Cairo's Fine Line Between Peace And Conflict

After the killings of Egyptian officers in Sinai, Israel has received a giant wake-up call not to mess with its neighbour

By Linda S. Heard

Israelis have received a clear message; the cozy world in which their military has operated with impunity is no more. The alacrity with which the Israeli government issued a verbal apology for the deaths of Egyptian security officers that Cairo insists were killed by an Israeli Apache helicopter while chasing down fighters and agreed to a joint Israeli-Egyptian investigation is telling.

When the news first broke that the Israeli army had turned its guns on its Egyptian allies, Tel Aviv did what it always does to extricate itself from culpability; it cooked-up a bare-faced lie saying the Egyptian soldiers and policeman were victims of a suicide bomber. After all, lies have been working for Israel for decades.

Israel can never be in the wrong as was made clear to its ally Turkey and the international community following the Israeli assault on the Mavi Marmara that took the lives of nine Turkish activists who, according to Israel, were armed ‘terrorists' out to murder Israeli commandos. Until this day, Turkey is still waiting for an apology and compensation for the victims' families.

A similar blatant fabrication might have worked prior to Egypt's popular revolution when former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was in Washington's pocket and didn't hesitate to quell an angry street with force.

But not now when the Egyptian people have managed to wrest power from authorities hitherto compliant with Israel. They are in no mood to be humiliated or pushed around by their caretaker government let alone their arrogant neighbour.

Egyptians have reacted to the news with fury gathering outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Alexandria intent on tearing down the Israeli flag and replacing it with the Egyptian and Palestinian standard, which Alexandrians succeeded in doing.

Crowds holding high photographs of Egypt's former president Jamal Abdul Nasser, burning depictions of the Star of David and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and an end to the Camp David Peace Treaty were permitted to gather while Egyptian soldiers sitting atop their tanks looked on.

This is the first time that Egypt's security forces have refrained from intervening in protests outside the Israeli embassy reflecting the country's anger over the deaths but also over a statement by Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak to the effect the Egyptian military was "losing its grip" over the Sinai.

When Egypt summoned the Israeli attache (the ambassador was out of town) and threatened to recall its own from Tel Aviv, Barak soon changed his tune saying, "Israel regrets the deaths of the Egyptian officers that occurred during the attacks along the Israeli-Egyptian border… The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is of great importance and strategic value for the continued stability of the Middle East." Moreover, the Israeli government now admits that the Egyptians were probably killed in the crossfire.

Peace treaty

The Egyptian government is unimpressed. It is demanding an official apology in writing, a deadline for the joint probe and monetary compensation. Showing that it ‘means business' it has unilaterally suspended the constraints put upon the numbers of Egyptian soldiers permitted to be based in Sinai under Camp David and vowed to "take protective measures and strengthen security at the border with the necessary forces capable of deterring alleged infiltrators as well as responding to any activity by the Israeli military." And, according to the DEBKAFile website owned by people with links to the Mossad, Washington has made efforts to diffuse tensions between the two sides by agreeing to renegotiate the Camp David demilitarisation clause that ties Egypt's hands.

Behind the scenes diplomacy may have helped calm things down in the corridors of power but it is yet to be seen how the Egyptian people will respond, although this will no doubt become clear following next Friday's prayers. It doesn't help that at least three of the Egyptian victims apparently had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood which is no fan of Israel at the best of times.

On the other hand, I believe the vast majority of Egyptians, while not averse to cancelling the peace treaty with Israel — which is hardly worth the paper it's written on as far as they're concerned — are unprepared for conflict. They understand that the country has enough internal problems to worry about with elections coming up and must prioritise getting the economy back on its feet.

It's yet to be seen how this diplomatic crisis will play out — we'll know more on Friday — but even if it dies down, Israel has received a giant wake-up call not to mess with Egyptians… or else! In the event, Egypt decides to kill the treaty down the road, Jordan will no doubt follow. At a time when Israeli-Turkish relations are frigid, Israel is potentially facing isolation within a hostile environment. I can only hope that this new chilly reality will scare the Israelis towards a comprehensive Middle East peace.

-This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 23/08/2011
-Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com Some of the comments may be considered for publication

In Libya Victory Celebrations First, Tough Questions Later

Libya faces many new challenges, but first comes a moment of joy as the despised Colonel Muammar Qaddafi loses control of his capital city, his last stronghold. Now the work of building a new Libya begins.

By Faisal Al Yafai

As the Libyan rebels drove, surprisingly unopposed, into Tripoli, they might have reflected that this was a long-anticipated, endlessly delayed move.

When protests began in Libya in February, the pundits predicted that the Qaddafi regime would fall swiftly. That was false and the rebels have taken a long, bloody road to the capital.

The toppling of Tripoli is an important, essential milestone, but it is not the end. Though it has been purchased with much blood, the end of the Qaddafi regime is merely the beginning of the real Libyan revolution.

In the coming days, there will be much talk about rebuilding Libya, about developing functioning institutions, about rebuilding the oil infrastructure, about life after the colonel.

And in the coming weeks and months there will be conflicts, political and maybe armed, as the country restarts itself after more than 40 years of one-man rule and ponderous talk of the Libyan revolution losing its way.

But today is not the moment for that. The rebels can allow themselves time to celebrate what they have accomplished.

Tomorrow and in the days after, there will be serious questions to address. And the most pressing of these will be security.

These are dangerous times for Tripoli and for Libya. Dangerous in a small sense, because there are lots of hyped-up, excited young men with guns on the streets of Tripoli, far from their home in the east.

Dangerous, too, because the regime has not yet surrendered. There are pockets of resistance in Tripoli, many heavily armed, and unknown snipers.

Dangerous too in a larger sense because the future is uncertain and rivalries within the TNC and within Libyan society, that were once contained by Col Qaddafi's rule, could explode into the open.

Yes, it has taken six months, and it may yet take much longer for this war to be called over, but a few months to liberate a regime of 42 years is short.

That's why this is also a moment to reflect on what the Arab uprisings have meant.

Watching and reporting the Arab world these days can sometimes feel like a waiting game. That these are historical days in the region is not in doubt, but the news business can sometimes attempt to compress long weeks of history into easily digestible narratives.

Hence the talk of the "stagnation" of the uprisings, though it has been barely six months since the region rose up. What the entry of the Libyan rebels into Tripoli - and the people still protesting, still fighting, in Yemen and Syria - shows is that the Arab Spring is still on course, days and weeks and months after it began.

The best course of action for the other republics is also the best course of action for the Libyan rebels: having come this far, keep calm and keep going.

This commentary was published in The National on 23/08/2011

What’s Next For Syria

Assad’s regime, increasingly unstable, is running out of time and running out of friends, as even its old ally Turkey pulls away, while domestically political opposition broadens by the day.

By Owen Matthews

As Bashir al-Assad loses former allies, what remains to be seen is whether brutal crackdowns have ended the protests or just signaled the start of his eventual downfall., Anwar Amro, AFP / Getty Images

As Libyan rebel troops gathered to deal a deathblow to the Gaddafi regime in Tripoli, the broadest coalition yet gathered of Syria’s political opposition met in Istanbul to plan how to do the same to President Bashir al-Assad. Senior members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, leaders of recent street protests, and exiled Syrian intellectuals gathered for the first time under one roof to thrash out nominees for a 120-member “transitional council,” an important step toward filling the dangerous power vacuum that the fall of Assad would leave. At the same time international pressure piled up on Assad, with British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg calling him “as irrelevant to Syria's future as Gaddafi is to Libya's”—echoing President Barack Obama’s call on Assad to step aside last week.

But a more serious indication that Assad is running out of room for maneuver is not Washington’s condemnation but Ankara’s. At the beginning of the Arab Spring and the first opposition demonstrations in the Syrian cities of Hama and Homs in April, Turkey worked hard to preserve the status quo in Syria–while at the same time pressing Assad to introduce reforms and lay off bloody crackdowns. Ankara even sent Turkish National Intelligence (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan and other top intelligence officials to liaise with the notorious Syrian Muhabarat secret police. At the same time, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu played go-between, briefing Assad on where the White House stood on different Middle East issues, including Syria, while MIT agents on the ground kept the CIA abreast of developments.

Over the last two weeks, though, Turkey seems to have lost patience with the Assad regime. “We believed that giving [Assad] a last chance during my latest visit to Syria, before the international community spoke out, would be a good move,” Davutoglu told reporters over the weekend. “This current condition is not sustainable; the Syrian administration needs to realize that.” Instead of following a road map proposed by Davutoglu which included withdrawal of tanks from Syrian cities and from the border with Turkey, Assad stepped up military operations against opposition demonstrators in a bloody crackdown that human-rights groups estimate has cost more than 2,000 lives. “It is not about pressure from the outside,” said Davutoglu. “The Syrian administration must make peace with its own people.”

Turkey’s distancing itself from the Assad regime leaves Damascus with few friends apart from its old allies, the Iranians. But in military and diplomatic terms there’s little Tehran can do to influence events on the ground in Syria. Turkey, on the other hand, is a crucial player. Turkey is Syria’s largest trading partner, with exports to Syria nearly doubling between 2005 and 2010. A deal signed by Davutoglu in 2007 created a free-trade zone and abolished visas–though after 12,000 refugees fled across the border into the Turkish province of Hatay in June, trade has declined sharply. Most important, Turkey has an important stake in the future political stability of Syria because upheavals in Syria’s large Kurdish population would quickly spill over into Turkey itself.

The key question is what Turkey will actually do if further unrest threatens to unseat Assad. Last week in a series of background briefings to handpicked Turkish newspaper editors, the Turkish foreign ministry pointedly refused to rule out the prospect of military intervention, though “only on condition of a United Nations resolution … and as a last option,” according to Murat Yetkin, editor in chief of the daily Radikal. “Ankara believes that the U.N. concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is legitimate when a regime’s actions against its own people … becomes a systematic violation of human rights,” senior foreign ministry briefers told Yetkin. At the same time, “if Assad falls, there’s not much that Turkey can do to avoid a civil war,” in Syria, according to one Western diplomatic observer at Saturday’s opposition conference not authorized to speak on the record. The lack of any figure from Syria’s majority Sunni community with any international credibility is also a major problem for any post-Assad settlement. Abdul Halim Khaddam, an old ally of Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez Assad who defected to France in 2005, is the highest-ranking Sunni among the exiles. Turkey and the international community have “serious questions about the blood on his hands,” from the 20 years he was Hafez Assad’s No. 2, says the Western diplomat.

Assad over the weekend warned against Libya-style military intervention, saying, "Any military action against Syria will bring repercussions that [the West] cannot tolerate"–a hint that terrorism could be part of Syria’s response to any attack. The Syrian opposition, for its part, has said it does not want Western countries to interfere. Instead, delegates at last Saturday’s conference in Istanbul focused on creating "a credible voice for the democratic revolution," said Syrian political scientist Wael Merza. "We need to have a road map for a transition and unity among the opposition."

All hinges now on whether Assad’s brutal crackdown has actually put an end to the protests—or marked the beginning of the end of the regime. “Making statements is easy; changing reality is not,” prominent Syrian human-rights activist and former judge Haitham al-Maleh told the National Salvation Congress over the weekend. How much that reality will change is now in the hands of the Syrian street.

This analysis was published in The Daily Beast on 22/08/2011

Defeat Of ’67 Chills Egypt

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

I DO not exaggerate if I say the current situation in Egypt resembles the June 1967 defeat. The demonstrators have been making deafening noise. These loud voices remind us of Ahmad Said and Jamal Abdul Nasser and their endless enthusiastic slogans. We no longer feel optimistic because the scene in Egypt is similar to what we witnessed in 1967 when Egypt and the Arab world tasted a bitter defeat whose effect lingered on for many years — until war erupted in 1973, which to some extent restored pride of the Arabs and some of them held their heads high.

Before 1967, Nasser depended on the people by invoking enthusiasm and this has prompted him to take decisions based on false information, passion and abilities of the demonstrators.

This has boosted Nasser’s enthusiasm and he threatened to throw Israel into the sea. He ordered the UN forces — which at that time were monitoring the truce — to leave Egypt, only to discover later that he had been deceived by the hollow beliefs and the false abilities of his people which he had heavily relied upon.

At the time, Israel destroyed the Egyptian Army, occupied the Sinai desert, while the Soviet ally and other Arab countries on which Cairo had depended for support, stood idle. The world stood by Tel Aviv, even when it made mistakes, and the then Secretary-General of the United Nations U-Thant, accused Tel Aviv of violating the truce and starting the war but that neither changed anything nor undermined the ability of the world powers to support the Israeli Army.

The outcome of the Jan 25, 2011 revolution resembles the situation in 1967. Those who rebelled against corruption and demanded accountability found supporters everywhere. Although what they have done is good and right, they still brought chaos to Egypt because addressing corruption does not lie in the loose reins of security, or by undermining the authority of state institutions because corruption is prevalent throughout the world and no developed nation on Earth has addressed the issue the way it has been done in Egypt.

We do not want the Egyptians to commit the same mistakes in 1967 because the issues cannot be addressed through chants, burning the flags of nations, drum beats, baton wielding and pelting stones, particularly when the enemy wins the support of the world.

Everyone must have remembered and understood well what former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said to former Prime Minister of Lebanon Saad Al-Hariri during their last meeting when they assessed the situation in Lebanon.

Mubarak said, ‘If you depend on the US for cover, you will have to sleep naked’. Now we do not know how one can protect the Egyptian revolution. The chaos reins supreme and this has affected even the bilateral agreements signed by the nations.

Do the revolutionaries in Egypt want the world to stand against Cairo and abandon it?

As Arabs, we must take into account the opinion of some major powers. We must look at how they deal with our issues and what are their priorities in this regard.

Perhaps we can learn a lesson or two from what happened in the United Kingdom a few days ago when a wave of popular anger swept through a number of British cities, during which the stores were looted, roads were closed, some people lost their lives and more than 3,000 Britons ended up behind bars.

We have not seen a single US official calling on British Prime Minister David Cameron to resign but we heard US President Barrack Obama calling on Hosni Mubarak to go.

All countries consider what happened in Britain as London’s internal affair and the security authorities quickly took the necessary preventive measures to maintain stability.

These countries have responded differently to revolutions which took place in some Arab countries and as civil wars loomed on the horizon in others. Major countries rushed to support the people, whether we liked it or not, because such situations favor Israel, which wants to see Arabs preoccupied with the chaos so that Tel Aviv can breathe fresh air.

It is not too late for Egypt to avoid the mistakes of 1967. This can be done by the Supreme Military Council because it can ensure safety in the country, brighten its future and end the power struggle.

-This commentary was published in The Arab Times on 23/08/2011
-Ahmed Al-Jarallah is the editor-in-chief of The Arab Times and the Kuwaiti Arab daily Assyassah

US Military's Linguists Face Uncertain Road In Iraq

By W G Dunlop

The looming withdrawal of most if not all US forces from Iraq leaves their Iraqi interpreters facing unemployment, afraid for their lives and with a difficult decision: whether to stay or go. Interpreters interviewed at military and police facilities near Mosul in north Iraq all said they fear for their safety.

But accepting special visas to the US still means leaving their country and in some cases their families for an uncertain future-an incredibly tough choice to make. Major General Jeffrey Buchanan, spokesman for US forces in Iraq, said that about 9,000 Iraqis were employed by the US military in various capacities as of July.

These Iraqi employees stand to lose their jobs with the US military if all US troops leave by December 31, as is currently required. And a significant number may still face unemployment even if the US and Iraq reach an accord on a post-2011 US training mission, as it would likely be much smaller than the current roughly 47,000-soldier contingent.

I'm worried about my security (and) I'm worried about my family, because I don't know what's gonna happen after the Americans leave," said Ismail, an interpreter for US soldiers partnered with the 3rd Federal Police Division, who requested that only his first name be used.

The 25-year-old Assyrian Catholic, who had his dark hair cut short and has tattoos on both arms, already knows well the dangers of working for the US in Iraq. He did laundry at a US base in Baghdad in 2006, until he and his co-workers were told by men in the area-where he said there were many supporters of the Mahdi Army, radical anti-US cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr's now-disbanded militia-that they had to quit.

He did, and moved along with six other family members to the far more secure autonomous Kurdistan area in north Iraq. But Ismail's co-workers were not so lucky. "A week later, they killed the five guys who used to work with me, they killed all of them. I told them to quit, but they didn't listen to me," he said.

Ismail, who is married and has a daughter, later began working as an interpreter to support his family, and for the experience it offers, he said. He has translated for the US military for three years now. Ismail was threatened again outside a US base near Mosul in 2010 by a group of men whom he said gave him the message, in effect, that "if we see you next time in this area, we're gonna kill you.

He completed his interview for a visa to the US about three months ago and is now waiting to receive it. "Hopefully we're gonna get visas before the Americans leave," he said. Iraqis who have worked for the United States for over a year can apply for a "special immigrant visa," while those who have for less than a year can apply for refugee status while still in Iraq, which can lead to resettlement in the US. Both options allow recipients to bring family with them.

But for some, leaving Iraq is not an option. John, a 30-year-old with stylish sunglasses and gelled hair who asked to be identified only by his nickname from American soldiers, was interpreting for US troops at Al-Ghuzlani Warrior Training Centre south of Mosul.

He said he was worried about his safety after American troops leave Iraq and originally became an interpreter with dreams of going to the US, but he still turned down a visa to the United States.

My father made me change my mind," said John, who is married and has two sons, with a third baby on the way. "I do have a brother, but he can't handle it by himself, and my father, he suffers from disease." "I'm stuck," John said, adding that he would like to take his parents with him to the US, but they do not speak English, and do not want to leave their home country.

Staying in Iraq holds its own concerns. John began working for US forces in 2003, the year Saddam Hussein was toppled by a US-led invasion. But in 2004, he was threatened by insurgents who posted his name and picture at a mosque near his home, demanding he quit working for the US.

He then moved from his home city, which he asked not be mentioned by name because his parents still live there, to Kurdistan, and stopped translating for about nine months. But it was hard to find a job in Kurdistan, so he went back to work for the US again. "I don't know how I made it until today, but I'm still alive. We've been in a lot of situations, but I never got hit," he said.

Other interpreters such as Wallace-who also asked to be identified only by a nickname-want to leave Iraq as soon as they possibly can. Even in the relatively secluded Al-Ghuzlani training area, he wore a bandana-like face mask, sunglasses and a hat, to hide his identity. "Right now, I'm very nervous because they (US soldiers) are leaving soon," he said.

Wallace is a member of Iraq's small Yazidi minority from Sinjar, a town to the west of Mosul, and has worked as a translator for the US, mainly in north Iraq, since 2008. He decided to work with the US because he needed money to support his family, including his sister, who was ill, he said.

Wallace is not married, but said he is "worried a lot about my family" being targeted because of his work with the US. At one point, he was told by a taxi driver in Kirkuk who saw him leaving a US base that "your money is haram," or forbidden by Islam. "You're not supposed to work with them.

It was like a threat," he said. He completed his interview for a US visa five months ago, and is waiting to receive one. "Once I get my visa, I will go to the States and I will never come back-I mean, we cannot live here," he said. Interpreters "are gonna be killed, no question about that, if they (the Americans) leave us." – AFP

This analysis was published in The Kuwait Times on 23/08/2011

New Strategic Flaw Affects Israel?

By George Semaan

The Arab action has started to cast its shadows over Israel, while the security repercussions of the Eilat operation on the Gaza Strip and the killing of the Egyptian soldiers with the bullets of the Israeli army on the border between the two countries might lead to political repercussions that could make the Hebrew state come face to face with a blunt strategic flaw. In the meantime, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is standing before challenges for which it is not envied. Indeed, it is witnessing a mounting domestic action drawing its inspiration from the storms of change sweeping the region and a political-military conflict within the ruling elite over the defense budget and the expenditures on the settlers. In addition, it is confronting the Palestinian move toward the Security Council next month to ensure the issuance of a resolution to proclaim the establishment of the Palestinian state, and what this step will generate at the level of the relations between the authority and the international community, and between it and the state of the occupation, but also the changes it will induce at the level of the management and the references regulating any negotiations.

For its part, the Egyptian military council is not doing much better than Netanyahu’s government, considering that the summoning by the transitional government in Cairo of the ambassador from Tel Aviv might not be sufficient. True, it is a message of protest and escalation in response to the killing of the Egyptian soldiers, but it will not reach the level of threatening with the discontinuation of the implementation of the Camp David Accord. Moreover, the crowds calling on the council to oust the Israeli ambassador from Cairo are fueling the heated conflict between the military and the transitional government on one hand, and the Islamic and Salafi movements and parties on the other, against the backdrop of the council’s announcement of the fact that the Constitution will stipulate the civil aspect of the state. This is happening at a time when the latter parties and movements stood alongside the military for weeks in the face of the liberal and leftist wing which threatened to stage a revolution against the military council, and called for the departure of its president and the government.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak did not present an apology. He rather expressed his sorrow over the fall of the Egyptian soldiers, just like it was seen with Turkey following the Marmara incident. At the time, Avigdor Lieberman showed obstinacy and the leader of the Likud went along with him. Israel did not present an apology, did not undertake a transparent investigation and did not offer compensations to the families of the Freedom Flotilla’s victims. Consequently, Israel lost Turkey, as well as close political, security and military ties with a major Islamic country from its surrounding Arab states. So will Netanyahu’s government show arrogance once again and give the Egyptian Street a pretext to increase the pressures on the military council and get it to assume positions it does not wish to adopt?

Israel’s southern border was never safe, not even during the days of Mubarak whose consecutive governments were extremely committed to the prevention of any operations across the border with the Hebrew state, for considerations related to the peace accord and the American aid, but also to the official position toward the extremist Palestinian or Arab fundamentalist movements. But the situation is now different, and this is what Israel has been failing to grasp. In the past, it used to rely on the Egyptian army to protect its border, while the deposed regime used to provide it with guarantees despite the similar incidents that used to be witnessed. It knew very well that Mubarak’s regime mainly counted on the American economic and military aid, and perceived it as being a strong diplomatic dam in the face of the Iranian activities in the region. Moreover, it stood against the aspirations of the fundamentalist movements, namely the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, its plans and actions, and offered major support to the Palestinian authority.

All these “privileges” are no longer available following the change seen in Egypt. Therefore, the Hebrew state now gives a lot of importance to the position of the Egyptian Street, a major faction of which called for the ousting of the Israeli ambassador from Cairo although the military council assured since the fall of the former regime that it was insisting on the peace accord and the international agreements, and moved actively to maintain security on the border against the backdrop of the recent incidents.

Israeli circles went very far in conveying their fears following the success of the revolution in Egypt, thus warning against the possible control of the Islamic parties over the authority in Cairo, or at least the prevalence of their opinion over the decision-making circles. This is due to the fact that what Israel fears the most is seeing the Egyptian MB extending a helping hand to the MB in Gaza, which would enhance the inclination of the factions that are holding on to the Strip to turn it into a second “South Lebanon,” by instating a balance of terror in the south after the north.

If Israel shows its usual arrogance and fails to adopt measures to unburden the military council in Cairo, it will risk the adoption of the demand put forward by a wide faction among the revolutionaries to change the nature of the relations with Tel Aviv. It will consequently have to face a critical challenge, which will not be the first in the history of its relations in the region. Indeed, the Iranian revolution afflicted it with a strategic flaw in light of its close ties with the regime of the Shah, while the policy of the Justice and Development Party and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey caused it to suffer a similar strategic setback following the Marmara incident, after the bilateral relations between the two sides on the political, military and security levels used to be quite strong. Therefore, the Eilat operation and the repercussions which accompanied it, might hasten Israel’s search for a new strategy to protect this southern border and the settlements close to the Gaza Strip.

In the meantime, the repercussions of the Palestinian situation, the action in Syria and the changes witnessed in Lebanon following the governmental change and the issuance of the indictment into the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, are equally dangerous to the Israeli strategy. Maybe Hamas did not carry out the Eilat operation, unless it resorted to the method of the late Yasser Arafat who used to assign or facilitate the staging of qualitative operations by some Palestinian factions whenever he felt that political stalemate was weakening him. Still, what is mostly important is that the soothing operation led by Cairo did not generate a categorical commitment to the truce that has been in place for a long time.

And if the Eilat operation aimed at serving a regional goal related to the “rejectionist alliance” and what it is facing in terms of challenges in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, Hamas which is witnessing the obstruction of reconciliation with the authority and Fatah might find itself forced to engage in a conflict sought by more than one side. Indeed, Hezbollah is not concealing its tensions vis-à-vis the course of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, although the party is controlling the governmental situation on the political level after it controlled the security situation. As for Syria, which is being besieged by a suffocating isolation in light of its inability to settle the domestic action, it tried – over two months ago – to give the impression that the situation on its border with Israel could change. But it will not succeed. As for Iran, it is dissatisfied with the undermining of everything it has earned and built in the last couple of decades, while Israel is facing – in addition to the internal challenges – the fear surrounding the diplomatic campaign which will be led by the authority to propose the proclamation of the state at the Security Council next month.

Furthermore, some Israeli officials are aware of the fact that the continuation of the Arab action in more than one country while accompanied by military confrontations and mounting civil war projects is ringing the alarm bells among the superpowers. Consequently, these states, at the head of which are the United States and the European Union, might pressure the Hebrew state into offering the required concessions to ensure an acceptable settlement for the Palestinian cause based on the proclamation of the state of Palestine. And the Palestinian authority’s move toward the Security Council next month to see the adoption of such a proclamation, will constitute a test for the extent of the advancement of the international positions toward the Palestinian cause.

Did Western circles go overboard in linking a series of events witnessed in the region, from the mysterious Antelias explosion in the eastern part of Beirut to the series of explosions in Iraq and the Eilat operation? Were they not a clear response to the indictment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the decision to increase the isolation of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and did they not aim at confusing Baghdad and the Iraqi authority which is trying to extend the stay of the American troops in Iraq, or even to get it to show more stringency in the face of its opponents who are receiving support from Washington, Ankara and many Arab capitals?

This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 22/08/2011

Bashar Leave!

By Hussein Shobokshi

Last Thursday was as a noteworthy day in the course of the Syrian revolution, against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The more international stances towards the Syrian regime intensified, in both quantity and quality, in support of the revolutionaries' demands, the more the al-Assad regime became more stubborn and obstinate in its repression and brutality against its own people. The US, Britain and France have explicitly demanded that Bashar al-Assad immediately step down, whereas Spain and Portugal demanded that the grip is tightened on the Syrian regime, so as to force it to stop killing and repressing its people. Switzerland has recalled its ambassador in protest against the Syrian regime's practices, and Tunisia has acted likewise. An extremely significant set of economic sanctions was declared by the European Union and the US, with the aim of stifling the regime economically. Even Japan, the politically reserved and conservative state, issued statements demanding al-Assad's instant departure. In fact, the necessity and inevitability of the departure of the bloody al-Assad regime has achieved a faster and more significant international consensus than the mobility the world garnered in its confrontation with the vengeful Muammar Gaddafi of Libya.

Amidst such mobility, an odd incident occurred in Israel at the hands of an anonymous group from Gaza, who carried out an attack in the Israeli town of Eilat, from Egyptian soil. Armed Palestinian troops, as every one knows, are affiliates of Syria, and mobilizing them at this particular time is reminiscent of when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein fired 'Scud' missiles on Israel, in a last-minute act of "resistance". Today, we see the drowning Syrian regime teetering on the brink, in the same manner as the Titanic ship when it crashed against an iceberg and was flooded with enormous amounts of water. At the time, the passengers in the upper decks were completely oblivious to what was going on underneath, and continued to emphatically deny the situation until the ship sank and lay at the bottom of the ocean.

The Syrian regime's last-minute resistance is intended to reshuffle the cards and involve a major Arab state like Egypt, to make it adopt a neutral position and preoccupy the public with the Israeli issue. Israel is a criminal state with a black record full of assassinations and violations of regulations, laws and treaties, yet the Syrian regime has surpassed Israel in terms of the crimes it has committed against its own people, something which history cannot even document the full extent. There is no room today to support Bashar al-Assad, or remain silent about the crimes of his regime. Today, after ambassadors were recalled from Syria, free countries are obligated to expel their Syrian delegates and representatives from whatever institutions present on their soil.

The international community's consensus on al-Assad's departure, and the widespread demonstrations inside Syria, in terms of both quality and quantity, emphasize that the demand to topple a regime that lost its legitimacy and humanity, two characteristics it never had in the first place, was indeed a fair and a moral one. What is astonishing is that the Syrian issue and the need to support the Syrian revolution have become public demands in the Arab world. In mosques, people pray to God in support of the revolutionaries, donations, either financial or in kind, continue to be made, aid is on the rise, and pressures are being mounted on governments to besiege the Syrian government and expose its crimes without leniency. The Syrian revolution's poet, Ibrahim Qashoosh, who was slaughtered by the bloodthirsty Syrian regime when his throat was slit and his body was thrown into al-Assi River, once sang "Now leave Bashar." Now the entire world is repeating the same song after the issue transformed into a global political cause. We must put an end to a regime that has brought shame and embarrassment to the world, and now is the time for it to go.

-This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 22/08/2011- Hussein Shobokshi is a businessman and prominent columnist. He hosts the weekly current affairs program Al Takreer on Al Arabiya, and in 1995, he was chosen as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" by the World Economic forum. He received his B.A. in Political Science and Management from the University of Tulsa