LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِOctober 12/2011

Bible Quotation for today/The Two House Builders
Matthew 07/24-27: " So then, anyone who hears these words of mine and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, and the wind blew hard against that house. But it did not fall, because it was built on rock.  But anyone who hears these words of mine and does not obey them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain poured down, the rivers flooded over, the wind blew hard against that house, and it fell. And what a terrible fall that was!

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Egyptian Coptic priest blasts military handling of protests/By Mona Madkour/October 11/11
Arab Spring Falls on Egypt's Coptic Christians/By: Walid Phares/October 11/11
Does Anyone Speak Arabic?/By: Franck Salameh/Middle East Quarterly/October 11/11
Our World: The forgotten Christians of the East/By CAROLINE B. GLICK/October 11/11
Egypt faces itself/By: By Tariq Alhomayed/October 11/11
Russia wants a share in post-Assad Syria/By Amir Taheri/October 11/11
Moshe Arens/How Middle East peace began/October 11/11
Tawakul and Razan/By: Hazem Saghiyeh/ October 11/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for October 11/11
Statement by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird on Situation in Egypt
Obama concerned at Egyptian violence, urges restraint
Coptic Christians rage against Egypt’s army
Lebanese leaders urge Egypt to prevent sectarian strife
Visit to Syria would have meant acceptance of presence in Lebanon: Sfeir  
Sfeir explains why he did not visit Syria
President Gemayel: Sfeir voiced ‘heroic stances’
Dr. Geagea commends Sfeir’s mandate
Patriarch Rai says “does not follow any party”
Geagea slams Syrian army’s violations of Lebanon sovereignty
Geagea: If Only Hizbullah Would Leave the Lebanese People Alone
Al-Rahi: We Can’t Survive if we Have Loyalties Abroad
The mayor of the Bekaa town of Arsal: Arsal will defend itself from Syrian incursions
Lebanon:10 charged with targeting UNIFIL, Lebanese Army
Lebanon: Strike still on after talks fail to secure union demands
Nasrallah, interior minister discuss draft electoral law
GLC Strike to Go Ahead after Negotiations with Govt. Fail
FPM Leader MP Michel Aoun after Change and Reform Bloc’s Weekly Meeting
MP Michel Aoun: STL funding sanctions would be ‘military move’ against Lebanon
STL Spokesman Says Baragwanath Appointed in March
President Obama Issues Waiver on Human Trafficking Sanctions for Lebanon
Iranian envoy to Lebanon: Situation in Syria improving
Syrian cleric warns U.S., Europe against attack
Syria grand mufti threatens attacks on U.S. and E.U.
OIC warns Syria over using force against protests
Syria rejects international demands to join war crimes tribunal
China urges Syria to honor reform promises
Libya fighters take over key Gadhafi stronghold in Sirte
Sinai militias cut Egypt-Israel trade ties amid declining security
UN rights chief urges Israel to 'protect Palestinian civilians' from settler attacks
Akiva Eldar / Israel doesn't need an Arab spy to know quiet can't prevail forever
Palestinian FM: Abbas actively lobbying Security Council members to back statehood
Three Iranian ministers target of EU sanctions

President Obama Issues Waiver on Human Trafficking Sanctions for Lebanon
Naharnet /U.S. President Barack Obama granted Lebanon a waiver to allow the continuation of U.S. assistance to Lebanon, which was at risk of being blocked due to Lebanon’s Tier Three ranking in the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, said the U.S. Embassy in a statement on Tuesday. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly informed Prime Minister Najib Miqati of Obama’s decision on October 4. “The United States appreciates the seriousness with which the Lebanese government and civil society have addressed issues related to combating trafficking in persons,” it added.  “Connelly welcomed the initial steps taken by the government and pledged to continue collaboration on protecting victims of trafficking, prosecuting perpetrators, and preventing the spread of trafficking,” it stated. The Obama administration has placed the Lebanese government on a blacklist for not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and not making significant efforts to do so.
In June and in its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the U.S. State Department identified 23 nations as failing to meet minimum international standards to curb the scourge, which claims mainly women and children as victims. The 11 new countries on the blacklist or the so-called Tier Three were Lebanon, Algeria, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Madagascar, Micronesia, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen. Governments of countries on the Tier Three may be subject to certain sanctions, whereby the U.S. government may withhold or withdraw non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance. In addition, countries on Tier Three may not receive funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural exchange programs. Another 41 countries were placed on a watch list that could lead to sanctions unless their records improve.
The report analyzed conditions in 184 nations, including the United States, and ranked them in terms of their effectiveness in fighting what many have termed modern-day slavery.
The State Department estimates that as many as 27 million men, women and children are living in such bondage around the world.
*Source NaharnetAssociated Press

Maronite Catholic Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir: My Visit to Syria would have meant acceptance of presence in Lebanon
October 11, 2011/The Daily Star
Former patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir is seen in this undated file photo. (Mohammad Azakir/The Daily Star)
BEIRUT: Maronite Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir said that making a visit to Syria during his term as patriarch would have meant an acceptance from Bkirki of the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
“The visit would have meant that we accept the Syrian presence in Lebanon, and we do not want to walk in any direction but the Lebanese one,” Rai told Future News in an interview Monday night. Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that Patriarch Beshara Rai will visit Damascus following his warning that the uprising in Syria could threaten Christians in the country should civil war break out between Alawites and Sunnis. In his comments, Rai also said Syrian President Bashar Assad should have been given more time to implement reforms.
The patriarch later said his remarks had been taken out of context. During the interview Monday, Sfeir said each patriarch has his own policies and beliefs.
“Rai knows whether it is beneficial or not to visit Syria to check on the community there. Every patriarch has their own way just like every president,” Sfeir said.
In 2000, while heading the Maronite Church, Sfeir declared opposition to Syria's three decades of domination over Lebanon, which ended five years later when Damascus withdrew its troops following former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. “We have had a position regarding the relationship with Syria and I do not think we can change history,” Sfier said Monday. “I do not believe that if we had accepted Syria’s presence in Lebanon the Christians would have been better off.”
Despite his opposition to Syria, Sfeir did not reject the idea that Christians were at risk in the region. “Christians have been in this region and especially in Lebanon since the foundation of Christianity and they have to fight to stay here,” Sfeir said. The former patriarch also touched upon the division between Christian leaders in Lebanon, saying that he had put efforts to unite Christians who differed in their political policies.
“We tried our best to unite the vision among Christians in Lebanon and this division among them threatens their existence. That is the reason many of them are leaving Lebanon to find safer places,” Sfeir said. During his term, Sfeir was vocal regarding his opposition to Hezbollah’s arms, and the former patriarch said Monday he did not regret such a stance, which led to the severing of ties with Christian leaders who were allied with the group. In his September comments, Rai also tied the disarmament of Hezbollah to Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah’s justification for carrying arms would collapse when Israel withdraws from Lebanese territory. “I don’t regret remarks about the mini state and the illegal possession of arms ... Lebanese should be convinced that arms belong to the state which looks after their affairs so that peace can be achieved,” he said

Sfeir explains why he did not visit Syria
October 10, 2011
Former Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, said on Monday that he did not visit Syria during his Maronite Patriarchate mandate because the visit would have meant adhering to Syrian policies.“I didn’t visit Syria because the visit would have obliged me to follow the Syrian [direction],” he told Future News television.
Sfeir also reiterated his support for international justice, adding that justice cannot be achieved without paying its price.
“Tribunals and judges cannot fulfill their duties without getting paid,” he added in a reference to the matter of funding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Four Hezbollah members have been indicted by the UN-backed court in the Hariri murder. However, the Shia group strongly denied the charges and refused to cooperate with the court. The STL is funded by an assortment of donor countries from around the world, as well as Lebanon. However, Hezbollah and other March 8 parties and figures have spoken out against Lebanon’s ties and funding for the tribunal and called it a tool to incite sectarian strife in Lebanon.
Sfeir was the head of the Maronite Patriarchate from 1986 until his resignation in 2011. He was known for his opposition to the Syrian military presence in Lebanon.
-NOW Lebanon

Patriarch Rai says “does not follow any party”
October 10, 2011
During a ceremony in the US city of Saint Louis, Missouri , Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai said on Sunday that he does not follow any party, but on the contrary he is followed by them. “The patriarch does not follow any party; he is followed by them ,” he said “Whoever wants freedom and truth should follow the patriarch,” Rai stressed Rai also said that the true allegiance of the patriarch is to Lebanon only, adding that the Maronite Patriarchate supports all Christians and Muslims.
Rai kicked off a three week pastoral visit to the US on October 1. Unlike his predecessor he is not expected to meet any US officials, nor be invited to the white house
Rai came under fire earlier in September from the opposition March 14 parties but won praise from March 8 politicians for indirectly defending Hezbollah’s arms and linking the party’s arsenal to the termination of Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory and the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland . Even MP Walid Jumblatt who defected from March 14 alliance was very critical of Rai’s statements. Rai emphasized during a trip to Paris that “only when the international community exerts pressure on Israel to vacate the occupied Lebanese territory ( the Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shouba hills and the Lebanese part of the disputed border village of Ghajar ) and Israel allows Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their homes, can Hezbollah be asked to hand over its arms because they will no longer be needed.”
Rai added that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “open-minded” and should be given more chances to implement the reforms he already announced.
The patriarch claimed after returning to Lebanon that the remarks he made while in Paris “were taken out of context and have nothing to do” with his personal opinion.
Rai reiterated his controversial position on Syria and Hezbollah’s arms during a meeting Friday with President Michel Suleiman who is planning to renew his call for rival leaders to engage in national dialogue to end their deep political divisions, sources said. Assad’s regime has cracked down on a string of unprecedented protests across his country, killing more than 2,900 civilian protesters since the uprising began in March, according to the United Nations.

Patriarch Al-Rahi: We Can’t Survive if we Have Loyalties Abroad
Naharnet /Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has described Lebanon’s pluralism as a “treasure” but warned against what he called “the illness of loyalties” to other countries both in the East and West. At a ceremony held in his honor in the city of Cleveland in the U.S. state of Ohio on Monday, al-Rahi said: “Pluralism is a big treasure for Lebanon and what distinguishes Lebanon is its plurality.” “But we have another illness which we should courageously announce. It is our loyalty to outside Lebanon,” he lamented. “I don’t understand how a person could be Lebanese and have loyalty abroad?” al-Rahi asked. “We can’t live and have loyalties abroad both in the East and West,” he stressed in a stop on his pastoral visit to the U.S.
l-Rahi addressed the international community and the U.S., saying “Lebanon is the door to the East … where all religions and cultures meet.” “That’s why we hope that no one would asses Lebanon based on the 10,452-sq-km (territory) but rather on its fundamental role in the Middle East,” he added. Earlier in the day, he held a mass at Saint Maroun church. In Chicago a day earlier, the patriarch urged Lebanese expatriates to register to vote at embassies abroad to preserve the demographic balance among Lebanon’s sects. “If you don’t register, we will be out,” Al-Rahi told members of Chicago’s Maronite community.

Geagea slams Syrian army’s violations of Lebanon sovereignty
October 10, 2011/In an interview with Al-Jumhuriya newspaper published on Monday Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea blasted the Syrian army’s violations of Lebanese territories calling it a “flagrant violation” of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Geagea also slammed the cabinet for not issuing any statement on the Syrian “violation,” calling their silence “national treason”.
“The cabinet’s position is very [bad]. It is as if the cabinet has nothing to do with Lebanon,” he added. Syrian army tanks crossed the Lebanese border near the town of Arsal and fired several gunshots on Lebanese territory and on Thursday Syrian troops shot and killed a farmer near Aarsal. Asked about Lebanon’s abstention during the vote on a United Nations resolution against the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown against the pro-democracy protesters , the LF leader said: “I had hoped we had a cabinet that takes a position that suits our convictions and aspirations.” Nine countries voted last week in favor of the resolution which had called for “targeted measures” if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pursues his clampdown on anti-regime protests. South Africa, India, Brazil and Lebanon abstained from voting, while China and Russia vetoed the resolution. According to the UN, the Syrian regime’s crackdown on protests has killed more than 2,900 people. Thousands have fled to Lebanon. Commenting on the reports that some Syrian refugees in Lebanon have been detained by authorities , he said “Lebanon’s role on the level of freedom must be taken into consideration. We do not want to interfere in what is happening in Syria, but the Lebanese government has to respect international rules on how to deal with refugees and must not allow their detention,” Commenting on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the LF leader said the UN-backed tribunal is “characterized by full transparency,” and statements that it is politicized are “baseless.” Four Hezbollah members have been indicted by the STL, which is probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. However, the Shiite group strongly denied the charges and refusesd to cooperate with the court.

The mayor of the Bekaa town of Arsal: Arsal will defend itself from Syrian incursions
October 11, 2011/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: The mayor of the Bekaa town of Arsal said locals will defend themselves from Syrian military incursions in the absence of state protection.
“We won’t appeal to security forces to control the border because there is no government to protect us,” Ali Mohammad al-Hujeiri, Arsal’s mayor said in remarks published Tuesday.
“We will protect ourselves,” he said. Hujeiri said Syrian violations of Lebanese territory had not stopped, adding that residents of the Bekaa town of Arsal had been “repelling Syrian forces in the absence of Lebanese security forces.”Hujeiri had earlier urged Lebanese authorities to take action over the Syrian army’s repeated incursions.
“We do not want to place Arsal in confrontation with the Syrian army but we are asking the Lebanese government, especially the prime minister, the president and all the political forces, to take action on the situation,” Hujeiri said Friday at a meeting at the headquarters of the municipality. A Syrian farmer was shot and killed Thursday by Syrian soldiers who had crossed into Arsal. Earlier last week, two Syrian armored vehicles crossed into Arsal, firing at farmers’ homes. Hujeiri said there have been many Syrian army incursions into Arsal, in which the Syrian army had shot at buildings and looted houses.

Lebanese leaders urge Egypt to prevent sectarian strife
October 11, 2011/By Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s leaders from both sides of the political spectrum condemned Monday the sectarian clashes in Egypt which killed 25 people and called on Egyptian authorities to act to prevent the country from sinking into full-fledged civil warfare.
While Hezbollah said the clashes in Egypt were part of “a U.S. project” to disintegrate the Middle East region, Lebanon’s top Muslim religious leaders called on Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb, Egypt’s grand imam of Al-Azhar, and Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Church, to act to nip the strife in the bud.
Egypt’s ruling Military Council Monday ordered a speedy probe into Sunday’s clashes between Christians protesting a recent attack on a church and the Egyptian military, leaving at least 25 people dead and more than 300 people injured.
Meanwhile the Cabinet held crisis talks amid fears of widespread sectarian unrest.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said the clashes will not shake the Egyptians’ firm will to continue the path toward democracy.
“We are confident that the latest events, despite their cruelty, will not shake the firm will of the Egyptians to complete the path toward a democratic system, which guarantees a dignified life to all the Egyptians and ensures them freedom of expression, contrary to what some claim,” Hariri said in a statement issued by his office.
Hariri urged Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church to act to maintain national unity: “We call on our dear brothers in Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church to work on healing wounds, promoting dialogue and preventing aggressors from manipulating the stability and unity of the Egyptian people.”
“We look forward to new measures from the political and military leaderships in Egypt to stop any repercussions that could arise from these events. In this respect, the Arabs have a responsibility in helping Egypt and its leadership to rise up and play its pioneering and historic role in supporting the Arab causes,” he added.
Grand Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, expressed in a letter sent to the imam of Al-Azhar his pain over the victims who fell during Sunday’s clashes.
“We are looking forward to Egypt’s modern renaissance, an Egypt that is strong and capable politically, economically and scientifically to take its place and its national, Arab, Islamic and international role for which the entire [Islamic] nation is aspiring,” Qabbani said.
“The holy Al-Azhar, under your wise leadership, has a very big role in the process of revival and achieving hopes with Almighty God’s help,” he said.
“The good people of Egypt have the right to feel security and stability so that they can participate in this renaissance with determination and strength,” said Qabbani.
Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan, head of the Higher Shiite Council, said the clashes in Egypt were “a blind strife” that should be nipped in the bud.
“Everyone must work honestly and responsibly so that Egypt can return as a stable and secure state. The persistence of these painful incidents expose Egypt, the brotherly state, to horrible and colossal dangers whose consequences are difficult to bear,” Qabalan said in a statement.
Qabalan appealed to the imam of Al-Azhar, Pope Shenouda III and all religious leaders to act quickly to halt all attacks and violations that target the national unity of the Egyptian people.
Hezbollah said in a statement: “What happened in Egypt is one of the facets of strife hatched by the enemies of Egypt, the Arabs, Muslims and Christians. Hezbollah sees that what is happening is an indivisible part of a U.S. project aimed at disintegrating the entire region on the basis of race and religion.”
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt warned against the clashes turning into “a sectarian struggle” in Egypt.
“Despite the painful events, we are fully confident that the Egyptian institutions and the Military Council are capable of overcoming this crisis,” Jumblatt said in his weekly article to be published by the PSP’s weekly newspaper Al-Anbaa Tuesday.
He called on the Military Council to protect religious and worship places and crack down on activities of Salafist groups and search for their sources of income.
“These groups are playing havoc with churches as well as with tombs and Sufi graveyards,” Jumblatt said.
Kataeb (Phalange) Party leader Amin Gemayel said the clashes in Egypt caused concern at the Egyptian and Arab levels.
“Egypt is in the vanguard of countries calling for freedom and it must be an example for the rest of Arab regimes,” Gemayel LBCI Television.
Calling on the Military Council in Egypt to draw lessons from Sunday’s clashes, Gemayel said: “Raising the slogan of unity and freedom is not enough unless it is coupled with giving rights to their right owners.”

Coptic Christians rage against Egypt’s army
October 11, 2011/AM Agencies
CAIRO/UNITED NATIONS: Egypt’s Coptic Christians unleashed their fury on the army Monday after at least 25 people were killed when troops broke up a protest, deepening public doubts about the military’s ability to steer the country peacefully toward democracy.
In the worst violence since Hosni Mubarak was ousted, armored vehicles sped into a crowd late Sunday to crack down on a protest near Cairo’s state TV.
Online videos showed mangled bodies. Activists said some people were crushed by wheels.
Tensions between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians have simmered for years but have worsened since the anti-Mubarak revolt, which gave freer rein to Salafist and other strict Islamist groups that the former president had repressed.
But much of the anger from Sunday’s violence targeted the army, accused by politicians from all sides of aggravating social tensions through a clumsy response to street violence and not giving a clear timetable for handing power to civilians.
Thousands marched late Monday from Cairo’s main cathedral to the Coptic hospital where most of the wounded were treated, calling for religious unity and the removal of the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohammad Hussein Tantawi.
Why didn’t they do this with the Salafists or the Muslim Brotherhood when they organize protests? This is not my country any more,” Alfred Younan, a Copt, said near the hospital.
Church leaders called for three days of fasting “for peace to return to Egypt.”
The military council told the interim government to investigate the clashes urgently and said it would take necessary measures to maintain security, state television said.
“This is a huge crisis that could end in a civil clash. It could end in dire consequences,” said presidential hopeful Amr Moussa. “An immediate investigation committee must be formed, with immediate results.”
The clashes overshadow Egypt’s first parliamentary poll since Mubarak fell. Voting starts on Nov. 28.
“One big problem Egypt faces now is that, increasingly, there is no one in power with the authority and credibility to calm the situation down,” said a senior Western diplomat.
“After [Sunday’s] events, there is an increasing risk that the military will come into conflict with the people. The authority of the prime minister is dangerously eroded. None of the presidential candidates yet has the standing.”
Christians make up 10 percent of Egypt’s roughly 80 million people.
They took to the streets after accusing Muslim radicals of partially demolishing a church in Aswan province last week.
Mourners packed the Abbasiya cathedral Monday where Coptic Pope Shenouda III prayed over candle-lit coffins of the dead. Many wept and chanted slogans calling for Tantawi to step down.
The congregation wailed as some held up bloodstained shirts and trousers. “With our souls and blood we sacrifice ourselves for the cross,” they cried.
Some protesters said agitators, whom they described as thugs, sparked violence that prompted the heavy-handed tactics. The Health Ministry said 25 people had been killed and 329 wounded, including more than 250 who were taken to hospital.
Mina Magdy, a doctor at the hospital, said it had dealt with 17 fatalities. Fourteen of the deaths were due to bullet wounds and three were killed when vehicles ran over them, he said.
Streets near the state television building had been largely cleared of debris Sunday, but smashed and burned vehicles lined streets in the area near the Coptic hospital, which was also the scene of violence overnight.
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, appearing on state television in the early hours Monday, said the government’s attempts to build a modern, democratic state were being disrupted by security concerns and talk of plots against democracy.
“We will not surrender to these malicious conspiracies and we will not accept reverting back,” he said before the interim Cabinet met and launched an investigation into the violence.
Justice Minister Mohammad Abdel Aziz al-Guindy said the investigation and any trials would be handled by military courts. State newspaper Al-Ahram said 15 people were being investigated. State media had said dozens were detained.
The United States urged restraint and said the rights of minorities and the universal rights of peaceful protest and religious freedom must be respected. “These tragic events should not stand in the way of timely elections and a continued transition to democracy that is peaceful, just and inclusive,” the White House said.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called on the Egypt’s military authorities to defend “all faiths” and appealed to all Egyptians to “preserve the spirit of the historic changes” seen in the country this year, according to a spokesman. Ban said there must be a “transparent, orderly and peaceful transition” in Egypt that includes “free, fair and credible elections leading to the establishment of civilian rule.”
The clashes add to the growing frustration of pro-democracy activists with the generals who took over from Mubarak. Many Egyptians suspect the army wants to wield power from behind the scenes even as it hands day-to-day government to civilians. The army council denies this.
It has yet to announce a date for a presidential election. A staggered parliamentary vote that lasts until March followed by drawing up a new constitution could push the vote back to the end of 2012 or early 2013, leaving presidential powers in the hands of the military council until then.
Moussa and other presidential hopefuls have demanded a swifter presidential vote on April 1. Moussa told Reuters it was important that the violence did not derail the election timetable.
Christians complain of discrimination, citing rules that they say make it easier to build a mosque than a church. Tensions in the past have often flared over inter-faith romantic relationships, church building and other issues.
Protests erupted elsewhere in Egypt including its second biggest city, Alexandria. Copts say promises by the new rulers to address their concerns and protect them have been ignored.
“The new emerging faction of Islamists and Salafists has created havoc since the January revolution … The problem is the severe reluctance of the Cabinet and the authorities to enforce the rule of law and protect the Copts,” said Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of Orthodox Coptic newspaper Al-Watani.
The Cabinet said a fact-finding committee would probe the violence in Cairo and Aswan and laws would be changed to punish religious and other discrimination with prison terms and fines. It said a committee would speed up the drafting of a new unified law regulating places of worship.
Separately, an Egyptian court overturned Monday a decision barring the formation of a political party by an Islamist group.
It also overturned a decision barring presidential hopeful Ayman Nour from forming a party, saying both Nour and the Islamist group Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya “met the conditions stipulated in the parties law,” state news agency MENA said.
 

Arab Spring Falls on Egypt's Coptic Christians
Walid Phares, Ph.D. - 10/11/2011
The credibility of the Arab Spring took a bloody hit today (Sunday October 9th) when Egyptian Army forces shot dead more than thirty Christian Copts and wounded scores of them.
In addition, the action by the Army was paralleled by armed men, described as Salafi Jihadists by Coptic sources, seen also shooting and hitting demonstrators with knives. At a few weeks from the legislative elections in Egypt, this violence impacts the debate about the Spring of Egypt but also challenges US and European policies towards the current and perhaps the forthcoming Government. Can the West support - and fund - a regime that kills members of the weakest community in Egypt, months after the fall of Mubarak?
International news agencies, including AP, were late in reporting the real casualties, as Coptic sources have identified more than 30 bodies seen on the streets at the time this article was filed (forty by the latest unconfirmed account). Hundreds of demonstrators who were protesting against the attacks on Christian Churches in the south of the country were also wounded and dozens were taken to the hispitals.
According to Coptic NGOs and Egyptian observers, the demonstrators were marching peacefully towards the TV central building when armored vehicles from the Egyptian military deployed in the streets, and soldiers fired against the unarmed civilians. A number of demonstrators, mostly youth, burned a few military vehicles after the shootings. The Army was not alone in its suppression of the demonstrations. On the sides of the streets, bands of thugs were seen striking at the marchers with sticks and blades. In some instances, according to Coptic NGOs, armed elements described as "Salafists" or "Jihadists" shot also against the civilians.
It will take a few days before arriving at an accurate number of how many were killed in the Cairo massacre, but what is clear after today is that the Copts of Egypt, about fifteen million of them, are now under siege. Persecuted historically for centuries, they have been subjected to pressures since the mid 1950s without interruption. Their churches were bombed and torched at the end of last year and even after the revolution crumbled Mubarak's regime. It sounds as if the Arab Spring is ignoring the weakest communities in the Arab world.
Over the past few months, Copts, secular and liberal Egyptians were outmaneuvered by the well-organized and -funded Muslim Brotherhood and their Salafi allies. Instead of recognizing the identity of minorities in the constitution's preamble, the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) rushed the process with the support of the ruling military council, ignoring the rights of the Copts, and set the path to so-called fast elections, insuring an Islamist political blitzkrieg. In addition, the Jihadists, emboldened by the Muslim Brotherhood expanding influence in the country versus the seculars and civil society forces, resumed their violence against the Copts and their churches.
Ironically the Military authorities and the Government they've appointed are claiming that "an outside conspiracy against the state is behind the events." Hints such as these usually mean either Israel or even the United States. Cairo's present regime, which has sidelined the initial forces of the revolution - youth, women, liberals and Christian Copts - doesn't want to recognize that there is a Coptic problem in Egypt. The latter would ruin the chances for the Muslim Brotherhood to seize power with international recognition but also open the files of international support to Egypt and its militaries. The INGO Coptic Solidarity International’s leaders said "these were direct attacks against the liberty of expression of the Christian Copts in Egypt and this is unacceptable after Mubarak's fall." The Coptic INGO officials said "Egypt's spring is in the balance as the army and Islamists are killing Copts in the streets of Cairo." Coptic activists in Egypt, as the events were taking place, expressed their frustration that the "regime, now heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, is rapidly becoming authoritarian but only against the Copts and the seculars."
In a sense this is the most dangerous event in Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, as developments are showing that the Government's institutions are turning away from the liberties they've promised. It is to be expected that the US Congress and the European Parliament will request and receive reports on these killings, and then have to deal with all the effects this could have on the Administration's policy in Egypt.
Indeed, over the past few months, Washington has been engaging with Muslim Brotherhood representatives and preparing US public opinion to accept the idea of an Islamist Government in Egypt after the "rushed elections." President Obama mentioned the Copts in his famous Cairo speech but the Copts are nowhere to be seen in the policies of his Administration. It looks like the Administration has settled for an Egypt shared between the military and the Islamists, while civil society, bloggers, youth and Copts will fall to a second class citizens’ category.
But things won't be that easy and may not go as Muslim Brotherhood planners, both in Egypt and in the West, wish. Because a younger generation of Copts, there at the onset of the Egyptian Spring and, along with the solidarity of a liberal Muslim youth, this younger generation may fight for the achievements of the early Spring, refusing the military Islamists’ deal.
Shooting Coptic demonstrators on the streets of Cairo at the hands of the military who receive billions from the US taxpayers will not go unnoticed. The future is open to many possibilities, "but they are all bleak" as Essam Iskandar told me. Eskandar, a member of the revolutionary council during the uprising earlier in the year, fears the Copts and the liberals are caught between two nightmares: "either a new military order, read dictatorship, or an Islamist regime." The Arab Spring of Egypt seems falling on the heads of the Copts.
Dr Walid Phares is a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C., and director of the Future Terrorism Project of the FDD. He is a visiting fellow with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. His most recent book is Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West.
Dr Phares holds degrees in law and political science from Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University in Beirut, a Masters in international law from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D. in international relations and strategic studies from the University of Miami.
He has taught and lectured at numerous universities worldwide, practiced law in Beirut, and served as publisher of Sawt el-Mashreq and Mashrek International. He has taught Middle East political issues, ethnic and religious conflict, and comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University until 2006.
Dr. Phares has written seven books on the Middle East and published hundreds of articles in newspapers and scholarly publications such as Global Affairs, Middle East Quarterly, the Journal of South Asian and Middle East Studies and the Journal of International Security. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC, al Jazeera, al Hurra, as well as on radio broadcasts.
Aside from serving on the boards of several national and international think tanks and human rights associations, Dr. Phares has testified before the US Senate Subcommittees on the Middle East and South East Asia, the House Committees on International Relations and Homeland Security and regularly conducts congressional and State Department briefings, and he was the author of the memo that introduced UNSCR 1559 in 2004.
*Dr Walid Phares is the author of "The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East." He teaches Global Strategies in Washington D.C., and advises members of Congress and the European parliament. www.walidphares.com

Egypt faces itself!
By Tariq Alhomayed
Asharq Al-Awsat
Much can be said about what is happening in Egypt these days, particularly the sectarian violence that took place on Sunday, and which claimed the lives of a number of Egyptians of different backgrounds. However what must be stressed and reiterated is that the time has come for the Egyptians to take a long hard look at themselves.
Egypt has a lot of problems, and the sad thing is that the solutions to these problems are extremely difficult to implement. The reason for this is the absence of a sense of leadership, at all levels. Post-Mubarak Egypt is no less dangerous than Mubarak-era Egypt, as the voice of reason is absent, whether we are talking about the media, politics, religious platforms, or even the arts. There are fundamental problems in Egypt; the greatest of which is complex issues being viewed in a simplistic manner, and such issues being dealt with according to emotion, rather than [national] interests.
Egyptian Prime Minister [Essam Sharaf] is speaking about “hidden hands” whilst Pope Shenouda III denounced those he described as “infiltrators” as well as the Egyptian media. Since the ouster of the Mubarak regime, we have also heard warnings against “remnants” of the foreign regime. The question that must be asked here is: if everybody is aware that there is a danger – whether internal or external – that is threatening Egypt, then where is the voice of reason? Why aren’t [national] interests being put first? Why don’t the Egyptian people acknowledge that their problems existed prior to this current post-revolutionary period, and therefore the Egyptian scene requires a modicum of reason, and for [national] interests to be prioritized? The most important [national] interest that must be protected in this regard is Egyptian unity, particularly as everybody – reports, statements, and organizations – are all warning that Egypt is on the verge of economic collapse, without anybody responding to this. As the degree of uncertainty between Egyptians is so great, everybody must be aware that the ship they are fighting to gain control of will be on the verge of sinking should this fighting continue.
The issue in Egypt is not one of “infiltrators” or “remnants” or “hidden hands”, this is a purely Egyptian issue. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is divided amongst itself, between the hawks and the doves, between the youth and the old guard, whilst there are other figures who defected from the mother organization. Following these warnings with regards to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists came out in a manner that shocked the Egyptians, and now we see the Copts appearing on the scene in an alarming manner. This is not all, for the Egyptians must also ask themselves: how many youth [political] parties have been established today, and what is the extent of the contrast between such parties? When we add the role of the media in Egypt to all of the above, we can clearly see that the situation in Egypt is truly terrifying.
Of course, there is another problem that may further complicate an already complex situation, namely the Egyptian army’s involvement in the political scene and struggle, as well as the sectarian conflict taking place in the country. This is something that is dangerous for the Egyptian army, as well as the Egyptian state and people. The army today must be the guarantor and ruler of Egypt, not a side [in any political conflict]. Therefore it is in everybody’s interests today for a civilian presidential council to be established to stand between the Egyptian people and the army in order to govern this transitional period and allow the Egyptian army to return to its barracks and fulfill its mission as the guarantor for the completion of the political process in Egypt, not a side [in the political process], which is what is happening today. The role of the army is to guarantee the security of the Egyptian state, protect its institutions in this regard, in addition to protecting Egypt’s borders from any foreign plots or incursions.
Therefore, it is up to Egypt’s intellectuals to choose; either to protect a state that excelled in the art of coexistence and leadership, even under colonialism, or become partners, God forbid, in the destruction of what has long been safe-guarded!

Our World: The forgotten Christians of the East
By CAROLINE B. GLICK /Jerusalem Post
10/10/2011 23:21
It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world.
On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt’s state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.
According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.
State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts.
Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday’s news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night.
In a not unrelated event, Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime.
In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq’s Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year’s massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000.
Under the Shah of Iran, Iran’s Christians were more or less free to practice their religion.
Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism.
Take the plight of Yousef Nadarkhani, an evangelical Protestant preacher who was arrested two years ago, tried and sentenced to death for apostasy and refusal to disavow his Christian faith. There is no law against apostasy in Iran, but no matter. Ayatollah Khomeini opposed apostasy. And so does Islamic law.
Once Nadarkhani’s story was publicized in the West the Iranians changed their course.
Now they have reportedly abandoned the apostasy charge and are sentencing Nadarkhani to death for rape. The fact that he was never charged or convicted of rape is neither here nor there.
Palestinian Christians have similarly suffered under their popularly elected governments.
When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Christians made up 80 percent of Bethlehem’s population. Today they comprise less than 20% of the population.
Since Hamas “liberated” Gaza in 2007, the area’s ancient Christian minority has been under constant attack. With only 3,000 members, Gaza’s Christian community has seen its churches, convents, book stores and libraries burned by Hamas members and their allies. Its members have been killed and assaulted. While Hamas has pledged to protect the Christians of Gaza, no one has been arrested for anti-Christian violence.
JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world.
For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian.
Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence.
Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders’ commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai’s warning of what is liable to befall Syria’s Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was “surprised and disappointed,” by Rai’s statement.
The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to émigré Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians.
Rai’s visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers.
Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world.
Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years – Israel.
As for the Vatican, in the five years since Pope Benedict XVI laid down the gauntlet at his speech in Regensburg and challenged the Muslim world to act with reason and tolerance it its dealing with other religions, the Vatican has abandoned this principled stand. A true discourse of equals has been replaced by supplication to Islam in the name of ecumenical understanding. Last year Benedict hosted a Synod on Christians in the Middle East that made no mention of the persecution of Christians by Islamic and populist forces and regimes. Instead, Israel was singled out for criticism.
The Vatican’s outreach has extended to Iran where it sent a representative to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s faux counter terror conference. As Giulio Meotti wrote this week in Ynet, whereas all the EU ambassadors walked out of Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denying speech at the UN’s second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, the Vatican’s ambassador remained in his seat. The Vatican has embraced leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the Middle East.
It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday’s events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow.
caroline@carolineglick.com

Egyptian Coptic priest blasts military handling of protests
By Mona Madkour
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat – Coptic priest Fr. Philopater Gameel of Giza’s Church of the Virgin Mary, who called on Coptic youth and the [Coptic] Maspero Youth Union, to take to the streets and march in Caro on Sunday – as part of what he termed a “noble day of rage” – stressed that he did not expect this Coptic protest to turn into a bloody confrontation with the Egyptian army which resulted in the death of 25 people and the wounding of some 300 others.
Coptic priest Fr. Philopater Gameel told Asharq Al-Awsat that “when I called for this demonstration, I believed that we had intellectuals and officials that possessed sufficient political awareness to deal with the anger of the youth with a sense of restraint and experience.” He stressed that “the Maspero Youth Union did not intend a bloody confrontation; this was supposed to be a peaceful march that should have lasted no longer than a couple of hours in order for the [Coptic] youth to express their objection to the manner in which the Coptic community is being treated.”
As for his analysis regarding the violence that broke out, the Coptic priest told Asharq Al-Awsat that “what happened is that as soon as the peaceful march reached Maspero [the building that houses Egyptian State TV], excessive force was used against the [Coptic] youth. The violence against them began with sticks and batons, and then they were attacked and run over by [military] armoured cars that were travelling at very high speeds in the midst of the demonstrators in order to kill as many of them as possible.”
He added that, “the proof of this can be seen in the presence of one of these armoured cars which overturned near the 6 October Bridge. This is because the driver was driving at such a high-speed that when he took the turn the armoured vehicle overturned.”
Coptic priest Fr. Philopater Gameel denounced the hardline stance taken by the Egyptian military against the Coptic youth, stressing that “in the past, such issues were dealt with in a calm manner and with dialogue. Officials would come out and speak with the youth in an attempt to calm the situation; however what happened [on Sunday] was that violence was carried out against the protesters as soon as the march reached Maspero [building], without any prior warning.”
As for the reasons behind the Coptic protests, Fr. Philopater Gameel said that the Coptic youth were calling for three major demands, namely the dismissal of Aswan Governor [Mostafa al-Sayed] for his failure to contain the crisis [following the attack on a Church in Aswan], the Muslim Sheikh who incited sectarian violence which led to the attack on this church being held accountable, and the issuance of a decision to rebuild the Church [which the Aswan governor is claiming was a “service center”].
The Coptic priest also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Coptic issue has become even more complex today, stressing that “following the events of the noble day of rage which became a massacre, there has been an explosion within the Coptic community, and whilst things in the past were moving towards calm, today the situation is moving towards escalation and the situation has become more complex.”
He also denied that there had been any contact between the ruling Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] or the Egyptian Prime Minister and the Maspero Youth Union, since the outbreak of clashes on Sunday.  As for whether the events on Sunday may lead the Copts to boycott the forthcoming parliamentary elections, as some reports have claimed, Fr. Philopater Gameel rejected this, saying “boycotting the parliamentary elections will be a negative response that is not appropriate and will not achieve anything. We have a voice and it is our right to express this.
Fr. Philopater Gameel also told Asharq Al-Awsat that he was prepared to appear in court, after one Egyptian lawyer raised a lawsuit to the Egyptian Attorney-General, accusing him of inciting sectarian violence. Gameel said “whoever possesses the documents to support what he is saying has every right to raise this [to the Egyptian Attorney-General], for I trust the Egyptian judiciary and its fairness.” He stressed that “when I called on people to march, this was as part of a peaceful march to express their legitimate demands, and this is the right of any citizen in a civil state.”
He also stressed that Pope Shenouda III’s call for Egypt’s Coptic community to take part in a three-day fast to protest the clashes to be an important and meaningful act, saying that “we believe in God, and when the earthly doors are shut in our face we resort to the heavenly doors, and this is what was meant by the announcement that we [the Copts] will fast for three days until God lifts the sorrows from Egypt.”
Last March witnessed the first public appearance of the Maspero Youth Union on the Egyptian political scene, against the backdrop of the burning of the Two Martyrs Church in Afteeh, Helwan [south of Cairo]. In response to this attack, a group of Coptic youth marched on the Maspero building in Cairo to protest against this sectarian attack which resulted in two deaths. One of the Maspero Youth Union founders, Sameh Saad, told Asharq Al-Awsat that this organization “is based on the beliefs and convictions of the Coptic youth.” He added “we believe in the justice of the Coptic cause and the necessity of establishing a genuine civil state that protects the rights of all Egyptians.”
The Maspero Youth Union founding member said that the name of this group, and the choice of demonstrating outside of the Maspero building in Cairo – home to Egyptian State TV – held specific significance for Egypt’s Coptic community. He said “we chose the name Maspero, and not Tahrir Square which witnessed the 25 January Revolution, in order to expose the misleading and corrupt state media, which sold out our cause and continues to broadcast lies and obscure the truth, therefore we wanted to confront [the state media] face to face in our protests.”
Sameh Saad denied that the Maspero Youth Union had any ties to the Coptic Church that is led by Pope Shenouda III. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that “we are a political group, not a religious one. When we demonstrated in front of Maspero we were demanding political rights of citizenship, we were not carrying out religious prayers, and we have no connection to any [Coptic] Church figure.”

Syrian cleric warns U.S., Europe against attack
11/10/2011/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's most senior Sunni Muslim cleric has warned the United States and Europe that his country would unleash suicide bomb attacks in their countries if they launched military strikes against Syria. Mufti Ahmad Hassoun, whose son was shot dead by gunmen in the northern province of Idlib a week ago, made the comments to a visiting Lebanese delegation late Sunday. "I say to the whole of Europe, I say to America: We will prepare our suicide bombers who are already with you if you bombard Syria or Lebanon," Hassoun said in remarks broadcast by Al Jazeera television. "From today an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
The United States and the European Union have condemned President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on six months of street protests, imposing sanctions on Syrian oil exports and some businesses, and pushing the United Nations to pressure Damascus. But no country has suggested military intervention in Syria along the lines of the NATO action which helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi. The United Nations says 2,900 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on the protests. Syria blames foreign-backed armed gangs for the violence and says 1,100 members of its army and security forces have been killed. The assassination of the mufti's son was the first attack on Syria's state-backed clergy, who have supported Assad despite widespread Sunni Muslim resentment at decades of dominance by Assad's minority Alawite sect.

Russia wants a share in post-Assad Syria
10/10/2011
By Amir Taheri/ Asharq Al-Awsat
After months of “intense diplomacy”, the United Nations’ Security Council has failed to develop a position on the crisis in Syria. The failure came when Russia and China vetoed a resolution that urged Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad to end violence against the civilian population or face fresh sanctions.
Paradoxically, the double veto could facilitate stronger action by Western democracies against the Assad regime.
No longer obliged to take into account Russian and Chinese “sensibilities”, the Western powers and their regional allies, notably Turkey, could quickly impose a set of economic and diplomatic sanctions against the Syrian regime. The European Union and Turkey account for more than 80 per cent of Syria’s foreign trade. Turkey is by far the biggest foreign direct investor in Syria. The EU is also the principal importer of Syrian oil, the revenue of which is directly controlled by Assad and his entourage.
At the same time, high level diplomatic contacts with European powers, notably France, helped Assad enhance his prestige at home.
With the Security Council scripting itself out of the Syrian issue, an alliance of Western powers plus Arab allies and Turkey could develop a common strategy to a crisis that is threatening regional peace and security.
Acting outside the Security Council is not without precedents. Western interventions in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and, more recently, Cote d’Ivoire, all took place without the council’s involvement. In Kosovo, the prospect of a Russian veto forced the Western democracies to act alone.
What is urgently needed is the creation of a number of safe havens for Syrians fleeing the daily massacres. Turkey is already hosting some 8000 Syrian refugees. In Jordan, the number is put at over 6000 and in Lebanon at around 5000. Jordan has established a camp at Matraq while Turkey is building two close to the Syrian border. Iraq has not yet established any camp although it has received more than 10,000 Syrian refugees.

Sinai militias cut Egypt-Israel trade ties amid declining security
DEBKAfile Special Report /October 10, 2011,
The claim Friday by Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawi, head of the military junta ruling Egypt, of "complete security on the Sinai Peninsula" was belied Monday, Oct. 10, by the Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau's warning against travel to Sinai for the coming Sukkot festival. Israelis already there were urged to leave at once.
While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government are leaning over backwards to pretend business with Egypt is back to normal after a mob burned and sacked the Israel embassy in Cairo on Sept. 10, this could not be farther from the truth.
To this day, the Israeli ambassador has not returned to his post and a skeleton staff of four Israeli officials is working from one of the foreign embassies in secret to prevent another mob attack. Jerusalem has also withheld complaint about the final stoppage of Egyptian natural gas supplies since the Sinai pipeline was sabotaged for the sixth time on Sept. 27.
The stoppage is costly. Israel must shell out about $2.7 million a day on substitute fuel for its power stations to make up for the missing 45 percent of its needs which Egypt is under contract to supply.
As to Tantawi's claim of "complete security in Sinai", for three months, Israel has kept substantial combat strength in place to keep the South safe from the Hamas, Jihad Islami and al Qaeda cells running loose in Sinai and awaiting their chance for another cross-border incursion for armed attacks or abductions.
The PMO had no choice but to warn Israeli travellers of their peril from terrorists in Sinai ahead of the festival. But a high-ranking military source told DEBKA: "The Counterterrorism Bureau might just as well have extended the travel advisory for Sukkot to cover the entire region of southern Israel between Eilat, Mitzpe Ramon and up to the Nitzana border crossing between Israel and Egypt."
Officers at the IDF General Command wonder for how much longer the elite Golani Brigade can be kept pinned on the Egyptian border on emergency counter-terror duty without impairing training routines.
At least one large Palestinian Jihad Islami cell from the Gaza Strip is known to be lurking in "secure" Sinai ready to strike across the border. Even the extra strength Egypt deployed in Sinai with Israeli's permission has not lifted a finger against any of these terrorist cells.
Neither was action taken when three weeks ago, in a further sharp decline in security, armed Bedouin militias from Northern Sinai began blocking the main highway from their region to the Nitzana crossing terminal, abruptly cutting off the passage of Egyptian trucks carrying goods to Israel and of Israeli convoys crossing in the opposite direction.
It is obvious that the armed Bedouin, who sell intelligence and logistic services to the mixed bag of radical Islamic terrorist groups infesting Sinai, believe they have nothing to fear from the generals in Cairo or the uncomplaining, passive Israelis.
The Supreme Military Council ruling Egypt since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown is not exactly in control in mainland Egypt either, including the capital.
Sunday night, Oct. 9, a Coptic demonstration outside the state TV station to protest the authorities' failure to protect their churches from radical Islamic attacks ended with 24 dead of whom 17 were Copts and more than 200 injured. The Copts, who make up more than one-tenth of Egypt's 85 million inhabitants, were then attacked by hoodlums wielding clubs, stones and machetes. But the security forces turned their guns on the Copts and drove tanks against them – not the rowdies shouting Islam, Islami!
Egyptian Prime Minister Esssam Sharaf Monday accused "foreign and domestic meddlers" of hatching a "dirty conspiracy." But he did not address the spreading doubts about Egypt's ability to effect a transition to a pluralist democracy when Islamist thugs rule the streets without fear or the consequent rapid decline in national security.

FPM Leader MP Michel Aoun after Change and Reform Bloc’s Weekly Meeting
MP Aoun: I have no reason not to agree on the appointment of Adnan Sayyed Hussein as president of the Lebanese University. The government should assume its responsibilities and control the border between Lebanon and Syria. We consider sanctions against Lebanon over the STL funding as an assault against the country. The STL acts as a part of the U.N. Security Council and therefore it should fund it. We oppose increase in gasoline prices and taxes. The opposition is not an opposition, but a sabotaging force in Lebanon. The people will begin demonstrating against unemployment because the tax system must change. We will not accept matters as they are because the productive part of society must pay lesser taxes than others because they are creating job opportunities. The WikiLeaks cables revealed that everyone is cursing everyone else and the U.S. Embassy is delivering gossip, reflecting a drop in political rhetoric in Lebanon. Such a base level of rhetoric has been reached that we are being accused of setting up power lines in order for Minister Jebran Bassil to buy a private jet.

MP Michel Aoun: STL funding sanctions would be ‘military move’ against Lebanon
October 11, 2011 /Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday warned that the imposition of sanctions on Beirut if it does not provide its share of funding to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) “would be considered a military operation against Lebanon.”
“We have no deal with the STL concerning the payment,” he told the press following his bloc’s weekly meeting.
The Hezbollah-led March 8 parties – which currently dominate Lebanon’s cabinet – have opposed a clause in the Lebanese annual state budget pertaining to the funding of the tribunal.
Four Hezbollah members have been indicted by the UN-backed STL. However, the Shia group strongly denies the charges and refuses to cooperate with the court.
Aoun addressed a number of socio-economic issues, voicing his rejection of any increases to gas taxes or the VAT.
“The tax system should be changed. People with [capital] gains should pay the most taxes, while the [productive classes] should pay the least amount of taxes.”
The Change and Reform bloc leader also supported the right of the workers to go on strike, in reference to the General Workers Union’s strike scheduled for Wednesday.
Last month, the GWU announced a general strike to begin on October 12 and demanded the minimum wage - which is currently 500,000 LL per month - be raised to 1,250,000 LL.
Aoun also defended the Energy Ministry’s plans to erect high-voltage electrical towers in the Metn town of Ain Saadeh, where residents have protested against the move.
“The previous cabinet, which had 3 ministers from the Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces, approved the plan [to erect electrical towers]. Now we see the Kataeb and LF inciting residents against the plan.”Aoun added that the electrical towers do not cause cancer. Ain Saadeh residents have repeatedly called for re-locating the frequency transmission line, adding that it has “unhealthy” effects on the population.-NOW Lebanon

Tawakul and Razan
Hazem Saghiyeh, October 10, 2011 /Now Lebanon
For “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work,” the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to three women--Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is Africa’s first female elected head of state, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman.
Karman is a key figure in the civil right movement in Yemen. Her kidnapping and arrest stoked the fuel of the uprising in her country. When she was awarded the prize, she got the news while at Sanaa’s Change Square where she has been living for months in a camp that will remain, as she has bet, until Ali Abdullah Saleh stands down.
Karman, who was born in 1979, is the head of the Yemeni organization Women Journalists without Chains. She has written articles and directed movies at the service of her cause, in addition to being imprisoned several times.
Razan Zeitouna, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist since 2011, was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya prize, which was named after the Russian journalist who was assassinated over her reports about human rights abuses in Chechnya and the Caucasus in general.
Born in 1977, Razan Zeitouna established a website in 2005 to follow up on human rights violations in her own country. Her name started ever since to break the heavy Syrian barriers and to acquire world fame.
The two events honor Arab women, and particularly Arab women activists involved in humanitarian and public issues. They also honor a whole generation and language.
The generation in question is one that came to the world at a time of increasing world interest in freedoms and human rights, but also at a time of widespread and globalized means of communication, including the internet, Facebook, Twitter and mobile phones.
For “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work,” the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to three women—Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is Africa’s first female elected head of state, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni activist Tawakul Karman.
Karman is a key figure in the civil right movement in Yemen. Her kidnapping and arrest stoked the fuel of the uprising in her country. When she was awarded the prize, she got the news while in Sanaa’s Change Square, where she has been living for months in a camp that will remain, as she has bet, until Ali Abdullah Saleh stands down.
Karman, who was born in 1979, is the head of the Yemeni organization Women Journalists without Chains. She has written articles and directed movies in the service of her cause, in addition to being imprisoned several times.
Razan Zeitouna, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist since 2011, was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya prize, which was named after the Russian journalist who was assassinated over her reports about human rights abuses in Chechnya and the Caucasus in general.
Born in 1977, Razan Zeitouna established a website in 2005 to follow up on human rights violations in her own country. Her name started ever since to break the heavy Syrian barriers and to acquire world fame.
The two events honor Arab women, and particularly Arab women activists involved in humanitarian and public issues. They also honor a whole generation and language.
The generation in question is one that came to the world at a time of increasing world interest in freedoms and human rights, but also at a time of widespread and globalized means of communication, including the internet, Facebook, Twitter and mobile phones.
The language in question is one that has become universal, i.e. democracy, human rights, human dignity, civil state, etc. These terms/concepts are the basis of the dictionary invoked by Tawakul Karman, Razan Zeitouna and others who walk in their footsteps.
There will certainly be some pedants and complicated people who will cry out against submission to the standards of “white men” and against being graded by “white men,” and who will protest and demand the “liberation of our women”!
However, men who have the power to exert influence in our societies—including primarily Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—merely promised Tawakul and Razan imprisonment and perhaps even death. So thank you, “white men,” for rewarding the brightest among us.
*This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Monday October 10, 2011
 

Statement by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird on Situation in Egypt
(No. 292 - October 10, 2011 – 2:30 p.m. ET) Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“I am very concerned about the violence in Egypt over this weekend. On behalf of all Canadians, I offer my condolences to the families of the victims.
“Religious extremism has no place in modern society and the new Egypt. Canada urges all involved to work together to build a society where religious communities can live and prosper together and build a new Egypt.
“Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and a vital building block for healthy democracies. People of faith must be able to practise and worship in peace and security.”
- 30 -
For further information, media representatives may contact:
Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
Follow us on Twitter: @DFAIT_MAECI

Does Anyone Speak Arabic?
by Franck Salameh
Middle East Quarterly
http://www.meforum.org/3066/does-anyone-speak-arabic
In August 2010, Associated Press staffer Zeina Karam wrote an article, picked up by The Washington Post and other news outlets, that tackled a cultural, and arguably political, issue that had been making headlines for quite some time in the Middle East: the question of multilingualism and the decline of the Arabic language in polyglot, multiethnic Middle Eastern societies.[1] Lebanon was Karam's case study: an Eastern Mediterranean nation that had for the past century been the testing grounds for iconoclastic ideas and libertine tendencies muzzled and curbed elsewhere in the Arab world.[2] However, by inquiring into what is ailing the Arabic language—the nimbus and supreme symbol of "Arabness"—the author aimed straight at the heart of Arab nationalism and the strict, linguistic orthodoxy that it mandated, putting in question its most basic tenet: Who is an Arab?
Arabic and Arabism
For most of the twentieth century, Arabs, Arab nationalists, and their Western devotees tended to substitute Arab for Middle Eastern history, as if the narratives, storylines, and paradigms of other groups mattered little or were the byproduct of alien sources far removed from the authentic, well-ordered, harmonious universe of the "Arab world."[3] As such, they held most Middle Easterners to be Arab even if only remotely associated with the Arabs and even if alien to the experiences, language, or cultural proclivities of Arabs. In the words of Sati al-Husri (1880-1967), a Syrian writer and the spiritual father of linguistic Arab nationalism:
Every person who speaks Arabic is an Arab. Every individual associated with an Arabic-speaker or with an Arabic-speaking people is an Arab. If he does not recognize [his Arabness] … we must look for the reasons that have made him take this stand … But under no circumstances should we say: "As long as he does not wish to be an Arab, and as long as he is disdainful of his Arabness, then he is not an Arab." He is an Arab regardless of his own wishes, whether ignorant, indifferent, recalcitrant, or disloyal; he is an Arab, but an Arab without consciousness or feelings, and perhaps even without conscience.[4]
For some Arabs, like these Beirutis enjoying a night out on the town, multilingualism and the appeal of Western languages is a natural corollary to their country's hybrid ethnic and linguistic heritage. The territory now known as Lebanon has historically practiced some form of polyglossia and was once a shining representative of intercultural coexistence in the Middle East.
This ominous admonition to embrace a domineering Arabism is one constructed on an assumed linguistic unity of the Arab peoples; a unity that a priori presumes the Arabic language itself to be a unified, coherent verbal medium, used by all members of Husri's proposed nation. Yet Arabic is not a single, uniform language. It is, on the one hand, a codified, written standard that is never spoken natively and that is accessible only to those who have had rigorous training in it. On the other hand, Arabic is also a multitude of speech forms, contemptuously referred to as "dialects," differing from each other and from the standard language itself to the same extent that French is different from other Romance languages and from Latin. Still, Husri's dictum, "You're an Arab if I say so!" became an article of faith for Arab nationalists. It also condensed the chilling finality with which its author and his acolytes foisted their blanket Arab label on the mosaic of peoples, ethnicities, and languages that had defined the Middle East for millennia prior to the advent of twentieth-century Arab nationalism.[5]
But if Husri had been intimidating in his advocacy for a forced Arabization, his disciple Michel Aflaq (1910-89), founder of the Baath Party, promoted outright violence and cruelty against those users of the Arabic language who refused to conform to his prescribed, overarching, Arab identity. Arab nationalists must be ruthless with those members of the nation who have gone astray from Arabism, wrote Aflaq,
they must be imbued with a hatred unto death, toward any individuals who embody an idea contrary to Arab nationalism. Arab nationalists must never dismiss opponents of Arabism as mere individuals … An idea that is opposed to ours does not emerge out of nothing! It is the incarnation of individuals who must be exterminated, so that their idea might in turn be also exterminated. Indeed, the presence in our midst of a living opponent of the Arab national idea vivifies it and stirs the blood within us. And any action we might take [against those who have rejected Arabism] that does not arouse in us living emotions, that does not make us feel the orgasmic shudders of love, that does not spark in us quivers of hate, and that does not send the blood coursing in our veins and make our pulse beat faster is, ultimately, a sterile action.[6]
Therein lay the foundational tenets of Arab nationalism and the Arabist narrative of Middle Eastern history as preached by Husri, Aflaq, and their cohorts: hostility, rejection, negation, and brazen calls for the annihilation of the non-Arab "other." Yet despite the dominance of such disturbing Arabist and Arab nationalist readings, the Middle East in both its modern and ancient incarnations remains a patchwork of varied cultures, ethnicities, and languages that cannot be tailored into a pure and neat Arab essence without distorting and misinforming. Other models of Middle Eastern identities exist, and a spirited Middle Eastern, intellectual tradition that challenges the monistic orthodoxies of Arab nationalism endures and deserves recognition and validation.
The Arabic Language Debate
Take for instance one of the AP article's interviewees who lamented the waning of the Arabic language in Lebanese society and the rise in the numbers of Francophone and Anglophone Lebanese, suggesting "the absence of a common language between individuals of the same country mean[s] losing [one's] common identity"—as if places like Switzerland and India, each with respectively four and twenty-three official, national—often mutually incomprehensible—speech forms, were lesser countries or suffered more acute identity crises than ostensibly cohesive, monolingual societies. In fact, the opposite is often true: Monolingualism is no more a precondition or motivation for cultural and ethnic cohesiveness than multilingualism constitutes grounds for national incoherence and loss of a common identity. Irishmen, Scotsmen, Welsh, and Jamaicans are all native English-speakers but not Englishmen. The AP could have acknowledged that glaring reality, which has been a hallmark of the polyglot multiethnic Middle East for millennia. This, of course, is beside the fact that for many Lebanese—albeit mainly Christians—multilingualism and the appeal of Western languages is simply a way of heeding history and adhering to the country's hybrid ethnic and linguistic heritage.
Cultural anthropologist Selim Abou argued that notwithstanding Lebanon's millenarian history and the various and often contradictory interpretations of that history, the country's endogenous and congenital multilingualism—and by extension that of the entire Levantine littoral —remains indisputable. He wrote:
From the very early dawn of history up to the conquests of Alexander the Great, and from the times of Alexander until the dawning of the first Arab Empire, and finally, from the coming of the Arabs up until modern times, the territory we now call Lebanon—and this is based on the current state of archaeological and historical discoveries—has always practiced some form of bilingualism and polyglossia; one of the finest incarnations of intercultural dialogue and coexistence.[7]
So much, then, for linguistic chauvinism and language protectionism. The Arabic language will survive the onslaught of multilingualism but only if its users will it to survive by speaking it rather than by hallowing it and by refraining from creating conservation societies that build hedges around it to shield it from desuetude. Even avid practitioners of multilingualism in Lebanon, who were never necessarily talented or devoted Arabophones, have traditionally been supportive of the idea of preserving Arabic in the roster of Lebanese languages—albeit not guarding and fixing it by way of mummification, cultural dirigisme, or rigid linguistic planning. Though opposed in principle to Arab nationalism's calls for the insulation of linguistically libertine Lebanon "in the solitude of a troubled and spiteful nationalism … [and] linguistic totalitarianism," Lebanese thinker Michel Chiha (1891-1954) still maintained that:
Arabic is a wonderful language … the language of millions of men. We wouldn't be who we are today if we, the Lebanese of the twentieth century, were to forgo the prospect of becoming [Arabic's] most accomplished masters to the same extent that we had been its masters some one hundred years ago … But how can one not heed the reality that a country such as ours would be literally decapitated if prevented from being bilingual (or even trilingual if possible)? … [We must] retain this lesson if we are intent on protecting ourselves from self-inflicted deafness, which would in turn lead us into mutism.[8]
Another fallacy reiterated in the AP article was the claim that "Arabic is believed to be spoken as a first language by more than 280 million people."[9] Even if relying solely on the field of Arabic linguistics—which seldom bothers with the trivialities of precise cognomens denoting varieties of language, preferring instead the overarching and reductive lahja (dialect/accent) and fusha (Modern Standard Arabic, MSA) dichotomy to, say, the French classifications of langue, langage, parler, dialecte, langue vérnaculaire, créole, argot, patois, etc.—Zeina Karam's arithmetic still remains in the sphere of folklore and fairy tale, not concrete, objective fact. Indeed, no serious linguist can claim the existence of a real community of "280 million people" who speak Arabic at any level of native proficiency, let alone a community that can speak Arabic "as a first language."
Harvard linguist Wheeler Thackston—and before him Taha Hussein, Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyed, Abdelaziz Fehmi Pasha, and many others—have shown that the Middle East's demotic languages are not Arabic at all, and consequently, that one can hardly speak of 280 million native Arabophones—or even of a paltry one million such Arabic speakers—without oversimplifying and perverting an infinitely complex linguistic situation. The languages or dialects often perfunctorily labeled Arabic might indeed not be Arabic at all.
This is hardly a modern aberration devised by modern reformists fancying dissociation from the exclusivity of modern Arabism and its monolithic paradigm. Even Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the fourteenth-century Muslim jurist and polymath and arguably the father of modern sociology, wrote in his famous 1377 Prolegomena that only the language of Quraish—the Prophet Muhammad's tribe—should be deemed true Arabic; that native Arabs learn this speech form naturally and spontaneously; and that this language became corrupt and ceased being Arabic when it came into contact with non-Arabs and assimilated their linguistic habits. Therefore, he argued,
the language of Quraish is the soundest and purest Arabic precisely due to its remoteness from the lands of non-Arabs—Persians, Byzantines, and Abyssinians … whose languages are used as examples by Arab philologists to demonstrate the dialects' distance from, and perversion of, Arabic.[10]
Thackston has identified five dialectal clusters that he classified as follows: "(1) Greater Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine; (2) Mesopotamia, including the Euphrates region of Syria, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf; (3) the Arabian Peninsula, including most of what is Saudi Arabia and much of Jordan; (4) the Nile Valley, including Egypt and the Sudan; and (5) North Africa and [parts of] the … regions of sub-Saharan Africa."[11] He acknowledged that although these five major dialectal regions were speckled with linguistic varieties and differences in accent and sub-dialects, "there is almost complete mutual comprehension [within each of them]—that is, a Jerusalemite, a Beiruti, and an Aleppan may not speak in exactly the same manner, but each understands practically everything the others say." However, he wrote,
When one crosses one or more major boundaries, as is the case with a Baghdadi and a Damascene for instance, one begins to encounter difficulty in comprehension; and the farther one goes, the less one understands until mutual comprehension disappears entirely. To take an extreme example, a Moroccan and an Iraqi can no more understand each other's dialects than can a Portuguese and Rumanian.[12]
In 1929, Tawfiq Awan had already begun making similar arguments, maintaining that the demotics of the Middle East—albeit arguably related to Arabic—were languages in their own right, not mere dialects of Arabic:
Egypt has an Egyptian language; Lebanon has a Lebanese language; the Hijaz has a Hijazi language; and so forth—and all of these languages are by no means Arabic languages. Each of our countries has a language, which is its own possession: So why do we not write [our language] as we converse in it? For, the language in which the people speak is the language in which they also write.[13]
Even Taha Hussein (1889-1973), the doyen of modern Arabic belles lettres, had come to this very same conclusion by 1938. In his The Future of Culture in Egypt,[14] he made a sharp distinction between what he viewed to be Arabic tout court—that is, the classical and modern standard form of the language—and the sundry, spoken vernaculars in use in his contemporary native Egypt and elsewhere in the Near East. For Egyptians, Arabic is virtually a foreign language, wrote Hussein:
Nobody speaks it at home, [in] school, [on] the streets, or in clubs; it is not even used in [the] Al-Azhar [Islamic University] itself. People everywhere speak a language that is definitely not Arabic, despite the partial resemblance to it.[15]
To this, Thackston has recently added that when Arabs speak of a bona fide Arabic language, they always mean
Classical [or Modern Standard] Arabic: the language used for all written and official communication; a language that was codified, standardized, and normalized well over a thousand years ago and that has almost a millennium and a half of uninterrupted literary legacy behind it. There is only one problem with [this] Arabic: No one speaks it. What Arabs speak is called Arabi Darij ("vernacular Arabic"), lugha ammiyye ("the vulgar language"), or lahje ("dialect"); only what they write do they refer to as "true [Arabic] language."[16]
And so, even if Modern Standard Arabic were taken to be the Arabic that the AP was speaking of, it is still patently false to say, as does Karam, that MSA is anybody's "first," native "spoken language"—let alone the "spoken … first language [of] more than 280 million people." Even Edward Said, a notoriously supple and sympathetic critic when it comes to things Arab, deemed Arabic, that is MSA, the "equivalent of Latin, a dead and forbidding language" that, to his knowledge, nobody spoke besides "a Palestinian political scientist and politician whom [Said's] children used to describe as 'the man who spoke like a book.'"[17]
Foreign Imposition or Self Affliction?
Playing into the hands of keepers of the Arab nationalist canon—as well as Arabists and lobbyists working on behalf of the Arabic language today—the AP article adopted the cliché that the decline of Arabic—like the failure of Arab nationalism—was the outcome of Western linguistic intrusions and the insidious, colonialist impulses of globalization. "Many Lebanese pride themselves on being fluent in French—a legacy of French colonial rule," Karam wrote, rendering a mere quarter-century of French mandatory presence in Lebanon (1920-46) into a period of classical-style "French colonial rule" that had allegedly destroyed the foundations of the Arabic language in the country and turned the Lebanese subalterns into imitative Francophones denuded of their putative Arab personality.[18]
Alas, this fashionable fad fails to take into account that French colonialism in its Lebanese context differed markedly from France's colonial experience elsewhere. For one, the founding fathers of modern Lebanon lobbied vigorously for turning their post-Ottoman mountain Sanjak into a French protectorate after World War I.[19] And with regard to the Lebanese allegedly privileging the French language, that too, according to Selim Abou, seems to have hardly been a colonialist throwback and an outcome of early twentieth-century French imperialism. In his 1962 Le binlinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban, Abou wrote that the French language (or early Latin variants of what later became French) entered Mount-Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean littoral at the time of the first Crusades (ca. 1099).[20] Centuries later, the establishment of the Maronite College in Rome (1584) and the liberal (pro-Christian) policies of then Mount-Lebanon's Druze ruler, Fakhreddine II (1572-1635), allowed the Maronites to further strengthen their religious and their religion's ancillary cultural and linguistic ties to Rome, Europe, and especially France—then, still the "elder daughter" of the Catholic Church. This unleashed a wave of missionary work to Lebanon—and wherever Eastern Christianity dared flaunt its specificity—and eventually led to the founding of schools tending to the educational needs of the Christian—namely Maronite—communities of the region. Although foundational courses in Arabic and Syriac were generally taught at those missionary schools, European languages including French, Italian, and German were also part of the regular curriculum. French, therefore, can be argued to have had an older pedigree in Lebanon than suggested by Karam. And contrary to the classical norms in the expansion and transmission of imperial languages—the spread of Arabic included—which often entailed conquests, massacres, and cultural suppression campaigns, the French language can be said to have been adopted willingly by the Lebanese through "seduction" not "subjection."[21]
It is true that many Lebanese, and Middle Easterners more generally, are today steering clear of Arabic in alarming numbers, but contrary to AP's claim, this routing of Arabic is not mainly due to Western influence and cultural encroachments—though the West could share some of the blame; rather, it can be attributed, even if only partially, to MSA's retrogression, difficulty, and most importantly perhaps, to the fact that this form of Arabic is largely a learned, cultic, ceremonial, and literary language, which is never acquired natively, never spoken natively, and which seems locked in an uphill struggle for relevance against sundry spontaneous, dynamic, natively-spoken, vernacular languages. Taha Hussein ascribed the decay and abnegation of the Arabic language primarily to its "inability of expressing the depths of one's feelings in this new age." He wrote in 1956 that MSA is
difficult and grim, and the pupil who goes to school in order to study Arabic acquires only revulsion for his teacher and for the language, and employs his time in pursuit of any other occupations that would divert and soothe his thoughts away from this arduous effort … Pupils hate nothing more than they hate studying Arabic.[22]
Yet, irreverent as they had been in shunning Arabic linguistic autocracy and fostering a lively debate on MSA and multilingualism, Lebanon and Egypt and their Arabic travails are hardly uncommon in today's Middle East. From Israel to Qatar and from Abu Dhabi to Kuwait, modern Middle Eastern nations that make use of some form of Arabic have had to come face to face with the challenges hurled at their hermetic MSA and are impelled to respond to the onslaught of impending polyglotism and linguistic humanism borne by the lures of globalization.
In a recent article published in Israel's liberal daily Ha'aretz, acclaimed Druze poet and academic Salman Masalha called on Israel's Education Ministry to do away with the country's public school system's Arabic curricula and demanded its replacement with Hebrew and English course modules. Arabophone Israelis taught Arabic at school, like Arabophones throughout the Middle East, were actually taught a foreign tongue misleadingly termed Arabic, wrote Masalha:
The mother tongue [that people] speak at home is totally different from the … Arabic [they learn] at school; [a situation] that perpetuates linguistic superficiality [and] leads to intellectual superficiality … It's not by chance that not one Arab university is [ranked] among the world's best 500 universities. This finding has nothing to do with Zionism.[23]
Masalha's is not a lone voice. The abstruseness of Arabic and the stunted achievements of those monolingual Arabophones constrained to acquire modern knowledge by way of Modern Standard Arabic have been indicted in the United Nations' Arab Human Development reports—a series of reports written by Arabs and for the benefit of Arabs—since the year 2002. To wit, the 2003 report noted that the Arabic language is struggling to meet the challenges of modern times
[and] is facing [a] severe … and real crisis in theorization, grammar, vocabulary, usage, documentation, creativity, and criticism … The most apparent aspect of this crisis is the growing neglect of the functional aspects of [Arabic] language use. Arabic language skills in everyday life have deteriorated, and Arabic … has in effect ceased to be a spoken language. It is only the language of reading and writing; the formal language of intellectuals and academics, often used to display knowledge in lectures … [It] is not the language of cordial, spontaneous expression, emotions, daily encounters, and ordinary communication. It is not a vehicle for discovering one's inner self or outer surroundings.[24]
And so, concluded the report, the only Arabophone countries that were able to circumvent this crisis of knowledge were those like Lebanon and Egypt, which had actively promoted a polyglot tradition, deliberately protected the teaching of foreign languages, and instated math and science curricula in languages other than Arabic.
Translation is another crucial means of transmitting and acquiring knowledge claimed the U.N. report, and given that "English represents around 85 percent of the total world knowledge balance," one might guess that "knowledge-hungry countries," the Arab states included, would take heed of the sway of English, or at the very least, would seek out the English language as a major source of translation. Yet, from all source-languages combined, the Arab world's 330 million people translated a meager 330 books per year; that is, "one fifth of the number [of books] translated in Greece [home to 12 million Greeks]." Indeed, from the times of the Caliph al-Ma'mun (ca. 800 CE) to the beginnings of the twenty-first century, the "Arab world" had translated a paltry 10,000 books: the equivalent of what Spain translates in a single year.[25]
But clearer heads are prevailing in Arab countries today. Indeed, some Arabs are taking ownership of their linguistic dilemmas; feckless Arab nationalist vainglory is giving way to practical responsible pursuits, and the benefits of valorizing local speech forms and integrating foreign languages into national, intellectual, and pedagogic debates are being contemplated. Arabs "are learning less Islam and more English in the tiny desert sheikhdom of Qatar" read a 2003 Washington Post article, and this overhaul of Qatar's educational system, with its integration of English as a language of instruction—"a total earthquake" as one observer termed it—was being billed as the Persian Gulf's gateway toward greater participation in an ever more competitive global marketplace. But many Qataris and Persian Gulf Arabs hint to more pressing and more substantive impulses behind curricular bilingualism: "necessity-driven" catalysts aimed at replacing linguistic and religious jingoism with equality, tolerance, and coexistence; changing mentalities as well as switching languages and textbooks.[26]
This revolution is no less subversive in nearby Abu Dhabi where in 2009 the Ministry of Education launched a series of pedagogical reform programs aimed at integrating bilingual education into the national curriculum. Today, "some 38,000 students in 171 schools in Abu Dhabi [are] taught … simultaneously in Arabic and English."[27]
And so, rather than rushing to prop up and protect the fossilized remains of MSA, the debate that should be engaged in today's Middle East needs to focus more candidly on the utility, functionality, and practicality of a hallowed and ponderous language such as MSA in an age of nimble, clipped, and profane speech forms. The point of reflection should not be whether to protect MSA but whether the language inherited from the Jahiliya Bedouins—to paraphrase Egypt's Salama Musa (1887-1958)—is still an adequate tool of communication in the age of information highways and space shuttles.[28] Obviously, this is a debate that requires a healthy dose of courage, honesty, moderation, and pragmatism, away from the usual religious emotions and cultural chauvinism that have always stunted and muzzled such discussions.
Linguistic Schizophrenia and Deceit
Sherif Shubashy's book Down with Sibawayh If Arabic Is to Live on![29] seems to have brought these qualities into the debate. An eighth-century Persian grammarian and father of Arabic philology, Sibawayh is at the root of the modern Arabs' failures according to Shubashy. Down with Sibawayh, which provoked a whirlwind of controversy in Egypt and other Arab countries following its release in 2004, sought to shake the traditional Arabic linguistic establishment and the Arabic language itself out of their millenarian slumbers and proposed to unshackle MSA from stiff and superannuated norms that had, over the centuries, transformed it into a shrunken and fossilized mummy: a ceremonial, religious, and literary language that was never used as a speech form, and whose hallowed status "has rendered it a heavy chain curbing the Arabs' intellect, blocking their creative energies … and relegating them to cultural bondage."[30]
In a metaphor reminiscent of Musa's description of the Arabic language, Shubashy compared MSA users to "ambling cameleers from the past, contesting highways with racecar drivers hurtling towards modernity and progress."[31] In his view, the Arabs' failure to modernize was a corollary of their very language's inability (or unwillingness) to regenerate and innovate and conform to the exigencies of modern life.[32] But perhaps the most devastating blow that Shubashy dealt the Arabic language was his description of the lahja and fusha (or dialect vs. MSA) dichotomy as "linguistic schizophrenia."[33]
For although Arabs spoke their individual countries' specific, vernacular languages while at home, at work, on the streets, or in the marketplace, the educated among them were constrained to don a radically different linguistic personality and make use of an utterly different speech form when reading books and newspapers, watching television, listening to the radio, or drafting formal, official reports.[34]
That speech form, which was never spontaneously spoken, Shubashy insisted, was Modern Standard Arabic: a language which, not unlike Latin in relation to Europe's Romance languages, was distinct from the native, spoken vernaculars of the Middle East and was used exclusively by those who had adequate formal schooling in it. He even went so far as to note that "upward of 50 percent of so-called Arabophones can't even be considered Arabs if only MSA is taken for the legitimate Arabic language, the sole true criterion of Arabness." [35] Conversely, it was a grave error to presume the vernacular speech forms of the Middle East to be Arabic, even if most Middle Easterners and foreigners were conditioned, and often intimidated, into viewing them as such. The so-called dialects of Arabic were not Arabic at all, he wrote, despite the fact that
like many other Arabs, I have bathed in this linguistic schizophrenia since my very early childhood. I have for very long thought that the difference between MSA and the dialects was infinitely minimal; and that whoever knew one language—especially MSA—would intuitively know, or at the very least, understand the other. However, my own experience, and especially the evidence of foreigners studying MSA, convinced me of the deep chasm that separated MSA from dialects. Foreigners who are versed in MSA, having spent many years studying that language, are taken aback when I speak to them in the Egyptian dialect; they don't understand a single word I say in that language.[36]
This "pathology" noted Shubashy, went almost unnoticed in past centuries when illiteracy was the norm, and literacy was still the preserve of small, restricted guilds—mainly the ulema and religious grammarians devoted to the study of Arabic and Islam, who considered their own linguistic schizophrenia a model of piety and a sacred privilege to be vaunted, not concealed. Today, however, with the spread of literacy in the Arab world, and with the numbers of users of MSA swelling and hovering in the vicinity of 50 percent, linguistic schizophrenia is becoming more widespread and acute, crippling the Arab mind and stunting its capacities. Why was it that Spaniards, Frenchmen, Americans, and many more of the world's transparent and linguistically nimble societies, needed to use only a single, native language for both their acquisition of knowledge and grocery shopping whereas Arabs were prevented from reading and writing in the same language that they use for their daily mundane needs?[37]
As a consequence of the firestorm unleashed by his book, Shubashy, an Egyptian journalist and news anchor and, at one time, the Paris bureau-chief of the Egyptian al-Ahram news group, was forced to resign his post as Egypt's deputy minister of culture in 2006. The book caused so much controversy to a point that the author and his work were subjected to a grueling cross-examination in the Egyptian parliament where, reportedly, scuffles erupted between supporters and opponents of Shubashy's thesis. In the end, the book was denounced as an affront to Arabs and was ultimately banned. Shubashy himself was accused of defaming the Arabic language in rhetoric mimicking a "colonialist discourse."[38] A deputy in the Egyptian parliament—representing Alexandria, Shubashy's native city—accused the author of "employing the discourse and argumentation of a colonialist occupier, seeking to replace the Arab identity with [the occupier's] own identity and culture."[39] Ahmad Fuad Pasha, advisor to the president of Cairo University, argued that the book "was added proof that, indeed, the Zionist-imperialist conspiracy is a glaring reality,"[40] aimed at dismantling Arab unity. Muhammad Ahmad Achour wrote in Egypt's Islamic Standard that
Shubashy has taken his turn aiming another arrow at the heart of the Arabic language. Yet, the powers that seek to destroy our language have in fact another goal in mind: The ultimate aim of their conspiracy is none other than the Holy Qur'an itself, and to cause Muslims to eventually lose their identity and become submerged into the ocean of globalization.[41]
Even former Egyptian president Husni Mubarak felt compelled to take a potshot at Shubashy in a speech delivered on Laylat al-Qadr, November 9, 2004, the anniversary of the night that Sunni Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad received his first Qur'anic revelation. Mubarak warned,
I must caution the Islamic religious scholars against the calls that some are sounding for the modernization of the Islamic religion, so as to ostensibly make it evolve, under the pretext of attuning it to the dominant world order of "modernization" and "reform." This trend has led recently to certain initiatives calling for the modification of Arabic vocabulary and grammar; the modification of God's chosen language no less; the holy language in which he revealed his message to the Prophet.[42]
The Latin Precedent
However understandable, this onslaught was largely unnecessary. For all his audacity, spirit, and probity, not to mention his provocative dissection of the linguistic and cultural conundrum bedeviling the Arabs, Shubashy failed to follow his argument to its natural conclusion, and his proposed solutions illustrated the hang-ups and inhibitions that had shackled and dissuaded previous generations of reformers.
Like Taha Hussein, Salama Moussa, and Tawfiq Awan, among others, Shubashy seemed at times to be advocating the valorization and adoption of dialectal speech forms—and the discarding of MSA. But then, no sooner had he made a strong case for dialects than he promptly backed down, as if sensing a sword of Damocles hanging over his head, and renounced what he would now deem a heresy and an affront to Arab history and Muslim tradition—in a sense, resubmitting to the orthodoxies of Arab nationalists and Islamists that he had initially seemed keen on deposing.
His initial virulent critiques of the Arabic language's religious and nationalist canon notwithstanding, his best solution ended up recommending discarding dialects to the benefit of "reawakening" and "rejuvenating" the old language. There were fundamental differences between Latin and MSA, Shubashy argued:
Arabic is the language of the Qur'an and the receptacle of the aggregate of the Arabs' scientific, literary, and artistic patrimony, past and present. No wise man would agree to relinquish that patrimony under any circumstances.[43]
In fact, contrary to Shubashy's assertions, this was a dilemma that Europe's erstwhile users (and votaries) of Latin had to confront between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. For, just as MSA is deemed a symbiotic bedmate of Islam and the tool of its cultural and literary tradition, so was Latin the language of the church, the courts of Europe, and Western literary, scientific, and cultural traditions. Leaving Latin was not by any means less painful and alienating for Christian Europeans than the abandonment of MSA might turn out to be for Muslims and Arabs. Yet a number of audacious fifteenth-century European iconoclasts, undaunted by the linguistic, literary, and theological gravitas of Latin orthodoxy, did resolve to elevate their heretofore lowly, vernacular languages to the level of legitimate and recognized national idioms.
One of the militant pro-French lobbies at the forefront of the calls for discarding Latin to the benefit of an emerging French language was a group of dialectal poets called La Brigade—originally troubadours who would soon adopt the sobriquet La Pléiade. The basic document elaborating their role as a literary and linguistic avant-garde was a manifesto titled Déffence et illustration de la langue Françoyse, believed to have been penned in 1549 by Joachim Du Bellay (1522-60). The Déffence was essentially a denunciation of Latin orthodoxy and advocacy on behalf of the French vernacular. Like Dante's own fourteenth-century defense and promotion of his Tuscan dialect in De vulgari eloquentia—which became the blueprint of an emerging Italian language and a forerunner of Dante's Italian La Divina Commedia—Du Bellay's French Déffence extolled the virtues of vernacular French languages and urged sixteenth-century poets, writers, and administrators to make use of their native vernacular—as opposed to official Latin—in their creative, literary, and official functions, just as they had been doing in their daily lives.
Latin, nevertheless, persisted and endured, especially as the language of theology and philosophy, in spite of the valiant intellectuals who fought on behalf of their spoken idioms. Even during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, students at the Sorbonne who were caught speaking French on university grounds—or in the surrounding Latin Quarter—were castigated and risked expulsion from the university. Indeed, the Sorbonne's famed Latin Quarter is believed to have earned its sobriquet precisely because it remained a sanctuary for the language long after the waning of Latin—and an ivory tower of sorts—where only Latin was tolerated as a spoken language. Even René Descartes (1596-1659), the father of Cartesian logic and French rationalism was driven to apologize for having dared use vernacular French—as opposed to his times' hallowed and learned Latin—when writing his famous treatise, Discours de la Méthode, close to a century after Du Bellay's Déffence.
Descartes' contemporaries, especially language purists in many official and intellectual circles (very much akin to those indicting Shubashy and his cohorts today), censured Descartes, arguing French to be too divisive and too vulgar to be worthy of scientific, philosophic, literary, and theological writing. Yet, an undaunted Descartes wrote in his introduction:
If I choose to write in French, which is the language of my country, rather than in Latin, which is the language of my teachers, it is because I hope that those who rely purely on their natural and sheer sense of reason will be the better judges of my opinions than those who still swear by ancient books. And those who meld reason with learning, the only ones I incline to have as judges of my own work, will not, I should hope, be partial to Latin to the point of refusing to hear my arguments out simply because I happen to express them in the vulgar [French] language.[44]
Yet, the psychological and emotive dominance of Latin (and the pro-Latin lobby) of seventeenth-century Europe remained a powerful deterrent against change. So much so that Descartes' written work would continue vacillating between Latin and French. Still, he remained a dauntless pioneer in that he had dared put into writing the first seminal, philosophical treatise of his time (and arguably the most influential scientific essay of all times) in a lowly popular lahja (to use an Arabic modifier.) He did so not because he was loath to the prestige and philosophical language of his times but because the French vernacular was simply his natural language, the one with which he, his readers, and his illiterate countrymen felt most comfortable and intimate. It was the French lahja and its lexical ambiguities and grammatical peculiarities that best transmitted the realities and the challenges of Descartes' surroundings and worldviews. To write in the vernacular French—as opposed to the traditional Latin—was to function in a language that reflected Descartes' own, and his countrymen's, cultural universe, intellectual references, popular domains, and historical accretions.
Conclusion
This then, the recognition and normalization of dialects, could have been a fitting conclusion and a worthy solution to the dilemma that Shubashy set out to resolve. Unfortunately, he chose to pledge fealty to MSA and classical Arabic—ultimately calling for their normalization and simplification rather than their outright replacement.[45] In that sense, Shubashy showed himself to be in tune with the orthodoxies preached by Husri who, as early as 1955, had already been calling for the creation of a "middle Arabic language" and a crossbreed fusing MSA and vernacular speech forms—as a way of bridging the Arabs' linguistic incoherence and bringing unity to their fledgling nationhood:
MSA is the preserve of a small, select number of educated people, few of whom bother using it as a speech form. Conversely, what we refer to as "dialectal Arabic" is in truth a bevy of languages differing markedly from one country to the other, with vast differences often within the same country, if not within the same city and neighborhood … Needless to say, this pathology contradicts the exigencies of a sound, wholesome national life! [And given] that true nations deserving of the appellation require a single common and unifying national language … [the best solution I can foresee to our national linguistic quandary] would be to inoculate the dialectal languages with elements of MSA … so as to forge a new "middle MSA" and diffuse it to the totality of Arabs … This is our best hope, and for the time being, the best palliative until such a day when more lasting and comprehensive advances can be made towards instating the final, perfected, integral MSA.[46]
This is at best a disappointing and desultory solution, not only due to its chimerical ambitions but also because, rather than simplifying an already cluttered and complicated linguistic situation, it suggested the engineering of an additional language for the "Arab nation" to adopt as a provisional national idiom. To expand on Shubashy's initial diagnosis, this is tantamount to remedying schizophrenia by inducing a multi-personality disorder—as if Arabs were in want of yet another artificial language to complement their already aphasiac MSA.
Granted, national unification movements and the interference in, or creation of, a national language are part of the process of nation building and often do bear fruit. However, success in the building of a national language is largely dependent upon the size of the community and the proposed physical space of the nation in question.[47] In other words, size does matter. Small language unification movements—as in the cases of, say, Norway, Israel, and France—can and often do succeed. But big language unification movements on the other hand—as in the cases of pan-Turkism, pan-Slavism, pan-Germanism, and yes, pan-Arabism—have thus far been met with not only failure but also devastating wars, genocides, and mass population movements. Moreover, traditionally, the small language unification movements that did succeed in producing national languages benefitted from overwhelming, popular support among members of the proposed nation. More importantly, they sought to normalize not prestige, hermetic, (written) literary languages, but rather lower, degraded speech forms that were often already spoken natively by the national community in question (e.g., Creole in Haiti, Old Norse in Norway, and modern, as opposed to biblical Hebrew in Israel).[48]
Shubashy's call of "down with Sibawayh!" meant purely and simply "down with the classical language" and its MSA progeny. Overthrowing Sibawayh meant also deposing the greatest Arabic grammarian, the one credited with the codification, standardization, normalization, and spread of the classical Arabic language—and later its MSA descendent. Yet, calling for the dethroning of one who was arguably the founding father of modern Arabic grammar, and in the same breath demanding the preservation, inoculation, and invigoration of his creation, is contradictory and confusing. It is like "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," to use Albert Einstein's famous definition of insanity. Or could it be that perhaps an initially bold Shubashy was rendered timid by a ruthless and intimidating MSA establishment? After all, there are few Arabs doing dispassionate, critical work on MSA today, who do not ultimately end up being cowed into silence, or worse yet, slandered, discredited, and accused of Zionist perfidy and "Arabophobia." Salama Musa,[49] Taha Hussein,[50] and Adonis[51] are the most obvious and recent examples of such character assassinations.
Ultimately, however, it is society and communities of users—not advocacy groups, linguistic guilds, and preservation societies—that decide the fate of languages. As far as the status and fate of the Arabic language are concerned, the jury still seems to be out.
Franck Salameh is assistant professor of Near Eastern studies at Boston College and author of Language, Memory, and Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon (Lexington Books, 2010). He thanks research assistant Iulia Padeanu for her valuable contributions to this essay.

[1] Zeina Karam, "Lebanon Tries to Retain Arabic in Polyglot Culture," The Washington Post, Aug. 16, 2010. For more on Arabic language decline, see Mahmoud al-Batal, "Identity and Language Tension in Lebanon: The Arabic of Local News at LBCI," in Aleya Rouchdy, ed., Language Contact and Language Conflict in Arabic: Variations on a Sociolinguistic Theme (London: Curzon Arabic Linguistics Series, 2002); Al-Ittijah al-Mu'akis, Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), Aug. 1, 2000, Aug. 28, 2001; Zeina Hashem Beck, "Is the Arabic Language 'Perfect' or 'Backwards'?" The Daily Star (Beirut), Jan. 7, 2005; Hashem Saleh, "Tajrubat al-Ittihad al-'Urubby… hal Tanjah 'Arabiyan?" Asharq al-Awsat (London), June 21, 2005.
[2] Fouad Ajami, "The Autumn of the Autocrats," Foreign Affairs, May-June, 2005.
[3] Elie Kedourie, "Not So Grand Illusions," The New York Review of Books, Nov. 23, 1967.
[4] Abu Khaldun Sati Al-Husri, Abhath Mukhtara fi-l-Qawmiyya al-'Arabiya (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihda al-'Arabiya, 1985), p. 80.
[5] Franck Salameh, Language Memory and Identity in the Middle East: The Case for Lebanon (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 9-10.
[6] Michel Aflaq, Fi Sabil al-Ba'ath (Beirut: Dar at-Tali'a, 1959), pp. 40-1.
[7] Selim Abou, Le bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962), pp. 157-8.
[8] Michel Chiha, Visage et Présence du Liban (Beirut: Editions du Trident, 1984), p. 49-52, 164.
[9] Karam, "Lebanon Tries to Retain Arabic."
[10] Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddimah (Beirut: Dar al-Qalam, 1977), p. 461.
[11] Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr., The Vernacular Arabic of the Lebanon (Cambridge, Mass.: Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 2003), p. vii.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Egypt, Islam, and the Arabs: The Search for Egyptian Nationalism, 1900-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 220.
[14] Taha Hussein, The Future of Culture in Egypt (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954).
[15] Ibid., pp. 86-7.
[16] Thackston, The Vernacular Arabic of the Lebanon, p. vii.
[17] Edward Said, "Living in Arabic," al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo), Feb. 12 - 18, 2004.
[18] Karam, "Lebanon Tries to Retain Arabic."
[19] See, for instance, Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).
[20] Abou, Le bilinguisme Arabe-Français au Liban, pp. 177-9.
[21] Ibid., pp. 191-5.
[22] Taha Hussein, "Yasiru an-Nahw wa-l-Kitaba," al-Adab (Beirut), 1956, no. 11, pp. 2, 3, 6.
[23] Salman Masalha, "Arabs, Speak Hebrew!" Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), Sept. 27, 2010.
[24] Arab Human Development Report 2003 (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2003), p. 54.
[25] Ibid., pp. 66-7.
[26] The Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2003.
[27] The National (Abu Dhabi), Sept. 15, 2010.
[28] Salama Musa, Maa Hiya an-Nahda, wa Mukhtarat Ukhra (Algiers: Mofam, 1990), p. 233.
[29] Sherif al-Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, Yasqut Sibawayh (Cairo: Al-Hay'a al-Misriya li'l-Kitab, 2004); Cherif Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule: La Langue du Coran est-elle à l'origine du mal arabe? (Paris: L'Archipel, 2007).
[30] Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule, pp. 10, 16-8.
[31] Shubashy, Li-Tayhya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, p. 18.
[32] Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule, pp. 17-8; Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, p. 14.
[33] Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, pp. 125-42.
[34] Ibid., p. 125.
[35] Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule, p. 119.
[36] Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, pp. 125-6.
[37] Ibid., pp. 126-8, 130; Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule, p. 121.
[38] See, for example, Muhammad al-Qasem, "Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya … wa Yasqut Sibawayh… Limatha?" Islam Online, July 10, 2004.
[39] Choubachy, Le Sabre et la Virgule, p. 181.
[40] Ibid., p. 190.
[41] Ibid., pp. 189-90.
[42] Ibid., p. 190.
[43] Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, pp. 133-4.
[44] René Descartes, Discours de la méthode (Paris: Edition G.F., 1966), p. 95.
[45] Shubashy, Li-Tahya al-Lugha al-'Arabiya, pp. 142, 184-5.
[46] For the full text of Husri's address, see Anis Freyha, al-Lahajat wa Uslubu Dirasatiha (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1989), pp. 5-8.
[47] Ronald Waurdhaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), pp. 353-74.
[48] John Myhill, Language, Religion, and National Identity in Europe and the Middle East (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006), pp. 9-12.
[49] Ibrahim A. Ibrahim, "Salama Musa: An Essay on Cultural Alienation," Middle Eastern Studies, Oct. 1979.
[50] "Taha Hussein (1889-1973)," Egypt State Information Service, Cairo, accessed June 10, 2011.
[51] See Adonis, al-Kitab, al-Khitab, al-Hijab (Lebanon: Dar al-Adab, 2009), pp. 9, 14, 16-9.