LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
July 29/12

Bible Quotation for today
Matthew 23/23&24: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. 23:24 You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
U.S. sees Israel as spy threat/By Adam Goldman/Daily Star/July 28/20
Alawistan/By: Tony Badran/Foreign Policy/July 28/12
Assad is preparing his defence at The Hague/By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat/July 28/12
Arab Leaders: False modesty and the trappings of power/By Adel Al Toraifi/Asharq Alawsat/July 28/12
The way forward in Damascus/By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Alawsat/July 28/12

Pointed reminder that Hizballah still holds the cards for making war on Israel
DEBKAfile Special Report July 28, 2012/While world audiences were transfixed by the theatrical opening of the Olympic Games in London Friday night, July 27, the ever-manipulative Hassan Nasrallah released a video clip recording his Hizballah militia’s raid in the summer of 2006 which ended in the deaths of eight IDF soldiers and the kidnapping of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Hot military pursuit for their rescue mired Israel in the ill-prepared, misconceived Second Lebanon War.
Six years later, Nasrallah is jogging reluctant Israeli memories with a reminder of the ease with which his raiders carried out their unprovoked incursion of northern Israel and the destructive impact he produced on its society and armed forces by starting a conflict which he also claims to have won. He is saying that his organization still holds all the cards of its “holy war to liberate all of Palestine.” Those cards, he is preparing to slap down at any time now, fully backed by Iran and Syria, and he promises the IDF will fare no better this time than it did in 2006.
The Hizballah leader’s strongest card - then and now - is his ability to keep Israel’s policy-makers in a state of uncertainty or, to put it another way, his successful blocking tactics against Israeli intelligence.
The video shows Hizballah commandos cutting through the Israel fence on July 12, 2006, surging into Israel and jumping an IDF Hammer jeep patrolling the Lebanese border near Zarit after an artillery shelling. They are seen pulling open the car doors. But then, moments before the attackers dragged Goldwasser and Eldad Regev out of the jeep, the tape is cut.
The enigma of whether they were snatched alive or dead remains. Their deaths were only revealed when they were handed back in coffins at the end of agonizing bargaining through international mediators in the hope they were still alive. Until then, this uncertainty held Israel in a corrosive grip, causing its leaders to lurch from one tactical blunder to another and allowing Hizballah to stage more rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns and villages without an IDF response. The Hizballah tape had another message, say debkafile’s counter-terror sources: Just as Israeli intelligence was baffled by the 2006 incursion, so too it failed to anticipate the bus bombing of July 18, 2012 in Burgas, Bulgaria, which killed 6 Israeli holidaymakers and the Bulgarian driver.
Therefore, Israel cannot hope to forestall the promised terrorist offensive still in store.
The clip was released by a new HIzballah TV channel established in Beirut by Lebanese sympathizers who quit Al-Jazeera.
As a crafty propagandist, our sources would not put it past Nasrallah to have released – or even fabricated – the 2006 tape, certainly with Iranian and Syria approval, to drive home the lack of progress made by American, Israeli and Bulgarian clandestine and anti-terror services in cracking the Burgos mystery.
Hundreds of their agents fanned out across Europe and in Turkey have failed to turn up leads to the identities of the bomber, his accomplices and the hand behind them.
Probing for gaps in Israel’s military and security defenses is a classical Hizballah method of aggression which has been fine-tuned over the years by Iranian instructors for terrorist and military operations alike.
Two years ago, US and Israeli intelligence discovered evidence that HIzballah was planning to use its next war offensive against Israel to seize and occupy territory before Israeli forces had time to take the battle into Lebanon behind its own lines. The videotape demonstrates Hizballah’s stealth tactics for an undetected incursion.
Our military sources disclose that two years ago, the Lebanese organization’s war planners established five special forces brigades the size of expanded battalions for the specific missions of capturing parts of Galilee and raising a mutiny against the Israeli government among Arab citizens. Hizballah has designed strategic maps dividing Galilee into patches, each of which is to be conquered by one of those brigades. Their training has been adjusted to the topography and demography of each of the areas they are intended to occupy and administer.

Hezbollah releases video of abduction of two Israeli soldiers that led to Second Lebanon War
Video released by the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television shows Hezbollah operatives penetrating the Israel-Lebanon border and taking over the jeep of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
By Jack Khoury | Jul.27, 2012 | 10:30 PM | 2 Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser Photo by AP Text size Comments (2) Print Page Send to friend Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share this story is byJack Khoury related tagsHezbollah IDF Lebanon Hezbollah released a video on Friday documenting the 2006 abduction of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, which led to the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. In the video, which was broadcast on the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television, a group of Hezbollah operatives is seen penetrating the Israeli-Lebanese border fence and walking toward the road where Israeli soldiers are on patrol. The Hezbollah operatives are then seen approaching a jeep, with Goldwasser and Regev presumably in it, after it was hit by an anti-tank missile. Hezbollah operatives are then seen opening the door of the jeep and removing the two soldiers, but then the frame freezes. Goldwasser and Regev themselves are not seen in the video.
The video was broadcast in a special program that marked six years since the Second Lebanon War on Al Mayadeen, which is a new news channel that began operating this month.
Ghassan bin Jiddo, the Lebanese reporter who broadcast the video and who is also the owner of the Al Mayadeen television channel, is known to be close to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Jiddo said that Imad Mughniyeh personally oversaw the abduction and was present during the operation. Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah leader and one of the most wanted terrorists by the United States and Israel, was killed in 2008 by a car bomb in Syria.

Hezbollah won’t respond to assassination accusations: Qassem
July 28, 2012/The Daily Star /BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s deputy leader said the party does not owe Lebanon an explanation over allegations by March 14 officials that the group is involved in political assassinations. “We do not respond to assassination accusations because they are void and unfounded,” Sheikh Naim Qassem told attendees of a Friday Iftar in Beirut. His comments were published Saturday. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea implicitly accused the rival March 8 camp of trying to assassinate him. On April 4, Geagea said that he escaped an assassination attempt when shots were fired at his residence. Batroun MP Butros Harb said on July 5 that he survived an attempted assassination after two detonators were found on top of the elevator inside the Beirut building housing his office.
Harb has called on Hezbollah to hand over the man suspected of being involved in the foiled plot. Harb claims that the man is a Hezbollah member and that party is protecting him. Hezbollah has denied having any connection to the attempted assassination. Turning to the issue of resistance, Qassem said Hezbollah will continue on the path of struggle. “They are waging psychological, political, media and provocative campaigns against us ... in order to scare people away from us. But these methods no longer work,” he said. “They previously accused us of terrorism, but it turned out that people rally behind us on a fundamental goal – liberation and resistance.” “Know that we don’t respond to a lot of accusations brought against us – whether assassination allegations, those regarding the party’s movements in the countries of the world or [allegations] that we are fighting in Syria,” Qassem said.

Lebanon's Arabic press digest - July 28, 2012 July The Daily Star
Lebanon's Arabic press digest.
Following are summaries of some of the main stories in a selection of Lebanese newspapers Saturday. The Daily Star cannot vouch for the accuracy of these reports.
Al-Akhkbar
Clashes between the army and gunmen in Tripoli
The security situation deteriorated in Tripoli last night as heavy clashes, which lasted for about one hour, broke out between the Lebanese Army and gunmen. The fighting continued intermittently until late Friday evening.
The fighting followed a brawl minutes before Iftar between the Baqqar and Shaarani neighborhoods; young men wielding sticks beat a number of other men as they returned home to Jabal Mohsen.
A clash also took place in nearby Bab al-Tabbaneh over a dispute between the Aswad and Liza families.
Al-Liwaa
Sidon officials meet Sunday to confirm Monday strike ... Charbel reveals ‘difficult situation’ he will address in Cabinet
Aleppo battle expedites end to Assir sit-in .... Pay scale dispute settled
Rai calls Hariri, seeking guarantee ahead of Akkar visit ... Gunfire renewed between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh
While tension has gripped Sidon since Thursday afternoon, caution once again prevailed in Tripoli yesterday following clashes after sunset between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh.
Meanwhile, sectarian threats emerged after fliers were distributed in churches in Qbayat, which turned out to be aimed at sabotaging an August visit by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai to the Akkar region.
This [planned] visit was the focus of a telephone conversation Friday between Rai and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
On the Sidon front, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told Al-Liwaa that he will address Sheikh Ahmad Assir’s open-ended sit-in during a Cabinet meeting scheduled at Baabda Palace on Monday.
Charbel described the Sidon situation as “difficult.”
Ad-Diyar
Sidon boils ... Army separates two sit-ins
Assir: I’m the most powerful, we have prepared tents for the winter
Anti-Assir protesters hit back: Sidon against you, an eye for an eye
Sidon is boiling ... and has become divided between two parties and two forces – one represented by Sheikh Ahmad Assir and his allies and another comprising Sidon [prominent] figures, political parties and businessmen.
And the situation between the two parties appears to be heading toward a heated confrontation, particularly since economic life in the city has been paralyzed.
In light of these developments, Sidon entered the red light stage after the Popular Nasserite Organization [PNO] decided to deal with Assir based on "an eye for an eye, and a sit-in for a sit-in.”
The PNO has decided to cut off roads with burning tires until Sidon is liberated from the sit-in.
Assir underestimated these moves, announcing he was the “most powerful” in Sidon and that Sidon residents are on his side.
Assir also said that he has started bringing in “tents” in preparation for the winter season.
An-Nahar
Sidon mobilizes to besiege Assir and Future Movement holds government responsible
Monday’s EDL faceoff a bid to get the jump on political solutions
Political and security developments resulting from Sheikh Ahmad Assir’s sit-in, which has entered its second month, took the issue to a new escalatory stage.
Meanwhile, concerns were raised that the tug of war over Electricite Du Liban contract workers could also be headed toward a confrontation Monday in light of negotiations between the government and the Union Coordination Committee over a pay scale [that will give civil servants a salary hike].
The wide-ranging political activity launched by Sidon MP Bahia Hariri Friday aimed at mobilizing the political will to pressure the government and security forces to end the sit-in, which foments unrest.

Lebanese Army Intelligence Detains Three People Possessing Israeli-Made Equipment
Naharnet/28 July 2012/ The army intelligence detained on Saturday three people in Rmeileh south of Beirut after Israeli-made equipment were found in their possession.
According to statement issued by the army, H. B., A. D., and M. S. were detained after obtaining information on suspicious endeavors carried out by them. The army raided the residents of the three suspects and seized 1,211 detonators, several electric-detonators, Israeli-made devices used to ignite mines, Russian and American-made anti-personnel mines, Israeli-made mortar shells, 21 hand grenades, weapons and other equipment. Investigations with the three suspects are underway and the confiscated equipment was referred to the competent authorities.
Al-Jadeed channel reported earlier that the army arrested Hannah Boulous in the Shouf town of Rmeileh on suspicion of collaborating with Israel.

Lebanon arrests 'Israeli spy' in coastal Chouf town
July 28, 2012/The Daily Star
SIDON, Lebanon: Lebanon arrested a janitor Saturday who works at a school in the coastal Chouf town of Rmaileh on charges of spying for Israel. A security source in south Lebanon identified the suspect as Hanna B.The source, who spoke to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity, said security forces raided the concierge's dwelling at 3 a.m. and confiscated several communication devices.

Jumblatt calls for Assad’s elimination, arming rebels
July 28, 2012/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt called for the “elimination” of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the arming of the rebels in a recent interview with the radio station France Info. The Druze leader said that short of Assad being killed, he should be taken to Siberia in Russia or the Iranian desert. Jumblatt, who during the March commemoration of his father’s assassination draped his father’s grave in the Syrian rebel flag, called for the West to supply the Syrian opposition with weapons to fight the regime, according to the interview.

Israelis says Lebanese refuse to train next to them
July 28, 2012/Daily Star
LONDON: Olympic officials were forced to erect a screen between Lebanon's and Israel's judo fighters on Friday after the Lebanese refused to train on the same mat, the Israeli Olympic team said Friday.
The incident arose after Lebanon's two judokas found themselves next to the five Israelis during practice at the official training venue in Redbridge, in east London, said Nitzan Ferraro, spokesman for the Israeli Olympic Committee."We started to practice. They came and they saw us - they didn't like it and they went to the organisers," Feraro told Reuters. "They put up some kind of wall between us. Everyone went on and there was no interaction between us."The Lebanese Olympic Committee could not immediately be reached for comment.
Organisers of the judo competition said there were always screens available so that competing athletes and their coaching staff would not be able to spy on each other's training.
Lebanon and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Ferraro said the incident had not been a big deal for them."It didn't matter for us. We don't mix politics and sport. We had no problem," he said.
Lebanon's Caren Chammas and Israel's Alice Schlesinger will both compete in the women's -63kg category next Tuesday but could only meet in the final, an eventuality organisers believe is highly unlikely.

Alawistan
BY TONY BADRAN | JULY 27, 2012 /Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/27/alawistan
Bashar al-Assad may be gearing up to create an Alawite statelet along Syria's coastal mountains. And he has the means to do it.
How long will President Bashar al-Assad remain in Damascus? His regime appears to be reeling: A bombing last week claimed the lives of his brother-in-law and three other senior figures of his regime, military defections continue, and rebel forces have arrived in the country's largest cities. The prevalent view in Washington and many other foreign capitals is that the question is not if Assad will lose the capital, but when.
Assad has no intention of abandoning Damascus without a fight. Since last week's bombing, the Syrian Army's Fourth Division -- led by Assad's brother Maher -- has launched an intense campaign to retake control of the capital's neighborhoods from the rebels. To secure Damascus, the regime has redeployed troops from the Golan and eastern Syria. Control of the capital is critical to Assad for maintaining the pretense that he is not merely an Alawite warlord, but the embodiment of the state.
The Syrian despot, however, is fighting a losing battle. As heavy fighting rages on in the cities of Damascus and Aleppo, the regime is losing control over the Syrian interior and the Kurdish northeast. The predominantly Sunni areas of Syria are falling from Assad's grasp, and there is no realistic way for him to reassert his authority there.
But Assad has one card left to play: The Syrian regime has been setting the stage for a retreat to Syria's coastal mountains, the traditional homeland of the Assads' Alawite sect, for months now. It is now clear that this is where the Syrian conflict is headed. Sooner or later, Assad will abandon Damascus.
The Syrian regime's recent decline in fortunes has seemingly accelerated this process. With the sectarian fault line clearly drawn, reports are emerging of internal population migration as Alawites begin moving back to the ancestral mountains -- echoing the dynamics seen during the Lebanese civil war. Shortly after the assassination of the top Syrian security officials, opposition activists and Western diplomats reported that Assad had relocated to the coastal city of Latakia. This claim has since been contested, but Assad's whereabouts remain uncertain.
Despite the fact that the Syrian regime is a family enterprise, Assad has sought to present himself throughout the conflict as the sole legitimate interlocutor with the outside world. Regrettably, the international community has played along with this conceit. All diplomatic initiatives to solve the Syrian crisis have stipulated dialogue with Assad and refrained from calling on him to hand over power.
However, it has long been apparent that Assad's bid to control the entirety of Syrian territory was hitting against demographic and geographic realities. Contrary to all early assertions regarding his military, Assad's forces are little more than a sectarian militia. This limited manpower has, from the beginning, meant that Assad would not be able to re-impose his authority on the predominantly Sunni interior and periphery. This sectarian geography has determined the regime’s behavior. As he dug in for a long war, Assad has had to consolidate the Alawites behind him and fortify his position in the Alawite coastal mountains overlooking the Mediterranean, in the region roughly between Jisr al-Shoughour in the north, near the Turkish border, and Tal Kalakh in the south, near Lebanon.

Syria could see prolonged endgame, ensuing chaos
LONDON, (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's days may be numbered but his fall could be slow and chaos could ensue.
Few analysts, foreign governments or intelligence agencies believe Assad himself faces any fate other than negotiated flight or death at the hands of his own people. But for Western officials, the challenge has become much more complex than forcing Assad out or pushing Russia to abandon him.
One senior Western government source said the most likely outcome might be protracted conflict such as that in 1980s Lebanon, dragging in foreign powers and lasting well over a decade.
Ultimately, much depends on Assad himself. But for all the efforts of Western intelligence services to build up a psychological profile, they say the actions of the British-trained ophthalmologist remain difficult to predict. "In general terms, I don't think he is too hard to read: just another hood, albeit at the more sophisticated end of the spectrum... but gauging how he would respond to a particular conjunction of circumstances is all but impossible," says Nigel Inkster, a former deputy chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service MI6.
Foreign powers doubt Syria's troubles would end with Assad's removal. His Alawite minority might well fight on, if only to try to protect itself against the ethnic backlash that could follow his fall. The wider state - including the mainstream army left largely unused in favour of elite Alawite units - could collapse.
"We may see Balkanisation," says Anthony Skinner, head of the Middle East practice at UK-based consultancy Maplecroft. "Kurds in the north, Druze in the southern hills, Alawites in the coastal northwestern mountainous region and the Sunni majority elsewhere."
While Western officials quietly bemoan their lack of options, the choices available to the Syrian leadership are eroding even faster.
Some still believe Assad may want to put his family's safety first and broker some kind of escape. But there has been little sign of such appetite, suggesting the Syrian leader may have ruled that out.
"At this point, he's likely to fight... and may not even have any alternatives," said Ari Ratner, a former Obama administration State Department Middle East adviser and now a fellow at the Truman National Security Foundation. "If he would have abdicated early in the crisis... perhaps he could have found safe harbour somewhere internationally as part of a negotiated settlement. But now he has so much blood on his hands... that would be nearly impossible."
REGIONAL SHOCKWAVES
While Damascus has been using attack helicopters against the rebels, it has held back from using fixed wing aircraft, perhaps wary of provoking the kind of internationally backed no-fly zone that led to foreign intervention in Libya. There is a risk that in the dying days of his rule, Assad might unleash chemical weapons, feeling he has nothing further to lose. Potential targets could include states such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia that backed the rebels as well as Israel. Foreign intelligence agencies have also worried he might transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, giving them the capability to threaten Israel. "The chemical weapons add another level of complexity to an already volatile situation," said Mona Yacoubian, a former State Department official and now a Middle East specialist at the Stimson Center in Washington DC. "It is possible that feeling cornered... the Syrian government could act rashly - whether with chemical weapons or another tactic. However, it is also clear that this would be suicidal." While Assad may fear intervention as seen in Libya or Iraq, foreign powers remain reluctant to take such a course. Sources with knowledge of the matter say some planning is underway, however, and some experts believe the possibility is growing. Foreign support to the rebel Free Syrian Army - primarily arms, support and training from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey - is ramping up. But few analysts see such support as a game changer. Western states remain largely on the sidelines, providing some intelligence and "non lethal" aid. Officials frequently bemoan the chaotic nature of the opposition and its limited capability to take on Assad.With Assad backed by Shi'ite Iran and the majority Sunni opposition backed by predominantly Sunni-led Gulf monarchies, Syria is already exacerbating regional ethnic tensions."I fear Syria is sliding into a protected, sectarian civil war with the potential to wreak havoc across the region," says Stimpson Center's Yacoubian. "I do not think a negotiated solution or some type of managed transition is possible any longer."

The way forward in Damascus
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Alawsat
Before the explosion at the national security building, which killed a number of prominent security and military leaders in the Syrian regime, a Russian message arrived confirming acceptance of the so-called “Yemeni solution”, i.e. Bashar al-Assad stepping down and a consensus government being declared. However, the Russia’s approval came with a note saying that the solution would be in form only, to satisfy the opposition, while the al-Assad regime would remain in key governance positions. The Arab mediator rejected the proposal.
Then came the shock of the national security building explosion, and the revolutionaries arrived in Damascus, swiftly and surprisingly capturing border points. Suddenly, the al-Assad regime and its allies began to reiterate their acceptance of the Yemeni solution, but we do not know how serious they are this time. Perhaps the regime is ready to pack its bags and leave, and perhaps it has no other option to stop the advance of the rebels in the conflict areas, including Damascus.
If it is indeed ready to step down, should we negotiate with the regime now or has that offer expired, and hence we should expect the fighters to seize the presidential palace, as in Libya?
Clearly the Syrians are divided over this issue. One side wants to negotiate and accept the transitional phase. This has been expressed by Syrian National Council member George Sabra, who explicitly said two days ago: “We would agree to the departure of Assad and the transfer of his powers to a regime figure, who would lead a transitional period like what happened in Yemen”. The features of such a proposal appeared with the emergence of dissident Brigadier General Manaf Tlass in Jeddah. This sentiment has also been expressed by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, who said on the sidelines of the recent Arab ministerial meeting in Doha: “There is an Arab consensus that Syrian President Bashar al Assad should step aside quickly in return for safe exit”. For the first time, Arab countries will ask the Syrian opposition and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to form a transitional government.
However, there is also a Syrian side that wants to fight until the end, because the time for negotiation, in their view, has expired, and as the opposition marches towards the palace it is only a matter of time until the regime falls.
A third group is as yet undecided, hamstrung by disagreements over which figures could be entrusted with the formation of the next government.
Although emotions are more inclined to the second side, which calls for the continuation of the fighting, rationality and experience warn against drifting behind this thought process. The fall of the regime has become almost certain with the significant combat successes achieved by the rebels in recent weeks, but the situation remains difficult because of the regime’s military capabilities, using aircraft, tanks and guns, and its ability to commit more massacres whilst being protected by Russia’s veto. In the end, al-Assad will travel to either Iran or Russia, but fighting until then does not ensure any form of agreement. Fighting until the end may cause the complete collapse of the military and security institutions, which consist of more than half a million elements who could be transformed into armed gangs. Is it in the national interest to destroy the state and drag liberated Syria into internal strife and wars fuelled by parties such as Russia, Iran and Hezbollah?! Is it not completely wrong to think that the end of Bashar will automatically bring about the end of his unjust state? In reality, Bashar’s power came to an end last year when Syria as a whole began to peacefully demonstrate against his regime. We all know that his reign has come to an end, but we are afraid that he will leave the country in ruins, having cultivated strife and transformed Syria into scorched earth for years to come. He may even succeed in dividing the country.
These are genuine concerns. Maintaining the state is more important than enacting revenge against Bashar, for he will have to take responsibility for his crimes no matter where he tries to escape. If it is possible to maintain the state through a power handover, as happened in Yemen, and to maintain the institutions of the state, this will cut off the path for Iran and its affiliates. This will enable the Syrian people to build the regime that they want, and build a better future for their children in a united and stable country.

Kingdom closely monitoring case of slain Saudi diplomat - Saudi envoy to Bangladesh
By Tariq al-Thaqafi
Mecca, Asharq Al-Awsat – Saudi ambassador to Bangladesh, Dr. Abdullah Al Bussairy, stressed that it is too early to issue any statements regarding the murder of Saudi diplomat Khalaf al-Ali. Al-Ali, head of Saudi citizens’ affairs at the embassy in Dhaka, was shot and killed in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka in March earlier this year whilst taking a late-night walk near his home in the city’s Gulshan district. He was rushed to a local hospital where he died three hours later.
Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, Dr. Al Bussairy stressed that the Saudi Foreign Ministry is in direct contact with the Bangladeshi authorities regarding the latest developments in this case. He also asserted that the Saudi embassy in Dhaka quickly followed up on this incident, confirming that it is too early to know all the details of this attack, as well as the motives of the attackers. Dr. Al Bussairy said that the investigation into this case must follow its normal course, and that the Saudi embassy is closely following this up, and will officially announce the results of this at the suitable time.
For his part, Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, announced that the Bangladeshi authorities have informed the Saudi embassy in Dhaka of the arrest of four individuals responsible for the murder.
Local deputy police commissioner Nazrul Islam revealed that the Bangladeshi authorities had arrested four men, aged between 22 and 25, for the murder. The police also recovered the pistol allegedly used to shoot the Saudi diplomat, as well as a car used by the assailants.
Islam told Agence France-Presse [AFP] that “we have learned from the detainees that they were out to mug someone that night and encountered Ali. At one stage in the scuffle, a bullet fired from a mugger’s pistol hit Khalaf al-Ali in the chest.”
Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Osama Al-Naqli also told Asharq Al-Awsat that personal protection details are usually provided to diplomats by the host country, according to political and diplomatic traditions and international agreements.
Al-Naqli revealed that Saudi Arabia has security officers stationed in its embassies, according to the diplomatic laws regarding the protection of diplomatic missions, adding this is something that is taking place in coordination with local security apparatus. The Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the competent authorities at the Saudi Foreign Ministry are sending periodic security instructions to all diplomatic staff across the world regarding the security steps that diplomats should be following.
The assassination of Saudi diplomatic Khalaf al-Ali in Dhaka raised a number of questions regarding the extent of the protection that diplomatic missions are receiving abroad, particularly as there have been more than 24 direct and indirect attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions abroad in recent years, including shootings and explosions.
One of the most prominent Saudi diplomat to be targeted was Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir, after an assassination plot targeting him was uncovered in October last year by the FBI. US officials revealed that they had thwarted a major Iranian-backed assassination-for-hire plot targeting the Saudi ambassador to Washington. US Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that elements of the Iranian government directed the plot. Saudi Arabia has been subjected to numerous Iranian-linked plots.
In 1989, Saudi Embassy employees were killed or seriously injured during a series of attacks at the kingdom's missions in Turkey, Belgium and Lebanon. Pro-Iranian groups active in Beirut at the time claimed responsibility for the assassinations.
In Bangkok, meanwhile, three Saudi diplomats and another embassy employee were murdered in 1989 and 1990. Thai authorities later accused a pro-Iranian group known as Jund al-Haqq — Arabic for "soldiers of justice" — of carrying out those attacks. The group had previously claimed responsibility for one of the slayings in 1989.
In 2008, the wife and daughter of a Saudi diplomat were killed in Chad, after a grenade was thrown into their home in the capital N’Djamena, during a coup targeting Chad president Idriss Deby.
Dr. Khalid al-Hassani, a researcher into organized behaviour, told Asharq Al-Awsat that attacks on Saudi diplomats abroad has escalated over the past three years, saying this is due to Riyadh’s just positions on all international issues. He stressed that Saudi Arabia has proven, thanks to these fair and unbiased positions, that it is the heart of the Arab and Islamic world, and that it does not hesitate to serve Arabs and Muslims across the world with regards to all strategic and vital issues. The Saudi researcher said these positions represent a source of concern for some states that are hostile to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
For his part, Khalid Mohamed al-Ali, the elder brother of the Saudi diplomat killed in Dhaka, informed Asharq Al-Awsat that he is certain that the Saudi authorities are following up the investigations into his brother’s killing. He added that he is glad that the perpetrators have been arrested and that he hopes they are punished appropriately for killing a true Saudi statesman who dedicated his life to serving his homeland. Whilst son of Khalaf al-Ali, Nasser Khalaf al-Ali, aged 23, stressed that his father sacrificed everything for his country, living far from his family in the service of Saudi Arabia. He also said that he is well aware that the Saudi leadership is committed to its citizens, and will do everything in its power to ensure that those responsible for killing his father face justice.

Assad is preparing his defence at The Hague
By Amir Taheri/Asharq Alawsat
What will happen to Bashar al-Assad? This question is frequently raised in informal contacts now taking place within efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria.
Intermediaries claim that President Assad would be amenable to stepping aside if he and his immediate family were guaranteed immunity from prosecution.
Earlier this week the Syrian National Council (SNC), an umbrella organisation for opposition groups, came close to offering such a deal by suggesting a “Yemeni solution” to a crisis that has already claimed 20,000 lives. The phrase refers to a deal under which Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in favour of his deputy Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
The Syrian version of the “Yemeni solution” would see Assad handing over to one of his vice presidents who would then form a transition government and hold free elections within a reasonable timespan.
It is not clear where Assad might go under such a deal. Will he stay in Syria? Does the SNC have the authority to grant Assad, his mother, wife, and brother Maher immunity?
The SNC has not yet answered those questions.
Theoretically, the interim government, formed under one of Assad’s vice presidents, would be able to grant him immunity. However, such a decision would not bind future Syrian governments. Also, it would not be binding for the 139 nations that have signed the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Rome Statute was signed in 1998 after a decade of negotiations involving over 70 countries. The statute gives the ICC the right to prosecute cases relating to crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing. So far 139 countries have signed the statute and 121 have ratified it as part of their national law.
The hitch is that the ICC could only prosecute cases in countries that have adopted the statute, and Syria has not. In countries outside the remit of the ICC, prosecution could come with authorisation from the Security Council. Assad may hope that Russia that has supported him for so long might veto moves to bring a case against him.
But would Russia want to antagonise the new Syria, and the bulk of the Muslim world, in order to please a lost pawn?
To hedge his bets, Assad has been preparing his defence against charges that might be levelled against him.
The interviews that Assad has granted to American, Iranian, German, and Turkish televisions in the past seven months offer a glimpse of his scheme.
Assad’s defence seems to be based on four pillars.
The first is that he is not informed about the atrocities.
In the interview granted to the American network ABC, he uses the phrases “don’t know” and “haven’t heard” no fewer than 11 times. He claims that he has not seen the mass of documents sent to his government by the United Nations last December, detailing 225 cases of torture, rape and murder carried out by his security forces.
In all legal systems, however, ignorance of the law is no defence and the Statute of Rome is no exception. This was the line used, without success, by Serbian despot Slobodan Milosevic and the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. All that Assad needed to find out what was going on was to watch his own television to see people being killed by his henchmen.
Assad’s second line of defence is to dissociate himself from the Syrian armed forces, blaming them as solely responsible for the atrocities.
In the ABC interview he says: “They are not my forces, they are military forces belong to the government (Sic)”. “I don’t own them, so they are not my forces.”
He harps on the same theme in his interview with the Iranian TV. “It is the commanders who decide how to deal with the situation,” he claims.
The Syrian top brass has been uneasy about Assad’s efforts to shift the blame onto the army. Former Defence Minister General Ali Habib resigned after he demanded that, when it came to firing on civilians, Assad give orders in writing. His successor General Daoud Rajha is reported to have made similar demands days before he was killed in a bomb attack in Damascus.
This week, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi parroted Assad’s line with reference to chemical weapons. He said such weapons would only be used “under the generals’ decision”, thus exonerating the president in advance.
That line, too, is hard to sell. Under the Syrian Constitution Assad is Commander-in-Chief which means that no rules of engagement could be adopted without his approval.
A similar line of defence was used by Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic at the ICC. Nevertheless, the supremacy of political authority over the military is established in almost every judicial system. Syrian generals may well be liable to prosecution for their role in the carnage but that would not exonerate Assad’s as the supreme political authority.
Assad’s third line of defence is that there is no war situation in Syria and that what we see is a campaign by foreign terrorist groups acting on behalf of powers angry at his alliance with the so-called “Resistance Front.”
This is the theme he used in interview with Iranian and Turkish televisions.
The problem for Assad is that he has weakened his case by declaring that Syria was facing “real war” just days before the International Red Cross decided that his country was in a state of civil war. Whether real war or civil war, the upshot is that the Geneva Conventions apply in Syria today. That means charges of war crimes could be brought against Assad.
Assad’s fourth line of defence, best exposed in the interview with the German television, is to dismiss the UN, and implicitly the ICC, as a sham.
“The UN is controlled by the United States and has no credibility,” he says.
In other words, he would not recognise the authority of the ICC to try him even if the Security Council did trigger the procedure.
That line has been used by former Ivory Coast dictator Laurent Gbagbo and the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Assad risks finding himself in queer company

Canada Condemns Escalation of Conflict in Aleppo
July 27, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“Canada is closely monitoring the renewed mobilization of Assad regime forces in the city of Aleppo. It is an unacceptable escalation of the conflict.
“Canada is horrified by reports of helicopter gunships opening fire on civilians and that the army has massed troops on the city’s borders in preparation for further assaults on its own citizens.
“Canada calls on all members of the UN Security Council to join in condemning these actions, including those members who have previously supported the regime, and to adopt a strong resolution that contains binding sanctions against the Assad regime.”

Question: "What does the Bible say about the death penalty/capital punishment?"
GotQuestions.org/Answer: The Old Testament law commanded the death penalty for various acts: murder (Exodus 21:12), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), bestiality (Exodus 22:19), adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution and rape (Deuteronomy 22:24), and several other crimes. However, God often showed mercy when the death penalty was due. David committed adultery and murder, yet God did not demand his life be taken (2 Samuel 11:1-5, 14-17; 2 Samuel 12:13). Ultimately, every sin we commit should result in the death penalty because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Thankfully, God demonstrates His love for us in not condemning us (Romans 5:8).
When the Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and asked Him if she should be stoned, Jesus replied, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). This should not be used to indicate that Jesus rejected capital punishment in all instances. Jesus was simply exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pharisees wanted to trick Jesus into breaking the Old Testament law; they did not truly care about the woman being stoned (where was the man who was caught in adultery?) God is the One who instituted capital punishment: “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). Jesus would support capital punishment in some instances. Jesus also demonstrated grace when capital punishment was due (John 8:1-11). The apostle Paul definitely recognized the power of the government to institute capital punishment where appropriate (Romans 13:1-7).
How should a Christian view the death penalty? First, we must remember that God has instituted capital punishment in His Word; therefore, it would be presumptuous of us to think that we could institute a higher standard. God has the highest standard of any being; He is perfect. This standard applies not only to us but to Himself. Therefore, He loves to an infinite degree, and He has mercy to an infinite degree. We also see that He has wrath to an infinite degree, and it is all maintained in a perfect balance.
Second, we must recognize that God has given government the authority to determine when capital punishment is due (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13:1-7). It is unbiblical to claim that God opposes the death penalty in all instances. Christians should never rejoice when the death penalty is employed, but at the same time, Christians should not fight against the government’s right to execute the perpetrators of the most evil of crimes.

Arab Leaders: False modesty and the trappings of power
By Adel Al Toraifi/Asharq Alawsat
In a recent interview the president of Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki, said that he does not even own a car and that his home is an old house. When asked how it feels to carry out his duties in the presidential palace, he replied: “In all honesty, I am yet to discover this palace … every day I undertake the work I have to do in order to help the people … as for the décor or whatever, I do not care for this.”
Displays of modesty, and going against “protocol” by steering clear of manifestations of power and sultanic splendor, have become fashionable amongst a number of political figures who have risen to power during the last year, following the seismic events of the “Arab Spring”. The Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, for example, undertakes dawn prayers at a public mosque and refuses to block traffic for his motorcade. He prefers to stay at his residence at Tagammu al-Khamis, Heliopolis, rather than move to a presidential palace.
Supporters of such initiatives argue that these displays are spontaneous and genuine. Some suggest that they are important in order to break the stereotype created by former presidents and leaders who previously portrayed themselves as highly arrogant individuals obsessed with the trappings of power. In addition, those who support such initiatives argue that the humility of the president also instils a sense of modesty among his senior officials. An oft cited example is the Tunisian Foreign Minister, Rafik Abdul Salam, who was photographed at the last Ennahda party conference sleeping on the floor in the conference hall, after a long day of heated, partisan debate.
But does “humility” in itself mean better policy-making? When can we differentiate between what is spontaneous and what is contrived? In his book “The Language of Politics” (2000), Adrian Beard, having spent several years studying the rhetoric and statements of political leaders, and comparing these with their political stances, indicates that politicians—no matter how much they display qualities of humility and asceticism—are ultimately individuals who are fond of power and want to maintain it for as long as possible. Of course, there are exceptional cases whereby individuals indifferent to power have assumed control; individuals who have sought to diminish power’s psychological influence on their own personality, but they are very few in number.
Beard asserts that most people involved in politics often portray themselves as devoted individuals who have never sought to use power personally, but rather to serve their fellow citizens. Some of them may actually live in modest homes and their living conditions may not be overly materialistic, but they are not ascetics when it comes to the political powers granted to them.
Presidents in Western countries, for example, are always keen for public handshakes and photo opportunities with the general public, and presidents or political candidates can often be seen kissing babies or visiting war veterans to show that they have a human side. Likewise, a politician may be seen wandering through a government department to inspect its services, or eating at a popular restaurant to mingle with the poorer classes. In the end this behaviour is calculated with results in mind, for the president or political candidate does not live like this every day.
Here I do not mean to belittle such popular initiatives; a politician does not need to show that he respects his citizens or is interested in their affairs, but there is a very clear difference between purely calculated and spontaneous acts when it comes to public behaviour.
It is common for a dictator to want to cultivate fear and terror in the hearts of those he governs, but he will never gain their respect. In contrast, the ruler whose behaviour appears weak and hesitant in front of his own citizens undoubtedly loses some prestige. More importantly, such a ruler loses the ability to lead his citizens towards growth and prosperity.
Adrian Beard believes that what is important is not public behaviour, or public statements, but rather what is implicit. In other words, some leaders exaggerate their manifestations of humility, whereas in reality they are plagued by arrogance and a love of power, more so than anybody else. Whenever a politician profusely repeats statements of asceticism and humility, one realizes that this is an affectation.
In contemporary Arab history, there are many examples of leaders who lived in modest environments, and were known to have—relatively—clean hands, at least according to the accounts of their supporters. However, their policies were disastrous for their citizens and directly resulted in wars and regional conflicts, take the examples of the late presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abd al-Karim Qasim, and others. Even the “Arab Spring” states that witnessed popular uprisings were not ruled by despotic tyrants in their early eras, in the same manner that they seemed to be at the end.
In 2000, the late Moroccan politician Abdelhadi Boutaleb revealed that he was on an official visit to Libya on the eve of the 1969 coup, and hence he was forced to wait in a hotel until the airport opened. After returning to his hotel, he found a small handwritten note in his hotel room which read “from Muammar to his brother Abdelhadi Boutaleb.” Boutaleb then asked the reception desk: “Who is this Muammar?” and he was told that one of the “senior officers carrying out the coup” had come to visit him and put this note under his door. Boutaleb revealed that he was impressed by this humility and etiquette at the time, but it did not give him a clue that this young, polite officer would transform into what he ultimately became. Likewise, at the beginning of his reign, former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali released prisoners and called for democratic reform. At the time even Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi praised Ben Ali and considered him to be a saviour, saying in a published interview: “Before the November Movement, Tunisia was on the brink of a civil war, and the new president has saved the country from an unknown fate.” (al-Majalla, issue 445, August 1988)
The beginning of even Bashar al-Assad’s reign was relatively open. He personally contacted intellectuals and artists to reach out to them, and some of those who are in the Syrian opposition today previously attended banquets at the presidential palace, participated with al-Assad’s popular initiatives, and commended the humility of the president and his good manners. However, today we realize the extent of evil and destruction the al-Assad regime has committed in order to crush the uprising.
As you can see, a president displaying humility at the beginning of his reign does not mean he will adopt good policies, and perhaps these manifestations of modesty might mask financial corruption and political abuse. Some would argue that the Islamists, because of their religious faith and conservative, ideological discipline are more likely to be humble rulers with grounded policies. This is not necessarily true, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the most humble of all Iranian presidents in terms of what he eats and drinks—and the fact that he only owns a rickety old Peugeot car—but this does not mean that he is interested in developing his country. The poor president—as he has been called—has made the Iranians even poorer during his reign. Furthermore, reports published in conservative Iranian newspapers have accused the President and his aides of financial corruption involving billions of dollars. The Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who continues to rule over the Gaza Strip after an armed coup, also excels in his calculated displays of modesty. He delivers the Friday sermon, leads the prayer, and consumes his meals sitting on the floor as the poor do, but Gaza during his reign has become a place full of scandals of corruption and power abuse. On 19 April, a Washington Post report indicated that some Hamas leaders were running their own underground trade and smuggling rackets, at a time when the Palestinians are becoming increasingly poor, and the Hamas Prime Minister is calling for an “Islamic Caliphate.”
If he cannot provide security and welfare to the citizens of Gaza, how can he participate in the establishment of a future empire? It is necessary to point out that whenever a president puts on an exhibition of humility, the reality is that the government will incur additional expenses to ensure his safety, regardless of the gains in his popularity as a result. The lesson does not lie in the appearance, even if it seems impressive, because real humility is manifested in efficient policies and delivering promises. A president who gambles the future of his country on foreign agendas, whilst his citizens are suffering from international sanctions, can never bring prosperity to his country even if he appears humble.

U.S. sees Israel as spy threat
July 28, 2012/By Adam Goldman/Daily Star
WASHINGTON: The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.
The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.
In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible.
Such meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S. politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine counterintelligence threat.
In addition to what the former U.S. officials described as intrusions in homes in the past decade, Israel has been implicated in U.S. criminal espionage cases and disciplinary proceedings against CIA officers and blamed in the presumed death of an important spy in Syria for the CIA during the administration of President George W. Bush.
The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency's Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.
Israel employs highly sophisticated, professional spy services that rival American agencies in technical capability and recruiting human sources. Unlike Iran or Syria, for example, Israel as a steadfast U.S. ally enjoys access to the highest levels of the U.S. government in military and intelligence circles.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about the sensitive intelligence and diplomatic issues between the two countries.
The counterintelligence worries continue even as the U.S. relationship with Israel features close cooperation on intelligence programs that reportedly included the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked computers in Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities. While the alliance is central to the U.S. approach in the Middle East, there is room for intense disagreement, especially in the diplomatic turmoil over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"It's a complicated a relationship," said Joseph Wippl, a former senior CIA clandestine officer and head of the agency's office of congressional affairs. "They have their interests. We have our interests. For the U.S., it's a balancing act."
The way Washington characterizes its relationship with Israel is also important to the way the U.S. is regarded by the rest of the world, particularly Muslim countries.
U.S. political praise has reached a crescendo ahead of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's scheduled meeting Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Their relationship spans decades, since their brief overlap in the 1970s at the Boston Consulting Group. Both worked as advisers for the firm early in their careers before Romney co-founded his own private-equity firm. Romney said in a speech this past week that Israel was "one of our fondest friends," and he criticized Obama for what he called the administration's "shabby treatment" of the Jewish state.
"The people of Israel deserve better than what they've received from the leader of the free world," Romney said in a plain appeal to U.S. Jewish and pro-Israel evangelical voters.
Obama, who last year was overheard appearing to endorse criticism of Netanyahu from then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has defended his work with Israel. "We've gotten a lot of business done with Israel over the last three years," Obama said this year. "I think the prime minister - and certainly the defense minister - would acknowledge that we've never had closer military and intelligence cooperation."
An Israeli spokesman in Washington, Lior Weintraub, said his country has close ties with the U.S.
"Israel's intelligence and security agencies maintain close, broad and continuous cooperation with their U.S. counterparts," Weintraub said. "They are our partners in confronting many mutual challenges. Any suggestion otherwise is baseless and contrary to the spirit and practice of the security cooperation between our two countries."
The CIA declined comment.
The tension exists on both sides.
The National Security Agency historically has kept tabs on Israel. The U.S., for instance, does not want to be caught off guard if Israel launches a surprise attack that could plunge the region into war and jeopardize oil supplies, putting American soldiers at risk.
Matthew Aid, the author of "The Secret Sentry," about the NSA, said the U.S. started spying on Israel even before the state was created in 1948. Aid said the U.S. had a station on Cyprus dedicated to spying on Israel until 1974. Today, teams of Hebrew linguists are stationed at Fort Meade, Md., at the NSA, listening to intercepts of Israeli communications, he said.
CIA policy generally forbids its officers in Tel Aviv from recruiting Israeli government sources, officials said. To do so would require approval from senior CIA leaders, two former senior officials said. During the Bush administration, the approval had to come from the White House.
Israel is not America's closest ally, at least when it comes to whom Washington trusts with the most sensitive national security information. That distinction belongs to a group of nations known informally as the "Five Eyes." Under that umbrella, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand agree to share intelligence and not to spy on one another. Often, U.S. intelligence officers work directly alongside counterparts from these countries to handle highly classified information not shared with anyone else.
Israel is part of by a second-tier relationship known by another informal name, "Friends on Friends." It comes from the phrase "Friends don't spy on friends," and the arrangement dates back decades. But Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, and its FBI equivalent, the Shin Bet, both considered among the best in the world, have been suspected of recruiting U.S. officials and trying to steal American secrets.
Around 2004 or 2005, the CIA fired two female officers for having unreported contact with Israelis. One of the women acknowledged during a polygraph exam that she had been in a relationship with an Israeli who worked in the Foreign Ministry, a former U.S. official said. The CIA learned the Israeli introduced the woman to his "uncle." That person worked for Shin Bet.
Jonathan Pollard, who worked for the Navy as a civilian intelligence analyst, was convicted of spying for Israel in 1987 when the Friends on Friends agreement was in effect. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Israelis for years have tried to win his release. In January 2011, Netanyahu asked Obama to free Pollard and acknowledged that Israel's actions in the case were "wrong and wholly unacceptable."
Ronald Olive, a former senior supervisor with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who investigated Pollard, said that after the arrest, the U.S. formed a task force to determine what government records Pollard had taken. Olive said Israel turned over so few that it represented "a speck in the sand."
In the wake of Pollard, the Israelis promised not to operate intelligence agents on U.S. soil.
A former Army mechanical engineer, Ben-Ami Kadish, pleaded guilty in 2008 to passing classified secrets to the Israelis during the 1980s. His case officer was the same one who handled Pollard. Kadish let the Israelis photograph documents about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system. Kadish, who was 85 years old when he was arrested, avoided prison and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. He told the judge that, "I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States."
In 2006, a former Defense Department analyst was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two pro-Israel lobbyists.
Despite the Pollard case and others, Olive said he believes the two countries need to maintain close ties "but do we still have to be vigilant? Absolutely. The Israelis are good at what they do."
During the Bush administration, the CIA ranked some of the world's intelligence agencies in order of their willingness to help in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. One former U.S. intelligence official who saw the completed list said Israel, which hadn't been directly targeted in attacks by al-Qaida, fell below Libya, which recently had agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
The espionage incidents have done little to slow the billions of dollars in money and weapons from the United States to Israel. Since Pollard's arrest, Israel has received more than $60 billion in U.S. aid, mostly in the form of military assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. has supplied Israel with Patriot missiles, helped pay for an anti-missile defense program and provided sensitive radar equipment to track Iranian missile threats.
Just on Friday, Obama said he was releasing an additional $70 million in military aid, a previously announced move that appeared timed to upstage Romney's trip, and he spoke of America's "unshakable commitment to Israel." The money will go to help Israel expand production of a short-range rocket defense system.
Some CIA officials still bristle over the disappearance of a Syrian scientist who during the Bush administration was the CIA's only spy inside Syria's military program to develop chemical and biological weapons. The scientist was providing the agency with extraordinary information about pathogens used in the program, former U.S. officials said about the previously unknown intelligence operation.
At the time, there was pressure to share information about weapons of mass destruction, and the CIA provided its intelligence to Israel. A former official with direct knowledge of the case said details about Syria's program were published in the media. Although the CIA never formally concluded that Israel was responsible, CIA officials complained to Israel about their belief that Israelis were leaking the information to pressure Syria to abandon the program. The Syrians pieced together who had access to the sensitive information and eventually identified the scientist as a traitor.
Before he disappeared and was presumed killed, the scientist told his CIA handler that Syrian Military Intelligence was focusing on him.

Romney can expect warm Israeli reception
Associated Press 07.28.12, 18:32
During three-nation foreign tour, GOP candidate likely to receive 'enthusiastic' welcome in Israel and 'frosty' recpetion from Palestinians who fear Romney would be softer on Israel than Obama
Mitt Romney's support for Israel will likely earn the presumptive Republican presidential nominee a warm welcome from Israeli leaders when he visits on Sunday – and a frosty reception from Palestinians, who fear he would do little to advance their stalled statehood dreams.
Romney is visiting Israel as part of a three-nation foreign tour that includes Britain and Poland. He hopes it will boost his credentials to direct US national security and diplomacy. The visit to Israel comes at a time when its leaders are weighing a military attack on Iran, the neighboring regime in Syria is looking increasingly shaky and Mideast peace talks are going nowhere.
Romney, a longtime friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to play up his critique of President Barack Obama's posture toward the Jewish state and his handling of Iran's suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.Israeli political scientist Abraham Diskin says Romney can expect an "enthusiastic" reception, both because of his solid record of pro-Israel comments – and because he's not Obama. "What interests Israelis is Israel," Diskin said. "Romney has a very pro-Israel stance. He is very suspicious of the Arab world. (Israelis) are very suspicious of Obama."
In an effort to upstage Romney a day before he landed in Israel, the White House announced it was signing legislation expanding military and civilian cooperation with Israel.
Still, with polls showing a close race, Romney hopes this showcase for his pro-Israel stance will help him to woo votes from traditionally Democratic Jewish voters and evangelical Christians who zealously defend Israeli government policy. Obama has not visited Israel since he became president
In Israel, Romney will be meeting with Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, President Shimon Peres and Israeli opposition leaders.
He will not see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Abbas aide Nimr Hamad said, though he will be sitting down with the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, in Jerusalem. The Romney campaign said the likely GOP nominee only had time in his schedule to meet with one Palestinian leader and that Fayyad has an existing relationship with Romney. The Abbas camp did not offer an explanation for why no meeting was planned.
Romney's relationship with the US-educated Netanyahu dates back decades, when they briefly overlapped in the 1970s at Boston Consulting Group, and the two men share conservative outlooks. A Romney bankroller, Sheldon Adelson, is financing a free Israeli newspaper that reflects Netanyahu's views.
Netanyahu has refused to endorse either presidential candidate, although his ties with Obama have been fraught.
"I will receive Mitt Romney with the same openness that I received another presidential candidate, then-Senator Barack Obama, when he came almost four years ago, almost the same time in the campaign, to Israel," he said when asked about the visit last Sunday on Fox News. "We extend bipartisan hospitality to both Democrats and Republicans." Romney – like most politicians who make the trek to Israel – is likely to face questions such as whether he would endorse calls by some fellow Republicans to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his stance on Israeli calls for Washington to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Romney has consistently accused Obama of putting too much pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians and of being too weak on Iran. He says he wants to present a clearer military threat to the Islamic Republic, with a stronger naval presence in the Gulf. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.
At a war veterans' convention in Nevada this week, Romney accused Obama of being "fond of lecturing Israel's leaders.""He has undermined their position, which was tough enough as it was," Romney said. The "people of Israel deserve better than what they have received from the leader of the free world."
Meanwhile, Palestinians fear Romney would be softer on Israel than Obama. Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi said that would doom any chance for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and establishing a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 war.
"American foreign policy in the region is shaped by Israel and determined by what's good for Israel, and not even what's good for the US," Ashrawi complained.
Romney "will probably try to take it a notch higher," she said, and if the US refuses to put any pressure on Israel, "then there's no chance for peace."