LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJUNE 14/2011

Bible Quotation for today
Peter's First Letter 4/12-19: "Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you, to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. 4:13 But because you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory you also may rejoice with exceeding joy. 4:14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed; because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified. 4:15 For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil doer, or a meddler in other men’s matters. 4:16 But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter. 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God? 4:18 “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will happen to the ungodly and the sinner?”* 4:19 Therefore let them also who suffer according to the will of God in doing good entrust their souls to him, as to a faithful Creator"

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources 
Al Assad runs out of friends and time/By Rime Allaf/June 13/11
Turkey's Election: An Islamist Revolution/By Barry Rubin/June 13/11
Syrian refugees walk past tents at a Turkish/By: Hanin Ghaddar/June 13/11
The mind of the Arab tyrant/By: Mohammad Aslam/June 13/11  
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood delegation in Gaza amid Israeli spy scandal/DEBKAfile/June 13/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 13/11
Lebanon announces cabinet line-up/Now Lebanon
Reports: STL Indictment in Few Weeks, Canadian Investigator Leaked Document to CBC/Naharnet
Paris Says Current Political Vacuum Serves Indictment/Naharnet
U.S. uncovered plot to assassinate Hariri: report/Daily Star
Lebanese Army Leadership Slams Hints of Armed Militants along Northern Border/Now Lebanon
Scorched earth in north Syria/Daily Star
US military blames Shiite militia in Iraq for killing of 5 soldiers/CNN
Syria regime condemned by William Hague and Hillary Clinton/The Guardian
Syria crisis and Middle East unrest - live updates/The Guardian
Syria aided by Iran to help crush anti-Assad protests'/J.Post
Sen. Graham on Syria, Libya and Afghanistan/Washington Post
Australia calls for tougher intervention in Syria/ABC
Syria: Butchery, while the world watches/The Guardian
Backed by helicopters and tanks, Syria's army regains restive town; thousands/Washington Post
Syria regime wages propaganda war/Financial Times
Syria's Wounded Refugees: Tales of Massacre and Honorable Soldiers/TIME
Aoun: US interference will not be tolerated/The Daily Star
Two French die in car accident in east Lebanon/The Daily Star
Euromoney revises Lebanon's risk ranking downward over power vacuum, tensions/The Daily Star
Patriarchs Garden works begin ahead of Rai's arrival/The Daily Star
Maronite clergy tackle power vacuum/The Daily Star
Merhebi charges Hezbollah of deploying cannons in the North/Now Lebanon
Hezbollah, Amal clash in southern Beirut suburb/The Daily Star
Hezbollah's broken promise/Ya Libnan
Cabinet formation efforts at a standstill/The Daily Star
Al Liwa: Mikati disappointed with Hezbollah and Aoun/Ya Libnan
Lebanon's Arabic press digest - June 13, 2011/Daily Star
Sleiman, Mikati, Berri meet at Baabda palace/Daily Star
Fatfat: Cabinet vacuum is in Hezbollah's interest/Now Lebanon
Arslan Insists on Portfolio as Jumblat’s Sources Advise him to Split from Aoun’s Bloc/Naharnet
Senior Kuwait royal quits cabinet, minister say/Now Lebanon
Berri Nominates his Relative Wassim Mansouri for Foreign Ministry/Naharnet
Armed Parties Engage in Gunbattle in Shiyyah/Naarnet

Lebanon announces cabinet line-up
June 13, 2011
Prime Minister Najib Mikati announces the formation of a new government on Monday. (Dalati & Nohra)
A Lebanese cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati, was formed on Monday after almost five months of deliberations between the March 8 parties.
The detailed cabinet lineup was announced by the Cabinet Secretary General Suheil Bouji, who officially declared the resignation of outgoing PM Saad Hariri’s government and the appointment of Najib Mikati as premier.
The March 14 alliance had announced that it will not take part in the Mikati cabinet following the forced collapse of Hariri’s unity government.
Cabinet line-up:
-Prime Minister: Najib Mikati (Sunni)
-Deputy Prime Minister: Samir Moqbel (Orthodox)
President’s share:
-Minister of Interior: Marwan Charbel (Maronite, also considered close to the Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Environment: Nazem al-Khoury (Maronite)
Prime Minister’s share:
-Minister of Finance: Mohammad Safadi (Sunni)
-Minister of Youth and Sports: Faisal Karami (Sunni)
-Minister of Education: Hassan Diab (Sunni)
-Minister of Information: Walid Daouq (Sunni)
-Minister of State: Ahmad Karami (Sunni)
Change and Reform bloc:
-Minister of Justice: Shakib Qortbawi (Maronite, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Labor: Charbel Nahhas (Catholic, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Tourism: Fadi Abboud (Maronite, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minster of Energy and Water: Gebran Bassil (Maronite, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Economy: Nicolas Nahhas (Orthodox, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Telecommunications: Nicolas Sehnaoui (Orthodox, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Culture: Gaby Layoun (Catholic, Free Patriotic Movement)
-Minister of Defense: Fayez Ghosn (Orthodox, Marada Movement)
-Minister of State: Salim Karam (Maronite, Marada Movement)
-Minister of State: Panos Manajian (Armenian Orthodox, Tashnaq Party)
-Minister of Industry: Freije Sabounjian (Armenian Orthodox, Tashnaq Party)
Progressive Socialist Party:
-Minister of Public Works and Transportation: Ghazi Aridi (Druze)
-Minister of Social Affairs: Wael Abu Faour (Druze)
-Minister of the Displaced: Alaeddine Terro (Sunni)
Hezbollah:
-Minister of State for Administrative Reform: Mohammad Fneish (Shia)
-Minister of Agriculture: Hussein Hajj Hassan (Shia)
Amal:
-Minister of Foreign Affairs: Adnan Mansour (Shia)
-Minster of Public Health: Ali Hassan Khalil (Shia)
Lebanese Democratic Party:
-Minister of State: Talal Arslan (Druze)
Independents:
-Minister of State for Parliament Affairs: Nicolas Fattouch (Catholic)
SSNP:
-Minister of State: Ali Qanso (Shia, Syrian Social Nationalist Party)
-NOW Lebanon

U.S. uncovered plot to assassinate Hariri: report
June 13, 2011 /The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The U.S. uncovered a plot to assassinate caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Monday.
The plot was planned to take place in Beirut in May 2011, according to U.S. sources quoted in Al-Rai. The U.S. has informed Hariri of the plot, according to Al Rai’s Washington-based correspondent. The paper said Hariri had received simultaneous warnings from France and Saudi Arabia. Future Movement lawmakers have previously confirmed that Hariri is out of the country for “security reasons.” Al Rai newspaper said the U.S., France and other regional countries were following up on “surveillance” carried out by groups inside Lebanon aimed at monitoring Hariri’s activities since August 2010. The report said these countries have informed Hariri of the need to exercise utmost caution when traveling in Lebanon.
Surveillance showed Hariri’s motorcade in Beirut, particularly on the airport road and sometimes at the airport itself, was being monitored, according to Al Rai’s sources.
“After U.S. intelligence uncovered the assassination plot, which was planned for May, and after intelligence services of friendly countries confirmed the existence of this plan, decision-making circles in Washington embarked on an examination of the possible political motives behind the plot to kill Hariri,” a U.S. official told Al-Rai.
The official said Washington believes that Hariri’s “liquidation” would turn the table in Lebanon, a move that is in the interest of Syrian President Bashar Assad who is struggling to survive anti-regime protests. U.S. sources said Hariri’s assassination would lead to sectarian chaos and tension among Lebanese where a Sunni-Shiite confrontation could be used by Assad as a pretext in his bid to “militarily eliminate the popular revolution” inside Syria. The U.S. sources believe Assad had asked Hezbollah to open a war front in south Lebanon against Israel, but Hezbollah – which does not feel it is in trouble like its ally, Assad – sees no need to go into a “grinding war” with Israel that will not guarantee the survival of Assad’s regime.

Lebanese Army Leadership Slams Hints of Armed Militants along Northern Border
Naharnet Newsdesk /General Director of the army command Brigadier General Hassan Ayoub rejected hints that “illegal armed militants” had deployed along the Lebanese-Syrian border in the North, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Monday. He instead confirmed that the Lebanese army is deployed along the border. Meanwhile, Mustaqbal bloc MP Moueen al-Merhbi announced that Hizbullah deployed 130 mm canons of 30 kilometer range in the northern region of Akkar. He called on the army to “investigate the existence of those canons that were seen by several witnesses.”The MP was quoted as saying that the canons were being moved into Oyoun Orghosh and other areas from Syria. Merhbi noted that Syrian border guards are carrying out night patrols in the neighboring border areas of al-Abboudieh and Sheikh Ayyash areas, while the Lebanese army has not taken any action. Hizbullah has meanwhile denied the MP’s allegations, deeming them “fabricated and ridiculous.”

Reports: STL Indictment in Few Weeks, Canadian Investigator Leaked Document to CBC
Naharnet Newsdesk /The indictment in the probe into the 2005 killing of former Premier Rafik Hariri will be issued later in the month or in early July, a judicial source at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said. The source told al-Liwaa newspaper published Monday that the indictment will be issued between June 20 and July 5. He did not give further details.
STL Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare filed an amended indictment last month based on further evidence in the investigation into Hariri’s murder. The indictment, which is being kept confidential, has to be examined by Pre-trial Judge Daniel Fransen, who has the responsibility of confirming it before arrest warrants or summonses are issued. The news came amid another report by al-Akhbar newspaper that a Canadian investigator was responsible for leaking a document on Hariri’s case to the Canadian broadcaster CBC. CBC aired a documentary in November last year citing unidentified sources saying that U.N. investigators had evidence that "points overwhelmingly" to the involvement of Hizbullah members and possibly Lebanon's head of police intelligence Colonel Wissam Hassan in Hariri’s assassination. Al-Akhbar said that the investigator felt treason when Bellemare, who is also Canadian, decided to replace him with another investigator from another nationality in March 2009. The man leaked the document to CBC to avenge the STL prosecutor’s move, the newspaper added.

Paris Says Current Political Vacuum Serves Indictment
Naharnet Newsdesk/France said that an initiative aimed at solving the Lebanese crisis is “not rational” especially with the expected release in the upcoming weeks of the indictment in the probe into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination, the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat reported on Monday. A High-ranking French source told the daily that the time taken by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to issue the indictment paved way for Lebanese officials to “absorb” the results of the accusations. The source said that a government formed with the participation of Hizbullah will seek to cut the relations with the STL after the indictment is issued. It hinted that the current vacuum in the government benefits the STL, ruling out that the indictment will accuse Syria. Concerning the delay in the cabinet formation, the source noted that Hizbullah is “incapable” of forming the government, since Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun is obstructing the process – but Hizbullah doesn’t want to end its alliance with him.
The source stressed the importance of renewing the term of the Central Bank governor. “It can be done through holding a session for the caretaking government with only one item on its agenda.” The daily quoted the source as saying that Paris is not satisfied with the way Premier-designate Najib Miqati was tasked, but he is a “respected” person. “The fact that he is incapable of forming the cabinet shows that he isn’t yielding to pressure,” the source said. He stressed that the current vacuum in Lebanon “serves” Miqati, confirming that “France will work with the formed cabinet in Lebanon.” On security issues, the source noted that Syria has no interest in taking the turmoil into Lebanon, while Iran is busy with the current situation in Syria. “Different Lebanese parties chose not to meddle in the Syrian affairs, and rumors linking certain Lebanese parties to moving arms into Syria are completely not true,” the source told al-Hayat. The source pledged that Paris and the countries having contingents in UNIFIL will protect their troops, and will reply firmly to further attacks on the peacekeeping force in the south.

Arslan Insists on Portfolio as Jumblat’s Sources Advise him to Split from Aoun’s Bloc
Naharnet Newsdesk/Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan has reiterated his demand for a portfolio in the new cabinet and accused Premier-designate Najib Miqati of procrastination. “We will not participate in any government with a minister of state,” Arslan told As Safir daily in remarks published Monday. The Druze lawmaker said that neither he nor any of his representatives from the party would accept to become state ministers.“Miqati is delaying the formation (of the cabinet) for reasons that we do not know,” Arslan told the newspaper. The representation of the Druze party and the former Sunni opposition are the new obstacles delaying the government formation.
Sources close to Druze leader Walid Jumblat told al-Akhbar daily that Arslan should make his demand for a portfolio from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun or “announce his independence” from Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc. If Arslan falls out of the bloc, Aoun would get a smaller share and Arslan would achieve his ambitions, the sources said.
Other sources following up the formation of the cabinet told al-Liwaa newspaper that Miqati can no longer deal with Arslan’s demands after achieving an understanding with Jumblat on the two Druze portfolios – the public works ministry which would go to Ghazi Aridi and the social affairs ministry to Wael Abou Faour. There is no room for a portfolio to a third Druze personality, the sources said. But they confirmed that efforts are underway to solve the problem by granting Arslan’s relative Marwan Kheireddine a state ministry in return for giving the party chief a portfolio that should have been from the share of the Greek Orthodox sect.

Berri Nominates his Relative Wassim Mansouri for Foreign Ministry
Naharnet Newsdesk /Speaker Nabih Berri nominated his relative lawyer Wassim Mansouri for the Foreign Affairs Ministry post in the new cabinet, An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday. If he was allotted the ministry, Mansouri would replace Caretaker Minister Ali al-Shami in Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s government. The lawyer is a university professor and involved professionally with the defense team of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is investigating the assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri, the daily reported.

Armed Parties Engage in Gunbattle in Shiyyah
Naharnet Newsdesk /Yesterday Two armed parties clashed in Beirut’s Shiyyah neighborhood at dawn Sunday, the state-run National News Agency reported without identifying the gunmen. It said armed fighters from two parties exchanged fire with automatic rifles in Shiyyah’s al-Tayyar street at around 3:00 am. It was not clear what caused the incident, NNA said. But it reported that security forces deployed in the area after the gunmen withdrew from the street. Shiyyah is located near Beirut’s southern suburbs, which is a Hizbullah stronghold. In another security incident, an unknown assailant tossed a percussion grenade near two parked vehicles next to Sayyidat al-Khalas church in Ain al-Rummaneh, causing material damage only. Security forces rushed to the scene, NNA said. It added that they launched an investigation into the incident.

Scorched earth in north Syria
June 13, 2011 /Daily Star
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis Reuters
AMMAN: Syrian tanks and helicopters stormed the town of Jisr al-Shughour Sunday, residents said, and state television reported heavy clashes between army troops and gunmen opposed to President Bashar Assad. More than 5,000 Syrian refugees have crossed the border and a UNHCR spokesman said the Red Crescent was preparing a fourth camp with room for 2,500 more. Witnesses said some 10,000 Syrians were sheltering near the border. The assault on Jisr al-Shughour, astride a strategic road in northwest Syria, is the latest action by the armed forces to crush demands for political freedom and an end to oppression that pose an unprecedented challenge to Assad’s 11-year rule. Residents said earlier that most of the town’s 50,000 people had fled toward the Turkish border about 20 kms away and tanks and helicopters were shelling and machinegunning the town.
Damascus has banned most foreign correspondents from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.
“Heavy confrontations are raging between army units and members of armed organizations taking up positions in the surroundings of Jisr al-Shughour and inside it,” state television said.
Army units defused bombs and explosive charges planted by gunmen on bridges and roads into the town, it said. “Two members of the armed organizations were killed, large numbers of them arrested, and weapons in their possession were seized.”
State television said the forces uncovered mass graves of security men killed and buried by armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour and said their bodies bore marks of “atrocities.” It did not give details. The government said last week that “armed gangs” had killed more than 120 security personnel in the town after large demonstrations there. Refugees and rights groups said the dead were mutinous soldiers, shot for refusing to fire on civilians. “When the massacre happened in Jisr al-Shughour the army split, or they started fighting each other and blamed it on us,” a woman refugee, who refused to give her name, told Turkish news channel NTV.
A senior Western diplomat in Damascus told Reuters: “The official version is improbable. Most people had left Jisr al-Shughour after seeing the regime’s scorched earth policy, shelling and the heavy use of armour in the valley.” Asked if there were clashes in the town Mustapha, a 39-year-old mason who fled early Sunday, told Reuters “What clashes? The army is shelling the town from tanks. Everyone has been fleeing.”
“Even if we did have guns, what are they going to do in front of artillery? Syria is a tightly controlled dictatorship and all of a sudden the regime says Jisr al-Shughour is armed to the teeth. They are lying. They are punishing us for wanting freedom.”
Residents said the army unit was commanded by Assad’s brother Maher and was copying the tactics used in other centers to crush protesters demanding an end to Assad’s autocratic rule.
The United States accused the Syrian government of creating a “humanitarian crisis” and called on it to halt its offensive and allow immediate access by the International Committee for the Red Cross to help refugees, detainees and the wounded. Turkey has provided camps for refugees and sent the wounded to hospitals, but restricted access to the refugees, saying this is to protect their privacy. Bassam, a tiler who fled to Turkey as troops approached the town, showed mobile phone camera footage of a dead man, between 18 and 25 years old, with a bullet wound in his leg, and a large exit wound in his stomach. He lay on a bloodied cloth. He said troops burned wheat crops in three villages near Jisr al-Shughour in a scorched-earth policy.
Other refugees said troops killed or burned cows and sheep and burned crops on farmland around the village of Sarmaniya, south of Jisr al-Shughour.
The state news agency said “armed terrorist groups” had burned land in Idlib province as part of a sabotage scheme.

Fatfat: Cabinet vacuum is in Hezbollah’s interest
June 13, 2011 /Future bloc MP Ahmad Fatfat said on Monday that it is in Hezbollah’s interest to keep the country in cabinet vacuum. “It is not in March 8’s interest to form a cabinet in Lebanon because no one has an interest in [forming] a confrontation cabinet,” he told Future News television. Hezbollah is the most comfortable party with the current situation because it is acting the way it wants and because it considers itself the “major power” in the country, the MP also said. “Hezbollah does not have a strategic or regional interest in forming a cabinet.”
Fatfat also said that due to political reasons, Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is not even able to form a de-facto cabinet. “[March 8] is creating obstacles in order not to form a cabinet. This has become a farce,” he added. Mikati, who was appointed to the premiership in January with the backing of the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition, has been working since January to form a government.-NOW Lebanon

Leaders meet in Baabda, discuss Cabinet formation
June 13, 2011 The Daily Star /BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister designate Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri held talks at Baabda Palace Monday, reviving efforts to form a new Cabinet. It was not immediately clear if they reached a breakthrough in the cabinet formation. Sources close to the government formation process told The Daily Star that Mikati, who was nominated Jan 25 to form the new Cabinet, had met Sleiman without any coordination with March 8, the new majority that appointed the Tripoli MP to the post of prime minister designate. The sources said that Berri had then been summoned by Sleiman and Mikati and the three discussed the 30-member Cabinet lineup.
Al-Manar television quoted March 8 sources as saying that many sticking points still exist and that a new government will not formed unless these issues are resolved.
Sources told The Daily Star, that during the meeting with Mikati and Sleiman that the speaker had reservations on the lineup, namely the sixth Sunni seat, the third Druze seat and the sixth Maronite.  Berri left Baabda Palace without making any statement. Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Cabinet, Suheil al-Bouji, arrived at the Presidential Palace after midday.

Hezbollah, Amal clash in southern Beirut suburb
June 12, 2011 /The Daily Star BEIRUT: Members of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah clashed in the early hours of Sunday in Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to police sources.
For unknown reasons, members from the Amal Movements’s headquarters on al-Tayyar street, Shiyyah, southern Beirut, got in an argument with members from Hezbollah at around 3 a.m., the sources said, adding that the dispute soon escalated into an armed confrontation with both sides resorting to the use of assault rifles. Firing from both sides lasted about an hour, the sources said, and ended once the Lebanese Army intervened. The fighters withdrew from the area and the Lebanese Army has deployed troops in the area.
The NNA also reported the incident, but provided few details.  It is unclear if those involved were fighters or simply supporters of the two parties, as Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi was unable to confirm the incident through his contacts at his own party as well as at Amal. It is not known whether there were any casualties in the incident. Meanwhile in Ain el-Rummaneh, a unidentified individual detonated a stun grenade near a church in the area.  Security sources said the man had placed the grenade between two vehicles, a Toyota and Mercedes, which were located some 70 meters from Our Lady of Salvation church. Only the two vehicles had been damaged by the blast, the sources added.

Maronite clergy tackle power vacuum
June 13, 2011 /The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Maronite bishops from Lebanon and abroad warned over the weekend of the power vacuum in the country saying it was damaging the economy and urged Lebanese politicians to maintain their commitment to the national pact. The five-month long wait in forming a Cabinet is “dealing a blow to Lebanon’s economy and productive sectors ahead of the summer tourism season,” said a communiqué released following a bishops’ meeting in Bkirki, the first held under Patriarch Beshara Rai since his election in March.
During the meeting, the bishops also “asked about the reasons behind the killer stalemate in the government formation process.”
Bishops presiding over dioceses in Lebanon and abroad had convened at the seat of the Maronite patriarchate in Bkirki to discuss issues of concern to the Maronite community. The discussions will continue through Wednesday. “We fail to understand the ongoing stalemate in the formation process, which worsens the economic recession in all sectors and deals a blow to productive sectors ahead of the summer season,” the communiqué added. Amid the deep division between rival March 14 and 8 camps, the bishops called on Lebanese political leaders to hold onto the national pact as “a guarantee to preserve Lebanon.” “We urge our partners in the nation and our sons to refrain from relinquishing their commitment to the national pact based on moral and ethical values … because love builds nations and preserve societies,” the communique said. Rai, who led the assembly, said that he hoped Lebanese officials would call for a national congress to lay the foundations of a new social pact inspired by Lebanon’s national pact.
Rai urged political leaders to distance themselves from regional and international conflicts and reject the “factional and unilateral projects” that deepen divisions among the Lebanese.
Bkirki has repeatedly expressed concerns for the divisions among Christian and Lebanese, as the schism deepens between the March 14 and 8 camps, one siding with the U.S.-French-Saudi axis and the other with the Syrian-Iranian axis. In an attempt to end divisions among rival Maronite political leaders, Rai has sponsored two meetings in two months at Bkirki, during which Christian leaders agreed to shelve talks on politically divisive issues and focus on boosting the Christian community’s role and presence in state institutions.
In a sermon followed the bishops’ meeting, Rai said that the delay in the government formation was obstructing the work of state institutions and paralyzing the country’s economic, commercial and tourism sectors. The patriarch reiterated his demand that there be reforms to the distribution of constitutional powers. Rai said last month that the solution to Lebanon’s political crises requires the amendment of the Taif Accord to boost the president’s powers. The Taif Accord, which ended the 15-year Civil War in 1989, stripped the president of most of his executive powers and invested them in the government while Syria, during its military presence in Lebanon, had the final say over strategic policies.

Aoun: U.S. interference will not be tolerated
June 13, 2011 /By Mohammed Zaatari The Daily Star
MLITA, Lebanon: Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun warned the United States over the weekend not to interfere in Lebanon’s domestic affairs, adding that the country was strong enough to prevent the outbreak of a sectarian civil war. “We will twist America’s arm, which returned to [Lebanon but] in different forms, just like we twisted Israel’s arm,” Aoun said during his visit to south Lebanon Saturday accompanied by Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad and other officials. Aoun added that Lebanon had resisted attempts to incite a sectarian war in the country, and expressed hope that Syria can overcome similar attempts. “What is happening in Syria indicates intentions to transform the Israeli-Arab conflict to an intra-Arab conflict … We have resisted and won, and we wish that for our friends,” Aoun said during his second visit to the south in three years. He also noted that a sectarian war in Lebanon would not occur due to the country’s strength. “We are today very strong and there won’t be a civil or a sectarian war in Lebanon [since] we can overcome our political rivalry. There won’t be a Sunni-Shiite war in Lebanon even if [others] want to see this happening so that they can gain power,” Aoun said, adding that those that sought civil strife were in a minority.
Aoun also toured the Hezbollah museum in the village of Mlita, which showcases weaponry and equipment belonging to Hezbollah and used during the resistance’s fight against Israel. He also viewed displays of Israeli tanks obtained by Hezbollah. And despite appearing fatigued toward the end of his trip, Aoun insisted on entering the 200 meter underground tunnel designed by Hezbollah members, and was shown Hezbollah maps revealing Israeli sites. On the issue of Cabinet formation Aoun said, “We are here to remember the resistance; we do not want to spoil this idea by talking about the Cabinet.”

Senior Kuwait royal quits cabinet, minister says
June 13, 2011 /Kuwait's Deputy Premier, Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah, a senior member of the ruling family, has submitted his resignation from the cabinet, a minister said on Monday.
"Sheikh Ahmad has submitted his resignation and the cabinet referred it to the ruler," State Minister for Cabinet Affairs and government spokesperson Ali al-Rashed told reporters.
No reason was given for Sheikh Ahmad's decision to quit but local media have said he was locked in a power struggle with Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, another senior royal. During a parliamentary session on May 31, MPs said to be close to the prime minister voted against a request by Sheikh Ahmad to refer a grilling against him to a parliamentary panel to probe whether it breached the constitution. The panel ruled on Saturday that the grilling, which accuses Sheikh Ahmad of corruption and mismanagement, was in line with the constitution and should be debated in parliament on Tuesday. The resignation becomes official only if the emir accepts it. The prime minister and Sheikh Ahmad, who is also minister of housing and development, are cousins and nephews of the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. Analysts and MPs have pinned the blame for the constant political crises in Kuwait on infighting within the Al-Sabah family which has ruled the Gulf state for more than 250 years. -AFP/NOW Lebanon

Turkey's Election: An Islamist Revolution
This article appears in the Jerusalem Post but I own the rights.
By Barry Rubin
Remember this: By the end of 2011 more than 250 million people in the Middle East may well be living under what are in reality anti-American Islamist governments, mainly in Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, plus the Gaza Strip and an allied (but not Islamist) Syrian regime. Might this be a problem?
The elections in Turkey mark a revolution. When Iran’s revolution happened and the Islamists took over in 1979, everyone knew it. In contrast, Turkey’s revolution has been a stealth Islamist operation. It has succeeded brilliantly, while Western governments have failed shockingly to understand what has been going on.
Now we are at a turning point, an event every bit as significant as the revolutions in Iran and now in Egypt. Of course, it will take time but now Turkey is set on a path that is ending the republic established by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s. The Turkey of secularism and Western orientation is finished. The Turkey that belongs to an alliance of radical Islamists abroad and of Islamism at home has been launched.
Here are the numbers from the parliamentary election:
The stealth Islamist party, Justice and Development (AKP), received almost exactly 50 percent of the vote. Under the Turkish system this will give it 325 members of parliament, or about 60 percent of the seats.
On the opposition side the social democratic Republican People's Party (CHP) got about 26 percent of the vote and 135 seats. The right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) took 13 percent giving it 54 seats. There are also 36 independents, all of them Kurdish communalists. Eleven parties didn't make the minimum ten percent barrier (they received only about 1 percent or less each).
Now is this good or bad?
The AKP won 363 seats with a bit over 34 percent of the vote in 2002; 341 seats with 46.58 percent of the vote in 2007; and 325 seats with almost 50 percent of the vote in 2011.
In statistical terms, the AKP lost 6 MP's despite getting 5 million more votes, the MHP lost 18 MP's despite tallying half a million more votes while the CHP gained 33 seats adding 3.5 million votes. On paper, then, while the AKP stays in power, it is very slightly weaker than before.
But the outcome is nonetheless overwhelmingly bad. As you can see above the AKP's percentage of voters keeps rising. Most of the people who back the party don't want an Islamist regime and they don't think of the AKP in those terms. It rather seems to them to be a strong nationalist party respecting religious tradition that is making Turkey an important international power and is doing a good job on the economy.
The AKP got almost--remember that almost--everything it wanted. It increased voter support more than any other party and will be in power for four--and perhaps many more--years, infiltrating institutions, producing a new constitution, intimidating opponents, altering Turkish foreign policy, and shifting public opinion to dislike Americans and Jews to a larger degree.
The only point on which the AKP fell short is that it didn't get the two-thirds of the seats, 357, that would let it pretty much write Turkey's new constitution any way it wanted. It is, however, close to the 330 needed to take a constitution that it produced to a referendum.
But so what? Deals with a few willing parliamentarians from other parties could provide the five additional votes needed for subitting an AKP-authored constitution to a referendum. The government can offer individuals a lot, including what I will delicately call here personal benefits for their support. And given the way the parliamentary elections went, the AKP can almost certainly win that referendum.
In short, the AKP is entrenched in power and can now proceed with the fundamental transformation of Turkey.
The AKP has become famous for the subtlety of its Islamism, disguised as a "center-right" reform party. Some people in the Arab world are starting to talk about this as a model. Notably the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is fascinated by the strategy. Yet as the Islamist party gains more and more power and support--Turkey has demonstrated this--it becomes more ambitious, daring, and extreme.
This would include:
--A constitution that would take the country far down the road to a more Islamist state and society.
--A more presidential style of government empowering the mercurial (a nice word for personally unstable and frighteningly arrogant) Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to become the chief executive.
--The government can now infiltrate, take over, and transform the remaining hold out institutions, especially the armed forces and courts, along with the remainder of the media that has not yet been bought up or intimidated by the Islamists.
--A government whose policy is to align with Islamists like Iran, Syria (not Islamist but part of the Tehran-led alliance), Hamas, Hizballah, and perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood.
--A government against U.S. and Western interests.
--A government that, to put it bluntly, hates Israel and many of whose members hate Jews.
--For Israel, any dreams of restoring the alliance with Turkey, or even a friendly relationship or normal diplomatic relations are finished. This is the regime that sponsored the first Gaza flotilla and is now behind the second one. From an Israeli interests’ perspective, Turkey’s government is now on the other side, the side of its enemies.
It is hard to place these unpleasant realities and many will not want to face them. There will be no shortage of soothing analyses and encouraging talk about Turkish democracy succeeding, moderate Muslim politics, and how “great” it is that the army’s political power is destroyed.
Don’t be fooled.
This is a disastrous day for the United States and for Europe; for the prospects of stability and peace in the Middle East. And it isn't great news for the relatively moderate Arab states either.
It is the end of the republic as established by Kamal Ataturk in the 1920s and modified into a multi-party democracy in the 1950s.
Yet how many people in the West actually appreciate what is happening? How many journalists will celebrate the election as a victory for democracy? Lenin once reportedly remarked that he would get the capitalists to sell him the rope with which to hang them. The AKP has gotten the West to provide that rope as a gift.

Syria: Where Massacre Is a Family Tradition
The mask of the Assad regime finally falls, and the world is forced to confront its illusions about Iran's ally and Hezbollah's patron..
BY FOUAD AJAMI /Wall Street Journal
Pity the Syrians as they face the Assad regime's tanks and artillery and snipers. Unlike in Libya, there is no Arab or international "mandate" to protect them. Grant Syria's rulers their due: Their country rides with the Iranian theocracy and provides it access to the Mediterranean. It is a patron of Hamas and Hezbollah. And still they managed to sell the outside world on the legend of their moderation.
True, Damascus was at one time or another at odds with all its neighbors—Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Israel—but it managed to remain in the good graces of the international community. It had made a mockery of Lebanon's sovereignty, murdered its leaders at will. Yet for all the brutality and audacity of the Syrian reign of terror and plunder in Lebanon, the Syrians were able to convince powers beyond that their writ was still preferable to the chaos that would engulf Lebanon were they to leave.
In the same vein, Damascus was able to pull off an astonishing feat: Syria was at once the "frontline" state that had remained true to the struggle against Israel, and the country that kept the most tranquil border with the Jewish state. (As easily as Syria's rulers kept the peace of that border, they were able to shatter it recently, sending Palestinian refugees to storm the border across the Golan Heights.)
It was the writer Daniel Pipes who rightly said that Syria's leaders perennially wanted the "peace process" but not peace itself. Their modus operandi was thus: Keep the American envoys coming, hold out the promise of accommodation with Israel, tempt successive U.S. administrations with a grand bargain, while your proxies in Lebanon set ablaze the Lebanese-Israeli border and your capital houses Hamas and all the terrible Palestinian rejectionists.
Syria could have it both ways: ideological and rhetorical belligerence combined with unsentimental diplomacy and skullduggery. The Iranians wanted access to Lebanon and its border with Israel. The Syrians sold it to them at a price. They were unapologetic about it before other Arabs, but they kept alive the dream that they could be "peeled off" from Iran, that theirs was a modern, secular nation that looked with a jaundiced eye on the ways of theocracies.
Opponents of the Syrian regime demonstrate outside the Syrian embassy in Ankara, Turkey. The banner in Turkish at center reads: "Telbise, Rastan cry; Let's not become Hama."
.Syria's rulers were Alawites, schismatics, to the Sunni purists a heresy. Yet as America battled to put a new order in Iraq in place, Syria was the point of transit for Sunni jihadists from other Arab lands keen to make their way there to kill and be killed. The American project there was being bloodied, and this gave the Syrians a reprieve, for they feared they would be next if Washington looked beyond Iraq for other targets.
It was that sordid game that finally convinced George W. Bush that the Syrians had to pay a price for their duplicity. The American support for the 2005 "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon then followed, and the Syrians made a hasty retreat. In time they would experience a seller's remorse, and they would try to regain what they had given up under duress.
Barack Obama provided the Syrian dictatorship with a diplomatic lifeline. He was keen to "engage" Tehran and Damascus, he was sure that Syrian radicalism had been a response to the heavy hand of the Bush administration. An American ambassador was dispatched to Damascus, and an influential figure in the Democratic Party, Sen. John Kerry, made it his calling to argue that the young Syrian ruler was, at heart, a "reformer" eager to sever his relations with Iran and Hezbollah.
The Arab Spring upended all that. It arrived late in Syria, three months after it had made its way to Tunisia and Egypt, one month after Libya's revolt. A group of young boys in the town of Deraa, near the border with Jordan, had committed the cardinal sin of scribbling antiregime graffiti. A brittle regime with a primitive personality cult and a deadly fault-line between its Alawite rulers and Sunni majority responded with heavy-handed official terror. The floodgates were thrown open, the Syrian people discovered within themselves new reservoirs of courage, and the rulers were hell-bent on frightening the population into their old state of submission.
Until the Arab Spring, nothing had stirred in Syria in nearly three decades. President Hafez al-Assad and his murderous younger brother Rifaat had made an example of Hama in 1982 when they stamped out a popular uprising by leveling much of the city and slaughtering thousands. Now, the circle is closed. President Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother Maher, commander of the Republican Guard, are determined to subdue this new rebellion as their father did in Hama—one murder at a time. In today's world it's harder to turn off the lights and keep tales of repression behind closed doors, but the Assads know no other way. Massacre is a family tradition.
It took time for the diplomacy of the West to catch up with Syria's horrors. In Washington, they were waiting for Godot as the Damascus regime brutalized its children. In his much-trumpeted May 19 speech from the State Department—"Cairo II," it was dubbed—President Obama gave the Syrian ruler a choice. He could lead the transition toward democracy or "get out of the way." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has since used the same language.
But one senses this newfound bravado is too little too late. With fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Libya, few leaders in the U.S. or Europe want to see the Assad regime for what it truly is. Yet the truth is there for all who wish to see. Ask the Syrians deserting their homes and spilling across the Turkish border about the ways of Bashar and his killer squads and vigilantes with their dirty tricks. They will tell us volumes about the big prison that the regime maintains.
Arab bloggers with a turn of phrase, playing off the expression of "only in Syria," have given voice to the truth about this dreadful regime. Only in Syria, goes one formulation, does your neighbor go to work in the morning and return 11 years later. Only in Syria does a child enter prison before entering school. Only in Syria does a man go to jail for 20 years without being charged and is then asked to write a letter thanking the authorities upon his release. The list goes on. At last, in Damascus, the mask of this regime has fallen, so late in the hour.
Mr. Ajami is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is co-chair of the Hoover Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Al Assad runs out of friends and time
By Rime Allaf
Gulf News
Up until a few weeks ago, the conventional wisdom in the Middle East was that the Arab Spring had run into the stifling heat of an unexpectedly early summer. Dictators prematurely departing their eternal thrones was, Arab potentates and their allies had decided, the kind of trend that needed stopping — as was the notion of civilians thinking they could dictate their own destiny.
Sure, the cumbersome Muammar Gaddafi would be removed — eventually — but other revolutions would be stopped before they gained traction, whether by persuasion, dissuasion or repression. The wishes of millions of Yemenis were ignored and numerous other demonstrations were quickly controlled. As for Syria, there was no need even for protest: Bashar Al Assad had already brought in economic reforms to address the grievances that sparked the uprisings in Tunis and Cairo. His country was stable, he told the Wall Street Journal, because his government's policies were so closely linked to the beliefs of the people. There was one problem, however: this was far from enough for the parents of 15 schoolboys in Daraa, who had the audacity to object to the jailing and torturing of their children by the Syrian regime, after they dared to scrawl anti-government slogans on the city's walls. The result was an uprising that has proved impossible to quell.
After decades of docility from the Syrian people — partly because of their fear of the regime following the horrific massacre of Hama in 1982, and partly because they genuinely did support its regional stances — they are suddenly unafraid, unbeaten and seemingly unstoppable.
Engagement strategy
In diplomatic terms, it may seem strange that a government that has been condemned and criticised so often should pose such a dilemma to its critics. Take US-Syrian relations. These had been rocky for decades, but there was a detente in the Nineties, the era of the Middle East peace process, and a modus operandi was reached on various issues, including Lebanon. Under Bush, the relationship turned from cordial to icy, and then outright hostile after the US invasion of Iraq and the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former Lebanese prime minister, which many blamed on Syria. By the time of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in 2006, there is no doubt that regime change in Syria was being openly pursued by the US and France, to name but a few.
Many thought the process would take mere weeks, and that it would be a simple matter to install the awaiting team of Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former vice-president and the regime's highest-profile defector to date.
However, when Israel proved unable to defeat Hezbollah militarily, it handed a huge political victory to Syria, the movement's main supporter, and strengthened the regime's position. Many countries switched, therefore, to a strategy of engagement: the lead was taken by France, with the support of increasingly influential regional players such as Turkey and Qatar, which had also been cultivating their ties with Iran.
The traditional Saudi-Syrian-Egyptian axis disappeared, replaced by a new alliance to balance Saudi Arabia. Ironically, however, it is the countries that eased Syria's post-Hariri isolation that have been on the receiving end of its hostility. One by one, the Syrian regime has managed — quite needlessly — to turn Qatar, Turkey and France from influential allies into influential critics.
With no regime-in-waiting to reassure foreign powers, the people of the Syrian spring are dealing the cards themselves — and the regime is suddenly realising that it cannot survive as it did in the Eighties, with only Iran as a powerful friend. Nor can it depend on its population's support, even if the uprising ends tomorrow. This is why, after weeks of accusations and insults directed at those who have dared criticise it, Syria is now trying to flatter Qatar (by singing the praises of Al Jazeera, ) and Turkey (by suddenly appointing the deputy prime minister as ambassador to Ankara), in the hope that bygones can be bygones. But even with another reshuffling of its alliances, the regime's survival is no longer dependent merely on the good graces of its neighbours. The Syrian people want to decide how their country is run: vague promises of ‘reform' in return for their renewed silence are not an option any more. And if the regime does not end the violence, violence might end the regime.
*Rime Allaf is an associate fellow at Chatham House.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2011

The mind of the Arab tyrant
By MOHAMMAD ASLAM
06/12/2011 22:28
J.Post
Although by no means reserved for Middle Eastern dictators, delusion and absolute rule have a long history in the region
The effect of terminal leadership on political behavior is never more serious than when a crumbling despot refuses to concede that his people can live at least as well without him.
The pinnacle was when one tyrant exclaimed to the parents of teenage revolutionaries that their children had been spiked with drink and drugs. Another tyrant spoke of external forces and hidden agendas. His counterpart warned of chaos should he relinquish power, and finally another warned of an explosion of sectarian and religious conflict instigated by foreign plots.
When the dissenting “crime” happens to be a protest for democratic change, one cannot help but consider the onset of delusional thinking.
Although by no means reserved for Middle Eastern tyrants, delusion and absolute rule have a long history. The likes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, among many others, had careers in power that were synonymous with delusions that brought devastating consequences for their respective nations long after they were gone.
But the Arab world is a special case. It contains 22 countries, 360 million people, and the location of the largest combined concentration of oil and gas reserves in the world. The only inconvenience is that, with two exceptions, every country in the region has the dubious honor of being ruled by some of the most tyrannical rulers ever known.
AS RECENT events now sweeping the Arab world illustrate, it’s not the sheer magnitude of death and destruction to which the tyrants have descended, but the apparent indifference to the events that now threaten their rule – rule they believe is irreversible, immortal and only threatened as a result of foreign scheming.
Tunisia’s ousted dictator complained that “terrorists” were to blame for the unrest, yet simultaneously expressed very deep and massive regret over the deaths of protesters. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak threatened maximum deterrent sentences to those who persecuted the rebelling youths, yet he himself was accountable for ordering the crackdown. A prominent Saudi royal dismissed the “day of rage” protests as a “tempest in a teacup,” claiming that most of the people on the streets had flags out expressing their love for the king. Finally, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi vowed to die a martyr fighting the “cockroaches, cowards and traitors” who were serving the devil by revolting in his country.
Ostensibly, he suggested these “gangs” represented only one percent of the population, yet he expressed a surreal desire to seek martyrdom in eliminating them.
Surely one could argue that these are the signs of emotionally intemperate, frustrated and progressively deteriorating minds.
Deciphering the embattled tyrant, the acuity of his judgment and political defiance is not difficult when his impending defeat – and even death – is preoccupying him.
Talk of a 1,000-year war, the love the tyrant’s people have for him, and how he is the repository for the nation’s glory should not be viewed merely as self-confident eccentricity. These words emanate from the captive minds of absolute rulers. The onset of defeat can manifest itself in a sense of both omnipotence and megalomania.
In this sense, the delusional mind is a victim of its own intuition.
So how should we tackle the delusional minds of these rulers? In short, the tyrant’s days are numbered when he himself becomes disillusioned with his own delusions. Even if the credo is “survival at all costs,” his world slowly descends into part mania and part paranoia.
Distorting the truth, blaming shortcomings on friends and foes alike, and lashing out over enemy conspiracies is typical of the mind of a crumbling ruler.
The endgame involves either escape, capitulation or becoming reconciled to a horrible death.
In a world that has entered an era of popular dispensations, where the collective will of the people is the only assurance of political power, the coercion by which the tyrant has long ruled has begun to erode. Tribal-like rule, repressive security measures, megalomaniac stubbornness, and the individual concentration of power to subdue the populace is a form of rule rapidly being relegated to the dustbins of history. These rulers cannot continue to function with persistent domestic and international isolation, a siege mentality and a diabolic attitude toward modern civilization. Every Arab tyrant should watch events next door carefully. Their exaggerated self image, cognitive distortions and arbitrary decision-making is only going to put them further down the road of pervasive suspiciousness, betrayal and self-destruction. As the region’s people rise and the domino effect of toppling tyrants builds momentum, their insecurity will reach the point of full-blown sadistic paranoia; the killing of potential enemies to thwart actual ones.
In this scenario there will be no escape hatch; time will not be their companion in a world clearly on the side of the oppressed.
**The writer is a PhD candidate in political violence studies at the department of Middle East & Mediterranean Studies, King’s College London.

March 14’s political coma
Hanin Ghaddar, 
June 13, 2011
Three months have passed since the Syrian uprising began, and the Syrian protesters are still in the streets, calling for the fall of the Assad regime. More towns and villages are joining the uprising, despite the torture and killing of people who stand up to the regime. One thing is clear, despite many uncertainties as to how the situation will develop: The Syrian uprising will not stop, and the Baath regime is facing growing international isolation that will add to its increasing weakness.
This will certainly change the regime’s sway in Lebanon. Syria’s allies in Lebanon are losing ground, and their incapacity to form a government in Beirut is evidence of their frailty.
In light of this, the March 14 political forces are missing an opportunity to highlight the principles of their revolution in 2005, which called for the same freedoms and reforms the Syrian people are calling for now. In addition, the uprising in Syria is more vital to Lebanon, considering the continuing unhealthy ties with Damascus, which left the Cedar Revolution incomplete and allowed Hezbollah to take control over Lebanese state institutions.
March 14 politicians’ official justification for their inaction on the events in Syria is that Lebanon has always suffered from the Syrian regime’s political interference here, and that Lebanon should not do the same. Their official line – “This is an internal Syrian affair, and we should leave the Syrian people to determine their own destiny” – does not make sense anymore.
Over the past three months, it has become clear that “this” is not an internal Syrian affair and that we have at least a moral obligation to support the Syrian people.
The Syrian regime has never respected Lebanon’s sovereignty and has always treated our state institutions as its own. In fact, during its current crisis, the Assad regime is still using Lebanon to protect itself and to pass certain messages to the international community.
It is no secret that we still do not have a government because of the Syrian crisis, and it is also no secret that the Palestinian refugees who demonstrated at Syria’s and Lebanon’s borders with Israel on Nakba Day last month did so because the Syrian regime and Hezbollah allowed them to.
Also, the explosion targeting a UNIFIL vehicle in southern Lebanon earlier this month was widely interpreted as a Syrian message to the international community after sanctions were imposed on Assad and his entourage.
Those who are demonstrating in Lebanon in support of the Syrian uprising are facing violence at the hands of the regime’s “shabiha” (thugs) here, represented by the Syrian Socialist National Party, who did not miss the opportunity to intimidate, threaten and beat activists who gathered to express solidarity with their Syrian brethren at recent demonstrations in Beirut.
While Syrian activists are being kidnapped in Syria, some refugees face persecution by the Lebanese authorities for entering Lebanon illegally, all because the Syrian regime still holds sway over the Lebanese authorities.
But the pro-Syrian March 8 forces are struggling to maintain Syria’s influence over Lebanon, and they should start thinking of Lebanon after Assad and try to save themselves if they do not want to die politically.
This is the opportune time for March 14 to step up.
March 14 politicians have made the problem of Syrian interference in Lebanon their main concern since 2005, and they cannot retreat now. They need to express certain sovereignty-related concerns to Syria now, such as border demarcation, the smuggling of arms to Hezbollah, arming Palestinian factions in the country, cooperation with the Special Tribunal, the state of the Shebaa Farms and the Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons.
If we don’t highlight our demands now, no one will, and the opportunity might be lost.
Fear is not an excuse. The Syrians and the other Arab people who are rising up against their repressive regimes destroyed this barrier, and if we don’t follow, Lebanon will become the most lagging country in the region. We called for freedom first, but it seems we are still afraid to go all the way.
Lebanon has the right to defend and support the people of other Arab nations, and if we don’t wake up and smell the coffee now, the Arab Spring will leave us behind.
This is the last chance for March 14 to assert their principles, join the Arab Spring, and call for Lebanon’s own freedom. It is time to wake up.
**Hanin Ghaddar is managing editor of NOW Lebanon

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood delegation in Gaza amid Israeli spy scandal
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
June 12, 2011
For the first time in the history of Cairo's relations with the Gaza Strip, the ruling military junta permitted an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood delegation to visit the Gaza Strip and meet Palestinian Hamas leaders. Coinciding with the delegation's arrival Sunday, June 12, top Egyptian officials unleashed a wave of anti-Israeli venom in Cairo, the worst in recent years.
Without warning, inflammatory stories were released to the media in quick succession: a "Mossad officer" was accused of plotting to sabotage the Egyptian revolution and "inciting sectarian violence." Israel was accused of contaminating farm products for Egyptian consumption and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon imp.icated in the "corrupt" gas transaction ex-President Hosni Mubarak contracted with Israel.
The prime movers behind this campaign of anti-Israel defamation are named by debkafile's intelligence sources as Gen. Murad Muwafi, Minister of Intelligence, and the Supreme State Security Prosecutor, Hisham Badawi. Putting the charges in the hands of the State Security Prosecutor is tantamount to labeling Israel a danger to Egyptian national security.
The third figure is Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Alarabi. He soon takes office as Secretary General of the Arab League and has made no secret of the radical anti-Israel policies he plans introduce.
Israeli leaders were thunderstruck by these machinations. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and nine members of his government were out of the country. Sunday, they began an exceptionally friendly three-day visit to Italy. A joint session with the Berlusconi government awaits them with other notable events. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is in Rome with the party, while Defense Minister Ehud Barak has gone to Beijing for another try to bring China aboard the international effort for keeping a nuclear bomb out of Iranian hands.
The Egyptian trio orchestrating the anti-Israel drive apparently used their absence to dump their poison without fear of an official response from Jerusalem.
It was carefully synchronized: The arrival of the Muslim Brotherhood delegation to Gaza, headed by two Shura Council members Saad Hussaini and Mohsein Farouk, coincided with Cairo's arrest of an Israeli "Mossad officer."
The statement by the Supreme State Prosecutor's office alleged that the Israeli spy – who was variously named as Aviran Green, Ilan Green and, later, on an Egyptian website, Ilan Haim Gavriel - entered Egypt after the uprising began on Jan. 25 posing as a foreign correspondent come to cover the anti-regime demonstrations in al-Tahrir Square. His real undercover mission, said the Egyptian statement, was to foment strife between Copts and Muslims and sabotage the revolution.
In today's Cairo, there can be no more heinous allegation than turning the clock back to pre-revolution days by inciting chaos and sectarian strife. It amounts to charging Israel's external security agency with fomenting anti-revolutionary anarchy. Responsibility is also fastened on the Jewish state for the Muslim Brothers' May 9 attack on the Copt community of Cairo and its church and the death of 9 Copts.
Shortly after the "discovery" of an "Israeli spy," Egyptian authorities accused Israel of trying to poison the population by secretly contaminating tomato seeds and plants produced by a Cypriot farm and sold to Egypt.
Finally, the prosecutor declared he had proof that the contract for the supply of Egyptian gas to Israel, now being held up as the quintessence of the Mubarak family's corruption, was put together by the former president and the former prime minister in person when they agreed how to divide their ill-gotten spoils.