LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِAugust 14/2010

Bible Of the Day
Philippians 3:13–14/Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Today's Inspiring Thought: Forget the Past and Press On
Although Christians are called to be like Christ, we continue to make mistakes. We fail. In fact, we'll never obtain complete sanctification until we stand before the Lord. But, God uses our imperfections to "grow us" in the faith. Be encouraged by Paul's emphasis here on forgetting the past and straining forward to what lies ahead. Don't let yesterday's failures derail you from the goal of your upward call. Press on for the prize until you meet the Lord Jesus at the finish line.(christianity.about.com)

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
MP, Nadim Gemayel: Hassan Nasrallah was not convincing/NNA/August 13/10
Israel may unilaterally attack Iran's N-facilities: Report/Translate into/August 13/10
Lebanon and Nasrallah's TrinityAsharq Alawsat/August 13/10
The unnecessary Lebanon war/By: By Amir Taheri/Al-Ahram Weekly/August 13/10
Downward, Christian soldiers/By: Michael Young/August 13/10
Hizbullah: Hating Israel and Palestinians/By MUDAR ZAHRAN/August 13/10
Why Hezbollah Is Edging Closer to War/By Meir Javedanfar/August 13/10
Underestimating our enemies/By DAVID HOROVITZ /J.Post/August 13/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for August 13/10
US State Department Defends U.S. Assistance to Lebanon/Naharnet
Hizbullah Ready to Provide Data to Lebanese Authorities: 'And The Rest is Their Business'/Naharnet
Nadim Gemayel: Iranian television shows still need licensing from Lebanese state/Now Lebanon
'The Christ' Sparks Christian Discontent, NBN, Manar Stop Airing Film/Naharnet
Ahmadenijad: Hizbullah's Damning Evidence Exposes Zionist Enemy's Conspiracies/Naharnet
Hezbollah will not cooperate with STL, source says/Now Lebanon
Iran Sending Weapons to Hizbullah … And Turkey, Too/Naharnet
Lebanese officer: Border incident won't repeat itself/Ynetnews
STL indictments will not be delayed, report/Ya Libnan
Lebanese Army on Alert in Face of Israeli Maneuvers … Israel Not Ready for War/Naharnet
Asarta: No War in UNIFIL Area of Operations in Next Few Months/Naharnet
Saadi Gets 20 Years in Jail for Spying for Israel/Naharnet
Lebanon PM: UN must probe claims of Israeli complicity in Hariri murder/Haaretz
Calls to stop funding Lebanese army put Obama in tight spot/Washington Post
Israeli Minister Says Fatal Shoot-Out on Lebanese Border Changed Balance/Bloomberg
Lebanon army commander: Border incident won't repeat itself/Ynetnews
Suleiman, Sfeir Hold Closed-Door Talks in Diman/Naharnet
Bellemare: Indictment to be Issued on Time, Report/Naharnet
Suleiman Considering Going to NY in Bid to Foil Israeli Plot/Naharnet
France to Continue Supplies of Military Aid to Lebanon/Naharnet
Williams: Bellemare's Request Came Quickly, Aroused Interest/Naharnet
Paris Stresses Determination to Pursue Military Cooperation with Lebanon/Naharnet
Journalist Hasan Ellaiq: Murr Made Militia-Like Act, Subject Can't Be Dropped/Naharnet
Houri Denies Hariri-Abdullah Meeting/Naharnet
Salameh: Financial Markets Unaffected by South Clash, STL Repercussions/Naharnet
Bike-Riding Burglars Arrested Red-Handed in Badaro/Naharnet
Draft Law on Oil Exploration Goes to Parliament/Naharnet
Editors' Association Requests Urgent Meeting with Murr/Naharnet
Israeli Diplomats to Boycott Mossad over Salary Dispute/Naharnet

'The Christ' Sparks Christian Discontent, NBN, Manar Stop Airing Film
Naharnet/Al-Manar and NBN television channels on Friday announced they will stop airing "The Christ" TV series after it stirred a row among Lebanon's Christians. Both channels began showing "The Christ ," an Iranian series, at the beginning of Ramadan Aug. 11. Pastor of the Maronite Catholic Church in Byblos, or Jbeil, Bishop Beshara Raii has said the film series is based on the Gospel of Barnabas, a Gospel "not recognized at all by our church." Raii said that all the events in the television series contained "distortion to the Christian ideology." "It also denies the crucifixion of Jesus and shows Judas as being crucified instead of the Christ," Raii complained. He went on saying that the TV series claims that there is no resurrection of Christ. "This is considered as the biggest insult to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church," Raii argued. "This series undermines the foundations of every religion and creates strife," he thought. Raii said his Church had contacted both NBN and Manar television channels and pleaded with them to halt broadcast of the series. "The Christ," nevertheless, was still being aired. "While we don't burn tires," Raii stressed, "we won't keep silent." NBN Director-General Qassem Sweid defended "The Christ," saying: "It does not harm Christians at all." "We made sure it was produced in accordance with the Koran. "We were not told of any reason to convince us to stop the film," Sweid had said, expressing his surprise by Raii's position and that of the Catholic Information Center. Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security on Friday also said "The Christ" should stop being broadcast. Beirut, 13 Aug 10,

STL indictments will not be delayed, report
August 13, 2010 /Ya Libnan
Judge Daniel Bellemare , Special Tribunal for Lebanon( STL) Prosecutor has reportedly said that the indictments in the killing of former Premier Rafik Hariri will be issued in a timely manner, As-Safir newspaper reported. As-Safir said Friday that Bellemare’s remarks came during a meeting with Legal Counsel at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague earlier this week.
It said Bellemare had informed the embassy official that he was not contacted by any Lebanese official with regard to postponing issuance of the indictment.
As Safir , a supporter of Syria and Hezbollah has been leaking information about the STL on regular basis during the past 2 months. According to legal experts the leaks are intended to undermine the international court by distorting its image. The daily Al-Balad, however, quoted well-informed diplomatic sources in Beirut as saying that in view of Hezbollah’s revelations, the STL will postpone the indictments until the beginning of 2011. This comes after Hezbollah announced its readiness to hand over to the Lebanese authorities the footage allegedly intercepted from Israeli surveillance planes of the site of the assassination of Lebanon’s former PM Rafik Hariri prior to his murder on Feb . Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah , tried Monday night during a televised press conference to present evidence including footage he said came from Israeli Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) monitoring Hariri to prove that Israel was behind the assassination of Hariri. He also presented a confession from a suspected Israeli spy . Following Nasrallah’s presentation Bellemare, officially requested Lebanese authorities to provide all the information in possession of Hezbollah.

Lebanese officer: Border incident won't repeat itself
General Jean Kahwaji clarifies his army has no plans to launch war against Israel. Hezbollah refuses to hand information allegedly linking Jewish state to former Lebanese PM's murder to international tribunal /Roee Nahmias Published: 08.13.10, 12:46 / Israel News
Lebanon army commander General Jean Kahwaji said Thursday that the fatal incident, which took place last week on the Israel-Lebanon border and left one Israeli officer and four Lebanese dead, would not repeat itself. He clarified that the Lebanese army had no plans to launch a war against Israel.
Speaking with newspaper editors in Beirut, Kahwaji said steps were being taken to cooperate with UNIFIL in order to prevent such an incident from repeating itself.
He added, however, that the Israelis were the ones who sparked the incident. "The tree they wanted to trim may be on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, but there is also a road there, which is used by the Lebanese and the army. The Israelis acted systematically and we decided to respond by firing in the air," he explained. On Wednesday, Lebanon's defense minister lashed out at an American decision to halt aid to his country's army in the wake of a deadly border clash with Israel, protesting that aid was being made conditional. "Whoever sets as a condition that the aid should not be used to protect Lebanon's land, people and borders from the (Israeli) enemy can keep their money," Defense Minister Elias Murr told a news conference. "Let them keep their money or give it to Israel. We will confront (Israel) with the capabilities we own." Meanwhile Friday, Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar reported that the Hezbollah organization had no plans to hand documents allegedly linking Israel to the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to the international tribunal probing the assassination.
The newspaper, which is affiliated with the Shiite group, reported that Hezbollah would not hand over the "data exposed by (Secretary-General Hassan) Nasrallah" to prosecutor Daniel Bellemare. According to the sources, Hezbollah has no intention of cooperating with the tribunal, which it does not trust, but is ready to hand the information over to the Lebanese authorities or any other reliable investing element.

Nadim Gemayel: Iranian television shows still need licensing from Lebanese state
August 13, 2010 /Speaking to Free Lebanon radio station Friday after participating in an event at the Catholic Media Center protesting an Iranian-made television series about Jesus on NBN and Al-Manar, Kataeb bloc MP Nadim Gemayel said, “we are not in Iran, showing an [Iranian show] with a license from Tehran. This show needs a license from the Lebanese state, and it is not part of Hezbollah’s resistance or policy in Lebanon.”On Friday, the two stations announced the series’ cancellation after complaints from Christian leaders and the public.
-NOW Lebanon

Nadim Gemayel
August 13, 2010
On August 12, the Lebanese National News Agency carried the following report: Deputy Nadim Gemayel stated that “Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was not convincing in what he said during his last press conference. It was clear that there was confusion and that the arguments he put forward cannot be relied on. What he made was a political accusation rather than a legal one or one based on palpable foundations.” He added in statements to Free Lebanon radio station: “Regardless of the content, any evidence obtained by a Lebanese or non-Lebanese side should be placed at the disposal of the international tribunal, recognizing that the Lebanese state is the one that granted the court the prerogative to conduct the investigations and take the murderers of Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and his companions to court.
“Today, we must support the tribunal and the truth. All the information presented by Nasrallah is not new and the footage that was aired is old. Today, all the allies of Iran and Syria in Lebanon are trying to destroy the tribunal, at a time when the political is so critical that the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard came to place Lebanon in the first lines of defense of Iran. This is the level reached by the March 8 group. This group has become part of the first lines of defense of Iran and no longer part of the first defense lines of Lebanon. What Hezbollah’s group and its allies are doing is defending Iran due to the sanctions imposed on it.
“Either we live as Lebanese in a modern state where Lebanon would come first and where we defend the Lebanese flag, or we must find another way to handle the crisis. We have offered blood to protect this country and will not allow it to be transformed into the first line of defense of Iran, Syria or even America. We are Lebanese before anything else and whoever wants to place Lebanon on another course should seek another country [to live in].” Regarding the plan to aid the army, he stated: “Let us ask all the foreign investors to invest in the army. Before calling for the armament of this army, we must clarify its message. This army does not need anyone to invest in it or give it money. Once we give it a cause, he will not need anyone and we saw how this army carried out its duty in Nahr al-Bared the day he was given the order and assigned to undertake that mission.”
In this context, he rejected the “allusions of some regarding the fact that it [the army] is incapable,” assuring: “The army takes its orders from the president of the republic and the government.” Gemayel then talked about a “celebration that will be staged on the anniversary of the election of Bachir [Gemayel] as president of the republic in Saint Joseph University, Human Sciences Faculty, on August 23.”

Hezbollah will not cooperate with STL, source says
August 13, 2010 /Now Lebanon/
Hezbollah will not cooperate with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) because it does not trust it, but is prepared to supply information to the Lebanese authorities or any “trusted investigation,” Al-Akhbar newspaper reported from an anonymous source close to the party on Friday. Attorney General Judge Said Mirza received a formal request on Thursday from STL Prosecutor General Daniel Bellemare for any information held by Hezbollah related to former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s 2005 assassination. This comes after a Monday press conference in which Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah showed alleged video footage from Israeli drones and the confession of an alleged spy which he said implicated Israel in Hariri’s murder.-NOW Lebanon

Hizbullah: Hating Israel... and Palestinians
By MUDAR ZAHRAN/jpost.com
08/12/2010 01:13
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=184466
While waving Palestinian cause flag and supporting ‘right of return to Palestine,’ Shi’ite group has been obstructing every attempt to improve livelihood of Palestinians in Lebanon.
Talkbacks (12)
In his latest press extravaganza, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah exposed what he called evidence of Israel’s involvement in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The footage Nasrallah presented showed that Israel was monitoring areas in Lebanon since the late 1990s, a fact Israel has never denied. Nonetheless, the footage failed to tackle the most critical element of any crime; motive. Since day one, Hizbullah has been viewed as the prime suspect in Hariri’s assassination, and for good reason; Hariri was a Sunni leader who revived the strength and momentum of Lebanese Sunnis, as well as Saudi influence in Lebanon as a major Arab Sunni force, thus making himself a significant obstacle in Hizbullah’s quest to control Lebanon.
Still, the fact that Hizbullah has been successful in intercepting Israeli UAVs proves, once again, its access to advanced military technology. Furthermore, Hizbullah stands out as a very organized terrorist group with a clear strategy. Much of this stems from the fact that it receives substantial financial and logistical support from a very capable country – Iran – which has a lavish history of state terrorism and a relatively advanced military.
Today, Hizbullah is also well-established militarily. Yet what gives the group its edge is its propaganda tactics, which is exactly what Nasrallah was demonstrating with his latest press conference. In fact, Hizbullah has been playing the media game in a manner unprecedented by any other terror group.
In 2000, when Israel withdrew its troops from the buffer zones in southern Lebanon, Nasrallah appeared on most Arab TV screens chanting that “the mission had not been accomplished yet as Jerusalem and Al-Aksa mosque were still under Zionist occupation.”
This turned him into the poster child for pan-Arab nationalism, Islamism, and even Leftist forces in the Arab world. It created a dramatic shift in Arab public opinion, reviving the so-called “moral of resistance” against Israel that evolved into an entire change of heart by most Arabs, who are predominantly Sunni, towards the Shi’ite sect and principles. Several Arab countries reported cases of denomination conversion to the Shi’ite faith, alarming major Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Hizbullah’s confrontation with Israel in 2006 brought the ultimate media trophy for Nasrallah. The fact that he remained alive weeks after of a strong assault by the region’s strongest military force, and that many “martyrs” fell in the process, played into Hizbullah’s media machine very effectively, eventually portraying Hizbullah as victorious and as the protector of Arabs and Muslims. Nonetheless, several Sunni Muslim scholars stood against it then, calling it “a destructive Shi’ite force” and still cite the same slogan today.
WHILE MANY, including some Israelis, seem to believe that Nasrallah loves the Palestinians, and would fight for their cause, the facts on the ground reflect a totally different reality. Hizbullah represents the Shi’ites in Lebanon, who describe themselves as an extension of the global Shi’ite body, with strong emotional and ideological ties to Iran. The Shi’ites in Lebanon have always felt threatened by the Palestinians, who are strictly Sunnis, and whose presence in Lebanon is viewed as adding demographic heavy weight to Lebanese Sunnis. While Lebanese Shi’ite figures never mention this fact, they have been vigorously working against it in practice; they even took up arms against the Palestinians during the Lebanese civil war. In fact, Lebanese Shi’ite were responsible for some of the most notorious atrocities against the Palestinians, with welldocumented massacres and the siege of the Palestinian refugee camps. Ironically, when they ended these in 1987, Shi’ite leader Nabih Berri told the press that this was “a gift for the Intifada.”
Hundreds of the war criminals that were involved in those massacres are now affiliated with Hizbullah, some in senior positions.
The group has been ruthless in its efforts to marginalize and control the Sunni Palestinian population in Lebanon; its leaders insisted on confining 400,000 Palestinians to the refugee camps as a condition for ending the civil war in 1989.
Before his latest press conference, Nasrallah was promoting that his faction would “punish” Israel if it obstructed a Lebanese aid flotilla headed for Gaza. This comes as one of an endless series of media stunts in which Nasrallah portrays himself and Hizbullah as the defenders of the Palestinian cause.
While Nasrallah claims he wants to see food items and medications delivered to Gaza, Palestinians in Lebanon are literally locked up inside their camps every evening. Banned from working legally, Palestinians in Lebanon have to depend on international aid and donations, which Lebanon monitors and restricts. This has resulted in intolerable living conditions. The post- Syrian Lebanese governments exhibited a tendency to improve the living conditions for the Palestinians on its soil; nonetheless, Hizbullah has been most fierce in fighting that trend. Waving the flag of the Palestinian cause, and staunchly supporting the “right of return to Palestine,” Hizbullah has been obstructing every attempt to improve the livelihood of Palestinians in Lebanon.
Furthermore, it has been igniting and financing unrest between Palestinian factions, as Hamas is not shy in showcasing its alliance with both Hizbullah and Iran.
Today, while Nasrallah and Hizbullah are considered iconic symbols of the fight against Israel and the defenders of the Palestinian cause, Palestinians in Lebanon are dying young, uneducated and poor, all in the name of preventing them from being naturalized in Lebanon in order to “keep their love for Palestine.”
This tactic for persecuting the Palestinians is not unique to Hizbullah; it has been played by many Arab countries and in fact by some of the countries claiming to be most friendly to the Palestinians.
The question is; with such friends, who needs enemies?
**The writer, a Jordanian of Palestinian heritage, is a researcher at the University of Bedfordshire

Why Hezbollah Is Edging Closer to War
By Meir Javedanfar
Real Clear World/August 12, 2010
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2010/08/12/why_hezbollah_chooses_war_99110.html
I try not to get worked up about reports of imminent war in the Middle East. For years, I have looked suspiciously at estimates that Iran will get bombed in three months, six months or on Saturday afternoon after Ali Khamenei has finished his lunch. Why? Because the Middle East is always full of surprises. Just when we believe war to be imminent, nothing happens, and vice versa.
However, this time I really can't shake the feeling that something ominous is about to happen, involving Hezbollah. It will either be a massive confrontation with Israel, or armed conflict inside Lebanon.
After the recent attack by the Lebanese Army against the Israeli Defense Forces soldiers, who were fixing a tree on the border, many have predicted that it's only a question of time before the outbreak of the next round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah begins. But there is another development that showed the seriousness of the impending conflict, and that is the warning given by Hezbollah that the deal brokered two years ago in Doha is about to collapse - a deal made after Hezbollah's military attack against Sunni forces left 90 dead. Fearing that a civil war could break out, the different Sunni, Christian and Shiite factions traveled to the Qatari capital to try and work out a deal in order to return calm to Lebanon. They finally succeeded in reaching a compromise, which included veto power for Hezbollah in the Lebanese cabinet.
The recent warning was made soon after the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani visited Lebanon. He was there soon after the Saudi King and the president of Syria made a joint visit to the country.
Mohammad Raad, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, while addressing a group of supporters, stated that the Lebanese government is facing a new threat, and that the Rafiq Hariri murder trial has been politicized to serve Israel's interests. In other words, any accusation against Hezbollah will be interpreted as an act of treason in Israel's favor.
The question that must be asked then in this: If Hezbollah is interested in attacking Israel, why is it warning that the Doha agreement is about to collapse? Attacking Israel has nothing to do with that. Hezbollah could get involved in a military confrontation with Israel without warning that the Doha agreement is about to collapse. In fact, even if Israel were its only target, Hezbollah would do everything to strengthen the Doha deal so that it could reap the benefits of domestic support while waging war on Israel.
There is, however, one other possibility: the Shiite organization could be about to launch a domestic power grab. This could be bloody, involving massive armed confrontation, or it could be bloodless; perhaps, for instance, involving some sort of agreement made with opposing factions. Hezbollah has the military capability to do this, as it's the only militia in Lebanon. In fact, if it does turn out that it was behind the Hariri assassination, then it would be a clear sign to any Lebanese politician that Hezbollah is not an organization to be meddled with.
Israel has every reason to view developments on its northern border with much concern. The recent attack by Lebanon's army against the Israeli forces, perhaps with Hezbollah's blessing, could have been a test. This would not be the first time that Hezbollah underwrote a small attack to test Israeli and international will prior to making a major move. Back in 2005, Hezbollah forces attempted to kidnap Israeli soldiers near the village of Rajar, but failed and lost four soldiers. That failure did not deter it from trying again, this time in 2006, which led to the start of the second Lebanon war.
But what should worry the Israeli government is that the recent border skirmish has actually made Hezbollah more popular inside Lebanon. The good news for the Lebanese population is that this could encourage Hezbollah to focus on Israel, and prevent it from taking on domestic elements. Otherwise, the possibility that Hezbollah may go for a power grab still exists.
The bad news for Israel is that it is very ill equipped to defend itself diplomatically. Its tarnished image after falling out with the Obama administration, Turkey and the international community over the Gaza flotilla affair means that it will find an increasingly smaller audience that's willing to listen to its concerns, as legitimate as they may be. The good news for Hezbollah is that if Israel ends the settlement freeze, then Israel's pool of friends in the international community is going to shrink even more, and fast.
The question then becomes: Is Hezbollah willing to wait until Sept. 25, the date of the end of the current freeze, to find out?
**Meir Javedanfar is an Iranian-Israeli Middle East analyst and a regular contributor to RealClearWorld. He is co-author of The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran.

Iran Sending Weapons to Hizbullah … And Turkey, Too
Naharnet/Turkey and Iran are said to be helping Hizbullah obtain new weapons, Italian daily Corriere Della Sera said. It said Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan reportedly met with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Taeb to discuss relations between the two countries. Sources told Corriere Della Sera that Turkey will "send sophisticated weapons, rockets and guns to Syria, that will end up in Lebanon," where the Iranian Army will ensure the weapons are transferred to Hizbullah. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards "will facilitate the transition, ensure safety, watch loads on the routes, and provide support to the border," the sources said. They said Iranians reportedly want to build a weapons network similar to that in Sudan, and hope to help Hamas, as well. Della Sera said Western intelligence sources "view the Turkish-Iranian plot with concern, as they are obvious risks to safety." "The (intelligence) services in Ankara are among the best in the region," one source said. "They have great knowledge of the Middle East, and know how to move on the routes of illegal trafficking." Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 06:32

State Department Defends U.S. Assistance to Lebanon
Naharnet/U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner has defended U.S. assistance to Lebanon and said it contributes to "regional stability as a whole."Toner suggested that the While House does not share Congress' fears that aid to the Lebanese army will be turned against Israel. "We will review the security assistance program to Lebanon so that we can do better to address Congress' concerns and to continue to provide military assistance to the Lebanese army," Toner said. Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 10:41

Bellemare: Indictment to be Issued on Time, Report
Naharnet/Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has reportedly said that the indictment in the killing of former Premier Rafik Hariri will be issued in a timely manner.
As-Safir newspaper, which carried the report, said Friday that Bellemare's remarks came during a meeting with Legal Counsel at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague earlier this week.
It said Bellemare had informed the embassy official that he was not contacted by any Lebanese official with regard to postponing issuance of the indictment. The daily Al-Balad, however, quoted well-informed diplomatic sources in Beirut as saying that in view of Hizbullah's revelations, the STL will postpone the indictment until the beginning of 2011. Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 08:11

Suleiman Considering Going to NY in Bid to Foil Israeli Plot
Naharnet/President Michel Suleiman intends to head a Lebanese delegation to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York scheduled for next month. An-Nahar newspaper said Suleiman plans to inform Cabinet of his intention. It said the President's move comes in the framework of a diplomatic campaign in an effort to foil an Israeli plot to launch a new war on Lebanon. Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 12:02

France to Continue Supplies of Military Aid to Lebanon
Naharnet/Assistant French foreign ministry spokeswoman stressed that France will continue military cooperation with Lebanon. She said France still awaits UNIFIL's final report on the Aug. 3 clash between Israeli and Lebanese troops in the border village of Adeisseh. The spokesman said France "remains committed to Lebanon's independence and sovereignty of Lebanon and its territorial integrity and stability." She said France also continues supplies of military assistance to Lebanon in the framework of the 2008 Cooperation Agreement.
" Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 11:07

Williams: Bellemare's Request Came Quickly, Aroused Interest
Naharnet/U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said information requested by Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare "came quickly." "Bellemare's action came quickly," Williams said in interview published Friday by pan-Arab al-Hayat. "It aroused the interest."He pointed out that in terms of the STL "there is a lot of speculation and we must wait to see how things will end, because in view of the wide-range of speculation there are little events relating to the Court." Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 07:28

Hizbullah Ready to Provide Data to Lebanese Authorities: 'And The Rest is Their Business'/
Naharnet/Hizbullah announced readiness to hand over to Lebanese authorities footage allegedly intercepted from Israeli surveillance planes of the site of the murder of ex-PM Rafik Hariri prior to his 2005 assassination. "Data and evidence in Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's possession has been made public … Hizbullah, however, doesn't trust the International Tribunal or the international investigation," Hizbullah MP Nawaf Mousawi said in remarks published Friday by Ad-Diyar newspaper. He said Hizbullah was ready to provide such the information to the Lebanese judiciary. In response to a question about Lebanese authorities giving the data to Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, Mousawi said: "So what, it's their business." Bellemare has demanded Lebanese authorities to provide all the information in possession of Hizbullah. A well-informed political source, however, expressed concern that Bellemare's request was "merely an attempt to enhance the credibility of the International Tribunal." "We hope that they (tribunal) will take this issue seriously," the source told Ad-Diyar. "We will wait and see." Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 07:06

Israeli Diplomats to Boycott Mossad over Salary Dispute
Naharnet/Israeli foreign ministry employees on partial strike accused the Mossad on Friday of breaking their picket line and said they would only cooperate with the spy agency in cases of "life or death." The employees' committee chairman criticized the Mossad for stepping in to help organize a trip by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Greece next week after embassy staff refused to assist with the visit. "It is unacceptable that the prime minister would use another body, which is strictly in charge of security matters, to break a strike," Hanan Goder told public radio. In response, diplomats on strike over wages would "provide no aid to Mossad representatives" at embassies and consulates around the world except in matters of "life or death," he said. Israeli diplomats in June kicked off their campaign for higher wages by wearing jeans and sandals to work and causing a series of diplomatic faux pas.
Some visiting foreign dignitaries have since been welcomed to Israel without the customary ceremony and others abandoned by their foreign ministry drivers, forcing them to ask their embassies to send cars.(AFP) Beirut, 13 Aug 10, 11:10

Lebanon and Nasrallah's Trinity
13/08/2010
By Amir Taheri
Asharq Al-Awsat/If the latest reports are correct, within the next few weeks the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague will reveal the names of nine members of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah for alleged participation in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Sources close to the ICC tell us that the list of those likely to be indicted includes the names of at least two senior members of Hezbollah.
Once the list is published, the question would be how to detain those indicted and bring them to trial in The Hague?
Since Lebanon is not a signatory of the ICC treaty, it is unlikely that it will order any arrests. The accused may also decide to run to Iran as soon as they get wind of their indictment. As Iran is not an ICC member either, there would be little chance of any arrests on its soil. Over the past 30 years several pro-Iranian Lebanese militants have fled to Iran after being indicted by courts in a number of European countries.
Thus, some might wonder what is point of issuing warrants that cannot be enforced.
The answer is that arrest warrants issued by the ICC or similar international tribunals carry a political, and some might say even a moral, weight that cannot be ignored.
Right now some 30 such warrants still remain pending, among them Ratko Mladic, the Serbian general who organised the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica. However, many arrest warrants are enforced after many years. Mladic's partner in crime Radovan Karadic was picked up after 12 years of successful hiding.
Although the ICC is focusing on a number of individuals, it would be hard to pretend that Hezbollah as a whole will not be affected by such grave accusations. The Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, like all other branches of the pan-Shiite radical movement, is known for its iron discipline and highly centralized decision-making. It also has a seasoned intelligence service of is own which trained and supported by Iranian services.
No one would believe that individual members could organize a sophisticated operation to carry out a high profile assassination in the heart of Beirut without anyone in their party knowing what was going one.
And, if someone high-level in the Lebanese branch knew of the plot, is it possible that Tehran was not informed? Would a branch of the movement go for such a high risk operation without obtaining at least a nod from the 'mother country'?
Judging by a series of recent statements from senior Iranian figures, the answer must be no.
Here is Major-General Hassan Firuzabadi:' Those who criticize our support for Hezbollah and Hamas do not understand what is at stake. We support {those movements} because they represent the firs line of our own defense. They are fighting for our safety and security and he triumph of our revolution.'
General Friuzabadi is Chief of Staff of the Islamic Republic's armed forces and member of the High Council of National Security that ultimately sets the strategy for foreign radical groups supported by Iran.
And here is Awaz Heydarpour, a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly's security commission in Tehran: ' Wherever there is Hezbollah there is Iran. Our revolutionary movement is not limited by borders.'
And here is Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of the Lebanese branch of the movement: I am proud of being a soldier of the Supreme Guide and a fighter for Walyat al-Faqih (Rule by the Clergy).'
There is an abundant literature on Hezbollah's Iranian connection. Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Mohtshami-pour has published memoirs narrating how founded the party during his tenure as Khomeini's ambassador to Damascus.
Hezbollah was originally founded by a group of mullahs, led by Ayatollah Hadi Ghaffari, while they were in the Shah's prisons in Iran in 1975.
In 1980, the government, headed by the then Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, approved a budget of $60 million to help create branches of Hezbollah in s many Arab countries as possible. The idea was that these groups would help switch Arab public opinion in favor of the Islamic Republic during its bloody war with Saddam Hussein.
The model taken was that of the Communist International which helped create more than 60 pro-Soviet parties across the globe during the 1920s and 1930s.
Over the eight years that followed the Tehran decision, 10 foreign branches of Hezbollah were created abroad.
The Lebanese branch became the best known because of its involvement in a series of dramatic operations, including the taking of over 100 foreign hostages.
That Hezbollah is, at least in part, a foreign body, is clearly indicated by the new slogan launched in Lebanon.
The slogan is: People, Army and Resistance. (Al-Shaab, al-Jaish, al-Muqawimah).
The slogan splits the assumed unity of Lebanon as a nation-state by dividing it into three distinct elements. It assumes that people is something separate from the army and the resistance.
Because the term 'resistance' is supposed to identify Hezbollah, the slogan also assumes that the Lebanese people and their army are not willing or able to resist foreign threats against their security and national sovereignty. That assumption implicitly puts the Lebanese people and their army in the position of tutelage vis-à-vis Hezbollah.
The slogan could be seen as a cover to legitimize the creation of a Hezbollah stat within the Lebanese one with Tehran's financial and political support.
But let us return to the impending indictments.
Even if the foot soldiers of h crime are brought to justice, those who sent them into the killing field will remain immune.
The immediate question would be whether a party that is accused of being involved, even remotely, in so heinous a crime could remain part of a country's legislature and government.
Dislodging Hezbollah from positions of power would not easy. The party has the capacity and, certainly the will, to use force even if that meant pushing the country towards another civil war that few Lebanese want.
Thus the real question is the dire political choice that all those involved must face: the choice between justice and peace.

Israel may unilaterally attack Iran's N-facilities: Report
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Updated on Wednesday, August 11, 2010,
Jerusalem: Israel may launch a unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear facilities within a year if the Obama administration fails to assure Tel Aviv that it is serious about foiling Tehran's atomic ambitions, a media report has said.
Israel will carry out the military attack without asking for Washington's famous "green light" or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, according to Atlantic magazine's yet-to-be published cover story for the September edition, obtained by Ha'aretz daily here.
"...one day next spring, the Israeli national security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran," the magazine article says.
The aircraft could fly to Iran "possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by travelling directly through Iraq's airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft...," it says painting a possible scenario.
The repercussions of such a strike, which could include the bombing of the Iranian facilities in Natanz, Qom, Esfahan, and may be even the Russian-built reactor in Bushehr, are less than clear, despite the endless discussions and several simulations, the report said.
American experts speculate that attacking Iran's nuclear facilities will only slightly delay the nuclear programme, whereas some Israelis, as per the report, are a bit more optimistic, in light of the successful Israeli operations against Iraqi and Syrian reactors in the past.
The article's author Jeffery Goldberg bases his arguments on dozens of interviews he conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials and is of the opinion that the possibility of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 per cent mark.
The results of such an attack will be dire and it is likely that the Israeli air force will not have much time to waste in Iran, as Hizbullah will probably retaliate against Israel in the North and the fighter jets will be needed there.
The unilateral operation might throw relations between Jerusalem and Washington into an unprecedented crisis, and could even unleash a full-scale regional war with possible economic repercussions for the whole world, not to mention the cost of human lives, the report says.
The timetable on the issue for the US is an evasive one as the red lines were pushed back again and again, but the red lines for Israel are very clear, Goldberg says.
"Based on my conversations with allies, it's not so much the timing of when or how the Iranians might pursue the nuclear weapons, it's whether they do so. And so whether it would take six months, a year, or five years, it's that deep concern about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons that is the preoccupation of our friends and partners.
"And we would be pursuing the path we're pursuing regardless of any issue of timing because we think it's got the best potential for changing Iranian behaviour," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told New York Times last week.
However, the end of December is Netanyahu's deadline to estimate the success of "non-military methods to stop Iran," the report says.

Lebanon PM: UN must probe claims of Israeli complicity in Hariri murder
Latest update 12.08.10
Saad Hariri suggests evidence presented by Hezbollah could point to Israeli involvement in the assassination of his father in 2005, Lebanese paper reports.
By Jack Khoury and Avi Issacharoff /Haaretz
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has called on the UN to probe claims by Hezbollah militants that Israel was behind the murder of his father in 2005, according to local press reports Thursday. Harari said evidence presented earlier this week by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah implicating Israel in the assassination of Hariri's father Rafik was "important and very sensitive", Lebanese daily as-Safir reported. "I personally am in favor of a deep discussion of the details, because it is very important to me to find out the truth both as prime minister and as [Rafik] Hariri's son," Saad Hariri said. Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon, was killed in a massive bomb blast in Beirut in 2005 and a UN tribunal was established two years later to investigate the assassination. At first, Hariri's allies accused Syria and its followers in Lebanon of being behind the murder, a charge Damascus has repeatedly denied.
In 2009, however, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported that there was evidence linking Hezbollah to the killing. And last month, Nasrallah said that he had been informed that the UN tribunal would indict some Hezbollah members for the murder. On Monday, Nasrallah held a press conference during which he attempted to shift the blame to Israel, citing an audio recording of an alleged Israeli agent and intercepted Israeli aerial drone footage. Saad Hariri reportedly told associates that the maximum amount of time and effort should be invested to check the information presented by Nasrallah. According to the as-Safir report, the Lebanese prime minister said that the UN tribunal should consider the information presented by Nasrallah, since Nasrallah's words reflected the views of many in Lebanon. The head of the UN tribunal Daniel Bellmer has reportedly received the contents of Nasrallah's presentation and has asked to receive more details of the documents and films presented by Nasrallah.

The unnecessary Lebanon war
By: Victor Kattan
Al-Ahram Weekly 12 August/2010
Israel's muted response to the recent border skirmish proves that its 2006 offensive in similar circumstances was a war of choice, writes Victor Kattan*
Israel's relatively muted reaction to its border clash with Lebanese troops Tuesday, which killed an Israeli reserve battalion commander, three Lebanese soldiers, and a civilian Lebanese journalist, is rather intriguing. For it provides an indication that the second Lebanon war of 2006 need not have happened. Then, as now, other options were available to Israel that could have responded differently had it wished. Israel evidently did not need to escalate the situation by going to war against Lebanon four years ago, as it need not now. Rather Israel's bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006 was a war of choice and of convenience. As the Winograd Committee set up by the Israeli government to investigate the causes of the war in 2006 admitted, "in making the decision to go to war, the government [of Israel] did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of 'containment', or combining political and diplomatic moves with military strikes below the 'escalation level', or military preparations without immediate military action."
The events that precipitated the conflict in 2006 -- not too dissimilar to Tuesday's events -- amounted to a frontier dispute that usually falls outside the scope of self-defence under the UN Charter. Indeed, international tribunals have rarely considered frontier disputes that do not seriously threaten the territorial integrity and political independence of a state an adequate justification for armed conflict. This is even if the incident leads to the loss of life as the Permanent Court of Arbitration concluded in their Partial Award in the case between Eritrea-Ethiopia at the Claims Commission. It can also be difficult to ascertain the precise location of an armed confrontation, especially if the area in question is in a demilitarised zone where there is a sovereignty dispute. Moreover, if a border incident can be invoked to justify war, then it can also risk sparking a wider military confrontation. One need only think of the tensions between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, Greece and Turkey, Russia and Georgia to realise the danger.
Lebanon claims that the latest incident took place on its side of the border, Israel says otherwise, and the UN has not made up its mind yet. As Brian Whitaker, writing in The Guardian observed, the problem with the fence that the Israelis erected following their withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 was that it did not follow the border line exactly: "In places, they adjusted the route for convenience and military reasons. As a result, various pockets of what is still legally Israeli territory lie on the Lebanese side of the fence. The Israelis call them 'enclaves' and don't always see eye to eye with the Lebanese government about their extent and location." Even if it turns out that the attack took place on Israel's side of the line, and even if the fire came from Lebanese army units under the influence of Hizbullah, as alleged by Avital Leibovich, the Israeli army spokesperson, it would make little difference. War should always be a measure of last resort, and not the first remedy.
Israel has a history of overreacting to the slightest of provocation, which in this part of the world can quickly escalate. The latest hostilities on the border differ slightly from events four years ago, however, in that it was between Israeli and Lebanese troops, not with Hizbullah. This might be because UN Security Council Resolution 1701 called on the Lebanese government and UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) to establish an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons from the Blue Line to the Litani River in the hope of preventing Hizbullah from operating there. In contrast, in July 2006, Israel alleged that Hizbullah commandos had entered its territory, capturing two soldiers. This provoked Israel to send a group of soldiers into Lebanon in hot pursuit. After the Israeli soldiers crossed the Lebanese border they were killed in an ambush by Hizbullah when their tank drove over a mine. Three soldiers were killed in the initial operation, four by the mine, and another in the rescue mission. In response, Israel launched Operation Change of Direction in which Israel's then army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years".
What is not disputed is that Operation Change of Direction led to 34 days of armed conflict between Israel and Hizbullah mostly within Lebanese territory in which a total of 1,164 people were killed, a figure that included 119 Israeli military personnel out of a total of 162 Israeli casualties. According to a report by Amnesty International, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 30,000 Lebanese homes, 120 bridges, 94 roads, and 24 fuel stations. Israel's targets included the bridges linking the north and south of the country, all three runways of Beirut's Rafik Al-Hariri International Airport, and the offices of Al-Manar Television. Israeli warships also prevented merchant vessels from leaving or entering the coast of Lebanon. Hizbullah responded by firing thousands of rockets into northern Israel with some reaching the city of Haifa. When a ceasefire was declared on 14 August at 8am local time, there were some 30,000 Israeli troops stationed inside Lebanon, south of the Litani River.
This time one hopes that calmer heads will prevail. The political situation is extremely tense in Lebanon at the moment. Only last week King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria met in Beirut to stress the importance of regional stability and the commitment of the Lebanese not to resort to violence. They stressed that the country's interests took precedence over sectarian interests and urged the Lebanese to resolve their issues through legal institutions. This was probably an allusion to rumours reported in Der Spiegel that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon -- established to try all those who are responsible for the Valentine's Day assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri in 2005 -- is about to issue arrest warrants for what Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah has called, "undisciplined members" of his organisation. A new war between Israel and Hizbullah would only strengthen the position of the latter organisation whose cabinet ministers are in a rather embarrassing and precarious position at the moment, having to share power in government with the son of the father that their party is alleged to have killed.
* The writer is a teaching fellow at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
 

REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES / REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
13.08.2010
Français: http://fr.rsf.org/liban-garde-a-vue-arbitraire-du-12-08-2010,38134.html
Anglais: http://en.rsf.org/al-akhbar-reporter-held-and-13-08-2010,38140.html
Arabe: http://arabia.reporters-sans-frontieres.org/article.php3?id_article=31834
LIBAN - Garde à vue arbitraire du journaliste Al-Akhbar par les services du ministère de la Défense
Journaliste au quotidien Al-Akhbar, Hassan Allek a été placé en garde à vue sur ordre du ministre de la Défense, dans les locaux du ministère, le 11 août 2010. Convoqué en milieu de matinée, le journaliste a été interrogé par les services de renseignements pendant plusieurs heures, avant d’être libéré en fin de journée. Cet incident fait suite à la publication d'un article sur une éventuelle coopération entre certains responsables politiques et militaires libanais et les services de renseignements israéliens. Les personnes chargées de son interrogatoire ont exigé du journaliste qu’il révèle ses sources. En vain. L’avocat du journaliste n’a pas pu y assister.
La détention et l’interrogation de Hassan Allek par les services du ministère de la Défense hier constituent des violations flagrantes du droit de la presse. Elles ont été menées de manière arbitraire et discrétionnaire, en dehors de tout cadre juridique légal. Par ailleurs, les menaces proférées par le ministre de la Défense à l'encontre du journaliste et l’ensemble des professionnels de l'information, nous amènent à nous interroger sur la volonté réelle de respecter l’Etat de droit par les responsables qui sont censés l’incarner. Ceci est inquiétant pour la situation de la liberté de la presse dans le pays.
Alors que le journaliste était toujours interrogé, le ministre de la Défense en personne, Elias Murr, a annoncé, lors d’une conférence de presse organisée en début d'après-midi, la prochaine audition du journaliste par la justice pour “diffamation“ et “divulgation de fausses informations“. Le ministre a par ailleurs mis en garde l’ensemble des professionnels des médias libanais : tout journaliste qui émettrait des accusations similaires à l'encontre de hauts gradés de l'armée encore en activité se verrait sanctionner de la même manière.
Or, les mesures prises contre Hassan Allek sont illégales. En effet, le décret-loi de 1974 sur la liberté de la presse exige que tout journaliste soupçonné de “divulgation de fausses informations“ et de “diffamation“ soit entendu devant un juge, en présence de son avocat. À aucun moment, le journaliste n’a été présenté à un juge avant sa convocation. Les accusations du ministre ont été proférées alors qu'aucune procédure légale n'était ouverte à son encontre.

LIBAN - Al-Akhbar reporter held and interrogated illegally by defence ministry
The detention and interrogation of Hassan Allek, a reporter for the daily Al-Akhbar, by the defence ministry on 11 August were flagrant violations of media law, Reporters Without Borders said. They were prompted by a story by Allek that certain Lebanese government and military officials were cooperating with the Israeli intelligence services.
Summoned to the defence ministry headquarters in mid-morning, Allek was taken into custody, interrogated by intelligence officers for several hours and finally released at the end of the afternoon. His interrogators tried in vain to get Allek to reveal his sources for the report. Allek’s lawyer was not allowed to attend.
“Allek’s detention and interrogation were conducted in a completely arbitrary and illegal manner,” Reporters Without Borders said. “At the same time, the defence minister’s threats against him and the entire media profession raise doubts about a readiness to respect the rule of law on the part of those who are supposed to uphold it. This is disturbing for press freedom in Lebanon.”
While Allek was still being interrogated, defence minister Elias Murr gave a news conference in the middle of the afternoon in which he announced that Allek would be charged with defamation and disseminating false information and warned that the same charges would be brought against any other journalist who made similar allegations against senior army officers on active duty.
The procedure used with Allek was illegal under Lebanon’s 1974 decree-law on press freedom, which requires that any journalist suspected of defamation or reporting false information be interrogated before a judge and in the presence of his lawyer. Allek was not taken before a judge prior to his interrogation and no legal proceedings had been initiated when the defence minister made his public accusations against him.
-
Soazig Dollet
Bureau Afrique du Nord & Moyen-Orient / North Africa & Middle-East Desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
47 rue Vivienne
F - 75002 Paris
Tél : + 33 1 44 83 84 78
Fax : +33 1 45 23 11 51
E-mail : moyen-orient@rsf.org / middle-east@rsf.org
http://www.rsf.org

Downward, Christian soldiers
By: Michael Young, August 13, 2010
Go back a couple of weeks to the three-way summit between President Michel Sleiman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A great deal has been written on that noisy conclave, but almost nothing on one of its subtexts: the marginalization of Maronite representatives, creating a sense that the community was incidental at a vital moment for Lebanon’s future.
What emerged from the summit was a stern, demographically understandable reminder that the country’s destiny is being shaped by the dynamics of Sunni-Shia interaction. Even Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, armed with a talent for barging in on performances to which he was not invited, remained incognito. However, he then sought to compensate by organizing a Druze congress with representatives from Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, to create the impression that he had some 700,000 coreligionists under his wing.
But not the Maronites. Michel Sleiman’s short-sightedness was a disappointment. The president defied protocol by barring two former presidents from the Baabda lunch — allegedly because the Syrians did not want Amin Gemayel there, and King Abdullah was happy to avoid Emile Lahoud. Worse, Sleiman did not invite the Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, because that, too, would have apparently discomfited Assad. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Saad Hariri ensured that the Sunni mufti would meet King Abdullah at his home, on the sensible grounds that there was no reason to offend his community’s highest religious representative, and a political advocate.
It was lost on Sleiman that he would have only gained in legitimacy through Sfeir’s presence. To have the patriarch in attendance would have been Sleiman’s way of saying that he alone could deliver a Maronite blessing for the summit’s results. The president should have made Sfeir’s presence a condition for hosting his Arab counterparts. Instead, he averted a fight and looked like a guest at his own party — isolated, uncomfortable, largely immaterial to the proceedings.
The decline of Lebanon’s Maronites, and of the Christians in general, is an old story, and a dismal one. It is dismal because the community’s nastiest setbacks have been self-inflicted. It’s not a bad thing to be realistic. For Christians to refuse to surrender any power today on the grounds that, historically, they have been entitled to this post or that, this privilege or that, is utterly foolish. Lebanon is changing, and if the community doesn’t adapt voluntarily, in a way allowing it to negotiate its own fate, it may one day face imposed change.
However, the worst thing is for a realistic perception of Christian decline to transform itself into hopelessness, which can only accelerate the decline. We are very near to that stage. Christians have tended to reduce everything to numbers: Two-thirds of the country is Muslim, therefore all is lost, you will hear many of them say. This is not only a narrow view of reality, it is a recipe for self-immolation.
For starters, the simplistic Christian-Muslim dichotomy is no longer reflected on the ground. For better or worse, and very simplistically and unsatisfactorily, Lebanon is better defined these days by a triangular relationship — between Sunnis, Shia and Christians. There is much that is disheartening in subdividing Lebanese society in that way, but it’s also true that this condition has yielded a much more complex set of political choices, particularly for Christians. Michel Aoun has sided with Hezbollah, Samir Geagea with the Future Movement, and Michel Sleiman has tried to steer in the middle.
There is also the fact that Christians continue to play a significant, sometimes a vanguard, role in Lebanon’s society, culture and economy, with an overwhelming percentage of remittances coming from Christians abroad. And yet there is also, and paradoxically, a disturbing lack of political vigor, economic innovation or intellectual dynamism in the community. The political leadership is mostly corrupt, myopic or unresponsive, satisfied with managing the status quo; the clergy, with its vast networks of influence, including schools and parishes, is awash in greed and tawdriness; Christian intellectuals devote relatively little time to imagining new foundations for their country or community and generally publish little that is stimulating, while those who do find themselves largely unread or unheard.
Christian talent is all around, yet seems invisible. The challenge for the community will be to discover the right mechanisms allowing Christians to reinvent their role in Lebanon. But don’t hold your breath; expect little from the president, the church and the political leadership. As for the society, overall far better than its leaders, it appears locked in a paralysis of despair that can bring no good. The Baabda summit is the latest reminder of how steep the Christian climb will be. Driven by petty disagreements, open to foreign manipulation, disoriented by the transformations all around them, the Christians can offer better. But needed first is a psychological overhaul of the community, one more elusive than ever.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. His book, The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle
(Simon & Schuster), was recently published.

Turkey Cozies Up to Hizbullah with Iran
by Chana Ya'ar/Arutz Sheva
Turkey has offered to join Iran in sending weapons to Hizbullah in Lebanon, with help from Syria, according to a report published in an Italian newspaper.
The daily Corriere Della Sera quoted sources Wednesday evening who said that Turkey will “send sophisticated weapons, rockets and guns to Syria that will end up in Lebanon.”
The sources went on to say that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards would “facilitate the transition, ensure safety, watch loads on the routes, and provide support to the border.” According to the report, Iran intends to build a network that will supply the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization with weapons as well, similar to the weapons network that operates in the Sudan.
The newspaper also reported that Turkish and Iranian intelligence heads Hakan Fidan and Hossein Taeb allegedly met to discuss logistics and relations between the two nations.
Israeli Premonition?
Nearly two weeks ago, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed concern that Turkey might pass on some of Jerusalem's intelligence information to the Islamic Republic.
Barak, whose remarks were recorded and broadcast by IDF Radio, told a private meeting of his Labor Party associates that “Turkey is a friendly country and a strategic ally. But the nomination in recent weeks of a new chief of the Turkish secret services, who is a supporter of Iran, worries us.”
The appointment, Barak told his colleagues, might lead to “the Iranians obtaining access to classified information... There are quite a few [Israeli] secrets in their hands. The thought that they may now be open to Iran is disturbing," he admitted.
Turkish Under-Secretary Halit Cevik summoned Israeli Ambassador Gabi Levy to a meeting in Ankara to express his outrage over Barak's comments.
Fidan, 42, was appointed as head of MIT, Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, on May 27. He had previously served as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the prime minister, and represented the country at the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA's inspectors have been attempting to identify Iranian nuclear capabilities, as the agency's director worked to convince the country to end its nuclear development program. As a member of the IAEA, Fidan was heavily involved in negotiating with Iran over its uranium enrichment activities.
Ankara sealed a deal on May 17 with Iran to export some of its uranium for enrichment to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel. Turkey also voted against a June 9 U.N. Security Council decision to impose increased sanctions against Iran that were intended to further pressure the Islamic Republic into abandoning its uranium enrichment program

Al-Qaeda Plots Against Saudi Monarchs, Israel
by Maayana Miskin/Arutz Sheva
Al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen have called to topple Saudi rulers and murder Christians living in Saudi Arabia, according to a taped statement released Wednesday. The person speaking in the tape identified himself as senior Al-Qaeda operative Saeed al-Shihri, but his identity could not be confirmed. The tape also included a call for rogue terrorist attacks on Israel. Addressing Al-Qaeda supporters in the Saudi Arabian army, the speaker said, “Bear arms against Israel... Whoever is a pilot should seek martyrdom in the skies of Palestine, and whoever is in the navy should aim his weapons at the Jews...”United States officials have issued a warning to Americans staying north of Riyadh. Terrorists may be planning to attack Western nationals in the Al-Qassim province, they said. The speaker in Wednesday's tape called on Al-Qaeda supporters to collect information on the Saudi royal family. Those who have access to members of the royal family should kill them, he said. He called to murder Christians as well. Al-Qaeda has called to attack the government of Saudi Arabia for allegedly supporting the US in its wars on terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. The international terrorist group is also engaged in battling the Yemeni army, which it has attacked several times this summer.
Al-Shihri is the deputy leader of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, one of Al-Qaeda's larger branches. He was imprisoned for several years in the US-run Guantanamo Bay jail and released in 2007 to Saudi Arabia, where he underwent a rehabilitation program for terrorists.

Underestimating our enemies
By DAVID HOROVITZ /J.Post
08/13/2010 15:25
To ridicule and dismiss Hassan Nasrallah’s public bragging this week is hubris.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is feeling the heat.
The UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is, by all accounts, about to point an unerring finger of blame in Hizbullah’s direction.
Lebanon is on tenderhooks. The potential for explosive unrest, in a country beset by internal divisions, is acute. The killing itself set off a near-revolution five years ago. Now Hariri’s own son, the current prime minister Saad, is so afraid of the incendiary impact of an indictment of Hizbullah that he is reportedly pleading behind the scenes for the tribunal to postpone its fateful announcement.
In Israel, it is emphatically believed that Nasrallah was indeed behind the fatal Beirut car-bombing.
“He knows exactly who was to blame,” said Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya’acov Amidror, the former head of IDF Research and Assessment, of Nasrallah on Tuesday. “He dispatched them.”
And thus, on this side of the border, Nasrallah’s Israel-bashing TV appearance on Monday night was generally interpreted as a rather desperate diversionary tactic. The sheikh’s protracted effort to assert that Israel carried out the killing of the tycoon-politician who was rebuilding Lebanon was instantly dismissed as “ridiculous” by officials in Jerusalem… who may have missed the point: Nasrallah was primarily bent on sowing doubt among the Lebanese – and he likely succeeded – and on prodding the Lebanese government into halting all cooperation with the tribunal.
RATHER MORE attention was devoted here to Nasrallah’s bragging on the subject of 1997’s Shayetet 13 disaster, when naval commandos on an operation in Lebanon triggered explosive devices that had been laid by Hizbullah, with the ultimate loss of no fewer than 12 of their 16-strong team.
The deaths of so many elite commandos in that one incident, at the hands of Hizbullah, has been characterized by some analysts, with no little justification, as the beginning of the end of Israel’s deployment in the south Lebanon security zone – the catalyst for the zone’s dismantlement, and the unilateral withdrawal to the international border, that followed three years later.
Nasrallah claimed Monday that this bloody interception represented a glorious intelligence and operational success for his organization, further proof of its heroism and its savvy. Plainly, his motivation in returning to the incident – which involved him reviving claims that had already been made several years ago by his deputy Naim Kassem – was to demonstrate Hizbullah’s purportedly peerless capacity to harm those Zionist enemies to the south, and thus to underline its value to Lebanon and the need to safeguard it from the harmful repercussions of the Hariri affair.
Nasrallah, as ever, was also taking aim at the Israeli psyche, hoping that the reopening of this 13-year-old wound would prompt a new bout of debilitating recrimination, perhaps involving the bereaved parents and certainly senior IDF officers, past and present. And, to some extent, he has been successful: The question of what exactly Hizbullah knew of the Shayetet operation ahead of time, and how exactly it knew it, did indeed return to the public agenda this week.
Hours before Nasrallah’s TV appearance, Gabi Ofir, the reserve general who chaired an IDF investigation into the catastrophe, was still insisting that the commandos had not fallen victim to an intelligence “leak,” and that the Hizbullah interception was “purely coincidental.”
But Nasrallah’s performance, which featured footage allegedly obtained from unmanned IDF drones that were scouting out the commandos’ route, further vindicated the already widespread belief that the operation had indeed been compromised. Hizbullah, it is now largely accepted, may have managed to view the unencrypted footage from the drone – simply by identifying the relevant broadcast frequency.
Prompted by Nasrallah to reexamine the terrible incident once again, generals, parents and analysts have been discussing why it was that the drones’ footage was not encoded. Amidror, who was military secretary to defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai at the time, has been arguing that the capacity for such encoding was quite new, and was being tested initially in drones being used by another elite IDF outfit, Sayeret Matkal – the General Staff’s commando unit. The author and journalist Amir Rappaport has countered that there was no good reason that this latest technology should not have been available to the Shayetet, and called the failure scandalous.
Arguments have also raged as to how obvious the specifics of the operation would have been to Hizbullah once it had got its hands on the footage – and thus how easy for Hizbullah to thwart the commandos.
And there has been much renewed discussion of what exactly happened in the terrible moments after the commandos first inadvertently detonated those explosive devices that Hizbullah had placed on their route.
Nasrallah boasted about an ambush, featuring fighters who were lying in wait for the hapless IDF troops. “Our men waited there for weeks,” he claimed. The IDF narrative, by contrast, is that Hizbullah personnel were not hiding in the field night after night for the commandos to come and that, rather, the Shayetet fatalities were the victims, first of the hidden Hizbullah bombs, and second, of the consequent detonation of the explosives they were themselves carrying.
NASRALLAH IS feeling the heat over Hariri.
Nasrallah is emphasizing Hizbullah’s bravery, determination and importance. Nasrallah is seeking to chivvy away at Israel’s perceived weaknesses. All of this is obvious here, south of the border. Our analysts are highly skilled in assessing Hizbullah’s motivations, and our officials are adept in dismissing the more risible of his claims.
What seems to have been under-discussed this week, however, is the original sin. And it’s the same original sin that left an Israeli naval vessel defenseless in the face of a Hizbullah strike in the Second Lebanon War – the INS Hanit, hit off the coast of Beirut in July 2006 by a shore-toship missile, with the loss of four lives.
It’s the same original sin that, a month earlier, at Kerem Shalom on our southern border, saw Gilad Schalit’s Armored Corps unit vulnerable to Hamas’s tunneling and attack.
It’s the same original sin that rendered the Shayetet 13 commandos, again, inadequately prepared to grapple with the core of violent thugs who jumped on them when they boarded the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara on May 31.
The same original sin, breeding a welter of immensely compromising and problematic repercussions.
And which sin is that? The cardinal sin of underestimating the enemy.
CHIEF OF staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi acknowledged to the Turkel Commission on Wednesday that the IDF didn’t know enough about the extremists on board the Mavi Marmara and the IHH organization that had assembled them.
The IHH “was not on our list of priorities,” he said – although it had been recognized by the security establishment, and even characterized by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, as a pro-Hamas, proterror entity. The ill-equipped commandos were expecting to be met by “10 or 15 people,” said Ashkenazi, and the assumption was “that if we threw stun grenades, they would move away.”
Neither, self-evidently, was the army sufficiently braced for the kind of brazen Hamas incursion that saw the abduction of Schalit and the killings of Hanan Barak and Pavel Slutsker early on June 25, 2006, even though the Shin Bet said it had conveyed precise intelligence information highlighting the danger. “The incident in Kerem Shalom caught us unprepared,” said Ashkenazi’s predecessor, Dan Halutz, that day.
Similarly, the INS Hanit’s anti-missile defenses had not been activated off the Lebanese coast because it was deemed unlikely that Hizbullah possessed the Iranian- made C-802 missile that holed it, even though the IDF was in possession of enough intelligence information to suggest the contrary.
Just as, back in 1997, we didn’t believe that Hizbullah had the capacity to intercept unencrypted footage from our reconnaissance drones, even though the technical process involved in accessing such footage was straightforward.
WE DIDN’T realize. We didn’t believe. We didn’t know.
But we probably should have known.
And surely we should have prepared more effectively for the worst, in each of these awful incidents, rather than hoping for the best. Surely, we should have long since recognized the ruthless Iranian inspiration that is common to all these bitter incidents. Our very survival, after all, requires that we internalize the methodical malevolence with which Iran is working toward its declared goal of our destruction.
So if we scoffed at Nasrallah’s lengthy bragging this week, deriding him as military chief on the defensive, a vicious murderer confined to his bunker and lashing out in all directions as the walls close in, we had best think again. For such scoffing would only confirm a familiar hubris – a hubris that is intolerable, indefensible and untenable in the face of Nasrallah’s rapacious and relentless paymaster, Iran.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=184614