LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJuly 02/2011

Bible Quotation for today
Paul's Letter to the Galatians 1/10: "For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Christ".

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Another ticking bomb for Assad: Hariri Tribunal heads for Damascus/DEBKAfile/July 01/11
Much ado about almost nothing/By: Michael Young/July 01/11
The cult of Bashar al-Assad/By: Joseph Willits/July 01/11
Analysis: Hassan Nasrallah exposed/By: Jonathan Spyer/July 01/11
A Talking Cure for Syria's Pain? A British MP and a U.S. Congressman Visit Assad/By: Catherine Mayer/Time/for July 01/11
Syria's Minorities Fear Sectarian Split Amid Protests/By Deborah Amos/July 01/11
National agenda in balance over murder indictments/By: Duraid Al Baik/July 01/11
Syria’s partition could crack Lebanon/By Michael Young/July 01/11
The cabinet and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon/By: Hazem al-Amin,/July 01/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 01/11
Bellemare: Investigations Still Ongoing, Prosecutor Can Submit Additional Indictments At Any Stage/Naharnet
Clinton Says Indictment Important Milestone Toward Justice, Calls for Calm/Naharnet
Mustaqbal Bloc Says Policy Statement ‘Trap for Lebanon’/Naharnet
March 14 Warns Govt. against Abandoning STL, Slams Policy Statement 'Vague Wording'/Naharnet
Hizbullah ‘Not Concerned with’ Arrest Warrants, Nasrallah to Make Speech on Saturday/Naharnet
Charbel: Security Apparatuses to Meet Saturday to ‘Coordinate Search’ for Hariri Murder Suspects/Naharnet
Hillary Clinton: Syria running out of time to reform/Haaretz
Tens of thousands take to the streets in fresh Syria protests/Reuters
3 Dead, 12 Hurt as Tens of Thousands Rally across Syria/Naharnet
Activist: Syria kills 2 protesting after funerals/AP
Clinton: U.S. engagement of Muslim Brotherhood not new policy/Haaretz
UN Renews Mandate of Peacekeepers on Golan Heights/VOA
Hezbollah indictments in Lebanon could ripple through the region/CNN
Profile: Former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri/BBC
Failing to move Russia, EU and US slam Syria at UN/Reuters
Lebanon's Justice Delayed/WSJ
Shadow Government: Countering Syria's Lebanese power play/Foreign Policy
Spain to fund health, environment projects/The Daily Star
Syria: US presses for opposition dialogue with Assad/The Guardian
Policy statement emerges ahead of deadline/The Daily Star
Embassy Row/Washington Times
STL delegation plans Syria visit to submit list of suspects: source/The Daily Star
Lebanon Interior Minister Names Four UN Suspects Indicted in Hariri Murder/Bloomberg
Jumblat: Justice Should Not Fall Victim to International Agendas/Naharnet
Connelly: Prosperity of Region Growing Increasingly Tied to Political, Economic Reform/Naharnet

Bellemare: Investigations Still Ongoing, Prosecutor Can Submit Additional Indictments At Any Stage
Naharnet /Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has welcomed the June 28 decision of STL’s pre-trial judge to confirm the indictment that he filed regarding the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri. “The decision of the Pre-Trial Judge (Daniel Fransen) represents an important milestone as it is the first independent judicial review of the work of the Office of the Prosecutor,” the OTP said in a statement on Friday. “The confirmation of the indictment is only a second step in the judicial process. The Office of the Prosecutor’s investigations are still ongoing and work continues to be ready for trial. The Prosecutor can submit additional indictments to the Pre-Trial Judge at any stage,” the OTP noted.
The confirmed indictment is the “result of strong teamwork and dedication in the Office of the Prosecutor and countless hours of investigative work,” Bellemare’s office said, adding that “this result could not have been achieved without the support and assistance of the Lebanese authorities.”  “It reflects, above all, the continued commitment of the Lebanese people to put an end to impunity in Lebanon,” the OTP went on to say. Bellemare also thanked the Lebanese people and the families of the victims for “their patience and hopes that this confirmation will renew their confidence in our resolve to uncover the truth.” “Bringing the accused to justice will require adherence to the rule of law, the continued cooperation of the Lebanese authorities, and support of the international community,” the OTP stressed.

Hizbullah ‘Not Concerned with’ Arrest Warrants, Nasrallah to Make Speech on Saturday
Naharnet /Hizbullah considers itself “not concerned with” arrest warrants that were issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon against four Hizbullah members, sources close to the Shiite party said. While the group refused to comment on the indictment, the sources told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Friday that the court is “politicized and used by the United States to serve the Jewish entity.” Unlike what is being reported, the four members do not have leadership positions, the sources said. They are Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hassan Aneissy, known as Hassan Issa, and Assad Sabra. “Two of them are Hizbullah members but the other two are only supporters,” the sources told the newspaper.
But Badreddine is reportedly a high-ranking Hizbullah fighter linked to the 1983 truck bombings at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait. He is the brother-in-law of slain Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh. Hizbullah’s al-Manar television reported on Thursday that the indictment’s content proved the court “is politicized.”The party’s chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has also denounced the court as a conspiracy by the U.S. and Israel and said last year that the group "will cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest its members. Nasrallah will make a televised speech at 8:30 pm Saturday to announce his stance from the indictment. According to As Safir newspaper, Hizbullah is waiting for the procedures after the release of the indictment to ponder its next step. The party has received information that the STL hasn’t put details of the evidence in the file of the indictment and the arrest warrants that it delivered to General Prosecutor Saeed Mirza on Thursday.

Clinton Says Indictment Important Milestone Toward Justice, Calls for Calm
Naharnet/U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised on Thursday the release of the indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as an important milestone toward ending a period of impunity for political violence in Lebanon. “The confirmation of the indictments by the pre-trial judge and their delivery by the Special Tribunal to the Lebanese authorities is an important milestone toward justice and ending a period of impunity for political violence in Lebanon,” Clinton said in a statement. She urged the Lebanese government “to meet its obligations under international law to support” the court that is set to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected killers. Clinton also called on all Lebanese parties to promote calm and continue to respect the tribunal. While stressing that its work is “legitimate and necessary,” Clinton said in her statement that the STL “represents a chance for Lebanon to move beyond its long history of political violence and to achieve the future of peace and stability that the Lebanese people deserve.”“Those who oppose the Special Tribunal seek to create a false choice between justice and stability. Lebanon, like any country, needs and deserves both,” she added

March 14 Warns Govt. against Abandoning STL, Slams Policy Statement 'Vague Wording'
Naharnet/The March 14 forces welcomed Thursday the confirmed indictment submitted earlier in the day by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to the Lebanese authorities, noting that “the event in itself reveals an important side of the truth in the murder of (ex-)PM Rafik Hariri and his companions and all the martyrs.”
The confirmation of the indictment that was submitted to the Lebanese authorities, along with an unspecified number of arrest warrants, is apt to “place Lebanon on the course of justice,” the March 14 general-secretariat said in a statement following an emergency meeting. The March 14 forces vowed “before the martyrs and all the Lebanese” that they “will remain loyal to the path of independence, sovereignty, freedom, dignity and democracy.” They also stressed that justice should not be in a confrontation with any Lebanese community, noting that “the rule of justice is targeting individuals, not a certain community.”On the other hand, the March 14 forces warned the new government against “dereliction in shouldering its responsibilities and commitments to the STL and its rulings,” calling for an “unconditional, direct cooperation concerning the tribunal’s requests, especially regarding the indictment’s requirements.”
“March 14 stresses that the vague wording of the STL clause in the ministerial Policy Statement is rejected and will not succeed in bluffing the tribunal or the international community,” the general-secretariat said in the statement, stressing that “stability can only be protected through justice and a just State.”

Mustaqbal Bloc Says Policy Statement ‘Trap for Lebanon’
Naharnet/The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc said on Friday that the accusations issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the indictment in the 2005 murder of ex-premier Rafik Hariri target the accused people and not their sects or parties. MP Mohammed Kabbara, who read the bloc’s statement after a meeting it held in Qoreitem, said the STL clause in the policy statement means that the cabinet disavowed itself from its international commitments. “The policy statement is a trap for Lebanon to put it in confrontation with the international community,” Kabbara said. He added: “The indictment moved Lebanon into a new stage. It expresses the right of Lebanese to achieve the justice they aim for.”
The statement said the bloc has “previously warned the government and its PM (Najib Miqati) against disavowing itself from (its commitment to the) international tribunal.”
Al-Mustaqbal bloc announced that it will withhold its vote of confidence from the cabinet.

Connelly: Prosperity of Region Growing Increasingly Tied to Political, Economic Reform
Naharnet /U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly voiced on Friday her country’s support to the movements of democracy in the region, adding that the U.S. is prepared to assist those who step up to solve the problems in Lebanon and the Middle East. She said during a U.S. Embassy celebration of the U.S. Independence Day: “Independence is something that must be constantly renewed and refreshed to insure that whatever government is elected truly represents the legitimate will of the people it represents.”
“We will stand firmly behind our core principles,” she stressed. “The lessons of Tunisia aren’t necessarily applicable in Egypt or Libya or Bahrain or Yemen or Syria, but the core principles of democratic reform remain our fundamental priority,” she continued. “We oppose violence and repression. We support freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, the equality of men and women under the law, and the right to choose your own leaders. We will support the political and economic reforms needed to meet the aspirations of the people of the Middle East,” the ambassador said. “Future prosperity for the region is becoming increasingly tied to the implementation of key political and economic reforms,” Connelly noted.
“The people of the region need to find ways to hold their governments accountable to the obligation to respond to the needs and desires of their peoples,” she added.
“Those leaders who cling to the status quo may be able to restrain the aspirations of their people for a little while, but not forever,” she remarked.
Addressing Lebanon, the ambassador said: “Lebanon is brimming with talent. Its rising generation of young people has the potential to achieve so much, and we need to give them the chance to do so. “This is why it is all the more inspirational to see Lebanese finding success across all sectors in spite of the systemic difficulties they face,” Connelly stated.
“The U.S. is ready to support those who step up to solve the problems that we and you face. But America cannot solve all these problems. America did not bring out people on the streets of Tunis or Cairo or Sanaa or Daraa,” she said. “What we all need is a real vision for that future that comes from each of you, from governments that must deliver on their promises, from civil society and business leaders who must build their people up, and of course, from the people themselves,” she stressed.
“For our part, we will endeavor to help the people of the region so they can one day describe their governments as, to quote President Abraham Lincoln, ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people,’” she concluded.

Another ticking bomb for Assad: Hariri Tribunal heads for Damascus
DEBKAfile Special Report
June 30, 2011
The Lebanese capital was not the only first stop for a delegation of the UN-backed Special Tribal for Lebanon investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Thursday, June 30, the group arrived in Beirut and presented four arrest warrants against top Hizballah officers. Its next destination may be Damascus for the submission of a second batch of warrants against Syrian officials suspected of controlling the Hizballah hit-team in the commission of the murder.
The Lebanese authorities were given 30 days to execute the arrest warrants. Hizballah has offered no response to the indictments but security has been reinforced on the streets of Beirut.
The three wanted Hizballah operatives have been named as Sami Issa and Salim Ayyash, top officers of Hizballah's security apparatus and close associates of the organization's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, and Mustafa Badreddine, a relative of its late commander, Imad Moughniyeh who died in a bombing attack in Damascus. The fourth is unknown.
debkafile's counter-terror sources report the Syrian officials most often mentioned as wanted by the tribunal are Gen. Asif Showqat, brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad, former chief of Syrian military intelligence and currently Syrian chief of staff; and Rostom Ghazale, the Syrian strongman behind the Lebanese government at the time of the murder. Today, he is Assad's personal arm in suppressing the uprising against his regime in southern and eastern Syria. For six years, Lebanon has limped from one political crisis to another under the polarizing shadow cast by the assassination of Lebanon's leading Sunni politician, Rafiq Hariri along with 23 other victims.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established to probe the crime and establish guilt, so closing the books on an assassination whose repercussions spread far and wide up until the present day. The court's investigations have been fought every step of the way by Hizballah, Syria and Iran.
The pro-Western government led by his son, Saad Hariri was overthrown last January after he refused to renounce the court. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then stepped in on behalf of the Shiite Hizballah, Tehran's proxy. He ruled any STL indictment "null and void" as the work of a tool of the West and Israel for discrediting Hizballah and breaking up the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah alliance. Tehran and Damascus then joined hands to replace the Hariri government with a puppet regime headed by Hizballah's nominee Najib Miqati. After six months of wrangling, he managed earlier this month to form a "unity" government which put Hizballah and its Iranian and Syrian backers firmly in the saddle. Saad Hariri opted to stay in opposition. After the tribunal's sealed indictment was submitted Thursday to Lebanon's prosecutor general, Miqati gave a news conference in which he clearly played for time to avoid obeying the arrest warrants and extraditing the four Hizballah suspects to Holland.
There was no final word yet on who killed the former prime minister, Miqati declared: "The indictments are not verdicts," he said, and all suspects are innocent until proved guilty.
However a great deal of water has passed under Middle East bridges since Miqati was picked for the task of invalidating the international tribunal. Today, the "Arab Spring" is venting its fury in Syria, leaving Tehran's closest ally, Bashar Assad, hanging onto power by a thread in his own country.
Amid the storm of protest against his regime, the Syrian ruler may decide to bar the STL team's entry to Damascus and so dodge an indictment inculpating his henchmen as the prime movers in the Hariri murder, a step that would reduce Hizballah to the role of accessories. The impact of this turn of events on Assad's already shaky regime would be explosive, say debkafile's Middle East and military sources - on a par with the Hariri assassination's destabilizing effect on Lebanon in the past six years. If, as expected, Damascus and Beirut flout the tribunal's indictments and refuse to extradite the suspects and witnesses named therein, they will lay themselves open to the court's application to the UN Security Council for sanctions against both their governments to enforce their compliance.
Neither Russia nor China will have grounds for voting against such motions without appearing to support state-sponsored terrorism and political assassination.
Therefore, if Assad is not toppled by his own people, he and his close family and helpers may find themselves in the dock on both those charges. One way or another, he appears to be heading to join the list of Arab rulers targeted by the US and Europe for removal.

The cabinet and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Hazem al-Amin,/Now Lebanon
 July 1, 2011
It is necessary to remain cautious regarding the cabinet’s reaction to the promulgation of the indictment, but this does not prevent one from expressing preliminary satisfaction vis-ŕ-vis the early indications of the position. Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s statement that the accused are innocent until proven guilty reveals an underlying acknowledgment of the indictment and a readiness to cooperate with it. Indeed, the presumption of innocence presupposes the respect of judicial procedures, which puts the March 14 coalition in front of a new challenge that forces it to abide by a certain level of pragmatism in which its leaders are apparently deficient. This is proven by the fact that the statement of the March 14 General Secretariat was devoid of any indication regarding the positive substance of Mikati’s words.
Caution is certainly necessary and Hezbollah’s silence certainly indicates that it is up to something. It is also necessary to wait for the actual steps subsequent to the indictment with regard to carrying out the arrest warrants, but this calls for a long course of careful follow-up. In other words, the cabinet should be given praise when due and criticized when due. Mikati should be told that we will stand by him when he abides [by the indictment] and that we will confront him when he does not. The course is still long and it is still too early to declare war on the cabinet.
Following up on the case requires a proportionate amount of perseverance and not taking hasty positions. This is how one should counter Hezbollah’s silence, Mikati’s Taqiyya (dissimilation of one’s true beliefs) and Speaker Nabih Berri’s eloquence. In a little while, the cabinet will be asked about the arrest warrants and its efforts to comply with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s decisions. A little later, trials will probably start and will predictably be held in absentia. We should keep an eye on the performance of attorneys and the alternate cases, the respect of which - the STL believes – will add credibility to the tribunal’s action, such as the case filed by Major General Jamil As-Sayyed. Other indictments will probably be issued – and this is even likely – and they will probably include new names. All this process does not call for fast reactions.
Michel Aoun will likely be used in the plan to lure the March 14 coalition into tilting at windmills, and Wiam Wahhab will very likely come up with stances and statements, the kind of which we have grown accustomed to. However, the case is about something else entirely. It is about Hezbollah’s silence, Mikati’s Taqiyya and Jamil As-Sayyed’s alternate action.
The latest statement of the March 14 coalition does not allude that the confrontation is planned to be a long-term thing and that there is a wish to pitting the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in a confrontation against the cabinet.
The process is a ling one and it should be a long-term thing as well. A judicial procedure cannot be transformed into a political condemnation before sentences are issued.
Meanwhile, political enmity should be dissociated from the STL’s course as it is necessary to find other headlines for the confrontation. These may include illegitimate weapons, the relation with Syria and the international community and daily livelihood issues.
The cabinet’s cooperation with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon should abide by a different logic than daily bickering.
*This article is a translation of the original, which was published on the NOW Arabic site on Friday July 1, 2011.

UN Names Four Suspects in Killing of Former President Hariri, Lebanon Says
By Massoud A. Derhally
- Jul 1, 2011./Bloomberg
Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said four suspects were named in an indictment filed by a United Nations tribunal investigating the killing of former premier Rafiq Hariri.
Arrest warrants were issued for Lebanese citizens Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hassan Oneisseh and Assad Sabra, Charbel said in a phone interview today. He didn’t provide further information about the suspects. Lebanon’s LBC news channel and other local media outlets had identified the four men yesterday, when the indictment was delivered by court officials to Lebanon’s attorney general. Its contents haven’t been publicly disclosed.
Badreddine and Ayyash are both members of the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, one of the main backers of the government formed last month by Najib Mikati, according to LBC. Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim el-Moussawi wasn’t available for comment today. The Shiite group’s Al Manar television channel said the indictment proves that the investigation and tribunal are politicized. The affiliation of the other two suspects was not clear.
Hezbollah and its allies brought down the U.S.-backed government of Rafiq’s son Saad Hariri in January by walking out of the Cabinet in protest at government support for the UN tribunal.
Hezbollah and its backer Syria deny any connection with Hariri’s killing. The Shiite movement’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, last year threatened reprisals against anyone who tried to arrest members of his group in connection with the case. The tribunal’s investigators were attacked at a clinic in a southern suburb of Beirut in October while collecting information.
U.S. Marines
Badreddine is a Hezbollah military commander and brother- in-law of Imad Mughniyeh, who was blamed for the 1983 attack on the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, and who died in a car-bomb in Syria in 2008, LBC said. The UN tribunal, based in the Netherlands, said yesterday that it won’t comment on the identity of anyone named in the indictment, to help Lebanese authorities fulfil their obligation to arrest the accused within a month. Rafiq Hariri was killed along with 22 others by a roadside bomb in Beirut in 2005. His death led to street protests by millions of Lebanese that forced Syrian troops to quit the country after almost three decades.

Clinton: U.S. engagement of Muslim Brotherhood not new policy
U.S. secretary of state clarifies allegations that U.S. is increasing ties with the Islamist group, saying U.S. continuing 'approach of limited contacts'. By Natasha Mozgovaya/Haaretz/United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied allegations that the United States is increasing contact with the Muslim Brotherhood in a press conference in Hungary Thursday to, saying that U.S. policy has not changed toward the Islamist group. Clinton said in a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest that the Obama Administration “is continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that has existed on and off for about five or six years”. The U.S. secretary of state added that “we believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt, that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency.” Clinton therefore clarified that the Obama administration welcomes dialogue, but only “with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us”.
Clinton stressed that all U.S. contact with the group is to be based upon democratic principles, “and especially a commitment to nonviolence, respect for minority rights, and the full inclusion of women in any democracy”. The U.S. secretary of state made clear that this is not a new policy, saying that “the importance here is that this is not a new policy, but it is one that we are reengaging in because of the upcoming elections.” However, she emphasized that “there will be certain expectations set and certain messages delivered, and we hope that the move toward democracy that is taking place in Egypt will actually result in the kind of inclusive, participatory political system that we would like to see”.

Tens of thousands take to the streets in fresh Syria protests
By Reuters /Tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets nationwide on Friday shouting that President Bashar Assad should "leave", extending a protest wave despite a military assault on restive northwestern towns, witnesses and activists said. Demonstrations ranged from the suburbs of Damascus to the Lebanese border, the desert bordering Iraq and Idlib province, where tank assaults on hill villages near Turkey killed three civilians overnight, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Right. That raised the death toll to at least 14 villagers in the last two days, it said. "Bashar get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a YouTube video taken by a resident. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that Syria is running out of time and will face increasingly organized opposition if it does not undertake reform.
Speaking at a news conference, she also said she was disheartened by reports of fresh violence in recent days and that the Syrian government's decision to allow one opposition meeting in Damascus was not sufficient.

Hillary Clinton: Syria running out of time for reform
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells news conference recent outburst of violence in Syria disheartening; Says regime will face increasingly organized opposition if it does not reform.
By Reuters, The Associated Press and DPA
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that Syria is running out of time and will face increasingly organized opposition if it does not undertake reform.
Speaking at a news conference, she also said she was disheartened by reports of fresh violence in recent days and that the Syrian government's decision to allow one opposition meeting in Damascus was not sufficient. Hundreds of critics of President Bashar Assad met Monday in the Syrian capital for the first time since the start of three-month uprising against his rule, but the meeting was denounced by some activists as a government-sanctioned ruse to give legitimacy to the regime. On Thursday, Hundreds of Syrians took to the streets in a pro-democracy protest in the country's second-largest city Aleppo, before they were dispersed by security forces, activists told the German Press Agency DPA. The head of the Syrian League for Human Rights, Abdel Karim Rihawi, said at least two people were wounded in the protests. Omar Idlbi, a Syrian activist living in northern Lebanon told DPA that several protests were staged in Aleppo on Thursday. He added that security forces dispersed the protests using batons. "Aleppo is a key city and protests in such a city are very helpful for the Syrian Revolution," another activist who requested to remain anonymous, said. Lebanese radio reported that pro-government protesters were chanting slogans supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad in Aleppo as well, holding a counter-rally as anti-government protesters demonstrated. The protests Thursday came after the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook group called for anti-regime demonstrations to "light the spark of the revolution" in what it called “the Aleppo Volcano.” The Syrian uprising, which started on March 15, has left more than 1,300 protesters dead and 10,000 detained nationwide, according to rights
groups and medics. Hundreds of security personnel have also been killed.
.
The cult of Bashar al-Assad
By:Joseph Willits
guardian.co.uk, /Friday 1 July 2011 11
The events now happening in Syria seemed a remote prospect when I arrived to teach English at an international school in Homs last year. Even when regime change came to Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, few expected anything of the kind to occur in Syria. Looking t my students, I could scarcely imagine them as revolutionaries. They seemed so bound to the 40-year-old Ba'athist ideology, emasculated by the cult of Bashar al-Assad while monitored by social sensibilities. In school each day, we pledged our allegiance to Ba'athism, to Assad and to a sense of unique Arab nationalism. One line of the national anthem always stuck with me: "Our den of Arabism is a sacred sanctuary."
Yes, Syria was a sanctuary. In this sanctuary's educational institutions dissent was frowned upon and a culture of fear flourished. What might revolution mean to these teenage Syrians, and how would they respond to it?
On the surface, for many of my students it would mean nothing. They were mostly from the top shelves of Syrian society – Alawite, Christian and Muslim – the products of politics and business rather than defined by sectarianism. Their hopes would lie mostly within the system and for them the struggle for bread was an alien prospect. A year later, though, the profiles of similar young Syrians are all over Facebook – some frightened, others more hopeful, proud, naively and deliberately deluded. Sometimes a black screen replaces a photo of them with friends, for anonymity, for mourning, or just out of caution, wisely hedging their bets. Other profiles feature a "pray for Homs" poster, or a picture of the president himself.
Their comments range from tentative to accusatory – directed at the "terrorists" who are said to be destroying Assad's Syria. One compares the sounds of shooting with the celebratory sounds of Eid in the early hours. Another remarks: "I simply cannot sleep."
Those who originally posted controversial, apparently anti-Assad sentiment, have withdrawn in fright. Their Facebook protests have become dormant and their daily facade is basketball, friends and Ba'athism. Their resistance, however, remains.
I would never have imagined, while teaching in Homs, and even in the beginning of protests in the city, that my students would become directly affected. Like the majority of my students, Ameen al-Khateeb was a declared fan of the president and his wife on Facebook, and proud to be Syrian.
"In Bashar we trust" was a dictum that resonated for him, yet the bullets of the regime hit his school bus, killing his 10-year-old sister. Still he appears loyal to the president, as do many others, but a wariness of online activity and dissent has encouraged more engagement in street protests.
The culture of fear, which generations of Syrians have grown up with, can never be underestimated. Assad's speech on 20 June, heaping blame upon foreign "saboteurs", angered so many, prompting more protests, yet reassured others with familiar statements. Those who were brave protested on the streets; those who were fearful maintained their silence, perhaps waiting for the tide to blow over.
I questioned an Alawite friend of mine about the situation in Homs when serious protests first began. "You know we live in a peaceful country," she said, accusing al-Jazeera of heading a media ambush against the regime. Her words, like those in Assad's speech, and so many I knew in Homs, simply echoed one another and the party line. I knew Syria was peaceful; a wonderful example of a prison camp fit for tourists, teachers and Lawrence of Arabia wannabes – and all overlooked by images of Assad in various poses.
As I walked daily around the streets my eyes were always drawn to the posters of the regime's propaganda, mesmerised myself by the cult of Assad. I quickly learned the boundaries of conversations about the president.
My joking insinuation that Assad could be my lookalike if I only had a moustache sparked controversy. Foreigners are told to be careful when mentioning the president, since any hint of disrespect can be construed as mocking and spiteful. In an attempt to relate to and share with my students, I told them that both Asma al-Assad (the president's wife) and I attended King's College London. This was met with deathly silence – as if I had been trying to put myself on a par with her.
In a sense, however, I felt that the cult of Assad disguised the real issue – that Syria was a society made up of various and contrasting social sensibilities, heavily exploited by the Ba'athist regime.
In Damascus, over the past five years, an arts scene had begun to flourish, and yet a performance of Romeo and Juliet was censored at a school in Homs: on stage, the loving couple looked at one another gormlessly, their kiss having been taken away from them. In this case it wasn't Ba'athism stifling expression, but society itself.
Through education the regime could both pander to social sensibilities and alienate the more socially conservative elements. Those who displayed symbols of faith, contrary to the regime's secular image, could become targets. A colleague of mine (choosing to wear the hijab, against the wishes of her exiled father who recognised the implications of this symbol) became the subject of gossip, initiated by the school itself.
Fears of the Muslim Brotherhood and paranoia stemming from the 1982 massacre in Hama were seemingly ingrained into the Ba'athist machine. Students are still being taught to fear repercussions. In Hama in 1982, internet dissent was not an issue. In Homs today, teenage Syrians are logging on, sometimes as themselves, sometimes as products of the regime – mostly we shall never know which.
I cannot condemn those who put pictures of Assad on to Facebook, whether out of pride or self-preservation, nor can I demand that the revolutionaries of whatever cause come clean and stand tall. I was there, among them. I know how it feels.

Activist: Syria kills 2 protesting after funerals
The Associated Press
Updated: 07/01/2011
BEIRUT—Syrian forces opened fire at funerals for slain political protesters, a human rights activist said Sunday, leaving two more people dead as Syria tries to subdue weeks of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad.  The two were killed Saturday in al-Kaswa, a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Security forces opened fire when the funerals for protesters killed on Friday turned into protests themselves, he said.
Footage posted online by activists showed dozens of people in a Saturday funeral procession for three of the dead in al-Kaswa, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great!" and "Bashar, get out!" oneperson was also killed Saturday in Damascus' Barzeh neighborhood and two were killed in the village of al-Quseir, near the Lebanese border, Abdul-Rahman said.
Hundreds of Syrians, some with gunshot wounds, crossed into neighboring Lebanon late last week fleeing the crackdown. The new arrivals joined thousands of other Syrians who fled to Lebanon in May and early June. The military's recent sweep through northwestern Syria, where armed resistance flared in early June, also has sent more than 11,700 refugees fleeing across the border to refugee camps in Turkey. Syrian activists said 20 people were killed in Friday demonstrations across Syria, including two children aged 12 and 13.
The opposition says some 1,400 people have been killed in recent months as the government has cracked down on the movement demanding an end to four decades of autocratic Assad family rule. Syria's military spokesman, meanwhile, said in a CNN television interview that 1,300 members of security forces have been killed in the months-long unrest, during which the government has repeatedly said its forces have been attacked by "armed gangs." Maj. Gen. Riad Haddad's statement, like the reports by anti-regime activists, could not be independently verified, since Damascus has banned foreign reporters from Syria and put restrictions on local journalists' reporting.

A Talking Cure for Syria's Pain? A British MP and a U.S. Congressman Visit Assad
By: Catherine Mayer/Time
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/06/29/a-talking-cure-for-syrias-pain-a-british-mp-and-a-u-s-congressman-visit-assad/
"Visits to Syria have become a vexed issue. Reacting to a visit to Syria by U.S. senators in December, a White House spokesman said that 'you can take a tough line all you want but the Syrians have already won a PR victory' simply because visits give 'legitimacy to a government that undermines the cause of democracy in the region'."
That is an extract from a 2007 article by Brooks Newmark, a U.S.-born member of the U.K. parliament. He disagreed with the Bush administration's line on Syria, arguing that "any policy which does not seek to engage all parties with strategic interests in the region will founder before it has even begun." Fast forward to June 27 2011. The U.S. is under different leadership and so is Britain, with Newmark's Conservative party leading a coalition. The Arab Spring is redrawing the Middle East in profound, and profoundly unpredictable, ways. And, in a photograph released by the Syrian news agency SANA, Newmark, now a senior government whip, tasked with keeping discipline among his colleagues in parliament, sits in a chair opposite Bashar Assad in Damascus, in what was only the Syrian president's second meeting with a western lawmaker since he responded to the popular uprising in his country with untrammeled brutality. The first took place one day earlier, with U.S. congressman Dennis Kucinich. During both encounters, Assad "reviewed the recent events taking place in Syria and the advanced steps achieved in the comprehensive reform program," reported SANA. "For their part Kucinich and Newmark expressed keenness on Syria's security and stability as an essential pillar in the region."
That the Syrian government would do its best to spin these visits into exactly the sort of PR victory the White House spokesman feared seems inevitable. Kucinich appears to have gifted the regime ample material, holding a press conference in Damascus covered by the state news agency which attributed the following sentiment to the maverick Democrat:
President Assad is highly loved and appreciated by the Syrians. What I saw in Syria in terms of the open discussion for change demanded by the people and the desire for national dialogue is a very positive thing.
Kucinich rejected this version of events. His words were "mistranslated," he told the congressional newspaper The Hill in a statement.
Britons still flinch at the 1994 memory of George Galloway, at the time a Labour MP, telling Saddam Hussein "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." (Galloway was captured on film, and was speaking English, but would later claim he was saluting the Iraqi people, not their president.) Critics in Britain were swift to cast Newmark's appearance in Syria as a Galloway moment. "For [Newmark] to turn up in Damascus when the whole world is very concerned about the repression, the deaths, the arrests, the torture, the disappearances for a nice, friendly cup of tea with the Syrian president is absolutely extraordinary," said Labour MP and former Foreign Minister Denis MacShane. "Was he representing the government? Was he paid for to go by the government?" MacShane added that although MPs were free to undertake fact-finding trips "you're less entitled to go when you're on the government payroll." Labour's shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander wrote to Foreign Secretary William Hague for clarification.
That clarification, in a reply from Hague to Alexander and in conversations with Foreign Office sources, indicates that Newmark's road to Damascus diverged sharply from Kucinich's. The two politicians have never met, and their initiatives were unconnected. The State Department has let it be known that Kucinich's Syrian odyssey involved neither contacts with nor support from U.S. officials. Hague, by contrast, explained that although Newmark's trip was private—and funded by the MP—he had liaised with the British government before and during the trip. Hague wrote:
Brooks Newmark went to Damascus in a personal capacity having visited President Assad on previous occasions at his own expense, but informed and consulted me in advance. He paid for his visit himself. My officials met with Mr Newmark and they made clear the steps that the U.K. government thinks the Syrian regime should take. He agreed to reflect this in his conversation with President Assad. I believe it is important that we use all means to convey these messages directly to President Assad.
Newmark issued a brief statement: "I was there in a personal capacity and reiterated the government position that there should be an immediate cessation of violence and a clear path to political reform." He also acknowledged to The Times of London that he understood that his efforts could be co-opted for propaganda. "There is always a risk of that. I want to see an end to violence. We want to see political reform. Anything you can do to stop violence is a good thing. That is all we are doing. To sit back and do nothing is not a solution."
The MP has traveled extensively in the region over a number of years, focusing on getting to know key players not only in Syria but also Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and most recently Yemen. A report in a British mass market newspaper, the Daily Mail, suggested that behind the scenes, diplomats were less than thrilled by Newmark's latest exploit. A source in the Foreign Office disagrees, countering:
If individuals have got long-standing relationships they can use to push the message that Assad's current behavior is outrageous, you can see that as part of the wider international pressure. If we'd been worried that Brooks' trip could give succor to the regime, we'd have said 'excuse me, old chap. That's not helpful'.
Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are divided on the appropriate response to Syria and its embattled and blood-stained leadership. For now, at least, the U.S. and British governments and broad strains of the international community believe in keeping communications channels open, while imposing sanctions on Assad and his officials. It's not that there's much faith in a talking cure—between nations or within Syria, granted a so-called "national dialogue" by Assad that opponents dismiss as a fig leaf to conceal any real moves to reform. It's that the alternatives are unthinkable.
Note by Elias Bejjani: These two officials are not helping the Syrian people, no not at all but instead supporting the butcher and saying to him go on kill and destroy more and more. The American and British people must make both of them accountable. They are mere opportunists who work apparently to serve Al Assad's regfemi's interests. It is very sad that such politicians are still exist.

Analysis: Hassan Nasrallah exposed
By JONATHAN SPYER /Haaretz
07/01/2011 01:00
He had support for fighting Israel, not for killing a mainstream Arab politician.
Despite its unrivaled ability to impose its will on the country, Hezbollah’s legitimacy in the eyes of non-Shi’ite Arabs in Lebanon and beyond has significantly diminished in recent years. The issuing of indictments against four Hezbollah members for the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri will only serve to accelerate and compound this process.
Once, Hezbollah presented itself and was seen as an Arab force concerned above all with making war against Israel. The movement’s ability to avoid humiliating defeat by the Jewish state thrilled Arab publics
The Arab Sunni distrust of Iran and the Shi’ites was briefly trumped.
But this moment did not last. A series of events in the past three years has served to increasingly recast Hezbollah in its original colors – as a sectarian, Shi’ite creation and ally of Iran.
The pivotal moment in this transformation of the movement’s image came when it turned its guns on its domestic Sunni opponents in May 2008. This move was made to protect the boundaries of Hezbollah’s independent military and security infrastructure.
The immediate goal was achieved. But Hezbollah had maintained that its weaponry was for use against Israel alone. Its legitimacy suffered a heavy blow.
This discrepancy between Hezbollah’s matchless ability to impose its will in Lebanon and its declining legitimacy has since increased.
In recent months, the movement’s support for the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, even as it brutally crushed an uprising by the Sunni majority, has further served to tarnish Hezbollah’s reputation. There is widespread fury and disgust among Lebanon’s Sunnis at the reports of possible Hezbollah involvement, alongside Iranian personnel, in crushing the protests.
Once again, the movement’s Achilles’ heel has been the irresolvable contradiction between its pan-Arab pretensions and its practical loyalties to the narrow, mainly Shi’ite, Iran-led bloc.
This contradiction has now been laid bare in its most blatant form.
Hezbollah members, whose guns were proclaimed as serving a notional Arab and Islamic “general will” against Israel, now stand accused of the murder of an iconic Sunni Arab politician from the very heart of the Arab mainstream.
So what is likely to happen? First of all, it is worth remembering that Hezbollah and its allies deliberately brought down the government of Saad Hariri in January in anticipation of precisely this turn of events. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah dismissed the UN tribunal investigating the Hariri killing as a mere tool of American interests. But Hariri’s government was committed to it.
So Hezbollah and its allies toppled the government, and after a period of horse-trading, replaced it with a narrower cabinet consisting only of themselves.
But there are already clear indications of disagreement even within this narrower framework
The drafting committee tasked with preparing the new government’s founding political statement found it hard to reach a consensus on the matter of its attitude toward the Hariri tribunal.
Hezbollah, according to reports, wanted the new government to cut all ties with the tribunal and declare itself in open opposition to what it describes as a “US-Zionist plan.” Newly minted pro-Syrian Prime Minister Najib Mikati evidently baulked at such an unambiguous stance.
The ministerial statement finally approved on Thursday preserves ambiguity. It declares the new government’s commitment to “the implementation of international resolutions, the Palestinian right of return and knowing the truth behind former PM Rafik Hariri’s assassination,” thus avoiding any concrete response on the matter of the indictments.
This solves little. Hezbollah has options, but none of them is particularly good.
At the moment, the accused men – Moustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hasan Ainessi and Asad Sabra – remain at liberty. The Lebanese authorities have 30 days to arrest them. If they do not do so, the tribunal will then make the details of the indictment public and order the suspects to appear before the court.
Hezbollah has the hard power simply to refuse to cooperate with the tribunal, and to prevent by force any attempt to apprehend its members.
Such an action, however, would take the movement yet further down the slippery slope of loss of any legitimacy or consent to its domination of Lebanon, outside of its narrow Shi’ite core. This would leave it dangerously exposed in a changing Arab world.
It could, on the other hand, choose to sacrifice some or all of the accused men. But in this regard, it is worth recalling that the accused are not anonymous, outlying members of Hezbollah. Moustafa Badreddine is a brother-in-law of the slain military leader Imad Mughniyeh. And sacrificing movement members would in any case look like surrender and humiliation to a body that Hezbollah has specifically designated as an enemy.
Whichever path Hezbollah adopts, it is now confronting the contradiction at the heart of its project. The movement has sought to both serve a narrow Shi’ite, pro-Iranian and Syrian interest, and simultaneously to pose as the sword of all the Arabs and Muslims.
It will have the option in the months ahead of holding its domination of Lebanon by force, in the face of the indictments. But if it does so, the broader project for which it was brought into being will be very severely tarnished. Hezbollah’s hard power will yet more clearly be revealed as in the sole service of the Shi’ites and Iran – and directed against the Sunni regional majority.
The expected furious denunciations of the tribunal as an American- Zionist plot will not serve to disguise this reality.

Syria's Minorities Fear Sectarian Split Amid Protests
by Deborah Amos/NPR
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=227411June 30, 2011
In Syria, a four-month protest movement and a government crackdown have strained the country's ethnic and sectarian mix.
The government and military command are dominated by Alawites, a minority sect that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The protesters are mostly Sunnis and ethnic Kurds.
Syrian officials have warned of sectarian war if the protests continue. That message has spread fear among Syria's minority communities — in particular, Syrian Christians.
Concern About 'The Morning After'
Ghasan Maadi is worried. He lives in Bab Touma, a Christian neighborhood in central Damascus with cobblestones and church bells. His shop is tiny, the size of a closet, but he's always made a living until now.
"The people are afraid now, walking in the streets," Maadi says. "They stay most of the time in their houses; they are afraid of spending too much money now."
He's convinced that protesters are Muslim extremists and wants no part of their demands "because they are destroying the Syria in this way," he says.
Syria's Christians, about 10 percent of the population, have always been a confident minority. Crosses are worn openly, and Christians have a tacit political alliance with the more powerful Alawites who dominate the government and the military. The regime counts on Christian support.
Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East specialist, says the sectarian divide is real.
"Millions of Syrians who have not actively joined the protesters, even though they are unhappy with the authoritarian Syrian regime, they are terrified about the morning after."
State And Private TV Send Competing Messages
On one afternoon, a Greek Orthodox priest performs a wedding for a happy bride and groom. But the Rev. Gabriel Daoud says his parish is nervous. He believes the protest movement is anti-Christian with aims to undo Syria's fiercely secular system. But he does acknowledge that some in his community have joined the protests.
"There are a few Christians, but they are individuals. They want to push democracy; they want to push human rights," Daoud says. "I don't believe in them."
What do Syrians believe? Activists say they are fighting for democracy and reform — but pro-government supporters point to other messages. They cite examples like the Syrian Muslim cleric who broadcasts from a private Saudi satellite channel. He preaches sectarian hate, they say, and some protesters have chanted his name.
Activist Assaad Al-Achi says Syrian state TV has a part in defining the protest movement as Islamist.
"They do incite sectarianism sometimes by really trying to show that this is an uprising by the Sunni fanaticals," Achi says.
Achi moved to Qatar recently for work. His family is in Syria and he's disturbed by what he sees on state TV.
"People who can see what the Syrian TV is doing, they are laughing at it," he says. "They are actually making videos ... to just mock it. But, it is, at the same time, inciting — I mean it's creating hard-liners, I guess."
'A Slow Burn'
There are hard-liners on both sides, says Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. He says four months of protests have created a divide.
"I don't think it intended to do that. I think the protests are trying to remain very nationalist and very focused on democratic demands, but once people start getting shot, issues of community and identity certainly are triggered," Salem says.
In a country that has been stable and calm for 30 years, the past four months have been shattering, Salem says. Now, all sides agree it is time for change, and Syrians are aware of the risks.
"People in Syria do not want a civil war. People in Syria do not want to end up like Iraq, or Lebanon or Libya. This is a very, very serious crisis," he says. "Sectarian tensions are very high, tensions between elements of the population and the government; the government has apparently lost, on and off, control of certain towns and cities. It is maybe a slow burn, but it is a decided burn."
A slow burn by design, says Salem, by those trying to push for change without pushing the country into chaos.

National agenda in balance over murder indictments
Political dispensation as anxious as common people
By Duraid Al Baik, Associate Editor
Published: 00:00 July 1, 2011
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/lebanon/national-agenda-in-balance-over-murder-indictments-1.831062
Dubai: Even one tonne of TNT, which had been set to blow up Rafik Hariri's motorcade on February 14, was not enough to wipe out the legacy of the man and his ability to influence the political developments in Lebanon and in the region for years to come.
The criminals, who perpetrated the assassination failed to imagine the impact of this assassination compared to the other assassinations in the past 30 years including one of a prime minister and two presidents of the nation.
Political assassinations, however, had become the norm in a country which once prided itself as being an oasis of democracy among dictatorships and totalitarian Arab regimes.
In an immediate reaction to the crime, part of the population accused the Syrians, who were in control of the security. Syria kept its army in Lebanon after it was invited to end the civil war some 30 years ago.
Although Hariri himself was not very keen to see the Syrians out of the country, a group of Lebanese felt that the assassination would have be the right moment to force the Syrians out of the country.
For the family and supporters of Hariri, the man was killed because he failed to express his protest against Syrian pressure, to the extension of Emile Lahoud as president of the country. They explained that Hariri bowed to Syrian pressure and passed the extension of Lahoud and resigned, a reason that is seen by some as enough to accuse Syria's involvement in the crime.
Syria has categorically denied any involvement in the assassination and decided to pull out its troops in a move that Damascus felt would help ease tensions with the neighbour.
The move, however, did not help much and for the first time, the international community had to form a court to investigate and try the suspects.
The UN reasoned its unprecedented move as a bid to end unchecked political assassinations in the country. Right from an early stage there had been a tremendous public support for the investigation. Most of the population, even those who disagreed with him politically, admitted that Hariri had the best interests of the Lebanese people in mind, regardless of their sect or political leanings.
He used part of the fortune he made while working in Saudi Arabia to revamp the educational sector and sent more than 30,000 youngsters to universities in Lebanon and around the world to pursue gainful education that would help in the rebuilding of the country.
His philanthropic establishment had never differentiated between sects and judged students according to their performance and ability to do better for Lebanon. Nuhad Mashnouk, political analyst believes that no civil war will happen in Lebanon even if the court indicted Hezbollah members in the assassination.
"Sa'ad Hariri, the son of the assassinated leader will not allow the nation to slip into another civil war of which Rafik Hariri has invested life and wealth to stop," Mashnouk told Gulf News, last year, adding that, solving the mystery about the killing was vital.
"After which, the Hariri family, the Future Movement and its allies will be able to discuss any other issue," he said.
Assassination: Profiles of accused
Following are profiles of those mentioned in the indictment. According to the indictment, Mustafa Badr Al Deen masterminded and supervised the plot to assassinate the Lebanese statesman while, Ayyash is alleged to have headed the cell that carried out the assassination.
Al Deen: the brother in-law of assassinated Hezbollah commander Emad Mughniyah. Al Deen replaced Mugniyah as Hezbollah's chief operations officer after he was killed in a mysterious explosion in Syria on February 12, 2008. The 50-year old is a member of the Hezbollah Shura Council. He was arrested in Kuwait in 1990, broke out of prison and escaped to the Iranian Embassy in Kuwait, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards escorted him to Lebanon. Al Deen, also known as Elias Saab was the trainer of Mugniyah in "Force 17" in sabotage and bombs construction.
Salim Ayyash Salim Ayyash, 48, is accused of leading the cell which executed the assassination of Hariri. He holds a US passport and is a volunteer with the Lebanon's Civil Defence.
Asad Sabra" No information is available at this time.
Hassan Ainessi: No information is available at this time.

UN Renews Mandate of Peacekeepers on Golan Heights
Larry Freund | The United Nations/VOA
The U.N. Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution renewing the mandate for U.N. peacekeeping troops on the Golan Heights, between Syria and Israel.
After several days of behind the scenes talks, the Security Council scheduled a formal meeting to consider a resolution renewing the mandate for six months of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, created in 1974 to maintain the ceasefire on the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria.
Again, the council retreated behind closed doors for further talks before finally voting publicly and unanimously to extend the mandate for the peacekeepers.
The delay suggested the disagreement among the council’s five veto-wielding permanent members. The United States, Britain and France have pressed for additional language in the resolution on the violence within Syria. Russia and China rejected the idea, calling the situation in Syria an internal matter.
Britain’s representative Philip Parham said Syria’s government has met legitimate demands for reform with brute force. “The situation in Syria is not sustainable," he said. "If we genuinely want to see an end to the violence, this council should send a clear message underlining our collective concern.”
In contrast, Russia’s representative, Alexander Pankin, told the Security Council the resolution it approved simply extended the mandate of the U.N. force. He suggested that is as far as the council should go.
“The resolution adopted today, of which Russia was a co-sponsor, is technical in nature and does not have any relation to the developments in the political situation in Syria or Israel," said Pankin. "Syria is not on the agenda of the Security Council because it is not a threat to international peace and security.”
For his part, Syria’s representative was critical of countries that he said had attempted to force the Security Council into issues that are none of its business.
Speaking for the United States, ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo was sharply critical of Syria’s government for brutally repressing the Syrian people.
“The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy," said DiCarlo. "The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protest. It must release political prisoners and stop unjust arrest and torture.”
The resolution adopted by the Security Council expresses grave concern at what it calls the “serious events” on May 15 and June 5 that its says put the long-held ceasefire in jeopardy. Palestinian demonstrators had tried to break through the ceasefire line and were confronted by Israeli troops.
The resolution calls for the parties to exercise maximum restraint and prevent any breaches of the ceasefire.

Much ado about almost nothing?
Michael Young, July 1, 2011 /Now Lebanon
Now that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has confirmed an indictment in the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and subsequent crimes, we’re in a better position to assess the success of the investigation that led to this long-awaited moment. And what we’re seeing is not encouraging.
Until now, the tribunal appears to have accused Hezbollah members of involvement in the Hariri killing. Four Lebanese are said to be in the crosshairs of Daniel Bellemare, the tribunal’s prosecutor. From what we know, mainly information in documents leaked to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which used them last year as the basis of a compelling documentary, several of the suspects were identified through analyses of cellular telephone conversations.
This is all fascinating stuff, and may well be true. However, if the indictment stops there, then we will at best have been offered a narrow glimpse of what actually took place. After six years of investigation led by three separate commissioners, with millions of dollars spent, the results would be desperately short of expectations. In fact, it would represent a black mark on the United Nations.
Unconfirmed reports on Thursday suggested that the special tribunal team was preparing to head to Damascus after Beirut, to announce the indictment of Syrians. This was untrue, and yet the credibility of the investigative phase, and of the special tribunal itself, will very much depend on whether Syrians are called to the suspects’ dock.
Here’s why. Soon after Hariri’s elimination, the United Nations sent an Irish policeman, Peter Fitzgerald, to Beirut to look into the matter. In his report, Fitzgerald concluded that it had taken “considerable finance, military precision in its execution, [and] substantial logistical support” to carry out the assassination. In other words, the former prime minister had been the victim of a conspiracy that the Syrian and Lebanese security services could hardly have avoided noticing.
If there were any doubts, in a report from October 2005, Detlev Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission, wrote something very similar. Given the “infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem,” he observed, “it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge.” Once again, a seasoned investigator was describing an extensive conspiracy, one that went well beyond a small group of Hezbollah participants and their superiors. Fitzgerald and Mehlis bluntly implicated Syria and their Lebanese proxies in the plot.
Mehlis’ successor, Serge Brammertz, continued to suspect Syria. This we know because in 2006 he revealed to the US ambassador in Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, that he believed only a single Syrian intelligence agency had participated in Hariri’s murder. “If anything, you probably had one security service involved, and the order came from on high and, how high, we’ll have to figure out,” Feltman quoted Brammertz as telling him. An educated guess suggests that the commissioner was referring to Syrian Military Intelligence, which had a vast network already in place throughout Lebanon.
However, Brammertz, according to Lebanese and non-Lebanese sources I spoke to very familiar with his work, did not much advance in his investigation. Whether this was intentional or not is unclear. However, he took a momentous decision in altering the investigative strategy set by his predecessor. Mehlis had approached his inquiry using a top-down approach. As he told me in a Wall Street Journal interview in January 2008, “The Hariri case is an unusual one. Usually in investigations you start at the bottom and work your way up. In the Hariri case we started pretty much at the top and worked down. We had an accurate view of how the assassination took place from above, but less clear a view of what happened on the ground.”
With Brammertz, however, there was a very noticeable decline in interviews of high-level suspects, in Lebanon and especially in Syria. According to onetime commission members, the commissioner brought in analysts but cut back on police investigators needed to gather and assess witness testimony. The top-down approach was shelved in favor of a de facto bottom-up approach, albeit a deficient one. If the CBC report is to be believed, Brammertz was as lethargic in the telephone analyses as he was in other aspects of his investigation. For example, he only brought in a British firm, FTS, to examine telephone data near the end of his term, and that only because of valuable work done by Wissam Eid, a Lebanese police officer.
It’s no surprise, then, that when Bellemare took over he had relatively little in his files. Yet he pursued Brammertz’s bottom-up approach, meaning that he could not benefit from Mehlis’ labors. This left, principally, the telephone material to build on. Bellemare’s intention today may be to crack open that angle of the conspiracy, which as it happens implicates Hezbollah, in the hope that it will lead upwards to those senior officials who gave the order to kill Hariri.

If so, Bellemare could prove too optimistic by half. The two years of dallying during Brammertz’s time in office may have fatally crippled the Syria side of the investigation, though we have to wait to see if the Syrians are off the hook. However, no one seriously believes that Hezbollah, if the party’s involvement is proven, acted alone against the former prime minister. For now, and until proof of the contrary, the tribunal’s indictment is the mountain giving birth to a mouse.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle, in which he dealt extensively with the Hariri assassination and its aftermath. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

Syria’s partition could crack Lebanon
 July 01, 2011
By Michael Young/ The Daily Star
It is difficult to see how President Bashar Assad will prevail over the growing protests demanding an end to his regime. More than two months of carnage by the Syrian army and security forces have failed to shake the demonstrators’ determination, and surely will not.
There are many scenarios for what might happen in Syria. Lebanese should pay attention to one in particular. As it dawns on the Assads that their days in power are numbered, we should consider the option that they and the minority Alawite community will move to an alternate plan. Unable to subdue Syria, the regime may contemplate falling back on an Alawite-dominated statelet in northwest Syria.
There is little certainty surrounding such a scheme. In recent weeks the army and security services have been active in Idlib province along the Turkish border, after their assault near the Lebanese border, particularly in Talkalakh – accompanied by an ongoing campaign to pacify the Homs to Aleppo axis. Even if the Assads’ priority is to reimpose their writ over Syria in its entirety, the actions in these areas may, simultaneously, serve another purpose: to consolidate Alawite control over the margins of a future mini-state.
Alawites are concentrated in the mountain region and cities of Syria’s northwest, even if they have moved elsewhere during the past decades. Notably, they have moved into the plains of Homs and Hama, where they generally live around the main cities. If the community sought to establish a statelet, it would have to implement a three-tiered process. This would involve preparing a forward defense line near areas of Sunni urban concentration, along the Homs-Hama-Aleppo road. It would also entail strengthening Alawite control over the community’s heartland further to the west, particularly over the coastal cities, while arming Alawite villages.
The third stage of the process would necessitate securing a parallel line of defense along the eastern edge of the Alawite mountains, above the plains leading toward Homs, Hama and Aleppo. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the northern hinge of this boundary is at Jisr al-Shughour, while the southernmost hinge is at Talkalakh. These are places allowing the regime to close off access to predominantly Sunni districts across the borders. However, the terror tactics adopted by the Syrian army, security forces and irregular pro-regime militias are disturbingly similar to those of the Serb-dominated army and Serb paramilitaries during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Is the aim to cause permanent population displacement? That’s unclear. However, there is a geographical rationale behind the Assads’ strategy, and its repercussions cannot but affect sectarian relations.
As Lebanese watch developments next door, how might they react? If the Assads manage to retreat to an Alawite fortress, the repercussions in Lebanon (not to say Iraq) could be frightening. Attention would be drawn to Lebanon’s Shiites, but also Christians, to see if they might envisage a similar route toward communal self-preservation.
The Shiites are far less likely to be tempted by the idea of forming a communal statelet than are the Christians, for obvious reasons. The areas of Shiite concentration are not contiguous. Dispersed among the northern Bekaa Valley, the western Bekaa, southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Shiite community would be unable to bind these regions together into any sort of cohesive whole.
In reality, the hazards lie elsewhere. If the Assad regime were to collapse, this would represent, potentially, an existential setback, for Hezbollah. The party would strive to defend itself, and its options are limited. Some have speculated that Hezbollah might try to tighten its grip on the state and weaken its adversaries decisively, perhaps through a military strike broader than that of May 2008. However, that would almost certainly fail, instead provoking civil war.
Hezbollah must be aware of this. The party is immensely potent as an armed force, but the only real solution to its dilemma if Assad rule were brought down is a far-reaching domestic political compromise. The party would be reluctant to engage in one, however, at least from a position of weakness. The reason is that any serious internal dialogue would necessarily have to address Hezbollah’s disarmament, which the party’s leadership will not sanction.
The ensuing deadlock could push Hezbollah to do two apparently contradictory things: maintain its presence in state institutions at all costs in order to protect its interests; but also, facing an invigorated Lebanese Sunni community bolstered by an invigorated Syrian Sunni community, further separate territories under its influence from the rest of Lebanon, both physically and psychologically. In other words, even as it rejects a Lebanese sectarian breakup, Hezbollah may be compelled to pursue that very path to survive. And this could be accompanied by an impulse, even a political need, to collaborate with other friendly sectarian entities, an Alawite entity above all.
Which leads us to the Lebanese Christians. There is profound alienation among many Christians from post-Taif Lebanon, and from the idea of coexistence with the country’s Muslim communities in the context of the centralized state that emerged after independence in 1943. This has been debilitating for Christians, accelerating the community’s isolation and sense of decline. Yet virtually all mainstream Christian political groupings deep down aspire to a Lebanese state – federal, confederal or otherwise – that allows a majority of Christians to govern themselves and live among their own.
This mad project is more likely to lead to communal regression and suicide. And yet many Christians will look closely at a Alawite statelet, if one were to take shape, and see how it might serve or buttress their own aspirations. And if this were to come at a moment when the Shiites themselves were experimenting with some de facto scheme of disconnection from Lebanon, it could intensify the centrifugal forces in the country and even eventually prompt a sizable number of Christians and Shiites to join efforts against a perceived Sunni threat.
For now, and hopefully well beyond, this may be political fiction. But ours is not a healthy national mood to defend the Lebanese entity as we know it. Even during the war, Lebanese unity was, paradoxically, more solid than today. The fire lit in Syria could feed Lebanon’s divisions. Unless we’re sensitive to the risks, Lebanon could burn.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal. He tweets BeirutCalling.

Policy statement emerges ahead of deadline
July 01, 2011
 By Antoine Ghattas Saab/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The government’s policy statement finally saw the light of day after the seventh meeting of the 12-member ministerial committee tasked with drafting the document on whose basis the Cabinet will seek Parliament’s vote of confidence.
The committee, headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati, continued its intensive meetings with a view to reaching a compromise solution to Mikati’s insistence on an acceptable and balanced formula to the article pertaining to the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The government team’s formula is based on respect for U.N. resolutions and maintaining civil peace, in the face of the tough stance by leaders of the parliamentary majority leaders, led by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah, in challenging the stance of the international community, which is committed to the STL as a means of putting an end to violence and intimidation.
Ministerial sources close to the president said that consultations were held outside the committee’s meetings in order to avoid missing the one-month constitutional deadline to draft a policy statement that would have left the government without a political, economic, financial and social program.
Although one item, the STL, had become a divisive issue among the majority leaders, what was required was to ward off the specter of divisions and disintegration and avoid falling into a labyrinth that would have brought destruction to the country.
President Michel Sleiman, who insists in his private meetings and daily meetings with the ministers on expressing his keenness on safeguarding the state, its institutions and the national economy, found himself compelled to sign the decree of the Cabinet lineup presented by Mikati on June 13 so that he would not be accused of causing a power vacuum in the country.
According to informed sources, a secret meeting took place between Mikati and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, during which the two men discussed several factors that necessitated a relatively rapid endorsement of the government’s policy statement.
One of these factors was the lack of a national plan to contain the repercussions of the STL’s indictment into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, while another was the warning by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt against the expiry of the one-month constitutional deadline without the government’s policy statement being completed.
In this case, the government would be considered to have resigned and a new round of consultations with MPs would be held to name a new prime minister. Jumblatt had threatened to change his choice for prime minister, while maintaining his political choices and fixed stances on issues such as sectarian coexistence, the resistance and special relations with Syria.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also warned Mikati against missing the July 13 expiry of the one-month period for the ministerial committee to finish drafting the policy statement, which would have implied that the government had resigned.
A third factor was the ambiguous regional situation, namely the fast-moving developments in Syria, where a popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad has been raging unabated since mid-March.

Jumblat: Justice Should Not Fall Victim to International Agendas
Naharnet /Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat questioned on Friday the timing of the release of the indictment in the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, noting that it took place soon after the formation of the new government.
He said during a press conference at his Clemenceau residence: “The decision to release the indictment was political.”
“Its contents are similar to the media leaks that had been revealed in the past and we should therefore exercise vigilance in this upcoming phase in Lebanon,” he stated.
“The government policy statement was clear in stipulating its commitment to cooperating with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, contradicting the opposition’s statements of the contrary,” he added.
“Justice requires us to avoid falling into the trap of international agendas, similar to what happened in the past,” he warned.
As much as justice is the only retribution for all martyrs and victims, civil peace is more important than all other matters, the MP declared.
He reiterated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s statement that “no one is greater than their country”, saying that this should be the slogan of the upcoming phase in Lebanon.
“He was committed to coexistence, peace, and national unity without discriminating between the Lebanese,” Jumblat said.
“Had he been alive today, he would have adopted this approach to avoid leading the country towards strife,” the PSP leader stressed.
On the indictment, the MP noted that it did not name parties or sects involved in Hariri’s assassination.
“Had it done so, it would have targeted peace and Islamic unity in Lebanon and the whole region,” he said.
“The slain premier would not have wanted to achieve justice through tensions, divisions, and falling victim to international agendas, which I was the first to warn of,” he continued.
“Civil peace is more important than all other matters and dialogue is the only way to avert strife and tensions,” Jumblat remarked.
In addition, he said that the major regional changes require the Lebanese to unite to confront all possible repercussions the developments may have on the country.
“Let the government, judiciary, and security institutions perform their duties,” he said.
“I believe that the government policy statement called for dialogue and there can be no escaping it,” the MP concluded.

Question: "Is there an afterlife?"
GotQuestions.org
Answer: The book of Job asks the question about an afterlife very simply: “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14). Asking the question is easy, but the difficult part is finding someone to answer the question with authority and experience. “Death and taxes” have said to be the two universals that everyone living can expect to deal with. But while everyone is handled somewhat differently by government taxation, death is the great equalizer that treats everyone the same.
Because of this, it’s not uncommon for people to be afraid of death. The ancient philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC) recognized that the fear of death was present in everybody and therefore he sought a way to remove that fear. Epicurus taught that humanity not need fear death because human beings are nothing more than a composition of atoms which at death simply disperse and that is the end of things. Epicurus didn’t believe there were any gods to fear or anything to face once a person breathed their last. His teaching of maximum pleasure in this life with minimum pain and suffering dictated that everything ends when death occurred.
One of the groups the Apostle Paul encountered in his trip to Athens were the Epicureans, who listened to Paul’s Mars Hill address up until he mentioned the resurrection of Jesus and then abruptly ended the discussion (Acts 17:32). They had been bathed in their teacher’s philosophy and likely knew well the statement made by Apollos the Epicurean who said during the founding of the Areopagus where Paul was speaking, “When the dust has soaked up a person’s blood, once he is dead, there is no resurrection."
But after thousands of years since that time, the fear of death remains fixed in many people. The book of Job describes death as the “king of terrors” (Job 18:14). This fact is visible in the movie “The Bucket List” where the character played by Jack Nicholson, trying to come to grips with dying, says: “We all want to go on forever, don’t we? We fear the unknown. Everybody goes to that wall, yet nobody knows what’s on the other side. That’s why we fear death.”
But one person has gone to that wall, gone through to the other side, and come back to tell us what to expect. He alone possesses the authority and knowledge to tell everyone the truth about the afterlife.
The Expert on the Afterlife
From a historical perspective, no historical scholar disputes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. There is no debate about His teachings or the fact that He reportedly did miraculous things, and there is universal agreement that He was put to death by crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Jesus went to the wall of death and through to the other side.
The resurrection puts Jesus in a place of being the sole authority and witness able to answer the question, “Is there an afterlife?” And what does He have to say? Christ makes three basic statements about the subject of life after death:
1. There is an afterlife.
2. When a person dies, there are two different eternities to which he/she will go.
3. There is a way to ensure a positive experience after death.
First, Christ most certainly affirms there is an afterlife in a number of biblical passages. For example, in an encounter with the Sadducees who denied the teaching of resurrection, Christ rebuked them by saying, “Regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken" (Mark 12:26-27). Jesus clearly told them that those who have died centuries before are very much alive with God at that moment.

In another passage, Jesus comforts His disciples (and us) by telling them specifically that they can look forward to being with Him in Heaven: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going” (John 14:1-4).
The Afterlife - Two Eternal Destinies
Jesus also speaks authoritatively about what types of destinies await every person that dies: one with God and one without God. In Luke’s account of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus says, “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom" (Luke 16:22–23). One aspect of the story worth noting is that there is no intermediate state for those who die; they go directly to their eternal destiny. As the writer of Hebrews says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
Jesus speaks about the two final destinies again when He is confronted by the religious leaders in John: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment” (John 5:25-29). Christ restates the matter very plainly in Matthew when He says, “These [unbelievers] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
The Afterlife - What Determines Our Eternal Destination?
Jesus also is clear on what determines each person’s eternal destination—whether they have faith in God and what they do with respect to Christ. The book of John contains many statements made by Jesus on this subject, with perhaps the most famous being these: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:14-18).
For those who repent and receive Christ as their Savior and Lord, the afterlife will consist of an eternity spent with God. But for those who reject Christ, their destiny will be spent away from God’s presence. Jesus contrasts these two destinies in the end of the Sermon on the Mount: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
The Afterlife - Conclusions
Speaking about life after death, G. B. Hardy, a Canadian Scientist, once said, "I have only two questions to ask. One, has anyone ever defeated death? Two, did he make a way for me to do it also?" The answer to both of Hardy’s questions is “yes.” One Person has both defeated death and provided a way for everyone who puts their trust in Him to overcome it as well. Epicurus may have believed that everyone fears death, but the truth is no one who trusts in Christ needs to be afraid. Rejoicing in this fact, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’" (1 Corinthians 15:54–55).