LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJUNE 03/2011

Biblical Event Of The Day
The Letter from James: "4:13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” 4:14 Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. 4:15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” 4:16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 4:17 To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin."

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Will Outrage at the Torture of a 13-Year-Old Help Syrians Overcome Their Fear of the Regime/TIME/June 03/11

No such thing as the better devil/By ZALMAN SHOVAL/June 03/11
The reform ploy/Tony Badran/June 03/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 03/11
Security forces kill 15 in Syria’s Rastan, activist says/Now Lebanon
Syrian Opposition Drafting Declaration amid Pro-Regime Supporters Protest/Naharnet/AFP
Assad Forms Dialogue Committee as Hundreds of Political Prisoners Freed‎/Naharnet
Cairo shuts Gaza's Rafah crossing to free passage at US insistence/DEBKAfile
WikiLeaks: Syria Most Probably behind Gebran Tueni’s Assassination/Naharnet
Maronite Meeting Forms Committee to Follow up on its Decisions/Naharnet
Williams: UNIFIL Attack Highlights Urgent Need to Form Cabinet/Naharnet
Geagea not fearful for Christians’ future in Lebanon/Now Lebanon
Syrian activists call for “Children's Friday” protests/Now Lebanon

Nasrallah Calls for Improving Political System, Ending Debate on Amending Taef/Naharnet
Group calls for rally to liberate Shebaa Farms/Daily Star
Lebanon Cabinet formation efforts resumed: Nasrallah/Daily Star
Lebanese worried about national security/UPI
National Bloc slams Aoun, his bloc's ministers/Now Lebanon
Ambassador Connelly Meets Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri/iloubnan.info
Jumblat, Miqati and his Tripoli Allies Deal Blow to June 8 Session/Naharnet
U.S. Reportedly ‘Vetoes’ Bid to Give 4 Ministries to Hizbullah, Embassy Denies/Naharnet

Lebanese Army Declares Southern Border ‘Closed Military Zone’/Naharnet
Ban Urges Italy to Maintain Current Presence in Lebanon/Naharnet

Syrian Opposition Drafting Declaration amid Pro-Regime Supporters Protest
Naharnet Newsdesk /Syrian opposition groups meeting in Turkey were drafting a joint declaration Thursday on how to support the revolt against President Bashar Assad's regime, organizers said. The declaration was expected to be issued Thursday evening or Friday morning at the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, where the dissidents have been meeting since Wednesday. Some 300 Syrian activists, mostly exiles, representing a broad spectrum of political forces opposed to Assad's regime, are attending the talks, the largest gathering of the opposition so far. Organizers have said their purpose is to draw up a "roadmap" for a peaceful and democratic transition in Syria. They have set up several committees to coordinate anti-regime action, notably to explore ways of supporting protesters in Syria, both in financial and logistic terms, in areas such as legal assistance and strengthening Internet media backing the revolt. The participants, among them members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, have snubbed a general amnesty for political prisoners, decreed by Assad Tuesday, as a belated and inadequate move. About 50 regime supporters demonstrated near the conference venue Thursday, brandishing posters of the Syrian president and chanting in English "We love Bashar."
"These are people on the payroll of the United States and Israel, they have no right to represent the Syrian people," one of the demonstrators, Nidal Said, said of the opposition activists.
Turkish riot police, deployed in numbers in the area, kept the demonstrators away from the hotel where the conference was held. More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested in a brutal crackdown on almost daily anti-regime demonstrations in Syria since March 15, rights organizations say.

Security forces kill 15 in Syria’s Rastan, activist says
June 2, 2011 /Security forces armed with heavy machine-guns shot and killed 15 civilians in Rastan on Thursday, a human rights activist said, adding to a toll of at least 43 killed in towns of the flashpoint Homs region since Sunday. A witness, Talal al-Tillawi, meanwhile, said gunfire was also heard in Talbisa, another town in the same region.
"Security agents in army uniform are carrying out searches. They're smashing up everything they see, refrigerators, televisions, cars" in Talbisa, which like Rastan the army has encircled since Sunday, he said. Clashes also occurred in the Daraa area, a hotbed in southern Syria, where according to Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights four people were killed during raids on Wednesday night in the town of Hirak. More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested in a brutal crackdown across the country, according to rights organizations.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Maronite Meeting Forms Committee to Follow up on its Decisions
Naharnet Newsdesk
The Maronite meeting at Bkirki stressed on Thursday the need to hold future meetings to continue discussions over how to “maintain Lebanon as an example for democracy and freedom.”
An agreement was reached to form a follow up committee to monitor the cooperation between them, announced Bishop Samir Mazloum who read the summit’s closing statement.
The meeting stressed the commitment to partnership and cooperation to build the state and develop society, adding that Lebanon’s diversity and identity should be maintained, he stated.
“Balance should also be restored to public administrations through the Christians’ service in the state,” the statement continued. The Maronite meeting, headed by Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, brought together around 34 Maronite MPs as well as the country’s top Maronite political leaders meeting at the seat of the patriarchate in Bkirki. He said after the meeting: “There is no longer division among them.” Meanwhile, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea described the Bkirki meeting as “positive and helpful”.
He said: “Our presence together in one room is a step forward.” “There is no doubt that some issues need to tackled, but the Christians in Lebanon are not in any danger and they still play an effective role in the country,” he concluded. Al-Rahi stressed during his opening speech at the meeting the need for Christians to improve their conditions in Lebanon, urging the Maronite leaders to seek unity through commitment to the Bible’s teachings. He called for the separation of religion from the state and politics on the condition of holding onto the national principles and the public welfare. “As Christians, we’re committed to the Bible’s principles and the church’s teachings while practicing our political and economic activities,” he said.
“Unity among Christians won’t be settled without this commitment,” al-Rahi added. He said participation in state institutions and preservation of the land guarantee the effective presence of Christians in the country. The gathering was aimed at bridging the gap among Lebanon’s rival Christian parties.  In Thursday’s meeting, Maronite lawmakers joined the country’s four key Christian leaders in a follow-up conference under the sponsorship of al-Rahi. The first icebreaker gathering was held in April between Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, Marada Movement head MP Suleiman Franjieh, Phalange Party chief Amin Gemayel, and LF leader Geagea


No such thing as the better devil

By ZALMAN SHOVAL /J.Post
06/01/2011 23:45
Syria is and will remain a dangerous, unstable country, regardless of who succeeds Assad.
Swiss bankers usually have a good sense for where the wind is blowing. So Syria’s Bashar Assad has every reason to be worried by the announcement that Swiss banks might freeze his personal accounts. Is this the beginning of the end of the 41-year Assad family regime in Syria? We may not know the answer for some time, but indications are that it will never be the same. So is that good or bad – and does it make a difference? More or less everything in the Middle East has in recent months revolved around the so-called “Arab Spring” and the supposedly dichotomic changes in the Arab world.
Some, especially in America, view this as a great popular movement in the spirit of Jefferson and Madison, inspired by the teachings of Locke and Voltaire – while others, more realistic, like political scientist Robert Kaplan, have warned that in the Middle East, as central authority dissolves, the issue is not democracy but the threat of anarchy, and one might add autocracy or theocracy – and any or all of those developments are conceivable – certainly in Syria. Though it is a unified state, it isn’t a unified people; tribal and denominational differences far outweigh any joined identity (just as the Palestinians are basically a tribal society, boding ill for possible statehood).
One cannot, of course, discuss Syria without mentioning its central role as an agent of terror. In the US there are voices which hold that with the elimination of Osama bin Laden, the war on terror is over. This would mean, at least implicitly, that there are different sorts of terrorists, and that the criteria applied to al-Qaida or its Pakistani host do not necessarily fit Hamas or Hezbollah and their protector, Syria (there is justified anger in the US at the fact that bin Laden’s headquarters was located only a few miles from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad – but what about Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s headquarters, plumb in the middle of Damascus?) US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have had a largely unfocused view about relations with Syria, as did quite a few Israelis – with the result that American policy was to engage rather than confront. There was a brief moment after the demise of Saddam Hussein when this could have been changed, but the Bush administration didn’t pursue it. The Obama administration naively tried to open a new chapter with Damascus – to no avail, misinterpreting the real priorities of the Assad dictatorship.
Sometimes détente works; it worked in Europe and it worked with Egypt after the Yom Kippur war – president Sadat wanted to rid himself of the Soviet Union and cast his lot with America. The eventual Egyptian-Israel peace treaty was part of that. But are there any convincing reasons to believe that Syria wants to sever its ties with Iran and cast its lot with America? Syria, which murders its citizens? Syria, which (with the help of North Korea) tried to build a nuclear reactor? Syria, which has amassed the largest missile arsenal in the world, many with chemical warheads? Syria, which refuses to loosen its stranglehold on Lebanon, and which, with Iran, is one of the world’s biggest founts of terrorism? BUT WHAT about Israel, or more to the point, the chances for peace between Syria and Israel? Conventional wisdom, which in the Middle East is often more conventional than wise, maintained that as the Assads’ regime had kept the Golan border quiet, why risk toppling it? True, it has kept it quiet – and why wouldn’t it, with the IDF sitting more or less on top of Damascus? But was the Syrian-Israeli border quiet until 1967, when the Golan was Syrian? It was nothing of the kind – in fact, it was Israel’s most dangerous border, with civilians in the north almost continuously under attack. Neither before 1967 nor after did Syria’s rulers have a real interest in peace with Israel, among other things because the state of war served as an excuse for maintaining their brutal military hold. Four Israeli prime ministers – Rabin, Netanyahu, Barak and Olmert – explored the possibility of peace with Syria, only to be disabused by Syria’s disingenuousness, including its insolent demand to keep the eastern shore of the Kinneret and the Hamat-Gader region, a part of mandatory Palestine which it had grabbed by force after the establishment of the State of Israel.
Turkey’s real or sham efforts to broker a deal between Damascus and Jerusalem look somewhat suspect in light of its behavior since then. Those who over the years urged Israel to renounce helter-skelter its claim to the Golan – supposedly in order to come to an arrangement with the Assad regime (“everyone knows what the price for peace is”) now look pretty foolish.
Syria is indeed a dangerous place, more than Libya even.
Nothing positive can be said about its present regime, but nor is there any certainty about who could or would replace it. Another army general? Extreme Sunni Muslims? Nobody knows. As for Israel, contrary to the state of affairs with Egypt, about which the concern is that a reasonably stable situation might unravel – with regards to Syria, an already bad situation can only become worse. So this is not a case of “better the devil you know” – but rather that one of the candidates – Assad or those who might replace him – might be a dangerous and questionable lot.
**The writer is the former Israel Ambassador to the US and currently heads the Prime Minister's forum of US-Israel Relations.

The reform ploy

Tony Badran,
Now Lebanon
June 2, 2011
Syrian opposition activists walk past a poster showing a dead man reportedly killed by the Assad regime during the opening session of a three-day meeting in Antalya to discuss democratic change and voice support for the revolt. (AFP photo/Adem Altan)
As hundreds of Syrian dissidents and opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad gathered in the Turkish city of Antalya for the Conference for Change in Syria, the regime was running its own parallel sideshow, announcing measures that purportedly address demands of the Syrian protest movement. However, given previous such measures, there is every reason to suspect that this is yet another tactical ruse by Assad, aimed primarily at foreign actors. In the end, these announcements are not harbingers of change in the regime’s attitude. The Assad regime always was and remains incapable of reform.
On Tuesday, Assad issued a typically ambiguous decree, wrongly reported in the media as a “general amnesty,” reducing sentences for certain crimes and releasing an unspecified number, and category, of prisoners. Also, official Syrian sources leaked that Assad would be making a speech “in the next couple of days” (his first public address in two months) in which he would announce the establishment of a committee to prepare for a conference for “national dialogue.”
Dissidents have been understandably skeptical, given that the announcements came as the regime’s tanks were shelling cities such as Homs and surrounding villages like al-Rastan and Talbiseh, and the gathering in Antalya quickly dismissed Assad’s moves.
There are, of course, plenty of other reasons for skepticism and suspicion. Syrian activists view Assad’s latest ploy in the same light as his previous “concessions” of supposedly lifting the emergency law (while proceeding with the brutal crackdown as usual) and extending an ambiguous offer of citizenship to an unspecified number of “stateless Kurds” (a move that aimed to neutralize the Kurds and split them off from the opposition).
On the one hand, no one really knows who is actually included in the decree – an opaqueness exacerbated by the deliberately convoluted legal jargon, the numerous exceptions it lists, as well as by the discrepancy between the actual content of the decree and the way the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported it. On the other hand, as several rights activists have asked, are prisoners of conscience to be treated as common criminals? If so, will their sentences merely be reduced? And will their “crimes” even fall under the listed exceptions? (One such exception, for instance, would exclude the detained blogger Tall al-Malouhi.) None of this is clear.
The ambiguity, of course, is intentional, and is the standard modus operandi of the Assad dictatorship. The net result is to make all rights utterly arbitrary, dependent on the whims of Bashar al-Assad. In addition, the regime’s move aims at forcing Syrians to accept its categories and its classification of dissent as a crime.
Meanwhile, the announcement on the “national dialogue” is another marvel of Baathist theater. The committee tasked with preparing the national dialogue conference, which Assad will supposedly unveil in his upcoming speech, will be headed by that beacon of reform, Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, and it will include “independents” such as regime publicist Ibrahim Daraji, alongside lackeys of the Baath.
As for whom the regime will invite to this dialogue, anonymous Syrian sources told AKI that it will likely be “neutral” and “independent” figures, who would be invited in a personal capacity, and not as representatives of any opposition group. The Baath Party, and the sham parties of the allied National Progressive Front, will also participate. However, it has been explicitly announced already that Article 8 of the constitution, which stipulates that the Baath is the sole “leader of the state and society,” will not be discussed, thereby removing all prospects for political pluralism and participation from the agenda.
In addition, the regime has specified that its “dialogue” will be limited by “the ceiling of the nation” – code, according to some dissidents, that allows the regime to classify and handpick interlocutors, and to set the parameters of the dialogue.
Assad had tried all of these tactics on a provincial level, attempting to avoid elevating the matter to a national level (also one reason why he has made no national address since March). However, now that the opposition is beginning to gain a more visible profile on the international scene, possibly emerging as a credible interlocutor in Western capitals, Assad wants to make sure to prolong the indulgence he has so far enjoyed.
In fact, according to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat's sources, the recent surprise visit to Iraq by the Syrian foreign minister was in order to relay a message to the US, through the Iraqis, that “the Syrian leadership is intent on actualizing the required reforms as quickly as possible.” Also, Assad was likely trying to placate the Turks, who have expressed increasing impatience with his lack of responsiveness to their advice.
However, as evident from the initial American (and, to some extent, even Turkish) reactions, it does not seem that anyone is impressed by Assad’s ploy. Nevertheless, the Syrian dictator’s maneuver only highlights the absurdity of the West’s, particularly the US’s, call on Assad to “lead the transition.”
This policy was always doomed to fail miserably. As activist Razan Zaytouneh put it yesterday, the Assad regime’s “repressive mindset is incapable of change.” Washington needs to finally acknowledge this fact publicly and proceed with crafting a new policy for a post-Assad Syria.
*Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Geagea not fearful for Christians’ future in Lebanon

June 2, 2011 /Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said on Thursday that he does not fear the fate of the Christians in Lebanon.
“No danger faces the Christians’ [future] in Lebanon; they have all the elements needed to survive and interact in Lebanon and the Middle East,” he said while leaving the Maronite gathering that took place in Bkirki. The LF leader also said that Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s point of view on developing the Lebanese system is not far from his stance on the issue. “We should always develop where there are gaps, […] and for the [system’s] development to take place we need a compromise among all the Lebanese [parties].”
A meeting between Maronite top leaders, MPs and ministers was held earlier on Thursday in Bkirki under the supervision of Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai.
Nasrallah said on Wednesday that the Lebanese parties should review the country’s political system.-NOW Lebanon

Syrian activists call for “Children's Friday” protests

June 2, 2011
Anti-regime activists in Syria have called for fresh demonstrations under the banner of "Children's Friday," snubbing government concessions which the opposition says have come too late.
The protests are to honor the children killed in the uprising, such as 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib whom activists say was tortured to death, a charge denied by the authorities.
The UN children's agency UNICEF says at least 30 children have been shot dead in the revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's autocratic rule which erupted mid-March.
"The people want the fall of the regime. Tomorrow, it's 'Children's Friday' of rising up against injustice, like the adults," the activists announced on their Facebook page Syrian Revolution 2011, an engine of the revolt.More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested in a brutal crackdown on almost daily anti-regime demonstrations in Syria, rights organizations say. -AFP/NOW Lebanon

Will Outrage at the Torture of a 13-Year-Old Help Syrians Overcome Their Fear of the Regime?

By A Correspondent in Syria /Wednesday, June 01, 2011
TIME/To the untrained ear, Syrian President Bashar Assad's Tuesday offer of amnesty for "all members of political movements" may sound resoundingly generous. But his opponents know that anything sugarcoated offered by the Syrian regime has had a violent and bitter follow-through. Indeed, a look at the fine print makes Assad's beneficence vanish. The new law does not pardon all political prisoners, it only reduces their sentences — replacing death with a life sentence of hard labor, for example. Furthermore, since the vast majority of the 10,000 or so protesters who have been arrested have not been convicted, the amnesty will not apply to them.
The Syrian government believes it knows better than to go soft. Its manipulation of fear and apathy has prevented the protests from gaining the momentum needed for a popular revolt. For every young person taking to the streets around the country, there are hundreds of men and women who stay home in trepidation. The threat of arrest, torture and death is tangible there, and the methodological use of violence propels horror stories to keep people at home.
(See photos of the protests in Syria.)
"People who have been in prison say the guards make you feel like s--- but you can't do anything. They use bad words to break your honor and they beat you," says an activist, whose brother and friends have spent time in prison for attending protests. "They hurt your soul and your body," she says. "A friend of mine said that because he felt so helpless when he was in prison, when he was released he stayed at home for five days. He couldn't leave." She adds, "One of my friends was so badly beaten that his back looked like it was painted with strokes of a brush, black and blue." The prisoners say they are forced to chant proregime chants. One chant goes: "My soul, my blood, we give it to you, Bashar."
Over the past few days, a harrowing story of the alleged torture and killing spread among activists. The body of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy who was arrested a month ago in the Dara'a region, was returned to his family last Wednesday. "A doctor who examined the body found that that before the boy had died, he had been beaten with sticks and shoes. He was shot many times and his face was unrecognizable from swelling," one activist said. "They cut off his penis before he died."
Such tales, as horrific as they seem, are not surprising to most Syrians. Men who have spent time in jail wonder why foreigners are interested in the methods used by the security forces; few understand how abhorrent and shocking it is to people out of the country. But could al-Khatib's story make the difference? A picture of the teen's body, his face swollen and a hole in his chest, was posted on the Syrian Revolution 2011 page on Facebook. Activists are hoping the regime's fear strategy will finally backfire and that anger at stories like al-Khatib's will compel Syria's silent dissidents to take to the streets.
Overcoming fear will not be easy because the repression is ubiquitous. Human-rights groups there report that over 10,000 people have been detained across the country. Prisoners are often not held for more than a few days, but observers say there are "rolling detentions" whereby protesters are arrested, tortured and released before more suspected dissidents are arrested. "Beatings are normal in Syria. We expect it," says an activist who asked to be called Ahmed and is from a town on the Mediterranean coast. He says that security forces and plainclothes cops went to his suburb and rounded up all the males ages 15 to 75. They broke into houses and said they were "looking for guns," but stole "money, gold and jewelry. Even small things like cigarette lighters."
"[The security forces] took us to the main square and beat us with sticks. When they are beating you, you feel nothing. The only thing that is going through your mind is life or death," Ahmed says. He and his neighbors were told to lie on the floor. "The men walked over our bodies, telling us we are animals and making us praise the President." When asked if he complied, Ahmed laughs and says, "Of course. If you don't, you're dead." "They held us for hours there," he says. "Some older men fell into comas from the beatings," he adds, as his voice cracks and his eyes fill with tears.
The plainclothes mukhabarat are Syria's ubiquitous secret police. An omnipresent force, it's a disjointed group that has grown over four decades of Baathist rule — freelancers who often work only loosely with Syria's official security services. "If you get mistakenly arrested by the mukhabarat, it doesn't matter how important you are," a Syrian journalist says. "It'll take about three days for news of your arrest to get to officials and you won't enjoy those three days at all." Looking closely at YouTube videos of police beating protesters, they are the plainclothes men kicking the downed demonstrators and beating them with sticks.
Even if fear is overcome, the demonstrators still have to persuade people that life would be better without Assad. Many Syrians are choosing to ignore the unrest — in absolute terms, people there have become richer since Assad took power in 2000. Many there are frustrated with government brutality and corruption, but they have a reasonable standard of life and are willing to compromise on democratic rights. "I would say 20% of people here are with Bashar and 15% are against. The other 65% just don't want trouble or violence," a senior Western diplomat says. It is now accepted as fact, even among activists, that some antigovernment protesters are using guns to fight security forces. This plays in to the regime's argument that sectarian strife will boil over if Assad is overthrown. "If you don't allow people to protest peacefully, pushing them underground, they resort to violence. It's the fault of the regime," the diplomat says.
Equally, with 65% of all Syrians under the age of 26, there is a whole generation of people there who have grown up without any substantial political discourse — reading state newspapers and watching state TV. "The Assad family has ruled for 40 years. There is so much indoctrination in schools; a diet of regime propaganda that people take as a given. It's not North Korea, but it's up there," the diplomat says. Protests remain isolated and are dispersed quickly, so most Syrians have not seen the unrest firsthand.
Nevertheless, the protests, as disparate as they may be, are unrelenting and growing in number and frequency if not size. Disjointed smaller demonstrations are now occurring throughout the week — not just on Fridays after people gather for prayers — and disorder in the suburbs of Damascus is encroaching closer to the city center.
(See why there's a pretense of calm in Syria's capital.)
Observers say the government may be effective at stopping people taking to the streets, but it is only a short-term solution. "There may be order, but something has changed and Syria won't go back to how it was," a Syrian journalist says. "Because the government has now accepted that the country is in turmoil, people are able to speak about the unrest," he adds. Open criticism of the regime is taboo there, but now that anchors are speaking openly on state TV about a contingent of Syrians who want to depose Assad — albeit "criminals and terrorists" — it has opened up a debate. People can, at the very least, now talk about dissent. And by doing so, provide subtle hints about where their sympathies lie.

Cairo shuts Gaza's Rafah crossing to free passage at US insistence

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 2, 2011, Just four days after the much-heralded opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Sinai to free passage, Cairo virtually shut it down Tuesday, May 31, by a series of tight bureaucratic restrictions on Palestinian exit and entry.
debkafile's military and Washington sources disclose that Military Council Chairman Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi personally signed the new orders in response to an insistent US demand based on the information that since the Rafah crossing opened to free passage Saturday, May 28, Palestinian and al Qaeda terrorists had swarmed through and were roaming at large across Sinai and laying the Suez Canal and its coastal cities open to attack. Washington warned him that terrorists still unlisted by Western or Egyptian counter-terror agencies would be free to reach Egypt, carry out attacks and return to the Gaza Strip unhindered unless careful restrictions were imposed to weed them out.
Tuesday, May 31, Tantawi informed Washington that new restrictions virtually shutting down the Rafah crossing were in place. Egypt then acceded to a US request to receive an Israeli defense official and discuss security coordination between Cairo and Jerusalem around their borders.
Amos Gilad, political adviser at the Israeli Defense Ministry, arrived in Cairo Wednesday and held talks with Egyptian officials, including intelligence minister Murad Muwafi, who briefed him on the new security measures at the Rafah border crossing, as first revealed here by debkafile's military sources:
1. Egypt has handed the Hamas government a blacklist of 5,000 Palestinians barred from access to the Rafah border post and entry to Egypt. It covers the entire operations levels of the military arms of Hamas, Jihad Islami, the Palestinian "Fronts" and other extremist organizations based in the Gaza Strip.
2. Daily passage is limited to a quota of 400 – compared with 1,000-2,000 Palestinians who accessed the crossing in its first three days.
3. Palestinians seeking to travel for medical treatment will first be examined by an Egyptian medical panel which must approve their applications.
4. Cairo wants the list of 400 candidates for passage submitted in advance and does not promise permits for them all.
When informed of the new restrictions, Hamas leaders hit the ceiling and threatened Egypt's military rulers with painful payback. Mahmoud a-Zahar, a top Hamas official in Gaza, was especially aggrieved. The news reached him in Damascus where he had boasted of Hamas-Gaza's success in achieving free passage between the Palestinian enclave and Egypt. Its leaders are now threatening, among other punitive measures, to have its troops shut down the Rafah crossing hermetically and show the world "the real face" of the military rulers of Egypt towards the Palestinians.

Williams: UNIFIL Attack Highlights Urgent Need to Form Cabinet

Naharnet Newsdesk
U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams stressed on Thursday the urgent need to form a cabinet that can address challenges at the security level. “Incidents such as the attack on UNIFIL highlight the urgent need for a government in Lebanon that can address challenges at the security level,” Williams said about the roadside bomb that targeted U.N. peacekeepers in the south last Friday. “I believe quite strongly that the formation of a new government will help alleviate security concerns as well as the social and economic issues,” he said after talks with Premier-designate Najib Miqati. Williams said he thanked Miqati for strongly condemning the attack on the Italian troops and “for his strong and continued support for UNIFIL.” The diplomat welcomed Miqati’s renewed expression of commitment to Security Council resolution 1701, which he said must be accompanied by additional efforts with regards to the remaining parts of the resolution.  All parties should respect the U.N.-drawn Blue Line at this volatile time, Williams said.

Nasrallah Calls for Improving Political System, Ending Debate on ‘Amending Taef’
Naharnet Newsdesk /Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday called for “acknowledging the flaws” in the Lebanese constitution and ending the years-old debate in the country over amending the Taef Accord, which ended the 1975-1990 civil war. Nasrallah called instead for working on improving the Lebanese political system through dialogue and away from sectarian considerations. “We all want the rise of the State in Lebanon … and in principle none of the Lebanese rejects the rise of the State,” Nasrallah added in a televised speech on the 22nd anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. “We believe in a strong and unified state,” said Nasrallah, noting that “the situation in the country is too complicated to introduce a new constitution.” “The government can appoint individuals to develop the political system in a manner that can accommodate the changes in Lebanon and appease all sides,” Hizbullah number one suggested. Addressing the current cabinet formation impasse, Nasrallah said Lebanon has always encountered government formation crises. “We want to aid the Prime Minister-designate (Najib Miqati) and we will not present a proposal that can harm his efforts” to form a new cabinet, said Nasrallah. “Efforts are underway and we will not stop until we reach a result,” he vowed, during a ceremony organized by the Iranian embassy in Beirut to commemorate Khomeini. “Some political leaders must realize that Lebanon is not an isolated island in the region,” Nasrallah said. “We shouldn’t ignore the developments concerning the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and we must preserve the State and its unity and institutions, especially the army,” he added. On a separate note, Nasrallah called on the Lebanese to “stand by the Palestinian people, regardless of our religious affiliations.”


WikiLeaks: Syria Most Probably behind Gebran Tueni’s Assassination

Naharnet Newsdesk /Syria was likely behind the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni in 2005, which was aimed at silencing his caustic remarks against the regime of President Bashar Assad, stated a leaked U.S. Embassy cable dated December 19, 2005, published exclusively in al-Jumhuriya newspaper on Wednesday. The WikiLeaks cable added that the assassination was also a message to the Lebanese opposition that “no one can protect them.” Syrian sources said that the murder was also a blow to the “intellectual leadership” within the camp, adding: “Contrary to the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, Tueni’s murder was not a mistake and Syria will pay the price for it for some 40 days.”
“The assassination will have long-term repercussions on the Lebanese opposition because Tueni acted as its intellectual force,” they said. On the regional scene, his killing will not have the same affect as Hariri’s murder because the Saudis didn’t view the MP as an ally and he wasn’t a Sunni figure either, they continued. Meanwhile, an expert on foreign relations stated that Syria wanted to tell the Lebanese opposition that “despite all the pressures it was under, it is still here and can target it. None of your new friends can protect you.”
“Tueni’s murder was not a strong enough message and so Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat or his ally Marwan Hamadeh may be the next targets,” he said.
“The opposition now believes that oppression and arrests in Lebanon will increase after Tueni’s assassination,” he noted. The murder also served as a message to the United States and France, and that is: “The Syrian government considers Lebanon to be of great strategic interest and it is prepared to take great risks and wage a dirty game in order to protect it.”
The foreign relations expert added: “It’s as if Syria is trying to say that it is behind the MP’s murder, but it can also escape its punishment.”
“If it was behind the assassinations, then it demonstrates that the Syrian regime, with its long history of political assassinations on the internal and regional scenes, is incapable of change or implementing any actual political reform,” he said. The expert added however that Assad may not have been necessarily the one who ordered the assassination “as he does not have absolute control over the regime.” Furthermore, a source monitoring the situation in the region added that the entire Syrian government was not behind the assassination, but members within the government and military intelligence were possibly responsible. They are seeking to spoil Assad’s efforts to positively cooperate with Detlev Mehils, then head of the investigation into Hariri’s assassination, by destabilizing Lebanon, it remarked.

Jumblat, Miqati and his Tripoli Allies Deal Blow to June 8 Session

Naharnet Newsdesk /Head of the National Struggle Front bloc Walid Jumblat reportedly opposes a planned parliamentary session aimed at renewing the mandate of the Central Bank governor and might boycott the meeting on June 8. Jumblat’s sources told As Safir daily on Thursday that the Druze leader prefers to resort to a “mobile draft-law” to renew Riyad Salameh’s mandate rather than holding a session amid the absence of a government. According to al-Liwaa newspaper, Jumblat is setting the stage for “leaving his new position within the March 8 forces and form a coalition with President (Michel Suleiman) and (PM-designate Najib) Miqati.” The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party might boycott the session along with Miqati. An Nahar daily also said that members of Jumblat’s bloc, Miqati and his allies in Tripoli Mohammed Safadi and Ahmed Karami have decided not to attend the June 8 session over fears that it would increase the divide among the different parties. Such a move would be a blow to Berri’s efforts and won’t guarantee a quorum. But the speaker has insisted that he would keep calling for sessions until quorum is achieved. According to An Nahar, March 8 and 14 leaders were seeking to resort to a centrist approach rather than holding a parliamentary session or adopting the so-called mobile draft-law which lies on referring the decree to several ministers for signature. The approach would be based on a decision by Berri to task the caretaker cabinet to take the necessary measures to renew Salameh’s mandate. But both sides failed to reach a deal on the issue, An Nahar said.

Assad Forms Dialogue Committee as Hundreds of Political Prisoners Freed‎

Naharnet Newsdesk /Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Wednesday launched a "national dialogue" while freeing hundreds of political prisoners in an amnesty opposition groups and Washington say does not go far enough. State television said Assad had set up a committee and charged it with "formulating general principles of dialogue that will open the way for the creation of an appropriate climate in which the different elements can express themselves and present their proposals."
The committee will include Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, senior members of the ruling Baath Party and the National Progressive Front (NPF, a coalition of parties led by Baath), as well as one author and one teacher. "All parties should contribute to widening participation (in the political process), to the development of an electoral law and to a law on political parties," Assad said. The opposition has previously dismissed calls for dialogue, saying that this can take place only once the violence ends, political prisoners are freed and reforms adopted.
The demand that prisoners be freed was partially met on Wednesday when, according to a rights activist, hundreds of detainees were released from prisons across the country under an amnesty declared by Assad on Tuesday. "Hundreds of people have been released," said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Fifty of them are from Banias, including the 76-year-old poet Ali Derbak," he added, but "thousands of political prisoners remain in jail and are to be released at any time."
Leaders of the communist Labor Party were unable to benefit from the amnesty as the decree excluded people convicted of joining "an organization to change the social and economic status of the state," said Rahman, reached by telephone. He also claimed that a civilian was killed Wednesday in Rastan, near Homs, where 20 corpses had been taken to hospital.
More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested since protests against Assad's autocratic government erupted in mid-March, human rights organizations say.
Washington, which has been upping the pressure by slapping sanctions on key regime members, said the release of "100 or so political prisoners does not go far enough."
"We need to see all political prisoners released. We need to see meaningful movement toward reform," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
Syrian opposition groups meeting in Turkey on Wednesday to plan for Assad's demise too snubbed the amnesty offer.
The three-day gathering -- titled "Conference for Change in Syria" -- opened with the Syrian national anthem and a minute of silence for "the martyrs" killed in bloody crackdowns on street protests simmering in Syria. "The Syrian people are calling for the fall of the regime," said Melhem al-Durubi, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood delegation in the coastal resort of Antalya.
"He should simply leave," he said, adding that Assad "should be tried for his crimes."
Speakers said Assad's amnesty offer did not go far enough and came too late.
"We demanded this amnesty several years ago," said Abdul Razak Eid, an activist from the Damascus Declaration, a reformist group launched in 2005 to demand democratic change, "but it's late in coming." Other international response to Tuesday's presidential decree was tepid at best. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe demanded "more ambitious and bolder" action from Syria. "I fear that it might already be too late," he told France Culture radio. Turkey, while not dismissing the decree outright, also asked for deeper change.
Meanwhile, in Aleppo's central prison, a mutiny by its 7,000 inmates was quashed by security forces and the army Wednesday morning, according to Germany-based rights group Syrian Center for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience. And Syria denied that a boy aged 13, whom opposition activists say died under torture, had been abused by security forces, labeling the accusations as lies. A medical report published by Syrian official media said three bullets killed teenager Hamza al-Khatib and that other apparent wounds on his body were due to decomposition, not security force brutality.
"The report closes the door on the lies and allegations and shows the truth," said the official news agency SANA. The activists said the boy had disappeared since taking part in a demonstration in the southern region of Daraa on April 29, which he decided to join after police killed his cousin. The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) has said that at least 30 children have been killed by gunfire since the revolt began. The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch meanwhile prepared to release a report detailing a raft of abuses in Daraa.
HRW said its report showed abuses in the flashpoint region were "not only systematic but implemented as part of a state policy" and likely to "qualify as crimes against humanity."
The government insists the unrest is the work of "armed terrorist gangs" backed by Islamists and foreign agitators. *Source Agence France Presse

U.S. Reportedly ‘Vetoes’ Bid to Give 4 Ministries to Hizbullah, Embassy Denies

Naharnet Newsdesk/The United States has informed parties involved in the formation of the government that it had “vetoed” giving Hizbullah and its allies four main portfolios, al-Liwaa daily reported Thursday. The newspaper said that the vetoed ministries include the interior, defense, justice and telecommunications portfolios. According to the report, the four ministries “should not be granted to personalities from the new (parliamentary) majority” or those with close ties to it. However, the U.S. embassy denied the report. Embassy Spokesman Ryan Gliha told Naharnet that “the U.S. considers the makeup of Lebanon’s government to be strictly a Lebanese decision.” “We call on all parties in Lebanon to protect the government formation process from any external interference,” he said. “The U.S. believes that the international community will assess its relationship with any new government of Lebanon based on the makeup of the next cabinet, its ministerial statement and the action it takes in regard to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and Lebanon’s other international obligations,” Gliha added.

Lebanese Army Declares Southern Border ‘Closed Military Zone’
Naharnet Newsdesk /The Lebanese army has declared Fatima Gate and the barbed-wire fence along the southern border with Israel as a closed military zone.
A rally is expected to be staged on Sunday in commemoration of the Naksa Day to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Mideast war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and Golan Heights. According to information obtained by As Safir newspaper on Thursday, contacts are ongoing with the Palestinian factions to select the area where protesters are to kick off their rally. “We’re seeking a point that can preserve the protesters’ security and that can achieve our goals. Al-Khiam detention center might be the place of rally,” the daily said. As Safir reported that military attaches of the countries participating in UNIFIL and the five permanent members of the Security Council held a meeting late Wednesday with high-ranking officers in the Lebanese army intelligence. The conferees discussed the issue of the southern and northern borders. The Lebanese officers stressed “the continuous cooperation with UNIFIL under resolution 1701.” They also vowed to continue with the probe into the attack on the Italian contingent in Sidon last week, the newspaper said.

Ban Urges Italy to Maintain Current Presence in Lebanon

Naharnet Newsdesk /U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon has voiced hope that Italy will not draw down its peacekeeping force in Lebanon in the wake of the recent attack on its contingent in the south. "I hope that Italy will maintain the current levels of its Lebanon contingent, in spite of the tragic attack on the Italian UNIFIL convoy," Ban told ANSA news agency on Wednesday.
A roadside bomb struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy on the main highway near the southern port city of Sidon last Friday, wounding six Italian peacekeepers, one of them critically, and two Lebanese civilians. Italy's defense minister Ignazio La Russa has said that his nation's contingent might be sharply reduced. La Russa told La Repubblica newspaper that Italy is considering cutting its contingent from the 1,700 soldiers now to some 1,100 troops. "As we are no longer in command of the mission, then we should reduce our contribution as soon as possible," he noted. Italy has "no intention of abandoning Lebanon unilaterally," but it has "too many" soldiers deployed there, the minister added.
The blast came as fears of security breaches are mounting in Lebanon, which has entered its fifth month without a government. There are also fears the unrest in neighboring Syria could spill over into the country. The Italian contingent is the largest of the 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force. Over 250 UNIFIL personnel have been killed since the force first deployed to southern Lebanon in 1978. "Italy is a peace-loving country, and as such fully shares the U.N.'s objectives," said Ban, adding that he will speak about it personally with the Italian premier, Silvio Berlusconi. The Secretary-General is among 80 foreign delegations now in Rome to celebrate Italy's 150th anniversary on June 2. UNIFIL was initially set up to monitor Lebanon's border with Israel but expanded after the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah. The force has been the target of three other unclaimed attacks, the latest in January 2008 when two Irish officers were wounded by a roadside bomb. In the deadliest attack, three Spanish and three Colombian peacekeepers were killed in June of 2007 when a booby-trapped car exploded as their patrol vehicle drove by.

France Says Ready to Host Mideast Peace Conference

Naharnet Newsdesk /France is ready to host a Middle East peace conference before the end of July to help re-launch stalled negotiations, France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday. Speaking in Ramallah, Juppe warned that the current stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians was "untenable" and said France was willing to transform a July meeting of international donors into a broader peace conference. "We would be prepared, on the basis of a request by the (Mideast) Quartet, to organize in Paris..., before the end of July, a conference that would not be simply for the donors but a broader political conference involving the negotiation process," he said.
Juppe is holding meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials during a three-day trip, at a time that talks between the two sides are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlement construction. In the absence of negotiations, the Palestinians have pledged to seek recognition and membership at the United Nations in September, a move criticized by Israel and the United States. France has called for the urgent resumption of negotiations, which came to a halt shortly after they began in September 2010 when a partial freeze on Israeli settlement construction expired. Israel refused to renew the freeze and the Palestinians insist they will not hold talks while settlements are being built on land they want for their future state.
"We are convinced that if nothing happens here by September, the situation will be very difficult for the whole world when the United Nations General Assembly meets," Juppe said.
"We must get back around the negotiating table," he added. "Only negotiations will allow us to envisage an effective and lasting solution for peace."
Juppe proposed that new talks should proceed in two stages, with the first discussing security and borders, based on the 1967 lines, on the assumption that a final accord would include mutually-agreed land swaps. The second stage of the talks, which he said should be completed within a year from its start, would discuss Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, he said.
France has expressed frustration with the stalled talks, and has hinted that it may recognize a Palestinian state if negotiations do not resume soon.
"If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told L'Express magazine in May. "The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion" before September, he warned.
Juppe arrived in Israel on Wednesday evening, shortly after meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Rome, and held talks in Jerusalem with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman. On Wednesday morning, he met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and talked with Palestinian youth activists in the West Bank before heading to Jerusalem for discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Source Agence France Presse

The slaughter in Syria
June 1/Washington Post
SYRIAN DICTATOR Bashar al-Assad has benefited substantially from the difficulty the world’s media have had in reporting on the protest movement in Syria and the regime’s brutal suppression of it. Foreign journalists are banned from Syria and anyone attempting to film or otherwise report on events since mid-March has been subject to arrest and torture by security forces. But Mr. Assad does not live in the world of his father, whose massacre of tens of thousands of people in the city of Hama in 1982 was not fully reported to the outside world for months. Today brave Syrians have managed to post hundreds of cellphone videos to the Internet, documenting the regime’s practice of assaulting unarmed civilians with tanks, artillery and automatic weapons. One showing the mutilated body of 13-year-old Hamza Ali al-Khatib, who was arrested and murdered by security forces, has horrified the world and inspired more protests across Syria.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch made an important contribution to knowledge about the events in Daraa, a town and its surrounding province in southwestern Syria where mass protests first erupted on March 18. Based on interviews with more than 50 residents and a review of dozens of videos, the group concluded that at least 418 people have been killed there over the course of 10 weeks and that the regime’s “abuses qualify as crimes against humanity.” The report is stomach-turning in its account of what was inflicted on the community of 80,000 and its suburbs. The trouble began, it says, when 15 young boys, aged 10 to 15, were arrested for anti-regime graffiti; when they were finally released, they were “bruised and bloodied after what they described as severe torture in detention.” As mass protests swelled, “security forces deliberately targeted protesters,” who bared their chests and carried olive branches to show their peaceful intentions. A mosque where many took refuge was assaulted on March 23, leading to the deaths of 30.
On April 25, an 11-day siege of the city began, during which anyone taking to the streets — including children seeking food or medicine — was fired on by troops or rooftop snipers. When thousands of people marched on the town April 29 in an effort to break the siege, troops again opened fire, killing at least 62, according to the report.
Two of the witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch were among thousands detained in Daraa’s soccer stadium on May 1 when, they said, security forces arbitrarily selected a group of more than 20 young men, lined them up and gunned them down. Other witnesses described an incident in which several soldiers who refused to shoot at protesters were themselves shot and killed. Partly due to the limited information, the world is reacting slowly to these atrocities. The State Department called the case of Hamza Ali al-Khatib “horrifying” and “appalling,” but U.S. policy, restated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday, remains a “hope” that “the Syrian government will end the brutality and begin a transition to real democracy.” Ms. Clinton ought to read the Human Rights Watch report. No one who does so could propose such an outcome with a straight face. Perhaps the United States cannot intervene to save Daraa, as it did the Libyan city of Benghazi. But the focus of its policy should be holding Mr. Assad accountable for these crimes — and not pretending that he can become a legitimate ruler

SYRIA: 15 killed as government troops continue to pound central town

June 2, 2011 /Los Angels Times
At least 15 people were killed early Thursday as government troops continued to shell the central Syrian town of Rastan, bringing to 57 the total number who have died there from the bombardment since it began Tuesday, according to a Damascus-based human rights lawyer. The lawyer told Babylon & Beyond that the death toll included women and children. Two women were among those killed Thursday, according to the lawyer. Syrian activist reports say a 4-year-old girl died in Rastan on Wednesday as a result of the violent crackdown. An eyewitness in Rastan who gave his name as Abu Nimr told Babylon & Beyond that troops began shelling the town heavily at around 9 p.m. Wednesday and that the bombardment lasted until about 4 a.m. Thursday. Mosques and the town's main bakery were among the buildings hit, he said. He added that planes were circling above Rastan and surrounding areas Thursday afternoon to monitor activity there. Private homes were also targeted in Thursday's renewed bombardment, according to the activist group Local Coordination Committees of Syria, including the homes of Lt. Zyad Madani and Abdulmoin Fayyad. The families of both were killed, according to a statement from the group.
The group also asserted that authorities are not allowing food and medicine to enter Rastan. Syrian troops started their clampdown on Rastan and nearby towns and areas in the central province of Homs over the weekend. Syrian government-controlled media, meanwhile, said army units and security forces arrested members of so-called armed terrorist groups in Rastan on Wednesday. Syrian authorities have insisted since the outbreak of the pro-democracy protests that they're fighting armed gangs and terrorists.
Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed since mid-March in the government crackdown on foes of President Bashar Assad's regime.
A report released Wednesday by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown could "qualify as crimes against humanity."
The group made the allegations in the report titled "We've Never Seen Such Horror: Crimes Against Humanity in Dara," which is based on more than 50 interviews with victims of abuse and witnesses in and near the besieged southern town of Dara, the epicenter of anti-government protests. As the crackdown continues, hundreds of members of Syrian opposition groups from across the political spectrum have gathered in neighboring Turkey to discuss ways of changing the regime. The three-day gathering, titled "Conference for Change in Syria," is expected to end Friday. Media reports said Thursday that the group was drafting a joint declaration on how to back the uprising. The statement was expected to be issued later Thursday or Friday morning.--Alexandra Sandels in Beirut