LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
 NOVEMBER 1/06

 

 

Biblical Reading For today
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 13,18-21.
Then he said, "What is the kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that a person took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and 'the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.'" Again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed (in) with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened

 

Free Opinions & Studies
Hezbollah, Hamas and the Civil War. By:Abdullah Iskandar 01/11/06
Crossroads to Islam -The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State. MEF News- October 31, 2006
Over here and over there, decent citizens will prevail.By Rami G. Khouri
 

Latest New from the Daily Star for November 1/06

Cluster bomb left over from war kills Bekaa man, wounds another
War of words dominates Parliament's opening session
UN hails 'important progress' on Resolution 1559
Nasrallah: Israeli onslaught served majority's goals
Condemnations flow as Jewish state commits 'intensive' airspace violations
Lebanon mission has Germany thinking twice about deployments
UN presents mixed report on cease-fire
Critics chastise president for approach to Hariri tribunal
Jumblatt: International tribunal can force Syria to change its behavior
Head of research council declares battered South 'free of' radiation
Berri courts support for national consultations

Bank of Beirut reports 54 percent increase in profits

Government suspends permits for erection of Gemmayzeh high-rises

Lahoud rejects regulatory candidates

Latest New from miscellaneous sources for November 1/06
Lebanon: Explosion at school kills 1, wounds other-Jerusalem Post

Solana says Israel risks derailing Lebanon peace-Reuters

Top German official: Delegation to Lebanon for captives-Ynetnews

Lebanon army says its gunners shot at IAF jets during mock raid-Ha'aretz
Israeli Fighter Jets Stage Mock Raids over Beirut's Southern Suburbs-Naharnet

Lahoud Slams International Court, Jumblat Accuses Him of Involvement in Hariri's Murder-Naharnet

Tueni Attacks Lahoud's Mutiny on the International Community-Naharnet

1 Killed, 1 Wounded in Israeli Leftover 'Suspicious Object' Explosion at Baalbek School-Naharnet

Security Council Urges Disarming of All Militias, Bolton Slams Syria-Naharnet
Millions of Tons of Rubble Create Ecological Nightmare in Lebanon-Naharnet
Welch Criticizes Syria for Interfering in Lebanese Internal Affairs-Naharnet
Bolton Faults Syran, Iran On Lebanon-Guardian Unlimited

Arms still smuggled into Lebanon from Syria - UN-Reuters.uk
Condoleezza Rice IV Lebanese Broadcasting Corp.-Scoop.co.nz (press release)

WFP concludes operation in Lebanon-Reuters

Israeli Fighter Jets Stage Mock Raids over Beirut's Southern ...Naharnet

Israeli warplanes fly low over Beirut-Reuters

Syria, Iran trying to destabilize Lebanon: Bolton-NDTV.com

UN renews calls for militia disarmament in tormented Lebanon-AsiaNews.it

UN renews calls for militia disarmament in tormented Lebanon-AsiaNews.it

Disarm Hezbollah if You Want Peace in Lebanon, Annan Says-AXcess News

US: Iran, Syria purposely breaking Hizb'allah arms embargo-Jerusalem Newswire

UN: Arms still smuggled into Lebanon from Syria-Ynetnews
Hezbollah says to seek new govt by all legal mean-Reuters

Hezbollah chief wins unlikely fan in sexy pop diva-Reuters.uk

Hezbollah enjoys following-Kansas City Star

Hezbollah to seek new govt. by all legal means-Tehran Times

Hezbollah chief wins unlikely fan in pop diva-Gulf News

Hezbollah Terrorists in America-Christian Broadcasting Network

Tueni Attacks Lahoud's Mutiny on the International Community-Naharnet

Lahoud Slams International Court, Jumblat Accuses Him of ...Naharnet

US concerned that Syria and Iran are trying to destabilize Lebanon ...International Herald Tribune

Is Syria serious about reclaiming Golan Heights?-Ya Libnan

LEBANON: Destruction and displacement hamper vaccination campaign-Reuters

US Assistance Spurring Economic Growth in Lebanon-Washington File
Alumnus offers perspective on Middle East politics-Currents

Confrontation off Lebanon Leads to Questions-Spiegel Online

Lebanon's pro-Syrian president objects to draft international ...International Herald Tribune

Lebanon evacuation cost Ottawa $63-million-plus-Globe and Mail

Pressing for defeat-Calgary Sun - Canada

 
Rice, Jumblatt to discuss key issues in Lebanon
POL-US-RICE-JUMBLATT
Rice, Jumblatt to discuss key issues in Lebanon
WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (KUNA) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt planned to discuss the political situation in Lebanon during a State Department meeting on Monday, department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Rice wants to "get a feel for the situation on the ground" in Lebanon, McCormack said, and reiterate US support for Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's effort at economic and political reform as well as implementation of UN Resolution 1701, which brought a cease-fire to the month-long Israel-Hezbollah war last summer. Rice also planned to express support for the Lebanese people in helping to rebuild infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed during the conflict, McCormack said. The United States has extensive US Agency for International Development operations in Lebanon, and Randy Tobias, who heads up such foreign assistance efforts, was recently in Lebanon, McCormack noted.
"We also have a US public-private partnership that is deeply involved in getting together the funds to help out the Lebanese people for reconstruction, " he added. Rice also planned to express full US support for implementation of UN Security Council resolutions looking into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the efforts of UN chief investigator Serge Brammertz "to get to the bottom of that," McCormack said.
"We will look forward to his report when it comes out," he added. The United States would like to see the Lebanese government, "over the course of time in its own way, address the issue of disarmament of Hezbollah," McCormack said. "You cannot have a state within a state" in a fully functioning democracy" or armed groups and militias operating outside the control of the state. "The state needs to be the only authority that has resort to the use of force in the interests of the state," he said. "Some of these are questions that the Lebanese are going to answer. The Security Council resolutions lay out very clearly what is required of them, what the international community expects of them. But this issue is also wrapped up in Lebanon's politics, and so the Lebanese people need to come to terms with how they are going to move forward down the pathway of fully restoring their democracy after a couple decades' worth of Syrian occupation." (end) rm.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the Civil War
Abdullah Iskandar Al-Hayat - 31/10/06//
Both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas Movement in Palestine are striving to focus on mutual comprehension and consultations with their rivals in order to deal with their respective governmental crises, which are substantially similar. Hezbollah is trying to push the government, by which it is represented, in an opposite direction to the one followed by the March 14 Forces, which, in turn, constitute the majority in the government. It is doing so by calling for the government itself to be turned into a national unity one, through which Hezbollah hopes to be given the opportunity of changing this new government's direction. For its part, Hamas, after the impasse of its own government, is trying to form a national unity; one which would include Fatah, based on a change in the PA's commitments and engagements.
In both cases, the dispute is focusing on how to deal with foreign issues. As for Lebanon, the issues are about the regional consequences of the assassination of PM Hariri and the relation with Syria and Iran. With respect to Palestine, they have to do with the quality of the relation with Israel and the link with the Syrian-Iranian alliance.
The March 14 Forces have accused Hezbollah of planning to use its weapons to impose its point of view on the internal political crisis in Lebanon. Similarly, Fatah is accusing Hamas of seeking to complete its political subversion of the Palestinian authority by force. These accusations rely on a series of indicators on the ground and also on the big opposition among points of view. The political conditions which could overcome this opposition are almost totally absent.
Both Hezbollah and Hamas are not limiting themselves to denying these accusations and to sending them back to their sources. However, they are both repeating, in every occasion, that internal fighting is a red line, and that negotiations are the only solution. Both parties, according to their respective conditions, are working to disperse fears raised by their weapons, and to endorse the common interest of not resorting to violence. In this way, it has sometimes been possible to avoid reaching the point of no return. This conduct is being noticed at a time when these two organizations are launching an unprecedented political attack, and are considering themselves stronger than ever, politically and militarily. Therefore, their abstention from using their weapons to put an end to the battle, until now, does not mean that they feel weak or that they are afraid of the final result. Instead, its causes and driving forces should be looked for elsewhere.
In this context, it may be thought that Hezbollah's and Hamas's leaderships are convinced that resorting to their weapons could provide them with temporary superiority. Nevertheless, on the long term, no party in Palestine or Lebanon would eventually be able to impose its absolute hegemony, after plunging into an internal battle in which political considerations and revenge would accumulate. In Palestine, the sectarian pattern is keeping away the ghost of doctrinal fighting, but in Lebanon this kind of combat would prevent any winner on the ground from consolidating its victory. In other words, thinking that there is not the capacity to utilize weapons is stifling at a great extent the possibility that this fighting could occur.
Furthermore, Hezbollah and Hamas very much feel that they are strong enough to implement their political programs without being compelled to strike their internal adversaries with their weapons. This feeling is particularly strong after the Israeli aggression against Lebanon - as far as Hezbollah is concerned - and Hamas's victory in the elections and its act of force, that is, the abduction of two Israeli soldiers.
Additionally, Hamas and Hezbollah's common analysis of the regional situation shows that they believe that the Israeli enemy has suffered a heavy defeat, and that its American - and, more generally, Western - pillar is undergoing a great impasse. Consequently, waiting and improving internal conditions is becoming a strategy which expects that the internal rival will collapse when its main foreign ally does.
It is no secret that this analysis has been derived by Iranian and Syrian considerations. According to them, these two allied countries are scoring so many goals against their enemies that Washington is now discussing how to involve them in Iraq in order for the US to get out of its crisis there. Even if this possibility is currently being ruled out, perhaps it has at least started to materialize through the renewed discussions about the Lebanese situation. If these calculations are precise, a strategy based on waiting and eliminating violence will achieve on the long term what the balance of military force is currently imposing. In other words, this strategy may peacefully reach what is currently being demanded, in an atmosphere dominated by complications, escalation and fears of possible fighting.

 

Cluster bomb left over from war kills Bekaa man, wounds another
By Mosbah Al-Ali -Daily Star correspondent
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BAALBEK: A man was killed and another wounded in eastern Lebanon on Tuesday when part of a cluster bomb exploded in the man's hands, a civil defense source said. Conflicting reports emerged over the incident, with the victim, Hafez Khalil Hassan, being referred to alternately as a truck driver, the chief of maintenance at the school and a Hizbullah explosives expert.
A report from the National News Agency stated that Hassan, 35, was the school's bus driver and that he spotted a bomblet outside the Abbas Mussawi School in the Rass al-Ain quarter of Baalbek. The bomblet exploded after he picked it up and took it to the school's deputy principal Fahed Yaghi, killing Hassan instantly and wounding Yaghi.
However, a security source told The Daily Star that the victim was not a driver but the head of maintenance at the school and a Hizbullah explosives expert. The news agency said Yaghi had been admitted to hospital in critical condition, but the school's administration told The Daily Star late Tuesday that Yaghi was in stable condition at Dar al-Hikmeh hospital in Baalbek.
While Hizbullah security personnel cordoned off the area, a Lebanese Army patrol prevented citizens from approaching.
Since the end of Israel's war against Lebanon, over 160 people have been either wounded or killed by cluster bombs dropped by Israeli warplanes.
The Haaretz daily has reported that Israel dropped at least 1.2 million bomblets during the 34-day conflict.
Baalbek was repeatedly hit by Israeli aircraft during the 34-day war that ended with a UN-brokered cease-fire on August 14. - With agencies

War of words dominates Parliament's opening session
By Nafez Qawas and Leila Hatoum -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: Tensions boiled over at the Lebanese Parliament's opening session Tuesday as members of the parliamentary majority verbally attacked President Emile Lahoud, while the opposition slammed the Cabinet's political and economic performance since the war with Israel.
The March 14 Forces MPs accused Lahoud of attempting to derail efforts to establish an international tribunal to try those accused of assassinating former Premier Rafik Hariri. Lahoud has criticized the Cabinet, Premier Fouad Siniora and Justice Minister Charles Rizk, who he called "the illusive majority," for excluding him from negotiations with the UN on the creation of the tribunal.
Sidon MP Bahia Hariri, sister of the slain premier, criticized Lahoud's remarks, saying that this "constitutes an attempt to derail the establishment of the tribunal which might lead us to the truth.""Trying to evade the tribunal's formation based on weak legal excuses is not legitimate," she added.
Hariri said that Lahoud headed the Cabinet's regular sessions in which the tribunal had been discussed and that "he has no excuse in saying that he wasn't aware of the decisions made on the matter."
"His statements are an attempt to destroy the tribunal and hide the truth," she added. Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh went a step further, using profanity to describe the president and his attempt to "hide the truth and hinder the tribunal's formation." However, Speaker Nabih Berri stopped him and asked that the wording be omitted from the session's minutes. Siniora said the president was present at the Cabinet's session "on December 12, 2005, when Justice Minister Charles Rizk was delegated by all the attendees to choose two magistrates to handle the deliberations with the United Nations on the matter of the international tribunal."He added that the president also received the first draft of the formation of the tribunal. "It is sad that the president  decided to choose the media to discuss such a matter, rather than talking with me directly as per the Constitution."
Lahoud issued a statement on Tuesday in response to the session, saying that he should have been informed of the deliberations, despite the fact that Rizk had been delegated to assign the two magistrates.
Lahoud asked: "Is it in accordance with the rules that the discussion of the formation of the tribunal occurs between Beirut and New York and other capitals in the world and the president isn't informed of that, despite the fact that he is constitutionally responsible for negotiating international agreements?"March 14 Forces MP Butros Harb also criticized the president, asking, "why did the president decide to speak now and not before? Where was he when the deliberations and discussions were taking place? Why is he portraying himself a defender of suspects in the crime?"
Future Movement MP Mohammad Qabbani said: "Our fears have become a reality and the masks have fallen ... what Lahoud means is that there will be no tribunal and no justice and no accountability for the criminals ... the problem lies with the president, and will not end before a new president, who enjoys our trust, is elected."Progressive Socialist Party MP Akram Chehayeb describes Lahoud's remarks as "a war launched against the formation of the tribunal ... We read it clearly in the presidential notes, and we see that there is an effort to hinder the attempt to reveal the truth behind
the assassination."The arguments continued as Hizbullah MPs criticized the government for not paying compensation to the victims of the recent war with Israel, as it had promised.
A dispute erupted between two MPs, Mohammad Hajjar and Abbas Hashem, over governmental aid to certain areas in Lebanon "while others," according to Hashem "are deprived."Also during the session, Berri requested that the government buy land-to-air missiles to protect Lebanon and shoot down Israeli airplanes violating airspace - something which Siniora said would be discussed with the Defense Ministry and the Lebanese Army.
The session also witnessed the ratification of 19 draft-laws dealing with various legal and development and administrative issues.

UN hails 'important progress' on Resolution 1559
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The United Nations Security Council reiterated calls on Monday for the disarmament of all militias inside Lebanon, as the UN envoy on Resolution 1559 announced that arms were still being smuggled from Syria to Hizbullah. In a non-binding statement unanimously adopted by its 15 members, the council said "important progress" has been made on the implementation of Resolution 1559, particularly with the deployment of the Lebanese Army in the South.But the council also noted "with regret" that some provisions of the resolution have yet to be implemented, namely the disbanding of militias; the maintenance of strict respect for Lebanon's "sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence"; and free and fair presidential elections "without any foreign interference and influence."
The Security Council statement followed a presentation by UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen on the progress of the implementation of Resolution 1559. After the meeting, Roed-Larsen told reporters that he had been informed by Leb-anese authorities that arms were still being smuggled into the country from neighboring Syria. The envoy said the officials gave no details on quantities or types of weapons.
Roed-Larsen said representatives of the Lebanese government "have stated publicly and also in conversations with us that there have been arms coming across the border into Lebanon." "The consistent position of the government of Syria has been that, 'yes, there might be arms smuggling over the border, but this is arms smuggling and that the border is porous and very difficult to control,' Roed-Larsen said.
"In order to have an effective arms embargo, there has to be cooperation with all regional partners, [including] Syria and Iran," he said.
Roed-Larsen called the situation in Lebanon "worrisome." "The political rhetoric shows that there are very high tensions, and I think we have to look at the situation in Lebanon with all caution. And there are reasons for being worried about where this is heading," he said.
Generally, the council renewed its call for "the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 and urged all concerned states and parties ... to cooperate fully with the government of Lebanon, the Security Council and the Secretary General to achieve this goal."
US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, for his part, welcomed the Beirut government's "significant progress ... in deploying the Lebanese Armed Forces in the South of the country for the first time in almost 40 years, as well as the army's historic deployment along the eastern part of the Blue Line, as well as along Lebanon's border with Syria." "Despite this advance, we continue to be concerned that Syria and Iran are actively trying to destabilize the democratically elected government of Lebanon, in contravention of Resolution 1559's call for strict respect for Lebanon's sovereignty and political independence," Bolton said.
"Each UN member state also has an obligation to enforce the arms embargo established by Resolution 1701," Bolton said.
"Syrian President Assad made a commitment to [UN] Secretary General [Kofi] Annan that Syria would support the implementation of Resolution 1701 and comply with its obligation to enforce the arms embargo; Syria must abide by the promises it made to the Secretary General," he said.
There was no mention made of Israel's repeated air violations, with the past week witnessing a high level of overflights over most of Lebanon in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.In its statement the Security Council also welcomed Annan's report earlier this month, which stated that turning Hizbullah into a "solely political party" is the key to a permanent peace in Lebanon and to full restoration of the country's sovereignty.
The council underscored the point that to achieve this goal "on the path toward the greater objective of consolidating the Lebanese state" it was essential that "all parties who have influence in Lebanon support a constructive political process." Under Resolution 1701, Lebanon is to secure its border and entry points to prevent the passage of illicit arms or related material. The resolution authorizes the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to assist Lebanon in this task if requested. - Agencies

Nasrallah: Israeli onslaught served majority's goals
By Therese Sfeir -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: The leader of Hizbullah accused Parliament's majority on Tuesday of having planned for a larger UN peacekeeping force in the South for a long time, adding that Israel's summer offensive helped achieve this goal. Speaking during an interview with Al-Manar television late Tuesday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said a Lebanese government official called him in the first days of the war and told him that it was going to be a long one if the resistance did not abide by three conditions. Nasrallah said the conditions were Hizbullah's approval of the deployment of multinational forces under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, the group's disarmament, and the unconditional release of the two Israeli soldiers captured on July 12.
"We were threatened; he told us that the government would hold us responsible for the continuation of the war," Nasrallah said, refusing to identify the government official. He added, however, that Israel and its allies could not defeat the resistance, "nor will it ever be able to."
Nasrallah said the majority was seeking to transform the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) into one that would deploy across the country rather than only in the South - and would have jurisdiction under Chapter 7, which stipulates action as a means to halt any threats, to breaches of, peace. He argued that before the July-August war, US policy was failing to gain control of Lebanon. He added that the US launched the war to save Israel and disarm the resistance. He also accused the "ruling majority" of instigating domestic tension to meet US agendas.
"The ruling majority is now frightened because it has lost the people's support," he said. "I urge the Lebanese to read what the Israelis are saying to know that Israel has failed in its war on Lebanon," he added. He added that UNIFIL would not prevent any possible Israeli attacks on the country and highlighted the resistance's ability to face any such threats and help the Lebanese Army.
"The resistance is able to prevent the Israelis from occupying the country," he said. Nasrallah said the US has failed in Iraq and that animosity in the Arab world against Washington should not be blamed on Islamic extremism. Nasrallah, in his first appearance since speaking at a "victory" rally in south Beirut last month, also held the US responsible for continued violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Afghanistan is a failure," he said. "In Iraq, there is clear failure on the security, military and political levels ... Who shoulders responsibility? It's the American administration and the occupation forces."
He said America's plans in the Middle East face "failure, frustration and a state of collapse," and predicted the US would be forced to leave the region. The US has "no future" in this part of the world, Nasrallah said. "They will leave the Middle East, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who count on them to draw conclusions from the Vietnam experience." This will happen "within years, not months," he added. - With agencies

flow as Jewish state commits 'intensive' airspace violations
Warplanes perform mock raids over several parts of country
By Rym Ghazal -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: Israeli warplanes committed their "most intensive" violations of Lebanese airspace since the July-August war on Tuesday, conducting mock raids over Beirut and several other parts of the country. A Lebanese Army source told The Daily Star that eight Israeli fighter-bombers entered Lebanese airspace from the south and swept all the way to the capital, "lingering over the southern suburbs in the most intensive violations since the war" that ended on August 14. The latest violations were met with condemnation from France, the European Union, and the United Nations, as well as Lebanese politicians. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the overflights are "contrary to the spirit" of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war.
"We consider that these overflights constitute a violation of Lebanese sovereignty," said Mattei, echoing previous comments by French officials.
"We call on Israel to put an end to these overflights and we call on all partners to refrain from any act that could maintain or increase tensions," he added at a regular press briefing. France, which currently leads the UN peacekeeping force in South Lebanon, has said it might open fire on intruding aircraft.
Spanish Defense Minister Jose Antonio Alonso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana called for Israel to stop flights over Lebanon.
Alonso and Solana "asked clearly" for the Israeli government to end its air force's operations over Lebanon, they said at a joint news conference in Madrid. Solana also called on Israel to stop the air operations as they risked derailing the UN-brokered cease-fire. "I spoke with Israeli authorities, saying they should stop operations that, in our judgment, and based on the resolution, put a solution at risk," said Solana. "Everyone has to comply with the resolution. Israel also has to comply. It has to comply in the strictest way," he said.
European Union spokeswoman Emma Udwin said: "We want to see the full implementation" of the resolution. "We think that is also very much in Israel's interest."In the heaviest show of aerial power since the August 14 cease-fire, security sources said the Israeli jets swooped down at least six times to roar low over the southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold that was heavily bombarded during the 34 days of war.
"The planes kept releasing flares as a precaution to divert any possible missles as they flew low over Lebanon," said the military source.
The Daily Star correspondent in the Chouf area witnessed the showers of flares dropped by the planes over the predominantly Druze area.
The overflights began at 9:10 a.m. and ended at 10:10 a.m. on Tuesday morning, when "four of the eight Israeli planes flew over Southern Lebanon, and the other four went north and flew over the Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, Beirut and Chekka," said an official statement released by the Lebanese Army Command. The army said their gunners fired "anti-aircraft weapons at the Israeli planes in the South."
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday that the Israeli military refused to confirm that its planes had flown over Beirut, saying it does not give operational details. Israeli air raids during the war destroyed large districts of the southern suburbs and several towns and villages in Southern Lebanon.
While no actual bombings were reported, Lebanon is still recovering from the summer's Israeli air campaign, so the roars of the jets caused panic among many residents, although some of them took to rooftops and balconies to watch. A number of aircraft also caused sonic booms over the Southern port city of Tyre and further inland at Nabatieh. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's personal representative for South Lebanon, Geir Pedersen, released at statement expressing "serious concern" at the continuing overflights, "which constitute a breach of Lebanese sovereignty."
Pedersen was quoted as being particularly disturbed by the intensive mock air raids that took place over Beirut. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has reported eight air violations in the South, its area of operations, over the past two days. On the local front, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi's response was harsher, with the official slamming the incident as "a terrorist act" by Israel. "The low overflights [create] fear and panic and are clearly disregard and disrespect for UN Resolution 1701," he told a news conference. The resolution, which led to the August 14 cease-fire that ended 34 days between Israel and Lebanon, calls on both sides to respect the Blue Line drawn by the United Nations after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of most of Southern Lebanon in 2000. "Yet they dare to continue to release statements in which they complain about Lebanon not respecting Resolution 1701 and continue to make demands to the international community," he added.
Despite the condemnations, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has vowed the flights will continue because of alleged arms smuggling to Hizbullah from Syria since the end of the war. Meanwhile, there were reports of further violations on the ground in the form of a shooting incident in Kfar Shouba, where Israeli soldiers shot at farmers.
"We heard the same reports and we are looking into it. If this is indeed confirmed it will be very serious," Pedersen told The Daily Star, which had not confirmed the incident by press time. - With agencies, additional reporting by Mohammed Zaatari and Maher Zeineddine.

Lebanon mission has Germany thinking twice about deployments
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Germany has reservations about endlessly expanding its military deployments abroad, a senior official said Tuesday. Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said the German military had received "great recognition" for its current service on nine foreign missions. "But," he added, "we cannot overlook one thing: At the moment, whenever a crisis or conflict arises somewhere in the world, the EU is called on, and within the EU people look to Germany," Erler said in an interview with ARD television. "That was the case in Congo and now also in Lebanon," where German ships recently started patrolling off the coast, Erler said. "This cannot carry on infinitely. We have to say clearly in public that there are limits."
Questions have been triggered in the past week by incidents in which Israeli warplanes approached German naval forces off Lebanon, bringing renewed scrutiny of Germany's military missions. Also commenting on the issues, Germany's Bild daily said in a commentary published Tuesday: "The time has now come for an appraisal: What should the [German Army] do in the German interest and where? What have the foreign deployments achieved, and not achieved?" The newspaper said the deployment to Lebanon was "the most expensive," mission conducted byb the german military since the end of World War II, costing the government 193 million euros ($246 million).
This came as the Finnish Army on Tuesday announced the departure of 132 military engineers to support the revamped United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The troops, 80 percent of whom were reservists, were due to fly from Pori in southwest Finland where they had been training, the army said in a statement.The reinforcements take the Finnish UNIFIL contingent to a total of 211. - With agencies

UN presents mixed report on cease-fire
Israeli presence in Ghajar, overflights cited as sticking points
By Paige Austin -Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: Two high-ranking officials painted a complicated picture on Tuesday of UNIFIL's attempts to enforce the cease-fire in South Lebanon, alternately emphasizing the operation's continued difficulties and its early signs of promise. In a conference Tuesday at the Lawyers House (Beit al-Mouhami), UNIFIL Deputy Force Commander Brigadier General Jai Prakash Nehra cited an ongoing dispute in the Southern town of Ghajar to illustrate the difficulties his forces face. Though historically Lebanese, Ghajar is almost entirely Syrian Allawite - and the Blue Line runs smack through it.
During Israel's 22-year occupation of Southern Lebanon, Nehra said, the town's residents were granted Israeli citizenship. Israel now plans to withdraw from the northern half of the town, which it reoccupied in July, but an agreement on the details has yet to be finalized.
"The people there are not very keen to become Lebanese citizens," Nehra explained. "Almost every week we are meeting and a word is added or deleted [from the proposed agreement] ... So this is typical Ghajar."
From his description, it is also typical Southern Lebanon, in a period marked by territorial disputes and multinational futility. The Indian general described a number of challenges that UNIFIL must grapple with, from a scarcity in English speakers among China's 200-man contingent to rugged terrain and the soldiers' lack of peacekeeping experience. But anecdotal tales like that of brokering Ghajar's future brought the problems into sharpest relief. At Sheikh Abbad Tomb, which also straddles the Blue Line, Nehra said that worshippers routinely follow up their prayers by throwing stones across the border into Israel. At the FatimaGate, another historic boundary, baskets of stones await any visitor who feels like chucking a few of them. So far, the general said wryly, these incidents have yet to escalate - but that may change.
On the subject of Israeli violations, Nehra joined the UN secretary-general's personal Lebanon representative, Geir Pedersen, in strongly condemning the continued overflights.
"The United Nations position on this is very clear: Overflights will have to stop," Pedersen, a former Norwegian diplomat who was appointed to his present post in March 2005, told the assembled crowd. Broaching the same issue, Nehra said: "I can only assure you that not one of [the violations] goes unreported to the secretary-general, not one ... As to what the solution will be, I can't say."
The conference, sponsored by the Institute for Human Rights of the Beirut Bar Association, highlighted the work of various UN missions in Lebanon.
The UN offered a positive report on the development front. UNICEF officials reported administering 21,000 vaccinations against measles and 8,000 against polio to displaced children during the war. The head of the UN Mining Action Committee said his organization hopes to make Lebanon entirely cleared of mines by next December - despite the existence of nearly 800 identified cluster-bomb sites, comprising 38,000 square meters of contaminated land. Only when the discussion moved to the "political aspects" of Security Council Resolution 1701 and current challenges facing UNIFIL did the results grow more ambiguous. Confronted with apparent frustration from several among in the 100-odd person crowd, Pedersen counseled forbearance. "I believe what we are seeing is an impressive implementation of the resolution so far," he said. "But may I ask you at this stage for a little patience. The war ended August 13 and tomorrow it will be November 1 ... I can tell you that the secretary general is committed to this and it's something he's working very hard on. I hope that the next time I see you I can give you a more positive report

Critics chastise president for approach to Hariri tribunal
By Leila Hatoum and Mirella Hodeib -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: President Emile Lahoud's remarks on the formation of an international court to try those accused of assassinating former Premier Rafik Hariri were met with harsh criticism Tuesday by politicians claiming he was trying to stop its creation. A statement released Tuesday by Baabda Palace said Lahoud "made it clear he was among the first supporters for the establishment of the tribunal."
"I had requested that the justice minister [Charles Rizk] secure the terms of establishing [an international court], so that it would be clear and precise, unlike the vague terms of the agreement signed between the UN and Lebanon when the international investigation commission was formed," said the statement, quoting Lahoud.
He added: "Two months ago, we heard of a UN envoy arriving in Beirut to discuss the draft ... with [Rizk] and Lebanese judges. At the time, [Rizk] publicly said the draft would be discussed within the Cabinet. This was a wrong statement from [Rizk], whom I summoned and made it clear to that I, as a president of the republic, am the only one authorized according to Article 52 of the Constitution to direct and supervise negotiations with the UN. The minister had told me then that the draft was still under discussion. I asked him, how then do you distribute copies of the draft to everyone except the president? ... I told him then that I wanted a copy of the draft."
In a statement issued by the Justice Ministry Tuesday, Rizk said he was "informing [Lahoud] step by step of the deliberations carried out between UN legal experts and the Lebanese magistrates." Rizk added that he has a letter from Lahoud, dated July 21, mentioning that he has taken note of the deliberations.
Former Premier Salim Hoss said Tuesday that Lahoud "made a mistake in expressing his comments on the establishment of the court."
"Lahoud's stance breaches the Constitution since he has not discussed the issue with the prime minister - or the Cabinet for that matter - as stipulated by the Constitution," Hoss added. "On the other hand, the UN should have filled Lahoud in with respect to the establishment of this special court, as it did with other officials, because ... the president is responsible for the negotiation of international treaties." Hoss added that he hoped any discussions about the international court be held within the Cabinet, "to avoid further complications, especially since all Lebanese have come to an understanding on the necessity of establishing this court."The head of Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee, MP Robert Ghanem, said Tuesday that Article 52, as amended by the Taif Accord in 1989, is very different from the old one. In an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio, he said: "The latter states that the president negotiates international treaties, and later on advises the Cabinet of all negotiations." Quoting the Taif Accord, Ghanem added that following the amendment, Article 52 stipulates that the president negotiates international treaties in coordination with the prime minister and that treaties are not final until ratified by Cabinet." "We should keep in mind that the political regime in Lebanon is democratic and parliamentary, and not presidential," Ghanem added.A statement issued by the youth wing of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) said Lahoud's stance "serves a sole purpose, that of defending his position, along with that of the four former security chiefs, and the Syrian regime."
The PSP and other members of the March 14 Forces accuses Syria of involvement in the Hariri assassination, along with the former heads of Lebanon's General Security, Army Intelligence, Presidential Guard, and Internal Security.

Jumblatt: International tribunal can force Syria to change its behavior
By Hussein Ali -Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
WASHINGTON: An international tribunal might be the only way to deter dictatorships in the region from further assassinations and might lead to a change of behavior of the Syrian regime, according to Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt. Jumblatt's comments came Tuesday during a panel discussion at the Woodrow Wilson Center as part of the Druze leader's visit to the US. The Chouf MP held talks with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among other US officials, on Monday. "The tribunal could change the behavior, a term used [in Washington], cause deterrence ... Without it, the Syrian regime won't leave us alone," he said. Jumblatt briefed his audience on the sequence of events in Lebanon over the past two years, saying the story started when Syrian President Bashar Assad summoned late Premier Rafik Hariri to Damascus in late August 2004. "When I saw [Hariri] after that meeting, he was gloomy, but not afraid," he said.
Jumblatt added that at the time, he and Hariri had launched the struggle for a free, independent and democratic Lebanon. "They then tried to kill Marwan Hamadeh," he said. "On February 14, 2004, they killed Hariri, and Parliament - which was supposed to discuss a new electoral law, toppled the government." Jumblatt noted that a spate of assassinations and assassination attempts followed and consequently, a Cabinet majority endorsed a decision stipulating that the international investigation on Hariri's murder cover other assassinations.
"This will deter them from further killings." He added: "Yesterday our imposed President [Emile] Lahoud issued 40 pages denouncing the tribunal ... Somehow he seems to be involved." Jumblatt also talked about a reported Russian veto on the international tribunal.
"The Russians have some reservations. I heard there's flexibility ... We take their word that they support Lebanon," he said.
Jumblatt said that during the national dialogue, leaders arrived at four points of consensus namely the international tribunal, establishing diplomatic relations with Syria, the demarcation of the Shebaa Farms border area with Syria and disarming Palestinian groups outside of refugee camps. After talks, only two items remained contentious: Hizbullah's arms and the extended presidential mandate.
Jumblatt described the Shebaa Farms issue as a Syrian trick, saying the governments of the two countries needed to settle the matter between them.
"[The Syrians] want to keep this issue vague," he said.At the time, according to Jumblatt, "we agreed with [Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan] Nasrallah, because they are the Syrian allies ... the Syrian proxies," to resolve this issue.
As for the July-August war, Jumblatt said: "I quote Nasrallah: 'I was not expecting such a reaction.'" He added: "This [statement] is quite a blunder."
Jumblatt said he was not trying to justify the Israeli war but quoted Nasrallah as saying: "I'm now launching a war, whether the Lebanese agree or not."
On this statement, Jumblatt said: "We're either one state or not ... or he [Nasrallah] is a state within a state."
According to Jumblatt, the March 14 Forces suggested during the dialogue that Lebanon adopt the Swiss system where every Swiss is an army member. "[Nasrallah] said 'I have my own apparatus, let's find a way to coordinate between it and the army.'" He added: "Again, we are either one state or two states, one legal and one illegal, or one legal and one de facto." As to the currently debated national unity government, Jumblatt said Hizbullah and MP Michel Aoun intended to form a new Cabinet in which they control one-third. The reason behind this demand, according to Jumblatt, "is to cause chaos, stop the international tribunal" and interrupt the implementation of UN resolutions.
If the current government is overthrown, Jumblatt said, "the country would live in paralysis."When asked what it would take to disarm Hizbullah, Jumblatt said it was up to the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei." He acknowledged that Hizbullah has a constituency in Lebanon, but argued that the party is tied ideologically, militarily and financially to Iran and Syria."I told Nasrallah ... that he was victorious," Jumblatt said, "but I asked him who he would dedicate his victory to? He answered vaguely, saying he dedicates it to the Arab nation."

Head of research council declares battered South 'free of' radiation
Daily Star staff-Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: The president of the National Council for Scientific Research said on Tuesday that South Lebanon "is free of" signs of radiation resulting from the month-long Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. "We stick to the fact that uranium-based munitions were not used during the recent war; we have not detected any radiation proving the presence of depleted uranium," Mouin Hamzeh said. Speaking to Voice of Lebanon radio station, Hamzeh criticized recent media reports claiming the presence of depleted uranium. "But we have taken this information into consideration and we will survey the areas which are said to contain uranium, notably the southern region of Khiam," he said. However, an environmental research team affiliated with Environment and Development magazine said that analysis of samples taken from a bomb crater in Khiam have shown high radiation levels.
The analysis was conducted in British laboratories, according to a statement issued by the group, Environmental Hotline, on Tuesday.
The statement added that the magazine was the sole publisher of two photos taken from Khiam of holes in military equipment that could have resulted from the use of depleted-uranium ordnance. However, an expert from Environment Hotline said the group awaited the results of analysis being carried out by a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) team at a laboratory in Spitz, Switzerland.
Hamzeh criticized the group's stance, saying: "No expert or person is entitled to take samples and send them abroad to be analyzed ... This is illegal and harms people who might be victim of unfounded allegations."Around 20 experts from the UNEP had spent two weeks with Lebanese environmentalists from the beginning of October evaluating the impact on the environment of the July-August bombardment of Lebanon.
The experts tested air, water and soil samples at some 75 heavily bombarded sites in South Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, said Boutros Harb, UNEP director for Asia and the Middle East. "Their report will be made public on November 29 in Beirut," Hamzeh said.
In light of the ongoing concern about the presence of uranium, British expert Dai Williams urged the Lebanese to take pre-emptive measures by, for instance, halting reconstruction works in suspected areas. Separately, the United Arab Emirates project to clear up mines and cluster bombs in South Lebanon kicked off on Tuesday, with Brigadier Seif Jaber Alili, the project's manager, saying the work would be done in 15 months.
"The mission includes areas north the Litani River where around 26,550 mines have been planted and areas south the Litani where a huge number of cluster bombs was thrown," Alili said. - Additional reporting by Mohammed Zaatari

Berri courts support for national consultations
Hizbullah mp confident talks will begin as planned
By Therese Sfeir -Daily Star staff
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BEIRUT: Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri held talks on Tuesday with local politicians to garner support for his proposed national consulatations, which are aimed at calming escalating tensions in the country. However, it remained unclear whether the national talks will begin on Monday as announced by Berri or will be delayed a second time, prompting the opposition to take to the streets to settle their demands for a national unity Cabinet.
Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement have said they are ready for talks, but other politicians, including members of the ruling parliamentary majority, have not yet said whether they will attend.
Sources quoted by the Central News Agency on Tuesday said Berri held private discussions with different political parties to prepare for Monday's consultation session, which many politicians consider a last chance to overcome the current impasse peacefully.
The sources added that Berri was optimistic that top politicians would agree to participate in the consultations, although Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will not attend for security reasons. The agenda set by Berri could be expanded if participants agree on the formation of a national unity government, which the speaker considers as the best means for resolving the stalemate over the presidency, according to the sources.
Hizbullah MP Mohammad Raad said he was confident that consultations would begin on Monday with the planned agenda, which currently includes two issues: the formation of a unity government and the adoption of a new electoral law.
Raad reiterated the need to form a national unity Cabinet, but said that his party was not seeking to escalate tension in the local arena.
Raad's statements Tuesday came after a meeting with Communist party secretary general Khaled Hadadeh, who reiterated his party's calls for the formation of an interim government that would precede the creation a national unity Cabinet. Raad also visited former minister Talal Arslan at the latter's residence in the Chouf. After visiting Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir on Monday, Reform and Change bloc MP Walid Khoury said a national unity Cabinet would allow his bloc to join forces with the government instead of remaining in the opposition.
Former Premier Salim Hoss' Third Force said Tuesday that some parties are trying to derail Berri's initiative, warning that taking to the streets would escalate tensions. Following its weekly meeting, the party said "Lebanon has fallen under US tutelage, which is aligned with Israel."
"The US administration is exerting tutelage over the country through its ambassador, its secretary of state and its envoys," it added in a statement.
Hoss met Tuesday with former Minister Michel Samaha, who emphasized the importance of dialogue as a means of resolving pending problems.
Hizbullah's representative in the South, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, met Tuesday with a delegation of US legal experts, who are visiting Lebanon to inspect the damage caused by the recent war. Qaouk told the delegation that "Hizbullah is keen on the creation of a national unity government that would promote stability and civil peace."
He accused US President George W. Bush's administration of "hampering the creation of a unity government in Lebanon in an attempt to avoid any political failure that would decrease the chances of his party's victory in the upcoming elections."
"those who are opposing the creation of a national unity Cabinet are tools in the hands of the US administration," he added.
A member of the US delegation was quoted by the National News Agency as saying that he was impressed by Hizbullah's quick measures to compensate war-struck citizens, adding that until now the US administration has not been able to compensate all those who were afflicted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Vice president of the Higher Shiite Council, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, said the dialogue initiative launched by Berri offered a "glimmer of hope" that the country can overcome its current difficulties. Qabalan also warned against "tense and emotional speeches," which he said would incite internal conflict. In a statement on Tuesday, he urged all political parties to "return to dialogue without any conditions or reservations."

Solana says Israel risks derailing Lebanon peace
31 Oct 2006 16:04:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
Background
Lebanon crisis
More MADRID, Oct 31 (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana made a fresh call on Israel on Tuesday to stop operations that risked derailing the United Nations-brokered ceasefire which ended the war in Lebanon. He appeared to be referring to a demand he made to Israeli leaders at the weekend for them to stop flying military jets over Lebanon. "I spoke with Israeli authorities saying they should stop operations that, in our judgment, and based on the resolution, put a solution at risk," Solana told reporters in Madrid. "Everyone has to comply with the resolution. Israel also has to comply. It has to comply in the strictest way," he said. But, Solana said, the U.N. resolution had been generally "complied with well" and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was satisfied with the deployment of U.N. troops in the country.
Asked about cooperation between U.N. and Lebanese forces in the south, Solana said: "It is working almost perfectly".
The resolution was part of a U.N.-brokered ceasefire to stop a 34-day war in July and August. An international peacekeeping force, including Spanish troops, has been deployed in southern Lebanon.
 

BRIEF REVIEWS
Crossroads to Islam
The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State
by Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren
Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2003. 462 pp. $32.
Reviewed by David Cook
Rice University
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1038
Nevo's work falls squarely into the "Hagarist" tradition that radically reinterprets early Islamic history. For the most part, scholars of early Islam—even Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, authors of Hagarism[1]—have avoided the full implications of this interpretation because of the almost complete lack of non-Muslim sources and the difficulties in working with the tendentious Muslim ones. Nevo and Koren overcome this problem by focusing upon sources not usually adduced by scholars of Islam: archeology and epigraphy. By examining the archeological remains (and in some cases the lack thereof) of the early Islamic period, the authors call into question the standard accounts of Muslim conquest that are still cited as fact in most history books. They supply a vast selection of inscriptions hitherto unnoticed and uncited in the standard histories, which for the most part are datable to the seventh and eighth centuries, and use them to build a historical theory considerably different from the standard account.
Nevo's theory is that Arab history—specifically not Islamic history—is completely a construct and cannot stand up to historical examination on the basis of non-Muslim sources. His theory surmises that paganism was far more deeply rooted in pre-Arabian society than was previously thought and that much of what we now call early Islamic history records the development away from that heritage into a monotheistic belief-system that did not reach perfection until the ninth century at the earliest.
For the most part, Crossroads employs a very rigorous, historical methodology, focusing exclusively upon those sources datable from before the ninth century, which usually means non-Muslim ones. These sources provide a view of Islam that lacks the preeminence of Muhammad and the exclusivity of later Islam. This reviewer finds much of Nevo and Koren's work to be plausible or at least arguable, and it certainly presents a powerful challenge to the mainstream view of the origins of Islam.
It is a pity that Nevo and Koren do not include the work of Fred Donner, who also has come (from a more mainstream approach) to reject the early exclusivity of Islam. More broadly Crossroads to Islam suffers to some extent from a lack of cited scholarship after the early 1990s, which is a pity.
One area, however, where this reviewer disagrees with Nevo and Koren concerns their theory, following John Wansbrough, of the Qur'an as the product of a redaction during the ‘Abbasid period (eighth-ninth centuries). While agreeing that the historical narratives of the conquests are highly problematic and for the most part probably fanciful, they do represent, according to the historical memory of the Arabs, the supreme confirmation miracle of Islam. If the Qur'an were redacted at such a late date, when numerous datable hagiographical accounts of the conquests already existed, these accounts would surely have been represented within the text of the Qur'an. Their absence pushes the date of the Qur'an back to the earlier period.
Other than that, the account given by Nevo and Koren must be seriously considered by scholars of early Islam.
[1] Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

De Dodelijk Planning van Al-Qaeda [Al-Qaeda's Deadly Planning]
by Emerson Vermaat
Soesterberg, The Netherlands: Aspekt Publishers, 2005. 243 pp. €22.95.
Reviewed by Beila Rabinowitz
www.MilitantIslamMonitor.org
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1039
Dutch counterterrorism expert and investigative journalist Vermaat, the first European to write about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, here studies Al-Qaeda's network in Europe. He shows that the Dutch-born Muslim members of the Hofstadgroep, one of whom ritually murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, are part of a community of terrorists who continue to travel unimpeded as jihadis between the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Using details gleaned from police and court documents, Vermaat depicts terrorists who have exploited Europe's open borders and asylum system, making the continent a haven for terrorist "transit camps." Their tactics involve using mosques and businesses for funding and legitimacy. Intermarriage allows them to blend into society. The insularity of the Muslim communities provides additional cover and logistical support. Most disturbingly, Vermaat shows how Europe's inadequate terrorism laws and lax asylum procedures give terrorists essentially free rein to plan future attacks.
He explores why Spain has historical significance to Muslims, being symbolic of a previous Muslim European domination in Al-Andalus, and he explains why Spain is a vital state in the war against radical Islam.
Vermaat's book is the first detailed look at how terrorists operate between North Africa—especially Morocco—and the European mainland. He reconstructs the planning of the Al-Qaeda bombings in Casablanca, Bali, and Madrid and dissects the role each terrorist played in carrying out those attacks. The 9-11 hijackers met and hatched their plan in Hamburg, and Vermaat follows the trail of the main plotters—Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shhefi—to Spain and then to Holland, showing how the international jihad network facilitated the plot.
De Dodelijk Planning van Al-Qaeda is a compendium featuring the main players in international terrorism and offering a glimpse into the modus operandi of the jihadist underworld. Vermaat's research shows that the West's best defense against the global jihad lies in discovering and then dismantling the terrorist infrastructure, thus preempting their deadly plans.

Defense and Diplomacy in Israel's National Security Experience
Tactics, Partnerships, and Motives
by David Rodman
Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005. 160 pp. $52.50.
Reviewed by Efraim Inbar
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1040
In a short, insightful book about Israel's strategic thinking, Rodman provides a clear overview of Israel's national security doctrine. He reviews the evolving impact of several variables, such as deterrence, geography, manpower, quantity versus quality, offensive maneuver warfare, responses to conventional versus non-conventional threats, self reliance, great power patronage, and regional partnerships. He then analyzes Israel's use of force, diplomacy, its relations with Washington, recent strategic partnerships with Turkey and India, the appropriate paradigm for the analysis of Israel's external strategy, and Israel's rare attempts to adopt far-reaching goals such as targeting hostile governments. Defense and Diplomacy in Israel's National Security Experience offers a good introductory text to the intricacies of Israel's strategic dilemmas and behavior. It also includes a useful bibliography for further research.
The author is correct in his evaluation that Israel's remarkable success in becoming a vibrant and prosperous democracy, despite its Hobbesian predicament, has been due in no small part to a pragmatic and effective strategic calculus. Israeli leaders have generally had a sophisticated understanding of the regional and international environments and have been adept in using military power in a measured way to achieve security and limited political goals.
Although well organized and well written, the reader gets the impression that the book is a compilation of articles written at various times with separate focuses, with not much effort made to integrate and update their materials. For example, the chapter analyzing the patron-client relationship between the United States and Israel does not include any analysis of post-Cold War realities. Similarly, devoting two chapters to the discussion of whether Israel's defense and foreign policy was driven by realist or Jewish ethno-cultural factors is probably not proportionate to so short a book. Lastly, the conclusion fails to bring together the many themes that were otherwise mostly well addressed.

Haderech Lagan Eden [The Path to the Garden of Eden]
by Anat Berko
Tel Aviv: Yedi'ot Aharonot, 2004. 214 pp. $24.95, paper.
Reviewed by Asaf Romirowsky
Middle East Forum
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1041
What makes a woman become a suicide bomber? Berko, a retired Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel, explores the recruitment of Palestinian women and the codes that allow them to blow themselves up and kill Israeli civilians.
Berko attempts to see if womanly heart-to-heart conversations can explain the mutation of maternal instinct and the urge to give up family, love, career, and life for the sake of political aims. She expresses surprise learning that the recruitees' moral judgment towards Israelis softened once they were able to see Berko herself as a mother with children, which reminded them of their own families. This in turn enabled the Palestinian women to start seeing the victims as real human beings.
In Berko's view, the concept of martyrdom is deeply rooted in Islam and glorified as an unequaled act of true and total commitment. There is no greater devotion to God than giving one's life in His honor. Reinforcing this is a self-congratulatory process among the recruiters and those individuals who call the shots before a homicide bombing actually takes place, that further induces women to abandon this world for the next.
Generally, homicide bombings are initiated by securely run groups that recruit, indoctrinate, train, and reward the bombers and their families in this world and promise rewards in the next. These groups do not seek unstable people for their missions; to the contrary, the women are useful precisely because they are strong-willed and normal. In addition, some mothers even encourage their children to sacrifice their lives to kill Israelis.
Berko's book allows readers to enter the world of female suicide bombers and learn some of the complexities faced by Palestinian women associated with different terrorist groups. In the end, her interviews should be highlighted as an illustration of how women have evolved within an Arab society, finding equality not in life but in death as "martyrs."

The Man Who Would Be King
The First American in Afghanistan
by Ben MacIntyre
New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005. 351 pp. $14.
Reviewed by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1042
In Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, a young adventurer named Daniel Dravot penetrates feudal Afghanistan disguised as a cleric. In this nonfiction account with a similar title, MacIntyre, a columnist for The Times of London, tells the story of the real life adventurer who may have been Kipling's inspiration. He describes the life and adventures of Josiah Harlan (1799-1871), a young Quaker from Chester County, Pennsylvania, who set sail for China in 1822, telling his fiancיe that they would marry when he returned. Upon reaching Calcutta, Harlan received a letter announcing that she was marrying another man. He resolved never to return home.
So began his adventures. After a failed stint in the Indian army—an action for which the Quakers excommunicated him—Harlan met Shujah al-Mulk (1792-1842), an Afghan king exiled to India in 1809 after just six years on the throne. Harlan offered a deal: he would raise an army, subdue Kabul, and restore the kingdom. In exchange, he would become vizier, the equivalent of prime minister. The deal struck, Harlan began recruiting native troops, using the U.S. flag as his own. In 1827, he and his army began their long march. But he soon had second thoughts about his army's loyalty. He picked a trusted team, paid severance to the others, and launched his Plan B: dressed as a dervish, he made his way to Kabul, arriving in 1828 just as an epidemic of cholera ravaged the city. Years passed and Harlan changed his allegiance to Shujah's rival, King Dost Muhammad Khan (1793-1863), to whom he became aide-de-camp. This Afghan king granted Harlan's wish for power. The itinerant Pennsylvania Quaker and stilted lover became prince of Ghor, today a province in central Afghanistan.
Harlan's story is riveting. MacIntyre describes his adventures, disillusionments, and eventual return to the United States as the only Afghan general to serve in the U.S. Civil War.
Harlan was not alone in his adventures. In the nineteenth century, a handful of men made dangerous journeys through Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Tibet. Not all survived. Author Peter Hopkirk has chronicled their stories.[1] But it is rare that so much new material surfaces in one book, and for this MacIntyre deserves special credit. After learning of this curious American from cursory references and footnotes in old travelogues gathering dust in the British Library, MacIntyre made it his mission to uncover the saga of this historical Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern. His quest took him to Punjab and Pennsylvania, Kabul and California. He scoured through the official records of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore and poured over the intelligence archives of imperial India, whose agents were suspicious of Harlan's plots and schemes. Finally, in a Chester County museum, MacIntyre found a long-lost manuscript replete with love letters and sketches. Explanations of historical and cultural context weave together in his fluid prose. The result is impressive and well-worth reading.
[1] See for example, Great Game (London: Murray, 1990); On Secret Service East of Constantinople (London: Murray, 1994); Trespassers on the Roof of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

New Heavens
My Life as a Fighter Pilot and a Founder of the Israel Air Force
by Boris Senior
Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005. 256 pp. $25.95.
Reviewed by Judith Friedman Rosen
CUNY Graduate Center
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1043
Israel's air force and its advanced aero-technology helped define the country in recent decades, but in the years immediately prior to the country's birth and during its struggle for independence (1946-48), things were rather different. The emerging country was threatened by enemies from within and on all its proposed borders. Fledgling military forces smuggled in contraband armaments, breaking a British-imposed ban. Despite such efforts, the future looked bleak. Only air assaults could secure the national Jewish homeland, but there were no airplanes and no pilots.
Into this situation entered Senior, an experienced World War II fighter pilot for the British Royal Air Force with a Zionist orientation. His autobiography engagingly recounts how a young man from a well-to-do South African family, along with other overseas volunteers acquired a mix of aircraft, learned to pilot them, smuggled them to Palestine, and engaged in battle. Senior recalls his World War II sorties, his flying experiences, and a close brush with death. These events prepared him for the challenges he would face as a fighter pilot for the Yishuv (Jewish settlements in pre-state Israel) and as a builder and founder of what would become the Israel air force.
Senior recounts how his ragtag air force secured victory by personally purchasing aircraft and sneaking them across international borders, and how they risked their lives on unfamiliar and untested equipment. He reminds us of the ingenuity, determination, and resolve that he and the fighters had for the creation of Israel. He emphasizes that the U.S. government was not a friend of the fledgling nation, curtailing the pilots' ability to transfer airplanes to Palestine. In contrast, the Russians rescued the endangered Jewish fighting forces from destruction by permitting "Czechs to assist us (training in and procuring Messerschmitts)." In addition, "Russian diplomatic and political support in the United Nations during that period were instrumental in helping Israel survive." This directly contributed to the success of the war in the air, which, through the efforts of the Mahal overseas volunteers, brought final victory to the nation and led to Senior's ability to initiate and build the Israeli air force.

On Point
The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom
by Gregory Fontenot, E.J. Degen, and David Tohn
Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. 539 pp. $34.95.
Reviewed by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1044
Sensational video feeds and embedded journalist accounts shaped public perception of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S.-led military campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. Accounts by embedded journalists added color but did little to illuminate broader strategy and planning. On Point, the official U.S. Army history of the campaign, is therefore a welcome addition to those accounts. It is a masterful compendium of the planning and operations that ultimately led to the U.S. capture of Baghdad. In addition to chronicling each units' drive forward, the authors add needed perspective.
They contextualize the Iraq mission within the history of U.S. military campaigns: with concurrent operations in Afghanistan, the Iraq campaign marked the first time since World War II that U.S. armed forces conducted major campaigns simultaneously in different areas of operation. Not since the Korean war had a combined and joint land component directed all ground operations. The authors place special emphasis on new developments in information-based warfare. Digital linkages and new technology enabled unprecedented air-ground coordination.
The authors also describe what lessons influenced military planners. They describe changes in military doctrine in the twelve years between the liberation of Kuwait and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and include summaries of lessons learned from U.S. operations in Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Urban combat preoccupied the war planners. On Point describes various seminars, discussions, and exercises to prepare the U.S. Army to fight in Baghdad. Numerous photos, maps, and charts bring the descriptions to life. The authors offer considerable detail, not only of planning—training exercises in Germany, for example—but also describe how the U.S. military managed with very little public note to ready ports, airfields, and other infrastructure in the Middle East needed for its campaign.
Subsequent chapters describe the drive north from Kuwait. Various battles are diagrammed and explained. A chapter on the fall of Baghdad gives behind-the-scenes detail on "thunder runs" probing the city, the much-photographed toppling of Saddam's statue in Firdos Square, and the final fighting within the city. On Point stops its narrative with the end of major combat. There is only the briefest discussion of the transition and no discussion of the start of civilian administration and the continuing insurgency.
Some fleeting allusions beg more detail. While the authors mention that "the total number of FIF [Free Iraqi Forces, Iraqis trained in Tazsar, Hungary, before the war] was small, their strategic, operational, and tactical impact was significant," but do not elaborate on how or why. It is unfortunate that air force and navy operations remain outside the purview of examination, as some discussion of these would have illustrated force integration and given a better idea of the challenges and operations of modern warfare.
While Operation Iraqi Freedom is generally a "good news" story—the authors identify areas for improvement: they argue that, in terms of combat service support and logistics, the army should not emphasize efficiency over effectiveness (when lives are at stake, duplication is sometimes necessary to ensure that missions succeed). Another lesson learned is that every unit should have the ability to fight and win; no longer are support units confined to the rear, out of danger. The capture of Jessica Lynch after the ambush of her 507th Maintenance Company convoy highlighted how speed and mobility precluded rear security. While Central Command headquarters in Qatar enjoyed the latest intelligence, the authors conclude that access to tactical intelligence among commanders in the field was too limited. Brigade leaders often did not have adequate information about the enemy in their immediate vicinity. Lastly, the authors suggest that the operations highlighted difficulties in the mix of active duty and reserve components.
On Point provides a major source for military history buffs, strategists, and general readers. Although technical, it should be required reading for every journalist, analyst, and academic who opines on the U.S. military in Iraq.

Orientalism and the Hebrew Imagination
by Yaron Peleg
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. 153 pp. $35.
Reviewed by Tzvi Kahn
Washington, D.C.
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1045
As the specter of Edward Said's Orientalism persists in casting a defining imprint on Middle East studies, Peleg argues that Said's conception of Orientalism, the study by Westerners of the East, does not apply to European Jews, whose own view of the East was sui generis. Surveying various Zionist texts published during the last fin-de-siטcle and then the early twentieth century, Peleg demonstrates that many Zionist authors viewed the Orient not as a force to be colonized and extinguished but as an attractive cultural emblem that reflected and inspired their own nationalistic yearnings. "Rather than fantasize a nonexistent East," writes Peleg, "many Zionist pioneers looked up to the local Palestinian-Arabs and mimicked the Arab way of life in the hope of reinventing themselves and creating a new Jewish culture inspired by their image." In this respect, the thesis that early Zionism constituted a Western colonial force that subdued the relatively weaker East lacks weight because the Zionists viewed themselves as an intrinsic part of the very Orient they were supposedly overcoming.
Peleg substantiates his argument by providing detailed exegeses of three Zionist texts that explore the Jewish relationship with the East in general and Palestine's indigenous Arabs in particular: David Frishman's Bamidbar (In the Wilderness),[1] Moshe Smilansky's The Sons of Arabia,[2] and A.L. Arielli (Orloff)'s Allah Karim! (Allah the Noble).[3] In Frishman's writings, for instance, Peleg perceptively notes that the Hebrew Bible assumes the status of an Orientalist text, constituting the impetus for a "Jewish East" that spurs the Zionists' passion to rebuild their homeland. The Zionists sought not to conquer but to merge through the prism of the Bible with the Orient. Frishman's synthesis of Judaism and the Levant, Peleg argues, rends asunder the easy dichotomies of East versus West typically applied by Orientalist scholars to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Perhaps the book's most notable contribution lies in its forceful refutation of post-Zionist theories that advocate the abolition of Zionism due to its allegedly imperial and colonial underpinnings, which stem from its putatively "Western" orientation. By establishing that the tension between "East" and "West" in early Hebrew culture contradicts the "simplistic and strident categorizations" advanced by post-Zionist critics, Peleg reframes the debate on Orientalism and Zionism in refreshing new directions, demanding a new look at traditional conceptions of Orientalism in general and its specific application to Zionism and diaspora Jewry.
[1] Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing, 1990.
[2] Moshe Smilansky, Kitve Moshe Smilansky (Tel Aviv: Hitahdut Ha'ikarim Be'eretz Yisrael, 1935).
[3] See A.L. Arielli, Kitve lamed alef arielli, Milton Arfa, ed. (New York and Tel Aviv: Keren Israel Matz Ltd. and Dvir, 1999).

Princes of Darkness
The Saudi Assault on the West
by Laurent Murawiec
Trans. George Holoch. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005. 305 pp. $25.95.
Reviewed by Patrick Clawson
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1046
Murawiec gave a 2002 briefing to the Defense Science Board that carried the provocative title "Taking Saudi out of Arabia," in which he advocated extremely tough pressure on the Saudi government concerning the involvement of Saudis in terrorism. When it leaked to the press, the uproar was so loud that President George W. Bush personally called Saudi crown prince Abdullah to emphasize that he rejected the content of the briefing—a remarkable reaction to a think-tank study. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also weighed in with denunciations. Murawiec was promptly fired by Rand.
With credentials like that, one would hope for much from Murawiec, and he does make some telling points. He nicely captures the Saudi ambition to dominate world Islam, including the depth of the rivalry between the Saudi Wahhabi clerics and Egypt's venerable Al-Azhar University.
But, alas, he is no expert on Saudi Arabia. For example, while many complaints can be made about the Saudi government's encouragement of radical Islam, it is hardly the case that Saudi charitable organizations are under the same degree of government control that the Soviet Union exercised over its pet peace movements, as the author contends. There are many extremely rich Saudis who feel a religious obligation to fund Islamic causes and, while they certainly listen to government guidance, they are acting independently and out of conviction—which was hardly the way that Soviet peace groups worked.
Another problem: Murawiec gets carried away in places, undermining the credibility of his account. It is quite a stretch to say that Saudi Arabia "has modernized nothing." Besides the vast improvement in material living standards, the kingdom has extended education to women and has built a media empire, ignoring objections by obscurantists. And Princes of Darkness suffers from peculiar organization. After 145 pages about contemporary Saudi support for terror groups, we are suddenly transported back 200 years for a history lesson lasting eighty pages. Both the earlier part on support for terror and the later part on history also contain within them abrupt jumps from one topic to another.
After the publicity coup from his Rand firing, Murawiec would have been the logical person to write a definitive book about Saudi connections to terrorism. Sadly, this is not that book.

Reclaiming a Plundered Past
Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq
by Magnus T. Bernhardsson
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. 327 pp. $45.
Reviewed by Alexander H. Joffe
New Rochelle, N.Y.
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1047
Archaeology is invariably politicized; in this revision of a Yale University dissertation, Bernhardsson shows that in Iraq the battle was primarily imperialist British military officers and diplomats versus nationalist Iraqi politicians and educators.
On the British side, many of the figures in this surprisingly conventional diplomatic and social history are familiar. Lord Curzon, and Winston Churchill, British Museum keeper Frederick Kenyon, and archaeologist H.R. Hall are shown deeply engaged in exchanging memos about the status of sites, collections, and excavation permits. The formidable romantic Gertrude Bell oversaw the new department of antiquities and interjected herself into all matters as part of her personal nation-building efforts.
On the Iraqi side, were those politicians and educators, not archaeologists, who exploited the past as it was being recovered during the golden age of Mesopotamian discovery (after World War I) to construct a variety of glorious pasts (primarily Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid) that would stand as prelude to a precarious future. Archaeology served them as another means of creating a nation.
Iraqis correctly believed archaeology to be important to the British and saw it as another front to press for full political and cultural independence. Nationalists like Sati' al-Husri, director general of education (and later director of antiquities), newspaper editorialists, and politicians, including prime minister Rashid ‘Ali Gaylani, debated general policy and minutiae such as the end-of-season division of excavation finds. Their interpretations of archaeological finds and epochs followed larger trends, as pan-Arabism gave way to Iraqi particularism and then back to pan-Arabism, alternately privileging the equally artificial "Arab nation" or "Iraq."
Refreshingly, Edward Said and Orientalism barely appear in this well-researched volume. Although the introductory chapter is overlong and the discussion of Iraq ends somewhat abruptly in 1936, making the concluding chapter on the subsequent seventy years rather cursory, the volume takes a quantum leap forward in the study of archaeology and nationalism.

The Saudi Enigma: A History
by Pascal Menoret
Trans. Patrick Camiller. London: Zed Books, 2005. 255 pp. $75 ($22.50, paper).
Reviewed by Patrick Clawson
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1048
Saudi Arabia need not be an enigma. French scholar Menoret demonstrates the wide array of information available about Saudi society—from detailed statistics to frank press accounts—on sensitive subjects as well as on the mundane. The picture emerging from his account is in many ways similar to that of other middle-income developing countries. As in most such societies, many are left out of modernization: 55 percent of young Saudis do not complete middle school, showing that the problem with Saudi education is not only its content but its limited reach. Despite this, government schooling has created a mass-educated middle class: by 1996, as many book titles (3,700) were published each year in Saudi Arabia as in the rest of the Arab world combined, other than Egypt and Lebanon. A similar mixed picture characterizes all aspects of Saudi society. Modernization has even reached into homes: the average number of children borne to a women dropped from 8.26 in 1980 to 4.37 in 2000 and appears to be continuing downwards. Yet massively inappropriate government policies—expenditures on all the wrong things, perverse regulations, inappropriate education, feeding of unrealistic expectations, open doors for immigrants—has created a job crisis so severe that only 19 percent of working-age Saudis hold jobs; even among men, the rate is only 32 percent.
If Saudi Arabia remains poorly understood, much of the explanation is that scholars such as Menoret devote their energies to denying the obvious. In the midst of the rich information he provides, Menoret offers such analytical nonsense as, "the evolution of Saudi society owes very little to Islam." Indeed, his main theme is that it is an "essentialist" error to understand Saudi society as being shaped by radical Islam, Bedouin tribalism, and oil wealth—precisely the three forces that have most shaped Saudi Arabia. Even more nonsensically, Menoret blames Islamist terrorism by Saudis not on Salafi Islam but on "the worst features of the West: a crude will to power, corrupt arrangements, police violence and media lies"—as though such features were not amply present in Arabia long before the West arrived in the region. Menoret's mixture of detailed knowledge and stubborn denial of reality should warn off those who think listening to experts would result in improved U.S. policies.

The Scorpion's Gate
by Richard Clarke
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005. 305 pp. $24.95.
Reviewed by Patrick Clawson
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1049
No one has ever accused Clarke of being lacking in the ego department. He became a key player in both the Clinton and Bush White Houses precisely because he was so hard-charging—a real make-it-happen kind of guy. Since leaving office in 2003, he has hardly been shy about criticizing the Bush administration for not paying enough attention to the counterterrorism issues on which he worked. So when one picks up his novel about horrific setbacks for the United States in the Middle East, the natural assumption is that his barely hidden agenda will be to blast the Bush team for leaving America vulnerable to catastrophic terrorism.
Perhaps that was his intention, but in fact when Clarke had to paint how things could go to hell for U.S. interests in the Middle East, he came up with a story in which shadowy Al-Qaeda-like terrorists play a distinctly faint second fiddle to the classic problems of evil states, especially to meddling outside powers. Indeed, at every twist in the plot, the new dangers that loom come from governments, not from networks of individuals. Ideological fanatics abound in The Scorpion's Gate, but they do not pose any great threat to U.S. interests until they have a state behind them. That is an intriguing development from someone who has criticized recent administrations for not understanding that in the new globalized world, with its instant communications and easy travel, loosely associated small groups can pose as deadly a threat as any great power.
Clarke's story is a good read for those who enjoy the action genre with colorfully painted characters. He puts to good use his intimate knowledge of life inside the circles of power. Yet even in these details, he displays all the usual attitudes of recent U.S. governments. The Saudis, for all their dislike of America's ways, prove in the end to be strong geopolitical partners with the United States—and this despite the overthrow of the House of Saud by religious radicals. The Iranians are evil conspirators who weave intricate webs to trap America. Of course, the British are clever and brave, coming to America's rescue. Perhaps most surprisingly, the actors are defined by their visions of their respective national interests more than by trans-national ideology.
In all, The Scorpion's Gate has more in common with Cold War suspense fiction than with religiously motivated adventure stories such as the rapture series or Muslim anti-Western thrillers. Perhaps his years in the corridors of power have made Clarke realize how much more dangerous are those with a state behind them.

Shattering the Stereotypes
Muslim Women Speak Out
Edited by Fawzia Afzal-Khan. Northampton: Olive Branch Press, 2005. 338 pp. $20.
Reviewed by Cheryl Benard
RAND Corporation
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1050
I approached this volume with some hope. As an anthology compiled and edited by a scholar, and describing itself as containing a diversity of texts from a wide range of views and employing a wide range of media from editorials and religious musings to poetry, I hoped it might by virtue of range alone take us beyond the widespread tedious reiterations on this subject. If it did not shatter the stereotypes, at least it might break a clichי or two, I thought.
It was not to be.
We start with a foreword in which the prominent if somewhat overexposed Egyptian dissident, physician, author, and feminist Nawal el-Saadawi elaborates for us her fantasy: that she is a suicide bomber, killing George Bush and "all Arab leaders around him." She next shares her approach to newspapers she dislikes: "I spit on the first page." (I'll have to try that—usually I just cancel my subscription.)
Then, the editor opens the volume with her own essay, "Unholy Alliances: Zionism, U.S. Imperialism, and Islamic Fundamentalism." As she is a professor of English at Montclair University, she can be held accountable for her choice of words, which conform to a tractate but not to a serious volume. If you are planning to refute your opponents' arguments substantively, you do not refer to them with a phrase such as "the likes of." E.g.: "Many … limited, and in my opinion spurious, analyses (written and promoted by the likes of Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, etc.) need to be challenged for obvious reasons."
Things continue in this dismal vein. We hear about the "imperial interests" of the West, learn that Israel is "simply an example par excellence of the oppression and injustice upon which the contemporary world class system … is based," and are informed that college campuses are wrongly thought to be bastions of liberal thought when in fact they are in the sway of "Zionist academics." It would not have surprised or overly disturbed me to find such a posture represented in an anthology since arguably these are views currently held within Arab discourse. They are not the only views, but the rest are absent, making this book, regrettably, stereotypical to the extreme. Even the poetry is not exempt. "Stopped at airport security/again/metal detector buzzes conveniently/when I walk through … they peer under hijab/unbutton, expose …" Even the metal detector is in on the evil worldwide conspiracy.
With massive doses of paranoia and a sobering amount of hostility, there is nothing new to be found in this volume.

The Shi‘is of Jabal ‘Amil and the New Lebanon
by Tamara Chalabi
New York: Palgrave, 2006. 227 pp. +xvii. $69.95.
Reviewed by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1051
Both Western and Arabic-language histories have neglected the Shi‘ites of modern Lebanon. Chalabi masterfully brings this missing history to life in a reworked Harvard doctoral dissertation. In an age where academics favor theory and polemic over scholarship, she fulfills the traditional detective function of historians. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic, she explored old archives and never-before-used personal libraries in southern Lebanese towns and villages. Excerpts from diaries flesh out political history to add a sense of local culture.
Chalabi begins her narrative at the end of the Ottoman era, describing the shape of society and economic life, not only the interplay of religious clerics, prominent families, and the nouveaux riches but also their relations with the Ottoman leadership. She traces these through the disruptions of the early twentieth century. World War I hit the ‘Amilis (that is, residents of Jabal ‘Amil) hard via conscription and famine. Chalabi shows how the Shi‘ites maneuvered through Arab nationalism, the French Mandate, and Lebanese state formation. Her exploration of competing gangs supported by French and Syrian concerns brings to light an important element of local history that remains strong in Lebanon today—Robin Hood-like figures who rob government tax collectors and redistribute their money. Acknowledging such local culture is necessary to understand contemporary regional attitudes toward the central government.
As Lebanon approached independence, intellectual debate focused upon conflicting notions of Arab and Lebanese identity, not only in Beirut and among the Christian and Sunni elite but also among the Shi‘ites. The Arab nationalist narrative eventually won out, and Shi‘ites resented their marginalization by the Beirut elite. Many ‘Amilis concluded that a system based on Arab identity offered them greater possibilities. Many embraced other pan-national ideologies and joined communist, Syrian nationalist, and Baath parties. Nevertheless, the Shi‘ites were incorporated in Lebanon and could not ignore the Lebanese state. Chalabi's discussion of petitioning and the growing Shi‘ite willingness to participate in parliamentary politics adds nuance. Discussion of religious leadership and education elucidate matters further.
In a forward, Fouad Ajami describes how, when he set out to write The Vanished Imam,[1] in which he traced the influence of the Shi‘ite cleric Musa al-Sadr in the 1960s and 1970s, he realized how even the recent Lebanese Shi‘ite past was a scholarly void. Chalabi has corrected this and her work is required reading for any scholar or policy practitioner working on modern Lebanon.
[1] Reprint ed., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.

Shi‘ism: Waiting for the Hidden Imam
by Said Bakhtaoui and Mohammad Ballout
First Run/Icarus Films, 2005. 53 min.
Reviewed by William Harris
University of Otago
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/1052
Shi‘ism: Waiting for the Hidden Imam, a film, presents a fine portrayal of the origins, defining features, and contemporary impact of Twelver (or Imami) Shi‘ism. Bakhtaoui and Ballout represent the emergence of the Shi‘ites to great effect by deploying images of Caliph Ali, cousin and son-in law of the prophet Muhammad, and his son Hussein, as well as a filmed reenactment of the massacre of Hussein and his followers at Karbala in 681.
The film's major contribution is the collection of interviews with prominent Shi‘ite religious scholars and intellectuals in Iran and Lebanon, including ayatollahs Mussa Zein al-Abidin in Qum and Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut. These personalities powerfully convey the significance for Shi‘ites of the imams, the line of twelve saintly figures from Ali to the twelfth "hidden" imam, who will return to set the world right in preparation for the final judgment. It is fascinating to hear of the imams in such vivid terminology as "divine light" and "speaking Qur'an"—interpreters of God's message who were human yet infallible. Bakhtaoui and Ballout give a well-rounded impression of a dynamic, self-confident faith with a painful but proud past.
Inevitably, the film has a few problematic features. First, the title "Shi‘ism" is to a degree a misnomer—the Isma'ili and Zaydi Shi‘ites do not even get a mention. The topic is not Shi‘ism in general but the predominant Twelver branch. Second, the narrative gives the impression that Iran had a strongly Shi‘ite dimension from the time of Islamic conquest with merely a declaration of Shi‘ism as the state religion under the Safavids. It does not adequately portray the major shift—the conversion of the majority of Iran's population to Twelver Shi‘ism—in the sixteenth century. Third, the emphasis is heavily on Iran and Lebanon with less attention to contemporary Shi‘ism in Iraq. There is an excellent foray into the teaching of religion and philosophy in the Qum seminaries, but a pairing of Qum and Najaf would have enriched the offering.
Overall, given the constraints of the 53-minute documentary format, Bakhtaoui and Ballout deserve praise for what they have managed to incorporate while preserving a coherent main line. In Iran, the interviews with believers at tombs and shrines are deeply moving. In Lebanon, the producers do not allow the generally sympathetic overview of Twelver Shi‘ism to get in the way of unflattering pictures of Hezbollah's regimented, armed retainers. The film also avoids getting into Lebanon's demographic one-upmanship, soberly describing the Shi‘ites as 30 percent of the population, and does not shrink from noting Hezbollah's reprehensible record of kidnappings and suicide-bombings alongside its liberation exploits. These are commendable details in a documentary thoroughly to be recommended for educational purposes in universities and elsewhere.
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