“The American president could hardly have envisaged a more unfavorable climate for his Middle East tour. Expected this morning in Jerusalem to participate in celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, George W. Bush will have few other reasons to rejoice during a tour that will also take him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and which is likely to illustrate the failure of his policies in the region. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is on the brink of collapse. In Lebanon, the pro-Western government of Fouad Siniora is suffering a Hezbullah onslaught, while the Shiite movement is supported by the two black beasts of U.S. policy in the region, Iran and Syria.”
By Patrick Saint-Paul, correspondent in Jerusalem
Translated By Sandrine Agoerges
May 13, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The American president arrives in Israel in midst of political uncertainty and with the peace process is at a standstill.
The American president could hardly have envisaged a more unfavorable climate for his Middle East tour. Expected this morning in Jerusalem to participate in celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, George W. Bush will have few other reasons to rejoice during a tour that will also take him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt and which is likely to illustrate the failure of his policies in the region. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is on the brink of collapse. In Lebanon, the pro-Western government of Fouad Siniora is suffering a Hezbullah onslaught, while the Shiite movement is supported by the two black beasts of U.S. policy in the region, Iran and Syria.
For his second visit to Jerusalem since last January, Bush will be forced to note that since he undertook to revive peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians at Annapolis in late 2007, no progress has been made. “Unless he has a rabbit in his hat, this will be the third time in the past half year that the U.S. president shows the Palestinians and the entire Arab world that they are wasting their time by trying to end the occupation by peaceful means.” says Akiva Eldar in an editorial entitled Bush should stay home .
The hope of the American President to see an agreement before the end of the year seems illusory. According to his entourage, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, told Bush during his visit to Washington last month that upon discovering the positions of Israeli negotiators, he thought it was a joke - so far where they from the parameters set by Bill Clinton at the time of the previous talks.
According to the Palestinians, Israeli negotiators sought to retain, in addition to large areas with Jewish settlements, the Jordan Valley up to the outskirts of Nablus - amounting to about 10 percent more territory. In Jerusalem, there would be no question of splitting the old city - home to the sacred sites, nor the restoration of the Arab districts that border it. Israel merely proposed Palestinian control over an “Esplanade of Mosques” and some of the suburbs surrounding East Jerusalem. The talks were jeopardized by programs to enlarge Israeli settlements in the West Bank and violence in Gaza strip, where missiles launched by Hamas activists have led to an Israeli military response.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign press coverage of President Bush’s trip to the Middle East.
Now that the pro-Western government in Lebanon has been “put in its place” by Hezbollah - and by extension Iran and Syria - what is Israel up against - and what narrative will the Islamists use to heal the wounds and consolidate their victory?
Explaining why Lebanon’s Pro-West Sunni government is afraid of Hezbullah and Iran, Zaatera writes:
“The people of the Umma [the Muslim Nation] and in particular the Sunnis, are as captive as they are perplexed. On the one hand, they know that what’s happening in Lebanon is an integral part of the battle that the Americans and Israelis are waging against forces of resistance and opposition in the region. Read the rest of this entry »
The events now unfolding in the Middle East, which have been set in motion by Hezbullah’s takeover last week of much of Beirut, do not bode well for American or Israeli interests, warns one of France’s leading historians and journalists, Alexandre Adler.
Writing for France’s Le Figaro newspaper, Adler writes that Iranian President Ahmadinidjad, hemmed in by opponents at home and abroad, has turned to one of the last cards he holds in his hand: the Lebanese Hezbullah:
“Let us first turn to Iran, which is in a fever and where the most decisive threats originate. Iran’s President and his trusted accomplices - and a pro-Iranian faction of al-Qaeda - hope to recreate unity among all people of Muslim faith for a renewed jihad against America and Israel. Voices have been heard, notably among the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, who hope for such an outcome and support Iran’s nuclear program, which many Islamists - not only in Cairo - regard as a liberating force that should be immediately employed against Israel, whatever the risks.”
“Israel cannot tolerate a military victory for Hezbullah over its [pro-West] Lebanese opponents - any more than it can allow Ahmadinejad to pursue nuclear blackmail, especially in this very strange context: There is the probability that a Democratic candidate - indeed an Obama election victory - could bring to the White House a supporter of negotiations at all costs. … Clearly, this is a distressing 60th anniversary for Israel.”
This is a seminal article about what the United States now confronts, and it should be read by anyone interested in understanding this very important and hard-to-penetrate topic. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in her whole aspect, and spite of all mortal men could do - the said solid white buttress of her forehead smite the ship’s starboard bow.’
(apologies to Moby Dick)
It seems that a global consensus against Senator Hillary Clinton is forming, after her razor-thin victory in Indiana and significant defeat in North Carolina.
This editorial from Lebanon’s Daily Star not only lambastes Hillary for pandering - pointedly in regard to her threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran - but it uses her bad example as a way of pointing out a glaring deficiency in Democratic government as it is presently conducted.
“Whatever she does in the future, nothing will erase her demonstration of the worst aspects of American politics - particularly her recent statement that she would ‘obliterate’ Iran if it ever threatened Israel with nuclear weapons … The context of her threatening statement is telling, in that it exposes the weak link in America’s democratic system - or any democratic system: the inclination of candidates running for public office to pander to the basest prejudices, sentiments and fears of the voting public.”
“The United States and Iran may disagree about many things; but for one to use threats of obliteration as a policy toward the other strikes us as a rather crude and offensive strategy, especially for a world power.”
One interesting question to ponder is whether Hezbullah’s takeover on Friday of much of Beirut, will also put an end the the independence of the pro-West Daily Star.
EDITORIAL
May 8, 2008
Lebanon - The Daily Star - Original Article (English)
In the coming days or weeks, Hillary Clinton’s fate as a presidential hopeful will be decided. But whatever she does in the future, nothing will erase her demonstration of the worst aspects of American politics - particularly her recent statement that she would “obliterate” Iran if it ever threatened Israel with nuclear weapons. The substance of the New York senator’s words are hard to evaluate due to the hypothetical nature of the damage she threatens to impose. Were she ever to become president and order such an attack, many other Americans would have to agree with the decision in order for it to be implemented, particularly the top military brass.
The context of her threatening statement is telling, in that it exposes the weak link in America’s democratic system - or any democratic system: the inclination of candidates running for public office to pander to the basest prejudices, sentiments and fears of the voting public. Clinton has been a particularly dynamic panderer this year, jumping on every opportunity to make her appear to be a woman of the people, whether drinking shots of whisky or calling for gas-tax holidays. In this case, she chose to play on widespread American opposition to Iran, which is in turn a function of several factors. In American politics these days, Iran is the bad guy par excellence, whether for its role in Iraq, its strategic ambitions in the Middle East, its nuclear policy, its rhetorical threats against Israel, or to its a general assertion of Islamist identity and politics. Americans also remain angry at Iranians for overthrowing the Shah in 1979 and then taking and holding Americans hostages for many months.
I ask this because frankly, what’s happening there is scaring the crap out of me. There are some incredibly knowledgeable folks who blog here who know far more about the current state of global politics than I do.
What are we thinking? What do we do? What can we do?
I do a lot of shlepping and have just good old analog FM in my car, so I’m mostly listening to NPR. Some of you may know that Diane Rehm is Lebanese. She sounded downright frightened and kind of desperate today - asking her guests, what will become of Lebanon and even saying at one point, with great, what sounded to me to be sincere emotion, “Poor Lebanon.”
It is so dramatically different in that region then when I was there in the mid-80s.
Anyone? I’m opening this up for thoughts, venting, reflection.
Here are some of the latest reports (chosen from results from a Google news search on “lebanon”):
We just posted at WORLDMEETS.US something that anyone interested in global affairs simply must watch.
Nearly every year at the annual Arab Summit, Libyan despot Muammar Qadhafi gives a speech to the collected rulers of the Arab world who in stony-faced silence, sit and listen to him. Invariably - it is absolutely priceless.
In his eulogy to the eight students gunned down Thursday in a shooting attack at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, the religious school’s head rabbi Ya’akov Shapira declared the attack “a continuation of the 1929 massacre” of the Jewish community in Hebron. He said the gunman had targeted “everyone living in the holy city of Jerusalem.”
The eight victims were buried Friday afternoon, each with Torah scrolls stained with their blood, in accordance with the Halakhic decision ruled by former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.
AND
One of the dead was American student Avraham David Moses, aged 16.
AND
Hundreds of mourners, among them family, friends, and public figures, paid their final respects to Doron Maharata, the oldest of those killed Thursday. Maharata, 26, is survived by his parents and six siblings.
Maharata’s family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia as part of Operation Moses when he was eight years old. Upon their arrival, the Maharatas made their home in Kfar Hitim before moving to Ashdod.
AND
The other victims were named as Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; and Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel.
In an extraordinary development in New York, an emergency session of the United Nations failed to agree on a condemnation of the killings, the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, Britain, France, the European Union, Canada, Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, condemned the strike, while President Bush assured Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, of full US support.
But any hope of an agreement was lost as Israel and Libya traded insults and accused each other of terrorism.
The United States had drafted a statement which read: “The members of the Security Council condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that took place in Jerusalem which resulted in the death and injury of dozens of Israeli civilians.” It had hoped the 15-nation council would unanimously support the text but Libya, backed by several other council members, prevented its adoption.
“We were not able to come to an agreement because the Libyan delegation with the support of one or two others did not want to condemn this act by itself but wanted to link it to other issues,” Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters after the council meeting.
The Libyans wanted to include in the statement language condemning the recent Israeli incursions into Gaza, which have killed over 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians. Khalilzad rejected the move, arguing that killing students in a school was different from the unintentional killing of civilians.
Dan Gillerman, the ambassador of Israel, which is not on the council, referred to Libya as the country responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, adding: “Unfortunately, this is what happens when the Security Council is infiltrated by terrorists.” Libya, a long-time enemy of Israel, was elected to the council last year after the United States dropped its objections.
Someone remind me - how is it that Libya is on the council in the first place? Oh - yeah - there it is in that last line. The U.S. dropped its objections to having Libya on it.
And who exactly objects to Israel being on it?
Disclaimer: Other than being on a Model UN ICJ court, I know little about the inner-workings of the U.N. (though I’ve eaten at a great French restaurant just around the corner from it). Feel free to educate me, in an objective way before lunging into the subjective ways.
Two terrorists infiltrate rabbinical seminary in Kiryat Moshe quarter, open fire at dozens of students. At least eight people reported killed. Police still in pursuit of second gunman. Celebrations already underway in Gaza
This is why Egypt should take over Gaza and Jordan should take over most Arab portions of the West Bank. Neither country needs encouragement to rule with an iron hand.
This is why Israeli Arabs (who are Israeli citizens) should swear a loyalty oath to the State of Israel (and not commit crimes against the sovereignty of the state) or face deportation with revocation of citizenship.
Eight people were confirmed dead in a terror attack at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, near the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday evening. According to Channel 2, the “Galilee Freedom Brigades”, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is a Hizbullah-affiliated organization.
Magen David Adom have confirmed 10 wounded civilians, including three seriously. One terrorist was said to have been killed by a student.
Witnesses said that only one terrorist had entered the building and that he managed to fire 500-600 bullets over the course of 4-10 minutes before he was killed.
Although witnesses said only a single terrorist carried out the attack, police were searching the building for an additional terrorist, preventing the entrance of rescue workers. Later Police Chief David Cohen confirmed that there were no additional attackers.
The terrorist entered the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in the neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe carrying weapons. He was not wearing a suicide-bomb belt as earlier reported.
The gunman entered the library where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire.
Is Israel’s latest incursion into Gaza an attempt to put an end to the firing of rockets from Gaza into Southern Israel, or is it something much more? According to this analysis from Algeria’s French language Le Quotidien, what people in Gaza and Lebanon are now witnessing is the build-up to a joint U.S.-Israeli ’settling of accounts’ to ‘reconfigure the balance of power in the Middle-East and enable them to achieve their political agenda in the region.’ Kharroubi Habib writes, ‘Everything suggests that Israel and the United States are creating the conditions for a new war in the region, at the end of which they will finally establish ‘peace’ on their terms. And although they don’t openly say it, even Arab forces in the region are pushing for this Israeli-American plan. That includes the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, who is counting on regaining control of the Gaza strip.’
By Kharroubi Habib
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 2, 2008
Algeria - Le Quotidian - Original Article (French)
Since Wednesday, the Israeli air force has been conducting raid after raid over the Gaza strip. These are no longer “targeted” strikes, but are operations meant to claim the largest possible number of victims in a population that has been declared a “hostile entity,” and to which the principle of “collective Punishment” applies.
In just a few days, hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children have perished, having been engulfed in fire. But the worst is unfortunately still to come for the people of Gaza, as the Israeli government prepares for a major operation against their territory. It is this that the air raids are preparing, with the aim of “breaking” the morale and capabilities of the popular resistance in Gaza.
One should not view the ongoing aggression against Gaza as a response to rockets being fired on the Israeli village of Sderot. It is rather, in our view, the prelude to a much larger operation, planned jointly by Israel and the United States, to reconfigure the balance of power in the Middle-East and enable them to achieve their political agenda in the region.
It is by no means fortuitous that just as Israel launched its raids over Gaza and warned of plans to begin ground operations, the United States announced the presence along the Lebanese coast of one of its warships, the USS Cole.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing foreign-language coverage of events in the Middle East that relate to the United States.
The Israeli press is alive with discussion of the Winograd Report, a study that assessed the conduct of Olmert’s government during the Israeli-Hezbollah war. Most analysts agree that the findings are much less harsh than had previously been expected. Via Reuters:
The Winograd Commission’s final findings issued on Wednesday described “serious failings” by political and army leaders during the war, but did not blame Olmert personally. It endorsed key and controversial decisions he made.
Olmert’s political rivals had been positioning themselves for a resignation that could have triggered an early election. But the report was widely regarded by commentators as a reprieve for the man who once described himself as “indestructible.”
Most of Olmert’s supporters view the overall assessment as an “exoneration” and a boost to the Kadima government. Indeed, in light of the relatively-tame nature of the report’s findings, Olmert has made clear that he will not step down but that he will, instead, merely work to carry out the commission’s recommendations.
Following the report’s release, Olmert also suggested that he will try to re-strengthen his governing coalition. Ehud Barak, both the Israeli Defense Minister and the leader of the Labor Party, has indicated that his party might withdraw their support, a blow that would leave Olmert’s government without a parliamentary majority. Despite the threat, most analysts now believe that Olmert has dodged a bullet and that his coalition - and his leadership - will remain intact. As former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy notes, “The Report was nowhere near as politically devastating as had been Read the rest of this entry »
What kind of discussions went on behind closed doors during President Bush’s recent tour of the Middle East? According to this at times biting op-ed from the Al-Illihad newspaper of the United Arab Emirates, ‘Kuwait’s Foreign Minister, by visiting Iran before Bush ended his historic visit the region, was sending a clear message: We don’t agree with your escalation and confrontation with Iran, nor do we agree with your siege and boycott, which is being pursued without international approval. … If Washington’s closest ally, Kuwait, responded in this fashion and won’t accept the U.S. interpretation of events, then what was it Bush was told in the rest of Gulf capitals he visited?’
By Dr. Bin Saad Al-Ajmi
Translated By James Jacobson
January 17, 2008
United Arab Emirates - Al-Illihad - Original Article (Arabic)
Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah, by visiting Iran before Bush ended his historic visit the region, was sending a clear message that we are moving in accord with our interests in the Gulf, which may not always coincide with the interests of the United States, and we do not agree with your escalation and confrontation with Iran, nor do we agree with your siege and boycott, which is being pursued without international approval. It’s true that the visit was scheduled in advance, but most observers see a link between the meeting and Bush’s visit.
Positive statements were exchanged by Kuwaitis and Iranians during and after the visit, an agreement on the demarcation of the continental shelf between the two countries was announced and another deal to purchase water and gas from Iran was signed.
Kuwait’s independence and resolve in expressing such a sharp difference with America’s policy of escalation makes one wonder: If Washington’s closest ally, Kuwait, responded in this fashion and won’t accept the U.S. interpretation of events, then what was it Bush was told in the rest of Gulf capitals he visited?
As far as Gulf newspapers and mass-media were concerned, Bush’s hardline anti-Iranian calls were very coolly received. Indeed, there is open opposition to lining up in the American trench against Iran. American weapons sales to the Gulf have been interpreted as a way of justifying U.S. policy against Iran. The suspicion is that by escalating the level of intimidation in regard to the Iranian threat, we in the Gulf will buy more weapons, which also cuts into the financial benefits of rising of oil prices. And one cannot forget the spontaneous hostility to anything American, which informs the opinions of most writers and those who run religious schools.
However, the important question here is: How does Iran understand this position of the Gulf? How does it interpret and deal with it?
There are two Iranian schools of thought on the Gulf’s opposition to America’s escalation against Iran. One school says that the Gulf is aware of Bush’s weakness and his incapacity to open other warfronts, since he’s so busy in Iraq and Afghanistan - but that if the Gulf States were sure of Bush’s ability to confront Iran, they wouldn’t hesitate to support him.
Hizbullah leader appears in public for first time in more than a year to attend Shiite religious event in Lebanese capital. In fiery speech he says his group has ‘heads’ and ‘body parts’ of Israeli soldiers, as well as ‘nearly intact cadaver’
Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.
The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that “Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem… there is no room in it for the Jews.”
Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that “correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation.”
Lebanon’s parliament has again delayed a session to elect the next president, scheduling the vote (perhaps we should say tentatively) for Friday. The delays are the result of continuing conflict between Parliament’s anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance on the one hand, and pro-Syrian groups, including Hizballah and the Amal movement (also Shiite) on the other. The pro-Syrian groups have enough power in parliament that if a consensus can’t be reached, the next president will be politically castrated before he even takes office. MP Saad Hariri (of the March 14 Alliance) and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (of Amal) have already reviewed a list of candidates and failed to reach a consensus. If the new schedule is kept, the election will come just 11 hours before the incumbent, Emile Lahoud, leaves office. If the vote is postponed again, Lebanon will suffer a spell without a president, leaving Maronites disenfranchised, Shiite groups on the offensive, and everyone dangerously edgy.
Please click here to read more at Foreign Policy Watch.
September 21st, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Insurance companies might consider dropping life insurance to politicians in Lebanon who are known critics of Syria. Yet another one has violently bit the dust:
Antoine Ghanem, the Christian MP murdered in a Beirut car-bomb attack, was a member of the anti-Syrian March 14 block which forms the backbone of the Western-supported Lebanese Government. His death has reduced the number of seats held by the block in the 128-member parliament to 68 — only three more than the Opposition, led by the militant Shia Hezbollah.
Government figures have blamed Syria for Mr Ghanem’s murder, a charge denied strongly by Damascus.
Damascus has been doing a lot of denying as the body count has been piling up:
Boutros Harb, a presidential candidate from the March 14 block, said “This is an attack aimed at sabotaging all efforts to reach a solution to the current political crisis. You cannot separate this killing from the presidential election.â€
The block’s surviving MPs are scheduled to convene on Tuesday to elect a new president to replace Emile Lahoud, a close ally of Syria whose term ends on November 24. But security fears have complicated even further a gruelling political stalemate over the identity of the next head of state.
Some 40 MPs belonging to the March 14 block have sought refuge in a wing of the heavily guarded Phoenicia Hotel — one of Beirut’ s grandest, more accustomed to hosting millionaire holidaymakers from the Gulf states. Since the beginning of the year, Fouad Siniora, the Prime Minister, and most of his Cabinet have been working and sleeping in the Grand Serail, a hill-top Ottoman-era army barracks that houses the Government’s offices.
In the American press, most of the discussion about Hezbollah is hawkish and militaristic, caught up in the details about how best to “wipe them out.” The general consensus amongst most analysts seems to be that Israel, in its campaign against Hezbollah last summer, just didn’t go far enough. If they’d only been willing to commit more troops or drop more bombs, Hezbollah would no longer be such a powerful actor in the region.
But such conclusions ignore the lessons of history. Repeated campaigns to destroy Hezbollah have failed. In fact, the Lebanese group is now widely considered to be more powerful than ever. Perceived by much of Lebanon’s Shiite population (as well as broad sections of its Sunni and Christian groups) as the only effective buffer against foreign aggression, Hezbollah’s reputation has only been strengthened each time efforts are taken to destroy it militarily. Indeed, Hezbollah’s resistance against the Israeli invasion last summer has boosted the group’s popularity to all-time highs and convinced many Lebanese that the organization is critical for their country’s national defense.
With this in mind, I was impressed to read Nicholas Noe’s excellent op-ed in The New York Times. Thoughtful and pragmatic, Noe argues similarly that military efforts to weaken Hezbollah have failed. The alternative? A non-violent approach to weaken the group’s popularity and de-legitimize its right to be the country’s only remaining armed militia.
Since its official founding in 1985, Hezbollah has seen its argument, not to mention its capacity, for violence repeatedly buoyed by what the group calls the “open wars†waged by Israel against it (and invariably against the rest of Lebanon, too) in 1993, 1996 and again in 2006.
In contrast, when the confrontational approach has receded — most notably after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of Lebanon in 2000 — Hezbollah’s ability and desire to use violence receded as well.
And therein lies an alternative strategy available to Israel and the United States: gradually and peacefully containing Hezbollah violence by undermining public support for resistance operations.
For without widespread public support from Lebanese of all religious persuasions, Muslim and Christian alike — especially now that the Syrian enforcers have ostensibly left Lebanon — violent operations would not only be extremely difficult, Hezbollah leaders acknowledge, but also domestically hazardous for their Shiite base.
Noe continues, sketching out the details of what a non-violent approach to containing Hezbollah would look like:
…the United States must first address what Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has long termed the “four bleeding wounds†that engender public support for his party’s use of violence against Israel.
These are the handing over of maps of the land mines the Israelis left in South Lebanon during the occupation; the return of all Lebanese prisoners; an end to Israeli overflights of Lebanon (which are arguably unnecessary in any case); and, finally, Israel’s relinquishing of the disputed Shebaa Farms area, which, according to a report last week in the Israeli daily Haaretz, the United Nations may declare as Lebanese by the end of the month.
As Mr. Nasrallah put it shortly after the last successful prisoner exchange with Israel in 2004, “These fools do not learn from their past mistakes: when they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody.†By doing that, Mr. Nasrallah said of the Israelis, “they opened the door for us.â€
Of course, one could argue that even if these “bleeding wounds†were removed, Hezbollah would simply invent other excuses to justify attacks. That’s certainly plausible, given that the Party of God views “resistance†as a fundamental principle, but the point is that these new excuses would undoubtedly be viewed as such: as false choices presented by one party bent on accomplishing its own narrow, even non-Lebanese interests.
And that possibility is one that would only further restrict Hezbollah’s actions, just as it finds itself already restricted by its ever-expanding web of political alliances.
By heeding Mr. Nasrallah’s advice and removing the “bleeding wounds,†the United States and its allies in Europe could then help to unleash exactly the kind of broad-based political, economic and military reform that would further convince Hezbollah and its supporters that the use of violence has become both unnecessary and, ultimately, counterproductive.
Of the 2,700 or so posts that I have written since Kiko’s House came kicking and screaming into the blogosphere, I count fewer than 10 on Israel, several of them on the sad decline and death of Ariel Sharon, a man whom I once loathed but came to admire, and only a couple on Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.
The chief reason for this is the utter intractability and predictability of the relationship between the two peoples, which has to be the ultimate current events film loop of my lifetime – which coincides almost exactly with the lifetime of the state of Israel.
The ability of the Israelis to do things nearly as self destructive and ultimately futile as the Palestinians is a never ending source of amazement to me, but the whole mess also quite frankly boring and I’ve felt like I have little or nothing to add to the cacophony . . . er, debate.
If that seems a little harsh, then screw you. But before you go away in a huff, let me tell you a story.
We’ll call it The Story of Three Davids.
In many respects, Shaun David Mullen is a mirror image of David No. 1 — my grandfather, David Snellenberg.
Like me, he was as bald as a billiard ball, enjoyed an occasional cigar, questioned authority, enjoyed baseball, had a deep love of America and was a student of its history. He introduced David No. 2 as a young boy to journalism and as a result every one of the thousands of my bylines in newspapers from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Tokyo during a long career included my middle initial — “D” as in David — in his honor. (I’ve dropped that as a blogger because it seems, well, too officious for the medium.)
Granddaddy Snellenberg and I had something else in common: A deep ambivalence about David No. 3 — that would be the Star of David, or the nation of Israel.
Granddaddy came by this view honestly. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether I do.
Al Qaeda bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri has reportedly sent a letter urging Iraqis to export jihad — with the goal of creating a “greater Syria,” Times Online reports:
THE deputy leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has urged supporters in Iraq to extend their “holy war†to other Middle Eastern countries.
In a letter sent to the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq in the past few weeks, Zawahiri claims that it is defeating US forces and urges followers to expand their campaign of terror.
He conjures a vision of an Islamic state comprising Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, where Al-Qaeda has already gained its first footholds.
The goal of an Islamic “greater Syriaâ€, first outlined by Zawahiri two years ago, is detailed in the letter amid growing concern about the activities of new groups under Al-Qaeda’s influence in the countries concerned.
As this piece notes, Zawahiri has noted this before. It’s the letter’s timing, and the repetition of this goal, that makes it significant. Times OnLine has some reaction from an American official: Read the rest of this entry »
![[The Times, U.K.]](http://worldmeets.us/images/bushtour_guardian.gif)
