LCCC
ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِMay
06/2011
Biblical Event Of The
Day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 11,11-26. He entered
Jerusalem and went into the temple area. He looked around at everything and,
since it was already late, went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as
they were leaving Bethany he was hungry. Seeing from a distance a fig tree in
leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it. When he reached it he
found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs. And he said to it in
reply, "May no one ever eat of your fruit again!" And his disciples heard it.
They came to Jerusalem, and on entering the temple area he began to drive out
those selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who were selling doves. He did not permit anyone to carry
anything through the temple area. Then he taught them saying, "Is it not
written: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples'? But you have made it a den of thieves." The chief priests and
the scribes came to hear of it and were seeking a way to put him to death, yet
they feared him because the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching. When
evening came, they went out of the city. Early in the morning, as they were
walking along, they saw the fig tree withered to its roots. Peter remembered and
said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered." Jesus
said to them in reply, "Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to
this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his
heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him.
Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will
receive it and it shall be yours. When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against
whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you
your/Naharnet transgressions."
Latest
analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases
from
miscellaneous
sources
Delusional hope over
reality/By:
Tony Badran/May
05/11
Osama is dead. Good, but so what?/By
Michael Young/May
05/11
Lebanese Christians react to
regional instability/By:
Shane Farrell/May
05/11
Hezbollah’s most serious
challenge/By Randa Slim/May
05/11
Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May
05/11
Bashar or chaos: Syrian
regime's new mantra/Daily Star/Agencies
Clinton: US considering
sanctions against Syria/REUTERS
Report: Qatar offering
Israel gas/Ynetnew
Netanyahu: With bin Laden
dead, Iran Supreme Leader is world's greatest threat/Haaretz
Israel builds up border
forces against Syrian refugee exodus/DEBKAfile
Report: Syria army begins
withdrawal from unrest hub Daraa/Haaretz/Agencies
Syria's Unrest Seeps Into
Lebanon/NYT
Muslim Americans hope OBL death
will ease tension/CBS
Analysts: Fallout of Syrian
Violence Ripples in Lebanon/VOA
Wikileaks: 'Assad smiles to West,
while arming Hezbollah'/J.Post
Jonathan Dobrer: Despite rise of
Hezbollah, al-Qaida remains a threat/LADN
'Israel asked US to block Syria
missile transfer in 2010'/J.Post
Wikileaks cables reveal varying
Israeli views
towards Assad/J.post
David Frum: Bin Laden's death is
what success looks like/National Post
Israel Ponders Obama-Style Assassin
Missions/Dallas Blog
Time to get serious on Syria/SLJL
March
14 Calls on Hizbullah to Place its Military Capabilities under State's Control/Naharnet
Lebanon Unlikely to Be
Targeted by Terrorist Attack in Retaliation to Bin Laden's Killing/Naharnet
Hariri Praises Palestinian
Reconciliation, Calls on International Community to Comply with Needs of
Palestinian Unity/Naharnet
Williams Expresses Concern
to Miqati that Cabinet Formation Taking Time/Naharnet
Ouzai Police Chief Lightly
Injured after his Gun Goes Off/Naharnet
Official: Qahwaji Had No
Political Intention in his Mediation Effort/Naharnet
WikiLeaks: Murr Describes
Suleiman as a Coward and Conspirator during May 2008 Clashes/Naharnet
WikiLeaks: Suleiman Says
Hizbullah Acted Like a Militia during May 2008 Incidents/Naharnet
WikiLeaks: Bassil Says
March 14 Main Suspects over Pierre Gemayel Assassination/Naharnet
WikiLeaks: Hariri Called
for Immediate U.S. Assistance to Confront Hizbullah During May 7 Events/Naharnet
WikiLeaks: Geagea Wanted
to Arm LF and PSP/Naharnet
Public Works Committee
Vows Not to Tolerate Illegal Construction Amid More Attacks on ISF/Naharnet
Lebanon's National Bloc rejects
military involvement in cabinet formation/Now Lebanon
Delusional hope over reality
Tony Badran, May 5, 2011
Now Lebanon/With every passing week, it becomes clearer that the Obama
administration has no intention of revising its failed Syria policy and the
ideas that underpin it, namely reviving the Syrian-Israeli peace track and
distancing the Assad regime from the Iranian axis. Rather, when it comes to
Damascus, the administration is content to remain in its own echo chamber.
The latest indication of Washington’s continued refusal to abandon its ideas on
Syria can be found in what anonymous US officials told the Washington Post’s
David Ignatius in response to a recent story in al-Hayat that the Hamas
leadership in Damascus was preparing to find a new home.
These officials, according to Ignatius, “see signs that Syria’s embattled
president, Bashar al-Assad, has concluded that to survive the massive protests
against his regime ... he will have to distance himself somewhat from Iran.” In
fact, even if Assad survives, these officials believe that “he will have to
establish some distance from Iran to appease Sunni protesters.”
How these officials reached this conclusion, or what these “signs” are, is
anyone’s guess, especially when the exact opposite is the likely outcome of
Assad’s survival. This is not to mention that the White House’s refrain has been
that Assad was relying on Iranian assistance in quashing the challenge to his
regime.
But is this just a matter of incoherence, or, as Lee Smith recently wrote, is
the Obama administration’s Syria policy “an ideological fantasy ... premised on
getting Damascus back to the negotiating table with Israel”?
An interview with the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, on al-Arabiya on
Tuesday lends support to this contention. Even now, after everything that Assad
has done, Ford makes it clear that the Obama administration’s primary interest
with Syria remains returning it to peace talks with Israel. “We are still very,
very interested in the issue,” Ford said. “This administration has been
interested in Syrian-Israeli peace perhaps more than any other administration in
the last twenty years.”
What Ford said next was most fitting in describing Washington’s policy. Asked
whether there was any realistic prospect for reviving the Syrian peace track at
this stage, Ford replied: “There’s always hope!” Indeed. The Obama
administration’s policy represents nothing if not the triumph of delusional hope
over reality.
There is more audacity to the administration’s hope. Ford explained how, due to
the crisis in Syria, everyone was focused on that issue right now. However, he
added, “We hope that Syria overcomes this difficult phase.”
What could this statement possibly mean? Over a month ago, a New York Times
report gave the distinct impression that, more than anything, the officials who
spoke to the paper were concerned about the impact of the situation in Syria on
the administration’s hope to relaunch peace talks between Syria and Israel. This
is also the takeaway from the recent comments by Jacob Sullivan, the director of
Policy Planning at the State Department. Sullivan told reporters on April 26
that “the current situation in Syria is one that … it’s hard for us to stand by
and see Assad … engaged in this kind of campaign ... and to then think easily
about how to pursue the other diplomatic initiatives with him.”
What this signals is that, similar to its attitude toward the Iranian Green
Movement, the Obama administration is indicating that the Syrians' unprecedented
uprising complicates its hope to tend to more important business: Syrian-Israeli
peace talks!
That is why Ford could not restrain himself from making the following statement,
faithfully relaying what is apparently administration policy: “If things calm
down, we’ll see what the possibilities are.” Things might “calm down” if Assad
kills, imprisons and tortures enough people to quell protests for a while. Maybe
then everyone can once again focus on the important things. Is this really what
the administration has in mind? That, should Assad manage to put down the
protests, the US would simply resume “engagement” with him as though nothing had
happened?
This is where the administration’s incoherence is most troubling. Not only is it
not asking for Assad to step down, as it had done with ally Hosni Mubarak, but
also, it is not even openly defining what end state it would like to see in
Syria, before talking about “pursuing initiatives” and exploring
“possibilities.”
The administration should have recalled its ambassador by now, but it has
adamantly refused to review even that aspect of its disastrous approach to
Syria. The administration has repeatedly insisted that his presence was
necessary to convey clearly Washington’s messages to the Assad regime.
Apparently, the central theme of these messages is “hope,” which evidently has
superseded strategic vision and sound policy.
**Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Bashar or chaos: Syrian regime's new mantra
By Rana Moussaoui
Agence France Press
DAMASCUS: Bashar al-Assad or chaos. This is the new media mantra unleashed by
the Syrian authorities to discredit the protest movement against the embattled
president's autocratic rule. "We Syria," "The collaborators are seeking
discord," "Yes to stability rather than chaos," and "Freedom is not sabotage,"
are some of the string of slogans screaming out on street posters and television
clips in Damascus. “The message of our campaign is simple. The word freedom as
defined by protesters is not true freedom," says Shaza Ferzli, 33, who heads the
regime's media account at United Group, the largest advertising company in
Syria. Wherever one turns one's head in Damascus there is a slogan. There are
signs calling for "national unity" and "co-existence between communities" on
buildings, bus stops and public transport alongside giant posters of President
Bashar al-Assad.
One poster with the slogan "No to Dissent" is put up next to a picture of a
church and a mosque under the slogan "Yes to coexistence."
It is evident that in this multi-confessional country, the authorities want to
put across the message that the anti-government protesters are extremists who
want to break the prevailing harmony. For Zulfiqar Mohammed of United Group, the
campaigns launched so far aim to "revive the national fabric which is confronted
with an alien phenomenon."
"It's a foreign conspiracy," he says referring to the unprecedented
demonstrations against Assad's 11-year rule which began seven weeks ago as a
wave of revolt swept the Arab world.
Syrian and international human rights groups say that more than 600 civilians
have been killed so far. To show that the country is in danger, state television
regularly broadcasts commercials glorifying the nation using slogans such as
"Darling Syria," or "Syria's head is high," alongside images of major tourist
attractions.
The authorities also use derogatory terms to refer to the protesters like
"terrorists", "mercenaries" or "plotters." Assad's supporters, like their
opponents, are also making full use of new media, like social networking sites,
to drive home their message. Ammar Ismail Shaie wages a relentless war on
Facebook and Twitter against the young protesters of the so-called "Syrian
Revolution 2011" group. "I spend sleepless nights," says Shaie, browsing the DNN
(Damascus News Network), one of the 15 pro-Assad pages on Facebook.
The main objective is to discredit the protesters by pointing to their "lies"
and denounce the coverage of television channels such as Qatar-based network
Al-Jazeera, the bete noire of the Syrian authorities. "They broadcast only the
view of the opposition, not that of the loyalists. There is no voice for those
who love the president," says Ammar. "Look at these mock funerals shown by the
media," he says, showing a video on Youtube depicting two dead men rising to
join an angry mob. The protesters too broadcast daily dozens of videos accusing
government loyalists of fabricating lies aimed at discrediting them. In a
country which forbids foreign journalists from going out to report on the
protests, it is a cyberwar on YouTube between pro- and anti-government forces.
Clinton: US considering sanctions against Syria
By REUTERS /05/05/2011 13:25
Before meeting of anti-Gaddafi coalition, Clinton says Middle East upheaval sign
that bin Laden's ideology is being rejected. ROME - US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the US and Italy have discussed sanctions
against Syria. In a joint news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco
Frattini after breakfast talks, Clinton expressed deep concern over the
situation in Syria, saying that Syrian President Bashar Assad must stop violence
against his own people. Frattini said that he and Clinton had also discussed
sanctions against Syria's government because of its violent suppression of
unrest. Possible sanctions included the suspension of cooperation talks with the
European Union and travel restrictions on senior Syrian officials. Clinton said
the Rome meeting of more than 20 countries in an anti-Gaddafi coalition would
discuss ways of providing financial and other aid to rebels who have been
fighting since February to end the Libyan leader's 41-year rule. She also said
that the US relationship with Pakistan is not always easy but has been
productive for both sides.
The discovery that the al Qaeda leader was able to live for years in the
military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital, has
raised doubt in the United States about whether Pakistan was a reliable ally
against militants. Clinton acknowledged that Washington's relationship with
Islamabad was awkward at times, but said it was still important
Report: Qatar offering Israel gas
Ynet news/According to Arab media, Qatari industry minister tells Israeli
counterpart his country ready to supply natural gas to Jewish state 'for an
unlimited period of time and below market prices' Doron Peskin Published:
05.05.11, 08:32 / Israel Business/Several newspapers and Internet forums in the
Arab world are reporting that Qatar has expressed its willingness to supply
natural gas to Israel instead of Egypt. The reports' sources have not been
disclosed. According to the reports, Qatar's Industry and Commerce Minister
Hassan Abdulla Fakhro told his Israeli counterpart in a phone conversation that
his country was willing to export natural gas to the Jewish state "for an
unlimited period of time and below market prices". The Israeli minister, the
reports said, "voiced his appreciation for the Qatari government's stance" on
the issue.
It should be noted that Qatar is an important player in the global natural gas
market. It controls 15% of the world's gas reserves and is considered a leading
global supplier in this field.
Reports on talks between Israel and Qatar on the issue of a gas deal have
surfaced in the past. Initial talks were held in the early 1990s, but in 1997
Israel declared that the option was no longer on the table. In 1998,
then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with the Qatari energy minister and
discussed the possibility of importing natural gas from his country. The talks
did not materialize into a deal. It is unclear whether the reports published
Wednesday are true. The attempt to link Qatar to Israel may have been initiated
by different Arab elements as an "act of revenge" following the coverage of the
recent revolutions in the Arab world by the al- al-Jazeera network, which is
owned by the government in Doha.
**Doron Peskin is head of research at Info-Prod Research (Middle East) Ltd
Report: Syria army begins withdrawal from unrest hub Daraa
Scores of people reportedly arrested and weapons confiscated as military
gradually leaves the city near the Jordanian border; Italy Foreign Minister says
Syria's government could face sanctions over its violent suppression of unrest.
By News Agencies
The Syrian army began withdrawing its forces from the southern city of Daraa on
Thursday after days of building up its presence there, according to official
state news reports.
Thursday's TV report said a gradual withdrawal from Daraa began after the
military carried out its mission in detaining terrorists and restored calm to
the city, adding that the army had fulfilled "most of its goals" in Daraa. An
image taken from amateur video released a Syrian freedom group shows a man
throwing an object at a tank in Daraa, on April 24, 2011.
"The remaining armed terrorist members who terrorized people and left behind
panic, destruction and killing in all neighborhoods were pursued," an unnamed
military official was quoted as saying. The source also said that scores of
people were arrested and "huge amounts of up-to-date weapons and ammunition"
were confiscated. The report came as Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini
said Syria's government could face sanctions because of its violent suppression
of unrest. Frattini spoke in a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, ahead of a meeting in Rome of a NATO-backed coalition
against Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, which also discussed the situation in
Syria and the U.S. battle against al-Qaida. Possible sanctions included the
suspension of cooperation talks with the European Union and travel restrictions
on senior Syrian officials. Clinton expressed deep concern over the situation in
Syria and said President Bashar Assad must stop violence against his own people.
The city near the Jordanian border has been under siege since April 25, when
President Bashar Assad sent in the military to quell mass protests. Troops have
cut off electricity and telephone services, and snipers have fired at residents
who ventured outdoors. There were also reports that security forces shot at
rooftop water tanks, a vital supply of water in the bone-dry region. About 50
people have been reported killed in Daraa violence over the past 10 days. The
Syrian government has repeatedly blamed foreign infiltrators and extremist
groups for widespread protests, which began March 15, calling for political
reform.
Netanyahu: With bin Laden dead, Iran Supreme Leader is world's greatest threat
By Haaretz Service /In interview with CNN, Prime Minister says Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei effectively runs Iran, warning that if Iran 'gets atomic bombs, it will
change history.'
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei poses the greatest worldwide
threat after the death of Osama bin Laden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said in an interview with CNN on Thursday. Claiming that Khamenei posed an even
greater threat than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu told CNN
that the Supreme Leader "runs the country and he is infused with fanaticism."
Benjamin Netanyahu attending the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sunday,
May 1, 2011. "If the Iranian regime gets atomic bombs, it will change history,"
the premier said, adding that the "future of the world -- the future of the
Middle East -- is certainly at stake."
Netanyahu also urged increased international sanctions on the Iranian regime
over its suspected nuclear ambitions, saying that those sanctions might work if
the international community makes it clear that there is a credible military
option if sanctions don't work." Speaking of recent unrest sweeping across the
Middle East, the premier warned the Arab revolutions could be "hijacked" by
extremists, saying that while Israel "would like to see the triumph of
democracy... that's something that will guarantee the peace," the specter of
Islamic extremism loomed large.
"The biggest threat is the possibility that a militant Islamic regime will
acquire nuclear weapons -- or that nuclear weapons could acquire a militant
Islamic regime," the PM said.
The premier's comments came a day after he told British Prime Minister David
Cameron that Israel would not negotiate with a "Palestinian version of
Al-Qaida," referring to the newly signed Hamas-Fatah unity pact. "Declaring
statehood in September is a dictate -- and you don’t achieve peace through
dictates. It’s a very bad idea,” Netanyahu told Cameron during their talks in
London. Netanyahu's two day Europe trip –planned before the reconciliation
between Hamas and Fatah was announced – was initially intended as part of
ongoing efforts to thwart the expected European recognition of a unilaterally
declared Palestinian state in September.
Israel builds up border forces against Syrian refugee exodus
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 5, 2011, Thursday, May 5, Israel augmented the
units deployed on its border with Syria and the intersection of the
Israel-Syria-Jordan frontiers in the Har Dov area against the spate of tens of
thousands of Syrian refugees in flight from President Bashar Assad's bloody
crackdown in Damascus and the Daraa region. The UN force on the Golan Heights –
UNDOF – is likewise beefing up the contingents policing Israeli-Syrian ceasefire
lines. debkafile's military sources report the IDF has set up new lookout posts
and is conducting aerial have been surveillance to keep track of movements
across the border. Special units with riot gear are posted on the Golan in since
Wednesday.
Three developments led Israel to place its border contingents on a high state of
preparedness, according to our military sources:
1. Israeli intelligence estimates that this coming Friday and Saturday, Assad
will concentrate his harshest measures on rebel centers in Damascus and the
Horon towns close to the Israeli border of which Daraa is the center. Wednesday,
large concentrations of Syrian forces with about 70 personnel carriers and 30
tanks took up position around Damascus. Thursday, they were reported raiding
suburban homes and making dozens of arrests. 2. Word has been received that on
Friday, Syrian security forces will move into Quneitra in the Syrian sector of
Golan to back up Assad's crackdown in Horon. They would be easily visible from
the villages and towns of the Israeli sector. The Syrian president is quoted as
informing a meeting of ruling Baath activists Tuesday, May 3 that he is close to
finishing off the Daraa revolt. The violence entailed in this operation would
take place very close to the Israeli border. The IDF's Northern Command
responded by making preparations to keep it sealed.
debkafile's sources say that many of the protesters in and around Damascus hail
from the Golan. In flight from Assad's guns, they are beginning to return to
their native region. It is feared that if Syrian government persecution
continues, they may try and cross into Israel.
3. Other large groups were turned away by Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, which
closed their borders against refugees last month. They too are now heading for
the Israel border in search of temporary shelter.
Osama is dead. Good, but so what?
By Michael Young
The Daily Star
Who truly regrets the assassination of Osama bin Laden? There are those of us
who never saw the Al-Qaeda founder as an avatar of Arab frustration and
humiliation. We still believe that the 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with
Palestinian suffering or American imperialism, and everything to do with
rational criminals striving to execute what they imagined would be the most
aesthetical of mass murders.
However, there is something deeply disturbing in watching the United States
applaud Osama’s elimination as the cornerstone of a national reawakening. A
killing, no matter how justified, is still just a killing. Surely America can
offer much more, particularly at this verge moment in the Middle East when
protesters are looking to establish open societies, and are being gunned down as
a consequence.
Unfortunately, the greater likelihood is that with bin Laden out of the picture,
President Barack Obama may have found the near-perfect excuse he seeks to
involve the U.S. less in regional complications. Even before his political
campaign to become president, Obama’s narrative was that the attacks against New
York and Washington imposed, primarily, a counter-terrorism response, making
President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, with its nation-building component, the
wrong war, in contrast to the right war in Afghanistan.
Obama has vowed to start a military drawdown in Afghanistan this summer; next
year he faces an election. The president will not linger among the Afghans
longer than he needs to. The tensions in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship may
subside, despite the fact that there were Pakistani officials who surely knew
that Osama bin Laden was in their midst. As Obama begins disengaging from
Afghanistan with the bin Laden boil with Islamabad finally lanced, the president
might welcome Pakistan’s cooperation to help fill the vacuum in the country.
The long-term question, as always with the Obama administration, is one of
strategy and meaning. Until now, the president, otherwise a thoughtful man, has
had little to say about the implicit link between the absence of democracy in
the Middle East and the emergence of individuals like Osama bin Laden. Obama’s
tendency to favor counter-terrorism action after 9/11, his mistrust of ambitious
democratization schemes, has made for an especially vacant interpretation from
the White House of the bin Laden phenomenon.
That’s not surprising, given the president’s political antipathies. After 9/11,
the association between the rise of bin Ladenism and the absence of democracy in
the Arab world was drawn primarily by so-called neoconservatives. There was a
double irony there, as early neocon thinkers and officials tended to be realists
politically, against the neo-Wilsonian of the George W. Bush years, when the
spread of democratic values became a hymn; and they were also partial to
dictators, as long as the dictators in question opposed communism.
By the time America was assaulted by Al-Qaeda in late 2001, this reading had
changed among certain influential neocons in the Bush administration. More
important, they gave the president an explanation for 9/11 that he found
convincing, while old-line realists, left liberals, traditional conservatives,
and libertarians had very little to say about why a group of young Arab men had
murdered thousands of Americans for no apparent reason. The explanation,
inasmuch as it was coherently formulated, was that authoritarian Arab regimes,
by relentlessly suffocating their societies, had facilitated the emergence of
Islamist-dominated oppositions, one of whose more extreme emanations was a
particularly nasty transnational strand of jihadism that had targeted America.
One could agree or disagree with this perspective, but Bush happened to be
sympathetic. For diplomatic reasons his administration tiptoed around a central
contention of the neocons, namely the essential role played by Saudi Arabia in
ideologically inspiring and financing jihadist movements. And since the U.S. was
not about to invade the kingdom, the preferred way for dealing with this
malicious cycle of a freedom deficit nourishing violent Islamist militancy was
to establish a pluralistic, American-dominated Iraq in the very heart of the
Arab world, to help transform the Middle East from within.
Obama never bought into that rationale. Which is precisely why Osama bin Laden’s
assassination seems so devoid of deeper significance when you listen today to
American officials describing the operation in Abbottabad. Retribution came,
period. But the administration has pointedly avoided associating bin Laden’s
fate with the democratic rumblings in the Middle East, except to suggest that
Al-Qaeda, ultimately, is now a spent force in the region. Perhaps it is, but
then why play up Osama bin Laden’s death with such fanfare?
Neocons aside, there is indeed an implicit link between authoritarianism in Arab
societies and violence. This is not a culturally deterministic argument; it is a
commonsensical one. When societies, most societies, are prevented from
expressing themselves relatively freely through representative institutions,
certain groups will feel compelled to effect change violently. This urge can
take on a religious coloring or it can take on secular revolutionary or populist
colorings. But for the Obama administration to view Osama as a phenomenon in
isolation is, effectively, another way of declaring that the U.S. will not soon
embark on a more profound meditation on liberty in Arab societies.
But if America has nothing much to say, or do, about advancing liberty, or
merely political and social pluralism, in Arab societies, then where does its
comparative advantage lie, in relation to Russia or China let’s say? If Osama
bin Laden’s death provides Washington with a means of avoiding answering the
question, it will have been in vain. A striking security operation no doubt, but
also one that is as meaningless as revenge, almost by definition, generally is.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of
Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle (Simon &
Schuster). He tweets BeirutCalling.
Hezbollah’s most serious challenge
Posted By Randa Slim
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 - 10:41 AM Share
The popular uprisings in Syria represent the most serious challenge to Hezbollah
since the 2006 war with Israel. A regime change in Syria would threaten a major
arms supply route to Hezbollah; deny the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis its
Arab linchpin; weaken Hezbollah's deterrence capacities vis-à-vis Israel; and
deny the Hezbollah leaders and their families a safe haven when they feel
threatened by Israel, as was the case in 2006. This poses a unique challenge to
Hezbollah, which had comfortably sided with the revolts in Egypt, Tunisia,
Libya, Yemen and Bahrain. When Hezbollah's Iranian mentor Ali Akbar
Mohtashamipour was dismissed from his official post last April because of his
sympathies with the Iranian opposition, Hezbollah was silent despite a heated
debate inside the party ranks. The uprisings in Syria pose a challenge similar
to the one they faced with the 2009 repression of the Green Movement in Iran.
How does Hezbollah really view the prospect of regime change in Damascus? In a
recent round of interviews I conducted with Hezbollah officials in Beirut, all
those I spoke to agreed that a regime change in Syria would not occur easily or
peacefully. So far, Hezbollah officials believe that Bashar al Assad will
survive. They believe that unlike Hosni Mubarak or Zein Ben Ali, Assad still
enjoys a wide base of support especially in major cities like Damascus and
Aleppo. As a senior Hezbollah official pointed out, "Alawites and Christians
will not abandon Bashar." The Assad regime and its wide base of support, they
said, will fight back. Should Bashar al Assad fail to rein in the protests
quickly, they fear a protracted civil war that would engulf Syria, spill over
into Lebanon, especially in the north, and destabilize other countries in the
region, including Turkey. Above all, even more than the loss of military and
financial supply lines, these Hezbollah leaders fear a mortal blow to the
"Resistance Axis" which has been central to their place in the Middle East.
While Syrian President Bashar al Assad was initially taken back by the protests,
he and his close associates quickly closed ranks and opted for brute force to
deal with future protests. Hezbollah's reading of the Assad speech made on April
16 is that while responding to the people's demands by offering a series of
reform measures mainly focused on the lifting of the emergency law, Assad also
made it clear that further protests will be met with an iron fist. Hezbollah
officials to whom I spoke viewed the internal opposition as old, disorganized
and decimated by years spent in Syrian jails. If regime change were to happen
soon, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is the only organized political force in the
country and would likely emerge as the main power broker in the country.
Hezbollah officials now believe that negotiations between the regime and the
protest movement can no longer be expected to occur. They further argue that the
critical factor in other Arab revolutions was the neutral role played by the
army. In the case of Syria, they believe that the army still sides with the
regime. It has yet to show signs of dissension, especially at the top levels.
When questioned about the possibility of an internal coup d'etat led by an
Alawite army official, these Hezbollah officials discounted this scenario - as
one of them put it, chiefly for lack of an acceptable alternative to Bashar al
Assad. They also pointed out that both Alawites and Christians fear the
consequences to themselves of a Sunni take-over. A protracted civil war in Syria
would eventually lead to a break-up of Syria into a number of mini-states
divided among the country's three major religious and ethnic groups: Alawites,
Sunnis, and Kurds.
Why is Bashar al Assad's survival so important to Hezbollah? Unlike his father,
the late Hafez al Assad, who kept his distance from the "Lebanese file" and
relied mostly on a coterie of associates to deal with the Lebanese political
players, Bashar al Assad owned the Lebanese file and from the beginning of his
reign, developed a personal relationship with Hezbollah's secretary general,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah's resistance movement was just one component
in Hafez al Assad's toolbox, used to strengthen Syria's weak hand in
Arab-Israeli negotiations; he often sought to limit Hezbollah's role in Lebanese
politics. Bashar al Assad, on the other hand, saw in Hezbollah his most
important Lebanese ally and worked assiduously to protect and strengthen its
military arsenal to the detriment of alliances his father's regime cultivated
with other Lebanese political players. So even if another Alawite were to
replace Bashar al Assad, Hezbollah officials believe that the relationship
between Hezbollah and the Syrian leadership would never be the same.
The end of the Syrian shipment route would not be the most important loss to the
party. According to one of my interlocutors, the party has developed alternative
routes -- more important is the political dimension. As a Hezbollah official
told me last week, "Syria is the resistance camp's gate to the Arab world." For
Hezbollah, resistance to Israel and to U.S. hegemony in the region remains their
raison d'etre and their principal claim to leadership in the Arab region. Being
an indispensable player in the Arab-Israeli conflict without whom a regional
peace process cannot be actualized, Syria is the Arab leader of the resistance
camp and the guarantor of Hezbollah's leading role in this camp.
Despite the facade of unconditional support for the Syrian regime which
Hezbollah is offering, I sensed a level of discomfort among some Hezbollah
cadres, especially in the second and third-tiers, with regard to this policy. I
heard three lines of argument from Hezbollah officials about the issue of what
Hezbollah's policy should be vis-à-vis the Syrian uprisings.
The first argument is that Hezbollah should not display a double standard in its
approach to the uprisings in the Arab region. As a party founded on the
principles of social justice, fairness, and respect for the people's right to
resist oppression, Hezbollah risks compromising its principles if it continues
supporting the Syrian regime as it moves to forcibly suppress the yearnings of
its people. Hezbollah could lose the respect of a large segment of its Arab
constituency if it were to continue supporting a regime that is brutally
repressing its own people. After all, it is these same constituencies that threw
Mubarak and Ben Ali out of power, are now challenging Saleh in the streets of
Yemen, fighting Qaddafi's forces, and suffering in Bahraini jails for
challenging the authority of a monarch. While respectful of Hezbollah's military
achievements in the struggle against Israel, these constituencies will not look
kindly at Hezbollah's support for another Arab regime that clings to power by
killing its citizens.
A second argument suggests that it is in Hezbollah's interest to support the
emergence of democratic regimes in the region but not necessarily Islamist
regimes. This voice inside Hezbollah argues that, of course, Islamist groups
such as the Muslim Brotherhood must have a role in the emerging Arab governments
along with other secular parties including leftists, liberals, and nationalists.
But the rise of Sunni Islamist groups to power, if unchecked by equally
prominent secular and liberal groups, would eventually lead these new regimes to
espouse the same policy as the Saudi regime vis-a-vis Hezbollah, a policy that
is fueled by the age-old Sunni-Shiite conflict in Islam. One of my interlocutors
noted that even inside the leadership ranks of Hamas, a party long considered a
close ally of Hezbollah, there are members who look at Hezbollah as a Shiite
movement that cannot be trusted. And while Hezbollah must show loyalty to the
Syrian leadership, Hezbollah should become more vocal in calling for reforms in
Syria because democratization would be to the benefit of the Syrian regime and
its allies in the region. In this view, democratic regimes, in which power is
shared among a variety of political actors, Islamist and secular, serve
Hezbollah's interests better than Islamist regimes in which political power is
controlled by a Sunni Islamist party.
A third argument in this debate holds that the Syrian people have historically
had a deep commitment to the resistance strategy and that it behooves Hezbollah,
in case of a regime change in Syria, to start building its relationships with
the Syrian people who, in the end, will continue to share with Hezbollah an
ideological agenda built around the principles of resistance to Israel and the
struggle to liberate Arab lands from Israeli occupation in the Golan Heights,
Palestine and Lebanon. Siding with the Syrian regime in the face of mounting
popular opposition will undermine Hezbollah's future chances of establishing a
relationship with a new Syrian regime if or it takes place.
For now, similar to their stance during the last Iranian uprisings, Hezbollah
leadership remains firmly in support of its ally, the Syrian president. It is
unlikely that in the near future, we will see Sayyed Nasrallah address the
crowds in the Lebanese southern suburbs in support of the Syrian popular
uprisings as he did on March 19 when he declared that the Arab popular
revolutions will succeed. Yet has Hezbollah begun making contingency plans for
the possible overthrow of Assad? One Hezbollah official denied it because, as he
put it, the topic is so sensitive and doing so might be perceived as an act of
betrayal of a long-standing ally. However, if Hezbollah behaves true to form,
contingency planning must be quietly underway.
**Randa Slim, a Lebanese-American political analyst, is completing a book on
Hezbollah's political evolution. She tweets about developments in the Middle
East @rmslim
Lebanese Christians react to regional instability
Shane Farrell, May 4, 2011
Late last month, Lebanon’s recently-appointed patriarch, Bechara Boutros al-Rai,
convened a meeting of Christian leaders from different ends of the political
spectrum in a bid to encourage them to find common ground. Unlike previous
drives toward Christian rapprochement, this last effort was received with
cautious optimism.
In light of the regional uprisings and growing concerns about the position of
Christians in the Middle East, especially if Islamists come to power in
countries experiencing unrest, the meeting was seen as a necessary step to unify
Lebanon’s politically-diverse Christian communities.
Charles Chartouni, a professor of Sociology and Political Science from the
Lebanese University, said that while each politician defended their own policy
orientation at the meeting, they were realistic and consensual in acknowledging
“a need to have more of a moderate attitude [when it comes to] the basic rights
of the Christian communities at large.”
Serge Dagher, the Kataeb Party’s spokesperson, agrees. “It was a beginning. You
can’t say that it was a success because it is a journey, and this is just the
first step,” he told NOW Lebanon, adding that “for the first step it was a good
step in general... because, as they say in Arabic, the ice was broken between
the leaders.”
Unifying Lebanese Christians would prove a comforting bolster for the community
considering recent disturbing events in the Middle East.
In Egypt, for example, pro-democracy protests and the toppling of President
Hosni Mubarak in February did little to change the continuing violence against
Coptic Christians. In March, sectarian tensions resulted in nine Christians
killed, over 150 injured and the destruction of several houses and a church.
Closer to home, the ongoing unrest in Syria is seen to threaten the safety of
the minority Christian community, estimated at some 10 percent of the
population. Syrian Christians, as Middle East reporter for American radio
station NPR Deborah Amos put it, “are largely supportive of [President Bashar]
al-Assad, who has gone out of his way to reach out to them.” Some fear an
anti-Christian backlash could occur if Assad is overthrown.
“Christians are definitely concerned with what is going on in the region,” said
Dagher, adding that “in many of these countries Christians are paying the price
for [religious] tensions.”
Moreover, Dagher told NOW Lebanon that anti-sectarian slogans such as “Alawis to
the coffins and Christians to Beirut” are allegedly being shouted during
protests in Syria. Indeed, there have been reports that it may be supporters of
the regime who are trying to frighten Christians and present the demonstrations
as being driven by Islamic fundamentalists.
Chartouni, meanwhile, remains cautious about developments in Lebanon’s
neighbor-state, saying, “Hopefully the situation in Syria will evolve in a more
democratic way. [However] if we are heading toward a scenario of chaos, the
likelihood of scapegoating and being persecuted as a religious minority is
something not to be dismissed, because when the logic of the mob takes over,
anything could happen.”If the worst fears of Christians in Syria are realized, this will of course have
severe repercussions in Lebanon, though interviewees refused to speculate as to
their possible extent. What they did share, however, was concerns about the
Muslim Brotherhood.
“[The Brotherhood] is illiberal by definition,” said Chartouni, though “the main
issue is whether pragmatism and the fact that they are going to become part of
the political system in the future will have an impact on whether they will
become more pragmatic, less ideological and more democratic.”“You don’t know how things will develop,” Dagher said, “but of course we
[Christians] have fears.”The issue has even inspired the Pope to weigh in. In his Easter speech, he
expressed hope for “the light of peace and of human dignity” to “overcome the
darkness of division, hate and violence” in the Middle East.Time will tell
whether these hopes are realized.
Lebanon's National Bloc rejects military involvement in cabinet formation
May 5, 2011 /The National Bloc Party on Thursday voiced “rejection of any role
for soldiers in political life” in a statement issued after its executive
committee’s weekly meeting.
“It is neither requested nor desired that the army commander undertake any
political initiatives, especially in cabinet formation,” the statement said. The
bloc said that it “rejected any soldier’s carrying out any ministerial
missions.”An-Nahar newspaper reported on Sunday that President Michel Sleiman
had asked Lebanese army commander General Jean Kahwaji to suggest the names of
four high-ranking officers so that Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati could
choose one of them to receive the Interior Ministry portfolio. -NOW Lebanon