LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِDecember 26/2010

Bible Of The Day
Paul's Letter to the Romans 13:1 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. 13:2 Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment. 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same, 13:4 for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil. 13:5 Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 13:6 For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of God’s service, attending continually on this very thing. 13:7 Give therefore to everyone what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due; customs to whom customs; respect to whom respect; honor to whom honor. 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 13:9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not give false testimony,” “You shall not covet,”** and whatever other commandments there are, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”* 13:10 Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law. 13:11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed. 13:12 The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the works of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light. 13:13 Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports  
A Christmas of Mourning and Fear in Iraq/AINA/December 25/10
Iraqi Christians Lie Low on Christmas/AINA/December 25/10
Arab World: Hizbullah’s throne of bayonets/By: Jonathan Spyer/December 25/10
Daniel Bellemare’s Christmas message/By: Michael Young/December 25/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for December 25/10
Suleiman after Closed-Door Meeting with Sfeir: No One Can Restrict President's Powers/Naharnet
Top Jund al-Sham Official Killed in Ain al-Hilweh and Maqdah Clarifies/Naharnet
Houri: Lebanese Sides Have Very Little Information on Saudi-Syrian Initiative /Naharnet
Jumblat Affirms He Doesn't Know Details of Saudi-Syrian Initiative /Naharnet
Lebanese Judicial Source: We Have Not Received Any Information on a Spy Network /Naharnet
Abdullah: March 14 Camp Obstructing Cabinet Sessions /Naharnet
Geagea Meets Connelly: We Can Beat Obstacles by Shunning Violence, Challenge, Bigotry /Naharnet
Hariri, Jumblat Discuss Latest Political Developments /Naharnet
Assad to Sarkozy: Opposition Ministers Will Resign if Indictment Issued against Hizbullah, Report /Naharnet
Qassar: Cabinet Meeting, Other Issues Postponed till Next Year /Naharnet
Germany to Increase Financial Contribution to Hariri Tribunal to Assert STL Necessity /Naharnet
Hajj Hasan: STL is Completely Politicized, Any Indictment against the Resistance Doesn't Concern /Naharnet
Rayyes: Obstructing Saudi-Syrian Initiative Will Negatively Affect Lebanon /Naharnet
Arab Diplomat: S-S Equation in Hands of Saudi Arabia's Ability to Promote it to U.S. /Naharnet
 

Iraqis Defy Threats to Pack Massacre Church on Christmas
Naharnet/Hundreds of Christians packed Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation church for Christmas on Saturday, defying threats of attacks less than two months after militants massacred worshippers and priests there. Security was extremely tight, with forces armed with pistols and assault rifles guarding the area and a three-meter high concrete wall topped with gleaming razor wire surrounding the church. All cars entering the area were searched, and worshippers were patted down twice before being allowed into the church.
The mood was somber after an October 31 attack claimed by al-Qaida affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq in which gunmen stormed the church, leaving two priests, 44 worshippers and seven security personnel dead. The church, which was filled with more than 300 worshippers, still bears signs of the attack, its walls pockmarked from bullets and the destroyed wooden pews replaced with plastic and metal chairs. The attack has left many reeling.
"Last year, we were all gathering" for Christmas, said Uday Saadallah Abdal. But "this year, I went to the house, and I saw it was empty ... I was crying all night, because no one was here any more." The 28-year-old said two of his brothers were killed in the attack -- one of the priests, Father Thair, and another brother Raed. His mother was also shot three times, and is hospitalized in France. "I feel that their souls are still there in the church; that is why I came. They encourage me to come here despite all the danger and threats," Abdal said of his brothers.
"We are afraid, but despite that, we are coming" for mass, Rana Nikhail said. "We have to be here, because it is the birthday of the Messiah."
But "we cannot feel happy because tears are in our eyes, and people we love are not with us any more," the 35-year-old added.
Ten days after the deadly siege, a string of attacks targeted the homes of Christians in Baghdad, killing six people and wounding 33 others.
Threats have also been made against Iraqi Christians.
Chaldean Catholic archbishop Monsignor Louis Sarko in Kirkuk said on Tuesday that he "and 10 other Christian personages received threats from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq."
Syrian Catholic Archbishop Matti Motaka called for people to maintain hope despite all the hardships.
"Our message is for people not to give up and to have hope in this life," Motaka said after the mass.
"We have hope, because Jesus is with us all the time, during all the difficulties that we face," but because of the attack, "there is a great wound in the heart of the church."
Some worshippers asserted that despite the attacks and threats, they were not afraid, or at least not enough to stay away from Christmas mass.
"We have no fear at all. We are insisting on coming to the church for prayer and mass," said 40-year-old Tomas Rafo.
"We are here to support each other, to support the families of the victims, and to challenge terrorism," he said, adding: "Sadness is still in our hearts because of the attack, because of losing people that we love."
Fikrat Pack, 52, said: "There is sadness, but not fear. If we were afraid, the church would be empty. People are sad but not afraid, that is why they are here.
"We cannot give up our religion and our church because of an attack." Speaker of parliament Osama al-Nujaifi urged Iraqi Christians, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled abroad amid unrest since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, to stay. "Iraqis don't want the sound of the (church) bells to stop," Nujaifi said at the opening of the Saturday session of parliament. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also expressed solidarity with Christians on Saturday, and called on them to remain in Iraq. "The attempts at eliminating the Christians from their country and land is a huge crime against national unity," he said in a statement. "We strongly call on (Christians) to stay in their country, to commit to their country and participate in building and reconstructing it." Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said no incidents were reported on Saturday. "Our leadership took a series of security measures to protect the churches, through deploying forces around all churches," he said. "We are on alert for the mass, but we have no fear that the attacks on Our Lady of Salvation may be repeated," said Atta.(AFP)
Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 18:02

Suleiman after Closed-Door Meeting with Sfeir: No One Can Restrict President's Powers
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir hoped during his Christmas sermon on Saturday that the holidays would allow President Michel Suleiman to unite the rival Lebanese parties.
He said: "Let Lebanon remain the country of coexistence between Christians and Muslims through your efforts and wise guidance." The Christmas mass was preceded by a closed-door meeting between Suleiman and Sfeir that was also attended by Interior Minister Ziad Baroud. For his part, Suleiman offered an upbeat assessment of the year ahead, despite tensions in the country about looming indictments over the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri. "The political impasse in Lebanon is moving towards a solution" and 2011 "will be the year of launching the government's work," the president said. "We hope that the year 2011 will witness stability and economic prosperity," he said according to a statement from his office. "We have to agree on preventing what could hurt our unity." Suleiman called on all parties to await the outcome of the Saudi-Syrian initiative.
Asked his reaction to recent accusations against him and Premier Saad Hariri of obstructing cabinet's work, Suleiman said: "The president is responsible for (preserving) the country's interests, and no one can dictate on the president when to vote or not, since the Constitution stresses consensus and that is its spirit." The president "evaluates the situation and knows when to seek consensus and when to resort to a cabinet vote," Suleiman added. "No one can restrict the president's powers, all these things are within his jurisdiction, and when he sees that consensus is possible – and it is still possible – he won't seek a cabinet vote" on whether to refer the controversial issue of the so-called "false witnesses" to Lebanon's highest court, the Judicial Council, Suleiman went on to say. A U.N.-backed probe into Hariri's assassination is reportedly set to indict high-ranking operatives of Hizbullah, the powerful Shiite movement which is backed by Iran and Syria. Hizbullah has warned against any attempt by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to arrest its members, raising fears of instability in the country.
But Saudi-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain ex-premier, has vowed to see the court through. The standoff has sparked fears of renewed violence in Lebanon following the STL indictments, and regional power-houses Saudi Arabia and Syria have scrambled to find a settlement that would please Lebanon's feuding camps.
The country's unity government is in paralysis ahead of the expected indictments, with the work of the cabinet frozen by the impasse.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 16:13

Top Jund al-Sham Official Killed in Ain al-Hilweh and Maqdah Clarifies
Naharnet/Senior Jund al-Sham commander Ghandy al-Sahmarani was found killed in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday. Fatah commander in Lebanon Munir al-Maqdah explained that Ghandy "Abu Ramez" al-Sahmarani, a native of the northern city of Tripoli, was an official in what is left of the Jund al-Sham organization.
He said that Sahmarani does not move from one area to another unless a dispute between him and any member of the group erupted, saying that he has been residing in the Taamir sector at the northern entrance to Ain al-Hilweh for years. The Fatah official said that it was likely that Sahmarani was killed in Taamir with his body being placed inside the refugee camp, noting that he did not hear any gunshots in any area of Ain al-Hilweh. Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian Armed Struggle Mohammed Abdel Hamid Issa, known as al-Lino, told VDL that the situation in the camp is under control despite the security caution being exercised. He added that Sahmarani was forbidden from entering Ain al-Hilweh because he was wanted by the security forces, especially Fatah. The circumstances of his death are still unknown and the Palestinian Armed Struggle's investigations are underway, he stated. Al-Lino denied Fatah and his organization's involvement in the crimes, stressing that everyone was surprised by the discovery of the body. According to AFP, the corpse was transferred to a hospital in Sidon. It added that Sahramani was found with his hands tied with wires and with a gunshot wound to the mouth. Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 08:32

Houri: Lebanese Sides Have Very Little Information on Saudi-Syrian Initiative
Naharnet/MP Ammar Houri stated that the Saudi-Syrian initiative is aimed at building a "safety net" for the period following the released of the indictment, adding that details of the efforts are only available to those leading them. "I believe that the information available to the Lebanese sides is very very little," he told the Kuwaiti al-Rai in an interview published on Saturday.
"Abandoning the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the truth, and justice is out of the question and it isn't even being proposed," he said. "No one is capable of abandoning these central issues," he added.Houri stressed that the concessions are not being demanded by one camp for the interest of the other, but what is required are concessions for the national interest.
Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 14:24

Lebanese Judicial Source: We Have Not Received Any Information on a Spy Network
Naharnet/ The Lebanese judicial authorities are closely following up on the arrest of an Israeli spy in Egypt and his confessions that a similar spy network is functioning in Lebanon, a Lebanese judicial source said. He denied to the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat Saturday that the Lebanese had launched investigations over the possible spread of the network to Lebanon, saying: "Until now, we have not received any information from the Egyptian authorities on this matter, but we are expecting it any minute now."
He stressed that Lebanon is dealing with these developments very seriously, especially since the official Lebanese authorities succeeded in dismantling tens of spy networks in 2009 and 2010. A few days ago, Egypt announced that it had uncovered a network of Israeli spies that included an Egyptian businessman. Egyptian security authorities also arrested an Egyptian citizen, Tareq Abdel Razzaq, on charges of spying for Israel. His confessions helped uncover three networks working for Israeli intelligence. Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 10:29

Long Phone Call between Assad, Abdullah's Son over Lebanon
Naharnet/An informed source over the contacts between Riyadh and Damascus confirmed that consultations on Lebanon between the two sides are ongoing away from the spotlight.
It told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat Saturday that a long telephone call took place a few days ago between Saudi King Abdullah's advisor, his son Abdel Aziz bin Abdullah, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the situation in Lebanon. Beirut, 25 Dec 10, 10:38

Officials: Wanted Lebanese militant found dead
Published: 12.25.10, 11:42 / Israel News
Lebanese and Palestinian security officials say one of Lebanon's most wanted militants was found dead in a Palestinian refugee camp that is a hotbed of Islamic extremists.
The officials say Lebanese citizen Ghandi Sahmarani, better known as Abu Ramez Sahmarani, was found handcuffed, blindfolded and shot execution-style in the back of his head. (AP)

A Christmas of Mourning and Fear in Iraq
Posted GMT 12-24-2010 23:50:27
Assyrian International News
Christmas will take place here on an altar of grief. The faces of the dead, 53 in all, stare out from photographs into the cold congregation hall, its stone floors dimpled from explosions, its ceilings still splattered with blood.
Nearly two months after a shocking assault by Islamist militants, Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church will commemorate Christmas quietly, with daytime mass and prayers for the dead, under security fit more for a prison than a house of worship. It is the same at Christian churches across Baghdad and northern Iraq, where what's left of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prepares to mark perhaps the most somber Christmas since the start of the Iraq war.
"There is sorrow in our hearts," Syrian Catholic Archbishop Athanase Matti Shaba Matoka of Baghdad said Friday in his office next to the church, which was guarded by concrete blast walls and a phalanx of police. "It is only natural that we show that we are mourning for the victims that we lost."
What does one tell a congregation at a time like this? Matoka had written out his Christmas sermon by hand, in neat blue Arabic script that filled one side of a page and two-thirds of another. The message, he said, was about holding fast to faith in angels.
Yet the forces besieging Iraqi Christians seem to be more powerful. In a pile of papers on Matoka's desk, along with the sermon, was a letter he and other church leaders received by e-mail last week from the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida-linked militant organization that claimed responsibility for the church attack.
"Be prepared," the letter warned, "for a long, serious war that you cannot win."
Iraqi Christians trace their history to the first century after Jesus Christ, but their numbers have more than halved since the Saddam Hussein era, when there was upward of 1 million. The Oct. 31 assault on the church - in which five suicide bombers stormed Sunday mass, held parishioners hostage for four hours and finally detonated themselves in a gun-battle with Iraqi commandos - was the deadliest against Christians in memory, shocking a nation that had seen violence drop to its lowest levels since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Among the dead were two young priests, a 3-month-old child and a young woman who had been married barely one month. A picture of the woman in her wedding dress, smiling, is on the altar among the photographs of the deceased. While she was at mass, church members said, her husband was at her doctor's getting test results; she died before learning that she was pregnant.
In the following weeks, Christians were targeted and killed in their homes in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, a trading hub in ancient Mesopotamia known in the Bible as Nineveh. Last week, Amnesty International called on the Iraqi government to do more to protect Christians and other religious minorities.
The attacks have led to a new exodus of Christians to neighboring Jordan, Syria and Iraq's relatively safe northern Kurdistan region. The United Nations refugee agency said that more than 1,000 Christian families have arrived in Kurdistan since November, many after receiving direct threats.
In Mosul, Athraa Salam Slewa, 45, said that her family had rented a house in Kurdistan and would be moving there soon.
"There is no one that will protect us here. Even the government couldn't protect us," she said. "My only consolation is I have good Muslim neighbors who stood beside us in these difficult circumstances."
For Christians who've remained in their homes, the sight of their heavily fortified churches provides little comfort. Maher Mikha - who lives close enough to Our Lady of Salvation church that on the night of the siege his house shook and shrapnel landed at his doorstep - said that he would attend Christmas mass with mixed emotions.
"A house of God should be an open place," said Mikha, 46, sitting with his wife and three children in a small living room under a portrait of Jesus. "But now with all these walls and the military presence, if I enter there I feel like I'm entering a prison camp."
"And anyway," his wife Hannah interjected, "even with all those walls, we have seen that when evil men want to attack anywhere, it doesn't stop them."
Yet they refuse to leave Baghdad, even after their 13-year-old son snapped a picture of one of the suicide bomber's decapitated head with his cell phone (she made him delete it), and even after Hannah's brother and his family packed up for Kurdistan last month.
"This is our country; this is our land," she said. "Our grandfather's grandfather was born here. We cannot go anywhere else."
This is what Archbishop Matoka tells his flock: that Christianity has existed in Iraq since the first generation of its existence and that leaving one's home behind isn't easy. Yet most people don't ask the church's advice these days; they come with their minds made up, their bags packed, asking only for official documents and school reports to take with them.
His message on Christmas morning will be one of hope, but it wasn't clear how much of that even he had left after one of the most difficult periods of his five decades in the church. Asked if he believed that Christians would always have a place in Iraq, he uttered that most ubiquitous phrase in Iraq, used by Muslims and Christians alike: "Inshallah," which means, "God willing."
By Shashank Bengali
McClatchy Newspapers
Special correspondent Ali Abbas contributed from Mosul, Iraq.
© 2010, Assyrian International News Agency.

Iraqi Christians Lie Low on Christmas
GMT 12-24-2010 22:16:14
Assyrian International News Agency
BAGHDAD -- As they gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the congregation here first contemplated death, represented by a spare Christmas tree decked with paper stars, each bearing a photograph of a member of a nearby church killed in a siege by Islamic militants in October. The congregants on Friday night were fewer than 100, in a sanctuary built for four or five times as many. But they were determined. This year, even more than in the past, Iraqi's dwindling Christian minority had reasons to stay home for Christmas.
"Yes, we are threatened, but we will not stop praying," the Rev. Meyassr al-Qaspotros told the Christmas Eve crowd at the Sacred Church of Jesus, a Chaldean Catholic church. "We do not want to leave the country because we will leave an empty space."
He added: "Be careful not to hate the ones killing us because they know not what they are doing. God forgive them."
Throughout Iraq, churches canceled or toned down Christmas observances this year, both in response to threats of violence and in honor of the nearly 60 Christians killed in October, when militants stormed a Syrian Catholic church and blew themselves up. Since the massacre, more than 1,000 Christian families have fled Baghdad for the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, with others going to Jordan or Syria or Turkey. Though the exact size of Iraq's Christian population is unclear, by some estimates it has fallen to about 500,000 from a high of 1.4 million before the American-led invasion of 2003. Iraq's total population is about 30 million. This week, a new threat appeared on a Web site that said it represented the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant group that claimed responsibility for the October church siege. The Web site referred to a church in Egypt that it said was holding two women because they had converted to Islam, and vowed more carnage. "We swear to God, if there are only two of us left," the text read, "one of the two will keep fighting you."
Churches in Kirkuk, Mosul and Basra canceled or curtailed services for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and warned congregations not to hold parties or mount displays. In Baghdad, decorations were seen in stores, but many churches scaled back or held only prayer sessions.
While Our Lady of Salvation, the church attacked in October, was among those that canceled services for Christmas Eve, it planned to hold services on Saturday. The Epiphany Dominican Convent canceled midnight Mass and then early Mass on Christmas morning so worshipers could avoid risky travel at vulnerable times. During the week, the church moved one Mass to a convent, so the nuns would not have to travel in religious dress.
"People are lost," said the Rev. Rami Simon, one of five brothers at the convent. "They don't know where they live now. Is this Iraq?"
For those who dare to attend services, he said: "I say, you must accept to live like the first Christians. They celebrated in a cave, and no one knew about it. So we are not the first to live it."
But he added: "If I wasn't a priest, I would not stay one minute in Iraq. As a priest, I find myself a missionary in my country. And some stay because we are here."
At the Sacred Church of Jesus, attendance has dropped by half since October, Father Qaspotros said. He said he offered this reply to people who tell him they are afraid to come to church: "You are not supposed to be afraid. You are supposed to connect with God, and death is not the last step. If we die, we survive for God."
For Faez Shakur, 25, who attended Father Qaspotros's service on Christmas Eve, this was the message he took away. "Whenever there is disaster," he said, "it means a new day, a new life." When he saw the tree decorated with the faces of the dead, he cried, he said. But he was where he belonged, he said. "We don't have anything else," he said, "just to pray and continue."
By John Leland/New York Times/Copyright (C) 2010, Assyrian International News Agency.

Daniel Bellemare’s Christmas message
Michael Young, December 24, 2010
Now Lebanon/
We didn’t get draft indictments as a Christmas gift from Daniel Bellemare, the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), but we did get a video. In a document posted on the tribunal’s website, Bellemare once again insisted that his work was not politicized, and that his only guide was the evidence available to him.
However, plainly there are others in Beirut and elsewhere in the Middle East who now view the tribunal as a political bargaining chip. Day in and day out, the prime minister, Saad Hariri, is pushed to deny or play down some media report or other claiming that he has given up on the institution, or is about to do so. Here is a sure sign that the haggling is continuing between the Syrians and the Saudis to finalize a formula that would end the Lebanese impasse over the tribunal.
These developments beg the question: Is there a political understanding that can be reached between the Lebanese, the Syrians and the Saudis that might undermine the special tribunal? The question was at the heart of several notable pronouncements this week. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed all eventual decisions taken by the tribunal as “null and void.” The Syrian ambassador in Beirut, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, after saying that Syrian-Saudi contacts were continuing, added, “[but] the results should come from the parties in Lebanon through the responsiveness and consensus they reach between themselves, away from the media.”
An unidentified US official told Lebanese daily Al-Hayat in comments published on Thursday that Washington had received no news of a Syrian-Saudi deal, but added that if such a deal were reached at the tribunal’s expense, it would constitute “blackmail.” The official observed that the tribunal was “an international mechanism that could not be eliminated or subjected to political bargaining,” before pointedly describing it as “Lebanon’s best hope to garner international support to transcend its tragic and bloody history of political violence.”
The statements from the US official seemed an implicit warning to the Saudis, based on the fear that some arrangement was being negotiated. Nor would the statement this week by Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad have reassured Washington. Raad said his party would be willing to compromise in the “false witnesses” dispute, after he confirmed Syrian-Saudi efforts to resolve the political deadlock.
What does all this mean? If the Americans are subtly raising the heat against their allies in Beirut and Riyadh, that may imply they smell a rat. That Mohammad Raad has offered to be flexible might be a signal that progress is being made between Syria and Saudi Arabia, explaining why Hezbollah is willing to offer concessions of its own to find a consensus – the same consensus the Syrian ambassador has urged the Lebanese to achieve through compromise. Or this brouhaha could be maneuvering because Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has left hospital, and all sides expect Syrian-Saudi negotiations to resume in earnest.
The bottom line, however, is that Bellemare’s assurances that the tribunal is not politicized does not signify that politics cannot get the better of the court. Lebanon will try to avoid taking the drastic measures required to cripple the tribunal – withdrawing the Lebanese judges, cutting funding and cooperation, and denouncing the institution as politicized — since the international repercussions would be severe. But even lesser measures agreed between the Lebanese parties under foreign sponsorship, for example casting doubt on essential aspects of the tribunal’s work, could hinder the trial process.
For instance, once the trial begins, the willingness of new witnesses to come forward and the readiness of the Lebanese security forces to arrest suspects, uncover new leads, or simply assist tribunal investigators when interviewing witnesses, will be substantially shaped by the prevailing mood among the Lebanese authorities. If the government appears increasingly lukewarm to tribunal affairs, this would have a negative bearing on how the Lebanese respond to the possibilities opened up by the new dynamics the trial will release.
It’s no great secret what serious Syrian-Saudi negotiations represent to each side. The Saudis hope to strengthen Damascus’ power in Lebanon to better contain Iran and Hezbollah. The Syrians want that too, of course, and something substantial from Saad Hariri in the way of denting the tribunal’s integrity. Hezbollah has demanded the same, in exchange for unblocking the cabinet. Damascus and Riyadh may fail to come to an accord, one that Iran must first approve anyway for it to work, but there is little doubt what the bottom line is for each side.
Daniel Bellemare should be conscious of what is taking place around him. No one can blame the prosecutor for avoiding political skirmishing; his focus is on the legal dimensions of his case. But given a happening as fundamentally political as the Hariri assassination, the prosecutor cannot be blind to politics. To strengthen his hand, he will have to help ensure that Beirut remains squarely on the tribunal’s side.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and author of the recent The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle (Simon & Schuster).

Mohammad Fneish
December 24, 2010
The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) carried the following report on December 23, 2010:
The Lebanese University organized today a celebration to unveil a statue commemorating the martyrs among the Lebanese University students, who died while standing up to Israel during the 2006 July War.
During the ceremony, Minister of State for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish said, “Regardless of what is said about the July war and its causes, it has become clear, after secrets were exposed and documents published, that it was a war launched by Israel and its administration and extended by the previous American administration to eliminate the resistance and cancel its role, in preparation for transforming Lebanon into a key part of their project for the Middle East… It is no longer a secret that those martyrs and their brothers who have passed away have achieved a divine and resonating victory that led to the changing of the equations in the Middle East and in Lebanon.
Among the most beneficial consequences of our victory in the July war, is that once again the Resistance showed our human values and our capabilities and superiority in the conflict with the enemy, not only based on will and faith, but also on knowledge and science and the ability to use them. Moreover, just like the Resistance toppled the legend of the ‘invincible army,’ it also toppled the saying according to which people in our nation and our Arab countries are backward in comparison with the people of the advanced states, or that the Zionist people are differently constituted. This false saying aims at breaking our will and at spreading despair and frustration toward the possibility of regaining our rights and defending our wealth, freedom and sovereignty.
The Resistance never had a project of its own far from its national belonging and the requirements of identity and belonging. It never sought personal interests, positions or gains, since nothing in this world can compare to one drop of blood shed by a martyr, the moaning of one distraught mother or the pain of someone wounded. We do not need anyone to testify to our patriotism. Indeed, the hundreds of martyrs and wounded that were offered, the liberation of the land and the defeat of the aggression are – in all modesty – the standards of patriotism, not the weakening of the nation and the staging of political games to serve personal interests, even if at the expense of the country’s fate and identity. What the resistance is facing today in terms of attempts to disfigure its image through a collapsing indictment and a tribunal whose credibility has been disproved, is a continuation of that war that aimed at ending the Resistance and cancelling its role. The fate of this targeting will not be any different to that of the failed July war.
Our concern for justice and truth is the motive behind our position in regard to the use of the tribunal and the international investigation as a political tool to allow the American administration to slander the resistance’s image, describe it as being a terrorist organization and use these international institutions to trigger strife between the people of our nation and inside Lebanon. Our insistence on seeing the transfer of the false witnesses file to the Judicial Council, falls in the context of the efforts to reach the truth and expose the falsifiers and misleaders who distanced the
investigation from the right track and fabricated accusations.
Justice and truth are our goal and not the frameworks that are made by and subjected to the influence of the major states and the political calculations. The accusations of obstruction made to our political team will not change reality because this accusation is cast against those issuing it and who are refusing to settle the false witnesses file despite its importance and recognition. They are the ones violating the constitutional mechanisms and stipulations and causing the obstruction of the cabinet.
“The positive signs being leaked regarding progress at the level of the Saudi-Syrian effort should be dealt with and interacted with to reach an understanding that would spare the country from disputes and block the way before those lurking our security, stability and domestic peace… In the presence of this effort that is supported by the main Arab and Islamic countries, the opportunity must be seized and we must not waste time on wagers or on seeking foreign pressures and local alliances. The time has come to turn the page of sedition, divergences and sectarian and denominational tensions. The time has come for a new stage in which we could enhance our stability and restore a sound political life based on competitiveness and visions, not on rivalries and stirring sensitivities. The time has come to stop attacking the Resistance and the Resistance fighters, since political divergences should not be used to undermine the pillars of the country’s strength and the safety of its soil.”

Arab World: Hizbullah’s throne of bayonets
By JONATHAN SPYER
12/24/2010 16:30
J.Post
Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis is still highly agitated despite doubts that indictments by UN tribunal investigating Hariri's murder can be enforced.
Talkbacks (1)
It is obvious that given the true balance of power in Lebanon, the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is largely a virtual exercise. As Michael Young pointed out in a column in the Beirut Daily Star this week, tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is currently on his end of year vacation and left without submitting draft indictments. This means that indictments cannot be issued before mid-January at the earliest.
Once they are issued, they will not be made public, but rather will be subject to the perusal of a pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen. This process is likely to take up to a further two months, meaning that the very earliest a trial could begin would be late March or April.
At that point, if Hizbullah members are indicted, the movement will declare its nonrecognition of the court, and in real world terms, that is likely to be that.
But if this is the case, and it is, why is the Iran/Syria/Hizbullah camp so clearly jittery and worried by the events surrounding the tribunal? Why the wishful thinking in the newspapers evident this week, when the pro-Hizbullah Al-Diyar published a statement by Saad Hariri apparently abandoning the tribunal, which turned out to be entirely fictional?
More importantly, why the stark and repeated threats from Hizbullah and Iranian officials regarding the consequences if the Tribunal is not abandoned?
Hizbullah this week reiterated its promise to “cut off the hand” of anyone trying to arrest members of the movement. Many analysts saw the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon as an act of preemptive intimidation. He was reminding Hizbullah’s opponents just how strong it is, and just how determined its backers.
Even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei descended this week from his lofty heights to issue a fatwa regarding the tribunal. “This tribunal is receiving orders from elsewhere,” he said in a meeting with the emir of Qatar, before pronouncing “any ruling it hands down” as “null and void.”
Hizbullah immediately hailed his words, interpreting them in the most unambiguous terms as supporting its war to the end on the tribunal. A Hizbullah MP, Walid Sucarieh, said that the statement was meant to “tell those who seek strife through the indictment: stay right there. We won’t stand idle while the fire is burning our homes.”
SO WHAT is the reason for the very obvious concern of the pro-Iranian axis regarding the tribunal, even though there is no way that its indictments or rulings can be enforced?
Firstly, it is important to differentiate in this regard between the stances of Syria on the one hand, and Iran and Hizbullah on the other.
The Iran-Syria alliance serves the purposes of both parties and is in no danger of fraying. This does not mean, however, that the interests of the parties are at all times identical.
Syria is currently engaged in a convoluted diplomatic process with Saudi Arabia to try to find a solution on the issue of the tribunal. The Syrians hope to make diplomatic gains by playing all sides against the middle, in their usual fashion.
The indications are that Syria itself has nothing to fear from the indictments, despite the near certainty that its officials were involved in the murder of Hariri, even if Hizbullah men were contracted to carry out the deed. Syria stands to pay no price. It looks likely to continue to be aligned with Iran, and courted by the West and the Arab states whatever the outcome of the tribunal issue.
But the serious project under way in Lebanon is not that of the Syrians.
Hizbullah is a long-term project undertaken by the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the intention of generating legitimacy and popularity for Teheran by engaging in a never-ending war with Israel.
For this purpose, Iran established Hizbullah, and has over time built it into a political-military juggernaut of a potency rarely seen in the Arabic-speaking world.
Hizbullah today is the de facto dominant force in Lebanon.
But to serve its purpose for its creator, it is not enough for Hizbullah merely to be powerful. A Hizbullah which dominates Lebanon through pure coercion cannot play the role intended for it by its patron. It must also appear legitimate.
That is to say, to perform its task for its Iranian masters, Hizbullah must appear to be simultaneously Shi’ite and pro-Iranian, but also authentically Arab. It must be seen as the sole force able to make Arab dreams of victory over Israel once more look feasible. The Hariri tribunal in no way offers a threat to the real power of Hizbullah.
The movement can defeat any combination of its domestic opponents, if it comes to a fight.
But if such a fight takes place, even though Hizbullah would win it, the ambiguity regarding its true nature would be gone. It would be revealed as a powerful, alien force, made possible by the money and guns of non- Arab Iran, and holding power purely by coercion. It is for this reason that Hizbullah has been so desperate to change the subject back to Israel in recent weeks.
In this way, it hopes to portray the part of its identity which the Arab world finds attractive – the “resistance” – as opposed to the part that threatens to be revealed by the tribunal indictments – the alien, Shi’ite, Iran-created force.
The latest events in Lebanon thus help to lay bare the contradictions of the Iranian project in the region. This means nothing in power terms. Hizbullah still dominates.
Its local opponents remain disarmed and helpless.
But it apparently matters enough to Iran and its local proxy to cause them to mobilize the heavyweights to stop the tribunal in its tracks.
So it remains likely that the special tribunal on Lebanon will be the proverbial mountain that gives birth to a mouse. But careful observation of the current events surrounding it show the inherent limitations of Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran’s ambition to emerge as the dominant force in the region. As former Russian president Boris Yeltsin once put it in a rare moment of clarity, “You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.”
**The writer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, Herzliya.