Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 10/12
Hezbollah uncovers Beirut-based spy network: report
President Suleiman to Head to Turkey to Discuss Case of 11 Kidnapped Pilgrims
Harb Denies IMSI Analysis Infringes on Liberties, Holds Government responsible for Future Crimes
Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh: Banking sector abides by law
Water war reignites between Israel and Lebanon over Hasbani
Lebanon approves plan to deploy army along north border with Syria:
Israel army worried Lebanon planning water diversion
Fitch Ratings affirms Lebanon at ‘B,’ outlook stable
Disaster response training begins at Beirut airport
Harb says assassination attempt aimed at causing strife
NBN: Berri discusses abducted pilgrims with Turkish FM
Kataeb: Government nurtures 'culture of assassinations'
Hizbullah Urges Release of Saudi Cleric, Slams Kingdom’s ‘Undemocratic’ Actions against Citizens
Jumblat: Assassinations Only Increase Lebanese People’s Determination
Aoun Calls for Calm to Prevent Escalation in Lebanon
Lebanon: 5.6-Magnitude Earthquake Felt in Beirut, along Coast
Govt. Decides to Expand Investigations in Abdul Wahed Case, Deploy Army on Northern Border
Lebanon: Armed Robbery Hits Shouaifat Bank
Canada Congratulates South Sudan on First Anniversary of Independence
Saudi Arabia says two killed after cleric's arrest
Annan and Assad agree on political approach for Syria
Egypt parliament set to reconvene in challenge to military council
Olmert’s acquittal qualifies him to lead a new left-of-center bloc

Lebanon's Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh: Banking sector abides by law
July 10, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh defended Lebanon’s banking sector Monday, dismissing reports of money smuggling from Syria to Lebanese banks. The Central Bank chief added that Syrian deposits in Lebanese banks have recently decreased. “What is being said about smuggling of money from Syria to Lebanese banks is false,” Salameh told the Beirut based Al-Mayadeen satellite television channel. He added that ratings of Lebanon’s banking sector were among the best in the Arab region. Allegations by the U.S. Treasury Department and several financial reports have claimed that Lebanese banks are involved in money laundering, drug-trafficking schemes and attempts to help channel Syrian money to other countries. The U.S. Treasury has intensified its scrutiny of Lebanon’s banks over the past few years in a bid to crack down on Syrian and Iranian attempts to evade Western sanctions. But according to Salameh, official numbers at the Central Bank indicate that Syrian deposits in Lebanon have decreased, not increased, since the start of the unrest in Syria 16 months ago. “The numbers show that Syrian deposits have decreased in Lebanese banks operating in Syria or in Lebanon,” Salameh added. Last week, an anti-Iranian U.S. activist group accused the Central Bank in Beirut and the Lebanese banking system of allowing illicit financial acts in the country’s strongest services sector.
“As a result of the actions and omissions of [Lebanon’s Central Bank] and the [Lebanese banking system], Lebanon has become a sovereign money laundering jurisdiction that receives massive inflows of illicit deposits ... from Hezbollah’s terror and criminal activities, and the illicit symbiotic relationships among Iran, Syria and Hezbollah,” said a press release issued by the New York-based group United against Nuclear Iran. Salameh said that the U.S. Treasury Department’s statements are a call for the Central Bank to respect the department’s decisions regarding transactions in U.S. dollars.
Salameh also said that the International Monetary Fund has estimated that Lebanon’s growth will reach 3 percent during the year 2012. “With respect to what is happening in the Arab region, this growth rate will be among the best,” he said. “It is also expected that inflation would range between 6 and 7 percent,” Salameh said. Salameh added that the banking sector has not recorded a decrease in foreign investments, despite the political conditions in the region. The Central Bank chief also noted that Lebanon’s infrastructure needed to be revitalized so that a wide range of sectors would benefit.
“This [revitalizing of infrastructure] is a major project that will benefit several vital sectors,” Salameh said.

Fitch Ratings affirms Lebanon at ‘B,’ outlook stable
July 10, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Fitch Ratings has affirmed Lebanon’s long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings, short-term foreign currency IDR, and the Country Ceiling at “B.” The outlook is stable.
The agency said that the affirmation of the rating reflects the fact that Lebanon’s substantial and rising foreign exchange reserves, lower debt levels, and reduced interest costs – relative to the previous decade – mitigate the downside risks to political stability, growth and public finances in 2012.“The already low rating embodies a degree of tolerance for political volatility. However, a major and sustained outbreak of conflict resulting from either internal sectarian strife or a spillover of tensions from neighboring Syria could put the rating under negative pressure,” Fitch added.
It stressed that the risk of sustained deposit flight prompted by political instability is the primary risk to Lebanon’s rating.
“Currently, there are no signs of this, and when deposits have fallen in the past, the fall has proved temporary. Sporadic violence over the past year has not become generalized or widespread, due to the lack of appetite for violence among the majority of the population and efforts by leaders of Lebanon’s sectarian groups to prevent it,” Fitch said.
Nevertheless, it said that the developments in Syria have the potential to inflame tensions. Although Fitch’s base case does not envisage the outbreak of sustained violence, such an outcome, if it were to happen, would adversely affect the rating. Fitch explained that the economic impact of increased political tensions has so far mainly been felt in lower growth, whilst key financial variables – FX reserves and banking system deposits – continue to rise, and the public debt ratio declined again in 2011 to 135 percent of gross domestic product. Latest official estimates suggest GDP rose by a faster than expected 5 percent in 2011, despite a slowdown in tourism and the property market – two key sectors of the economy. Importantly, non-resident deposit growth picked up during the year as a new government was installed in June and interest differentials remained attractive. “For the year as a whole, non-resident deposit growth was 15 percent – a rate that was maintained in the year to April. Total banking system deposits grew 8 percent in the year to April 2012. Although credit growth has slowed, it remains a robust 13 percent to 14 percent,” Fitch said. Growth is expected to slow further this year. Tourist arrivals are down 8 percent so far in 2012 and the summer season will be adversely affected by travel advisories announced by a number of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Activity in the property sector has stagnated. Debt dynamics are therefore set to weaken.

Hezbollah uncovers Beirut-based spy network: report
July 09/2012
By Dana KhraicheظThe Daily Star
Nasrallah discusses the importance of the holy city of Jerusalem. (File photo/The Daily Star)
BEIRUT: Hezbollah is not commenting on a local newspaper report that claims it cracked a Beirut-based spy network last month entrusted with gathering information on the resistance party for an unnamed Western country. When contacted by The Daily Star Monday about the same day’s report in An-Nahar, Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Ali Fayyad said he did not have information regarding the alleged spy cell. “I cannot comment on the issue. I don’t have any information about it,” Fayyad said. The report by the local daily said the spy network comprised three men and was based in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold. Two of the network’s members were identified as original residents of Burj al-Barajneh while the third was said to hail from a village in the Bekaa.
The paper added that the spies were not members of Hezbollah but had good relations with people in the resistance party. In June of last year, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah boasted that the party had identified at least two spies working for the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States who had infiltrated the ranks of the party. He proceeded to dub the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon a “den of spies.” The report by An-Nahar also said the most dangerous member of the cell uncovered last month is a Lebanese who was supposedly detained for two years in Paris but during the period in question was actually working for a Western intelligence agency. According to the report, the spy was tasked by the intelligence agency with returning to Lebanon and monitoring the movements of a Hezbollah official with whom he was friends. The Hezbollah official, the report said, lives in Burj al-Barajneh near the residence of the alleged spy and is thought to have been involved in 1980s-era Beirut operations “that targeted the interests of big countries.”Information An-Nahar claims to have obtained indicates that the spy’s ultimate mission was to lure the Hezbollah official to a place where Western intelligence agents would arrest him. The nature of the mission delegated to the other two members of the alleged spy cell is not known, the paper said. Nasrallah is expected to make a speech on July 18 in commemoration of the sixth anniversary of the July 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel. Sources told An-Nahar that during that speech, Nasrallah will touch on the issue of the alleged Beirut spy network.

Israel army worried Lebanon planning water diversion
July 09, 2012/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Israel is considering responses to the possibility that Lebanon will divert water from the Hasbani River and use a tourism center to launch cross-border attacks, an Israeli daily reported Monday. The diversion of water is a move that Israel has in the past viewed as a casus belli – a justification for war – the Jerusalem Post said. It said that Israel’s concern also stems from the construction of a large tourism center on the Lebanese side of the river, not far from the Israeli town of Metula. Israel is concerned about the site’s proximity to the border, particularly in light of a number of near-clashes between Israeli troops and the Lebanese Army, the Post added. “It has our attention and we are keeping a close eye on what is happening there,” it quoted one officer as saying.
“Our concerns range from the diversion of water to the possibility that the tourism center will be used as cover to launch attacks against Israel.” Israel has shared its concern with United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and plans to raise the issue at one of the upcoming tripartite meetings, the daily said. “This could become a strategic problem,” another officer said.
Tripartite meetings, convened by UNIFIL in the border town of Naqoura, are held between the multinational peacekeeping force and Lebanese and Israeli military offices.

Lebanon approves plan to deploy army along north border with Syria:
July 09, 2012/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Cabinet decided Monday to deploy the country’s armed forces along the northern border with Syria, days after shelling from the Syrian side of the frontier claimed the lives of two people and wounded scores more. The Cabinet session, which convened in the afternoon under President Michel Sleiman at Baabda Palace, comes against the backdrop of major security developments, both within and along the porous border with Syria. Incidents along the shared border, which have waxed and waned since unrest swept Lebanon’s neighbor in March 2011, have spiked in recent weeks. Over the weekend heavy shelling from the Syrian side of the frontier led to the death of one and the wounding of five others in the northern Akkar region. In a separate incident hours later, rocket fire from the Syrian side of the border killed an 8-year-old boy, wounding five others. Last week, Syrian forces briefly kidnapped two General Security personnel at the Bqayaa border crossing in the north of the country. Lebanon has adopted a policy of dissociating itself from developments in Syria.

5.6-Magnitude Earthquake Felt in Beirut, along Coast
Naharnet /09 July 2012/The residents of Beirut and the Lebanese coast felt on Monday a 5.6-magnitude earthquake. Lebanon’s state-run Bhannes Center for Seismic and Scientific Research said that Beirut and its suburbs felt the minor quake, whose epicenter was located between Cyprus and the Greek island of Rhodes. The quake was also felt in Egypt, reported al-Arabiya television. The last earthquake felt in Beirut dates back to June 10 when a 6-magnitude tremor hit Greece. A 5.5-magnitude earthquake was felt on May 11 by the residents of the capital and some towns in Zahle, Mount Lebanon, Nabatiyeh, Sidon, Tyre and Tripoli, LBC reported, citing information provided by Lebanon’s state-run Bhannes seismic center. The quake struck some 130 kilometers off the coast of Beirut and was also felt by the residents of neighboring Cyprus, the center said.

Harb Denies IMSI Analysis Infringes on Liberties, Holds Government responsible for Future Crimes
Naharnet/10 July 2012/March 14 opposition MP Butros Harb denied on Tuesday that handing over security agencies a unique code used to identify an individual user on a GSM network known as IMSI would infringe on people’s liberties, a day after the government approved limited access to the so-called telecom data. “It is unfortunate that there was a dispute” between the different members of the cabinet on the telecom data, Harb said during a press conference about differences during Monday’s government session on the telecom data. The dispute erupted between the March 8 majority ministers from the Change and Reform bloc, Hizbullah and Amal on one side and centrists led by President Michel Suleiman, Premier Najib Miqati, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and ministers loyal to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on the other. The disagreement led to an approval to hand over security apparatuses the telecom data within a limited geographic location and after the consent of a three-member expert judicial committee. The deal came after the March 8 ministers rejected to give the agencies the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), which is a unique identifying number stored in the phone's SIM, except for certain areas as called for by the law. However, Harb, who escaped an assassination attempt last week after detonators were found in the elevator of a building where he has an office, said that handing over the IMSI does not infringe on people’s civil liberties. “I regret that the cabinet’s decision will cover the crimes and criminals in Lebanon … and encourage the killing of politicians and innocent civilians,” he said.“The government will be held responsible for any crime that happens” in the future after Monday’s decision, the lawmaker added. He also lauded Suleiman, Miqati, Charbel and the ministers loyal to Jumblat for their support to handing over the full data to security bodies.

Report: Russia Sends Naval Fleet to Syrian Port
Naharnet/10 July 2012/ Russia has sent a naval flotilla of six warships led by an anti-submarine destroyer to its naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
The Admiral Chabanenko and three landing craft have left their home port of Severomorsk in the Arctic Circle on their way to the Mediterranean where they will be joined by the Russian patrol ship Yaroslav Mudry as well as an assistance vessel, a military source told the agency. "The program of the voyage includes a call in the Syrian port of Tartus," the unnamed source told the news agency.
The source said the trip was taking place in line with the plans of military readiness of the Russian fleet. According to Interfax, the source insisted that the deployment "was not linked to the escalation of the situation in Syria.""In Tartus the ships are going to top up on supplies of fuel, water and foodstuffs," the source said, adding that their deployment in the Mediterranean would last until the end of September.
Russia has been bitterly criticized by the West for failing to cut military ties with Syria despite the conflict between the regime and opposition rebels that has claimed thousands of lives.
SourceAgence France Presse.

Armed Robbery Hits Shouaifat Bank
Naharnet /10 July 2012/Byblos bank in the town of Shouaifat was on Tuesday robbed by armed men who left two people injured in the second robbery of the same branch in six months.
The National News Agency said two masked men stormed the bank and opened fire in the air, injuring staff member Hiba Nasser in her ankle. Another employee, Kamal Jaber, was also wounded due to flying glass. The incident caused panic among the staff and customers, NNA said. The robbers later escaped on a motorcycle with a good sum of money, it added. The same branch became the victim of an armed theft in January when two masked gunmen robbed it and fled on a silver-colored BMW X5 with tinted windows. The Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) branch in Kfarshima was also robbed last week. The thieves escaped with $110,000 in cash. A customer was slightly injured in the robbery that was very much similar to Tuesday’s Bank Byblos theft. Two weeks ago, unknown assailants managed to make off with LL64 million and $40,000 from the Dbayeh branch of Banque Libano-Francaise. The recent bank robberies started on June 14 when gunmen entered Federal Bank of Lebanon in the town of al-Damour and later escaped with LL100 million in cash.

Jumblat: Assassinations Only Increase Lebanese People’s Determination
Naharnet/ 09 July 2012/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat condemned on Monday the assassination attempt against opposition MP Butros Harb, stressing the need for all the details in the crime to be uncovered. He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “The sides behind the crime or others have not learned that assassinations only increase the Lebanese people’s determination and attachment to their freedom and democracy.” “This was proven by previous assassinations that targeted the best of the men of state and media,” he noted. Harb escaped an attempt on his life on Thursday when residents of the building where his office is located discovered individuals trying to booby-trap the buildings elevator shaft with explosives.
“The concept of political murders is unacceptable, regardless of who the target is,” Jumblat said. On this note, he highlighted the “dangers of being lenient in the cases of individuals who have collaborated with Israel and the easing their prison sentences.” In April, retired Army Brig. Gen. Fayez Karam, who was convicted of collaborating with Israel, was released from jail after the prison year was reduced to nine months. In September 2011, the permanent military court had sentenced him to three years in jail, but it later reduced it to two years with hard labor with his civil and political rights being stripped.
On the case of the release of officers linked to the deaths of Sheikhs Ahmed Abdul Wahed and Mohammed Merheb, Jumblat asked: “Who benefits from the release of suspects before indictments are issued?”“How can those linked to the case be released from custody without being held accountable for it?” he wondered. “Maintaining the army requires clear measures to ease the hard feelings against it caused by the recent development,” said the MP. In contrast, he stated, Judge Nada Dakroub chose to overrule a court decision to release Wissam Alaeddine, “who was caught red-handed in the attack against al-Jadeed television.” “This is a sign that there remains among judges some brave ones who do not succumb to pressures and perform what their professional conscience and national duty tell them to do,” added the Druze chief. “Is it acceptable to request the release of the perpetrator before his trial and punishment?” he asked. Commenting on the next national dialogue session, set for July 24, the PSP leader hoped that all political powers “would exercise humility” and avoid tense political rhetoric. Last week, three officers and eight soldiers linked to Abdul Wahed and Merheb’s deaths at an army checkpoint in Kweikhat in the North were released from custody, sparking outrage in the northern region of Akkar. They were killed on May 20 as they were headed to a festival in the North.

Suleiman to Head to Turkey to Discuss Case of 11 Kidnapped Pilgrims
Naharnet/10 July 2012/President Michel Suleiman will head to Turkey in the upcoming two days to address the case of the 11 kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims in Syria. According to An Nahar newspaper published on Tuesday, Speaker Nabih Berri revealed the information to the families of the abducted men. He said that Suleiman was set to head to Ankara a while ago, but the downfall of the Turkish warplane by the Syrian army prompted the postponement of his visit. Suleiman will head to Paris on Thursday to meet with his French counterpart Francois Hollande and several other French senior officials.
The families of the 11 men are expected to meet with Turkish Ambassador to Lebanon Inan Ozyildiz. Abbas Zoghaib, the spokesman of the families of the kidnapped men, told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the meeting will call on Turkey to swiftly end the case as Ankara has an impact on the “so called Syrian opposition.” On Monday, the families of the abducted men held talks with Berri at Ain el-Tineh.
Berri informed the families that the case reached “the final stages.”He urged them not to block the roads as it is “useless.” Berri contacted later Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who pledged to exert efforts to ensure the release of the men. However, the families warned after their talks with Berri that “patience has limits.” The 11 Shiite pilgrims were abducted by gunmen in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo on May 22 as they were returning from a pilgrimage to Iran. The rebel Free Syrian Army has denied involvement. No news has been heard of the men except for a video aired on al-Jazeera TV earlier in June, in which the abductees claimed they were doing well.

Water war reignites between Israel and Lebanon over Hasbani
July 10, 2012
By Nicholas Blanford/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Israel is voicing renewed concern about the potential diversion of water from the Hasbani River in south Lebanon, echoing similar concerns a decade ago that led to an unnecessary escalation of tensions between the two countries. According to a report in The Jerusalem Post Monday, Israeli officials are worried at the expanding size of a tourist resort built on the western bank of the Hasbani, 1.6 kilometers upstream from where the river flows into Israel. The Hasbani is one of three tributaries of the River Jordan which runs into the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s largest reserve of fresh water. The Blue Line follows the center of the Hasbani River for a distance of 3.5 kilometers before veering to the northeast bisecting the Israeli-occupied village of Ghajar. The tourist resort is owned by Khalil Abdullah, a resident of Khiam who lived for 40 years in the Ivory Coast before returning to Lebanon a few years ago. He began building his resort in early 2010, lending it an African theme with thatched roofs and adobe-walled huts. He had plans to build a hotel and conference center which he hoped could one day host regional peace talks given its fitting location on the trilateral border between Lebanon, Israel and Syria. Even at that early stage in the project’s development, the Israelis on the eastern bank were keeping an eye on the construction activities, routinely snapping photographs, and, according to Abdullah, even infiltrating across the river one night to sabotage his excavator. “It has our attention and we are keeping a close eye on what is happening there,” an anonymous Israeli officer told the Jerusalem Post. “Our concerns range from the diversion of water to the possibility that the tourism center will be used as a cover to launch attacks against Israel.” Another officer warned that it could become a “strategic problem.”For observers of developments in south Lebanon, this all sounds familiar.
Between 2001-2002, Israeli threats and warnings over minor Lebanese water diversion schemes on the Hasbani created a needless series of crises.
In March 2001, the Council of the South began building a small pumping station beside the Wazzani springs on the Hasbani River to provide drinking water for a couple of local villages. In the dry summer months, the Wazzani springs – which lie opposite Ghajar – are the only source of water for the Hasbani River. Israel immediately warned that the pumping operation could spark a war. But UNIFIL stepped in to remind Israel that it had been informed of the project a month earlier and that the pipe in question was only 10 centimeters in diameter.
Lebanon is entitled under international law to draw some of the waters of the Hasbani River for its own uses. In the 1950s, the so-called Johnson Plan – an arrangement to share the waters of the Jordan River (including the Hasbani) between Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan – granted the Lebanese an annual allowance of 35 million cubic meters.
A few months later, Hussein Abdullah, a local landowner, roiled the waters when he installed a 15 centimeter-diameter pipe to irrigate some farmland. The Israelis cried foul again.
In the summer of 2002, the Council of the South expanded its pumping operation to provide drinking water for some 12 villages in the south. Ariel Sharon, the then Israeli prime minister, declared the scheme a “casus belli,” or case for war, and threatened to bomb the pumping station. Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, cautioned that Israel would fall into an “unrelenting death mill” if it proceeded with plans to attack the Wazzani pump.
Yet, even this enlarged project, which utilized a pipe with a diameter of 40 centimeters, would only draw around 3.5 mcm a year, a mere 10 percent of Lebanon’s total allocation under the Johnson Plan.
Ultimately, Israel had no choice but to accept Lebanon’s right to pump some of the water. Israel’s bluster turned what should have been a minor infrastructure project into a national celebration when it was formally inaugurated in September 2002, with then President Emile Lahoud opening the spigot amid clouds of balloons released into the air and cheering crowds.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has much appetite for renewed confrontations for now and it is unlikely that there will be an escalation in tensions similar to a decade ago. But Israel’s concerns do have some precedence. In 1965, work began on an Arab League plan to divert the Hasbani away from Israel in response to Israel channeling water from the Sea of Galilee to irrigate the Negev Desert. Israel bombed the diversion works, igniting cross-border clashes with Syria indirectly leading to the June 1967 war. The real purpose of Israel’s overstated threats is likely intended to convey the message that if the Israelis are getting this upset over minor water pumping schemes or harmless tourism projects, then imagine its reaction to a genuine water diversion scheme along the Hasbani.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on July 10, 2012, on page 3.

Saudi Arabia says two killed after cleric's arrest
July 09, 2012/By Andrew Hammond/Daily Star
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia said on Monday two men had been killed following Sunday's arrest of a prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric that stirred some limited protests in the oil-producing east of the country.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the deaths followed a protest in the village of Awamiya over the arrest on sedition accusations of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. According to Saudi authorities Nimr was shot in the leg after police came under fire on trying to stop his car. Nimr, seen as a leading radical cleric promoting Shi'ite interests, was taken to hospital. Shi'ites say they struggle to get government jobs or university places, their neighbourhoods suffer under-investment, and their places of worship are often closed down. The government denies such accusations. The Interior Ministry said there was no clash between protesters and police at the protest following the arrest. It did not make clear how the two were killed. "Security authorities were notified by a nearby medical center of the arrival of four individuals brought in by their relatives," spokesman Major General Mansour Turki said in a comment sent to Reuters. "Two of them were dead, the other two were slightly injured. Competent authorities initiated investigations into the incident." Shi'ite activists and websites had reported that at least two men had been killed in the protests. The Rasid website named the men as Akbar al-Shakhouri and Mohamed al-Felfel.
"In the aftermath of the arrest ... a limited number of people assembled in the town of Awamiya," the Interior Ministry statement said. "Gun shots were overheard in random areas of the town. However, there was no security confrontation whatsoever."
APPEALS FOR CALM
Across the causeway that links Saudi Arabia with its island neighbour Bahrain, leading Shi'ite opposition group al-Wefaq released a statement offering condolences to the families of the "martyrs" and calling for Nimr's release.
It said peaceful activism and dialogue were the only way of solving the situation.
Bahrain has been in turmoil since its Sunni rulers first tried to extinguish a popular uprising driven by the Gulf kingdom's Shi'ite majority. Saudi Arabia sent troops to help put down the protests last March.
Both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia accuse non-Arab Shi'ite giant Iran of fomenting unrest among their Shi'ite populations.
Saudi activists said authorities were expected to hand over the bodies of the two men later on Monday for burial.
One activist said officials of the Eastern Province authorities had summoned the fathers of the two deceased men to discuss burial arrangements. There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Islam calls for honouring the dead by burying their bodies as quickly as possible.
The Rasid website quoted Sheikh Abdallah al-Khuneizi, a former Shi'ite religious court judge, as urging residents to avoid any escalation and appealing to security forces to exercise restraint.
"This tense and difficult period that Qatif is passing through requires us all to do all we can to preserve society from any security deterioration to protect lives and sanctities," the website quoted Khuneizi as saying in a message circulating on social media.
Activists from the Eastern Province, where most of Saudi Arabia's Shi'ites live, posted pictures on the Internet of a grey-bearded man they identified as Nimr inside a vehicle.
He was covered with what appeared to be a blood-stained white blanket.
Activists said Nimr had been taken to the capital Riyadh.

Annan and Assad agree on political approach for Syria
July 10, 2012/Annan meets with Assad in Damascus before flying to Iran.
DAMASCUS: U.N. peace envoy Kofi Annan said he and President Bashar Assad agreed Monday on an approach to Syria’s conflict that he would now take to the opposition, before flying to Iran for talks with the main regional ally of Damascus.
The former U.N. secretary general is trying to rescue his six-point peace plan, which was worked out with the Syrian government and rebels in April but faltered after the cease-fire it was supposed to begin with never took hold.
Major powers agreed at a meeting with Annan on June 30 that a transitional government should be set up in Syria, but remain at odds over what part Assad might play in the process.
“I just had a positive and constructive discussion with President Assad,” Annan said.
“We agreed an approach which I will share with the opposition,” he told reporters in Damascus. He gave no details, but again stressed the importance of halting the violence which is reported to have killed over 15,000 people in 16 months. “In both meetings we reassured Annan of Syria’s commitment to implement the 6-point plan and hoped [the] other side is mutually committed,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said via Twitter.
In a TV interview Sunday, Assad said he remained committed to Annan’s plan and accused the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of supplying arms and logistical support to insurgents fighting to end 42 years of Assad family domination of the pivotal Arab state.
“We know that [Annan] is coming up against countless obstacles but his plan should not be allowed to fail – it is a very good plan,” he told Germany’s ARD network.
“The main obstacle [is] that many countries don’t want [it] to succeed. So they offer political support and they still send armaments and send money to terrorists in Syria,” Assad said, according to a transcript of the interview, conducted in English.
Syria, led by members of the Alawite sect related to Shiite Islam, has alleged that the Sunni Muslim-led Gulf monarchies are backing unrest among its Sunni majority to check Shiite influence in the region, notably that of Iran.
Russia, which has thus far defended Assad from the threat of U.N. sanctions, said it would not deliver Yak-130 fighter planes or other new arms to Syria while the situation there remained unresolved.
“While the situation in Syria is unstable, there will be no new deliveries of arms there,” said Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy director of the Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation, told journalists at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain, according to the Interfax agency.
The refusal to send more arms to Syria – a trade dating back to the Soviet era – may signal the most pointed move yet by Moscow to distance itself from Assad as rebels have gained some ground and the death toll climbs.
Annan’s plan calls for an end to fighting by government security forces and rebels, the withdrawal of the government’s heavy weapons from towns, a return of the army to barracks, humanitarian access, and dialogue between the government and opposition aimed at a “political transition.”
Opponents of Assad invited to Moscow for talks insisted that the political dialogue Annan is trying to initiate must start with a change at the top – a position that Russia rejects, and which Annan’s plan does not specify.
“The transition period must begin with Assad’s departure,” said Samir Aita, representative of the opposition Democratic Syria Foundation. “A national government must be created, and in order to do that, an all-Syrian national conference, where all representatives of the Syrian population would express their opinions, needs to take place.”
The main opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council, is also expected to take part in the talks. A senior member of the group said a delegation of 10 members led by the group’s head, Abdul-Basset Sayda, will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Wednesday.
Anti-Assad activists in Syria reported army shelling and clashes with rebels on Monday in Deir al-Zour, Deraa, Homs, Aleppo and a neighborhood of Damascus. Residents reported the sound of gunfire in the capital. An activist website said over 100 Syrians had been killed Sunday, most of them civilians.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that opposition forces were growing more effective, and the sooner the violence ended, the better the chances of sparing Syria’s government a “catastrophic assault” by rebel fighters were.
While Assad has faced sanctions and international condemnation over his crackdown on dissent, major Western and Arab powers have shied away from direct military action.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a speech in the Netherlands: “We will continue to try to persuade Russia and China, but if the Kofi Annan plan fails no option to protect lives will be off the table.”
Assad told his German interviewer that most of the victims of the uprising were supporters of the government.
“From the list that we have, from the names that we have, the highest percentage are people who are killed by gangs ... If you talk about the supporters of the government – the victims from the security and the army – are more than the civilians,” he said.
Activists and Western governments say more than 15,000 people have been killed by forces loyal to the government, the great majority of them people who opposed the government and their innocent families.

Egypt parliament set to reconvene in challenge to military council
July 10, 2012/Daily Star
CAIRO: Egypt’s parliamentary speaker said the chamber would reconvene Tuesday after the new, Islamist president risked a showdown with the generals by quashing their decision to dissolve the assembly last month. Quoted by the state news agency Monday, Saad al-Katatni, who like President Mohammad Mursi hails from the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood, said the lower house would sit from noon Tuesday, defying the army’s order to dismiss parliament a month ago, based on a court ruling.
Meanwhile, tensions rose Monday as Egypt’s military said the constitution and the law must be upheld concerning the dissolution of the parliament.
It also said it was “confident that all state institutions will respect constitutional declarations.”
Mursi issued his decree to recall parliament Sunday, barely a week after he took office.
That threatened fresh uncertainty for a nation whose economy is on the ropes and where many are anxious for calm after 17 turbulent months since Hosni Mubarak’s fall.
“Early confrontation,” wrote Al-Akhbar newspaper, summing up Mursi’s decision which could end a brief honeymoon with the military council led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.
Yet Mursi and Tantawi showed no hint of discord Monday when the president, as he did last week, attended a military parade.
Seated next to each other, Mursi and Tantawi turned to each other in a brief jovial exchange, television images showed.
The military council, which had run Egypt since Mubarak was toppled in February 2011, sought to trim the president’s authority before handing over to Mursi on June 30. It had dissolved parliament and taken legislative power for itself. Mursi’s decision hands those powers back to a parliament packed with his Islamist allies. He also ordered new elections for parliament – once a constitution is passed by referendum.
The row is part of a broader power struggle which could take years to play out, pitting the long-sidelined Islamists against generals whose fellow officers ran Egypt for six decades and a wider establishment still packed with Mubarak-era officials. It could also set the Brotherhood, the biggest winner so far in Egypt’s political transformation, against liberal rivals and against the judiciary, which has juggled cases challenging every step of the nation’s trouble road to democracy.
The Supreme Constitutional Court, whose ruling led to parliament being dissolved, said following an emergency session in response to Mursi’s decree that its decisions were final and binding. The court also said it would review Tuesday cases challenging the constitutionality of Mursi’s decree.
The Egyptian Social Democratic Party condemned the president’s recall of the assembly, saying it was a “violation of the judicial power” and resembled the high-handed approach long seen from the army.
About 1,000 people gathered in Cairo’s prosperous Nasser City suburb to protest against Mursi’s decision and called for parliament not to convene. The Brotherhood called on its website for a show of support for Mursi on the streets Tuesday.
But the Brotherhood played down any dispute. “We affirm that there is no confrontation with the judiciary and the decision respects the verdict of the constitutional court,” said presidential aide Yasser Ali.
Katatni said parliament would discuss Tuesday “how to implement the court ruling” that declared the assembly void and a legal committee would be asked to draw up proposals.
Some analysts said Mursi’s decision to order early elections could offer a compromise by acknowledging the court’s assertion that the election to the chamber breached some legal rules.
One European diplomatic source said recalling parliament gave Mursi leverage over the military, but could also placate Islamists who dominate the assembly so that Mursi would have a freer hand to pick a broader Cabinet with non-Islamist members. “The test will come when we see how the soldiers guarding the parliament building behave when MPs try to convene,” the source said of Katatni’s call to convene a session Tuesday.
In a further sign the generals may not challenge Mursi head on, the state news agency reported that guards at parliament had allowed some members into the building Monday. It had been declared off limits when the army ordered the chamber dissolved. The generals had also met late Sunday to discuss Mursi’s decree but did not release a statement afterwards.
The military council has less formal room for maneuver now that it has transferred presidential powers to Mursi, even if it has removed some powers from that office. Mursi, however, is in a position that would have seemed unimaginably strong to the Brotherhood a year and half ago, when it was still banned as an organization and its members were being hounded by Mubarak.
In one of his most high-profile meetings since taking office, Mursi met U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns at the presidential palace Sunday, signaling the new ties Washington is forging with resurgent Islamists in the region. Burns pledged that the United States, which grants the Egyptian armed forces $1.3 billion a year in military aid, would support Egypt’s economy, which has been hemorrhaging cash and is heading for a balance of payments and budget crisis. Once a darling of emerging market fund managers, Egypt has watched foreign investors flee and its vital tourist trade has taken a big knock from the turmoil of the last year and a half. Foreign reserves have plunged to about $15.5 billion, less than half their level before anti-Mubarak protests erupted, and the government has been forced to pay double-digit interest rates, seen as unsustainable, to fund its spending.
“Already domestic financing has reached a critical stage where you can’t rely totally on the market any more,” said one Western diplomat. The government was running up payment arrears with energy suppliers and raising funds from the central bank, the diplomat noted – tactics sustainable only for a short time. Adding to the murky outlook that is unsettling investors, legal wrangling looks set to continue. Following the judges’ dissolution of parliament and scrapping of a constitutional drafting panel appointed by parliament, further challenges in the courts could yet derail a second drafting panel.
In addition to cases with the Supreme Constitutional Court, court officials said about 20 suits against Mursi’s decree had been presented to other courts. One of those was submitted by lawyer and leftist member of parliament Abu al-Ezz al-Hariri, who said it would be reviewed by an administrative court Tuesday.

NBN: Berri discusses abducted pilgrims with Turkish FM
July 9, 2012 /NBN television station reported on Monday that contacts were made between Speaker Nabih Berri and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to follow up on the issue of the abducted Lebanese Shia pilgrims held in Syria. The report added that Davutoglu told Berri that “efforts will be multiplied to secure the release of the abductees and [ensure] their safe return back to their families and country.” Eleven Lebanese Shia pilgrims were abducted in Syria’s Aleppo on May 22 while returning from Iran. Later in May, a previously unknown armed group calling itself the "Syrian Revolutionaries—Aleppo Province" said that it was holding the pilgrims.-NOW Lebanon

Flush with cash, Lebanese banks raise eyebrows
Matt Nash, July 9, 2012/Now Lebanon
Lebanese banks have around $21 billion in non-resident deposits. Some fear money laundering and terror financing is involved. (AFP Photo)
The past 16 months have been a real nail-biter for Lebanon’s banking sector. Since the US Treasury accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) of laundering drug money for Hezbollah last February, local banks’ images have taken a beating in the international press, and Beirut’s ties to sanctioned regimes in Damascus and Tehran have been increasingly questioned.
Most recently, a US-based group called United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) publically launched a campaign (which has been going on behind the scenes for months) to get Lebanon’s economy blacklisted.
It is lobbying non-Lebanese institutions to sell and permanently stop buying Beirut’s debt, credit ratings agencies to stop putting a stamp of approval on Lebanese state bonds, and the US government to designate the entire country a money laundering concern, cutting it off from the US financial system and essentially destroying the banking sector and the economy at large.
The group alleges that Lebanese banks, in cahoots with the Central Bank, are helping prop up a “false economy” which is no more than a “money laundering enterprise” designed to aid Iran – and to a lesser extent, Syria – in avoiding sanctions.
UANI’s argument against local banking concerns centers on Lebanon’s debt. According to the Ministry of Finance, at the end of 2011, Lebanon’s gross public debt was $46.36 billion – or 137 percent of GDP. Beirut first began its borrowing binge in the early 1990s under billionaire former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Hariri needed cash to rebuild Beirut, and he turned to local banks to get it.
Unlike many other countries that sell Eurobonds and Treasury bills to foreign governments or financial institutions, Lebanon has kept its debt in-house, selling mostly to local banks or having the Central Bank itself buy up debt. Today, according to stats from UANI, only 2.6 percent of Lebanon’s debt is held abroad. This, the group and others argue, raises questions.
Where, exactly, are local banks getting the cash – particularly in the past four years – to buy all these bonds and bills?
The answer is largely unknown. Lebanon allows banking secrecy – meaning that only in a few circumstances are banks allowed to disclose information about their clients to authorities. Many, UANI among them, argue this opens Lebanon up to receive “dirty” money (whether that’s laundering proceeds from drug and/or arms sales, or giving sanctioned individuals and/or governments a lifeline into the global financial system).
For its part, the Central Bank says Lebanon is on the level, pointing to its Special Investigation Commission tasked with keeping an eye on the sector and red-flagging potential money launderers (The SIC has the power to lift banking secrecy). The bank also issued a sector-wide new rule in the wake of LCB’s forced sale requiring tellers to be more diligent when accepting deposits, again, to help combat money laundering.
That said, non-resident private-sector deposits in local commercial banks have gone from just under $10 billion at the end of May 2008 to over $21.6 billion at the end of May 2012, according to the Central Bank. Here is where some see a problem.
UANI says “this increase in inflows coincides with the adoption of more robust Iran sanctions, indicating a likely relationship.”
Balderdash, says Nassib Ghobril, head of economic research at Byblos Bank. Firstly, he said, local banks are themselves wary of sanctions, particularly from the US, as they are businesses that want to keep making money and would not risk their reputations with illegal activities.
He also pointed to both the global financial crisis and the Lebanese diaspora.
"There's more money in local banks simply because of the lack of trust and panic in places [expatriate Lebanese] were living at the outset of the global financial crisis, he told NOW Lebanon. "It’s asset repatriation."
Indeed, as the global financial world went into a tailspin from which it has yet to fully recover, Lebanon’s famously risk-adverse banking system was not only doing fine, but offering comparatively high interest rates, which attracted capital, Ghobril argued.
“I don’t think it passes the smell test to say [the money flowing in] is a result of those factors,” said Nathan Carleton, UANI’s spokesman. Carleton said he was not a researcher and refused to debate the specific points in UANI’s argument against Lebanon, referring NOW to a presentation the group drafted on the subject.
UANI’s presentation leaves its reader with the idea that all non-resident deposits are somehow tied to Iran, Syria or Hezbollah. Its argument rests largely on Lebanon’s banking secrecy laws, the criminal complaint filed in a US court against LCB (which outlines alleged money laundering involving the Party of God), Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s admission that Iran funds his group and recent Iranian offers to invest in Lebanon.
What with credible reports of Lebanese involved in diamond smuggling, kickbacks from weapons deals and local drug production – to name just a few examples of alleged wanton criminality – the truth probably lies somewhere in between Ghobril’s insistence that the sector is completely clean and UANI’s assertion that Lebanon’s economy is merely a shadow hiding nefarious Iranian deeds.
UANI has had some success convincing international investors to avoid Lebanon, Carleton said. However, Moody’s – the only ratings agency UANI says it wrote to about Lebanon – told NOW in an email exchange that it “is aware of [UANI’s] letter and we reiterate our current B1 rating for Lebanon’s sovereign debt.”
It is unclear how the US will react. The Treasury Department has for years been doggedly pursuing both Iranian and Hezbollah money, and there is no indication it will stop. That said, the US has many allies in Lebanon, and taking the full measures UANI is asking for would be an economic catastrophe for the country.
Would the Obama administration throw Lebanon under the bus like that?
“I don’t see the US government listing the Lebanese financial system writ large as an area of primary money laundering and terror financing concern,” said Matthew Levitt, an expert on terrorism financing at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “There’s lots of tools in the toolkit, and that’s a very large tool, a very broad tool.”

Canada Congratulates South Sudan on First Anniversary of Independence
July 9, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino today issued the following statement:
“One year ago, Canada welcomed the formal creation of South Sudan as an independent state—a momentous event for the people of South Sudan. Today, we celebrate the positive relationship between our two countries and the many links we share, including our commitment to building peace and prosperity across the continent.
“Canada remains concerned about the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, including the dire situation faced by those fleeing violence in Sudan. Canada also remains concerned about high rates of infant and maternal mortality and large portions of the population living in poverty. We are committed to assisting South Sudan address these issues and in its efforts to develop strong democratic institutions, address security concerns, and promote respect for human rights and the rule of law.
“We welcome initial efforts to implement the African Union road map endorsed by the UN Security Council, and we urge both parties to commit to the negotiation of outstanding bilateral issues.
“Together with our international partners, Canada will remain engaged in both Sudan and South Sudan to help ensure that both states remain viable and at peace internally and with each other. The recent extension for a second year of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, to which Canada provides military and police personnel, is a testament to this commitment.”
For more information about Canada’s engagement in Sudan and South Sudan, please visit Canada at work in Sudan and South Sudan.
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
Media Relations Office
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
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media@acdi-cida.gc.ca
Backgrounder - Canada’s Engagement in Sudan and South Sudan
Canada’s engagement in Sudan and South Sudan focuses on helping to set the conditions for long-term peace, stability and prosperity in both countries.
Canada is a key player in a concerted international effort to foster a just and lasting peace within and between Sudan and South Sudan. Since 2006, Canada has contributed more than $900 million toward humanitarian assistance, development and peacebuilding to alleviate suffering, promote democracy and respect for human rights, build resilience, press for peace and help to achieve a peaceful, credible referendum in South Sudan. Canada’s contribution has had a tangible impact on the lives of the Sudanese and South Sudanese people, who are trying to rebuild after decades of conflict.
Building on the significant progress made to date, Canada’s whole-of-government efforts in the two countries continue to be guided by three priorities:
•Aid: Canada provides life-saving humanitarian assistance and development support in Sudan and South Sudan.
•Diplomacy: Canada actively participates in peace processes, multilateral initiatives and peacebuilding.
•Security: Canada helps increase stability, security and prospects for lasting peace.
Canada will continue to work alongside international partners to consolidate peace and security, address humanitarian and development needs, and ensure the viability of both states.
Aid
Canada’s engagement in Sudan and South Sudan focuses on helping to build the conditions needed for long-term peace, stability and prosperity in both countries. As one of its three priorities in these two countries, Canada works to provide humanitarian assistance to meet the immediate basic needs of conflict-affected populations in Sudan and South Sudan, as well as to build resilience through development support focused on food security, and children and youth. In South Sudan, Canada is improving maternal, newborn and child health, and supporting the development of viable public institutions critical to the future stability and prosperity of the new nation.
Canada’s humanitarian and development programs are delivered through experienced multilateral partners such as the World Bank and United Nations agencies, as well as international and Canadian non-governmental organizations. For example, Canada is:
•Improving access to basic services for children and youth;
•Enhancing food security;
•Reducing loss of life among vulnerable populations, and reducing child and maternal deaths; and
•Strengthening the public-administration and financial-management capacity of the Government of South Sudan.
Progress
Despite ongoing challenges, real progress continues to be made:
•In 2010, food assistance was provided to 11 million vulnerable people, and water and sanitation services were provided to 1 million displaced persons in the former united Sudan.
•More than 6 million children in Sudan and 600,000 in South Sudan received basic integrated health services in 2010, and 176 health facilities were constructed or rehabilitated.
•More than 500 schools were constructed or rehabilitated, and school supplies reached 2.2 million students across Sudan and South Sudan.
•160,000 children now have access to child-friendly environments, and 1,200 children and youth were released from armed forces or groups.
•Food production increased in several South Sudanese communities through the provision of seeds and tools, and the clearing and restoration of non-arable land.
•More than 300 institutions across the Government of South Sudan implemented a new electronic payroll system.
Diplomacy
Canada’s engagement in Sudan and South Sudan focuses on helping to set the conditions for long-term peace, stability and prosperity in both countries. As one of its three priorities in these two countries, Canada participates actively in peace processes, multilateral initiatives and peacebuilding.
Canada is part of a concerted international effort to ensure peace in, and between, Sudan and South Sudan. For example, Canada is:
•Working with international partners to consolidate the gains made through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and to press for the pacific resolution of outstanding disagreements between Sudan and South Sudan;
•Supporting efforts to achieve sustainable peace in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile; and
•Advocating that the governments of Sudan and South Sudan do their utmost to respect human rights and protect civilians within their respective territories, meet the humanitarian needs of conflict-affected populations and be accountable to citizens.
Progress
Despite the ongoing challenges, real progress continues to be made. Canada has:
•Helped persuade leaders in Sudan and South Sudan to implement the provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and abide by the results of the referendum on the independence of South Sudan;
•Assisted with the deployment of international observers, the design and distribution of 2.2 million voter-education packages and the training of 200 journalists, more than 31,000 police officers and 75 judges to ensure voters were able to freely cast their ballots in the referendum;
•Provided significant support to the Darfur peace process, which resulted in a preliminary agreement in July 2011; and
•Provided support to the transitional and permanent constitutional processes in South Sudan.
Security
Canada’s engagement in Sudan and South Sudan focuses on helping to set the conditions for long-term peace, stability and prosperity in both countries. As one of its three priorities in these two countries, Canada is working to increase prospects for a just and lasting peace in both countries.
Canada plays a key role in African Union (AU) and UN peace operations and contributes to community-level security in both Sudan and South Sudan. For example, Canada is:
•Enhancing the effectiveness of UN and AU peace operations in Sudan and South Sudan;
•Increasing the capacity of the government of South Sudan, civil society and communities to better address community-level security concerns;
•Reducing loss of life among conflict-affected populations; and,
•Helping AU troops meet continental security needs.
Progress
Despite the ongoing challenges, real progress continues to be made:
•Since 2006, Canada has deployed more than 550 police and military personnel in support of the following UN and AU peace operations:
◦United Nations Missions in Sudan (former UN mission): Support for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, including logistical and security preparations for the January 2011 referendum on southern Sudan’s secession. Training and mentoring of South Sudanese police officers and delivery of programs to improve community-level security and curtail ethnic and tribal violence.
◦African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID): Training and resource support has strengthened the mission’s capacity to plan, manage and conduct effective peace operations and to fulfill key aspects of its mandate, in particular with regard to the protection of civilians and security, and the freedom of movement of humanitarian workers. Canada has provided equipment and training to Formed Police Units of UNAMID troop-contributing countries.
◦Canada has provided training, equipment and infrastructure to enhance the capacity of South Sudan’s land commissions, airport authorities, justice, police, and prison sectors to safeguard the rule of law and strengthen the ability of the country’s nascent institutions to respond to criminal threats and potential terrorist activity.
◦Canada’s contribution to the clearing of hazardous mine and explosive remnants of war (ERW), along with support for mine risk education activities, has reduced the threats associated with ERW and strengthened the skills, knowledge and capacity of domestic demining organizations.
 

Muslim Brotherhood 'Democracy': Slapping, Stabbing, and Slaying for Sharia
by Raymond IbrahimظInvestigative Project on Terrorism
July 9, 2012
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11971/muslim-brotherhood-democracy-slapping-stabbing
Prior to Egypt's presidential elections, Islamists made clear that the electoral process was an obligatory form of "holy war." Then, any number of Islamic clerics, including influential ones, declared that it was mandatory for Muslims to cheat during elections—if so doing would help Islamist candidates win; that the elections were a form of jihad, and those who die are "martyrs" who will attain the highest levels of paradise. Top Islamic institutions and influential clerics, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, issued fatwas decreeing that all Muslims were "obligated" to go and vote for those candidates most likely to implement Sharia law, with threats of hellfire for those failing to do so.
The point was simple: democracy, elections, voting, even the individual candidates, were all means to an end—the establishment of Sharia law. Cheat, fight, and kill during elections, as long as doing so enables Sharia; vote only for whoever will enable Sharia; avoid hell by enabling Sharia. (It is precisely for this reason that the very first demand made by Islamic leaders is that President Morsi implement the totality of Sharia law in Egypt. That is, after all, why so many voted for him.)
That many Egyptian Muslims heeded these commands to lie, cheat, steal, and kill in order to empower Sharia, there is no doubt. Story after story appeared in the Egyptian media—much of it missed in the West—demonstrating as much.
Those dealing with brutal violence speak for themselves. For example, a Muslim man "beat his pregnant wife to death upon learning that she had not voted for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi." According to police reports, "despite her pleas," the husband "battered and bruised" her after discovering she had voted for the secularist candidate, Ahmed Shafiq. She died later in the hospital "from injuries sustained."
Likewise, a farmer was "stabbed" by a "supporter of Morsi," simply for putting up a picture of the secular Shafiq on his motorcycle. Another 52-year-old man and "supporter of Morsi" slapped his mother for voting for Shafiq. The man took his elderly mother to the voting booth, informing her that she must vote for Morsi; after she voted, he pressed her to confirm that she did in fact vote for the Islamist—only to be told that she did not. The man "lost his temper" and slapped her in front of the other voters and electoral supervisors.
Finally, and in accord with the Muslim Brotherhood's own directives, whole segments of Coptic Christians were prevented from voting. According to Al Ahram, Egypt's national newspaper, in Upper Egypt, where millions of Copts live, "the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded entire streets, prevented Copts from voting at gunpoint, and threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and vote."
Three observations:
Many analysts would like to rationalize these anecdotes away as byproducts of "third world culture"—not the Islamic religion per se. Yet it is curious to note that all the violence and threats of violence that revolved around Egypt's presidential elections were committed by the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, not the supporters of the secular candidate, who instead were at the receiving end of the abuses, including death, violence, humiliation, and injustices in general. This fact speaks for itself.
Noteworthy, too, is that most of those abused were either women (including wives and mothers) or "dhimmi" Christian Copts—both members of society that, according to Sharia, are treated as "second-class citizens," to be kept in subjugation by Muslim males, the only "full" citizens of an Islamic state.
Despite all these concrete facts and more, including widespread allegations of electoral fraud at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Obama administration's only response was to pressure Egypt's ruling junta into declaring a victor—the administration's favorite, Muhammad Morsi—thereby making the United States an accomplice of the Brotherhood's electoral holy war.

Calls to Destroy Egypt's Great Pyramids Begin
by Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine
July 10, 2012
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/11973/calls-to-destroy-egypt-great-pyramids-begin
According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi'i, those "symbols of paganism," which Egypt's Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax. Most recently, Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs" and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt's new president, Muhammad Morsi, to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Amr bin al-As could not."
Has the sun finally set for Egypt's Great Pyramids?
This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity. While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself—deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran—was destroyed under bin al-As's reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar's command.
However, while book-burning was an easy activity in the 7th century, destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was not—even if Egypt's Medieval Mamluk rulers "de-nosed" the latter during target practice (though popular legend naturally attributes it to a Westerner, Napoleon).
Now, however, as Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sheikhs" observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be destroyed. The only question left is whether Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president is "pious" enough—if he is willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the hands of Egypt's first Islamic conqueror.
Nor is such a course of action implausible. History is laden with examples of Muslims destroying their own pre-Islamic heritage—starting with Muhammad himself, who destroyed Arabia's Ka'ba temple, transforming it into a mosque.
Asking "What is it about Islam that so often turns its adherents against their own patrimony?" Daniel Pipes provides several examples, from Medieval Muslims in India destroying their forefathers' temples, to contemporary Muslims destroying their ancestors' heritage in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, and Tunisia.
Currently, in what the International Criminal Court is describing as a possible "war crime," Islamic fanatics are destroying the ancient legacy of the city of Timbuktu in Mali—all to Islam's triumphant war cry, "Allahu Akbar!"
Much of this hate for their own pre-Islamic heritage is tied to the fact that, traditionally, Muslims do not identify with this or that nation, culture, or language, but only with the Islamic nation—the Umma.
Accordingly, while many Egyptians—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—see themselves as Egyptians, Islamists have no national identity, identifying only with Islam's "culture," based on the "sunna" of the prophet and Islam's language, Arabic. This sentiment was clearly reflected when the former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Akef, declared "the hell with Egypt," indicating that the interests of his country are secondary to Islam's.
It is further telling that such calls are being made now—immediately after a Muslim Brotherhood member became Egypt's president. In fact, the same reports discussing the call to demolish the last of the Seven Wonders of the Word, also note that Egyptian Salafis are calling on Morsi to banish all Shias and Baha'is from Egypt.
In other words, Morsi's recent call to release the Blind Sheikh, a terrorist mastermind, from U.S. imprisonment, may be the tip of the iceberg in coming audacity. From calls to legalize Islamic sex-slave marriage to calls to institute "morality police" to calls to destroy Egypt's mountain-like monuments, under Muslim Brotherhood tutelage, the bottle has been uncorked, and the genie unleashed in Egypt.
Will all those international institutions, which make it a point to look the other way whenever human rights abuses are committed by Muslims, lest they appear "Islamophobic," at least take note now that the Great Pyramids appear to be next on Islam's hit list, or will the fact that Muslims are involved silence them once again—even as those most ancient symbols of human civilization are pummeled to the ground?

Lessening UNRWA's Damage
By: Steven J. Rosen and Daniel Pipes
The Jerusalem Post
July 10, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/pipes/11583/unrwa-damage
Critics of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the organization tasked with oversight of Palestine refugees, have tended to focus on its sins. Its camps are havens for terrorists. Its bureaucracy is bloated and its payroll includes radicals. Its schools teach incitement. Its registration rolls reek with fraud. Its policies encourage a mentality of victimhood.
Food distribution now constitutes a small part of UNRWA's spending; most of it concerns education and health.
But UNRWA's most consequential problem is its mission. Over 63 years, it has become an agency that perpetuates the refugee problem rather than contributing to its resolution. UNRWA does not work to settle refugees; instead, by registering each day ever more grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have never been displaced from their homes or employment, artificially adding them to the tally of "refugees," it adds to number of refugees aggrieved against Israel. By now, these descendants comprise over 90 percent of UNRWA refugees.
Further, UNRWA violates the Refugee Convention by insisting that nearly two million people who have been given citizenship in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (and who constitute 40 percent of UNRWA's beneficiaries) are still refugees.
As a result of such practices, instead of going down through resettlement and natural attrition, the number of UNRWA refugees has steadily grown since 1949, from 750,000 to almost 5 million. At this rate, UNRWA refugees will exceed 8 million by 2030 and 20 million by 2060, its camps and schools endlessly promoting the futile dream that these millions of descendants someday will "return" to their ancestors' homes in Israel. When even Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas acknowledges that sending five million Palestinians would mean "the end of Israel," it's clear that UNRWA obstructs conflict resolution.
Israeli government officials are well aware that UNRWA perpetuates the refugee problem and full well know its sins. That said, the State of Israel has a working relationship with UNRWA and looks to it to fulfill certain services.
Israel's cooperative policy began in 1967 with the Comay-Michelmore Exchange of Letters in which Jerusalem promised "the full co-operation of the Israel authorities ... [to] facilitate the task of UNRWA." This policy remains in very much place; in November 2009, an Israeli representative confirmed a "continued commitment to the understandings" of the 1967 letters and support for "UNRWA's important humanitarian mission." He even promised to maintain "close coordination" with UNRWA.
Mural of Ayat al-Akhras, a Palestinian suicide bomber, on the wall of an UNWRA school in the Deheishe Refugee Camp near Bethlehem; despite incitement like this, the Israeli government does not want UNRWA's work shut down. (Photo by Rhonda Spivak)
Israeli officials distinguish between UNRWA's negative political role and its more positive role as a social service agency providing assistance, primarily medical and educational. They appreciate that UNRWA, with funds provided by foreign governments, helps one-third of the population in the West Bank and three-quarters in Gaza. Without these funds, Israel could face an explosive situation on its borders and international demands that it, depicted as the "occupying power," assume the burden of care for these populations. In the extreme case, the Israel Defense Forces would have to enter hostile areas to oversee the running of schools and hospitals, for which the Israeli taxpayer would have to foot the bill – a most unattractive prospect.
As a well-informed Israeli official sums it up, UNRWA plays a "key role in supplying humanitarian assistance to the civilian Palestinian population" that must be sustained.
This explains why, when foreign friends of Israel try to defund UNRWA, Jerusalem urges caution or even obstructs these efforts. For example, in January 2010, Canada's Harper government announced that it would redirect aid from UNRWA to the Palestinian Authority to "ensure accountability and foster democracy in the PA." Although B'nai B'rith Canada proudly reported that "the government listened" to its advice, Canadian diplomats said that Jerusalem quietly requested the Canadians to resume funding UNRWA.
Another example: in December 2011, the Dutch foreign minister said that his government would "thoroughly review" its policy toward UNRWA, only later to tell confidants that Jerusalem had asked him to leave UNRWA's funding alone.
Which brings us to the question: Can the elements of UNRWA useful to Israel be retained without perpetuating the refugee status?
Yes, but this requires distinguishing UNRWA's role as a social service agency from its role producing ever-more "refugees." Contrary to its practice of registering grandchildren as refugees, Section III.A.2 and Section III.B of UNRWA's Consolidated Eligibility & Registration Instructions allow it to provide social services to Palestinians without defining them as refugees. This provision is already in effect: in the West Bank, for example, 17 percent of the Palestinians registered with UNRWA in January 2012 and eligible to receive its services were not listed as refugees.
Given that UNRWA reports to the U.N. General Assembly, with its automatic anti-Israel majority, mandating a change in UNRWA practices is nearly impossible. But major UNRWA donors, starting with the US government, should stop being accomplices to UNRWA's perpetuation of the refugee status.
Washington should treat UNRWA as a vehicle to deliver social services, nothing more. It should insist that UNRWA beneficiaries who either were never displaced or who have already have citizenship in other countries, although perhaps eligible for UNRWA services, are not refugees. Establishing this distinction reduces a key irritant in Arab-Israeli relations.
Steven J. Rosen heads the Washington Project of the Middle East Forum and Daniel Pipes is president of the Forum. © 2012 by Steven J. Rosen and Daniel Pipes.

Olmert’s acquittal qualifies him to lead a new left-of-center bloc
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 10, 2012/Ehud Olmert leapt agilely from deep pit of disgrace straight into the political limelight Tuesday, July 10 as a potential political game-changer. After living under the cloud of corruption for four years, he was cleared for lack of proof “beyond reasonable doubt.”by the Jerusalem District Court of the two most heinous counts which forced his resignation as prime minister. Surrounded by political allies and friends, he smilingly warned reporters: “You’ll soon be seeing plenty of me around.”He moved so smoothly that it was hard to remember that he was convicted of one of the three charges: breach of trust while serving as Minister of Trade and Industry; or that he still faced trial for graft in the big Holyland case while Mayor of Jerusalem.
Olmert clearly expects to land on his feet as the great unifier of a left-of-center political bloc. He sees himself as the only man capable of merging an amorphous assortment of left-wing, socialist, protest and otherwise angry groups and parties, which are too small, weak and fragmented to form a viable opposition to the broad right-of-center government coalition headed by Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud.
Aside from being a remarkably slick politician, Olmert has another qualifier: Before his forced resignation in 2008, he was the Israeli prime minister who came closest to a deal with the Palestinians by offering uniquely generous concessions. As such, Olmert is in a position to attract the dwindling far-left Meretz, the fledgling Yesh Atid (There is a Future) and Socialist Labor, although Labor’s Shelly Yachimovitch will fight hard for her dream of restoring Labor to its old preeminence.
He would be able to rally factions in the Kadima party he once led, who are disgruntled with their current leader Shaul Mofaz for joining the Netanyahu government as deputy prime minister.
Olmert could also provide a home for anti-Likud, out-of-work, dovish ex-security and army heads like the former Mossad director Meir Dagan, former chiefs of staff Gaby Ashkenazi and Meir Halutz and ex-Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin.
The burgeoning social protest movements may also be swept up in the unifying momentum, particularly as most of them draw their ideas and funding from the same, often foreign, sources and share the same hankering to overturn the government in power.
All these groups and figures would temporarily throw their differences to the winds in their rush for a place in a new left-of-center coalition - however short-lived it may be. The long-stalled negotiations with the Palestinians would provide a handy political slogan for factional fusion.
Even before this nascent process takes off, the politicians who succeeded Olmert as leaders of Kadima: Tzipi Livni and the man who beat her to the top, Shaul Mofaz, look like shadows.
As foreign minister in the Olmert government, Livni will not be forgiven for conniving with (the then and now) Defense Minister Ehud Barak to drive him out of the prime minister’s office when he was accused of suspected corruption. He was hounded out even before he was indicted.
Just four days ago, Livni made a well-publicized appearance at a big demonstration in Tel Aviv on behalf of a new law for ending exemptions from military duty for ultra-religious yeshiva students and Arab citizens (Equal Sharing of the Burden). Tuesday, her image and hopes of a comeback were quickly overlaid by the triumphant former prime minister.
Some scrambling was also detected in the ruling camp under Netanyahu’s unchallenged leadership. His popularity has recently taken a knock from the way he wavered over legislation for making compulsory conscription universal. His actions were criticized for being prompted by the narrow political motive of preserving his government coalition against the loss of Kadima’s Mofaz who championed the Equal Burden movement, rather than meeting a just popular demand. Prime Minister Netanyahu feels the need to shore up his government against the loss of a senior coalition partner: The hard-line Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of Israeli Beitenu goes on trial next month for alleged financial wrongdoing including money laundering. For the duration of the trial and in case of his conviction, Lieberman has chosen an able successor, Yair Shamir, son of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir who passed away on June 30.
Shamir is close to Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon of Likud. They are emerging as possible leaders of a solidified right-of-center alliance against a future left-of-center bloc. It would bring together Likud, Israeli Beitenu, Independence (led by Ehud Barak) and the National Union. Israel’s political anatomy is historically dominated by two big rival alliances which operate on opposite sides of the aisle most of the time, but tend to join forces for national unity in some national emergencies. The two camps have this in common: Each traditionally enlists ultra-religious groups, Shas and Degel Hatorah, as tie-breakers to gain the lead in forming a government, and then builds them safe niches in their coalition governments.

The people in the stands are watching
By Tariq Alhomayed/Asharq Al-Awsat
When I first began as a journalist, a veteran in the field told me that when ideologues, vocal mobs, Islamists or liberals applaud you, this can be a dangerous sign. In fact, it is often better to be met with sweeping attacks from these groups, because our region is not used to objective opinions or rational visions.  Today I am recalling this advice as I read, or contemplate, the work of those who have made their names in the media as liberals, or faux-liberals, as my colleague Yousef Al-Dayni expressed recently when he said: “Oh faux-liberals, release the Muslim Brotherhood within you”! The problem that has been plaguing our region recently, specifically since the so-called “Arab Spring”, is that some Arab media figures or intellectuals are taking a liking to populism and seeking to keep pace with the street at the expense of their own convictions or the facts in front of them, subconsciously succumbing to the crowds watching from the stands. It makes no sense for the football coach to change his game plan, style of play, or formation, purely according to the wishes of the masses, who are watching in the stands. In football terms, what about the coach’s experience, accumulated knowledge, and the facts on the ground? How can you ignore the player with outstanding skills in favor of the crowd-pleaser, or the player who can implement the coach’s plan in favor of the one who can satisfy the masses?
In politics the story is more complicated. How can the West, for example, adopt a stance contrary to the Arab street during the occupation of Iraq, and then suddenly side with the Arab masses, going against all history, facts and the reality, when it encourages the falsely termed “revolution” in Bahrain, or supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt demanding that they be given an opportunity, even though they, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood, are yet to give anyone else a chance. Major General Mahmoud Shahin, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in Egypt, recently said that he expected a clash with the Muslim Brotherhood but not so fast, so how can the media build up a history of opposing the Islamists and then say give them a chance “ because it is democracy”? Democracy brought Hitler, Nuri al-Maliki and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so how after all that can you believe the visions of these people? Not all that glitters, in the eyes of the Americans in our region, is gold, and the reason is simple, namely because they are being influenced by those watching from the stands.
The problem lies in the simplification and reduction of political agendas, such as that of the Muslim Brotherhood, where the facts and realities are ignored. Democracy in Iraq has not improved the lives of the Iraqis, just like the Brotherhood in Egypt has not brought reassurance to the Egyptians. The events in Bahrain were nothing more than an extension of Iranian maneuvers throughout the region, as we saw previously in Lebanon. However, what is striking is how Arab intellectuals and media figures are unable to open their eyes in Lebanon or Yemen, or close them in Bahrain, Iraq, or Egypt. Some even preached that the year 2012 would be a difficult one for the Arab Gulf. Either their vision is fundamentally distorted, or Arab media figures and intellectuals have fundamentally failed to grasp that they are pandering to the crowds in the stands, and that the greatest danger they face is when the applause of the masses goes to their head.

Al-Assad and the Alawites
By Abdullah Al-Otaibi/Asharq Alawsat
The balance of international power continues to frustrate any serious action towards the al-Assad regime in Syria, and similarly, the Syrian opposition continues to go from one failure to another. The recent conferences held for Syria in five-star hotels – as pointed out by the chief of the UN observer mission Robert Mood – reflect only the extent of international inability to adopt a firm decision towards Syria. Neither Russia, with its blood-thirsty and indifferent history, is ready to change its stance, nor is America's President Obama ready to move a muscle before the end of the presidential election in November. As for Europe, it is totally immersed in the mire of its deplorable economy and the problems of Greece, Italy and Spain, and so is even more crippled than the US and unable to take the initiative.
The mobilization of regional countries towards Syria – with positions overtly adopted so far by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - can be assessed these by their respective political stances. However, it seems that the Syrian opposition still cannot be unified, and that some support is being offered on the ground, the details and outlines of which are yet to appear, which is normal, but there are several indicators of it.
This brings us to the internal Syrian situation, where the regime is becoming increasingly ferocious and the role of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is becoming more essential. In a horrific leaked video recording that shows the torture of a Syrian citizen at the hands of the regime’s forces, one soldier repeats the question "do you want freedom?", a phrase that has appeared in numerous videos ever since Bashar al-Assad declared war against his own people. Yet what is new in this particular recording is that the soldier also asks "do you want to fight the Alawites?"
On 18th February 2012, I wrote in this column that "a year has passed since the eruption of the crisis, and from the outset or soon afterwards, the regime seems to have been eager to drag the country into the worst of all options; a civil war." In this newspaper on the 2nd June 2012, reports began to suggest that Bashar al-Assad is endeavoring to create a state of "internal fighting whereby he can hold control over small districts of Syria; mainly Latakia and the Alawite mountains."
What was once analysis has now become the reality. The Alawite military doctrine has begun to appear in the army, as seen in the statements issued by its officers, soldiers and thugs, and its actions on the ground. A look at the map shows that the regime is intensifying its major destructive operations near the Alawite eastern mountains and the lowlands extending around them; from Homs and Hama to Idlib in the north, where citizens are being forced to flee, aiming to create empty regions to function as a border for the Alawite state which the regime considers as its last shelter.
As for the relationship between the Alawite sect and the Syrian authority, Hafez al-Assad was raised in a sectarian environment where he developed his pro-minority awareness. In the Baath party and the army, he undertook the extensive mobilization of minorities in order to build up a political and military power that could eventually dominate. Later on, however, he abandoned these minorities and relied solely on the Alawite sect and then upon his own family, with which he managed to control of all elements of power in Syria. Bashar al-Assad seems to be following in his fathers' footsteps with regards to his Alawite military sectarianism but he is also adopting a contrary policy of deliberately shrinking his political control; hoping to consolidate dominance over a smaller Alawite state rather than the whole of Syria.
Hafez al-Assad created a military structure for the armed forces in a manner that guaranteed that the decision-making process and powers remained centralized and confined to the Alawites. In this endeavor, he relied heavily on these forces' absolute loyalty, his extensive expertise and extreme caution; characteristics which his son has sought to emulate. Consider the large-scale defections from the army by senior officers who then joined the FSA. Had the overall military structure not been solid, those defectors could have staged a complete or partial military coup incorporating border districts that could have been fully liberated and defended. Media outlets observed that 15 generals defected from al-Assad's army and joined the FSA in one week alone, let alone the dozens of ordinary soldiers who defect every day.
Last week, Turkey and Iraq adopted positions that are worthy of contemplation. The Turkish stance relates to the incident of al-Assad’s forces downing a Turkish aircraft, an act that has passed by unpunished. Turkey has adopted a position of silence even though the attack could have been used as a pretext to act outside the Security Council, either to strike al-Assad's air force or at least to create a buffer zone on the border. If this was to happen, Russia would not have intervened; it would have been content with provoking riots via Iran, but it seems there was no Turkish-Western inclination to back such action.
As for the Iraqi position, this was truly striking and was declared in Cairo. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari expressed the al-Maliki government's stance with regards to the Syrian state of affairs. In his statement, the minister evoked the history of the Baath party by comparing the status of the Iraqi opposition prior to the ouster of Saddam Hussein to that of Syria's present-day opposition, which suggests that Tehran has pressured Iraq to distance itself from al-Assad. Perhaps, this decision indicates Iran’s fear that if al-Maliki continues to adopt a sectarian stance against the Syrian people, this will lead to substantial Iranian losses in Iraq if the Syrian regime is toppled.
Al-Assad's marked bias towards his Alawite minority and his family - an attribute which he inherited from his father and which he thinks could be the way for his salvation - may in fact accelerate his downfall. Syria is a country of multiple religions and ideological sects with ethnic and tribal loyalties. Therefore, in view of the blatant Alawi sectarian orientation adopted by the regime, there is a strong endeavor to unify all these variant categories and the Sunni majority to face the regime.
The al-Assad regime is almost over, and now it is only a question of time before the regime's illusions collapse on its head. If Bashar al-Assad is to find shelter in the outskirts of Tehran or Moscow, his Alawite sect will still remain in Syria. Hence today it is the duty of rational Alawites to side with the people and the country, and announce their complete disavowal of al-Assad's sectarian and blood-thirsty policies; otherwise the son's legacy in Syria will be even worse than his father's.
The future of our Arab republics seems to be full of sectarianism, fractured social loyalties, and the ideologies and organizations of political Islam. However, the future is not promising in terms of development, civilization, awareness and advancement.