LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJUNE 13/2011

Bible Quotation for today
Peter's First Letter 4/7-11: "But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer. 4:8 And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins. 4:9 Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. 4:10 As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms. 4:11 If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen"

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources 
An Iranian minister pretending to be a Syrian reporter!/By: Tariq Alhomayed/June 12/11
Israel must toe the western line on Syria/Haaretz editorial/June 12/11
The Fall of the House of Assad/By: Robin Yassin Kassab/June 12/11
Syrian refugee tells Haaretz: Assad regime killing soldiers who refuse to shoot civilians/By: Anshel Pfeffer/June 12/11
Assad likely to succeed in bid to quell Syria protests/By Zvi Bar'el/June 12/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 12/11
Report: Military vehicles storm embattled Syrian town/CNN
Israel must not ignore the Arab Spring/Haaretz
Syrian Forces Attack Demonstrators Near Turkish Border/VOA
In Syria, signs of a civil war, caught on tape/CBS
Al Qaeda's dead East Africa terror chief targeted the US and Israel/DEBKAfile
Protests rage in Syria despite army offensive/The National
Deserters denounce Syria atrocities/News24
France warns travelers away from Syria/BusinessWeek
Karami: Mikati responsible for naming sixth Sunni minister, not Hezbollah/Now Lebanon
Hezbollah denies involvement in Syrian events/Now Lebanon
Daher highlights Lebanon's role on freedoms and rights/The Daily Star
Colonel charged with spying files appeal/The Daily Star
Aoun warns US not to interfere in Lebanon/The Daily Star
New Cabinet would oppose UN resolutions against Syria: Hobeish/The Daily Star
Crisis in Syria, Game Five & Why Canadians Aren't Funny/CBC
ISF prevented from stopping illegal construction in south/The Daily Star
Bkirki: political division hurting the country/The Daily Star
AUB President Dorman Slams Petition, Media Coverage against Wolfensohn/ Naharnet
Future Movement official Antoine Andraos responds to Aoun/Now Lebanon

Future Movement official Antoine Andraos responds to Aoun
June 11, 2011 /Future Movement official Antoine Andraos responded on Saturday to Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun’s accusation that the former’s bloc has been acting against Syria and carrying out acts of terrorism. “This is a dangerous [accusation]; it is the first time that the Future Movement has been directly accused, this is a sectarian [accusation],” he told Future News television. “If a state is present and [we have] a Judiciary that respects itself, these accusations should be considered as a charge,” Andraos added.
Andraos also said that if any member of his party is harmed, then Aoun should be accused of it. “Aoun’s accusation that people are interfering in Syria’s affairs is unacceptable,” he added.
Aoun on Friday evening accused Lebanon’s Future Movement of acting against Syria. Three suspects testified April on Syrian state television that they received arms and weapons from abroad to fuel a wave of protests in the country, naming Future bloc MP Jamal al-Jarrah as a funder.-NOW Lebanon

Aoun: We Will Twist Arm of U.S. Intelligence in Lebanon Like We Twisted Israel’s
Naharnet/11 hours agoFree Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun announced on Saturday that Lebanon’s future will be stable, ruling out the eruption of a civil or sectarian war or Sunni-Shiite conflict in the country.He said upon his arrival to the southern town of Mlita: “We will twist the arm of U.S. Intelligence in Lebanon like we twisted that of Israel.”
The MP arrived in the South at the head of a FPM delegation, where they were welcomed by the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad and a number of Hizbullah officials. On Friday, Aoun hoped to Syria’s al-Dunia television that a new Lebanese government would be formed soon, adding that Syrian President Bashar Assad also hopes the same thing. “He however cannot replace the Lebanese people’s role as he has his own problems to contend with,” he continued.
“Assad encourages the Lebanese to solve their own problems,” the MP stressed. Asked about his recent meeting with Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati, Aoun replied: “No one tells that truth over the government formation process and they have been trying to pin problems on other sides.”“I think that all internal excuses used to justify the delay have been exhausted,” he stressed. “The ball is not in my court and I have solutions, not obstacles,” he stated.
Meanwhile, prominent FPM circles told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published on Saturday that they are content with the latest progress in the government formation process after Aoun presented concessions that should help facilitate and speed up the formation. They added however that President Michel Suleiman should also “meet the rest of the parties halfway” through naming a sixth Maronite minister who will not provoke any of the concerned sides. “Aoun is content with the course taken in the government formation, especially since the Telecommunications and Energy Ministries have been kept in the Change and Reform bloc’s possession,” the circles said. Furthermore, they expected that a meeting will soon take place between Miqati and caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil to place the finishing touches on the final Cabinet lineup.

AUB President Dorman Slams Petition, Media Coverage against Wolfensohn
 Naharnet/ American University of Beirut President Peter Dorman condemned on Saturday the petition against AUB honoring former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, which also forced him to cancel his scheduled keynote address at the university’s Commencement ceremonies on June 25.
He also slammed the media coverage of the event, describing it as portraying the formed World Bank chief in a negative light.
Dorman said in a statement:
“Wolfensohn’s decision not to attend the June 25 Commencement ceremonies was taken in the aftermath of a petition that was organized by several faculty members at AUB, then circulated to the faculty and student community, as well as to our alumni, who were specifically encouraged not just to sign the petition but to write letters of protest.
In the wake of predictable coverage by the media, the press in Lebanon have given wide notoriety to the issue as well, apparently based primarily on the wording of the petition, which is highly selective in the information it provides.
The coverage has been mostly, and unfairly, critical of James Wolfensohn.
Neither the petition nor the media will inform you of Wolfensohn’s long and devoted record of work on behalf of the Arab world. I believe a more accurate picture, based on facts rather than insinuations is required.
The petition does not mention that: On taking office as president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn initiated semi-annual meetings with the finance ministers of Arab countries, creating a dialogue that built greater understanding of the region’s problems. He traveled dozens of times to the region and was received at both official and community activist levels; many of these contacts remain his close personal friends, including Palestinian and Lebanese leaders.
As Special Envoy for the Middle East for the Quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and the United States), Wolfensohn was given the delicate task of coordinating Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and leading reconstruction efforts in the area. After one year in office, Wolfensohn resigned from his position, protesting the Quartet’s decision to boycott and freeze aid to the Palestinian Authority following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 elections.
In an article published in 2007 reflecting his support for strengthening Palestinian sovereignty, Palestinian institutions, and a sustainable Palestinian economy, he explains his reasons for opposing the Bush Administration’s policies towards Palestinians after Hamas won the elections in 2006: “The reality is that you have 1.4 million Palestinians living in Gaza and you can’t wish them away, you can’t leave Gaza as a place where the rich and the intellectuals and the powerful can get out, and leave just people who can’t make a living – or can make a living if they could but have no leadership. And military use of subjugation doesn’t solve the problem, it seems to me.”
In recognition of his efforts to rebuild Gaza, Wolfensohn received, in 2007, the Palestine Prize for Excellence and Creativity by the Palestinian Authority.
Following his retirement as Special Envoy, Wolfensohn devoted significant attention towards issues related to the youth in the Arab world. He personally contributed a donation of more than $1 million towards those efforts, the main part of which was located at the Dubai School of Government as a joint venture with the Wolfensohn Foundation. Over 30 monographs and books have now been published on the topic of Arab youth, and the Foundation is looking for institutions that could house this research effort more centrally in the Arab world. Ironically, before this week, AUB might have been regarded as a natural collaborator.
Wolfensohn was part of the founding Board of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, headed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said, an orchestra that promotes intercultural dialogue, trains Arab musicians and creates opportunities for them to perform around the world.
Wolfensohn has, on record, criticized Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories and, in support of the Palestinian people, has often voiced strong criticism in Israel and the United States against their policies. In an article published in 2004, he was quoted as saying, “Israel’s military operations pertaining to the demolitions of thousands of homes in Rafah are reckless, and leave tens of thousands of people without a roof over their heads… As a Jew, I am ashamed of this kind of treatment of people.”
As a university we recognize and respect the diversity of opinions that must be expressed on campus, and it is the right of faculty and students to disagree with decisions made by the administration. The policies of the World Bank are controversial in many countries and are rightfully a topic of discussion and debate in academic circles.
As an institution devoted to critical thinking and the judicious weighing of evidence, however, AUB is not well served by petitions that are deliberately slanted to serve narrow interests regardless of facts. Co-opting the opinions of fellow faculty, students, and alumni by a pretext of authority, such campaigns are fundamentally dishonest and diverge from our university’s commitment to the pursuit of knowledge as grounded in intellectual integrity.
Let us acknowledge that ours is a complex region that is undergoing unprecedented change, and that it needs people, like James Wolfensohn, who have the ability to reach out across cultural and political boundaries to improve the human condition. We are saddened by the fact that AUB will not be able to honor him this June, when we had hoped we might bring his many positive contributions on behalf of the Arab world to the attention of a wider audience, especially here in Lebanon.”
Wolfensohn on Friday canceled a scheduled keynote address at AUB, amid accusations by the faculty that he supported Israel.
The decision came after more than 90 faculty members signed a petition, entitled "Not in our name: AUB faculty, staff and students object to honoring James Wolfensohn."
This pressured the university to revoke its decision to grant an honorary doctorate to Wolfensohn.
The petition argued that "honoring Mr Wolfensohn ... symbolically undermines AUB’s legacy in the struggle for social justice and its historical connection to Beirut, to Palestine and beyond."
It also detailed Wolfensohn’s alleged links to Israeli companies and accused him of being "an investor in an Israeli company developing transport infrastructure for illegal Jewish-only settlements built in the occupied West Bank" and a "standing member of the international advisory of the Israeli Democracy Institute."
Wolfensohn, an Australian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, could not be reached for comment.
The international investment banker and financial adviser served as president of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005 and is currently chairman of his own firm, Wolfensohn and Company.
In past years, several artists and writers have had to cancel scheduled performances in Lebanon amid controversy over their alleged ties to Israel, which ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. Lebanon remains technically at war with Israel and has vowed to be the last Arab country to sign a peace agreement with the Jewish state.

An Iranian minister pretending to be a Syrian reporter!
11/06/2011
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
Last week, in my article "The child who shook Syria" [2/6/2011] I wrote that "respected Arab news outlets in our region should not accept the emergence of this phenomenon [so-called Syrian "analysts" defending the regime in the media], and if the Syrian regime wants to defend itself, it should do so through an allocated official spokesperson, or through the regime's Minster of Information…rather than through these "analysts" who the media stations know, more than anyone else, are not credible."
Today we return once more to the same issue, and that is for one simple reason. Yesterday the British Sky News channel reported a story about the Syrian regime's suppression of civilians, however the Sky News presenter then said "and now, with us to comment on this issue is a spokeswoman for the Syrian Foreign Ministry." This British news channel did not agree to host any Syrian "analysts" because it is a professional media outlet that respects its viewers and does not subject them to false propaganda, and so the Damascus regime acquiesced and sent a fair-haired spokeswoman [to comment]. This is something that our own [Arab] satellite channels have failed to do!
What is strange is that the Syrian regime attacks Arab satellite news channels rather than thanks them, for these are media outlets that give air-time to these so-called "analysts". Indeed one such Arab satellite news channel hosted one of these "analysts", who live on air invited European ministers to visit Syria, without the satellite news channel host asking "in what capacity are you [the Syrian analyst] extending this invitation?" Indeed if you were to Google the analyst in question you would find that he is not known to the press, but rather is described as being a real estate contractor, whereas this same Arab satellite news channel described him as a "media figure", which is a description that has no basis in reality. One is either a journalist or not; this so-called analyst does not even have a single article to his name, and cannot even be classified amongst those writers who I personally term "the writers who say 'invite me to write for you.'" These are the writers who say, send me an invitation and an [airplane] ticket, and I will extol your virtues, and such writers are in abundance.
What is even more serious is that this same Arab satellite news channel broadcast a tape of a call previously shown on official Syrian television, claiming that this was an armed group targeting the [Syrian] army. This is something that can only be described as ridiculous and abhorrent, and something that no respectable Arab satellite channel should re-broadcast, particularly following the scandal which saw a woman pretending to be the French ambassador to Syria contact a French television news channel and announce her resignation live on air, only for it to be revealed that this woman was an imposter. This is something that I previously described as "the return of the false witnesses" ["Syria…Have the false witnesses returned?" 9/6/2011], and this is an issue that is connected to this same issue [of the so-called Syrian analysts]. We also saw another Arab satellite channel host a guest it introduced as an "Arab intellectual", and who said that he feared Syria becoming a sectarian state such as Lebanon, where he said that sectarianism was 'institutional." However this so-called "intellectual" seems to have forgotten that it was the al-Assad regime – both the Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad regimes – in coordination with Iran that are responsible for institutionalizing sectarianism in Lebanon in the first place.
To return to the issue of the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who spoke to Sky News, and because many of our Arab satellite news channels prefers "ready information", i.e. news already published by newspapers, let me say that the name of the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman is Reem Haddad, and it is now up to these Arab satellite news channels, of course, to try and contact her [to book her to appear on their shows].
In any case, the objective of this article is not to target the mistakes made by our satellite news channels so much as it is an attempt to protect our media as a whole from the deception of the Syrian regime, which does not hesitate to exploit the media, and has been doing so for decades. Patrick Seale, in his 1989 book "Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East", points out that the Hafez al-Assad regime provided Sadegh Ghotbzadeh – an Iranian Minister under Khomeini who was later executed – with a Syrian passport which allowed him to travel to work against the Shah [prior to the revolution]. This saw Ghotbzadeh disguising himself as a reporter for the Syrian "Al-Thawra" newspaper.
Is this enough, or do I need to go on?

Israel must toe the western line on Syria
Haaretz editorial/10.06.11
Anyone who thinks that the crisis in Syria affords Israel an opportunity to "change reality" would do well to put aside such dangerous delusions.
Haaretz Editorial Syria is in a deep crisis. The regime is facing one of the greatest threats in the history of the state: The obedient, downtrodden Syrian public is no longer willing to put up with the Assad family's horrific regime of repression. The Syrian public now aspires to the achievements of its Egyptian and Tunisian counterparts, and is willing to fight like the Libyan public. That was a major surprise for the Syrian regime, which still believes that the brutal use of weapons, torture and other fear tactics will eventually bring calm.
Western states have responded to the events in Syria - unlike their behavior vis-a-vis Egypt and Libya - slowly and cautiously, with diplomatic pressure, sanctions and censure in the United Nations. Their caution stems partly from the fact that there is no obvious replacement for the Syrian regime, as there was in Egypt. Another factor is that Syria is much more important than Libya, which could only benefit from a regime change - or so the West believes.
Syria is seen as a state that is capable of reining in Hezbollah, determining the extent of Iranian interference in Lebanon and aiding the United States in the war against terror in Iraq. These are weighty factors, ones that cause the West to hold out the hope that President Bashar Assad may yet agree to introduce meaningful reforms and remain in power.
Israel cannot take a different position than the one being taken now by Western governments. Anyone who thinks that the crisis in Syria affords Israel an opportunity to "change reality" would do well to put aside such dangerous delusions; this is particularly apposite now, 29 years after Israel's invasion of Lebanon. That, too, was aimed at changing the situation in another country.
And as an occupier that itself used, and still uses, weapons against Palestinian civilians in the territories and in Israel, Israel is far from having earned the right to denounce others. It must closely monitor events in Syria, consider the possible scenarios for its future and represent a policy that in the future could be acceptable to any regime in Syria, and all other states in the region. If Israel seeks to change reality in the region, it would do well to adopt the initiative

Al Qaeda's dead East Africa terror chief targeted the US and Israel
DEBKAfile Special Report
June 11, 2011
For more than 15 years, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed slithered out of every US and Israeli undercover operation to nab him, often with minutes to spare. This week, his luck turned: Sentries at a Somali roadblock on the outskirts of Mogadishu shot him dead Wednesday when the pick-up truck in which he and a companion were travelling refused to stop. They killed him without realizing who he was. He was identified by DNA Saturday, June 10,
debkafile's counter-terror sources report: Fazul, 38, was one of Al Qaeda's most accomplished operational planners and commanders. His strategic skills ran to guile and tactics for bamboozling his enemies. For years, he pulled the wool over the eyes of American and Israeli terrorist hunters.
His passing leaves al Qaeda's branch in East and the Horn of Africa and Somalia leaderless and Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant (who was not elected to succeed him), high and dry. Left now is the second important terrorist branch, the one led by Saif al Adel, who has chosen as acting al Qaeda leader and operates out of Waziristan.
A member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Fazul arrived in 1995 at the Indian Ocean Comoro Islands where he was born opposite Kenya. He settled in the capital of Moroni as a fisherman and married a local girl.
From there, he set about organizing and executing two major terrorist operations targeting Israel and the United States.
It took him a year to set up the hijack of Ethiopian Airways flight 961 en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. During its forced landing opposite the Comoros, five heads of Israel's Aviation Industries and a security guard were murdered, together with the CIA station head in the Ethiopian capital, Leslie Shed, and the deputy commander of the Ukrainian air force.
The group was on its way to a meeting with US, Ukrainian and Israeli teams, headed by the Ukraine president and Israeli defense minister, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. They were to have discussed a deal whereby the Ukraine would supply Ethiopia with fighter jets which Israel would upgrade and the US would pay for.
To this day, all four governments have maintained a tight blackout on the terrorist attack because they have never discovered how Fazul obtained the top secret information about the passengers on the flight and their mission.
After that dossier was shelved, no one followed the investigation up with questions about the location the terrorists chose for landing the hijacked Ethiopian airliner, namely near the Comoro Islands. They would have discovered that waiting for the murderers of the Israeli executives, the American agent and the Ukrainian airmen were fishing boats prepared by Fazul in advance for them to vanish at top speed and go to ground on the islands.
Two years later, in 1998, Fazul planned and executed the twin attacks on the US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi killing 224 people, the worst al Qaeda atrocity before 9/11. It was then that US intelligence picked up the first lead to the unknown terrorist mastermind. An FBI task force arrived in Moroni in 1998, two years after he set up his base there. But they were too late; the bird had flown having been tipped off to his peril. He was placed at the top of the FBI wanted terrorist list with a $5 million bounty on his head.
In 2002, Fazul returned to the attack, hitting again on Israeli targets in Africa.
He had a bomb car rigged for crashing into the Paradise Hotel of Mombasa, a favorite haunt of Israel visitors, following which rockets were launched against an Israeli Arkia passenger plane just taking off from Mombasa airport with 271 passengers. The rockets missed. They were fired from a plane Fazul and his team had chartered. Before escaping to Somalia, they flew the plane over the still smoking hotel and dropped explosives on the building.
These episodes were recounted in detail by debkafile at the time they occurred.
In the summer of 2010, Fazul orchestrated multiple suicide attacks on a number of cafes in Uganda when they were filled with crowds watching the live broadcast of the World Football Cup final in South Africa.
His purpose was to punish Uganda for taking part in the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, where Faizal was leading the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab effort to topple the shaky transitional government>
His death will weaken than effort and is good news for war-torn Somalia.

The Fall of the House of Assad
It's too late for the Syrian regime to save itself.
BY ROBIN YASSIN-KASSAB
"Selmiyyeh, selmiyyeh" -- "peaceful, peaceful" -- was one of the Tunisian revolution's most contagious slogans. It was chanted in Egypt, where in some remarkable cases protesters defused state violence simply by telling policemen to calm down and not be scared. In both countries, largely nonviolent demonstrations and strikes succeeded in splitting the military high command from the ruling family and its cronies, and civil war was avoided. In both countries, state institutions proved themselves stronger than the regimes that had hijacked them. Although protesters unashamedly fought back (with rocks, not guns) when attacked, the success of their largely peaceful mass movements seemed an Arab vindication of Gandhian nonviolent resistance strategies. But then came the much more difficult uprisings in Bahrain, Libya, and Syria.
Even after at least 1,300 deaths and more than 10,000 detentions, according to human rights groups, "selmiyyeh" still resounds on Syrian streets. It's obvious why protest organizers want to keep it that way. Controlling the big guns and fielding the best-trained fighters, the regime would emerge victorious from any pitched battle. Oppositional violence, moreover, would alienate those constituencies the uprising is working so hard to win over: the upper-middle class, religious minorities, the stability-firsters. It would push the uprising off the moral high ground and thereby relieve international pressure against the regime. It would also serve regime propaganda, which against all evidence portrays the unarmed protesters as highly organized groups of armed infiltrators and Salafi terrorists.
The regime is exaggerating the numbers, but soldiers are undoubtedly being killed. Firm evidence is lost in the fog, but there are reliable and consistent reports, backed by YouTube videos, of mutinous soldiers being shot by security forces. Defecting soldiers have reported mukhabarat lined up behind them as they fire on civilians, watching for any soldier's disobedience. A tank battle and aerial bombardment were reported after a small-scale mutiny in the Homs region. Tensions within the military are expanding.
And a small minority of protesters does now seem to be taking up arms. Syrians -- regime supporters and the apolitical as much as anyone else -- have been furiously buying smuggled weapons since the crisis began. Last week for the first time, anti-regime activists reported that people in Rastan and Talbiseh were meeting tanks with rocket-propelled grenades. Some of the conflicting reports from Jisr al-Shaghour, the besieged town near the northwestern border with Turkey, describe a gun battle between townsmen and the army. And a mukhabarat man was lynched by a grieving crowd in Hama.
The turn toward violence is inadvisable but perhaps inevitable. When residential areas are subjected to military attack, when children are tortured to death, when young men are randomly rounded up and beaten, electrocuted, and humiliated, some Syrians will seek to defend themselves. Violence has its own momentum, and Syria appears to be slipping toward war.
There are two potential civil-war scenarios. The first begins with Turkish intervention. Since Syrian independence in 1946, tensions have bubbled over into Turkey's Hatay province, known to Syrians as Wilayat Iskenderoon, the Arab region unjustly gifted to Kemal Ataturk by the French. War almost broke out in 1998 over Syria's hosting of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, who now sits in a Turkish prison. Yet since the ascension of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and Bashar al-Assad's inheritance of the Syrian presidency, relations have dramatically improved. Turkey invested enormous financial and political capital in Syria, establishing a Levantine free trade zone and distancing itself from Israel.
Erdogan extracted promises of reform from Bashar at the onset of the protests and then watched with increasingly visible consternation as the promises were broken. He warned Syria repeatedly against massacres and their consequences (on June 9, he described the crackdown as "savagery"). Syria's response is reminiscent of Israel's after last year's Mavi Marmara killings: slandering its second-most important ally with petulant self-destructiveness.
Turkish military intervention remains unlikely, but if the estimated 4,000 refugees who have crossed the border thus far swell to a greater flood, particularly if Kurds begin crossing in large numbers, Turkey may decide to create a safe haven in north or northeastern Syria. This territory could become Syria's Benghazi, potentially a home for a more local and credible opposition than the exile-dominated one that recently met in Antalya, Turkey, and a destination to which soldiers and their families could defect. A council of defected officers might then organize attacks on the regime from the safe haven, adding military to economic and diplomatic pressure.
The second scenario is sectarian war, as seen in neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon. Although most people choose their friends from all communities, sectarianism remains a real problem in Syria. The ruling family was born into the historically oppressed Alawi community. The Ottomans regarded Alawis as heretics rather than as "people of the book," and Alawis -- unlike Christians, Jews, and mainstream Shiite Muslims -- were therefore deprived of all legal rights. Before the rise of the Baath and the social revolution it presided over, Alawi girls served as housemaids in Sunni cities. Some Alawis fear those times are returning and will fight to prevent change. The social stagnation of dictatorship has made it difficult to discuss sectarian prejudice in public, which has sometimes kept hatreds bottled up. Some in the Sunni majority perceive the Assads as representatives of their sect and resent the entire community by extension.
None of this makes sectarian conflict inevitable. Class and regional cleavages are perhaps more salient than sect in Syria today. Sunni business families have been co-opted into the power structure while disfavored Alawis have suffered as much as anyone else. The protesters, aware of the dangers, have consistently chanted slogans of national unity. And in Lebanon and Iraq the catalysts for civil war were external interventions, not internal upheaval.
The catalyst in Syria may be the regime itself. Simulating sectarian war is one of the regime's preferred tactics. In March, Syrian friends have told me, its shabiha militia tried to spark social breakdown in Latakia by pretending to be a Sunni mob while it shot up Alawi areas and an Alawi mob as it terrorized Sunni neighborhoods. Syrians say the regime is arming Alawi villages and wishfully thinking of a repeat of the 1980s, when it faced a genuinely violent sectarian challenge in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, which it defeated at the Hama massacre in 1982.
The danger of the simulacrum is that it could become reality. If the regime doesn't disintegrate quickly, the state will disintegrate gradually, and then the initiative could be seized by the kind of tough men who command local loyalty by providing the basics and avenging the dead. If violence continues at this pitch for much longer, it's easy to imagine local and sectarian militias forming, with the Sunnis receiving funding from the Persian Gulf.
Such a scenario would be a disaster for Syrians of all backgrounds. The ripple effects would be felt in Lebanon (which would likely be sucked into the fray), Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, and beyond. It could also give a second life to the Wahhabi-nihilist groups currently relegated to irrelevance by the new democratic mood in the region.
Let's hope the boil bursts before either of these wars occurs. The economy may collapse catastrophically, at which point almost every Syrian would have to choose between revolution and starvation. Under continued pressure, the regime may destroy itself through internecine conflict, or it may surrender when mass desertions make the military option unfeasible. The manner of bringing the boil to eruption remains obscure. What seems certain is that the regime will not be able to bring Syria back under its heel.

Syrian refugee tells Haaretz: Assad regime killing soldiers who refuse to shoot civilians
Haaretz's Anshel Pfeffer reports from the Syrian-Turkish border.
By Anshel Pfeffer /Haaretz
All he is willing to say is that his name is Moussa and that he comes from a village near Jisr al-Shoughour, where he arrived on Thursday to shop at the market. To prove that he was there, Moussa holds up his cell phone and plays a video of burning fields with sounds of gunfire in the background.
Moussa says that the incident which the Syrian regime claimed left 120 soldiers dead at the hands of "armed gangs" began when the security police and Baath party activists brought two buses of pro-regime demonstrators into the town and urged residents to join a procession celebrating the rule of Bashar Assad. The residents refused and instead staged a counter-protest.
Two refugees from Syria in the Turkish Red Crescent camp in the Yayladagi district, two kilometers from the Syrian border yesterday.
"The policemen told the soldiers to shoot at the people," Moussa recalls. "Some of the soldiers refused to open fire, so they themselves were shot."
He says he doesn't know where the figure of 120 dead soldiers comes from, but notes that 37 protesters were also killed, and "other civilians were taken away, we don't know where. Anyone who could ran off, and policemen stayed behind to shoot at whoever would come back. In the end everyone ran away."
On that night, the residents of Jisr al-Shoughour and the surrounding villages began a massive exodus toward the Turkish border. "On the way we saw them burning fields and bringing in reinforcements," Moussa says. He recalls hundreds of soldiers arriving in convoys of armed vehicles and tanks. The tanks shelled buildings, hitting two mosques in the process. The forces appeared to belong to the staunchly loyal Fourth Division of the Syrian army, commanded by Mahr Assad, the president's brother.
Moussa is sitting curled up on the roof of a house in a small village on the Turkish side of the border, casting furtive glances from left to right. He is one of the few Syrians who have succeeded in crossing without being detained in a refugee camp by the Turkish authorities.
About 300 meters from the house is an asphalt road marking the border. A dirt road leading up to it from the Syrian side is full of vehicles abandoned there by Jisr al-Shoughour refugees.
Later that day, at around 7 P.M., about 100 people stand on the asphalt strip. They arrived hours before with a coffin on their shoulders. They said it contained the remains of a young man killed by Syrian security forces. They were stopped at the border by a Turkish armored vehicle and told to stay on that side of the road.
Warning shots
A young Turkish lieutenant is driving up and down the road in a jeep and yelling at Turkish civilians who try to help the refugees and the journalists who want to film them, warning both to stay away. "It's a closed military zone, this is a border," he shouts. One of the soldiers fires two warning shots into the air. About half an hour after darkness falls, a convoy of white mini-buses arrives. The refugees board them and are taken to one of the two refugee camps, both already nearly completely full. An ambulance takes some of the wounded to a hospital in the nearby city of Antakya. Those with less serious wounds are taken to a field hospital nearby.
While there is still no clear account of recent events in the northwestern province of Idlib, the picture that emerges from statements by refugees and reports compiled by human rights organizations is that at least some of the fatalities among the soldiers were caused when security forces loyal to the regime shot at them, after these soldiers refused to shoot protesters.
There are also reports of widespread defections from the army, and it is clear that events in Syria are resonating beyond the country's borders.
According to reports, nearly all 41,000 residents of Jisr al-Shoughour and thousands of other villagers from the area have fled south, toward the Turkish border. It is not yet known how many of them succeeded in crossing into Turkey and how many are still hiding in the mountainous terrain near the border. One group of refugees that did break through yesterday said that Syrian soldiers shot at them, wounding some. There were also reports of groups of armed civilians and soldiers who defected and stayed behind in Jisr al-Shoughour to fight regime forces.
Various official Turkish announcements have put the estimated number of refugees who crossed the border into their country at anywhere between 4,000 and 6,000.
While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week strongly condemned Syria's brutal suppression of the protests, Turkish gendarmes and soldiers are preventing any contact between the refugees who made it over the border and local journalists and citizens.
The Turkish Red Crescent organization and the Health Ministry have built two refugee camps that are already operating at capacity, one at Altinozu and a second in Yayladagi. A third camp is slated to go up near Boynuyogun, just over the border, today. A field hospital has also been built.
The camps are surrounded by gendarmes who have prevented not only journalists, but also relatives of the refugees who live in Turkey, from entering or even speaking with people inside.
"We came to check whether our relatives were here because we haven't been able to make phone contact with them," said Ahmet Demel yesterday.

Assad likely to succeed in bid to quell Syria protests
By Zvi Bar'el /Haaretz
A Syrian opposition website yesterday compared President Bashar Assad with a hijacker who names his ransom fee and then cuts off all contact until his demands are met.
The comparison is right about one thing at least - Assad isn't taking phone calls from Ban-ki Moon. In their last conversation, a few days ago, he asked the United Nations Secretary General why he had called him, anyway. The Turkish prime minister is apparently in the same boat; Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he last spoke to Assad "four or five days ago." On Friday he denounced the "atrocities" being committed by the Syrian regime against its own citizens, calling its actions "savagery." Strong words for a man who only a week ago said he still considered Assad a "good friend."
Syria seems unmoved by both Erdogan's remarks and by the UN Security Council, where he has the full backing - and the threat of their veto of any anti-Syrian resolution - of China and Russia. Their support enables Assad to continue to characterize his violent suppression of demonstrations and shooting of protesters as an "internal Syrian matter" or the work of "armed gangs," and to claim that any international intervention is a plot to destroy the regime.
Assad is operating on the assumptions that time is not working against him, that his army will succeed in suppressing the demonstrations even if they continue for longer than anticipated and that even if Turkey or other states sever ties with Syria it will still be able to count on cooperation from Iraq, Iran and Russia. Another assumption, presumably correct, is that Syria will not be subject to a Libya-style international military onslaught. Assad's Syria has endured periods of severe diplomatic isolation in the past. With the UN draft resolutions intended, for now, only to censure the acts of suppression, without imposing additional sanctions, Assad can ignore the threat.
The position of the Syrian army lends further support to Assad's intransigence. Its junior and mid-level echelons, as well as the senior command, is behind him. While opposition leaders have reported the defections of soldiers and some officers, even they admit that their numbers are in "the hundreds, and not thousands." Most of these defectors are soldiers or junior officers from towns and villages that are under army assault. According to Lebanese sources, senior commanders remove soldiers or officers who are "suspected" of disloyalty and either imprison them or order them to remain in barracks.
Assad has also stopped offering a "dialogue" with the opposition; in recent days, the reports mention only an intention to carry out reforms "in the coming days." These announcements no longer have any effect on the resistance movement, which now encompasses large parts of Damascus and of Aleppo, the country's two largest cities, which have not as yet joined the anti-regime protest full-force. The opposition's ultimate goal is to get rid of the Assad regime and introduce democracy.
The opposition, however, is having difficulty forging a unified leadership, and this plays into Assad's hands. Even though the convention held by the opposition movement early this month elected a 31-member consultative council and drafted a declaration of intentions that was also signed by the Muslim Brotherhood, many internal disagreements remain. These include, for example, whether to call for international military intervention, how to build the post-Assad regime, how to divide the political pie among Sunni and Shi'ite, Christian and Alawi; between urban and rural, between tribal heads and urban elites. And, as usual in such circumstances, the will is being read before the deceased has breathed his last breath.