LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
August 30/2006

 Latest New from miscellaneous sources for August 31/06
Iranian VP visits Lebanon as aid package takes shape
Brammertz brings probe back to Beirut
Annan hopes to double UN force by Friday
First 800 Italian reinforcements set sail for Lebanon
Unreleased footage of Arad causes stir in Israeli media
Jumblatt meets Israeli MP 'by chance'
US rights activist says captured Israelis alive, urges release of 'all prisoners'
UNIFIL offers beacon of security in South
Fatfat: Israel will lift blockade once 3,500 UN troops arrive
America's claim to be Lebanon's 'friend' lacks credibility
What's next in Beirut, amid dealing with the destruction?
The Saudis and containing Iran in Lebanon
Latest New from miscellaneous sources for August 30/06
Annan urges Mid-East peace-Daily Telegraph
Annan urges quick end to Israel, Hizbollah disputes Reuters
LEBANON: Kofi Annan pledges UN to help Lebanon recover-Reuters
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrives in Israel Jerusalem Post
Annan visits south Lebanon to press case for peace Times Online
On Lebanon Trip, Annan Retreats On Hostages-New York Sun 
Annan tours devastated south Lebanon-CNN - USA
France Calling Upon Syria to Cooperate With the International -Arutz Sheva - Israel
Chirac warns of resumption of hostilities in Lebanon-Xinhua
UN encouraged with latest offers for Lebanon peacekeeping-Ireland Online
Lebanon Insists It Can Control the Syrian Border by Itself-New York Times - United States
Annan urges handover of captive Israeli soldiers-Malaysia Star - Malaysia
Large reservoir built near border with Syria-Ynetnews - Israel
Livni: Talks with Syria will complicate the situation-Israel Today
Syria's sights are set on Lebanon-National Post
Iranian President Wants to Debate Bush-ABC News
French troops to arrive in Lebanon in mid-Sept.-Jerusalem Post
Al-Hayat: Gilad Shalit alive-Ynetnews
Iranian VP lands in Beirut for `solidarity' visit-Jerusalem Post
International Peacekeepers and the Troubles Ahead-Asharq Alawsat
Israeli Arabs: Israel committed war crimes in Lebanon-Ynetnews
Lebanon hopes donor conference will raise $500 mln-Reuters
Lebanon contends it can guard its borders-International Herald Tribune
White House Urged to Deny Visa for Former Iranian President-CNSNews.com 
Ahmadinejad Says UN Action on Iran Stance Unlikely-Bloomberg
Iran’s president defiant ahead of UN deadline Financial Times

Annan visits peacekeepers in Lebanon
By TODD PITMAN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 41 minutes ago
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, a day after Italy and Turkey moved to join the international force there. Annan and his entourage left Beirut Tuesday morning in two white United Nations helicopters, and landed in Naqoura, a town on the Mediterranean coast about two miles north of the Israeli border. It is the headquarters of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
The U.N. chief was in Lebanon on the first leg of an 11-day Mideast tour that would take him to Israel, as well as to Syria and Iran — Hezbollah's main benefactors. Annan was briefed Tuesday by French Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, the UNIFIL commander, and other top officials, then reviewed an honor guard of U.N. troops in blue berets standing at attention on the green lawn inside the U.N.'s white-walled compound.
He laid a wreath at a monument for peacekeepers killed in Lebanon since UNIFIL deployed here in 1978. Muslim and Christian clergymen said prayers, and the U.N. chief stood in silence in front of a display of portraits of those killed, including four UNIFIL members killed in an Israeli airstrike on their base in Khiam on July 25. Annan left Naqoura after about two and a half hours, flying along the Israel-Lebanon border by helicopter. He was expected to survey two other UNIFIL posts by air, and then touch down at Khiam, before flying south to Israel.
The U.N. chief shook hands with members of the 2,000-member force, which is being expanded to 15,000 under the U.N. resolution that halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14. Flags of countries contributing troops to UNIFIL, including Annan's native Ghana, fluttered in the breeze as the band played their national anthems. On Monday, Annan pressed Hezbollah to release two Israeli soldiers, whose July 12 capture started the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war, and called on Israel to lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon. After talks with Lebanese leaders in Beirut, the U.N. chief faulted both Israel and Hezbollah for not living up to key sections of the cease-fire resolution, and warned that fighting could resume if the parties did not abide by the full resolution.
"Without the full implementation of resolution 1701, I fear the risk is great for renewal of hostilities," he said.
He also toured a bombed-out neighborhood in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, where hundreds of residents booed him as he toured the ruins.
Meanwhile, an Italian task force gathered off southern Italy on Tuesday to carry troops and aircraft to south Lebanon. Three landing platform dock ships also were departing the port of Brindisi, and a small frigate already in Cyprus was scheduled to join the Italian mission, the Defense Ministry said.
Italy on Monday approved sending 2,500 troops, the largest national contingent so far. The plan now goes to Parliament for approval, but the ships were to set sail ahead of the vote and reach Lebanon on Friday. On Monday, Turkey's Cabinet decided in favor of sending peacekeepers and its parliament was to debate the deployment later this week or early next week, said Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek.
Turkey ruled Lebanon for some 400 years during the Ottoman Empire and many Turkish officials want their country to have a say in an area that they regard as their country's backyard. The United States, the European Union and Israel were pressing Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO and a country with close ties to Israel and Arab countries, to send peacekeepers.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Syria's sights are set on Lebanon
Font: * * * * Douglas Davis, National Post
Published: Tuesday, August 29, 2006
It would be funny as a Feydeau farce, were it not so serious. Sometime soon -- imminently, we are assured -- France will lead a beefed-up UN peacekeeping force into Lebanon. Beefed-up, because there have been 2,000 ineffective blue helmets on the Israeli-Lebanon border since 1978.
To the Israelis, at least, UNIFIL -- the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon -- is a diplomatic joke and a military irrelevance. Tragically, the new, expanded UN peacekeeping force is unlikely to offer much new. More tragically, it is bound to fail.
In the aftermath of the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, there were overwhelming demands for the rapid deployment of UN peacekeepers armed with a "muscular mandate." They would separate the belligerents, prevent ceasefire violations and avoid a return to war. In practical terms, that means disarming the Hezbollah jihadists, removing them from southern Lebanon and preventing future supplies of Iranian materials from reaching them via Syria.
None of this is likely to happen. The reason, in a word, is France. It was France, with ambitions of rekindling its influence in the Middle East, which dictated the terms of the UN resolution that created the peacekeeping force. It was France, still pursuing la gloire, that appointed itself leader of the pack. And it was France, recalling the slaughter of its peacekeepers by Hezbollah in Beirut 23 years ago, that announced it would commit just 200 troops to the proposed 15,000-strong force.
France has since been shamed into expanding its troop contribution, but it has also drastically limited the operational parameters of the force: It will not disarm Hezbollah fighters, remove them from the border area with Israel, or interdict fresh supplies of weapons to replace Hezbollah's recent losses.
What it will do, say the French, is support the desperately weak Lebanese government. And Fouad Siniora, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, has already declared that while he will deploy units of his army in the south, he will not seek to curb Hezbollah.
France's narrow interpretation of the peacekeepers' mandate has placed the Israelis in an awkward position. Its military brass will not hang around while Hezbollah re-groups, reorganizes and rebuilds its extensive network of underground tunnels, fortifications and military supplies in preparation for the next round.
Israel's military posture is likely to be one of deterrence. In the absence of a UN force that draws Hezbollah's teeth, Israel can be expected to adopt a robust military strategy that is based on relentlessly degrading Hezbollah's capacity: its leadership, its fighters, its stock of materials and its infrastructure. Only now Israel will be faced with an additional complication; it will have to thread its way through a thicket of European-led peacekeepers, with potentially devastating diplomatic consequences.
Sadly, there is worse to come. Politics abhors a vacuum, and Syria had neatly filled Lebanon's gaping power vacuum -- until, that is, the anti-Syrian former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut last year.
His death should have consolidated Syria's presence in Lebanon; instead, a UN investigation into the killing implicated key members of the Syrian regime. In the face of the subsequent "Cedar Revolution" (with France among its principal cheerleaders), Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was compelled to make a hasty and humiliating retreat. Never mind. He may soon erase that unhappy memory.
Syria has solid geopolitical and geostrategic interests in Lebanon. For one thing, the ruling Baath Party is ideologically committed to a vision of "Greater Syria," which includes not only Lebanon but also Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. For another, it needs to retain an unrestricted link to Hezbollah, Syria's proxy force against Israel. This is vital both for Syria's lucrative alliance with Iran and for Bashar's own interests. For yet another, Bashar has to show his military, who had grown rich on the proceeds of drug-smuggling and corruption in Lebanon, that he has the cojones.
He could live with a 2,000-strong UNIFIL presence confined to southern Lebanon; a 15,000-strong UN force, however emasculated, that is deployed throughout the country poses a challenge to Syria's freedom of movement. Moreover, a substantial foreign force in Lebanon, even a relatively toothless, French-led UN force, comes at the expense of Bashar's own prestige in what he considers to be Syria's natural area of influence.
Bashar inherited the leadership of Syria's minority Alawite sect from his father, Hafez, who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000. Like his father, the London-trained ophthalmologist has produced little for his countrymen by way of liberalizing reforms, either political or economic. After coming to power, Bashar toyed briefly with reformist ideas in 2001, but just when Syria's reformists felt emboldened to raise their heads above the parapet, Bashar chopped them off.
In the absence of domestic benefits, Bashar's legitimacy, like that of his late father, rests on foreign achievements. That is why he gives house room in Damascus to the Islamist Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal; why he supports the most extreme elements of the Palestinian nationalist movement; why he facilitated the passage of mujahedeen to the battlefields in Iraq; why he maintains close ties with Hezbollah; why his secular socialist republic values its unholy alliance with the Islamic revolutionary republic.
Hostility toward Israel remains the foundation of Alawite power -- and the standard excuse for Syria's political and economic failures. But it will be a long time before Bashar is able to achieve what his father called "strategic parity" with the Zionist enemy. Meanwhile, Lebanon, and its Hezbollah jihadists dedicated to Israel's destruction, offer the prospect of instant gratification.
Bashar has caused havoc for American troops in Iraq. He is likely to repeat that -- this time against the French in particular and other constituents of the UN peacekeeping force in general. That is why he will support and facilitate -- through Hezbollah and other proxy elements in Lebanon -- any action that undermines the UN peacekeepers.
By declaring a hands-off policy toward Hezbollah, France might have hoped it could placate Damascus and avoid a repetition of Hezbollah's October, 1983 suicide truck-bomb attack that wiped out 58 French peacekeepers in Beirut and caused the mission to be aborted.
But just as threatening to Syria is the French pledge to strengthen the Lebanese government, which would diminish Bashar's room for manoeuvre. The difference between 1983 and 2006, says Francois Heisbourg, a senior analyst at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, is that "the situation is much worse now."
There is little the French can do to mollify Bashar, who, in any event, has a score to settle with Paris over its support for the campaign to evict Syria from Lebanon last year. "There should be no illusions," notes Dennis Ross, former Middle East co-ordinator in the Clinton administration and veteran of two previous ceasefire agreements between Hezbollah and Israel. "History is full of good resolutions on Lebanon that have not been implemented because the Syrians had the power to block them."
The best assessment now is that Syria's president will initially attempt to undermine the fragile Lebanese government by stoking sectarian tensions and fomenting enough carnage to persuade the peacekeepers that the game is not worth the candle. If that does not work, he is likely to resort to attacks, via his Lebanese allies, on the peacekeepers themselves. The ensuing chaos and the departure of the UN force could, conceivably, provide the pretext for Bashar's triumphal return to Lebanon as peacemaker, champion of Hezbollah and unambiguous hegemonic power.
The French must know that Syria's combat strength has deteriorated drastically since the collapse of its Soviet patron. Its military equipment has become increasingly obsolescent, poorly maintained and short of spare parts. Even so, given the willingness of Syria's proxies to die on command, the French will have little cause for optimism. That goes some way to explaining why, having cynically made the diplomatic running at the Security Council in New York to impress its Arab friends, France has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Lebanese imbroglio.
- Douglas Davis, a former senior editor of The Jerusalem Post, is a member of the Middle East Writers' Group
© National Post 2006

" The forces of the Cedars revolution,Washington, Paris, Arab capitals, and others call on UN SG Anan to comply with the Implementation of UNSCR 1701 not to interpret it according to his views"
The declarations of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Brussels this week brought about strong reactions from the USA, France, influential Arab countries, the forces of 14 of March in Lebanon as well as the leadership of the Lebanese Diaspora in Washington, Sidney, Ottawa, London and Paris.
These parties, who are working hard in saving the Lebanon grip of Iran and Syria through Hezbollah and other terrorist groups that are joining them from the Eastern frontiers with Syria, consider these declarations, that specified that the international forces starting to deploy in Lebanon "will not have a duty to disarm Hezbollah and the UNSCR 1701 does not mention directly the deployment of the International Forces on the Syrian borders to stop the smuggling and infiltrations", are out of line and that Kofi Annan has thus gone beyond his normal duty.
Yesterday officials in the US States Department and French Foreign Ministry expressed their surprise regarding Annan's declarations that contradicts the internal discussions of the Brussels conference on Wednesday that was organized to convince European countries to participate in the International Forces in Lebanon. "These declarations show once again that the UN Secretary General is behaving like he has done in 2003 in the War in Iraq without taking into considerations the UN Security Council Resolutions: Instead of working for the implementation of these resolutions as passed he is continuously trying to throw in his explanations on their most important articles while his primary duty is to execute not explain  as he is doing with resolution 1701 about stopping the war in Lebanon and that includes the implementation of 1559 that is calling for disarming Hezbollah and other militias as well as tightening the control of Syrian-Lebanese border by the Lebanese Army supported by the International Forces".
Upon his arrival to Beirut on Monday Annan faces strong campaigns both internally and externally addressing his declarations. The leadership of the 14 of March forces accuses "The manipulation of the explanations of UNSCR 1701 without justification opening the road to the repeat of Hezbollah's activities in the weeks and month ahead according to US and French officials".
The Lebanese leadership in Washington who was very influencial in the resolutions in favor for Lebanon, have launched a strong campaign, equivalent to the internal campaign, to remind M Kofi Annan that he should be "executing UNSCR 1701 not reinterpreting it and changing its meaning".
The president of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution Dr. Joe Biaini declared yesterday to Assiassah in London that the declaration of Kofi Annan in Brussels "go against the essence of the UNSCR 1701 that is recalling UNSCR 1559 for the disarmament of Hezbollah and of other Militias and the deployment of Lebanese International Joint Forces on the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop the Syrian regime from re-arming Hezbollah with Iranian rockets and weapons distroyed last month during the war with Israel"
The Secretary General of the International-Lebanese committee for the implementation of UNSCR 1559 Mr. Tom Harb called from Washington for Kofi Anan not to philosophize at will the UNSCR 1701 upon his visit to Lebanon today. He requested from Annan the strict adherence to the articles of the Resolution without issuing explanations distorting its meaning. Annan should stop repeating his claims that the International Forces role are not to disarm Hezbollah. The resolution calls clearly on the implementation of the previous resolution that calls on the disarmament right after the execution of the first part that calls for the withdrawal of Syrians forces from Lebanon that actually happened last year".
Harb has expressed the "refusal of Lebanese inside and outside Lebanon of the visit of Kofi Annan to both Syria and Iran to negotiate with them the implementation of the UNSCR 1701 primarily because this resolution addresses their interferences in Lebanon through Hezbollah and the Palestinian militias, and second because the international Community resents that the UN Secretary General communicates with these two countries that are listed on all terrorist lists"
In turn, the president of the World Maronite Union Mr. Sami Khoury has called yesterday from Miami in Florida on the Forces of 14 of March in Lebanon to have a historical stand against Iran and Syria before these two, through Hezbollah, turn Lebanon into an Islamic Republic. He is asking them not to hide behind the cabinet of Fouad Siniora who drafted the seven points to the Security Council against the will of the majority of Lebanese and against the interests and fate of Lebanon.
In a phone call to Assiassah Khoury asserted that the Leadership of the Cedars Revolution in Beirut should pressure Siniora to execute the will of the Lebanese people by disarming Hezbollah and putting an end to the Palestinian interference triggered by Syrian into Lebanon. He is reminding Kofi Annan that Lebanon is not Iraq and that the International Aid through the UN will not have the same fate as the money of the Oil for Food program in Iraq of which billions where stolen accusing the son of Annan directly in his involvement in this international scam."

A ‘read’ on Faisal jibe
Posted on 8/28/2006
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
AT a recent press conference Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal used sign language to stress some points because he knew his audience was bright enough to understand what he wanted to say. In an indirect reference to Arab countries which are close to Iran, Prince Saud Al-Faisal said “some Arab states are compromising their Arab identity through ties with non-Arab countries.”
We don’t know for how long Arab officials can maintain vague relations with their people during tough times, although they know they can retain their seats only as leaders. We are trying to explain the sign language used by Prince Faisal and its meaning because protocol and his position don’t allow him to say what he wants to say frankly. At his press conference Prince Faisal meant the Syrian regime and its strategic ties with Tehran. For Damascus, Iran has become more important than any Arab country.
Funds from Tehran are filling the pockets of some important persons in Syria instead of being deposited in the treasury of that country. Syria gets financial assistance from Iran for contracts to murder, which has become a part of Damascus’ black history and tradition. The international community did a blunder by only beating the tail of the snake (Hezbollah) in Lebanon and missing the heads in Damascus and Tehran, allowing them to go ahead with their ambitious plan to overpower the Middle East.
Syria and Iran form the core of danger in the region. The leaders of both countries have lost their integrity as they have become experts in changing colors. They change their stands to suit their needs in the blink of an eye. President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad started his tenure with claims of throwing Israel into the sea but has ended up with nothing. No one knows the structure of authority in Iran or who is its decision maker. The only thing we are sure about is that Tehran is keen to resurrect the greed of the Persian Empire.
With its unconcealed ambition, Iran has become a dangerous power which Arabs can use against each other. This is exactly what Prince Saud meant when he warned about losing Arab identity. Iran wants to use its nuclear program as a base for its imperialistic dreams and not to meet its energy needs. As the fourth largest oil producing country in the world and the second in producing natural gas, Iran is rich with energy sources. It doesn’t really need expensive nuclear power.
If Iran is allowed to go ahead with its nuclear program and refuse surprise inspections by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, then it will be a source of threat to Gulf countries, which supply the energy that feeds the world’s economy and industry. This is why, as Prince Faisal said, losing Arab identity becomes dangerous. Arab countries with close ties to Iran could become a Trojan horse full of Iranian soldiers within the wall of Arab castle. Lebanon has already paid a heavy price for Iran’s ambitions as some Lebanese served Tehran’s interests putting back their own country by 20 years.
Arab countries, which follow Iran’s path, may lose their identity and meet the same fate that befell Lebanon. Syria, which is being led by some mercenaries who are colleting dollars from Iran, will be the first victim of such devastation. e-mail: ahmedjarallah@hotmail.com

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Hezbollah Didn't Win
Arab writers are beginning to lift the veil on what really happened in Lebanon.
BY AMIR TAHERI
Friday, August 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The way much of the Western media tells the story, Hezbollah won a great victory against Israel and the U.S., healed the Sunni-Shiite rift, and boosted the Iranian mullahs' claim to leadership of the Muslim world. Portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, the junior mullah who leads the Lebanese branch of this pan-Shiite movement, have adorned magazine covers in the West, hammering in the message that this child of the Khomeinist revolution is the new hero of the mythical "Arab Street."
Probably because he watches a lot of CNN, Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei, also believes in "a divine victory." Last week he asked 205 members of his Islamic Majlis to send Mr. Nasrallah a message, congratulating him for his "wise and far-sighted leadership of the Ummah that produced the great victory in Lebanon."
By controlling the flow of information from Lebanon throughout the conflict, and help from all those who disagree with U.S. policies for different reasons, Hezbollah may have won the information war in the West. In Lebanon, the Middle East and the broader Muslim space, however, the picture is rather different.
Let us start with Lebanon.
Immediately after the U.N.-ordained ceasefire started, Hezbollah organized a series of firework shows, accompanied by the distribution of fruits and sweets, to celebrate its victory. Most Lebanese, however, finding the exercise indecent, stayed away. The largest "victory march" in south Beirut, Hezbollah's stronghold, attracted just a few hundred people.
Initially Hezbollah had hesitated between declaring victory and going into mourning for its "martyrs." The latter course would have been more in harmony with Shiite traditions centered on the cult of Imam Hussain's martyrdom in 680 A.D. Some members of Hezbollah wished to play the martyrdom card so that they could accuse Israel, and through it the U.S., of war crimes. They knew that it was easier for Shiites, brought up in a culture of eternal victimhood, to cry over an imagined calamity than laugh in the joy of a claimed victory.
Politically, however, Hezbollah had to declare victory for a simple reason: It had to pretend that the death and desolation it had provoked had been worth it. A claim of victory was Hezbollah's shield against criticism of a strategy that had led Lebanon into war without the knowledge of its government and people. Mr. Nasrallah alluded to this in television appearances, calling on those who criticized him for having triggered the war to shut up because "a great strategic victory" had been won.
The tactic worked for a day or two. However, it did not silence the critics, who have become louder in recent days. The leaders of the March 14 movement, which has a majority in the Lebanese Parliament and government, have demanded an investigation into the circumstances that led to the war, a roundabout way of accusing Hezbollah of having provoked the tragedy. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has made it clear that he would not allow Hezbollah to continue as a state within the state. Even Michel Aoun, a maverick Christian leader and tactical ally of Hezbollah, has called for the Shiite militia to disband.
Mr. Nasrallah followed his claim of victory with what is known as the "Green Flood"(Al-sayl al-akhdhar). This refers to the massive amounts of crisp U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among Shiites in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon.

The Green Flood has been unleashed to silence criticism of Mr. Nasrallah and his masters in Tehran. But the trick does not seem to be working. "If Hezbollah won a victory, it was a Pyrrhic one," says Walid Abi-Mershed, a leading Lebanese columnist. "They made Lebanon pay too high a price--for which they must be held accountable."
Hezbollah is also criticized from within the Lebanese Shiite community, which accounts for some 40% of the population. Sayyed Ali al-Amin, the grand old man of Lebanese Shiism, has broken years of silence to criticize Hezbollah for provoking the war, and called for its disarmament. In an interview granted to the Beirut An-Nahar, he rejected the claim that Hezbollah represented the whole of the Shiite community. "I don't believe Hezbollah asked the Shiite community what they thought about [starting the] war," Mr. al-Amin said. "The fact that the masses [of Shiites] fled from the south is proof that they rejected the war. The Shiite community never gave anyone the right to wage war in its name."
There were even sharper attacks. Mona Fayed, a prominent Shiite academic in Beirut, wrote an article also published by An-Nahar last week. She asks: Who is a Shiite in Lebanon today? She provides a sarcastic answer: A Shiite is he who takes his instructions from Iran, terrorizes fellow believers into silence, and leads the nation into catastrophe without consulting anyone. Another academic, Zubair Abboud, writing in Elaph, a popular Arabic-language online newspaper, attacks Hezbollah as "one of the worst things to happen to Arabs in a long time." He accuses Mr. Nasrallah of risking Lebanon's existence in the service of Iran's regional ambitions.
Before he provoked the war, Mr. Nasrallah faced growing criticism not only from the Shiite community, but also from within Hezbollah. Some in the political wing expressed dissatisfaction with his overreliance on the movement's military and security apparatus. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they described Mr. Nasrallah's style as "Stalinist" and pointed to the fact that the party's leadership council (shura) has not held a full session in five years. Mr. Nasrallah took all the major decisions after clearing them with his Iranian and Syrian contacts, and made sure that, on official visits to Tehran, he alone would meet Iran's "Supreme Guide," Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Nasrallah justified his style by claiming that involving too many people in decision-making could allow "the Zionist enemy" to infiltrate the movement. Once he had received the Iranian green light to provoke the war, Mr. Nasrallah acted without informing even the two Hezbollah ministers in the Siniora cabinet or the 12 Hezbollah members of the Lebanese Parliament.
Mr. Nasrallah was also criticized for his acknowledgement of Ali Khamenei as Marjaa al-Taqlid (Source of Emulation), the highest theological authority in Shiism. Highlighting his bay'aah (allegiance), Mr. Nasrallah kisses the man's hand each time they meet. Many Lebanese Shiites resent this because Mr. Khamenei, a powerful politician but a lightweight in theological terms, is not recognized as Marjaa al-Taqlid in Iran itself. The overwhelming majority of Lebanese Shiites regard Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, in Iraq, or Ayatollah Muhammad-Hussein Fadhlallah, in Beirut, as their "Source of Emulation."
Some Lebanese Shiites also question Mr. Nasrallah's strategy of opposing Prime Minister Siniora's "Project for Peace," and instead advancing an Iranian-backed "Project of Defiance." The coalition led by Mr. Siniora wants to build Lebanon into a haven of peace in the heart of a turbulent region. His critics dismiss this as a plan "to create a larger Monaco." Mr. Nasrallah's "Project of Defiance," however, is aimed at turning Lebanon into the frontline of Iranian defenses in a war of civilizations between Islam (led by Tehran) and the "infidel," under American leadership. "The choice is between the beach and the bunker," says Lebanese scholar Nadim Shehadeh. There is evidence that a majority of Lebanese Shiites would prefer the beach.
There was a time when Shiites represented an underclass of dirt-poor peasants in the south and lumpen elements in Beirut. Over the past 30 years, however, that picture has changed. Money sent from Shiite immigrants in West Africa (where they dominate the diamond trade), and in the U.S. (especially Michigan), has helped create a prosperous middle class of Shiites more interested in the good life than martyrdom à la Imam Hussain. This new Shiite bourgeoisie dreams of a place in the mainstream of Lebanese politics and hopes to use the community's demographic advantage as a springboard for national leadership. Hezbollah, unless it ceases to be an instrument of Iranian policies, cannot realize that dream.
The list of names of those who never endorsed Hezbollah, or who broke with it after its Iranian connections became too apparent, reads like a Who's Who of Lebanese Shiism. It includes, apart from the al-Amins, families such as the al-As'ad, the Osseiran, the al-Khalil, the Hamadah, the Murtadha, the Sharafeddin, the Fadhlallah, the Mussawis, the Hussainis, the Shamsuddin and the Ata'allahs.
Far from representing the Lebanese national consensus, Hezbollah is a sectarian group backed by a militia that is trained, armed and controlled by Iran. In the words of Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the Iranian daily Kayhan, "Hezbollah is 'Iran in Lebanon.' " In the 2004 municipal elections, Hezbollah won some 40% of the votes in the Shiite areas, the rest going to its rival Amal (Hope) movement and independent candidates. In last year's general election, Hezbollah won only 12 of the 27 seats allocated to Shiites in the 128-seat National Assembly--despite making alliances with Christian and Druze parties and spending vast sums of Iranian money to buy votes.
Hezbollah's position is no more secure in the broader Arab world, where it is seen as an Iranian tool rather than as the vanguard of a new Nahdha (Awakening), as the Western media claim. To be sure, it is still powerful because it has guns, money and support from Iran, Syria and Hate America International Inc. But the list of prominent Arab writers, both Shiite and Sunni, who have exposed Hezbollah for what it is--a Khomeinist Trojan horse--would be too long for a single article. They are beginning to lift the veil and reveal what really happened in Lebanon.
Having lost more than 500 of its fighters, and with almost all of its medium-range missiles destroyed, Hezbollah may find it hard to sustain its claim of victory. "Hezbollah won the propaganda war because many in the West wanted it to win as a means of settling score with the United States," says Egyptian columnist Ali al-Ibrahim. "But the Arabs have become wise enough to know TV victory from real victory."
Mr. Taheri is author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).

Hezbollah's propaganda exposed during Annan's visit
By CTB Special Correspondent
Editor's Note: Karim is a special correspondent for the Counterterrorism Blog (he posted on July 24) and is currently in Lebanon.
Hezbollah's staged mini-demonstration in the southern suburb of Beirut has been exposed by unauthorized media footage. During a visit to the Hezbollah former "security square," destroyed during the war with Israel, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was greeted by a prepared crowd of Hezbollah militants. Accompanied by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora, Dr. Annan was escorted by Lebanese Army security, apparently very friendly with Hezbollah Department of Security. The Lebanese Army officers and Hezbollah were seen smiling at each other and coordinating the staged demonstration. A camera linked to an international media agency was broadcasting live from behind the Hezbollah's security lines. It captured the details of the "show." A group of women and girls, in traditional Muslim dresses and scarves were gathered by Hezbollah bearded security some 15 minutes before the motorcade arrives. The gathering was at about 30 feet away from where Annan's car was supposed to stop. This indicates that the motorcade security and the Hezbollah operatives knew ahead of time where the spot would be and had the women standing and waiting. Posters of Hassan Nasrallah were then distributed to the women. The camera showed a group of bearded men standing few meters behind the first line of women as a "second brigade." Then the camera showed the group of women tightening their positioning while few men with hats and "talkies" positioned themselves behind the women and started shouting orders: "Clap when Annan gets out of the car," they screamed to the women. The latter complied with "passion," raising the posters of Nasrallah. "Boo when Seniora appears," the Hezbollah's operators shouted. A huge boo was produced, not only by the women, but also by the men standing behind them.
As the UN delegation approached the group walking, the women screamed the name of Nasrallah and behind them couple men screamed "down, down, USA" (especially when the international media appeared). As soon as the officials walked farther, and as in a choreographed play, the women dispersed themselves opening the path for the militiamen looking males to rush behind the delegation walking through the ruins. Responding to orders barked form inside the group, the mens' "demo" got loud and slogans were shouted with greater energy and menace. Interestingly, and since the camera was filming live from behind and feeding it to satellite around the world, observers were able to "see" the whole operation to its most detailed developments. The last security men of the UN delegation facing the following crowd were smiling at the security cadres of Hezbollah and keeping the exact distance needed for the shouting to be heard and for the international cameras to film the delegation surrounded by angry people, hoping the sympathizing translators and editors would make the right comments on BBC, CNN, and of course on al Jazeera, and by the next morning, the right articles will be printed in the New York Times, the Guardian and Le Monde. The show got even more detailed, as the camera was feeding the footage live and raw, when a Hezbollah militiaman screamed at a media cameraman who had climbed onto rubbles to have a bigger view of the crowd and the whole picture. The Hezbollah operatives, along with a security man from the Lebanese Army rushed to remove the cameraman from where he was, which was logical, as he could have filmed the staging machine and more importantly the "size" of the demonstration. Back to the demonstration: the Lebanese state-security elements were telling the Hezbollah fellows, "tameem, azeem," (very good, excellent). The "commissaries" behind the lines of the males were changing the slogans from "Long live Nasrallah" to "Down with the US." In a few minutes, the delegation headed back to the cars, Kofi Annan apparently impressed with the "people's voice." When the convoy left, the men and women of Hezbollah's demonstration vanished leaving regular bystanders to themselves. Interestingly as well, whenever the camera showed a journalist, especially with cameras, a Hizbollah militiaman was just few feet away.
August 28, 2006 05:35 PM Link
Andrew Cochran
Co-Editor, The Counterterrorism Blog
http://counterterrorismblog.org
Co-Chairman, The Counterterrorism Foundation
http://counterterrorismblog.org/foundation.php

Ancient and Pre-Ancient Lebanese
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat - 28/08/06//
The old tone, revived and brought to the fore by the mutinous endeavor, speaks of ancient, corrupt Lebanese politicians. It disfigures them, reminds them of their actual sins, defames them, or magnifies real faults within them.
And as usual, an arsenal of leftist, doubtlessly 'progressive', rhetoric is happy to provide us with directions - by the standards of the late Lenin - as to who the people's 'friends' and 'enemies' are.
The ancient Lebanese, with his corrupt, mercantile, and Phoenician texture, has no place in the current age that is rising with a new dawn embodied in a new Lebanese. It is the revolutionary season sale, ushered by the 'historic victory' achieved by Hezbollah.
Just as in the Tolstoyan 'War and Peace', wars lead to others in a continuous cycle, with tidal waves of displaced people, while the world burns and falls into ruins on the eve of Doomsday. This is how a new dawn is born, comrades! Between a helmet and a scull, flowers blossom.
For the pervious world is an Old Testament world morphing into a new chapter of its geological phases, preparing for a new republic and a new public. Waiting for a miracle: the 'Mahdi' (Hidden Imam), a savior, and a deliverer.
Those insignificant corrupt people, who lose sleep over earthly possessions should clear the way for those who lose sleep solely over history.
Those who shed tears, like Fouad Siniora, should fade away, abandoning the scene for those who do not even bleed when cut.
But Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeni were infatuated by history. For them, property and material commodities were meaningless. Corruption never came near them and they never approached it. Doubt never arose, even in the minds of those who hated them, to accusations of corruption. Their only cause was existence itself, along with immortality, obviously. And for existence and immortality, they exercised an iron-fisted, organized, cohesive and dynamic leadership. They controlled their cliques and loyalists as one does with hand watches. They invoked a sense of reverence from their followers that ordinary politicians fail to do.
As for how much their leadership was worth: not tens of thousands or even millions of dollars, but millions of people.
There is no doubt that Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah are followers of this school of thought. Both enjoy a sort of solidness, cohesiveness, and dynamism that were not known to the history of political life in Lebanon.
However, Lebanon is not in need of all these qualities except to prolong endurance during wartime, and consequently, to do away with politics. In small amounts, these qualities could serve to clean political life, provide standards by which it is to be monitored, and add a degree of seriousness to it. In excess, these qualities not only kill politics, but life and freedom in a country that thrives on diversity, contraction, commerce, tourism and the knowledge of languages.
As for newness', a quality that revolutionists and mutineers always like to associate themselves with, it is nothing more than 'ancientness' but with a different name.
This is because the 'reactionary' politicians of yesterday were more tolerant in attitude and moral values, and had less loyalty to the past and respect of the religious dogma. They also revered what they believed in a less fanatical zeal. They are, also, less harmonious in form and appearance; in what they eat and drink; in what they do and say; and are, therefore, less insistent on distancing themselves from other social bodies, and distinguishing their blocs from others.
That is why, I dare say, the ancient Lebanese see in Hezbollah more ancient Lebanese than themselves. For Hezbollah's pre-ancient Lebanese have no qualms in sacrificing everything for the sake of their dilapidated past. In contrast to the ancient Lebanese's 'rural consciousness', Hezbollah's Lebanese appear to have the 'consciousness of the outskirts' that has lost the values of the countryside, yet never gained those of the city. This is not a model to be followed or propagated by 'progressives.'

On Kofi Annan's Tour
Raghida Dergham Al-Hayat - 25/08/06//
New York - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's visit to the Middle East next week will be risky and counter-productive if he intends to just open a discussion here or take an opinion there; or if he is not carrying a Plan A or B to stimulate the States toward taking necessary stances. The current critical phase requires to avoid slipping into the pitfalls of partial solutions, while the 'doors' are wide open for seeking radical solutions to the regional issues.
All the actors know what each must do to avoid escalation and for the sake of stability. However, instability is the most valuable and demanded commodity, according to the indicators. It yields oil funds to Tehran, the 'father' of the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah axis. It is also the 'spawn' of chaos, which the US-Israeli axis has always found necessary in the Arab arenas to achieve its goals of subjugation, division and fragmentation. Instability and stubbornness seem to go hand in hand. No party in either axis has any desire to fix the situation in Lebanon, to adapt in Iraq, or to find a real solution to the Palestinian issue, despite talk about the need to introduce new ideas to the negotiating tables.
Kofi Annan intends to visit Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and, most likely, Iran and Syria. The timing of his visit in itself is not encouraging, particularly regarding his visits to Tehran and Damascus. This week, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran delivered to the five permanent members of the Security Council and to Germany its response to the package of incentives and rewards for suspending uranium enrichment to the effect that it rejects the offer and wants talk.
As for Damascus, it rejects the Security Council Resolutions that demand the demarcation of the border with Lebanon. It also rejects the deployment of international forces on the Lebanese-Syrian border to prevent the infiltration of weapons to the Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias in Lebanon.
Therefore, the timing of the UN Secretary General's visit to Tehran amid its confrontation with the five permanent members of the Security Council seems to be an attempt to protect Iran from pressure by providing a channel for dialogue as a back door, bearing in mind that the Iranian proposal is, in turn, based on talk under the so-called 'negotiations'.
Also, the timing of his visit to Damascus in the wake of President al-Assad's speech and statements seems to be an attempt to rescue the Syrian regime from its regional and international isolation; a decision made by Kofi Annan that it would be wise to hold talks and to listen.
If Annan goes to the Iranian and Syrian leaderships without detailed, specific and firm demands from them, his visit to these two capitals would bear negative results and consequences for the region, as well as his occupational biography, as he is preparing to step down from office. It is unacceptable for the UN Secretary General to head for the capitals of Iran and Syria to simply listen or emphasize to the two leaderships that their influence in Lebanon must be positive.
Kofi Annan, according to his spokesman, will pay the visit to stress the importance of the implementation of Resolution 1701. This Resolution imperatively laid down an arms embargo, with both Iran and Syria in mind, as they supply weapons to Hezbollah. The Resolution also required that the Secretary General make proposals for a solution by the 12th of next month "to implement the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), including disarmament, and for delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area".
Syria and Israel are at loggerheads regarding the Shebaa Farms. Damascus made it clear at the top levels that it will not agree to the demarcation of the border, including the Shebaa Farms. Israel made it clear in more than one assembly, as well as with the international delegation which visited it recently, that it will not withdraw from the occupied Shebaa Farms, because this withdrawal would be a 'reward' for Hezbollah and terrorism.
Hence, Kofi Annan must be firm with the Syrians and the Israelis in this matter. He must go to Israel with a convincing strategy to explain to the Israeli government that 'rewarding' Hezbollah would be to keep the issue of the Shebaa Farms unresolved and subject to Syrian and Iranian blackmail, not to withdraw from the farms and place them under international mandate. If he faces the expected intransigence in his talks with the Israelis on this issue, Annan must show firmness and tell Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, that the international community, the benefits of which they discovered in the wake of their wretched venture in Lebanon, will not be able to carry out the task they wish of it.
In other words, the Shebaa Farms are to be the 'poisonous chalice' Israel must swallow, regardless of its view that handing over the Farms to the UN is a 'reward' for Hezbollah, or that it is, in fact, a logical step in a rational strategy that it must embrace.
More importantly, Israel, by rejecting the idea of handing over the Shebaa Farms to the UN, has fallen into the trap set by Syria and Hezbollah. Israel radically undermines the Lebanese government, headed by PM Fouad Siniora, which has fallen into the quagmire of the Shebaa Farms.
If Israel wants the Lebanese government to implement its sovereignty over the entire Lebanese territory and deploy the army at the south of the border to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah and other parties, it has no choice but to pull the rug from under the feet of Hezbollah and Syria by placing the Shebaa Farms under UN mandate until a demarcation of the Lebanese-Syrian border is implemented.
Kofi Annan must be firm with the Israeli government in this matter, and must be clear that the international community will fail in its task if Israel refuses to respond to some of its ideas.
It is also important that Annan have a Plan B in the event of continued Israeli intransigence, or in the event that Israel continues to prepare for war to threaten the whole of Lebanon to strike Hezbollah.
Upon his visit to Lebanon, it would be useful for the Secretary General to show the government and parliament how avoiding to deal with Hezbollah's arms has resulted in the reluctance of countries to contribute troops. These countries are not confident that the concealment of Hezbollah's arms may be a basis for the empowerment of the State's authority. They cannot accept that their soldiers be sacrificed for a performance in the 'play' of concealing Hezbollah's weapons, and pretend that the arms no longer exist. It is necessary for Kofi Annan in Lebanon to show that the Shebaa Farms, which he placed in Syria when the Blue Line was being drawn, are not necessarily Lebanese, despite Syria's allegations, because the available maps repeatedly placed it on Syrian territory. Accordingly, Annan is also required to present the Lebanese government with an offer to backtrack on the tangled issue of the Shebaa Farms, which has been given more significance than it deserves, because Hezbollah and its army, not the government, have taken it as a pretext to justify the ongoing Resistance to liberate it.
What is required of Kofi Annan, if and when he comes to Damascus, is clear and crucial. He is not to hold with President Bashar al-Assad discussions based on which al-Assad could keep Lebanon hostage to regain the Golan Heights. Annan must cling to the UN Resolutions, especially 1701, 1559 and 1680, which call on Syria to take action. All these Resolutions partly deal with the Syrian role in Lebanon.
Kofi Annan must be of the utmost firmness with Syria on the issue of the Shebaa Farms and the demarcation of the border with Lebanon. He must ask it to stop its elusiveness and hand over all the documents and maps, which it has so far been concealing, and which would prove Syria's allegations that the Farms are truly Lebanese. He must challenge the Syrian President's threat to close down the border with Lebanon, if the international forces are deployed on the border. He must explain to him that Resolution 1701 makes it incumbent upon Syria not to allow the infiltration of arms across its borders with Lebanon.
Kofi Annan knows well that one of the main pillars of Syrian policy is to prevent the establishment of an international tribunal to try those involved in assassinations in Lebanon, at the top of which is the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He knows that Damascus wants to overthrow the Lebanese government headed by PM Fouad Siniora by any possible means and at any cost, because such a tribunal, in Syria's view, would not be convened if Siniora's government is toppled. That is because the tribunal would need unanimity from the Lebanese government if the court is to be of international nature.
Kofi Annan should make Damascus understand that the UN has a Plan B in the event of Lebanon's government being toppled. The investigation into the terrorist act that killed al-Hariri has collected evidence to submit in court. If the Lebanese government is ousted in order to bring down the court, neither the Security Council nor the General Secretariat will yield to such dangerous policies, as they have contingency plans for trials that will definitely pull the rug from under the feet of those who do everything they can to evade commitment of the crime.
The Secretary General should first avoid falling into the whirlpool of the US policy toward the Middle East, as its policy toward Iraq seems to be the same toward Lebanon. The first miscalculation is the assumption that there is an actual Iranian-Israeli 'hostility' because of the Palestinian issue, or that Tehran's support for Hezbollah is really for the sake of Lebanon, or that the situation in the Middle East could improve if Washington and others adopted the approach of dialogue and recognition of every influential player like Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the results of the election process, which brought, for example, Hamas to power in Palestine.
Actually, the fact that US policy has failed in the war on Iraq and toward Palestine does not oppose the fact that US policy toward Lebanon has helped it to be free of Syrian hegemony, restore sovereignty through an elected government, support the authority with international legitimate resolutions, and protect democracy in Lebanon. Lebanon, whose 'brothers' and neighbors tried to sink it in a quagmire of assassination, has been significantly supported by the US, France, and the international community, which rescued it from destruction and collapse.
Ahmadinejad of Iran crowns himself as the leader of a revolutionary Iran, as a 'Shah' of Persian imperialism, whose objective is to subjugate the Islamic World with his own ideology. If the US forces were to leave Iraq, Ahmadinejad would raise the banner of victory, because the Arab arena would be more permissible in the absence of American protection. If American troops remain in Iraq, they will be the down-payment on retaliation if Washington deals military strikes on Iran.
The UN Secretary General should not lose sight of these complicated equations when he visits Tehran, which will not cooperate in the implementation of Resolution 1701, for the sake of which, according to him, Annan is touring the region. Iran regards Lebanon as simply an extension to be used and exploited for its regional and international ambitions and files of nuclear weapons. It is extremely satisfied with the inflow of oil revenue resulting from the calculated policy of destabilizing Lebanon, and the deliberate escalation in the nuclear file, through a strategy of procrastination and buying time.

Al-Hayat: Gilad Shalit alive
London-based Arabic newspaper says Khaled Mashaal told Jesse Jackson during meeting in Damascus that kidnapped IDF soldier is alive, being kept in safe location; Jackson hopes to meet Nasrallah before coming to Israel
Roee Nahmias Published: 08.29.06, 14:45
The London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat reported on Tuesday that Hamas politburo Khaled Mashaal told Reverent Jesse Jackson during a meeting in Damascus that kidnapped Corporal Gilad Shalit is alive and is being kept at a safe location.
Sad 20th Birthday
Kidnapped soldier's family, friends arrive at place where he was kidnapped to mark his 20th birthday; 'we are here to remind Israeli government not to abandon its captive soldiers,' Gilad's father Noam says
Mashaal said Hamas is interested in a prisoner exchange deal with Israel, "especially when 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails."
Mashaal said Hamas would be keep to release Shalit if Israel frees Palestinian women and children jailed in Israel.
Jackson also held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus before leaving to Lebanon where he met with President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
Jackson said he was keen on meeting Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to discuss the release of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Shiite group. Jackson's Middle East tour includes a stop in Israel.
He told the newspaper that his mission in the region is to encourage all relevant parties to implement United Nations Resolution 1701, to encourage Arab countries to assist humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Lebanon and to encourage Hamas and Hizbullah to negotiate prisoner exchange deals with Israel.
The newspaper quoted unnamed officials as saying that the letters were delivered to Hizbullah by Lebanese sources mediating between the Shiite group and European diplomats.

Al-Qaeda's Saudi Origins
Islamist Ideology
By: Uriya Shavit
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/999
From where did Al-Qaeda come? While its actions are well known, its intellectual origins are not. Many scholars and analysts depict the group as a new phenomenon. They cite its international recruitment, its message of global jihad, its lack of a clear chain-of-command, and its use of the Internet as both an operational and informative tool. While the group's amorphousness makes it threatening and unpredictable, neither Osama bin Laden's operative modes nor his ideology are cloaked in mystery. Rather, they are a synthesis of two interlinked and equally important sources of influence: first, the teachings of ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, the leader of the Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s; and second, the Saudi opposition movement which arose in the early 1990s and sought to Islamize Saudi society in response to a perceived Western "cultural attack" on the Muslim world.

The Saudi Debate on the Western Cultural Attack
Both influences arose out of a struggle within Saudi Arabian society. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, the House of Saud managed to unite much of the Arabian Peninsula under its leadership. The Saudi kingdom preserved a temporal-religious balance of power: Saudi kings and princes took charge of political and financial decisions, while the ulema, the Muslim clergy, governed religious and judicial affairs including the issuance of fatwas, religious edicts that judged the compatibility of temporal decisions with Islamic law.

However, this balance of power was superficial. While the House of Saud derived legitimacy from the ulema, it also appointed or dismissed them and set the boundaries of their authority. Whenever the ulema disagreed with a Saudi king, the last word was almost always his. The clergy could debate political decisions, but they could not impose amendments.

The king and clergy often disagreed over the compatibility of modernization with Wahhabi puritanism. During the 1920s, for example, the ulema protested King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud's decision to use wireless communication, claiming it was devilish.[1] During the 1960s, the ulema contested King Faisal Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz's decision to introduce television broadcasting because, they claimed, it contradicted the Qur'an and could corrupt society.[2] In both cases, clerical objections did not prevent implementation of the king's decision.

The 1970s oil boom changed Saudi society. Two distinct social groups emerged. The first, composed of young, often Western-educated technocrats sought to develop Saudi infrastructure and adapt Saudi administrative, educational, and financial systems to Western standards. The second were ulema, who graduated from newly-established religious schools and universities. They, too, enjoyed the economic boom but feared that rapid modernization could endanger Saudi Arabia's Muslim identity.[3] These young clerics did not oppose modernization per se like their predecessors but demanded that new technologies be harnessed to promote Islam. They did not oppose television broadcasts, for example, but demanded that any programming be Islamic in nature and free of Western influence. Their approach to modernization was, in fact, more Salafi in nature than Wahhabi. While these two strains of Islamism are often conflated, there are subtle differences. Salafism refers to a school of thought developed in Egypt in the late nineteenth century that called for a return to the origins of Islam yet aimed to harmonize Islam with the scientific and technological aspects of modernity. Wahhabism is a Saudi puritan school which, in its idealization of the time of Muhammad, also rejects scientific and technical aspects of modernity.

As modernization progressed, these young ulema became increasingly discontented with the path of the Saudi kingdom. They opposed the growing number of girls attending school, the mushrooming number of television sets, temporal courts, and a banking system that did not adhere to the Islamic legal prohibition against charging interest. The personal extravagance of some young Saudi princes added insult to injury. The authoritarian nature of the Saudi system allowed little outlet for their discontent. When, on November 20, 1979, a young Saudi former national guardsman named Juhaiman al-‘Utaibi and a small band of followers took control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca to demand the overthrow of the House of Saud and the severing of all relations with the West, most ulema stood alongside the king.[4]

However, their unease did not dissipate, but rather than coalesce into a formal opposition movement, they preached the dangers of poorly supervised modernization. They cautioned that the kingdom and the broader Muslim world were subject to a sophisticated Western "cultural attack" (al-ghazw ath-thaqafi) or "intellectual attack" (al-ghazw al-fikri), which sought first to weaken Muslim faith and morals and then conquer again Muslim territories and convert Muslims to Christianity. Its tools were Western textbooks, Western television programs, Western sports, Western cafés, and Western banking systems.[5] Influenced by the teachings of Egyptian Islamists who found refuge in Saudi Arabia, the proponents of such a conspiracy theory did not differentiate between the capitalist West and the communist bloc; both were variations of the same enemy.

The ulema had a two-pronged plan to thwart this Western conspiracy: first they sought to purge Saudi Arabia of any Western influences and Islamize all aspects of Saudi life, including its judiciary, media, financial institutions, and educational systems. They would then launch a counterattack in which they would attempt to influence the Western world, mainly via Muslims living in Europe and the United States.

The Means of Combating the Intellectual Attack on the Muslim World, a book published in Mecca by the Saudi-controlled, pan-Islamist Muslim World League, is a typical manifestation of this conception. The author, Hassan Muhammad Hassan, describes the Western intellectual attack as a tumor whose timely detection is critical to the body's recovery. He argued that the West planned a three-stage offensive: first, the West would seek to convince Muslims that Islam is not a complete way of life but merely folklore; then Muslims would doubt their faith, before lastly, abandoning it.[6] According to Hassan, the Western plot had already borne fruit because of Muslims' ignorance of the ideological underpinnings of Western society. For example, many Muslims failed to understand the destructive implications of teenagers imitating the West by directing their admiration toward soccer teams instead of ulema.[7] He concluded that the only way to counter the Western onslaught would be to restore the hegemony of Islam in all aspects of life: Muslim states should annul any laws which contradict Shari‘a (Islamic law); Muslims should harness the press to further the Islamic cause; Muslims residing in the West must be recruited for the Muslim cause; and all Muslims must understand that any foreign presence on Muslim soil, even when disguised as academic or scientific, is part of a plot to shatter Islamic identity.[8]

The ulema who cautioned against the "cultural attack" regarded the House of Saud, at least rhetorically, as a potential leader, not an enemy, of the struggle against Western penetration. The House of Saud did not oppose this conception. The Saudis were even ready to accept some of the ulema's minor demands, such as increased allocations for proselytizing overseas, so long as the ulema did not violate certain red lines, such as challenging the Saudi kingdom's military alliance with the United States. The war against the "cultural attack" was fine, so long as its prosecution did not threaten regime stability.

The War in Afghanistan and the Legacy of the Armed Jihad
The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, in the eyes of those cautioning against a Western cultural attack, affirmation of their assumptions. The struggle for Afghanistan gave young, religious Saudis—graduates of the kingdom's new religious universities—an opportunity to defend Islam. A few hundred traveled to Afghanistan to join Muslim guerilla fighters, the mujahideen. The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan assisted them financially and logistically.[9] For the Saudi regime, their activity was a blessing: not only did it portray Saudi Arabia as a leading force in the liberation of Afghanistan without the kingdom having to directly intervene in the conflict, but it also kept the most radical and adventurous young Saudis far from Saudi Arabia. Instead of fighting the U.S. presence on Saudi soil, the kingdom's young radicals fought Soviet penetration of Afghan soil.

There, many Saudis—including Osama bin Laden—became followers of ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam. A Palestinian who fled to Jordan after the Six-Day war, ‘Azzam joined the Muslim Brotherhood and obtained a doctorate in Islamic law from Cairo's Al-Azhar University in 1973 before settling down to teach Islamic law at the University of Jordan. He was fired for involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood and moved to Saudi Arabia where, in 1981, he joined the faculty of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz University in Jeddah. He did not stay long and traveled to Islamabad and then to the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier to organize the anti-Soviet jihad. Bin Laden became ‘Azzam's close ally, assisting him with finance and logistics.

‘Azzam argued that it was the personal obligation (fard al-‘ayn) of every Muslim to defend Islamic lands against the penetration of the infidels. This duty was no different than the responsibility to fast or pray. A son neither would need his father's approval nor a wife her husband's approval to fulfill it.[10] Primary responsibility for the fight against occupation of the infidels rested upon the victimized residents but, if they did not possess force enough to resist, every Muslim should join them in battle.[11] Waging war against Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and Israel were the highest priorities because these two states represented beachheads from which the infidels would expand. However, ‘Azzam argued Afghanistan was more urgent because the battles at the time were at their peak and because in Afghanistan the resistance was purely Muslim; there were no Christian populations, as there are on the West Bank.[12]

Several Saudi ulema endorsed ‘Azzam's ideas. He also claimed to have the endorsement of Sheikh ‘Abd al-Aziz bin Baz, head of the Council for Senior Ulema, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, though he offered no proof for this claim.[13] However, he went beyond the concerns articulated by the Saudi ulema: he made the struggle an individual one, giving up on the idea that Muslim states are able to defend Muslim soil. He also shifted the struggle from the sociocultural to military dimension. While his colleagues in Saudi Arabia preached about the dangers of Western penetration into the Muslim world, ‘Azzam transformed his ideas into a successful armed struggle for which he eventually sacrificed his life, dying with two of his sons in a November 1989 explosion in Peshawar, apparently the work of Soviet agents. It was this legacy of an active, armed, and nongovernmental struggle against Western penetration that he bequeathed to bin Laden when the war in Afghanistan ended in a Soviet defeat.

Radicalizing the Defense against Cultural Attack
On August 2, 1990, shortly after bin Laden's return from Afghanistan, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Riyadh's subsequent decision to invite the U.S. military to protect the kingdom radically transformed the Saudi debate about the Western "cultural attack." Deployment of Western troops to Saudi soil fit the narrative of those ulema who said that Western cultural penetration of the kingdom was just a precursor to a Western military reconquest of the Middle East. To these young Saudis, the House of Saud was at best duped by the West and, at worst, complicit.

Aware of the risk, King Fahd urged the Council of Senior Ulema to issue an edict legitimizing the presence of U.S. troops.[14] But rather than appease many of the young ulema, their edict convinced them that the clerics of the senior religious establishment were pawns in the hands of the Sauds and had eschewed their sacred obligation to defend Islam. A movement against U.S. military presence grew rapidly at mosques and in religious universities. Its leaders were Salman al-‘Awda, a professor of Islamic law at Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh,[15] and Safar al-Hawali, a charismatic lecturer who headed the department of theology at Umm al-Qurra University in Mecca.[16] Hawali's sermons were widely distributed on audiotape and became popular during the buildup to Operation Desert Storm.[17]

Hawali described the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait as part of a Western conspiracy to conquer the Muslim world. This conspiracy was, in Hawali's opinion, the result of a Western understanding that in the post-Soviet era, only the Muslim world could challenge Western hegemony, and therefore, the West must subordinate all Muslims to its rule. According to Hawali, Washington encouraged Kuwait to increase its oil exports to harm Iraq's economy. The U.S. government then not only gave the Iraqi leader the green light to invade Kuwait but later discouraged Saddam from compromise. Finally, Washington pressured the Persian Gulf states to agree to war against Iraq. His sermons reflected frustration with the Saudi blindness to U.S. plots and Washington's alleged goal to reshape the Middle East in accordance with U.S. strategic interests and ideals. They were imbued with a belief that given the opportunity, the average Saudi subject would fight the Western danger.[18]

Other developments in the run-up to Operation Desert Storm deepened the suspicions of young ulema that the conflict was part of a cultural attack. On November 6, 1990, a few dozen Saudi women in Riyadh sent their drivers away and, stating that nothing in Islam prohibits women from driving, drove their cars in a protest-rally against the social ban against women driving.[19] Riyadh ulema were certain that Kuwaiti and Western women had inspired their Saudi counterparts. In response to ulema demands, the government issued a ban on women driving.[20]

A month later, forty-three businessmen and intellectuals signed a petition to the king, demanding diminished authority for the ulema in Saudi society. This "Liberal Petition," argued that Qur'anic interpretations are, unlike the Qur'an itself, human and amendable. In addition, they demanded a new press law to parallel progressive legislation in other countries and called for women to have a greater role in Saudi society.[21] Then, as the war began, Saudi Channel 2 offered its viewers live CNN feed. To the ulema, this was an insult: not only was their country part of a Western-led coalition against another Muslim country, but Saudi television was also helping broadcast images demonstrating Western military and technological superiority to the Saudi public through Western eyes.[22]

When the war ended, many younger ulema sought a complete U.S. withdrawal from Saudi soil. When the king turned down this demand, they concluded that if the House of Saud could no longer protect Saudi Arabia from the Western cultural attack, then the ulema, not the House of Saud, should run the country.

In March 1991, a group of ulema secretly drafted a "letter of demands" (khitab al-matalib) to demand the establishment of an independent consultative (shura) council to consist of ulema that would rule in all internal and external matters. They also demanded that special committees adapt all laws and regulations to Islamic law, that state organs be purged of corruption, that the collection of interest by financial institutions be banned, that the state build a strong and sophisticated military, and that Saudi Arabia relinquish any alliance—such as the Riyadh-Washington partnership—which in their view contradicted the Shari‘a.[23]

Signed first in Riyadh, the letter of demands circulated throughout the kingdom and gained approximately 400 signatures of preachers, heads of Islamic organizations, judges, and scholars, who represented the relatively younger religious establishment. Even bin Baz supported the petition.[24] Encouraged by this dramatic step, four of the petitioners traveled to Jeddah and submitted the petition to the king's chief of staff. Sympathizers distributed thousands of underground copies around the country.[25]

The letter of demands represented a clear, albeit rhetorical, rebellion against the House of Saud. But the king's hands were tied. Nothing in the petition contradicted Saudi law or official Saudi statements; in fact, King Fahd and his predecessors had often promised creation of a consultative council, albeit one without any structure or powers specified.

While the government rejected the ulema's specific demands, it sought to diminish their challenge and popularity with incorporation of notions of cultural attack in some of its actions and rhetoric. The king sharply increased allocations for religious activities. Even during the economic crisis of 1992, the government increased the number of religious establishment employees from 54,000 to 60,300.[26] The Saudi government also launched a number of initiatives to strengthen the Islamic identity of Muslim diasporas. The king himself described the establishment of the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) as outreach to Muslims living in Europe.[27]

Rhetorically, too, the regime co-opted some ideas of Hawali and other dissidents. Since the end of 1991, the king's speeches have promoted the idea of a clash of civilizations between an aggressive, materialistic, hegemony-seeking Western civilization and a spiritual Muslim civilization led by Saudi Arabia.[28] Many Saudi newspaper opinion columns—all subject to state censorship if not representing endorsed views—suggested that Saudi Arabia must launch a counterattack against the Western civilization. For example, one column in the Al-Riyadh daily contended that, because taking the struggle into the enemy's territory is the key to victory, the Saudi regime should exploit ties to Muslim diasporas in the West to transform the Christian crusade against Muslims into a crusade to Islamize the Christian world.[29]

Still, the Saudi royal family did not adhere to demands to abandon its U.S. military alliance or expel foreign troops, nor were the kingdom's laws purged of all non-Muslim influences. The king's March 1992 decision to decree a Basic Law of government and a Law of the Consultative Council ridiculed the ulemas' most radical demand by creating a council devoid of any real power for religious authorities.[30] In so doing, King Fahd drew a boundary between legitimate and illegitimate dissent. The petitioners of the letter of demands could no longer call for the establishment of a meaningful consultative council and still claim to operate within the boundaries of state legitimacy.

Faced with the dilemma of further challenging the king or retreating, most oppositionists retreated. The number of declared supporters of the ulemas' demands diminished after 1992, and even many of those who remained relinquished the demand for the establishment of a powerful consultative council although they did continue to advocate for greater Islamization of Saudi society and foreign policy. While some scholars argue that a further petition, the Mudhakarat an-Nasiha (the memorandum of advice), circulated in March 1992,[31] represents radicalization of the Saudi opposition,[32] this view misinterprets the evolution of the movement and its relations with the House of Saud. While the memorandum of advice was more elaborate in its demands for Islamization of the Saudi society, it relinquished the more radical demand to transfer political power from the House of Saud to the ulema and so reflected the regime's success in marking the boundaries of legitimacy for the opposition. It was signed by far fewer than had signed the letter of demands. Not only was bin Baz not among them, but the memorandum of advice drew condemnation from the Council for Senior Ulema.[33]

The regime's attitude toward those who persisted in criticism became harsher. In the summer of 1993, the police searched Hawali's offices and froze ‘Awda's bank accounts. Teachers at King Saud university in Riyadh, who in May established a human rights committee (Lajnat ad-Dif‘a ‘an al-Huquq ash-Shar'iya, often translated as the Committee for the Defense of the Legitimate Rights, CDLR, but may also be translated as "Committee for the Defense of the Shari‘a Rights") were fired; a few fled to exile in London where they launched a campaign to overthrow the House of Saud.[34] The regime reestablished control of the debate and over its religious opposition without either serious concession or a shot being fired.

Bin Laden and ‘Azzam: Synthesizing Ideology and Practice
What role Osama bin Laden had in those stormy events is not known; yet, he must have played some role because in the fall of 1991, he fled to exile in Sudan. Bin Laden likely identified with Hawali and ‘Awda's ideas objecting to the deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

During his first years of exile in Sudan, bin Laden was a prominent Saudi opposition figure, known mostly for his antipathy to the Saudi alliance with the United States. In April 1994, after he identified with the CDLR, the Saudi Interior Ministry stripped him of his citizenship. In May 1996, the Sudanese government at Riyadh's urging expelled him. He found shelter in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban.

From his Afghan exile, he issued "a declaration of war" and, in several press interviews, called for an armed struggle against U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. He also claimed responsibility for the June 1996 explosions in Dhahran, which killed nineteen U.S. servicemen, saying they were a warning and a response to the collusion between the Saudi regime and the "Zionist-Crusade" alliance.[35] While he drifted apart from the mainstream Saudi opposition of the early 1990s, his emphasis on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and his consistent criticism of the House of Saud reflected the concerns of Hawali and ‘Awda and made him merely a Saudi opposition figure.

In the late 1990s, bin Laden altered his political profile and embarked on an effort to become the leader of a global jihad against the United States and its allies. Using his fortune and his operational skills, he recruited radical Islamists willing to attack Western targets and trained several hundred in camps in Afghanistan. On February 23, 1998, bin Laden announced the establishment of "The World Islamic Front for the Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders" (Al-Jabha al-Islamiya al-‘Alamiya li-Jihad al-Yahud w'as-Salabiyin) in the Arabic daily Al-Quds al-‘Arabi and positioned himself to head its supreme council. Joining him were jihadist leaders from Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, but their alliance was weak, and they did not agree upon the front's hierarchy and goals.[36] Six months later, bin Laden proved his organization's lethality when it simultaneously attacked the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam, killing more than 220, injuring five thousand,[37] and gaining publicity for his organization and ideas.

Both the declaration of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders and bin Laden's audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera on December 26, 2001, explaining his reasons for the 9-11 attacks, demonstrate the synthesizing origins of his thought and operation. While the first signifies his claim to leadership of the global jihad, the second signifies the manifestation of this claim. Unlike a few other well-known documents attributed to bin Laden, there is no doubt as to the authenticity of either of these two documents. Still, bin Laden's ideology and modes of operation remain rooted in the legacies of ‘Azzam and the Saudi opposition and reflect a dynamic synthesis of the two.

The founding declaration of the World Islamic Front offered an analysis of the crisis the Muslim world faced. While the front claimed to speak for all Muslims, its analysis concentrated on the concerns of the Saudi opposition, resembling arguments articulated by Hawali less than a decade earlier. It suggested "three truths" to be evident: the first was that "for more than seven years [since 1991], America has been conquering the most sacred of all Muslim soil, that of the Arab peninsula, plundering its resources, dictating to its rulers how to act, humiliating its inhabitants, threatening its neighbors, and turning military bases on its soil into the spearhead of its war against the neighboring Muslim peoples." The second was that a "Crusading-Jewish alliance" would not settle for the immense devastation it brought down on millions of Iraqis (with U.N. sanctions) but now sought to kill the surviving Iraqi people and their Muslim neighbors. The third truth was that while U.S. goals were religious and financial, Washington's goal was also to serve the Jewish state and divert attention from Israel's occupation of the Al-Aqsa mosque and its killing of the Muslims residing in its territories.[38]

The declaration leaned heavily on the Saudi debate on the "cultural attack": the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia was the original sin and the primary reason for the hardships faced by the Muslim world. The Palestinian problem, which ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam also emphasized, is of lesser importance and is addressed only in relation to U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf.

However, bin Laden's suggested remedy is a far cry from that suggested by Hawali and other dissidents. It relinquishes all hopes that the Saudi regime or any other Muslim regime would challenge Western plots and also neglects the intellectual and cultural aspects of the struggle. According to the declaration, the struggle against the West is not to be a struggle of words, nor is it to be a struggle of state-armies; rather, it is to be a struggle of devoted Muslim individuals fighting against sporadic Western targets. Here the influence of ‘Azzam is clear: following in his footsteps, bin Laden's declaration ended with an edict, ruling that it is the personal duty (fard al-‘ayn) of any Muslim to kill Americans and their allies, citizens and servicemen, whenever and wherever possible.[39]

In his audio statement three years later, bin Laden reversed the list of grievances, yet a synthesis remained. In the audio declaration, bin Laden explained the logic of the attacks and called for a continuation of the struggle. While the geographical context of the armed struggle against the West resembled that of ‘Azzam, the modes of operation designed by bin Laden echoed many of the ideas articulated in the Saudi-oriented debate on the Western "cultural attack." He described the United States as engaged in a crusade against Muslims around the world. While he concentrated on the post-9-11 war to oust the Taliban, he also commented on what he regarded as U.S. complicity in what he perceived as atrocities committed against children in the West Bank and Gaza. He then contended that 9-11 was retaliation against the continuing deprivation (zulm) of the sons of Palestinians, Iraqis, Somalis, Sudanese, and Kashmiris and called on the Muslim nation to awaken and end Washington's global campaign, not only against Muslims but also the whole of humanity.[40]

The military presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil was no longer the focus of bin Laden's counterattack; indeed, it was not mentioned in the declaration. Having been in exile for a decade and claiming the helm of a global jihad against the West, the geographical context he addressed went beyond his origins and concentrated, like that which ‘Azzam presented, on Afghanistan and Palestine.

Nevertheless, the modes of operation bin Laden recommended remained rooted in the Saudi opposition. He viewed the counterattack against U.S. influence as a combined effort, not narrowly restricted to an armed dimension. He showed pride at the immense economic damage inflicted on the United States by 9-11 and emphasized that damaging the U.S. economy was as important as damaging its military, explaining that should the U.S. economy collapse, then the U.S. government could not subordinate other peoples.[41] Bin Laden's roots also showed in his pride that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis. He reminded his audience that he had warned previously that should the United States be involved in a conflict with the sons of the two holy places (Saudi Arabia), it would long for its days in Vietnam. He also contended that the reason for the Saudi dominance in the attack was that its citizens were the most devoted in belief.[42] Like Hawali and other Saudi dissenters, bin Laden clearly envisioned a Saudi leadership in the struggle against the West.

Perhaps most remarkably, the influence that the debate on the "cultural attack" had on bin Laden's mode of operation was evident in his attempt to launch the counterattack from the enemy's soil, using the enemy's technology and members of the enemy's Muslim diaspora. In the Saudi debate on the "cultural attack," it was often argued that the Muslim world should harm the West in the same way the West harms the Muslim world—that is, by penetrating its cultural and social identity and forcing its inhabitants to question their values and beliefs to the point that they would collapse. Bin Laden adopted this conception and extended it, recruiting Muslims residing for months in the United States to execute a grand terror operation. In the audio declaration, he boasted that the young men involved in the attacks "used the enemy's planes and studied at the enemy's schools."[43]

Indeed, bin Laden's success in terrorizing the United States is largely the result of the materialization of the conception of the "counterattack": while the 9-11 attacks had little direct strategic importance for the U.S. economy and society, the emerging threat of a few Muslim Americans or Muslim Europeans becoming a fifth column and of sophisticated technologies becoming self-destructive weapons not only struck fear and suspicion in many Western societies but also forced them to rethink long-held convictions on such issues as freedom of speech, immigration, due process, and multiculturalism.

Bin Laden's synthesis of ‘Azzam's and the Saudi dissidents' ideas as well as the manifestation of this synthesis were unique. No other leader of the Saudi opposition followed in his footsteps. By claiming the helm of the leadership of a global, violent jihad against the West, bin Laden distanced himself from the mainstream Saudi opposition. Shortly after 9-11, Hawali and ‘Awda denounced bin Laden and urged Saudi youngsters not to follow in his footsteps. Hawali was even involved in the voluntary extradition of a young Saudi, whom the Saudi authorities sought to arrest in connection with his ties to Al-Qaeda, raising speculation about both his co-option by the religious establishment and whether he had the resolve to practice what he preached. [44]

Uriya Shavit teaches Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University and is author of A Dawn of an Old Era: The Imaginary Revolution in the Middle East (Keter, 2003). He thanks Joseph Kostiner and Eyal Zisser for their assistance.

[1] Douglas A. Boyd, "Saudi Arabia Broadcasting: Radio and Television in a Wealthy Islamic State," Middle East Review, Summer and Fall 1980, p. 20.
[2] Ibid, pp. 22-3; Robert Lacey, The Kingdom (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1979), pp. 369-70.
[3] On Saudi Arabia's quick path to modernization, see Helen Lackner, A House Built on Sand: A Political Economy of Saudi Arabia (London: Ithaca Press, 1978), pp. 172-212.
[4] On ‘Utaibi's movement, see Joseph A. Kechician, "Islamic Revivalism and Change in Saudi Arabia," The Muslim World, Jan. 1990, p. 12; Lacey, The Kingdom, pp. 478-89.
[5] Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Alim Marsi, Ath-Thakafa …Wal-Ghazu ath-Thakafi fi Duwal al-Khalij al-‘Arabia (Riyadh: Maktabat al-‘Abikan, 1995), pp. 129-72; "Min Sayhkim as-Saudiya: Al-Mal am as-Salafiya," Al-Bilad (Beirut), June 15, 1991.
[6] Hassan Muhammad Hassan, Wassa'il Muqawamat al-Ghazu al-Fikri lil-‘Alam al-Islami (Mecca: Rabitat al-‘Alam al-Islami, 1981), pp. 7-63, 149.
[7] Ibid., pp. 56-5.
[8] Ibid., pp. 79-176.
[9] Mariam Abu Zahab and Olivier Roy, Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection (London: Hurst & Company, 2004), pp. 12-8; ‘Atef S‘adawa, "Mustaqbal al-Afghan al-Arab," Al-Dimuqratiya (Cairo), Jan. 2002, pp. 203-13.
[10]‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, ‘Ad-Dif'a ‘an Aradi al-Muslimin Ahamu Furudh al-‘Ayn (Amman: Maktabat ar-Risala al-Haditha, 1987), pp. 19-32, 42-9.
[11] Ibid., p. 33.
[12] Ibid., pp. 34-8.
[13] Ibid., p. 5.
[14] Jacob Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia," Middle East Contemporary Survey, XIV (1990): 607.
[15] Mamun Fandi, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001), p. 90; Mahmud al-Rif‘ai, Al-Mashru al-Islakhi fi as-Saudia: Kissat al-Hawali wal-‘Awda (Washington: n.p., 1995), p. 18.
[16] Fandi, Saudi Arabia, pp. 62-3; Rif‘ai, Al-Mashru al-Islakhi fi as-Saudia al-Islahi fi as-Saudiya, pp. 16-7, 30-1.
[17] S‘ad Rashid al-Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud (London: Al-Haraka al-Islamiya lil-Islah, n.d), pp. 31-2.
[18] See also, Safar al-Hawali, Haqa'iq hawl Azmat al-Khalij (Cairo: Dar Mecca al-Mukarama, 1991), pp. 110-5, 126-35.
[19] Fandi, Saudi Arabia, pp. 49-50; Goldberg, "Saudi Arabia," pp. 21-622.
[20] Rif‘ai, Al-Mashru al-Islakhi fi as-Saudia al-Islahi fi as-Saudiya, pp. 20-1; Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud, pp. 38-44.
[21] Al-Bilad, June 15, 1991.
[22] Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud, p. 49.
[23] Ash-Sh'ab (Cairo), May 21, 1991; Rif‘ai, Al-Mashru al-Islakhi fi as-Saudia al-Islahi fi as-Saudiya, pp 107-8.
[24] Rif‘ai, Al-Mashru al-Islakhi fi as-Saudia al-Islahi fi as-Saudiya, pp. 110-1.
[25] Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud, pp. 63-70.
[26]Joshua Teitelbaum, Holier than Thou: Saudi Arabia's Islamic Opposition (Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000), p. 101.
[27] King Fahd, interview on MBC, Foreign Broadcasting Information Service (FBIS), NES-223-91, Nov. 19, 1991; ‘Adnan Kamil, "At-Telefision al-Fadaa'i Keif wa Limadha," ‘Ukaz (Jedda), July 9, 1992.
[28] King Fahd, speech to the Muslim World League, ‘Ukaz, Jan. 26, 1992.
[29] Salih Muhammad al-Namla, "Hata la Yakun A'adaa'," Al-Riyadh, May 28, 1992.
[30] For the text of the Basic Law and the Law of the Consultative Council, see ‘Ukaz, Mar. 2, 1992.
[31] For a description of the events leading to the drafting of the memorandum and a summary of its contents, see Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud, pp. 88-106.
[32] R. Hrair Dekmejian, "The Rise of Political Islamism in Saudi Arabia," Middle East Journal, Autumn 1994, p. 636.
[33] For the text of the Council for Senior Ulema's condemnation, see Al-Riyadh, Sept. 18, 1992.
[34] Fakih, Zalzal as-Saud, pp. 106-35; Ann Elizabeth Mayer, "The Human Rights Debate," in Martin Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1997), pp. 123-4; Teitelbaum, Holier than Thou, pp. 49-51.
[35] Teitelbaum, Holier than Thou, pp. 77-9.
[36] Esther Webman, "The Polarization and Radicalization of Political Islam," Middle East Contemporary Survey, XXII (1998): 129-30.
[37] The Washington Post, Jan. 8, 1999.
[38] "Nas Bayan al-Jabha al-Islamia al-‘Alamia lil-Jihad al-Yahud wal-Salbiyin," Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), Feb. 23, 1998.
[39] Ibid.
[40] "An-Nas al-Kamil li-Kalimat bin Ladin," Al-Quds al-Arabi, Dec. 28, 2001.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Joshua Teitelbaum, "Ha-dor ha-Hadash Shel ha-Ulama: Mish‘enet Hadasha la-Mishtar," in Esther Webman, ed., Ha-Mizrah ha-Tichon 2005: Be'siman Khilofei Be-siman Hilofei Dorot (Tel Aviv: Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies, 2005), pp. 113-5.