Category Archives: Lands

Four good reasons why Iran doesn’t trust America

Michael Crowley writes: [A]s the nuclear talks move forward, it’s worth remembering that the U.S. bears some blame for the poisoned state of the relationship between the two countries.

Consider the way Bill Clinton — then seeking a thaw with Iran — once put it. “It may be that the Iranian people have been taught to hate or distrust the United States or the West on the grounds that we are infidels and outside the faith,” Clinton said in April 1999. “I think it is important to recognize, however, that Iran … has been the subject of quite a lot of abuse from various Western nations. And I think sometimes it’s quite important to tell people, ‘Look, you have a right to be angry’” at things the U.S. has done.

Crowley then describes four grounds for Iranian anger: the 1953 coup and the Shah; Iraq and chemical weapons; the U.S. attack on Iran Air flight 655 in 1988 killing all 290 civilians on board, for which America never apologized; and the branding of Iran as part of the “axis of evil” even while Iran was supporting the U.S. war against the Taliban.

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Syria: ‘Chemical weapons sites’ and ‘rebel-held territory’

I get the sense that for some people, a belief that the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21 was carried out by rebels, has some of the elements of religious conviction. Faith can be sustained by the smallest of infrequent ‘signs’ — such a sign appeared in a New York Times report on Tuesday.

A Western diplomat in the Arab world said that though the Syrian government was legally responsible for dismantling its chemical weapons under an international agreement, its opponents should also cooperate in the process, because several chemical weapons sites were close to confrontation lines or within rebel-held territory.

Emptywheel reads this as “the clearest indication yet that it isn’t just access routes to chemical weapons sites that the rebels control, but that the rebels control some of the sites themselves.”

Not so fast. Firstly, given the short shelf-life of armed chemical weapons, we shouldn’t assume that a chemical weapons site necessarily contains any chemical weapons. It may only contain the materials necessary for assembling such weapons. Moreover, there’s a big difference between having access to such a site and having the knowledge to make use of what it contains.

Secondly — and just as important — chemical weapons sites “within rebel-held territory” does not necessarily imply chemical weapons sites under rebel control. Since the Assad regime retains control of all of Syrian air space, even where rebels might have closed off land routes to a particular site, it may still remain under government control and still be receiving supplies by air.

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Al Qaeda’s rise in northern Syria leaves Turkey with dilemma

Reuters reports: The rise of al Qaeda in parts of Syria’s north has left Turkey facing a new security threat on its already vulnerable border and raised questions about its wholesale support for rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey has long championed more robust backing for Syria’s fractious armed opposition, arguing it would bring a quicker end to Assad’s rule and give moderate forces the authority they needed to keep more radical Islamist elements in check.

But with Islamist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) taking territory in parts of the north near the border in recent weeks, it is a strategy that increasingly looks to have been a miscalculation.

Ankara has found itself facing accusations that indiscriminate support for the rebels has allowed weapons and foreign fighters to cross into northern Syria and facilitated the rise of radical groups.

“We are being accused of supporting al Qaeda,” a source close to the Turkish government said, adding that U.S. officials had raised concerns on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York last month.

“They were politely but aggressively critical. The attention has focused away from Assad to al Qaeda,” the source said, echoing frustration voiced by other officials in Ankara that this was playing into Assad’s hands.

As if on cue, the Turkish army said on Wednesday it had fired on ISIL fighters over the border after a stray mortar shell hit Turkish soil. It has retaliated in the past in such cases but this appeared to be the first time its response had targeted al Qaeda-linked fighters. [Continue reading…]

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Dozens of Syrian fighting groups break ties with main opposition, says rebel commander

The Associated Press reports: Several dozen rebel groups in southern Syria have broken with the main political opposition group in exile, a local commander said in a video posted Wednesday, dealing a potential new setback to Western efforts to unify moderates battling President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition, the political arm of the Free Syrian Army rebel group, has long struggled to win respect and recognition from the fighters. It is widely seen as cut off from events on the ground and ineffective in funneling aid and weapons to the rebels.

In the video, a rebel in military fatigues read a statement with about two dozen fighters standing behind him, some holding a banner with FSA emblems.

FSA spokesman Louay Mikdad told The Associated Press that the video is authentic and identified the man speaking as a captain in one of the rebel groups, Anwar al-Sunna, which posted the video.

The rebel in the video said political opposition leaders have failed to represent those trying to bring down Assad.

“We announce that we withdraw our recognition from any political group that claims to represents us, first among them the Coalition and its leadership which have relinquished the principles of the homeland and the revolution,” he said.

He named 66 groups that he said support his statement. The man suggested rebel groups would reorganize, saying that “we are unifying the forces of the revolution militarily and politically,” but did not explain further. [Continue reading…]

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British MPs set to investigate Guardian’s involvement in Snowden leaks

The Guardian reports: A powerful group of MPs will investigate the Guardian’s publication of stories about mass surveillance based on leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, as part of a wider inquiry into counter-terrorism.

Keith Vaz, the Labour head of the Commons home affairs committee, said he would look into “elements of the Guardian’s involvement in, and publication of, the Snowden leaks” hours after the prime minister suggested a select committee might look at the issue.

It had emerged the matter would be considered by Vaz’s parliamentary committee after former Tory cabinet minister Liam Fox asked him to investigate what damage the Guardian may have caused to national security.

“I have received a letter from Liam Fox requesting that the home affairs select committee consider elements of the Guardian’s involvement in, and publication of, the Snowden leaks,” Vaz said.

“I will be writing to assure Dr Fox that the committee is currently conducting an inquiry into counter-terrorism and we will be looking at this matter as part of it.”

A spokesman for Vaz could not confirm whether Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor-in-chief, would be called to give evidence, saying this would be a matter for all committee members to decide. [Continue reading…]

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The daily trauma that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill left behind

There are lots of problems with the term post-traumatic stress disorder — not merely that because of its common association with war, its prevalence among people unaffected by war tends to get overlooked.

The term itself is misleading in that it suggests an inability to recover from a traumatic event, whereas in reality, for individuals experiencing PTSD, the trauma is ongoing. It is much more of a present-traumatic stress disorder than post-traumatic.

Dahr Jamail reports: Most people believe only those who have experienced war can know post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But those living in the impact zone of BP’s 2010 oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico know differently.

John Gooding, a fisherman and resident of the coastal city of Pass Christian, Mississippi, began having health problems shortly after the disaster began. He became sicker with each passing month, and moved inland in an effort to escape continuing exposure to the chemicals after being diagnosed with toxic encephalitis.

He experiences seizures regularly, and two of his dogs even died of seizures from what he believes was chemical exposure.

“I’ve been married 25 years, and my wife and I’ve never had problems. But recently we’ve started having problems, mostly because of finances and my health,” Gooding told Al Jazeera.

“I can no longer work because of my physical sickness from the chemicals. My wife is struggling with depression, and is going through grief counselling due to having to deal with my ongoing health issues. Our savings is gone. Our retirement is gone. This has been a living hell and continues to be a nightmare.”

Gooding’s story is not uncommon among countless Gulf residents living in areas affected by the BP disaster.

“People are becoming more and more hopeless and feeling helpless,” Dr Arwen Podesta, a psychiatrist at Tulane University in New Orleans, told Al Jazeera back in August 2010. “They are feeling frantic and overwhelmed. There is already more PTSD and more problems with domestic violence, threats of suicide and alcohol and drugs.”

BP’s attempts to minimise the amount of compensation it pays to those affected is not helping to improve what now are chronic psychological, community, and personal impacts along the Gulf coast. [Continue reading…]

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Snowden leaks: David Cameron urges committee to investigate Guardian

The Guardian reports: David Cameron has encouraged a Commons select committee to investigate whether the Guardian has broken the law or damaged national security by publishing secrets leaked by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

He made his proposal in response to a question from former defence secretary Liam Fox, saying the Guardian had been guilty of double standards for exposing the scandal of phone hacking by newspapers and yet had gone on to publish secrets from the NSA taken by Snowden.

Speaking at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Cameron said: “The plain fact is that what has happened has damaged national security and in many ways the Guardian themselves admitted that when they agreed, when asked politely by my national security adviser and cabinet secretary to destroy the files they had, they went ahead and destroyed those files.

“So they know that what they’re dealing with is dangerous for national security. I think it’s up to select committees in this house if they want to examine this issue and make further recommendations.” [Continue reading…]

The Guardian knew that they were dealing with goons acting on the orders of Cameron’s intelligence chiefs who wouldn’t take no for an answer. They also knew that destroying the hard drives in question had no security significance whatsoever, given that copies of the files on those drives were all safe outside the UK.

On July 18th, [editor, Alan] Rusbridger received a call from Oliver Robbins, the U.K.’s deputy national-security adviser, alerting him that agents would be coming to the Guardian’s offices to seize the hard drives containing the Snowden files. Rusbridger again explained that the files were also on encrypted computers outside England, but his reasoning did not sway Robbins. Rusbridger asked if, instead, his staff members could destroy the files themselves, and Robbins consented. That Saturday, Rusbridger told associates to take the five laptops from the bunker to the basement and to smash the hard drives and circuit boards in front of two agents from the GCHQ.

If Cameron wants to draw any lesson from the incident, it should be that the editor of The Guardian is smarter than his own deputy national security adviser. By agreeing to let the drives get destroyed, the British government threw away its best opportunity to discover which files Snowden had taken — something that neither the NSA nor GCHQ has ever been able to establish.

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Saudis fret about U.S.-Iran ‘thaw’

Ian Black writes: Big changes make governments nervous, so it is striking to observe the jitters emanating from Saudi Arabia at the incipient thaw in relations between the US and Iran. Riyadh had long been rumbling with discontent over Washington’s responses to the Arab spring but their differences burst into the open with last month’s US-Russian deal to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons — putting Bashar al-Assad out of range of punitive air strikes. Now the prospect of agreement on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme is said to be giving the Saudi royals bad dreams.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have been strategic rivals since before the 1979 revolution – the shah was known as the “policeman of the Gulf” – as well as the respective leaders of the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. Iran’s position was inadvertently strengthened by the US-led invasion of Iraq and the installation of a Shia government in Baghdad. Tehran backs Assad and Hizbullah in Lebanon while Riyadh openly advocates regime change in Damascus. Syria’s conflict is indeed, in some ways, a proxy war.

The Saudis also fear Iran’s nuclear ambitions – King Abdullah famously urged the US to “cut off the head of the snake” – and have repeatedly signalled that they will acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. They blame Tehran – though without much evidence – for encouraging Shia opposition to the Sunni monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain. Shias in the kingdom’s eastern provinces face state repression and Saudi clerics have used inflammatory sectarian language over Syria, especially Assad’s Alawite community.

Saudi diplomacy is unusually opaque, so the signs of anxiety are subtle but unmistakable. Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, cancelled his speech to the UN general assembly out of pique at the Syria CW agreement. In private conversations senior Saudis are scathing about President Obama’s preference for inspections and disarmament over military action. Obama’s high-profile phone call with Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new president, is another big factor in this diplo-sulk. Like the Israelis, the Saudis do not believe, or do not want to believe, that Rouhani is a genuine moderate or can overcome hardline elements at home. Their fear is that in a much-touted “grand bargain” between Washington and Tehran, the Gulf states will be the losers. [Continue reading…]

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Eat cats and dogs, imam tells starving Syrians

The Telegraph reports: An imam in a rebel-held district of Damascus has issued a fatwa allowing residents to eat cats and dogs, in a desperate bid to ward off starvation after months under siege by the Assad regime.

Salah al-Khatib, the cleric who issued the edict, said he had been left with no choice but to lift the usual restrictions under Islamic law, after government forces and pro-regime militias choked off food and medical supplies to three rebel-held suburbs of Damascus and to a camp housing Palestinian refugees.

This is “not because it is religiously permitted, but because it is a reflection of the reality we are suffering”, Mr Khatib told AFP on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in these areas, some of them living under siege for more than a year. Residents have told The Telegraph that as food has run out, they have been forced in recent weeks to survive on stray dogs, rotting animal carcasses, tree leaves and weeds.

“I have watched the poorer families eat stray dogs because they have nothing else,” said Ehab, a resident of the Yarmouk camp, speaking to The Telegraph via Skype. “There is no food here now.” [Continue reading…]

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Israel’s brain drain crisis

Max Fisher writes: For decades, educated and talented Jews from around the world and particularly Europe have migrated to Israel, contributing to an Israeli economic boom that began in the late 1980s and has continued since. In recent years, though, some Israelis have been going the other direction, migrating back to Europe or to the United States. That development has sparked particular concern in Israel about losing some of its highly educated, entrepreneurial citizens – the sort who helped drive the economic miracle.

That anxiety was crystallized for Israel with this year’s list of Nobel Prize laureates. The chemistry prize went to three Americans, two of whom were born in Israel but had immigrated to the United States. It’s felt like a reversal of the natural order for Israel, which prides itself on attracting other countries’ talent. The Nobel was a symbol of that: Of Israel’s 11 Nobel laureates, six had been born in other countries before immigrating.

These two chemists, of course, don’t definitively prove anything about Israel’s trajectory. But this was a live debate in Israel long before the Nobel announcement, which the Associated Press says has “touched a raw nerve about an exodus of scientists, academics and business leaders over the years, and fueled an anguished debate about whether the country can do more to retain its best talent.”

A recent study by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel found that, since just 2008, a little over one in five faculty members at Israeli universities have left the country to work at American universities. Another study found that one in four Israeli scientists had left the country. [Continue reading…]

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Al Qaeda’s Syrian strategy

Barak Barfi and Aaron Y. Zelin write: Al Qaeda is storming across northern Syria. Last month, the al Qaeda affiliate the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) captured the city of al-Bab in the northern province of Aleppo from a rival rebel militia. The capture of the city, one of the largest in the region, gives ISIS control over a key transit point linking Aleppo to its strongholds to the east. And that’s just the latest in a long string of ISIS’s military successes: After brief clashes with outgunned rebel opponents, ISIS took the towns of Azaz and Jarablus, which straddle Syria’s border with Turkey.

To commemorate its victories, the first thing ISIS did in these places was hang its black flag from the top of the highest building. After that, it began to gradually impose its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

ISIS has embarked on al Qaeda’s most comprehensive campaign yet to win Arab hearts and minds by providing social services to a war-ravaged society. But though the organization’s star is ascendant, its abuses, coupled with an international strategy to limit its influence, could still torpedo its plan to transform northern Syria into an Islamic emirate under its command.

ISIS is thought to count 5,000 to 6,000 fighters within its ranks. That means it’s a lot smaller than other rebel groups, such as the hard-line Salafi Syrian Islamic Front, which boasts 15,000 to 20,000 fighters. But ISIS has one important advantage: Many of its members have previously fought in other jihads, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya.

Nowhere is ISIS stronger than in the northern province of Raqqa. It controls the governorate’s capital, Raqqa city, whose prewar population of approximately 277,300 residents has mushroomed due to an influx of displaced persons from other regions. Meanwhile, the brigades affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are focused on squabbling among themselves. As a result, no FSA unit is strong enough to challenge the group in Raqqa, making it the largest city al Qaeda has ever controlled in the Islamic world.

ISIS has exploited its grip on the region to supply the provincial capital with the commodities essential to function. It provides most of the wheat for the city’s bread factories, trucking the grain in from its silos in the northern parts of the province on the border with Turkey. It also delivers the majority of the city’s oil needs, drawing on rebel-controlled wells in eastern Syria.

ISIS is doing far more than keeping the lights on. It runs a court with a mix of judges and religious scholars that draws on a strict interpretation of Islamic law. It adjudicates cases ranging from theft to financial malfeasance. According to Raqqan politicians and residents, in one ruling this summer the court ordered that a house confiscated by a rebel brigade be returned to its owner. It also provides abandoned houses to those whose living quarters were destroyed by regime bombings.

ISIS’s Raqqa Outreach Bureau, meanwhile, is trying to educate residents in what it considers the proper teachings of Islam. Raqqan politicians and residents say that the organization distributes pocket Qurans and flash drives with jihadi chants and videos showing the group’s military operations. Some of the leaflets that ISIS circulates include: “The Prohibition of Democracy,” “The Virtue of Jihad Over Remaining Silent,” and “Excommunicating the Alawites” — the latter a reference to the heterodox minority sect to which President Bashar al-Assad’s clan belongs. Nor has ISIS just restricted its attention to adults: It recently opened a children’s school in a city where the education system ceased functioning long ago.

By providing such services, ISIS seeks to prove that al Qaeda can make positive contributions and build institutions to serve society. Unlike in Iraq, the organization has produced dozens of videos highlighting this outreach. In doing so, the group hopes to illustrate that it has learned the lessons of its failures in the last decade, when Iraqi Sunnis rebelled against al Qaeda’s brutal ways. “As for our mistakes, we do not deny them,” ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami noted in a July 30 audio release. “Rather, we will continue to make mistakes as long as we are humans. God forbid that we commit mistakes deliberately.”

Despite these efforts, however, ISIS has proved unable to avoid the mistakes that have caused it to lose support in countries such as Mali and Yemen. The al Qaeda affiliate continues to persecute anti-Assad activists who don’t agree with its hard-line Islamic vision — the incarceration of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, an outspoken regime critic, has particularly angered Raqqans, according to residents of the city.

In other areas of northern Syria, the horror stories have been even worse. In Aleppo province, ISIS imprisoned a 14-year-old girl in dungeon-like conditions for use in a prisoner exchange, according to a fellow inmate. As a consequence of ISIS’s growing strength, many journalists have been kidnapped — and many more have opted to stay out of Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Crush of Syrian refugees overwhelming efforts to help, aid groups say

McClatchy reports: Only weeks ahead of what forecasters say could be a brutal winter, humanitarian aid agencies working on the Syrian conflict are sounding the alarm that little is being done to provide assistance to a refugee population that’s expected to reach 3 million by the end of the year.

The United Nations has collected only half of the $5 billion it needs to provide assistance, and humanitarian aid groups say they’re resigned that they’ll be able to provide help to only a portion of the 2 million refugees outside Syria and the millions more who’ve fled their home but remain in Syria.

“The reality is, a huge amount of aid is needed and as long as countries are sending guns and ammunition rather than food or blankets, the crisis is only going to worsen,” said Noah Gottschalk, senior humanitarian policy adviser for Oxfam America, an international aid group that focuses on poverty and hunger.

“It’s not too late, but it’s getting closer and closer. The clock is ticking,” Gottschalk added, referring to the narrow window of opportunity to mobilize winter aid before communities begin to suffer and roads to some areas become impassable. [Continue reading…]

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Ignoring Bahrain’s iron fist

Sarah Margon and Mary Laurie write: For two years, as the United States has condemned massive abuses of protesters throughout the Middle East, it has largely turned a blind eye to equally horrific treatment in Bahrain, a small but significant ally. As the situation in Manama shows no sign of abating, the United States needs to step up its game– before it’s too late.

Last week, a Bahraini court sentenced 50 Shiites, including the human rights activist Naji Fateel, to harsh prison terms of up to 15 years after a mass trial allegedly linking the activists to the “February 14” movement, which it claims is working to overthrow the government. February 14 is the date in 2011 when the recent protest movement began. The leaders of those largely peaceful protests remain in prison and have been joined over the past two years by other activists convicted solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

A week before the sentencing, U.S. President Barack Obama made an unexpected reference to Bahrain, alongside Iraq and Syria, as a country fraught with sectarian tensions that challenge democracy and regional stability in his September 24 address to the U.N. General Assembly. This reference prompted the Bahraini foreign affairs minister to issue a statement extolling the country’s culture as tolerant. Bahrain’s U.S. ambassador also responded, contending the speech did not properly portray Bahrain’s progressive and open-minded society.

The presidential mention ruffled feathers in Manama — a sure sign of U.S. diplomatic leverage there — but it was not enough to stop last week’s sentencing. [Continue reading…]

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Iran presents ‘timetable’ to end nuclear talks deadlock

The Guardian reports: The Iranian delegation to international talks in Geneva has presented proposals which it claims will end the longstanding deadlock over its nuclear programme.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave an hour-long PowerPoint presentation of the proposals, entitled “Closing an unnecessary crisis: Opening new horizons”, to senior diplomats from the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China at the Palace of Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.

The presentation was not made public, but it is believed to lay out a timetable for a confidence-building deal that would place limits on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for relief from sanctions and international recognition of the country’s right to enrich uranium.

The presentation marked the opening gambit in the first round of negotiations between the new Iranian government of President Hassan Rouhani and the six-nation negotiating group chaired by the EU foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton. All sides have described the talks as the most constructive for years.

Unlike previous negotiations, the two days of talks are being carried out in English, as Zarif and his deputy, Abbas Araqchi, are fluent, so they moved at at least twice the speed, without the need for interpreters.

Speaking to reporters after the presentation, Araqchi said: “We believe our proposal has the capacity to make a breakthrough.”

He said the Iranian plan set out a timeline of six months to get to a deal and that Iran hoped the next step, a new round of talks on the details of a deal, would take place within a month. [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu’s absurd demand that Israel be recognized ‘as a Jewish state’

M.J. Rosenberg writes: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave a major speech the other day at Bar Ilan University. Most of it was saber rattling at Iran. But enough of it was about the Palestinians to steel my belief that negotiating with Netanyahu is a waste of time and that Kerry’s initiative is a charade.

The centerpiece of his discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was this: his demand that Palestinians recognize Israel “as a Jewish state.”

This is the nation state of the Jewish people….Recognize the Jewish state. As long as you refuse to do so, there will never be peace. Recognize our right to live here in our own sovereign state, our nation state – only then will peace be possible. I emphasize this here – this is an essential condition.

It’s a new demand, one that only became Israeli policy when Netanyahu came to office. Every prime minister prior to Netanyahu only demanded that the Palestinians recognize Israel. But then, on September 9, 1993, PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat sent this statement to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (in exchange for Rabin’s recognition of the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people). This agreement stands to this day and is recognized as binding by both sides.

The PLO recognizes the right of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations resolutions 242 and 338. The PLO commits itself to the peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues related to final status will be resolved through negotiations.

This commitment — encompassing Palestinian acceptance of Israel’s three long-standing conditions – led to Rabin’s agreement to begin negotiations with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu, who was then leader of the Likud opposition, vehemently opposed Rabin’s acceptance of Arafat’s concessions and began a campaign of incitement against Rabin himself. He understood then, as he does now, that Palestinian recognition of Israel meant that the largest obstacle to a land-for-peace agreement was gone. [Continue reading…]

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Naming the dead: the victims of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Over the past nine years, the tribal region of Pakistan’s north west has been hit by hundreds of drone attacks as the CIA has sought to stamp out al Qaeda fighters and the militant groups that have given them shelter.

Missiles launched from these high-tech, unmanned aircraft have hit homes, cars, schools, shops and gatherings. At least 2,500 people have been killed, according to data already collected by the Bureau as part of our wider Covert Drone War research.

Senior US officials have described drones as highly precise weapons that target and kill enemies of the US. John Brennan, who oversaw the development of the drone campaign and is now director of the CIA, has called drone technology an ‘essential tool’ for its ‘surgical precision – the ability, with laser-like focus, to eliminate the cancerous tumour called an al Qaeda terrorist while limiting damage to the tissue around it.’

Those killed by drones include high-ranking militant leaders – figures such as Abu Yahya al Libi, al Qaeda’s feared second-in-command, or Baitullah Mehsud, commander of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP).

But according to credible media reports analysed by the Bureau, the dead also include at least 400 civilians. Some were unlucky enough to be nearby when militants were attacked. Others were killed alongside their husbands or fathers, who were believed to be militants. Still others were mistaken for terrorists by drone operators sitting thousands of miles away.

In most cases, there is little information available about who the drones are really killing. Most of the dead – an estimated four-fifths of those killed – are believed to be militants. But their deaths are typically reported as a number – their names, origins and livelihoods remain a mystery.

For so many people to die in obscurity, unnamed and unacknowledged, is a tragedy. But it is a further tragedy that the public, and even policy makers, are unable to properly test whether drones are ‘highly precise weapons’ when so little is known about who is actually dying.

Through Naming the Dead, the Bureau aims to increase the transparency around this conflict and inform the public debate. Initially this project will record all names published in open-source material – in credible reports by journalists, in legal documents presented in court, in academic studies and in field investigations carried out by human rights groups. [Continue reading…]

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Farewell to Syria, for a while

The Syrian writer and political dissident, Yassin al-Haj Saleh, recently fled from Damascus where he had been in hiding for the last two years, and returned to Raqqa, the city of his youth where he hoped to be reunited with several of his brothers. During a grueling 19-day journey to reach the city, he learned that two of his brothers had been captured and that the city was now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al Qaeda.

Yassin-al-Haj-SalehIn Raqqa, I spent two months and a half in hiding without succeeding in getting one piece of information about my brother Firas. Nothing could be worse than this. Therefore, instead of celebrating my arrival at Raqqa, I had to keep in hiding in my own liberated city, watching strangers oppress it and rule the fates of its people, confiscating public property, destroying a statue of Haroun Al-Rasheed or desecrating a church; taking people into custody where they disappeared in their prisons. All the prisoners were rebel political activists while none of them was chosen from the regime’s previous loyalists or shabiha. With the exception of this flagrant oppression of the people, their property and symbols, the new rulers have shown no sign of the spirit of public responsibility which is supposed to be the duty of those who are in power.

I wished to stay in Raqqa for the longest possible time to understand why events had taken this turn and to form an idea about the new leaders. I was able to collect some useful information but not as much as I had wished because I was not able to explore the city’s streets and listen to the people tell me their stories, not to mention holding interviews with the Emirs of the State of Iraq and the Levant and their mujahideen.

Not to walk in the streets of Raqqa in autumn? This is not an adequate reason for leaving, yet it is quite important on its own for me. At the onset of the Revolution, I used to say jokingly to my friends: I wish to topple the regime so as to get a passport. I wanted a passport to feel free and to travel where I wished. Today I leave behind comrades who will carry the struggle on. Our presence together inside the country used to give us courage and the strength to continue. I do not feel bitter, but I am a little angry. I realize how impossible our situation has become, yet notwithstanding, I feel that whenever I am able to understand something or shed light on another, I believe I am taming the brutal multi- headed monster which wants to keep us in darkness, without the right to speak up, and not desiring but what it desires.

What frightens me most now is not to be able to understand the world outside Syria and for things to lose their clarity for me. I used to understand things Syrian. Syria was my country. I do not know exactly what I am going to do in exile. I always felt ill at ease with this word. It seems to me to be making a mockery of the people still inside the country. Perhaps its meaning will change and expand to include the whole of our terrible experience: the experience of uprootedness, seeking asylum, dispersion then eventually the hope of return. I do not know exactly what I am going to do, but I am now part of this massive Syrian exodus and the dreamt of return, although it feels right now as an amputation.

This is our country which is all that we have. I know that there is no other country that can be as merciful to us as this terrible country.

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Assad expresses respect for the West and contempt for Arabs and Hamas

The Lebanese Al-Akhbar English interviewed Bashar al-Assad:

Assad is bitter. “Not one Arab official has contacted us with a plan for mediation or for an Arab solution,” he says. The Arabs, he says, were always only an echo of their Western “masters,” if not worse.

The Syrian president adds that the West, despite all its flaws, “Always dealt with us more honorably than some Arabs.” Kofi Annan was honest and resigned, he remarks, while his Arab aides were not.

The conversation moves to Hamas when the president is asked about the reports regarding Meshaal’s visit to Tehran, and whether Damascus, specifically the presidential palace, would be his next stop. But Assad is keen on clarifying everything in this regard, ending all equivocation.

First, Assad says that the Muslim Brotherhood, for 80 years, has been known for its opportunism and betrayal, but stresses that Damascus did not treat Hamas in the beginning as being part of the international Islamist organization. “The Europeans would come to us and ask what Hamas was doing here, and we would say that it was a resistance movement,” the Syrian president says, adding that only that capacity made Syria welcome and sponsor Hamas.

Assad says, “When the crisis began, [Hamas officials] claimed that they gave us advice. This is a lie. Who are they to give Syria advice? Then they said that we asked for their help, which is also not true. What business do they have in internal Syrian affairs?”

Later, the president of the World Federation of Muslim Scholars, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, made his insulting statements about Syria. Assad says, “Yes, we demanded that they take a stance. A while later, they came and said that they spoke with Qaradawi. We said that those who want to take a political stance should do so publicly. What value does a stance have if taken in closed rooms?”

Estrangement between Hamas and the Syrian regime ensued. Assad holds that Hamas ultimately decided to abandon resistance and to fully merge with the Muslim Brotherhood. He adds, “This was not the first time they had betrayed us. It happened before in 2007 and 2009. Their history is one of treachery and betrayal.” Assad then wished “someone would persuade them to return to being a resistance movement,” but says that he doubts this will happen. “Hamas has sided against Syria from day one. They have made their choice,” he adds.

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