Author Archives: News Sources

Toulouse killings: making political capital out of Mohammed Merah

Nabila Ramdani writes: When young children are murdered by point-blank shots to the head, it is very difficult to draw conclusions about anything, let alone religion. The crimes Mohammed Merah has apparently confessed to are unimaginably wicked. French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, summed them up with the blunt relish of a newspaper headline writer, describing the 23-year-old killer as a “monster” who represented nothing and nobody.

However, such interpretations of what has happened in the Toulouse area over the past 10 days won’t last long. Far-right politicians have already seized on the image of the lethal young Muslim from an Algerian immigrant background. The National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who is on course to win up to 20% of the popular vote in the presidential elections beginning next month, said it was time to “launch a war” against a “fundamentalist risk which has been underestimated in our country”.

Le Pen has highlighted the fact that Merah had a French passport and was born and brought up at the expense of the republic. Even after he escaped from an Afghan prison where he was held for planting Taliban bombs, he was able to return to a council flat in Toulouse. “Homegrown” Islamic terrorists are the ultimate bogeymen for rabble-rousing politicians, and there is absolutely no doubt that the National Front’s share of the vote will increase because of this outrage.

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Why a UN Syria peace plan poses a challenge to rebels

Tony Karon writes: The Kofi Annan peace plan unanimously endorsed Wednesday by the U.N. Security Council may pose an even greater dilemma for the Syrian opposition than it does for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. That’s because while it demands a halt to the regime’s military operations against opposition strongholds, it also retreats from the previous insistence by Western and Arab countries — and the Syrian opposition — that Assad immediately step down and hand power to a unity government as the starting point of a political solution to the year-long uprising. Instead, the Security Council statement calls for

  • both the regime’s forces and armed opposition groups to accept a U.N.-supervised cease-fire;
  • daily pauses for humanitarian assistance;
  • the regime to release prisoners;
  • freedom of access for journalists;
  • freedom of assembly for peaceful protest; and for
  • “the Syrian government and opposition to work in good faith with the Envoy [Annan] towards a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis” by engaging “in an inclusive Syrian-led political process to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people”.

It remains to be seen whether the regime will honor its stated willingness to engage in a political dialogue if the opposition puts down its weapons. It would certainly face massive peaceful protests if it honored Annan’s terms, and it has no intention of ceding power even if it talks of constitutional reform while shelling opposition strongholds. But the Council statement carries considerable weigh by the fact that it was endorsed by Russia and China, which had vetoed previous resolutions precisely because they demanded that Assad step down. The new resolution, and Assad’s mission, appears to reflect an acceptance that he’ll be at the table in any political dialogue to resolve the conflict.

But the demand that the opposition negotiate with the regime on the terms laid down by Annan poses a dilemma for the fractured Syrian rebellion, some of whose leaders are set to convene in Turkey on Thursday and Friday: What is won at the negotiating table typically reflects the balance of power on the ground. And the reality, there, is that the Assad regime has proven far more resilient than its domestic and foreign opponents had assumed it would be.

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The lost stars: Why civil wars happen in Syria and Lebanon

Malik Al-Abdeh writes: How do we explain the de facto civil war unfolding in Syria today? How do we predict what course it will take? How do we come up with a viable and long-term solution?

A good starting point is to compare Syria with a country that bears a striking resemblance: Lebanon. This may seem surprising because the two countries (and two peoples) appear to be somewhat different.

Syrians regard themselves as being superior to Lebanese because their country suppresses confessional and ethnic identities in favour of a secular and all-embracing Arabism.

The Lebanese on the other hand look at the Syrians and they pity. Fortress Damascus is not a good place if you value creativity and free expression. It is the GDR of the Levant.

Broadly speaking, Syria is about unity, Lebanon is about freedom.

In reality, these differences developed recently and are superficial. What Syria and Lebanon have in common is grounded in shared experience: for centuries they were part of the Byzantine empire, they were conquered by the Muslim Arabs at the same time, both were later ruled by the Ottoman Turks for 400 years, and both fell under French mandate after the end of the First World War.

Something else they had in common were significant groups of non-Sunni Muslim minorities who chafed under Ottoman Turkish rule and vowed never to fall under Sunni overlordship again.

It was during the formative Mandate years (1920-46) that non-Sunni Muslim minorities (Christians, Alawites, Druze, Ismai’lis) began to develop survival strategies to adapt to the reality of living in newly-created nation states. It is by recognizing and analyzing these survival strategies and their long-term consequences that one can trace the historic roots of the Lebanese civil war (1975-90) and the Syrian civil war (2011-present).

The modern history of Syria and Lebanon is the story of how religious minorities turned the tables to become political masters, and how that often brought them into conflict with the Sunni Muslim majority. [Continue reading…]

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New phase in Syria crisis: dealmaking toward an exit

Sharmine Narwani writes: In recent weeks, there has been a notable shuffle in the positions of key external players in the Syrian crisis. Momentum has quite suddenly shifted from an all-out onslaught against the Assad government to a quiet investigation of exit strategies.

The clashes between government forces and opposition militias in Baba Amr were a clear tipping point for these players – much hinged on the outcome of that battle. Today, the retreat of armed groups from the Homs neighborhood means one thing: the strategy of militarizing the conflict from within is no longer a plausible option on which to hang this geopolitical battle. Especially not in an American or French election year, when anything less than regime change in Syria will look like abject failure.

And so the external players are shifting gears – the more outspoken ones, quietly seeking alternative options. There are two de facto groups that have formed. Group A is looking for a face-saving exit from the promised escalation in Syria. It consists of the United States, European Union and Turkey. Group B, on the other hand, is heavily invested in regime-change at any cost, and includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some elements of the French, US, British, and Libyan establishments.

Before Baba Amr, these two groups were unified in maximizing their every resource to force regime change in Syria. When the UN Security Council option was blocked by Russia and China, they coalesced around the General Assembly and ad-hoc “Friends of Syria” to build coalitions, tried unsuccessfully to bring a disparate opposition fighting force (Free Syrian Army) under central leadership, pushed to recognize the disunited Syrian National Council (SNC), and eked out weekly “events” like embassy closures and political condemnations to maintain a “perception momentum.”

But those efforts have largely come to a standstill after Baba Amr. A reliable source close to the Syrian regime said to me recently: “The regime eliminated the biggest and most difficult obstacle – Baba Amr. Elsewhere, it [eliminating armed militias] is easier and less costly at all levels. Now both political and military steps can continue.” [Continue reading…]

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Federalism and fragmentation in Libya? Not so fast…

Sean Kane writes: Benghazi is back in the headlines. On March 6, the capital of Libya’s 2011 uprising hosted a reported 3,000 tribal figures and leaders from the eastern half of the country. Seeking to marry eastern Libya’s status as the historical seat of the country’s pre-Qaddafi federal monarchy with local post-revolutionary anxiety, the conference provocatively announced the creation of the federal region of Barqa.

The reaction both within and outside of Libya has been swift. The ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) sharply criticized the declaration. Protests extolling national unity were held across the country and Libya’s leading mufti issued a fatwa against federalism. Meanwhile, Egypt, Tunisia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference issued statements expressing support for a unified Libya and rejecting federalism. An editorial in the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi even opined that Qaddafi and his family must feel “vindicated” in their predictions that the country would fragment without them.

The reality is more nuanced than the excited commentary would suggest. The gulf between the “federalism” called for by some easterners and the administrative decentralization broadly favored across Libya is most likely relatively narrow. And even in eastern Libya, support for the federal model advocated for by the self-appointed Interim Council of Barqa appears mixed.

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Israel: Segregation, discrimination and forced displacement

Ben White writes: This is Israel in 2012 according to a top UN body. Using unprecedented strong language, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) criticised Israeli policies in terms of “apartheid”, as part of their published [PDF] observations following a regular review.

Affirming the kind of analysis that Israel’s advocates try to dismiss as lies or rhetorical excess, the Committee slammed Israel for violating the right to equality in numerous policy areas. CERD described “segregation between Jewish and non-Jewish communities”, a lack of “equal access to land and property”, and “the ongoing policy of home demolitions and forced displacement of the indigenous Bedouin communities” in the Negev.

The lack of a “prohibition of racial discrimination” in Israel’s Basic Law was highlighted, and more recent developments, such as the restrictions on family unification affecting Palestinian citizens were also part of CERD’s wide-ranging criticisms.

The Committee’s observations also covered Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories, showing how the same discriminatory patterns are found on both sides of the Green Line. Israeli settlements in the West Bank form part of a regime of “de facto segregation” severe enough to cause the Committee to remind Israel of the “prohibition” of policies of “apartheid”.

According to Dr David Keane, senior lecturer in law at Middlesex University and author of ‘Caste-based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law’, this is “the most cutting CERD recognition and condemnation of a legal system of segregation since apartheid South Africa”.

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Woman warned French police after violent attack by Toulouse gunman in 2010

Haaretz reports: A local French newspaper published on Thursday an in-depth testimony of a woman claiming that she had warned authorities multiple times that the suspect in the Toulouse killings, Mohamed Merah, was a danger to the public.

The woman, who did not provide her real name, told Le Télégramme that upon discovering the suspect’s identity, she felt as though her “legs were cut off.” According to her, the fact that it was necessary for the deaths to occur in order to finally arrest Merah was a “huge misstep.” She further claimed that she had filed two complaints against the suspect, and returned and warned authorities several times to no avail.

The woman, who lives in the same neighborhood as Merah in Toulouse, told Le Télégramme that in the summer of 2010, the suspect attempted to recruit her son to jihad. The son, who at the time was 15 years old, was taken to the suspect’s car where he listened to a disc of preaching for holy war. He then drove her son to his apartment, where he presented him with a Koran and a large sword, and forced him to watch gruesome Al-Qaida videos in which women were shot and hostages in Afghanistan were beheaded.

“My son called me and we were finally able to get him out of there. He was there from 5 P.M. until midnight,” the woman said.

The mother filed a complaint with the police, which according to her caused Merah to become upset. “He came to the front of our home, threatened me and hit me. He said that I was an atheist and that I must pay like all the rest of France’s citizens,” she said.

She further stated that Merah claimed he would “wipe out all those who kill Muslims.” She stated that two days after the incident, Merah struck her son and daughter in the presence of eyewitnesses. However, no one intervened. The mother still has a copy of the complaint that was filed, as well as her daughter’s medical documents.

The woman also stated that the “true mind” behind the suspect was his brother Abdelkader, who is currently in police custody. “It is he who brainwashed [Merah] and often flew out of France,” she said.

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In Obama’s Iran policy, diplomacy has not been allowed to run its course

Julian Borger writes: In May 2003, when the Bush administration’s might was at its zenith, a Swiss diplomat called Tim Guldimann arrived in Washington carrying an extraordinary message.

As Switzerland’s ambassador in Tehran, Guldimann’s job was to represent the interests of the United States, which had no embassy, and that was he thought he was doing. The letter he was carrying was an offer of comprehensive negotiations from the Iranian government. In return for a lifting of US sanctions and the handing over of members of a US-designated Iranian terrorist group, Tehran was willing to place its nuclear programme under an intrusive monitoring and inspection regime, end armed support for Hamas and Hizbullah, and accept a Saudi plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In short, Iran was ticking just about every box on the American diplomatic wish-list. So what happened? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld rejected the offer out of hand. “We don’t speak to evil,” was the official line. Not only was Guldimann sent packing, the Bush administration actually reprimanded the Swiss for over-stepping their diplomatic mandate.

The depressing fiasco is the opening scene of a perfectly-timed new book, A Single Roll of the Dice, by Trita Parsi, a carefully balanced and thoroughly researched account of the tortured US-Iranian relationship in recent years.

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“Liberal Zionism”: A contradiction in terms

Yousef Munayyer writes: Peter Beinart’s New York Times op-ed, “To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements,” is an example of the increased volume voices described as ‘Liberal Zionists’ have garnered in the discourse on Israel/Palestine. But liberal Zionism is a contradiction is terms.

Peter’s piece expemplifies the “Liberal Zionist” narrative; “Liberal Zionists” cling to three central illusions to avoid confronting the reality that they are walking contradictions.

First, “Liberal Zionists” construct an artificial dichotomy between the state and the settlements; they pretend that the Israeli State and its settlements are somehow separate or separable. Beinart typifies this when he suggests renaming the West Bank ‘undemocratic Israel’ to distinguish from 1948 Israel. In reality, one cannot, in any serious way, separate Israel from its settlement enterprise.

The settlements were developed, continue to exist and grow precisely because of Israeli state policies. These policies are formulated by the government of Israel (all of it, not just the settlements). The settlement enterprise is not directed from the hilltops of the West Bank which it dominates, but rather from the central corridors of Israeli power which allocates resources to them, builds settlement infrastructure (and destroys Palestinian infrastructure) in and around them, supports the usurpation of Palestinian land and natural resources for them, and deploys Israeli military for support in this effort. This is why there is a strategic imperative for BDS to target the state, not just the settlements.

Further, as part of this self-inflicted deception, “Liberal Zionists” often attempt to mitigate the problem presented by settlers and settlements by dishonestly diminishing their numbers. Beinart excludes the residents of occupied Jerusalem (which the Israeli government has annexed), and cites 300,000 settlers in the West Bank. But as even the Israeli Prime Minister told Congress, 650,000 Israelis live beyond the green line.

Second, “Liberal Zionists” talk about an always-approaching-yet-non-existent deadline for two states. Beinart writes that Israel is “erasing” the green line; he worries what will happen “if Israel makes the occupation permanent…” and says that “we are closer to that day” than many may admit. But that day never seems to come for “Liberal Zionists,” it is always somewhere off in the undefined distance, although, we are told, it is approaching.

But by never defining a deadline, by never demarcating a point of no return, that day never has to come and “Liberal Zionists” never have to confront the contradiction inherent in their views. Rather, by failing to draw a line (which in reality we have probably long passed) and by failing to make a serious effort against the Israeli state for its colonialist policies, what “Liberal Zionists” are effectively saying is that there is no Palestinian minimum (or Zionist maximum) they would not accept – there is nothing “liberal” about that! [Continue reading…]

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Thanks to Netanyahu’s babble, an attack on Iran will inflame global anti-Semitism

Akiva Eldar writes: The murderer who shot students in a Jewish school in Toulouse yesterday, like the one who shot black-skinned French paratroopers a few days earlier, required no motive other than hatred of foreigners and those who are different. Chronic sufferers from anti-Semitism and xenophobia need no special pretexts for their racism.

Nevertheless, an Israeli attack on Iran that sent gas prices soaring would be seized by by right-wing extremists like those who support Marine Le Pen. Thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s babble in Washington, even if the United States is the one that ultimately attacks Iran’s nuclear reactors, the bill will (also) be submitted to Jewish communities abroad. The State of Israel, which was established as a haven for Jews from those who hate it, may instead wind up becoming a threat to Jews.

What do you do when the polls show that a solid majority of Israelis refuse to risk being among the 500 casualties of retaliatory Iranian missile strikes on which Defense Minister Ehud Barak is prepared to gamble? The Prime Minister’s Office takes comfort in polls showing increasing American support for military action against Iran. Netanyahu’s spokesmen managed to sell this dramatic headline to several important media outlets as a personal accomplishment by their boss.

Indeed, a Wall Street Journal/CNN poll published the day after Netanyahu’s address to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC showed that 52 percent of Americans favored a military strike on Iran if the only other option were standing idly by. But when the respondents were presented with a larger range of options, a completely different picture emerged.

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Walking Palestine

The Guardian reports: Mohammed Atari heaved the rock into position, its painted red and white sign marking a seven-mile trail across wheat fields, olive groves and gentle stony hills in the north of the West Bank. “When we started marking walking trails, people were suspicious,” he said. They feared the markers signified a new Israeli settlement or military zone.”

Walking for pleasure is a concept unfamiliar to most Palestinians. But over the past five years, hikers – mainly foreign diplomats, aid workers and journalists, but also locals – have become a more common sight in the West Bank. Their hikes range from the rolling lush hills and valleys of the north to the dramatic arid desert landscape of the south.

This week sees the publication of Walking Palestine, a guide to 25 walks, the fruits of a four-year project by a Dutch diplomat, Stefan Szepesi. It details tracks, paths and dirt roads; supplies maps and information on historical sites, wildlife and natural attractions; and provides practical details on local guides, parking, public transport, restaurants and places to stay.
Map – Walking in Palestine, Jenin Walking in Jenin.

Szepesi began walking in the West Bank soon after arriving to work for the EU; he later moved over to the Middle East Quartet. The outings were born of a need to escape the intensity of Jerusalem, but also a desire to get to know Palestinians and their land in a more intimate way than he could from the confines of a diplomatic mission headquarters.

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Human rights abuses by Syria’s armed opposition

Human Rights Watch addresses an “Open Letter to the Leaders of the Syrian Opposition”: We are writing to express our concern about increasing evidence, as described below, of kidnappings, the use of torture, and executions by armed Syrian opposition members and strongly urge you to work to ensure that all opposition members refrain from engaging in these unlawful practices.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented and condemned widespread violations by Syrian government security forces and officials, including disappearances, use of torture and forced televised confessions, arbitrary detentions, indiscriminate shelling of neighborhoods, and deaths in custody under torture. Now, in the face of evidence of human rights abuses by armed opposition members, Human Rights Watch calls on the leadership of leading opposition groups including the Syrian National Council (SNC) and its Military Bureau to condemn such practices by the armed opposition and to work to prevent such unlawful practices.

While the protest movement in Syria was overwhelmingly peaceful until September 2011, since then Human Rights Watch has documented apparent crimes and other abuses committed by armed opposition elements. These crimes and abuses include the kidnapping and detention of security force members, individuals identified as members of government-supported militias (referred to locally as shabeeha), and individuals identified as government allies or supporters. They also include the use of torture and the execution of security force members and civilians. Some of the attacks targeting Shias and Alawites appear to be motivated by sectarianism.

The New York Times reports: Armed Syrian defectors took their uprising into the heart of a heavily guarded and wealthy district of Damascus on Monday, clashing with security forces in what activists and residents called the most intense fighting in such a strategic area since the protests against President Bashar al-Assad began a year ago.

The flaring of violence in the Syrian capital followed a weekend in which bombers struck at government targets in both Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest cities, raising concerns that the scope of the armed uprising was expanding into places that had been largely spared from violence.

The clashes in Damascus also coincided with the arrival of a monitoring team sent by Kofi Annan, the special representative on Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League. Mr. Annan is trying to advance his effort to start a dialogue between the antagonists in the Syria conflict and open the way for humanitarian aid.

There were also signs that Russia, Mr. Assad’s most important foreign supporter, was exerting some pressure on him to allow a daily pause in the fighting and to permit outside aid to victims of the conflict, which the United Nations has estimated has left more than 8,000 dead and thousands more displaced.

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StratforLeaks: Google Ideas director involved in ‘regime change’

Al-Akhbar reports: Top Google execs, including the company’s CEO and one of Barack Obama’s major presidential campaign donors Eric Schmidt, informed the intelligence agency Stratfor about Google’s activities and internal communication regarding “regime change” in the Middle East, according to Stratfor emails released by WikiLeaks and obtained by Al-Akhbar. The other source cited was Google’s director for security and safety Marty Lev.

The briefings mainly focused on the movements of Jared Cohen, currently the director of Google Ideas, a “think/do-tank” billed as a vehicle for spreading American-style liberal democracy. Cohen was also a former member of US Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and former advisor to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Email exchanges, starting February 2011, suggest that Google execs were suspicious that Cohen was coordinating his moves with the White House and cut Cohen’s mission short at times for fear he was taking too many risks. Stratfor’s vice-president of counter-terrorism Fred Burton, who seemed opposed to Google’s alleged covert role in “foaming” uprisings, describes Cohen as a “loose Cannon” whose killing or kidnapping “might be the best thing to happen” to expose Google.

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