LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِMay 29/2011

Biblical Event Of The Day
The Letter from James 2/14-26: " What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? 2:15 And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, 2:16 and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”; and yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? 2:17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. 2:18 Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 2:19 You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder. 2:20 But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? 2:21 Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 2:22 You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; 2:23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”;* and he was called the friend of God. 2:24 You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith. 2:25 In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
The Syrian regime crossed the border; what are we going to do about it?/By: Hanin Ghaddar/May 28/11
Obama Administration Must Support the People of Syria and Iran/By: Slater Bakhtavar/May 28/11
Viva Palestina's George Galloway Embraces Jihadists/By: By Steve Emerson/NewsMax/May 28/11
Hezbollah's Anxiety/By: Walid Choucair/May 28/11
Syria's Nuclear Impunity/By Jamie M.Fly & Robert Zarate/May 28/11
Report: Iran sending forces to assist in Syria crackdowns/Haaretz/May 28/11
The ophthalmologist dictator: Syria's Bashar al-Assad/The Week Magazine/May 28/11
Thank You, Syria/Now Lebanon/May 28/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May 28/11
Syrian activists protest as boy killed in custody/Now Lebanon
Future bloc: Explosion targeting UNIFIL aims to harm security/Now Lebanon
Italy wants to cut Lebanon peace mission contribution, says minister/Now Lebanon
Diplomats Hint Syria’s Involvement in UNIFIL Bombing/Daily Star
March 14, Hizbullah Rattle Sabers over ‘Militia Practices’ in Telecom Building/Daily Star
Hundreds Demand Government to Free Detained Syrians/Daily Star
White House is set for Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas summit. Israel is downbeat/DEBKAfile
In Syria, Accounts of Widening Torture/WSJ
UN chief condemns attack on peacekeepers in southern Lebanon/UN News Centre
Italian Peacekeepers Injured in Lebanon Bombing/NYT
Protests sweep Syria's east, Nasrallah pictures burnt/Times
Gates: Hezbollah arsenal larger than thought/Daily Star
Seven killed in crackdown on Syria protesters as world pressure on Assad grows/Haaretz
SYRIA: Injuries and arrests reported in 'Homeland Protector Friday' protests/LAT
David Cameron hopeful of Syria resolution/The Independent
Border towns fearful of Syrian incursion as Lebanese troops redeploy/Daily Star
Turkey urges Syria to apply "shock therapy" reforms/Reuters
G8 “appalled” by Syria, warns of “further measures”/Khaleegi Times
Shell Faces NGO Pressure To Withdraw From Syria/WSJ
Jumblatt: Hezbollah does not want Cabinet to be formed/Daily Star
The Mistake of Global Democratization/Family Security Matters
Social Affairs Ministry defends Syrian refugee efforts/Daily Star
Mikati justifies Cabinet delay, Jumblatt blames Hezbollah/Daily Star
Lieberman thanks Canada PM for objection to 1967 borders at G8/Haaretz
Army takes control of third GSM network/Daily Star
One of the founders of the Arab Baath party disappears in Lebanon/M&C
Number of Syrian refugees unknown/Daily Star
Estonia's Muslims urge freedom for Lebanon kidnap victims/Zawya

The Syrian regime crossed the border; what are we going to do about it?
Hanin Ghaddar /Now Lebanon
May 28, 2011
Lebanese soldiers block the way in Beirut's Hamra Street on May 23, 2011 for supporters of the Assad regime as they try to approach a rally down the street to honor those killed by Syrian security forces (AFP photo/Joseph Eid).
It is not surprising for the Lebanese that the Syrian regime has not stopped interfering in the Lebanese political scene since its troops withdrew from the country in 2005. Their allies and strategic partners, such as Hezbollah, have made sure it continues. And when the Syrian uprising started, the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters did not stop at the borders. Syrian opposition figures are not safe in Lebanon.
Intelligence groups and institutions affiliated with the Assad regime and its allies are taking orders to threaten, kidnap and hand Syrian opposition members back to the Syrian authorities. Lebanon continues to be used as an extension of the Syrian regime’s territory.
Meanwhile, almost all Lebanese officials, from both the March 8 and March 14 coalitions, along with their media institutions, have been outrageously silent regarding the brutality of the Assad regime and its interference in Lebanon. At this historic crossroads in the region, silence and denial is akin to complicity with the dictators. The Lebanese need to take a unified position, especially as the kidnapping of Syrians is taking place on Lebanese soil. Our fragile sovereignty is seriously at stake.
On Thursday, The Syrian Council for Human Rights reported that Shibli al-Ayssami—a leading Syrian opposition member and one of the original founders of the Syrian Baath Party, who escaped Syria when Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970—went missing from Lebanon on Tuesday.
Ayssami’s daughter told NOW Lebanon that he went missing after going on a walk around 4:30 p.m. in Aley. He had arrived in Lebanon on May 19 from the US, where he resides. No one knows where Ayssami is, and all authorities contacted by his family were unable to deliver any information on his whereabouts.
This is not the first time a Syrian opposition member has disappeared in Lebanon since the uprising started. In March, four Syrian citizens were reportedly kidnapped by Internal Security Forces First Lieutenant Salah Ali al-Hajj. Jassem Merhi al-Jassem was arrested by the Lebanese army on February 24, while he was distributing fliers condemning the Syrian regime and was handed to the ISF. But he was later released and reportedly kidnapped by al-Hajj the same day, along with his brothers, Syrian opposition groups claimed.
Also, last week, Lebanese authorities handed back to their Syrian counterparts three Syrian soldiers who fled to Lebanon; an act that violates both international and domestic law.
“A person who has fled into Lebanese territory has not committed a crime at the local level; he is a refugee, and as a refugee, is entitled to protection and intervention from the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees],” said Nabil Halabi, head of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights.
Lebanon also ratified the Convention against Torture, Article 3 of which condemns handing over a refugee at risk of being subject to torture, he added. “By handing them back, the soldiers will be facing death, not only torture,” said Halabi.
In addition, Halabi said that the soldiers were detained without a warrant by security forces, not judicial officers, which is a violation of the Lebanese penal code. Additionally, in this case, the military intelligence did not have the authority to send the soldiers back – only the Ministry of Justice did.
Meanwhile, Lebanese activists are being threatened and intimidated by members of the pro-Syrian Baath Party and the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (SSNP) in Lebanon for attempting to voice support for the Syrian people.
These are just examples of the continuation of Syrian hegemony in Lebanon, which, despite the troops’ withdrawal and the exchange of embassies, still holds. The security agreements that were signed during the Syrian presence in Lebanon allow such practices to continue.
Created in 1991 to oversee the implementation of the treaties between Syria and Lebanon, the Syrian-Lebanese Higher Council (SLHC), together with a host of so-called brotherly accords, has come to symbolize the enduring imbalance in the Lebanese-Syrian dynamic.
Since its inception, the SLHC approved several bilateral agreements in economic and financial areas and implemented the controversial 1991 Fraternity, Cooperation and Coordination Treaty (FCCT), under Article 6 of which the SLHC was formed. The FCCT formalized Syria’s role as powerbroker in Lebanon, and the SLHC’s General Secretariat acted as a virtual embassy in Beirut during Syria’s presence here.
The FCCT, which is still active, is composed of six articles that emphasize the Lebanese government’s role in protecting Syrian security. Article 2 allows the Syrian government to carry out any military or security operation in Lebanon to preserve its security without having to ask for the Lebanese government’s permission. The 1991 Defense and Security Agreement highlights the importance of Syrian security, stressing that “both states shall prevent any activity, act or organization in all military, security, political and media fields that may cause prejudice to the other country, and shall endeavor to abrogate the laws and regulations that do not conform to this treaty.” After the exchange of embassies between Syria and Lebanon, many March 14 politicians waged a campaign against these agreements and called for their abolition, fearing future interference by the Syrian regime. Though this is happening today, and no one is saying anything. Abolishing these agreements is a must if Lebanon wants to act as a sovereign state. However, annulling the Syrian-Lebanese Higher Council would require a vote by parliament after a draft proposal is submitted by the government or a group of MPs. We do not have a government, but there must be a group of MPs out there who could draft a proposal of the sort. Getting it passed would be another matter altogether, but wouldn’t it at least be a worthy attempt?
*Hanin Ghaddar is managing editor of NOW Lebanon

Diplomats Hint Syria’s Involvement in UNIFIL Bombing
Daily Star/Diplomatic sources have hinted about Syria's involvement in the roadside bomb that ripped through a U.N. convoy in southern Lebanon on Friday after threats by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem that the European Union would regret its sanctions against President Bashar Assad. The sources told An Nahar and al-Joumhouria dailies on Saturday that the bombing came after Muallem threatened that “Syria will not remain silent” to the EU measures against Assad. The Europeans "erred when they attacked the president and when they adopted sanctions that harm the Syrian people," he said earlier in the week. The attack on the Italian contingent hints that the messages sent to Europe, which began with the kidnapping of the seven Estonian tourists in the Bekaa valley in March, are on the rise, the diplomatic sources said. They did not rule out attempts by the Syrian regime to create “distractions elsewhere” if it sees that its existence is in danger. The roadside bomb ripped through the convoy carrying Italian peacekeepers, wounding six of them in the first such attack since 2008. The explosion struck as the peacekeepers' vehicles traveled south on the main highway in Sidon, leaving a crater in the road and scattered debris from the charred U.N. vehicles. A security source said the bomb contained around 10 kilograms of explosive material.

Kuwaiti Man Released as State Security Arrests Kidnapper
Naharnet Newsdesk /A Kuwaiti citizen was released after he was kidnapped and blackmailed to pay 2 million dollars to the abductors, a communique issued overnight by the General Directorate of State Security said. Mount Lebanon Regional Directorate guaranteed the release of Kuwaiti citizen Y. J. less than 48 hours after the abduction, said the communiqué. Without giving further details, it said the man was kidnapped on May 24 with the force of arm. The ring leader B. M. A., who had an arrest warrant against him, was detained and admitted that the gang was paid $350,000 after negotiations to free the hostage. The communiqué added that the probe is ongoing to unveil the kingpin’s accomplices

Syrian activists protest as boy killed in custody
May 28, 2011 /Now Lebanon/Pro-democracy activists in Syria called for fresh protests on Saturday after the alleged torture and killing of a 13-year-old boy by security forces in the flashpoint region of Daraa. The body of Hamza al-Khatib was returned to his family on Wednesday, following his disappearance after a demonstration on April 29, activists said on their Facebook site, Syrian Revolution 2011. "We will go out from every home, from every district to express our anger" over the killing, they wrote on the page which carries a picture of the boy. "A month had passed by with his family not knowing where he is, or if or when will he be released. He was released to his family as a dead body. Upon examining his body, the signs of torture are very clear," they said. Hamza’s body was returned to his family displaying clear signs of torture through marks on the his body that had been made by hands, sticks, shoes and non fatal bullets. He had also been castrated. Other activists said Hamza al-Khatib decided after police had killed his cousin to take part in the anti-regime protests sweeping the country since mid-March, with their epicentre in the Daraa region of southern Syria. His father, Ali al-Khatib, has also been arrested, they said.
On Friday, at least 12 people were shot dead as security forces dispersed protests across Syria, activists said, updating an earlier toll of eight dead.
Four protesters were killed in Daraa, another four in a Damascus suburb, three in Homs, central Syria, and one in Latakia on the coast, said the London-based National Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights. More than 1,000 people have been killed and 10,000 others arrested since the revolt began, according to rights groups. Syrian authorities say 143 soldiers, security forces and police have been killed.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Hundreds Demand Government to Free Detained Syrians
Daily Star/Hundreds of protesters gathered in north Lebanon on Saturday to demand caretaker government release Syrian refugees who are reportedly being held by the army.
Some 500 people gathered in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood of Tripoli in the north to voice support for anti-government protesters in Syria and demand the release of any refugees who could be held in Lebanon. Gathered outside a mosque, the protesters -- who included dozens of Syrian refugees who fled to Lebanon this month -- chanted support for Daraa and Banias, two mainly Sunni regions in Syria that have witnessed deadly violence. "With our souls, with our blood, we are loyal to Daraa and Banias," and "Down with the Syrian regime," they chanted. "We stand against the Syrian regime, the regime of Bashar Assad, and we stand behind protesters in Syria," said Sheikh Mazen al-Mohammed, imam of the mosque outside which the rally was held. "We give the Lebanese government until Friday to release all Syrians it is holding or else we will organize a massive popular rally."
International rights group Human Rights Watch has documented the detention of nine Syrian men and one child since May 15 by Lebanon's security forces, allegedly for crossing illegally into Lebanon. Unconfirmed reports, however, indicate the number may be much higher. Human Rights Watch has urged Lebanon to release the refugees and to refrain from handing them over to Syrian authorities for fear they risk torture. Thousands of Syrians, mainly women and children, have fled violence in their hometowns and sought refuge in north Lebanon since April, risking gunfire as they make their way across illegal border crossings. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Syria, according to rights groups, as security forces crack down on anti-regime protests that broke out 10 weeks ago. Lebanon has been the scene of several face-offs between rival rallies both for and against Assad, with security forces regularly dispersing the demonstrations. Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city after the capital Beirut, has witnessed mainly Islamic demonstrations in support of anti-Assad protesters in Damascus.
The city has in the past few years also been the scene of intense clashes between Sunni Hariri supporters and Alawite Muslims loyal to a Hizbullah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria.
Source Agence France Presse

Future bloc: Explosion targeting UNIFIL aims to harm security
May 28, 2011 /Now Lebanon/The explosion that targeted a UNIFIL patrol aims to harm the country’s stability and citizen’s security, the Future bloc said in a statement issued on Saturday.
The bloc reaffirmed Lebanon’s commitment to the UN Security Council Resolution 1701. “This attack aims to use Lebanon [to send] political and security messages and [to take Lebanon] back to the time of chaos.” The bloc called on the relevant authorities to finish the investigation into the matter as soon as possible to bring the perpetrators to justice. Six Italian peacekeepers were wounded - two of them seriously - along with two civilians in a roadside bomb explosion targeting a UN patrol along a highway in south Lebanon on Friday.
-NOW Lebanon

Italy wants to cut Lebanon peace mission contribution, says minister
May 28, 2011 /Italy wants to rapidly reduce the size of its contingent of peacekeepers on duty in southern Lebanon, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said Saturday after six soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb blast. In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, La Russa stressed that Italy "has no intention of abandoning Lebanon" but he said that he wanted to cut Rome's contribution to a UN force known as UNIFIL by more than a third. "At the moment we have 1,780 soldiers, but it's too many. As we are no longer in command of the mission, then we should reduce our contribution to 1,100 as soon as possible," he told the daily. The minister said that Italy, along with Spain, would immediately push for "other European and Latin American countries to become involved." The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was initially set up to monitor Lebanon's border with Israel but expanded after a devastating 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Italy has one of the largest contingents in the multinational force, which currently has 12,000 troops stationed in south Lebanon. The minister was speaking after an explosion along the main highway near the town of Saida hit a logistics convoy, wounding six Italian peacekeepers, two of them seriously, and two civilians. The blast came only hours after UNIFIL had held a ceremony at its headquarters in the southern village of Naqura, close to the Israeli border, to honor 292 peacekeepers killed since the force was established in 1978. The explosion on Friday, the first of its kind since 2008, drew widespread condemnation from local and international officials.
-AFP/ NOW Lebanon

Thank You, Syria
May 27, 2011
Now Lebanon/For the man born in 1976, terrible connotations were always associated with the word “Syrians.” “The Syrians,” my generation used to plainly say when referring to the policies of the Syrian government. A term often came to many carrying disgust, revulsion and horror. “The Syrians” want this, “The Syrians” don’t want that. “The Syrians” prefer this, and “The Syrians” dislike that. “The Syrians” will stay forever. “The Syrians” are inevitably returning to occupy Lebanon. “The Syrians...” “The Syrians...” “The Syrians...” And so forth!
For the man born in 1976, “The Syrians” is the nickname of a doomed fate. A self-clarifying term, with absolute implications at all times. Little is said of the Syrian regime, for example. Since Hafez Al Assad’s ascendency to Syria’s presidency through a military coup in 1970, the regime is “The Syrians,” and “The Syrians” are the regime. No separation, of any kind, existed between the two. The Syrians are not reminiscent of the Lebanese, Syria’s flanks in my country used to say, as a matter of self-humiliation and self-flagellation, when one thinks that anti-Assad Syrians might exist. For them this was impossible. “The Syrians” are a special species that stayed immune to Lebanese “diseases” of rich plurality. Those are “The Syrians,” the flanks tell you, without feeling any need for additional explanation.
It is significant, in this vein, that Syria is “Assad's Syria.” And the Syrians, consequently, are “Assad’s Syrians.”
A phrase that used to read on as many walls as possible in the Bekaa, Beirut, Mount Lebanon and the North, or decorate, in stones, the improvised gardens in front of shabby Syrian military camps here and there in Lebanon, summarizes the impossible dichotomy between “The Syrians” and the policies and actions of the Syrian government and the Baath Party.
“Assad is our Leader forever,” said the phrase. The bottom line is that "The Syrians," the phrase suggests, is a state with no inside vigor. An entire people of whom we, as Lebanese, do not know, except for what reaches us through the distorting recoveries of exotic Syrian neighborhoods in TV dramas and series.
Yet, unlike the case with Egyptian or Turkish dramas, the Syrian ones present an imaginary inside that is entirely disconnected from the current realms of fashion, professions, economy and politics in modern Syria. In fact, daring acknowledgement of an internal Syria, rather than the one projected by the regime, is lethal. The assassination of two prominent Lebanese journalists, Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni, speaks volumes of that. Both Tueni as the courageous editor in chief of An-Nahar newspaper and Kassir as an agile liberal writer with good connections to the Syrian opposition helped the Syrian opposition’s voice be heard. It is common among admirers of Tueni and Kassir to blame their assassinations on their particular “involvement in the internal matters of Syria.”An-Nahar hosted since 2000 the most advanced internal Syrian debate, shedding light on the fructuous inside of Syria, and breaking the inertia of Syria’s image, which the Assad regime was keen to maintain since 1970.
Since that day, the term “The Syrians” took a different path so that it no longer meant the thing it meant for decades. It gradually lost its ability to capture Syria and its people as an exclusive regional political entity. Rather, “The Syrians” refers now to people whose pain we feel, whose fate we fear for, and, most importantly, whose hope for a better country we share.
Once again, we can love Syria and the Syrians, and we, as liberals, can say to the despot and his flanks: You have your Syria and we have ours. Ours is a Syria whose news we follow with the largest extent of love, worry and hope. Ours is a new Syria who reconciles us with her as much as with ourselves. Ours is a Syria that suggests to us a brighter present and future.
To this Syria it is all just to say: Thank you, Syria.

March 14, Hizbullah Rattle Sabers over ‘Militia Practices’ in Telecom Building
Daily Star/The March 14 forces and Hizbullah have engaged in a war of words over the “militia practices” in the facility affiliated with the telecommunications ministry in Beirut’s Adliyeh area on Thursday. The March 14 general-secretariat said in a statement on Saturday in reference to Hizbullah that “the militia” which turned its arms against the Lebanese during the May 7, 2008 events and carried out a “coup” against Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri’s government in January this year “does not have the right to accuse anyone of making a coup against the state and its institutions.” Hizbullah wondered on Friday whether a third GSM network which was behind the dispute between Caretaker Telecom Minister Charbel Nahhas and the Internal Security Forces “belonged to the March 14 camp or security forces functioning independently from the state.”Given these “militia practices,” the Lebanese have the right to know the truth behind what happened at the facility, the Shiite party stressed. The clash between Nahhas and the security forces “with the support of the militia of Hizbullah is a militia act,” said the general-secretariat. “It is an attempt to target a constitutional decision of the council of ministers and to cover up the scandal of corruption.” “March 14 backs the ISF in its attempt to implement the law in the protection of state institutions and properties,” said the statement. It also condemned the campaign against the general directorate of the ISF. On the bombing that targeted a UNIFIL convoy in the south on Friday, the March 14 general-secretariat condemned the attack and said that it comes at a time when G8 countries announced they would resort to U.N. Security Council action against Syria if it doesn’t halt the violent repression of its people. The statement warned against turning southern Lebanon into a front for “regional sides that are in crisis” and reiterated the March 14’s commitment to Security Council resolution 1701.

Report: Iran sending forces to assist in Syria crackdowns
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-iran-sending-forces-to-assist-in-syria-crackdowns-1.364543
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Iran Bashar Assad Syria U.S. officials said that Iran is assisting Syrian President Bashar Assad's violent crackdown on protesters, sending trainers and advisers to suppress opposition, according to a Washington Post report. Iran has sent members of its elite Quds force, whom the United States has recently sanctioned in response to the 10 weeks of brutal Syrian government quashing of protests, to help the Syrian government, Iran's most important ally in the region. Weapons confiscated by Syria officials, May 9, 2011. Manpower is only one of the forms of assistance Iran has sent to Syria, the report said, with the Islamist government sending weapons, riot gear and sophisticated surveillance equipment that allows Syrian authorities to trace and find opposition members through Facebook and Twitter accounts. The surveillance system has reportedly prompted the arrest of hundreds of Syrians in recent weeks, two U.S. officials and a diplomat from an allied nation told the Washington Post, all speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.
The diplomat said that Iranian military trainers have been brought to Syria's capital Damascus to teach security forces techniques that were used against the "Green Movement" in 2009. Protests to the allegedly corrupt election of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were met with brutal violence from Iranian security forces.
The elite Iranian Quds force has reportedly played an influential role in crackdowns since at least mid-April, the sources told the Washington Post, prompting Obama to sign an executive order sanctioning the group last month. The Quds Force is a branch of the Iranian government's principal security agency which operates outside Iran and has in the past been accused by U.S. officials of interfering extensively in political and insurgent activities in Iraq. The elite force has also helped train members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Although the number of Iranian advisers in Syria remains unknown, it has reportedly been increasing, according to the U.S. and allied officials.
The Obama administration mentioned the Quds force in a second set of sanctions last week, which targeted Assad and six other top officials including Mohsen Chizari, and Iranian military officer who is the Quds Force's third in command responsible for training. In March Turkey informed a UN Security Council panel that it seized a cache of weapons Iran was attempting to export to Syria in breach of a UN arms embargo. The report to the council's Iran sanctions committee, which oversees compliance with the four rounds of punitive steps the 15-nation body has imposed on Iran over its nuclear program, said a March 21 inspection turned up the weapons, which were listed as "auto spare parts" on the plane's documents.
The plane was bound for Aleppo, Syria, and was given permission to pass through Turkish airspace provided it made a "technical stop" at Diyarbakir airport, the report said.

Syria’s Nuclear Impunity
Bashar al-Assad’s lengthening rap sheet.
By JAMIE M. FLY and ROBERT ZARATE
The Weekly Standard weekly
Contrary to what the Obama administration might hope, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is no reformer. Even with the Syrian government’s murderous crackdown against its unarmed opposition, the White House is not getting the message. Yet Assad’s true colors should have been plainly obvious at least as far back as September 2007, when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the secret Al Kibar nuclear facility near the Syrian town of Deir al Zour. Built with North Korean assistance, Al Kibar was a plutonium-producing reactor that, once completed, could have been used to generate fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Newscom
Given how Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons has already roiled a region beset by deep rivalries, a widespread—and potentially destructive—race for atomic arms would have likely ensued had Syria successfully followed Iran’s model for nuclear misbehavior. Assad was aware of this fact. Yet he consorted with Pyongyang for years, slowly assembling the pieces required for a nuclear bomb breakout.
Once Assad’s nuclear ambitions were out in the open, he had a chance to come clean. As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Syria is obliged to make correct and complete declarations of its nuclear material and related activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Instead, the Assad regime adopted the Iranian playbook, obstructing efforts by IAEA inspectors to confirm that Syria conducts no other undeclared nuclear activities.
Nonetheless, in its May 24 report on Syria, the IAEA concluded for the first time that the Al Kibar facility “was very likely a nuclear reactor.” It appears that the IAEA, exasperated by the Assad regime’s stonewalling, may be laying the groundwork for a vote by its 35-nation board of governors to refer Syria’s nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council, just as it did with Iran in 2006.
Under Mohamed ElBaradei’s management, the IAEA refused to move on Syria. Rather than rebuke Damascus for its clandestine program, ElBaradei focused his ire on Israel. The strike on the reactor, he said, violated “the rules of international law.” The Syrians exploited ElBaradei’s anti-Israel rhetoric, and argued that samples of uranium found at Al Kibar were from the munitions Israeli planes dropped on the site. Things are different these days at the IAEA, now run by Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, but the agency still doesn’t know how far the Syrian nuclear program progressed before the Israeli attack or how much of it still exists.
Washington needs to support the IAEA’s efforts fully. Back in 2007, the Bush administration avoided public condemnation of Syria’s nuclear ambitions for fear of heightening tensions between Syria and Israel. Moreover, there was concern that the potential uproar might also threaten ongoing diplomatic efforts to get the North Koreans to give up parts of their own nuclear program. Then the Obama White House, in its desire to engage Damascus, also downplayed Syria’s nuclear adventurism. Recently, the administration has taken positive steps by sanctioning Assad for human rights abuses. But, by ignoring his dangerous nuclear legacy, the United States and its European allies are missing an opportunity to gain additional leverage.
Washington should support Syria’s referral to the U.N. Security Council and pursue sanctions until the regime reveals the full extent of its nuclear program. More immediately, the White House should also impose, in addition to the human rights sanctions recently put in place, unilateral sanctions on Syria for its illicit nuclear activities. For instance, the Obama administration last year sanctioned several North Korean individuals and companies that assisted Syria’s nuclear, ballistic missile, and advanced conventional weapons programs. However, to date it has declined to sanction the Syrian officials and entities that received North Korean assistance.
In taking such actions, the White House would be acknowledging that Assad is a pillar of instability. U.S. national security and the region itself would be better served with new leadership in Damascus. Otherwise, Washington is sending the message that any criminal regime can slaughter its own people, consort with terrorists, violate international obligations, and pursue nuclear weapons—and face no real consequences. It’s high time to make an example of Assad.
**Jamie M. Fly is executive director and Robert Zarate is policy adviser at the Foreign Policy Initiative.

In Syria, Accounts of Widening Torture
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303654804576341030013131512.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
HOMS, Syria—A Syrian shopworker limped to a chair, removed his shirt and revealed three bright red scars: Cut several times with a scalpel in what he believes was a Syrian military hospital, he says, he was stitched up without anesthetic, then hit on the wounds.
Recounting what he believes was at least 10 days spent in the hands of Syria's military intelligence service, the man said he was beaten and shocked, kept naked and blindfolded in a room packed with detainees and excrement, and listened as his 17-year-old cousin was burned with a poker. He was asked to kneel in prayer to a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
.The 32-year-old father of two provides one of a new flood of accounts of torture, reported by activists and rights organizations and detainees, that have emerged amid the country's ten-week uprising against Mr. Assad. While the U.S., United Nations and others have long characterized Syria's regime as among the region's most repressive, rights groups and other observers say this spring's crackdown has spurred new levels of brutality.
On Friday, Syrian security forces killed at least eight people as antiregime protests brought thousands out in Homs, Hama and other cities, human-rights monitors said. More than 1,000 people have been killed in all, according to several human-rights groups, which estimate that more than 10,000 people have been detained.
European countries have been pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution against Syria, with Britain, France, Germany and Portugal circulating a draft resolution this week that condemned the "systematic violation of human rights" by the Assad regime. China and Russia have pushed back, say Western diplomats. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday joined international calls for Mr. Assad to embrace reform but said he doesn't favor sanctions.
Interviews with a Syrian woman and two men who said they were detained—as well as accounts from activists, human-rights organizations and others—suggest security forces are arresting not only protesters but others, including men ages 15 to 40, professionals, women and older Syrians. Detainees are held in several cities, these people say, in schools, soccer stadiums, security-force facilities and military hospitals, and subjected to various forms of physical and psychological abuse.
"The stories we hear now are unimaginable in their brutality," said a Syrian who said he worked in military intelligence in the 1980s and witnessed torture then, and said he was now fed up. "It is not only to deter protesters. They enjoy hurting people for the sake of it."
Neil Sammonds, a Syria researcher in London for Amnesty International, says the group documented 38 torture methods in a 1987 report on Syria. "Almost all of them, plus several new ones, continue to be carried out with impunity," he said.
It isn't clear whether such a campaign has been ordered, or by whom. Syria's government hasn't explicitly addressed allegations of torture.
The Syrian Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
Allegations of torture were a flashpoint in Syria's uprising and have remained at the core of the battle over its future. Activists and rights workers say the widening use is meant to spread terror not only among protesters, but also those who may consider joining them. But the practice instead appears to have enraged some Syrians into mobilizing against the government.
"I went out to protest...because of corruption," said one 22-year-old from a rural village. "But then I saw the shots being fired and heard from friends what happens in detention, and I started to shout for the toppling of the regime."
Any torture would signal a weakness in the Assad government, said David Lesch, a Syria expert at Trinity University in San Antonio. He suggested that Mr. Assad's security forces—which as a pillar of the regime has enjoyed a free hand in recent years—may have essentially moved beyond his control.
"The leeway granted to the security forces will come back to haunt them," Mr. Lesch said. "The falling barrier of fear, and the new technology, doesn't allow the regime to control the situation."
Syria's government has blamed this spring's uprising on armed gangs, radical Islamists and foreign agents. In late April, the country's official news agency, SANA, characterized a U.N. Human Rights Council special session on Syria as using "fabricated motives" to detract attention from the Palestinian cause.
Syria's uprising appears to have been fueled in part by the alleged torture of a group of schoolchildren from Deraa, who were accused of writing graffiti critical of the ruling Baath party.
When released, the children, who were as young as 10, bore burn marks from cigarettes and had fingernails torn out, said human-rights activists and a Deraa resident who said he saw some of them after their release.
The allegations spread, enraging Syrians including the shopworker in Homs, Syria's third-largest city. "It was so violent to pull nails from children's hands," the man said. "We have had enough of oppression."
He said his own detention began after he left an antiregime protest in a Homs neighborhood on April 17. He, his brother and two cousins got into a taxi, he said. They identified the driver by his accent as an Alawite, a member of the same religious minority as Mr. Assad and the majority of top government and security-service officials.
The driver took them to what the man said was an Alawite gang, who he said beat them, stuffed a rifle butt in his mouth and fired shots close to him. The four were then taken to the Homs military hospital, he said, where they were held five or six days. They spent the first three or so days, he said, naked and blindfolded with what he believed was medical tape or plaster.
"There were around 15 of us in a room and three beds," he said. They were given no food or water and denied access to a toilet. From a gap in his blindfold, the man said, he saw a bag of saline solution that he opened with his teeth and shared around.
Every 10 minutes, he said, people he believed were security agents, nurses or doctors came in and beat them. He said he passed out at times from pain. It was here, he said, that he was slit with a scalpel three times on his back and again on his leg.
It wasn't possible to locate the relatives to corroborate the account. However, two civilian doctors who accompanied the man to the home in Homs where he was interviewed last week say his partially healed wounds were consistent with his description. Rough skin on his palms match his account of his hands being tied with rope behind his back.
A doctor at a different military hospital, in Damascus, said he had witnessed similar scenes. This doctor said his hospital has an "alternative ER" where people are tortured, with methods that include inflicting cuts and giving patients morphine for several days and then withdrawing it.
Doctors at the Damascus facility were pushed by security officers to take part in torture, this person said, adding he hoped that publicizing the practice would discourage it.
The four Homs protesters were moved to what they believed was a military-intelligence facility for an additional five or six days, and put in a three-by-six-foot cell with nine or 10 others.
They were taken out, he said, to be interrogated—at which time he was beaten, suspended by his hands and poked with electric batons—about who was backing the protests. They were accused of working for Syrian foes including former Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the man said, echoing accounts of other detainees.
Some detainees were asked to pray to a picture of the president, he said, with those who did gaining their release. "I refused," he said. "I pray only to God."
He was eventually moved to a police station, made to affix his thumbprint to a statement he couldn't read because he was blindfolded, and sent to a central prison for three days. A military judge released him and some other detainees.
The man said he isn't done protesting.
"We have had enough of oppression," he said. "We felt like we lived in a small prison, but we needed something to move us. After Tunisia and Egypt, we saw we could do something."
He added: "My wife and children don't want me to, but as soon as I get better, I will go out again."

The ophthalmologist dictator: Syria's Bashar al-Assad
The Week Magazine
May 27, 2011,
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was going to be an ophthalmologist until the death of his older brother thrust him into the family business.
How did Assad gain power?
Through old-fashioned dynastic succession. He became president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, a tyrant who had ruled Syria for 30 years. The family’s oldest son, Basil, was supposed to follow his father as ruler, while Assad was sent to London to continue his training as an ophthalmologist. But Basil died in a 1994 car accident, and Assad was quickly summoned home from his studies in Great Britain and shunted into a military academy. When the senior Assad died, the parliament quickly lowered the minimum age for candidates from 40 to 34, Bashar al-Assad’s age at the time. He was elected unopposed; the regime claimed he received 97 percent of the vote.
Is he more moderate than his father was?
It would be hard not to be. Hafez was a brutal dictator who occupied neighboring Lebanon for decades and funded Hezbollah extremists. He had thousands of political opponents murdered. And he was responsible for the single deadliest attack by any Arab government on its own people, surpassing Saddam Hussein’s 1988 massacre of Kurds in Halabja: In 1982, he obliterated the Syrian town of Hama to crush a revolt, killing at least 20,000—and possibly as many as 40,000—civilians. The younger Assad has committed no atrocity on that scale. But his government has continued all along to imprison and torture political opponents, and has responded to the recent “Arab Spring’’ protests by killing hundreds. On his watch, Syrian intelligence was accused of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, after which Assad was forced under U.S. pressure to pull Syrian troops out of Lebanon.
Why did we misread him?
It was partly wishful thinking—after all, he didn’t fight his way to the top and wasn’t groomed to be a dictator. Assad speaks fluent English and decent French, and makes a generally mild impression. His glamorous wife, Asma, was born to Syrian parents in Britain; a former investment banker, she’s been profiled in Vogue. And Assad certainly has modernized Syria, turning Damascus from a dreary socialist city into a vibrant Arab capital, with chic shops and trendy Internet cafés. During the decade of his rule, the country has privatized many sluggish state-run industries. Foreign investment has flowed in, and cell phones and satellite TV have become ubiquitous.
How does he keep his grip?
By controlling the military. The Assad family belongs to the Alawite minority, a fringe Shiite Muslim sect, which is one reason why Syria, unlike most Arab countries, is so closely allied with Shiite Iran. Most Syrians, however, are Sunni Muslims. When Assad’s father seized power, in 1970, he placed loyal Alawites in key positions throughout the military, secret police, and government. The Alawite elite now dominates the entire security apparatus. Unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, where the professional military class exerted its independence and refused to crack down on peaceful protesters, in Syria the military can’t really be seen as separate from the regime.
How has Assad justified his crackdown?
He has blamed “armed terrorist groups” for the violence. Foreign-inspired groups, the regime says, have killed civilians as well as members of the security forces. In reality, opposition leaders and human-rights activists say, Assad’s forces have been firing on unarmed protesters. During the two months of pro-democracy demonstrations, Assad’s loyalists have killed more than 900 civilians. But not all of Assad’s forces are joining in. Over the past month, some 200 members of Assad’s Baath Party have defected, including several lawmakers. Assad has intensified his promises for reform, but his troops’ assault on demonstrators continues.
Why has so little been done to stop him?
Lack of leverage and fear of consequences. President Obama recently demanded that Assad either “get out of the way” or lead a transition to greater freedom. But the sanctions he leveled against the Syrian regime aren’t much of a spur for a country that gets no U.S. aid. And some U.S allies “are not at all sure that Syria without Assad would be better than with him,” former U.S. Mideast negotiator Aaron David Miller wrote recently in Foreign Policy. Turkey, which shares a long border and a restive Kurdish minority with Syria, is leery of instability there. So is Israel, which got a glimpse of chaos last month when Assad allowed Palestinians in Syria to storm Israeli border defenses at the Golan Heights. The government in Jerusalem wants “to work with a devil that they know,” says Moshe Ma’oz of Hebrew University. “And this Bashar, they know him.”
Why Syria’s Christians prefer Assad
One group not wholeheartedly embracing the anti-Assad protests is Syrian Christians, who make up at least 10 percent of the population. Under the Assads, Christians have been allowed religious freedom, and they have prospered to the point that they now make up much of the professional middle class. “Our feeling is, if the regime falls, the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood will seize power—and that is bad news for us,” said Archbishop Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim of the Syriac Orthodox Church. “History has proven to us that Christians have always had more secure lives, better treatment by people who may be looked on as dictators, like Saddam Hussein.” After Saddam fell, Iraqi Christians were targeted by extremist groups, and fully half the Christian population fled, many to Syria. “Syria has been a beacon of freedom and security for Christians in a largely hostile Arab world,” said Patrick Sookhdeo of the international Christian group Barnabas Fund. “If they are now forced to leave the country, where will they go?”

Hezbollah’s Anxiety
Fri, 27 May 2011
Walid Choucair/Al Hayat
The secretary general of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, spoke Wednesday on the 11th anniversary of the liberation of South Lebanon. One of the most eloquent parts of the speech came when Nasrallah addressed "our Arab peoples," warning that "you will find yourselves once again in the arms of the Americans, and if you want to go back to the Americans, then stay where you are."
Sayyed Nasrallah certainly didn't mean to put Arab peoples before one of two options: either revolution that seeks democracy and regime change, and takes a clear stance against America and a commitment to supporting the resistance to confront Israel, or, retaining the current regimes, along with their subservience to America and their rhetoric against Israel, in parallel with their clandestine complicity with the Jewish state, opening channels of negotiation and settlement with Tel Aviv in order to protect the leaders of these regimes. Nasrallah is aware of the internal reasons for these Arab revolutions, against oppression, injustice, humiliation, corruption and blind dictatorship, which cannot be held back after the wall of fear has collapsed, wherever this may take place.
However, Nasrallah's use of the phrase "stay where you are," even though it was metaphorical, reveals a bit of anxiety on Hezbollah's part, vis-à-vis the historical political changes underway in the region, and their relationship to Hezbollah’s orientations and political objectives. Like Iran, he partly had hoped that these transformations, from when they began in Tunisia and particularly Egypt, and before they spread to other countries, particularly Syria, would lead to a new regional equation: changing regimes would bring about a new axis, or form of cooperation, among Egypt, Iran, Syria and Turkey, with other countries hovering in this orbit, along with forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas, while Lebanon, by virtue of its internal balance of power, would be a part of this framework. This presumed form of cooperation would be a result of the Arab revolutions, which was expressed by Iranian officials when they discussed the notion of an Islamic Middle East.
The hope of such regional cooperation is legitimate, and aspects of such a scenario might appear later on, as regional transformations continue. This is because such cooperation will give the Arabs and Muslim states huge weight on the international scene, in the face of American policies toward the region, especially with regard to Palestine, especially if Gulf countries, and particularly Saudi Arabia, end up being a part of this cooperation.
However, a state of harmony between the democratic transformation in a number of states that are experiencing popular revolutions, and these countries' foreign policies, will come about gradually. These countries’ national and strategic interests, and capabilities, will be a part of the calculations, and the cooperation will have limits that are different from those hoped for by Hezbollah and Iran, which involve an intersection between the requirements of confronting Israel, and the confrontation that Iran is waging against the West over its nuclear program. Among the examples of the "ceiling" under which new regimes are functioning, as their process of change continues and becomes complete, are a series of actions by Egypt: opening the Rafah crossing, sponsoring the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, and re-thinking the low-priced contracts for the country's natural gas to Israel. These are gradual steps on the way to creating new policies in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict, which will see Egypt and other countries that are experiencing a democratic transition to reclaim their role on this front, after Iran compensated for their absence.
This anxiety about the Arab transformations' impact on the regional equation lies on one side of the balance, while on the other, there is anxiety about the situation in Syria. This is particularly because Nasrallah spoke clearly and realistically about the situation, and avoided any "gambling" on this score. He did not echo Syrian state media's rhetoric, by accusing Syrian demonstrators of being part of terrorist or Salafi groups, and maintaining that they were carrying out a foreign conspiracy. Nasrallah spoke about the Syrian leadership desiring reform and called on Syrians "to give the Syrian leadership the opportunity to cooperate with all segments of the people, to carry out reforms and select the path of dialogue, and not confrontation."
It was natural for Nasrallah to not appear anxious about the campaign by United States President Barack Obama and the Israeli prime minister against Hezbollah, since he was speaking on an occasion to symbolize the victory the party achieved by forcing Israel to withdraw from the South in 2000, and its victory over Israel in July 2006, in a manner that altered the formula of its confrontation with Israel. However, the worrying part is that Sayyed Nasrallah did not appear anxious about the Lebanese domestic situation, because of the vacuum in the government, the deepening divisions, and the challenges, whether or not these are publicly expressed. In his speech, Nasrallah even ignored the call by his rivals, and particularly caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, to mark a day that requires taking stock of the situation – they had called for a strengthening of the bonds of national unity and a restoration of communication among the Lebanese. This is why the Lebanese should be even more anxious.

Question: "Why did God choose Israel to be His chosen people?"
GotQuestions.org
Answer: Speaking of the nation of Israel, Deuteronomy 7:7-9 tells us, “The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands.”
God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom Jesus Christ would be born—the Savior from sin and death (John 3:16). God first promised the Messiah after Adam and Eve’s fall into sin (Genesis chapter 3). God later confirmed that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-3). Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason why God chose Israel to be His special people. God did not need to have a chosen people, but He decided to do it that way. Jesus had to come from some nation of people, and God chose Israel. However, God’s reason for choosing the nation of Israel was not solely for the purpose of producing the Messiah. God’s desire for Israel was that they would go and teach others about Him. Israel was to be a nation of priests, prophets, and missionaries to the world. God’s intent was for Israel to be a distinct people, a nation who pointed others towards God and His promised provision of a Redeemer, Messiah, and Savior. For the most part, Israel failed in this task. However, God’s ultimate purpose for Israel—that of bringing the Messiah into the world—was fulfilled perfectly in the Person of Jesus Christ.
**Recommended Resource: Faith of Israel, 2d ed.: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament by William Dumbrell.

Canada Marks International Day of UN Peacekeepers
(No. 146 - May 27, 2011 -
http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/news-communiques/2011/146.aspx
John Baird, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, today issued the following statement in advance of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, which is on Sunday, May 29, 2011:
“In Canada and around the world, Sunday will be a day to acknowledge the men and women who serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations. We will also honour the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace. This year, we will honour 45 more brave souls than last year. “UN peacekeeping operations have become more multi-dimensional since first introduced in 1948. Today, they incorporate military, police and civilian expertise. More than 120,000 people, from countries around the world, are currently serving in 15 UN peacekeeping operations. Canada has military, police and civilian personnel currently deployed to eight of those operations. All of these people are making a real difference through their service. “UN peacekeepers continually rise to meet new challenges with professionalism and dedication amid difficult and often dangerous conditions. We were reminded of these dangers again today in southern Lebanon, where a roadside bomb injured six Italian peacekeepers. “Canada will continue to work with the UN Secretariat, the Security Council and our fellow member states to further the progress made in recent years in supporting our peacekeepers and their vital work.”

Viva Palestina's George Galloway Embraces Jihadists
Thursday, 26 May 2011
By Steve Emerson
http://www.newsmax.com/Emerson/GeorgeGalloway-PalestinianIslamicJihad-SamiAl-Arian-suicidebombing/2011/05/26/id/397911
George Galloway, the leader and founder of the U.K.-based group Viva Palestina, met with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad while in Beirut, Lebanon this week, according to an article that ran in Arabic in the news outlet Palestine Today on Tuesday.
Galloway, a former member of parliament, flew to Beirut to accept the Takreem Award for Exceptional Contribution to Arab Society.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism's translation of the Arabic article reveals that Galloway visited the office of Abu Imad Rifai, the representative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Lebanon.
Three others accompanied Galloway, including Viva Palestina leader Kevin Ovenden, and Rov Hoveman, a Viva Palestina spokesman and former assistant to Galloway when he served as a British MP. Several other leaders of PIJ in Lebanon received Galloway and his delegation.
The United States named the Palestinian Islamic Jihad a foreign terrorist organization in 1995. The European Union has a similar designation.
The group is responsible for dozens of large-scale suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, resulting in the death of American citizens as well. With financial backing from Iran, the terrorist group seeks to destroy Israel and create an Islamic state through the use of jihad.
The group has received support from individuals in the U.S., including former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian served on the PIJ governing board while living in Tampa. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide goods and services to PIJ in 2006.
During this week's meeting, Rifai thanked Galloway and his delegation for their efforts in Europe and other countries around the world in support of the Palestinian cause. Galloway and his delegation, in turn, expressed their pride in the "Return Marches," launched from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip on May 15 commemorating the Palestinian Nakba.
"The Palestinian people sent a strong message to the whole world, that they are a people adhering to the right to return to Palestine," Galloway said. "We will continue with all our strength to work for the right to return, and will not waver at all, with many activists around the world, to focus on that right of Palestinians to return to all of Palestine. It is our future project."
On May 15, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered around Israel's borders, with some trying to cross into the country to reassert their perceived right of return to the land. The White House condemned Syria's role in inciting protests that occurred along Israel's border that day, including the regions Rifai referenced.
The event "marks the opening of the battle of the refugees with the Zionist enemy," Rifai said. "The blood of the martyrs shed in Maroun al-Ras and Majdal Shams, restored the pulse to the refugee camps, so no one can any longer keep them away from the course of the conflict with the Zionist enemy, and from working to retrieve all their rights."
Galloway's visit with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders is not the first time someone from Viva Palestina met with members of the terrorist group.
In October, 2009, Algerian and Turkish members of the Viva Palestina 5 convoy met with members of the Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of PIJ. Convoy participants visited Al Quds Brigades' military posts in the Gaza Strip, and some posed in pictures with PIJ terrorists while holding weapons and rocket launchers.
Viva Palestina has delivered millions of dollars to the Hamas regime in Gaza since its first convoy in March 2009. It has a reputation for meeting with leaders of terrorist groups.
During all four of its land convoys to Gaza, Viva Palestina was greeted by leaders of the terrorist group Hamas, including Hamas Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh, and Specially Designated Global Terrorists Mousa Abu Marzook, Khalid Meshaal, and Usama Hamdan, among others.
During its most recent convoy to Gaza, Haniyeh told Viva Palestina convoy participants in a welcoming speech, "We welcome all the brothers and sisters in the name of our Palestinian people. We express our happiness, delight, pride, and exultation with all of you. We ask God, Glorious and Exalted, to bless your efforts and Jihad, and that He makes your actions and deeds a firm step on the way to liberate Jerusalem and al Aqsa."
Additionally, Galloway praised Hezbollah in a speech he delivered last July to a room full of students attending Viva Palestina Arabia's "Summer University of Palestine" in Lebanon.
"You know the Hezbollah are special people. I've been involved in the Arab world for 35 years exactly. And I can tell you, with all respect to all others, Hezbollah are a special Arab organization," Galloway said.
Students of the Summer University made a trip to Hezbollah's museum in Beirut and visited other locations in Lebanon with the help of the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
Viva Palestina's next Summer University of Palestine is scheduled to take place in July at the American University of Beirut. The program will feature over 20 speakers including Galloway; Leila Khaled; a member of the U.S. designated terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and particularly known for her role as the first female to hijack an airplane in 1969; Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi; and IHH head, Bulent Yildirim, among other radicals.
Despite Galloway's documented terrorist ties, he has been a frequent visitor to the United States during the past two years, while raising money for Viva Palestina and engaging in speaking tours on behalf of other organizations.
His most recent trip in January included speaking at a fundraiser for Viva Palestina and the U.S. Boat to Gaza, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla II initiative planned for late June.

Obama Administration Must Support the People of Syria and Iran.
Slater Bakhtavar
May 27, 2011/Family Security Matters
Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, sees the Islamic Republic of Iran as its closest ally in the region. While Al-Assad has pledged to help find a peaceful solution to the nuclear dispute between the West and Iran, he continues to support Hamas and Hezbollah. Meanwhile it has been revealed that Syria had obtained a sophisticated radar system and other military equipment , which were shared with Hezbollah, Iran and Syria's Shiite radical client with a vehemently anti-American ideological agenda
The Obama Administration has cautiously reached out to Syria advocating open negotiations and better relations. Believing that Syria is a key regional player that cannot be ignored it sent, George Mitchell, the US special envoy to the Middle East to meet with the Syrian president. Yet these negotiations have fallen on deaf ears as Al-Assad publicly humiliated the United States.
The Administration uses a two-fold approach to address the pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa. One the one hand it pushes one tyrant to go, and on the other it calls Al-Assad a "reformer". The Administration has advocated a muted message on Syria. Similar to mass protests in Iran calling for end of the tyrannical Iranian government the people have been ignored.
Ironically the Administration has been vocal in other nations where neutral to pro-American regimes have suppressed demonstrators. Contrary to Obama's foreign policy neither the Iranian nor Syrian regime are stable. For instance, Syria saw demonstrations begin in March 2011, after people had seen the regime change which protests in Egypt and Tunisia had brought about. In Iran, a young, educated and pro-American populace has demonstrated since 2009 for freedom, democracy and human rights against one of the most anti-American governments in the world. Surprisingly the President's message has been hollow.
The anti-American nature of these governments means that negotiations instigated by the US Administration would be impossible. Similarly, despite the recent military intervention in Libya, President Obama would be extremely reluctant to go to war with any additional countries in the Middle East. The third option, and the one which time has proven to be the most effective, is to use twenty-first century technology to communicate directly with the people of these countries.
Recent developments in Middle Eastern and North African territories have shown that the people have been utilising online services such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with others in the West. This provides the perfect opportunity for the US government to be able to support demonstrators in their actions against their oppressive leaders. Despite these governments' attempts to restrict access to the internet, technology has advanced to such an extent that communication will always be possible.
The use of technology to assist and communicate with protesters is certainly a preferably option to starting wars, which are not only prohibitively expensive, but also result in horrendous losses of life. This would be a counter-productive course of action by the US Administration, as it would result in a previously pro-American population uniting and rising up against their attackers. As technology advances, however, it will allow people to educate themselves and unite to bring about democracy in their countries.
It is undeniable that the unprecedented numbers of protests in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 have occurred as a result of advances in technology. The people have been able to mobilize themselves due to better means of communication. They have also been able to broadcast their protests to the rest of the world. In addition to the protests in Iran and Syria, the West has witnessed demonstrations in such countries as Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. In many countries the demonstrations continue, meaning that there is an opportunity for the US Administration to use technology to help the people in their struggles.

White House is set for Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas summit. Israel is downbeat
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 27, 2011
The White House is going full steam ahead with preparations for an early summit between US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for restartng the peace process, debkafile's Washington sources report exclusively. Sources in Jerusalem and Ramallah confirm that they too are getting set for the occasion. A high-ranking US official told debkafile: "Till now, we have had the curtain-raiser and opening positions: Now we are going for the real show - negotiations."
He was referring to the Middle East six-speech marathon launched by the US president May 19, countered by the Israeli prime minster and swinging back and forth up until Thursday, May 26 when Obama reiterated his concept of the Middle East peace track in London.
While many circles have accused the Israeli prime minister of taking a hard line on peace in Washington, Obama is reportedly congratulating himself on what was generally perceived as a debate between the two leaders but which he feels extracted from Israel three major concessions:
1. Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister to offer to leave settlements outside borders in a prospective accord establishing a Palestinian state. A high US official credited successful diplomatic cooperation between Obama and Netanyahu with obtaining this concession.
He noted that the Netanyahu government is now off the hook of having to evacuate settlements, which would have been politically impossible after the traumas still lingering from Israel's 2005 pullout from the Gaza Strip and destruction of settlements there.
In the view of the US official, the prime minister is now able to give roughly 120,000 settlers outside certain pre-determined areas the option of relocating across the lines in pre-1967 Israel or remaining on the West Bank under sovereign Palestinian rule.
The US official elaborated on the president's conception of the "mutual swaps of land": These swaps need not entail the evacuation of large populations or numerous settlements but rather create Israeli and Palestinian pockets that would remain in situ in each other's territories under the "sovereign symbols" of the opposite party, Israeli or Palestinian.
More crises obviously lie ahead for Washington and Israel as they hammer out the exact nature and scope of these arrangements. But the moment the Israeli leader accepted the principle of settlements outside borders, the door swung open for restarting peace talks.
The US official noted that the Palestinian leader had positively ruled out any Israeli settlements remaining under Palestinian rule. The White House was treating his position as negotiable.
2. If the Obama administration can bring the Israelis and Palestinians to agree on the nature of the "symbols of sovereignty" in the swapped pockets, it will have come up with the formula of joint sovereignty for solving the core issue of Jerusalem, said the official. Neither side would have to give up its sovereign rights in the city, and it would also be possible to introduce an international presence in defined areas.
3. After examining the ways in which the concept of 1967 borders was interpreted, the US official found no major differences between Obama and Netanyahu.
While the Israeli prime minister insists those lines are indefensible, Obama says they are the basis for negotiating changes that meet Israel's security requirements. Both Israel and the Palestinians will be free to demand changes in the 1967 boundaries.
The official pointed out that although the Israeli and Palestinian leaders assert that the differences between them are too wide to bridge, both are busy preparing for the triple summit at the White House.
State Department sources told debkafile that, considering the Palestinian refusal for almost two years to sit down and talk to Israel, some members of the White House National Security Council and State Department as closely watching the Arab League foreign ministers' meeting in Qatar Saturday, May 28,as the key to unlocking Mahmoud Abbas' resistance to the peace track.
The White House has been working behind the scenes to ensure that the ministers give him the green light for the three-way summit to go ahead.
Those officials stress that the start of negotiations is the best way to stop Abbas turning to the UN in September for recognition of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders.
Sources in Jerusalem confirmed the preparations for the triple summit, but were absolutely sure that the US official was overdoing the optimism in order to squeeze Israel for more concessions.
They said the US president had loaded his Middle East speech of May 19 with pro-Palestinian arguments and laid down two propositions that Israel can on no account accept.
--- No Israeli military presence would remain across the new agreed borders between Israel and the Palestinians, i.e. Israel would be denied security provisions;
--- As part of the land swap, Israel would have to give up territory – or, in other words, withdraw not just to the 1967 lines but further west and give up chunks of pre-1967 sovereign land.
If Obama sticks to this position, Israeli sources stressed, the negotiations will end very soon after they begin and the distrust between Israel and Washington will only deepen.

Lieberman thanks Canada PM for objection to 1967 borders at G8
Latest update  27.05.11
The foreign minister tells Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper 'Canada is a true friend of Israel,' after Harper insisted that no mention of Israel's pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders' final communiqué.
By Haaretz Service
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to thank him for objecting to a specific mention of 1967 borders in a statement on the Middle East released by leaders of the Group of Eight. Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit on Friday said Canada had insisted that no mention of Israel's pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders' final communiqué, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention. "Canada is true friend of Israel," Lieberman said, adding that they "understand that the 1967 lines are inconsistent with Israel's security needs." Lieberman and Harper also spoke about taking a stand against Hamas integration into a newly unified Palestinian government. The foreign minister also invited Harper to visit Israel. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes statements during a closing news briefing at the G8 summit in Deauville, northern France May 27, 2011.In the final communiqué of the G8, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, the leaders call for the immediate resumption of peace talks but do not mention 1967, the year Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War. "Negotiations are the only way toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict," the communiqué said. "The framework for these negotiations is well known. We urge both parties to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues. "To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."
Canada's strong backing for Israel was cited by diplomats last year as one reason why Canada failed to win a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.
Harper has made is position on Israel very clear, saying last year: "When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand."