LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِMay 11/2011

Biblical Event Of The Day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 9,1-8. He entered a boat, made the crossing, and came into his own town. And there people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Courage, child, your sins are forgiven." At that, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming."Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, "Why do you harbor evil thoughts? Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" --he then said to the paralytic, "Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home."He rose and went home. When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to human beings.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Israel is a country evading reality/Haaretz Editorial/May 10/11
Assad has gone too far – the west must reject him/By: Simon Tisdall/May 10/11
Syria: Why does the Obama administration let Assad off the hook?/By Michael Weiss/May 10/11
Sectarianism stalks Egypt/By Michael Wahid Hanna/May 10/11
The Salafi Surprise/Husam Itani/May 10/11
Egypt between Camelia and Abeer/By: Mohammad Salah/May 10/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May 10/11
Kuwait to challenge Syria for UN rights council/Now Lebanon
Church burning deepens tumult of Egypt transition/AP
EU gives green light to Syria arms embargo, sanctions/DPA/Haaretz
Why the world is quiet as Syria crackdown continues/CSM
News Analysis: Situation in Syria bound up with stability in Lebanon: analysts/Xinhua
Syria a test case for democratic Turkey/CSM
As Syria Activists Scatter, Exiled Opponents to Meet/WSJ
Syria: snipers are seen on rooftops as protests rise/BAH
SYRIA: Protesters issue online appeal for President Assad to hold elections/LAT
Hundreds Reported Arrested in Syria Crackdown/VOA
Syria 'tortures activists to access their Facebook pages'/Telegraph
Hundreds Reported Arrested as Syria's Crackdown Widens/NYT
Hezbollah: STL part of foreign plans against resistance/Daily Star
Jumblatt says enough is enough/Daily Star
Syria wants Lebanon Cabinet this week: source/Daily Star
Tawhid Arab Party: STL’s orientation is ‘Israeli’/Now Lebanon
Lawyer: Six Syrian opposition figures released/Now Lebanon
Suleiman Meets Syrian Ambassador: We Hope Stability Will Be Restored in Syria/Naharnet
Berri: Any Ministerial Portfolio Will Be Worthless if Regional Instability Reaches Lebanon/Naharnet
Mixed Reactions on Jumblat's Stance as FPM Asks him to Give up Cabinet Demands/Naharnet
Beirut-Damascus Contacts Aim at Speeding up Cabinet Formation/Naharnet
More Homs Refugees Flee Syria's Unrest to Wadi Khaled/Naharnet
Report: Bellemare not Fransen Controlling Release of Indictment/Naharnet
March 14 Debates whether Jumblat's Latest Position Means he Has Left New Majority/Naharnet
14-member Cabinet Makes the Rounds as Suleiman Holds Onto Right to Have a Say on Lineup/Naharnet
Spiritual Summit to Seek Stability, Discuss Uncontroversial Issues/Naharnet
Williams Warns of Lost Opportunities in Cabinet Impasse/Naharnet
Geagea Calls for Forming Technocrat Govt: They Want Interior Portfolio to Confront STL/Naharnet
Jumblat: New Majority Has Failed Miserably in Forming New Government/Naharnet

Church burning deepens tumult of Egypt transition
09/05/2011
CAIRO, (AP) – Relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians degenerated to a new low Sunday after riots overnight left 12 people dead and a church burned, adding to the disorder of the country's post-revolution transition to democracy.
The attack on the church was the latest sign of assertiveness by an extreme, ultraconservative movement of Muslims known as Salafis, whose increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers. Salafis have been blamed for other recent attacks on Christians and others they don't approve of. In one attack, a Christian man had an ear cut off for renting an apartment to a Muslim woman suspected of involvement in prostitution. The latest violence, which erupted in fresh clashes Sunday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones in another part of Cairo, also pointed to what many see as reluctance of the armed forces council to act. The council took temporary control of the country after President Hosni Mubarak was deposed on Feb. 11. After the overnight clashes in the slum of Imbaba, residents turned their anger toward the military. Some said they and the police did almost nothing to intervene in the five-hour frenzy of violence. Analysts warned of signs of Coptic violence, especially with reports that some Christians have opened fire at Muslims. "The Coptic volcano is exploding," Coptic expert Youssef Sedhom said. "How would Copts respond if they find their back to the wall facing guns? They would have no option but self defense," adding, "don't blame Copts for what they do." Six Muslims were among the dead, according to Egypt's state-run news agency.
The bloodshed began Saturday around sundown when word spread around the neighborhood that a Christian woman who married a Muslim had been abducted and was being kept in the Virgin Mary Church against her will.
Islamic extremists declared the crowded district a state within a state in 1990s, calling it "the Islamic Republic of Imbaba," one of the country's hottest spots of Islamic militancy.
The report of the kidnapping, which was never confirmed by local religious figures, sent a large mob of Muslims toward the church. Christians created a human barricade around the building and clashes erupted. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops were firing into the crowd. The two sides accused each other of firing first.
Crowds of hundreds of Muslims from the neighborhood lobbed firebombs at homes, shops and the church. Residents say Christians were hiding inside. Muslims chanted: "With our blood and soul, we defend you, Islam." Rimon Girgis, a 24-year-old with a tattoo of a Coptic saint on his arm, was among the Christians who formed a human shield around the church.
"They were around 40 bearded men chanting slogans like 'There is no God but Allah.' After rallying Muslim residents, they opened fire," he said. "We Copts had to respond, so we hurled stones and pieces of broken marble."
Some of the wounded were carried to the nearby St. Menas Church, where floors were still stained with blood hours later. "Every five minutes, an injured person was rushed into the church," said Father Arshedis. "We couldn't reach ambulances by phone. We called and no one answered. We tried to treat the injured. We used the girls' hair clips to extract the bullets."
"The army is responsible because they took no action," he said. Later the same night, the Muslim crowd moved to a Christian-owned apartment building nearby and set it on fire. Piles of charred furniture, garbage and wood were mixed with remains of clothes, food and shoes. Shops on the ground floor of the buildings were destroyed. Some soldiers and police did fire tear gas, but failed to clear the streets for hours. By daybreak, the military had deployed armored vehicles and dozens of troop carriers to cordon off a main street leading to the area. They stopped traffic and turned away pedestrians. Men, women and children watching from balconies took photos with mobile phones and cheered the troops. Across the Nile river, in downtown Cairo, clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon. Muslim youths attacked Coptic Christian protesters, said Christian activist Bishoy Tamri.
TV images showed both sides furiously throwing stones, including one Christian who held a large wooden cross in one hand while flinging rocks with the other.
Scores were injured, but an army unit securing the TV building did nothing to stop the violence, Tamri said. Late Sunday thousands of Copts decided to camp out in front of the TV building overnight to press demands to bring the arsonists to justice and to make religious instigation a criminal offense. Islamic clerics denounced the violence, sounding alarm bells at the escalating tension during the transitional period following Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster by a popular uprising. "These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts," Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the sheik of al-Azhar, told the daily Al-Ahram. During the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak, there was a rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. Each group protected the other during prayer sessions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution. But in the months that followed, there has been a sharp rise in sectarian tensions, as the once quiescent Salafis have become more forceful in trying to spread their version of an Islamic way of life. In particular, they have focused their wrath on Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 80 million people. On Friday, a few hundred Salafis marched through Cairo to praise al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and condemning the U.S. operation that killed him. Critics say Egyptian military authorities have done too little to stem the religious violence. But authorities arrested 190 people after the church attack, sending them to military prosecutions and threatening the maximum penalty against anyone attacking houses of worship.
Copts complain of widespread discrimination, including tight restrictions on building or repairing churches, while Muslim places of worship do not face such limits.
In one of the worst attacks against them, a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a church in the port city of Alexandria on Jan. 1, setting off days of protests. Egypt made some arrests but never charged anyone with the attack. Tensions have been building for the past year as Salafis protested the alleged abduction by the Coptic Church of a priest's wife, Camilla Shehata. The Salafis claim she converted to Islam to escape an unhappy marriage — a phenomenon they maintain is common. Because divorce is banned in the Coptic Church, with rare exceptions such as conversion, some Christian women resort to conversion to Islam or another Christian denomination to get out of a marriage. Shehata's case was even used by Iraq's branch of al-Qaeda as a justification for an attack on a Baghdad church that killed 68 people and other threats by the group against Christians. On Saturday just before the violence erupted in Imbaba, Shehata appeared with her husband and child on a Christian TV station broadcast from outside of Egypt and asserted that she was still a Christian and had never converted. "Let the protesters leave the Church alone and turn their attention to Egypt's future," she said from an undisclosed location. In the Egyptian Sinai desert, hundreds of Bedouins forced authorities to set free a prisoner after laying siege to the main courthouse, firing gunshots in the air and burning tires, witnesses said.

EU gives green light to Syria arms embargo, sanctions
By DPA
Rights groups say more than 600 people have been killed and 8,000 jailed or gone missing in Syria as part of a crackdown on protesters since March.
European Union member states on Monday agreed to issue a weapons embargo against Syria and impose sanctions upon 13 of its nationals, paving the way for the restrictive measures to enter into force Tuesday. The embargo is meant to block weapons "that could be used for internal repression" from being exported to Syria, the European Council said late Monday.
Asset freezes and travel bans are also to be applied to 13 unnamed "officials and associates of the Syrian regime who have been identified ... as being responsible for the violent repression against the civilian population," the European Council said. EU diplomats indicated last week that President Bashar Assad will not be among that group. The full list of those targeted by the sanctions is to be published in the EU's official journal on Tuesday, marking their entry into force. Rights groups say more than 600 people have been killed and 8,000 jailed or gone missing in Syria as part of a crackdown on protesters since March. Opposition groups put the death toll at over 700

Israel is a country evading reality
Haaretz Editorial /Israel is not located on a different planet than its neighbors. It cannot cut itself off from the storms raging in the Middle East, from the spirit of the times or from its growing isolation. On the eve of the 63rd anniversary of its independence, more than ever Israel ostensibly appears like the "villa in the jungle" that Defense Minister Ehud Barak referred to. It enjoys stable governance, strong democracy, economic power and relative quiet on the security front. In the region, on the other hand, the ground is shaking under Israel's neighbors and altering the geopolitical situation, with regimes being toppled and leaders slaughtering their own citizens, and with the adversaries of yesterday closing ranks in advance of major diplomatic concessions, including a real Palestinian state on our doorstep. Anyone getting heady from the quiet in the eye of the storm should not ignore its transient nature and its fragility. Israel is not located on a different planet than its neighbors. It cannot cut itself off from the storms raging in the Middle East, from the spirit of the times or from its growing isolation.
That is apparently not the Israeli government's line of thinking, however, in that it is acting as if the image of the villa in the jungle does not represent unfortunate constraints, devoid of a bright future, but rather an ideal worth promoting and perpetuating. Led by a prime minister who instinctively deflects any initiative or change, who sows fear and foils any positive prospects, pouncing on any proof that there is no partner for diplomatic dialogue, the country in its 63rd year looks like someone on whom old age has suddenly crept up: withdrawn and shut-in, paralyzed with fear, repressing what it sees out the window, entrenched in its views. Its initiatives reflect a steadfast embrace of every status quo, casting aspersions at every change, complaining to the world and frightening its own citizens over the dangers lurking in the jungle and the ostensibly unavoidable "next war."
Deeds carried out just for the sake of doing them have no special value, and sometimes there is also wisdom in waiting. The changes in the region, however, including the demise of autocratic regimes and efforts at unity among the Palestinians, present not only risks but also new possibilities for creative leadership.
Does Israel have such a leadership? Beyond any specific diplomatic step one wonders, particularly on Independence Day, where that creative, optimistic, peace-seeking spirit that reverberated in Israel in the past has gone, and how it was supplanted by a passive and introverted mentality, evading reality - particularly the reality of positive prospects and opportunities.

Kuwait to challenge Syria for UN rights council
May 10, 2011 /Kuwait will challenge Syria's contested bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council at a vote next week, stepping up pressure on President Bashar al-Assad's regime to withdraw, diplomats said Tuesday. Kuwait has told Western nations campaigning against Syria, facing international criticism for its crackdown on opposition protests, that it will stand in the May 20 vote at the UN General Assembly, diplomats said. "Kuwait have said privately that they will be standing," one diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Syria has faced several calls from the Asia group to withdraw," said another envoy. "Kuwait's candidacy certainly reduces the chances that Syria will get elected," said Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "Syria should see the writing on the wall and withdraw." Syria had been one of four candidates - with India, Indonesia and the Philippines - for four vacancies to be filled by Asia under a convention by which UN bodies are filled by regional blocs. European nations and the United States had been lobbying strongly to find a challenger or to persuade Syria to withdraw. No Kuwaiti or Syrian diplomats were immediately available to comment on the Human Rights Council controversy. Assad’s regime has been rocked by unprecedented protests since mid-March.  Rights groups say more than 600 people were killed and 8,000 jailed or gone missing in the crackdown on Syrian protestors since mid-March. The Committee of the Martyrs of the 15 March Revolution puts the death toll at 708. -AFP/NOW Lebanon

Tawhid Arab Party: STL’s orientation is ‘Israeli’
May 10, 2011 /“When Syria approached overcoming its crisis, [evil parties used] the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon through an amended indictment submitted by STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare [to harm Syria],” the Arab Tawhid Party said on Tuesday. Day after day, the STL continues to prove that its orientation is Israeli, the party said. Following its weekly meeting, the party said in a statement that “Bellemare added some names to the amended indictment based on what the game that aims to ruin the region requires.” “Such amendments which are made hurriedly show that the STL is not credible because if Bellemare had confidence in his indictment which he worked on for years, he would not have amended it this fast.” The party called for speeding up the cabinet formation process in order to have a cabinet that can put an end to those who manipulate the situation in Lebanon.
The statement also called on the Lebanese judiciary to address the issue of some figures’ involvement in Syrian events, especially that some confessions made public “are clear and cannot be doubted.” Last week, Bellemare filed an amended indictment that will replace the previous indictment that was filed in March.  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been rocked by unprecedented protests since March 15 demanding reform. Three suspects testified in April on Syrian state television that they received arms and weapons from abroad to fuel a wave of protests in the country, naming Future bloc MP Jamal al-Jarrah as a funder. The Future Movement and Jarrah have both repeatedly denied the charges and labeled them as “fabrications.”
-NOW Lebanon

Lawyer: Six Syrian opposition figures released
May 10, 2011 /Syrian authorities have freed six Syrian opposition figures, including five arrested in a crackdown on protests, a human rights lawyer and a rights group said on Tuesday.
Three opposition figures - author Fayez Sara, communist party leader Georges Sabra and activist Kamal Sheikho, were released on Tuesday, the lawyer, Michel Shammas, said.
Sabra was arrested on April 10 and the following day Sara was seized while Sheikho had been jailed since March 16, he said. They were each released on bail of $100, Shammas said. Prominent lawyer Hassan Abdel Azim, 80, and journalist Hazem al-Nahar were freed on Monday night, he added. Abdel Azim is secretary general of the Arab Socialist Union party and spokesperson for the National Democratic Rally, left-leaning opposition parties. Meanwhile prominent opposition figure Habib Saleh was freed Sunday after spending three years in jails on charges of spreading lies, the head of the National Organization for Human Rights, Ammar Qorabi, told AFP. Saleh had been arrested in May 2008 after publishing an article calling for political reforms in Syria. Between 600 and 700 people have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested since the start of an anti-regime protest movement in mid-March, according to rights groups.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Assad has gone too far – the west must reject him
By: Simon Tisdall /guardian.co.uk,
Monday 9 May 2011 17.49 BST Article history
Numerous explanations are offered as to why Britain and other western and Arab countries continue to countenance Bashar al-Assad as Syria's legitimate leader. But these mealy-mouthed justifications, ranging from the morally bankrupt to the nakedly self-interested, are far outnumbered by Assad's Arab spring victims – up to 800 dead and rising, on one weekend count, plus tens of thousands detained, tortured or terrorised. It's plain this blind-eyed policy to his Saddam-esque iniquities is no longer sustainable, regional analysts warn. The new realpolitik is: Assad has to go.
The decrepit regime Syria's president heads is getting really good at repression. Following Muammar Gaddafi's Benghazi maxim of hunting down foes "alley by alley, house by house, room by room", troops backed by tanks are sent into target towns at night, firing guns in the air, breaking down doors and seizing anybody suspected of anti-regime sympathies. Those who resist risk being shot. Those arrested simply disappear. An increasingly efficient press and social media clampdown ensures silence shrouds their fate.
These terrifying tactics, reportedly perfected with Iranian coaching, were employed in Homs, Syria's third city, at the weekend, where machine gun fire and shelling accompanied military incursions into three residential districts. "The areas have been under total siege. There is a total blackout on the numbers of dead and injured. Telecommunications and electricity are repeatedly being cut with the districts," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Much the same happened in the southern town of Tafas, where protesters from Deraa, the seat of the March uprising, had taken uncertain refuge.
Surrounded and picked off one by one, many of Syria's major towns and cities have witnessed, or are presently enduring, similar assaults and accompanying, egregious human rights abuses. One resident of Banias described regime tactics as "going to the maximum". After nearly two months of intensifying violence, it's clear Assad – his reform promises drowned in a sea of tears – will not back down until the revolt has been thoroughly suppressed. It's clear, too, that whatever political legitimacy he once laid claim to has now been wholly lost.
Except western and neighbouring governments, for the moment, refuse to see it this way. The Obama administration has tightened sanctions but declines to call on Assad to resign, unlike Hosni Mubarak (whose response to Egypt's uprising was infinitely more restrained) and Libya's Gaddafi. Britain and the EU have agreed travel bans and asset freezes on named regime figures, but not on Assad himself. The Arab League and neighbours such as Turkey have daintily held their noses and looked the other way. Unlike Libya, Syria is much too close to home for unelected Arab potentates who fear Assad's fall might presage their own.
William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary, summed up the prevailing view in a recent BBC interview. "You can imagine him as a reformer. One of the difficulties in Syria is that President Assad's power depends on a wider group of people, in his family and in other members of his government, and I am not sure how free he is to pursue a reform agenda." This generous appreciation of Assad, young architect of the stunted 2000-01 "Damascus Spring" and bringer of limited economic liberalisation, as a Syrian Jeremy Bentham cruelly thwarted by a reactionary "old guard" tenaciously persists despite the rising pile of corpses over which he grimly presides.
More and more, such analyses look like excuses for international inaction. "We've heard all the time that the old guard was holding him back but we've never heard who the old guard was," Andrew Tabler of the Institute for Near East Policy told the Washington Post, pointing the finger of blame directly at Assad. Columnist Jackson Diehl was similarly impatient. It was often argued that "a cataclysm of chaos, violence and extremism" would engulf Syria should Assad topple, he said. But where was the evidence for this? So far, there had been no sectarian strife, no al-Qaida suicide bombers, no Iraq-style fragmentation. The protesters' succinct slogan, "God, freedom, Syria", was one of unity, not dissension.
It is not in the power of western nations, without risking another Iraq, to determine events in Syria, nor is it desirable they should try. But a great deal more honesty about the unacceptable depths to which Assad, personally, has sunk is required. It's not credible to go on blaming people around him, like his guardsman brother Maher. The man ultimately responsible for Syria's suffering is the man who leads it, as a growing number of protesters has recognised.
Immediate root-and-branch regime change is not in prospect in Damascus. But the uprising has made it possible to contemplate a change in the regime's leadership (as in Egypt) and, by ridding the country of his discredited presence, encourage a more constructive, inclusive national dialogue. Assad fluffed his chance. Now he has gone too far. He is beyond the pale. Britain and its allies should break with him – and demand he step down.

Syria: Why does the Obama administration let Assad off the hook?
By Michael Weiss /The Guardian
May 9th, 2011
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaelweiss/100085230/syria-why-does-the-obama-administration-let-assad-off-the-hook/
Perhaps if the Syrians were calling for the birth certificate of Bashar al-Assad instead of for his head, the Obama administration would be angrier about the seven-week massacre he’s perpetrated in broad daylight.
Fresh off his snuffing out of Osama bin Laden – and a near-miss drone bombing of OBL’s successor Anwar al-Awlaki – Obama has every reason to flex some of his newfound sinews and give genuine support to the Syrian opposition, which is the most Western-friendly in the Middle East. Two weeks ago, it created an umbrella organisation called the Syrian National Coalition for Change, whose Muslim Brotherhood membership is slight despite Assad’s best propaganda efforts to portray the whole revolution as one big Salafist conspiracy. Rather ballsy, coming from the world’s most generous sponsor of Islamic terrorists.
I’ve gone through several weeks worth of protest footage and there’s no evidence of Islamist orchestration. “No to Iran, No to Hezbollah” was an early slogan in this uprising and even before the coalition took shape, Syrian “local coordinating committees”, drawn from major cities and towns, issued an impressive list of demands. They want free and fair elections, the release of political prisoners, an uncensored press, and constitutional amendments that would allow for a “multi-national, multi-ethnic, and religiously tolerant” society. Syria’s long-repressed Kurds are marching waiving the Syrian flag in a show of solidarity with their Arab brethren. Palestinian refugees are risking their lives to bring water and supplies to the besieged people of Deraa.
Compare this level of cooperation to Egypt, where Muslim Brothers have swooped in to sully a good cause and made headlines saying that women and Christians can never be president and that Iran is a model for human rights.
Yet Obama told Mubarak to go. So far, however, he’s only “condemned” Assad’s barbarism and asked for sanctions against a few members of his ruling crime family, but not against Assad himself. Why it proves difficult for the commander-in-chief to move beyond rhetoric in confronting a kleptocratic dynast who looks like a ferret and acts like a wolf is by now clear. A nameless White House official explained recently to New York Times that Assad “sees himself as a Westernized leader… and we think he’ll react if he believes he is being lumped in with brutal dictators.”
So he’s not brutal? Assad’s forces have so far murdered upwards of 650 unarmed Syrians in full view of mobile phone cameras. They’ve imprisoned and tortured countless more, according to human rights monitors, some of which now call for serious sanctions against the entire regime leadership, in a rare burst of NGO testosterone.
Ambulances have been blocked from transporting their wounded to hospital, and some patients have even been “arrested” right off the stretchers. Tanks have rolled into the suburbs of Damascus. Hand grenades have even been lobbed into large crowds. On April 22 – ‘Great Friday’ to the Syrians – 112 people were killed in the space of a few hours by a consortium of soldiers, security agents and shabbiha, or armed youth gangs loyal to Assad. In one coastal village, shabbiha conducted house-to-house raids, dragged the inhabitants into a main square, beat them with batons and then made their children watch a staged pro-regime rally. This is just the cruelty that Bashar hires out to freelancers.
Ammar Abdulhamid, the excellent Western spokesperson for the revolution, has noted that Assad’s salaried goons are getting cold feet. “Elderly security officers” have been deployed to patrol the streets and pick off civilians with Kalashnikovs, a sign that Assad is now relying on his reserves because he fears dissension in his rank-and-file. Indeed, 81 corpses of Syrian soldiers were uncovered in Deraa last week, “most of them killed by a gunshot bullet to the back”, according to the Damascus Centre for Human Rights, suggesting they were executed for defection. Meanwhile, hundreds of Baath party officials have resigned in protest of the ongoing slaughter.
The Syrian people “want to topple the regime” and they’re counting on a mutiny to bail them out. The United States should foster more division within Assad’s power base by offering amnesty for low- to mid-level defectors. Assad’s global assets should be frozen and a travel ban should be imposed on him and the rest of his pathetic family.
The tech-savvy revolutionaries should be given encrypted laptops and satellite phones that can withstand the communications blackout Assad has imposed on much of the country. (According to WikiLeaks, the US State Department has spent $6 million since 2006 funding exiled Syrian opponents of Assad. They should get more.)
As for Assad’s “Westernized” reputation, it is true that he has a London degree in ophthalmology. But this will be cold comfort to the parents of seven-year-old Israa Younis, whom one of his snipers fatally shot – through her left eye.

Sectarianism stalks Egypt
By Michael Wahid Hanna
The Middle East Channel
May 09/11
Egypt was once again the scene of sectarian conflict when an angry mob gathered in front of a Coptic church in Cairo on Saturday night in the false belief that a Christian convert to Islam was being held against her will, setting off hours of fighting in the streets. The latest incident in the poor working-class Cairo district of Imbaba resulted in the deaths of 12, six Muslims and six Copts, with more than 200 wounded and two churches burnt. The identity of the perpetrators and instigators remains to be determined. What is clear, however, is that this latest incident of sectarian strife has deep roots in recent Egyptian history, and raises the specter of broader communal violence. Coming at a delicate moment during Egypt's transition toward multiparty elections, it also represents a clarifying moment for the Muslim Brotherhood and a vital test for Egypt's emerging democratic order. Egypt's latest descent into sectarian madness is ultimately a reflection of longstanding discrimination against Copts and the unchecked climate of religious intolerance that has increasingly come to mark Egyptian society. How the evolving political system deals with these issues may be the most urgent test of how much Egypt has actually changed since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
Last New Year's Eve, the bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria brought millions of Egyptians, both Muslims and Copts, out into the streets to protest the wanton violence directed at a Christian house of worship. The attack was one more indictment of the sclerotic regime of former president Hosni Mubarak. The scenes of cross-sectarian solidarity that ensued helped galvanize popular sentiments and influenced the trajectory and tenor of Egypt's unprecedented popular uprising which began on January 25. A common sentiment linking public outrage was that this was not the Egypt that many Egyptians knew -- sectarian violence of this sort was what happened in Lebanon or Iraq, but Egypt was different, and the faiths lived side by side harmoniously. But, in fact, sectarianism and bigotry are a part of Egypt, as is the attendant denialism that has underplayed these growing trends. There are reasonable suspicions that sectarian tensions are now being manipulated for political ends by members of the former regime. The role of the state in fostering the sectarian divide was reinforced for many when the former Minister of Interior, Habib al-Adly, was accused formally of orchestrating the Alexandria church bombing. How the state now responds will answer lingering questions about the extent of its transformation.
Since the toppling of the Mubarak regime, the reality of the country's sectarian divide has been on display with escalating tensions and more frequent acts of violence directed at Egypt's Christian minority, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the Arab world. This violence has been particularly disappointing when contrasted with the scenes of communal solidarity that marked Egypt's 18-day uprising. The profusion of the crescent and cross intertwined on protest banners harkened back to Egypt's 1919 Revolution when Copts and Muslims joined forces against British imperialism and an ineffectual monarch under the banner "Religion is for God and the Nation is for All." The broad-based, disciplined, and self-conscious efforts by protesters to eschew nakedly sectarian slogans were a heartening development that many interpreted as a first step toward the building of a new social compact for an inclusive civil state. In Tahrir Square and other locales of protest throughout Egypt, one often heard the chant of "Muslims and Christians are One Hand." Conscious of their surroundings and wider audiences, individuals sought to give such sentiments vitality through actions, such as the now iconic pictures of Christians forming a human barrier to protect praying Muslims in Tahrir Square and other scenes where Muslims took the lead in protecting their fellow Christian citizens in acts of public prayer.
Many Copts were initially wary of the uprising and feared the possibility of the further Islamization of the Egyptian state, reflecting their increased marginalization within Egyptian society in recent decades. In keeping with regional trends, particularly following the crushing defeat in the June 1967 War against Israel, Egypt had undergone a religious revival and retrenchment that touched all aspects of its public life and helped popularize notions of political Islam. While Egypt's authoritarian leaders often repressed Islamist opposition forces, they also sought to protect the state from such challenges by indulging public religiosity, co-opting many Islamist demands, and shifting support among Islamist groups to combat the rise of others. This legacy of polarization gained increased prominence under the negligent watch of the Mubarak regime, which had long manipulated sectarian issues to pacify Egypt's Christians, ensure their fealty to the regime, and paralyze efforts at cross-sectarian political mobilization. Increased social atomization also suited the interests of the Coptic Church hierarchy, whose authority was reinforced in a manner akin to the Ottoman millet system, whereby the church was granted wide communal authorities and was the primary interlocutor with governmental organs.
The attacks in Imbaba were preceded by several other post-uprising incidents of sectarian strife. While details remain murky and confusion reigns as to the precipitating causes of these events, many have sought to explain these outbursts as a manifestation of counter-revolutionary forces that are seeking to halt the progress of Egypt's revolution. In this telling, shadowy forces associated with the ancient régime seek to restore its foundations by creating chaos, sowing fear, and laying the groundwork for a crackdown on dissent and protest by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military body that rules the country in this period of transition. The possibility that former regime figures are exploiting Egypt's security vacuum and ongoing instability to further their narrow self-interests is real, but there is little tangible evidence at this point to buttress such allegations. However, past practice does point to this possibility, as the elements of the former regime sought to create a security vacuum in the opening stages of the Egyptian uprising, in an effort to provoke a popular backlash against the protest movement.
Others have pointed to the sudden public emergence of Salafism as a force within Egyptian society. While labeling others as Salafis has become an overly-broad method for describing extremist religious currents, many self-declared Salafis, who previously shunned political life, have sought a role for themselves in Egypt's tumultuous political transition. The Salafis are not a monolithic entity, and some Salafi leaders have sought to distance their groups from incitement and violence against Copts. However, other Salafist leaders have actively sought to exploit sectarianism and have latched onto unfounded allegations against the church and its aging Patriarch, Shenouda III. Salafi incitement to intolerance is now a disquieting aspect of Egyptian public life. In this period of confusion and paranoia, the Salafis themselves have also come to be seen by some as the tip of the counter-revolutionary spear and a concrete manifestation of Saudi intolerance for Egypt's revolutionary moment. Current Salafi trends are often linked with Wahhabi-style religious practice and Saudi proselytizing, and, as a result, popular suspicions have quickly developed that Saudi Arabia is backing Salafist groups as a move against revolutionary change in Egypt.
The emergence of the Salafist current poses a serious test for the Muslim Brotherhood as they seek to normalize their political existence. While the Brotherhood is not responsible in any way for the attacks on Copts and has denounced such actions publicly, as the most significant political force calling for religion in the public arena, they have a heightened responsibility to act proactively against these abuses of religious sentiment that now threaten to destroy Egypt's social fabric. Moreover, at a time when the Brotherhood's intentions are being questioned by other opposition forces, they have an additional responsibility to increase public trust. Much of this distrust has been fuelled by their public dalliance with the Salafis, which most recently took the form of a massive joint public rally. As sectarianism threatens to undermine the stability of the transition period, the organization has at times appeared to be more concerned with contesting the upcoming parliamentary elections and protecting its flank from Salafi encroachment.
The political participation of the Muslim Brotherhood is a critical and necessary step for Egypt and the Arab world beyond the unsustainable and counterproductive repression that has characterized the Egyptian state's relationship to the country's largest organized opposition force. However, if the Brotherhood expects to be treated as a responsible political actor in Egypt's new political order, they should be called to account for these actions, and they should clarify their own red lines with respect to cooperation with Salafi forces. The Brotherhood should understand that perceptions of the group by secular Egyptians and within the international community will be shaped by its response to these latest developments. At a moment of national peril, the Brotherhood and the emerging political actors across the spectrum will have to take time from their organizational and electoral efforts to stem this tide of social unrest. Egypt's preeminent Islamic religious institution, al-Azhar University, should also take a greater public lead in combating rising tensions. Egypt's Coptic community will have to act with discipline and ensure that it does not further the sectarian divide, whether through rhetoric or actions. In this vein, misguided and self-defeating calls for international protection, even if only made by fringe groups in Egypt or the diaspora, will only further fuel sectarian narratives that regard Egypt's Christians as a suspect fifth column. Similarly, Copts should not evince nostalgia for the purported stability of the former regime, as the existing sectarian divide was cultivated and manipulated by that regime for its own ends.
The provenance of the current wave of anti-Christian sentiment is now a matter that should be dealt with by Egypt's civilian judiciary. But regardless of the identity of the instigators, the ability of sectarian and bigoted narratives to instigate public unrest should be another reminder of the seriousness of Egypt's sectarian divide. As the incidents have piled up, it is no longer enough for Egyptians to voice their shock and bewilderment following each successive attack. The current course, taken to its extremes, represents the unthinkable path to civil strife and conflict. At this moment of hope and opportunity in the Arab world, the example of Egypt remains critical, and the country's fate will help shape the emerging regional order. The autocrats of the Arab world will no doubt happily use the example of Egypt to justify the continuation of their repressive order if Egypt's transition now falls prey to the forces of sectarianism and extremism.
**Michael Wahid Hanna is a fellow and program officer at the Century Foundation.
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The Salafi Surprise
"Tue, 10 May 2011
Husam Itani/Al Hayat
Counter-revolutionary groups in Egypt and other Arab countries have rushed to exploit the events that have been provoked by hard-liners in Egypt, in order to engage in fear-mongering about the danger of "a Salafi emirate" that is in store for the region.
The least that can be said of this new wave of opposition to the Arab revolutions, and hostility, in a profound sense, to the change that is required, is that it seeks to turn the truth on its head. This takes place by exploiting the incidents that the Arab forces of change and democracy find themselves unable to take responsibility for.
In Egypt, for example, the groups that are being termed "Salafis" remained the fiercest supporters of the regime of President Husni Mubarak and opponents of taking part in any revolutionary action, based on a special understanding of religious orders and requirements, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, the activities and ideas of the "Salafis" would not have arisen without the close relationship they established with the authorities during the long Mubarak years. The attempt to marry the "Salafists" to the revolution is no more than a flagrant disregard for the facts of not so long ago, and the interests and desires of the two sides, in the first place.
Thus, the events that were witnessed in Imbaba in recent days are not a result of the revolutions showing their true, religious, extremist face, as much as they represent the revolution's role in revealing the political and social reality that was imposed by the regimes of authoritarianism and dictatorship.
The same applies to what is taking place in Syria. The idea that soldiers and officers whose deaths the regimes has announced, in the dozens, are martyrs of confronting the project to establish a "Salafi emirate" contains various errors. One of these errors involves the ideologist background that drives Salafi groups, most of which do not acknowledge the right to abandon the ruler, in the manner that took place with Mubarak (with the exception of "Salafi jihadists"). Also, the regime's raising the specter of the "emirate" is no more, practically speaking, than a functional application in the context of a struggle that the authorities want to be armed, and security-oriented, so that they can suppress it and destroy the forces that support it.
However, this does not deny the existence of a profound problem in the Arab world's socio-cultural structures, which produce phenomena such as extremist groups that can be penetrated and recruited, in all different sorts of ways, and by all types of intelligence organizations.
Meanwhile, one should not ignore the role of the regimes, which today claim to be confronting these phenomena, by providing the conditions that constitute an incubator for extremist groups that exploit religious slogans. In particular, one should not deny the responsibility of regimes for the organized and methodical killing of opponents, the campaigns of random and intensive arrest of anyone who takes part in peaceful demonstrations, and the ignoring of the fact that the authorities in Arab authoritarian regimes have not for a single moment permitted the monopoly on violence to escape their grip. In other words, the spread of the phenomenon of extremist groups and religious and sectarian violence can only be the responsibility of the authorities, which have silenced people, banned free expression, and forbidden the peaceful rotation of power. Thus, it is difficult to believe everything broadcast by the non-independent media, which is involved in defending the regime.
It would be better for the Supreme Military Council and the government in Egypt to view the so-called "Salafi" groups as the remnants of the previous phase, and deal with them on this basis. Democracy is difficult to achieve with those who do not acknowledge it, and its foundations, to begin with.

Egypt between Camelia and Abeer
Mon, 09 May 2011
Mohammad Salah/Al Hayat
A simple question: how does former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak feel, being detained at the hospital, with the leaders of his regime in prison or waiting for their turn to be tried in court for the sectarian strife in Imbaba, or before it in Atfih, and between the two in Duweiqa, Manshiet Nasser and Abu Qirqas? There is no need to think long to find the answer, as Mubarak in such a case would say, in colloquial Egyptian, “they got what they deserve”, meaning of course the Egyptians, while he and the leaders of his regime of course wish that Egypt would “go up in flames”, as perhaps setting it on fire could provide them all with an way out!
Mubarak said it frankly in his first speech after the revolution erupted: “it is either me or chaos”. Meanwhile, the leaders of his regime had all wished to flee the country and follow Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros-Ghali, before going to jail. That is why those benefiting from defeating the revolution and smearing its purity, from spreading chaos and igniting violence in the absence of laws and deterrents, and from “Lebanizing”, “Iraqizing” or “Somalizing” Egypt are well known, and they certainly hope to stop the prosecution of Mubarak, his son and his men, or to enable them all to flee the country.
And whether some of the former President’s companions are behind such events or not, they wish for the revolution, the igniters of which had chanted “the people want to overthrow the regime”, to turn into a loathsome model, one that would spare them a sure fate and represent at the same time their revenge against the people who rebelled or did not quell the revolution. It is no secret that the former regime made use of the “baltagiya” (thugs), sponsored them and funded or coerced them in order to implement policies and measures taken against either the opposition or the crowds of protesters every time a hint of protests would appear, or in order to assist the state apparatus in arousing panic, when terrorizing becomes the solution for a regime that realizes the extent of the people’s hatred of it.
The “baltagiya” appeared at every election, ensuring the success of the candidates of the formerly ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) by all means necessary. They were also active at every opposition protest, harassing the protesters, assaulting and dispersing them, or chasing members of the press and the media and preventing them from performing their duty to convey facts to people. It is also no secret that the former regime’s apparatus, its party and its associates would sometimes sow sectarian strife and would water its roots, to maintain a crop they could exploit every time the regime needed to stabilize its supporting pillars, which would shake under the pressure of the people’s hatred. And after the attempts to sow discord between the people and the army failed, the protests of special interest groups calmed down and life nearly returned to normal across the country, it became imperative to turn the slogan of the revolution into “the people want to overthrow the state”. And there no better way than awakening civil strife to demolish the state and strike at its constituents, especially as the outcome of 30 years of Mubarak’s rule has produced large numbers of balatgiya, as well circumstances that would help to ignite strife.
Not long ago, the issue of Camelia was cause for sectarian strife that has not ended to this day. Today, the issue of Abeer has come to increase its fire and its flames. In the future, there will be a Souad, Hanaa or Safaa, as long as the soil is fertile for spreading the seeds of strife, without its weeds being pulled out and done away with. It is true that the police remains absent, except for a presence of pure form without any effect on reality. It is also true that the army abstains from entering into clashes with citizens, regardless of their the views they support, and suffices itself with dispersing brawls here and there, then prosecuting those arrested in military courts. But this alone will not put a stop to civil strife and will not save a revolution, as neither did the police rebel nor did the army ignite the revolution, even if it protected it and did not oppose or seek to thwart it.
This raises the question about the role of the people in protecting their revolution and the task of the young people who rebelled and ignited the revolution. Where do they stand on what is happening? It is nice that they are busy forming political parties, participating in conferences and appearing on satellite television shows, and it is only natural for them to be interested in the new constitution, the future of government in the country or the laws that need to be developed, yet it is also important for them to realize that their search for a perfect constitution and new laws, and their debate about the shape of the state, the nature of rule, presidential or parliamentary, the method for electing Members of Parliament, individually or by list, and the safeguards that ensure freedom of suffrage and the fairness of the elections, are all aimed at establishing justice, putting a stop to oppression and restore the right of freedom and of belief to the people, and that this requires them to do more than found parties, participate in conferences or appear on satellite television. Indeed, the state the street is in entices the disorderly to more disorder, the predators to more predation, and the criminals to more crime.
The method of offering false displays of affection, raising the slogan of “the crescent and the cross”, resorting to clerics and priests every time the law is broken in order to appease those who have been angered, convincing this or that group to stop protesting, banning protests or stifling civil strife, will result only in further losses for the revolution, around which struggle internal and external forces eager to corrupt it.