LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJune 30/2010

Bible Of the Day
Isaiah 10/15-19/Bragging of king of Assyria
10:15 Should an axe brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood. 10:16 Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire. 10:17 The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day. 10:18 He will consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body. It will be as when a standard bearer faints. 10:19 The remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few, so that a child could write their number

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Despite Turkey's creeping Islamic revolution, it is no Iran/By Shlomo Ben-Ami/June 29/10
Firmly behind Israel/By STEVE ROTHMAN/ June 29/10
Lebanon: Nobody's There…Don't Call/By Hussein Shobokshi/June 29/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 29/10
Aoun: The Scattering of Palestinians throughout Lebanese Territories Eliminates Their Cause/Naharnet
N. Korea Angrily Rejects G8 Condemnation over Ship/Naharnet
PLO Envoy Urges Lebanese Unity on Refugee Rights/Naharnet
Residents Protest Passing of UNIFIL Patrols by Blocking Roads, Hurling Stones/Naharnet
Israel Controls Lebanese Telecoms, Says Hizbullah's Fadlallah/Naharnet
Berri from Syria: We Wonder at Uproar Made over an Abducted Israeli while an Entire People are Abducted and No One Lifts a Finger/Naharnet
ISF Urges Citizens to be Civilized, Says Will Not be Lax over Celebratory World Cup Gunfire/Naharnet
Lebanon might ask UNIFIL to control its waters to protect oil drilling/Now Lebanon
Man Arrested for Provocative Fliers in Sidon/Naharnet
Zahle explosion and Saida pamphlet cases resolved/Now Lebanon
'Strike on Iran destabilizing'/By JERUSALEM POST STAFF AND AP
Turkish Airspace Closed to Israel/AP
Lebanon arrests three for alleged Facebook defamation of Sleiman/AFP
Hezbollah: Israel policy prevents talks/Washington Times
Hezbollah not interested in dialogue with US/The Associated Press
As war fears mount, Lebanese hunt spies/UPI.com
Lebanon eyes offshore drilling/UPI.com
Our World: Alternatives to surrender/Jerusalem Post
Hezbollah: Israel policy prevents talks/Washington Times
Cuba's Castro meets with Syrian President Assad/The Associated Press
Suspects in Zahle explosion questioned by army/Daily Star
Alfa exec leaked sensitive data to Mossad - report/Daily Star
De Freij Calls for Oil Law Not Tainted by Errors/Naharnet
Qahwaji Calls for Army Vigilance to Prevent Israeli Penetration after Arrest of Alfa Spy/Naharnet
Zahle Explosion: Deliberate Fire, Sfeir Not the Target/Naharnet
Mottaki Thanks Lebanon for its Stance on U.N. Sanctions Against Iran/Naharnet
Controversy over $23 Million U.S. Assistance Package to LAF
6,945 Violations Since Adoption of 1701: Lebanon Urges World to Stop Israeli Threats/Naharnet
Hizbullah's Moussawi: USAID One of CIA Recruitment Fronts, U.S. Systematically Promoting Drugs in Lebanon//Naharnet
Phalange Party Decries 'Mentality' Tackling Oil Issue, Says Way of Tackling Palestinians Rights 'Taking Challenge Trait'/Naharnet
 

Lebanon might ask UNIFIL to control its waters to protect oil drilling
June 29, 2010
An-Nahar newspaper quoted an unnamed source on Tuesday as saying that the Lebanese government might ask the UN to permit UNIFIL to control Lebanese territorial waters in order to allow Lebanon to explore for oil and gas. So far, neither Lebanon nor Israel presented to the United Nations documents showing the dividing line between their territorial waters and international waters, the paper reported. The source said that Israel might have trespassed Lebanon’s territorial waters, adding that this means Beirut should present documentation to the UN of its territorial waters. This comes as Lebanon’s joint parliamentary committees met on Monday to discuss a proposal for oil and gas exploration in Lebanese waters amid Israel’s threat to use force to protect its gas fields from Lebanon. Last week, Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau as saying his country will not hesitate to use force to protect its gas fields from Lebanon. The Israeli threat comes after Speaker Nabih Berri earlier this month urged the cabinet to start exploring its offshore natural gas reserves, adding that the Jewish state would claim the resources otherwise.-NOW Lebanon

Zahle explosion and Saida pamphlet cases resolved
June 29, 2010
The LAF arrested yesterday a suspect on charges of distributing anti-Christian pamphlets in Saida and said investigations show arson is the reason behind the June 19 Zahle explosion.
According to An-Nahar newspaper, the Lebanese army arrested yesterday at midnight Mahmoud Rida B. on charges of distributing anti-Christian pamphlets in eastern Saida last week.
Pamphlets were distributed warning Christian residents to evacuate their homes and leave the area within a week.  The suspect confessed to the crime and said it was out of revenge, reported the daily, adding he was running for the 2010 Mukhtar elections in Saida’s Mar Nicolas neighborhood but was asked by an unnamed party to withdraw from the race in order to secure the victory of a Catholic candidate.
Also, the Lebanese army issued a statement on Monday that investigations show that arson is the reason behind the explosion in Zahle on June 19 on the eve of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir’s historic visit to the city. This comes after one man was killed and another was wounded in the Zahle incident, which media outlets reported was caused by a bomb explosion. No explosive device was found in the vicinity of where the alleged bomb was supposed to have been, the statement added.
However, according to the National News Agency (NNA), four men were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the June 19 explosion.
In more news, Al-Manar television on Monday quoted an anonymous security source as saying that the questioning of an Alfa cellular company employee—identified as Charbel K.— suspected of espionage is still in its initial stages. The source said that “the investigation will take its time, since the agent is extremely dangerous,” and that the investigation was seeking to determine whether he was part of a wider network.
As-Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday that Charbel K. confessed to planting electronic chips in the Alfa stations.
Meanwhile, NOW Lebanon’s correspondent has reported that there was a positive atmosphere at Monday’s joint meeting of parliamentary committees chaired by Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the bill on oil and gas drilling presented to parliament last week by Development and Liberation bloc MP Ali Hassan Khalil.
No disputes occurred and no MPs withdrew from the session. The session’s discussion approved the first clause of Khalil’s proposed oil exploration law and postponed discussion of the remaining clauses to July 12.-NOW Lebanon

Residents Protest Passing of UNIFIL Patrols by Blocking Roads, Hurling Stones
Angry residents on Tuesday blocked Adeisseh-Kfar Kila road in southern Lebanon and hurled stones at a U.N. vehicle in Khirbit Selim to protest passing of UNIFIL patrols.
Naharnet/Responding to calls made over the loudspeakers, the locals gathered outside Adeisseh's main square, protesting against what they called "maneuvers" by Spanish peacekeepers around their village. Media reports said Lebanese managed to reopen the road several hours later. They said similar demonstrations took place in Khirbit Selim where residents gathered in the main square demanding an end to UNFIL patrols inside their village. Meanwhile, at Tibnin-Kfardounine-Bir Salasel road junction, residents took to the streets, hurling stones at an armored vehicle manned by French U.N. troops. The APC's windshield was shattered and U.N. troops were forced to leave. Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 12:38

Israel Controls Lebanese Telecoms, Says Hizbullah's Fadlallah
Naharnet/Hizbullah MP Hasan Fadlallah on Tuesday accused Israel of having control over Lebanon's telecommunications sector after an employee at a mobile phone network was arrested on suspicion of spying for the Mossad. "Israel has managed to seize technical control of the telecommunications network and to harm national security thanks to information provided by the collaborator over past years," Fadlallah told a news conference. Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahhas told Agence France Presse on Sunday that security services last week arrested a technician working for Alfa, a mobile telephone network, suspected of spying for Israel. Nahhas said authorities had launched an investigation into the suspect's possible collaboration with Israel. "This is an Israeli collaborator who has been active since 1996 and who for 14 years has been giving the enemy vital information on Lebanese communications and security," Fadlallah said. Fadlallah, who heads parliament's information and telecommunications committee, said the suspect helped provide Israeli intelligence with unrestrained access to all phone calls on the Alfa network. He urged the government to take "immediate action to assess the damage and take necessary action" to ensure the security of Lebanon's telecommunications sector against any further Israeli interference. Lebanese authorities have arrested more than 70 people since launching a major crackdown in April 2009 against suspected Israeli spy networks, including a number of high-profile arrests of security force members. Israel has not commented on the arrests. Lebanon and Israel remain technically in a state of war, and convicted spies face life in prison with hard labor or the death penalty if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.(AFP) Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 17:26

Aoun: The Scattering of Palestinians throughout Lebanese Territories Eliminates Their Cause
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stressed on Tuesday granting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon their rights, but noted that this requires funds that are unavailable.
Naharnet/He added after the FPM's weekly meeting that they cannot be granted right of ownership in Lebanon, and said that houses for Palestinians should be built in refugee camps, similar to those that were constructed at the Nahr al-Bared camp.The MP stressed: "We cannot scatter the refugees throughout the Lebanese territories because if they lose their communication then they will lose their cause."He said however that the Palestinians should be able to work in Lebanon, adding: "Those who speak of Lebanese discrimination against the Palestinians have no value and neither do their statements."Addressing recent developments in Lebanon, Aoun noted: "I was surprised with the arrest of the youths who had attacked the President on Facebook."Turning to the recent discovery of a spy within a Lebanese mobile network, the MP said that the United States is aiming to legally acquire the information that spy Charbel Qazzi was going to transfer to Israel. Aoun also stated: "The international community and all its intelligence capabilities that support the armies represented in UNIFIL were unable to solve the assassinations that took place because the judge investigating them is behind them." Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 18:19

PLO Envoy Urges Lebanese Unity on Refugee Rights
Naharnet/The representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon on Tuesday urged consensus among Lebanese parties on granting basic rights to hundreds of thousands of refugees living in decrepit camps across the country. "We want our rights, but not if they are supported by one Lebanese party yet opposed by another," Abdullah Abdullah told a news conference in Beirut. "We only want our rights with Lebanese consensus." Abdullah said he hoped a growing debate among Lebanese parliamentarians would result in agreement on granting refugees the right to medical care, employment and owning property. "Lebanon grants 136,000 foreigners working permits per year, and only 261 of them are Palestinian," he said, adding that Palestinians were not competing with the Lebanese for employment but with other foreigners. The press conference, organized by the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee and Prime Minister Saad Hariri's office, came amid heated debate on the fate of Palestinians who live in 12 impoverished, overpopulated camps. More than 6,000 refugees gathered on Sunday outside U.N. headquarters in Beirut to demand basic rights, as parliament readies for a session on granting Palestinian civil rights next month. Armed Palestinians played a major role in the outbreak of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, which initially pitted Palestinians and leftists against rightwing Christians. By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the camps, leaving security inside in the hands of Palestinian factions. The destitute camps are also widely viewed as a hideout for extremists and fugitives. Two decades after the end of the war, the Lebanese are divided on the fate of the refugees. Mainly Muslim parties call for broader civil rights while Christians insist on guarantees that the move would not be a step toward permanent resettlement. Many argue that the resettlement of mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinians would tip the fragile demographic balance in the country.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) lists almost 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a country of four million inhabitants.
But Lebanese and Palestinian officials say the actual number may be as low as 250,000 as UNRWA does not strike off its list those who move to other countries.
Under Lebanese law, Palestinian refugees may not own property or hold most white collar jobs -- such as in medicine, engineering, law and architecture -- and are stuck in low-paid employment. They are also denied social security and medical aid in state hospitals.(AFP) Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 18:48

2 Wounded by Celebratory Gunshots in Aftermath of Brazil's Win against Chile
Naharnet/Two people were wounded by celebratory gunshots in the aftermath of Brazil's win against Chile, Police Chief Gen. Ashraf Rifi said. Brazil routed South American rival Chile 3-0 on Monday night to advance to the quarterfinals. "Citizens of these countries do not do so in their own countries," Rifi argued in remarks published Tuesday by Al-Akhbar newspaper. Policemen had been instructed to crack down hard on such violations, he said. Rifi, however, stressed that the withdrawal of firearms requires a political decision. "The question is not in police hands. Police cannot enter citizens' homes and pull weapons. This requires a political decision," Rifi explained. Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 09:01

Suleiman Lauds Arrest of Spy, Man who Distributed Fliers in Sidon
Naharnet/President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday lauded the Lebanese army for arresting an employee with a mobile network operator accused of spying for Israel.
Suleiman said in a statement that the seizure of Alfa's Charbel Qazzi was part of a series of arrests that the army made in uncovering cells spying for Israel's Mossad. The president also lauded the arrest of Mahmoud Bizri for distributing provocative fliers in the southern port city of Sidon. Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 14:40

Army Intelligence Arrests Syrian for Assaulting Minor
Naharnet/The Lebanese Army Intelligence arrested on Tuesday a Syrian for assaulting a minor in the southern town of Hanawey, the National News Agency reported.
NNA said the army arrested A.A., 26, after he assaulted 10-year-old A.K. The suspect admitted to committing the crime and several other robberies, the agency added.
Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 11:48

Man Arrested for Provocative Fliers in Sidon
Naharnet/A Lebanese man was arrested overnight for distributing provocative fliers in the southern port city of Sidon. Local media on Tuesday said Lebanese intelligence arrested Mahmoud Rida B. who confessed that he distributed the fliers east of Sidon last week. The daily Al-Liwaa gave the suspect's full name, identifying him as Mahmoud Rida Bizri.
The fliers had given Christians living in villages east of Sidon a one-week ultimatum to leave their homes. Lebanese security forces deployed en masse in Sidon last Tuesday following the threatening fliers.Bizri said his move came in retaliation for being forced to withdraw in favor of a Catholic candidate in the June municipal elections upon request from a political party. Beirut, 29 Jun 10, 07:12

'Strike on Iran destabilizing'
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF AND AP
A military strike against Iran would be "incredibly destabilizing" to the region said the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen. He believes Iran will continue to pursue nuclear weapons, even if sanctions against the country are increased.
Speaking Monday at the Aspen Security Forum, Adm. Mike Mullen said it would be "incredibly dangerous" for Iran to achieve nuclear weapons, and that there's "no reason to trust" Iran's assurances that it is only pursuing a peaceful nuclear program, especially after the discovery of a secret nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom.
The admiral was responding to questions about whether he shared the assessment of CIA Director Leon Panetta, who said on Sunday that Iran likely has enough nuclear material to make two weapons, but is at least a year away from being able to carry that out. The UN Security Council approved new sanctions against Iran earlier this month. Congress and the European Union followed with additional measures aimed at discouraging Iran from continuing its uranium enrichment program, which they fear could be used to produce a nuclear weapon.
Mullen said there was no reason to expect Iran to conform to international norms, given its past behavior, but he declined to describe what measures the US was considering. He has often said that all options remain on the table.He explained that the hardest part about trying to decide what to do about Iran is how much the US does not know about the country's nuclear progress.When asked whether he thought Israel would give the United States time to see whether tougher sanctions or talks would produce more cooperation from Iran, he would only say that he believes the US and Israel are "in sync" with their current policies.
In a sign of warm ties between the IDF and the United States military, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen declared Sunday during a visit to Tel Aviv that he always tries to view the regional threats from an Israeli perspective.Mullen landed in Israel early Sunday morning for a brief stopover on his way back to the US from visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mullen met at length with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin.
Ashkenazi thanked Mullen – who was on his fourth visit to Israel – for promoting the ties between the US military and the IDF.
“I consider him a personal friend when it comes issues pertaining to Israel‚s security,” Ashkenazi said.
Mullen said that his meetings in Israel were of immense importance.

Lebanon arrests three for alleged Facebook defamation of Sleiman
By Agence France Presse (AFP) /Tuesday, June 29, 2010
BEIRUT : Lebanon arrested on Monday three people who allegedly used the social networking website Facebook to slander President Michel Sleiman, a judicial source said. “General prosecutor Saeed Mirza ordered the arrest of Naim George Hanna, 27, Antoine Youssef Ramia, 29, and Shebel Rajeh Qasab, 27, after authorities interrogated them on charges of libel, slander and defamation against the president on Facebook,“ the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. Mirza also issued a warrant for the arrest of a fourth Lebanese, Ahmad Ali Shuman, on the same charges. By law, Lebanon’s general prosecutor must take action in any case of libel, slander or defamation against the president or any “sister state” of Lebanon regardless of whether a plaintiff comes forward to press charges. The Justice Ministry said the case met the requirements for a defamation lawsuit, adding “media freedom in Lebanon and any civilized country reaches its limits when the content is pure slander and aims at undermining the head of state. “The inappropriate comments published on websites are subject to prosecution and punishment as they meet the requirements for litigation as stipulated in the media law and penal code,” the statement said. The original posts were not accessible on Monday.

Hezbollah: Israel policy prevents talks
Senior leader: America acting as 'troublemaker'; behavior 'has to change'
By Benjamin Birnbaum
Monday, June 28, 2010/Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/28/hezbollah-leader-rebuffs-us-talks/
A senior Hezbollah leader in Lebanon has flatly rejected the idea of talking to Washington unless it revamps its Middle East policy, which his group says unfairly favors Israel.
"There is an American behavior that has to change first, and then we can discuss the possibility of a dialogue," the organization's deputy chief, Sheik Naim Qassem, told the Associated Press on Monday. The Hezbollah official was dismissing suggestions from former and current U.S. officials about engaging the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite group, designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.
"America is playing the role of troublemaker in the region," Mr. Qassem said. He added that his group is preparing for war with Israel "as if it is happening tomorrow," though he said Lebanon's "devastating defeat" in the 2006 war with the Jewish state made the prospect less likely.
While official U.S. policy remains non-engagement, John O. Brennan, deputy White House national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, stoked speculation of a shift last month when he said the U.S. should seek to strengthen Hezbollah's "moderate elements."
In addition, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker this month told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he thinks the U.S. would gain from opening communication with Hezbollah, which participates in Lebanese politics while maintaining an independent militia with de-facto control over the country's largely Shi'ite south.
"We cannot mess with our adversary's mind if we are not talking to him," he said. "Hezbollah is a part of the Lebanese political landscape, and we should deal with it directly."
So far, administration officials have struck down rumors of any imminent opening to the group.
"Our policy is non-engagement with Hezbollah, for all the reasons you know, and I don't anticipate that policy changing," said Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, in the same hearing in which Mr. Crocker aired his views.
The reasons for the non-engagement policy with Hezbollah include its vow to destroy Israel, its status as an Iranian proxy and its smuggling of rockets through the Syrian border in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions before and after the 2006 war.
But Mr. Feltman, among others, allowed for the possibility that the policy could change should Hezbollah become "a normal part of the political fabric" in Lebanon.
That prospect seems distant, with Hezbollah offering few signs that it intends to relinquish its arsenal or its authority over the south, and Mr. Qassem's comments reflect his group's confidence. "He's turning down an offer that wasn't made," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign policy and defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute. "They are a terrorist group, they wish to remain committed to terrorism, and it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody — including John Brennan — that they would have nothing to say to us."
Others concur with Mr. Crocker that it would be mistaken to discount the possibility of productive talks with Hezbollah, while acknowledging that comments like Mr. Qassem's sap any American appetite for such an exchange. "Hezbollah's policy of non-engagement is as unproductive as America's policy of non-engagement," said Steve Clemons, director of the New America Foundation's American Strategy Program. "With statements like this, it only adds to the gridlock and the tension. It's the kind of statement we've seen before, but it's the kind of statement they accuse the U.S. of making."

Lebanon: Nobody's There…Don't Call
28/06/2010
By Hussein Shobokshi
As if domestic Lebanese troubles and disputes were not enough, the Lebanese know how to add new problems to their lives and increase the number of people who are angry at them! The latest group of people to join this illustrious list are the Sudanese. Arabs unanimously agree that the Sudanese are a kind and peaceful people, and there are a considerable number of Sudanese people living in Lebanon, working respectably and efficiently in various fields there. These are fields that the Lebanese have abandoned, passing them onto others at a time when Lebanon is suffering from unemployment and a lack of job opportunities. In the past few days, the Lebanese police arrested a group of Sudanese migrant workers, and news has been leaked that these Sudanese workers were treated harshly by those who arrested them.
This news resulted in a series of accusations and condemnations from the Sudanese, with some Lebanese people demanding that the government and security apparatus issue a formal apology to the migrant workers in question. The Lebanese government initially offered excuses saying that it must first investigate the incident in order to confirm what really happened, although the government later came out refusing to apologize.
This new scene in this Lebanese drama took place following discussions regarding sending a Gaza-bound aid ship from Lebanon to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in a "time-honored" scene where some rivals are attempting to adopt the idea [of breaking the blockade] and politically exploit this, while others are seeking to renounce this and avoid its political consequences. However considering the fact that this is the season of over-exaggeration with regards to support for Gaza, why isn't everybody participating in this? This is the situation surrounding the aid ship that is bound for Gaza, however the Lebanese seem to have forgotten about the Gaza that exists in their midst, namely the Palestinian refugee camps that are filled with misery.
Humanitarian cases that are difficult to describe are being completely ignored by charitable institutes, religious organizations, and spiritual leaders. This is something that was made abundantly clear in the statement made by the leader of the Lebanese Maronite Church, Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir in response to a question about the condition of the Palestinians in Lebanon and why they are not provided with assistance in order to improve the quality of life within the Palestinian camps. Sfeir answered by saying that Lebanon hardly fits its own population.
Lebanon is indeed a country of wonders! However complains of migrant workers being mistreated is not something limited to the Lebanese, but also Ethiopians, other African countries, Sri Lankans, Egyptians, and Syrians, have also faced similar accusations. So of course the Lebanese are not the only ones who have contrived to treat others badly, this is a defect that different Middle Eastern countries share, and is something that reflects an imbalance between regimes and laws that need to be activated and applied on the ground. However the Lebanese case remains interesting due to the fragility and vulnerability of Lebanese society. I do not know the future of the Lebanese service and tourist industries (which the Lebanese are extremely proud of today) if the third world migrant workers abandon it! These workers are employed in offices, kitchens, gas stations, storehouses, warehouses, garages, and other fields that the Lebanese no longer consent to work in. This is something that would result in these industries declining, or perhaps even being destroyed. The Sudanese workers crisis, and the Lebanese government's mishandling of this, is unacceptable for a country that has always boasted of its liberties and civil rights. I wonder if these migrant workers would have received the same treatment if they were from France, Canada, or Italy? Therefore, this is my advice to the Sudanese brothers; change your nationality in Lebanon to Ukrainian, and you will see the difference.

Report: Turkish Airspace Closed to Israel
28/06/2010
ANKARA, Turkey, (AP) – Turkey has closed its airspace to Israeli military flights following a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Turkish prime minister and officials said Monday.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Toronto that Turkey imposed the ban after the May 31 raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a six-vessel international aid flotilla, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency. The prime minister, who is in Canada to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations, did not elaborate.
On Sunday, Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Turkey had not allowed a plane carrying Israeli military officers, en route to a tour of memorial sites in Auschwitz, Poland, to fly over Turkish airspace.
The transport plane, with more than 100 commissioned and noncommissioned officers on board, was forced to make a detour, the paper said.
The Israeli military "refrained from responding officially to the event so not to exacerbate the rift in relations," the newspaper added.
A Turkish government official said the ban was for Israeli military flights and that commercial flights were not affected. It was not a blanket ban and each flight request would be assessed case-by-case, the official added. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules that bar officials from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.
The Israeli prime minister's office had no comment on Erdogan's statements.
Eight Turks and a Turkish-American were killed in the raid that drew Turkish outrage and widespread international condemnation.
The aid ships were sailing to Gaza to break an Israeli blockade that it said it imposed to keep weapons and other military components out of the hands of Gaza militants who have attacked Israel with bombs, rockets and mortars for years. Israel insists troops involved in the deadly raid acted in self-defense after being attacked by some of the activists on board.
Turkey, which had a close alliance with Israel until the three-week Gaza war, which ended in early 2009, withdrew its ambassador and canceled joint military drills in response to the raid. It has said it will not return its ambassador and will reduce military and trade ties unless Israel apologizes for the raid. It also wants Israel to return the seized aid ships, agree to an international investigation and offer compensation for the victims. "Up to now, we have done whatever is necessary within the rules of law — whether national or international — and we will continue to do so," Anatolia quoted Erdogan as saying, adding that ties with Israel could return to normal if the Jewish state meets Turkey's demands. "We are not interested in making a show. We don't desire such a thing and we have been very patient in the face of these developments," he said, according to Anatolia. Israel has objected to an international inquiry into the operation and has set up its own

Suspects in Zahle explosion questioned by army
By The Daily Star
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
BEIRUT : The Lebanese Army intelligence unit completed its interrogation of the men arrested on suspicion of involvement in the June 19 explosion in the Bekaa town of Zahle. “Investigations revealed that no military explosives were found at the scene and the fire that erupted was caused deliberately,” the intelligence department said in a statement issued on Monday. It added that on June 26, the suspects were referred to the concerned judicial authorities to continue the investigation. – The Daily Star

Alfa exec leaked sensitive data to Mossad - report
By The Daily Star
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
BEIRUT: A senior executive at mobile telecom firm Alfa has been providing sensitive information to the Mossad since 1996, As-Safir newspaper reported on Monday.
The man identified as “Charbel K.,” who occupies a sensitive post in Alfa, was arrested Thursday night while heading back home from work, added the newspaper.
The 56-year-old Lebanese, who hails from the Chouf village of Alman, was detained after being watched by members of the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directory on suspicions of collaborating with Israel. Also, the operation was carried out in coordination with Lebanese Army Commander General Jean Kahwaji and the prosecutor’s office.
As-Safir quoted some employees in Alfa as saying that Charbel was responsible for the BTS section which enabled him to control more than 650 Alfa telecommunication stations across Lebanon. During primary investigations with Charbel, he confessed that he had been dealing with the Mossad since 1996.
He admitted that Israeli authorities had ordered him to place, in all stations belonging to the firm,technical devices which enabled the Mossad to control the whole process of Alfa cellular communications. According to As-Safir, Charbel rendered valuable services to Mossad during Israel’s summer 2006 war against Lebanon, including wiretapping on the cellular calls of several individuals Given his sensitive post, Charbel could watch and trace the movement of any Alfa subscriber along with determining his phone number, address and personal information.
Security forces are trying to determine whether the suspect had any partners or whether he was a member of a wider spying network.
Following Charbel’s confessions, a unit from the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directory raided the headquarters of Alfa in the Furn al-Shebbak neighborhood Friday, confiscating Charbel’s personal computer, along with documents from his car and office.
Communication devices possessed by the Alfa executive were also withheld and are being examined by technicians from the Lebanese Army.
In remarks published by As-Safir Monday, Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahhas said he heard of the arrest via media outlets.
Nahhas said he contacted Alfa to ask why it hadn’t informed him that Charbel had been apprehended, conveying his feelings that members of the Alfa staff were “confused.”
Nahhas said the detainee had been working for a long time in the telecommunications sector, noting that he had been an employee at Cellis, one of the two firms previously operating cellular telecommunications in Lebanon. Charbel was on the Telecommunications Ministry’s staff before assuming his responsibilities at Cellis, said Nahhas.
The minister added that he was interested in the issue because there was a contract signed between the Lebanese state and Alfa, “and we want to make sure the parties we are dealing with are resilient and not infiltrated [by the Mossad].” On Monday, Army Command issued a statement announcing that a person identified as “Ch. K,” had been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel, adding that the detainee was being interrogated by concerned judiciary. According to the National News Agency, Head of Media and Telecommunications Parliamentary committee, Bint Jbeil MP Hassan Fadlallah, also a Hizbullah official, will hold a news conference on Tuesday during which he will touch on the arrest of Charbel.
Separately, head of the Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblatt urged Lebanese security agencies to step up their efforts, saying: “This Israeli infiltration in the Lebanese society requires taking immediate and swift measures.” – The Daily Star

Stability can only follow peace
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Daily Star
Editorial
The US has a problem with the nuclear-power program of a Middle Eastern country – Jordan. No, not Iran; Jordan has a nuclear-power program, and the US is even making moves to help; there’s just one small problem: the US wants Jordan to buy enriched uranium for fuel, instead of using the roughly 65,000 tons of uranium ore recently discovered in Jordan.
The US is serious – it does not want Jordan to use its own uranium deposits to run its reactors, but rather to buy what it could mine, refine, use and export for a profit. As one might expect, the US does not trust Jordan to enrich uranium because of fears of nuclear proliferation. Jordan is in the Middle East, and thus subject to the instability endemic in the region for so many decades. Jordan’s King Abdullah II recently told The Wall Street Journal that Israel is also working to stunt Jordan’s drive for nuclear power, under the same rationale.
Forgive us for such insouciance, but it appears to us the height – or nadir – of irony that Israel and the US would be complicating Jordan’s attempted economic development because of the kingdom’s instability, when Israel and the US are as much to blame as anyone for any lack of stability. Israel and the US seem to misunderstand completely the conditions of stability. They evidently cannot grasp that peace is a necessary precondition for stability. Jordan – and its neighbors – cannot achieve lasting stability when they have spent the last 60 years under constant threat of war.
Jordan and other nations entangled in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict find themselves in an impossible situation: they suffer from instability, to be sure, but stability remains a chimera because Israel has become intransigent in opposing peace. Notwithstanding Netanyahu’s limp acceptance of a two-state solution – under conditions which he knows Palestinians cannot accept – Israel’s actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank provide mountains of proof that the Jewish state is not pursuing peace.
We find Israel’s strategy even more odd in the face of a reality where nonstate actors have advanced their capabilities for asymmetric warfare beyond the point where Israel’s largely US-made and US-funded military can keep them under control. As for Jordan, of course it has the right to mine and enrich its own uranium, as former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin argued in The New York Times Monday. The US and Israel, incomprehensibly, are choosing to harm their ties with Jordan – and foster instability – when their primary goal should be peace. The ink on a peace deal would stain the region with stability, a stain which would spread by the laws of political physics that seem for now beyond the grasp of the US and Israel.

Despite Turkey's creeping Islamic revolution, it is no Iran
By Shlomo Ben-Ami /Daiky Star
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The deadly fiasco of the Turkish-led “peace flotilla” to Gaza highlighted the deepening strain in the Israeli-Turkish alliance. But it mainly helped expose the deeper, underlying reasons for Turkey’s shift from its Western orientation toward becoming a major player in the Middle East – in alliance with the region’s rogue regimes and radical non-state actors.
Foreign policy cannot be separated from its domestic foundations. The identity of nations, their ethos, has always been a defining motive in their strategic priorities. Israel’s blunders did, of course, play a role in the erosion of its alliance with Turkey. But the collapse of its old “alliance of the periphery,” including Turkey, the Shah’s Iran, and Ethiopia, had more to do with revolutionary changes in those countries – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise to power, the end of Emperor Haile Selassie’s regime, and now Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic shift – than with Israeli policies.
The current crisis reveals the depth of Turkey’s identity complex, its oscillation between its Western-oriented Kemalist heritage and its Eastern Ottoman legacy. Snubbed by the European Union, Erdogan is tilting the balance toward the latter.
Kemalism always saw the Ottoman legacy as a burden, an obstacle to modernization. In Erdogan’s vision, modernization does not preclude a return to Turkey’s Islamic roots, nor does it require it to abandon its destiny as a Middle East power, even if this means flouting United States-led policies in the region.
Indeed, Erdogan responded positively to Europe’s conditions for Turkey’s EU membership. His reforms – economic liberalization, cooperation with the European Court of Human Rights, improvement of Kurdish rights, and the undercutting of the the army’s Praetorian ambitions – are major advances in the history of the Turkish Republic.
Yet Erdogan has also been eager to use Europe’s requirements as a pretext to curb the army’s capacity to check his Islamic revolution. The election of his political ally, Abdullah Gul, as president, against the army’s will – indeed, against the entire Kemalist tradition – is a case in point.
To block a move aimed at outlawing his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan also domesticated Turkey’s Constitutional Court – along with the army, a watchdog of Kemalism – by arbitrarily changing its composition. A constitutional reform measure supposedly aimed at “promoting Turkey’s EU membership” would further curb the army’s role as the guardian of the secular state and strengthen government control of the judiciary.
Erdogan’s Islamic revolution has also expanded into the educational system with the introduction of a markedly religious curriculum. To back Turkey’s strategic shift, a new law has recently made the teaching of Arabic obligatory in schools. It is difficult to imagine a more symbolic blow to Ataturk’s vision.
Erdogan believes that, by exercising Turkey’s capacity for mediation, he will recover the burden of his Ottoman forbears as the guarantors of peace and security in the Mashreq. Turkey’s drive to serve as a peace broker between Israel and its Arab enemies, Erdogan’s vociferous championship of the Palestinian cause, and his pretension to be the mediator in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the West reflect Turkey’s changing perceptions of itself as a regional leader.
To both Israel and the West, the regional context of Turkey’s rise is especially disturbing. Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism is not a return to an idyllic Ottoman Commonwealth; it is more a clash between a rising radical axis, led by two major non-Arab powers (Turkey and Iran), and the declining Arab conservative regimes.
Turkey put Israel in the dock of world opinion over the “peace flotilla” in a way that might still force Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to opt for credible peace negotiations, while providing a boost to Hamas and bringing about the imminent end of Israel’s Gaza blockade. Such a spectacular success only serves to highlight the impotence of the West’s Arab allies.
Indeed, Turkey’s growing regional relevance is the measure of the Arabs’ failure. They failed to advance their peace initiative with Israel, and are complicit in the blockade of Gaza in the hope that Hamas will collapse, thereby humbling their own Islamist oppositions.
As Islamist democracies whose governments emerge from popular elections, Iran and Turkey – and their Hamas and Hizbullah allies – can claim an advantage over the incumbent Arab regimes, all of which suffer from a desperately yawning legitimacy deficit. They are all secular autocracies kept in power by intrusive, all-powerful intelligence services.
Erdogan’s strategy makes him complicit with the agenda of the West’s most vicious enemies.
He even flirted with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s perverted Islamist rule, welcoming Bashir to Turkey after he was indicted by the International Criminal Court for massacres in Darfur on the grounds that “Muslims do not commit genocide.”
Iran and Turkey are bound to assert their Islamic credentials more and more as they reach out to the Arab masses. That a pan-Islamic discourse has now replaced the cause of pan-Arabism is a major setback for moderate Arab regimes.
Yet, despite Erdogan’s creeping Islamic revolution, Turkey is not a second Iran. The AKP remains a progressive, heterogeneous party that sees no contradiction between Islam and democracy. Nor has it entirely given up on Turkey’s European dream.
Moreover, an increasingly robust secular opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) under the vigorous leadership of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is bound to help stem the Islamist tide. With Israel’s return to a sober peace strategy, and with an honest dialogue between Turkey and its NATO allies, the Turkish bridge between East and West can still be salvaged.
**Shlomo Ben Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. He is the author of “Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.”
THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project
Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).

Firmly behind Israel
By STEVE ROTHMAN
 06/28/2010 23:47
The Washington-J’lem relationship is not perfect, but military and intel cooperation have never been stronger.
Today, Israel faces some of the toughest challenges in its 62-year history. Chief among them is Iran’s threat to its very existence. But, especially in the past several months, progress in preventing Iran from fulfilling that evil objective has been achieved.
On the continuing threat side, Iran-funded and -directed Hizbullah and Hamas still have more than 50,000 rockets on Israel’s borders, and continue to seek even more sophisticated weaponry, as evidenced by the recent transfer of Scud missiles to Hizbullah by Syria and Iran. But the most terrifying threat is the possibility that Iran’s deranged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will succeed in acquiring a nuclear weapon and use it to realize his long-stated objective of wiping Israel off the map.
All of this underscores the importance of what has now been achieved: the strongest military and intelligence alliance between the US and Israel in recent history.
There is no question that the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is not perfect – but when has it ever been? (See Ariel Sharon’s comment that “Israel will not be Czechoslovakia” and Ari Fleisher’s rebuke that “president [George W. Bush] believes that these remarks are unacceptable” in 2001.) However, concerning military and intelligence cooperation –“where the rubber meets the road,” where issues speaking to Israel’s very existence hang in the balance – the relationship has never been stronger.
I feel comfortable making this statement as a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense, and State and Foreign Operations, which appropriate all spending for the US military, and all foreign aid, respectively. My position on these subcommittees affords me the opportunity to be in regular contact with the highest levels of all US and Israeli diplomatic, military and intelligence personnel. The weekly and sometimes daily classified and unclassified briefings I receive inform my views about the true status of US-Israel relations.
AMERICA’S BOYCOTT of Durban II, its dismissal of the Goldstone Report as “unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable” and its support of an Israeli-run investigation of the recent Gaza flotilla incident have helped shield Israel on the international stage. And over the past 18 months, America’s own improved international standing has helped secure a broad consensus to confront the world’s greatest threat: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Israel’s qualitative military edge, which eroded under previous administrations, has been restored and improved. The Obama administration’s outreach to Russia has resulted in an agreement that Russia will not deliver its S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran – a game-changer in Iran’s balance of power with Israel.
Also, months of aggressive US-led negotiations in the UN have yielded a new sanctions regime that will allow for even greater sanctions against Iran’s financial, military and energy sectors by the Europeans, the US and other nations.
There is more. Last month, President Barack Obama allocated an additional $205 million to permit Israel to position additional short-range Iron Dome antimissile batteries throughout the Jewish state. This is on top of the more than $3 billion in US military aid that it will already receive from the US this year, plus more than $200 million in additional money for the US-Israel joint missile defense systems, including the longrange Arrow and the medium-range David Sling. In allocating these additional funds, the president is building on my efforts to enhance the US’s support for Israel’s missile defense system against Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Iran.
NOT ONLY that, but there is an unprecedented, high level of military and intelligence cooperation. A powerful show of the strength of the relationship was demonstrated in October 2009, with Operation Juniper Cobra in Herzliya. At that time 1,400 US servicemen and women were sent to Israel with 10 warships, bringing the highest military and intelligence command officers with them to coordinate with their Israeli counterparts in conducting live-fire testing of virtually every missile defense capability in the US and Israeli arsenals.
The Obama administration and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have declared that a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable, and that they will work to prevent it. In fact, on June 23, Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s national security adviser, acknowledged that “the United States ‘is determined to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear.’ There is determination there. There is activism.”
Both countries also hold that containment is not an option.
In that regard, there have been recent reports that Saudi Arabia will let Israel overfly its territory should it feel it necessary to undertake military action against Iran. This follows in the footsteps of Egypt, which has allowed Israeli submarines and missile ships, as well as US aircraft carrier battle groups, through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.
These vessels can launch cruise missiles armed with both nuclear and nonnuclear warheads.
And several months ago, the US delivered advanced anti-missile batteries, operated by American crews, to four Persian Gulf states.
Ahmadinejad should now understand that Israel’s new relationships with the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni nations, and its more effective missile defenses will make it difficult, if not impossible, to exercise his sick and deranged calculus whereby Iran would be willing to trade the lives of a million Iranians for even a few thousand Israelis. If he takes that gamble without effect, he will pay a terrible, one-sided price.
While it would thus require a suicidal Iranian leader to consider attacking Israel, unfortunately, Ahmadinejad may be such a leader.
And so, clearly, there remains a long way to go before the Jewish state’s security is assured.
We therefore must continue keeping its security at the forefront of US foreign policy.
But genuine progress has occurred in recent months. It is important it not be overlooked, ignored or underestimated.
The writer is a Democratic congressman from New Jersey who serves on the House committees responsible for US military and foreign aid.

Our World: Alternatives to surrender
By CAROLINE B. GLICK
06/29/2010 00:27
For too long, by allowing themselves to be led by our deranged media, Israeli citizens and governments alike have ignored the fact that the answer to every question is not more concessions.
Talkbacks (16) To the roaring cheers of the local media, on Sunday the Schalit family embarked on a cross-country march to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s residence. They set out two days after the fourth anniversary of IDF Sgt. Gilad Schalit’s captivity.
Outside their home on Sunday, Gilad’s father Noam Schalit pledged not to return home without his son. The Schalit family intends to camp out outside of Netanyahu’s home until the government reunites them with Gilad.
For weeks the local media – and especially Ma’ariv and Yediot Aharonot – have portrayed the Schalit family’s trek to Netanyahu as a reenactment of Moses’ journey to Pharaoh.
Like Pharaoh, the media insinuates that Netanyahu is evil because he refuses to free Gilad from bondage.
The only drawback to this dramatic, newspaper- selling story is that it is wrong. Gilad Schalit is not a hostage in Jerusalem. He is a hostage in Gaza. His captor is not Netanyahu. His captor is Hamas.
And because the story is wrong, the media organized cavalcade of ten thousand well-intentioned Israelis is moving in the wrong direction. And not only is it going in the wrong direction, it is doing so at Gilad Schalit’s expense.
The truth that Yediot and Ma’ariv’s marketing departments ignore is that Schalit’s continued captivity is a function of Hamas’s growing strength. To bring him home, Israel shouldn’t release a thousand terrorists from prison.
To bring Gilad Schalit home a free man, Israel must weaken Hamas. And this is an eminently achievable goal. Noam Schalit knows it is an achievable goal. That is why last week he was the most outspoken critic of Netanyahu’s decision to abandon Israel’s economic sanctions against Hamas-controlled Gaza. That is why over the past four years, the Schalit family has staged countless protests against Israel’s massive and continuous assistance to Hamas-controlled Gaza. If anything positive is to come from this march, then when the Schalit family arrives in Jerusalem they should abandon the newspapers’ demand that Israel surrender to all of Hamas’s demands. They should acknowledge that doing so will only guarantee that more Israelis will be kidnapped and murdered by Hamas and its allies.
If the Schalits wish to criticize the government, they should criticize Netanyahu and his coalition for the steps they have taken to strengthen Hamas. The Schalits should demand that the government reinstate and tighten Israel’s economic sanctions against Gaza. They should demand that Israel end its supply of electricity and gasoline to Gaza and take more effective action to block smuggling through the tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border.
All of these actions will weaken Hamas, and so contribute to the prospect of it being forced by the Gazans themselves to release Schalit to his family.
ONE OF the important truths ignored by Israel’s pathological media is that Hamas and its Iranian sponsor are not all powerful. They are vulnerable to criticism from their own publics. And Israel is capable of fomenting such criticism.
For example, the imprisoned terrorists whose release Hamas demands in exchange for releasing Schalit have consistently responded rationally to Israeli threats. The Knesset is slowly debating a bill that would worsen prison conditions of terrorists. And the terrorists are worried.
Their worry provoked them to demand that Hamas be more forthcoming with Schalit.
By the same token, were Israel to cut off electricity to Gaza – an act that is not merely lawful, but arguably required by international law – we could expect residents of Gaza to express a similarly rational demand to Hamas. That is, were Israel to weaken public support for Hamas, Hamas would be more likely to bow to Israel’s will.
And if Hamas is vulnerable to public criticism, the Iranian regime is downright terrified of public criticism. Take the regime’s behavior in the wake of the Turkish-Hamas flotilla campaign.
In the days that followed Israel’s bungled May 31 takeover of the Mavi Marmara, Iran announced it was sending two of its own ships to Gaza. Israel responded rationally and forthrightly. The government warned that any Iranian ship would be viewed as an enemy ship and Israel would respond in accordance with the rules of war.
As Iran expert Michael Ledeen has argued repeatedly, the Iranian regime is terrified of getting the Iranian people angry over its radical foreign policy. In light of its precarious standing with its own public, Israel’s forthright threat of war brought the regime to its knees.
Last Thursday, Hossein Sheikholdslam, the Iranian regime functionary responsible for the Gaza-bound ships, told the Iranian news service IRNA that plans to send the ships were scrapped because Israel “sent a letter to the United Nations saying that the presence of Iranian and Lebanese ships in the Gaza area will be considered a declaration of war on [Israel] and it will confront it.”
During the war with Iran’s Hizbullah proxy in 2006, thousands of Iranians demonstrated against Hizbullah. They demanded that the regime invest its money in the local economy and not in Hizbullah and the Palestinians.
Were Israel to present Schalit as an Israeli victim of the Iranian regime, it could provoke a similar popular outcry against Iran’s support for Hamas. The media-manipulated Schalits are not the only ones acting precisely against their own interests. The government is acting with similar madness in its relations with the Obama administration. Indeed, Netanyahu ended Israel’s lawful economic sanctions against Hamas-controlled Gaza (sanctions that served, among other things as a bargaining chip for freeing Schalit), because the Obama administration placed overwhelming pressure on him to do so.
Not wishing to let the Mavi Marmara crisis go to waste, US President Barack Obama had used it as a means to weaken Israel against Hamas. Obama announced that he was giving Hamas-controlled Gaza $400 million in US aid. He forced Netanyahu to end Israel’s economic sanctions against the illegal Hamas regime.
Moreover, according to remarks by a senior Hamas terrorist to the London-based Al- Quds al-Arabi newspaper on Friday, the Obama administration maintains direct ties to the Hamas leadership in Syria.
WHEN NETANYAHU entered office last spring his desire to appease Obama was understandable. At the time, he was operating under the hope that perhaps Obama could be appeased into ending his onslaught against the Jewish state. But the events of the past year have made clear that Obama is unappeasable. Every concession Israel has made to Obama has merely whetted the US president’s appetite for more.
The policy implications of this state of affairs are clear. First, Israel must strive to weaken Obama. Since Israeli concessions to Obama strengthen him, Israel must first and foremost stop giving him concessions.
Weakening Obama does not involve openly attacking him. It means Israel should act in a way that advances its interests and forces Obama to reconsider the desirability of his current foreign policy.
Regionally, Israel should make common cause with the Kurds of Iran, Iraq and Syria who are now being assaulted by Iran, Turkey and Syria. Doing so is not simply the moral thing to do. It weakens Iran, Syria and Turkey and demonstrates that Obama’s appeasement policies are harming those who love freedom and empowering those who hate it.
By the same token, Israel should do everything it can to strengthen the Iranian Green movement. Every anti-regime action in Iran – regardless of its size – harms the regime and therefore helps Israel. And every anti-regime action in Iran exposes the moral depravity and strategic idiocy of Obama’s policy of appeasing the mullocracy.
AS FOR the US domestic political realm, in Ambassador Michael Oren’s all but schizophrenic recent statements about the Obama administration’s policy towards Israel, we may at last be witnessing an embrace of political sanity on the part of the government.
For the past several months, Oren has acted as the Obama administration’s most energetic cheerleader to the US Jewish community.
He has repeatedly and wrongly reassured US Jewish audiences that Obama is a great friend of Israel, that his Democratic Party remains loyal to the US-Israel alliance and that the Republicans are wrong to claim that there is a difference between the two major US political parties when it comes to supporting Israel.
The pinnacle of Oren’s pro-Obama campaign came with his interview last week with The Jerusalem Post. There he brought all of these false and counter-productive claims into the public realm. Apparently Oren’s decision to make his adulation of the Obama administration public finally forced his bosses in Jerusalem to order him to cease, desist and do an about face.
And so, last week, Oren told a closed audience of Israeli diplomats the truth. Under Obama, Oren whispered, there has been a “tectonic rift” in US relations with Israel. While some of Obama’s advisers are sympathetic to Israel, these advisers have no influence on Obama’s positions on Israel.
No doubt recognizing how silly his about face made him look, Oren tried to deny his statements at the Foreign Ministry. But it is hard to imagine anyone will take him seriously.
During his visit to the White House next week, Netanyahu should follow the path set by Oren’s quickly leaked remarks. Netanyahu should abstain from praising Obama for his friendship and speak instead about the fact that the US-Israel alliance is vital for both countries’ national security.
Netanyahu should insist on the right to call on questioners at his joint appearance with Obama. And he should use those questions and those appearances to discuss why Israel’s actions are not only legal and necessary for Israel, but vital for US national security. During his stay in the US, Netanyahu should discuss the global jihad, Islamic terrorism, the freedom-loving Kurds and the freedom-loving Iranian people every chance he gets.
Indeed, he should create opportunities to discuss them.
Here we see a crucial point of convergence between the Schalit family march to Jerusalem and Netanyahu’s trip to Washington. To increase the effectiveness of their efforts on behalf of Gilad, ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the marchers should split into two groups.
The first group should continue to Jerusalem and demand that Israel take a firmer stand against Hamas. The second group should walk to Tel Aviv and camp out outside the US Embassy. There they should demand that the administration end its contacts with Hamas, end its pressure on the Israeli government to strengthen Hamas, cancel Obama’s plan to give an additional $400 million dollars in aid to Hamas and use the US’s position on the UN Security Council to condemn Turkey for its material support for Hamas.
For too long, by allowing themselves to be led by our deranged media, Israeli citizens and governments alike have ignored the basic fact that the answer to every question is not more Israeli concessions. Contrary to what our tabloids would have us believe, surrender is only one option among many. It is time we try out some alternatives.
caroline@carolineglick.com

Iran is Surrounded by US Troops in 10 Countries
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu/Arutz Sheva
Iran literally is surrounded by American troops, notes an oil market analyst, Energy and Capital editor Christian A. DeHaemer. There is no evidence of an imminent attack, but he connects a number of recent events and the presence of American soldiers to warn that oil prices might soar -- with or without a pre-emptive strike aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear power ambitions.
Iran is bordered on the east by Pakistan and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have been waging a costly war, in terms of money and lives, against Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists.
The Persian Gulf is on Iran’s southern border, and last week’s report, confirmed by the Pentagon, that 11 warships had sailed through the Suez Canal, raised alarm bells that the U.S. is ready to fight to keep the Persian Gulf open.
Iran has threatened it could close the waterway, where 40 percent of the world’s oil flows in tankers, if the United Nations or the United States by itself carry out harsh energy sanctions against the Islamic Republic. An Israeli ship has also reportedly joined the U.S. armada.
Kuwait, which is heavily armed by the U.S. and is home to American bases, is located on the southwestern border of Iran. The country’s western neighbors are Turkey and Iraq, also home to American bases, and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan are the Islamic Republic’s northern neighbors.
The U.S.army last year advanced military cooperation with Turkmenistan. An independent Caspian news agency has confirmed unusually heavy activity of American troops along the border with Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Brigadier General Mehdi Moini said last week that his forces increased patrols, including tanks and anti-aircraft units, along the border with Azerbaijan because they noticed increased American activity. Iran charged that Israeli forces were also present, sparking a virtual war alert among the Iranian Guards.
In addition, the Times of London reported earlier this month that Saudi Arabia has agreed to open its air space for Israel Air Force jets, a claim that the Saudi monarchy denied. It similar denied Iranian news agency claims that Israeli helicopters unloaded military equipment at a northwestern Saudi Arabian air base, from where Israeli planes theoretically could reach Iran in the shorts possible time.
There has been no confirmation of Israel-Saudi cooperation from any other source, but one IDF reserve officer, who has been involved in secret military projects for private companies, told Israel National News that the it could be true if both countries found it in their common interests. Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and has treated the Jewish State with disdain. However, the possibility of Iran's dominating the Arab world with nuclear power has changed all political scenarios.

Several defense websites have reported that Israel is deploying one to three German-made nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf as a defensive measure against the possibility of a missile attacks from Lebanon and Syria, as well as Iran.
“The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before,” DeHaemer wrote, “but the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.”Amid the buzz of increased military activity around Iran looms the specter of higher oil prices, which is DeHaemer's field of expertise. “The last oil price shock in the Middle East was in 1990 when the United States invaded Iraq for invading Kuwait. The price per barrel of oil went from $21 to $28 on August 6...to $46 by mid-October. The looming Iran War is not priced in,” he warned in his news letter. Iran has the third-highest oil reserves in the world and is second only to Saudi Arabia in production. If any action prevents the flow of Iranian oil, the price of “black gold” would soar, he added.

Barak Claims Leaving Lebanon in 2000 was a Success
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu/Arutz Sheva
Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared Monday night he is “proud” of ordering the hasty withdrawal of the IDF from southern Lebanon in 2000. He also blamed previous governments and the IDF’s use of strong force in the Second Lebanon War for Hizbullah’s strength today.
In a speech marking 10 years since the withdrawal, when he was Prime Minister and Defense Minister, Barak argued, “The withdrawal was the end of a tragedy of 18 years [and] the question is why this step was not taken 10 years before.”
Barak also claimed he warned former generals not to enter Lebanon because of the possibility of facing another Yom Kippur War, “and that is what happened.”
Israel entered southern Lebanon in 1982 to protect northern citizens from devastating bombardments of PLO missiles. Following the deaths of approximately 300 soldiers over the 18 years in which the IDF fortified the security zone in southern Lebanon as a barrier to attacking Israel, Barak ordered a hasty nighttime retreat that left behind heavy military equipment for Hizbullah.
Six years later, contrary to military and media assessments that war would not break out, one by commentator Aluf Benn in Haaretz just four days before the war broke out extolling relying on HIzbullah head Nasrallah to preserve quiet, Hizbullah attacked the IDF and kidnapped and killed reserve soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, touching off the 34-day Second Lebanon War. Barak explained that when he ordered the withdrawal, Hizbullah had 7,000 rockets but that “only” 4,000 were fired at Israel during the war. However, IDF intelligence officials during the war estimated that the terrorist organization possessed nearly 20,000 missiles gathered over the six years after the IDF withdrew. Barak also denied that the withdrawal in 2000 left a vacuum for Hizbullah.
“Hizbullah did not get stronger because we left, but because we already were there,” Barak stated, arguing that Israel’s presence in Lebanon helped create the terrorist organization. He also said that Hizbullah’s buildup of approximately 50,000 missiles since the war was a reaction to the “heavy blows” Israel inflicted on Lebanon during the war.
The Defense Minster, who also is head of the Labor party, had a brilliant military record but ran into difficulties as he neared the top ranks of the IDF and after he entered politics.
One of the most controversial accusations against him concerned the deaths of five soldiers in a training accident at an IDF base where he was criticized for leaving the scene immediately.
He catapulted to the position of Prime Minister by riding a media attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, who headed the government in the late 1990s. His coalition government failed 18 months after he was elected, and he was forced to call new elections. He quit politics after an overwhelming victory by Ariel Sharon, who then headed the Likud party.
Barak returned to the political arena in 2005 but failed to beat Shimon Peres for the leadership of the Labor party and returned to private business. He later re-entered politics again, winning the leadership of the Labor party in 2007.

PA Asks Mitchell for 28 More Security Stations near Jewish Areas
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu/Arutz Sheva
Palestinian Authority security forces have told U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell they want to open 24 more “police stations” in areas in Judea and Samaria where Jews live and where security is shared with Israel, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported. An Israeli government spokesman said he knows nothing of the report, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy told Israel National News he stands by a general policy not to comment on the ”proximity talks” that Mitchell is mediating between the PA and Israel.
Israel has agreed to full PA control over security in several major Arab cities, such as Shechem and Jenin, where the police forces were trained by American military officers and are in effect a fledgling PA army. The Oslo Accords officially prohibit a PA military, but PA police spokesman Adnana Al-Demiri, said the police "need to expand their authority." He complained that Israeli checkpoints prevent the PA forces from moving freely. The proposed additional police stations are in areas where there are frequent clashes between Arabs and Israeli forces. Previous deployment of Arab police forces has resulted in several terrorist attacks carried out by PA policemen.
Opening roadblocks as “goodwill” measures for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas frequently has been followed by terrorist attacks. One Israeli policeman was killed and two others were seriously wounded earlier this month near Hevron, where two key roadblocks had been removed earlier in the past year. However, IDF officers recently have praised the PA for cooperation with the army. "We hope to agree on this plan within the coming few weeks," a source told Xinhua. Israel already has allowed 62 police stations through Judea and Samaria, including 14 in areas where Israel shares security control.
Abbas is waiting for answers from Israel on issues he presented last week to Mitchell, who is expected to return to Israel this Thursday. Rumors of a possible three-way summit next month between Abbas, U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were squelched by Ramallah officials. Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s executive committee, told Voice of Palestine radio that the idea of a summit “was not even raised.”He added that the reports "published from time to time by Israeli media are attempts to distract the attention away from the central issue which is the total cessation of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and launch a new serious political process."
Several Israeli media outlets, who often try to promote the formation of a new Arab state that would include parts of Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria, reported that American officials are pressuring for a summit. The current American-mediated talks represent a step backwards for the United States, which shuttled back and forth between Israeli and PA officials 16 years ago before the two sides agreed to sit down face-to-face. The last direct talks were held in late December 2008, when Hamas missile attacks from Gaza prompted the counterterrorist Operation Cast Lead campaign.
Netanyahu has invited Abbas several times for direct discussions, but the PA leader has conditioned the talks on Israel’s announcing a permanent freeze on building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The PA has insisted that Israel accept all of the conditions laid out in the Saudi 2002 initiative and has adopted a strategy of creating facts on the ground that preclude negotiating any of the terms of the plan. The United States has adopted the Arab position that the Jewish presence in post-1967 Jerusalem is “illegitimate.”

 Arab Nations May Be Waking Up Too Late to Climate Change
by Hana Levi Julian/Arutz Sheva
While Israel is already racing to put water-saving measures in place to meet the challenge of a world with less water, such as desalination plants and specialized targeted drip irrigation agricultural systems, Arab neighbors are only now becoming aware of just how severe the blow will be when the crisis fully hits the region.
A report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) issued this week in Amman warns that Arab countries in the region are growing increasingly vulnerable to the potential impact of climate change. The issues of rising average temperatures, combined with recurrent drought and water shortages are likely to be exacerbated by 2025, according to the report, thereby affecting the area's agricultural production and resulting food supply.
Scientists said that before the end of this century, they expect the water flow in the Jordan River may decrease by as much as 80 percent, and by some 30 percent in the Euphrates River as well. In addition, the sea level is likely to rise in response to the change in climate, said the report, creating serious problems for the region's economy. The “Arab region” has a total of 34,000 kilometers of coastal area, of which nearly half is inhabited, the report points out.
Another concern is the specter of a drop in tourism due to harsher climate conditions: a rise of one to four degrees Celsius in average temperatures that could lead to bleaching of coral reefs, the deaths of various species of plant, animal and marine life and beach erosion were listed among the dire predictions by the authors of the report.
Red Sea resorts in Egypt and Jordan were identified as being most at risk, followed by Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Recommendations included development of new crops that are adaptable to higher temperatures, more salinity and require less water, as well as promotion of alternative tourist destinations.

1,000 Israeli Youth 'Ambassadors' Head to America
by Maayana Miskin More than 1,000 Israeli youths will be leaving for the United States in the upcoming weeks to serve as Zionist “ambassadors” to American youth. The Israelis will work at Jewish Agency camps, teaching about Israel and Israeli society and culture. They will disperse to approximately 200 Zionist and Jewish camps in North America, which are attended by a total of 150,000 children. The counselors have already completed their IDF or national service, and they looked to the Jewish Agency as a new way to contribute after fulfilling their mandatory service. This year's Jewish Agency youth counselors were chosen from 6,000 who applied to work abroad. Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky said young Israelis' willingness to contribute and to work abroad makes a significant contribution to strengthening Israel's ties with the Diaspora. Jewish Agency camp workers said the relationship between Israeli counselors and North American campers is mutually beneficial. Counselors help the campers develop their ties to Israel and their Jewish identity, while campers help the counselors strengthen their sense of identification with the Jewish people worldwide.

Arab Nations May Be Waking Up Too Late to Climate Change
by Hana Levi Julian/Arutz Sheva
While Israel is already racing to put water-saving measures in place to meet the challenge of a world with less water, such as desalination plants and specialized targeted drip irrigation agricultural systems, Arab neighbors are only now becoming aware of just how severe the blow will be when the crisis fully hits the region.
A report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) issued this week in Amman warns that Arab countries in the region are growing increasingly vulnerable to the potential impact of climate change. The issues of rising average temperatures, combined with recurrent drought and water shortages are likely to be exacerbated by 2025, according to the report, thereby affecting the area's agricultural production and resulting food supply.
Scientists said that before the end of this century, they expect the water flow in the Jordan River may decrease by as much as 80 percent, and by some 30 percent in the Euphrates River as well. In addition, the sea level is likely to rise in response to the change in climate, said the report, creating serious problems for the region's economy. The “Arab region” has a total of 34,000 kilometers of coastal area, of which nearly half is inhabited, the report points out.
Another concern is the specter of a drop in tourism due to harsher climate conditions: a rise of one to four degrees Celsius in average temperatures that could lead to bleaching of coral reefs, the deaths of various species of plant, animal and marine life and beach erosion were listed among the dire predictions by the authors of the report.
Red Sea resorts in Egypt and Jordan were identified as being most at risk, followed by Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. Recommendations included development of new crops that are adaptable to higher temperatures, more salinity and require less water, as well as promotion of alternative tourist destinations.


بيان صحفي
Press Release
نور مرعب يدعو إلى إطلاق سراح مستخدمي الفايسبوك الثلاثة ويدعو كل أحرار لبنان لتسليم أنفسهم للقاضي ميرزا إن لم يطلق سراحهم
نسخة عن هذا البيان
في التاسع والعشرين من شهر حزيران ألفان وعشرة
أعلن ناشط حقوق الإنسان نور مرعب إدانته لإنتهاكات حقوق الإنسان التي يمارسها النائب العام التمييزي في لبنان القاضي سعيد ميرزا بعد قراره توقيف ثلاثة مواطنين بتهم ذمّهم لرئيس الجمهورية اللبنانية على الفايسبوك والإنترنت، وقال
إن الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنسان وبشكل خاص المادة التاسعة عشرة منه تضمن لكل شخص الحق في حرية الرأي والتعبير بأي وسيلة كانت
واضاف أدعو أحرار لبنان إلى الوقوف للدفاع عن حرياتهم وحقوقهم الطبيعية والدستورية مع موقوفي حرية الرأي والتعبير الشباب الثلاثة نعيم جورج حنا، وانطوان يوسف رميا، وشبل راجح قصب
دعى نور أيضاً رئيس الجمهورية اللبنانية إلى التدخل فوراً وإعلان رفضه المس بحقوق الإنسان والدستور اللبناني فهو الحامي الأول المفترض للدستور
وبحال لم يطلق سراح المعتقلين الثلاثة يقول نور أدعو كل المواطنين اللبنانيين للتوجه إلى مكتب القاضي ميرزا وتسليم أنفسهم وذمّ الرئيس أمامه وطلب اعتقالهم حتى تمتلئ سجونهم، وانا أعلن بأنه إن كان قرار قاضي التحقيق عدم إطلاق سراح نعيم وانطوان وشبل فسوف أذهب وأسلم نفسي لميرزا وأطالب بسجني مثلما تم سجنهم
ودعى نور الإعلام والعامة لمتابعة الموقع الإلكتروني التالي
www.case2769.org لمزيد من المعلومات
29/6/2010, The Human Rights activist Nour Merheb, declared his condemnation to the Human Rights violation practiced by the Public Prosecutor in Lebanon, Judge Saaid Mirza, following the latter's decision to arrest three people on charges related to insulting the president of the Lebanese republic over the Facebook and on the Internet. Nour explained: "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and especially Article 19 ensures everyone the right to freedom of opinion and expression through any media"
He added: "I call on all free Lebanese to take a stand and defend their natural and constitutional freedoms and rights with the detainees of freedom of opinion and expression, the three young men, Naim George Hanna, Antoine Yousef Ramya, and Chebel Rajeh Kassab".
Nour also invited the President of the Republic of Lebanon "to immediately intervene and declare that he refuses this Human Rights and constitutional violation especially that he is supposed to be the first protector of the constitution."
In case the three detainees were not released, Nour says: "I call upon all Lebanese citizens to go to the office of the Judge Mirza, insult the president and ask for their arrest until their prisons are filled, and I announce that if the investigating judge's decision was not to release Naim, Antoine and Chebel I will go and surrender myself to Mirza and ask to be imprisoned same as they are!"
Nour invites the media and the public to visit the website www.case2769.org for more information.
(Finished)
May justice be done though the heavens fall
فلتتحقق العدالة مهما كان الثمن
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
www.Case2769.org
+961-3-190381