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Phares on France 24 on Ahmedinijad visit to Lebanon (Part Two)
Professor Walid Phares on a France 24 (English) panel on Ahmedinijad's visit to Lebanon: "Iran and Hezbollah are moving forward in Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterrenean because Washington and Brussels have no strategies on stopping them from doing so." [ Visit Website ]
Oct 14, 2010, 15:05

Interviews
Phares to radio SAWA: "Ahmedinijad's visit to Beirut a message about Lebanon, Arab moderates and the US"
In an interview with Radio SAWA in Arabic, Professor Walid Phares said "the visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad to Lebanon is a multi-messages move addressed to his foes. First it is an assertion of the dominance of Hezbollah in Lebanon since May 2008; second it is a message to Arab moderates in the region that Beirut is now under his influence; and three it is a message to the United States that the regime in Tehran cannot be isolated. This visit is a message to the regime's foes that Lebanon is under his sphere of influence" [ Visit Website ]

US Military Aid to Lebanon Unlikely after Iranian's Visit
by Gil Ronen/Arutz Sheva
Sources in the US Congress said Thursday that the warm formal welcome Lebanon has extended to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has convinced key representatives in Congress to continue the freeze on military aid to Lebanon. Lebanese daily An-Nahar reported that Reps. Howard Berman and Nita Lowey – the respective chairs of the Foreign Relations Committee and Subcommittee on Foreign Appropriations – are now “vehemently” opposed to lifting the moratorium. The freeze was initiated in August, after a Lebanese Army sniper targeted Israeli officers on the border between the countries, killing one top officer, Lt. Col. Dov Harari. Democratic representatives Lowey and Berman said they were holding up $100 million that had been approved for Lebanon's military but not yet spent. Berman said he was concerned that the aid for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) will wind up being used by Hizbullah terrorist forces. The congressmen are now reportedly angry not just over Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon but also by the fact that it began with the signing of 16 agreements for cooperation between Iran and Lebanon, including mutual assistance in the fields of energy and finance. Nawwaf Moussawi, a senior Hizbullah leader and member of the Lebanese parliament, recently called on the Beirut government to forget about obtaining ”conditional” American military aid. He suggested the LAF look instead to Syria, Iran and countries like Russia and China for weapons and training.

Netanyahu: Lebanon's turning into Iranian satellite tragic
As Iranian leader's visit to Lebanon ends, PM Netanyahu says Israel will remain wary of ties between Beirut, Theran; will 'know how to defend itself against such developments'
Attila Somfalvi Published: 10.14.10, 22:39 / Israel News As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon draws to an end, Israel remain wary of the latter's strengthening ties with Tehran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that,"Unfortunately, Lebanon is rapidly turning into a satellite of the ayatollahs' regime. This is tragic for Lebanon, but Israel will know how to defend itself against such developments." Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon included several public speeches, in which he vehemently attacked Israel, saying that "Zionists are the enemies of humanity," and promising that the "Zionist regime will not last long." "the world should know that eventually the Zionists will be forced to go and will not last long. They are enemies of humanity and will have no choice but to surrender. Palestine will be liberated through the force of faith," Ahmadinejad said, speaking before masses gathered in the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil Thursday afternoon. "We've heard cursing and abomination from the Lebanon border today," Netanyahu said. "The best answer to these blasphemies was given here 62 years ago. We shall continue building and creating our country and will be prepared to defend it," he added. Meanwhile, A Hamas official in Gaza, Dr. Khalil Abu Layla told Iranian news agency Fars that the Hamas government hoped Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Gaza, just as he visited Lebanon. "We hope Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad visits Gaza, but we must remain logical because such a step would involve a series of dangers," he said.

France: Hariri Assassination Reenactment Has Not Taken Place Yet
Naharnet/Informed sources in Paris refuted on Friday media reports that stated that the reenactment of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has taken place. The sources said: "The reenactment is an experiment aimed at performing a technical study of the effects of the explosion" that targeted Hariri in 2005.
Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 16:24

Army: Doubting Us is a Red Line, We Do Not Seek to Strengthen One Political Team against Another
Naharnet/The army command stressed Friday that the army will continue on maintaining national unity and stability, adding that it will not allow any side to target the stability under any circumstance. It said in a statement: "The army has never aimed at strengthening a political team at the expense of another, but its main goal has been, and will always be, protecting state institutions and all civilians."It voiced its irritation with some sides' "fabrication of lies and rumors, especially those related to the unity of military and security institutions in light of the impending announcement of the indictment" in the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "Doubting these institutions' positions is a sign of those individuals' inability to achieve political and personal gains and their aim to target the first national institution, which is a red line for all Lebanese," it added. "The army has managed to maintain the security at the height of political division in previous years and it is now more united than ever," the statement stressed.  It emphasized that internal strife cannot erupt "under any circumstance", questioning claims that the indictment will create unrest in Lebanon and saying that there are no signs that the tensions will result in instability. Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 16:16

Hariri, Ahmadinejad Discuss Tribunal
Naharnet/Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stressed during a meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri on the need for "speedy and direct dialogue between the Lebanese to avoid the effects of the indictment and the International Tribunal, which could be politicized," As-Safir newspaper said Friday. It said Hariri replied, stressing that he supports dialogue "because it is the only way to address the problems."  As-Safir quoted a source close to Hariri as saying that the premier was "very comfortable" with outcome of his talks with Ahmadinejad, adding that the two men exchanged view points regarding a number of local and regional issues. However, they did not go into details of the inner Lebanon situation. The source said the talks were honest and both sides clarified ambiguous issues. He confirmed that Hariri will visit Tehran, adding, however, that no date has yet been set.
Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 07:48

Adwan: LBC Staff to be Chosen Based on Qualifications
Naharnet/Deputy Lebanese Forces leader George Adwan on Friday said the case won by LBC television station should not affect the employment status. Addressing LBC staff at a news conference, Adwan stressed that the Lebanese Forces belong to the "school of tolerance." He assured that the LF will choose employees based on their qualifications. Adwan said the Lebanese Forces will not turn LBC into a partisan media. "This is a legal issue for us. It is Pierre Daher's problem if he considers the issue political," he added. Adwan said that the LF had warned some of those who bought shares from Pierre Daher that ownership was not his. "Insistence on buying shares reflects bad intentions," he thought. Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 14:14

National Bloc: Ahmadinejad made Lebanon an arena of confrontation
October 15, 2010 /Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit “turned Lebanon into an arena of confrontation between non-Arab regional powers” and his “fiery speeches from Lebanese platforms” gave Israel new pretexts for attacking the country, the National Bloc party said in a statement on Friday. The Iranian president arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning in an official visit that took him to Lebanon’s border with Israel. He left the country on Thursday night. “Lebanon and its people will pay in blood and tears” as a result of this struggle, the statement added. Speaker Nabih Berri broke protocol by receiving Ahmedinejad rather than President Michel Sleiman on the grounds that Iranian protocol required it, the statement also said. -NOW Lebanon

NLP: Nasrallah should have asked Iran to stop using Lebanon
October 15, 2010 /If Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was honest he would have asked the Iranians to “stop using Lebanon as an arena for regional struggles” and pursued the wish of the Lebanese majority for a sovereign and comprehensive state, the National Liberal Party (NLP) said in a statement on Friday.
In a speech delivered via video link on Wednesday, Nasrallah welcomed visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a rally held by Hezbollah in Al-Raya stadium in Dahiyeh and said, “in Lebanon Iran wants what the Lebanese people want: That they be an independent and sovereign people, present in the regional balance.”
The Iranian president arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning in an official visit that took him to Lebanon’s border with Israel. He left the country on Thursday night.
Some of Ahmadinejad’s statements and actions exceeded the bounds of a state visit, particularly the “role played by Hezbollah,” the NLP’s statement said.
The statement also called on the Hezbollah and Iranian leaderships to read closely the open letter published in the Lebanese press that describes “in broad strokes a road map for Lebanese-Iranian relations.”In an open letter published in Wednesday’s edition of An-Nahar newspaper, around 250 politicians, activists, and journalists expressed fear that Ahmadinejad’s visit might interfere with “Lebanese affairs and cause one group to prevail over another” and called on him to “convince the Resistance to enter the bosom of the state.”
-NOW Lebanon

Zahra: Ahmadinejad’s statements make Lebanon part of a religious project
October 15, 2010 /Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement about the “wiping out of Israel […] puts Lebanon in a religious project that has not been embraced by the Arab states,” Lebanese Forces bloc MP Antoine Zahra told Al-Arabiya on Friday. The Iranian president arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning in an official visit that took him to Lebanon’s border with Israel. He left the country on Thursday night. In a Thursday rally at the Stadium of Bint Jbeil, Ahmadinejad said that “there is no power in the world that can defeat [the Lebanese] Resistance” and that “Palestine will be liberated from [Israeli] occupation, thanks to the strength and faith of the Resistance.”The stances Ahmadinejad took “stop domestic dialogue over the defensive strategy and the Resistance’s weapons, and firmly establish religious confrontation with Israel and the West,” Zahra added.-NOW Lebanon

NOW Exclusive: Mitri explains media agreement with Syria
October 15, 2010 /Information Minister Tarek Mitri. (NOW Lebanon)
Information Minister Tarek Mitri went to Damascus last week to sign a bilateral agreement with his Syrian counterpart on media cooperation. The bland and vague statements each made after the ceremony were befitting of the documents themselves, which were actually first signed in the 1960s and are renewed every three years. In an interview in his office in Hamra, Mitri showed NOW Lebanon the agreement and said Beirut has inked numerous deals that are exactly the same with countries around the world. “It’s a standard agreement that any two nations sign,” Mitri said. Using the exact same text, Lebanon signs such agreements with other states frequently, he said. While, as announced last week, the two countries again agreed to a Lebanese-Syrian commission to follow up on the cooperation, Mitri said, “it exists on paper. I’ll never appoint anyone.” Indeed, like the other media agreements Lebanon has signed, this agreement is part of a standard protocol to establish a legal framework should the states want to engage in the activities covered by the agreement. For example, Mitri said, the agreement sets out the process by which the Lebanese and Syrian states can jointly produce a movie. “We’ve never produced a movie,” he said. “Or, and I’m not saying I’ll do this, but if I wanted, as the minister, to send Lebanese journalists to Syria and pay for it with state funds,” the agreement is the legal basis on which he can make such a decision, Mitri said.In fact, whenever Lebanon sends a delegation abroad on a state visit – or receives a visiting delegation – any number of agreements are signed that, like this one, set out legal frameworks by which the two states can cooperate in the future should they choose. On Monday NOW Lebanon published an editorial questioning the agreement and the editorial board said they wish to thank Mitri for addressing the concerns raised in the piece.
-NOW Lebanon

Checking on his investment
October 14, 2010
We are all free to draw our own conclusions, and no doubt many Lebanese will want to convince themselves that Iran is nothing more than a misunderstood regional superpower, a force for good and a nation that genuinely wants to help (and has helped) Lebanon rebuild, have access to basic utilities, and be strong and sovereign. They will not believe the conventional – mainly Western – wisdom, that Iran is chomping at the bit to plunge the region into a potentially apocalyptic conflict.
Indeed, if we are to listen to the words of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad, who arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for a three-day visit, one might believe that here was merely one regional leader paying his nation’s respects to a country with whom it shares close ties. His remarks, delivered during a lunch at the Presidential Palace in Baabda on the day he arrived, spoke of the “deep-rooted historical and cultural relations between Iran and Lebanon.”
All pretty tame you might think. But that was just a warm up for the main event, staged in Beirut’s southern suburb on Wednesday night, when Ahmedinajad addressed legions of adoring followers. It was clear from the crowd’s reaction that the Iranian president was more than just a visiting head of state and he knew it. Here was a man checking on his investment, and his speech was nothing short of a rallying to arms for the decades-old struggle with Israel and an unashamed show of support for his allies in Hezbollah who may or may not be indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the court established to bring to justice the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other victims of political terror.
Ahmadinejad’s speech was also an endorsement of the strategic path taken by Hezbollah and proof that his words of support for the Lebanese state were nothing but hot air. It was in the Dahiyeh al-Jnoubieh where his true allegiances lie. The state is committed both to the eventual disarmament of Hezbollah and the establishment of the STL, and yet, Ahmedinajad encouraged the perpetuity of the Resistance. “The only way to solve the Palestinian matter and establish peace rooted in the region is to admit the sovereign right of Palestine and the departure of all the occupiers to their original countries,” as well as the dissolution of the STL. “In Lebanon, we find that the sinful hand of treachery has reached a dear friend … we see how news is fabricated to direct accusations at the remaining friends in an effort to reach worthless aims by sowing seeds of division.”
It was a shocking demonstration of chutzpah by the visiting head of state and another example of the double standards that exist within the pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian opposition. No respectable world leader would dream of addressing one segment people of the country in such a provocative manner, and if they did, Hezbollah and its allies would denounce it as imperialist meddling. Furthermore, the fact that the main event, which was hosted by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – a man who holds no public office – was nothing short of a snub to the Lebanese people and a clear indication from the Iranian leader as to whom he sees as the most influential man in Lebanon.
Lebanon stands on the very knife edge of crisis that could unravel into sectarian street violence, while the country’s relationship with Israel, strained at the best of times, does not need the help of an Iranian battle cry. The Israeli leadership is hardly likely to warm to the words of a man who controls the purse strings and spiritual vision of Hezbollah and who once again called for its annihilation, this time speaking not 100 kilometers from its northern border. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea summed it up recently when he said that Ahmedinajad was welcome in Lebanon if his visit was styled purely as that of one president paying his respects to another, within the traditional boundaries of state diplomacy. It wasn’t. Are we surprised?

Moussawi thanks Ahmadinejad for visit
October 15, 2010 /In a statement issued Friday, Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Hussein Moussawi thanked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his visit to Lebanon and stressed the “importance of loyalty to those who helped us in times of trial.”The Iranian president arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning in an official visit that took him to Lebanon’s border with Israel. He left the country on Thursday night.Iran’s only political project for the region is Arab-Islamic unity in order to confront the danger of the “Israeli entity supported by the US,” Moussawi added.-NOW Lebanon

Social Affairs Minister Selim Sayegh says goal behind Ahmadinejad’s Beirut visit was not for truce
October 15, 2010 /Social Affairs Minister Selim Sayegh told LBCI television on Friday that the goal of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon was not to make a truce between the Lebanese parties.“Ahmadinejad’s visit was programmed beforehand and might make changes to the [Saudi-Syrian rapprochement to foster stability in Lebanon]. We hope such an issue will not complicate the situation [in the country],” Sayegh added. The Iranian president arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning in an official visit that took him to Lebanon’s border with Israel. He left the country on Thursday night.-NOW Lebanon

Walid Jumblatt
October 15, 2010
The Progressive Socialist Party website carried the following report on October 15:
Democratic Gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt expressed his concerns toward the return of sectarian clashes on the street. He added that “the people are also worried,” assuring that whether or not the indictment is postponed, “we must address the issue of the investigation from its widest door, i.e. the issue of false witnesses.” In an interview with the Arabic-speaking BBC channel by colleague Nada Abdul Samad, he said, “When we find out there were false testimonies which made us at a certain stage accuse the Syrian regime of being behind the assassinations, we can – later on – say that this investigation, which is attempting to accuse Hezbollah, is somewhat flawed.”
Asked about the Saudi initiative and the effects of the visit conducted to Beirut by King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he stated, “According to the information I have, the Saudi king clearly expressed a wish to see calm in Lebanon and a problem-free country.”
Regarding what was being said about the fact that no one knew the content of the indictment and whether or not it was based on the testimonies of false witnesses, Jumblatt assured, “At a certain stage, the indictment was leaked from Lebanon and reached the media to a certain extent. We thus read about it in Der Spiegel and in Le Figaro prior to that. These were the pieces of information related to the indictment, unless there are others. But until this moment, we still believe Der Spiegel and perceive it as being a decent magazine.”
However, he expressed his rejection of any indictment which might accuse Hezbollah “because parts of the investigations were built on false clues”. Jumblatt then corroborated his disagreement with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, his movement and the March 14 forces over the issue of false witnesses, stating, “But what can I do except call for calm? What is required from Hariri among others is to sit down and agree on the ways to lead the country out of this predicament. We cannot uphold this sectarian alignment because the issue is much wider than the indictment, the assassination of martyr Rafik Hariri and the other martyrs.
If the climate becomes tense, this means we could become like Iraq or other countries and this would serve some Western policies wishing to sabotage inter-Islamic and inter-Arab relations to cover up what is happening in Palestine in terms of total Judaization.”
In response to the announcements made by Hariri and his entourage regarding the fact that they will wait for the indictment and reject it if not based on palpable clues or if it is politicized, Jumblatt said, “It is politicized to begin with because this investigation is being exploited to undermine Lebanese national unity. It is politicized and that is my answer.”
He then considered that an announcement by Hariri that the tribunal is politicized and that he wished to drop it before the issuance of the indictment, would be a position that could alleviate the tensions to a great extent. He added, “Only then will we be able to seek ways to eliminate the tensions in the alleyways among other places and confront the future in which we will be facing other threats.” Asked if such an announcement would alleviate the impact of the indictment, he said, “The assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri along with all the other crimes, were political crimes which in my opinion were conducted to implement the damned resolution 1559.”
He then said regarding whether or not he saw any justification for Hezbollah to use its weapons on the domestic arena in case an indictment is issued against it. “This is another issue. I say there are tensions which must be eliminated.” Regarding what is being said about the deployed efforts to get Hariri to resign and appoint another Sunni figure in his place, he assured, “Everyone knows that Hariri’s presence is inevitable to save this country. He enjoys enough wisdom, credibility and courage to lead the country out of the predicament in cooperation with the other team.” He then continued that if Hariri were to resign, he would rename him, indicating that he will not withdraw from the government “because no one can joke about resigning or pulling out from the government because this is a heavy joke that could subject the country to vacuum.
If some are scared that the sword of justice will affect 30 figures among those whose names are featured in the [Syrian] arrest warrants, I say that there was a fierce, unacceptable and unjustified attack which I launched against the Syrian president in person and against Syria as a whole. However, thanks to President Bashar al-Assad’s tolerance and the understanding of the Syrian public, these obstacles were overcome. There was an arrest warrant issued against me, but it was annulled through political efforts. The talk about a Judicial Council or any other council is a detail and the law theoreticians must understand that this issue is political.”

Ahmadinejad Vows to Wipe Out Israel, Receives Seized Israeli Rifle from Nasrallah before Leaving Lebanon
Naharnet/Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ended a two-day visit to Lebanon by meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
The overnight meeting took place at the Iranian embassy in Beirut's Bir Hasan neighborhood.
Nasrallah proudly presented to Ahmadinejad an Israeli rifle seized during the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war. Hizbullah said in a statement that Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah discussed the Iranian leader's "historic" visit. It added that in a gesture of gratitude and loyalty Nasrallah offered Ahmadinejad the personal weapon of an Israeli soldier which had been seized during the 2006 war. Before the late Thursday meeting with Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad predicted the demise of arch-foe Israel from Bint Jbeil, Hizbullah's bastion in south Lebanon, only four kilometers (2 miles) from the Jewish state. "The whole world knows that the Zionists are going to disappear," he said to thunderous applause before a frenzied crowd in Bint Jbeil.
"The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and return to their countries of origin," he added. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at Ahmadinejad's comments. "The best response to the hateful verbal aggression from across the border was given here 62 years ago," Netanyahu said in Tel Aviv, referring to Israel's creation in 1948.
In Bint Jbeil, thousands of men, women and children crammed into an outdoor stadium and onto rooftops waving Iranian, Lebanese and Hizbullah flags and cheering the hardliner Ahmadinejad who arrived on a Lebanese army helicopter. His official visit has been denounced by the United States and Israel as a threat to regional stability.
"Bint Jbeil is alive and well," Ahmadinejad told the crowd. "I salute you, people of the resistance. You are a solid mountain. We are proud of you and will remain forever by your side."
Bint Jbeil was flattened during Israel's devastating summer 2006 war with Hizbullah, considered a proxy of Iran. His visit to the south brought Ahmadinejad the closest he has ever been to Israel and was seen as a joint show of defiance with Hizbullah. Bint Jbeil resident Nabila, 36, said "Ahmadinejad is going to terrify the Israelis."
"We hope to see Nasrallah with him here and to see them both one day on the other side of the border," she added, declining to give her last name.
Ahmadinejad later went to Qana, which earned a grim place in history after being targeted by Israeli shelling that killed 105 civilians who had sought shelter at a U.N. base in 1996 during the Jewish state's "Grapes of Wrath" offensive on Lebanon. The village was again the site of tragedy when a shelter collapsed on dozens of people, including disabled children, during Israeli strikes at the height of the month-long 2006 war. Ahmadinejad laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of the 1996 strikes and also paid homage to the people of Qana.
"Qana's martyrs are alive and its enemies are dead," he told the crowd. "You are victorious and your enemies have tasted defeat." Israeli officials have slammed Ahmadinejad's visit as a sign that Lebanon had "joined the axis of extremist states," while the United States called it a "provocation." The visit has underscored Iran's reach in Lebanon through Hizbullah, the country's most powerful military and political force. "His travel to southern Lebanon... is solely to rally Hizbullah, which continues to serve as... Iran's proxy in Lebanon," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington. "So his presence there we think is a provocation that continues to undermine the sovereignty of Lebanon and the security of the region," Crowley said. The visit has also drawn criticism from Lebanon's pro-Western parliamentary majority, who see it as an attempt to turn the country into "an Iranian base on the Mediterranean." The trip comes at a sensitive time, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri in a standoff with Hizbullah over a U.N.-backed probe into the assassination of his father, former premier Rafik Hariri. The tribunal is rumored to be set to indict Hizbullah members over the 2005 assassination, and tensions have grown steadily, raising fears of renewed sectarian violence and the collapse of the hard-won national unity government. Although Ahmadinejad has trod carefully since his arrival, he nonetheless rose to the defense of Hizbullah at a rally on Wednesday, saying the U.N. court was framing the Shiite party. Disdain for Hariri's camp among Hizbullah supporters was apparent during Ahmadinejad's visit, when every mention of Hariri's name was met with jeers. "We are seeking to spread science and they want to keep us in the dark," he told students and staff. From south Lebanon, Ahmadinejad returned to Baabda Palace to bid farewell to President Michel Suleiman before his departure around midnight.(Naharnet-AFP) Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 07:23

Jumblat: Hariri is Lebanon's Savior, Will Rename Him Should He Resigned
Naharnet/Druze leader Walid Jumblat said Lebanon cannot afford losing Prime Minister Saad Hariri and announced that he will rename him in the event he resigned. Hariri should stay "in order to save this country," Jumblat told BBC radio. He said Hariri enjoys "wisdom, credibility and courage to get the country out of the crisis in cooperation with the other team (Opposition)."Jumblat stressed that in the event of Hariri's resignation, he will rename him as prime minister. "No one can joke with resignation. This is a big joke that could lead to political vacuum," he warned. The Progressive Socialist Party leader also confirmed that he has no plans to quit the Government.Jumblat, however, said he disagreed with Hariri, his Mustaqbal Movement and the majority March 14 coalition on the issue of false witnesses. "What else can I do but call for calm," he said, adding that "Hariri and others are required to sit down and agree on how to get the country out of this impasse." Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 08:51

Gemayel: Coup is Coming Soon and Our Confrontation Should be through Legal Channels
Naharnet/Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel noted Thursday that the "Lebanese system is at risk and we should resist all that may destabilize it." "We should confront the plan to topple the system and components of the State with legitimacy through parliament and Cabinet," he said. "Experience has demonstrated that insistence on holding on to institutions and legitimacy is a resistance factor as well," he added. Commenting on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon, Gemayel stressed that it is important for the country to be open towards all nations and any foreign leader is welcome as long as he supports peace and stability in Lebanon. "We are not worried about the visit itself, but the developments after the trip especially since Iran's neighbors in Lebanon are defying another team of Lebanese, some laws, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and its indictment," he said. Beirut, 14 Oct 10, 16:30

Pakradouni: Worsening of False Witnesses Case will Lead to a Great Problem
Naharnet/Former head of the Phalange Party Karim Pakradouni noted Friday the indictment in the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will create a governmental crisis, which will not affect the security situation. He added to NBN television that any worsening in the false witnesses case will lead to a great problem in Lebanon. Addressing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon, he described him an "unprecedented phenomenon" among current presidents. Pakradouni said that Iran's opponents have changed their view of the country after Ahmadinejad's visit, adding that Lebanese-Iranian ties have improved. Regarding Hizbullah's arms, he said that they are a deterrent power against any Israeli assault on Lebanon, and should the party be disarmed, then Israel will easily occupy Lebanon. Beirut, 15 Oct 10, 13:48

Alloush: Ahmadinejad's Visit Provoked Majority of Lebanese, His Aid to Lebanon Not Based on Tangible Facts
Naharnet/Mustaqbal Movement member former MP Mustapha Alloush stressed on Thursday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon greatly provoked the majority of the Lebanese, especially since he supports Hizbullah militarily, financially, and morally. He told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anbaa Thursday that the above gives the visit a provocative trait making the Lebanese uneasy with the results of the Iranian leader's trip. He stressed that Ahmadinejad should respect the feelings of the Lebanese who reject dragging Lebanon into international conflicts as a result of his usual reckless speeches. Addressing Iran's readiness to aid Lebanon, Alloush said that this readiness "is based on intangible facts because Iran continues on providing Hizbullah with weapons through its individual ties with it." "A state that harbors good intentions towards assisting the Lebanese state does not build relations with one portion of its population with disregard of the state and diplomatic channels," he added. Beirut, 14 Oct 10, 14:04

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW BRIEFING
New Crisis, Old Demons in Lebanon
Beirut/Brussels, 14 October 2010: The crisis that has gripped Lebanon since the murder of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri five years ago has taken a new and dangerous turn.
New Crisis, Old Demons in Lebanon: The Forgotten Lessons of Bab-Tebbaneh/Jabal Mohsen,* the latest International Crisis Group briefing, looks at risks of escalation by focusing on two volatile neighbourhoods of Tripoli. The anticipated implication of Hizbollah members by the international tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination raises existential issues: inter-communal relations, the legitimacy of the resistance embodied by Hizbollah, the tribunal’s credibility, survival of the current national unity government, the future of the recent Saudi-Syrian rapprochement and the country’s fragile stability.
The Islamic movement’s categorical rejection of the tribunal and the difficulty current Prime Minister Saad Hariri – Rafic’s son – would have to disavow it suggest Lebanon is heading toward an impasse. Political tensions would quickly reverberate in the streets, notably in under-developed and marginalised areas.
“Many politicians and commentators evoke the possibility of an impending coup d’état or even a new civil war”, says Sahar Atrache, Crisis Group’s Lebanon Analyst. “But the more probable short-term scenario is repetition of a recurring Lebanese cycle: a political stalemate that triggers popular tensions which, in turn, political actors manipulate in order to bolster their leverage”.
Instability is most likely to occur in Lebanon’s under-developed peripheral areas, whose populations are deeply divided by current events, harbour painful memories of the civil war and are largely left to their own devices until escalating violence brings them into the political game. Such is the case of Bab Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, the one predominantly Sunni the other mainly Allawite, which recently have witnessed both verbal and military escalation.
These two neighborhoods replicate, in miniature, the challenges to the stability of the country as a whole. Over the last few years, deadly incidents in these geographically and socially remote areas have been linked to disputes far beyond their horizon. This microcosm, largely hidden to those who focus on the capital’s political scene and the secret regional power games played on the regional stage, offers a key to understanding the interaction between the local, national and regional levels. Bab Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen have served as an arena for proxy wars, as external actors back local fighters in a struggle that is less costly and more easily managed than open warfare in the capital.
The ebbs and flows in the antagonism between the two neighbourhoods serve as a reliable barometer for tracking two fundamental issues facing Lebanon: tensions between Sunnis and Shiites on the one hand; and relations with Syria on the other. Notwithstanding a period of relative calm in both regards thanks to the Damascus-Riyadh rapprochement – exemplified by Saad Hariri’s reconciliation efforts – popular resentment is very much alive, if not rising.
“What is happening at the ground level illustrates the scepticism and suspicion with which ordinary Lebanese have greeted agreements reached at the top, and how little such agreements have altered underlying dynamics”, says Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East & North Africa Program Director. “The international tribunal easily could bring the temperature on the street back to boiling point. Should that occur, Tripoli’s barometer could take another plunge”.
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US: Hizbullah cares more about Iran than people of Lebanon
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The White House said on Wednesday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “provocative” visit to Beirut proved that Hizbullah cared more about Iran than the people of Lebanon. Ahmadinejad earlier received a hero’s welcome in Lebanon and on Thursday he planned to travel to a spot just a few miles from the Israeli border, a visit that has caused concern in Israel, due to his history of anti-Jewish rhetoric. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Ahmadinejad’s visit showed that the Iranian president continued his “provocative ways” even as he led his country into more economic distress and turmoil under nuclear sanctions. “I think that it also suggests that Hizbullah values its allegiance to Iran over its allegiance to Lebanon,” said Gibbs. The two-day trip is seen as a key boost for the Shiite resistance group Hizbullah but has prompted criticism by members of Lebanon’s Western-backed parliamentary majority who see it as a bid to portray the country as “an Iranian base on the Mediterranean.” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier denounced any effort by the Iranian president to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty. “We reject any efforts to destabilize or inflame tensions within Lebanon,” Clinton said in Kosovo.“We would hope that no visitor would do anything or say anything that would give cause to greater tension or instability in that country.” Israeli officials on Wednesday also slammed Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon, saying it signified the country’s transformation into an “extremist state.” “The Ahmadinejad visit signifies the completion of the transformation of Lebanon into an Iranian client,” a senior Israeli government official said. “As such, Lebanon has joined the axis of extremist states that oppose peace and support terror,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Israel said the visit only signalled Iran’s hold over Lebanon. “The president of Iran has come like a commander to inspect his troops, Hizbullah terrorists employed as the Iranian military arm in the region,” the official said.
Hizbullah fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006 that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
One Israeli MP called for Israel to use the opportunity to try to kill Ahmadinejad, widely viewed as the arch-enemy of Israel for his repeated predictions of its demise and his denials of the Nazi Holocaust. “Human history would have been so different if in 1939 a Jewish soldier could have killed Hitler,” said Aryeh Eldad, a lawmaker from the hardline National Union. “If Ahmadinejad is in the … [Israeli military] crosshairs for even one second on the day he comes to throw stones at us, he can’t be allowed to return home alive,” he told the Ynet website.
However, senior cabinet minister Silvan Shalom dismissed such talk. “I don’t think that’s something that should be on the agenda. We don’t murder heads of states, even if those states are totalitarian states who seek to harm the state of Israel,” he told public radio. – With agencies

Ahmadinejad defends Iran's right to nuclear program
Lebanese University hands visiting president honorary doctorate
By Elias Sakr /Daily Star staff
Friday, October 15, 2010
BEIRUT: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed Thursday his country’s right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Addressing attendees at a ceremony at the Lebanese University, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate, Ahmadinejad slammed the US for denying the rest of the world access to the scientific benefits of peaceful nuclear technology.
“They dragged countries into conflicts so they can be the masters and dominate the world since the strong survives and the weak dies: this is the capitalist world,” he said.
“We see more than 16 beneficial scientific uses of nuclear energy in medical, industrial, agricultural and energy fields … but what have they done with this useful science? They changed its concept restricting it to nuclear weapons,” the Iranian president added.
On his second day of an official visit to Lebanon, Ahmadinejad was received by Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the Grand Serail, where he held closed-door talks with the premier before being joined by President Michel Sleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri for an honorary lunch banquet.
Discussions between Hariri and Ahmadinejad addressed the ongoing dispute over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the murder of the Lebanese premier’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon told reporters following the meeting.
Media reports have said the court’s indictment is set to implicate Hizbullah members in the assassination, a development which analysts fear could instigate Sunni-Shiite strife similar to the clashes that erupted on May 7, 2008.
Shiite pro-opposition and Sunni pro-government gunmen fought bloody street battles in 2008 following the Cabinet’s decision to dismantle Hizbullah’s telecommunication network. The clashes ended with the Doha Accord sponsored by Qatar and backed by regional powerbrokers Syria and Saudi Arabia.
A Syrian-Saudi rapprochement in 2009 after four years of broken ties led to a tripartite Lebanese-Syrian-Saudi summit recently held in Beirut during which leaders stressed the need to preserve stability in Lebanon.
However, so far, Saudi Arabia and Syria remain divided over the STL.
Commenting on Ahmadinejad’s visit, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said an improvement in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran would pave the road for stability in Lebanon.
Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon was preceded by a phone conversation with the Saudi monarch.
Well-informed sources told The Daily Star on Thursday that positions endorsed by the Iranian president during his visit to Lebanon expressed Iran’s support of the Syrian-Saudi understanding over the need to preserve stability in Lebanon.
The sources said Ahmadinejad, despite expressing Iran’s willingness to equip the Lebanese Army, would not address the issue if the Lebanese fail to agree on it, a sign that Iran was taking into consideration the Syrian-Saudi agreement to refrain from raising tensions in Lebanon, the source added.
But Western states have warned against instability in Lebanon describing the Iranian president’s visit as a provocative one. The White House said the visit proved that Hizbullah “cared more about Iran than the people of Lebanon.”
Earlier Thursday during a meeting with a large gathering of religious figures at his residence at Phoenicia Hotel in Beirut, Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran’s commitment to resistance movements in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
“We will stay by your side forever and victory will be ours and I will be on your side when needed and I am ready to be a small soldier to defend Lebanese and Palestinian sovereignty against enemies,” he added.
“I suggest that the Lebanese hold more gatherings because Lebanon’s quality lies in religious coexistence and national unity, which should be preserved,” Ahmadinejad said.
Ahmadinejad’s two-day trip seen as a key boost for Hizbullah as a Shiite resistance group, but has prompted criticism by members of Lebanon’s parliamentary majority.
Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra expressed fear that the visit symbolized the establishment of an advanced Iranian defensive line in Lebanon.
But Hizbullah lawmakers hailed Ahmadinejad’s visit as a guarantee to national unity and a factor easing tensions on the Lebanese scene.
“The speech of the Iranian president is a uniting one … clarifying to all Lebanese that Iran is a friendly state supportive of the country’s unity,” Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Ali al-Maqdad said.
After the lunch banquet at Hariri’s residence, Ahmadinejad left for a tour to south Lebanon where he addressed supporters in Bint Jbeil and Qana.
His tour raised criticism from the US and Israel who condemned it as a provocative trip aimed at establishing an Iranian base in the Mediterranean.
From Bint Jbeil, four kilometers from the Israeli border, Ahmadinejad predicted Israel’s demise and hailed Hizbullah’s resistance before moving to Qana, where he paid homage to the martyrs of the 1996 Israel bombing of a UN shelter that killed 106 people, mostly women and children.
Following his tour in the south, the Iranian president returned to Baabda Presidential Palace to bid farewell his Lebanese counterpart before leaving for Tehran.

Southern Lebanese give hero's welcome to 'Nejad'
By Patrick Galey /Daily Star staff
Friday, October 15, 2010
BINT JBEIL: They have been waiting for over three hours in the broiling sun. Tens of thousands heave and sway, shouting and sweating in equal measure as music pumped through giant speaker stacks struggles to maintain feverish levels of anticipation. Bint Jbeil’s sporting stadium cuts a sea of red, green and yellow, Iranian, Hizbullah and Amal flags wafted with enough enthusiasm to provide the hint of a sating breeze. Pictures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are held aloft here and they but seem to be used best as makeshift sun blocks.
The masses that have squeezed inside and the hundreds more who cling precariously to rooftops and balconies of surrounding flats have turned out in force to show their appreciation for president Ahmadinejad, for what he has provided and for what his presence here, less than five kilometers from Israel, represents.
“In 2006 Israel tried for 33 days to break Bint Jbeil. They tried to destroy our town,” says a 35-year old electrician, declining to be named. “This place is very important for Israel. They could not take the town because everyone in Lebanon joined forces to repel them. That’s why Nejad has come to us today.”
Except he’s not actually come yet. Dignitaries of southern Shiite and Christian communities, not to mention a large portion of Hizbullah’s politburo are waiting patiently on plastic chairs. They have already negotiated the route lined every couple of hundred meters by Lebanese Army soldiers, their berets gradually giving way to metal helmets as the stadium nears.
Some of the crowd, hot and aggravated by the heat and the wait, begin to lash out at members of the press. Men assigned to control rowdier members look on nervously, fingering earpieces with reflexive regularity. The crush is too much for some to bear. They are hauled from the masses and sprawled on to waiting khaki stretchers. Bottles of water are hurled optimistically into the sea of hands, woefully inadequate to quench thirsty throats. In spite of the delay, supporters remain defiantly upbeat.
“Nejad will come because we are both Lebanese and Iranian; these two make a combination for the resistance,” says Hussein, a 50-year-old shop owner. “He is here to support Lebanon and we believe this is a big boost to our people. We are very proud that he is coming to visit us.”
The significance of Bint Jbeil as a venue, a town almost entirely razed by Israeli bombardment in 2006, is not lost on Hussein.
“Bint Jbeil is the focus point of the resistance,” he says. “To all Lebanese, this town means the resistance itself.”
As the sun begins to wane, two military helicopters scream into earshot, arching overhead, guns trained below. The main event has finally arrived.
Ahmadinejad’s address is far shorter, pointier, than his effort on Wednesday, delivered to tens of thousands of supports in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Cheers go out to almost every sound bite, but telling boos reverberate off the concrete concourse upon the mention of Saad Hariri.
The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first state visit to Lebanon is drawing to a close and the crowd filters out into Bint Jbeil’s heaving streets, ready to travel by bus along traffic-clogged roads home. Whatever the world has made of the controversial trip, those assembled this afternoon have welcomed it with unbridled fervor.
“They can say what they want,” says Hussein, as people file past. “But Ahmadinejad has come to Lebanon and he and us are one. If America doesn’t like it, that’s tough for them. Iran and Lebanon are staying together.”

Ahmadinejad tells Israelis their country is doomed
Iranian president taunts enemy from border village
By Elias Sakr /Daily Star staff
Friday, October 15, 2010
BEIRUT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday Israel was doomed to perish as he addressed thousands of supporters of Hizbullah at a rally in Bint Jbeil, just four kilometers from the Israeli border. Ahmadinejad’s tour in south Lebanon drew sharp criticism from the US and Israel as tensions ran high on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israeli officials have said the tour represented an attempt to set up an advanced front line for a proxy war between Iran and Israel. “Bint Jbeil is alive and today stands proud and cherished against all enemies whereas the Zionists are mortal after the sons of Bint Jbeil made the enemy taste defeat,” Ahmadinejad said while supporters chanted “death to Israel.”
Bint Jbeil was heavily bombed in the 34-day war with Israel in 2006. “There is no option before the Zionists but to surrender to facts on the ground or return to their original countries,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Palestine will be liberated through force and the belief of the resistance,” he added.
After praising Lebanon’s resistance and stressing its invincibility in defying Israel and the West, the Iranian president said the Islamic Republic would stand by the side of the Lebanese people in all circumstances.
“You proved that your resistance, your patience, your steadfastness, was stronger than all the tanks and warplanes of the enemy,” Ahmadinejad said.
Following his speech in Bint Jbeil, Ahmadinejad went to Qana, which was targeted by Israeli bombing that killed 105 civilians who had sought shelter at a UN base in 1996 during the “Grapes of Wrath” offensive on Lebanon.
Ahmadinejad in Qana hailed the Lebanese Army for challenging the “giant Israeli army” and laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of the bombing of the UN shelter.
“Qana’s martyrs are alive and its enemies are dead,” he said in homage of those slain in the attack.
Earlier Thursday, US and Israeli officials described the visit as provocative, with Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor saying it was “like a landlord visiting his domain.”
Ahmadinejad’s supportive visit of Hizbullah comes at a time when Sunni-Shiite tensions are running high over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating former Premier Rafik Hariri’s 2005 murder as media reports said the court’s indictment is set to implicate Hizbullah members in the assassination.
Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi said Ahmadinejad addressed the issue of the STL with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain premier, during closed-door talks earlier Thursday. The talks were followed by an honorary lunch banquet hosted by Hariri and joined by President Michel Sleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri.
Roknabadi said Ahmadinejad’s talks with Hariri tackled disputed issues, including the STL and its impending indictment, and stressed that the Iranian president was pursuing efforts to preserve Lebanon’s stability. However, Roknabadi denied that Iran was in the process of mediating efforts to resolve controversies over the STL while underscoring that the UN-backed tribunal was Lebanese affair that Iran would not interfere with. In a supportive public stance of Hizbullah in anticipation of the STL’s indictment, Ahmadinejad defended Wednesday his “friend” Hizbullah against “fabricated news” accusing it of the murder of a “friend and patriotic man,” a reference to former Premier Hariri.
Following his tour in the south, the Iranian president returned to Baabda Presidential Palace to bid farewell his Lebanese counterpart before leaving for Tehran.

Netanyahu to Iran: 'We will know how to defend' Israel
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Friday, October 15, 2010
Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu chose to respond to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks in Lebanon about Israel’s “demise” from the hall in Tel Aviv where Israel’s first premier, David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of Israel in 1948.
“We heard today the cursing and the language of contempt from the Lebanon border,” Netanyahu said at the Land of Israel Museum in Tel Aviv.
“We will continue to build our country and we will know very well how to defend it.”
Israelis on Thursday watched as their arch-enemy Ahmadinejad addressed a rally near the border with their country, which he has repeatedly said should cease to exist. Ahmadinejad, who was on a two-day trip to Lebanon, toured its southern border region in a show of support for the Lebanese Hizbullah group that was slammed by the US and Israel as “provocative.”
The heavily guarded border is often seen as the front line in a proxy war between Israel and Iran, and Ahmadinejad is deeply reviled in Israel for his questioning of the Holocaust and predictions of the country’s demise.
“It is a provocative and destabilizing visit,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP. “It appears his intentions are blatantly hostile and he is coming to play with fire. It is “like a landlord visiting his domain,” Palmor said, while another Israeli official said the move signified the final transformation of Israel’s northern neighbor into an “Iranian client state.”
Ahmadinejad came the closest he has ever been to Israel, addressing a rally of some 15,000 people just 4 kilometers from the border at Bint Jbeil, a Hizbullah bastion devastated during the summer 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel.
Around a dozen Israeli ultra-Orthodox and Druze protesters gathered on the border ahead of the visit and released hundreds of blue and white balloons, which promptly blew backward into Israel.
“I came here despite the fact that the government’s position is to ignore this visit,” said Ayoub Kara, a Druze MP from the governing right-wing Likud party.
“I want to send a message from here to Ahmadinejad, a message from the Koran, and that message is to pursue peace.” Nissim Fadid, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, also addressed the Iranian president. “Stop with your threats. We want peace, but we are not afraid of anyone that wants to drive the people of Israel from their land that God has promised them,” he said.
Dozens of reporters gathered near the border, where they could see a gold-domed mosque decked with flags in the distance on the Lebanese side. For some, the presence so close of Israel’s arch-foe was seen as a unique opportunity not to be missed. “Human history would have been so different if in 1939 a Jewish soldier could have killed Hitler,” Arye Eldad, an MP from the ultra-nationalist National Union party, said earlier this week. “If Ahmadinejad is in the Israeli Army’s crosshairs for even one second … he can’t be allowed to return home alive,” he told the Ynet news website. Senior Cabinet minister Silvan Shalom dismissed such talk. “We don’t murder heads of states, even if those states are totalitarian states who seek to harm the state of Israel,” he told public radio. Analysts said it was unlikely Israel would be intimidated by the visit. “It’s clearly a provocation and it’s not pleasant for Israel,” said Eldad Pardo, an Iran analyst at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “But there is no panic. They also see the opposition inside Lebanon.” – Reuters, with AFP

Campaign for equal citizenship for women steps up pressure
NGO plans high-profile political meetings, protest in coming months
By Simona Sikimic and Carol Rizk /Daily Star staff
Friday, October 15, 2010
BEIRUT: The national campaign to grant women equal citizenship, allowing them to pass on their nationality to their children, gathered pace on Thursday as activists spelled out their strategy over the coming months. A string of national demonstrations, including a protest outside Parliament, are now expected, alongside a petition calling for equal treatment of women, the National Gathering for Removing Discrimination against Women said.
Although the group, representing some 60 Lebanese NGOs, has yet to make final arrangements, it has also made plans to meet with President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri, as well as host of other leading politicians. “We have already met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who was extremely receptive to our cause and voiced his support,” said Raja Hamadeh, member of the gathering’s executive committee. “We have also met with many other politicians who have been supportive but this has thus far failed to translate into political action.” In the past, Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud, a lawyer by training, was a strong supporter of the campaign – entitled “Because they are my children my nationality is a right for them,” – but Baroud has been prevented from pursuing the issue more aggressively by political pressure since his appointment.
Reform has largely been stunted by fears that granting nationality to children of Lebanese mothers would tilt the fragile sectarian balance, ignite civil strife and lead to the naturalization of Lebanon’s 400,000 plus registered Palestinian refugees. Activists dismiss these objections as absurd, however, insisting the issue is being warped to suppress women under the guise of security and sectarian fighting. “The issue is still hanging between being totally neglected and postponed,” said Izza al-Hur Mroueh, the group’s executive committee member.
“The reform file is being kept under pretexts that have no truth and no basis except wanting to keep Lebanese women marginalized.”
Instead of a reversing the policy, a collection of half steps have recently been taken to ease the situation. However, activists say making residency and work permits easier to obtain is insufficient. The media are now being urged to take a more assertive stance on the issue, with talks expected to take place with the Journalists’ Union and the National Media Council. Although the right of citizenship is the leading aim of the drive, the campaign, first launched in 2005, also seeks to reverse other gender discriminatory legislation.
While some success has been achieved regarding labor laws and social security retirement indemnities, much more remains to be done, including reforming family indemnities, aspects of the penal code, tax reductions, and all articles that discriminate against women in trade and social security law, said Mroueh. The NGOs are also urging the government to fully adopt the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and to introduce a 30 percent quota for women in Parliament.

A 'bombshell' goes unnoticed
By Jamil K. Mroue
Publisher and editor in chief
Friday, October 15, 2010
One doesn’t have to wait for a “bombshell” announcement by a politician to sit up and take notice. An extremely worrying development has taken place just south of Lebanon, one with direct implications for several countries in the region. An Israeli civil rights group has formally asked the Netanyahu government to pledge that it will not engage in a population transfer as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. The group’s alarm bells were triggered by actual Israeli alarm bells, as part of a drill by the country’s prison authority, based on a frightening scenario: riots by Israeli Arabs as a response to a population transfer between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
This item should send shock waves throughout Arab political establishments, but for now it appears to lie below the radar screen.
Recent months have seen increased urgency about concluding a deal on a Palestinian state, irrespective of whether this proposed entity meets one’s conditions for justice and viability.
The West Bank, thanks to all post-1967 Israeli governments, is now pockmarked with Israeli settlements, and has come to resemble a grotesque version of the face of the moon.
Be that as it may, the powers-that-be, whether American or Israeli, appear to have their idea of what a Palestinian state is going to look like, and these “visions” do not appear to conform to what the Arabs rhetorically put forward, namely the 1967 border.
Instead, the indications are growing daily that some type of amendments will be put forward, whether gently or ruthlessly. It is signaled by the prisons authority drill, reminding us the famous “gas masks” drill in Israel in the run-up to the Gulf War of 1991. We need to ask ourselves and others a few serious questions: Do Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton truly intend to let people like Osama bin Laden have a field day, by showing that Israel will be allowed to do whatever it wants? Are the world’s Jews aware that the possibility of ethnic cleansing is now looming, and are they supportive of such a development? Will the Jordanians act on this nightmare scenario, which could also seriously shake the stability of the Hashemite regime?
Will we Lebanese sit up and take notice of what has taken place to the south, and will we prepare ourselves for the worst? The world is very close to the finishing line when it comes to a Palestinian state, but we don’t appear very close to understanding and anticipating what will happen as this state takes shape. But the signs are there.
**Jamil K. Mroue, Editor-in-Chief of THE DAILY STAR, can be reached at jamil.mroue@dailystar.com.lb

Canada court allows rape victim to testify while wearing veil
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Friday, October 15, 2010 /Michel Comte
Agence France Presse
OTTAWA: A Canadian court late on Wednesday upheld a rape victim’s right to testify in court while wearing the Islamic veil, but only if it does not impede the accused’s right to cross-examine witnesses. The Ontario Court of Appeal said trial judges must weigh on a case-by-case basis a witness’ right to freedom of religious expression against an accused’s right to a fair trial, and laid out several guidelines. “A court faced with a claim by a witness that her religious beliefs compel her to wear a niqab when testifying and with a claim by the accused that the wearing of the niqab interferes with his ability to cross-examine, should … attempt to reconcile those two rights,” said the ruling. “If a witness establishes that wearing her niqab is a legitimate exercise of her religious freedoms, then the onus moves to the accused to show why the exercise of this constitutionally protected right would compromise his constitutionally protected right to make full answer and defense.” It added that if the accused’s fair trial right “can be honored only by requiring the witness to remove the niqab, the niqab must be removed if the witness is to testify.” In this case, the appeals court found that the lower court had not properly assessed the religious claim of the victim, known only as N.S., when it ordered her to remove her niqab while testifying against her alleged assailants. And so, it quashed the order.
The case dates back decades. The now 32-year-old woman claimed she was sexually assaulted and abused by an uncle and cousin between 1982 and 1987.
In 1992, her father asked police not to go ahead with the charges against the relatives. But the woman later asked police to reopen the case.
The case has sparked controversy in Canada especially among members of the legal profession and rights groups who have staked out opposing viewpoints on the niqab.
The appeals court acknowledged the controversy, saying it raises “important public policy concerns.” It noted that affording a witness a degree of anonymity undermines the transparency and individual accountability in the criminal justice system, which “could compromise public confidence both in the conduct of the criminal trial and in the … verdict.”
But it added that permitting a Muslim woman to wear a niqab while testifying in a rape prosecution recognizes her as an individual and acknowledges the particularly vulnerable position she is in when testifying. Adjusting the process to ameliorate these hardships promotes gender equality, it said. The defense had argued that allowing a witness to testify with her face partly covered limited their ability to asses the witness’s demeanor, relevant in assessing a witness’s credibility and the reliability of the evidence they present.
As well, nonverbal communications could provide a cross-examiner with valuable insights, said defense lawyers. The court agreed. If evidence provided by a witness is “relatively peripheral, or the witness’s credibility is not an issue,” however, it ruled that it would not likely impact the trial or verdict.

Ahmadinejad's trip a symbolic gesture - analysts
By Michael Bluhm /Daily Star staff
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Analysis
BEIRUT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon, which began on Wednesday, aims primarily to serve Iran’s international strategies against Israel and the US, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Wednesday. While the three-day stay also underscores the regional importance of Hizbullah as Iran’s proxy militia here, the visit will probably not result in any change in the domestic political dynamic, the analysts added.
The visiting president is using his enthusiastic reception to tell the US that its attempts to isolate the Islamic Republic and its leaders are failing, said Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut.
“Ahmadinejad came to Lebanon for his own reasons,” Khashan added. “Ahmadinejad is sending a dual message, one to the US and one to the Israelis.”
The Iranian head of state will travel on Thursday to Bint Jbeil, a scant few kilometers from the Israeli border; that journey means to serve notice to Israel that Iran has forces on Israel’s frontier capable of striking Israel, said Khashan. Israel has for years threatened to take military action against the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program, and Ahmadinejad’s presence near the border should drive home the possibility of retaliation from Lebanon for such an attack, Khashan added.
Ahmadinejad is saying to Israel that “the forward division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps is here, and they are awaiting my signal, so you better sober up – don’t so something rash,” Khashan said. “They see Lebanon as Iran’s first defense line. He will give the Israelis the impression that he is visiting his war front with Israel.”
From the Iranian perspective, the visit should also display Iran’s enhanced standing in the region, said Raghid al-Solh, political analyst and adviser to the Issam Fares Center, a non-partisan think tank. In the latest example, Ahmadinejad can point to the acquiescence of the US-led alliance to another term for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was Iran’s choice for the post. Ahmadinejad’s stopover in Lebanon “has more to do with the status of Iran – Iran would like to consolidate its increasingly important status,” Solh added. “They are increasingly important in the region, especially with developments in Iraq.”
The intended display of power should also accrue some gains to Syria, which is Iran’s closest strategic partner and also had a hand in arranging Ahmadinejad’s trip to Lebanon, said retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at various universities. “The Syrians OK’d this visit, because they are also reaping the benefit,” he added. In Lebanon, the Iranians “cannot go around Syria.” In addition, Ahmadinejad also wants to use his visit to show the so-called moderate Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia – longtime regional powers which enjoy good relations with the US – that a new Tehran-led axis including Iraq, Syria and Hizbullah has designs on regional leadership, Hanna said.
Ahmadinejad’s trip also demonstrates the growing regional significance of Hizbullah, which has firmly ensconced itself as the strongest political actor and has reportedly expanded its military arsenal markedly since the 2006 war with Israel, Hanna said.
“This visit is really institutionalizing the importance of Hizbullah,” he said. “Lebanon, and in particular Hizbullah, represent the most important tool to project power, because of what Hizbullah has achieved in the last five years. It tells you how important Hizbullah has become,” Hanna added.
The words of unwavering support for Hizbullah offered by Ahmadinejad should also make clear to the Shiite group’s domestic rivals the depth of the Islamic Republic’s commitment to Hizbullah, Hanna added. With Hizbullah and Lebanon recently beset by instability over the rumored coming indictment of Hizbullah members by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Ahmadinejad is also here to express that Iran and its allies stand ready to defend Hizbullah over any possible charges – after all, charges against Hizbullah members would also damage Hizbullah’s patrons, Hanna said. Beyond sending messages, however, Ahmadinejad’s visit will likely not lead to any resolution of the internal standoff between Hizbullah and the March 14 camp over the tribunal and other issues, Solh said. With or without the Iranian president, Hizbullah’s preeminent position in Lebanon remains obvious to all, Solh added.
“Do we need that visit to highlight Hizbullah’s status?” Solh asked. “Hizbullah’s status is very clear. Why should Hizbullah need this visit to show its potency?”
“Hizbullah, in realistic terms, is the strongest political party Lebanon ever had,” stronger than the Phalange Party at its peak decades ago, Solh said.
The presence of Ahmadinejad could well raise tensions for a few days, and Hizbullah might take advantage of the gatherings to rally its base, but the visit will probably not result in any other tangible consequences, Solh added. “I don’t think it will have a kind of lasting effect; it won’t disturb the balance of power between existing parties,” he added. “It’s not something extraordinary. Its impact will remain for a couple days and that’s it.
“Why exaggerate the significance of the visit? What gave it a kind of sensational nature is the conflict Lebanon is in.”
The biggest impact might wind up being the boost to the confidence of the country’s Shiite population, Khashan said. Even though Iran might be using Hizbullah to achieve Iranian objectives, the Shiites are enjoying their position atop the country’s political heap, he added. “This is their moment, and they are celebrating it,” he said.
In the end, Ahmadinejad’s visit might amount largely to a media circus drawing attention away from Lebanon’s seemingly intractable political deadlock, Khashan added.
“The West is giving too much attention to this visit,” he added. “There is as much interest in the visit as in the 2006 war.
“The visit itself is more symbolic than material. I don’t think anything will come out of it,” he added. “If anything, it will delay the issue of the tribunal and false witnesses,” Khashan said. “If there is one good thing about this visit, at least it is putting Lebanon’s problems on hold for one week.”

Ahmadinejad 'proud' to be among brothers as he arrives in Beirut
Berri: visit important to friends, even more important to our enemies
By Wassim Mroueh /Daily Star staff
Thursday, October 14, 2010
BEIRUT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Beirut Wednesday for a two-day official visit on the invitation of President Michel Sleiman. Upon his arrival at the Rafik Hariri International airport, the Iranian president was received by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on behalf of Sleiman, Foreign Minister Ali Shami, Sports and Youth Minister Ali Abdallah, Minister of State for Administrative Development Mohammad Fneish and an array of MPs, military figures and state officials. Berri and Ahmadinejad inspected a presidential guard detachment before heading to the VIP lounge in the airport. Berri welcomed the Iranian president. “Prior to the landing of your plane, I said this visit is very important with respect to friends, but it gained more importance thanks to our enemies, for the enemy sometimes serves more than the friend,” said Berri. “Your excellency, you have been the topic of all conversations in Lebanon from the minute this visit was announced. Thank God for your safety, Lebanon, all Lebanon, and especially the south is longing to see you,” added the speaker.
Ahmadinejad thanked Berri, saying he felt “proud” to be among his brothers. “This day is a different day for us, especially when we are in the service of our brothers and beloved, we have a Persian saying stating that if God wants, the enemy becomes a reason for goodness,” he said. “Enemies become savage when they see friends enjoying time with each other,” he added.
Later, Ahmadinejad headed to Baabda Palace. The Iranian president was greeted by huge crowds along the Rafik Hariri International Airport highway, after Hizbullah called upon its supporters to gather in the area and welcome the guest. Giant posters and banners welcoming Ahmadinejad were hung along the highway and in other Lebanese areas.
The Iranian president will visit the south on Thursday.
Following his arrival at Baabda Palace, Ahmadinejad and Sleiman held talks, after which the two leaders joined Prime Minister Saad Hariri along with Lebanese and Iranian delegations in an expanded meeting that saw the inking of several bilateral agreements, memorandums of understanding and executive programs between Lebanon and Iran.
Sleiman and Ahmadinejad headed to the garden of presidents where the Iranian president planted the cedar of Lebanese-Iranian friendship. The two leaders later held a joint news conference attended by the two delegations. Sleiman said the discussions were “deep, touching on the state of bilateral ties and means to develop and enhance them on a state-to-state level.” Sleiman said he thanked Iran for “always standing beside Lebanon in the face of Israeli aggressions and threats,” and for its support for Lebanon during Israel’s deadly war against the country in summer 2006.
Sleiman said he stressed with his Iranian counterpart the need to “preserve national unity and coexistence.” The president said he emphasized to Ahmadinejad Lebanon’s keenness to continue efforts aimed at forcing Israel to comply with international resolutions, especially the requirements of 1701, including the complete and unconditional withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territories “while retaining our right to liberate them with all legitimate means.” Also, both leaders highlighted the importance of committing to the Arab right to reclaim all occupied Arab territories and reject the naturalization of Palestinians, stressing their right to return to their land along with the need for continuous work to reach a just and comprehensive resolution to the Middle East conflict in line with Arab Peace Initiative. Sleiman said a number of bilateral agreements were inked in the fields of agriculture, communications, health, environment, education, tourism, energy and water resources. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad voiced his country’s readiness to always stand beside the Lebanese government and people, saying Lebanon “has altered equations imposed by one side, by the enemy, for the interest of the region and its people.” He added that Lebanon occupied a unique position on the international level and in the region. “The steadfastness capable of strengthening the Lebanese people, government and army in face of Israeli aggression is the source of our pride, we all the states of the region,” said the Iranian president.
“All free people of the world thank Lebanon for this courageous position,” he added. Ahmadinejad stressed the “need to cement unity among the Lebanese followed by development, to enable the Lebanese people to persevere in face of Israeli aggression.” Ahmadinejad said that bilateral cooperation between Lebanon and Iran was unlimited, adding that the two countries objected to “aggressions, occupations, and crimes committed by the Zionist enemy and sides supporting it.” “We agree with Lebanon on the need to resolve the Palestinian conflict on the basis of justice and the return of Palestinians to Palestine, their occupied nation … and all Palestinian territories shall be liberated,” he added.
“We want a one united Lebanon, developed and strong, we will continue to stand beside the Lebanese government and people to achieve its goal,” he noted.
“We believe that the Lebanese people and all people of the region can handle their matters by themselves with each other on the basis of justice, and they are not in need of the interference of regional and international forces,” continued Ahmadinejad.
He described Sleiman as “courageous,” saying he stood behind developing and constructing Lebanon.
Ahmadinejad gave Sleiman a Nanoscope for scientific research, saying it had a complicated technology possessed by only five or six countries in the world.
“It is an extremely necessary device and it was manufactured by Iranian scientists and technicians,” he said. The Iranian president attended a lunch banquet held by Sleiman in which Hariri and an array of ministers and top Lebanese leaders participated. Prior to the dinner, Sleiman delivered a speech in which he thanked Iran again for standing beside Lebanon against Israeli aggressions, and for contributing to reconstruction efforts following Israel’s 2006 summer war against Lebanon.
Sleiman added that while Lebanon was working on forcing Israel to implement Security Council Resolution 1701, it retained its right to liberate its occupied territories through all legitimate means. “And we still exercise complete alertness in face of Israeli conspiracies … and we know that strengthening our national capabilities is achieved through committing to our principles and national unity, legal institutions, and the basis of coexistence and national consensus,” Sleiman said. Ahmadinejad said “the memorandums of understanding and agreements that were signed today demonstrate the political will of our countries in enhancing and developing bilateral ties.” “Lebanon has an important role in equations, development, peace and stability on the regional level,” he added. Ahmadinejad said a developed, strong and united Lebanon was important for the sake of all states in the region, and for the sake of peace, security and international stability. In the afternoon, Ahmadinejad laid a wreath on the Martyrs statue at Martyrs Square in Downtown Beirut.

Young Nasrallah: Iranian Control 'Axiomatic'
by Maayana Miskin/Arutz Sheva
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140099
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As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited southern Lebanon this week, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) revealed a decades-old video showing Iran's relationship to Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah. In the speech shown on video, Hizbullah head Hassan Nasrallah described his organization's ties to Iran as “axiomatic.” Iran's Imam Khomeini is the “rightful deputy” of the Mahdi, the redeemer promised in Shiite Islam, Nasrallah said. “I would not have remained for a single moment in any apparatus of Hizbullah if I were not absolutely convinced that these apparatuses are connected, through a certain hierarchy, to the Jurisprudent Ruler and Leader, whose decisions are binding,” Nasrallah proclaimed. Khomeini's rulings are binding on Muslims “wherever they may be,” he added. Iran cannot state, “Yes, Hizbullah are our people in Lebanon” for political and diplomatic reasons, he explained. Iran currently trains, arms and funds Hizbullah, which has gained power and now has significant control, particularly in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government has accepted Hizbullah into the ruling coalition, and has backed the terror group's demand to bear arms. IDF officers say Hizbullah has been digging tunnels and making other preparations for war since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Iranian state media said this week that an additional clash between Lebanon and Israel is expected in the near future.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)