LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِAugust 04/2010

Bible Of the Day
Lamentations 3/22–24/"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.   Yahweh is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.  It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."
Today's Inspiring Thought: Enough for Today
There's one thing we can count on: the steadfast love of the Lord. Just as certain as the sun will rise in the morning, we can trust and know that his strong love and tender mercies will greet us anew each day. So great is the Lord's faithfulness, so personal and sure, that he holds out just the right portion for our souls to drink in today, tomorrow, and the next day. When we wake up to discover his steady, daily, restorative care, our hope is renewed and our faith is reborn

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Look at who holds the South Lebanon trigger/By: Tony Badran/August 3/10
Turning up the heat on Iran/By Victor Kotsev/August 03/10
Special tribunal on Hariri murder cannot be trusted/By Linda S. Heard/August 03/10
Shimon Peres versus the Brits/by Efraim Karsh/August 03/10
Tehran’s Hand in the Taliban/By: Matt Gurney/August 03/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for August 03/10
Fiercest Border Clashes since 2006 Kill 2 Lebanese Troops, Journalist, Senior Israeli Officer/Naharnet
U.N. Security Council Holds Closed-Door Talks on Lebanese-Israeli Clashes/Naharnet
UNIFIL Acting Commander at Lebanon-Israel Clash Sight, Urges Restraint/Naharnet
Israel Warns Lebanon of 'Consequences' as Lebanese Army Holds 'Israel's Arrogance Responsible'/Naharnet
Hariri Asks U.N. to Pressure Israel to Stop Aggression/Naharnet
LF Urges Lebanese to Unite behind Army in Defending Lebanon's Freedom, Sovereignty, and Stability/Naharnet
Aoun: Resistance's Role Begins When Lebanese Land is Invaded and Army's Role is to Deter Attacks/Naharnet
Jordan Rejects 'Aggression' Against Lebanon/Naharnet
Iran Condemns 'Zionist Incursion' into Lebanon/Naharnet
Syria Says 'Heinous Aggression' Reflects Israel Concerns over 'Signs of Stability' in Lebanon after Tripartite Summit/Naharnet
Hamas: We Stand with Lebanon and Pay Tribute to Its National Army/Naharnet
IDF fires back at Lebanon/Ynetnews
Lebanon and Israel forces clash near border/BBC News
U.S. Plans to Revive Peace Drive with Lebanon, Syria/Naharnet
Ex-US envoy to Israel averse to war with Hizbullah, promotes pre-emptive action/Daily Star
New Israel-Lebanon war likely to be more violent, destructive: ICG/Daily Star
Israelis mull war on multiple fronts as STL indictment looms/Daily Star
Calm on Israel-Lebanon front belied by talk of war/Reuters
Washington backs Israeli Arrow II upgrade/UPI
Planned Arrest Warrants Create Political Challenge for Lebanon's Hariri/Spiegel Online
Peres: I will get to see peace/Ynetnews
Arab unity comes to Lebanon's aid/Financial Times
Lebanon Arrests Alleged Israeli Spy/Voice Of America
Gemayel: Justice threatens Lebanon security/Ya Linnan
MP Saad: Israeli withdrawal should end role of armed resistance/Ya Libnan
Israeli about-face: agrees to UN probe of flotilla/AFP
Jumblatt makes amends with Emile Lahoud/Daily Star
Another telecom worker suspected of spying for Israel/Daily Star
Sayegh: More than one quarter of Lebanese still earning less than $4 per day/Daily Star
Yezbeck: Arab leaders must shoulder the responsibility in case of strife/Ya Libnan
Lebanon awaits a verdict/Asia Times on line
Is the Middle East on the Brink of a New Regional War?/Time
Report: Lebanon army colonel arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel/Haaretz
Jumblatt heads to Damascus today/Ya Libnan
Saqr: Any Settlement at the Expense of the Court is a Condemnation of Hizbullah/Naharnet
European Source: Hariri Tribunal Aims to Tarnish Hizbullah's Image in Lebanon and the Arab World/Naharnet
Syria understands Hezbollah’s concerns, reports Al-Hayat/Now Lebanon
Ad-Diyar: Jumblatt fears Baabda summit would increase internal turmoil/Now Lebanon

U.N. Security Council Holds Closed-Door Talks on Lebanese-Israeli Clashes
Naharnet/The U.N. Security Council went into closed-door consultations Tuesday to mull the fierce clashes between Lebanese and Israeli troops along their border as the U.N. chief called for "maximum restraint." The meeting got under way under around 7:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) at the request of Lebanon, which is one of the council's 15 members.
The clashes, which saw Israeli and Lebanese troops exchanging fire along the northernmost section of the border, left two Lebanese soldiers, a journalist and a senior Israeli officer dead, according to sources from both sides. They marked the deadliest incident along the border since the devastating 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel.
Hizbullah took no part in Tuesday's fighting, which erupted in its stronghold. U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy briefed the council on the latest developments on the Lebanese-Israeli border, where the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is deployed. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is on a visit to Japan, was "concerned" over the clashes and "is calling for maximum restraint," according to his spokesman Martin Nesirky. The spokesman told a press briefing that UNIFIL was in touch with both sides and urging them to stop fighting and exercise maximum restraint. "At the moment UNIFIL peacekeepers are trying to ascertain the circumstances of the incident," he added. Each side blamed the other for causing the fight, with the Lebanese army acknowledging that it fired first. A statement by the Lebanese army said troops opened fire on the Israelis after "a patrol crossed the technical (border) fence."
Israel's military blamed Lebanon for the fighting.(AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 20:14

UNIFIL Acting Commander at Lebanon-Israel Clash Sight, Urges Restraint
Naharnet/The acting commander of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon visited the location of Tuesday clashes between Israeli and Lebanese troops along the border, urging both parties to exercise restraint. "After the exchange of fire between Lebanese and Israeli forces along the Blue Line this afternoon, UNIFIL has been focused on restoring calm in the area through intensive contacts with both the parties," Neeraj Singh, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told Agence France Presse.
He said Brigadier General Santi Bonfanti had flown by helicopter to the site at the Lebanese border village of Adaysseh and had personally called on both parties to "stop firing in all the area". "UNIFIL's immediate priority is to consolidate the calm and we are urging both parties to exercise maximum restraint," he added. Singh had no immediate comment concerning the Israeli military's assertion that its operation had been "pre-coordinated with UNIFIL". The Blue Line is the U.N.-drawn border separating Lebanon and Israel. It was demarcated in 2000 after Israeli troops pulled out of southern Lebanon following a 22-year occupation. UNIFIL has some 13,000 troops from various countries stationed in southern Lebanon. The force, which was set up in 1978 to monitor the border between Israel and southern Lebanon, was considerably beefed up in the wake of the devastating 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel.(AFP)
Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 18:26

Fiercest Border Clashes since 2006 Kill 2 Lebanese Troops, Journalist, Senior Israeli Officer
Naharnet/Lebanese and Israeli troops traded fire Tuesday along the tense border in the fiercest clashes since the devastative July 2006 war four years ago, with two Lebanese soldiers, a journalist and a senior Israeli officer killed. Lebanon's Hizbullah TV, Al-Manar, reported that one Israeli top officer had been killed but there was no immediate confirmation from the Lebanese army or U.N. troops stationed in southern Lebanon. Later Tuesday, the Israeli military confirmed that a senior Israeli officer was killed during the clashes. The general heading Israel's northern command said earlier that two Israeli "commanders" were wounded. The slain journalist was named as Assaf Abu Rahhal, 55, who worked for the Arabic-language daily Al-Akhbar. Al-Manar television said one of its correspondents, Ali Shuaib, had also been lightly wounded. A Lebanese army spokesman said 15 people were also wounded, among them an unspecified number of soldiers. Each side blamed the other for causing the fight, with the Lebanese army acknowledging that it fired first. A statement by the Lebanese army said troops opened fire on the Israelis after "a patrol crossed the technical (border) fence." "The patrol did not stop despite UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon) attempts to stop it, and the Lebanese army confronted the troops with machinegun fire and RPGs," the statement said.
A security official in the area told Agence France Presse that the Israeli troops had opened fire first. "The Israelis fired four shells (from a tank) that fell near a Lebanese army position on the outskirts of the village of Adaysseh and the Lebanese army fired back," the official said, adding that two houses were damaged in the exchange. Another security official said several Israeli soldiers had been wounded and that Israel was using loudspeakers calling in Arabic for a ceasefire in order to remove casualties. An army spokesman said the Israelis were attempting to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side. Earlier reports had said three Lebanese soldiers had died but the army later put the death toll at two.
Six hours after the clashes began at around noon (0900 GMT) near the village of Adaysseh, the area was reported to be quiet. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman met top defense officials and decided to file a complaint with the U.N. Security Council, whose members were to meet later in the day for private consultations on the incident. Meanwhile, General Saeed Eid, chief of Lebanon's Higher Defense Council, said Lebanon stands ready to face Israeli aggression "by all available means." "After consultations, the council has ... given instructions to face all aggression on our territory, army and people by all available means and no matter the sacrifices," he said. And Prime Minister Saad Hariri called various leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to denounce the Israeli "aggression." Hariri condemned the "violation of Lebanese sovereignty and demands ... the United Nations and the international community bear their responsibilities and pressure Israel to stop its aggression," a statement from his office said.
The Israeli foreign ministry responded with equal force. "Israel sees the government of Lebanon as responsible for this grave incident and warns of the consequences in the event that disturbances of this kind continue," it said. Israel's military followed suit, blaming Lebanon for the fighting. "Full responsibility for the incident and its consequences lies with the Lebanese army, which disrupted the calm in the area," it said in a statement. "During the afternoon, the Lebanese army opened fire towards an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) position along the Lebanese border in northern Israel. The force was in Israeli territory, carrying out routine maintenance and was pre-coordinated with UNIFIL," it said.
UNIFIL did not immediately respond to the Israeli claim. The Israeli army named the dead Israeli officer as Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari, 45, a battalion commander. It also said a captain had been critically wounded. Tuesday's clashes marked the deadliest incident along the border since the devastating war between Hizbullah and Israel. Hizbullah took no part in Tuesday's fighting, which erupted in its stronghold. The group's chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was expected to address the incident in an already scheduled speech on Tuesday night.
The U.N. force urged "maximum restraint" following the clashes along the so-called Blue Line, a U.N.-drawn border. "Our immediate priority at this time is to restore calm in the area," spokesman Neeraj Singh told Agence France Presse. He said acting force commander Brigadier General Santi Bonfanti had flown to the site of the clashes and had personally called on both parties to "stop firing in all the area". "UNIFIL's immediate priority is to consolidate the calm and we are urging both parties to exercise maximum restraint," Singh added.
Syria condemned what it said was Israel's "heinous aggression." "President Bashar al-Assad ... telephoned Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and expressed Syria's support for Lebanon against the heinous aggression launched by Israel on Lebanon," state news agency SANA reported. "President Assad considers that this aggression proves once more that Israel has always been seeking to destabilize security and stability in Lebanon and the region," SANA said. An AFP correspondent in Adaysseh said soldiers from the Indonesian contingent serving with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon tried to no avail to calm the situation before the clashes erupted. Ambulances rushed to the village as residents panicked with many fleeing.
Adaysseh is located about 30 kilometers east of the coastal city of Tyre.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 19:48

Jordan Rejects 'Aggression' Against Lebanon
Naharnet/Jordan said on Tuesday it was "deeply concerned" following Israeli-Lebanese clashes on the tense border, rejecting any "aggression" against Lebanon. "Prime Minister Samir Rifai received a telephone call from his Lebanese counterpart, Saad Hariri, to discuss developments in southern Lebanon," the state-run Petra news agency reported. "Rifai expressed Jordan's support for Lebanon, saying the kingdom rejects any aggression against Lebanon. He and Hariri stressed the need to avert more conflicts in the region that would obstruct peace efforts."
Two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist, as well as an Israeli commander, were killed near the Lebanese border village of Adaysseh after clashes erupted around noon (0900 GMT).
Several people were also wounded. Jordan, which signed a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, is "deeply concerned about the dangerous escalation in Lebanese territory," Petra quoted a cabinet statement as saying after a meeting. "The kingdom supports Lebanon in its efforts to defend its sovereignty against Israel's aggression."(AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 20:32

Syria Says 'Heinous Aggression' Reflects Israel Concerns over 'Signs of Stability' in Lebanon after Tripartite Summit
Naharnet/Syria on Tuesday condemned "the heinous aggression" launched by Israel against Lebanon after an exchange of fire along the tense border killed four Lebanese, including three soldiers. Damascus noted that the attack reflected the concerns of the Hebrew state over the "signs of stability" in Lebanon following the tripartite Lebanese-Saudi-Syrian summit.
"President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday telephoned Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and expressed Syria's support for Lebanon against the heinous aggression launched by Israel on Lebanon," state news agency SANA reported. "President Assad considers that this aggression proves once more that Israel has always been seeking to destabilize security and stability in Lebanon and the region," SANA said. Tuesday's clashes, which saw Israeli and Lebanese troops exchanging fire along the northernmost section of their shared border, claimed the lives of three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist, a security official in Beirut said. There were also Lebanese reports of an undetermined number of Israeli soldiers wounded. The Syrian president on Friday made an unprecedented joint trip to Beirut with Saudi King Abdullah aimed at defusing Lebanese political tensions. In their joint communiqué, the two Arab leaders urged Lebanese parties to "pursue the path of appeasement and dialogue and to boost national unity in the face of outside threats," referring to Israel.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 17:10

Iran Condemns 'Zionist Incursion' into Lebanon
Iran said on Tuesday it strongly condemns the "incursion" by its arch-foe Israel into southern Lebanese regions. Naharnet/"The Islamic republic of Iran strongly condemns the Zionist regime's incursion in the southern regions of Lebanon which resulted in the martyrdom of a handful of children of the Lebanese army," the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA. It said the "hysterical assault" by Israel has raised an existing concern of "a new adventure" by the regime against Lebanon. "It is expected that the international community condemns such an incursion as soon as possible," the statement said, adding that Tuesday's clashes occurred as Israel was under pressure for "its crimes against the people of Gaza and innocent passengers of the Freedom Flotilla." Two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist were killed when the army clashed with Israeli troops along their tense northern border. Israel said one of its top officers died in the fighting.(AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 20:20

Hamas: We Stand with Lebanon and Pay Tribute to Its National Army
Naharnet/Hamas on Tuesday hailed the Lebanese Army for confronting the Israeli troops during the fiercest border clashes since the devastative July 2006 war four years ago.
"We stand with Lebanon and pay tribute to its national army which has the right to counter the repeated Zionist violations in order to defend the land and Lebanese sovereignty," Hamas said in the statement released in Damascus. Israel said one of its senior commanders was killed in the clashes with the Lebanese Army along the northern border, while officials in Beirut said three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist were killed. The Islamist group urged the United Nations "to assume its responsibilities and contain Israeli arrogance and aggressions" and denounced Israel for "non-respect of international law."(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 18:46

LF Urges Lebanese to Unite behind Army in Defending Lebanon's Freedom, Sovereignty, and Stability
Naharnet/The Lebanese Forces praised on Tuesday the army for its "heroic stand" against Israel, urging all Lebanese to unite behind the army in defending Lebanon's freedom, sovereignty, and stability.The LF press office urged in a statement the government to issue an urgent complaint to the U.N. Security Council over Israel's attack in southern Lebanon.It added that the government should also conduct a number of calls to Arab and international powers to "fortify Lebanon against any new assaults." Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 17:00

Aoun: Resistance's Role Begins When Lebanese Land is Invaded and Army's Role is to Deter Attacks
Naharnet/Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun said on Tuesday that he was not surprised with Israel's attack against Lebanon, adding: "It was said during the national dialogue that Hizbullah cannot be granted the decision of war and peace, and I told them that this decision is not in our hands," He added after the movement's weekly meeting: "The Lebanese army is charged with deterring attacks and it currently plays the role of defending the border. The Resistance's role begins when the Israeli forces infiltrate the country.""Today's assault is a test to the Lebanese army that demonstrated a solid will to defend itself. Israel has understood that it will confront the Lebanese army should it attack Lebanon," he continued.Aoun also urge the President to call Cabinet to an emergency meeting even if Prime Minister Saad Hariri is absent on vacation, saying an agreement can be reached with him over the phone. "We should complain to the U.N. even though we don't expect much from it. Today's events are a crime against the Lebanese army and the U.N. should condemn Israel because it violated resolution 1701," he stated."I am not pleased with the U.N. as a whole and not just UNIFIL. It has divided Palestine and never condemned Israel, and the U.S. stands as an obstacle against the condemnation. How can we be satisfied with it when we have been living in a stifling economic crisis since 1967," the MP said. Addressing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Aoun noted: "The false witnesses are an obstacle that is blinding the tribunal, which is why we should try them in order to overcome it."
"I don't think the STL can reach an indictment before we tackle the issue of false witnesses … I demand the truth but it cannot overlook 10 false witnesses," the MP stressed.
Furthermore, Aoun said: "We discussed the state budget and it looks like we have been very lenient with the errors and violations that have been committed in financial management, most of which were taken by the previous government." Beirut, 03 Aug 10, 18:14

Lebanese-Israeli Armies Exchange Artillery along Border amid Report 2 Katyushas Fired into Northern Israel
Naharnet/Lebanese troops and Israeli soldiers exchanged artillery shells and gunfire on Tuesday along the border amid an Israeli army report that two rockets fired from Lebanon fell into northern Israel. A villager and a Lebanese soldier were wounded in the clashes which erupted in the border town of Adeissheh at noon. The southerner identified as Hasan Nazzal was said to be slightly injured. Details were not available, however, about the health status of soldier Ibrahim Abboud. State-run National News Agency said the exchanges began after Israeli troops tried to install surveillance cameras near Adeisseh. It said both armies went on high alert after Lebanese troops prevented Israeli soldiers from removing a tree planted inside Lebanese territory. It said exchanges of machine gun fire and artillery rounds broke out between the two armies despite UNIFIL's intervention. Local media said at least one artillery shell landed near a Lebanese army outpost in Adeisseh. Beirut, 03 Aug 10,

Clashes between Lebanese and Israeli soldiers along border
August 3, 2010 /Lebanese and Israeli soldiers exchanged rockets and gunfire on Tuesday along the tense border between the two countries leaving two people injured on the Lebanese side, a soldier and a civilian, army and security officials said. "The Israelis fired four rockets that fell near a Lebanese army position in the village of Aadaiseh and the Lebanese army fired back," a security official in the area said, adding that two houses were damaged by the rockets. An Israeli military source confirmed that clashes had erupted, saying there was an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Lebanese forces near kibbutz Misgav Am, which lies just across the border from Aadaiseh. The source gave no further details. A Lebanese army spokesperson said the clashes erupted after Israeli soldiers attempted to uproot a tree on the Lebanese side of the fenced border. "The Israelis began to fire and we responded," he said. However, Israeli police deny reports that the two rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel.  NOW Lebanon’s correspondent reported that the Israeli snipers’ activity is ongoing in Aadaiseh. It was also reported that soldiers from the Indonesian contingent serving with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon tried to no avail to calm the situation before the clashes erupted. The UN force stationed in South Lebanon is urging maximum restraint in the clashes. Ambulances rushed to the village as residents panicked with many fleeing. The Israelis apparently tried to uproot the large tree with a tractor from their side of the border as it blocked their view. Aadaiseh is located about 30 kilometers east of the coastal city of Tyre./AFP/NOW Lebanon

Syria understands Hezbollah’s concerns, reports Al-Hayat
August 3, 2010 /Al-Hayat newspaper quoted an unnamed political source as saying that Syrian-Hezbollah communication plays a major role in easing the domestic tension in Lebanon, adding that Damascus understands Hezbollah’s concerns over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)’s upcoming indictment in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Last month, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called the tribunal an “Israeli project” aimed at weakening the party and inciting internal strife.
The source also said that the purpose of Speaker Nabih Berri’s Sunday meeting with Nasrallah was to ease the political tension that followed the latter’s July speeches.
The daily also reported that Nasrallah’s aide, Hussein Khalil, visited Damascus on Saturday to discuss Syria’s take on Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Baabda meeting with President Michel Sleiman on Friday in Lebanon. The source added that Development and Liberation bloc MPs have decided to not take part in the dispute between March 8 and March 14 on the issue of the tribunal. -NOW Lebanon

Look at who holds the South Lebanon trigger
Tony Badran, August 3, 2010
Now Lebanon/ On the eve of last Friday’s mini-Arab summit in Lebanon, the United States quietly, but noticeably, renewed a 2007 Executive Order designating parties deemed to be undermining Lebanese sovereignty.
The renewal was a welcome reminder of the problems overshadowed by the photo-op in Baabda that included President Michel Sleiman, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, it did not compensate for the lack of active American involvement in Lebanon’s affairs, nor its substitution with an “over the horizon” policy allowing local and regional actors to take the lead in addressing initiatives potentially damaging to Washington’s interests.
In his message to Congress about the renewal of EO 13441, President Barack Obama identified the major source of Lebanon’s destabilization and the undermining of its sovereignty: continued arms smuggling to Hezbollah, including, of course, that carried out by Syria. This helped refocus the issue amid all the surreal statements about Syria’s role in safeguarding Lebanon’s stability at the Baabda summit.
This clarification also served to refocus, at least conceptually, the priorities of US policy toward Syria and Lebanon. Syria is, understandably, nowhere near the top of the list of the Obama administration’s main concerns. However, this has led to ill-advised steps, one being the introduction of myriad American interlocutors with Damascus, which has led to a muddling of policy priorities.
A perfect recent example was the disastrous “creative diplomacy” of the State Department Twitterati: the two young officials who infamously Tweeted their adventures in Syria, as they led a delegation of tech executives on a “cyber diplomacy” mission. Their embarrassing conduct was matched by the total loss of perspective and clear policy evident in the initiative itself. Here was a case of “engagement” with Damascus devoid of a single reference to the outstanding issues with Syria, such as the smuggling of Scuds and M-600 rockets to Hezbollah.
Which brings us back to last Friday’s bizarre fest. It’s no secret that the dynamics unfolding in Lebanon since 2009 have been directly linked to the Saudi entente with Syria that began at the Kuwait Economic Summit in February of last year. This has had negative repercussions for US regional interests even beyond Lebanon. Take, for instance, Iraq, where Syria has facilitated a campaign of violence since August 2009 in the run-up to the Iraqi parliamentary elections; or Saudi insistence on “reconciliation” between Syria and an uninterested Egypt, whose positions on “resistance” movements and national security concerns remain in direct conflict with those of Syria.
Some Saudi publicists who have echoed the evolution of thinking on Lebanon in Saudi official circles have gone as far as to advocate a full “handing over” of Lebanon back to Syria, as well as to entertain fantasies about prying Syria away from Iran and returning it to the Arab fold. Their general objective is balancing Iranian influence in Lebanon and using Syria to “contain” Hezbollah.
Unfortunately, all the US could muster in response to these developments was a naïve statement by State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley, who advised the Syrians to listen to King Abdullah and start moving away from their relationship with Iran.
Whatever the Saudis may be thinking, it’s far from clear that their maneuvers are necessarily going to serve the US well. For instance, despite conflicting leaks and analyses about what the Saudi position on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is, it’s not unreasonable to argue that, under the guise of safeguarding stability, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri would come under increasing pressure to denounce the tribunal, and that’s clearly the direction being pushed by the Syrians and their frequent spokesmen. While that may not be enough in itself to end the tribunal, it would be a setback for US objectives and leverage.
Syrian thinking, as expressed in public leaks and statements, does not suggest any sense of harmony with Saudi hopes and desires. The notion being peddled today that Syria has an interest in Lebanon’s stability ignores Damascus’ continuous smuggling of unprecedented types of weaponry to Hezbollah. In the end, the only venue for Syria’s regional relevance is an open south Lebanese front to be used to blackmail its adversaries under the guise that it is a front controlled by Syria.
But that front, and the Hezbollah combatants manning it, are Iranian assets first and foremost. That’s why Syria has begun to transfer specifically Syrian weaponry, in the hope of regaining the seat of primary interlocutor that it had in the 1990s, most clearly enshrined in the (thankfully) obsolete April Understanding of 1996. Syria was officially recognized as a guarantor of the understanding in Lebanon, and primary interlocutor for Lebanese foreign and security policies.
And this is hardly a new refrain. The Israelis were foolish enough in the 1990s to believe that the Syrians would “contain” Hezbollah, and now we are seeing the same argument recycled once more, in Saudi guise.
But we are no longer in the 1990s. The rules of engagement have changed drastically since 2006. In the end, both the Saudis and the Syrians are playing in the margins, as neither controls the trigger of Hezbollah’s weapons; Iran does. The main constituent elements for future conflict remain the same regardless of Saudi-Syrian maneuvers.
**Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

New Israel-Lebanon war likely to be more violent, destructive: ICG
Political roots of 2006 conflict remain ‘unaddressed ’ think tank warns
By Simona Sikimic /Daily Star staff
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
BEIRUT: A new Israeli-Lebanon conflict is likely to be far more violent, inflict greater damage to civilian and government infrastructure and lead to the direct embroilment of other regional actors, warned a new report released Monday by the International Crisis Group (ICG), the leading conflict-resolution think tank A new conflict will also likely affect greater parts of the country, especially the Bekaa Valley, and will not be isolated to the south or the Shiite areas of Beirut which were systematically targeted in 2006, said the report entitled “Drums of War: Israel and the ‘Axis of Resistance.’” The Lebanese government is advised to take immediate steps to “significantly” increase troop numbers in the south and to improve the range and quality of military training and equipment available to its troops, as a bulwark against a slide to war. Although conflict is far from imminent, and many inhibiting factors continue to prevent the escalation of menacing rhetoric on both sides, the political roots which led to the outbreak of the 2006 war remain “unaddressed” and the regional situation could prove “explosive.”
“Today, no party can soberly contemplate the prospect of a war that would be uncontrolled, unprecedented and unscripted,” said Peter Harling, Crisis Group Iraq, Lebanon and Syria project director. “But the underlying dynamics of the logic of deterrence carry the seeds of possible breakdown.”
In case of a trigger incident, such as a miscalculation of the involvement of a third party, Israel will not hesitate to hit harder and faster than in 2006 and it will be less likely to distinguish between Hizbullah and the Lebanese government, the report said. It may also target Syria, viewing the regime in Damascus as a weak link which is more susceptible to conventional warfare and air bombardment than the guerrilla-style operations of Hizbullah that have proved resilient against Israeli action in the past. The growing closeness between Hizbullah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, termed the “axis of resistance,” could also lead to many different factions becoming involved in a region-wide conflict.“Involvement by one in the event of attack against another no longer can be dismissed as idle speculation,” the report said. “Although none of the four parties acknowledges the existence of a formal alliance – one that would entail automatic military solidarity in the event of war – they increasingly present themselves as a front.” Israel has not faced a serious coordinated military effort by an alliance of its enemies since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. This joint threat, however, could actually be acting as an inhibitor to war, the ICG notes. Since 2006, both Syria and Hizbullah are thought to have acquired longer-range missiles, which for the first time shifted the balance of power by threatening to hit densely populated Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv.
The most effective inhibitors of a third Lebanon war arguably stems from mutual fear that the next conflict could be far more violent and extensive than the preceding two and that at present neither side can be assured of achieving anything more than it did in 2006, the report said. But the fragile equilibrium of mutually assured devastation should not be seen as an enduring one.
A continued build-up of arms in the region could well trigger an even more violent confrontation in the future. If Hizbullah officially acquires surface-to-air missiles, which would severely impact Israel’s ability to wage an uncontested war from the air, Israel may be prompted to launch a preventative strike, the report quotes an Israeli official as saying. Instead, a serious revival of all regional peace talks, and not just the ongoing Isreali-Palestinian dialogue, is advanced as the only durable solution.
Other short-term actions should also be taken by all parties to improve security, according to the ICG. All Lebanese factions must move to calm civilian hostilities against the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), while UNIFIL contributor countries, especially its European contingents, should reaffirm their commitment to the peacekeeping operation.
Serious steps should also be taken by all to push for compliance with at least the most accessible of Resolution 1701-related files, such as the pullout of Israeli forces from the Lebanese side of the Ghajar village. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the 34-day conflict in 2006 and established the 12,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force.

Ex-US envoy to Israel averse to war with Hizbullah, promotes pre-emptive action
By Patrick Galey /Daily Star staff
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
BEIRUT: The US should work to avoid another Hizbullah-Israel conflict, but could benefit from pre-emptive military action in Lebanon, according to Washington’s former Israeli ambassador. A report authored by Daniel Kurtzer, written for the US Council on Foreign Relations, warns that Hizbullah’s proliferating weapons stockpile could bring Israeli aggression to far outweigh the bombardment of Beirut and southern areas during the 2006 summer war. “Hizbullah has steadily rearmed in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,” Kurtzer wrote. “Israel could decide the security threat posed by Hizbullah has reached intolerable levels and take pre-emptive military action.”
The report outlined three factors that risk shattering the fragile calm that has reigned along the Blue Line since the cessation of hostilities four years ago.
“The size and quality of Hizbullah’s missile inventory; the possible acquisition of long-range, accurate missiles; and the possible upgrading of Hizbullah’s surface-to-air missile capability changes the equilibrium on the ground to an extent that Israel views as threatening,” Kurtzer said. “The indicators and warning signs of an imminent war are already evident.”
Tensions have soared in recent months amid increasingly bellicose rhetoric from both sides, reignited by Israeli claims in April that Hizbullah had received long-range Scud missiles – capable of targeting heavily populated urban areas – from Syria. Although Damascus stridently denied such accusations, several senior US officials came out in support of Israel’s finger-pointing.
“Israel views Hizbullah’s acquisition of Scud missiles … as a strategic threat,” Kurtzer said. He added that Israel could attack not only to damage Hizbullah’s military capabilities and domestic popularity, but also to deny Iran a “second-strike” capability in the event that Israel attacks Iranian nuclear program sites.
Should Israel strike Hizbullah targets, in the process inflicting limited civilian casualties and infrastructure damage, Kurtzer continued, “the result would be beneficial for US interests.” One of the report’s recommendations was that the US should “support but seek to restrain Israel’s actions.” “Such a pre-emptive strike also would remove the justification for a wider Israeli military operation. There is still the risk, however, of the conflict spreading to Lebanon,” Kurtzer wrote. Syria and Iran, widely considered as Hizbullah’s most staunch regional supporters, have refused to bow to international pressure; Iran has vowed to continue with its nuclear program in the face of UN sanctions and Syria maintains that no alleged arms transfers into Lebanon have occurred. The report advised that attempts to diplomatically influence Syria’s connection to Hizbullah – and its refusal to resume indirect talks with Israel – were doomed to fail. “There are no reasonable incentives that could be offered to Syria to ratchet down its support for Hizbullah,” Kurtzer wrote. He continued to outline a potential repeat of an incident which occurred in 2006 that saw the then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reject the UN Security Council’s proposal of a ceasefire. “The US could point to the continued violation of Resolution 1701 by [Hizbullah, Syria and Iran] and the introduction of weapons systems in Lebanon that have destabilized the situation. In this scenario, the US would seek to delay UN Security Council consideration of a ceasefire resolution until top Israeli military objectives had been secured,” Kurtzer wrote. In spite of highlighting several scenarios in which the US could protect and potentially advance its own regional interests, the reported advised that it “should seek to avert another war in Lebanon.” It warned of the heightened potential for civilian casualties, possibly eclipsing the more than 1,200 Lebanese victims in 2006, should a new war materialize. “In the next war, the civilian battlefield is likely to widen, as Hizbullah has been digging in north of the Litani River,” Kurtzer said.

Ad-Diyar: Jumblatt fears Baabda summit would increase internal turmoil
August 3, 2010 /Ad-Diyar newspaper reported on Tuesday that an unnamed close source to Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said the latter was concerned that last week’s Baabda summit would increase internal strife in Lebanon, due to the absence of Iran in the discussions. Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdel Aziz and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Lebanon on Friday to meet with President Michel Sleiman and several Lebanese political figures in an attempt to ease domestic turmoil. Tension rose when Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) of being an Israeli project aimed at weakening the Resistance and inciting domestic strife
-NOW Lebanon

Yezbeck: Arab leaders must shoulder the responsibility in case of strife
August 3, 2010
http://www.yalibnan.com/2010/08/03/yezbeck-arab-leaders-must-shoulder-the-responsibility-in-case-of-strife/
Head of Hezbollah Sharia Board Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek said on Monday that the Arab leaders must shoulder the responsibility in case of any civil strife or any conspiracy against the Resistance.He called for a speedy resolution, “for the sake of a non-politicized tribunal away from U.S.-Israeli deception and conspiracy against our dignity.”
He was referring to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon( STL) and the anticipated indictment of Hezbollah. He made the comment during a re-conciliatory meeting between the clans of al-Moqdad and Jamaleddine in the Baalbek district town of al-Jamaliyeh. Yazbek said: “We are innocent … and your Resistance is innocent, and we’re keener on the truth than others and we want it revealed.”His comment comes after Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah made a number of fiery speeches in July rejecting the tribunal, calling it an Israeli project aiming to incite sectarian conflict in Lebanon. Nasrallah’s recent speeches created tension not seen since May 2008 when the Iranian backed Hezbollah militants occupied western Beirut and tried (but failed ) to occupy Mt Lebanon . The recent tension prompted the visit by the Saudi and Syrian leaders last Friday to try and calm the situation in Lebanon. Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani also arrived last Friday on a 3 day official visit with the aim of reducing tension in Lebanon

Israelis mull war on multiple fronts as STL indictment looms
Possible outbreak of Lebanon strife will prompt Tel Aviv to react – reports
By The Daily Star /Tuesday, August 03, 2010
BEIRUT: The Israeli Security Cabinet discussed Monday the prospects of an upcoming war on the Lebanese, Syrian and Gaza fronts in anticipation of tensions on the Lebanese domestic scene, Israeli media reported. The Israeli reports said an impending indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) against Hizbullah members in former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder could push the group to take action that would instigate strife in Lebanon, forcing Israel to react to protect its interests.
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has condemned the STL as an Israeli project and a plot aimed against Lebanon and the resistance. He also warned that his party would not accept an indictment against any Hizbullah members. While Hizbullah officials stressed on Monday the strength of the strategic alliance between Damascus, Iran and resistance movement, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said the UN-backed tribunal has “political goals.” “The international tribunal is not seeking to reveal the truth [about the murder] but to achieve political goals,” Moallem was quoted as saying in local media. “The international tribunal is a Lebanese matter and we will not deal with this court,” Moallem said at a meeting of Syria’s Baath party late Sunday. Syria was widely blamed for Hariri’s murder in 2005, forcing it to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after a 29-year presence. Damascus has consistently denied any part in the killing. The first reports by a committee of the tribunal, which is due to give its verdict by the end of this year, concluded there was evidence implicating Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services. Separately, Hizbullah MP Hussein Moussawi said Monday the resistance played a key role in protecting Syria’s sovereignty while Syria was concerned with preserving Lebanon’s sovereignty and resistance.” Moussawi added that all attempts to contain Syria and break Damascus’ engagement with Iran, Hamas and resistance movements would fail.
Moussawi added that Western reports of an impending indictment against Hizbullah were a “manipulated process … and claims of fake justice based on false witnesses.” In remarks published Monday by Kuwait’s Al-Rai newspaper, spokesman for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Ofir Gendelman said “talking about an Israeli hand in the killing of Hariri is nonsense and based on the principle of a conspiracy.” “Of course, circles who are spreading this word want to see Israel in the spotlight, or that the side which is behind the assassination wants to evade responsibility,” he added. Hizbullah’s condemnation of the STL raised fears of renewed sectarian strife in Lebanon and prompted Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz to make an unprecedented joint visit to Beirut Friday in a bid to ease tensions. Analysts believe that violence similar to the May 7, 2008, events, could break out between Lebanon’s Shiite and Sunni communities if the STL implicates Hizbullah in the murder. On May 7, 2008, pro-opposition gunmen overran neighborhoods in the capital after clashing with pro-government fighters following a decision by the Cabinet, led by then-Premier Fouad Siniora, to dismantle Hizbullah’s telecommunications network. Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said Monday that efforts by Syria and Saudi Arabia preserved Lebanon’s stability and distanced the STL from politicization. “We want the STL to be above all suspicions and what is needed is to protect this equation is to balance between justice and truth away from politicization,” Jumblatt added. – The Daily Star, with agencies

Jumblatt makes amends with Emile Lahoud
By The Daily Star /Tuesday, August 03, 2010
BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblatt attended on Monday a dinner banquet hosted by former President Emile Lahoud, once Jumblatt’s political foe.
The meeting comes after five years of broken ties and follows Jumblatt’s centrist political realignment since his withdrawal from the March 14 alliance after the June 2009 parliamentary elections. The PSP leader was one of the major figures who opposed Lahoud’s re-election for a second term in 2004. Syria’s support to Lahoud’s re-election marked the beginning of a political rift between Jumblatt and Damascus that reached its peak in 2005 following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. Jumblatt blamed the murder on Syria and voiced support for UN Security Council Resolution 1559 which pressured Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon following 29 years of military presence. However, since 2009, Jumblatt undertook a ritual of public apologies to Damascus. – The Daily Star

Another telecom worker suspected of spying for Israel
By The Daily Star /Tuesday, August 03, 2010
BEIRUT: Lebanese security official say authorities have detained a technician at a state telecommunications company on suspicion of spying for Israel. The officials say the 66-year-old man worked at Ogero, the state-owned company that runs the country’s land-line telephones. He was detained on Thursday and has been undergoing questioning. The officials spoke Monday on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Lebanon and Israel are officially in a state of war. More than 70 people in Lebanon have been arrested since last year on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. Arabic-language As-Safir newspaper identified the suspect as 66-year-old Milad A. It said Milad was an Ogero operator whose term has been extended for one year after reaching retirement age. Meanwhile, Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television station quoted an anonymous security source as saying Monday that authorities will announce the arrest of more Ogero employees on suspicion of spying for Israel.
According to Al-Manar, Milad’s family name is Eid. “Eid has been a spy for a long time,” the channel reported. Al-Manar questioned the reason Ogero extended the employment of the suspect even after he reached the age of retirement. Last week, a Lebanese prosecutor charged an employee at state-owned mobile phone firm Alfa with spying for Israel and referred him to military court, judicial sources said. They added that if Tareq Raba’a was convicted, he could face the death penalty. Raba’a was arrested on July 12, two weeks after security authorities arrested Charbel Qazzi, a senior employee at Alfa, on suspicion of spying for Israel in a case which shocked many in Lebanon. Qazzi has also been charged with espionage and referred to a military court. If convicted, he could face a death sentence. President Michel Sleiman, who under Lebanese law must sign a death sentence before it is carried out, has called for severe punishment for spies. The Cabinet has agreed that death sentences handed down to spies for Israel should be carried out. Lebanese courts have until now handed down what were widely seen as light sentences against nationals who worked with Israeli occupation forces and their local militias. Israel ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000. Lebanon has described the arrests as a major blow to Israel’s intelligence gathering in the country and said many suspects helped identify targets in Lebanon that Israel bombed during its summer 2006 war on its neighbor country. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has suggested Israel could have used telecom agents to manipulate evidence such as phone records to implicate the group in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. However, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will soon dispatch an international telecommunications expert to Beirut. The expert will investigate claims about Israel’s infiltration of Lebanon’s telecommunications networks and how Tel Aviv’s breach affects the tribunal, the CNA reported. According to the CNA, the expert’s expected visit indicates that the tribunal’s indictment was not yet finalized. – The Daily Star

Sayegh: More than one quarter of Lebanese still earning less than $4 per day
despite increase in poverty, minister claims government working to combat it
By Wassim Mroueh /Daily Star staff
Tuesday, August 03, 2010 BEIRUT: More than one quarter of Lebanese earn a wage of less than $4 per day, according to Minister of Social Affairs, Salim Sayegh. Speaking during a regional training workshop for combating poverty on Monday, the minister said that more than 300,000 Lebanese were categorized as living under extreme poverty with a wage not exceeding $2.4 per day. Sayegh noted that Lebanon has witnessed an increase in poverty, and said there were huge differences in the magnitude of poverty across Lebanon, with those in the north counting for half of the underprivileged in the country. The workshop has been organized by the Social Affairs Ministry in cooperation with the Central Statistics general directorate and the World Bank. It aims to train the Central Statistics administration staff on analyzing reports on households income and expenditure which helps in calculating poverty indicators, an essential task in combating poverty. The event is taking place at the World Bank’s headquarters in downtown Beirut. The six-day workshop will run until Friday.
Along with Minister Sayegh, representatives from the Social Affairs, Labor, Education and Health Ministries have so far attended the workshop. Also, participants from Jordan and Syria, along with experts from the World Bank, UNESCO, Italian Cooperation office, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and members of the World Bank’s office in Lebanon attended on Monday. Sayegh said poverty was a problem that Lebanon and the Arab world were facing, but that “we are working very hard to combat it.”
Sayegh noted that corruption was present in a number of official departments, the fact that put the credibility of statistics on poverty into question.
“For this and other reasons, the Social Affairs Ministry is trying to face this fact [poverty] with all available capabilities,” added Sayegh. He said his ministry has mobilized all its “relations and international contacts,” to reduce the effects of poverty in the Lebanese society. Sayegh announced that the Social Affairs Ministry would combat poverty through enhancing social safety networks. He promised that the Cabinet and the social affairs ministry would provide financial aid to poor Lebanese families throughout the country, touching on an earlier move that focused on three areas only. The minister said that words would be put into action as soon as possible based on a clear and transparent road map, and benefiting from financial and technical support provided by the World Bank, Italian Cooperation office, CIDA and other international committees. Sayegh stressed that a comprehensive national plan to combat poverty should be based on a household budget survey which would take place next year. Meanwhile, Maral Totalian, the general director of the country’s Central Statistics Authority said that the Central Statistics administration would undertake a new national survey on the income and spending of Lebanese families following a similar one that was conducted in 2004. She said the new survey would be conducted based on the request of the national program for combating poverty.

Special tribunal on Hariri murder cannot be trusted
Implicating one of the Shiite group's top leaders in the death of former Lebanon PM can once again split the country
By Linda S. Heard, Special to Gulf News
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/special-tribunal-on-hariri-murder-cannot-be-trusted-1.663068
Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri was a great politician and the force behind the rebuilding of Downtown Beirut, following 15 years of civil war.
His assassination on February 14, 2005, along with 22 others, was a terrible act that needed to be investigated.
However, the United Nations was not the right body to set up a special tribunal for this purpose. Bringing those responsible to justice should have been solely the responsibility of Lebanon, which has had its fill of destructive foreign fingers poking around in the pie.
Firstly, the Special Tribunal for Leban-on cannot be trusted. The UN's investigator Detlev Mehlis issued his initial report to the then UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, in October 2005, which blamed top-ranking Syrian security officials for the deaths. His conclusion was based on pure supposition without any shred of proof.
The German magazine Junge Welt later revealed that Mehlis, who resigned half way through, was the alleged recipient of a $10 million (Dh36.78 million) slush fund to rig the outcome against Damascus. Mehlis also ordered four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals to be imprisoned without charge. They were eventually released after four years due to lack of evidence.
Serious charges
These serious charges resulted in Syria being universally condemned, forced out of Lebanon and shunned by Western countries. George W. Bush recalled his ambassador to Syria, whose parting message was one of "concern and outrage". The accusations resulted in a diplomatic rift between Beirut and Damascus, that was somewhat healed following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, following Syria's hospitality towards fleeing Lebanese refugees.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that the exit of the Syrian military from Lebanon wasn't desirable, but it would have been infinitely preferable had it taken place without the UN's faux cloud of suspicion that was touted with such relish by the Bush administration and the US media.
In recent years, Lebanon has gone through devastating political turmoil, culminating in a clash between Sa'ad Hariri's March 14 movement and the March 8 supporters of Hezbollah, Amal and General Michel Aoun that, at one time, threatened to turn into civil war. Following a massive and prolonged March 8 sit-in, which brought the capital's Downtown to a virtual standstill, the two sides came together in the nick of time.
But now that Lebanon is enjoying some semblance of stability and unity — albeit fragile — up pops the UN Tribunal, threatening to expose senior Hezbollah operative Mustafa Badr Al Deen as chief suspect in Hariri's assassination. This is akin to pouring gasoline on glowing embers. Implicating one of the Shiite group's head honchos in the death of a man who was so revered could once again split the country apart, leaving it vulnerable to its southern enemy Israel.
Hassan Nasrallah vehemently denies his group's involvement and maintains his lieutenants are far too disciplined to act without his express permission. He claims an Israeli conspiracy is behind the findings and says he considers the Tribunal nothing more than "an Israeli agency".
Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone from Hezbollah would go to all the trouble of planting a bomb to kill Hariri when a sniper's bullet would have been simpler and a single assassin far harder to trace.
There is one school of thought that this may have been a Mossad false-flag operation designed to stir up international condemnation against Syria and/or Hezbollah. In this connection, it's interesting that no mainline media outlet has ever cited Tel Aviv as a potential culprit, especially when Israeli spies were known to have been crawling all over Lebanon at the time.
**Juergen Cain Kuelbel, a German criminologist, wrote a book titled Hariri's Assassination: Hiding Evidence in Lebanon based on his thesis that Israel had a hand in the former PM's death. As the Tribunal has not sought to investigate Israel, we can never know the veracity of his assertion.
In the meantime, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad chose to make a joint visit to Beirut last Friday in an effort to calm tensions and display an unprecedented show of unity, while on the following day the Emir of Qatar, Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited southern Lebanese villages known to be Hezbollah strongholds. The fact that these friends of Lebanon have gone out of their way to show support is indicative of the seriousness of this crossroads.
If the Tribunal insists on publicly denouncing Hezbollah, its members risk having Lebanese blood on their hands. The sensible course would be to let sleeping dogs lie. Rafik Hariri was a patriot first and foremost. That's what he would have wanted. That's what his son wants and that's what the Lebanese government wants. The question is will they listen or must Lebanon brace for yet another arrow through its heart?
**Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com


Turning up the heat on Iran
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LH03Ak01.html
By Victor Kotsev
"Never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of suicide." This is a quote widely attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is also the advice Israeli analyst Guy Bechor gives to Israeli leaders. It appears to be more or less the approach of the United States and its allies with respect to Iran at the moment. Whether they have read the situation right, and for how long it will work, is another matter. In the past few days, the rhetoric has heated up a bit. On Sunday, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen became the most recent and perhaps highest-ranking US official to confirm that a plan for striking Iran exists. He stressed that in his opinion, a strike was "a bad idea", but added that the risk of Iran going nuclear was "unacceptable", and refused to comment which would be worse. Predictably, Iran went ballistic. "If the Americans make the slightest mistake, the security of the region will be endangered. Security in the Persian Gulf should be for all or none," threatened the deputy head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Yadollah Javani. "Tehran will burn down Tel Aviv" in response to any attack, said Mohammed Khazaee, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. A similarly worrying message echoed in an earlier statement by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: "The specter of real peace in the region is disappearing and the possibility of war is increasing."
Meanwhile, a Hamas military commander was killed on Friday night in a retaliatory strike for a missile that fell on the Israeli city of Ashkelon, and the Islamic Jihad militia threatened to resume suicide terror attacks on Israel from the West Bank. (Hamas is seen by many as an Iranian proxy, and Debka reported on Sunday that Iran recently sent "$250 million to Hamas for the creation of a new Palestinian Popular Army in the Gaza Strip".)
Despite all this, we have yet to see a full-scale appeal by the Barack Obama administration to the international community to support a strike - something that, judging by Obama's behavior so far, we have every right to expect before such an action. Some analysts, moreover, remain skeptical as to whether a strike will happen at all. Steve Clemons for the Huffington Post writes: Despite the confidence, even eagerness, of the US Air Force to bomb Iran's nuclear program capacity, the other military services are not so sanguine and fear that the logistics demands for such a military action and its follow up would undermine other major operations. In other words, adding another major obligation to America's military roster could literally break the back of the US military, erode morale, and result in eventual, massive shifts in American domestic support for the US military machine which had become increasingly costly and less able to generate the security deliverables expected.
At the very least, it would make sense for Obama to give sanctions a little more time before he approves any military action. The US president put so much effort into having the UN Security Council pass them that, if he is seen to undermine them, this could weaken his international standing considerably. Moreover, all the military threats could be a powerful impetus for diplomatic progress. There are persistent reports of intense diplomatic exchanges, indicating that a new round of negotiations might yet be in the making. [2] This only applies, however, as long as Iran is not provoked into doing something stupid first. The US and its allies are currently turning the screws on the Islamic Republic in two ways: firstly by fomenting social unrest inside Iran through sanctions and other means, and secondly by launching an assault on Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah.
"As international sanctions mount," writes the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in a recent piece, "Iran is finding it increasing hard to find buyers for its oil, and is being forced to offer discounts in order to shift as much as it can to a falling number of customers." [3]
Tehran is writhing in internal unrest and economic pain. Even before the most recent round of sanctions, Iran was gradually slipping further into economic crisis, rising unemployment and popular discontent with the government. Its profligate military and nuclear programs only add to the burden and slowly suffocate the country financially. This is a kind of war of attrition: given enough time and steady pressure, the West hopes, the Islamic Republic will collapse. Additionally, an initiative seems to be underway to undermine Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as other Iranian allies. "Mustafa Badr Aldin, the brother in-law of assassinated Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, is the prime suspect in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri," reported Israeli Channel 1 last Thursday. Such a development would discredit Hezbollah, and perhaps pave the way to its disarmament. The militant organization has vowed not to allow that to happen, and has called the investigation "an Israeli project". Over the weekend, Saudi King Abdullah, together with Assad, arrived in Beirut, ostensibly to make sure that the indictment does not start a civil war.
A number of observers reported that something might be afoot between Saudi Arabia and Syria. "The elderly Abdullah would not bother himself had he not been convinced there's someone to talk to and something to talk about," Smadar Peri writes for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. US think-tank Stratfor concurs: "Saudi Arabia appears to have succeeded in creating a bulwark of sorts against Iran with Turkish and Syrian support." Assad's comments from Beirut suggest otherwise ("we consider the resistance a red line and we will let no harm come to it"), but there is always a difference between what is said in public and private in the Middle East, as former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk has explained. [4]
Something else that strikes as odd is Syria's silence when the Arab League endorsed direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations last week.
The much-talked about peace talks [5], especially if they secure any significant "confidence-building" gestures to the Palestinian Authority, will put strong pressure on Hamas. Moreover, sources are reporting that the situation in Yemen is deteriorating constantly, and that something is afoot with American, Saudi, and perhaps even Israeli cooperation. All this pressure could easily produce a violent reaction. "Hezbollah cannot be expected to go quietly, so the possibility of conflict cannot be entirely eliminated," writes Stratfor. "In fact, Iran and Hezbollah could upset their opponents' efforts to defang Hezbollah by provoking Israel to attack Lebanon." The Gaza front has already seen some violence. Furthermore, the incident with a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week raised the possibility of a rogue Iranian Republican Guards attack on international shipping, as Debka reported. [6] A minor incident, in turn, could fairly easily escalate into a full confrontation.
It is still unclear how well, exactly, the American-led campaign against Iran is working. Syria's behavior is key, perhaps even decisive. Damascus is the most crucial link between Iran and Hezbollah, and also has a strong influence on Hamas. Moreover, Assad's behavior is a political barometer of sorts.
It is not inconceivable that the Syrian president does away with Hezbollah; in fact, in that case he would be doing much what his father Hafez Assad did during the Lebanese civil war - first supporting one faction, then throwing it to the wolves. If he believes that he has squeezed his relationship with Iran and Hezbollah dry, or that his allies are going down, he will probably not hesitate to jump ship. If, however, he calculates that the Iran-Hezbollah alliance will come out whole, and if it offers him more, he could easily continue to zigzag. In the meantime, he is all too happy to reap the benefits of his vacillations, such as a warming in his ties with the West and the rest of the Arab world, saving his close associates the Hariri tribunal, and increasing his influence in Lebanon. The next few weeks will reveal the true effects of the American pressure. Meanwhile, we can expect surprises and vacillations.
Notes
1. See Iranian regime falling apart.
2. A Persian message for Obama Asia Times Online, July 31.
3. See Iran cuts oil prices as sanctions bite
4. See Martin Indyk: I think the settlement issue will be resolved
5. See PM: Direct talks to commence in mid August
6. See Pirates or rogue Iranian Guards suspected in Hormuz tanker blast
**Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with expertise in the Middle East.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Shimon Peres versus the Brits
by Efraim Karsh/Jerusalem Post
August 2, 2010
http://www.meforum.org/2697/shimon-peres-vs-british
Shimon Peres, Israel's 87-year-old president doesn't usually arouse antagonism among Europeans.
A tireless peace advocate for decades, and architect of the Oslo Process for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize, he has long presented Israel's moderate face to the outside world.
Yet last week he provoked anger among British politicians and Anglo-Jewish leaders when he told a Jewish website that the British establishment had always been "deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israel," and that this was partly due to endemic anti-Semitic dispositions. "I can understand Mr. Peres' concerns, but I don't recognize what he is saying about England," said James Clappison, vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel. "Things are certainly no worse, as far as Israel is concerned, in this country than other European countries. He got it wrong."
But did he? While few arguments have resonated more widely, or among a more diverse set of observers, than the claim that Britain has been the midwife of the Jewish state, the truth is that no sooner had Britain been appointed as the mandatory power in Palestine, with the explicit task of facilitating the establishment of a Jewish national home in the country in accordance with the Balfour Declaration, than it reneged on this obligation.
AS EARLY as March 1921, the British government severed the vast and sparsely populated territory east of the Jordan River ("Transjordan") from the prospective Jewish national home and made Abdullah, the emir of Mecca, its effective ruler. In 1922 and 1930, two British White Papers limited Jewish immigration to Palestine – the elixir of life of the prospective Jewish state – and imposed harsh restrictions on land sales to Jews.
Britain's betrayal of its international obligations to the Jewish national cause reached its peak on May 17, 1939, when a new White Paper imposed draconian restrictions on land sales to Jews and limited immigration to 75,000 over the next five years, after which Palestine would become an independent state in which the Jews would comprise no more than one-third of the total population.
Such were the anti-Zionist sentiments within the British establishment at the time that even a life-long admirer of Zionism like prime minister Winston Churchill rarely used his wartime dominance of British politics to help the Zionists (or indeed European Jewry). However appalled by the White Paper he failed to abolish this "low grade gasp of a defeatist hour" (to use his own words), refrained from confronting his generals and bureaucrats over the creation of a Jewish fighting force in Palestine, which he wholeheartedly supported, and gave British officialdom a free rein in the running of Middle Eastern affairs, which they readily exploited to promote the Arab case. In 1943, for instance, Freya Stark, the acclaimed author, orientalist, and Arabian adventurer, was sent to the US on a seven-month propaganda campaign aimed at undercutting the Zionist cause and defending Britain's White Paper policy.
That this could happen at the height of the Nazi extermination of European Jewry of which Whitehall was keenly aware offered a stark demonstration of the mindset of British officialdom, which was less interested in stopping genocide than in preventing its potential survivors from reaching Palestine after the war.
So much so that senior Foreign Office members portrayed Britain, not Europe's Jews, as the main victim of the Nazi atrocities.
THIS ANTI-ZIONISM was sustained into the postwar years as the Labor Party, which in July 1945 swept to power in a landslide electoral victory, swiftly abandoned its pre-election pro-Zionist platform to become a bitter enemy of the Jewish national cause. The White Paper restrictions were kept in place, and the Jews were advised by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin not "to get too much at the head of the queue" in seeking recourse to their problems.
Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors who chose to ignore the warning and to run the British naval blockade were herded into congested camps in Cyprus, where they were incarcerated for years.
"Should we accept the view that all the Jews or the bulk of them must leave Germany?" Bevin rhetorically asked the British ambassador to Washington.
"I do not accept that view. They have gone through, it is true, the most terrible massacre and persecution, but on the other hand they have got through it and a number have survived."
Prime Minister Clement Attlee went a step further by comparing Holocaust survivors wishing to leave Europe and to return to their ancestral homeland to Nazi troops invading the continent.
While these utterances resonated with the pervasive anti-Semitism within British officialdom (the last high commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Alan Cunningham, for instance, said of Zionism, "The forces of nationalism are accompanied by the psychology of the Jew, which it is important to recognize as something quite abnormal and unresponsive to rational treatment"), Britain's Middle Eastern policy also reflected the basic fact that as occupiers of vast territories endowed with natural resources (first and foremost oil) and sitting astride strategic waterways (e.g., the Suez Canal), the Arabs had always been far more meaningful for British interests than the Jews.
As the chief of the air staff told the British cabinet in 1947, "If one of the two communities had to be antagonized, it was preferable, from the purely military angle, that a solution should be found which did not involve the continuing hostility of the Arabs."
One needs look no further than David Cameron's statements on the Middle East to see this anti-Israel mindset is alive and kicking. In the summer of 2006, when thousands of Hizbullah missiles were battering Israel's cities and villages, he took the trouble of issuing a statement from the tropical island on which he was vacationing at the time condemning Israel's "disproportionate use of force."
Four years later, while on an official visit to Turkey, he went out of his way to placate his Islamist host, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by criticizing Israel's efforts to prevent the arming of the Hamas Islamist group, which, like its Lebanese counterpart, had been lobbing thousands of missiles on Israel's civilian population for years.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Efraim Karsh is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed.
Related Topics: Antisemitism, History, Israel | Efraim Karsh
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Tehran’s Hand in the Taliban
By: Matt Gurney /Front Page
Aug 2nd, 2010
WikiLeaks, the website that offers up pilfered military, government and corporate information for all the world to see, recently scored a coup when it posted online 77,000 documents (a further 15,000 in the possession of WikiLeaks have not yet been released), obtained by means unknown from the U.S. military and relating to the Afghan war. The sheer quantity of the documents means that it will be some time before they can be fully digested, but their raw data have shook governments throughout NATO. President Obama himself has expressed his concern at the risk such leaks pose to the national security of the United States and the safety of troops overseas.
Much of the media’s initial focus was on how the war in Afghanistan is going, in the eyes of the soldiers fighting it. The answer was self-evident — war is hell, the going is tough, the Taliban are a fearsome, determined enemy and victory is far from certain. Such information is readily available to anyone who reads a newspaper, and did not require a sensationalized leak. Nor is the fact that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the ISI, is deeply involved in supporting the Taliban surprising in any way, having already been well covered. What is becoming clear, however, is that despite the continued desire of the Administration to find an accommodation with Iran on issues concerning Israel and Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran continues to actively work against America and its allies and is directly complicit in attacks that have claimed the lives of unknowable numbers of allied soldiers.
The sheer quantity of documents released makes it impossible for there to be a full understanding so early on of what it is they reveal. Despite the initial buzz, much of the reaction to the documents thus far suggests that they are a letdown, or as John Barry wrote in Newsweek, “There is less to the documents than meets the eye.” They reveal little that was not already known to observers of the war, and the documents, mostly unedited battlefield reports, reflect the inaccuracies of documents written in haste. (In one telling example, it was suggested that the loss of four Canadian soldiers to friendly fire was covered up. In fact, friendly fire was initially suspected before it could be confirmed that it was indeed Taliban fire that killed the Canadians, not an errant American bomb, which landed nearby but did not detonate.)
All the same, what has been revealed about Iranian meddling in Afghanistan is interesting, especially given that it’s a topic that both the Bush and Obama administrations chose not to overly publicize while diplomatic efforts to contain the Iranian atomic program continued (as they still do). Iran is reported to offer safe haven to Taliban leaders, to support the training of Taliban soldiers on Iranian soil and to supply insurgent forces inside Afghanistan with weapons and explosives that are in turn used against the allies and Afghan forces. Bounties are offered for Afghan troops and politicians, particularly pro-Western reformists, and bribes offered to government officials. Pro-Iranian thugs are put into positions of authority and used as conduits for supplies and men, as well as for influence, to advocate a pro-Iranian agenda and to provide intelligence for Tehran. Suicide vests have been directly linked back to Iran by forensic evidence.