LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِNovember 05/2011

Bible Quotation for today/Man Is Holy As His Creator Is
Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Walid Phares Under Attack/By Robert Rabil/November 04/11
Samir Kuntar, enough with the arrogance/By: Hanin GhaddarNovember 04/11  
Syria: The Failed Siege/By Diana Mukkaled/November 04/11
Syria: Bashar’s dangerous myopia/By Amir Taheri/November 04/11
The Delusion of an Arab World/By: Franck Salameh/November 04/11  

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for November 04/11  
Nasrallah: Hizballah can fight Israel without aid from Iran or Syria
Lebanon: Teen killed, 4 wounded in Jbeil highway accident
NATO says no plans to hit Iran as IAEA report set to be released
Iran boosts anti-U.S. rhetoric ahead of IAEA report on nuclear program
Feltman Warns of Harsh Measures if Lebanon Doesn’t Fund STL
Acting Spokesman: Bellemare is ‘Away from STL Seat’ but ‘Work Continues at Full Speed’
STL Holds Working Sessions for Defense Counsel
Lebanon's Arabic press digest - Nov. 4, 2011
Lebanon PM acknowledges Syrians kidnapped
Berri Reiterates Call for Dialogue during ‘Critical’ Stage
Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra: Mikati took 'worst position' on Hezbollah and STL
Report: Ban Indecisive about his Representative in Lebanon
Jamaa al-Islamiya group MP Imad al-Hout says Syrian regime “buying time”
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri warns against involving Lebanon in foreign axes
Miqati: Nasrallah Agreed ‘in Principle’ to Fund STL
Peace Deal Doubts Mount as Syria Death Toll Rises
Iran Celebrates 1979 U.S. Embassy Seizure
Canada Condemns Ongoing Violence in Syria
Tehran 'Prepared for Worst' as NATO Rules Out Intervention ‎
Syrian National Council head (SNC) calls for freezing Syria’s Arab League membership
Syrian forces continue killing as protests held Friday, activists say
Syrian troops fire during protests; 7 killed
Siniora slams Washington, urges Arabs to pay U.S. UNESCO share
Massive throng of Muslims begins hajj rites
France confirms it will abstain from UN vote on Palestinian state
Israel Navy intercepts Gaza-bound aid vessels; no injuries reported

Nasrallah: Hizballah can fight Israel without aid from Iran or Syria
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report/November 4, 2011
The Lebanese Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, while inspecting his fighting units in the last two weeks, has briefed commanders on updated operational plans for firing 10,000 rockets at Tel Aviv and Israel's air force and reserve mobilization bases in a surprise attack, debkafile's military sources report.
"The Zionist enemy cannot stand up to a salvo on that scale," he told them. "He can't locate our secret launching bases or put a stop to a missile offensive that is sure to determine the war's outcome."
He assured the troops that Hizballah is capable of fighting Israel without Iranian or Syrian help.
In answer to questions, Nasrallah said the militia must be prepared to fight Israel without outside military assistance. "We don't know in what situation our war may find Iran. We do know Bashar Assad has been fighting a rebellion for the past ten months and is in no condition to come to our aid," he said.
To boost morale, Nasrallah reported the arrival of advanced weapons, including anti-tank and anti-air missiles from Libya. debkafile's sources report they were delivered to Lebanon by sea and air freighters from the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
A Hizballah purchasing mission in Tripoli and Benghazi bought the weapons from military units making up the National Transitional Council ruling Libya as an interim government. Iranian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood agents were on hand to pay for the merchandise on the spot.
In the briefings to his men, the Hizballah leader also dredged up a two-year old plan to use the projected massive rocket assault as cover for five commando brigades to surge into northern Israel and seize designated sectors of the Galilee up to the outskirts of Carmiel. He assured Hizballah troops that even if Israel Defense Forces units stormed into Lebanon, they were capable of taking the war across the border into enemy terrain.
Nasrallah's master plan first appeared exclusively inDEBKA-Net-Weekly issue 430 of Jan., 22, 2010, along with the map attached to this article.
In all his meeting with fighting units, the Hizballah chief makes a point of warning them to beware of American and Israeli spies who constantly try to penetrate their rank s. So far, they have not been able to locate the militia's secret rocket-launching facilities.
debkafile's sources comment that, while Israel's leading politicians and mass media hammer away at the whys and wherefores of a potential strike against Iran's nuclear sites on the strength of largely fictitious information deliberately disseminated to make a point, Israel faces a real and imminent threat of a cross-border flare-up with Hizballah and Syria.
Syrian President Bashar Assad made it clear in a British press interview Sunday, Oct. 30, that if he has his back to the wall as a result of foreign intervention in the uprising against him, he will "burn the Middle East." Three weeks ago, on Oct. 4, the Syrian ruler warned that if he faced foreign intervention, he would need "not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv."
On Nov. 3, Birgul Ayman Guler , head of the Turkish opposition Republican People's Party, remarked after a visit to Damascus: "The West has written a plot about democracy and liberty. But this plot… is nothing but the plot for an invasion."
Our sources note that Ayman's party is against Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan's policy of supporting the Syrian opposition to Assad. He has expanded this support by hosting rebel command posts and training facilities on Turkish soil and providing them with arms. The Turkish prime minister is seen as acting out the policy of intervention not just of his government but of NATO, of which his country is a full member.

STL Holds Working Sessions for Defense Counsel
Naharnet /Counsel assigned as duty counsel by the Head of Defense Office Francois Roux met over three days at the headquarters of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for intensive working sessions, announced the STL in a statement.
They were able to familiarize themselves with the various administrative aspects of the tribunal and to discuss, together with the Defense Office, the different legal questions certain to be asked of the tribunal in the form, in particular, of preliminary motions, it explained.
“With this in mind, the Defense Office invited Professor Salim Jreissati, who shared his expertise with the defense teams and provided them with some legal considerations relating to issues regarding the legality of the tribunal and in absentia proceedings,” it added.
“The Defense Office recalls that the defense teams will have complete freedom, with the assistance of any independent expert, if they so wish, to raise any legal matters before the tribunal that they consider necessary for the defense of the accused,” it continued.
At this stage, following the decision of the Chamber, the duty counsel will not represent individually the rights of each of the accused at the hearing on 11 November, said the statement.
However, they shall remain responsible for defending those rights, in coordination with the Defense Office.
In October, the STL announced it would hold a hearing on November 11 to discuss whether to try in absentia the four suspects in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri.
The court has indicted four Hizbullah members Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra. However, they have not been arrested.
The STL Defense Office has appointed eight lawyers to defend the suspects.

Feltman Warns of Harsh Measures if Lebanon Doesn’t Fund STL
Naharnet /U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman warned of “consequences” on the U.S.-Lebanese bilateral ties if Beirut refused to fund the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Feltman told al-Arabiya satellite TV network that Washington will have to take harsh measures if the Lebanese failed to pay their share to the STL that is set to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins.
Feltman said that failure to fund the court will reflect negatively on the situation in Lebanon.
The Lebanese government should abide by its commitments because it is a member of the U.N. Security Council and because the international tribunal was established by a Council resolution at Lebanon's request, he added.

Geagea: Syrian Regime Cannot Implement Arab League Initiative
Naharnet /Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea noted on Thursday that the Syrian regime cannot go ahead with the Arab League proposal even though it had announced its acceptance of the initiative “without reservations.”
He added: “The regime has only made a political maneuver and it cannot withdraw its troops from the streets and it will not allow the media and rights groups to enter Syria.”
Addressing parliament’s approval of a law allowing Lebanese who fled to Israel to return to their country, he noted: “If only parliament had adopted the Phalange Party bloc’s proposal on this matter, which presents a radical solution to this matter, while the new suggestion does not offer a resolution to it.”
“What was presented at parliament on Wednesday does not differ from what is taking place on the ground as investigations are made with women and children refugees, while the men are sent to trial,” he explained.
“Shouldn’t the case of Lebanese in Israel be resolved after ten years of the liberation of southern Lebanon?” wondered the LF leader.
“How come families are allowed to demonstrate and block roads demanding amnesty for drug dealers while Lebanese in Israel are not allowed to return to their homeland?” asked Geagea.
Furthermore, he said that the Lebanese Forces MPs had presented in 2008 a draft law on granting compensations to the families of Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails, but the Change and Reform bloc MPs dismissed the matter and instead presented a draft law on the issue to Speaker Nabih Berri who is their ally.
“It has turned out that the law they proposed does not meet the necessary conditions … and it will be merged with the LF MPs’ proposal …. If only the law on the Lebanese refugees would have been dealt with in the same way,” he added.“The current Lebanese government does not have the necessary elements to sustain itself and it never really had them to begin with,” he continued. “Each day this government is in power harms Lebanon,” Geagea stressed. “The Lebanese citizen is being disregarded and therefore it is best that the government resign,” he stated. Parliament had approved on Wednesday a law allowing Lebanese refugees in Israel the right to return to Lebanon. The law was initially proposed by Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and amended by Speaker Nabih Berri.Parliament also rejected granting families of Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails compensations, citing a lack of funds.

Acting Spokesman: Bellemare is ‘Away from STL Seat’ but ‘Work Continues at Full Speed’
Naharnet /The acting spokesman of Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare confirmed to Naharnet that the judge is currently away from the STL seat but stressed that he is following up the work of his office. “As a matter of policy we do not discuss details of the health of staff,” Gregory Townsend, the senior legal officer and acting spokesperson of Bellemare’s office, told Naharnet. “We can confirm that the prosecutor has been away from the seat of the STL in Leidschendam, Netherlands, due to health reasons,” he said.
However, Townsend stressed that “Bellemare is in constant contact with his staff and the work of the office of the prosecutor continues at full speed.” The acting spokesperson’s comment came after pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported that Bellemare is suffering from an advanced stage of diabetes. Bellemare has isolated himself in a room in Canada away from the people’s sight over his “serious illness,” it said. When asked if the prosecutor would attend a hearing at the STL next Friday, Townsend did not comment. Last month, the tribunal announced it would hold a hearing on November 11 to discuss whether to try four Hizbullah members in absentia. Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Oneissi and Assad Sabra are wanted for the massive February 14, 2005, suicide car bomb attack in Beirut that killed ex-Premier Rafik Hariri and 22 others, including the suicide bomber.

Berri Reiterates Call for Dialogue during ‘Critical’ Stage
Naharnet /Speaker Nabih Berri reiterated on Friday the call for dialogue between the Lebanese foes during the “critical” stage that the country and the region are passing through.
“The developments in Lebanon and the region require all the parties to join the national dialogue and this is what I informed (al-Mustaqbal bloc leader MP Fouad) Saniora,” Berri told An Nahar newspaper. He said that the timing is “critical,” and the developments require the Lebanese to participate in all-party talks. Berri noted that he informed Saniora to discuss the issue with his allies. “I’ve told him in the presence of Prime Minister Najib Miqati, that he can inform me later on about his answer,” he stated. Berri told the daily that he will ask President Michel Suleiman to intervene and “put more effort to push this issue forward.”Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported that the speaker will head Friday to Baabda to meet with Suleiman and discuss the issue. Asked about the conditions set by the March 14-led opposition to resume the national dialogue, Berri told An Nahar: “Dialogue can’t go on by imposing conditions, and there are no taboos concerning the issues to be discussed.”

Miqati: Nasrallah Agreed ‘in Principle’ to Fund STL
Naharnet /Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Thursday that Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had committed “in principle” to the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
He told BBC television in an interview set to be broadcast later on Thursday: “Nasrallah never said ‘no’ to the tribunal. Of course the party has its reservations on the STL, but he left it up to the constitutional institutions to assume their duties in this matter.” “I will propose this matter before the institutions at the right time,” he added. “I am certain that Nasrallah and Hizbullah are keen on Lebanon and its interests,” he stressed.  “I never voiced reservations over the tribunal because everyone wants to uncover the truth and achieve justice,” the premier stressed.
“My position is firm and we will cooperate completely with international resolutions, including United Nations Security Council resolution 1757 on the tribunal and its funding,” Miqati said.
Asked of what would be done if the tribunal is not funded, he replied: “We will not dwell on hypothetical situations. We will take the appropriate stance when the issue is discussed.”
Asked if he would resign if the STL is not funded, the prime minister responded: “I seek to preserve stability in Lebanon and I am not thinking about stepping down.”
“I did not accept the premiership in order to resign one day. I did so to maintain Lebanon’s stability and unity … and if I failed, then I will take the right decision at the appropriate time,” he remarked. “Lebanon is committed to funding the tribunal and we should implement what we pledged,” he stressed.
“I am open to any suggestion that would help Lebanon meet its obligations,” he continued.
Asked if Lebanon would be subject to sanctions if it failed to fund the tribunal, Miqati said: “I am not seeking to fund the tribunal to avoid sanctions, but to fulfill the country’s commitment to fund it.”“We cannot be selective in implementing international decisions,” he stated. Addressing his upcoming visit to London on November 7 and what he will say to British officials given the isolation of the Lebanese government, he noted: “I object to the word ‘isolation.’”“No one can isolate Lebanon because it plays an effective role in the region,” he continued. On the developments in Syria, the premier noted: “We do not take sides in the matter. Some sides have long demanded that Lebanon remain neutral and now that it has taken a neutral position, it is being criticized for it.” “Given the critical situation in the region, Lebanon is better off distancing itself from anything that may harm its interests,” he noted. Miqati is scheduled to visit the UK on Monday where he is expected to meet with his British counterpart David Cameron to discuss the situation in the Middle East, bilateral relations, and British aid to Lebanon.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri warns against involving Lebanon in foreign axes
November 4, 2011 /Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Friday issued a statement warning against attempts aiming to divide the Lebanese people by involving the country in foreign axes.
Hariri voiced hope that the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha “would be an opportunity for Lebanese parties to look into the situation the country has reached due to illegitimate arms as well as to look into attempts to divide the Lebanese people."It is important in the occasion of Eid al-Adha to “voice solidarity with Arab people calling for freedom, particularly the Syrian people who are bravely confronting military suppression.” According to UN estimates, more than 3,000 people have been killed in the crackdown on Syrian protesters who have been demonstrating against the Baath regime since mid-March.-NOW Lebanon

Jamaa al-Islamiya group MP Imad al-Hout says Syrian regime “buying time”
November 4, 2011 /Jamaa al-Islamiya group MP Imad al-Hout on Friday said that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “buying time” without implementing “anything concrete.”“The regime is playing a game to buy time, without [making any] real [reforms] on the ground,” Hout told the Free Lebanon radio station. He added that “the spark to liberate the Syrian people was triggered in [the southern flashpoint city of] Daraa and is ongoing in Homs.”“This spark is not one of strife.”Assad’s government accepted an Arab League plan to end the bloodshed in Syria on Wednesday. The peace plan calls on the Syrian president to withdraw tanks from the streets and to engage in a national dialogue with his opponents. But Assad’s opponents are skeptical about his readiness to rein in a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has cost more than 3,000 lives since mid-March.-NOW Lebanon

Aoun: Our Enemies May Spend $3bn in 2013 to Isolate Us
Naharnet /Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Thursday warned his supporters that the opposition March 14 camp and its regional and international backers “might spend $3 billion” in the 2013 parliamentary elections to “isolate us.”“Our enemies had more money than us but they failed to isolate us, then they spent a billion dollars to no avail, and nothing prevents them from spending three billions in 2013 to isolate us,” Aoun said at a ceremony to launch the O Card, which allows supporters to contribute financially to the FPM’s mouthpiece OTV.“We must overcome the blockade and the increasing pressures,” Aoun told the FPMers.“You all know that upon my return (from Paris in 2005) they tried to isolate me thinking that they would be able to drive us out of the political game, but we overcame the blockade,” he boasted. Aoun also noted that he wants to “collect a million dollars from a million Lebanese, not a million dollars from a single Lebanese.”

Report: Ban Indecisive about his Representative in Lebanon
Naharnet /United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has not yet decided on the diplomat who will succeed U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday. The daily said that Ban has ruled out appointing any of the three persons whom media outlets had named as the main candidates to succeed Williams.
The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published the names of the three main candidates expected to represent Ban in Lebanon. They are former Norwegian Ambassador to Lebanon Aud Lise Norheim, Switzerland's Special Envoy for the Middle East Jean Daniel Ruch and ex- Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain Miguel Angel Moratinos.However, As Safir said that Moratinos’ candidacy is facing an obstacle which is the presence of another high-ranking official from Spain in Lebanon, UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta. It has been unfamiliar for the U.N. to assign two high-ranking officials in the same country from the same nationality. Asarta’s tenure ends at the head of the mission on January 28, 2012. But the U.N. chief sought to exclude Moratinos, according to European diplomatic sources in Beirut. A U.N. source told the daily that “the General Secretary has not yet decided on this matter, and we can’t speculate on who he will choose… He hasn’t set a timeframe to appoint his representative in Lebanon.” “Ban prefers to choose a figure from the U.N., because he will be able to communicate better with the organizations and will implement the U.N. policies,” the source said. U.N. Resident Coordinator for Lebanon Robert Watkins is carrying out the tasks of Williams whose term ended on Sept. 30, and his position has been vacant since. As Safir reported that there is no legal timeframe for the U.N. chief to choose his representative.

Tehran 'Prepared for Worst' as NATO Rules Out Intervention ‎
Naharnet /NATO has no intention of intervening in Iran and backs a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute, the alliance's chief said Thursday, after reports of a debate in Israel over launching an attack."Let me stress that NATO has no intention whatsoever to intervene in Iran and NATO is not engaged as an alliance in the Iran question," Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference."We support of course the international efforts to pursue political and diplomatic solutions to the Iran problem," he said, urging Tehran to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding a halt in nuclear activities.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking cabinet support for a military strike on Iran, after days of speculation about plans for an attack.London's Guardian newspaper reported that Britain's armed forces were stepping up contingency plans in the event the United States opted for military action against Iran.
Thursday's edition cited unnamed defense ministry contacts as saying they believed Washington might rush forward plans for missile strikes on Iranian facilities -- and might ask for British military help.Meanwhile, Iran's foreign minister said Thursday that Tehran was "prepared for the worst" and warned the United States against putting itself on "collision course" with his country. On the sidelines of a news conference in the Libyan city of Benghazi, minister Ali Akbar Salehi was asked about news reports of Washington accelerating plans for a strike on Iran. "The U.S. has unfortunately lost wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues. It depends only on power. "They have lost rationality; we are prepared for the worst but we hope they will think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran," Salehi said. Washington and other Western powers suspect Tehran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. It says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful ends to which it has a right. Washington insisted on Wednesday that it remains committed to a diplomatic solution of the nuclear standoff with Iran as talk mounted in Israel of a political push for a pre-emptive strike. "We remain focused on a diplomatic channel here, a diplomatic course in terms of dealing with Iran," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Earlier, at a joint news conference, Salehi was questioned about NATO's military strikes in support of fighters battling to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi. "NATO did not come to help without any reason ... they made mistakes. The president of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) has criticized these mistakes," said Salehi.
Libyan leader, National Transitional Council chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, responded: "Gadhafi troops tried to kill people on 19 March.
"If it were not for NATO, there would have been a massacre by Gadhafi troops. Libyan fighters brought victory on the ground but we must not forget the coalition's air strikes that supported and helped us." Abdel Jalil told reporters that he and Salehi did not discuss the issue of Syria. Libya has supported the opposition movement trying to oust the Syrian leadership while Iran has backed President Bashar al-Assad. "Every country has the right about whom to support," Abdel Jalil said.
*Source Agence France Presse

Peace Deal Doubts Mount as Syria Death Toll Rises
Naharnet /Syrian troops killed five civilians in protest centers on Friday as demonstrators took to the streets nationwide to test the regime's readiness to honor its commitments under an Arab peace deal. Washington had already warned that the signs were not encouraging after troops killed 20 civilians on Thursday -- the first day the hard-won agreement aimed at ending nearly eight month of bloodshed came into effect. It said it expected the Arab League to take action if Damascus failed to deliver on its promises to halt all violence against civilians and withdraw its troops from cities, such as Homs, which have been at the center of unprecedented protests against President Bashar Assad's regime.
Troops opened fire from tanks in several residential neighborhoods of Homs, a city of some one million people that has been one of the main focuses of the protests raging since mid-March, a human rights group said. "Two people were killed, one of them a woman, when the Baba Amro neighborhood was raked with heavy machinegun fire," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by Agence France Presse in Nicosia. Troops also opened fire in the city's Ghuta neighborhood, killing two civilians and wounding four, as they tried to disperse a demonstration, the Britain-based watchdog added.
In the town of Kanaker, outside the capital, troops opened fire as protesters gathered after the main weekly Muslim prayers, killing one demonstrator and wounding five, the Observatory said. Troops also opened fire on demonstrators in the city of Deir al-Zour in Syria's oil-rich tribal east, the watchdog said.
In the Mediterranean coastal city of Banias, security forces surrounded a major mosque in the city center and beat up worshippers as they attempted to demonstrate after the prayers.
"The security forces arrested dozens of people in the town, including four children closely related to Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman," the watchdog said.
"The children were detained from their homes and were not present at the demonstrations," it said.
Video footage posted on YouTube showed dozens of demonstrators, some of them masked, marching through the historic Midan neighborhood of the capital ahead of the noon prayers, chanting anti-Assad slogans. Another demonstration was held in Harasta just outside Damascus, demanding that the pan-Arab bloc accept that Assad had no intention of keeping his word.
"How long is the Arab League going to listen to this liar," said a placard held up by one of the protesters. "He said he accepted the Arab plan but the result has been the deaths of 500 martyrs, the arrests of more 2,000 people and the tanks are still rolling through the streets."
Two more people were killed, one of them an army deserter, when troops opened fire on a group of people trying to slip across the border into Jordan, the Observatory said.
The Local Coordination Committees, which organize protests on the ground, had called on Syrians to take to the streets across the country on Friday, to show the world whether the Assad regime was really prepared to end a crackdown that the U.N. says has left more than 3,000 people dead since mid-March.
Syrians should stage "peaceful protests" to "validate whether armed forces ... have been withdrawn from the cities and towns, and whether violence has been stopped, detainees have been released, Arab and international media correspondents have been allowed in the country and if a dialogue has been made possible," the protest organizers said.
There has been enormous skepticism among opponents about the regime's readiness to call off its troops and enter meaningful negotiations as it promised under the peace deal unveiled at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting on Wednesday.
"We told the secretary general of our fears that the regime will not keep its promises," Samir al-Nashar, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said after being briefed by Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi on Thursday. The doubt was echoed by Washington after Thursday's bloodshed.
"We have not seen any evidence that the Assad regime intends to live up to the commitments that it's made," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
"We will predict that, if he (Assad) doesn't meet his promises to the Arab League, the Arab League is going to feel that they had promises made, promises broken, and they're going to have to react," Nuland added. *Source Agence France Presse

Iran Celebrates 1979 U.S. Embassy Seizure
Naharnet /Thousands of Iranians chanting "Death to America" marked the anniversary on Friday of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy amid references to recent U.S. allegations of an Iranian assassination plot. The annual celebration in front of what Iranians call "the den of spies" was also used this year as a platform to hail the Arab Spring -- termed the "Islamic awakening" here -- and to denounce Israel. On November 4, 1979, months after the Islamic revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, students stormed the embassy and took 52 U.S. diplomats hostage in a crisis that lasted 444 days. The hostage-taking resulted in the breaking of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States and has left the two countries implacable foes for the past 32 years. Tensions intensified last month after the United States accused Iranian officials of masterminding a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Tehran which has vehemently denied any involvement has sent a letter to Washington demanding an apology. The former embassy, which is painted with anti-U.S. murals, has become a training and educational facility under the control of the elite Revolutionary Guards.Source Agence France Presse

Don’t muzzle us
November 3, 2011
Now Lebanon/The National Audiovisual Media Council is calling for all news websites and blogs to register with the government in a move that can only be viewed as an attempt at censorship. The call by the non-governmental (not to mention dubious) National Audiovisual Media Council (NAMC) for all news websites and blogs to register with the state as of November 1 is apparently not only illegal but is clearly also a clumsy attempt to control, and in all likelihood muzzle, the country’s electronic media. It is an initiative that has no place in modern Lebanon and should be resisted at all costs.
Indeed, MP Ghassan Moukheiber, whose Change and Reform bloc is part of the government, has charged that the NAMC has no mandate and that the call for registration is illegal.
The NAMC is using the excuse that it merely wants to get an idea of what electronic media is out there in the run-up to the drafting of a new law and has assured that it wants to “protect” rather than censure. This is downright sinister and ignores the current political climate and paranoia of many in the government who want to keep a tight rein on who says what. We cannot help but feel that the shadow of media repression from across the border in Syria—where those who support the anti-government uprising have been hounded, detained and killed—threatens to fall across Lebanon.
Let any new law offer the same protection that the current law offers those working in print and audio-visual fields. But the collating of information—crucial names and numbers of people who can be held responsible—especially in today’s tense environment smacks too much of Big Brother and not enough of the liberal environment we all crave.
One only has to learn that bloggers and news sites will be banned if they fail to comply to see where this new initiative is really coming from. At a time when much of the Arab world is poised for greater freedoms and is ready to join the developed world in embracing all new media, the edict smacks more of old-school Arab authoritarianism and censorship than the progressive times to which we all aspire. The outdated paternalistic attitude that the state knows best simply doesn’t wash anymore.
Online media, blogs and the so-called citizen journalists have been able to do much for political activism, and this makes governments nervous. The state has shown that it is petrified and out of touch with current mores. The NAMC’s proposals are opaque and its role unclear. It must clarify both its position and convince us that it is not politicized. Its initial mandate, as described by the 1994 law, charges it with licensing and regulating television and radio stations. Lebanese law is very strict on libel, and someone somewhere has clearly had enough of what it sees as unjustified press freedoms enjoyed by the online community. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that this nebulous job description has allowed the NAMC to get into irksome nooks and crannies where the government can’t go.
For ultimately, and we should never forget this, it was the role of the blogger and the citizen journalist that did so much to push forward the momentum of the Arab Spring from Tunis to Damascus. The second bout of repression in the Syrian city of Hama, over a quarter of a century after the first, was never going to be ignored this time around, and it is this breakthrough in reporting and cataloging repression that is the best proof of the impact the electronic media has had in shaping the times in which we live.
Its future must not be placed in the hands of those who would seek to silence it rather than have a hand in its development.

Samir Kuntar, enough with the arrogance
Hanin Ghaddar , November 4, 2011
Now Lebanon/Shortly after his release from an Israeli prison, Samir Kuntar visited Syria in November 2008 and met with President Bashar al-Assad, who awarded him Syria’s highest medal, the Syrian Order of Merit. Kuntar also visited Druze communities in the Golan Heights. On the border with Israel, he expressed solidarity with the Druze community: “President Bashar al-Assad has promised me that he will help you,” he said. “I say to you, soon President Assad will fly the Syrian flag over the Golan.”
Of course, none of that happened. But Kuntar did not care. Exactly three years later, Kuntar told the Syrian people that he is ready to cut off the hands of any Syrian who dares challenge the Assad regime. At the same time, the Syrian government and media are ignoring the return home last week of the only Syrian prisoner freed as part of a swap deal between Israel and Hamas, Weam Amasha. Residents welcomed Amasha in the Golan Heights and refused to hold up photos of Assad. In a solidarity statement from his prison in Israel in May, Amasha voiced support for pro-democracy demonstrations in his homeland and went on a hunger strike to protest what he called a “massacre against unarmed Syrians” by the regime’s forces.
Kuntar wants to cut hands. Amasha wants to free Syria. Both were imprisoned in Israel, and both understand the meaning of freedom and dignity. But Kuntar preferred to turn a blind eye to the Assad regime’s killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including 267 children and babies, since the uprising began in March. He put his leader, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who is a close ally of Assad, above the murdered protesters, forgetting the true meaning of the word resistance and why he joined the effort back in the late 1970s.
The absurdity of protecting Assad is intolerable, especially since he has in essence admitted to the killing and torture of his people by accepting the recent Arab League initiative to end violence in Syria. If the regime was innocent and was just protecting itself from a conspiracy, it would have rejected all attempts at implicating it. However, Assad agreed to all the steps of the Arab League initiative, without any conditions. This is an indirect confession of his regime’s involvement in the violence.
He accepted because it has become clear that there is no turning back—the protests will not end—and he wants to buy more time. Everyone can see it, except Samir Kuntar and the likes, who display an arrogance that masks logic or humanity.
Of course no one expects Assad to implement the conditions of the Arab League initiative—that was made clear by yesterday’s killings and arrests of activists in Syria. If Assad fulfilled the required demands—that the regime withdraw tanks and troops from the streets, free political prisoners, accept Arab observers and foreign journalists, and open negotiations with the opposition within two weeks—there would be mass demonstrations all over Syria, including in Damascus and Aleppo. The opposition will not stop until the regime is toppled. That’s exactly why the initiative is doomed to fail.
The problem is that people like Kuntar do not understand that Assad is just buying time, and that he and his regime are too weak to refuse any initiative. They still look at the Syrian regime as a sacred entity because it supports the scared Resistance. Kuntar is the Syrian regime’s kind of hero, one that cuts hands and protects murderers.
After he was released, he rushed to Syria to get his medal, but did not mention the Lebanese who have been rotting in Syrian jails for decades or the Syrian political prisoners who have suffered much worse conditions than those he faced in Israeli prison. For they are not heroes. They did not kill any Israelis. All other political activity is a conspiracy, and deserves death, torture and pain. All those calling for freedom in the Syrian streets do not make sense to people like Kuntar. All the Syrian children who died in the past eight months are just victims of a conspiracy and deserve no sympathy. All prisoners who are viciously tortured every day by the Syrian security forces are not human beings.
It is the same arrogance that divides people into the honorable ones who support the Resistance and the traitors who are against it. If you are not ready to sacrifice your freedom, dignity and future for the sake of the Resistance and your dictator, you do not deserve to live.
However, this arrogance cannot last on the new Arab street. In the face of the prevailing quest for dignity, it will lose. Samir Kuntar is today faced with Weam Amasha, who refused to meet with Assad upon his release because he understands that resisting the Israeli occupation in the Golan Heights does not contradict resisting one’s own dictator. Occupation and Dictatorship are two faces of the same coin.
Amasha gets it, but Kuntar is still arrogant.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the managing editor of NOW Lebanon

Syrian forces continue killing as protests held Friday, activists say
November 4, 2011 /Syrian troops killed two civilians in the flashpoint city of Homs and another two along the Syrian-Jordanian border on Friday as activists called nationwide protests to test the regime's readiness to abide by its commitments under an Arab peace deal. Two more people were killed, one of them an army deserter, when troops opened fire on a group of people trying to slip across the border into Jordan, the Observatory said. Troops opened fire from tanks in several residential neighborhoods of Homs, a city of some one million people that has been one of the main focuses of the protests raging since mid-March, a human rights group said.
"Two people were killed, one of them a woman, when the Baba Amro neighborhood was raked with heavy machinegun fire," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by AFP in Nicosia. "Gunfire was also heard from other neighborhoods of Homs," the Britain-based watchdog added, as protesters prepared to take to the streets across the country after the main weekly Muslim prayers. Video footage posted on YouTube showed dozens of demonstrators, some of them masked, marching through the historic Midan neighborhood of the capital ahead of the noon prayers, chanting anti-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad slogans. Another demonstration was held in Harasta just outside Damascus, demanding that the pan-Arab bloc accept that Assad had no intention of keeping his word. The Local Coordination Committees, which organize protests on the ground, called on Syrians to take to the streets across the country on Friday, to show the world whether the Assad regime was really prepared to end a crackdown that the UN says has left more than 3,000 people dead since mid-March. Syrians should stage "peaceful protests" to "validate whether armed forces ... have been withdrawn from the cities and towns, and whether violence has been stopped, detainees have been released, Arab and international media correspondents have been allowed in the country and if a dialogue has been made possible," the protest organizers said.There has been enormous skepticism among opponents about the regime's readiness to call off its troops and enter meaningful negotiations as it promised under the peace deal unveiled at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting on Wednesday.-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Syrian National Council head (SNC) calls for freezing Syria’s Arab League membership
November 4, 2011 /Syrian National Council head Burhan Ghalioun said on Friday that the Arab League should withdraw “Arab ambassadors [from Syria] and freeze Damascus’ membership in the league.”He also told Al-Jazeera television that the Arab League has to “send the Syrian file to the [UN] Security Council because a solution must be found to end bloodshed in Syria.”Ghalioun added that the Arab League “has to lose hope” that the Syrian regime will cooperate.“It is clear that the Syrian regime is incapable of implementing any plan. It is in a real crisis and it can neither move forward nor retreat.”Syria on Wednesday fully accepted an Arab League plan to end nearly eight months of bloodshed. However, Syrian opposition groups and Western nations have voiced doubt that Damascus will implement the provisions of the plan. According to UN estimates, more than 3,000 people have been killed in the crackdown on Syrian protesters who have been demonstrating against the Baath regime since mid-March.-NOW Lebanon

Teen killed, 4 wounded in Jbeil highway accident
November 04, 2011 11:12 AM The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Three vehicles collided on the Amsheet-Jbeil highway north of Beirut overnight, leaving one teenager dead and four people, including three doctors, wounded, a security source said Friday.The teenager was identified as 19-year-old Freddie Raymond Atallah, the source told The Daily Star.The doctors, two of them surgeons, were identified as Marleine Awwad, Elias Rashed and Youssef Dergham. They were heading home from work at Saidet Maounate (Our Lady of Perpetual Help) Hospital in Jbeil, Thursday evening when the accident took place. The doctors and the fourth casualty, identified as Oliver Haddad, were taken to the Saidet Maounate hospital.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest - Nov. 4, 2011 November 04, 2011
The Daily Star
Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Friday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
An-Nahar
Mikati: Nasrallah did not say ‘no’ to [STL] funding
Berri for unconditional dialogue
Political activity will ease until the end of Eid al-Adha at the middle of next week when Cabinet is expected to launch a series of meetings to discuss the new election draft law, in addition to regular sessions devoted to the agendas amid President Michel Sleiman’s hopes of the bill getting approval in December.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati will leave Beirut for London Friday on a private trip, prior to an official visit starting Monday during which he will meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and other senior British officials.
On the eve of the visit, Mikati told BBC in an interview that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah has not ruled out funding for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Regarding national dialogue, Speaker Nabih Berri renewed his call for all-party talks.
Berri told An-Nahar that he "believes that the circumstances Lebanon and the region is passing through require the various [political] sides to engage in dialogue.”
He said former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had promised him he would contact his allies in the March 14 coalition to push for resumption of dialogue.
“The [political] storms [hitting] the region necessitate that Lebanese sit at the dialogue table under the umbrella of President Michel Sleiman,” Berri said.
Al-Joumhouria
Mikati to Moscow after Britain
Syrian embassy keeps watch on Syrian nationals in Lebanon
All eyes are turned to Syria to see what Friday’s anti-regime "peaceful protest" is going to be like following President Bashar Assad’s approval of an Arab plan to end the seven-month bloodshed.
In Lebanon, the Cabinet will meet Nov. 10 and 11 after Eid al-Adha.
In the meantime, Lebanese concerns mounted over repercussions of the tensions in Syria, which began to weigh on the Lebanese internal situation amid growing fear of a return to a period of assassinations.
What backed up these fears were security sources who pointed out to Al-Joumhouria the return of some Palestinian organizations that had a role during the 1975-1990 Civil War. While groups – such as al-Saika [a Palestinian political and military faction created and controlled by Syria] – have resumed political activity in Lebanon, the pro-Syrian Fatah Intifada-Abu Musa has boosted both its security and military presence in the central Bekaa region.
Well-informed sources told Al-Joumhouria that Syrian security services have recently reshuffled troops deployed along the border crossings between Lebanon and Syria, as part of an effective plan to curb arms smuggling between the two countries and attempts by fundamentalists and Salafists to infiltrate into Syria.
The sources said Lebanese and Syrian army officers have been holding unannounced meetings to follow up on the border security situation.
They said Syrian security measures focus on keeping records of Syrian workers traveling to work in Lebanon and finding out the type of their work and their contacts and relationships as well as places and areas frequented in Lebanon.
The sources said a copy of the data collected on each Syrian national is being sent to the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon as well as to Hezbollah to monitor their movements.
As-Safir
Moscow rejects any tampering with global and regional strategic balances
Diplomatic report monitors Russian position on regional developments: advice given to Lebanon to control its border with Syria ... prevent arms smuggling
Brotherly and friendly countries do not hesitate to provide Lebanon with advice on the need to maintain both political and security stability and not to take paths that would have severe consequences on Lebanon, in light of a changing reality in the Arab world.
A diplomatic report coming from a decisionmaking country and sent to Lebanese authorities points out that Lebanon "has always been a fertile security ground where others tamper on its arena, using it to exchange messages, an issue which requires, at this stage, Lebanese awareness of the seriousness of the current situation.”
“Everybody must work toward eliminating all the factors of internal tension and respond to calls for dialogue without hesitation and without conditions, because the challenges are threatening everyone and do not distinguish between one [political] team and another, " according to the report.
The report notes that Russia will “not stand idly in front of what is going on in the region, particularly since the events will have severe repercussions on its interests and its historical ties with regional countries, especially Syria.”
The gravity with which Russia has engaged with regional developments is unprecedented, as it rejects attempts to tamper with global and regional strategic balances.
The report speaks about the stability Russia wants for Lebanon and reflects its keenness not to expose Lebanon to any risk, and expresses hope that the various Lebanese political leaders will realize the magnitude of the dangers surrounding Lebanon and not allow anyone to interfere in Lebanese internal affairs or influence their decisionmaking.
The report also highlights Russia’s willingness to help Lebanon in various areas and reiterates Moscow’s support for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon after it became an international reality.
Russia also advised Lebanon not to “negatively interfere” in Syria. Most important, it said, was that Lebanon control its border with Syria and distance itself from the events in the region and understand the sensitivity of the historical relationship between the two countries.
It also strongly recommended that arms smuggling into Syria be subject to “serious” investigation.
Al-Liwaa
Siniora prepares technique to resolve issue of LL8.9 bln [allocations] … Safadi warns against state department paralysis
Lebanese are busy preparing for the holiday amid an unprecedented economic crisis.
Information made available to Al-Liwaa uncovered that the head of the Future parliamentary bloc Fouad Siniora promised Speaker Nabih Berri – during a private meeting that followed Wednesday’s legislative session – to present a vision for fund allocations worth LL 8.9 billion after the bloc voiced reservations that the amount was enormous and should be part of a comprehensive plan.

Lebanon PM acknowledges Syrians kidnapped
November 04, 2011
Daily Star/BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed in an interview broadcast on Friday that opposition figures from neighbouring Syria had been kidnapped in Lebanon, but said they were isolated incidents. He also insisted in the interview with BBC's Arabic service that his government was neutral regarding the bloody political crisis in Syria, contrary to claims by Lebanon's Western-backed opposition. "This happened several months ago, before the formation of the government" in mid-June, Mikati said of the kidnappings.
Since anti-regime protests broke out in Syria and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad began a bloody crackdown, an estimated 5,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon, among them deserting soldiers and members of the opposition. "There are individual cases," Mikati said, "but we cannot generalise and say the entire situation is unstable. Yes, there were some incidents, but of an individual character." Asked about police inquiries indicating that the Syrian embassy in Beirut had had a hand in the kidnappings of at least four Syrian opposition figures, Mikati said "the judicial system will do its duty and we will support it." The Syrian ambassador has rejected the allegations. "I am puzzled by these unfounded claims that have been attributed to the police chief," Ali Abdul Karim Ali said in October. Turning to the events in Syria, Mikati said "we are not partisan, neither for nor against ... We have adopted a position of neutrality."
But Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, who represents the Hezbollah-led, and Syrian-supported, majority in Mikati's government, has stressed his country's support for the Assad regime at a string of Arab League meetings on Syria. On Wednesday, Lebanon's opposition called on the government to end what it charged was its support for the Syrian regime, warning that Beirut risked isolation. "We demand the government immediately cease its support for the Syrian regime, including its diplomatic support, so as to ensure Lebanon does not find itself isolated from Arab ... and international legitimacy." Mikati told the BBC: "Syria is a neighbouring country, and we have decided to stay out of it. We want to preserve the unity of Lebanon."

Syria: The Failed Siege
By Diana Mukkaled/Asharq Alawsat
At the end of the courageous documentary on the Syrian revolution produced by the Franco-German ARTE television network and broadcast by a number of Western and Arab television channels, a group of children – the eldest no older than 9 years old – appear on the screen, laughing and chanting the most famous slogan in Syria today, “Step down, Bashar!”
This scene appears to be spontaneous and to have been filmed in one take; whilst during the editing process the faces of the children are obscured in order to protect them from the Syrian regime and its thugs. This is something that was vital, as some of those who appeared in the documentary or contributed to its production are either missing today or imprisoned by the regime, as revealed by the documentary-makers at the end of the documentary. The documentary focused on testimony from Syrian army defectors, as well as the families of Syrian political activists killed during the protests.
It is true that this documentary was important, not least because such documentaries are rare, however its content did not exceed that which the Syrian revolutionary activists broadcast to the world every day. Those revolutionaries are all in agreement with regards to the importance of documenting their revolution and the daily developments on the Syrian scene. This highlights the courage possessed by these Syrian protesters and activists, as well as the regime’s cruel and brutal nature.
The ARTE documentary is amongst the most notable documentaries about the Syrian revolution to have been screened by the traditional media following months of the Syrian regime's policy of suppression, imprisonment, and censorship with regards to Arab and international media. In recent months, we have also seen journalists risk their lives by infiltrating Syria in order to uncover and document the crimes being carried out by the Syrian regime against the protesters.
However the Syrian protestors have also developed mechanisms of documenting their political activism and revolution, as well as the daily violence they face at the hands of the Syrian regime. Traditional journalists have also been successful in monitoring the revolution's daily occurrences from within, though not on a large scale.
Indeed it was the Syrian revolution that took the lead in this regard and which has been the focus of attention in the entire world; the Syrian revolutionaries have been successful in transforming their revolution into headline news in most international media. What deserves admiration, apart from the traditional media's infiltration of the dangerous scene in Syria, is how the Syrian protesters have developed the process of citizen journalism, utilizing the internet to promote their revolution. Indeed, these revolutionaries have become documentary-makers in their own right, filming and directing their own scenes. In Homs, for example, when demonstrators line up [during protests], they do so in order to allow the cameras to record their march and reveal their true numbers. This is in response to the regime’s claims that the number of protestors is limited and that all the Syrian people “love” the Syrian president, who has threatened to cause an “earthquake” if his regime is toppled. A documentary of the type produced by ARTE serves as a new indicator of the failure of the regime's plan to prohibit the documentation of its crimes and starve the Syrian revolution of media attention. The regime failed to besiege the revolution, indeed it is the revolution that is besieging the Syrian regime today and shaking its pillars, which will certainly lead to the regime's collapse!

Syria: Bashar’s dangerous myopia
By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat
What do Middle Eastern despots do when they run out of arguments to justify their rule?
For decades, the answer has been simple: faced with destitution, the despot calls on the West to help him remain in place so that he could stop “Islamists” from coming to power.
Siad Barre milked that cow in Somalia for a decade, after he had switched from the Soviets side to the Americans. In Sudan, Jaafar Nimeiri, who never decided whether he was Socialist or Islamist, made similar claims. For a quarter of a century, Saddam Hussein cast himself in the role of the barrier against an Islamist deluge supposedly coming out of Iran. In Syria, Hafez Al-Assad used similar arguments to secure meetings with American presidents. Assad boasted that the ceasefire line between Syria and Israel was the calmest of the Jewish state’s borders. It was he, Assad, who had saved Syria from falling to Islamism by massacring the people of Hama. In Tunisia, Zine al-Abedin Ben Ali used the argument for almost a quarter of a century. Hosni Mubarak used it in Egypt for 30 years. Muammar Kaddhafi claimed that, without him, Libya would become Islamist base. In Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh behaves as if he is Washington’s local commander in a war against Al Qaeda. Last weekend, it was the turn of Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad to play the old tune.
In an interview with a London weekly as part of a programme by a British public relations firm, he claimed that he alone prevented the emergence of “another Afghanistan, one hundred Afghanistans”. The gist of Assad’s ramblings was simple: If he goes, Islamists will come; and once they have come they would train suicide bombers against the West. The West also needs Assad to keep things quiet for Israel just as his father did for decades. It is, therefore, in the West’s best interest to let him remain in power by killing his people.
In effect, Assad has submitted a job application to become another Ali Abdullah Saleh, the West’s champion in the field of battle against “extremist Islam.”
Assad’s ramblings were disappointing, to say the least, on more than one score. He spoke as if he were head of a Mafia-style organization, using threats both veiled and unveiled.
We did not see a leader who understands that his country is in danger and that he should act to save it from a deadly impasse. Some of Assad’s lines sounded as if they were taken out of Godfather II. Assad seemed unable, or unwilling, even to understand what is happening in Syria. He dismissed the protests as “not worth bothering about”, and wondered whether the protestors were even Syrian.
An eye specialist, Dr. Assad appears to be suffering from political myopia. When the Cedar Revolution was kicking him out of Lebanon, he told his parliament that the Beirut crowds were small groups shown as large ones thanks to TV camera “zooming in and zooming out”.
Assad, who is becoming an embarrassment even to his Iranian patrons, is unable to provide Syria with a minimum of security and freedom without which no society could function.  In fact, the uprising in Syria appears to be more deeply rooted and much wider in demographic scope than the other “Arab Spring” movements.
In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen the uprisings were essentially limited to two or three cities, often including the capital. The Syria uprising, however, appears to have struck roots in almost every village and town.
With every day that passes, one learns of protests in a new place, including those that even specialists had not heard about. I have been making a list of those places. By last count, Syria had witnessed protest marches in 87 towns and villages, a staggering number. More importantly, perhaps, the uprising appears to have struck a chord with every segment of society and all the 18 religious and ethnic communities that compose the Syrian mosaic. Assad makes much of his claim that Syria’s two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo have remained relatively calm. That claim is manifestly false. Despite the fact that parts of Damascus and its suburbs have been turned into armed camps, the capital has witnessed a string of protest marches. In Aleppo, a student march attracted a large turnout while dozens of factories in the suburbs have been hit by strikes.
In any case, even if Damascus and Aleppo were islands of quietude in a sea of rage, Assad would have little to brag about. Every despot has a penchant for self-deception. Even as his capital is about to fall, he deludes himself by claiming that he is safe in his bunker. Rather than showing leadership and trying to bring people together, Assad has become a divisive element in Syria’s complex politics. His very presence divides the people into pro and anti-regime camps, a recipe for civil war. Assad is presiding over the splintering of the armed forces with more and more officers and men defecting to an alternative army. Assad’s presence has even divided his own Alawite community.
A clueless Assad seems to hope that the uprising will fade away. However, hope, like Mafia-style threats, is no substitute for policy.
In the first anti-Assad march in Latakkia last March, 200 took part. Assad’s henchmen killed eight of the marchers. The following week, the number had risen to 2000. Assad’s henchmen killed 19. In the third week, the number of marchers had risen to over 20,000.
With local variations, this has happened all over Syria. Assad is in a cloud cuckoo land, a prisoner of illusions as Saddam, Kaddhafi and a range of other Arab despots were until they met their bitter ends.

NATO says no plans to hit Iran as IAEA report set to be released
November 04, 2011
By Daily Star Staff Agencies
BRUSSELS/BENGHAZI/CANNES: NATO Thursday distanced itself from rampant speculation of a possible strike against Iran by the U.S or Israel, ahead of a highly anticipated report on the country’s nuclear capacity.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was quoted as saying there was no “intention whatsoever” to intervene in Iran.
Against a flurry of reports that Israel may be preparing for a unilateral strike, Iran said they would not be taken by surprise if such an attack was launched, with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi saying his country was “prepared for the worst.”
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking Cabinet support for a military strike on Iran. On the same day Israel successfully tested a missile believed capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran. Adding to speculation, Israel Thursday staged a mass drill, simulating a missile attack in the center of the country. The military dismissed any link to Cabinet speculation.
London’s Guardian newspaper also reported Thursday that Britain’s armed forces were stepping up contingency plans in the event the United States opted for military action against Iran, citing unnamed Defense Ministry contacts who said they believed Washington might rush forward plans for missile strikes on Iranian facilities – and might ask for British military help.
Commenting on the report, Britain said Wednesday all options were open in relation to potential military action against Iran.
“We want a negotiated solution – but all options should be kept on the table,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said.
Salehi warned the U.S. Thursday that it should think twice before it enters a “collision course” with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.
“The U.S. has unfortunately lost its wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues. It only depends on power,” Salehi told reporters during a visit to the Libyan city of Benghazi.
“Of course we are prepared for the worst, but we hope that they think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran,” he said.Asked about a missile test conducted by Israel Wednesday, Salehi was quoted as saying, “That is not important, that is not even something we bother ourselves with.”
The muscle flexing comes as the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, prepares to release a major report next week Tehran’s opponents hope will conclude Iran is working to develop a nuclear weapon.
The United States and its partners have long suspected that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon, leading to several sets of U.N. sanctions. Tehran says the program is peaceful and is aimed at producing energy.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday he had discussed his concerns about Iran and its nuclear program with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of the G-20 summit, and both had agreed that international pressure must be maintained on Iran.
“The IAEA is scheduled to release a report on Iran’s nuclear program next week and President Sarkozy and I agree on the need to maintain the unprecedented pressure on Iran to meet its obligations,” he told reporters.
Wednesday, a U.S. congressional committee approved more sanctions which would block foreign banks involved in significant transactions with Iran’s central bank from operating in the United States. NATO’s Rasmussen said Thursday that NATO supports political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear issue and urged Iran to comply with U.N. resolutions and stop its uranium enrichment programs but said the alliance was “not engaged” in the “Iran question.”
“Let me stress that NATO has no intention whatsoever to intervene in Iran, and NATO is not engaged as an alliance in the Iran question,” he said.
Israeli leaders have long said that all options are on the table in tackling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but they have thrown support behind international sanctions led by the United States meant to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s sole atomic arsenal, sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat.

Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra: Mikati took 'worst position' on Hezbollah and STL
November 04, 2011/ The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra criticized Prime Minister Najib Mikati Friday for considering Hezbollah’s stance toward the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as positive, describing it as an attempt to improve the image of the government. “The worst position Mikati has taken is when he said he considered Hezbollah's request for a vote on the tribunal as positive,” Zahra told a local radio station, referring to Mikati’s remarks in his Thursday’s interview with BBC. During the interview, Mikati said that Hezbollah had not appeared to completely reject the funding when its chief, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, said last week that lawmakers should seek consensus on the matter or put it to vote in the government. “I did not conclude that [Nasrallah] said ‘no’ to the tribunal,” Mikati said, adding that Nasrallah had left the issue to the constitutional institutions to play their part Lebanon has not yet paid its $32 million share of the U.N.-backed court’s budget for 2011. Mikati and President Michel Sleiman have repeatedly affirmed the country’s commitment to international obligations, in particular the tribunal, which in late June indicted four Hezbollah members of involvement in the 2005 assassination of former statesman Rafik Hariri. “Mikati's position that Hezbollah did not say no to funding the court is an attempt to improve the image [of the government]... Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah considers that the tribunal is an Israeli tool and rejected the funding,” Zahra said. Hezbollah has vocally rejected the tribunal as a U.S.-Israeli tool aimed at targeting the resistance and sowing sectarian strife in Lebanon. Nasrallah has, on several occasions, questioned the credibility of the court’s prosecutors and judges.

Walid Phares Under Attack
By Robert Rabil
American Thinker/November 4, 2011
Since his appointment as a special advisor on the Middle East by presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Dr. Walid Phares has come under a concerted vicious attack discrediting his expertise and maligning his reputation, pressuring Romney to drop Dr. Phares from his roster of advisors.
A series of articles appearing in the Daily Beast (McKay Coppins, October 12, 2011), Politico (Ben Smith, October 6, 2011), Salon (As'ad Abukhalil, October 7, 2011), The New Republic (Jard Vary, October 24, 2011) and particularly Mother Jones' controversial Adam Serwer (October 27, 2011) raise in slightly different versions several arguments that are false and offensive. Most of these attacks, which could be seen as bordering defamation, were based on a letter issued by a CAIR lobby group.
Notwithstanding the fact that these articles contain imprecise information, I will comment on two main far-fetched arguments that form the gist of the authors' unfounded and inflammatory charges leveled against Dr. Phares.
The first claims that Dr. Phares was a high-level political "official" of the Lebanese Forces during Lebanon's war, and since members of the latter were reportedly accused of one of the conflict's many killings -- namely, the Palestinian Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacre in 1982 -- Phares was by association "implicitly linked" to the massacre.
The other postulates that Dr. Phares is an Islamophobe and is highly aggressive towards Muslims and Islam.
Like Dr. Phares, I am an American citizen of Lebanese descent. I was born to a Christian Maronite family in Mount Lebanon. My family moved to Hazmieh, a suburb of Beirut, before the outbreak of Lebanon's civil war in 1975. When the war broke out, I was fourteen years old. The highly combustible political atmosphere gripping Beirut, coupled with the endemic apprehensive feeling among Christians that their survival was at stake, compelled almost all Christians either to contribute to defend their areas against Palestinian (as of 1975) and Syrian (as of 1978) forces or to travel far from the war zones.
With no money to spare for traveling, I decided to volunteer in the Red Cross. I refused to carry a gun or be militarily involved with any party. True, I was (and still am) critical of many political parties in Lebanon, yet I could not deny the fear I felt about the formidable threat the leftists, pan-Arabists, and PLO posed to the Christian community. I left Lebanon for United States in 1984.
I mention this because the authors of the articles, or at least most of them, are ignorant about what had happened in Lebanon during the evolving conflict. More specifically, I feel that the way in which they attacked Dr. Phares amounts to an attack on Lebanon's Christian community as a whole, and perhaps against all minorities and liberal Muslims in the Middle East. They explicitly attacked Dr. Phares on the misleading basis of guilt by association without even considering either the political context in which the Lebanese Christians operated or the collective angst of the Christian community.
In fact, I neither met nor heard of Dr. Phares while I was in Lebanon, including during the horrible episode of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in September 1982. Everybody in Beirut knew the leadership of the Phalange and Lebanese Forces, and Dr. Phares was not one of them during the early 1980s. I later learned about Dr. Phares through his book Pluralism in Lebanon, in which he argues for democratic principles and respect of human rights as the basis for a national multiethnic coexistence in Lebanon.
As a student of Middle East politics in United States, I then came to hear about Dr. Phares' Democratic Party in the late 1980s. As a leader of this small party in East Beirut, and along with other political parties and public personalities, he was invited to join the political council of the Lebanese Forces coalition in 1986 for a few years to represent the views of his party, expressed to a great extent in his many books. Any hint about his "retroactive link" to the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 or in the military decision making process of the Lebanese Forces from 1986 to 1989 is nothing more than a malicious intent to malign his reputation.
Subsequently, I came to know Dr. Phares on a personal level during the run-up to the American invasion of Iraq. We exchanged our views on many occasions, collaborated on publishing articles, and in the process forged a good friendship. As a friend and intellectual, Dr. Phares is an honest man, faithful to his democratic convictions and support for persecuted minorities throughout the world regardless of religion, ethnicity, or race.
He was among the very first scholars to highlight the suffering and suppression of the African Muslims in Darfur, the Kurds in the Levant, women in the Arab world, and other communities. He appears frequently in international and Arab media and presents his arguments in favor of a more democratic and pluralist Arab and Muslim world.
I could debate the extent to which he is worried about the reach of radical Islamism into the heartland of United States, a reach clearly demonstrated by the radicalization of some individuals in the American Muslim community. I also can take the liberty of stating that Dr. Phares is worried about the Muhammad Attas targeting democracies but not about Muslims in the world. Never has he addressed Islam as a theology. He speaks about radical Islamism.
In his prescient recent book The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East, he advocates supporting Muslim liberals and progressives throughout the Middle East. Obviously, the charge that he is an Islamophobe acting as a conspiracy theorist is maliciously fabricated to malign his scholarship as well as his reputation.
I respectfully call on these authors to check and vet their sources before publishing material which could end up perceived as defamatory. And if their intent is politically motivated to assassinate his character and muzzle his advocacy for human and minority rights and democracy in the Middle East, then they will have failed given the strength of his convictions and scholarship.
*Robert G. Rabil is associate professor of political science and director, Middle East Studies, Political Science Department, Florida Atlantic University.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/walid_phares_under_attack.html#ixzz1cjhkJRL7

FPM, allies triumphin USJ elections
November 04, 2011/By Wassim Mroueh/The Daily Star
Supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement flash their movement’s sign and celebrate victory.
BEIRUT: Student supporters of Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and its allies triumphed in student elections in most faculties of Universite Saint Joseph Thursday.
The electoral contest pitted the March 14 coalition, including the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb (Phalange) and Future Movement, against the FPM, Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and other March 8 forces. At the Campus of Human Sciences in Huvelin Street in Beirut, student supporters of the FPM and its allies took over the Faculty of Business and management, the largest in the campus, from the March 14 coalition. The March 8 coalition clinched eight seats while their rivals won seven in the faculty where Hezbollah and Amal have a significant presence. In the same campus, the March 8 and March 14 candidate slates each picked up five seats in the Faculty of Law, while another seat was won by an independent candidate.
March 14 student candidates won unopposed in the Faculty of Insurance.
In other campuses, student candidates from the FPM and its allies won in the Faculty of Engineering, clinching eight seats while their rivals got seven.
The FPM and its allies emerged victorious in the faculties of Economics, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Medicine.
March 14 triumphed in the faculties of Nursing and Enterprise Management, while student supporters of the coalition won in USJ’s Sidon campus.
At the Huvelin campus, elections ran smoothly except for a small scuffle that pitted pro-Hezbollah and Amal students versus supporters of the LF students in the Faculty of Business and Management in the morning.
During the day, both camps strived to secure votes, with political affiliations being the key determinant of voters’ choices.
“I voted for March 14 because they represent Lebanon’s freedom, the real independence from Syria,” Chawqi, a student in the Faculty of Business and Management told The Daily Star. “They call for real democracy, and do not support the use of weapons in politics.”
Chawqi said that student elections in Huvelin were “75 percent political and 25 percent to do with the program [of the lists].”
But Rana, who’s now pursuing her second degree at USJ, where she’s been a student for seven years, said that she has lost faith in student elections.
“I voted until last year, but I will not this year,” she said.
“Once elected, it is always your political stance which prevails. Moreover, the programs are just absurd,” she added.
But besides politics, each of the competing groups said that it was running for the benefit of students.
Fawzi Haddad, the FPM candidate for the post of the president of the student council at the Faculty of Business and Management, said that his program covered social as well as academic issues, which he accused the March 14 candidates of neglecting.
Haddad said that his list adopted the slogan of “partnership and love,” which was put forward by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai.
“We want to be friends with everybody, without sectarianism, while the other side incites students against each other based on sectarianism,” he said.
On Haddad’s agenda is a request to the university to allow students to open an on-campus office for academic guidance along with establishing an SMS-text message system to inform students, especially those coming from faraway places, of urgent news such as the absence of professors.
But Gilbert Ashqar, the representative of LF students at Huvelin, said that the March 14 list had a “comprehensive” program touching on academics along with social events
“We promised to work on academic reform … and we will be helping students with issues such as changing professors or taking credits that they are not allowed to take,” he said, acknowledging that it was difficult to work on demands such as reducing tuition fees.
Ashqar is a student at the Faculty of Insurance, whose seats were won by the March 14 coalition last year as well.
“Academic-wise, students had no demands last year, the administration was good, but we held social events on all occasions.”
Ashqar said that the contest was “highly” political. “I don’t think that both sides focus on the programs.”
The LF student said that the FPM was exploiting the Maronite patriarchate for electoral aims.
“They used the slogan to attract votes of Christians, but let’s not exploit the patriarchate for political reasons,” he said. But, he added, “I have no problem in this slogan if they really implement it.”
Ashqar dismissed claims by rival groups that the LF was playing on sectarian feelings.
But despite this acute polarization at Huvelin, the independent “Linkage” list triumphed at the Faculty of Political Science.
“Inside the university, we have nothing to do with politics and we are not close to any party, we work for the university only,” Laurent Zaloum, a member of the list told The Daily Star.
“We are gradually trying to get the university out of this political thinking,” he added.
Tamim Abu Karroum, a Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections member who supervised the elections in the campus, told The Daily Star that elections were “quiet and organized by the administration.”
The Progressive Socialist Party boycotted the polls. – With additional reporting by Enora Castagne.

Minister Baird Condemns Ongoing Violence in Syria
(No. 329 - November 3, 2011 - 4:20 p.m. ET) Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today released the following statement condemning the ongoing violence in Syria:
“Canada welcomes the efforts of the Arab League to halt the violence in Syria. However, the continued violence in Homs, which claimed the lives of 20 civilians today, demonstrates that President Assad has already reneged on his commitment to end his campaign of terror.
“Canada reiterates its strong condemnation of these violent attacks. The Assad regime has lost all legitimacy. We again call on President Assad and those backing him to relinquish power and step down immediately. “During my meetings with representatives of the Syrian National Council, they have continuously outlined their appetite for change. Canada will support these calls and support the Syrian people in their quest for a brighter future, one which respects freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
 

The Delusion of an Arab World
| More Franck Salameh | November 2, 2011
In 1999, long before the fitful rise and fall of the 2011 “Arab Spring,” former Arab-nationalist author and intellectual Hazem Saghieh published a scathing critique of what he considered outmoded Arab dogmas and delusions. The Swansong of Arabism, his book, was a work of painful introspection in which the author called for casting aside the jingles of “Arab Unity” and discarding the assumptions of “Arab Identity,” urging his former comrades-in-arms to let go of the corpse Arabism.1 “Arabism is dead,” wrote Saghieh, urging Arab nationalists to bring a healthy dose of realism to their world’s changing realities: “they need relinquish their phantasmagoric delusions about ‘the Arab world’ [. . . and let go of their] damning and outmoded nomenclatures of unity and uniformity [. . . in favor of] liberal concepts such as associational and consociational identities.”2
Arabism and related “philosophies of compulsion, coercion, and exclusion” writes Saghieh, have rained disaster on the Middle East for the past hundred years. Yet their ideologies persist as lodestar to many nationalists, and their terminologies remain the dominant prism through which some insist on defining the Middle East.3 Liberal, multi-ethnic, polyglot models such as those of Switzerland, Belgium or India, complained Saghieh, “elicit nothing but contempt from Arabists still infatuated with overarching domineering pan-identities.”4 Diversity frightens the Arabists, he claimed. To wit, Lebanese militant scholar Omar Farrukh wrote during the second half of the twentieth century that it is irrelevant if Iraqis deem themselves a hybrid of Aramaeans, Persians, Kurds, Turks, Indians and others still: “They still are Arabs, in spite of their racial diversity,” even in spite of themselves, “because the overriding factor in their identity formation is the Arabic language.”5 Likewise, Farrukh stressed that the inhabitants of today’s Morocco, Algeria, Libya and elsewhere in North Africa may very well be a mix of Berbers, Black Africans, Spaniards and Franks; “but by dint of the Arab nation’s realities [sic.?] they all remain Arabs shorn from the same cloth as the Arabs of the Hejaz, Najd, and Yemen.”6
More recently, Palestinian journalist and intellectual Rami Khouri suggested proclaiming “the death of the ‘Levant’ label” as a referent to the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. His rationale was that the “revolts across much of the Arab world capture the fact that Arab citizens are now in the very early stages of rewriting their own history and crafting their own national narratives.”7 Consequently, those citizens’ physical and geographic space, argued Khouri, deserved descriptive language reflecting their actual world and the mood of their peoples. The “Arab world” was a more apt term to describe Egypt, Syria and other nearby Mediterranean countries, said Khouri; “Levant,” on the other hand, was a linguistic, perceptual and geographic throwback to a hated “colonial era,” which the current upheavals seem bent on erasing. Some in the region disagree with Khouri’s over-simplifications and see themselves not as colonial inventions but as sophisticated, urbane, cosmopolitan mongrels, intimately acquainted with multiple cultures, skillfully wielding multiple languages, and elegantly straddling multiple traditions, identities, and civilizations, including those of Khouri’s vaunted Arabs.
Yet, oblivious to the realities of the Levantine Near East as a crossroads and a meeting place of peoples, histories, languages and ideas, Khouri seems bent on snuffing out diversity in the name of Arab uniformity; as if Arabism’s negationist history of the past hundred years has not yet been negationist enough. “History beckons to the Arabs,” wrote Syrian thinker Adonis recently,
to put an end to their culture of deceit; for, [the] states of the Levant are much greater, much richer, and much grander than to be reduced to slavery for the benefit of Arabism . . . and no amount of cruelty and violence emanating from Arab nationalists will change the reality that the Middle East is not the preserve of Arabs alone.8
Yet Khouri somehow deems it fitting to slay Adonis’s Levant—the Levant of millions of Adonises—on the altar of an “Arab world” that no longer obtains. Never mind that in this year’s Middle Eastern uprisings not a single banner was raised in the name of an “Arab world,” not a single candle was lit in the name of an “Arab world,” not a single slogan was intoned in the name of an “Arab world” and not a single victim (mauled by the cruel killing machines of writhing Arab nationalist regimes) sacrificed himself for the sake of an “Arab world.” Yet the champions of a moribund “Arab world” have no shame piggybacking on the sacrifices of those seeking freedom from the brutality and servitude of a spent “Arab world.”
Nearly a decade before Khouri’s delusional exhortation to rename the Levant, Nizar Qabbani, an Arab nationalist with impeccable credentials, was announcing the death of the Arab world, not the Levant; and he was inviting irredeemable nationalists like Khouri to join him at the wake. Eulogizing an anthropomorphic “Arab world,” Qabbani wrote:
This is the end of dialogue . . . My language has despaired of you: and I have set fire to my clothes, and I have set fire to your language and your lexicons. I want out of my voice; out of my writings; out of my place of birth. I want out of your cities of salt, your hollow poetry, . . . and your tedious language and silly myths and lore. I have had enough already of your hallowed idiots and your lionized impostors. I have despaired of your skins; I have despaired of my nails; I have despaired of your impenetrable wall.9
Perhaps Khouri, and those like him, still romancing outmoded delusions about some uniform, unified, reformed “Arab world,” should take heed.
Franck Salameh is an assistant professor of Near Eastern Studies, Arabic and Hebrew at Boston College and the author of Language Memory and Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon (Lexington Books, 2010).
1 Hazem Saghieh, Wadaa’ al-‘Uruuba [The Swansong of Arabism], (Beirut and London: Dar al-Saqi, 1999), p. 9.
2 Saghieh, pp. 9-13.
3 Saghieh, p. 13.
4 Saghieh, p. 13.
5 Omar Farrukh, Al-Qawmiyya al-Fusha [Modern Standard Arabic Nationalism], (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm lil-Malaayeen, 1961), p. 161.
6 Farrukh, p. 162.
7 Rami Khoury, “Arabs are Rewriting their Own Narrative,” The Daily Star, Beirut, October 17, 2011. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2011/Oct-15/151370-arabs-are-rewriting-their-own-narrative.ashx#axzz1b9HDJRrb
8 Adonis, “Open Letter to President Bashar al-Assad; Man, His Basic Rights and Freedoms, or the Abyss”, As-Safir, June 14, 2011, No. 11911.
9 See Franck Salameh, Language Memory and Identity in the Middle East; The Case for Lebanon, (Lanham, MD: Lexington B