Video: Is Algeria immune to the ‘Arab Spring’?
Shlomo Sand, author of ‘The Invention of the Land of Israel’, receives death threat
Haaretz reports: Prof. Shlomo Sand, a Tel Aviv University history professor, said Sunday that he had received an envelope containing white powder and a letter that included death threats.
In the letter, which was received by the secretary of the university’s Department of History, the professor was accused of being an “anti-Semitic,” among other things. The letter also threatened Sand that he would “not live much longer.”
In a conversation with Haaretz, Sand said, “I opened a series of letters as usual, and then all of a sudden a white cloud jumped out. I was shocked that the powder got on to my hands and threw down the letter. It’s been brought to the attention of the security officer and the police sent a squad car to the site and the substance was taken for a test.”
Sand, who intends on filing a complaint with Israel Police on Monday, said he was concerned after having received the letter. “They wrote that I’m an anti-Semite, Nazi, that my time will come. It’s a very unpleasant feeling,” he said.
The history professor said it was possible that his new book, “The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland,” might have been what caused someone to send him the letter. “Four years ago, when I published my previous book, ‘The Invention of the Jewish People,’ there were fewer crazy people than there are today,” Sand told Haaretz.
Israel warned of volatile situation as Palestinian hunger strikers near death
The Guardian reports: Demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza in support of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are escalating amid efforts by Egyptian mediators to broker a deal to avoid protests spiralling out of control if a detainee dies.
Two prisoners, who have refused food for 77 days, are thought to be close to death with another six in a critical condition, say Palestinian groups. The Israeli prison service (IPS) says no one’s life is at risk.
In an unusual intervention, Tony Blair, the representative of the Middle East quartet, urged Israel to “take all necessary measures to prevent a tragic outcome that could have serious implications for stability and security conditions on the ground”. He said he was “increasingly concerned about the deteriorating health conditions” of hunger strikers.
Earlier, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said the situation was “very dangerous”. He told Reuters: “If anyone dies … it would be a disaster and no one could control the situation.” Abbas has appealed to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to intervene.
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament, told a solidarity rally in Jaffa: “If one of the striking prisoners dies, a third intifada [uprising] will break out.”
According to Physicians for Human Rights, there is no previous recorded case of anyone surviving without food or supplements for more than 75 days. IRA hunger strike Bobby Sands died after 66 days in 1981.
Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood is gaining influence over anti-Assad revolt
The Washington Post reports: After three decades of persecution that virtually eradicated its presence, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has resurrected itself to become the dominant group in the fragmented opposition movement pursuing a 14-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
Exiled Brotherhood members and their supporters hold the biggest number of seats in the Syrian National Council, the main opposition umbrella group. They control its relief committee, which distributes aid and money to Syrians participating in the revolt. The Brotherhood is also moving on its own to send funding and weapons to the rebels, who continued to skirmish Saturday with Syrian troops despite a month-old U.N.-brokered cease-fire.
The revival marks an extraordinary comeback for an organization that was almost annihilated after the last revolt in Syria, which ended in the killing by government forces of as many as 25,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982. Only those who managed to flee abroad survived the purge.
The Brotherhood’s rise is stirring concerns in some neighboring countries and in the wider international community that the fall of the minority Alawite regime in Damascus would be followed by the ascent of a Sunni Islamist government, extending into a volatile region a trend set in Egypt and Tunisia. In those countries, Brotherhood-affiliated parties won the largest number of parliamentary seats in post-revolution elections.
Brotherhood leaders say they have been reaching out to Syria’s neighbors, including Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon — as well as to U.S. and European diplomats — to reassure them that they have no intention of dominating a future Syrian political system or establishing any form of Islamist government.
“These concerns are not legitimate when it comes to Syria, for many reasons,” said Molham al-Drobi, who is a member of the Brotherhood’s leadership and sits on the Syrian National Council’s foreign affairs committee.
“First, we are a really moderate Islamic movement compared to others worldwide. We are open-minded,” Drobi said. “And I personally do not believe we could dominate politics in Syria even if we wanted to. We don’t have the will, and we don’t have the means.”
Iraq’s lawmakers take care of themselves
The Associated Press reports: Iraq’s lawmakers have hightailed it out of town for a six-week vacation without following through on promises to cancel a pricey perk for free armored cars that they approved for themselves in the annual budget.
It is the sort of move that is fueling resentments among the struggling Iraqi public, many of whom accuse the country’s leaders of being corrupt and only in politics for their own profit. For months, parliament has failed to rework the $100 billion budget that came under widespread criticism or pass a list of laws to tackle the country’s numerous problems.
“They have not discussed ways of how to improve the lives of people like me,” said Ammar Hassan, a college graduate from Karbala who drives a taxi to support himself. “They only think about themselves instead of paying attention to people’s welfare.”
The 39-year-old Hassan said he earns an average of about $200 each month — a fraction of the monthly $22,500 salary afforded to each of the 325 lawmakers in parliament. [Note: Members of the U.S. Congress pay themselves $14,500 a month.]
“I’m afraid the day will come when lawmakers pass a law imposing taxes on ordinary people’ salaries and incomes to cover their own living costs,” he said bitterly.
Iraq’s government has been rife with corruption going back to the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein, who hoarded the nation’s oil riches for himself and his cronies amid an impoverished public. Hopes that conditions would dramatically improve as Iraq tried to build a post-Saddam democracy proved overly optimistic, however. A quarter of Iraq’s population of 31 million people live in poverty, and an estimated 15 percent are unemployed, according to U.S. data compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Raw sewage runs through the streets in many neighborhoods, polluting tap water, sickening residents and adding to an overall sense of misery. Many Iraqis only have 12 hours of electricity each day. (H/t John Robertson)
How the State Dept has wasted hundreds of millions on training programs Iraq doesn’t want
The New York Times reports: In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed — and may jettison entirely by the end of the year — a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.
What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 American law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by the end of this year.
The training effort, which began in October and has already cost $500 million, was conceived of as the largest component of a mission billed as the most ambitious American aid effort since the Marshall Plan. Instead, it has emerged as the latest high-profile example of the waning American influence here following the military withdrawal, and it reflects a costly miscalculation on the part of American officials, who did not count on the Iraqi government to assert its sovereignty so aggressively.
“I think that with the departure of the military, the Iraqis decided to say, ‘O.K., how large is the American presence here?’ ” said James F. Jeffrey, the American ambassador to Iraq, in an interview. “How large should it be? How does this equate with our sovereignty? In various areas they obviously expressed some concerns.”
Last year the State Department embarked on $343 million worth of construction projects around the country to upgrade facilities to accommodate the police training program, which was to have comprised hundreds of trainers and more than 1,000 support staff members working in three cities — Baghdad, Erbil and Basra — for five years. But like so much else in the nine years of war, occupation and reconstruction here, it has not gone as planned.
A lesson given by an American police instructor to a class of Iraqi trainees neatly encapsulated the program’s failings. There are two clues that could indicate someone is planning a suicide attack, the instructor said: a large bank withdrawal and heavy drinking.
The problem with that advice, which was recounted by Ginger Cruz, the former deputy inspector general at the American Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, was that few Iraqis have bank accounts and an extremist Sunni Muslim bent on carrying out a suicide attack is likely to consider drinking a cardinal sin.
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama’s clean energy strategy
The Guardian reports: A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama’s energy agenda.
A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.
Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.
The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.
The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled ‘wind warriors’ from across the country in Washington DC last February.
“These documents show for the first time that local Nimby anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry,” said Gabe Elsner, a co-director of the Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal and other documents.
Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing “subversion in message of industry so that it effectively because so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it.”
It suggests setting up “dummy businesses” to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a “counter-intelligence branch” to track the wind energy industry. It also calls for spending $750,000 to create an organisation with paid staff and tax-exempt status dedicated to building public opposition to state and federal government policies encouraging the wind energy industry.
Spain’s indignado protesters mark anniversary of anti-austerity rallies
The Guardian reports: Tens of thousands of “indignado” protesters have taken part in overnight rallies across Spain, with police evicting a few hundred hardcore demonstrators from city squares during the largely peaceful protests.
At least 100,000 people took to the streets across dozens of towns and cities to mark the first anniversary of the Occupy Madrid’s movement.
“They don’t represent us!” was the most common chant directed at the country’s politicians as a carnival atmosphere reigned in cities such as Puerta del Sol. Protesters there included parents with young children on their shoulders and a group of pensioners called The Indignant Grandparents.
A new conservative government led by Mariano Rajoy has banned camps this year. Its attempts to impose time limits on the protests failed, however, with thousands of chanting people still occupying Puerta Sol’s city square at midnight, despite being told to leave at 10pm.
Police acted calmly and moved into squares between 2am and 5am on Sunday morning, when indignado numbers had reduced.
Training terrorists to catch terrorists
Philip Knightley describes how the Saudi-CIA operation that foiled the latest al Qaeda bombing plot, employed a technique first used in the Soviet Union.
When the story of the foiled bomb plot first broke it seemed too good to be true. The security authorities had intercepted a man carrying a supposedly undetectable bomb which was being examined at the FBI laboratories in Quantico, Virginia. This suggested an amazing piece of intelligence work. What had led the authorities to the man? Why were they suspicious of him? Had they been tipped off? As details emerged it became apparent that the action was rather more straightforward.
In the tradition of [the founder of the KGB, Felix] Dzerzhinski, the Saudi intelligence service had apparently “dangled” one of its agents in front of known al-Qa’ida members hoping for a “bite”. To make the bait attractive, the agent, it later emerged, was a British passport holder. Al-Qa’ida was fooled and handed him the bomb with instructions to smuggle it on a plane bound for the United States. He handed it over to the Saudis. It seems likely that the Saudis passed on the information the agent had gathered on al-Qa’ida to enable the US to mount a drone attack on an al-Qaida leader in Yemen. The Saudis are thought to have planned more operations for its star undercover agent but were forced to abandon them when the story leaked to the Western media. Thus espionage history repeated itself, and echoes can be heard of the most famous of all counter-espionage operations in the Soviet Union, the Trust.
The Trust appeared to be a huge anti-Bolshevik organisation working from Moscow to overthrow the Communists and reverse the revolution. Instead,Dzerzhinski used it to identify anti-communists. All he needed to do was set up the organisation and wait to see who joined it. He could then choose when to roll it up and arrest its members or whether to let it run in the hope of revealing bigger prey.
In intelligence circles the Trust became a textbook operation and its principles copied worldwide. But to be most effective required a ruthlessness that Western services often felt unable to carry out. For instance, if the authenticity of a front organisation was questioned, the KGB did not hesitate to initiate a terrorist incident to reinforce the organisation’s reputation. So the Trust would plant bombs that would kill innocent people just so that possible recruits would think it a genuine organisation.
Ex-Taliban leader-turned peace negotiator shot dead in Afghan capital
The Washington Post reports: A former Taliban leader-turned peace negotiator was assassinated by an unidentified gunmen in a brazen attack in the Afghan capital on Sunday.
Arsala Rahmani was gunned down by three armed men traveling in a car near a downtown part of the city as Rahmani headed to his office from his home, officials said.
“He died from bullet wound on the way to the hospital,” General Mohammad Zaher, chief for the criminal branch of Kabul police said by phone.
“It is a big loss for Afghanistan. He was thinking about peace and about key national issues,” said Nisar Hares, a lawmaker and close colleague of Rahmani who was also serving as senator apart from running a commission in the government-appointed High Peace Council (HPC).
The embassy of the United States, which is the main donor for the HPC, described the assassination as a tragedy.
No group has claimed responsibility for the killing. Taliban insurgents said they were not behind it, although the guerrillas, while announcing the launch of their annual spring offensive early this month, said the militants would target members of the HPC among others.
Last year, a suicide bomber, posing as an emissary for the Taliban insurgents, killed HPC head Burhanuddin Rabbani in his Kabul home. Rabbani’s killing led to the collapse of HPC’s unsuccessful efforts for reaching out to the insurgents.
Afghan government officials at the time accused neighboring Pakistan in the killing, with suspicion falling largely on the Taliban, which still has neither taken nor denied responsibility for the assassination.
NATO: Pakistan may be unwelcome at Afghan War summit
Yahoo News reports: When President Barack Obama welcomes NATO leaders to Chicago in ten days for a high-stakes summit on the war in Afghanistan, there could be a big gap in the alliance’s talks on strategy — a hole the size and shape of Pakistan.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen strongly suggested at his monthly press conference on Friday that Pakistan would not be welcome at the May 20-21 gathering unless it reopens key supply routes into Afghanistan.
“We have actually invited a number of countries from the region — neighbors of Afghanistan, Central Asian countries, Russia — because they provide important transit arrangements to the benefit of our operation,” he said.
“But, as you also know, our transit routes through Pakistan are currently blocked so we have to continue our dialogue with Pakistan with a view to finding a solution to that because that’s really a matter of concern,” Rasmussen said.
The secretary general also echoed past statements from leaders like President Barack Obama that no Afghanistan war strategy can ultimately be successful without Pakistan’s help.
“If we are to ensure long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan, we also need a positive engagement of Pakistan,” he said.
White House officials declined to comment on the record about Rasmussen’s comments. But an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yahoo News that “The U.S. and NATO want to see these lines opened up, and it would be preferable to have Pakistan participating in Chicago.”
“But we’ll have to see what progress Pakistan can make in the coming days to determine whether they might ultimately be issued an invitation,” the official said. Rasmussen’s comments came two weeks after the Pentagon released an Afghanistan war progress report that highlighted “both long-term and acute challenges” of the conflict, and warned that the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies “still operate with impunity from sanctuaries in Pakistan.”
Video: Half a million Afghans displaced by war
The amygdala made who do it?
James Atlas writes: Why are we thinking so much about thinking these days? Near the top of best-seller lists around the country, you’ll find Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” followed by Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business,” and somewhere in the middle, where it’s held its ground for several months, Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” Recently arrived is “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior,” by Leonard Mlodinow.
It’s the invasion of the Can’t-Help-Yourself books.
Unlike most pop self-help books, these are about life as we know it — the one you can change, but only a little, and with a ton of work. Professor Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in economic science a decade ago, has synthesized a lifetime’s research in neurobiology, economics and psychology. “Thinking, Fast and Slow” goes to the heart of the matter: How aware are we of the invisible forces of brain chemistry, social cues and temperament that determine how we think and act? Has the concept of free will gone out the window?
These books possess a unifying theme: The choices we make in day-to-day life are prompted by impulses lodged deep within the nervous system. Not only are we not masters of our fate; we are captives of biological determinism. Once we enter the portals of the strange neuronal world known as the brain, we discover that — to put the matter plainly — we have no idea what we’re doing. [Continue reading…]
Music: Jon Hassell — ‘Maarifa Street’
Video: Tunisian president has ‘nightmares’ of yet another revolution
Turbulence in the south is threatening the stability of Libya
The Economist reports: delegation of the National Transitional Council, Libya’s ruling authority, was all smiles as it flew back to Tripoli, the capital, after a day in Kufra, a trading post deep in the Sahara desert some 1,700km (1,056 miles) to the south. There tribal feuding in the past two months has left scores dead. The councillors were congratulating themselves for persuading tribal leaders to accept a ceasefire, to recognise the authority of the council in Tripoli, and to promise to uphold Libya’s unity. But no sooner had the jet that once belonged to the late Colonel Muammar Qaddafi taken off than fighting flared there again.
Since the dictator was ousted after 42 years in power, the national council has been struggling to assert its authority, which is meant to encompass the 6,000km of borders that make Libya Africa’s fourth-largest country by area. In the centre and south of the country, Berbers and black Africans have been battling with Arab tribes for control of the towns and outposts, along with their smuggling routes. Libya’s hinterland, from Zwara near the Tunisian border in the north-west to Kufra, which abuts Egypt and Sudan in the south-east, is awash with weapons looted from the colonel’s armouries.
Local identities and loyalties, long suppressed under the colonel’s rule, have re-emerged with a vengeance. Militias from the coast have arrived in the south to bolster hard-pressed Arab tribes. Sub-Saharan Africans have arrived from the other direction to reinforce the black Toubou tribes of southern Libya. Gun-running has fostered uprisings by the Tuareg (akin to Berbers) fighting for their homeland in Mali. Chad and Niger have also got caught in the post-Qaddafi backlash. Even Tunisia and Egypt have been peripherally affected.
Colin Powell gets mad at me
Jon Schwarz writes: In his new book, It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership, Colin Powell writes this about his 2003 presentation at the United Nations about Iraq’s supposed WMD: “I get mad when bl*ggers accuse me of lying – of knowing the information was false. I didn’t.”
Well, I’m a blugger, and I accuse Colin Powell of lying. The evidence is overwhelming that he knew much of what he said in front of the Security Council was false.
This may not seem plausible to people who know Powell only via the media image he’s carefully constructed over decades – that of being Washington’s last honorable man. As journalist Margaret Carlson said in 2003, “Whatever Colin does, I’ll go with.”
But in fact Powell’s image has about as much to do with reality as what he told the UN. Though his entire career Powell has eagerly bent the truth to please his superiors. He started his climb up the Army ladder by covering up the massacre of civilians by U.S. troops in Vietnam, even serving as a character witness for a general who apparently shot Vietnamese from helicopters for fun. During the 1980s, when Powell was assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, he also helped cover up the Iran-contra scandal, and almost certainly deceived congressional investigators. (If there were a Museum of Washington’s Funniest Lies, it would have its own wing for Powell’s statement that, “To my recollection, I don’t have a recollection.”)
So everyone’s default assumption should have been that Powell would lie to Americans and the world at the UN. And – as anyone can see just by looking at what’s in the public record – he did. Below is a look line by line through Powell’s presentation to demonstrate the chasm between what he knew and what he said. [Continue reading…]
Video: Waiting for Armageddon
Waiting for Armageddon: America’s 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world’s future is foretold in Biblical prophecy – from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world – in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful – and potentially explosive – alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel…an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls “World War III.”
(If you have problems viewing this video, it can also be viewed at YouTube.)