongs to the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party led by Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. The party takes a hard line on the peace process with the Palestinians and advocates exchanging parts of Israel heavily populated by Arab citizens for Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

A spokesman for the ministry, Elad Sonn, said no insult had been intended; the ministry “respects and cherishes” the American Jewish community, and “we wish to apologize to those who might have been offended.”

Beckoning the Jewish diaspora, of course, has always been a component of Zionism, a foundation for the Jewish homeland. Immigrants are referred to almost reverentially as “olim,” Hebrew for “going up.” Israelis who leave are “yordim,” Hebrew for “going down,” often uttered disdainfully.

The videos ran on Web sites popular with expatriates. Billboard versions went up in American communities where expatriates live.

Some Israeli officials were mystified by the belatedness of the reaction; the campaign is a few months old. Attention increased after an item on it appeared on the Jewish Channel, a cable station, and a blog was posted this week by Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for The Atlantic.

“The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik, if you don’t mind me resorting to the vernacular,” Mr. Goldberg said.

On Thursday, the Jewish Federations of North America issued a memo that said: “While we recognize the motivations behind the ad campaign, we are strongly opposed to the messaging that American Jews do not understand Israel. We share the concerns many of you have expressed that this outrageous and insulting message could harm the Israel-Diaspora relationship.”

Steven Bayme, director of contemporary Jewish life at the American Jewish Committee, said that the campaign’s skepticism of Jewish life in the United States contributed to the angry reaction, particularly the message that Israelis should not marry American Jews. “We’re talking about one Jewish people, and certainly encouraging marriage within the Jewish people is something everyone would sign on to,” he said.

Mr. Foxman called the campaign “a reflection of the ignorance that exists in Israel of Jewish life in America, its vitality, its creativity.” Still, he said, Israel’s decision to stop the ads showed “that they’re listening and it does matter how we feel.”

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Joseph Berger from New York.

A Vote for the Muslim Brotherhood

2011-12-01T09:15:00.000+02:00

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood ahead in Vote Count

Al-Akhbar English
Wednesday, November 30 2011

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is leading in the opening round of parliamentary elections in the first poll since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak, press reports said on Wednesday.

Early signs show the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is ahead in six provinces, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

According to the independent daily Al-Shorouk, in Cairo "the first signs show the Freedom and Justice Party with 47 percent of the votes, and 22 percent for the Egyptian bloc," a coalition of secular parties.

Egyptians voted on Monday and Tuesday in Cairo and Alexandria to elect representatives of the new lower house.

A staggered elections system means final results are not expected until mid-January 2012.

Parliamentary elections were held under Mubarak's regime, but often rigged to ensure his National Democratic Party always won a majority.

Long oppressed under Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood remained Egypt's largest and most organized opposition party, which is expected to be reflected in election results.

The elections came after a tense week of mass protests against the nation's military rulers, with at least 42 people killed and over 2,000 injured.

Where is the Arab League on Yemen?

2011-11-29T14:52:00.000+02:00

Today Yemenis have again taken to the streets in mass protest. Although last week President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally signed an agreement to step down from power, his protectors in Saudi Arabia will likely shield him from being held accountable for the bloodshed that continues to ravage Yemen. In fact Saleh has claimed amnesty for all of those who committed violence during the popular uprising. So why does the Arab League focus its attention only on Syria? Of course the question is a rhetorical one. But such inconsistencies in justice are only going to set the stage for future violence in the region.

Hundreds of Thousands Protest in Yemen, Demanding Trial for President Saleh

Mass protests in the capital Sanaa, Taiz, Aden, and other cities call for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to face trial for charges ranging from corruption to deadly crackdowns on protests.

By The Associated Press
29 November 2011

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis are demonstrating across the country to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for charges ranging from corruption to deadly crackdowns on protests.

Similar demonstrations have taken place since Saleh returned to Yemen Saturday night from the Saudi capital Riyadh after signing a power transfer deal last week.

Also Tuesday, a security official said at least 25 people were killed in fighting between Hawthi Shiites and ultraconservative Salafis in the northern province of Saada in a local dispute.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with security rules.

Saleh signed a transition deal last week, under which he transferred his powers to Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after 33 years in office and 10 months of protests that have brought the country to the edge of civil war.

Although Wary, Egyptians still Vote

2011-11-29T13:27:00.000+02:00

In a Surprise, Calm Prevails in Egypt’s Elections

By David D. Kirkpatrick
The New York Times
November 28, 2011

CAIRO — Unexpectedly large crowds of Egyptians on Monday defied predictions of bedlam and violence to cast their votes in the first parliamentary elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

The apparent success of the initial voting surprised the voters themselves. After a week of violent demonstrations against the interim military rulers, many said they had cast their ballots out of a sense of duty and defiance, determined to reclaim the promise of their revolution, even as the ruling generals said they intended to share little power with the new Parliament.

“The revolution started so that our voice has a value, so we have to do what we are supposed to do,” said Lilian Rafat, 23, who stood in line for more than four hours, even though she put the chances of a legitimate result at only about “50 percent.”

But the large turnout on Monday, despite long delays and sporadic violence, raised the possibility that when the last phase of voting is completed in March, the process may result in the first broadly representative Parliament in more than six decades. The opening appeared to bring the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-outlawed Islamist group, one step closer to a formal role in governing Egypt. And, for the first time in 10 months, it offered the promise of moving the debate over Egypt’s future off the streets and into the new legislature.

For now, though, the act of voting itself appeared to vent to the public’s anger after a week of clashes that brought hundreds of thousands out in Cairo to demand that the military hand over power to a civilian government. Abandoning talk of a boycott, protest leaders urged supporters to go to the polls. And the diversion, along with a swell of pride in the historic vote, drained the continuing occupation of Tahrir Square to just a few thousand demonstrators.

“It is like a play, it is like a sham. We are pretending to be voting,” said Rabab Abdel Fattah Mohamed, 30, a doctor demonstrating in Tahrir Square. “I know these elections don’t mean anything, but I am still going.”

The military pointed to the seemingly successful vote as validation. Egyptian state television called the turnout a mark of approval for the military’s current transition timetable: transfer to an elected president by July, after the military has had a chance to shape the writing of a new constitution that it has suggested should enshrine its power and autonomy from civilian government.

“We are betting on the Egyptian people,” said Gen. Ibrahim Massouhy, a member of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, as he visited a polling place in Shoubra, a neighborhood of Cairo. “We know our people very well. That is why we are insisting on elections,” he said, calling the day a triumph.

But some voters said they hoped an elected Parliament could stand up to the military council, and some activists insisted that the new body would become their most potent tool.

“Candidates do not go through this whole process just to become pictures on the wall,” said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “The legitimacy of being elected will allow them to start a political conflict with SCAF,” he said, referring to the military council.

The outcome is not a foregone conclusion and final results remain months away. Some warned that violence and fraud were still possible. The first round of voting for the lower house — including the major cities of Cairo and Alexandria — will continue Tuesday. After a runoff next week, two more rounds will follow, ending in January. The elections for the upper house are scheduled to start in January and be completed by March.

Adding to the uncertainty of the day, the Egyptian authorities suggested that they might fine people about $80 if they failed to vote. Some voters, like Wael Ashraf, 23, said that was why they had come to the polls. “The revolution didn’t help — do you think elections will?” he said.

Many polling places around Cairo, Alexandria and other cities opened hours late because ballots, voter rolls or supervising judges failed to arrive — in some cases, not until 6:30 p.m. At least 11 polling places in the cities of Cairo and Fayoum did not open at all, according to the Web site of the state-run newspaper Al Ahram. And many places stayed open hours after polls were supposed to close to give voters a longer chance to vote.

Al Ahram reported that judges in some polling places donated ink and wax (to seal the ballot boxes) because the authorities had failed to supply them. In at least one poorer neighborhood near Cairo, soldiers fired into the air to disperse an angry crowd trying to get in to vote. There were also reports of scattered clashes, including a dispute in Asyut in the south that led the family of a candidate to burn down a polling place and kidnap a judge.

The Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated unrivaled organization and sophistication. Teams of young members sat with laptop computers at strategic points, such as outside mosques, around Cairo to help voters locate their polling places, helping anyone but providing the information on slips of paper advertising their candidates.

Lines of as many as a dozen Brotherhood members wearing the insignia of the group’s newly formed Freedom and Justice Party stood outside polling places to help maintain security, and in some places they performed services such as walking elderly women to designated lines.

The party’s secretary general, Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, said on Monday night that 40,000 members had turned out to secure polling places in Cairo, and afterward members volunteered to clean up the litter left behind.

In the Islamist stronghold of Alexandria and elsewhere, the Brotherhood is competing with several new parties established by the ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis. Less organized and new to the political scene, the Salafis’ relative strength is one of the major questions hanging over the polls. Egyptian law requires parties to nominate female candidates, and many of the ones on Salafi lists put a picture of a flower instead of their face on their campaign fliers, deferring to conservative Islamic notions of modesty.

Several liberal parties are competing in two main coalitions. But most suspended or slowed their campaigns to focus on last week’s protests, potentially falling behind as the Brotherhood sprinted on toward the vote.

Although the Brotherhood declined to join the protests to avoid any delays in the elections, its leaders have said they intend to use any seats they gain in Parliament as a platform to continue pushing for the military’s speedy exit. So, the completion of the elections could restore the unity of liberal and Islamist calls for the generals to leave power.

Of course, in most places incumbents — former members of Mr. Mubarak’s party — are also running, hoping past patronage and name recognition will overcome anger at their association with the old government.

As voters stood in long lines at the polls, the potential for a democracy to flourish under military rule set off as much discussion as the contest between parties. “We are asking for change, so we have to convey our feelings,” said one woman, putting the chances of a credible election at about “75 percent.”

“No, no, no!” said Magda Mokabel, 39, waiting nearby. “There is no justice, no integrity, no confidence,” she said. “But I came because then I will have done my duty, so I will ask to claim my rights.”

Mayy el Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Liam Stack from Alexandria, Egypt.

Egyptian Salafists: Oppressors or the Oppressed?

2011-11-26T15:40:00.000+02:00

The below article is worth reading, although it is deeply problematic to conceptualize liberalism and Islamism as either opposing or far apart without also recognizing the many ways they overlap. Also, if those Egyptians in the coffee shop were true to the ideals of liberalism they would think it unjust to exclude somebody based on his or her appearance or beliefs. Well at least theoretically, because of course this practice among so-called liberals is pretty much the norm around the world today. Which makes this story about a young Egyptian Salafist and his efforts to reach out to others even more interesting to read.

Divide between Islamists, Liberals Still Threatens to Splinter Egypt Revolution

By Ernesto Londoño
The Washington Post
Saturday, November 26 2011

CAIRO — Days after Egyptians drove their longtime president from power in February, Mohammad Tolba ordered a latte at an upscale coffeehouse and waited to see whether his scraggly beard was still radioactive in the new Egypt.

He got a grudging welcome, and that was enough to prod the 32-year-old information technology executive — a conservative Islamist with a look that many associate with extremism — into an effort to bridge a divide that threatens to splinter the Egyptian revolution.

His journey since has tracked the shifting moods of an upheaval that toppled President Hosni Mubarak but remains unfinished. Last week, he found himself in Tahrir Square, with men young and old, secular and religious, lobbing stones in clashes with riot police — a role he had always vowed to avoid.

Tolba is a Salafist, an adherent of an ultraconservative view of Islam that is the norm in Saudi Arabia and has a following in several Muslim countries. Broadly, Salafists believe that Muslims should strictly conform to the teachings of the Koran and emulate the austere lifestyle of the prophet Muhammad. They shun alcohol and tobacco, and they believe that women should wear veils and niqabs, the black cloth that covers the face below the eyes.

Pariahs under the secular, autocratic, military-backed governments that ruled Egypt for 60 years, Salafists have emerged publicly in recent months in numbers that have startled and frightened liberal Egyptians. But Tolba believes that winning wider acceptance will require building greater trust.

“You have a very good product and a terrible salesman,” Tolba said of the challenge facing Salafists.

Whether Islamists can seize the moment, he believes, will depend on their ability to dispel the notion that most dogmatic Muslims are militant troglodytes who want to take over the government and impose strict moral codes on this nation of 82 million.

At stake, he believes, is whether Islamists will manage to reinsert themselves into mainstream Egyptian society without building popular support for a new crackdown by the authorities. A first test will come this week with Egypt’s first post-Mubarak elections.

Into the public eye

As the son of well-off secular parents, Tolba is better suited than most to narrow the gap between liberals and Islamists — groups that have for decades been wary of one another.

Salafists say at least a few million Egyptians follow their brand of Islam, but estimates vary because for decades many have taken pains to conceal their adherence to the movement. Salafists tend to be more dogmatic than members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist movement, but the two movements support similar political goals: policies that are more closely in line with Islamic law. (Both are made up of Sunni Muslims, divided by a centuries-old schism from the Shiite branch of Islam dominant in Iraq and Iran.)

When Tolba sat down at a Costa Coffee shop in Cairo that day in late February, the plainclothes state security agents who hassled bearded men under Mubarak’s regime were nowhere in sight. But stares from fellow patrons in skinny jeans or suits made him feel unwelcome.

“The guy serving me coffee and the other guests were feeling uncomfortable, and they were looking at me in a very bad way,” Tolba said. “I started talking to people and making jokes.”

Some warmed up to him, which planted the seed for what became known as Salafyo Costa, or the Costa Salafis. Tolba and some friends created a Facebook page to encourage Egyptians of all backgrounds to have coffee with Salafists. It soon spun into a thousands-strong lively online forum for debate over politics, foreign policy and religion.

Tolba said he believes that a large number of Egyptians will gravitate toward Salafism now that Islamists have greater freedoms, but he insists that such a trend ought to happen organically rather than by force.

“You should not enforce teachings on others,” he said at a Costa Coffee one afternoon this summer. “Let the crowds decide what they want. At the end of the day, we will accept what the people say.”

As Salafyo Costa gained popularity, Tolba adapted the logo of the British coffee chain, which has three coffee beans, to depict a bearded man. He made a short video meant as a metaphor for the transition on which Egypt was about to embark.

In the clip, five men representing different classes of Egyptian society show up to claim ownership of a small shop in a rundown Cairo neighborhood. The men initially quarrel over who is the legitimate owner but agree to work together after they realize the shop is in ruins.

That was what Egyptians did during the 18-day revolt that forced Mubarak to step down on Feb. 11. Soon after the ouster of their common enemy, societal divisions were exposed. In some cases, violence erupted, most poignantly in a spate of deadly clashes between Salafists and Coptic Christians.

“All parties were scared of each other, until they started working toward one goal,” Tolba said. “We are trying to bring the spirit of Tahrir Square from the revolution back.”

‘Real democracy is in Islam’

Tahrir has often served as neutral ground for debating the role of Islam in post-revolutionary Egypt. In July, Tolba set up a tent in the square, along with many others who had participated in the revolt. On a sweltering evening, bearded men and women in niqabs talked politics.

Shimaa Mahmoud, 33, a teacher who has been a Salafist for 11 years, said she was looking forward to being governed by a parliament dominated by Islamists.

“People suffered a long time under the government,” she said. “Now it’s time to taste real democracy. Real democracy is in Islam.”

Rageh Abou Khatwa, 31, another relatively recent convert to Salafism, said there is virtually no talk about militancy among people of his generation. Pointing to a group of older bearded men from the Gamaa Islamiya, which waged a violent campaign against the Egyptian government in the 1980s and 1990s, he said the group represented a closed chapter in Egyptian history.

“Using violence did not achieve anything,” he said. “Nobody is calling for this type of violence anymore.”

Days later, tens of thousands of Islamists from across the country streamed into Tahrir Square for a demonstration to decry what Islamist groups called an attempt by the military and liberal leaders to legally enshrine secular principles before elections are held. Some started waving the black flag associated with violent jihad, commonly used by al-Qaeda.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tolba demanded. “This is not Afghanistan. Why are you holding these flags?”

One of the men looked confused and replied that he had been asked to wave it, Tolba said.

As the sun rose, massive crowds began chanting: “The people want Islamic law!” A vendor sold photographs of slain al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Fuming, Tolba left the square.

“All of us are feeling so down,” he said a few days later. “We look like the guys that came, but they don’t represent us.”

It wasn’t the only time Tolba has felt on the outside looking in. Several traditional Salafists refused to meet with him, thinking his movement was flippant and offensive to the old guard. Although many Christians joined the group, some remain wary of all Salafists, such as the members of a church who agreed to let him speak at a service, only to cancel at the last minute.

A spiritual awakening

Tolba was not born into a Salafist family. During his late teens and early 20s, he said, he sometimes drank and partied heavily. He met his wife, Doaa Yehia, 26, in 2000 at a poetry club. He didn’t have a beard then. She wore a veil but not a niqab. When a close mutual friend was killed in a car accident, the two experienced a spiritual awakening and gradually became Salafists.

Tolba said he was shaken and saddened by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which occurred shortly after he became a Salafist but had no bearing on his transformation. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were launched in response, however, have hardened his views toward the West. Attacks against American soldiers fighting in foreign lands, he said, are justified.

Soon after his first beard grew out, Tolba said, he was stopped at police checkpoints and airports and interrogated about his faith. He was asked which mosques he prayed at and which clerics he looked up to. Feeling ostracized, he took a job in Sudan.

“They were treating me like a monster,” he said, referring to authorities in Egypt.

Also demonized was his favorite Salafist cleric, Mohamed Abdel Maksoud.

Maksoud was arrested several times under Mubarak’s regime because he often criticized the government in his sermons. When the cleric was not incarcerated, his supporters would organize quick, clandestine prayers, announcing the location via text message 30 minutes in advance.

On a recent Friday morning in 6th of October City, a suburb of Cairo, Maksoud officiated at a large mosque that was so full some attendees had to pray outside. As the gray-bearded, limping cleric departed, devotees crowded around, trying to kiss his hand.

Maksoud said Egypt must be ruled in a way consistent with sharia law. Although sharia has long been a bedrock of the Egyptian constitution, he said, the government for decades has largely ignored it. As an example, he said, wearing the veil should be mandatory for women.

Alcohol, he added, should not be consumed in public venues. “Egyptian people love Islam, and they are calling for Islam,” he said.

With every rock, hope

The prospect that well-organized Islamist parties could dominate politics is widely believed to have been the main reason Egypt’s military chiefs have been reluctant to cede power to elected officials. The lengthy transition time frame they proposed, which would have put off presidential elections until at least 2013, was one of the catalysts of fresh protests that began more than a week ago and have plunged the country into new chaos.

Tolba was among a small group of protesters attempting to set up a permanent camp in Tahrir last week when riot police tried to dislodge them using tear gas and rubber-coated bullets. For the first time in his life, Tolba said, he felt compelled to respond violently.

Along with others, both liberals and Islamists, he charged toward the line of policemen, armed only with stones. Despite the hail of birdshot and clouds of tear gas, the feeling was cathartic, Tolba said.

“It was very spiritual, very inspiring,” Tolba said afterward. “Every time I went to the front lines, I was recalling every incident of injustice. With every rock, I was hoping for a better future for my children.”

A day later, when security forces charged into the square, Tolba was among those beaten with clubs. He was left for dead in a pile of corpses and wounded people near a travel agency. Next to him was a young, unveiled woman who he thinks died.

Before losing consciousness, he said, the woman asked a policeman dragging a corpse: “Aren’t you Egyptian, too?”