LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِNovember 06/2010

Bible Of The Day
The resurrection of the body/Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians
15:35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?” 15:36 You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. 15:37 That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind. 15:38 But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. 15:39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. 15:40 There are also celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial. 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. 15:43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body. 15:45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.”* The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 15:46 However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. 15:47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. 15:48 As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 15:49 As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly. 15:50 Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption. 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 15:54 But when this corruptible will have put on incorruption, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”* 15:55 “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?”* 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
 

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Politics and property/Christian parties and Hezbollah quarrel over land/By: Ana Maria Luca/November 05/10
Sami Gemayel/Statement delivered in the USA/November 05/10
Be consistent with Syria/By: Tony Badran/November 05/10
Hezbollah vs. the international community/By: Hanin Ghadda/November 05/10
Not just another warning/By: By: Alex Fishman/November 05/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 05/10
Clinton Calls Hariri, Reaffirms US Support for 'Peaceful, Independent Lebanon'/Naharnet
British Foreign Secretary Says Hizbullah Must Let STL Finish its Work/Naharnet
Ashkenazi: Hizbullah is Increasing its Military Might, Israel Takes Iran's Threats of Annihilation Seriously/Naharnet
Christian Meeting Declares Lebanon in 'Grave Danger,' Urges International Community to Implement its Commitments Toward it/Naharnet
Geagea: The Other Camp Will Take to the Streets, But Street is Not the Solution/Naharnet
STL Witnessing 'Tug of Rope War' between Cassese, Bellemare/Naharnet
Dialogue Held Without Opposition Leaders, Agreement to Reconvene Before Nov. 22/Naharnet
First US targeted assassination in Gaza pre-empts next Al Qaeda offensive/DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Clinton Calls Hariri, Reaffirms US Support for 'Peaceful, Independent Lebanon/Naharnet
Priest dies of injuries hours after archdiocese fire/Daily Star
March 14: Dialogue boycott bid to paralyze state/Daily Star
IDF intelligence chief: Israel's next war will see heavy casualties/Haaretz
Britain: Hizbullah's arms threaten peace process/Daily Star
Hezbollah and Iran: the New Masters of Lebanon?/Huffington Post (blog)
Lebanon in 2010 less business friendly than a year earlier/Daily Star
Leading human rights groups say Syrian activist was assaulted in prison/The Canadian Press
Naharnet with One of Bellemare's Assistants: Stability Concerns us, But We'll Say the Truth as we Reach it/Naharnet
Moussawi: Political Confrontation with STL has been Launched/Naharnet
UN Investigators Attacked at Dahiyeh Clinic Discuss Scuffle 'At Length' at Physicians Order HQ/Naharnet
Sarkozy to Visit Lebanon to 'Look Closely at Lebanon Situation'/Naharnet
Geagea Meets Suleiman, Voices Surprise over Opposition's Linking between False Witnesses, Dialogue Session/Naharnet
Sayyed: Cassese and Bellemare's Statements Reflect STL's State of Confusion/Naharnet
Kouchner to Lebanon amid Crisis over Hariri Tribunal/Naharnet
Qanso Warns: Next Confrontation Bigger than May 7, Maarab Won't Last 2 Hours/Naharnet
 

Clinton Calls Hariri, Reaffirms US Support for 'Peaceful, Independent Lebanon'
Naharnet/The United States reaffirmed its support for Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday, amid high tensions over a U.N. probe into the murder of his father, ex-premier Rafik Hariri.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Hariri on Thursday morning to affirm the importance Washington places on "a peaceful and independent Lebanon," her office said in a statement. "The secretary also spoke about recent developments and political issues in the region, expressing the United States' appreciation for Prime Minister Hariri's steadfast leadership on behalf of the Lebanese people," it said. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on Wednesday condemned an attack last week by a group of women on three tribunal staff gathering evidence in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold, as she announced a new 10 million dollar contribution to the probe.
Clinton stressed Washington's "commitment to strengthening Lebanon's state institutions through our security and economic assistance programs."(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 04 Nov 10, 22:00

Priest dies of injuries hours after archdiocese fire
By The Daily Star
Friday, November 05, 2010
BEIRUT: A priest died while being evacuated from a fire at the Maronite archdiocese in Sarba Thursday, as investigations confirmed electric wires were the cause.
The blaze broke out at 3 am at the archdiocese in Sarba, Kesrouan. Flames spread from the ground floor to the second floor, where the rooms of the clerics were located.
Father Pierre Khoueiry, 50, died after losing consciousness and falling from the second floor.
Khoueiry, an asthmatic, was affected by the smoke fumes and lost consciousness while being evacuated from the building. “He fell off the second floor staircase and his head hit on a rock on the ground floor,” confirmed a security source.
The source said the fumes were let in when Jounieh Bishop Guy Boulos Njeim opened the door leading to the second floor after noticing strange movements in the building. The source added that Njeim and another priest were helping Khoueiry down the stairs when the incident occurred. Khoueiry was immediately transferred to the Our Lady of Lebanon hospital, where he died a few hours after the incident. Njeim and the accompanying priest evacuated the building and contacted the Civil Defense directorate and the Lebanese Red Cross.
Civil Defense members were criticized for being late to arrive.
Monsignor Youssef Hobeika visited the archdiocese after the fire and condemned “the slowness of rescue efforts.” “Civil Defense centers were contacted early in the morning but it took them two hours to arrive,” he said. Security forces were also called to the scene and investigated the building to determine the cause of the fire. “Investigations and evidence confirmed that the fire resulted from electricity wires on the ground floor,” the security source said, adding that the flames caused serious damage.
The source then denied any foul play or terrorism was involved in the incident, saying it was “just an accident.”
Several religious, political and local figures went to the archdiocese to inspect the damage, including the head of the Jounieh chamber of commerce Boulos Maroun, member of the Ftouh municipality Shawqi Dakkash, and an array of Jounieh Maronite clerics and local figures.
Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud was represented at the scene by Brigadier Pierre Salem, and Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir was represented by Father Michel Awit.
Details of Khoueiry’s funeral and condolences were not determined, and it was not clear whether he would be buried in his parish in Zouk Mikhael or in his hometown Ashqout. – The Daily Star

Britain: Hizbullah's arms threaten peace process
‘You can’t have genuine security and progress unless people can be convinced that there is justice’
By Patrick Galey
Daily Star staff
Friday, November 05, 2010
LONDON: Hizbullah’s continued possession of non-state weapons risks torpedoing the stuttering peace process, the British government has said.
Foreign Office spokesperson Barry Marston warned this week continued tension in south Lebanon, derived largely from the existence of contraband arms, was “potentially damaging” to lasting regional stability. “Inside Lebanon you have an entity carrying arms that is not the government and there is always the potential for things to flare up,” Marston told The Daily Star on the sidelines of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s two-day visit to London. “Until we create a climate where people in Lebanon believe peace [with Israel] is possible, achievable and desirable, it is almost inevitable there will be outbreaks of violence.” Marston refused to rule out the possibility of the UK commencing communication with Hizbullah – a party still featured on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
“We are not conducting any kind of contact at this present moment with Hizbullah,” Marston said. “It would be addressed on a case-by-case basis but there is currently a reassessment going on of our higher-level strategy toward Lebanon so this issue will be looked at in light of that strategy. We are not engaged or immediately planning to engage in any contact with Hizbullah.” In the wake of the August 3 fighting between Lebanese and Israeli soldiers along the Blue Line, several US lawmakers tried freezing military aid to Lebanon, for fear that weapons destined for the army would wind up in Hizbullah’s hands.
Marston said Britain would continue to assist Lebanon so long as aid could be accounted for upon arrival. “We would only provide aid or any kind of financial and logistic support where we are fully confident where that aid is going and who is the end user. Any support we have given, you can take for granted our assessments have been satisfactorily made.”
Marston was speaking following Hariri’s talks with UK Foreign Minister William Hague, currently on his first official visit to the Middle East. Hague joined British Prime Minister David Cameron in voicing Westminster’s support for the controversial UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has been a fulcrum for fierce political bickering in recent weeks and antipathy surrounding the court shows little sign of abating.
“We recognize what a difficult process Lebanon is going through but we would not be supporting [the STL] if we did not fully agree with the Lebanese government’s position on this and the importance of taking this forward,” Marston said about the court. “You have to question what people’s motives are for wanting to prevent [justice].
“We are looking at daily reports on Lebanon. We have an excellent ambassador who has contact with all parties. A note of concern is that there are elements within Lebanon that want to give the impression that we will go back to the bad old ways. Those sides have an agenda. We urge everyone to act with responsibility and political intelligence and to deal with these issues around a table, not making diabolical warnings of what may happen,” Marston added.
Threats turned to action last week as STL investigators were accosted by a group of women as they tried to obtain patient files from a gynecology clinic in south Beirut. The UN denounced the attack and Marston said that London viewed the safety of the court’s staff as paramount.
Their security “is massively important because justice can’t be done unless investigators can have their security guaranteed. We very much welcome the brave efforts of those involved in this because of justice and progress in Lebanon,” he said.
Marston said the distinction, offered most notably by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, between security and justice in light of potential fallout from anticipated Hizbullah indictments was a “false choice.”
“You can’t have genuine security and progress unless people can be convinced that there is justice,” he added. “We’ve seen decades of people acting with impunity in Lebanon and believe you can commit terrible acts and get away with it. There is never going to be security so long as that way of doing business is allowed to perpetuate.”
This week saw the release of UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s latest report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which highlighted several incidents that risked shattering south Lebanon’s fragile calm.
“We are seeing tensions currently over the [STL] and … we are concerned by tensions in the south,” Marston said. “As long as there isn’t tangible progress more generally toward peace between Israel and its neighbors, these kind of periodic tensions are almost an inevitability. We don’t want to end up back in the situation of 2006 but the question is how to get things moving in the right direction once more.”

First US targeted assassination in Gaza pre-empts next Al Qaeda offensive
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 4, 2010, 1:18 PM (GMT+02:00) Tags: Al Qaeda-Gaza US missile Anti-US terror in Sinai Missile struck Al Qaeda operative's car in GazaA missile fired from an American warship in the Mediterranean hit the car in which Muhammad Jamal A-Namnam, 27, was driving in the heart of Gaza City Wednesday, Nov. 3 and killed him, debkafile's exclusive counter-terror sources report. Namnam was an operational commander of the Army of Islam, Al-Qaeda's Palestinian cell in the Gaza Strip. He was on a mission on behalf of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP to plan, organize and execute the next wave of terrorist attacks on US targets after last week's air package bomb plot.

According to our sources, the Palestinian cell members were planning to infiltrate northern Sinai from the Gaza strip over the coming weekend and strike American personnel serving with the Multinational Force and Observers Organization – MFO, which is under American command and is stationed at North Camp, El Gorah, 37 kilometers southeast of El-Arish.

In a coordinated operation, Al Qaeda fighters hiding up in the mountains of central Sinai were to have attacked US Marines and Air Force troops stationed at the South Camp in Naama Bay, Sharm el Sheikh.
The twin attacks were scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 7, or the following day.

Our sources say that, just as US-Saudi intelligence cooperation led to the interception of package bombs from Yemen last week, so too US intelligence-sharing with Egypt and Israel foiled a major Al-Qaeda terrorist attack on American personnel in Sinai. Egyptian intelligence picked up on Namnam's scouting forays of US forces and discovered him caching weapons and explosives ready for the Al Qaeda strike force's arrival from Gaza.

Israeli intelligence tracked Namnam's movements in Gaza City. It is quite likely, said a high-ranking Western military source in the Middle East, Thursday, Nov. 4, that the Israelis pinpointed Namnam for targeting by the US ship-borne missile that killed him.

Hamas security sources in Gaza now suspect that Israel had its own reasons for permitting new cars to be imported to the Gaza Strip for the first time in two years, knowing that they would be commandeered for the personal use of the chiefs of armed organizations, including Namnam. They believe Israel planted tracking devices in those vehicles.
The Palestinian sources also say that the blast which killed the Army of Islam man was unusually powerful and reverberated through most of the enclave. Witnesses denied sighting Israeli UAVs or other aircraft over the skies of Gaza.
The Al Qaeda operative's death by a US missile is the first American targeted assassination in the Gaza Strip against an Al Qaeda target. Up until now, US missions of this kind took place in Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
debkafile's military sources report that, even after the abrupt passing of Al Qaeda's operational commander in the Gaza Strip, the two MFO camps in Sinai remain on high terror alert. The Al Qaeda cell or cells assigned to hit the South Camp in Sharm el Sheikh are still at large, the objects of a massive manhunt by Egyptian forces. It is also feared that Namnam's own cells could split and sections head out to North Camp in northern Sinai to complete his mission.

Not just another warning
By: Alex Fishman
Op-ed: IDF intelligence chief’s grim prediction for next regional war should be taken seriously
: 11.04.10, 00:43 / Israel Opinion
The IDF intelligence chief provided a thick hint regarding Israel’s interest in two nuclear programs in enemy countries; he was not only talking about Iran. Was it a slip of the tongue? Hard to believe.
When Israelis woke up the day after the nuclear reactor in Syria was attacked and heard that Israel was suspected of carrying out the strike, officials here were gravely concerned about a looming Syrian missile offensive. They estimated that the Syrians would have to respond to the very revelation of the strike, if only to maintain their honor.
Word of Warning
Intelligence chief: Don't be fooled by calm / Roni Sofer
Outgoing intelligence chief offers grim assessment in final Knesset appearance; Syria acquiring advanced weapons, Hezbollah could take over Lebanon in hours, next war to exact many more casualties than previous campaigns, he says
However, for a while now, the International Atomic Energy Agency has been addressing Syria as a state that attempted to produce nuclear weapons in the bombed reactor. Hence, as he is about to complete his tenure, Major General Amos Yadlin was able to let his tongue loose and boast of his achievements. Why not? He deserves it.
In the past, Yadlin also boasted of the IDF’s capabilities on the cyber warfare front (without anyone understanding why). So why did he expose that secret? Actually, why not? Let the enemy know.
Yet we were barely able to digest the first secret, when Yadlin told us, almost in the same breath, that soon the Iranians will possess enough enriched uranium to produce two nuclear bombs. The IDF intelligence chief is not yet another academic expert providing his assessments. His words have operative significance. And when the intelligence chief exposes such information to the world, this is his way of calling on someone to do something.
The real thing
However, the most surprising revelation in the intelligence chief’s speech was in fact a warning. Yadlin described what the next war would look like. He said it will not be managed in one theater only – we will not enjoy the luxury of facing Lebanon alone. The war will simultaneously take place in two, three, or even four different theaters.
Central Israel will be attacked by missiles not only from the north, but also from the Gaza Strip, which is home to missiles that today threaten Tel Aviv and its environs. Yadlin made it clear that Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War are both a scenario from the past. The next regional war would be of different scope, and the casualty toll would be of different dimensions than we’ve known so far.
So this is not just another general warning. This is solid intelligence information. It’s the real thing.

Lebanon in 2010 less business friendly than a year earlier
By The Daily Star
Friday, November 05, 2010
BEIRUT: Conducting business in Lebanon is more complicated and problematic in 2010 than in 2009, according to a new report issued by the World Bank/International Finance Corporation.
The “Doing Business 2011” report ranked Lebanon 113th out of 183 countries worldwide, down from the 109th spot in 2009.
Lebanon also ranked 11th of 19 Arab countries in terms of the ease of doing business, as reported by Lebanon This Week, the economic publication of the Byblos Bank Group.
The new findings have supported the arguments of many investors and businessmen who constantly complain about red tape and bureaucracy which they say is widespread in most government departments.
Lebanon is renowned for its rigid bureaucratic system in government departments, despite efforts by the Finance and Administrative Reforms ministries to revamp the country’s public departments.
Citing an example, investors say that it takes more than 10 days to process official papers in government departments and in some occasions it is necessary to bribe state employees to speed up the work.
The former World Bank country manager in Lebanon, Demba Ba, said the laws and bureaucratic procedures in public institutions compound the effects of complex regulations.
He added that it takes a trader in Lebanon 27 days to complete export formalities, and 38 days to fulfill import ones.
The index in the World Bank report is a composite of nine sub-indices of business regulation that track the time and cost to meet government requirements in business start-up, operation, trade, taxation, and closure.
Globally, Lebanon came ahead of Morocco, Argentina and Nepal and ranked behind Brunei Darussalam, Jordan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while it ranked ahead of Argentina and Palau and behind Bosnia and Herzegovina and Seychelles among upper-middle income countries.
It also ranked ahead of Morocco and the West Bank and Gaza, and behind Jordan and Yemen among Arab countries.
Lebanon ranked in 103rd place globally, and in ninth place in the Arab region for difficulty in starting a business. It ranked ahead of Fiji and Palau and behind Paraguay and Senegal on this indicator.
Regionally, it came ahead of Qatar and Sudan and behind Morocco and Bahrain.
Entrepreneurs need five steps to start a business in Lebanon compared to 8.1 in the MENA region and 5.6 procedures in OECD states. It takes nine days to start a business compared to 20 days in the region and 13.8 days in the OECD.
Lebanon ranked in 142nd globally, and in 16th place in the Arab region on the scale measuring the amount of time and steps involved with dealing with construction permits.
It ranked ahead of Iran and Guatemala, and came behind Uruguay, Sudan and Syria on this indicator. It also ranked ahead of Mauritania and Egypt.
A firm in Lebanon requires 21 procedures and 218 days to build a warehouse, compared to an average of 18.7 procedures and 151.9 days in the MENA region and to 15.8 procedures and 166.3 days in OECD states.
Lebanon also ranked in 111th place globally, and 16th place among Arab countries on the registering property indicator, which measures how long it takes to register a property in the country.
A firm in Lebanon requires eight procedures and 25 days to register a property, compared to an average of six procedures and 32.5 days in the MENA region and to 4.8 procedures and 32.7 days in OECD countries. Further, registering property in Lebanon costs 5.8 percent of the property value compared to 5.7 percent in the region and 4.4 percent in OECD markets.
It ranked ahead of Dominica and Panama, and behind Croatia and Ethiopia. It also ranked ahead of Morocco and Djibouti and behind Jordan and Iraq. – The Daily Star

March 14: Dialogue boycott bid to paralyze state
Hariri says cabinet issues should be kept separate from talks on defense strategy
By Elias Sakr /Daily Star staff
Friday, November 05, 2010
BEIRUT: March 14 leaders described Thursday Hizbullah and its allies’ boycott of the National Dialogue as an indication they intend to paralyze the function of Lebanese state institutions should their demands vis a vis the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) not be endorsed.
While Prime Minister Saad Hariri said the March 8 coalition’s decision to tie national issues to government affairs was an obstruction of dialogue, the premier’s allies warned against attempts to overthrow state institutions.
“Dialogue is the basis of the country and I regret that some missed the National Dialogue committee meeting … All parties should attend the next session and refrain from tying issues together because the Defense Strategy is one thing … and issues discussed in the Cabinet are something else,” he said.
“To simplify matters, this move is a crime against the nation and all parties should refrain from political overbidding,” he added.
Addressing International College students later Thursday, Hariri said attempts to obstruct dialogue pushed the country toward political deadlock.
But he dismissed the possibility of strife despite the provocative discourse of rival parties.
“I assure you that the situation will not move toward what some hope for and others are planning,” he said.
The premier also praised, the participation of Hizbullah ally Speaker Nabih Berri in the dialogue as evidence that dialogue among the Lebanese had not reached a dead end.
Following the session, Berri held closed door talks with President Michel Sleiman after a similar meeting between the president and Hariri, which the speaker later joined.
In remarks to reporters, Berri quipped that March 8 parties boycotted dialogue in solidarity with Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt.
Jumblatt missed the session owing to his travel schedule.
Sleiman, who chaired the committee’s meeting at Baabda Presidential Palace, said another session would be scheduled before November 22.
Hizbullah’s decision to boycott talks came in solidarity with its ally, Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, according to Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammad Raad.
Aoun suspended his participation to protest the postponement of Cabinet discussions over the issue of “false witnesses.”
Hizbullah’s Sheikh Naim Qassem said the “clock will be turned back. All opposition factions will go to the end to achieve their demands to refer the issue of false witnesses to the Judicial Council and put it on the right legal track.”
But Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel said National Dialogue was a framework to assess strategic issues rather than minor practices.
He questioned the motives behind the obstruction of dialogue by tying the Defense Strategy to the issue of “false witnesses.”
Minister of State Jean Hogassapian said Cabinet issues were “different” from those of the National Dialogue committee.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said the boycott was a message aimed at the top three state officials and Lebanese constitutional institutions in line with attempts to overthrow the STL. “The debated issue is the presence of a tribunal or its abolition … They have a position concerning false witnesses but what does it have to do with National Dialogue … what is their alternative if they do not want to discuss issues?” Geagea asked. Regarding Berri’s participation, Geagea said the speaker, “contrary to other parties, possessed a sense of responsibility.”

Hariri meets with EU parliamentary delegation
November 4, 2010 /On Thursday, Prime Minister Saad Hariri met with a delegation from the Committee on Relations with the Orient in the European Parliament headed by committee chairperson Mario David, according to a statement from the PM’s office. EU Ambassador to Lebanon Patrick Laurent was also present at the meeting.
Afterward, David said that the delegation had come to Lebanon to strengthen bilateral relations and review current developments, and voiced hope that Lebanon will continue on the path of prosperity, development, and national unity. -NOW Lebanon

Sami Gemayel
November 3, 2010
On November 2, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) carried the following report:
The Kataeb Party – Tampa Branch – in the American state of Florida organized a dinner in honor of the coordinator of the party’s Central Committee, Deputy Sami Gemayel. The dinner was attended by members of the Lebanese Diaspora and partisan cadres and elements. The celebration started with the American and Lebanese anthems, followed by the Kataeb Party anthem and a minute of silence dedicated to the souls of the martyrs. Deputy Gemayel then delivered a speech in which he tackled the incident with the international investigators inside the clinic of Dr. Iman Charara, describing what happened as being “extremely dangerous.” He believed that “the international tribunal will do its job, expose the identity of the criminals who assassinated the martyrs and issue its sentences which we will respect.
“This tribunal is a red line for the Phalange Party,” expressing surprise to see “one Lebanese citizen calling on other Lebanese citizens, deputies and ministers to rebel against the decision of the state to abide by the tribunal across television screens.” He thus called on all the Lebanese to “cooperate with the tribunal and provide it with the information they have and that could help it in its investigations,” believing that “the intimidation and the terrorization exercised by Hezbollah mark a prelude for the confrontation it will lead against the indictment. After the Lebanese state confirmed its cooperation with the international tribunal through the issuance of official decisions in this regard, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called on Lebanese people and politicians to rebel against the decisions of the Lebanese state and abstain from cooperating with an institution which the Lebanese state has decided to cooperate. As soon as Nasrallah finished his speech, the same choir which launched accusations of treason against me two months ago, came out to announce that whoever did not respect the latter statements will be crushed beneath their shoes.
These statements aim at harming the reputation of the international tribunal. They are an intimidation attempt to force the Lebanese state to relinquish its financial commitments toward this tribunal. Therefore, what we are witnessing today is an effort deployed by Hezbollah to prepare the Lebanese society for the confrontation stage of the indictment which will be issued by the tribunal.” He then stated that the talk about false witnesses and the politicization of the tribunal was due to a “decision adopted by Hezbollah four months ago to proceed against this tribunal, maybe after it turned out that the investigation is serious and after a number of [Hezbollah] elements were summoned to listen to their testimonies. This revealed that the tribunal held many facts and pieces of information which will allow it to reach the right decision.
This is when the intimidation, the accusations of treason and the dissemination of rumors started, in order to ruin the image of the tribunal and depict it as being politicized, at a time when it includes 250 employees from 52 states. This means there are 52 nationalities represented in it. Are all of the latter politicized or Israeli agents?” And while Gemayel corroborated the tribunal’s legitimacy and autonomy, he stressed the “[Kataeb] Party’s commitment to any decision issued by the tribunal in regard to all the crimes. This tribunal is a red line and we respond to all the calls to boycott it by saying it has the right to do its work. Therefore, we ask all the Lebanese to cooperate with it… While Nasrallah is calling for non-cooperation, we are calling for it because the Lebanese state issued its decision in this regard.
[Those who called for boycotting the tribunal] do not know us very well and you do not know there are still honorable people who are holding on to their rights, dignity and martyrs within this community. So let no one think that by yelling, issuing threats and wagging their fingers, they will make us change our principles or give up on our martyrs.” On the other hand, Deputy Gemayel pointed to the “necessity for the Christians to unite, so that they are able to work for their future.
After touring the United States for 18 days, we call on you to unite, open up and engage in dialogue with all those who do not think like us. It does not matter if we address those who do think like us solely. We must convince everyone of our point of view and the time has come to help each other because we cannot work if we are not united. We are convinced that Lebanon cannot be built without Christian unity, which is why it is important for us that you return to Lebanon. And if you do not return, we promise to work hard to allow you to vote at the embassies in 2013, so that you can give your opinion freely and have a say at the level of Lebanon’s fate [end of speech].”

Be consistent with Syria
Tony Badran, November 4, 2010
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) meets with US Senator John Kerry at Al-Shaab palace in Damascus on April 1, 2010. AFP Photo
Last week, an interesting set of reports and statements came from the US and France concerning Syria, highlighting its subversive role in the region. While this potentially signals a shift in dealing with Damascus, US policy in particular remains vague, as the White House seems unwilling to tell the Assad regime the costs of its chronic destabilizing behavior.
The opening salvo came in a report by the French Le Figaro last Monday. The paper claimed to have been given access to official Ministry of Defense documents that detail the location of three Hezbollah “logistical structures” inside Syria that are “dedicated to the transfer of its arms and personnel.”
According to the defense documents, Hezbollah has three units that oversee their operations in Syria. One unit is charged with “transferring arms and munitions between these storage sites in Syria and other infrastructures situated on the Syrian-Lebanese border.” The sites in Syria are located in and around Damascus, including near the airport. Other “reserve” storage sites are dispersed between Aleppo, Homs and Tartous.
A second unit is in charge of distributing the arms to various locations in Lebanon. The third unit “transports Hezbollah members and combatants, as well as Iranian experts who move between Lebanon, Syria and Iran through the Damascus airport.”
The story of Western intelligence uncovering Syrian-Hezbollah military integration is not new, as is evident from the story of the Scuds and M-600 missiles that surfaced back in April. What is somewhat new, however, is Washington’s reaction. Last time, the Obama administration reportedly dispatched Senator John Kerry to Damascus with a “warning” to the Syrians regarding their transfer of increasingly advanced weapons to Hezbollah. According to one unconfirmed report, the US may have even interfered to prevent a preemptive Israeli air strike.
In its report, Le Figaro quoted an anonymous source at the French Ministry of Defense who said that “targeted action by Israel against the sites… in Syria is still possible.” Indeed, veteran Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai observed that one message behind the report was “to indicate to [Bashar Assad] that Hezbollah’s headquarters and training camps in Syria are, in Israel’s view, legitimate targets.”
On Tuesday, Israel’s outgoing head of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin briefed Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warning them that the next war will be “much wider in scope” and “won't be focused on one theater, but rather will incorporate two or three.” Yadlin singled out Syria’s procurement of advanced weapons systems from Russia, which he said could be made available to Hezbollah.
The US reaction to came a couple of days after the article’s publication when Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, read a strongly worded statement outside the Security Council. In her statement, she repeatedly accused Syria of providing “increasingly sophisticated weapons” to Hezbollah, violating multiple UN Security Council resolutions, “flagrantly disregard[ing]” Lebanon’s independence and threatening stability.
The reaction was markedly different than the one in April. Rather than send an envoy to privately discuss matters with the Syrians, the US made it a public issue. Many have read this as signaling the predicted failure of the Syria engagement policy, especially as the situation in Lebanon heats up.
And yet, despite the glaring failure of the policy, US messaging remains inconsistent and hesitant, perhaps reflecting confusion about how to proceed forward, as well as an inability to lay out credible and exorbitant costs for Syrian intransigence.
Take for instance the press briefing by State Department spokesman PJ Crowley, released on the same day as Ambassador Rice’s statement. While equally harsh in his critique, when confronted with the failure of the administration’s “engagement” policy, Crowley could only double down on the defense of the policy, repeating tired platitudes such as the need to send an ambassador to Syria in order to better “communicate” with Damascus, when there has been no shortage of high-level diplomatic contacts.
And then came the $50,000 question to Crowley from a reporter: “What are the consequences if they continue not to listen to you?” This is where the administration’s failure was most painfully obvious. Crowley could only remind the reporter of the existing sanctions while laughably adding that Syria’s continued problematic behavior would deprive it from acquiring investments from American hi-tech firms.
Similarly, in an interview with the Washington Post, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman could not convincingly address the same question, and instead offered the feeble retort that such behavior blocks improved relations with the US, thereby potentially affecting the Syrians’ ability to gain the Golan Heights from Israel.
This lack of convincing deterrence poses a serious problem for US interests. The Syrians are accustomed to the politics of brinkmanship, as has been especially evident since Bashar Assad inherited power a decade ago. The Obama administration, with its projected image of a regional drawdown, already invites a test of wills, and Assad has shown that he relishes the conceit of staring down world powers.
This is precisely why Assad, who was brazen enough to pursue a covert nuclear program in collaboration with the North Koreans, has now progressed from providing Syrian-made weaponry to the Shiite militia to hosting Hezbollah installations on Syrian soil. This suggests that he has already taken measure of the administration as not being willing to follow through with its threats, and that its impulse is to “engage” and perhaps pursue peace talks as the preferred solution to Syrian roguishness. This perceived US posture permits and drives Assad to push the envelope further. This does not bode well for regional stability or American interests.
This is what the Syrians have become trained to expect, dating back to the American reaction to the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, and all the way to the lack of a forceful response to the Syrian war by proxy against the US in Iraq. The US cannot keep projecting this image of indecisiveness, nor can it continue to use the excuse of the “peace process” – which only feeds the Syrian sense of impunity and self-importance. Assad has to be shown that his role as propagator of violence will have clear, credible and devastating costs. Can the US muster such a decisive policy or will it continue to relinquish the initiative to regional actors?
**Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Hezbollah vs. the international community
Hanin Ghaddar , November 3, 2010
Last Thursday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared an open war against the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). He set a new stage in the Lebanese political scene, whereby any Lebanese citizen who supports or cooperates with the STL or its investigation team is considered a traitor.
This happened after a group of women charged at investigators from a UN probe into the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri at a clinic in Beirut on Wednesday, snatching a briefcase but causing no injuries.
This weekend, Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Ali Ammar said Hezbollah will protect officials who refuse to cooperate with the tribunal.
Hezbollah knows more than anyone else in Lebanon that the STL was initiated by the UN Security Council and can only be stopped by the council. No one else, in Lebanon or elsewhere, can stop the STL from accomplishing its mission.
But how is Hezbollah going to implement Nasrallah’s demand, which is considered a threat today by many Lebanese who are willing to cooperate with the STL? And if Hezbollah knows that the STL will not stop, what is really the end-game of this tension?
Unfortunately, the answer to the first question is street violence. Last Wednesday’s incident eliminated any hope among the Lebanese that the rising political tension will not be reflected in the streets. But now, although the Syrian-Saudi rapprochement, which is supposed to secure Lebanon’s stability and avoid clashes, has not been declared dead, it is clear the street will be the place where political tension is vented.
The women who invaded the doctor’s clinic and attacked the investigators were not official armed Hezbollah soldiers, and they were referred to in Hezbollah’s statements and media reports as citizens who just wanted to express their objection against the tribunal.
This reminds us of a similar incident when “the people” attacked UNIFIL troops in July of this year. One day before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued his 13th report on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, residents of 22 villages in the South took to the streets, blocked roads and attacked UNIFIL troops with stones to protest the increased presence of the UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon.
The incident was seen then as both an attack against the international resolutions and a message against the international community because of the imposed sanctions on Iran.
However, the parallels between the two incidents is that Hezbollah was sending these messages to the international community through “the people,” hence, building around itself a shield of loyalists who will do anything to protect the party.
The problem is that Hezbollah has put itself today on the defensive. They have moved against the STL before knowing the findings of the investigation or who will be indicted. This has raised some questions among many Lebanese about the party’s position. Being on the defensive is not a strong point for Hezbollah, because this has never been their approach.
But unfortunately, this could also mean that more desperate measures might be taken during battle, such as moving the conflict to the streets where it can be fought by “the people.”
Al-Akhbar daily, affiliated with March 8 forces, published a report on Monday that within two hours of an STL indictment against members of Hezbollah, the party will implement a non-violent scheme to “hold a security and military grip on large areas of Lebanon.”
Many analysts and politicians believe that this is a threat that cannot be implemented, because Hezbollah cannot afford to handle a coup d’état of this scale. That is why another scenario is possible. This scenario is related to recent talks about “changes in the government.”
Without Syria’s allies, Hezbollah will not be able to topple the government. Alone, the Party of God does not reach 11 ministers in the 30-minister government. However, with Syria’s allies, such as the Shia Amal Movement and the recently “converted” Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, this plan seems plausible.
Nevertheless, this would still not influence the STL, but it might lead to major changes in Lebanon. Today, Hezbollah stopped warning us and moved to implementing its threats. All other attempts failed: stopping the Lebanese government’s funding to the STL, withdrawing the Lebanese judges from the court and settling the issue of false witnesses. It became obvious that none of these steps will stop the work of the tribunal.
Using the street would probably lead to the desired changes in the government. However, the question remains: how would these changes influence the tribunal? It probably wouldn’t. No decision taken internally would affect the STL’s work; however, other decisions could be a cause of fear for the Lebanese.
For a while now, mainly since the Doha Agreement that stopped the violence of the May 7 events of 2008 – when Hezbollah-led militias attacked Beirut and the Druze mountains – Hezbollah and the Amal Movement have been calling for reconsidering the Lebanese political “system,” which is currently based on the equal division of power between Christians and Muslims. The two parties have repeatedly hinted at a new equation, sometimes under the pretext of abolishing sectarianism based on a three-way power sharing system among the Christians, the Sunnis and the Shia.
Christians in Lebanon are already divided and are thinning demographically. Moreover, the Taif Accord transferred many of the Maronite president’s privileges to the Sunni prime minister. If the current equal division of power in the parliament between Christians and Muslims were to be abolished, Christians would lose even more of their standing.
However, by using the street and the people to its advantage, Hezbollah is ironically placing itself in a vulnerable position, as the problem of its arms will resurface. After the formation of the “national-unity government” in 2009, all Lebanese factions agreed to solve the issue of arms internally. However, although Hezbollah did not use its arms against the investigators, recent developments seem to have brought back the discussion of UNSCR 1559, which stipulates the removal of all armed militias in Lebanon.
Hezbollah wants to create a political situation where no one would dare approach the party in case an indictment is issued against any of its members. This is a fight against the international community, and it might backfire because it will be very difficult to separate Lebanon from the rest of the world. Not only do many Lebanese not want that, but also the international community hasn’t yet given up on Lebanon. Or so it seems.
**Hanin Ghaddar is managing editor of NOW Lebanon.

Christian Meeting Declares Lebanon in 'Grave Danger,' Urges International Community to Implement its Commitments Toward it
Naharnet/A Christian meeting held in Bkirki under Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir on Friday declared Lebanon is in "grave danger" and called on the International Community to implement its commitments toward it. The meeting included officials from the March 14 coalition and independent figures. A statement read by Phalange party leader Amin Gemayel said: "Lebanon as an entity and a democratic system is in grave danger – a danger on all Lebanese, Christians and Muslims.""We call on all Lebanese who have faith in their country to get up and defend Lebanon," the statement urged. Beirut, 05 Nov 10, 12:39

Geagea: The Other Camp Will Take to the Streets, But Street is Not the Solution
Naharnet/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Friday that the delicate situation Lebanon was going through warranted the Christian meeting in Bkirki.
"We are facing challenges, most importantly the explosive situation in the region which will leave an impact on us as Lebanese it we do not act," Geagea told reporters following the meeting held under Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. Geagea said it was "not normal" for the Opposition to deal with matters outside of State institutions. "They want to take to the streets, but the street is not the solution," Geagea told the Opposition without naming it. "There is hope," Geagea said. "There is the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and Parliament Speaker and a Government until further notice -- security institutions and government departments.""As long as the officials are determined to carry out their responsibilities the situation is good," he added. Beirut, 05 Nov 10, 13:12

Naharnet with One of Bellemare's Assistants: Stability Concerns us, But We'll Say the Truth as we Reach it
Naharnet Special Report – Leidschendam:
Attorney General at the office of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, Eckhard Vihopf, sufficed with replying that the "indictment will be issued in the near future" when asked when the indictment in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will be announced.
He added: "The investigation has made progress in the past months, and we hope for it to make more progress in the upcoming months." Even though Vihopf refused to add more details, Naharnet succeeded, after numerous attempts, to break the "wall of silence" Bellemare and his assistants were hiding behind. Naharnet managed to meet with a few members of his team and acquire explanation in what appeared to be contradictions in Vihopf's statements, as how can the indictment be announced "in the near future" and achieve more progress in "the upcoming months"? A prominent official in the prosecutor's team replied: "To those accustomed to the investigation and the STL's legal work, there are not contradictions in Vihopf's statements. According to the rules of the STL, the indictment can be issued at different stages and not in one announcement."
"In other words, the indictment will be released soon against one or more individuals, not through a single indictment, as a result of the progress achieved in the past few months, and it will be followed by other indictments that will encompass more individuals, based on the progress it achieves in the upcoming months," he explained.
Asked if the contradictory information attributed to Leidschendam (the STL's headquarters) is a sign of confusion as a result of the investigation's "weak" content and the campaigns against the "evidence", starting with the phone call data and Israel's violations of the telecommunications sector in Lebanon, the prominent official stated that the confusion does not lie within the investigation and the tribunals' bodies and branches.
"It instead lies within the Lebanese politicians and media that are affected by them, as they tend to make their own explanations to the few statements we issue and use them according to their interests," he added.
"They issue statements over what they assume we base our investigations and indictment on without these assumptions necessarily being correct," he continued.
"We on the other hand, know exactly what we want and where we want it to lead to through hard work and perseverance to follow the leads until the end," he added.
"We grant the Lebanese politicians and public what we believe is the sufficient amount to prove our presence, professionalism, and assistance in helping them solve their problems related to Hariri's assassination. They are free to deal with it and us however they want as long as they commit to pledges and international resolutions that we work under," the official said.
"We are not prepared to get dragged into debates. For example, we have taken our legal position over what you in Lebanon are calling the 'false witnesses' file. We distributed an eight-point statement to the media stipulating our legal opinion over this matter and I read a summary of it to your website in particular," he stated.
"If some individuals do not want to be convinced of our legal opinion, then this is their problem. We are performing our duties and the Lebanese should assume their responsibilities just like us," he added.
Asked if Bellemare will commit to statements he made a few months ago that his responsibilities include not taking a decision or step that would lead to instability in Lebanon, the official replied that he will, but this does not mean that the prosecutor will yield to threats that place the international community and the Lebanese before one of two choices: the indictment or stability in Lebanon.
"We have previously stated that the core of our convictions is that reaching justice is at the heart of stability in societies and therefore Bellemare's statement means that the international investigation will not allow itself to be used by a Lebanese or non-Lebanese political team to achieve something that has noting to do with Hariri's assassination," the official added.
"But the truth will be told and we will reach it without making any embellishments to it. It is natural that those who do not want it to be revealed will be harmed by it and we are concerned with the interest of those who are harmed by crimes, and not the interest of those harmed by uncovering those behind them," he stressed. Beirut, 05 Nov 10, 14:13

STL Witnessing 'Tug of Rope War' between Cassese, Bellemare
Naharnet Special Report – Leidschendam:
Special Tribunal for Lebanon President Antonio Cassese succeeded in conveying an "indirect message" of hope to Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, even at the expense of the credibility of Lebanese journalists who heard Cassese repeatedly saying, in three different ways, that he hoped an indictment would be issued in the 2005 assassination of ex-Pm Rafik Hariri.
Cassese, during the opening on Wednesday of the 2nd International Media Forum hosted by the STL and the Foreign Press Association in the Netherlands, "hoped" that Bellemare will issue an indictment in the Hariri murder "when he becomes ready for such a step.
Cassese reiterated that he "hopes" the indictment would be issued before the end of this year, but he noted that he does not know whether Bellemare would issue it in December or not.
Despite the "strong denial" by the STL's Outreach Office regarding Cassese's statement, about 20 Lebanese journalists agreed that Cassese's remarks reflect his wish that an indictment would be issued in December. High-level STL staff, however, believe that Lebanese journalists paid the price of an undeclared "tug of rope war" that has been going on for weeks in the corridors of the International Tribunal between Cassese and Bellemare. While Cassese seeks to expedite the launch of the trial, which can be achieved without issuance of an indictment by Bellemare, the Prosecutor wants to buy time so that the indictment issued would be based on solid ground of evidence.
It seems from Cassese's hopes that an indictment would be issued in December that the STL President wants to impose a "fait accompli" on Bellemare in an attempt to embarrass him without engaging in a public confrontation with him to push him into expediting issuance of the indictment.
In the mid-nineties, Cassese summoned the judges of the International Court of the Former Yugoslavia to a meeting that came out with a statement declaring their adherence to the need to charge senior officials for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and bring them to trial, and not just be satisfied with accusing some of those who took orders of lower degrees of responsibility. Well-informed officials inside the STL confirmed, however, that things between Cassese and Bellemare will not be a replica of what happened between Cassese and Goldstone, stressing that "throwing a stone in stagnant water is necessary from time to time to push things forward!" Beirut, 05 Nov 10, 09:13

Politics and property
Christian parties and Hezbollah quarrel over land
Ana Maria Luca, November 5, 2010
Minister of Agriculture Hussein Hajj Hassan is at the center of a controversy over a land purchase near Jdeideh, Lebanon. (Joseph Barrak/AFP)
The 6,000-square-meter plot of land straddles the towns of Jdeideh and Fanar, north of Beirut. It is situated between the villages of Rwayssat and Zaatryieh, two Shia neighborhoods largely inhabited by refugees, who moved there from Bekaa Valley after the civil war.
In 2007, a wealthy Christian businessman sold the land to an Islamic non-governmental organization led by a current Hezbollah minister. The transaction was officially registered in 2008, but, it was only a month ago that members of the Jdeideh municipality first saw the contract and noticed that the value of the land declared was much lower than its real price. The land’s estimated value is approximately 10 million dollars, but the contract put the value at around half a million dollars.
When it was leaked to the media a few weeks ago, the case raised eyebrows. It was not the tax evasion allegations against Minister of Agriculture Hussein Hajj Hassan that got people talking. It was the transaction between businessman Jean Abou Jaoudeh, a Christian, and the Islamic Association for Education, an Islamic NGO closely linked to Hezbollah, that started a dangerous Christian-Shia quarrel on who controls which part of Lebanon. The rift revealed deep-rooted sectarian resentments. Politicians say the dispute is not about individuals buying an apartment, but about Hezbollah purchasing strategically positioned pieces of land.
Christian political parties in the March 14 coalition, namely the Lebanese and Phalange Forces, reacted aggressively to the land purchase by accusing Hezbollah of having a “bit-by-bit” strategy of taking over Christian and Druze lands. “It is a purely political move and its purpose is to provoke a demographic change and modify the region’s profile,” Phalanges MP Sami Gemayel told MTV.
While Hezbollah remains silent on the matter, other Shia politicians, such as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, say the whole issue is being exaggerated. Berri expressed his disappointment over the debate, saying there is always a campaign against Hezbollah whenever a Shia buys a piece of land in a Christian area. He also pointed out that the most expensive real estate in Shia areas is owned by non-Shia.
"We are working to fortify Lebanon to be a space for work, dialogue and agreement against its mere enemy, Israel," Berri added.
While Berri downplayed the issue, other Christian politicians say transactions such as the one in Jdeideh are taking place all over Lebanon. In some neighborhoods of Beirut, such as Hadath, Christians have agreed not to sell property to Shia buyers in order to “preserve their community”, municipality employees told NOW Lebanon. But the agreement also applies to Shia members who don’t support Hezbollah.
“It’s a strategy. They have techniques of taking over the land bit by bit and then linking those bits,” Jdeideh municipality council member Adel Elia told NOW Lebanon. “In the 1960s, the Christian community used to own 60% of the land in Lebanon. Now it’s just 30%,” he said.
According to Serge Dagher, the head of media department for the Phalange party, the problem is not with individuals from the Shia community buying property, but with Hezbollah, an armed group outside the Lebanese state that is acquiring strategic property.
“If somebody, a Shia individual, buys an apartment or a piece of land, it’s not a problem. Hezbollah is different, it’s obviously strategic. Hezbollah usually buys land in high positions, overseeing roads or strategic objectives, or closing access to some objectives,” he told NOW Lebanon.
Elia says that when the Jdeideh municipality council found out about the transaction, they discussed it in a meeting, which was attended by the former landowner.
“He said he needed the money,” Elia said. “But we don’t believe him, he doesn’t have financial problems. I think he is trying to become a candidate for the next parliamentary elections. Now, we are trying to see if the municipality can take the land back and turn it into public property.”
After Lebanese journalist George Eid disclosed the details of the affair in a report on MTV he said he received threats.
“I got this phone call and somebody told me ‘you’re playing with fire’,” he told NOW Lebanon.
Land seller Abou Jaoudeh filed a lawsuit against MTV for libel. Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan would not provide any comment to NOW Lebanon on the matter.
According to the Lebanese Forces international affairs advisor Elie Khoury, transactions similar to the one in Jdeiddeh took place in the Jezzine area, the bay of Litani, Marjayoun and Hasbaya in South Lebanon, as well as along the Blue Line and in Jbeil. Khoury said Christians and Druze who relocated during the civil war and don’t want to return to their original land and therefore sell it at a low cost, around five or six dollars per square meter.
“It’s too obvious to be just a coincidence,” he told NOW Lebanon, as he read from the two-page list of transactions that his party had put together. He said that in the Bay of Litani, a Shia businessman who appeared to be middle class, bought 1.5 million-square-meters of land, implying that the funds came from an outside entity.
In another case in the Jezzine area, Khoury said a 2.2 million-square-meter farm has been turned into a Hezbollah military compound, and that last year, a Lebanese Armed Forces helicopter was shot down while flying over the area. Other big pieces of land in Deir Mimas, Marjayoun, Burghuz in Hasbaya were bought by those associated with Hezbollah, he said.
Many Shia families have moved out of Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods like Dahiyeh into areas like Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut, according to the employees of that municipality. They say Christian landlords made an agreement to no longer sell property to Shia, but only to rent. “We are trying to preserve our community,” one Hadath municipality worker said. “They are our neighbors, we live in peace, but it’s our way to preserve our identity.”
**Nadine Elali contributed reporting to this article

Naim Qassem
November 5, 2010
On November 4, the Lebanese National News Agency carried the following report:
The gathering of Lebanese national parties, forces and figures held its regular meeting today in Haret Hreik, in the presence of Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem who discussed the political events and developments. According to a statement issued at the end of the meeting, Qassem praised “the role of the national parties in enhancing the methods and culture of the Resistance as the only way to liberate the land and regain the stolen rights from the occupation and its agents, as well as the particularity of the meeting which rendered dialogue a factor combining all the powers who believe in this choice.
[He pointed out] unilateral role played by America in imposing its military and political dominance over the states of the region following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its old and renewed colonial project which started with its occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, going through the attempts to besiege and isolate Syria and prevent Iran from acquiring knowledge. We are also in the presence of American-Israeli attempts to plant the seeds of sectarian strife in Lebanon and strike the resistance in both Lebanon and Palestine. This American project in the region has failed in the face of Iran’s steadfastness, Syria’s rejection and the victory of the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements over Israel in Lebanon and in Gaza in Palestine.
[He pointed out that] the Americans are now focusing on the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and are trying to achieve a partial or minor breakthrough at the level of these talks, as an important and basic step to exert pressures on the Arabs and the Palestinians and get more concessions in favor of the Zionist entity which has become completely impotent following the series of military defeats it endured during the last few years. This is due to the fact that it is now unable to wage any wars or engage in any costly or miscalculated confrontations that could threaten the entire entity, at a time when the strength of the resistance is increasing and the Syrian and Iranian influences in the region are rising in coordination with Turkey, which decided to stand alongside the rightful causes, lift the injustice affecting the occupied Arab territories and restore the legitimate rights to their lawful owners. This toppled the equation against Israel, in favor of the rejectionist states and the people of this region.
The direct targeting of the resistance in Lebanon following the failure of all the attempts to remove its arms which achieved victory over Israel and allowed Lebanon to regain most of its occupied territories and most of its detainees from the prisons of the occupation without any conditions, political concessions or foreign dictations, could hijack Lebanon’s will to defend the land against Israel’s violations of national sovereignty and dignity. [Through these arms], Lebanon has become strong with its army, people and resistance, as opposed to the fact that its strength resides in its weakness.
[On the ‘false witnesses’ file,] time will not go backward and the opposition – with all its factions and forces – is proceeding until the end to achieve its demand of seeing the transfer of this file to the Judicial Council, so that it is placed on the right legal track. This must be done to find out who instigated these false witnesses to mislead the investigations, who is supporting them and who is standing behind them. This is essential to uncover the truth in regard to the side which assassinated martyred Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and his companions.
This indictment’s accusation of elements from Hezbollah is one of the scenarios being used not only to accuse and besiege the resistance to serve Israel, but also to do the same to Iran and maybe Syria later on. This will help plant the seeds of strife and create a state of instability in Lebanon, considering that some believe that this might distract the resistance on the domestic arena, at the expense of its confrontation with Israel.
This will not happen and the resistance, along with its domestic allies, will continue to confront these attempts, enhance the unity of the internal ranks and immunize the factors of stability and development. These steps will protect Lebanon from the winds of the projects wishing to undermine Lebanon’s unity, sovereignty, growth and the progress of its people.”

14th report of the UN Secretary General on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006)
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Report
1. The present report provides a comprehensive assessment of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) since the last report of the Secretary General was issued on July 1, 2010 (S/2010/352).
2. For the first time since the cessation of hostilities between the parties in August 2006, direct fighting broke out between the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israeli Army on August 3, resulting in casualties on both sides. This incident, the most serious to have taken place since the cessation of hostilities, illustrated the fragility of the security environment across the Blue Line and raised the specter of a serious escalation between the parties.
3. While all parties continue to state their commitment to the full implementation of Resolution 1701 (2006), repeated and continuous breaches by the parties of their obligations under the resolution were recorded over the reporting period. No progress was recorded with regard to key obligations under the resolution, including withdrawal from the northern part of Ghajar and adjacent area, as described in further detail in this report. There was also no movement from the current state of cessation of hostilities to a permanent ceasefire, as called for in the resolution.
4. In Lebanon, political tension increased markedly during the reporting period, fueled by speculation and public pronouncements over potential indictments to be issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Against this background, a historic summit among the president of Lebanon, the king of Saudi Arabia and the president of the Syrian Arab Republic held in Beirut on July 31 succeeded in lowering tensions which, unfortunately, have resurfaced in recent weeks. While state institutions, including the Cabinet of National Unity, continue to function, confrontation over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has led to the deterioration of the political consensus that had prevailed since the formation of the government in 2009.
5. During the reporting period, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic continued to increase their cooperation. On July 18, 17 agreements covering security and economic issues were signed during a visit to Damascus by a Lebanese ministerial delegation headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Some of these agreements directly affect the management of the border between both countries. Subsequent meetings between President Bashar Assad and Hariri took place during the trilateral Summit with Saudi Arabia in Beirut on July 31, and later in Damascus on August 29. It is expected that these contacts will translate into further progress on key aspects that – although pertaining to bilateral relations between the two countries – also have a direct bearing on the full implementation of UN Resolution 1701 (2006).
II- Implementation of
Resolution 1701 (2006) and other related resolutions.
6. On September 1, the Permanent Representative of Lebanon to the United Nations, through identical letters addressed to the president of the Security Council and to me (A/64/908-S/2010/460), conveyed information about the continued investigations by the Lebanese security agencies of alleged Israeli spy networks in Lebanon, asserting that they constituted a blatant aggression against Lebanon and its sovereignty. The letter alleges, inter alia, that “their existence is contrary to international resolutions, in particular Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006), paragraph 5.”
The letter included lists of names of individuals alleged to have been involved, some of whom already have been tried.
A situation in the UNIFIL area of operations
7. The situation in the UNIFIL area of operations was relatively stable during the reporting period in spite of several significant security incidents. In my letter to the President of the Security Council dated August 11, 2010, recommending the extension of UNIFIL’s mandate (S/2010/430), I reported on the exchange of fire between the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israel Army that occurred on August 3, 2010, in the general vicinity of Al-Adaysseh. Following this incident, the parties reconfirmed their commitment to the cessation of hostilities and the implementation of Resolution 1701 (2006).
8. UNIFIL completed its investigation into the August 3 incident and shared the investigation report with the parties in late August. The UNIFIL investigation found that the location of the Israeli tree-cutting works and the deployment of Israeli Army troops were approximately 93 meters south of the Blue Line. Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL personnel were deployed along the main road in Al-Adaysseh, which is customarily used, with no objections from the Israeli Army, by the Lebanese Armed Forces, Lebanese civilians and UNIFIL although it is located some meters south of the Blue Line.
As part of its efforts to prevent an escalation of the situation, UNIFIL called on the Lebanese Armed Forces not to open fire and proposed to the Israeli Army to delay work for one day and for UNIFIL to carry out the work. Both parties rejected UNIFIL’s proposals. The Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers were the first to take combat positions, aiming their weapons in the direction of Israeli troops. Immediately thereafter, Israeli Army soldiers also took combat positions, aiming their weapons in the direction of the Lebanese troops. The investigation found that the first shot was fired into the air by a Lebanese soldier, which was followed, within seconds, by two additional shots and a burst of fire by other Lebanese Armed Forces soldiers.
The Israeli Army deployed at the location subsequently opened fire in the direction of the Lebanese Armed Forces troops. The Israeli Army fire at the Lebanese Armed Forces, including across the Blue Line, was subsequent to the Lebanese Armed Forces fire directed at the Israeli Army. The exchange of fire lasted approximately three hours, with varying intensity and intermittent lulls. The Lebanese Armed Forces used personal weapons, medium machine gun and, at least on one occasion, a rocket-propelled grenade.
The Israeli Army used personal and heavy weapons, tank rounds, artillery rounds and missiles fired from attack helicopters.
The investigation found that, in all probability, the Israeli Army officers were hit by aimed fire originating from the general area behind the Lebanese Armed Forces deployment on the Al-Adaysseh road. In the course of the exchange of fire, the Israeli Army fired at Lebanese Armed Forces positions located some distance away from the site of the incident.
9. The UNIFIL investigation concluded that the Lebanese Armed Forces opening fire, which triggered the exchange, constituted a serious violation of Resolution 1701 (2006) and a flagrant breach of the cessation of hostilities. The Lebanese Armed Forces opening fire and the Israeli Army return fire endangered the safety of Lebanese civilians and UNIFIL troops.
The parties have since provided their comments on the investigation report to UNIFIL, which the Mission has taken into consideration in finalizing the report.
The comments have not, however, altered the conclusions of UNIFIL’s investigation.
Arms embargo
44. In Resolution 1701 (2006), the Council decided that all states shall take measures to prevent the sale or supply of arms and related materiel to entities or individuals in Lebanon by their nationals or from their territories using their flag vessels or aircraft.
The Council also called upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points so as to prevent the entry of arms and related material without its consent.
45. During the reporting period, the government of Lebanon did not report any breach of the arms embargo imposed by Resolution 1701 (2006).
For its part, the government of Israel continues to allege that Hizbullah continues to rebuild its armament. According to the government of Israel, Hizbullah remains in possession of more than 55,000 missiles and rockets as the organization seeks to acquire even more advanced weapons.
During a recent visit by my special coordinator to Israel, the government of Israel conveyed to him allegations of breaches of the arms embargo across the border between Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. Although the United Nations takes these allegations seriously,it is not in a position to verify this information independently.
46. The government of Lebanon has continued to make progress in developing a national strategy for the management of its land borders.
The national coordinator appointed in March to oversee the development of such a strategy submitted a draft to the prime minister in August.
The prime minister is in the process of reviewing this draft before presenting it to Cabinet for approval. The draft strategy will address the upgrading and modernization of legal crossing points between Lebanon and Syria, including the opening of a new legal crossing point that would bring the total number to six, reflecting agreements signed between the two governments in July.
It will also address the issues of control of the land border by dedicated units of the Lebanese Armed Forces and socioeconomic development of border areas. With regard to control of the land border, the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces informed my special coordinator that the army is ready to take on these new tasks through the deployment of three border regiments composed of dedicated units, but noted that this will require additional equipment and infrastructure development.
48. In identical letters dated October 13 from the deputy permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations addressed to the Undersecretary Generals for Political Affairs and for Peacekeeping Operations, the government of Israel asserts that the relevant parties have not taken meaningful action to combat illegal weapons transfers in spite of the efforts by secretary general and donor countries to tackle this issue in an operative manner.
49. The Lebanese authorities deem cooperation with their Syrian counterparts with regard to the management of the border, in particular as it relates to security issues, as satisfactory. At the same time, the effective management of the border continues to be adversely affected by the fact that it is neither delineated nor demarcated, and by the continued presence of Palestinian military bases which straddle the border between the two countries.
Observations
58. Overall, the events during this reporting period suggest a deterioration in the situation in Lebanon. I have expressed my deep concern at the exchange of fire between the Lebanese Armed Forces and the [Israeli Army] that occurred on August 3, in which lives were lost on both sides. I urge the parties to do everything in their power to ensure that this incident remains an isolated one, and cooperate closely with UNIFIL in its efforts to prevent such an event from recurring. I am encouraged that the parties have re-confirmed their commitment to Resolution 1701 (2006) and call on them to fully respect the cessation of hostilities and the Blue Line in its entirety.
60. Notwithstanding the new strategic environment and the relative stability prevailing in southern Lebanon that UNIFIL has helped to establish, in cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces, the situation continues to be volatile and more work remains to be done by the parties to advance the full implementation of Resolution 1701 (2006). Long-term sustained efforts are required to ensure that the area between the Blue Line and the Litani River is free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL, in accordance with Resolution 1701 (2006).
61. I deem it a priority to resolve the issue of the continued occupation by the [Israeli Army] of the northern part of Al-Ghajar and the adjacent area north of the Blue Line. I urge Israel to withdraw its forces in accordance with Resolution 1701 (2006), without further delay. UNIFIL stands ready to facilitate such a withdrawal. I look forward to a successful outcome of the ongoing discussions referred to in paragraph 11 above, which could help revive momentum for broader implementation of Resolution 1701 (2006).
Disarming armed groups
35. Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) calls for the full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006) which require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon so that there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state. However, Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias continue to operate in Lebanon outside of the control of the state, in violation of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701 (2006). Hizbullah, which remains the most significant armed group in Lebanon, continues to maintain substantial military capabilities outside of the control of the state, and I continue to receive reports asserting that it has substantially upgraded and expanded its military arsenal. Hizbullah leaders do not deny these allegations, having repeatedly claimed in public that their organization possesses significant military means, which they claim will only be used for defensive purposes. This remains a central issue of contention in Lebanon’s political debate.
36. On 24 August, heavy armed clashes erupted between supporters of Hizbullah and the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects (Al-Ahbash), a Sunni group that is a political ally of the opposition, in the Beirut neighbourhood of Burj Abi-Haider. The clashes, which resulted in the deaths of three people, including a senior Hizbullah official, rapidly spilled over to adjacent neighborhoods in Beirut and continued for several hours. The use of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the fighting provided a stark reminder of the widespread proliferation of weapons in Lebanon and the risk this poses to the maintenance of domestic stability.
37. The presence of Palestinian armed groups outside the camps continues to challenge Lebanon’s ability to exercise full sovereignty over its territory. Regrettably, there has been no progress during the reporting period towards the disarming of such groups.
Refugees
74. The situation of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon remains a subject of serious concern. Respect for the basic human rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon requires decisive action to improve their living standards. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) continues to face significant funding shortfalls both for its regular programs, aimed at delivering basic services to the Palestinian refugees, and for the reconstruction of the Nahr al-Bared camp. I call upon the government of Lebanon and the donor community to continue their efforts to address the dire socio-economic situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as a matter of priority. I further urge donors, including countries in the region, to continue, and if possible increase, their support for UNRWA.
75. I remain keenly aware that the implementation by Israel and Lebanon of their obligations under Resolution 1701 (2006) is greatly influenced by dynamics affecting the region as a whole. Tangible progress in the Middle East peace process would contribute to a positive momentum as concerns the implementation of Resolution 1701 and the stability of Lebanon.
76. I call on both Israel and Lebanon to take the steps necessary to reach a permanent ceasefire and to achieve what United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) terms a long-term solution governing their relations. The achievement of that solution cannot and should not be dissociated from the need to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on all relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 1515 (2003). I call upon the parties and upon all member states to work decisively toward this goal.
Israeli Violations
62. I am concerned about the fact that the [Israeli Army] continues to violate Resolution 1701 (2006) and Lebanese sovereignty on an almost daily basis through overflights of Lebanese territory. These overflights exacerbate tensions in southern Lebanon. They also negatively impact on the credibility of the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL. I call once again on Israel to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty by ceasing immediately all overflights of Lebanese territory.
63. As UNIFIL’s strategic partner, the Lebanese Armed Forces play a key role in the implementation of Resolution 1701 (2006). I welcome the deployment in late July 2010 of an additional brigade of the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon. I also welcome the endorsement by the government of Lebanon of the implementation of the strategic dialogue mechanism between UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces. I encourage UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces to launch this new strategic dialogue mechanism at the earliest opportunity.
64. The Lebanese Armed Forces have continued to act with strong commitment and resolve, and their capacity has been gradually strengthened with the assistance of international donors. I am grateful to those countries that are helping to equip and train the Lebanese Armed Forces, including the navy, and I urge the international community to continue this critically required support to Lebanese Armed Forces capacity-building. Such support is essential if the Lebanese Armed Forces are to be able to assume effective responsibility for security over UNIFIL’s area of operations and the maritime entry points into Lebanon in the future.
65. I am concerned about the incidents in the reporting period that impeded UNIFIL’s freedom of movement, and endangered UNIFIL peacekeepers. The freedom of movement of UNIFIL and the security and safety of its personnel are integral to the effective execution of its tasks, in accordance with resolutions 1701 (2006) and 1773 (2007). The primary responsibility for ensuring freedom of movement to UNIFIL personnel in the area of operations lies with the Lebanese authorities.
11. The [Israeli Army] continued its occupation of the northern part of the village of Ghajar and an adjacent area north of the Blue Line, in violation of Resolution 1701 (2006).
Notwithstanding Israel’s obligation to withdraw its forces from the area, UNIFIL has continued to engage both parties in an effort to facilitate such a withdrawal. While discussions have continued on the basis of UNIFIL’s proposal of August 2008, my special coordinator for Lebanon and the UNIFIL force commander have begun to explore intermediate steps with the parties that could facilitate the withdrawal of the [Israeli Army] from this area.
12. Almost daily intrusions into Lebanese airspace by [Israeli Army] aircraft, mostly unmanned aerial vehicles but also a significant numbers of fighter jets, continued. These overflights constitute violations of Resolution 1701 (2006) and of Lebanese sovereignty.
UNIFIL protested all air violations, and asked Israel to cease them immediately. The government of Lebanon also protested against the violations, demanding that they cease immediately.
The government of Israel maintained that the overflights were necessary security measures, citing, inter alia, the alleged lack of enforcement of the arms embargo as the reason for their continuation.
13. On July 23 shots were fired from an [Israeli Army] position across the Blue Line in the direction of the Lebanese village of Ayta al-Shaab (Sector West). The [Israeli Army] later informed UNIFIL that the shots had been caused by an accidental weapon malfunction. UNIFIL protested this violation of Resolution 1701 (2006) to the [Israeli Army].
 

The Arab Lobby: The European Component
by Steven J. Rosen
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2010, pp. 17-32
http://www.meforum.org/2774/arab-lobby-europe
In the early 1980s, there was a palpable concern among staffers at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of the looming rise of an Arab-American lobby aimed at challenging the pro-Israel community. The National Association of Arab-Americans (NAAA), founded in 1972, was at a high point, and in 1980, former U.S. senator James Abourezk established the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). In 1985, James Zogby added the Arab American Institute. Some pundits predicted that AIPAC had finally met its match, and a few of AIPAC's own top supporters were alarmed. The Arab-American lobby looked as if it was on an upward trajectory.
An Arab-American Lobby?
Hezbollah's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah publicly admitted that without European Union aid and backing, "our funding [and] moral, political, and material support will ... dry up."
However, attempts to mobilize Americans of Arab origin in a crusade against Israel have been limited by the fact that this agenda is not a critical interest for the majority. About two thirds of Arab Americans (63 percent) derive from Christian minorities in the Middle East, who have suffered at the hands of extremist Arab-nationalist and Muslim groups in their home countries. More than half of all Arab Americans are Lebanese and Syrian Christians, who know the damage done to Lebanon by Syrian Baathists, Palestinian terrorists, and the Shiite Hezbollah.[1] A third of all Arab Americans are Maronite Christians and are more faithfully represented by organizations such as the American Lebanese League, devoted to saving Lebanon from Arab extremists, rather than organizations crusading against Israel or supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Only a minority of Arab Americans, then and now, seeks to support organizations whose sole or main purpose is conducting political action against Israel; and some of those who are attracted to the anti-Israel agenda are so radical that such organizations do not want them.

The largest Arab-American group, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), attracts recruits by combating anti-Arab bias and stereotyping inside the United States, a cause understandably closer to the hearts of many mainstream Arab-American families than importing into the United States the struggle against Israel that brought so much misery in their countries of origin. The National Association of Arab-Americans, which focused on the Israel agenda, has ceased to exist altogether since it merged into ADC in 2001.[2] Today, Arab-American organizations are a factor in the Middle East debate but certainly have not risen to a level that can challenge the influence of the American friends of Israel.

A Petrodollar Lobby?
Another issue that raised concern in the pro-Israel community in the 1980s was the growth of a "petrodollar lobby" in the United States, fueled by the giant oil companies and embassies of Middle East countries such as Saudi Arabia, awash in a flood of money since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled oil prices in the 1970s. AIPAC founder Isaiah Kenen had described the Arab lobby as a "petro diplomatic complex."[3] Steven Emerson wrote about the petrodollar lobby in his 1985 best-seller, The American House of Saud, revealing how Arab embassies and firms that seek Arab contracts employ prominent U.S. figures such as former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman William Fulbright, former White House aide Frederick G. Dutton, former secretary of the treasury William Simon, former Texas governor John Connally, former budget director Bert Lance, and former vice president Spiro Agnew.

Yet it is difficult to see significant evidence of the impact of the petrodollar lobby in the Arab-Israeli sphere or any major effort on their part to interfere in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel. Oil firms, Arab embassies, and their lobbyists do have considerable influence in the sphere of energy policy, and on some Persian Gulf issues, including arms sales to Arab gulf states.[4] But their main focus is on the rich and comparatively moderate Arab countries, not Israel's less prosperous neighbors such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.[5] And they have shown no signs of seeking to do battle against AIPAC and the friends of Israel. In fact, on a few select projects (notably Turkey policy and the Baku-Ceyhan Caspian pipeline), AIPAC and their interests have aligned and the two lobbies have in fact cooperated with each other. Even when they differed, as on Iran, it was a clash of interests about economic sanctions rather than an ideological dispute about Iran itself.

Europe as the Real Arab Lobby
Long experience in Washington leads to a different and somewhat surprising conclusion. The strongest external force pressuring the U.S. government to distance itself from Israel is not the Arab-American organizations, the Arab embassies, the oil companies, or the petrodollar lobby. Rather, it is the Europeans, especially the British, French, and Germans, that are the most influential Arab lobby to the U.S. government. The Arabs know this, so their preferred road to Washington often runs through Brussels or London or Paris. Nabil Shaath, then Palestinian Authority "foreign minister," said in 2004 that the European Union is "the ally of our choice."[6]

The Arabs consider Europe to be the soft underbelly of the U.S. alliance with Israel and the best way to drive a wedge between the two historic allies.

The Europeans are particularly formidable in their influence over U.S. Middle East policy because of four advantages. First, although there exist subtle differences, many European leaders share a broad set of common beliefs about Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab world, and the Middle East conflict that are considerably closer to the Arab perspective than to Jerusalem's point of view, and closer to the Arab end of the spectrum than the prevailing views of U.S. policymakers.

Second, they—especially representatives of Britain, Germany, and France—have easier and closer access to U.S. officials up to and including the president than do either the Arabs or the Israelis.

Third, the Europeans couch their presentations within a wider framework of shared values and interests and mutual trust with the United States, so the message is taken more seriously than if it came from an unelected leader of an Arab society vastly different from the United States.

Fourth, U.S. officials believe that it is in the national interest to keep the European allies happy, lest they change to an independent European policy toward the Middle East, falling under the sway of such Europeanists as former European Union commissioner for external affairs Christopher Patten. Thus, for example, Patten said in July 2010, "The default European position should not be … if the Americans don't do anything, to wring our hands. We should … be more explicit in setting out Europe's objectives and … try to implement them." [7]

The direct access to the president that is available to the prime minister of the U.K., the president of France, and the chancellor of Germany has less to do with the personal chemistry that may exist between them and any given U.S. president than with the objective importance of their countries to the United States. Britain, France, and Germany are three of the top six economies in the world and three of the top six military powers, as ranked by defense expenditures.[8] Two of them—France and Britain—are among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council who hold the power to veto. The same two are among the world's leading nuclear powers. Four European countries—France, Germany, Britain, and Italy—sit among the Group of Eight (G8), a forum also including the United States, Canada, Russia, and Japan. The British, French, and German governments have the greatest influence over the foreign policy of the European Union and the greatest influence over Europe's voice in the Middle East Quartet (which consists of the United States, the EU, Russia, and the U.N.).

The United States also has a longer and deeper history of shared values and common interests with the major European countries, and fewer conflicting interests, than with Russia, China, or any Arab nation. For sixty-five years, Britain, France, and Germany have been our key allies in the United States' principal military and political alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Their opinions are stated in a moderate tone and are deemed to be more reasonable than the majority of Arab countries. There is a presumption on both sides that they are America's principal partners, the ones whose interests Washington must always take into account, and who can be expected to give greater deference to America's own needs.

This presumption of shared interests also gives European counterparts privileged access and enhanced credibility with senior members of the U.S. bureaucracy

at the National Security Council, the Department of State, the Pentagon, and within the intelligence community and other agencies. Assistant secretaries, office directors, and senior advisers give special weight to the opinions of their French, German, and British counterparts and spend more time with them than they do with the Arabs. These Europeans also have easy access to members of Congress and their senior staffs.

1,000 Lobbyists vs. One Lonely Guy
A dramatic example of how European intervention can drive a wedge between the United States and Israel occurred nearly twenty years ago in the sharp confrontation between President George H.W. Bush and Jerusalem. The untold story about this was the role of a European leader, British prime minister John Major, in provoking what may have been the worst episode ever to occur between a U.S. president and the government of Israel. It was a famous clash but one that might well not have occurred but for the European leader's intervention.[9]

The Kuwait war had just ended in 1991, and President Bush announced on March 6 his intention to convene an international conference on peace in the Middle East.[10] At the same time, the Soviet Union was in its final stages of collapse, and Soviet Jews who had been prevented from emigrating were flooding out. More than 200,000 had already arrived in Israel, and a tidal wave of more than one million was expected to follow imminently. Israel faced grave challenges to absorb such an enormous influx, equal to 20 percent of its existing population. On May 5, 1991, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Zalman Shoval, announced that Israel would soon ask Washington for $10 billion in loan guarantees to help provide housing for one million Soviet immigrants expected to arrive during the next five years.[11]

The Palestinians feared that the new immigrants would settle in the disputed territories.[12] President Bush and his secretary of state, James A. Baker, declared that if any new loan guarantees were to be granted they would have to be linked to a commitment by Israel not to use the money in the territories.[13] A mechanism would have to be found to ensure that the loan guarantees would not be used to support settlement activity, lest the international conference announced by the president be undermined.

To permit time to find a formula, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir agreed to delay Israel's official request for the loan guarantees for three months until September 6.[14] During the summer of 1991, Secretary Baker made numerous trips to the region, looking for a way to avoid a collision between the loan guarantees and the peace process.[15] A few AIPAC colleagues and I were involved in some of the behind-the-scenes negotiations, conducted primarily by Elyakim Rubinstein, the Israeli government secretary, Secretary Baker and his staff, and Senator Robert Kasten, Jr. (Republican of Wisconsin) on behalf of pro-Israel members of Congress, and Ambassador Shoval.

By mid-August, we were relieved to learn, via communication with Baker and his staff, that a solution acceptable to Washington had been devised. The president had not yet approved it, but Baker was confident that he had a formula that would be acceptable to all sides. For AIPAC, this was a matter of paramount importance because it affected the fate of a million imperiled Jews, a historic effort to initiate a peace process, and the bilateral relationship between Israel and its most important ally.

George H. W. Bush was vacationing at his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, in late August 1991 when British prime minister John Major and his wife Norma visited. It was the kind of informal quality time directly with the president, unmediated by aides and advisers, that makes European leaders so influential on issues like the Middle East. Major had just told the Egyptian press that Israeli settlements, including those in East Jerusalem, were "illegal" and "damaging" to the peace process, and he wanted Bush to stand up to Israel.[16] Baker was pressing the president to compromise, but the British leader urged him to take an absolute stand.

Bush returned from Kennebunkport with his mind changed according to subsequent reports from U.S. officials. To Baker's surprise, the president rejected the package of assurances the secretary had carefully assembled and decided to throw down the gauntlet to Israel and its supporters. On September 6, 1991, he asked Congress for a 120-day delay on the loan guarantees "to give peace a chance."[17]

Six days later, Bush went a step further. On September 12, more than 1,000 Jewish leaders from around the country descended on Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers for the loan guarantees. President Bush responded by calling a news conference the same day to warn that he would veto loan guarantees if Congress insisted on approving them despite his plea for a 120-day delay. He also criticized the pro-Israeli lobbyists, saying,

We're up against very strong and effective … groups that go up to the Hill … There were something like a thousand lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question. We've got one little guy down here doing it. … The Constitution charges the president with the conduct of the nation's foreign policy … There is an attempt by some in Congress to prevent the president from taking steps central to the nation's security. But too much is at stake for domestic politics to take precedence over peace.[18]

Asked what was the lowest point in the history of U.S.-Israel relations, many experts would pick this clash over the loan guarantees.[19] It was, at the very least, one of the most serious setbacks in the relationship. But the role of a British prime minister in undoing months of effort by the mediators and instigating the clash has never been exposed until now. It is an example of the way a key European can interact with the highest decision-maker in the United States and move him toward the Arab point of view and away from Israel.

Europe Is Closer to the Arabs
This kind of European influence is difficult to track because it occurs behind-the-scenes, invisible to the public. It covers a wide range of Middle East issues: pushing Washington to pressure the Israelis to make concessions to the Palestinians; urging engagement with terrorist organizations such as Hamas on the theory that it will moderate them; getting Washington to restrain Israeli security measures such as the "fence," targeted killings, the blockade of Gaza, and allegedly excessive use of force; and provoking intensified opposition to Israeli settlement activity, especially in Jerusalem.

There are many suppositions why Europeans tilt against Israel and toward the Arabs. For one thing, the Middle East is a place where Europeans can flaunt their foreign policy independence from the United States without responsibility for causing catastrophic results because they assume that the United States will protect Israel from any dire consequences such may produce. For another, Europe depends more heavily on trade with the Arab world and on Arab oil exports than does the United States.

For example, the Arab gulf states are a $300 billion import market for world products,[20] compared to Israel's $50 billion imports.[21] Europe may also have a desire to appease the "strong horse" in the region (e.g., Israel has but one vote in the U.N.; the Arabs have twenty-five votes, the Muslim nations, fifty votes). Then there is the guilt among many Europeans over their discredited imperial past, leading them to falsely view Israelis as oppressing Third World peoples. Then, again, it may be the growing influence of Europe's own Muslim populations (e.g., Arabs in France, Turks in Germany, South Asians in Britain) and their need to keep such segments of their domestic populations as quiescent as possible. Some analysts suggest that there may also be an element of satisfaction at being free to censure Jews in Israel, relieving European guilt over responsibility for the Holocaust. Finally, it may be that the Europeans simply do not understand that Israel is a democracy at war, living in a mortally dangerous neighborhood, which must act in self-defense in ways that may seem excessive to onlookers in a benign environment such as twenty-first-century western Europe (even though the Western democracies and the United States have used harsher means than Israel in wars far removed from their own territory).

Deadlines for a Palestinian State
One of the things the Europeans want from Washington is intensified pressure on Jerusalem to make concessions in peace negotiations, in order to get an agreement with the Palestinians. Europeans like the idea of deadlines, international conferences, verbal and economic pressure on Israel, and other devices, to dislodge the Israeli government from what they tend to see as its "intransigence."

For example, in 2002, the Europeans hatched the idea of a "road map" with deadlines for the creation of a Palestinian state to force Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to a conclusion. On September 17, 2002, European officials presented a plan to Washington that they had drafted with Palestinian participation and endorsement.[22] Jerusalem strenuously objected to deadlines that ignored Palestinian noncompliance with past signed obligations, and U.S. officials expressed reservations about the European approach because the blueprint was too detailed at too early a stage.[23] But Secretary of State Colin Powell, nonetheless, joined the EU, the secretary general of the United Nations, and Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov in signing the Quartet statement announcing "a concrete, three-phase implementation road map that could achieve a final settlement within three years."[24] German foreign ministry spokesman Andreas Michaelis said that the content of the Quartet pact was "nearly identical" to proposals put forward by EU foreign ministers.[25] EU Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos said it was "a European idea and not an American idea."[26] It was a vehicle for European and U.S. pressure on Israel.

Washington was able to condition the road map deadlines, however, by insisting that the plan be "performance based." While the road map announced "clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks,"[27] the Bush administration forced the Quartet partners to agree that

progress between the three phases would be strictly based on the parties' compliance with specific performance benchmarks to be monitored and assessed by the Quartet … Progress … will be based upon the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties.[28]

However, by 2010, the road map has still not produced a Palestinian state, and the Europeans are again growing impatient about the slow pace of negotiations. European leaders are beginning to revert to their original concept of deadlines and a date certain to force an earlier result. In July 2009, Europe's foreign policy chief Javier Solana called for the U.N. Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline even if Israelis and Palestinians had failed to agree among themselves:

After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution ... set a calendar for implementation ... [and] accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN ... If the parties are not able to stick to it [the timetable], then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table. [29]

Solana's plan is a classic example of the pressure paradigm: Frustrated by the slow pace of direct negotiations between the parties, the world powers seek to dictate a final status outcome, especially to Israel.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner moved in the same direction in February 2010: "One can imagine a Palestinian state being ... recognized by the international community, even before negotiating its borders. I would be tempted by that."[30] Kouchner and his Spanish counterpart Moratinos wrote that the European Union "must not confine itself to the … outlines of the final settlement;" it "should collectively recognize the Palestinian State ... There is no more time to lose. Europe must pave the way."[31]

The EU as a whole has not gone this far yet. In November 2009, the Palestinians formally asked the EU to urge the U.N. Security Council to recognize a unilaterally declared state,[32] only to be told that conditions were not yet ripe for such a move.[33] But in March 2010, under EU pressure, the Quartet set a 24-month deadline for final settlement of the conflict and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.[34] Kouchner said: "France supports the creation of a viable, independent, democratic Palestinian state ... by the first quarter of 2012."[35]

Engagement with Terrorist Organizations
Another persistent theme of European policy is pressure on U.S. administrations to engage with terrorist organizations on the theory that such engagement will moderate their behavior.

The PLO: For years, the U.S. government had a strict policy of not negotiating with the PLO until it renounced terror. The Ford administration affirmed it in writing in 1975: The United States "will not recognize or negotiate with the PLO so long as the PLO does not recognize Israel's right to exist and does not accept U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."[36] In 1985, President Reagan signed it into law.[37] In November 1988, Yasser Arafat finally bowed to the U.S. conditions and renounced armed struggle, and Reagan authorized the first contacts between U.S. officials and the PLO.[38]

The Europeans never accepted the idea that recognition of the PLO should be conditioned on it renouncing terror and accepting Israel's right to exist. Fully eight years before Arafat seemingly renounced terror and recognized Israel, the European Economic Community, including the governments of Britain, France, and Germany, warned Washington in the 1980 Venice declaration, that the PLO had to "be associated with [peace] negotiations ... to exercise fully [the Palestinian] right to self-determination."[39] Throughout the period that U.S. administrations shunned the PLO as a form of pressure to induce it to renounce terror, European leaders condoned contact with the organization and various forms of recognition and tried to move the U.S. policy.[40]

Hezbollah: A similar tension exists today between European and U.S. policies toward Hezbollah. The U.S. State Department designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997,[41] and U.S. officials have repeatedly called on EU governments to implement a similar ban to allow their own law enforcement and intelligence agencies to curb Hezbollah operations.[42] Hezbollah's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah publicly admitted that if the EU did this, "our funding [and] moral, political, and material support will ... dry up."[43] But EU foreign policy chief Solana claimed in July 2006 that the EU did not have enough evidence to determine whether Hezbollah should be listed as a terror organization. Two-hundred and thirteen members of Congress wrote to Solana in protest.[44] In June 2009, Solana went even further and met with a Hezbollah official who had been elected to the Lebanese parliament, saying that "Hezbollah is a member of the Lebanese society."[45]

Likewise, several European countries, led by France, have told Washington that Hezbollah is a legitimate Lebanese political party with a military wing, not primarily a terrorist organization, as if the idea of an armed political party is not a contradiction in terms. In 2005, French president Jacques Chirac rebuffed a U.S. request to add Hezbollah to the EU terrorist blacklist, arguing that it is an important part of Lebanese society.[46] In 2006, Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema said that "apart from their well-known terrorist activities, they also have political standing and are socially engaged."[47] In July 2007, French foreign minister Kouchner hosted a meeting that included Hezbollah in an effort to broker a Lebanese political compromise, in spite of objections expressed by ninety-one U.S. congressmen. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson declared, "Hezbollah is an important political group [that should be] fully integrated into the political scene."[48] The spokesperson was prompted to make this statement only two years after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, for which Hezbollah leader Nasrallah has stated that he expects a U.N. tribunal to indict members of his group,[49] and twenty-two years after the October 1983 attack on the Beirut barracks where fifty-eight French paratroopers were killed,[50] an act for which Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in 1985[51] and for which a U.S. federal judge found Hezbollah to be guilty in 2003.[52]

Although the Europeans may not yet have succeeded in getting Washington to accept Hezbollah as a legitimate political party, they have contributed to an environment in which such a shift will be a growing temptation for U.S. leaders as Hezbollah tightens its noose around Lebanon.

Hamas: European policy toward Hamas is somewhat different than its stance toward Hezbollah. Under U.S. pressure, the military wing of Hamas was put on the EU terror list in December 2001,[53] and its "political" wing was added to the list in September 2003.[54] Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007 placed conflicting pressures on the Europeans. The violence of the Hamas putsch, the organization's fierce ideological doctrine, and the firing of thousands of Qassam rockets into Israel since the Gaza takeover,[55] cast doubts even among the most gullible Europeans that the organization was in fact evolving in a moderate direction. But the reality that Hamas has control over the people of Gaza, a population for whom many Europeans feel a special responsibility, reinforces the belief that it must be deemed a partner, both for the delivery of humanitarian aid (even if a terrorist organization might siphon off funds) and for political negotiations over the future of Gaza.

Many Europeans still believe that engagement with Hamas will result in a moderation of its position; for them, the terror listing is an impediment. In August 2007, Italian prime minister Romano Prodi called for dialogue with Hamas:

Hamas exists. We should not ignore this fact. It's a complex structure that we should help to evolve toward pro-peace positions ... One must push for dialogue so that it happens ... There will be no peace in the Middle East as long as the Palestinians are split in two.[56]

Javier Solana, then the European Union's foreign policy chief, said in 2006 that it was "not impossible" for Hamas to change. "I don't think the essence of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. The essence of Hamas is the liberation of the Palestinians."[57] This idea is disputed by statements by Hamas itself, reiterating its longstanding commitment to Israel's destruction as a prerequisite to the establishment of an Islamic state in the whole of Palestine.[58]

French foreign minister Kouchner thinks there will not be an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement without Hamas at the table. He said in January 2009 that "we realized this long ago— that Hamas was one of the interlocutors" in the Middle East peace process and that "we believe we will have to talk to them when they ... agree to start negotiations." A ministry spokesman said that Paris would be ready to talk to a Palestinian unity government that included Hamas as long as it "respects the principle of the peace process."[59]

Lord Patten, EU commissioner for external relations, 2000-04, says the sole condition for talks with Hamas should be an agreement to a ceasefire even if Hamas refuses to accept past signed agreements.[60] Massimo D'Alema, Italy's foreign minister, 2006-08, believes that Hamas is more like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) than akin to al-Qaeda.[61] Sweden granted a visa to a Hamas minister in 2007,[62] and the former Finnish foreign minister, Erkki Tuomioja, claimed that Hamas "is not the same party it was" before it won the 2006 elections.[63] Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external relations commissioner, 2004-09, announced that she would review the EU ban on direct aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government[64] though she backed away from this position after Hamas seized control of Gaza and arrested Fatah officials in June of 2007.[65]

These European voices advocating political negotiations with Hamas have not yet convinced either EU officials or Washington. The main obstacle is not Jerusalem's objections but reluctance to undermine the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad. But if the "moderates" led by these two slip, resistance to pressure from supporters of negotiations with Hamas may begin to erode. Many Europeans may simply not have the fortitude for a long struggle with implacable foes and may be easily lulled into wishful thinking that the West can moderate Islamic extremists simply by talking to them.

Israel's Security Fence Is "Illegal"
A third continuing theme of the Europeans is that many of the measures that Israel employs to assure its security are excessive and disproportionate if not actual violations of international law. This is how Europe sees Israel's security barrier, its targeted killings of known terrorists, its blockade of Gaza, its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and its settlements in the West Bank. Europeans are constantly urging Washington to restrain Israel.

Israel's security fence against terrorist infiltration, under construction since 2003, has strong support among the Israeli public because the barrier has been effective in preventing suicide attacks. A recent public opinion poll finds that "it is hard to find any issue in Israel about which there is so wide a consensus."[66] When there was no fence, during the first three years after the launch of Arafat's al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, Israel suffered ninety-three suicide attacks that left 447 Israelis dead and 4,343 Israeli civilians wounded. In the most recent four years, since most of the fence has been completed, the number of attacks has declined to fewer than five a year, and the number of Israelis killed by terrorists has averaged fewer than ten per year.[67]

Washington has acknowledged the importance of the barrier for Israel's security but expressed concern about its route wherever it deviates from the pre-1967 line.[68] In the words of President George W. Bush:

The barrier being erected by Israel as a part of its security effort must be a security, rather than political, barrier. And its route should take into account, consistent with security needs, its impact on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities ... It should be temporary rather than permanent, and, therefore, not prejudice any final status issues, including final borders.[69]

The Europeans, on the other hand, have been unanimous and firm in opposing the construction of the fence since its inception. On November 18, 2003, the European Council urged Israel "to stop and reverse the construction of the so-called security fence inside the occupied Palestinian territories, including in and around East Jerusalem, which is in departure of the armistice line of 1949," adding that the fence was not only unacceptable but also "in contradiction to the relevant provisions of international law."[70] On July 20, 2004, all twenty-five members of the European Union voted for a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly, opposed by the United States, demanding the barrier's removal.[71] The European Council reiterated in its "Conclusions" of December 8, 2009, that the "separation barrier where built on occupied land [is] illegal under international law."[72]

Europe affected U.S. policy on the fence by funding a sophisticated PLO diplomatic team, the elite Palestinian unit known as the Negotiation Support Unit of the PLO (NSU), headed by Palestinian chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat. The NSU is funded by Britain's Department for International Development and has also received financial support from the governments of Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.[73] It consists of more than twenty professionals who periodically lobby Washington policymakers on behalf of the PLO with the participation of Palestinian advisers including Diana Buttu (Canadian-Palestinian), Michael Tarazi (American-Palestinian), Omar Dajani, and Amjad Atallah. A high point in the work of the NSU was a dramatic PowerPoint presentation on Israel's security fence given to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice by the NSU's Stephanie Koury (a Lebanese American from Texas) during a visit to the West Bank on June 28, 2003. Hours later, Rice shocked and angered members of the Israeli cabinet when she asked them to "reconsider" the fence. Koury's presentation caused the Bush administration to become much more critical of the security fence. A few days after the Koury briefing, an AIPAC colleague and I met with Rice privately and heard an unfiltered expression of her reaction to Koury. Three weeks later, the NSU team flew to Washington to make the presentation to other U.S. officials and members of Congress.[74] Rice's anger over the fence was the low point of relations between Washington and Jerusalem during the George W. Bush years, and Palestinian lobbying funded by the Europeans achieved it.

Israel's Targeted Killing of Terrorists Is "Illegal"
Israel follows a policy of targeted killings of terrorists who are preparing specific acts of violence or operationally engaged in organizing, planning, financing, and arming such operations. The purpose is to prevent imminent attacks when Israel does not have the means to make an arrest or foil the attacks by other methods. Israeli security officials believe that this policy keeps potential bomb makers on the run and serves as a deterrent to militant terrorist operations. Israelis also believe that targeted killings have less impact on Palestinian non-combatants than would a military incursion into a Palestinian population center aimed at their capture.[75] On December 13, 2006, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that targeted killing was a legitimate form of self-defense against terrorists within specified rules of conduct.[76] The Israeli public strongly supports the policy of targeted killing: 90 percent in one poll, 75 percent in another.[77]

U.S. State Department spokespersons have at times expressed disagreement with the Israeli policy of targeted killings, for example, on August 8, 2001,[78] November 5, 2002,[79] and April 17, 2004.[80] In reality, Washington accepts the Israeli policy as long as it seeks to neutralize imminent threats.[81] The United States itself has become the world's leading practitioner of targeted killings according to a recent report by the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.[82] The George W. Bush administration used drones to attack militant targets forty-five times.[83] The Obama administration has increased the attacks to fifty-three in 2009 and to thirty-nine in the first half of 2010 in Pakistan alone, according to the New America Foundation,[84] which also found that drone strikes since Obama took office had accounted for approximately 450 deaths, about one-quarter of them civilians.[85] Michael E. Leiter, head of Obama's National Counterterrorism Center, defended the policy on July 1, 2010, saying that it would be "wholly irresponsible" not to stop those plotting to harm Americans.[86] Like the Israeli public, majorities of Americans support targeted killings of terrorists.[87]

But the Europeans have shown less tolerance than do Americans for the Israeli policy. On December 13, 2002, the European Council called upon Israel "to stop excessive use of force and extrajudicial killings, which do not bring security to the Israeli population."[88] On November 18, 2003, the council said targeted killings were unlawful and urged Israel "to abstain from any punitive measures which are not in accordance with international law, including extrajudicial killings and destruction of houses."[89] On January 17, 2004, EU spokesman Diego Ojeda said that the "European Union has spoken on several occasions against [Israel's] so-called extrajudicial killings of suspected terrorists."[90] In February 2010, President Nicolas Sarkozy declared France's "irrevocable condemnation of what is nothing less than an assassination" by Israeli agents of a Hamas commander in Dubai.[91] In December 2007, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights produced a harshly critical paper on the illegality of "extrajudicial execution" by Israel, a publication "produced with the assistance of the European Union."[92]

There is an element of hypocrisy in the European claim that Israel's use of targeted killings is unlawful because some of the European governments that approve these statements engage in the practice themselves. In July 2010, a British official revealed that a U.K. spy agency pinpoints the hiding places of al-Qaeda and Taliban chiefs in Afghanistan and Pakistan for targeted killings by U.S. drones.[93] British agents attempted to kill German field marshal Irwin Rommel during the North African campaign[94]and did kill SS Obergurppenführer Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.[95] In May 1987, in Loughgall, Northern Ireland, a British special operations unit killed eight Irish Republican Army (IRA) militants who were preparing to attack a police station.[96] A year later, on March 7, 1988, British security forces killed three IRA militants in Gibraltar as they walked toward the border with Spain.[97] In July 2010, the French government acknowledged that its security forces assisted in killing six terrorists in Mali linked to al-Qaeda to prevent a terrorist attack in Mauritania.[98]

Israel's Blockade of Gaza Is "Illegal"
On May 31, 2010, French ambassador Gérard Araud told the U.N. Security Council that Israel's blockade of Gaza is illegal and unsustainable and should be lifted. Araud added that Israel's use of force against the Turkish flotilla was unjustifiable and disproportionate.[99] British prime minister David Cameron agreed: "The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable ... Gaza must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."[100] Meanwhile Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons that the blockade of Gaza was "unacceptable and unsustainable."[101] The British ambassador to the U.N. demanded that Israeli restrictions on access to Gaza be lifted to allow unfettered access and the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods, and persons to and from the enclave, which, he said, was among the highest international priorities of the new British government.[102] Former EU commissioner Patten argued that the Israeli blockade was "immoral, illegal, and ineffective."[103]

Here again the European position is hypocritical. From 1993 to 1996, twelve European navies participated in a NATO-Western European Union blockade known as "Sharp Guard," enforcing both an arms embargo and economic sanctions on the former Yugoslavia. This involved the navies of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the U.K. Some 74,000 ships were challenged; almost 6,000 were inspected at sea, and more than 1,400 were diverted and inspected in port.[104] Had there been violent resistance to this blockade, all the parties enforcing it were committed to the use of force. The fact that no one dared to challenge this powerful blockade prevented violence from occurring, not any principled objection to the use of force. Nonetheless, the Europeans at the U.N. Security Council continue to put Israel on the defensive about its Gaza blockade, making it more difficult for Washington to support Israel's right to self-defense under article 51 of the United Nations charter.[105]

The Europeans evidenced a similar attitude in July 2006 when Israel went into Lebanon in response to Hezbollah attacks. An agreed statement by the EU presidency stated, "The European Union is greatly concerned about the disproportionate use of force by Israel in Lebanon in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel."[106] French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy agreed that Israel's strikes were "a disproportionate act of war" and said that the French government supported "Lebanon's demand for a referral to the United Nations Security Council as soon as possible."[107]

Israeli Settlements Are "Illegal"
President Ronald Reagan said in 1981 that Israel's settlements were "ill-advised," "unnecessarily provocative," and "an obstacle to peace," but he also said that they were "not illegal."[108] This distinction has been the implicit policy of all successive U.S. administrations since Reagan.[109] The George W. Bush administration added a further distinction between settlement blocs on territory that the Palestinians are expected to cede to Israel in a land swap in future negotiations (as Arafat agreed as part of the Clinton parameters negotiated at Camp David in 2000), versus isolated settlements deeper in the West Bank interior on land expected to fall under eventual Palestinian sovereignty. President Bush considered that the settlements in the West Bank interior were more problematic while the blocs on land to be swapped could be accommodated. Barack Obama apparently has rejected these Bush refinements, and his administration seems to consider all Israeli settlements equally problematic. But even Obama has not returned to the pre-Reagan assertion that the Israeli settlements are illegal.[110]

However, on this issue, again Europe is closer to the Arab side and is more critical of Israel than the United States is. On June 13, 1980, the European Economic Community, the precursor to the EU, affirmed in its Venice declaration that "these settlements, as well as modifications in population and property in the occupied Arab territories, are illegal under international law."[111] On December 8, 2009, the EU Council reiterated this belief: "Settlements ... demolition of homes and evictions are illegal under international law."[112]

The juridical premise on which the European policy is based is that Israel is occupying land taken from another sovereign power. But the pre-1967 boundary was nothing more than a demarcation of the positions held by opposing armies when the fighting stopped in 1949, never recognized by either side as a permanent political border. Nor has the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank prior to 1967 been recognized by any country apart from Britain and Pakistan. The West Bank is disputed rather than occupied territory, so the Geneva Convention cannot be applied[113] as the Europeans seek to do. The Europeans are reifying a temporary holding line that existed for less than eighteen years (1949-67) while ignoring realities that have lasted for twice as long (1967-2010).

For Israelis, more important than an arcane legal dispute is the practical impact of declaring all Jewish communities across the pre-1967 line to be equally illegal. That statement, if true, would mean that more than half the Jews in Jerusalem, the nation's capital, are living unlawfully on somebody else's land[114] in homes the Israelis built and paid for in completely Jewish, established communities including Gilo, French Hill, and Pisgat Ze'ev, which are across the previous armistice line. Israelis do not consider these to be settlements at all.[115] It would mean that Maale Adumim, a sprawling metropolis of 36,500 people, is lumped together with nearly unpopulated dots on the map. It would also mean that the militarily indefensible pre-1967 line is recognized under international law as permanent, in contravention of a fact that was implicitly acknowledged by Security Council Resolution 242,[116] which envisaged Israel's retention of some territories captured in the 1967 war.

European intervention often inflames controversies over settlements between Washington and Jerusalem, frictions that have had a particularly destructive effect in the case of the Obama administration. Martin Indyk, an adviser to Obama's secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell, said recently: "I don't think that ... Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton or George Mitchell—want to get waylaid again by an argument about settlements [instead of] the main challenge which is to reach an agreement on what the borders of the Palestinian state will be ... The settlement issue will be resolved as a result of that."[117] European pressure has pushed the Obama administration to emphasize the thorniest part of the settlement issue, Jewish housing in Jerusalem. Bill Clinton wisely avoided this minefield even when, in 1995, the Yitzhak Rabin government gave approval for 5,000 new housing units to go up in East Jerusalem because, as an adviser said, "To take action now ... would be very explosive in the negotiations, and frankly, would put us out of business as a facilitator of those negotiations."[118]

Conclusion
European leaders are the most effective external force urging the U.S. government to move away from Israel and closer to the Arabs. Europe is not hostile to Israel on every issue, and not every European intervention with U.S. officials is meant to move U.S. policy in the Arab direction. But, on the whole, the Arab road to Washington runs through Paris, London, and Berlin.

Steven J. Rosen served for twenty-three years as a senior official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He is now director of the Washington Project of the Middle East Forum.

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[4] Steven Emerson, The American House of Saud (New York: Franklin Watts, 1985).
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[30] Ibid., Feb. 21, 2010.
[31] Bernard Kouchner and Miguel Angel Moratinos, "A Palestinian State: When?" Le Monde (Paris), Feb. 23, 2010.
[32] The Guardian, Nov. 16, 2009.
[33] Voice of America, Nov. 17, 2009.
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[35] Palestine Note (Washington, D.C.), July 27, 2010.
[36] Israel-United States Memorandum of Understanding, Congressional Record, Washington, D.C., Sept. 1, 1975.
[37] The International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985, 22 U.S.C. 2151 note, Public Law 99-83, sect. 1302, Oct. 1, 1985.
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[39] "Venice Declaration," archives, The State of Israel, Jerusalem, June 13, 1980.
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[44] Softpedia, Aug. 2, 2006; European Jewish Press (Brussels), Aug. 1, 2006.
[45] France 24 TV news, June 14, 2006.
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[61] YNet (Tel Aviv), Aug. 29, 2006; The Irish Times (Dublin), Jan. 28, 2009.
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[63] EUobserver (Brussels), Sept. 1, 2007.
[64] European Jewish Press, May 14, 2007.
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[71] Res. ES-10/15, U.N. General Assembly, New York, July 20, 2004.
[72] "Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process," European Union, Brussels, Dec. 8, 2009.
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[74] The Forward (New York), July 18, 2003.
[75] Gal Luft, "The Logic of Israel's Targeted Killing," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003, pp. 3-13.
[76] "HCJ 769/02 Summary Judgement," The Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israel, Israeli Supreme Court, Jerusalem, Dec. 13, 2006.
[77] Steven R. David, "Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing," Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Sept. 2002, p. 7.
[78] News briefing, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C, Aug. 8, 2001.
[79] BBC News, Nov. 6, 2002.
[80] Ha'aretz, Apr. 17, 2004.
[81] Chris Toensing and Ian Urbina, "Israel, the US and 'Targeted Killings,'" Middle East Report, Feb. 17, 2003.
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[87] David, "Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing," p. 18.
[88] "Conclusions of the Copenhagen European Council," Brussels, Dec. 13, 2003.
[89] "Declaration of the European Union," Nov. 17-18, 2003, p. 4.
[90] International Middle East Media Center (West Bank), Jan. 17, 2004.
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[99] "Security Council Condemns Acts Resulting in Civilian Deaths during Israeli Operation against Gaza-bound Aid Convoy," U.N. news office, New York, May 31, 2010.
[100] The Guardian, July 27, 2010.
[101] Ibid., June 2, 2010.
[102] "Security Council Condemns Acts Resulting in Civilian Deaths," May 31, 2010.
[103] The Jewish Chronicle (London), July 19, 2010.
[104] "NATO/WEU, Operation Sharp Guard," North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Brussels, Oct. 2, 1996.
[105] Charter of the United Nations, San Francisco, June 26, 1945, art. 51.
[106] Deutsche Welle (Bonn), July 14, 2006.
[107] Gerald M. Steinberg, "Europe's Disproportionate Criticism," The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2006.
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[109] The Washington Post, June 17, 2009.
[110] Steven J. Rosen, "Tough Love Is No Love at All," ForeignPolicy.com, July 21, 2009.
[111] "Venice Declaration," June 13, 1980.
[112] "Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process," Dec. 8, 2009.
[113] Jeffrey Helmreich, "Diplomatic and Legal Aspects of the Settlement Issue," Jerusalem Issue Brief, Jan. 19, 2003.
[114] The Yale Globalist (New Haven), July 4, 2010.
[115] CNN, Mar. 23, 2010.
[116] "The Situation in the Middle East," U.N. Security Council Res. 242, Nov. 22, 1967.
[117] Natasha Mozgovaya, "Martin Indyk: I Think the Settlement Issue Will Be Resolved," Ha'aretz, July 28, 2010.
[118] Steven J. Rosen, "Obama's Foolish Settlements Ultimatum," Foreign Policy, Apr. 1, 2010.