LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
March 16/2012

Bible Quotation for today/Suffering as a Christian
01 Peter/04/12 My dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful test you are suffering, as though something unusual were happening to you. Rather be glad that you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may be full of joy when his glory is revealed. Happy are you if you are insulted because you are Christ's followers; this means that the glorious Spirit, the Spirit of God, is resting on you. If you suffer, it must not be because you are a murderer or a thief or a criminal or a meddler in other people's affairs. However, if you suffer because you are a Christian, don't be ashamed of it, but thank God that you bear Christ's name. The time has come for judgment to begin, and God's own people are the first to be judged. If it starts with us, how will it end with those who do not believe the Good News from God? As the scripture says, It is difficult for good people to be saved; what, then, will become of godless sinners?  So then, those who suffer because it is God's will for them, should by their good actions trust themselves completely to their Creator, who always keeps his promise.
 

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Saudi Grand Mufti Calls for "Destruction of All Churches in Region"/by Raymond Ibrahim/Jihad Watch/March 15/12
Bkirki offers us dictatorship on Rai//By Michael Young/ The Daily Star/March 15/12
Gaza’s blood-traders fighting al-Assad’s battle/By Tariq Alhomayed/March 15/2012

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for March 15/2012
Report: U.S. asked Russia to warn Iran of 'last chance' to avoid military strike
Netanyahu: Gaza violence shows Israel cannot afford to be lax on Iran nuclear threat
Report: Iran officials told Assad to focus on Israel to divert attention from Syria crisis
U.S. nuclear expert uses satellite image to identify Iran explosive site at Parchin
Iran threatens N. Israel with bombardment from Lebanon
Iranian activist says regime change could resolve nuclear standoff
Israel, Iran, Jordan and Turkey join forces for multi-million science project
Gaza militants fire rockets at Israel, Iron Dome intercepts projectiles over Be'er Sheva
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird Honours Human Rights Defenders
Analysis: One year on, Syria's Assad won't bow to uprising
Syrian rebels lack guns, money after key defeats
French war surgeon speaks of 'hell' in Syria
Saudi Shuts Embassy in Syria, Withdraws Staff
Syrian forces gain ground on uprising anniversary
Syria's Faceless Voices Risk Their Lives by Speaking Out
Assad must leave to halt civil war: top dissident
Syria divides Druze in occupied mountain homeland
Exclusive: secret Assad emails lift lid on life of leader's inner circle
Azerbaijan Arrests Iran-Backed 'U.S., Israel Attack Plotters'
The Future Movement and the Perspectives of the Arab Spring
March 14 commemorates 7th anniversary, calls for strong, democratic state  
Qabbani’s meeting with Syrian envoy draws Future’s ire
Patriarch accuses critics of distorting his comments on Syria
Rai-Geagea spat draws in Aoun, prompts more mudslinging
Geagea Responds to Aoun: He is the Last Person Who is Entitled to Speak about Honor
Year of tension fails to boil in Lebanon
Nasrallah, Hamas: Israel 'tested' Gaza factions ahead of possible Iran strike
Report: Hezbollah and Hamas discuss Syria, Gaza, Iran
Sleiman: Wagers on Syria stall dialogue
Ethiopian domestic worker beaten on camera commits suicide
Hariri on March 14 Anniversary: Lebanon Will Not Fall Victim to New Form of Hegemony
Civil Society Activists Take Center Stage at March 14 Rally
PSP: No Rally or Speeches on Kamal Jumblat’s Murder Anniversary

The Syrian crisis and Hizbullah
Hizbullah party has a crucial interest in backing the Syrian regime.
Hizbullah realizes that Assad’s era is over and the Syrian regime is in last throes. Even when the clock ticks to the Syrian regime’s s eventual fall, it will stay in dire need for Iranian, Russian support and even from Hizbullah itself. The situation is not linked to Hizbullah’s “divine” will to restore stability in Syria. The issue is simply linked to Hizbullah’s desire to make Syria in the same location that of the party before the Syrian revolution erupted. Today there is a global effort to address the situation in Syria, apart from the readings of each political party, but everyone agrees to the fact that the bleeding Syrian wound is the most dangerous and the world should aggregate efforts to stop it. Hizbullah wants to keep the flow of blood as long as possible, because the Syrian calamity makes its own intractable problem look minor to the international community. Hizbullah would prefer to put Syria ablaze and make the world overlook hot coals under Lebanon’s ashes.

Azerbaijan Arrests Iran-Backed 'U.S., Israel Attack Plotters'
AFP/Azerbaijan has arrested 22 people on suspicion of plotting attacks on the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Baku on behalf of neighboring Iran, the national security ministry said Wednesday.
"Twenty-two citizens of Azerbaijan have been arrested by the national security ministry for cooperating with the Iranian Sepah," its statement said, referring to the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
"On orders of the Sepah they were to commit terrorist acts against the U.S., Israeli and other Western states' embassies and the embassies' employees," it said.
The ministry said that the suspects were recruited from 1999 onwards and trained in the use of weapons and spy techniques at military camps in Iran to enable them to gather information on foreign embassies, organizations and companies in Azerbaijan and stage attacks.
"Firearms, cartridges, explosives and espionage equipment were found during the arrest," the statement said, without specifying when or how the arrests were made.
Tensions between the Islamic republic and mainly Muslim but officially secular Azerbaijan have risen in recent months, with a series of arrests in Baku of attack plot suspects with alleged links to Tehran.
Iran has also been angered by ex-Soviet Azerbaijan's ties to Israel and its reported purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons from the Jewish state.
This week however the neighbors appeared to be taking steps to improve relations as public declarations of friendship were made in Tehran during a visit by Azerbaijan's Defense Minister Safar Abiyev.
"We are sure that we will face no problem from our brother and neighbor Azerbaijan," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying on Monday after meeting Abiyev.

Geagea Responds to Aoun: He is the Last Person Who is Entitled to Speak about Honor
إby Naharnet /Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea criticized on Wednesday Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun’s statements, saying that his “disastrous” tenure in rule has been rife with corruption. He told Free Lebanon radio: “Aoun is the last person who is entitled to speak about honor.” He made his remarks in response to the MP’s recent criticism against him in light of the latter’s critical remarks against Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s statements on Syria. Geagea continued: “Who leaves his family and 400 of his soldiers and flees to France?” He made this statement in reference to Aoun’s exile to Paris in 1990 at the end of the Lebanese civil war. “We are not honored by such actions,” he stated. Furthermore, Geagea cited the 1989 incident during the civil war in which Aoun’s supporters headed to the seat of the Patriarchate in Bkirki and vandalized the area in response to what they said was excessive support showed by then Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir towards the LF chief.
“I did not want to bring up such issues, but Aoun is forcing us to do so,” he added. “He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones at others,” said Geagea. Addressing Geagea’s criticism of al-Rahi, Aoun had stated on Tuesday: “I’m not surprised by the campaign against the patriarch, but even at the peak of our dispute with the Maronite patriarchate, we did not launch such remarks against this spiritual post.” “Personal accusations against the patriarch are rejected and unacceptable and we stand by His Eminence,” he added. Geagea on Monday slammed al-Rahi’s stances on Syria, saying his remarks “put all the Christians in the region in danger.” “I can’t hide the fact that his statements had infuriated me, as they support the regime and contradict with our entire history and I cannot be proud of this rhetoric,” Geagea said in an interview on MTV.But Aoun stressed that “it is not for Geagea to judge the value of the patriarch’s remarks.”

Bkirki offers us dictatorship on Rai
March 15, 2012/By Michael Young/ The Daily Star
You have to wonder what the Maronite Church and the Vatican were thinking when they replaced the old but smoothly functioning Nasrallah Sfeir with a malfunctioning Beshara Rai.
The patriarch took a lashing this week from Samir Geagea, the Lebanese Forces leader. He merited far more. Rai’s defense of the Syrian regime and his recently expressed views on Muslims, and even the Vatican, have been immoral, patronizing, prejudicial to his own community, foolish, or some combination thereof.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Rai observed, “We are with the Arab Spring but we are not with this spring of violence, war, destruction and killing. This is turning to winter.” The patriarch expressed his fears for Christians in the Middle East, and implied that Syria’s leadership represented less of a threat to the community.
“It’s true that the Syrian Baath regime is an extreme and dictatorial regime, but there are many others like it in the Arab world,” Rai said. “All regimes in the Arab world have Islam as a state religion, except for Syria. It stands out for not saying it is an Islamic state ... The closest thing to democracy [in the Arab world] is Syria.”
The passage provoked derision and outrage. Rai is evidently unable to distinguish between democracy and religious pluralism. One is not necessarily the other, and Syria shows us why. The patriarch also seems incapable of understanding democracy. It is most definitely not the military repression of a majority by a minority preserving its prerogatives. He is equally at sea about how to read the Syrian uprising in the context of the so-called Arab Spring. After all, it is Bashar Assad’s regime, the one he supports, that has carried Syria into the deepest recesses of winter through its systematic butchery of the civilian population. And by the way, did Rai read Syria’s new Constitution? It mandates that presidents must be Muslim.
Rai’s defenders say the man should be allowed to speak his mind, to defend the Maronites. Yet whenever the patriarch has done so, he has divided his flock. Perhaps he was too busy chattering away in the recesses of his parishes to hear of the virtues of silence. There are topics on which one’s opinions are best left unstated.
Given his profession, the patriarch’s views on Syria are astonishing. For years Rai appeared on the Christian station Tele-Lumiere to lecture the faithful on religious morals. To this day we are blessed with reruns of his silky homilies. That this same individual should presently be defending a mass murderer tells us much about Rai’s celestial insincerity. It must also leave not a few practicing Christians wondering what it is about their religion that they missed.
Never one to deny narcissism, Rai recently invited a Paris-Match reporter to spend three days with him in Bkirki for an interview. The outcome was a useful compendium of what not to say.
Rai was singularly disdainful of the Arab world in general, and of Muslims in particular. “Presidents are re-elected with 99.9 percent of the votes,” he pointed out, as if such electoral margins retained any legitimacy whatsoever. “With such a mentality, what can the alternative be between a sovereign and a president for life? The source of legislation in all domains is the Quran. There exists a single party, with all political, judicial and military power in the hands of Muslims who address every point through the Shariah. Democracy and theocracy are as contradictory as snow and fire.”
Well, there are Muslims and there are Muslims, someone might be tempted to explain to Rai, just as there are Christians and Christians. There are Christians who believe in religious coexistence; who try to avoid painting Muslims in broad, condescending brush strokes; and who know enough modern history to recognize that there has been a powerful secular current in the Arab world during the past century, even if religion has made a comeback, mainly thanks to the brutality of self-styled secular leaders like Bashar Assad and Saddam Hussein. And then there are Christians like Beshara al-Rai, who are prisoners of an insular, hierarchical mindset, who deem all change to be menacing, and who prefer to become the playthings of a tyrant, in order to protect their measured gains, rather than to extend liberty to all.
Geagea is right, Rai’s outlook is doing a terrible disservice to Lebanon’s Christians. But having alienated many in his own community, not to mention Syrian democrats and Muslims throughout the Middle East, the patriarch in his Paris-Match interview also irritated the Vatican. And this exposed another dimension of the man: his impulsiveness and immodesty.
When asked to describe relations between the Vatican and the Maronite Church, the patriarch answered they were “good,” before launching into criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. “I wish that our patriarchal churches and synods [in the Middle East] could be the object of greater consideration ... [A] certain decentralization at the level of the Roman Curia is desirable, and a better understanding of our churches.” Rai complained that the Vatican “sometimes spends months investigating our new bishops. This mistrust is not pleasant for us ... Let them give us more autonomy in our internal affairs!”
You have to wonder if a magazine is the place for a Maronite patriarch to settle scores with the Roman Catholic Church. This is all very interesting, and perhaps Rai is justified in his protests (though I, too, would set months aside to investigate our clerics), but these are subjects best settled quietly, within the church itself, not in a publication that reports on the escapades of Johnny Halliday.
More in the interview makes us doubt Rai’s judgment. For example, he asserts that Maronite priests, because they can marry, are “more serene” than their Roman Catholic counterparts, whose vow of celibacy “engenders frustration.” Some still hope to persuade the Vatican to push for Rai’s removal. That won’t happen, because the church’s reputation has become a hostage to his fate. However, a very troubling man resides in Bkirki, and Lebanon is the worse for it.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR. He tweets @BeirutCalling.

Patriarch accuses critics of distorting his comments on Syria
March 15, 2012/The Daily Star
Rai described those who take his statements out of context as “ignorant.”
BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai lashed back at Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea late Tuesday, accusing Geagea of not having read his interview with Reuters in full.
Relations between the patriarch and the LF leader were shaken last year over Rai’s stance on the pro-democracy demonstrations in Syria, and a new quarrel broke out over his remarks on the ongoing developments in Syria in an interview with Reuters last week.
During the interview, Rai said he fears that the ongoing violence in the Arab world could turn the so-called Arab Spring into an Arab winter, adding that the continued bloodshed was helping extremist Muslim groups.“All regimes in the Arab world have Islam as a state religion, except for Syria. It stands out for not saying it is an Islamic state ... The closest thing to democracy [in the Arab world] is Syria,” Rai told Reuters in the interview. Earlier this week, Geagea said Rai’s remarks endanger all Christians in the region and criticized his stance on developments in Syria, calling on the patriarch to adopt the official stance of the Vatican, which has condemned the violence carried out by the Syrian regime.
Rai, who returned to Beirut late Tuesday from a visit to Qatar, struck back at Geagea, describing those who read statements partially as “ignorant.”
“Those who read the statement ‘There is no god but God’ as simply ‘There is no god’ are ignorant,” Rai told reporters.
Rai also said that leaders who fully read his statement understand his position on Syria.
“I think President Michel Sleiman, Gen. [Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel] Aoun, Archbishop Boulos Matar and Wadih al-Khazen read the text of what I said in its entirety and those who read the text in full will have all the answers they seek,” Rai added.
In the Reuters interview, Rai warned that violence and bloodshed in the Arab world are threatening Christians and Muslims alike across the Middle East.
President Michel Sleiman defended Rai Tuesday, saying the head of the Maronite Church was striving to preserve the presence of free Christians in the Levant amid the popular upheavals sweeping the Arab world. Sleiman praised Rai’s support for “democracy free of unilateralism, violence and extremism.” He also renewed his endorsement of Rai’s efforts to revitalize the Maronite Church and preserve the presence of minorities, particularly Christians, in the region. Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has condemned Geagea’s rebuke of Rai, calling it “unacceptable”as well as a “personal insult.”
Geagea fired back at Aoun Wednesday, saying that the FPM leader had no right to lecture others on how to address the Maronite patriarch, based on an incident dating back to the Civil War era.
“Aoun is obsessed with me and whatever question he is asked, he will refer to me personally ... Aoun is the last person to talk about civility in speech, particularly when it concerns the patriarch,” Geagea said, citing Aoun’s criticism of former Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.
“When Aoun disagreed with Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir in 1989, he sent his men to occupy all of Bkirki and unfortunately we all saw how these men behaved with the patriarch at Bkirki,” Geagea said, referring to an incident that saw Aoun supporters physically assault Sfeir.

Rai-Geagea spat draws in Aoun, prompts more mudslinging
March 14, 2012/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai lashed back late Tuesday at Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea’s criticism of his stances on Syria, saying Geagea had failed to read his statements in their entirety. In response to a question about Geagea's criticism of his statements, Rai, who arrived in Lebanon from Qatar late Tuesday, said, “Those who read the statement ‘There is no god but God’ as simply 'There is no god' are ignorant." Of those who sprang to his defense following Geagea's remarks, Rai said:
“I think President Michel Sleiman, Gen. [Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel] Aoun, Archbishop Bulos Matar and Wadih al-Khazen read the text of what I said in its entirety and those who read the text in full will have all the answers they seek.” Geagea had lambasted Rai’s stance on the year-long popular uprising in Syria, accusing the patriarch Monday of defending the Syrian regime and endangering Christians in the region. Rai warned last week that violence and bloodshed are turning the Arab Spring into winter that this was threatening Christians and Muslims alike across the Middle East.
He also said change could not be brought to the Arab world by force and that Christians feared the turmoil was helping Muslim extremist groups.
President Michel Sleiman defended Rai Tuesday, saying the head of the Maronite Church was striving to preserve the presence of free Christians in the Levant amid the popular upheavals sweeping the Arab world. Sleiman praised Rai’s support for “democracy free of unilateralism, violence and extremism.” He also renewed his endorsement of Rai’s efforts to revitalize the Maronite Church and preserve the presence of minorities, particularly Christians, in the region.
For his part, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun condemned Geagea’s rebuke of Rai. “I was not surprised by the attack. But a personal insult and accusations against Rai are unacceptable and rejected. We are on his [Rai’s] side,” Aoun told reporters after a meeting of his Parliamentary Change and Reform bloc.
In response to Aoun’s criticism, Geagea, in a statement from the LF Wednesday, said the FPM leader had no right to lecture others on how to address the Maronite patriarch.
“Aoun is obsessed with me and whatever question he is asked, he will refer to me personally ... Aoun is the last person to talk about civility in speech, particularly when it concerns the patriarch,” Geagea said. Geagea said it should be remembered that “when Aoun disagreed with Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir in 1989, he sent his men to occupy all of Bkirki and unfortunately we all saw how these men behaved with the patriarch at Bkirki.
“We also all remember the tens of speeches by Gen. Aoun in the last four years in which he said that the patriarch [Sfeir] had no right to talk politics and that he is a spiritual father and has no place in politics [yet] now he is [attacking] me because I am pained over a particular stance by the patriarch, and he offers advice on how to behave toward the patriarch,” the LF leader said.
“I did not want to get into these matters but Aoun has compelled us to open these issues to remind him that one should not throw stones when one lives in a glass house,” Geagea said.

March 14 commemorates 7th anniversary, calls for strong, democratic state
March 14, 2012/ The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Members and supporters of the March 14 alliance commemorated Wednesday the seventh anniversary of their establishment and called for a strong, democratic state, able to exert its rights in matters of peace and war, to ensure national peace. The movement, which traces its roots to the mass demonstrations of March 14, 2005, that preceded the withdrawal of the Syrian army of that same year, also slammed President Bashar Assad and called for an end to the violence in Lebanon’s neighbor.
“Achieving [internal] peace rests on two principles: the first is an ethical one and that is not to repeat the mistakes of the past or gain our strength from foreign forces ... or blame a sect for the mistakes of one party” MP Boutros Harb , reading the March 14 charter, said. “The second principle is a political one and that is to rebuild our coexistence without preconditions,” he added. Harb was the last of several speakers to address a packed hall of supporters at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure center. The venue was a departure from previous editions of the event which were all held at Martyr’s Square in the capital.
The manifesto, an appeal to Lebanese to join hands, said national peace, a precondition to building a civil and strong state, needed to be established to protect the country from “the fall of the Syrian regime.”
Harb said the first step toward building a strong state was for it to reach the stage where it enjoys the exclusive right over the possession arms.
“There is a need to liberate the state from the subjugation of power ... and work on rebuilding a state that respects human rights for its citizens, regardless of their beliefs, and ensure equality between people,” he said. The lawmaker also called for a modern electoral law and implementation of the Taif Accord.
“We recognize that we should continue our struggle in building a civil state ... and our struggle in the battle to achieve internal peace,” he said.
“We call on all Lebanese, without discrimination, to participate in our movement toward peace,” he said.
For her part, leading journalist May Chidiac, the first to address the audience at BIEL that included prominent figures in the movement such as Future Movement MPs Bahia Hariri and Fouad Siniora, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, Kataeb party leader former President Amin Gemayel and MP Marwan Hamadeh, slammed Assad's crackdown on anti-government protesters and said the Lebanese opposition group would not deviate from the path to freedom.
“Is it not time to force the collapse of this ruler and try him at the international court?” Chidiac, who survived an assassination attempt on her life on Sept. 25, 2005, asked.
“Enough, if you have a shred of dignity, enough,” Chidiac, who praised Syrian opposition strongholds and urged Assad to step down, said.
“Sooner or later, Syria’s spring will come,” she said, referring to the series of revolts in Arab countries that overthrew autocratic governments.
She also took aim at members of Lebanon’s government, criticizing its policy of dissociation toward events in Lebanon’s neighbor as well as accusing some of its members of aiding Assad.
“[Assad] has a foreign affairs minister to defend him and another Lebanese one acting as his agent,” Chidiac said, in an apparent reference to Lebanon foreign affairs minister, Adnan Mansour.
She also praised the role that the events of March 14, 2005, played at the regional level.
“March 14 was the first to create an atmosphere of freedom in the Arab world and was the first to spark a flame for people to decide their own fate,” Chidiac said.
A number of activists and members of the country’s civil society also took part in the event, which organizers said aimed at giving ordinary people the chance to voice their opinions in contrast to previous versions of the event that included mainly politicians.
Faisal Makawi, who identified himself as a civil activist, voiced confidence in the March 14 movement and its goals, including achieving a “sovereign, free and independent country.”
Makawi began his speech by saluting the “martyrs and the living revolutionaries of Syria.”
“We are asking today for an opportunity to be part of change and not only part of expressing that change. We are asking for a chance to continue what we, as people, began [on March 14],” Makawi said.
He said it was the people who first took to the streets after the assassination of five-time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005 and that the people had remained persistent until the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

Report: Iran officials told Assad to focus on Israel to divert attention from Syria crisis
By Haaretz /Emails said to have been intercepted by Syria opposition and released by the Guardian show advisers indicated Syrian President should verbally attack Israel, center on Palestinian cause in a planned speech. Syrian President Bashar Assad was advised by Iranian officials to divert attention toward Israel and the Palestinian cause in an effort to deflect criticism of his brutal crackdown, emails said to have been intercepted by Syrian opposition and released by the U.K.'s the Guardian indicated on Wednesday. According to the Guardian, the messages were said to have been intercepted by the opposition's Supreme Council of the Revolution between June of 2011 and February 2012, and include missives from Assad's private account as well as that belonging to his wife, Asma.
One email sent in December 31 indicated that Assad's aides advised the Syrian president on the contents on an upcoming speech following "consultations with a good number of people in addition to the media and political adviser for the Iranian ambassador." In the composed memorandum, Assad was advised to stress the issue of Muslim identity through the use of Koran quotes, as well as centering on what the email called "Syria's principles," which included: "Resistance"; "Hostility to Israel, the first enemy of the Muslims"; and "Protection of Palestinian people's rights (real prayers should be in the direction of Jerusalem)." "Maybe here the president can reiterate his stance by condemning forcefully the recent Israeli practices and policies to Judaise Al-Quds (Jerusalem)," the email added, saying that Assad should use "powerful and violent" language in his opposition to Israel.
"Here the subject of Israel comes up and it becomes necessary to put stress on the particular merits of the president by linking the foreign pressures on Syria, which differs in its toughness and content to other countries in crisis, with the geographical proximity to Israel and the position of the people and the regime towards Israel," the memo stated.
Culminating the email's section on Israel, the adviser said Assad should make "a clear distinction between the west's ambitions and people's demands and that the west and Israel are exploiting part of the Syrian people without their knowledge to break Syria, but the president has a great confidence in the patriotism of the entire Syrian people."
The emails released by the Guardian also indicated that the Syria leader received advice from noted Lebanese businessman Hussein Mortada, known for his links to the Iran. In one message, Mortada advised Assad to stop blaming al-Qaida for opposition attacks "It is not out of our interest to say that al-Qaida organization is behind the operation because this claim will [indemnify] the U.S. administration and Syrian opposition," Mortada was quoted as saying, adding "I have received contacts from Iran and Hezbollah in my role as director of many Iranian-Lebanese channels and they directed me to not mention that al-Qaida is behind the operation. It is a blatant tactical media mistake."
Another correspondence of note was between Assad's wife Asma and the daughter of the emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani, in which the Qatari noblewoman both advised Assad to step down as well as indicated that Qatar may be able to present the Syrian leader's family with asylum.
"My father regards President Bashar as a friend, despite the current tensions – he always gave him genuine advice," she was cited by the Guardian as writing, saying that the "opportunity for real change and development was lost a long time ago. Nevertheless, one opportunity closes, others open up – and I hope it's not too late for reflection and coming out of the state of denial."
A later email seemed more direct, saying that: "Just been following the latest developments in Syria … in all honesty – looking at the tide of history and the escalation of recent events – we've seen two results – leaders stepping down and getting political asylum or leaders being brutally attacked. I honestly think this is a good opportunity to leave and re-start a normal life."
"I only pray that you will convince the president to take this an opportunity to exit without having to face charges. The region needs to stabilise, but not more than you need peace of mind. I am sure you have many places to turn to, including Doha." Moreover, Assad communicated with Khaled al-Ahmed, who is believed to have been tasked with providing advice on Homs and Idlib. According to the emails, Ahmed told Assad that "a trusted source who met with leaders of groups in Baba Amr today said that a big shipment of weapons is coming from Libya and will arrive at the shores of one of the neighbouring states within three days, to be smuggled to Syria." Ahmed further stated that he had been told that European journalists had entered Baba Amr "by crossing the Lebanese borders illegally." According to Ahmed, one of the journalists was French and the other was German.

Report: U.S. asked Russia to warn Iran of 'last chance' to avoid military strike
By Haaretz /Clinton reportedly told her Russian counterpart to rely message to Tehran that it must engage in talks with world powers or face a military strike within months, according to Russian daily Kommersant. The United States has asked Russia to deliver an ultimatum to Iran, warning the Islamic Republic that it has one last chance for talks before a military strike, the Kommersant daily quoted Russian diplomats as saying on Wednesday. According to the Russian newspaper, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York on Monday to tell Tehran that it has one last chance to solve the conflict peacefully by making progress in the talks with the P5+1 group - United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany. Otherwise, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will occur within months, the diplomats said. The report in Kommersant did not give further details regarding the kind of military action the U.S. was threatening, but quoted Russian diplomats at the UN as saying they believe that it is a "matter of when, not if" Israel would strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
Last week, Clinton said that there is still space for diplomacy to resolve Iran's nuclear standoff with the West shortly after European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced that the P5+1 group agreed to restart talks with Iran. A time and venue of the talks has yet to be set.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a series of television interviews, said last week that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities could take place within months. "We're not standing with a stopwatch in hand," he said. "It's not a matter of days or weeks, but also not of years. The result must be removal of the threat of nuclear weapons in Iran's hands." Netanyahu met with U.S. President Barack Obama last week and tried to pressure him to harden his tone on Iran.  Netanyahu told Obama that he had not yet made any decision about whether to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, though he made it clear he did not rule out such a move in the future. In statements to the press both before and after the meeting Netanyahu said Israel has the sovereign right to defend itself against Iran.

Iran threatens N. Israel with bombardment from Lebanon
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 14, 2012/Tehran has begun capitalizing on its allies” two perceived victories: Bashar Assad’s success in seizing Idlib from rebel hands and the Palestinian Jihad Islami’s triumphal missile assault from Gaza. The Iranians are now moving forward with plans to match the Palestinian assault on southern Israeli with an offensive on the north from Lebanon. This is reported by debkafile’s exclusive sources in the wake of a visit paid by high-ranking Iranian and Hizballah officials Wednesday morning, March 14, to the Lebanese-Israeli border region opposite Metulah, Israel’s northernmost town at the tip of the Galilee Panhandle. The Iranian group, led by Ali Akbar Javanfekr, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spokesman, arrived in a heavily guarded convoy at the Fatma outpost opposite Metulah for its rendezvous with Hizballah military intelligence officers.
Once there, they kept moving around near the Lebanese-Israeli border fence. At times, they came up close and examined the Israel Defense Forces’ ongoing work for fortifying the border fence and upgrading it from a boundary marker to a military barrier able to withstand terrorist incursions into the Galilee panhandle.
The Iranian visitor, Javanfekr, commented in the hearing of our sources: “The Zionists can build any wall they like, whether of concrete, iron or plastic, but we and Hizballah will knock it down, like Israel itself.” He pitched his voice loudly enough to carry across the border. His words were taken by top Israeli commanders as a blunt threat of a missile offensive on similar lines to the Gaza confrontation – only this time instead of Jihad Islami in Gaza, Hizballah would be entrusted with shooting missiles from Lebanon.
Word of this threat spurred Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to sharpen his tone in his speech to the Knesset later Wednesday and declare, “We shall strike Iran even if our American friends object.”  He was further irked by a decision by US President Barack Obama and visiting British premier David Cameron, reported by debkafile’s Washington sources, to intensify their efforts for holding Israel back from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Netanyahu therefore stressed once again that Israel would decide for itself the best way to pre-empt a nuclear Iran.
No sooner were his comments broadcast, when Washington announced that Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro would be traveling to Israel forthwith. He will no doubt try and clarify how far Netanyahu really means to go.

Netanyahu: Gaza violence shows Israel cannot afford to be lax on Iran nuclear threat
By Jonathan Lis/Haaretz
In speech to Knesset, PM says Israel must be able to defend itself, blames Kadima's 2005 disengagement in allowing Iranian takeover of Gaza and says Iran's base in the Strip will be 'uprooted sooner or later.'Israel cannot allow terror groups to be backed by a nuclear Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech to the Knesset on Wednesday, adding that those who say he is exaggerating the severity of the Iranian threat were those who allowed Iran's takeover of the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu spoke following a recently achieved truce between and Israel Defense Forces and Gaza militants which capped four days of rocket attacks on southern Israel and Israeli strikes of the Strip.
Referring to the recent bout of violence in his address to the Knesset, Netanyahu blamed Iran for taking over the Gaza Strip through the Hamas militant group, saying that "the dominant element driving events in Gaza is not the Palestinians but Iran, who is building the infrastructures, provides the money, and sometimes gives the orders," and that sooner or later, the Iranian base in Gaza "will be uprooted."
"Gaza is Iran's forward position," the PM added, saying that he exited Sharon's cabinet prior to 2005 disengagement since he knew then that "rockets would fly out of Gaza, fly at Ashkelon, Be'er Sheva, at Ashdod. They said we were spreading panic, that the move would lead to a breakthrough to peace. What breakthrough? What peace?"
Netanyahu then directly accused the disengagement for allowing the Iranian takeover of the Strip, telling the Kadima MKs: "Iran was let into Gaza, but it wasn't we that let Iran into Gaza, it was you."
"As soon as we were out, Iran went in," the premier added, saying the same criticism of his stance toward the disengagement in 2005 was used currently to play down the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat.
"A nuclear Iran would represent an existential threat on the State of Israel and the safety of the entire world," the premier said.
Netanyahu then warned against the effect of a nuclear power backing terror groups such as those which have been attacking southern Israel with rockets, saying: "Imagine that behind terror groups was a country calling for our destruction and armed with nuclear bombs."
"Are you ready for that? I'm not. Every leader knows this cannot be allowed to pass. An Israeli prime minister cannot hand over the ability to act against this threat to others," the PM said.
The premier also rejected claims that he was centering on the Iranian issue in order to bypass peace talks with the Palestinians, saying that there were "many reasons to making peace with the Palestinians – because we want peace, calm, because I don't want a bi-national state."
"But it would be a dangerous illusion to think that such an agreement would stop Iran and its proxies," he added.
Netanyahu also brought up several instances in which Israel acted in opposition to the United States' stance, including David Ben-Gurion declaring independence, Levi Eshkol's actions in the run-up to the Six-Day War and Menachem Begin's decision to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor.
Speaking of the recently achieved truce between Israel and Gaza militants in an interview with Haaretz on Tuesday, the head of the Defense Ministry's political department, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad said that the understandings reached were "very simple - quiet in exchange for quiet."
He said the understandings were not spelled out in a signed document, and the only Israeli commitment was that if the Palestinian organizations refrained from launching attacks on Israel, the IDF would also hold its fire.
At first, at the Palestinians' request, the Egyptians also attempted to obtain an Israeli commitment to refrain from targeted killings of senior figures in the various terrorist organizations. But Israeli officials said this effort was shelved in the face of Israeli opposition. "There were no guarantees and no other promises," said Gilad, denying Islamic Jihad's claim that Israel did in fact promise to refrain from targeted killings of the organization's operatives.
"Major credit goes to the Egyptians for the successful effort they invested in obtaining a cease-fire," Gilad added.

Gaza’s blood-traders fighting al-Assad’s battle?
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
Whilst the world is in a state of shock with regards to the massacres that continue to be carried out against the Syrian people at the hands of the Bashar al-Assad regime, “tinplate” rockets were being fired from Gaza into Israel, and the Israelis, of course, responded to this with violence, and then suddenly it was announced that the Egyptians had mediated and therefore the situation had calmed, and then Hamas announced that it was involved in this. So why did what happen happen? Why was the Egyptian mediation accepted in the first place?
I challenge anybody from Hamas or any other Gaza organization to come out with a compelling answer about why “tinplate” rockets were fired into Israel in the first place, and whose interests are served for the lives of the Palestinian people to be lost in this saddening manner? There is no balance of power between Hamas or Islamic Jihad and Israel, whilst the Arabs are all preoccupied in attempting to protect the blood of the Syrian people from the tyrant of Damascus; this is not to mention the fact that most of the Arab states are preoccupied with their own affairs today, and the entire world is also preoccupied with stopping the massacres that are being carried out against the Syrian people.
This is both puzzling and striking; what is puzzling is the extent to which Palestinian blood is viewed as cheap, whilst what is striking is that it is clear that the division within Hamas is intensifying. It seems that those who sought to divide the Palestinians on the day that Hamas forcibly overthrew the Palestinian Authority [in the Gaza Strip] are today seeking to turn Hamas against itself, as well as create friction between Hamas and its allies who are affiliated to Iran, otherwise how else can we understand Ismail Haniyeh’s public support for the Syrian revolution at the same time that Hamas was attempting to involve Gaza in a meaningless and reward-less battle with Israel? So what is achieved with the firing of these rockets [into Israel], and indeed what was achieved in the first place following the Egyptian mediation? It is clear that the objective of the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel was to serve Iran and al-Assad, but why didn’t Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others in Gaza ask themselves a simple question, namely: why hasn’t Hezbollah rushed to defend Bashar al-Assad, whilst this defense is taking place from Gaza? Why hasn’t Hezbollah sacrificed even a single fighter in confronting Israel in defense of al-Assad, whilst the lives of innocence are lost in Gaza in an attempt to distract attention away from the al-Assad regime’s crimes in Syria?
It is saddening that whilst Hezbollah and Iran support al-Assad in suppressing the innocent Syrian people with money, equipment and men, Hamas and its allies were attempting to set fire to Gaza solely in order to rescue the al-Assad regime, whose collapse is inevitable. When we say that this is saddening and shameful, this is for a number of clear and simple reasons; the attempt to set fire to Gaza at this time indicates that Hamas and others do not care about the Syrian blood and the massacres that are being carried out against them, something that has shocked and dismayed the Arab and indeed the entire world. This also indicates that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all Iran’s allies in Gaza do not even care about the blood of the people of Gaza, indeed they are unfortunately trading in this blood, in defense of a regime that kills women and children, and destroys houses of worship.
Therefore, it is clear that the traders of Gaza, the traders of Palestinian blood, were attempting to fight al-Assad’s battle, whose own regime has killed Palestinians, whilst Hezbollah and Iran are busy supporting al-Assad in crushing the Syrian revolution. So how long will Palestinian blood be exploited in this manner? Only God knows.


Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird Honours Human Rights Defenders
2012 John Diefenbaker Awards recognize Shahbaz Bhatti and Susana Trimarco
March 14, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today presented this year’s John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award to the late Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s former Federal Minister for Minorities, and Susana Trimarco, Argentinian activist and founder of the Fundación María de los Ángeles.
“With this award, Canada honours the memory of Shahbaz Bhatti, whose determined efforts in the struggle for equality, justice and freedom cost him his life,” said Baird. “Braving multiple threats to his safety, Mr. Bhatti worked tirelessly to advance the rights of Pakistan’s religious minorities.” Mr. Peter Bhatti accepted the award on behalf of his late brother.
“Canada also hails the courage of Susana Trimarco, who helped to shed light on the world of human trafficking and forced prostitution while searching for her missing daughter,” Baird said. “The foundation she created, Fundación María de los Ángeles, has helped raise awareness of this issue. Through Ms. Trimarco’s unyielding determination, she has helped hundreds of victims escape inhumane conditions.” Canada is among those nations leading the world in combatting human trafficking.
“Canada stands with the defenders of human rights for all—people who courageously seek to promote and protect fundamental freedoms around the world.
For more information, see Address by Minister Baird at Second Annual John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award Ceremony.
- 30 -
A backgrounder follows.
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
Backgrounder - Diefenbaker Award and Recipients
Shahbaz Bhatti
Shahbaz Bhatti was elected to the National Assembly of Pakistan in 2008 and named Federal Minister for Minorities—a portfolio he accepted because of the opportunity it offered to defend the oppressed and marginalized of Pakistan.
As Minister, Mr. Bhatti took steps to advance the rights of religious minorities. These included launching a national campaign to promote interfaith harmony. Mr. Bhatti also fought valiantly against abuses of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws during his time in government.
Mr. Bhatti helped to found the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance in 1985 and subsequently chaired that organization. He also served as head of Pakistan’s Christian Liberation Front, which he formed in 1985. In 2002, he joined the Pakistan Peoples Party.
Minister Bhatti visited Canada in February 2011 where he met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, among other government ministers.
Shortly after his visit to Canada, Minister Bhatti was assassinated while on his way to work.
Susana Trimarco
Susana Trimarco is the mother of Marita Verón, who was kidnapped in April 2002 at the age of 23 by human traffickers. In the search for her daughter, Ms. Trimarco began a personal quest that led her to brothels, run by traffickers, across Argentina and as far away as Spain. In the process, she discovered many women and girls who were victims of human trafficking.
Despite threats to her life, she has continued fighting against those profiting from the illegal sex trade. In 2007, she established the Fundación María de los Ángeles in the name of her daughter to investigate human trafficking, provide assistance to trafficking victims and promote stronger government policies aimed at combatting human trafficking.
Ms. Trimarco is credited for finding over 100 victims of human trafficking and has spent many years helping them rebuild their lives. She has been instrumental in raising awareness about human trafficking in Argentina and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
John Diefenbaker Defender of Human Rights and Freedom Award
The Diefenbaker Award was created in 2010 by then Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to honour individuals or groups who show exceptional courage and leadership in defending human rights and freedom. The award was named in recognition of former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who during his time in office championed human rights both in Canada and around the world. His determination to secure rights for all led to the passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960.
Potential candidates for this award around the world are identified by Canada’s global network of diplomatic missions, in consultation with key government partners. Candidates are carefully screened on the basis of their human rights contributions. The final selection is made by the Foreign Affairs Minister.
This non-monetary award is presented annually as part of Canada’s larger commitment to promoting freedom around the world.

Nasrallah, Hamas: Israel 'tested' Gaza factions ahead of possible Iran strike
Elior Levy /Ynetnews
Hezbollah leader meets top Islamist group figures in Lebanon; according to local newspaper, they claimed Israel instigated latest round of violence in south to gauge terrorists' readiness to take part in regional conflict .Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah met with senior Hamas figures on Monday to discuss regional developments, Lebanese newspaper Al-Sapir reported.
According to the report, published Wednesday, Hamas' delegation was headed by Deputy Politburo Chief Moussa Abu Marzouk. The meeting in Lebanon focused on the latest round of violence between Israel and Gaza, the uprising in Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood's ties to Hezbollah and Iran
The report said that during the meeting Hamas' leaders and the head of the Lebanese Shiite group agreed to launch a number of joint projects aimed at dealing with the crisis in Syria and boosting relations with the Muslim Brotherhood amid the recent developments in the Arab world.
A Lebanese source told Al-Sapir that despite the rift between Hamas and President Bashar Assad's regime, Nasrallah and the Islamist group's representatives agreed that military intervention in Syria would not resolve the crisis. They called for the introduction of political reforms in Syria, in accordance with a Russian initiative that is also backed by Iran and China.
According to the report, Nasrallah told the Hamas representatives that Syria's leadership is interested in bringing an end to the fighting with opposition forces – should they agree to a political solution. The Hezbollah leader called on the parties in Syria to reach an agreement similar to the one that ended the civil war in Lebanon.
'Israel instigated violence'
Nasrallah and the Hamas representatives also agreed to cooperate on efforts to improve the relations between Iran and the Arab countries.
During the meeting, which took place before the ceasefire between Israel and the armed factions in Gaza went into effect, the sides accused the Jewish state of instigating the violence in order to test the Palestinian terror groups' readiness to engage in a conflict with Israel in case a regional war breaks out following an attack on Iran.
Last month Nasrallah's deputy, Sheikh Naim Kassem, warned that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would ignite a regional war. He said the Shiite group's operatives were better equipped and better trained than they were during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. However, Kassem did not say whether Hezbollah would attack Israel in the event of a strike in Iran.
The Lebanese source told the newspaper that Hezbollah and Hamas agreed to hold additional meetings to coordinate the planned mass march on Israel's borders, which is scheduled for the end of March.
During the latest round of violence, Palestinian terrorists launched some 250 rockets and mortars toward Israel. In response to the rocket fire, the IDF launched dozens of strikes in Gaza. The Palestinians said 26 people were killed in these attacks.


Exclusive: secret Assad emails lift lid on life of leader's inner circle
• Messages show Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran
• Leader made light of promised reforms
• Wife spent thousands on jewellery and furniture
Robert Booth, Mona Mahmood and Luke Harding
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 14 March 2012 23.03
Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran on how to handle the uprising against his rule, according to a cache of what appear to be several thousand emails received and sent by the Syrian leader and his wife.
The Syrian leader was also briefed in detail about the presence of western journalists in the Baba Amr district of Homs and urged to "tighten the security grip" on the opposition-held city in November.
The revelations are contained in more than 3,000 documents that activists say are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Assad and his wife Asma.
The messages, which have been obtained by the Guardian, are said to have been intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June and early February.
The documents, which emerge on the first anniversary of the rebellion that has seen more than 8,000 Syrians killed, paint a portrait of a first family remarkably insulated from the mounting crisis and continuing to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.
They appear to show the president's wife spending thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while he swaps entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes.
As the world watched in horror at the brutal suppression of protests across the country and many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, Mrs Assad spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.
The Guardian has made extensive efforts to authenticate the emails by checking their contents against established facts and contacting 10 individuals whose correspondence appears in the cache. These checks suggest the messages are genuine, but it has not been possible to verify every one.
The emails also appear to show that:
• Assad established a network of trusted aides who reported directly to him through his "private" email account – bypassing both his powerful clan and the country's security apparatus.
• Assad made light of reforms he had promised in an attempt to defuse the crisis, referring to "rubbish laws of parties, elections, media".
• A daughter of the emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani, this year advised Mr and Mrs Assad to leave Syria and suggested Doha may offer them exile.
• Assad sidestepped extensive US sanctions against him by using a third party with a US address to make purchases of music and apps from Apple's iTunes.
• A Dubai-based company, al-Shahba, with a registered office in London is a key conduit for Syrian government business and private purchases of Mrs Assad.
Activists say they were passed username and password details believed to have been used by the couple by a mole in the president's inner circle. The email addresses used the domain name alshahba.com, a group of companies used by the regime. They say the details allowed uninterrupted access to the two inboxes until the leak was discovered in February.
The emails appear to show how Assad assembled a team of aides to advise him on media strategy and how to position himself in the face of increasing international criticism of his regime's attempts to crush the uprising, which is now thought to have left 10,000 dead.
Activists say they were able to monitor the inboxes of Assad and his wife in real time for several months. In several cases they claim to have used information to warn colleagues in Damascus of imminent regime moves against them.
The access continued until 7 February, when a threatening email arrived in the inbox thought to be used by Assad after the account's existence was revealed when the Anonymous group separately hacked into a number of Syrian government email addresses. Correspondence to and from the two addresses ceased on the same day.
The emails appear to show that Assad received advice from Iran or its proxies on several occasions during the crisis. Before a speech in December his media consultant prepared a long list of themes, reporting that the advice was based on "consultations with a good number of people in addition to the media and political adviser for the Iranian ambassador".
The memo advised the president to use "powerful and violent" language and to show appreciation for support from "friendly states". It also advised that the regime should "leak more information related to our military capability" to convince the public that it could withstand a military challenge.
The president also received advice from Hussein Mortada, an influential Lebanese businessman with strong connections to Iran. In December, Mortada urged Assad to stop blaming al-Qaida for an apparent twin car bombing in Damascus, which took place the day before an Arab League observer mission arrived in the country. He said he had been in contact with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon who shared his view.
"It is not out of our interest to say that al-Qaida is behind the operation because this claim will [indemnify] the US administration and Syrian opposition," Mortada wrote not long after the blasts. "I have received contacts from Iran and Hezbollah in my role as director of many Iranian-Lebanese channels and they directed me to not mention that al-Qaida is behind the operation. It is a blatant tactical media mistake."
In another email Mortada advised the president that the regime needed to take control of public squares between 3pm and 9pm to deny opposition groups the opportunity to gather there.
Iran and Hezbollah have been accused throughout the year-long uprising of providing on-the-ground support to the regime crackdown, including sending soldiers to fight alongside regime forces and technical experts to help identify activists using the internet. Iran and Hezbollah both deny offering anything more than moral support.
Among those who communicated with the president's account were Khaled al-Ahmed who, it is believed, was given the task of advising about Homs and Idlib. In November Ahmed wrote to Assad urging him to "tighten the security grip to start [the] operation to restore state control in Idlib and Hama countryside".
He also advised Assad that he had been told European reporters had "entered the area by crossing the Lebanese borders illegally". In another mail he warned the president that "a tested source who met with leaders of groups in Baba Amr today said a big shipment of weapons coming from Libya will arrive to the shores of one of the neighbouring states within three days to be smuggled to Syria".
Robert Booth, Mona Mahmood and Luke Harding
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 March 2012 23.03 GMT Article history
Bashar al-Assad apparently made light of reforms he had promised in an attempt to defuse the Syrian crisis. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran on how to handle the uprising against his rule, according to a cache of what appear to be several thousand emails received and sent by the Syrian leader and his wife.
The Syrian leader was also briefed in detail about the presence of western journalists in the Baba Amr district of Homs and urged to "tighten the security grip" on the opposition-held city in November.
The revelations are contained in more than 3,000 documents that activists say are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Assad and his wife Asma.
The messages, which have been obtained by the Guardian, are said to have been intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June and early February.
The documents, which emerge on the first anniversary of the rebellion that has seen more than 8,000 Syrians killed, paint a portrait of a first family remarkably insulated from the mounting crisis and continuing to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.
They appear to show the president's wife spending thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while he swaps entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes.
As the world watched in horror at the brutal suppression of protests across the country and many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, Mrs Assad spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.
The Guardian has made extensive efforts to authenticate the emails by checking their contents against established facts and contacting 10 individuals whose correspondence appears in the cache. These checks suggest the messages are genuine, but it has not been possible to verify every one.
The emails also appear to show that:
• Assad established a network of trusted aides who reported directly to him through his "private" email account – bypassing both his powerful clan and the country's security apparatus.
• Assad made light of reforms he had promised in an attempt to defuse the crisis, referring to "rubbish laws of parties, elections, media".
• A daughter of the emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani, this year advised Mr and Mrs Assad to leave Syria and suggested Doha may offer them exile.
• Assad sidestepped extensive US sanctions against him by using a third party with a US address to make purchases of music and apps from Apple's iTunes.
• A Dubai-based company, al-Shahba, with a registered office in London is a key conduit for Syrian government business and private purchases of Mrs Assad.
Activists say they were passed username and password details believed to have been used by the couple by a mole in the president's inner circle. The email addresses used the domain name alshahba.com, a group of companies used by the regime. They say the details allowed uninterrupted access to the two inboxes until the leak was discovered in February.
The emails appear to show how Assad assembled a team of aides to advise him on media strategy and how to position himself in the face of increasing international criticism of his regime's attempts to crush the uprising, which is now thought to have left 10,000 dead.
Activists say they were able to monitor the inboxes of Assad and his wife in real time for several months. In several cases they claim to have used information to warn colleagues in Damascus of imminent regime moves against them.
The access continued until 7 February, when a threatening email arrived in the inbox thought to be used by Assad after the account's existence was revealed when the Anonymous group separately hacked into a number of Syrian government email addresses. Correspondence to and from the two addresses ceased on the same day.
The emails appear to show that Assad received advice from Iran or its proxies on several occasions during the crisis. Before a speech in December his media consultant prepared a long list of themes, reporting that the advice was based on "consultations with a good number of people in addition to the media and political adviser for the Iranian ambassador".
The memo advised the president to use "powerful and violent" language and to show appreciation for support from "friendly states". It also advised that the regime should "leak more information related to our military capability" to convince the public that it could withstand a military challenge.
The president also received advice from Hussein Mortada, an influential Lebanese businessman with strong connections to Iran. In December, Mortada urged Assad to stop blaming al-Qaida for an apparent twin car bombing in Damascus, which took place the day before an Arab League observer mission arrived in the country. He said he had been in contact with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon who shared his view."It is not out of our interest to say that al-Qaida is behind the operation because this claim will [indemnify] the US administration and Syrian opposition," Mortada wrote not long after the blasts. "I have received contacts from Iran and Hezbollah in my role as director of many Iranian-Lebanese channels and they directed me to not mention that al-Qaida is behind the operation. It is a blatant tactical media mistake."In another email Mortada advised the president that the regime needed to take control of public squares between 3pm and 9pm to deny opposition groups the opportunity to gather there.
Iran and Hezbollah have been accused throughout the year-long uprising of providing on-the-ground support to the regime crackdown, including sending soldiers to fight alongside regime forces and technical experts to help identify activists using the internet. Iran and Hezbollah both deny offering anything more than moral support.
Among those who communicated with the president's account were Khaled al-Ahmed who, it is believed, was given the task of advising about Homs and Idlib. In November Ahmed wrote to Assad urging him to "tighten the security grip to start [the] operation to restore state control in Idlib and Hama countryside".
He also advised Assad that he had been told European reporters had "entered the area by crossing the Lebanese borders illegally". In another mail he warned the president that "a tested source who met with leaders of groups in Baba Amr today said a big shipment of weapons coming from Libya will arrive to the shores of one of the neighbouring states within three days to be smuggled to Syria".
Link to this video The emails offer a rare window into the mind of the isolated Syrian leader, apparently lurching between self-pity, defiance and flippancy as he swapped links to amusing video footage with his aides and wife. On one occasion he forwards to an aide a link to YouTube footage of a crude re-enactment of the siege of Homs using toys and biscuits.
Throughout 2011, his wife appears to have kept up regular correspondence with the Qatar emir's daughter, Mayassa al-Thani. But relations appear to have chilled early this year when Thani directly suggested that the Syrian leader step down.
"My father regards President Bashar as a friend, despite the current tensions – he always gave him genuine advice," she wrote on 11 December. "The opportunity for real change and development was lost a long time ago. Nevertheless, one opportunity closes, others open up – and I hope its not too late for reflection and coming out of the state of denial."
A second email on 30 January was more forthright and including a tacit offer of exile. "Just been following the latest developments in Syria … in all honesty – looking at the tide of history and the escalation of recent events – we've seen two results – leaders stepping down and getting political asylum or leaders being brutally attacked. I honestly think this is a good opportunity to leave and re-start a normal life. I only pray that you will convince the president to take this an opportunity to exit without having to face charges. The region needs to stabilise, but not more than you need peace of mind. I am sure you have many places to turn to, including Doha."
The direct line of reporting to Assad, independent of the police state's military and intelligence agencies, was a trait of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for three decades until his death in 2000 ushered the then 36-year-old scion into the presidency. Assad Sr was renowned for establishing multiple reporting lines from security chiefs and trusted aides in the belief that it would deny the opportunity for any one agency to become powerful enough to pose a threat to him. His son has reputedly shown the same instincts through his decade of rule. The year-long uprising against his decade of rule appeared to be faltering this week as forces loyal to Assad retook the key northern city of Idlib.
Much of Assad's media advice comes from two young US-educated Syrian women, Sheherazad Jaafari and Hadeel al-Al. Both regularly stress to Assad, who uses the address sam@alshahba, the importance of social media and the importance of intervening in online discussions. At one point, Jaafari boasts that CNN has fallen for a nom-de-guerre that she set up to post pro-regime remarks. The emails also reveal that the media team has convinced Twitter to close accounts that purport to represent the Syrian regime.
Several weeks after sam@alshahba.com email was compromised in February, a new Syrian state TV channel broadcast two segments denying the email address had been used by Assad. Opposition activists claim that this was a pre-emptive move to discredit any future leaking of the emails.
On Wednesday Assad announced new parliamentary elections to be held across Syria on 7 May. The move appears to be in response to Kofi Annan's demand following his visit to Damascus over the weekend for a ceasefire coupled with elections. Activists have described a referendum last month that paved the way for the poll as a sham.
There was further bloodshed on the ground. Opposition activists said government forces killed dozens of people near a mosque in the city of Idlib, with rebels killing at least 10 troops in the same area. In Homs, residents said the old part of the city came under government bombardment. They also reported a massacre of 53 people in the Karm el-Zeytoun area of south-east Homs.
The US president, Barack Obama, signed an executive order last May imposing sanctions against Assad and other Syrian government officials.
In addition to freezing their US assets, the order prohibited "US persons" from engaging in transactions with them. The EU adopted similar measures against Assad last year. They include an EU-wide travel ban for the Syrian president and an embargo on military exports to Syria.

Syria's Faceless Voices Risk Their Lives by Speaking Out
By KRISTEN MCTIGHE/NYT
Published: March 14, 2012
CAIRO — Rami Jarrah knew the consequences he could face if he were caught, so he spent more than six months hiding his identity to expose the violence and bloodshed he saw at the hands of the Syrian regime. When he was finally confronted by a group of men at a kiosk near his house just two days after being stopped at a checkpoint in Damascus, he knew something was wrong.
“They said, ‘If you don’t keep your mouth shut, we’ll kill you,”’ said Mr. Jarrah, 28, in an interview in Cairo. “It was just a normal sentence, but I thought, ‘Could it be? Could they have been sent because they knew I was talking to the media?”’
To the world, Mr. Jarrah was known as Alexander Page, a faceless voice with flawless English who told a detailed account of a brutal government crackdown at a time when nearly all foreign media were banned. But at a time when international intervention remains in question and violence shows little sign of abating, Mr. Jarrah’s involvement and narrow escape have underscored the risks Syrian activist-journalists have taken to document and bring the events of the nearly yearlong uprising to the rest of the world.
Born in Cyprus and raised in London, Mr. Jarrah’s long stay in Syria was not one he had planned. With the intention of visiting family for the first time, he returned in 2004 and was detained.
“They accused me of forging my passport and of being some sort of spy,” said Mr. Jarrah, the son of Syrian activists who had fled the country before his birth. Mr. Jarrah had obtained his passport through the Syrian Embassy in London, but because his parents were married outside of the country and because of miscommunication on the part of the embassy, he was not registered in Syria. What was supposed to be a one-week trip turned into three years of legal battles. He was released during this battle under the condition that he would complete paperwork to prove he was Syrian, and he was not allowed to leave the country.
As he awaited his paperwork, he found work as an import-export consultant for a trading company in Damascus. When his ordeal was over, he decided to stay.
“I just figured I could work for a few years then move elsewhere,” he said.
He became frustrated at what he felt was a lack of courage among Syrians to speak out, so he planned to leave the country in 2011. Then in mid-March of last year, things began to change. When residents in a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti, the government responded with heavy-handed force and demonstrations spread across the country. Mr. Jarrah joined the Local Coordination Committees of Syria and decided to stay. The committees are a network of local groups tracking the Syrian protests.
He began communicating online, but he was careful to remain anonymous, even among activists. On March 18, when a protest was planned following Friday afternoon prayers, Mr. Jarrah joined.
“I was looking around and people were yawning, and I thought, ‘Nothing’s going to happen,”’ he said of that day in the mosque. “Then, suddenly, someone runs up and yells, ‘My two children are in prison. I haven’t seen them for years,’ then, ‘I want freedom.’ Then everyone got up.” In a country deemed “a kingdom of silence” just months before, the protest movement was gaining momentum.
“Everything changed in that moment,” he said. “We’ve all spoken to each other about the first time demonstrating, and they all say they have that feeling where, suddenly, everything is a bit easier, you can do it again.”
So he continued, and on March 22, he participated in a demonstration in Damascus. This time, government troops responded with force, killing nine people and arresting dozens. Though Mr. Jarrah escaped unscathed, the emotional toll was heavy Walking away we cried like little children, feeling useless and helpless. I had no doubt I was going to be told it was not my fault and that there was nothing I could have done,” he wrote on his blog. “But to have seen the massacre of innocent people right in front of my eyes, and standing only a few meters away from the murderers that were doing it, I could not help but assure myself that I was a coward.” Distraught, he returned home. When members of the Local Coordination Committees found out he had witnessed the events and was fluent in English, he was asked to speak to foreign media. Late that night, he went on Al Jazeera and described what had happened.
Unable to show his face or reveal his name, he called himself Alexander Page, an artist he had come across at random online just minutes before. When he was contacted again by CNN, they asked him to use the name and it stuck.
“Every time I had a news outlet contact me, I had to go out and film something to prove that I was in Syria,” he said. And filming soon brought danger, when at a protest on March 25 he was caught recording on his iPhone. Arrested and detained for three days, he was stripped to his boxers, forced to stand, deprived of food and water, not allowed to sleep, and endured repeated beatings. Before he was released, he had to confess to being a terrorist.
“At the time it was severe for what I was doing, but it doesn’t compare to what happens now,” Mr. Jarrah said. “We have over 10,000 missing people in Syria and we are almost sure they have been tortured to death.”
After his release, Mr. Jarrah found himself at odds with his work. He was the employee of a company with close ties to the regime, so he was required to participate in a pro-government rally in April. He refused and quit.
Now jobless, Mr. Jarrah went on blogging and using Twitter and Facebook to tell the story of what he witnessed, all under the name of Alexander Page. He continued giving interviews and became one of the most sought after figures to report on the violence, but it came at a price.
At a protest in Damascus in October, Mr. Jarrah was stopped at a government checkpoint and caught carrying a 3G wireless router used to provide wireless Internet access to the crowds. Two days later, he was confronted by a group of men at a kiosk near his house and a scuffle broke out in which the men told him to keep quiet or he would be killed. Fearing the incidents were related, he reported it to the authorities to avoid looking suspicious. Still uneasy, he asked a contact with connections in the Syrian intelligence to run a check on his pseudonym.
At 4 a.m. that night, his contact called. The name Rami Jarrah was associated with Alexander Page and he was wanted. “I was out of the house in about two hours,” Mr. Jarrah said. He fled with his wife and baby daughter, crossing into Jordan and making his way to Cairo. Once there, he continued giving interviews with media and using his pseudonym on Twitter and Facebook. But with his identity now known, his project with Alexander Page changed.
“There are thousands of people in Syria who were doing exactly what I was doing, so I just thought that the ‘Page project’ would be something that represented them,” he said. “When I was outed, it became me, so we began the Activists News Association.”
Working out of a small apartment in Cairo, the association he founded alongside fellow exiled activists connects activists in Syria with mainstream journalists. They are organizing the videos flowing out of Syria, compiling information of the dead and spreading it all via Twitter and Facebook. In the future, they plan to forward everything to the International Criminal Court.
“We want to document Assad crimes. To do that, we have to gather up every video that was taken in Syria,” Mr. Jarrah said as he sat in the office alongside a wall of televisions projecting newscasts in which many of the activists’ videos were being used. “You have over 1,000 videos filmed every day, maybe more. What we see on TV is really just a small percentage of what is filmed.” Other activists have followed what Mr. Jarrah is doing. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, another activist network, has also set up system of gathering and verifying crude information received from activists on deaths and human rights violations. Dr. Mousab Azzawi, a consultant pathologist and activist based in London who serves as the group’s chairman, said they have a team of 231 verifiers inside Syria consisting of medical doctors, lawyers and other highly trained professionals. With his own pathology expertise, he has also helped train activists on the ground.
“We give them rules they must stick to,” Dr. Azzawi said. “If someone is killed we need the name, the father’s name, the family name, the age, the place, what happened, a statement from a family member, and then we will add it to the database.”
Syria has become an example of the ways in which citizen journalists can step up when foreign media have been restricted. “Activists in Syria have networks of information that have been developed over the past month that no foreign media could ever dream of,” said Lucie Morillon, head of the new media desk at Reporters Without Borders. “We talk about citizen journalists, but they are activists as well, so what they want to do is get the story out about the repression and the massacre that is going on.”
Ms. Morillon said such people were highly motivated. “They are willing to risk everything and believe that if they want this to stop, they have to alert the international community,” she said.
While activists continue to take risks to get the attention of the international community, the frustration that people like Mr. Jarrah express after months of stalemate and what he perceives as continued misconceptions is clear.
“There is no such thing as civil war. That’s the game the government is playing and they’re trying to provoke that idea,” Mr. Jarrah said. “What’s happening is the army is attacking people and they are detaining people and people have feelings. They’re not just going to sit and watch people get massacred.”
And Mr. Jarrah sees an urgency in the situation. “The whole international community is moving slow and we don’t know how long the Syrian people can hold this off, how long they cannot be provoked into civil war, not be provoked into sectarian violence, or whatever else,” he said. “It’s been a year.”
Mainstream journalists who have recently escaped the country have also felt a necessity to speak out.
Paul Conroy, a photographer with The Sunday Times of Britain who recently escaped after being wounded in the same attack that killed a colleague, Marie Colvin, spoke to Sky News from a hospital bed in London. “People brought me half a baby in and say, ‘Save my baby, where’s the help?’ And I have no answer,” Mr. Conroy said. “I don’t know how we can stand by and watch this. It’s not a war. It’s a massacre, an indiscriminate massacre of men women and children.”
He added: “Once the cameras are gone, which they are now, god knows what is happening.”
After Rami Al Sayid, a 26-year-old activist who told the world about the life he lived in Homs, was killed last month, his last words typed on Skype just hours earlier were posted online.
“The people of Baba Amr are now facing genocide,” he wrote. “I don’t want anyone to say, ‘Our hearts are with you.’ We know that. We want campaigns everywhere, inside and outside the country, right now... After an hour there will be no such thing as Baba Amr and I expect this to be my last message ... We will not forgive you.”
Despite all the despair, activists groups have begun going beyond reporting to presenting solutions.
“We can tell people all the casualties, but this is the top priority right now,” said Dr. Azzawi, whose network has presented a plan of international intervention involving humanitarian aid through United Nations organizations that does not require a Security Council approval and a buffer zone on the border with Turkey to be set up for those trapped to escape and to offer a safe haven for soldiers to defect.
“Seventy five to 80 percent of the main body of the Syrian Army are conscripts,” Dr. Azzawi said. “These are ordinary people, not professional soldiers. They are not ready to kill their own people.”
He added that the Syrian Network for Human Rights had received many signals that mass defections would occur, but that many soldiers feared military aircraft, so the group has also proposed a no-flight zone.
“People see only black and white,” Dr. Azzawi said. “It’s either military intervention or leave the Syrians aside. But here, there would be less bloodshed because the main axis of the regime, the army, will fall down very quickly, and the Syrians can free themselves by their own hands.”

Assad must leave to halt civil war: top dissident
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN | Wed Mar 14, 2012
Reuters) - Syria has plunged into civil war and only the departure of President Bashar al-Assad can prevent the country from being torn apart, a veteran opposition figure said. Najati Tayyara, 67, is a Sunni Muslim liberal who fled Syria to Jordan last month after the authorities bowed to pressure from Arab neighbors and released him from prison. One of Syria's most respected human rights campaigners, Tayyara was jailed in May 2011 after warning that the crackdown against protesters and the recruitment of minority Alawites into government militia was a recipe for sectarian disaster. Assad himself is an Alawite and the sect makes up around 10 percent of Syria's 23 million-strong population. The Sunnis make up some 75 percent. "The strategy of the regime is civil war, after it failed to silence the people. So it's trying to protect its future by moving toward dividing the country," Tayyara told Reuters. Assad has accused foreign powers of stirring up the unrest in Syria, which started one year ago and has spread to much of the country, and says terrorists are to blame for the violence. Tayyara said attacks by mostly Alawite militia in his home city of Homs were provoking a backlash of "counter kidnappings, counter killings and counter forced displacement" by Sunni Muslims. "If (the regime) has any vision, then the regime has to pull the country out of the hell of this destructive war that will destroy the whole of Syria," Tayyara said, warning that the conflict could spill over into Iraq and Lebanon, which are also riven by deep ethnic and sectarian divisions.
He added that the only way to resolve the crisis was for Assad to leave power immediately, followed by the creation of a transitional government and internationally monitored elections.
Syrian authorities point to a new constitution approved in a referendum last month which removed a clause granting Assad's ruling Baath Party a monopoly of power. Assad has set a parliamentary election for May 7.
POLICE STATE
"After a year of destruction, a year of organized killings where the army has systematically shelled and destroyed cities, there is no way to move forward except for the regime to withdraw and allow the people free self determination," he said.
The United Nations estimates that Assad's forces have killed more than 8,000 people in their drive to crush the uprising. Damascus says rebels have killed some 2,000 soldiers.
Tayyara was one of the leaders of the Damascus Spring movement, a brief period of openness a decade ago that Assad later crushed.
He said political reforms touted by Assad, such as the new constitution, had not altered the basic fact that Syria remained a police state.
"The regime cannot imagine that the people can say no... When the street erupted under the influence of the Arab Spring, it rejected it and killed demonstrators. It tortured prisoners and raped them. I was a witness." Tayyara said the yearlong revolution had brought to the surface sectarian tensions that had accumulated during five decades of Alawite domination over the country, which saw a small elite control the top jobs and cream off the rewards. "They were only tensions. Now Syrians do not trust each another, unless they are comfortable with their sect," he said.
The veteran campaigner saw little chance of success for the mediation efforts being led by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, saying Annan had little way of pressuring Assad, with China and Russia blocking any Security Council resolution.
He accused government-backed militias of carrying out ethnic cleansing, pointing to a massacre in a mixed area of Homs on Sunday which left up to 50 dead, according to activists.
The government and rebels traded blame for the killings. On Wednesday, Syria's official state media accused Assad opponents of murdering 15 civilians, including small children, in an Alawite district of the battered city. "These massacres aim to force people to flee and instill fear and horror in their hearts," Tayyara said, pinning much of the blame on Assad's feared militia, known as Shabbiha.
"There is an attempt to change the make up of the people in several cities and transform remaining populations into obedient subjects," he added.
But as fighting progressed, he said the Alawites might be pushed back into their mountain strongholds in Western Syria, as Sunnis gained control of much of the rest of the country.
"Assad started with a kingdom that he illegally inherited and is moving toward carving a smaller kingdom somewhere in his mountain to protect himself, to protect his past and to escape being held accountable," he said. (Editing by Crispian Balmer and Samia Nakhoul)

Syria divides Druze in occupied mountain homeland
By Maayan Lubell
(Reuters) - Kameel Khater's friends used to creep out at night to spray anti-Israeli slogans on the walls of their village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. These days they have a different target for their graffiti - the government of near neighbor Syria.
Khater, 35, is one of about 10,000 Druze from the village of Majdal Shams, traditionally a bastion of supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria.
But the film and media student is among a growing number there who are starting to question their historical allegiances in the face of Assad's violent crackdown on a year-long revolt against his rule.
The conflict has divided the village that was captured by Israel from Syria in a 1967 war and still sees Syria as its homeland.
"We are an inseparable part of Syria. The Golan Heights are an inseparable part of Syria. We feel a national and religious belonging to it," said Khater, sitting in his house, within sight of the Syrian border.
"(But) the Syrian regime should be protecting its children. Instead it is killing them ... We talk about it all the time, everywhere in the village," he added.
Khater's house is surrounded by snow-capped mountains covered in wild flowers. But his attention is fixed on uglier images, playing out over the internet and satellite television, from Homs, Damascus and other Syrian battle grounds. Khater's Facebook page is covered with pictures of carnage, anti-Assad posters and caricatures. "What I want is to be an echo of the uprising," he said.
He has even experimented with taking action. On top of his friends' graffiti, they have also tried to organize small protests, antagonizing some parts of the increasingly divided community.
"Some people have told me they will no longer come to have their hair cut in my shop because of my opinions," said Khater, who works as a hairdresser alongside his studies.
GRAFFITI
One person on the receiving end of the strengthening anti-Assad sentiment is Khater's own cousin Wasf Khater, a doctor, who has had graffiti scrawled on the wall of his clinic.
"They did it because I support the (Syrian) regime," he said. "It read, 'Long live the Syrian revolution'. I erased one word so it now reads, 'Long live Syria'."
Footage from Syria of dead men, women and children, some with hands tied behind their backs, blood splattered on the walls around them, was showing on the widescreen TV in the doctor's waiting room.
A Syrian TV station played the pictures in a loop. A caption at the bottom of the screen said the carnage was the work of terrorists. Assad has long blamed foreign-backed "terrorists" for provoking and leading the violence. "Can you seriously believe the regime would kill all these people and broadcast the pictures on the same day the United Nations was convening to discuss Assad? He would be a complete fool to do that. What interest could it serve?" the physician said. "I feel great sorrow and pain when I see these pictures (from Syria)," but the blood, he said, was on the hands of Western powers and their regional allies, trying to topple the president to promote their own interests in the Middle East. "We know the regime has made mistakes. But the solution is simple. Bashar has accepted the people's demands. There will be elections in May. Change should be brought about through the Syrian ballot box, legally," the doctor added.
"HELPLESS"
His 19-year-old niece, Manar Abu Jabar, shifted uncomfortably in her chair while the doctor spoke. "I want people to know that not everyone in the Golan is with Assad," she said later.
Manar said she cried when she first saw the pictures from Syria. "The doctor said only a fool would do that. Well Assad is a fool. What kind of person would kill his own people?" she said as the pictures played over and over. "I feel so helpless, there is nothing we can do from here." Many Majdal Shams residents have family in Syria and events the past year have become a delicate topic. Some in the village fear discussing them in the media could endanger their relatives. Manar's father, Fawzi Abu Jabar, said he does not ask his relatives there about the violence because he does not believe they can speak freely about it. But he himself does not hold back on criticism of Assad. "When the masses took to the streets to demand freedom and dignity, the regime answered them with fire. Its brutality and rigid objection to real change could lead to civil war or outside intervention, which would not be good for anyone," said Abu Jabar, 60.
He remembers when the Golan Heights were under Syrian rule. "After the war we were sure the Israeli occupation would soon be over," he said.
Forty-five years on he is still certain that day will come, but fears it has been pushed even further into the future.
"As long as the political picture is unclear and the Syrian people are busy building their future, they will not be able to deal with (regaining) the Golan," Abu Jabar said.
VILLAGE TENSION
Israel annexed the Golan in 1981, a move not recognized internationally. It gave the Druze there, who today number about 20,000, the option of citizenship. Most rejected it.
Along the narrow winding streets of Majdal Shams the shops and businesses carry signs in both Arabic and Hebrew. Women in tight jeans and heels walking beside others in traditional Druze black dresses and white veils. Most residents make their living in agriculture. Many have studied in universities in Israel and Syria. Israel permits some Majdal Shams residents to visit Syria, which it regards as an enemy state.At the entrance to a village cafe, Cuban music and reggae played over the loudspeakers in the evening as youngsters drifted in.
"Every day I hear people sitting at the bar talking about what is happening in Syria," said Eiad Safadi, 29, the owner. "It pains and saddens all of us. Every family here has family there. This creates tension."
(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Andrew Heavens)

Analysis: One year on, Syria's Assad won't bow to uprising
Reuters) - Bashar al-Assad always said Syria would be different.
When the Arab uprisings first erupted more than a year ago, the Syrian president confidently said his government was in tune with its people, ready to reform on its own terms, and immune from the turmoil starting to sweep the region.
Within weeks he was proved wrong, when a few dozen protesters took to the streets of Damascus on March 15 to call for greater freedoms, setting off one of the most protracted and bloodiest of all the Arab revolts. But while those uprisings toppled four Arab leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, the 46-year-old Assad has withstood the year-long turmoil, deploying tanks, elite troops and artillery to crush rebellion across the country. Bombarding the city of Homs into submission last month and taking control of much of another rebel hotbed in Idlib, Assad has challenged the assumptions of many who just a few weeks ago were talking of his imminent departure.
As the anniversary of the uprising approached there were even comparisons with the nearly four-year war in Bosnia between Serb, Muslim and Croat forces that tore apart the Balkan nation.
The severity of Assad's crackdown, in which the United Nations says 8,000 people have been killed, triggered Western condemnation and sanctions. Arab countries have called on Assad to step aside, while the economy has ground to a halt and the Syrian pound has halved in value. In January, rebel fighters briefly seized control of the eastern suburbs of Damascus, barely five km from the centre of the president's power, while rebels controlled much of Homs, Syria's third biggest city and a major industrial centre. But Assad's forces swept back into the suburbs, dismantled rebel checkpoints and regained control of Homs after a month-long rocket and artillery assault.
And one year on from the first protest - which soon spread south to Deraa where people rallied in support of dozens of children tortured for writing anti-Assad graffiti - Assad is still at the helm, challenging the "Arab Spring" narrative of people power and defying predictions that his days are numbered. "Victory is very close if we remain steadfast," he said in a speech two months ago, dismissing what he said were frequent rumors spread by his opponents that he was leaving the country or might relinquish power. "Shame on you. I am not a person who surrenders his responsibilities," said the president, who took over on the death of his father nearly 12 years ago, extending Assad family rule which stretches back more than four decades.
WESTERN "IMPOTENCE"
For months now Assad's opponents have said it is a question of when, not if, the president will be forced from office.
But world powers are deeply divided over how to respond to the crackdown in Syria, and the chorus of international condemnation of the army assault on Baba Amr in Homs failed to mask the lack of practical response to the killings.
One Western diplomat described the closure of several embassies in Damascus over recent weeks as "a manifestation of impotence" by countries that were running out of options to deal with Syrian authorities. Contradicting the public line from his own capital - one of several which has called on Assad to quit - he said any solution to the crisis in Syria would have to involve the president somehow, even if it meant a transition period leading to him "leaving eventually". "The opposition cannot win militarily because of the authorities' military strength and the willingness to use it intensely and without discrimination," he said. "Bashar is delegitimized and cannot stay in the long run. But he can hold on for a long time."
Assad's sense of purpose in confronting the uprising contrasts with persistent divisions among his opponents.
The main opposition Syrian National Council has won only qualified international support and shows little sign that it has any influence inside Syria with anti-Assad protesters or the armed insurgents who have launched attacks on security forces. It suffered a further setback on Tuesday when prominent dissident and former judge Haitham al-Maleh resigned from the SNC, complaining of a lack of transparency, and said many resignations would follow. The insurgents are also fractured. Fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, they are in fact led by local commanders who operate largely independently of their nominal leadership based across the northern border in Turkey.
After the month-long army assault on Homs, rebels there were forced to retreat, allowing the military to press its crackdown further north in the province of Idlib, neighboring Turkey.
"The recent army operations have reinforced the regime's confidence in its capabilities," said a Lebanese official with close ties to Syria.
"They coincide with a change in the international stance (on Syria) which first emerged with the doubts over whether the opposition could form a single front which could be an alternative to the regime."
CAN ASSAD SURVIVE?
Despite appeals from people caught up in the military siege and bombardment of Homs in February, Western powers have ruled out military intervention in Syria along the lines of the NATO operations which helped to topple Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
In the absence of foreign intervention, opponents who say Assad's days are numbered point to three possible triggers for his downfall: a complete economic meltdown triggered by the turmoil and sanctions on Syrian oil sales; a coup, or wave of top-level defections from the army or business elite; or loss of state control in Aleppo or Damascus.
The president has suffered setbacks on all three fronts in recent months, but no fatal blow to his authority.
"It is possible that Assad could prevent all three of those things from happening, as he has done so far," said Chris Phillips, a Middle East specialist at the University of London.
"In which case this time next year I wouldn't be surprised to see Assad still in power - a much weaker Syrian regime that is fighting a low level civil war, but still theoretically in charge in Damascus."
For the time being, Assad has been bolstered internationally by Russian and Chinese vetoes of United Nations resolutions which would have condemned his repression of the protests. He also has regional support from Iran and the Shi'ite Hezbollah militant group.
Domestically Assad draws support from many of his Alawite community. Other minorities including Christian and Druze have been wary of joining the mainly Sunni Muslim protest movement.
Assad may take comfort from successful campaigns by Arab leaders to crush rebellious populations - Saddam Hussein lost control of 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces after the 1991 Gulf War but fought back to survive another 12 years, while Assad's own father put down an Islamist uprising in the 1980s.
But the Shi'ite rebellion against Saddam was shortlived and Hafez al-Assad was confronting a limited insurgency by Islamist militants. Bashar in contrast faces opposition across the country which has grown, not subsided, in the last year.
If the Free Syrian Army rebels win military support - as proposed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar - they will be even tougher to defeat completely.
"My sense is that his regime will crumble in one way or another," said Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. "The regime is already at the end, it's just that the end can take a very long time."
Perthes said that if Syria slipped further into civil war Assad might choose to cede control of less critical territory and deploy his most loyal forces around vital centers -- Damascus, the eastern oilfields, the Alawite mountains near the Mediterranean and the two main ports of Tartus and Latakia.
Phillips, at the University of London, expected a "very, very slow erosion of both the state and the military" and a gradual slide to wider conflict.
But he said events in Syria over the last year had defied most early predictions, making forecasts for the coming months hazardous.
"A year ago people thought this would go one of several ways. Either Assad would collapse very quickly, or he would be forced to open up the system, or he would crush (the protests) successfully. None of that has happened.
"People didn't really think there was a possibility for a slow burning civil war. But that's what we've got."
(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam, editing by Peter Millership)
 

The Future Movement and the Perspectives of the Arab Spring
March 8, 2012
The year 2011 witnessed the explosion of Arab youth movements, which started in Tunisia and spread to other Arab Nations, especially those with military and security regimes, in which people have suffered for decades from authoritarian oppression, and violation of public and individual liberties. These states lacked peaceful power transfers and did not respect the dignity and rights of human beings. These movements had four characteristics: the large number of participants, their diversity, a majority of youth, and their insistence on the peaceful nature of their movement despite the oppression they suffered since the first day. They also shared the same slogans and goals: freedom, dignity, pluralistic democracy, justice, and civil State.
Since the first weeks, these youth and popular movements received a deep feedback from the Lebanese and from Future Movement supporters, as well as in the Arab World, and the world at large. This was due to the terrible crises experienced by our Arab societies, for more than four decades, during which there were almost no one in the streets and squares of the cities and the villages. The Arab people were deprived of their right to express their opinion and interests, depression was rampant, and the hope for the future diminished for large groups of people. Oppression was imposed as an alternative to extremism. The Arab and national dignity was violated by organized tyranny and by the security state, internally, and by the states’ inability to face invasions, wars, and foreign interventions, as well as by oppression that was widespread in the name of the national cause, and by all sorts of failures and deals concluded at the expense of the Cause.
The Future Movement supporters furthermore considered the change spearheaded by Arab youth as deeply important, as they initiated, with most Lebanese, their own spring in 2005, after the assassination of martyr Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. They also took up the demands for freedom, dignity, independence and justice. They were also faced, like the Arab rebels, with killing, organized violence, and political assassinations, which numbered 220 assassinations since 1943. However, that did not affect their will, and did not dampen their work and hopes, as with their counterparts in the countries where the change movement is ongoing.
The change pushed forward by Arab youth movement has happened. It strongly rattled these states and societies, because it was not a revolution from above, or some elite arrangement. This change tackled deep issues related to the culture of the societies and their awareness, concerning identity and belonging, moral questions, the relation between authority and society, between religion and the state, and individual freedoms. It is an elevation of the Arab people’s level of life and lifestyle, of their dignity and humanity. Therefore, it rapidly evolved into a fruitful long-term process, with deep influences on all levels. It is normal, like in all important change movements, which the opinions of social groups in the Arab World, of neighboring countries and their societies, and of the decision makers of developed states, differ about the current process. This deep change received the support, solidarity, and participation of many people, especially among Arabs (and Lebanese). However, it also raised and is causing worries and fears in some social, political, and religious groups, according to their perceived interests, past experiences, hopes or disappointments. As we already stated, change has already happened, and because Future Movement is part of it, we thought it was necessary to express our solidarity, and participate through this document that includes the main and essential orientations that guide our thoughts and actions in this historic period of the life of our nation and our people.
We consider the Arab change a period of maturity, and at the same time a new path, a challenge, and a chance. It is a chance because it places the Arab Nation, including us, at the gateway of a new future filled with the ambitions of our youth, to establish political regimes on the basis of the respect of rights and public freedoms, especially religious freedoms, of the safeguard of human dignity, and of justice and good management of the public affairs. It is a challenge for our ability as Lebanese citizens to review and criticize, to prepare for a moral, cultural, and political revival, to overcome (through enlightened thoughts and actions) the effects of the previous period, during which extremism, oppression and the politics of axis prevailed, an era that divided societies, and increased the rivalry between state and religion, and between societies and their authorities.
The goal of this review, follow up, criticism and struggle is to preserve the unity of our society and its diversity, and the dignity of man in this time of change. Additionally, it would help start a common, comprehensive and advanced action on the national level with all social, cultural and political groups of Lebanon, to strengthen coexistence, and take it as well as the National Pact and the Constitution as starting points to improve public affairs, and allow our youth to participate in building their future, the future of Lebanon and all Arabs.
The change ushered by Arab Youth is a long term democratic process, which goes beyond holding elections that result in a ruling majority .They are also a culture, enshrining full equality between all citizens, protecting public freedoms, respecting diversity, and the right to difference, and rejecting any monopoly from the part of a majority, whatever its nature.
First: The national issue
In principle, Lebanon does not lack a civil contractual state since the time of its National Pact, even if the system suffers from some defects. Lebanon’s people also do not lack national loyalty. Despite this, and as the Arab Spring is in full swing, our nation seems to face several obstacles and challenges, due to the many disturbances and the dangerous clashes the country and our system have faced for the last seven decades. This is caused by five factors:
First, the establishment of the Zionist entity in Lebanon’s vicinity, after having occupied a large part of Palestine in 1948 and then having occupied it fully in 1967. Second: the tendency of some of its major sects at one point or another to dominate and monopolize decision making, overstepping the customs and processes of the political system. Third: using Lebanon as an arena of conflict, during periods of tensions, by Arab, regional, or international parties, exposing the country to foreign interference. Fourth: the Syrian tutelage and hegemony over Lebanon and its system, for more than 30 years. Fifth: the inability to formulate and develop a national political project to protect the country, the State and the system.
In the Future Movement, we consider that the Arab Spring with its wide popular movement and effective ability to usher change in the Arab area and its neighborhood, represents a big chance for Lebanon, its citizens and state, to overcome challenges and dependences. This can be seen in three points: 1, the strategic changes caused by the democratic transformations and the real and effective cooperation of the Arab League States on all levels, which leaves no possibility for the axis policies, and for the destructive and divisive interferences by regional and international parties. 2, the democratic transition in Syria will rectify the relationship between Lebanon and Syria, on the basis of balance and equality, and the Syrian National Council (SNC) alluded to this in its statement on 25/01/2012, and in its letter of solidarity sent to March 14 on the occasion of the commemoration of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The SNC spoke of a radical correction of the relation between the two states, by amending the bilateral agreements, demarcating the borders, and cooperating to preserve their interests and the normal relations between the two peoples and two states. 3, the acknowledgment by all Lebanese, including those who resort to weapons to intimidate others, in the new Arab age, that it is in their national, Arab, and Islamic interest to strongly support reform, reconciliation, Taif Accord, and the constitution.
But the strategic changes resulting from the Arab movements are not sufficient to strengthen Lebanese nationalism after all the defeats it faced. All Lebanese political sides should take part in the Arab change movement. All Lebanese youth with civil, patriotic and national maturity, who showed great abilities during the Lebanese spring, and offered martyrs, also should assume their responsibilities. Their Arab counterparts are writing, with their struggle, a new future, and new political systems, that are controversial, but that are a way out of the era of moral, political and strategic crisis. Therefore, the civil change drive of the Lebanese youth from all belonging, built on personal and public freedoms, and their belief in citizenship based on the equality in rights and duties, can give a new life to Lebanese coexistence, and enhance the constitution, which is based on Lebanese citizenship and nationalism. We call for a Lebanese nationalism based on the concept of the a democratic citizenship state, with the participation of all Lebanese in building new policies that will eliminate the negative aspects of the system and gradually lead to real civil state.
Second: The inter-Islamic issue
The Arab Spring opens a new horizon for communication and understanding between the component of the Arab Societies, especially between Sunnis and Shiites, after tension between them reached the limits of discord in Iraq, and the entry to Beirut with weapons in 2008. This tension has two causes: the specificity of the increase in awareness in both parties even if it is for different reasons, and the struggle for power. This upcoming spring encourages the search for new formulas that dissipates tension between them, and their union in a political framework based on citizenship and full partnership in the management of public life.
No one denies the differences on several historical and theological issues, although what is common between them is much greater. These differences must be limited to the specificity of each sect, which must be respected, and should not be politically exploited, or used for incitement in the media. The Arab change must include the right to difference, the freedom of belief, and appreciate diversity. These are values that respect the specificity of the religious and ethnic groups, on one hand, but do not turn their back to the national frameworks that regulate the relations between the groups and the social and political life, on the other.
Politically the Arab spring ended the legitimacy of all authoritarian regimes, and removed the covers used by corrupt ruling elites to hide behind, and categorically emphasized, with no possible bargaining, the principle of democratic legitimacy in all public affairs. These principles prevent any side from intimidating the other, dispose of the rationale for the expansion of the specificities at the detriment of the State or their isolation from that State, and eliminate any pretext justifying the weapons outside the State, whatever the names and objectives. These principles also require the adoption of the law and the Constitution as exclusive references to settle any dispute, and the non-recourse to arms and to invasions of cities as in 2008. Most importantly, these principles encourage all Lebanese to supersede their national loyalties on foreign loyalties, demagogies, and regional and international axis policies. With just these factors the Sunni-Shiite tension can be absorbed, in the Arab region and especially in Lebanon, thus reasserting Arab belonging and the legitimacy of the cultural and religious diversity. This also cuts the path of all greedy sides, that use fear and sectarian or ethnic specificities to serve their own strategies and special interests.
In view of the modern sociopolitical Lebanese experience, the country should not go through a Sunni-Shiite clash, and should stay an example of Islamic and national unity. The influential officials in both camps, clergymen, political leaders, thinkers, and intellectuals, should adhere to the goals of unity, and remain able to prevent the differences from becoming clashes. Therefore, there is a need for constant initiatives, and deep dialogue between the two sides, on all levels and forms, to spread mutual trust, dissipate confusion, defuse chronic or sudden crisis, and stop the mixing between the religious-sectarian issues and the political issues.
Third: The Islamic-Christian issue
Throughout history Muslims and Christians built their culture, civilization and lives together. They built their national identity together, and fought side by side to free their Arab Nations from foreign occupations. They also faced, together, the fallouts of the oppression used by unwise authoritarian regimes. As we are evaluating the consequences of the youth movements on Lebanon and the region, it is necessary to mention that the Arab Christians were at the forefront of contributors to the Arab renaissance, to the elaboration of Arab identity and belonging, and to the preservation and improvement the Arab language. Thus the Christian intellectuals and politicians were, with their Muslim counterparts, pioneers in the emergence of the modern Arab renaissance, and in Arab openness, and in the rise of national states in the Arab Orient. In many occasion, during the times of conflict in Lebanon and the region, it seemed that the chasm between Muslims and Christians was too vast to close, while in fact it was caused by many external issues with no religious nature. However, the Taif National Accord reinforced the considerations of coexistence and shared belonging and fate, in both parties. Thus the conflict ended, which led Pope Jean Paul II to say that Lebanon is more than a nation, it is a message!
Therefore, many were choked, when the wave of change reached Syria, by the statements made by several religious and civil leaders from all confessions, in Lebanon and Syria, expressing their fears and apprehensions. Their position was based on: the fundamentalist extremist nature of some revolutions, and what happened to Iraq’s Christians after the US invasion in 2003 (assassinations of religious figures and churches demolition), in addition to attacks against churches in Egypt, and the progress of Islamic fundamentalist parties in elections in several countries. In addition to the massive wave of Christian exodus from the Arab Orient, which occurred before the revolution, and there are fears that it would increase in the current chaos accompanying with the changes of regimes and leaders. These fears and worries might be justified and might need review and understanding.
However, deducting political consequences from this is another matter. In modern times, the overwhelming majority of Muslims did not show extremism or violence against Christians, or sympathize with extremists. The change took place. It would be detrimental to bet on the dying tyrannical regimes, which caused the suffering of Christians as Muslims.
Moreover, alliances and projects based on the concept of minority do not have a future, and have nothing to do with Arab Christians, whom Muslims do not consider to be a minority just as they do not consider them-themselves as such. They are partners in the culture, belonging and destiny, far from the logic of protection adopted by certain regimes and the effects of which were very negative.
The Arab spring is a chance for all groups of our societies, and for all the authentic historic components of this Orient. Oppression almost rattled the basis of coexistence and the concept of citizenship and equality in basic rights, with no differentiation between Muslims and Christians. Conflicting questions as to extremism and fundamental Islam exist, and require attention and cooperation to overcome them. They demand steadfastness and common struggle in the framework of the principles of freedom, dignity, citizenship, and civil state. In the last decades, an opposing duality rose between extremism and oppression, because opposites attract. There is however no doubt that if extremism regresses with the fall of despotism, this does not mean sealing the fate of all problems. To remove obstacles, we must rely on the common struggle of free citizens and the civil action of youth. The people will thus be encouraged to participate in building the new political society and come together under the umbrella of the civil state, the democratic mechanisms and the freedoms guaranteed by law. If the bet is based, first, on the civil movement, the partnership between citizens to strengthen the rule of freedom and citizenship, and the system of parity regardless of numbers and political disputes, the second source of peace or confidence is reflected in the enlightened religious thought, guided by the grand Imam of Al Azhar in Egypt, which has published three documents in the wake of revolutions:
The first paper is about governance and the civil pluralist democratic state. The second relates to the Arab movements for change, their legitimacy and their right to unarmed and nonviolent revolution in order to change the leaderships and regimes if they become illegitimate because of injustice, oppression, tyranny and the prohibition of political freedom and peaceful alternation of power. The third document sets out the four freedoms: freedom of belief and worship, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of scientific research and freedom of literary and artistic creativity. In this revival, Al Azhar is based on the system of "rights and interests" of Muslim Scholars, which includes the right to life, the right to thought, the right to religion, the right to dignity and the right to property, and the fact that Islam does not advocate the religious state. The late Lebanese Imam, Sheikh Mohammad Mehdi Shamseddine, said that the civil state based on citizenship would be a salvation for religion and the state at a time!
The importance of the publication of these documents by a great Islamic reference lies in the contribution to the revival of Islamic culture, and the struggle against extremism and the mixture of religion and politics. These are important issues in the new Arab renaissance.
We Lebanese – who overcame the religious state, and who are hoping and working on overcoming the sectarian state – have a duty and a message. Our duty is to protect the State of coexistence, and prevent any attack on its rules and customs. As for the message, it is to work with the Arab environment in consolidating coexistence between Christians and Muslims in States of free citizenship and free citizens. States of religious and civil freedoms, especially in this time of change, because it is the time of the future.
Fourth: The Arab issue
During the last decades many used to talk about “Civilized Arabism” which they favored and considered, at times, as contrary to Nationalistic Arabism, and in other times as contrary to the Arabism related to religion, and always as contrary to the Arabism of military and security governments. What is happening now in the time of revolutions is the emergence of two notions of the renewed Arabism: Civilized Arabism and National Arabism. The current revolutions which share the same titles and slogans: peaceful action, freedom, dignity, democratic state, doesn’t want ideological or ruling parties. The problem that the revolutionary youth is facing is the practice of despotism in the name of stability, nationalism and rejectionism, as well as the problem of the loss of national interest, the spread of corruption, the prohibition of freedom of expression, the monopoly of public affairs management and impunity. That’s why there was a close connection between the youth actions and democracy in each country that witnessed a youth revolution. Therefore for the first time the new Arabism relates to democracy on one hand and to the nationalist revolutionaries on the other hand.
According to the logic of movements for change, in thought and practice, there is no problem of belonging, but of safeguarding the interests and rights, changing governance, and recognizing the principle of peaceful alternation of power. This is a feat that young people have made to get out of the artificial contradiction between the individual, the nationalist and the patriotic. Like nationalism seems no more reviled, Arabism is no more linked to a theoretical or authoritarian concept, but turns into a common cultural and uniting denominator, not exclusivity that separates. We find this new concept of nationalism and patriotism in the early campaign launched by media loyal to the Syrian regime against peaceful activists for freedom and dignity, accusing them of being part of a conspiracy against the Nationalist, rejectionist and resistant regime, and the hasty exit from Arabism as a whole because of the unanimous rejection by the member states of the Arab League of the unspeakable violence practiced by the current Syrian regime against its people.
The new national Arabism gives a new impetus to Lebanese nationalism, which was translated, by the Muslims, in the document 'Ten national and Islamic constants" published by Dar El Fatwa in 1983, and the document" National and Islamic Constants "published also by Dar Al Fatwa in 2011. In terms of "civilized Arabism", it gets out of the prevailing negative sense, to mean that Arabism is a culture and not an exclusive ethnic or religious belief. In these two considerations, opportunities for dialogue and union of Muslims and Christians are strengthened to protect the independence and sovereignty, and eliminate the barriers of fanaticism in the name of religion or nationalism. Lebanese nationalism is no longer a taboo that spreads contradiction between feelings and nationalist interests, but is, with the movement of young Lebanese and Arab, part of this new Arabism, or even the condition of its survival.
Fifth: The Palestinian cause
Palestinians and Arabs resisted the Zionist project since the 1920’s. They struggled against the Zionist entity after the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The last four decades were very harsh on Palestinians and the Arab nation, due to the predominance of the Zionist entity, the unjust international policies, the incapacity of despotic regimes and their dependence, and the transformation of some armies into oppression apparatuses against their people and living forces. But now that Arab populations are regaining their freedom, the management of their public affairs and their right to preserve their national interests, the era of drifting and wasting time is over and will be replaced by the era of a free, independent Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital. The Arab Spring will transform the Arab conflict with the Israeli enemy from a confrontation with oppressive regimes to one with free people, who are not ruled by despots. The Arab spring era will be the era of Palestine’s victory on colonization and settlements, in the name of freedom and the right of self-determination. Recovering Palestine, its people and territories, was the main title of the Arab liberation project during the last seven decades, and it became today the essence of the new Arab liberties.
Sixth: The position regarding the Syrian revolution
For over three decades, the Lebanese have become accustomed to deal with the Syrian regime with fear and subordination. The legitimacy of any idea or political direction was dictated by the position vis-à-vis the Syrian military presence in Lebanon. Arabism was defined by allegiance to "one Arab nationalist regime" that controlled Damascus. Those who deviated from one of these principles, or both, were considered traitors and eventually buried themselves into a frightened silence or exile, or worse. At these "two pillars of Arabism", a third was added, and was to recognize a "resistance" represented exclusively by Hezbollah and the Syrian rejectionist regime once again!
These three pillars have been shaken, but not eliminated. It started with the call of Maronite Bishops in 2000, then the birth of the March 14 movement and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 following the assassination of President Rafik Hariri. In the last seven years, and despite the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the charge of treason against Arabism has survived, and has even increased, prompting many of us to say: we do not need a daily blood test to prove our Arabism and our nationalism!
The Lebanese Spring waved the banner of freedom, independence and sovereignty. And now these slogans have become Arab slogans at the time of the Arab movements for change. But after the outbreak of the uprising against the Syrian regime, the charges of conspiracy and treason have flared up against supporters of independence or those who express their solidarity with the Syrian people's uprising against his despotic regime, and this under two pretexts: those who are supportive of the Syrian people are guilty of "conspiring against the Resistance"; the specificity of Lebanese-Syrian relations requires a non-interference in Syrian affairs. No doubt that it is the Syrian people who are making the revolution. In Lebanon, those who really interfere in Syrian affairs by the autocratic methods of yesteryear, are those who proclaim loud and clear every day in the media, on the ground and in all Arab and international forums, that they support the Syrian regime against its people, or that they distance themselves from any interference in Syrian affairs!
Freedom is indivisible. Those who support freedom for Lebanon and its people cannot continue to support the Syrian regime against its people, which rises for freedom and dignity. The Lebanese-Syrian relations cannot become equal on political, moral and Arab levels, unless the democratic transition in Syria succeeds in laying the foundation of the regime of freedom and justice, and establishing equal relations between the two states according to the rules of good neighborliness and common interests. We need solidarity to the Syrian people up with him in his crisis with his regime and his uprising against him, and our loyalty to the brotherhood, freedom and dignity promised by the Arab Spring, while ceasing to find pretexts for maintaining tyrannical Syrian regime and criminal at any price. It’s our duty to show solidarity with the Syrian people in times of crisis, and to be loyal to our vows of brotherhood, freedom and dignity that the Arab spring is fighting for, and to stop finding justifications for the despotic and killer Syrian regime. As for the concerns raised by some, they should come from the tyrannical regime survival, not its demise.
The Syrian Spring, who spread an air of freedom and dignity, mixed with the blood and suffering of Syrian youth, children and elderly will have a positive impact on the Lebanese system, freedom and independence, and on the establishment of normal relations and equal with Syria. It will also be beneficial to Arab Syria, whose people have raised the slogan: Death is better than humiliation! The Spring of Derma, Homs, Hama, Idlib, Douma, Damascus and Zabadani will unite with the Lebanese and Arab Spring, for common belonging, objectives, values and destiny.
The new Arab Orient is being crafted by the Syrian revolutionaries and free men, who demonstrate perseverance and strength to break free and liberate their nation from the era of tyranny and falsification of great causes for various pretexts.
Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi wrote in his book “The Nature of Despotism” (1902): “Despotism corrupts religion, morals, politics and humanity!” The revolutionary youth in the Arab world are launching a big reform movement to restore our values, reform political life and create democratic regimes. We, members and leaders of the Future Movement, delighted and proud of the great accomplishment, are aware that democratic reforms and good governance are two long processes full of burdens. And they need determination, struggle and vision to be realized. What is required today is to get prepared through follow-up, criticism and cultural, political and moral struggle. We need to reach out to all factions, individuals and groups on the basis of citizenship, freedom and equality in rights and obligations. What is required is to exit the feelings and practices of fear, injustice and domination. And it is required to adhere to the Taif Accord and to the Constitution.
The Lebanese Spring stumbled in the face of isolation, blockade, and weapons. And here comes the Arab Spring, opening large horizons of freedom and change towards what is new, promising and progressive. The Arab Spring is calling out to Lebanon through the values of freedom, dignity and justice. It is up to us to react positively and to participate by liberating ourselves from subordination, polarization and the resort to arms, and to regain enthusiasm for coexistence, and for the creation of a free, capable and democratic State through achieving the implementation of the Taif Accord and implementing the slogan of Lebanon first in words and deeds.
The Arab political and constitutional spring did not reach its final form, and it is facing the problems of transitional periods, after decades of despotism where stability was synonymous of injustice, oppression and submission. But it is undeniable that this spring will succeed in building a political system in which the people will make its own decisions through open voting. Of course, democracy is a long process of intellectual development, open practice, belief in citizenship, and recognition of plurality, equality and rule of law. But the Lebanese Spring will complete renewal only if all components of the Lebanese people engage to apply the Constitution, without distinction between its clauses, because the Arab spring ensures a climate of trust, peace and positive change, and gives the Lebanese in the short term the chance to examine their urgent political and constitutional issues in order to consolidate stability.
Parity between Christians and Muslims in legislative and ministerial representation and the positions of the first category of public administration is well rooted in the minds of the Lebanese political groups- in addition to a constitutional binding provision. Sectarian incitement or numerical concern will not succeed in changing our commitment to consensual parity. Rational and enlightened dialogue is the only way to implement this commitment.
Although the constitution is an unshakable truth in the minds and behavior of the Lebanese, all groups were implicated in another experience which lead only to frustration and crisis that thwarted the State, the system and coexistence, namely the use of weapons outside the framework of patriotic loyalty to the Lebanese state. Yes, everybody tried the experience of illegal weapons. Some leaned on the brother or the just cause, others ventured to counter-attack and others have lost much of the aura of their victory after the withdrawal of the army of a sister country, or after using weapons internally for intimidation. All this is part of a regional non-Arab project, which put them in confrontation with the national State and its right to monopoly of the decision of war or peace. The Arab Spring has destroyed the ability of all illegal weapons to change the balance, finally placing the fundamental decisions in the hands of the people and not of an individual or a party, whatever the pretext of the port or the use of weapons. We consider all these facts as part of an outdated past. To cope with the aftermath, we are always willing to participate in a positive, democratic and peaceful dialogue during the discussion on the existence and usefulness of all weapons on Lebanese territory, as part of the defense strategy of the Lebanese State, through its democratically elected institutions and as a representative of all Lebanese. This State bears the responsibility of commanding, controlling and deciding peace or war and safeguarding the citizens’ freedom and dignity in the face of conditions imposed by those who ignore the state. No doubt that the implementation of the national dialogue decisions regarding Palestinian arms will facilitate the settlement of other priorities, as the necessary and serious dialogue on national issues must have a timetable and clear objectives.
For over four decades, the rise of Lebanon stumbled against false causes and against the capture of national security, public funds, government, institutions, the system and the State. The current Arab change movement is, in addition to its declared goals, a revival of the national economy, the management of resources, and fighting corruption, which will lead to improving life conditions, existence and humanity. And when the free will of the Lebanese youth and that of the Arab Revolutionary meet, the Lebanese, who have suffered and are still suffering, will be the first beneficiaries of the Arab Spring and the Spring of the Arab Man.
The Spring of Lebanon will come true when the Lebanese regain their state and democratic system in order to meet the many political, economic and social challenges looming on the horizon. Our responsibility is to fight for the return of the State envisioned by the Lebanese, which safeguards their national interests, independence, prosperity and freedom.
Change and revival stem from the people’s free will. And complimentarily, true stability, and a better future will be accomplished through free Arab will, “so they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)
It is the time of the people, the public and the youth. It is the time of great challenges and opportunities, the time of renewal: “For the scum disappears like forth cast out, while that which is for the good of mankind remains on the earth.” (Surat Al-Raad: 17)

Saudi Grand Mufti Calls for "Destruction of All Churches in Region"
by Raymond Ibrahim/Jihad Watch
March 14, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3191/saudi-church-destruction
According to several Arabic news sources, last Monday, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region."
The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait: a Kuwaiti parliament member recently called for the "removal" of churches (he later "clarified" by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait), and the delegation wanted to confirm Sharia's position on churches.
Accordingly, the Grand Mufti "stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it."
As with many grand muftis before him, the Sheikh based his proclamation on the famous tradition, or hadith, wherein the prophet of Islam declared on his deathbed that "There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula," which has always been interpreted to mean that only Islam can be practiced in the region.
While the facts of this account speak for themselves, consider further:
Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah is not just some random Muslim hating on churches. He is the Grand Mufti of the nation that brought Islam to the world. Moreover, he is the President of the Supreme Council of Ulema [Islamic scholars] and Chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. Accordingly, when it comes to what Islam teaches, his words are immensely authoritative.
Considering the hysteria that besets the West whenever non-authoritative individuals offend Islam—for instance, a fringe, unknown pastor—imagine what would happen if a Christian counterpart to the Grand Mufti, say the Pope, were to declare that all mosques in Italy must be destroyed; imagine the nonstop Western media frenzy that would erupt, all the shrill screams of "intolerance" and "bigot," demands for apologies if not resignation, nonstop handwringing by sensitive politicians, and worse.
Yet the Grand Mufti—the highest Islamic law authority of our "friend-and-ally" Saudi Arabia—gets a free pass when he incites Muslims to destroy churches, not that any extra incitement is needed (nary a month goes by without several churches being bombed and destroyed throughout the Islamic world). In fact, at the time of this writing, I have not seen this story, already some three days old, translated on any English news source, though "newsworthy" stories are often translated in mere hours.
Likewise, consider the significance of the Grand Mufti's rationale for destroying churches: it is simply based on a hadith. But when non-Muslims evoke hadiths—this one or the countless others that incite violence and intolerance against the "infidel"—they are accused of being "Islamophobes," of intentionally slandering and misrepresenting Islam, of being obstacles on the road to "dialogue," and so forth.
Which leads to perhaps the most important point: Islam's teachings are so easily ascertained; there is no mystery in determining what is "right" and "wrong" in Islam. The Grand Mufti based his fatwa on a canonical hadith, which Muslims and (informed) non-Muslims know is part of Islam's sources of jurisprudence (or usul al-fiqh). And yet the West—with all its institutions of higher learning, including governmental agencies dealing with cultural and religious questions—is still thoroughly "confused" as to what Islam teaches.
All of this is nothing short of a scandal—a reminder of just how deep the mainstream media, academia, and most politicians have their collective heads thrust in the sand.
Meanwhile, here is the latest piece of evidence of just how bad churches have it in the Muslim world, for those who care to know.
**Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The New Egyptian Parliament Takes Aim at the Camp David Accords
Jonathan D. Halevi
On March 12, 2012, Dr. Mohamed Al-Saed Idris, Chairman of the Arab Affairs Committee in the new Egyptian Parliament, presented the committee's official outline of Egypt's regional policy.
The committee's operative recommendations called for an official definition of Israel as an enemy, severing diplomatic relations, full support for the armed struggle against Israel, re-adoption of the total boycott of Israel, raising the issue of Jerusalem in the international arena, and a review of Egyptian nuclear policy.
In its eyes, Israel is the foremost enemy of Egypt and the Arab and Islamic world, and the peace agreement with it (the Camp David agreement) is considered a dead letter.
Egypt is setting itself on a collision course with Israel, using the Palestinian issue in all its aspects - including Israeli military operations against Palestinian terrorism as well as Israeli policy in Jerusalem or the West Bank - as an excuse for direct Egyptian intervention.
Defining Israel as a "major enemy" means building a military capability to deal with the "Israeli threat," including an attempt to deny Israel any advantage in the nuclear field and/or the development of Egyptian nuclear weapons.
At present, the new Egyptian political leadership cannot translate these policies into actions. But this situation is likely to change after the presidential elections on May 23-24 and the establishment of a new civilian government.
Lt.-Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center, is a former adviser to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.