LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 14/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 17,20-25. Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, "The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or, 'There it is.' For behold, the kingdom of God is among you." Then he said to his disciples, "The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you, 'Look, there he is,' (or) 'Look, here he is.' Do not go off, do not run in pursuit. For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be (in his day). But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.

Vatican Council II/Constitution on the Church in the modern world « Gaudium et spes », § 38 (©Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
"The kingdom of God is among you"
For God's Word, through Whom all things were made, was Himself made flesh and dwelt on the earth of men. Thus He entered the world's history as a perfect man, taking that history up into Himself and summarizing it. He Himself revealed to us that "God is love" (1Jn 4:8) and at the same time taught us that the new command of love was the basic law of human perfection and hence of the world's transformation... Undergoing death itself for all of us sinners, He taught us by example that we too must shoulder that cross which the world and the flesh inflict upon those who search after peace and justice. Appointed Lord by His resurrection and given plenary power in heaven and on earth, Christ is now at work in the hearts of men through the energy of His Holy Spirit, arousing not only a desire for the age to come, but by that very fact animating, purifying and strengthening those noble longings too by which the human family makes its life more human and strives to render the whole earth submissive to this goal. Now, the gifts of the Spirit are diverse: while He calls some to give clear witness to the desire for a heavenly home and to keep that desire green among the human family, He summons others to dedicate themselves to the earthly service of men and to make ready the material of the celestial realm by this ministry of theirs. Yet He frees all of them so that by putting aside love of self and bringing all earthly resources into the service of human life they can devote themselves to that future when humanity itself will become an offering accepted by God.
Bring to fruition within us, O Lord, the eucharist that has gathered us together; through it you form within us, even in this life,
the love with which we shall love you for ever. (Roman Missal, Post communion prayer for the First Sunday in Advent)

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports 
Syria's Christians as a Present to Aoun-By: Hassan Haidar/Dar Al-Hayat 13/11/08
A Dangerous Alliance .By Annie Jacobsen. Pajamas Media 13/11/08
Analysts says Fatah al-Islam 'confessions' aimed to bully Syria's foes in Lebanon. By:By Michael Bluhm 13/11/08
What space will Lebanon's defense strategy have to defend?By Marc J. Sirois 13/11/08
Terror’s Quest for Acceptance. By P. David Hornik.FrontPageMagazine.com 13/11/08
Why Syria Cannot Be Flipped. By: Michael Rubin/National Review Online Blogs 13/11/08
Financial crisis is green opportunity.By Ban Ki-moon, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Donald Tusk 13/11/08
Kudos to Saudi Arabia for having come this far on religious tolerance-Daily Star 13/11/08
Obama's 'Bedouin relatives' celebrate election.Israel News 13/11/08
An Egyptian Offensive?By: Abdullah Iskandar 13/11/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 13/08
Aoun: Shame on Those Attacking Defense Strategy Proposal-Naharnet
National Bloc Party: Aoun is a Militiaman Par-Excellance-Naharnet
Hizbullah Wants Referendum on its Weapons-Naharnet
Rifi Tells Internal Security Forces not to Interfere in 2009 Elections-Naharnet
Palestinians Turn over Bombs to Lebanese Army-Naharnet
Jarrah Testifies to Scouting Mughniyeh's Crime Scene-Naharnet
U.S. Special Envoy Visits Lebanon-Naharnet
Arab Delegation in Beirut to Discuss Hariri Proposal to Form Fact-Finding Committee-Naharnet
Baroud Wants to Brief the Cabinet on His Syria Mission-Naharnet
Phalange Party Briefed on the Jawhar Rifle Investigation-Naharnet
Sayyed Willing to Appear before Court If He is Freed after Session-Naharnet
Lebanese-Syrian Meeting Saturday to Discuss Missing Lebanese-Naharnet
Bassil Hammered by Mustaqbal Over Alfa Contract-Naharnet
Spy admits to surveying Mugniyah assassination site- Israel News
Livni: Syria must stop smuggling weapons if it seeks recognition-Ynetnews
Border Demarcation after Exchange of Ambassadors, Syrian Sources-Naharnet
Damascus Rejects Names of Four Ambassadors-Naharnet
Suleiman: We Aim for Lebanon to be International Center for Interfaith and Cultural Dialogue-Naharnet
World leaders at UN split on root cause of religious intolerance-(AFP)
Archaeologists hope to learn much from Phoenician-era cemetery in Tyre-(AFP)
Ancient Phoenician pottery found in Lebanon-The Associated Press
UNIFIL denies reports of imminent Israeli pullout from Ghajar-Daily Star
LF: LBC not fair to party-Daily Star
LBC Chairman Snaps Back at Lebanese Forces-Naharnet
Britain in push to bring Syria in from the cold-Independent
Strike anywhere at al-Qaida-guardian.co.uk
Syria, Iraq discuss security ahead of border group talks-AFP
What space will Lebanon's defense strategy have to defend?Daily Star
Cluster-bomb activists visit army deminers-Daily Star
Baroud backtracks on cooperation with Syria after March 14 balks-Daily Star
UNDP, NGO hope to spread bright ideas-Daily Star
Beirut's end-of-service bill draws fire-Daily Star

Syria's Christians as a "Present" to Aoun
Hassan Haidar
Al-Hayat - 13/11/08//
Syria is engaged in the Lebanese elections in their every detail, and at an early time, perhaps because elections at home aren't "exciting" enough. Indeed, Members of Parliament in Syria are practically appointed, and the Syrians know their names before they even go to the ballots. Syria in fact acquired electoral experience while it was exercising its mandate over Lebanon and the Lebanese, when it drew up electoral lists, imposed alliances, and promoted those loyal to it. Even late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri described a few of those who had been included in his electoral lists as a "Syrian token."
These days the Syrians' "favori" candidate is MP Michel Aoun, and they are at a loss to provide him with allies, supporters, a public, and awards. They have placed their main player, Hezbollah, at his service, along with the remaining "comparses." And since the regime in Damascus is a "secular" one which does not differentiate between Christians and Muslims, as it disposes of them all on an equal footing, it has decided to offer Syria's Christians as a "present" to Aoun, making them his alternative public, after he failed to impose himself as the sole leader of the Christians in Lebanon.
News coming from Syria's capital, as well as from Aoun's sources, indicates that he will receive a crowded official welcome in Damascus, that festivals will take place in his honor in Christian areas, that he will inaugurate a Maronite church funded by the Syrian government, and that he may return to Lebanon with some Christian "missing persons." Those would be from the "missing persons" whom Syria never officially admitted having in its custody and whom it did not even promise President Michel Suleiman to return when he discussed their issue with the Syrian leadership. All of this in preparation for the elections, after it became evident that Aoun's supposed leadership of part of the Christians had regressed. Indeed, such a leadership had arisen at a time when he was opposing Syria's behavior in Lebanon and Damascus's interference in the details of Lebanon's internal affairs, a state of affairs that has not changed despite the withdrawal of regular Syrian troops.
Syrian support of Aoun explains why the likelihood of a Christian reconciliation has decreased, with Syria's other ally, Suleiman Frangieh, imposing a series of crippling demands. It also explains Hezbollah's sudden attachment to the democratic process in Lebanon, and its insistence on holding elections according to schedule, as asserted by the party's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in his latest speech, in which he warned against attempts to delay or hinder them. However, insistence on holding elections means accepting their results. How can this be guaranteed, when the Opposition, led by Hezbollah and including Aoun, rejected the legitimate rule of the majority, crippled governmental and legislative practice, and dragged the country to the verge of civil war to obtain the veto right? Insistence on holding elections also means accepting the fact that the state and its institutions are solely responsible for the Lebanese and their political and security concerns, which does not appear in the call to keep weapons in the hands of Hezbollah until the people of Lebanon all turn into a militia, according to Aoun's defense strategy, and until the Lebanese Army acquires an air force which rivals that of Israel, according to Nasrallah.
On the other hand, Aoun has successfully gone through the Syrian "baptism of fire" by constantly defending Damascus, adopting its stances, supporting its policies, and pledging allegiance to the other regional master, Iran. However, it is strange that, at a time when Damascus is deciding to encourage its Christians to pursue a political connection with their Lebanese brethren, thereby deciding to remove the barriers between them as a service to Aoun, it is leveling accusations against Lebanese Sunnis of "crossing the borders," gathering troops at the border near their areas, and fabricating security accusations against them like those in the video shown on Syrian television.

Archaeologists uncover 1,200-year-old church in Syria
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Archaeologists in central Syria have unearthed a 1,200-year-old church believed to be the largest ever discovered in this Mideast country, an antiquities official said Thursday. Walid al-Assaad, the head of the Palmyra Antiquities and Museums Department said the church, dating back to the 8th century BC, was discovered recently by a joint Syrian-Polish archaeological team. The discovery took place at an excavation site in the ancient town of Palmyra, some 153 miles (245 kilometers) northeast of the capital Damascus, the official said but did not provide a more specific timing. The church is the fourth to be discovered in Palmyra - once a regional trade center and now an archaeological treasure trove that even contains oldest layers from the prehistoric era in Syria

Archaeologists hope to learn much from Phoenician-era cemetery in Tyre
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
TYRE: A Phoenician-era cemetery has been unearthed in the coastal town of Tyre, officials said Wednesday, adding that the find could provide key information about the seafaring civilization. "This discovery represents for now the most important source of information to better understand the history of the Phoenicians in this region," said Ali Badawi, an archaeologist and head of antiquities in Tyre, which was a major Phoenician seaport from about 2000 BC through to Roman times.
He told AFP that the cemetery, found nearly intact at the eastern edge of the town, dates to between the ninth and seventh centuries BC.
"The importance of this cemetery is that it is located in one of the main Phoenician towns," said Maria Aubet, a professor of archaeology and head of a team from the University of Barcelona which uncovered the find. Badawi said more than 60 pieces of hermetically sealed earthenware, 50 centimeters deep, were found scattered across a 300-square-meter area at the site. Inside the jars were charred bones."It was traditional in Phoenician times to burn the cadavers and the bones of the dead," Aubet said. Researchers hope the bones will help shed some light on the diet and the social status of those buried at the site.
The archaeological dig began four years ago but was interrupted in 2006 by the July-August war with Israel. - AFP

Aoun: Shame on Those Attacking Defense Strategy Proposal
Naharnet/The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) MP Michel Aoun pointed that he is pleased in presenting his proposal of a defensive strategy at the recent national dialogue session." In an interview with the Manar TV Aoun said," Shame on those attacking the proposal; it is beyond their comprehension."
Aoun added, "future generations and specialists will read it, appreciate it and judge it.""How could an important issue like this be underestimated and trivialized? It should have been discussed at the table (national dialogue)." He went further to add, " this is a table of discussion, political trial or anything else, but not a table for national dialogue." FPM leader disclosed that his Damascus visit is "coming very soon"; adding that criticism launched against Interior Minister Ziad Baroud's visit to Damascus "comes as a prelude to his own expected visit." "All the high and tense political voices raised recently are an indication of failure, ushering news of an era's end." Aoun said. "My trip to Syria is far larger than just settling an issue of detained Lebanese citizens in Syrian prisons." Pointing, " it will work on preventing future and expected problems." Aoun said. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 20:48

National Bloc Party: Aoun is a Militiaman Par-Excellance
Naharnet/The National Bloc Party considered the defensive strategy proposal made by MP Michel Aoun, "a reflection of (Hizbullah's Deputy Secretary-General) Sayed Naeem Qassem's vision. Legalizing arms and militias." The party went on to state:" Aoun proved himself to be a militiaman of the first rate," adding,"this is not the picture that he attempted to promote with the Lebanese, in being against militias." The National Bloc added that Hizbullah "depends on Aoun in seducing Christians. However, the party won't depend on his bright strategy in fighting Israel." On the other hand the National Bloc viewed Minister of Interior Ziad Baroud's recent visit to Syria as "serving Syrian designs."It added that Baroud's visit ignored two vital issues " missing and detained Lebanese citizens in Syria and border demarcation."In reference to Hizbullah's Secretary-General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah's statement concerning what he termed of Lebanon hiding behind international resolutions, the bloc described it as a "disaster." Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 20:16

Rifi Tells Internal Security Forces not to Interfere in 2009 Elections
Naharnet/Director General of Internal Security Forces General Ashraf Rifi issued a general directive to all Internal Security officers and elements not to interfere in the upcoming 2009 parliamentary election. "With the approaching parliamentary elections, some political figures seek to issue invitations to internal security officers to attend special gathering, luncheons, dinners etc." Directive said. The directive went on to add." In order to remain neutral and in holding to the principle of non-interference in the next elections, all officers and security elements are requested to hold to this principle and refrain from responding to any such invitations."
Statement ended in indicating that internal security elements will be held responsible for breaching this directive. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 18:34

Palestinians Turn over Bombs to Lebanese Army
Naharnet/A joint Palestinian security force in charge of the northern Baddawi camp on Thursday turned over to the Lebanese Army's intelligence directorate quantities of explosives and timers confiscated in light of testimonies made by terror suspects. The Palestinian forces had raided a deserted house owned by Fatah al-Islam arrested suspect Wael Abu Jaber and, based on his testimony, confiscated bombs, detonators, timers and fuses in addition to a handwritten document and a handbook on bomb making. The Army Command had warned Fatah al-Islam terrorists that they would not be safe in any area, and they better turn themselves in to face a court of law. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 16:35

Jarrah Testifies to Scouting Mughniyeh's Crime Scene
Naharnet/A security source said Ali Jarrah, charged with espionage for Israel, has testified to investigators that he was assigned earlier this year to scout the Kfar Sousa district in the Syrian capital of Damascus where Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyeh was killed in February. The daily as-Safir also quoted the unnamed security source as saying Jarrah testified to have scouted "certain points" in the coastal town of Tartous in northern Syria, where Gen. Mohammed Suleiman was assassinated.
Jarrah, who was allegedly recruited by Israeli intelligence in 1982, said he was not aware of the targets that the Israeli intelligence wanted to strike both in Kfar Sousa or Tartous. Investigators are trying to find out whether Jarrah owned more apartments in several Lebanese provinces and if the Israelis had provided him with a second car fitted with surveillance equipment. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 15:18

Suleiman: We Aim for Lebanon to be International Center for Interfaith and Cultural Dialogue
Naharnet/President of the Lebanese Republic Michel Suleiman expressed Lebanon's ambition in being an international center for interfaith and cultural dialogue. He stressed the philosophy of the country in being a place for co-existence, a country functioning as a "Laboratory" of interfaith and cultural dialogue.
Suleiman who earlier addressed the Conference for Religious and Cultural Dialogue; an international gathering in at the United Nations in New York, affirmed that Lebanon is "rich with its diversity, deeply established in its openness to other cultures. Lebanon is qualified in having a wider room for inter-faith dialogue."
Suleiman pointed that dialogue cannot grow where there is occupation, when Palestinian rights are violated, when others seek to settle Palestinians outside their homes.
He stressed that Jerusalem's message is incapable of achievement unless injustice imposed upon is lifted.
Attending Israeli President Shimon Peres, stressed in his address "the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be settled militarily, it is better to seek peace, for the sake of our children let us break the bones of this historically stemmed enmity." Peres saw that comprehensive peace means a return of bilateral negotiations with the Palestinians." We are now making progress in our talks with the Palestinians and bridging gaps with the Syrians." He went on to point to the Saudi Arab peace initiative as the shortest route to peace. H.M. King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who pioneered the conference, said "faiths that God wanted to bless humanity with, should not be cause for their misery." King Abdullah affirmed that religious differentiation has marred humanity with bloody conflicts. He called on conference participants to form a committee to follow up on its resolutions. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pointed to the Arab peace initiative saying it has "echoed" around the world. He added that he is biased against war and violence."The conference is at the initiative of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, it is attended by many world heads of state, including the Israeli president, conference will end its working sessions on Thursday Beirut, 12 Nov 08, 21:38

Lebanese-Syrian Meeting Saturday to Discuss Missing Lebanese
A joint Lebanese-Syrian committee tasked with following up on the issue of missing Lebanese in Syrian jails will hold a meeting on Saturday to discuss names of the missing. The daily An Nahar on Thursday said the meeting would take place at the border crossing of Jdaidit Yabous.
It said the Lebanese delegation had recently handed over to the Syrian side names of at least 15 Lebanese soldiers who went missing following Oct. 13, 1990. Their names were not on the old list, An-Nahar said. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 09:06


Bassil Hammered by Mustaqbal Over Alfa Contract
MP Ghazi Youssef on Thursday accused Minister of Telecommunications Jebran Bassil of seeking to grant a license to a French firm to operate the Alfa Cellular service without going through an official tender.
Youssef, a member of the Mustaqbal Parliamentary Bloc, told reporters that Bassil has not been authorized by the cabinet to undergo negotiations on operating a cellular network without going through the tender procedure.
"Why didn't Minister Bassil call for a tender through which several firms can present their bids?" Youssef asked.
He said Bassil, a member of the Free Patriotic Movement, made his alleged move one month before expiration of the present contract operating Alfa "although the deadline has been known for over a year."
Bassil, Youssef added, "should be held accountable for what he did."
He vowed to call for a vote of confidence in the government's performance if it did not act against Bassil. Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 13:33



Arab Delegation in Beirut to Discuss Hariri Proposal to Form Fact-Finding Committee
An Arab League delegation is due in Beirut soon to discuss a proposal by al-Mustaqbal Movement chief Saad Hariri for the intervention of the 22-member regional organization to look into "confessions" aired by Syria's state television last week about alleged links between Fatah al-Islam and the parliamentary majority leader.
Hariri had called Arab League chief Amr Moussa asking him to form a "fact-finding Arab committee to investigate the testimonies," a statement from his office said.
Assigning an Arab League fact-finding commission to look into Fatah al-Islam crimes would "block attempts by the Syrian regime to blame Lebanon for spreading terror, which is a game that only the Syrian regime excels in," it said.
The statement accused Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime of "trying desperately to stretch its hands to control Lebanon's national sovereignty. We are confident that it would fail."

One of the suspects who appeared on Syrian TV identifying herself as Wafaa Abssi, daughter of Fatah al-Islam leader Shaker Abssi, claimed that al-Mustaqbal movement used to finance the group.

Al-Mustaqbal movement source had denied the "allegations and lies," broadcast by the Syrian television, saying they "confirm the established relation between Syrian intelligence and Fatah al-Islam."

The ruling March 14 coalition believed that the alleged testimonies pose a "serious development that aims at charging al-Mustaqbal movement with mere allegations."
A Future Movement ranking official had said the international commission probing the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri would be asked to look into what the Syrian TV has screened.
Syrian television said the group was behind the Sept. 27 car bombing in southern Damascus that killed 17 people.
Syrian Assistant Justice Minister Najm al-Ahmad and MP Khaled Abboud also blamed al-Mustaqbal movement and March 14 forces for the Damascus blast.
Beirut, 13 Nov 08, 09:32





'Spy' admits to surveying Mugniyah assassination site
/ Israel News
Lebanese newspaper reports head of 'espionage ring' for Israel was also ordered to reconnoiter place where senior Syrian officer was killed
Roee Nahmias Published: 11.13.08, 10:50 / Israel News
Lebanese officials believe that the "Israeli espionage network" uncovered recently was involved in the assassination of senior Hizbullah commander Imad Mugniyah.
Security sources told the As-Safir newspaper on Wednesday that the network's leader, Ali al-Jarah, had confessed to his investigators that he was ordered to survey the Kafr Sousa neighborhood in Damascus, where Mugniyah was killed by a car bomb in February.
Hizbullah and the ‘spies’ / Ron Ben-Yishai
It seems that Hizbullah exposed ‘Israeli spies’ for deterrence purposes
According to the report, al-Jarah also admitted that he was later asked to reconnoiter the Syrian port city of Tartus, where senior officer Mohammed Suleiman was assassinated several months ago.
The Lebanese security sources estimated that al-Jarah and his brother Yusuf were recruited by the Israeli intelligence in 1982, and have since carried out many missions.
According to the report, Ali al-Jarah also operated in additional Arab capitals apart from Damascus and Beirut and used a "military vehicle" provided to him to ease his movements.
The investigators are now checking whether additional al-Jarah brothers are involved in the network and have also worked for Israel.
As-Safir was the paper which revealed that the two espionage suspects were arrested about two weeks ago. The Lebanese army confirmed some of the details the same day.







Livni: Syria must stop smuggling weapons if it seeks recognition
Foreign minister meets with UN secretary-general in New York, firmly responds to Ban's concern over humanitarian situation in Gaza, tells him arms smuggling from Damascus to Hizbullah 'endangering the entire region'
Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 11.13.08, 07:35 / Israel News
NEW YORK – Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met Wednesday night with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and expressed Israel's protest over the ongoing arms smuggling from Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon and the continued firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip into the Jewish state.
Livni, who is taking part in an Interfaith Dialogue at the UN headquarters, demanded that the Security Council respond to the violation of its resolution stating that Hizbullah must be disarmed and that the weapon smuggling must be halted.
Interfaith Dialogue
Livni: Saudi message inadequate / Yitzhak Benhorin
Tzipi Livni praises Arab peace initiative but says peace is more than just piece of paper, notes that Saudi message in interfaith dialogue conference inadequate; Foreign minister adds that talks with Palestinians in very advanced stages
"The ongoing arms smuggling constitutes a blatant violation of the Security Council resolutions. Syria, which wants to receive legitimization from the world, must be faced with a clear statement from the Council, making it responsible for the continued smuggling," Livni told Ban.
She warned that "the arms smuggling endangers the entire region. The ongoing smuggling contradicts Syria's commitments to the Security Council. Halting the weapon smuggling will not be doing a favor to Israel."
The UN chief, who expressed his concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza during his meeting with President Shimon Peres, reiterated his concern in this meeting with the foreign minister. Livni, however, said the Palestinian side was fully responsible for the situation.
"If we're asking who is responsible for the situation in Gaza, there is only one address – Hamas. Hamas is responsible for what is happening in Gaza, terror from Gaza continues, and we must not take any action which will even seemingly legitimize Hamas' regime or activity," she said.
Rare meeting with Omani FM
Livni also informed Ban chief that Israel would be boycotting the Durban conference. "Israel will boycott any conference serving as a stage for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity. The UN must not host such activities again," the foreign minister said, urging the UN chief to make a clear and moral statement on this issue as soon as possible.
Earlier Wednesday, Livni met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and with her Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah.
The Israeli and Omani foreign ministers discussed regional issues, including the peace process with the Palestinians, and Livni stressed the importance of the Arab world's support for the process. This was a rare meeting, as Israel and Oman have no official diplomatic relations. The two already met in Qatar about half a year ago.
Livni and Peres are expected to attend the UN General Assembly meeting on Thursday and listen to the address of US President George W. Bush


Obama's 'Bedouin relatives' celebrate election
Israel News
Tribe from northern village of Bir al-Maksour claims blood relation to US president-elect. Members prepare grand celebrations in his honor, plan to send delegation to Washington to congratulate him
Sharon Roffe-Ofir Published: 11.13.08, 13:20 / Israel News
As US president-elect Barack Obama prepares for his move into the White House, his self-proclaimed relatives from a Bedouin tribe in northern Israel prepare to travel to the United States to congratulate him personally.
"We are planning to send a large delegation to the United States, where we will shake his hand and tell him 'congratulations'," said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Abdullah of the village of Bir al-Maksour.
Abdullah and his tribe believe they are blood relatives of the new president. "With us Bedouins, you know for sure who you're related to, even after many generations," said Abdullah in an interview with Ynet on Thursday.
The sheikh claims Obama's Kenyan grandfather was married to one of the tribe's women. "At the start of his campaign, one day on of the elder woman of the tribe told me that Hussein Obama's father's father was related to us," Abdullah said.
"At first I didn't believe her at all," he continued, "but then she told me that Africans, just like us, would wonder from place to place in search of food and work. They knew that with us, just as with out father Abraham, the tent was always open to anyone who would ask, and so was the food."
Abdullah said he could prove the relation to the new president. "When you see something in his body that flows like your own blood, you recognize it. There is a connection; you can see it in Obama's behavior – his upright way of sitting, his hand gestures. He is one of us and we feel it in our hearts."
Despite holding this knowledge for some time, the tribe decided not to say anything until after the elections so as not to influence voters.
"Everyone was talking about how he is Muslim, so we didn't want to say that he was related to Bedouins. We were afraid people wouldn't vote for him, but we stayed up all night and when we heard the results we immediately gave out baklava and sweets to everyone."
Sheikh Abdullah, who served in the past as a council head of Bir al-Maksour, said he hoped Obama would help the Bedouins. "The Bedouins are the most underprivileged sector in Israel, I home he understands this pain and intervenes on our behalf".
In the meantime, before the delegation of Bedouins is sent to Washington, Abdullah is planning to hold a grand celebration in honor of Obama's victory over the next few days, and several sheep will be slaughtered in his honor.

LBC Chairman Snaps Back at Lebanese Forces
Naharnet/General Director of LBC television network, Pierre Daher, on Wednesday snapped back at the Lebanese Forces, saying the station conveys news with all honesty."LBC refuses to be a mouthpiece of any political party," Daher said in a statement. The corporation does not accept dictates from anyone regarding whom its hosts, he stressed. His statement came after the LF accused him of blocking out LBC's activities and opinion. The LF accused Daher of practicing the alleged blackout due to a controversy over ownership of the network that was founded by the Lebanese Forces in the 1980s. The conflict between the LF and Daher over LBC ownership is being tackled by a court of law. Daher, however, said the LF practices militaristic actions in the case, referring to former LBC security head Charbel Tannous Abi Akl, who allegedly refuses to vacate his office despite a judicial order dated 19-02-2008. Beirut, 12 Nov 08, 20:59

Damascus Rejects Names of Four Ambassadors
Naharnet/Press sources on Wednesday pointed to the track of Lebanese-Syrian diplomatic relations has been hit with a setback particularly when Syria rejected the names of four possible Lebanese ambassadors to Damascus. Sources informed al-Markazia News Agency, the exchange of diplomatic relations is now in the freezer
Sources from within March 14 Forces feared Damascus might continue its procrastinations regarding diplomatic exchange with Lebanon pending the January 20th inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Rejection by some March 14 Forces of Interior Minister Ziad Baroud's visit to Damascus was founded on their knowledge of Syrian intentions. Sources said. Defense Minister Elias el-Murr is scheduled to travel to Damascus soon (possibly following Independence Day on November 22nd).His visit is also being viewed with some rejection by March 14 Forces as well.
Sources pointed that the Doha agreement guarantees calm pending the upcoming spring 2009 parliamentary elections when a new majority takes leadership of the country without establishing a solution. This makes divisions concerning most issues deep, particularly following recent "confessions' aired on Syrian television by Fatah al-Islam members accusing al-Mostaqbal Movement of funding their activities. This pushed MP Saad Hariri to call for an independent investigation by the Arab League in creating a commission to look into this. Meanwhile, Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun who is scheduled to travel to Damascus by the end of November (date not set due to security measures). Aoun is to be accompanied by a wide delegation including "officials" working on the issue of missing Lebanese in Syria.
During his two to three days official visit Aoun is to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian ministers dealing with security, military and judicial issues. He is also scheduled to address the Syrian People's Assembly. Sources denied rumors Aoun might receive some "Lebanese detainees and missing" by Syrian authorities to bring back to Lebanon. However, sources did not rule out the possibility of finding a mutual mechanism in this regard. Sources pointed that the visit will have positive results in Lebanon in terms of stability, not immediate but important. Beirut, 12 Nov 08, 22:33

LF: LBC not fair to party
Daily Star staff/Thursday, November 13, 2008
BEIRUT: The Lebanese Forces (LF) accused the head of the board of directors of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) television, Pierre Daher, on Wednesday of neglecting the party's activities and opinion. In a statement released by their media office, the LF accused Daher of overlooking the party's news due to a controversy over the ownership of the television station that was founded by assassinated Lebanese President-elect and LF founder Bashir Gemayel in the early 1980s. The conflict between the LF and Daher over the ownership of LBC was taken to the courts. "Daher is seeking vengeance after the LF filed a lawsuit to reclaim LBC," the LF statement said. The statement also expressed "hope" that Daher would correct LBC's coverage policy. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has in recent years acquired most of LBC's shares. - The Daily Star

Analysts says Fatah al-Islam 'confessions' aimed to bully Syria's foes in Lebanon
Broadcast designed 'to tarnish' Hariri's image during elections
By Michael Bluhm
Daily Star staff
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Analysis
BEIRUT: Syria was trying to bully its antagonists in the March 14 coalition by airing on state television "confessions" of alleged Fatah al-Islam members last week linking the group to March 14's Future Movement, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Wednesday.
The suspects said in the broadcast that they had carried out a deadly car bombing in Damascus on September 27 and had received money from the Future Movement of parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri. Hariri, who has denied the allegations, asked Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Tuesday to form a fact-finding commission to look into the charges. Fatah al-Islam militants fought the Lebanese Armed Forces for more than three months last summer at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli.
The accusations leveled in the confessions found little traction among the analysts.
"First of all, confessions on Syrian television impress nobody," said Hilal Khashan, chair of the department of political science and public administration at the American University of Beirut. "These confessions were obtained under duress."
Members of the Hariri family had supported some Sunni Islamist groups in past years as a counterweight to Hizbullah, but they broke off contact with people close to Fatah al-Islam after militants tried to attack the Danish Consulate in Achrafieh in February 2006 in response to a Danish newspaper publishing a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad, Khashan added.
Instead of demonstrating the complicity of Hariri's Future Movement in terror attacks, the broadcast was more likely designed to tarnish Hariri and put pressure on him and his allies in the March 14 camp, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Syria and Lebanon have recently established formal diplomatic relations, and Damascus might also be wielding the confessions as a tool to force Lebanese officials to give ground on the agendas put forth by their Syrian counterparts, said retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at Notre Dame University.
In particular, Syria might be trying to push the Lebanese to sign off on the resurrection of joint security committees, a fixture during the Syrian military's presence in Lebanon from 1976 until 2005, said Shafik Masri, professor of constitutional law. Lebanese Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud visited Damascus on Monday and agreed there only that Syrian proposals for security cooperation would require Cabinet approval. In any case, airing the confessions represented a clear breach of security and judicial protocol, Masri added.
"It bypassed all the proper channels of any legal process," he said. "Any such case should be communicated between the two states, either between security officers or judicial officers. In principle, any judicial investigation should remain secret."
Syria might also have been looking to weaken Hariri in the hotly anticipated general elections slated for next May here, Khashan said. Syria might see an opening to whittle away Hariri's traditional electoral base in the North, after frequent unrest there following the Fatah al-Islam episode and Hariri's uneven performance since assuming his father's political mantle in 2005, Khashan added.
For Damascus to air claims that Sunni extremists were targeting Syria also demonstrates that any reconciliation between Syria and Saudi Arabia or Saudi allies in Lebanon was "far-fetched," said Oussama Safa, executive director off the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. Relations between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Riyadh froze after the February 2005 assassination of Hariri's father Rafik, the five-time former prime minister of Lebanon and a close ally of the Saudi leadership.
On the contrary, Syria might have been striving to "lash out" at the Saudis and expose them to an international audience as sponsors of Sunni terrorism, Salem said.
Syria has long sought a closer relationship with the US, and the confessions could serve to show the incoming US administration that Alawite-ruled Syria has, like the US, been the victim of Sunni terrorists, Salem added.
Syria remains in a close alliance with US arch-foe Iran, as well as with Hizbullah and Hamas, but Syria has for some time been inching its way out of diplomatic isolation by the West, Salem said. Syria has established diplomatic relations with Lebanon - which has not seen the political assassination of a March 14 figure since September 2007 - and is in indirect peace talks with Israel. French President Nicolas Sarkozy broke the diplomatic ice in July this year by inviting Assad to Paris for the Mediterranean Union's founding summit.
The Syrians "are also angling to be seen differently," Salem said. "They certainly want better relations with the US. I'm concerned that Syria and Iran might want to test the new administration - how strong is it?"
Syria is also facing possible political fallout from the UN tribunal investigating Hariri's killing and a number of other attacks, but analysts differed on whether the confessions were also directed toward the tribunal.
On the one hand, the timing of the broadcast could help distract attention from the latest progress report - expected in a matter of weeks - by the UN investigation commission, Safa said. Later, the Syrians could whip out the confessions to offset any charges about Damascus' culpability in Lebanon violence by saying Lebanese groups - and, in a supreme irony, the Hariri family - were behind terror attacks in Syria, Khashan said. At the very least, Damascus believes that it can negotiate over the tribunal, and the confessions might be a card to play in that bargaining, he added.
"They realize that the tribunal will be formed early in 2009, and they need to have some bargaining position against the tribunal," Khashan said.
On the other hand, Salem said Assad knew the establishment of the tribunal could not be stopped, and while he might in the future have to cut deals to limit the repercussions of the tribunal's verdicts, the confessions provide little ammunition for any such damage control.
"They know very well that while [the confessions] might be an interesting PR stunt, they're not going to affect the tribunal in any way," Salem said. "They're quite aware that they can't bargain vis-a-vis the tribunal, [but] they can soften the political effects."
The broadcast of the confessions marks a change from the accommodating Syrian behavior during the past six to nine months, a period when Syria refrained from being outspoken on Lebanon and turned a responsible and moderate face toward the West, Salem said. Trotting out the confessions belongs to a previous, heavy-handed model of Syrian behavior toward Lebanon, and it might signal that while Damascus still badly wants engagement with the West, it can be tough with its smaller neighbor, he added. "It seems to be a departure from the good-behavior pattern that they were very adamantly putting forth - they were gaining a lot of mileage from that," Salem said. "Is Syria sort of baring its teeth a bit more? Does it sense weakness? It's rather rough politics."

Syria Can't Be Flipped
Michael Rubin, 11.12.08,
History says Damascus won't become a U.S. ally.
"Not talking doesn't make us look tough--it makes us look arrogant," President-elect Barack Obama declares. Throughout his campaign, he has promised renewed engagement after eight years of moribund diplomacy. Chief among his diplomatic targets is Syria, low-hanging fruit unencumbered by the political minefield that would result from engaging the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. Obama has already dispatched once and future adviser Robert Malley to discuss his regional agenda with Syrian leaders.
Aaron Miller, another veteran Clinton-era peace processor, wrote on Nov. 4 about the Syrian temptation. A Syrian deal, Miller argued, would weaken "Syria's connection to Hamas and Hezbollah, and…the Syrian-Iranian relationship." Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for his part, appears a ready partner.
Yahoo! BuzzIn a congratulatory telegram to Obama, the Syrian leader expressed "hope that dialogue would prevail to overcome the difficulties that have hindered real progress toward peace, stability and prosperity in the Middle East."
It is tempting to believe that U.S. diplomacy can flip Syria. The last rejectionist Arab state, Syria is a lynchpin not only in the Arab-Israeli peace process, but also in efforts to resolve Iraqi insurgency and Lebanese instability. Alas, as audacious as Obama's hope might be, Syria cannot be flipped. It may be fashionable to blame Bush for the failure to seize a Damascus olive branch, but the real problem has less to do with any U.S. administration and much more to do with Arab history and political culture.For more than a millennium, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo have competed for the leadership of the Arab world. Soon after the Prophet Muhammad's death, the Umayyad dynasty established Damascus as the seat of the Islamic empire. Less than a century later, the successor Abbasids transferred the caliphate to Baghdad.
In the 10th century, the Fatimid dynasty built Cairo as the seat of a counter-caliphate to challenge Abbasid--and Baghdad's--dominance. The Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258 and put an end to Arab dominance in the Islamic world. The Ottoman (Turkish), Safavid (Iranian) and Mughal (Indian) empires filled the vacuum and created a new paradigm that would last for centuries. World War I shattered the Middle East as much as the Mongol invasion had seven centuries earlier. From the Ottoman Empire's ashes arose a new cast of Arab states, the most important of which coalesced around new leaders in Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. Each struggled to exert leadership across the entire Arab world. Israel became a useful template around which they could posture and against whom they could act as each sought to outdo its rivals in a claim to Arab leadership.
**Michael Rubin, a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Terror’s Quest for Acceptance
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Hamas keeps pushing for international recognition at the same time that it fires rockets at Israeli communities and keeps holding a kidnapped Israeli soldier for two and a half years with no Red Cross or other visits. Since an initial barrage a week ago—after an Israeli military operation in Gaza to destroy a tunnel meant to be used for further kidnappings—Hamas has fired over seventy rockets at Israeli towns and villages, closing schools and sending several people to hospital for shock.
Israel, which underwent a “change” in the 1990s toward pretending enemies are friends or at least ceasefire partners, has responded militarily with only small tactical strikes while Defense Minister Ehud Barak has stated that Israel is “committed” to the current one-sided “ceasefire” with Hamas.
On Saturday Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal expressed a hope for further “change” and even used the term explicitly. He not only said in an interview to Australia’s Sky News that “We are ready for dialogue with President Obama and with the new American administration with an open mind…. The American administration [has] no other option than to deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground....”
Mashaal also said, expressing an optimism felt in much of the Arab and Muslim world, that “there is no doubt that the recent American election is a big change when you get an American president with African roots.... It’s a big change—political and psychological—and it is noteworthy.”
In reply, Obama’s senior foreign policy coordinator Denis McDonough stated Saturday night that Obama “said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements.” Although this formulation is flawed in that, unlike with other Islamist terror organizations like Al Qaeda or Hezbollah, it sets benchmarks and assumes a capacity for reform, it’s the same as the Bush administration’s formulation and at least not a deterioration.
More worrisome was a statement by Ahmed Yousuf, an adviser to Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, that Hamas figures and Obama advisers had been meeting behind the scenes.
In any case, setting benchmarks for Hamas contributes to a climate where it’s seen as at least a potentially constructive force, and not surprisingly that climate is already spreading in Europe.
The European Jewish Press reports that eight European Parliament members have invited Palestinian MPs, including Hamas members, to visit the EU assembly in Brussels next spring even though the EU defines Hamas as a terrorist organization and is officially boycotting it. Cypriot MEP Kyriacos Triantaphyllides of the United Left Group explained that “We don’t care who they are as long as they are members of the [Palestinian] Legislative Council. We don’t ask if they are members of Hamas or members of Fatah.”
The irony won’t be lost on those cognizant of Fatah’s—let alone Hamas—ongoing involvement in terror and incitement to terror since obtaining the official stamp of legitimacy from U.S., Israeli, and European governments.
Hezbollah, too, is making progress; last week its spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi visited Britain for the second time since last December. This time he lectured to a conference on political Islam at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His topic was “The Cases of Hamas and Hezbollah,” discussing the “history, strategy, and ideology” of the two organizations. Mousawi was previously editor of Hezbollah’s TV channel Al-Manar, which in 2005 aired a program showing Jews killing a Christian boy to drain his blood for Passover matza.
In response to domestic criticism the British Home Office—which a few weeks ago announced new measures to keep extremists out of the country—stated that “The UK will not tolerate the presence of those who seek to justify any acts of terrorist violence or express views that could foster inter-community violence.” The Home Office didn’t explain who, if not Ibrahim Mousawi, would satisfy that description.
For the U.S. president-elect, the challenge is to realize that America has stronger antibodies than Europe to this kind of corruption and should try to keep it that way instead of pursuing Europe’s approval; and that some kinds of “change” promote the agenda of those seeking war, staticide, and genocide.
**P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.

What space will Lebanon's defense strategy have to defend?
By Marc J. Sirois
Daily Star staff
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Few affairs of state are more important that deciding on a national defense strategy, particularly when the resulting structures and procedures will be expected to cope with the manifold threats which Lebanon can reasonably be expected to face in the coming years. No stone should be left unturned in such a process, and no one entering into it - including members of the public whose safety and interests the strategy should be designed to protect - should do so without careful study and an open mind. Before even beginning to discuss the necessary arms, training and postures involved, however, the first task should be to determine what sorts of challenges are most likely to confront those who would defend this country against any and all enemies. This will permit a clearer understanding of the tools and skills they will need and the ways in which they might be required to use them. And since that will depend in large measure on where Lebanon stands in the regional and geopolitical context, it is best to begin there.
As few will lack for reminding, Lebanon exists in a highly inhospitable neighborhood whose core issue remains the dispossession of the Palestinian people in order to make way for the Western colonial outpost known as Israel. Apart from the Palestinians themselves, no Arab people has paid a dearer price for the long struggle against Zionism than the Lebanese. This burden is one that should have been borne by larger and more powerful "allies," but these have proved incapable and/or unwilling. Worse still, instead of either accepting their fate or taking steps to ameliorate it, the powers in question have frequently used Lebanon as a stage on which they act out performances aimed at burnishing their own images as confronters of the great menace in their midst.
There is no easy way to deal with such a situation, and there are precious few countries that have had to withstand such challenges in the modern world. The living example most closely approximating Lebanon's predicament is Jordan, another small and weak state with no history of independence within its current borders, no tradition of unfettered sovereignty wielded by freely and fairly elected leaders, a highly suspect level of internal cohesion, a border with Israel, and large numbers of Palestinian refugees longing to go home. It only makes sense, therefore, to examine how the Hashemite Kingdom manages to enjoy better stability than Lebanon's to determine if the same ideas might apply to this country as well.
The Jordanian strategy has been to take itself out of the fight and become heavily invested in a negotiated solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Even before an actual peace treaty was signed in the1990s - once cover had been obtained in the form of the interim Oslo Accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis - Jordan's late King Hussein avidly courted successive governments in Israel in a highly successful effort to remain off the Zionist hit list and in America's good graces.
Of course, it was not that simple, it being a time-tested truth that breaking ranks with one's allies and bread with the enemy has long invited all manner of problems. When Russia's ruling family was cast aside by revolutionaries determined to make a separate peace with Germany during World War I, for instance, Moscow's Western allies responded by mounting a full-fledged invasion. On that occasion the assault failed, but Jordan is a much more fragile place than Russia ever was. When it became clear in 1970 that the Hashemites would no longer acquiesce in Palestinian commandos' using Jordanian territory to liberate their homeland, a deadly confrontation soon developed into something approximating a civil war. The Palestinians were defeated, but only after some very anxious moments for the Jordanian Army - and severe blows to its prestige stemming from inconsistent operational performance and some truly appalling atrocities against civilian refugees.
The causes of that episode were quite similar to the 1975-1990 Civil War that the expulsion of the Palestinian resistance groups helped to precipitate in Lebanon, but Jordan was able to avoid a catastrophe like the one that engulfed this country - and the Palestinians residing here. One reason for this was that the Palestinians had no effective allies inside the kingdom, exposing them to the full might of the Jordanian military (enhanced by Western training and equipment) and ensuring that the conflict would be over quickly. In turn, this also allowed Jordan to avoid the consequences of long-term foreign intervention. The Syrian military extended some support to the Palestinians, but this was half-hearted at best, its reluctance helped then as later by the fact that Israel was prepared to make full-scale war to ensure the continuing existence of a benign regime on its eastern flank.
In Lebanon, by contrast, the military splintered along largely sectarian lines and the Syrians were originally invited in, one will recall, to prevent the wholesale rout of Christian militias by the Palestinians and their Lebanese allies. They subsequently changed sides, but before long it was clear that Damascus' over-riding goals had nothing to do with producing - and everything to do with preventing - a "winner" in Lebanon's Civil War. Instead, the Syrian leadership's priorities included a) the prevention of Lebanon's becoming a US/Israeli satellite; b) increased influence over the Palestinian resistance movement; and c) expansion of Syria's role as an Arab powerbroker.
One side-effect of this approach was to significantly prolong a war that might otherwise have ended within a year or two, but there were no guarantees that the United States and/or Israel would not have stepped in of their own accord to prevent a victory by forces hostile to their policies. Even if they had not, a faster pace to the war would almost certainly have involved more comprehensive territorial shifts and a far larger flow of displaced persons, possibly resulting in an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than all of those witnessed between 1975 and 1990 combined. There is also the possibility that an earlier end to hostilities with one camp having clearly prevailed may only have led to massacres of civilians associated with the losing side.
Whatever the pros and cons of the Syrian intervention, the fact of the matter is that unlike Jordan, Lebanon was not able to control its own destiny. The Jordanian government has generally intensified the policies that allowed it to survive 1970, becoming increasingly integrated with the West and, especially in trade terms, with Israel. The question for some is whether Lebanon can and should do the things that Jordan did in order to improve its capacity to defend itself - and whether following that path would involve a choice between selling the country's soul and plunging it into a new civil war.
But might there not be another option, one that allows Lebanon to obtain outside support without becoming either a quisling state or a hostage one? Again, Jordan provides a thought-provoking example, this time by way of an exception. Throughout its extended honeymoon with America and Israel, there was at least one area in which Jordan consistently equivocated: relations with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For years Saddam provided the energy-starved kingdom with cut-rate oil supplies, heavily subsidizing its moribund economy and helping to limit the social unrest bred by poverty. In return, until giving in on the eve of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam, Amman reliably sided with Baghdad or quietly demurred during the latter's long standoff with Washington.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has already answered one question about the national soul by vowing, more than once, that Lebanon "will be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel." That is both honorable and sensible, but it brings up another dilemma: How do the Lebanese get from here to there without having the resulting strains tear it apart again? The Jordanian government preserved its position, but it earned the scorn of millions of people across the Arab world - and the resentment of its American benefactors, who have been downright stingy, for instance, about helping to care for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees.
Lebanon needs to strike a better balance, one that strengthens its independence and sovereignty but also preserves its integrity and reputation. Luckily, it is populated by a people who have long provided the modern Arab world with its most viable political philosophies, twice defied the vaunted might of the Israeli military, and thus far turned a global financial crisis into a considerable net gain. Surely this same people can stake out a position that allows them to be courted by competing foreign powers but never to be seduced - or crushed between them.
**Marc J. Sirois is managing editor of THE DAILY STAR. His email address is marc.sirois@dailystar.com.lb.

Kudos to Saudi Arabia for having come this far on religious tolerance
By The Daily Star
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Editorial
This week's interfaith conference at United Nations headquarters in New York City will not, on its own, do away with hundreds of years of ignorance, mistrust and even hatred between people of different religions. According to diplomats close to the process, the delegates may not be able to agree on the language for a resolution - or even for a joint communique. Nonetheless, given the conditions of the current era, the event cannot be viewed as a failure. Even before the suicide hijackings that killed almost 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, before the US government responded in ways that have only exacerbated the feeling of many Muslims that the mostly Christian West regards all of them as "terrorists," some observers were already predicting a "clash of civilizations." In a world increasingly typified by deep divisions over matters of spirituality, therefore, the very fact that the conference is being held at all constitutes progress.
In no case is this more true than that of Saudi Arabia, whose King Abdullah requested that the talks be held as a follow-up to July's World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid. Human rights groups routinely urge the kingdom to lift restrictions on the practice of religions other than Islam, and they are right to do so. King Abdullah's official titles include "Guardian of The Two Holy Places," Mecca and Medina, but the universal precepts of Islam include respect, tolerance and even protection for people of other faiths as well. It is reasonable, therefore, to ask that Riyadh do more to demonstrate its commitment to interfaith coexistence.
What is not helpful, however, is a general failure to recognize how far King Abdullah has moved this issue since rising to the throne in 2005. Saudi Arabia's founding principles include unquestioned primacy for the Wahhabi school of Islam, a purist sub-sect forged in a time of brutal hardship for the Arabian Peninsula - and widespread fears that interaction with outsiders might dilute the piety of its people. Even critics of Saudi policy today remain unaware of just how conservative the Wahhabi establishment is, of the importance of its consent to the legitimacy of the ruling Al-Saud family - and therefore of the extent to which Abdullah has already succeeded by convincing its leaders to acquiesce in his initiative.
Peoples of all faiths around the world need to readjust their views of one another if the human race is to avoid becoming the author of its own demise. Communities, nation-states and, yes, civilizations are already faced with a situation in which great effort will be required to keep us from engaging in counter-productive struggles over essential resources like energy, food and water. We must avoid adding to this list by joining new battles over how we worship. And we must salute any step that brings us closer to understanding, even when we don't understand how big a step it is

World leaders at UN split on root cause of religious intolerance
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
UNITED NATIONS: World leaders met Wednesday at the United Nations to discuss religious tolerance in a conference called for by by Saudi Arabia, a country where only a strict form of Islam is allowed. More than a dozen heads of state were due to speak, including US President George W. Bush and the leaders of Arab nations and of Israel.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned world leaders that globalization has increased communal strife, extremist ideologies and the polarization of societies.
"Anti-Semitism remains a scourge," he said. "Islamophobia has emerged as a new term for an old and terrible form of prejudice. And other kinds of racism and discrimination show a dismaying persistence."
"One of the great challenges of our time must now surely be to ensure that our rich cultural diversity makes us more secure - not less," Ban said.
He said globalization can be a great force for progress but called for cross-cultural dialogue and concrete actions "to promote tolerance and mutual respect" that involve governments, business, grassroots groups, philanthropists, academics and the media.
The meeting was billed as a chance to heal religious and cultural divisions sometimes referred to as a "clash of civilizations." The conference also came a week after the election of Barack Obama, who has signaled greater flexibility for US foreign policy in mostly Muslim geopolitical hot spots.
In the opening speech, president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, warned that the world desperately needs to learn the positive lessons of religion. D'Escoto, a Catholic priest, said all religions included "social responsibility," but that the world has "become contaminated by the spirit of selfishness and individualism."
His attack on the "unbridled greed" of the "dominant" Western culture was likely to strike a chord among some leaders at the conference. "It is not only Wall Street that needs to be bailed out," he said. "We need to bail out all of humankind from its social insensitivity."
However, d'Escoto did not mention what many in European countries and the United States see as the lack of religious and social freedom in most Islamic states.
Many in Islamic states see hypocrisy in Western nations' emphasis on religious freedom and equality while acting with bias toward countries of different faith, or their protection and/or inaction when certain faiths, or groups of faithful, are slighted.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned that human beings must "live together in peace or harmony, or they will inevitably be consumed by the flames of misunderstanding, malice and hatred."
"Terrorism and criminality are the enemies of every religion and every civilization," he said. "They would not have appeared except for the absence of the principle of tolerance."
However, critics homed in on King Abdullah's role, questioning whether the leader of a country steeped in the rigid Wahhabi sect of Islam was the right person to promote interfaith relations.
"There is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, yet the kingdom asks the world to listen to its message of religious tolerance," Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said ahead of the conference.
Under Saudi rule, other Islamic sects and other religions are either restricted or banned altogether in public.
King Abdullah pushed for the conference as a follow-up to efforts at promoting interfaith dialogue in the World Conference on Dialogue held last July in Madrid. The declaration that followed that meeting was noted for its call for an international agreement on fighting the root causes of terrorism.
This time it is not clear whether the session will end with a UN resolution or a lower-grade declaration, said Enrique Yeves, spokesman for d'Escoto.
"They are still negotiating among themselves," he said.
Diplomatic sources said there was no chance of a resolution and perhaps not even of a declaration because of splits between countries on the nature of the problem in religion and politics.
One source said that Saudi Arabia had proposed a text unacceptable to European countries because of a reference to the "mocking of religious symbols," an issue deeply offensive to many Muslims, but seen as a matter of free expression in many Western states.
Bush was due to speak on Thursday. On Wednesday he was represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. - AFP, with The Daily Star

Sleiman says trust is key to fruitful dialogue
Daily Star/BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman said Wednesday that dialogue cannot lead to a solution if it is not built on a relationship of trust.
Sleiman was delivering Lebanon's word in the Conference for Dialogue between Religions and Civilizations held in New York.
"Lebanon should become a laboratory for fruitful dialogue," he said, adding: "Lebanon, which was described by late Pope John Paul II as a message, must become an example for the Orient and the West."He added that Lebanon needed foreign support that could be made only through a comprehensive peace in the region. - The Daily Star

A Dangerous Alliance
By Annie Jacobsen
Pajamas Media | Thursday, November 13, 2008
In the early days of the War on Terror, back when the United States was only fighting one war, in Afghanistan, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage made a bold statement: “Hezbollah may be the ‘A-Team of terrorists,’” Armitage said, referring to the Lebanese-based, Iranian-controlled organization, “and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the ‘B’-Team.”
Hezbollah has certainly been killing Americans for longer than al-Qaeda has — beginning in 1983 with the truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 Marines. As recently as June 2006, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield told reporters that Hezbollah teams were involved in attacking U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.
Now, in an alarming new development, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has broken apart an international drug smuggling and money laundering ring which links Hezbollah to the Colombian cocaine cartels though a Lebanese operative named Shukri Mahmud Harb.
This is the first time the U.S. has tied a terrorist organization to a major cocaine cartel. “The profits from the sale of drugs went to finance Hezbollah,” says Gladys Sanchez, the chief investigator for the special prosecutor’s office in Bogotá. The DEA took the lead on the investigation, which went by the code name Operation Titan.
According to documents unsealed by a federal magistrate in Miami last week, Harb, who lived in Bogotá and went by the alias “Taliban,” acted as the money man between the cocaine cartels and the terror organization. Described as a “world-class money-launderer,” Harb’s illegal financial transactions have spanned the globe — from Latin America to Asia — with a cut being diverted to fund terror.
“Harb traveled frequently to Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon, and his arrest occurred when he was about to leave Bogotá for Syria,” the Miami Herald reported last weekend. Also arrested in Operation Titan were 21 individuals in Colombia and “90 others in Panama, Guatemala, Lebanon, Hong Kong, and the United States.” According to the Colombian special prosecutor’s office, investigators analyzed more than 700,000 intercepted phone conversations from 370 tapped cell phone lines. Two other Middle Eastern men were also charged — a Jordanian named Ali Mohamad Abdul Rahim and a second Lebanese national named Zacaria Hussein Harb.
This new partnership will no doubt raise complications for President-elect Barack Obama in his proposed plans to open diplomatic talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Hezbollah in Lebanon is a proxy of Iran,” says former Middle East CIA operative Robert Baer in his new book, The Devil We Know. “It follows to the letter Iranian orders.”
This means that Iran is co-sponsoring Hezbollah along with the only global organization able to consistently smuggle tons of illegal goods into every single industrialized nation in the world including America — on a daily basis. Toss the Colombian cocaine cartels’ newest mode of transport into the mix — stealthy semi-submersible submarines, or “drug subs” — and the national security ramifications in the Iran-Hezbollah-Colombia cocaine cartel triumvirate grow exponentially.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden summed up one resulting nightmare scenario just last month. On the eve of the Senate passing legislation directed against the cartels’ “use of submarines to smuggle drugs,” the senator from Delaware, who spearheaded the bill (S.3351), said, “If smugglers can pack tons of illegal drugs into these stealthy vessels, terrorists could carry weapons of mass destruction or other threats into our country the same way.”
Which is exactly what the terrorists — ‘A’-Team and ‘B’-Team members alike — already know.
**Annie Jacobsen is a writer for WomensWallStreet.com.

Hezbollah: "A-Team Of Terrorists"
Ed Bradley Reports On Islamic Militant Group
April 18, 2003
(CBS) This is what deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had in mind a few months ago when he pinned this label on Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah may be the 'A-Team of Terrorists' and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the 'B' team. And they're on the list and their time will come,” says Armitage. “There is no question about it - it's all in good time. And we're going to go after these problems just like a high school wrestler goes after a match. We're going to take them down one at a time."
What he's talking about started about two decades ago as a ragtag militia group fighting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. But there's no longer anything ragtag about Hezbollah now, Correspondent Ed Bradley reports.
The Islamic government of Iran reportedly subsidizes Hezbollah to the tune of $100 million a year, providing its several thousand well-trained fighters with sophisticated weapons systems. Iran also sends advisors, and according to U.S. intelligence, issues its marching orders.
Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida democrat who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee in the last Congress, and is now running for president, says the Bush Administration should be more concerned with Hezbollah than they are with Saddam Hussein.
“Does Saddam Hussein or Hezbollah represent the greater threat to the United States,” asks Graham. “In my opinion, there's no question that Hezbollah is that greater threat, and yes, we should go after it first and go after it before we go to war with Iraq.”
Graham says Hezbollah has a global network of radical Islamic supporters, with enough operatives in the U.S. to pose a terrorist threat here.
“It has a significant presence of its trained operatives inside the United States waiting for the call to action,” says Graham.
But if we were to know that classified information, would we be more concerned? Would we be more afraid of Hezbollah than we are today?
“Well, I'm more concerned and more afraid than if I did not know what the scale of their presence was in the United States,” says Graham, without any hesitation.
“They are a violent terrorist group. And they have demonstrated throughout their now 25-year history a hatred of the United States and a willingness to kill our people.”
Senator Graham is referring to the 1983 truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, which resulted in the death of 241 U.S. Marines. Hezbollah's supporters say that attack was a response to shelling by U.S. warships of Islamic factions in the Lebanese civil war. The U.S. called it terrorism.
But Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah, who we met in Beirut, insists that his group no longer poses a threat to the U.S. Unlike the leadership of al-Qaeda, he isn't hiding from anyone. You may never have heard of Nasrallah before, but he is a hugely popular figure, not just in the region but also among Arabs living in the West
“ I believe the Americans are just saying what the Israelis want them to say. I consider this to be an Israeli accusation coming out of an American mouth and nothing more,” says Nasrallah.
When he became its leader ten years ago, Nasrallah turned Hezbollah into a formidable fighting force. Few people know more about him than journalist Nick Blanford, who has covered Lebanon for eight years and is now writing a book about Hezbollah and Sheikh Nasrallah.
“People adore him. I mean, I talked to some Hezbollah fighters that speak of him almost as they would a wife or a mother,” says Blanford. “They think of him before they go to sleep at night, that he's always in their thoughts, so he has this tremendous power over the rank and file.”
The militant Islamic group has enough power and trained skilled commandos who are specialized in attacking Israeli forces that have occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years. Their most effective weapon: remote-controlled roadside bombs that were detonated when Israeli patrols passed by -- as in the 1983 attack in southern Lebanon.
All told, Israel lost more than 900 soldiers in Lebanon. In May 2000, the Israeli Army withdrew.
What did Israel's withdrawal do for Hezbollah in the eyes of the Arab world?
“Well, there's enormous boost for Hezbollah,” says Blanford. “I mean, this was a small Arab organization that had defeated the mightiest military force the Middle East has ever seen.”
With the Israelis out of Lebanon, Nasrallah encouraged, and assisted, the Palestinian uprising against Israel. He has acknowledged sending secret agents carrying weapons to the West Bank, where he is considered a hero. Some kids in the Gaza Strip even dress like him, down to the beard and the glasses. At one event, a boy playing Nasrallah was flanked by one child who played a security guard, and another child dressed as a suicide bomber.
In Lebanon, where Hezbollah runs a network of schools and hospitals and participates in local elections, Nasrallah, a Muslim, is a hero even to the country's Christian President, Emile Lahoud.
“For us Lebanese, and I can tell you a majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement,” says Lahoud. “If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement.”
President Lahoud has such high esteem for Hezbollah, he's ceded control of the border with Israel to them -- a border where Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers now confront each other just a few yards apart.
This side is controlled by Hezbollah. The other side is controlled by Israel. Hezbollah has already fired rockets across the border, and U.S. officials believe that in the past two years they've been stockpiling rockets in this area hidden in caves and underground bunkers -- higher quality Iranian rockets that could reach Haifa about fifty miles away.
Openly calling for terrorism against Israel, Nasrallah is also urging on suicide operations.
"In Palestine, these operations are the only way to root out the Zionists," says Nasrallah during a speech.
That's the kind of material Hezbollah broadcasts daily on its own television station, Al Manar, which reaches a worldwide audience by satellite. Because of Washington's support for Israel, Hezbollah is conducting a ferocious propaganda offensive against the United States.
This propaganda message broadcast on Al Manar portrays U.S. foreign policy as Satanic and shows an image of the Statue of Liberty, a skull for her face, wearing a gown dripping with the blood of other nations.
But even though he's one of the most powerful anti-American voices in the Middle East, Nasrallah says he has no use for Saddam Hussein. In fact, he blames the U.S. for Saddam's rise.
“The U.S. provided political and military support to the Iraqi regime for decades. They created this mess. I don't believe Saddam alone should be held accountable. We should also go after those who supported him -- like the American government.”
Nasrallah has described the war on Saddam as a Satanic American-Zionist plan to dominate the Arab world. But what is Satanic about removing Saddam from power?
“The United States isn't seeking democracy in Iraq. It's after the oil in Iraq,” says Nasrallah. “And that isn't exactly a humanitarian pursuit. The U.S. wants to impose its political will on Iraq and wants to impose Israel's domination in the region. Certainly these objectives are not moral objectives in my opinion. In fact, we say they are satanic objectives.”
And yet, Nasrallah has spoken out against terrorist attacks on the U.S., including the 9/11attack.
“We reject those methods, and believe they contradict Islam and the teachings of the Quran, which do not permit this barbarity,” says Nasrallah.
But Senator Graham doesn't buy it.
“There are a number of lessons we should learn from Sept. 11th. One of those lessons is that these terrorist groups tend to do what they say they're going to do,” says Graham. “If they define the United States as being Satanic - and that therefore they want to kill us - they will find ways to carry out that objective.”
Is he convinced that they possess weapons of mass destruction?
“I'm not certain whether they possess them,” adds Graham. “But I am confident that they could possess them through their close affiliation with Iran, which has a larger warehouse of chemical and biological weapons, and is closer to gaining nuclear weapons capability than Iraq.”
So if Iran wants them to have weapons of mass destruction, will they have it? Graham believes they will, and in large quantities, too.
Iran isn't the only country that supports Hezbollah. Syria allows Hezbollah to train fighters in remote camps in Syria and territory under its control in Lebanon.
“In recent years they have been infiltrating into this core in the United States people who have gone through their training camps and have the skills of terrorist activity,” says Graham.
According to the FBI, Hezbollah has never conducted a terrorist attack in the United States. The FBI says that its members here are raising money for activities overseas and nothing more than that.
But there has to be a first for every organization. The first for al-Qaeda was Sept.11, 2001. When will the first attack against an American in America by Hezbollah take place?
We asked Lebanon's President Lahoud, a political ally of Hezbollah, if Americans have anything to fear from them.
“Americans? For sure not,” says Lahoud.
The United States is the strongest backer of Israel. But it's the same kind of thing you see with al-Qaeda, attacking the United States to get at Israel.
“Well, believe me, they don't have anything to attack the U.S. or any U.S. citizen for sure,” assures Nasrallah. “But Israel is our enemy. That's something else. It has nothing else to do with the U.S.”
But that's not what he said last month just days before the war began.
"We are confident," says Nasrallah. "The Iraqi people cannot accept the humiliation of a U.S. occupation government," which he added, "would be a Zionist occupation government." Then he warned the Americans they'd be met with rifles, blood and suicide operations.
“American policies in the region encourage this kind of retaliation, whether we agree with it or not. I am expressing the reality,” says Nasrallah.
“I believe the continuation of American policy will make enemies of all Arabs and Muslims - meaning hundreds of millions of Arabs and one billion four hundred million Muslims around the world. Lots of groups will surface, not necessarily al-Qaeda, and they'll be impossible to bring to justice.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/18/60minutes/main550000.shtml

PolicyWatch #1340
Who Was Imad Mughniyeh?
By Matthew Levitt and David Schenker
February 14, 2008
Yesterday's assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was welcome news in Washington, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, and, albeit quietly, Beirut and Baghdad. For Hizballah and Damascus, however, the loss of Mughniyeh -- who was a brilliant military tactician, a key contact to Tehran, and a successful political leader -- is a severe blow to their ongoing activities and operations.
Early Life
Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, also known as Hajj Radwan, was reportedly born in south Lebanon in 1962 and became a sniper in Yasser Arafat's forces in 1976. He has been implicated in some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks of the 1980s and 1990s, earning him a place on the FBI and EU's most wanted lists. He served as special operations chief for Hizballah's international operations and as the group's primary liaison to Iran's security and intelligence services.

The first high-profile terror act linked to Mughniyeh was the 1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed sixty-three people. In the fall of the same year, he reportedly masterminded the twin truck bombings in Beirut that hit a building housing French paratroopers, killing fifty-eight, and a U.S. army barracks, killing 241 marines. Mughniyeh also engineered a series of high-profile kidnappings, including the CIA's Beirut station chief William Buckley (who was later killed), and AP correspondent Terry Anderson, who was held for six years prior to his release. Mughniyeh was also implicated in -- and subsequently indicted for -- the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which resulted in the execution of U.S. navy diver Robert Stetham.
International Reach
As Hizballah's international operations chief, Mughniyeh oversaw the group's terror network and established operational cells around the world.
South America. Mughniyeh's first major operation outside Lebanon was the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed twenty-nine people. Two years later, he directed the bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in the same city, killing eight-five. Although Hizballah carried out the attack, Argentinean court documents allege that Mughniyeh's impetus came from a fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Arab-Israeli conflict. Mughniyeh was central in Hizballah's support for Palestinian terrorist groups and its operations against Israel. In fact, U.S. officials contend that Iran ordered Mughniyeh to help Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad shortly after the second intifada erupted in September 2000. Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Mughniyeh reportedly worked together in planning terrorist attacks globally and across the UN-certified blue line separating Israel and Lebanon. Mughniyeh is also believed to have facilitated the training and transfer of Hizballah operatives into Israel through Europe for the purpose of carrying out attacks and conducting surveillance.
Mughniyeh was also deeply involved in the Karine-A affair -- an Iranian attempt to ship arms to the Palestinian Authority. Hajj Bassem, Mughniyeh's senior deputy, personally commanded the ship that met Karine-A at the Iranian island of Kish, and oversaw the ship-to-ship transfer of the Iranian weapons.
Southeast Asia. Through the 1990s, Hizballah operations in Southeast Asia were carried out under the command Mughniyeh's deputies. In 1994, two of his deputies, Yousef al-Jouni and Abu Foul, were nearly successful in bombing the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Hizballah collected intelligence on synagogues in Manila and Singapore, the El Al office in Bangkok, ships arriving in Singapore, as well as U.S. Navy and Israeli merchant ships in the Malacca Straits. Hizballah members also reportedly procured and cached weapons in Thailand and the Philippines, and recruited local Sunni Muslims. With Mughniyeh's oversight, Hizballah procured false and stolen passports, especially in the Philippines, and conducted significant fundraising throughout the region.
Iraq. Mughniyeh's special operations group has also been active in Iraq. According to a U.S. intelligence official, Iran "helped facilitate Hizballah training inside Iraq." In June 2006, then-deputy assistant secretary of state David Satterfield told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that Hizballah cadres were involved in attacking U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq. In March 2007, coalition forces in Iraq captured Ali Musa Daqduq, a Hizballah veteran who was working with Iran's al-Quds Force to train Iraqis in high-grade weapons, intelligence, sniping, and kidnapping operations. According to the U.S. military in 2005, Daqduq "was directed by senior Lebanese Hizballah leadership to go to Iran and work with the al-Quds Force to train Iraqi extremists." In May 2006, Daqduq "traveled to Tehran with Yussef Hashim, a fellow Hizballah member and head of the organization's operations in Iraq."
Implications for Syria-Hizballah Ties
By providing Mughniyeh safe haven, Syria has confirmed its intimate and ongoing relationship with Hizballah. Syria under Bashar al-Asad has clearly improved relations with the Shiite terrorist organization as evidenced during the 2006 summer war when Damascus provided the organization with its own top-shelf Russian made anti-tank weapons as well as its indigenously produced anti-personnel rockets. But by harboring Mughniyeh -- a top-ranked terrorist on America's most wanted list -- Damascus took an extreme risk, especially since it claims to seek improved relations with Washington.
At the same time, Mughniyeh's assassination on Syrian territory also highlights a critical weakness of the Asad regime: it can no longer provide real security for the terrorists it harbors. Indeed, yesterday's car bomb was only the latest in a series of ongoing foreign incursions: in 2003, Israel bombed an Islamic Jihad training camp outside the capital; a Damascus car bomb killed a top Hamas leader in 2004; in 2006, Israeli planes buzzed Asad's palace in Latakia; and last year, Israel destroyed a presumed North Korean-supplied nuclear facility in Syria. None of these provocations elicited Syrian retaliation.
A Setback for Hizballah
For Hizballah, Mughniyeh's departure could prove more problematic politically than militarily. Under his leadership, the group's operational capabilities had dramatically improved via its extensive training in Iran, and its deployments against coalition forces in Iraq and against Israel in Lebanon. Mughniyeh will be missed as a tactician, as an effective liaison with Iranian intelligence, and as the engineer of the group's international cell network. But Hizballah's military cadres are well trained, and no longer depend solely on him for operational guidance.
Politically, however, Mughniyeh was a constant within a rapidly changing organization. Some reports in the Arab press suggest that there is growing dissention within the ranks of Hizballah, stemming from the 2006 summer war, slow progress in rebuilding the south, and Nasrallah's ongoing leadership of the organization -- something that violates Hizballah's own bylaws. One report last month even suggested that Nasrallah's military authority had been stripped and awarded to the deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem. But since Hizballah is an opaque organization, these reports cannot be taken at face value. Still, Mughniyeh's departure removes Hizballah's key conduit to Iranian intelligence and could serve to exacerbate organizational fissures within the organization.
Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute. David Schenker is a senior fellow and director of the Institute's Arab politics program.

Latin American Narco-Dollars Financing Hezbollah’s Growing Establishment
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374525
By Bernd Kaussler
On October 23, U.S. and Colombian law enforcement agencies announced the break-up of a drug-trafficking ring that channelled part of its profits to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The gang was reportedly involved in distributing cocaine from cartels in Colombia to markets in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, with some of the proceeds going to finance the Lebanese militia (Daily Star [Beirut], October 23). U.S. authorities claimed that the group – a total of 130 suspects have been arrested by Colombian police – was headed by Shukri Mahmud Harb, a Lebanese national who lived in Colombia and allegedly directed laundered money to Hezbollah. A statement issued by the public prosecutor's bureau said that three defendants - Shukri Mahmud Harb, Ali Muhammad Abd-al-Rahim and Zakariyah Husayn Harb - used false fronts to transfer the drug revenues to Hezbollah. The Colombian prosecutor added, "They used routes through Venezuela, Panama, Guatemala, the Middle East and Europe, bringing in cash from the sale of these substances." According to Gladys Sanchez, the lead investigator for the special prosecutor's office in Bogota, "The profits from the sale of drugs went to finance Hezbollah" (Al-Jazeera TV, October 23).
The arrests followed years of concerted efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department and cooperating drug enforcement agencies in Latin America to target Lebanese nationals or Venezuelan and Colombian citizens of Lebanese descent suspected of providing funds to Hezbollah through criminal activities. In July, the Venezuelan Ambassador to Syria, Ghazi Nasr al Din, and Venezuelan-Arab businessman Fawzi Kanan were identified by the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as “facilitators and fundraisers for Hezbollah,” while enjoying safe haven provided by the Venezuelan government. [1] While Caracas dismissed the accusations, the last two years have seen high-level meetings between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, leading to large-scale joint ventures and mutual investments in energy, infrastructure and social projects. Part of the stepped up bilateral cooperation included the launch of weekly flights between the two countries by state-owned carrier Iran-Air in 2007 (IRNA, March 2, 2007; Jam-e Jam, September 8; AFP, July 24, 2007). Iran’s growing clout in Latin America, together with the fact that U.S.-Latin American relations are increasingly strained by left-wing governments challenging Washington’s influence, continues to alarm U.S. officials concerned about Tehran’s aims and capabilities, particularly in Venezuela.
What seems to concern Israeli as well as Western intelligence officials is the alleged growing physical presence of Iranian military and security operatives among the Lebanese communities of Latin America (Los Angeles Times, August 27). In 2003, several Hezbollah functionaries, together with Iranian diplomats and security officials, were convicted by a court in Argentina on charges of perpetrating the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and a Jewish community center two years later, killing a total of 114 people. In November 2007, Interpol approved an Argentinean arrest warrant calling for the arrest of Iran’s former Security Minister, Ali Fallahijan; the ex-commanders of the Al-Quds forces, Moshen Rezai and Ahmad Vahidi; the former cultural attaché of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, Moshen Rabbani; and the former third political secretary, Reza Ashgari. All are accused of having had fundamental roles in conceiving, planning, financing, and executing the attack (Telam News Agency, November 7, 2007). Hezbollah’s late security chief, Imad Mughniyeh, was believed to have been in charge of most of Hezbollah’s operation in Latin America’s tri-border region (see Terrorism Monitor, September 18, 2008). Known under the pseudonym, “The Boss,” Mughniyeh was suspected to have initiated and overseen the group’s drug trafficking and other operations in Latin America (Author’s interview with a Lebanese official, November 3).
The Iranian Foreign Ministry continues to deny these accusations, which essentially state that Iranian officials staged the attacks together with local Hezbollah operatives. Strongly condemning Interpol’s arrest warrant, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mohammad Ali Hoseyni pointed to the acquittal of former Iranian Ambassador to Argentina, Hadi Soleimanpou, by a British court in 2003 due to insufficient evidence. Hoseyni also reiterated the perceived failure of Argentina’s courts to cooperate with Iranian authorities in setting up a joint judicial committee to investigate the bombings (Fars News Agency, November 8, 2007).
Given Iran’s past activities in the region, as well as Tehran’s recent diplomatic initiative with Venezuela, allegations that Hezbollah is receiving funds from drug cartels in Latin America seem credible. While Hezbollah official Nawwaf al-Musawi rejected the allegations during a meeting with the Colombian ambassador to Lebanon as a “Zionist campaign to tarnish the image of Hezbollah,” the arrests in Bogota may well deprive the Lebanese militia of a substantial source of income (Al-Manar TV, October 23).
Hezbollah’s Financial Commitments in Lebanon
In financial terms, Hezbollah could be described as a self-sufficient organization that can draw upon an extensive political and economic network, receiving funds from like-minded countries and revenues earned through a variety of legitimate business ventures and criminal schemes, which in the past have included tax fraud, smuggling and drug trafficking (Jane’s Intelligence Review, March 1, 2003). By and large, Hezbollah is running a formidable socio-political and military infrastructure in Lebanon. Evidently, the emergence of this shadow state within Lebanon requires a steady stream of income in order to meet Hezbollah’s vast financial commitments, as well as supporting its charity and welfare infrastructure.
In addition to Hezbollah’s military structure, the movement also runs a sophisticated network of schools, clinics, and social services. The militia, which is represented in government as well as parliament, also runs news outlets, radio and TV stations, and a telephone communications network. In the group’s demographic strongholds, (which, besides southern Lebanon, include the Bekaa Valley and Dahivah, Beirut’s southern suburb) the vast majority of Hezbollah’s predominantly Shi’a constituents rely on social and charity organizations. Most notable of these organizations are “Imdad”, which provides medical and educational services; “Mu’asasat Al-Shahid”, which pays pensions to families of Hezbollah fighters who are killed in action; and “Jihad al-Bina,” which is still in the process of rebuilding homes destroyed by the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel (Arab News, August 12, 2006). The Paris donor conference of January 2007, in which European nations and the United States pledged $7.6 billion in aid to Lebanon, was seen by many Lebanese as a desperate attempt by the international community to shore up the embattled government and keep up with Hezbollah’s rebuilding schemes, which by then had already handed out millions in cash to people who had lost their homes during the 34-day war with Israel (Daily Star, January 29, 2007; AP, January 24, 2007).
Sources close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claim that as much as $1 billion has been given to Hezbollah by Tehran since 2006 (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 13, 2007). Hezbollah is also strongly committed to supplying financial support to Palestinian resistance groups. Acting as a proxy for Iran, Hezbollah operatives effectively filled the vacuum when the international community froze all assets of the Palestinian Authority following the 2005 Hamas election victory in Gaza and continue to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to armed groups, as well as bankrolling various attacks by Palestinian groups (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 9).
In military terms, Hezbollah leader Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly stressed that the group’s military wing has recovered from the conflict with Israel, restocked its weapons arsenal and fortified its vast bunker network in the south, which is composed of dozens or possibly hundreds of disguised underground complexes (Al-Manar TV, September 10; Jane’s Intelligence Review, May 1, 2007).
A far more cost-intensive initiative by Hezbollah seems to be recent efforts by its members and charities to acquire land and properties throughout the country, particularly in the areas north of the Litani River. Ever since Hezbollah’s victory over Israel in July 2006, the group, operating through front-businesses as well as Jihad al-Bina, started to purchase land in strategic locations across Lebanon. By and large, these efforts at gaining complete territorial contiguity will further Hezbollah’s political and military clout. If Hezbollah succeeds with this territorial expansion, other Lebanese factions fear it would give them essentially free access to the Mediterranean, the Syrian border, the Israeli border and the northern regions of Lebanon. Strategically, this would give the group immense freedom of mobility, cut off parts of the Druze, Christian and Sunni strongholds, and provide unchecked territorial political authority over its constituents as well as an improved offensive/defensive posture on the Israeli border.
Pointing to the four-lane road being built to connect the Hezbollah stronghold of Nabatieh in the south to the western Bekaa valley, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt fears that these land acquisitions, some of which are negotiated at gunpoint, are “part of Hezbollah’s plan to create a state within a state.” Jumblatt also claimed that 600,000 square meters of land owned by Elie Skaff, a member of the Lebanese parliament, were bought by the Iranian ambassador in Lebanon in an attempt by Tehran to further increase its presence in the country through its Hezbollah proxy (Lebanese Information Center, January 20).
Iran’s objective behind this financial and military support seems to be an attempt to establish a strategic military leverage in case of renewed regional conflicts or a possible military showdown between Iran and the U.S.-Israeli allies. In the last year Iran’s military leadership has stressed repeatedly its tactical capability of waging “guerilla warfare” after making fundamental changes to the organization of the Revolutionary Guards. This has certainly not gone unnoticed by the Lebanese factions opposing Hezbollah (Etemad Meli, July 7). In this regard, Marwan Hamade, Lebanon's telecommunications minister, noted: "If you have a major Iranian- American clash, one thing we fear is that the Iranian reaction could be from Lebanon (Lebanese Information Center, January 20). Overall, with parts of Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah, and an unchecked maneuverability of troops and goods through to Syria, the Islamic Republic may well gain a further foothold in Lebanon and exacerbate societal tensions there (Lebanese Information Center, January 20; BBC, May 3, 2007; Haaretz, August 12, 2007; Author's interview with a Lebanese Official, November 3).
Nonetheless, Hezbollah’s efficient parallel state comes with a large price tag. Hezbollah is thus highly dependent on outside financial aid, both through legitimate business ventures and seemingly criminal activities.
Conclusion
Domestically, Hezbollah’s increasing political and military clout is likely to exacerbate sectarian grievances amongst Sunnis, Christians, and Druze who have not forgotten the group’s coup when it virtually paralyzed Beirut last May. Hezbollah’s occupation of the airport and important public buildings led to the Doha Agreement between the pro-Western "March 14" parliamentary majority and the pro-Syrian "March 18" opposition bloc, the latter dominated by Hezbollah. The deal, seen by many as an attempt to appease the Shi’a bloc, gave Hezbollah an effective veto in the cabinet. The Doha Agreement, however, still fails to address many of the nation's deep internal divisions and falls short of addressing issues of concern, like the diminishing role of Christians, Hezbollah’s growing military prowess, and the future of the international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri (Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire, August 14).
Hezbollah feels more powerful than ever in Lebanon’s volatile political landscape, aggressively purchasing land across Lebanon as well as displaying its abundance of electoral funds in the run-up to next spring’s elections. By and large, the movement seems to feel increasingly confident about its ability to call most of the shots in Lebanon’s highly divided political landscape (Al-Mustaqbal [Beirut], 25 October 25).
The fact that Iran’s growing presence in Latin America coincides with charges being brought against Hezbollah for drug trafficking seems to be no coincidence. More than ever Hezbollah is being used as Iran’s military and financial conduit in Latin America and elsewhere. Ali Muhtashimi, an Iranian diplomat seen by many as Hezbollah's “Godfather,” recently commented on the strong bond between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah, which he described of having been forged on the battlefield in the Iran–Iraq war before extending to resistance of Israel's occupation of Lebanon. Confirming the massive logistical support as well as military training Hezbollah has received from the Islamic Republic, Muhtashimi stated that more than 100,000 Hezbollah fighters have received combat training from the Revolutionary Guards since the group was founded (Sharq [Iran] August 3).
It is also evident that the myriad social, military, and political tasks Hezbollah is fulfilling require considerable capital. The arrest of Lebanese nationals in Colombia on charges of drug trafficking certainly seems to be a sign of Hezbollah’s ever expanding “financial portfolio.”
Notes:
1. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Press Release hp-1036, June 18, 2008; Hispanic American Center for Economic Research, July 10, 2008; Office of Foreign Assets Control: Recent OFAC Actions, June 18, 2008.

Our Stories are Singular, but Our Destiny is Shared"
13/11/2008/Asharq Al-Awsat
By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
The difference between President Bush and President Obama is that President Bush used to talk to those who are in front of him in the room and tries to formulate his policies in a way that satisfies them and their money-making schemes. Whereas President Obama reached out to peoples beyond oceans, even at the height of his victory, and to people in forgotten places, to those huddled around radios by saying "our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared" and he distinguished between those who are trying to tear this world down "we will defeat you" and those who seek peace and security "we will support you". This is a great first glimpse of a new president of the United States of America, but there's no doubt that the challenges facing him are too many.
There is no doubt that the election of a President who is black, accused to be from a Muslim family, is an important event in itself, especially when we recall the history of African Americans in the U.S. and the decades of slavery to which they were subjugated. This is also a moment of success for the democratic system of the U.S. although one should question how such a system could claim to be the best in the world when it exercised such a long discrimination against people due to the color of their skin!! In comparison, for example, the system of Islam never allowed such discrimination. The prophet Muhammad chose Bilal al Habashi for the prestigious job of Moazen and to be one of the closest people to the prophet because he was a pious man. Since that date there was no difference in Islam between "an Arab and non Arab or between a black or white people except in what they do". Still, one can only hope that the election of a black man as a president of the United States may inspire the system to clean itself of all forms of prejudice and hatred such as its current prejudices manifested in different ways against Arabs and Muslims.
The first challenge facing president-elect Obama in his foreign strategies is to be able to hear the true voices of people beyond Oceans and to reach a real assessment of their plight. This requires a group of assistants and advisors who do not have a pre-set agenda and ready made opinions based on obvious and historical bias. The challenge for president-elect in the Middle East is to differentiate between those who kill and destroy and those who yearn to live in peace on their own land. The challenge for him is to be able to realize the maxim for which his ancestors worked and suffered which is that all people are brothers and sisters in humanity. The challenge for him is not to support occupation, humiliation and settlement at the expense of indigenous people who are killed and transferred from their homeland. President elect should see the entire story and thus he should visit Gaza and the West Bank to see the other face of Israel and not only the face presented to him by the Israeli lobby in Washington, and especially, by those who are renowned for their hatred of the Arabs and even their blatant bias against Arabs and Muslims.
There is no doubt that to be elected as a President of the United States is extremely important. But what is more important is what is to be done with this high profile post? President George W Bush was elected as a President, but what did he do with this presidency? Isn't he thinking now "I wish I had died before becoming President?!" The issue is not just to be a president, but what to do with the presidency, how many lives you save, how many rights you return, how much justice you are able to bring to the world, and how to ensure respect for all human beings. These are big questions but their positive answers would undoubtedly serve peace, security and stability in the world at large.

An Egyptian Offensive?
Abdullah Iskandar
Al-Hayat - 12/11/08//
There is an evident Egyptian-Iranian contradiction in approaching the issues of the Gulf and Middle East. Cairo has been occasionally criticized for not countering, in an open and quick move, the Iranian diplomatic offensive in the region and for allowing it to achieve its objectives or forge alliances with entities in the region. These criticisms went as far as casting doubts on the Egyptian role in the region, especially after the phase of retreat that followed the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty which severed Arab ties with Cairo under President Anwar Sadat.
While Egypt's diplomacy under President Hosni Mubarak never gave up on the treaty and its objectives, the country still managed to re-establish the broken ties with Arabs, partly as a result of the policy of cold peace, and partly as a result of the Arab need for the Egyptian role. This approach reached its peak during the Second Gulf War and the Arab agreement to join hands with the American and international forces to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's invasion. Crowned with the so-called tripartite axis that included Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, this participation was politically manifested by the Madrid peace conference, the land for peace formula, and the Taef Accord to end war in Lebanon.
This axis, however, was dealt a severe blow that shook it with the American invasion of Iraq, the rise of the radical conservatives to power in Iran, and the stalling peace process between Arabs and Israel. Consequently, the Syrian partner sided with the Iranian offensive at the expense of the foundations upon which the tripartite axis was built. This set the ground for a period of turbulence in the region based on the clash between Iran's approach to its issues and the Arab interests involved in those issues. The Iranian offensive has achieved a number of significant breakthroughs in the Arab core, in Iraq and the Gulf, in Lebanon, on the Palestinian level and all the way to the Nile.
All these constitute a threat to Egypt's interests and to its political strategy in the region, not to mention the threat to its prestige and its role which is considered as its strategic depth.
Today we witness a remarkable Egyptian move toward the heated issues of the region. We hear a louder Egyptian voice with new proposals advanced to deal with crises. The most expressive effort in this respect includes the attitudes and moves concerning the Lebanese question, the Palestinian reconciliation and the Sudanese crisis. The most prominent trait in these initiatives is that Cairo has a point of view on resolving these issues. In other words, it holds an opinion on the solutions that will promote stability and help it achieve its political strategy through dialogue with the parties directly involved - not only through the attempt to seek unviable reconciliations.
This was manifested through the visit by General Omar al-Qanawi, an Egyptian security official, to Lebanon as the Arab reconciliation plan represented by the Doha Accord took off. It became evident from Qanawi's discussions with officials and political sides that Egypt will not take a neutral stand if this settlement was threatened. This attitude was crowned by Mubarak's reception of President Michel Suleiman in Cairo and his offering all available Egyptian political and material support to ensure the success of the political reconciliation in Lebanon away from any foreign intervention.
On the Palestinian front, Cairo did not only host the dialogue among the conflicting factions, but also prepared a paper that reflects a clear vision for the reconciliation within a strategy that reinforces the position of the Palestinian Authority and an approach for a peaceful resolution with Israel on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative and whatever has been accomplished on the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations track. Armed with a point of view, Egypt has sought reconciliation and refused to back off simply to ensure that Palestinian meetings are held on its territories, even if this meant postponing the dialogue. This is indeed what happened when Hamas insisted that its strategy - based on the Iranian diplomatic assault - be the foundation of dialogue.
Then came the "historic visit" by President Mubarak to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, following talks with President Omar al-Bashir in Cairo, to further reinforce Egypt's regained influence in its Sudanese strategic depth and its willingness to persuade Khartoum to make unity an appealing element for the South while convincing the southerners that their interests and the interests of stability and development lie in a united Sudan.
Does this new Egyptian political move indicate that Cairo has shifted from observing developments and offering subtle advice to taking initiative and perhaps even launching a diplomatic assault?