Lebanon: The Message Of Ardogan's Visit

This editorial was published in The Daily Star on 26/11/2010

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was feted this week in Lebanon by the country’s leaders and officials during a visit that was heavy in symbolism, and perhaps even heavier in impact.

Although Erdogan’s two-day trip was officially focused on bilateral economic and business ties, he was naturally unable to avoid the state of affairs in Lebanon, which has been suffering from crippling bouts of political paralysis for much of the year.

Erdogan did pledge to help act as a fireman, stressing his country’s support for serious efforts to quell possible strife. Perhaps Erdogan can assist in extinguishing some of Lebanon’s smaller fires, but he doesn’t represent a magic solution. He repeated Ankara’s well-known goals of seeing peace, stability, prosperity and security in its immediate vicinity, thereby emphasizing that his visit to Lebanon was more strategic in nature.

Thankfully, Erdogan’s visit was one that covered nearly all of Lebanon’s political spectrum. He met leaders from all sides, and stayed on message, whether he was in the south, the north, or the capital, stressing the same principles and not catering to narrow partisan interests.

More importantly, Erdogan’s visit was about the inking of significant bilateral agreements that are the fruit of more than five years of negotiations and preparations. A free trade agreement, other forms of liberalization and bilateral cooperation, such as the possible creation of a regional version of the Schengen Zone, and the continued presence of Turkish troops in the UNIFIL force in the south: all of these were of central importance during Erdogan’s visit.

Were there protests during Erdogan’s visit?

Certainly, Lebanon’s Armenians had their say, and it should not be forgotten that Turkey’s recent diplomatic tiffs with Israel have upped the pressure on Ankara to follow through, to satisfy those for whom the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is their highest priority.

In the end, Lebanese should walk away with an abiding message from Erdogan’s visit: the value of healthy bilateral relations, when states deal with states, on an equal footing.

There were no ulterior motives behind the visit, which focused on matters of mutual interest. Erdogan pointed out that national sovereignty is not something that should be linked to the size of a given state, and that a sound economy flows from complete sovereignty, not the other way around.

Fellow members of the international community of nations shouldn’t act in patronizing fashion toward Lebanon, despite its small size; the visit by Erdogan ought to remind the Lebanese of the value of establishing bilateral ties based on joint interests, mutual respect, and a sound vision for the future.

Investigative Journalism Is Possible In the Middle East And North Africa Region

By Rana Sabbagh
This comment was published in The Jordan Times on 26/11/2010

In a largely autocratic region where media freedom is declining, a new generation of bold Arab investigative journalists is leaving its imprint, exposing human misery and standing up to higher powers.

Armed with courage, perseverance and commitment to their profession, they document issues of serious concern to their societies and are becoming an important force in promoting the rule of law and democratisation.

These journalists, hailing from both private and public media outlets, are working under the umbrella of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) - a media-support network promoting the culture of in-depth reporting across Arab newsrooms.

So far, ARIJ-sponsored investigations have not forced the resignation of senior technocrats or corrupt officials, but they have led to sizeable improvements in the day-to-day lives of local communities, in the health, environment, education and human rights fields.

In Egypt, under martial law since the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat, a lawyer asked the prosecutor general to sue the government for negligence after ARIJ fellow Mona Iraqi exposed mismanagement of hazardous hospital waste in a TV documentary.

Her colleagues, Hisham Allam and Dareen Farghali, caused a public outcry after documenting how untreated wastewater leaving the state-run sugar factory was polluting parts of the Nile River and threatening the well-being of over 220,000 residents.

After the publication of their investigation in the leading independent newspaper Al Masry Al Yawm, the parliament summoned the minister of health for questioning.

In Syria, government bulldozers cleared the site hosting the largest garbage dump near the capital to curb the spread of infectious diseases and ease air pollution. Khaled Mousa and Baraa Boushi worked for three months showing how the contractor was abusing the deal. In the process, they were threatened by local garbage collectors who were operating with tacit support from junior municipal officers.

In another case, the Yemeni government formed a committee to look into several hospitals where a local journalist showed how incinerators burning medical waste were operating below the minimum temperature needed to ensure safe disposal.

In Jordan, 15 orphans filed complaints with the National Centre for Human Rights after freelance journalists Majdoleen Allan and Imad Rawashdeh investigated physical, psychological and sexual abuse at several orphanages. Some of these complaints were referred to the prosecutor general while the centre will document other cases in its 2010 Annual Report on the state of affairs in orphanages.

Since the publication of the report earlier this year, the government took several measures to improve and redress the situation.

In another investigation into legal and professional obstacles impeding access to public documents, in line with Jordan’s Right to Access Information Law, Allan sued Jordan’s Land and Survey Department for withholding data on the sale of state-owned land to investors. This is the first case filed at the Higher Court of Justice for lack of access to information, a right guaranteed by the largely ineffective 2007 law.

Several local radios hosted journalist Suhair Jaradat after she exposed Jordanian families forcing their newlywed daughters to undergo medical virginity tests because they did not bleed the first time they had sex with their husbands.

In war-torn Iraq, local journalists documented how Al Qaeda and other shadow groups were recruiting hundreds of children to carry out suicide bombings, and how women in Kurdish areas are being subjected to the illegal practice of genital circumcision. Bahrain’s Hana Buhiji exposed abuses facing an army of domestic immigrant workers, documenting several cases of mistreatment ranging from denial of monthly wages to sexual and physical harassment by employers abusing legal shortcomings. Not all investigation? had happy endings. In three cases, ARIJ fellows were threatened by officials and business interest groups and forced to stop looking into smuggling of endangered eagles, the manufacturing of local cosmetic products causing skin allergies and facial scarring and the selling of adulterated alcohol.

The Arab world, which mostly lacks parliamentary democratic systems, has a long way to go before in-depth reporting designed to reach the truth - or even simply the facts, as best as they can be determined - becomes an integral facet of daily practices in newsrooms.

The Middle East and North Africa region continues to have the world’s poorest press freedoms’ ratings, shows the 2010 Freedom House global press freedoms index. The region lacks other important elements, such as a reformed legal environment, a tradition of lively and competitive press with a diversity of owners, and adequate societal support for bold journalists willing to question authority in a professional way.

Arab states, with the exception of Jordan, have no laws guaranteeing the right to access public information. Even in the Kingdom, journalists still complain that the 2007 law has many loopholes that bureaucrats use to block the flow of information.

Media-shy and suspicious officials and lack of public information and reliable statistics will continue to hamper the emergence of social and political truths in the Arab media. But at least, a new generation of Arab journalists is dedicated to assuming the role of the fourth estate. ARIJ provides its fellows a reliable conduit and professional training, a small grant covering the cost of the investigation, a coach and pre-publication legal screening.

Today, over 250 Arab editors and journalists, from 20 Arab countries, will be attending the Annual ARIJ Conference in Amman, for the third time running - a mission made possible by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The writer, ARIJ executive director, media trainer and journalist since 1984, is former editor-in-chief of The Jordan Times.

Fighting Against Israeli Oppression

Zoabi is a courageous woman who articulates the sentiments of many Jews and Arabs

By Mohammed Azhar Ali
This comment was published in Arab News on 26/11/2010 

The first woman to represent an Arab party in the Israeli Parliament brought a stirring plea for human dignity, equality, freedom, democracy, justice and peace to Canada. Those who listened were touched. But those weren’t many — her visit was ignored by most government leaders and the media.

Haneen Zoabi, 41, represents Balad (the National Democratic Assembly) in the Knesset. She champions human rights without distinction on the basis of race, religion or gender. She defends, in particular, women and children whose rights are suppressed the most, she says.

She told her Canadian audience that her party is struggling to bring equality, human dignity and democracy to Israel. If her words are heeded, she feels that peace and cooperation will replace violence and hate in the Middle East. But brutal violation of a people’s dignity and basic human rights will prolong and deepen the conflict.

Knesset hard-liners called Zoabi a traitor because she criticizes the Israeli suppression of the Palestinians’ basic rights and Israel’s siege of Gaza. She and three other Israeli Arabs were on the Turkish relief ship Mavi Marmara which was taking humanitarian supplies to Gaza when Israeli commandos attacked it on the high seas on May 31, 2010.

She called it tragic that Israel imposed an illegal siege on one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza turning them into prisoners who were denied basic needs, including proper food, shelter, education, medicines and jobs. Israel imposed the siege when Hamas won the election in Gaza (according to most observers because of the corruption and spinelessness of Palestinian Authority officials). Zoabi stated that the ship was taking supplies to Gaza to provide much-needed goods to the besieged and to highlight the immorality and illegality of the blockade.

According to Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, the blockade has wrecked the 1.6 million Gazans’ physical and mental health, caused severe malnutrition, especially among infant and pregnant and nursing mothers, destroyed most small businesses, caused hunger and shortages, sent unemployment soaring and prevented the rebuilding of Gaza after Israel’s 22-day assault in December 2008. Israel also prevents Gazan fishermen from fishing beyond five kilometers.

While Gazans are suffering the most, stated Zoabi, the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel are also suffering severe discrimination. Israeli authorities deny basic rights and equality to its Arab citizens. For example, from 1948 till 1966, the Arabs of Israelis lived under military regime. She said that there is no Israeli constitution that guarantees equality to all citizens.

She declared that some 23 laws disenfranchise Palestinian Israelis, especially in land, citizenship, education, construction, etc. A Jew from anywhere in the world can get citizenship in 24 hours, but Palestinians who have lived there for generations cannot get it if they were abroad temporarily for family, health or education reasons. “If I marry a Palestinian from outside Israel proper, I would be banished from Israel,” she declared.

She said: Israeli authorities confiscated 82 percent of our land, Israelis developed 600 Jewish cities but no Arab ones, We cannot study our history, poetry and literature but we must study Zionist literature, There is not a single Palestinian Arab university to teach us our culture and heritage.

Zoabi stated that Palestinian Israelis constitute 18 percent of the population, but 60 percent live below the poverty line because of state neglect and policy. Such Arab Israelis get no more than eight percent of the jobs. Arab Israelis do not like to serve in Israeli armed forces, police or diplomatic services because they would have to defend policies that oppress them.

We became a minority in our own land, she continued, because my people were expelled while Jews from other lands were brought in, she continued. Though we are the victims of discrimination, the media and politicians demonize us as security or demographic threats. When Arab Israelis protest against injustice, they are harshly suppressed. Instead of attaining peace through equality and justice Israel is building walls, imposing a siege and coordinating security with the compliant Palestinian Authority.

Now Israel is insisting that Palestinian Arabs swear allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, which she said would “criminalize our just struggle for our national rights, equality, democracy and justice.”

Zoabi stated that her party opposes violence and religious extremism. It stands for an Israel where all citizens are equal and enjoy full human rights. But the media and politicians portray them as a threat and now there is very little contact between Arab Israelis and Jews. Seventy percent of Israelis do not want Palestinians as their neighbors.

Zoabi received death threats and was accused of being a traitor when she spoke against Israel’s siege of Gaza. Likud member of Knesset Yariv Levi demanded the removal of Zoabi’s parliamentary privileges. On Oct. 27, 2010, she was shot in the back by Israeli police with rubber bullets during a clash between Jewish extremists and the residents of the Arab town of Umm Al-Fahm.

But the first Palestinian woman to graduate from Haifa University and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, who once worked for the Israeli Ministry of Education, refuses to yield to threats or to bitterness. She remains in the Knesset’s Status of Women Committee.

She doesn’t enjoy the fame of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. But her message of human dignity, brotherhood, justice and equality is the same as theirs. She is calling on all people — Jews, Arabs, others — to support these goals so that Israel becomes a democracy for all of its people. She said a Middle East settlement must be justice and address the problems that began in 1948. She doesn’t distinguish between a one-state or a two-state solution. What she is passionate about is that the agreement must be based on justice, equality, democracy and human dignity and rights, not on one’s faith or race.

It is a message that serves the interests of all parties — Israel, Palestinians, others. It is not a message that many people are paying attention to. But then the words of Gandhi, Mandela and King also fell on deaf ears initially. Zoabi is a courageous woman who articulates the sentiments of many Jews and Arabs. One wishes, though, that there were many more with her courage, integrity and values not only in Israel and the Arab countries but in Canada, the US and Europe as well.

Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a journalist, retired Canadian civil servant and refugee judge.
He has received the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for his work as a journalist, his leadership of Muslims and efforts to promote better understanding between Canadians of different faiths.

The Man Who Dares To Take On Egypt's Brutal Regime

Despite beatings and corruption, Ayman Nour still hopes for change. Ahead of new polls, The Independent's man meets him

By Robert Fisk
This comment was published in The Independent on 25/11/2010

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Ayman Nour will continue the fight for democracy despite being beaten in jail

Ayman Nour touches his sideburns, just a shade grey beneath his black hair: not bad for a 45-year old, but not up to the standard of the absolutely uncompromisingly jet black hair of 82-year-old Egyptian President Hosni Moubarak, whose job – in theory at least – Dr Nour would like.

Mind you, being Mr Moubarak's rival is not for amateurs. It's cost Dr Nour more than four years in prison and here he is, on the eve of Egyptian parliamentary elections, sitting in Beirut – rather than Cairo – to express his disdain for the 'moderate', 'pro-Western' regime of America's favourite Middle Eastern dictator (alongside King Abdullah of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Bouteflika of Algeria, Ben Ali of Tunis, King Hassan of Morocco and the rest). So long live President Hosni Moubarak.

But how long? Dr Nour's Ghad party – Ghad means 'tomorrow', which may never come – is not taking part in this weekend's parliamentary elections which will, he feels sure, be as rigged as every election in Egypt since the early years of President Anwar Sadat. "I believe that what you are about to witness at the weekend is part tragedy, part comedy, a black comedy," he says. "You want to go to Cairo on Saturday, Robert? You might just go there for fun."

Dr Nour is a lawyer by profession, and as a legal man, he must annoy Moubarak as much as the lawyers of Pakistan infuriated President-General Mousharraf before his fall; indeed, Nour's imprisonment before Egypt's 2005 presidential election – supposedly for forging powers of attorney to create his Ghad party – showed that Moubarak's anger could embrace a lawyer or two.

After winning 7 per cent of the vote – 25 per cent might have been the true figure, according to him – in an election that was unmonitored by foreign observers, Nour was banged up again in the infamous Tora prison, this time with a five-year sentence.

It wasn't a pleasant stay. Dr Nour doesn't like to talk about this part of his life. "I don't want new generations in Egypt to be terrified or frightened to stand up for themselves," he says. "But unfortunately, there were pictures of me that circulated on the internet that showed bruises and parts of my body that were beaten. They stopped me from receiving food and medicine from outside" – Dr Nour is a diabetic – "and they stopped me from praying. The prison guards were following orders – given to them out of spite – to make my life miserable."

But hold on, I say. Is he saying that Hosni Moubarak of Egypt actually knew that inmates like him would be duffed up? "I was beaten up only once," he replies carefully, "on the 17th May, 2007, right after an article which I wrote in Al-Dastour newspaper which had the headline: 'What happens after Moubarak dies?' That day, prison officers escorted me to an area of the jail and I was beaten. I was thrown from a car, beaten on my back, knees, ankles. It was violent. They used their fists. Yes, I remember names. There was a general, not an important person. He was there on that day. As a result, I believe he was awarded a very strong provincial position for what he did to me."

Nour's imprisonment – he was held for 105 days before being jailed from 5th December, 2005, until 18th February, 2009 – annoyed the George W Bush administration which had just been trumpeting the joys of Egyptian democracy; Condoleeza Rice and her State Department spokesman huffed and puffed about how Nour's imprisonment "called into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom and the rule of law." "I pay the price when Rice speaks of me," Nour said. "And I pay the price when she doesn't." Moubarak couldn't have cared less.

Bush himself coupled Nour's name with that of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma a month after Nour's beating in a 2007 speech. Much good did it do. The attack, Nour said, was a message sent in response to his newspaper article. Exactly who it came from he cannot, or will not, say.

From Moubarak's businessman son Gamal, I ask, the ruling National Democratic Party factotum who would be king, the son who swears he does not wish to be president but whose supporters devoutly wish him to inherit the Pharaoh's throne? No, Nour says. It wasn't Gamal. He leaves me to fish through the rest of the Moubarak family for the culprit.

Ask about Gamal, and Dr Nour shakes his head. "I don't have much to say about a man who has no features, no charisma, a man who has not been in any election in his life, who is nevertheless a leader, the decision-maker in an unconstitutional way. He is a president under construction. He is like plastic. He is not human. You can talk about trees and flowers but not something that is made of plastic, it has no life."

Phew, I say. So what does Nour think of Moubarak the father – who, like Gamal, he has met several times – about the president who at 82 has said that he is thinking of standing for president yet again next year? "He is an inexperienced and uneducated man," he replies. "His mind is set in one way. He doesn't have sufficient knowledge. He is a small dictator who became a big dictator as his age increased. He looks very much down on the Egyptian people. But his barber is a nice guy."

But surely, I say, Moubarak can't be that bad. I saw the way he put his arm round old President Hafez Assad of Syria when his son Basil was killed in a car crash near Damascus airport. He seemed a most compassionate man. But Nour is unforgiving.

"I can tell you that a very important thing about his character is that he is very aggressive," he says. "He has no heart. During the 2005 elections, a very well-known member of the party, Talat Sadat (son of assassinated President Anwar Sadat's brother), came to support my campaign. He said one of the best features abut me was that I had a heart. And when I thought about this in prison, I realized that what Talat said was right. Egypt at this critical time needs a president with a heart.

"You know," he says, "I figured out President Moubarak at my very first meeting with him, when he had just taken power. I was 16 and head of the student union in Egypt. I was trying to talk to the president, to ask him to bring back a 1976 law about organising elections to the student union that was cancelled by a new law in 1979. And the president told me: 'We are moving forward – why should we go back three years?' I said I had the signatures of 40,000 students in my favour and he said: 'Are you sure it's 40,000? I will count them one by one.' I couldn't believe it. What kind of president has the time to count 40,000 signatures?"

Dr Nour believes the Muslim Brotherhood, the illegal but tolerated opposition party which lends a mirage of democracy to Egypt's polls, should not be participating in this weekend's parliamentary elections. "They will regret it," he says. "They have got into a fight which the regime wanted, when there will be an election that will be rigged. By participating, they are giving legitimacy to this. Once, when Moubarak was told he had gained 99 per cent in a presidential election, he told his minister: 'This is far too much – take it down a bit!' That's what Moubarak admitted in a newspaper interview."

In the 2005 presidential elections, Nour turned up an hour early to register his name. "I wanted my name on the first ticket," he recalls. "The head of the election committee offered me tea. I said no, I wanted to give in my papers first. So he put my name at the top and gave me a receipt.

My people were outside and saw all the candidates but they never saw Moubarak. The Middle East News Agency put out a story, number 36 of the day, that I had submitted my papers first. But later on the same day they said President Moubarak had registered first and that I was number two on the ballot. I called the head of the election committee who agreed that he had given me a receipt and that my name should have topped the ballot list. I filed a complaint – there was no response. And I believe President Moubarak never actually applied. Until this day, we believe that Moubarak never filed his papers – and that he is therefore not the real president. We had lots of supporters beaten up outside polling stations. I was told I got 25 per cent of the vote. And they gave me 8 per cent."

Some members of Nour's Ghad party, including a civil engineer called Shadi Taha who is one of his closest advisers, insist that a knock-on-the-door poll in Alexandria indicated Nour had got 80 per cent of the local vote. Well, maybe, I think.

But things look bleak for the man who would be king in next year's presidential election. "There are a lot of obstacles to stop me running," he says. "There's an old 1937 law that [forbids] a civilian to stand for president within six years of serving his term for committing and being convicted of a felony. They don't want any competition in September, 2011. The regime is trying to take away the real opposition. They just want a soft opposition to be a part of that nice play and show the West that everything is normal. I am already forbidden to practice law. I am forbidden to speak in the media. I have no right to sell property or speak in universities or open a bank account. I have had many invitations to talk at American universities but the prosecutor general stopped me from travelling."

Yes, Dr Nour insists, there could be real democracy in Egypt. There was a kind of democracy in 1860, and between 1924 and 1952 there was a liberal constitution. There was a "partial democracy", he says, when the British ruled Egypt. This sounds like a whopper to me. But Dr Nour is unapologetic. "We believe we can see democracy in the future in Egypt because of the past. When we compare it to what we have in Egypt today – when we have no political life at all – we can believe in a real democratic force."

The Battle To Strike Iran

By Osman Mirghani
This comment was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 25/11/2010
 
It is understood that Israel is pressuring the United States for a military strike on Iran and its nuclear facilities. Tel Aviv wants to keep the balance of power, and military superiority in the region, in its own hands. It is not interested in the implications such a strike would have for the reformist movement in Iran, or its wider impact on the region. What it wants is the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, or to disable it for years to come, in order to keep nuclear power in
Israel’s hands only, so it can use the threat of the ‘Samson Option’.
 
It is no secret that Israel has previously undertaken campaigns, overtly and covertly, to prepare such an atmosphere [i.e. an Israeli monopoly in the Middle East]. In the 1980s, Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear facility, and then continued its campaign against the Iraqi regime, exploiting Saddam Hussein’s errors in the region, until matters ended with an invasion, which was strongly advocated by Israeli supporters in U.S. decision making circles. Former U.S. President George W. Bush revealed in his memoirs, released this month, how the Israelis asked him to strike Iranian and Syrian [nuclear] facilities, and that the Pentagon actually commissioned the preparation of plans and studies on such strikes. Yet this action was eventually not taken, due to differing views amongst those in the Bush administration, regarding the feasibility and risks of such operations.
 
Although Bush stressed that the military option against Iran was always on the table, he said that it was always considered a last resort, on the grounds that Washington preferred at the time – and still does – the option of sanctions. As for Syria, Bush revealed explicitly that he did not agree to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s request at the time, to carry out an air raid or send Special Forces teams to strike the Deir al-Zour facility, due to the dangers of the operation. Furthermore, Bush confirmed that Israel carried out the operation alone later.
 
In the context of Israel’s constant pressure, and American reports alleging that any military strike on Iran at the present time would have many, serious negative repercussions, it is interesting to examine at a debate last week between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. The American official expressed the prevalent opinion amongst the Obama administration, namely that a military strike would not provide a long term solution, but would instead result in Tehran’s nuclear program becoming “more entrenched and more secret”, and would also galvanize the Iranian regime, in the face of internal opposition and divisions. What Gates did not say is that the fallout from the operation could harm U.S. interests, especially in light of western military operations in Afghanistan, and the fragile global economic situation. These words did not please the Israelis of course, and the Israeli Chief of Staff reacted with a public response to Gates’ words, saying that sanctions were not effective, and that a military strike was Israel’s desired solution, regardless of the domestic repercussions in Iran, or in the wider region.
 
The reality is that Israel is reaping the maximum gains from the Iran issue, regardless of whether it achieves its desired military strike or not. It receives U.S. security guarantees, which are continually strengthened, including the provision of intelligence information, and sophisticated U.S. weaponry, to ensure it maintains the upper hand. As a result of receiving U.S. support and technology, Israel has been able to develop a missile defense shield, which should be completed by 2015. Despite gaining all this, Israel continues to raise its voice to warn against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program. In doing so, it resembles a pregnant sheep, afraid of the new wolf in town, even though this ‘sheep’ has at least 100 nuclear warheads, according to estimates by experts, and rejects any discussion of acceding to the NPT, or talk of the Middle East becoming a nuclear weapons free zone.
 
What Israel wants is to maintain its monopoly in the region, with its ‘nuclear sword’ hanging over the necks of others. This allows the state to continue its arrogant policies, such as refusing to relinquish the occupied territories, continual intransigence on the subject of peace, and only agreeing to proposal in accordance with its prohibitive terms. To achieve this goal, Israel has intensified its campaign, hoping that this pressure leads to an attack on Iran, or allows Israel to access more military aid, and political tradeoffs. This is what we saw during Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington, when he merged the subject of confronting Iran, including his tradeoffs with Washington, with the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians. Whilst in America, Netanyahu was keen, in his speeches and statements, to focus on the theme of the Iranian threat, in order to reach a compromise amidst U.S. pressure to resume peace negotiations with Palestine.
If Israel’s intentions are clear, the question remains; how will Israel act?
 
So far it looks like Ahmadinejad is repeating the experience of Saddam Hussein, which resulted in the destruction of Iraq and rocked the stability of the region. In reality, what Iran needs to do is adopt a rational, less aggressive policy. It needs to reduce its policy of external expansion, and reassure its neighbors, thus removing Israel’s bargaining chip in the peace process. Furthermore, it needs to support the mounting call for the Middle East to become a nuclear weapons free zone. Peaceful nuclear energy is a legitimate right for all, but nuclear arms would open the gates of hell in an already volatile region.

Egypt: The Church Clashes

By Zuheir Kseibati

This comment was published in al-Hayat on 25/11/2010

 

There is nothing out of the ordinary in the scenes of violence seen in Egypt at a time when the heat of the parliamentary elections that will be held on Sunday is mounting. There is nothing out of the ordinary because the Levant has in general succeeded in combining “democracy” and violence, and consequently in coming up with the goals to justify the means, even if the tools are fists raised high to allow the rise of the “free voice.”

It might be said that “individual” incidents in a country of forty million voters is not worth mentioning, but the promotion of the scenarios of terrorization – while they do not defeat the purpose of the elections – at least herald the exit of the battle from the ballot boxes to Cairo’s streets and squares.

It is not odd for the ruling National Party to accuse the Muslim Brotherhood group without naming it, of committing provocations and maneuvers against “legitimacy,” or for the left wing to accuse the government of lying and the MB of resorting to violence. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is bombarding the ruling party with accusations of bullying, saying it attempted to assassinate one of its candidates, while the leftist Tagammu Party is adding to the fierceness of the battle a disobedience scenario “drawn up by the MB to gain control over the authority” on Sunday.

In an exceptional confrontation supposed to constitute the real test a few months prior to the opening of candidacies for the presidential elections that will be held in June, all weapons are valid for the Muslim Brotherhood’s opponents in order to clip the group’s wings in parliament. Although the announced justification is the preemption of turmoil in Egypt next summer – through the obstruction of “the group’s trick” (to nominate “independent figures”) and the containment of its presence underneath the dome of the People’s Assembly - what is worrisome during these difficult months is seeing the exceptional and temporary violence becoming almost “ordinary.”

Can the tensions of the elections and the tensions affecting the Copts’ “file” as some Americans like to call it be separated? Was it just a coincidence that the “church clashes” yesterday and the rise of the heat on the street on the eve of the parliamentary elections concurred, only a few days after the diplomatic “clash” between Cairo and Washington following the American report regarding religious freedoms in Egypt?

It is definitely not ordinary – if the stories are true – for Coptic demonstrators to throw Molotov bottles on the security forces instead of stones, in protest against the discontinuation of the building of a center annexed to a church. Regardless of the core of their demands, the fact that they chose violence which led to the killing of one person and the wounding of dozens of others, cannot be justified except by the fact that they fell in the trap of reactions. Moreover, the recent raising of banners against the Christians in Egypt was a mere primitive act worthy of condemnation. This is due to the fact that its horrendous outcome gave those fishing in murky waters and claiming to protect the rights of the Copts in the United States, live ammunition to launch a new chapter of slander against Egypt and besiege any attempt it might undertake to change its weak role in the region.

It is not a secret that the Copts’ “file” and status has become a weapon in the electoral battle and that it has introduced another weapon through warning against the intentions or “plans” of the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, the questions now revolve around the authority’s initiatives and whether or not they are enough to uproot the seeds of sectarianism that are being watered domestically and abroad.

Seeing how the answer is negative, we should also inquire about the role of all the Egyptian political forces in containing these seeds, and not just settle for responding to slogans with unproductive debates or electoral gains. This is due to the fact that the voices and fists that rose during the church clashes are enough to complete the image revealing that no one will come out a winner. And while the other facet of this picture is seen in the banners attacking the Copts, the job of the ear should be replaced with that of the tongue: All the screaming is overshadowing the alarm bells and what happened in Al-Haram neighborhood in front of the church can no longer be handled with statements talking about national unity.

Among the most basic duties of the authority and the opposition in Egypt – following the end of the electoral duel – is to launch a dialogue that would relinquish the addiction to cheap disputes and define the priorities to mend unity, before sectarianism expands and turns into a plague in a region where sectarianism and denominationalism have become the greatest enemies. The authority and the opposition - which always accused the governments of allocating the shares to the opportunists and the supporters “as though Egypt belongs to them” - must look into the reasons behind the erosion of the Egyptian role at the level of the regional and African crises, to the point where Ethiopia would be encouraged to defy Cairo by proclaiming war over the Nile water.

The alarm bell is resonating with confrontations domestically and pressures and a blockade abroad.

Lebanon: Trials And Tribulations For Mr. Bellemare

By Michael Young
This comment was published in the Daily Star on 25/11/2010 

The documentary aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this week has set in motion various conspiracy theories. However, the urgent question is what the information disclosed means for the case that will be presented by Daniel Bellemare, the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal of Lebanon, presumably in the near future.

The program provides compelling evidence of Hizbullah’s alleged involvement in the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, based mainly on telephone analyses. These analyses, the CBC  contends, were significantly advanced by the doggedness of the late Internal Security Forces captain, Wissam Eid, who was assassinated in January 2008. Eid’s boss, Colonel Samir Shehadeh, miraculously survived an earlier assassination attempt in September 2006.

Several things can be said about the matter. The first is that the detailed information in the documentary was not handed over recently to the journalist who broke the story, Neil Macdonald, therefore is not tied into recent political developments, as some are contending. This I know because I had heard that such documents were circulating at the beginning of this year (although I was unaware of their content). If one had to guess, the highly sensitive documents were passed on to Macdonald by someone unhappy with the lack of progress in the investigation. It’s best to keep an open mind on the agenda of a leaker, or leakers, but much of what Macdonald says about the shortcomings of the United Nations investigation between 2006 and 2008 under the stewardship of Serge Brammertz, like his criticism of Bellemare’s investigative and management skills, has long been echoed by others working with the investigation or familiar with its progress.  

But let’s give Bellemare the benefit of the doubt. Unlike Brammertz, he appears to have seriously tried to investigate, even if the results until now remain, at best, uncertain. However, on the basis of the CBC report, does the prosecutor have enough to make his indictments stick – bearing in mind that we may not necessarily see indictments soon. Bellemare must first earn the formal approval of the pretrial judge, and this will be determined by the strength of his legal arguments. If these are found wanting, the prosecutor may be asked to rework his indictments. 

Assuming his indictments are accepted, however, and that the details provided in the CBC documentary represent the core of Bellemare’s arguments, could he easily win a trial? Surprisingly, the revelations, regardless of how forceful they may look, suggest the prosecutor has a tough judicial climb ahead of him. Here’s why.

If the telephone analyses are Bellemare’s best shot, then as Macdonald pointed out in an article posted on the CBC website, he will first have to prove that the telephones used in the Hariri assassination were actually in the hands of Hizbullah members. Unless he has witness testimony affirming this, or suspects in custody willing to speak up, providing proof will not be easy. In fact it seems increasingly likely that Bellemare will suffer from two major handicaps in convincing the judges: his case may largely be conducted with suspects tried in absentia; and because of the dearth of witness testimony, brought on by Hizbullah’s secretive nature and its refusal to cooperate with the tribunal, the prosecutor may be overly reliant on circumstantial evidence – in other words indirect evidence that leads to conclusions effectively reached through deduction. 

In an interview conducted with the Now Lebanon website last August, Bellemare defended circumstantial evidence, declaring “I am strongly of the view that circumstantial evidence is more powerful than direct evidence.” Circumstantial evidence is doubtless important in certain situations, but most lawyers would count it as less persuasive, and more difficult to prove, than witness testimony and documentary or physical evidence. There is also the matter of how much circumstantial evidence a prosecutor relies upon. That is especially relevant to Bellemare.

In a vast conspiracy like the assassination of Rafik Hariri, there are multiple circles of involvement and different levels of decision-making. For Bellemare to win his case, he will need to peel back the many layers and identify who did what when, and who said what to whom. He will need to shed light on significant segments of the crime to expose the whole. The most effective way of doing so is to have suspects in hand willing to spill the beans, and physical or documentary evidence to lend credence to what they say. But to prosecute a complex political killing by relying heavily on conclusions reached through deduction against suspects most or all of whom are not in court can only favor the defense.

No matter how compelling is the material passed on to the CBC, it only casts light on a small corner of the Hariri assassination, and most probably not the one disclosing who ordered the crime. That is why Brammertz’s two years in office were so damaging. The former commissioner focused on crime scene analysis, failed to arrest new suspects, pushed the burden of telephone analysis onto the Lebanese, and more generally did not competently advance his investigation.

This was perhaps unintentional, but I am increasingly convinced it was intentional.

Now we are hearing Hizbullah and its political allies stating that Israel has infiltrated the telephone network, as if that will somehow help discredit the CBC’s information. But what the party must now accept is that this latest information cannot be explained away by false witnesses. It is considerably more difficult for the prime minister, Saad Hariri, to dismiss the hard work of Wissam Eid – work that ultimately cost the ISF captain his life – and subsequently that of UN telecom analysts, than it is for him to swallow the insidious idiocy of the false witnesses claim.

But come to think of it, who did kill Eid? Was it the Israelis? If so, that makes no sense at all, since his conclusions were pointing in the direction of Hizbullah, which is precisely, one assumes, what the Israelis wanted. The more those opposed to the tribunal try to manufacture ways to undermine its work, the more absurd their contortions become. Most worrisome is that UN ineptitude or manipulation may have already undermined the possibility of a successful prosecution, when or if the trial ever begins.