‘Son of Hamas’ warns U.S. fatally falling for lies

‘Peaceful’ Muslims following Quran’s dictate to establish ‘global Islamic state’

CAIR, casting itself as a human rights organization, has often been called on by government and media to represent Muslims in the U.S. But it’s origin as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas is now widely documented, including in the WND Books best-selling expose “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America”

CAIR and some of its leaders were confirmed by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of helping fund Hamas. An FBI letter to lawmakers in April 2009 explained the bureau suspended all formal contacts with CAIR because of evidence the group was founded as a front in the U.S. for Hamas. Among numerous government relationships, CAIR leaders had regular meetings with top FBI brass on security issues and helped lead FBI Muslim “sensitivity training” sessions.

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, the FBI presented a transcript from a wiretap of a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia in which Hamas supporters sought to establish Muslim organizations in the U.S. “whose Islamic hue is not very conspicuous.” CAIR was soon founded by two Palestinian participants in the Philadelphia meeting, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad.

The Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum with CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad

Wiretaps revealed Ahmad argued for using Muslims as an “entry point” to “pressure Congress and the decision makers in America” to change U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. One FBI official quoted in “Muslim Mafia” says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida only in their methods.

“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained.

CAIR, meanwhile – which has more than a dozen former and current leaders with known associations with violent jihad – is trying to keep alive a lawsuit against WND and two investigators behind “Muslim Mafia.”

While CAIR repeatedly has denied it receives foreign support, the covert operation that produced “Muslim Mafia” obtained video footage that captured CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper boasting of his ability to bring in a half million dollars of “overseas money,” including from Saudi Arabia.

Money continues to flow in the other direction, as well, Yousef said.

He noted the FBI documented that the Holy Land Foundation sent $12.4 million from the U.S. to Hamas committees. But based on his 10 years of experience as a spy for the Israeli internal security service Shin Bet, he believes many times that amount has been smuggled to Hamas in cash.

As an example, Yousef cited the case of a Palestinian terror operative he met in prison who was arrested transporting $100,000 after Shin Bet provided information to law enforcement authorities.

“I guarantee you that there still people who collect money in mosques that go directly to Hamas in cash,” Yousef said. “And this is a problem that the government doesn’t have control over. Obama doesn’t have control over this money.”

‘Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood’

Hamas itself was formed in 1987 as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy to advance the movement by spinning off new organizations, Yousef said.

“If they have a confrontation with Israel as the Muslim Brotherhood, they are going to pay a very high price,” he explained. “So they choose people like my father, from the Muslim Brotherhood originally, and they ask them to establish an independent movement that shares the same exact doctrine.”

As WND reported, Yousef worked alongside his father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, in the West Bank city of al-Ghaniya near Ramallah while secretly embracing Christian faith and serving as a Shin Bet spy. Since publicly declaring his faith in August 2008, he has been condemned by an al-Qaida-affiliated group and disowned by his family.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in the 1920s in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish empire, considers itself an instrument of the charge Muslims have been given since Islam’s founding 1,400 years ago – to make the Quran and Allah’s authority supreme over the entire world.

Along with CAIR, prominent U.S. organizations launched by Muslim Brotherhood leaders include the Muslim Students Association, North American Islamic Trust, the Islamic Society of North America, the American Muslim Council, the Muslim American Society and the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

Yousef said, “we have to ask ourselves all the time, what is the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood? Ask them, ‘What do you want?’”

He said the Muslim Brotherhood “will keep the hope and the ultimate goal very clear in the eyes of every Muslim who belongs to the organization that one day [we will] establish an Islamic state and establish Shariah law.”

In unusually candid moments, CAIR leaders have expressed that aim.

CAIR founder Ahmad was reported telling a Muslim group in the San Francisco Bay area that Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant and that the Quran should become the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth. CAIR spokesman Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune he wants to see the U.S. become a Muslim country “through education.”

The West, Yousef said, has fallen for the “lie” that there are two types of Islam, radical and moderate. While there may be individual Muslims who are radical or moderate, Islam itself is not moderate, he contends.

“Let’s learn what Islam says about itself,” Yousef said. “Forget about what the Muslim Brotherhood, what al-Qaida, what Hezbollah – what even Americans or Westerners say about Islam. Let’s study and see what Islam says about itself, then we will understand why we have this problem.”

‘Buying the lie’

American foreign policy, especially under President Obama, he said, has “bought the lie of Muslim groups who are trying to make Islam look good in the eyes of Westerners.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Because of that approach, he said, Muslim leaders such as Feisal Abdul Rauf have developed “the courage to come forward with a very aggressive symbol” of Islamic authority, the proposed Islamic center and mosque near the site of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

“If it was any other American president, we wouldn’t have this aggressive step,” Yousef contended.

He noted the State Department has designated Rauf an ambassador to the Muslim world despite the imam’s unwillingness to condemn Hamas as a terrorist group.

“Of course, he cannot condemn Hamas, because he knows that Hamas is an organization that is doing the will of Allah,” Yousef said. “How can he condemn an organization that serves the same god that he worships every day five times?”

Yousef pointed out Rauf  has claimed Obama based his highly publicized Cairo speech to the Muslim world last year on a chapter from the Arabic version of Rauf’s book, “A Call to Prayer From the World Trade Center: Islamic Dawah in the Heart of America Post-9/11.” Obama asserted in the speech that violent extremists have exploited tensions between Muslims and the West, insisting Islam was not part of the problem but part of promoting peace.

‘This is the red line’

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Defenders of the proposed Ground Zero mosque cite American Muslims’ First Amendment freedoms to practice their religion.

But Yousef makes a distinction between Islam and other religions, arguing Islam is a subversive system that threatens America’s very existence.

“Even if it’s a religion, and 1.5 billion people around the world believe in it, this doesn’t mean that they are right; and this doesn’t mean that we compromise with them,” he said. “We tell them, ‘You’re accepted, but guess what? This is the red line: We don’t compromise with your god. We don’t compromise with your belief system.’”

Yousef reasoned that he certainly would not be allowed to create a religion in which he demanded that his followers kill everyone who doesn’t embrace his beliefs.

“Will I be able to register this religion here and build my symbols for this religion in this country?” he asked. “I will go to jail for that – and all my followers as well.”

‘A matter of life and death’

No one in the Middle East has the courage or the power to confront Islam, he said, but transformation can start in the most powerful country in the world.

“Instead of giving Islam credit, this is the country where we can start to fight – not against Muslims, against the bad teachings of Islam.”

Americans can begin, he said, by “understanding the real nature of Islam.”

“I am telling you, this is not a matter of politics,” he said. “It’s a matter of life and death. It’s a matter of hundreds of millions who have been killed because of this deadly ideology of Islam that has been here 1,400 years.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef in 2008 interview with Al-Hayat TV (Middle East Media Research Institute)

“This is the time” to speak out, he said, “especially here in America. This is the time to stand firm and strong against this crazy, big system.”

Yousef said that while some may want to “scare people about Islam” for some kind of financial or personal profit, he is speaking out because of his concern for America and as “a person who loves my people.”

“I cannot wait for them to be liberated,” he said of his fellow Palestinians and Muslims worldwide. “And when I see the example of liberty and freedom in this country, I want this to go to my people.”

If America leads the way in confronting Islam, change can come, he said.

“But if the country of liberty and freedom welcomes a radical and violent belief that wants to destroy everything, we won’t be able to defeat them,” he said.

“This is why we need to work all together. This is not for America only. This is for the world. This is for the future of humanity.”

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To the above, please add the news in the press that the opposition in Egypt is uniting with Mohammad El Baradei making now common front with The Muslim Brotherhood. Then see the arming by France and Russia of the weak Lebanese army and the Syrian army with the high chance that some of the arms will end up with the Syrian directly sponsored pro-Brotherhood groups. What is by now forgotten is that once, under President Nasser of Egypt – Syria, Egypt, and Iraq (one star, two stars, three stars on their flags) were supposed to unite and form the kernel of the new Arab Islamic Nation. In this context what do you think of the arming of Saudi Arabia by the US? How will fault line develop? Is this doable?

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Israel, U.S. Seek to Block French Anti-Tank Missile Sale to Lebanon (Jerusalem Post)
Israel and the U.S. are attempting to prevent a French-Lebanese arms deal, the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat reported Friday.
French Defense Minister Herve Moran offered to sell Lebanon 100 HOT anti-tank missiles for the Gazelle helicopters already in use by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
Washington has grown increasingly skittish over arming the Lebanese military amid concerns that the LAF may become engaged in a fight with Israel, an American ally, or be co-opted by the terrorist group Hizbullah.
See also European Anti-Tank Missiles Effective Against Explosive Reactive Armor (army-technology.com)
HOT is a long-range anti-tank mi ssile that can be operated from a vehicle or helicopter.
The HOT 3 has a 6.5 kg. tandem charge warhead which is effective against Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA), penetrating up to 1,300 mm.
When the missile reaches the target, the forward charge is ejected, which explodes, detonating the ERA. After a delay, the main charge then explodes.

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Israel Working to Thwart Russian Arms Deal with Syria – Barak Ravid (Ha’aretz)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to stop the sale to Syria of advanced anti-ship missiles.
Israel considers the sale of P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria a significant danger to its navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Netanyahu told Putin that missiles Russia had delivered to Syria in the past were then transferred to Hizbullah and used against IDF troops during the Second Lebanon War.
The highly accurate P-800 has a maximum range of 300 km., carries a 200-kg. warhead, and can cruise several meters above the surface, making it difficult to identify on radar.

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Israeli-Palestinian Direct Talks and the Art of Low Expectations – Shmuel Rosner
The time may be right for the Obama administration, but it is hardly right for the parties involved. Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, think Iran is a more urgent priority. They believe the Palestinian problem can wait a little longer, and they see no Palestinian leaders they can make deals with. The Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, were dragged to these talks kicking and screaming, they don’t seem to intend to give an inch, and they have a hard time dealing with criticism from Hamas, Syria, and other regional belligerents. “There’s clearly a trust deficit that we’re going to have to find a way to overcome,” longtime special envoy Dennis Ross explained. When direct talks were finally announced, not all the Israeli newspapers bothered to carry the news on their front pages. Been there, done that. ( Slate)

{please read that article and see the ending}
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There used to be a reason for setting low expectations. We were once told that low expectations lead to happiness. You lower your expectation in the hope that humility will help you achieve your goals. You lower your expectations hoping that you will be pleasantly surprised by a more positive outcome. But the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems to be the outlier, the case in which low expectations have no role to play, no goal to serve, no hope to provide. In this case, low expectations seem to be just, well, a sober description of reality. In this case, the strategy of low expectations is just another casualty of this neverending conflict. And that is one good reason to want these talks to begin.

We feel that if the data here is accurate, Arab business is rather looking for new talent in the new world. We believe that most young recruits to businesses in North Africa and the Middle East are returning young talent and that this positions well these business companies for the changing global atmosphere. It is rather that then looking to hire on the cheap. The business slow down has just helped refresh the human capital of MENA (The Middle East – North Africa Arab region).

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 http://www.arabianbusiness.com/595422-me…

MENA firms hire new graduates to cut costs – poll

by

Elsa Baxter,  Sunday, 22 August 2010.

GRADUATES: 37.6 percent of people said their employers preferred to hire fresh graduates post recession. (Getty Images)

Almost 40 percent of Middle East and North African (MENA) employees said their company was more interested in hiring new university graduates since the global recession, according to the latest poll by Bayt.com.

The survey, which consulted 13,197 respondents from across the region, found that 37.6 percent of people said their employers preferred to hire fresh graduates, while 26.4 percent said they were less inclined to do so. A further 19.2 percent of respondents said things were unchanged.

More than half (51.7 percent) of participants said the number one motivation behind the hiring was financial because new graduates command lower salaries and fewer benefits, while 12.7 percent said it was because they would have more passion for the job.

A further 10.4 percent it was because new graduates would have more creativity, 8.4 percent said it was due to their fresh analytical thinking, and 5.1 percent cited better communication skills. {our math says this is 37.6% or that one out of 2,9 respondents was honest about the motives. The others belong to the commonly held  idea that age makes people wiser while we rather think that today ag makes most people more obsolete}

“The results of our most recent poll show that in times of economic strife employers are perceived as more likely to hire fresh graduates mostly due to the fact that they accept a lower salary and require fewer benefits,” said Amer Zureikat, vice president of sales, Bayt.com.

The US is pulling out its combat forces from Iraq, but the Sunday TV main topic was THE MOSQUE.  As always – the best conversation was on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN/GPS program.

His guest were Bret Stephens from The Wall Street Journal and Peter Beinart – Senior Political Writer at the blog The Daily Beast, Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, and a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation – till 2006 he was with The New Republic and still lives in Washington DC.

Stephens said that the legalities are clear but the issue is if this Mosque at that location advances interface dialogue and the answer is NO!

Beinart said you cannot divorce the right for building a Mosque from the right to decide where to build it. What about military bases? Will you next say that because there is sensitivity to Americans killed in wars in Muslim countries you cannot have a Mosque on a military base?

Stephens asked – wait – what if the German Government decides to build a tolerance center across the street from a concentration camp – this is much more like the present case.

Zakaria said – that is about irrational sensitivity – do you call this bigotry?

Stephens answered that the rights are indisputable and Bret said that you cannot ask people in the right not to use the right – this is equal to taking away the right.

Zakaria concluded that we talk past each other so the discussion is over. And that is the true state of these matters today.

We hope that Zakaria realizes now that his returning a prize to the ADL of the Bnei Brith was – well – premature.

Also, as he said that the discussion is really not ended – we suggest he invites next time also Anne Barnard whose article in today’s New York Times he did mention.

Anne Barnard is now on the city desk of the paper, but she is not a newcomer to these issues as sh worked in the Middle East – in Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Egypt. She has seen sensitivities from very close – not your regular city desk person. We know Anne for many years – actually since she was a kid – and have met her in different locations as well. We continue here with her material and hope she continues to keep her sights on the developments we expect when Imam Raouf returns from his Middle East tour.

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Further comments about Beinart. His parents immigrated to the US from South Africa and work in Cambridge where he was born. His mother remarried theater personality Robert Brustein. Beinart is Jewish and belongs to a liberal synagogue in Washington.

Peter Beinart has written: “The Icarus Syndrome – A History of American Hubris,” HarperCollins, June 1, 2010, and
“The Good Fight: Why Liberals–and Only Liberals–Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again,” HarperCollins, May 2006,

Beinart was a supporter of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.[7] and in a recent essay, he has argued that the tensions between liberalism and Zionism in the U.S. may tear the two historically-linked concepts apart.[8]

After leaving The New Republic, in 2007-2009, Beinart was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Further comments about Bret Stephens: He was born in 1973 and grew up in Mexico City. Stephens went to the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics.[2]

Stephens began his career at the Journal as an op-ed editor in New York and later worked as an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal Europe in Brussels. In 2006 he took over the “Global View” column from George Melloan, who has retired.

Between 2002 and 2004 Stephens was editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, a position he assumed at age 28 – the youngest person ever to hold that position. He is the winner of the 2008 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.
In 2005, Stephens was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, where he was previously a media fellow. He is also a frequent contributor to Commentary magazine.[3]

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Fareed Zakaria promised that on his program this emotional discussion will be rational – what he did not say was that he is in effect pitting against each other two well qualified Jews. We do not believe that THE MOSQUE – that is that particular Mosque – is only an issue for Jews. We indeed believe that his next panel will pull in other “suffering souls” as well.

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Feisal Abdul Rauf’s Balancing Act in Mosque Furor – NYTimes.com

The full article by our friend Anne Barnard, as above, but as published front page The New York Times had the title:
Complicated Balancing Act for Imam in Mosque Furor – Complicated Balancing Act for Imam.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregi…

It includes The Imam’s history and his father’s history – both of them highly interesting people. While the father was an employee of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and eventually led to the construction of the New York Islamic Center cum Mosque at the corner of East 96th Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, Feisal became the Imam of the Sufi congregation downtown. Then he attempted also the building of a large Center cum Mosque.

William Sauro/The New York Times

Mr. Abdul Rauf’s father, Muhammad, in 1968. He ran the Islamic Center of New York.

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Far away from New York, in Bend Oregon (by Western Communications, Inc.) retained the New York Times in print – name of the article – but our friend’s article was reshaped  as follows:
 http://bbedit.sx.atl.publicus.com/apps/p…

Complicated balancing act for imam in mosque furor.

By Anne Barnard / New York Times News Service

Published: August 22. 2010 4:00AM PST

Michael Appleton / New York Times News Service

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf inside his mosque, housed in a building near the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, in November. “We want to push back against the extremists,” the cleric says. Others worry about an anti-Muslim backlash.

For years, Feisal Abdul Rauf has encountered distrust as he tries to reconcile Islam with the West.

Muslims need to understand and soothe Americans who fear them; they should be conciliatory, not judgmental, toward the West.

That was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s message, but not everyone in the Cairo lecture hall last February was buying it. As he talked of reconciliation between America and Middle Eastern Muslims — his voice soft, almost New Agey — some questions were so hostile that he felt the need to declare that he was not an American agent.

But one young Egyptian asked: Wasn’t the United States financing the speaking tour that had brought the imam to Cairo because his message conveniently echoed U.S. interests?

“I’m not an agent from any government, even if some of you may not believe it,” the imam replied. “I’m not. I’m a peacemaker.”

That talk, recorded on video six months ago, was part of what now might be called Abdul Rauf’s prior life, before he became the center of an uproar over his proposal for a Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center site. He watched his father, an Egyptian Muslim scholar, pioneer interfaith dialogue in 1960s New York; led a mystical Sufi mosque in Lower Manhattan; and, after the Sept. 11 attacks, became a spokesman for the notion that being American and Muslim is no contradiction — and that a truly American brand of Islam could modernize and moderate the faith worldwide.

In recent weeks, Abdul Rauf has barely been heard from as a national political debate explodes over his dream project, including somewhere in its planned 15 stories near ground zero, a mosque. Opponents have called his project an act of insensitivity, even a monument to terror.

In his absence — he is now on another Middle East speaking tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department — a host of allegations have been floated: that he supports terrorism; that his father, who worked at the behest of the Egyptian government, was a militant; that his publicly expressed views mask stealth extremism. Some charges, the available record suggests, are unsupported. Some are simplifications of his ideas. In any case, calling him a jihadist appears even less credible than calling him a U.S. agent.

Growing up in America

Abdul Rauf, 61, grew up in multiple worlds. He was raised in a conservative religious home but arrived in America as a teenager in the turbulent 1960s; his father came to New York and later Washington to run growing Islamic centers. His parents were taken hostage not once, but twice, by American Muslim splinter groups. He attended Columbia University, where, during the Six-Day War between Israel and Arab states like Egypt, he talked daily with a Jewish classmate, each seeking to understand the other’s perspective.

He consistently denounces violence. Some of his views on the interplay between terrorism and American foreign policy — or his search for commonalities between Islamic law and this country’s Constitution — have proved jarring to some American ears, but still place him as pro-American within the Muslim world. He devotes himself to befriending Christians and Jews — so much, some Muslim Americans say, that he has lost touch with their own concerns.

“To stereotype him as an extremist is just nuts,” said the Very Rev. James Morton, the longtime dean of the Church of St. John the Divine, in Manhattan, who has known the family for decades.

Since 9/11, Abdul Rauf, like almost any Muslim leader with a public profile, has had to navigate the fraught path between those suspicious of Muslims and eager to brand them violent or disloyal and a Muslim constituency that believes itself more than ever in need of forceful leaders.

One critique of the imam, said Omid Safi, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, is that he has not been outspoken enough on issues “near and dear to many Muslims,” from Israel policy to treatment of Muslims after 9/11, “because of the need that he has had — whether taken upon himself or thrust upon him — to be the ‘American imam,’ to be the ‘New York imam,’ to be the ‘accommodationist imam.’ “

Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic studies at American University, said Abdul Rauf’s holistic Sufi practices could make more-orthodox Muslims uncomfortable, and his focus on like-minded interfaith leaders made him underestimate the uproar over his plans.

“He hurtles in, to the dead-center eye of the storm simmering around Muslims in America, expecting it to be like at his mosque — we all love each other, we all think happy thoughts,” said Ahmed.

“Now he has set up, unwittingly, a symbol of this growing tension between America and Muslims: this mosque that Muslims see as a symbol of Islam under attack and the opponents as an insult to America,” he added. “So this mild-mannered guy is in the eye of a storm for which he’s not suited at all. He’s not a political leader of Muslims, yet he now somehow represents the Muslim community.”

Andrew Sinanoglou, who was married by Abdul Rauf last fall, said he was surprised the imam had become a contentious figure. His greatest knack, he said, was making disparate groups comfortable, as at the wedding bringing together Sinanoglou’s family, descended from Greek Christians thrown out of Asia Minor by Muslims, with his wife’s conservative Muslim father.

“He’s an excellent schmoozer,” Sinanoglou said of the imam.

Many different Islamic influences

Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait. His father, Muhammad Abdul Rauf, was one of many graduates of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the foremost center of mainstream Sunni Muslim learning, whom Egypt sent abroad to staff universities and mosques, a government-approved effort unlikely to have tolerated a militant. He moved his family to England, studying at Cambridge and the University of London; then to Malaysia, where he eventually became the first rector of the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

As a boy, Abdul Rauf absorbed his father’s talks with religious scholars from around the world, learning to respect theological debate, said his wife, Daisy Khan. He is also steeped in Malaysian culture, whose ethnic diversity has influenced an Islam different from that of his parents’ homeland.

In 1965, he came to New York. His father ran the Islamic Center of New York; the family lived over its small mosque in a brownstone on West 72nd Street, which served mainly Arabs and African-American converts. Like his son, the older imam announced plans for a community center for a growing Muslim population — the mosque eventually built on East 96th Street. It was paid for by Muslim countries and controlled by Muslim U.N. diplomats — at the time a fairly noncontroversial proposition. Like his son, he joined interfaith groups, invited by James of St. John the Divine.

Hostage crisis

Unlike his son, he was conservative in gender relations; he asked his wife to not drive. But in 1977, he was heading the Islamic Center in Washington when they were taken hostage by a Muslim faction; it was his wife who challenged the gunmen on their lack of knowledge of Islam.

“My husband didn’t open his mouth, but I really gave it to them,” she told The New York Times then.

Meanwhile, Abdul Rauf studied physics at Columbia.

In his 20s, Abdul Rauf dabbled in teaching and real estate, married an American-born woman and had three children. Studying Islam and searching for his place in it, he was asked to lead a Sufi mosque, Masjid al-Farah. It was one of few with a female prayer leader, where women and men sit together at some rituals and some women do not cover their hair. And it was 12 blocks from the World Trade Center.

Divorced, he met his second wife, Khan, when she came to the mosque looking for a gentler Islam than the politicized version she rejected after Iran’s revolution. Theirs is an equal partnership, whether Abdul Rauf is shopping and cooking a hearty soup, she said, or running organizations that promote an American-influenced Islam.

A similar idea comes up in the Cairo video. Abdul Rauf, with Khan, unveiled as usual, beside him, tells a questioner not to worry so much about one issue of the moment — Switzerland’s ban on minarets — saying Islam has always adapted to and been influenced by places it spreads to. “Why not have a mosque that looks Swiss?” he joked. “Make a mosque that looks like Swiss cheese. Make a mosque that looks like a Rolex.”

In the 1990s, the couple became fixtures of the interfaith scene, even taking a cruise to Spain and Morocco with prominent rabbis and pastors.

Abdul Rauf also founded the Shariah Index Project — an effort to formally rate which governments best follow Islamic law. Critics see in it support for Taliban-style Shariah or imposing Islamic law in America.

Shariah, though, like Jewish law, has a spectrum of interpretations. The ratings, Kahn said, measure how well states uphold Shariah’s core principles like rights to life, dignity and education, not Taliban strong points. The imam has written that some Western states unwittingly apply Shariah better than self-styled Islamic states that kill wantonly, stone women and deny education — to him, violations of Shariah.

After 9/11, Abdul Rauf was all over the airwaves denouncing terrorism, urging Muslims to confront its presence among them, and saying that killing civilians violated Islam. He wrote a book, “What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America,” asserting the congruence of American democracy and Islam.

That ample public record — interviews, writings, sermons — is now being examined by opponents of the downtown center.

Those opponents repeat often that Abdul Rauf, in one radio interview, refused to describe the Palestinian group that pioneered suicide bombings against Israel, Hamas, as terrorist. In the lengthy interview, Abdul Rauf clumsily tries to say that people around the globe define terrorism differently and labeling any group would sap his ability to build bridges. He also says: “Targeting civilians is wrong. It is a sin in our religion,” and, “I am a supporter of the state of Israel.”

“If I were an imam today I would be saying, ‘What am I supposed to do?’” said John Esposito, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University. “‘Can an imam be critical of any aspect of U.S. foreign policy? Can I weigh in on things that others could weigh in on?’ Or is someone going to say, ‘He’s got to be a radical!’”

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Could it be that the solution leads to a true CORDOBA HOUSE OF CULTURE AND INTER-RELIGIOUS UNDERSTANDING with all Cordoba three religions having footholds at the center – not  a Mosque.

In this case what if Rabbi Marc Schneier who started together with the East 96 Street Islamic Center’s Imams his good-will exchanges gets a foothold and offices there? The Battery Park Holocaust Museum could be linked, and the Archbishop of the Trinity Church of the neighborhood as well – that is with offices in the building. This would call for a joint board and joint ownership in the name of good intentions. It would be considered a step towards healing within the possible of the memory of 9/11/o1 within reach of the 10th memorial of the event. Clearly – this does not answer the call for a larger Mosque, neither will this be a place with Synagogue and church – we know that the institutions must be separate.

If separation is preferred, then a gesture of exchange of real estate for a different location would be appreciated.

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President Obama also went on TV today – breaking his vacation because of the media attacks on him branding him a Muslim.

Obama blamed this crazzy media culture when the main issue is the pulling out from Iraq but the focus is on “THE MOSQUE” – is this just an August diversion? By whom?

Michel Martin (an Emmy Award winning American journalist and correspondent for ABC News and National Public Radio. After ten years in print journalism, Martin has for the last 15 years become best known for her news broadcasting on national topics.), asks whom are we talking about as media? It is just the Conservative Pundits that keep on drumming? Or is there by now a symbiotic relationship between the right wing bloggers and the main-stream media? It does not make sense to pretend that there is not a concern with Islam. We heard on TV that Glen Beck said Lincoln Day has no meaning for him – so he calls for a rally at the mall on that day. Aha I said – if that is so – why do you expect more consideration from adherents of Islam – Americans or otherwise? Are Americans so dam by now that they cannot see that insensitivity breeds more insensitivity?

The shifting sands of the Middle East

By Ted Belman

Shimon Peres, President of Israel, has, for the last thirty years, called for a New Middle East.  In fact he wrote a book by that title in 1993, the year of the Oslo Accords. He believed that economic cooperation in the ME was the starting point for cementing ties and reconciling peoples.  The Oslo Accords, of which he was the main architect and instigator, was intended to lead in that direction.  It failed miserably.

In those days the main players on the Muslim side, were Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, all Sunni. And, of course, we cannot leave out Arafat, also a Sunni.

All this began to change with the invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003. Talk about unintended consequences. The defeat of Iraq, created a power vacuum which Shiite Iran was salivating to fill. Although Iraq under Hussein was in the Sunni camp, its population was 60% Shiite. Luckily, the Iraqi Shiites prefer independence from Iran perhaps due in part to the fact they are Arab and not Farsi; at least for now but that could change.

Iran had aspirations of grandeur and imperialist ambitions.  She began to plot a course which would lead to her dominance of the Muslim world and in the Middle East. No small task, since 80% of Muslims are Sunni and Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites in Islam, are located in Saudi Arabia.

This course had two prongs; the development of its own nuclear bomb and the confrontation with Israel, the Little Satan and the US the Big Satan on behalf of all Muslims everywhere.

Iran also had a natural advantage, her location. Egypt, with its population of 55 million is poor and on the periphery. It also made peace with Israel thereby taking her out of the race for now.  Iran borders on Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Caspian Sea.  The US needs Iran to be cooperative in each of these theaters.

Iran’s first success was to win over Syria the most rejectionist Sunni state. This was easier than you might expect as Syria is ruled the Alawites, a Shiite sect. Their alliance is constantly growing and seems to have no bounds.  This is so notwithstanding that the US has attempted to wean Syria away from Iran. Syria is important because it borders on Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, with whom she has a casus belli for the return of the Golan.

Syria also has imperialist ambitions. She has visions of recovering all lands which were part of the Ottoman province of Syria.  Britain and France entered into the Sykes-Picot Agreement during WWI in which they agreed that Britain would control Mesopotamia (Iraq) and southern Syria, (Jordan and Israel) and France would control the rest of Ottoman Syria (Syria, Lebanon and Hatay province of Turkey). The League of Nations formalized this agreement in 1923 when it created the British Mandate and the French Mandate.

In pursuance of these ambitions, in 1970, Syria invaded Jordan only to be repulsed by Israel.  During the recent decades, Syria extended its influence over Lebanon.  This was made easier with the growth of Hezbollah which was predominantly Shiite. It was natural for Syria and Iran to come together on this.  Together they have armed Hezbollah to the teeth in order to have a proxy for the war against Israel. In truth there is no casus belli  between Hezbollah and Israel.

Iran took Hamas under its wing after Hamas took over Gaza from the Sunni backed Palestinian Authority in 2007.  It was natural for this to happen since they both are dedicated to destroying Israel.

This is a development which has put Egypt in the cross hairs. Hamas is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood which was founded in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood has been a thorn in Egypt’s backside ever since. It believes that Muslim society is no longer Islamic and must be transformed by an Islamic vanguard through violent revolution. Thus, the Brotherhood and Iran are natural allies.

There is great concern that when Mubarak dies, Egypt will be vulnerable to a Brotherhood takeover. Hamas, with the backing of Iran, could greatly assist in this takeover.

Turkey was the last to join the Iranian axis. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established the modern state of Turkey. He ruled as President until his death in 1938.  During this time he sought to transform Turkey into a modern and secular nation-state. The Turkish army maintained this orientation until the election of islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Prime Minister in 2003.  This victory was made possible by the changing demographics of the country. The higher birth rates of the rural class in Turkey (and in Hezbollah in Lebanon) made possible the shift in power.

The US championed the admission of Turkey to NATO and to the EU. Turkey maintained a friendship with Israel to gain favor with the US and with the EU. She succeeded in being admitted to NATO but not to the EU. The EU was not in the mood to admit a Muslim state and set all kinds of preconditions. Erdogan decided to chart his own course rather than the one dictated by the EU. Turkey gave up on admission and turned increasing islamist and anti-Israel and, I might add, anti-American.

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In Turkey’s MidEast Gambit, Sam Segev notes,

“Since his Justice and Development party (AKP) came to power in 2002, Erdogan has cautiously but consistently moved to reclaim Turkey’s “grandeur” of the Ottoman Empire era.

“This necessitated a slow but cautious distancing from Israel and the U.S. In 2003, it refused an American request to allow American troops to enter Iraq through Turkish territory. Then a Turkish diplomat was elected secretary general of the 53-member Organization of Islamic Countries and relations with Israel cooled.

“Erdogan ramped up his Islamic-oriented policy after his re-election in 2007. He reconciled with Syria, welcomed Hamas leaders in Ankara, hosted Sudanese President Omar Hassan el-Bashir, who is accused of war crimes, and began to undermine Egyptian and Saudi roles in the Sunni moderate Arab world. “

“ Turkey is the only NATO member to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and its alignment with Brazil to extricate Iran from stronger sanctions agreed upon by the five permanent members of the Security Council is a direct challenge to American influence in the region.

“Turkey’s attempt to break the blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip was a direct affront not only to Israel, but also to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.”

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And yet President Obama still believes “Turkey can have a positive voice in this whole process.”

To make matters worse, the opinion makers in the US and the EU have come out in favor of lifting the blockade which in effect is in support of Hamas, a terrorist organization. And Obama is on their side.

The strengthening of Hamas effectively strengthens Iran, strangles the peace process and scares the bejeesus out of Egypt and Jordan.

As Obama stands astride the shifting sands what possible vision can he have?

You would think that as the U.S. is losing control of the Middle East and plans to bring most of the boys home before the end of next year, she would need a strong Israel all the more.
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel

Turkey signs deal with Arab neighbors to create free trade zone

Meanwhile, EU announces plan to grant duty-free access for Palestinian products.  June 10, 2010

The Middle East – North Africa Financial Network www.MENAfn.com takes a cool look at the flotilla incident. It is now  a Jordanian Charity that with  help from Saudi Arabia, will  send a convoy of 25 trucks of aid material to Gaza. Considering geography we assume that this will be done in cooperation with Israel.

Also, very interesting, MENAfn had no problem in accepting an AIPAC pro-Israeli article explaining the Israeli Government side of the issue, and the fact that the Turkish organization was out for a fight. Do we see now cooler heads in the Middle East coming to the forefront? Is this a rebuff of Turkey’s attempt to lead the Arab world? 

Support Our Ally Israel,  Gaza flotilla radicals choose violence, not aid. Share the facts – IT SAYS.
 http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.as…

on the other hand, the Arab League has engaged Qatar as a participant in paying for the legal expenses of taking Israel to the International Court of Justice for the killing of the 9 people on the blocked Turkish ship.
 http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.as…

Two States – Jordan and Israel – are well established and ruled successfully.

A State of Palestine on the West Bank of the environmentally-challenged river Jordan is slowly in the making and should not be held back by the de-facto hold of extreme Islamic militancy – Shiia and Sunni extremism – that combined here under the anti-Israeli banners of basic anti-western self sacrifice for a pan-Islamic ideology, that was able to put there into the same bed Iranian and Saudi religious revival fountains and financial humanitarian aid from Europe. If the World at large and Washington in particular, want to do something for the region – just help Ramallah establish its independence in conjunction with the two existing States and keep reporting about Gaza as it really is. See the following article, clearly not a pro-Israeli source, as a good example of what we are saying.

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The IPS – WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010
Hamas to Carry Out More Executions
Mel Frykberg

GAZA CITY, Apr 20 (IPS) – The Hamas authorities in Gaza have vowed to carry out more executions of those on death row despite intense international criticism and condemnation from both Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. During the last few days, the Islamic movement has faced a barrage of denunciation following the execution of two Gazan men last Thursday, by firing squad, for alleged acts of treason.

Gaza military courts had accused Muhammad As Sebea, 36, from Rafah in southern Gaza, and Nasser Abu Frej, 34, from northern Gaza, of providing Israel with sensitive security information during the December 2008-January 2009 war. The two, whose bullet-riddled bodies were delivered to As Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following the execution, were also accused of being responsible for the death of several Gazan resistance fighters due to the information they supposedly provided Israel.

Despite the intense pressure de facto interior minister Fathi Hammad said on Monday that his government “would not hesitate” to implement more death penalties against other collaborators. “The Hamas government will continue enforcing capital punishment in the coastal enclave against those who have caused harm to national interests and who were the cause of the death of many Palestinians,” added Hammad. Sixteen men are currently on death row in Gaza having been sentenced to death in 2009 and the first few months of this year. Eight of them are accused of treason.

Civil courts in Gaza apply the death penalty under the 1936 Penal Law No. 74, dating from the British mandate.

In the West Bank, the PA’s civil courts impose capital punishment under the 1960 Jordanian Penal Law No. 16, which dates from Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank.

Military court death sentences are applied under the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979. However, the code remains vague in regard to some of the situations in which it can be applied.

Penal code article 165 applies to capital punishment for any crime that “incites people” and “harms the reputation or prestige of the Palestinian revolution.”

Furthermore, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has not ratified the code and therefore it remains unconstitutional even under Palestinian law.

The PLC remains frozen and politically divided between Hamas and Fatah following the civil war which broke out between the two main Palestinian political factions in Gaza in June 2007 when Hamas ousted Fatah from the coastal territory.

Human rights groups remained unimpressed by Hammad’s statements. “In addition to objection in principle to the death penalty, Thursday’s executions were based on trials that did not meet even minimal standards of due process,” says Israeli rights group B’tselem, a firm defender of Palestinian rights.

Bill van Esveld from Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has monitored the death penalties being carried out in both the West Bank and Gaza, concurs.

“We are concerned about the lack of transparency, due process and impartiality. We see Fatah members being sentenced to death in Hamas courts,” van Esveld told IPS.

“However, we haven’t seen Hamas members who we have documented being involved in similar crimes being sentenced to death in Gaza. Part of an emerging pattern involved the lawyer of one of the accused telling us his client was forced to confess,” van Esveld said.

“This was backed up by the court which used this confession as part of its evidence against the individual despite the circumstances under which it was obtained.

“What is also problematic is the number of condemned civilians who should not have been tried in a military court in the first place,” said van Esveld.

“Any death penalty has to be ratified by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” says Shawan Jabarin from Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq

“Therefore all those Gaza sentences were carried out illegally,” Jabarin told IPS.

However, in an interview with IPS in his Gaza office Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmed Yousef Yousef countered that Abbas’ term officially ended in January 2009 when new presidential and legislative elections were meant to be held.

“Furthemore, the current Palestinian Authority (PA) government was installed in 2007 as an emergency government which under Palestinian law is legal for only a month. It was not elected into power,” Yousef told IPS.

Yousef, also rejected the accusations that the men had been coerced into confessions.

“I reject those accusations completely. If there were any abuses perpetrated against the accused, I am not aware of these,” Yousef told IPS. “There are those with vested political interests who are making these accusations. Those men were given a fair trial.”

Hamas has accused its arch-foe and Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan, who is widely believed to be a stooge of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Israelis and a key figure behind an attempted Gaza coup, which Hamas preempted in June 2007, of being behind the false rumours.

During Israel’s blistering military assault on the Gaza Strip last rumours were circulating in numerous media sources that Dahlan, and other member of the PA, had actually egged the Israelis on in their attack as well as provided logistical information.

Two of Dahlan’s employees in Dubai are also alleged to have been involved in the January assassination of Hamas military leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh supposedly carried out by Mossad.

Seven years since the US toppled Sadam Hussein and also the secular Sunni Baath  party from power, and unleashed centripetal forces, it seems that the return of Iyad Allawi with potential Kurdish and moderate Shiia allies, with less emphasis on religious differences, could allow from some steps backwards that make strangely for progress to a more open society.

Iraqi parliamentary elections this month (March 7, 2010) were credible and no evidence has been found of any systematic or widespread fraud during the vote count, the top United Nations official in the country said today after authorities announced the final election results.  Ad Melkert, from the Netherlands and formerly number 2 at UNDP, now the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Iraq, and the head of the UN political mission (known as UNAMI) to the country, said in a statement that Iraqis deserved credit for “an historic achievement.”

The Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) of Iraq unveiled the results tonight (March 26th local time) for the national polls  in which more than 6,000 candidates competed for 325 seats in the Council of Representatives. Over 12 million people cast their votes.

Media reports indicate that Iraqiya, the party headed by Iyad Allawi, a former prime minister, holds a two member lead over the party of Nuri al-Maliki, the current premier, in the number of parliamentary seats won – if it holds it will be 91 to 89 for “The State of Law Alliance” of current prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Mr. Melkert called on all candidates to accept the results of the polls and “to assume responsibility to lead Iraq to the next stage of democracy, stability and prosperity for all. Whether winning or losing, participation in the elections has been a collective victory.”  “No election in the world is perfect. There were imperfections and at some places serious issues. We condemn acts of intimidation that have occurred in the course of the process” he said.

In his statement Mr. Melkert said UN officials were confident that the counting process contained the necessary checks and balances, and “there is now a solid basis for ratification by the Supreme Court” of the results.

“All results of almost 50,000 voting stations have been checked at least eight times. On the basis of specific complaints submitted by different entities, specific audits have been held on places with indications of irregularities. Ballot boxes that could not stand the test have not been included in the count. We have not found evidence of systematic failure or fraud of widespread nature.”
Mr. Melkert added that the conclusion was therefore that the overall election process, including the campaigning period, polling day and the count “has met reasonable demands and standards, with errors and doubts remaining within normal margins.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, declared that he would not recognize the results. He said he would challenge them in court.
“Some of these results are unacceptable and unreasonable,” he said.

Allawi, a secular Shiite who stepped down as prime minister five years ago, is returning to the center of Iraqi politics as he received millions of votes from Sunni Arabs that did not vote in the 2005 elections, a minority that has felt marginalized since Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

Allawi and his political coalition won Sunni support in part because he is considered less sectarian than other Shiite leaders and was not in office during the vicious sectarian bloodletting that marked the first two years of Maliki’s tenure.

On Friday, today, in Sunni and mixed Shiite-Sunni areas across the capital, where Allawi was most popular, residents shot bullets into the air in celebration.

Iraqis have witnessed five changes of government in the 7 years since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

An estimated 12 million Iraqis voted for their next parliament, which will assume control as the U.S. military draws down significantly over the summer, and ultimately leaves Iraq at the end of 2011.

The process has been clouded by cries of fraud from Maliki and his allies, who invoked the prime minister’s role as “commander in chief of the armed forces” in demanding a manual recount on Sunday. Maliki warned that if elections are deemed illegitimate, the country could descend into chaos.

U.N. and U.S. officials have said that there are no signs of widespread fraud.

Analysts and officials worry that Maliki and his allies are implicitly calling for supporters in the south and the capital to rise up if a recount is not conducted. U.S. officials hope for a smooth transfer of power.

“When one looks at the challenges that this country has gone through you can take some heart from the fact that people seem to manage to survive these challenges, to get through them,” the United States’ ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill, said in an interview this week. “We try to deal with things in a calm way with the understanding that this is monumental and emotions are high.”

Allawi, who has been tarnished in the past by his alliances with groups that Shiites consider sympathizers of Hussein’s Baath Party, The Washington Post thinks, he might now find it hard to get together with Kurdish and Shiite groups. Nevertheless, he will need their support in order to garner the votes needed to endorse a future government with himself as prime minister.

The two other large blocks of seats in parliament are The Iraqi National Alliance which is an Iranian backed Shiia religious party that includes pro-Iranian cleric Moktada al Sadr that got 70 seats,  and the Kurdistan Alliance that includes both main Kurdish parties – the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which together got 43 sets, but lost 8 seats to a third Kurdish movement called Goran or Change. So, besides of the four main blocks, there are further 32 deputes that are outside those blocks, like the 8 members from Kurdistan.

Frictions between Allawi and the Kurdish block will arise because of the contested Kirkuk region, but even if this gets smoothed, there will not be enough votes in Parliament, as it seems hard to believe that Allawi could get all of the 32 outsiders, so he must chip away from one of the two major Shiia blocks. After all – Iraq has a majority of Shiia and this will show through any democratic process. The UN enthused reception of the results may be factually true, but in practice, from a good election to a stable government – the road is still very long.

The questions that pop up from the American reporting might perhaps have to do with the lack of understanding in Washington of  Iraq in the first place. If Saddam’s megalomenia was the enemy that started it all, then having dismantled his bureaucracy and army, removed all trappings of a State, lead Iraq into the resultant mess. Then insisting Iraq does not fall apart into its three ingredients allowed for the Shiia majority takeover, more instability, and eventually the present correction so that a more balanced State can be born from the ashes, in time for the US to declare mission accomplished, and leave the Iraqis in a state good enough to let them find their own destiny within their own borders.Will the Iraqis be now magnanimous enough to the US and play along?

Will after all of this, Iraq become the first democratic, secular, modern Arab State of the Middle East? Ahead of the potential Palestinian State near the west bank of the river Jordan? Or will Iraq fall back to bickering among its three major ingredients and eventually give birth to Sunni – Kurdish warfare over Kirkuk and an alliance of the two basically more Arab ethnic blocks as in the presently competing two leading blocks?

ISRAEL
Israel Talks Solar With Egypt, Biofuel With Jordan
 http://planetark.org/wen/56819

JORDAN
Jordan Enlists Army In Climate Fight
 http://planetark.org/wen/56814

In Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – the news were the record snow. So, that keeps them busy – the need to dig out from under that snow.

So far as governing goes, the Village Voice – that is Greenwich Village in new York City – wrote that the Republicans won a 41-59 majority as a result from the Massachusetts avalanche.

The new weather predictions are that the President will set now the agenda and expect the Democrats to follow – AMEN!       That is leadership – for God’s sake with 59 still standing – what do they wait for?

Further – he – that is Obama – will try to brow-beat the Republicans to cooperate first. The American people say Washington is too partisan ? If that were true the 59 would be good enough – but really? Who are the Obstructionists?

If Obama invites the Republicans to come on board that would be very clever – it would tell the Democrats to stop being obstructionists.

But, politics might be such that the Republicans feel comfortable to project that they are THE PARTY OF NO!

How do you pull out a rabbit from your top-hat? How do you change unemployment rates with nothing happening in the economy? The Republicans might be happy to see the Administration collapse – the country collapse – so who cares about OSAMA!

Obama tells the Democrats – we will be losers together if you do not shape up and they returned – SHOW US THE WAY!

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Next topic:  How long can the World’s biggest borrower continue to be the World’s biggest power?

If we get to the point that we have a difficulty to sell our treasuries in the world we will cease to be a big power – that came from Greenspan – the former head of the Federal Reserve. Henry Paulson, the present holder of that job seemed less convincing.

David Walker, former US Controller General – head of the GAO – now head of te Peterson Foundation – wrote a book on the US deficit that has reached now $1.56 trillion and this is untenable.

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Fareed Zakharia on China-US relations – a US – China economic war is MAD – that is Mutual Assured Destruction – he thinks that the two are symbiotically bound now. I think he is wrong. China has such a huge internal market that it can continue well by producing just for their own people without exports to the US. They may not want to do that because it would mean a too soon push at increasing China’s middle class and risking folks ask for a mellowing down of the political regime. But nevertheless, this does not assure an immediate rebellion. In the US rather – a rebellion is possible – or a call for some real war – internally or externally.

To the latest two skirmishes – the US sending $6.4 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, and Obama hosting The Dalai Lama at the White House. Both topics are not new. The military hardware agreement with Taiwan was agreed in 2001, and the Dalai Lama has visited every single US previous President since he landed in India. Why did the Chinese get excited right now? That is before the April visit they will be making themselves to the White House? What about the Iran sanctions and the fact that Obama was left to wait outside that China conference room in Copenhagen? Are we going to see some muscle show here?

Christiane Amanpour, on her program had as guest Victor Gao, of the China National Association of International Studies.

He pointed out that the US sells weapons to Taiwan that it does not allow for sale to China. China is now the largest credit maker to the US. What if China buys less for several months? Is 2010 going to be the year that Obama gets tough and China gets nasty? Neither of them can afford a real trade war.

David Rothkopf affirmed that “we are interconnected” so we have to develop a different approach.

Victor Cha – he was on China desk at the National  Security Council. He said – This is a MUTUAL HOSTAGE GAME – both sides lose.

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Fareed Zakharia in Davos, had in front of an audience a half hour interview with King Abdullah II of Jordan.

It started out with Fareed pointing out the two main problems he thinks are facing Jordan: Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the Islamic fighting movement, but he was brushed aside by the King who continued coming back to the Israeli – Palestinian problem.

Fareed said that no-one has yet lost money by betting against Peace in the Middle East, but the King countered that the credibility of the US is at stake. We desperately need the undivided attention of the US – he said. If God forbid we cross the line of the viability of the 2 State Solution, what are we left with – continuing warfare – or even worse – the One State solution that many Israelis dread?

Fareed wanted to know if there is a Jordan option and was told flatly by the King that it will not work – Jordan absolutely does not want the West Bank. Are we talking of a viable entity? A third of the UN do not recognize Israel now.  The building of the wall has made Israel safer Fareed said and he spoke with President Peres who believes in a two States solution for the future of Israel but because of the security threats they think only of today and not the future.

The King disagreed – the injustice felt towards the Palestinian people pushes all other issues. He thinks that if you solved the problem of the Palestinians why should Iran then want the nuclear power. It does not make any sense for them to continue on that path. For now, it is the Palestinian issue that propels Iran’s efforts. When asked if he thinks that if not for the Israeli – Palestinian issue, there would be no Islamic terrorism? The King retreated by saying that – for evil to succeed – is for good men to do nothing. Evil will always exist – the evil always will be evil. On November 9, 2005 we had our own 9/11 and proportionately we lost twice as many people as the US casualties. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is is incendiary that it drives everything else.

Fareed suggested that Professor Bernard Lewis explained that it was rather because of the lack of openness in the Muslim world that created the Al Qaeda – it was against Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We have 400 million young people in the Islamic world that need a direction. My role is to create a viable political Middle Class. If you want to move your country it is education – education – education. Bahrain speaks our language – so is a list of young countries that agree.

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Christiane Amanpour had a panel on security issues and wanted to know what are the real security problems today. Surely it was not what you would have expected to hear. She was told:

- Outer Space

- The Open Sea

- The Cyber Space

- The Polar Ice Caps.

So far as the conventional thinking she was told that Washington and Beijing have less to fear from each other then from failed States like Somalia.

When satellites become more crucial they become targets. Where are the National borders in cyber-space? Most governments cannot even define a cyber attack.

Zbigniew Brzezinski said that we have to define the nature of the threat. Today it is not as lethal as it was when within 6 hours we could have had 80 million casualties in the cold war. But today attacks are less predictable even though less lethal.

The US still has a higher sophisticated technology capability. The Google issue is a cyberthreat. Are the hackers from China government? Do they really come from China? We may have to retaliatete selectively and we must have a foreign policy that does not object to this.

The way the domestic policy goes now, will Obama continue the international engagement that he started out with so well? Now we have gridlock.

Brzezinski called for Presidential leadership. Also – the President should persevere with the Iran effort.

The other topic is the Israeli -Palestinian conflict. Rhetorically Obama gets an A, For Performance a B or B-

On space – we must avoid a nuclear race in space – we must have the capacity to shoot down satellites and space vehicles.

———————

From the Kathie Crowley show – her interview with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, I picked up one fleting issue – the names of the countries the Secretary mentioned as friends to work with in the present world. She clearly mentioned the big two China and India, but then she spoke also of other major economies – Brazil, South Africa and Turkey. I mention this here because it vindicates our recent decision to move Turkey to the Home-page of www.SustainabiliTank.info and it seems that we were right.

Clearly, there were no Europeans mentioned in that segment, neither Mexico nor Canada or Japan.

IPS Newsbriefs
Clean Energy Faces Tough Financial Climate in Mideast.

CAIRO, Jan 28 (IPS) – Renewable energy projects in the Middle East could be scaled back or scuttled unless fresh sources of financing are found. The global financial crisis has made debt finance less accessible, and forced energy developers to pay more costs upfront or seek alternative funding sources. Financiers say syndicated loans, once a major source of clean energy finance, have been largely abandoned by banks attempting to wipe off bad debts and concentrate on low-risk projects.

“The banking sector in general will take several years to recover and rebuild the regulatory capital that it’s lost over the past several years combined with higher regulatory capital requirements expected in the near future,” says John Dunlop, who heads the London Energy Project Finance desk at HSH Nordbank, a leading financer of renewable energy projects. “The effect will be to reduce the overall amount of debt finance coming from banks and going to all sectors, including renewables.”

Some analysts, however, point out that concerns over climate change and declining fossil fuel reserves have resulted in government stimulus packages that could help project developers overcome the short-term financing drought. “There are certainly concerns about the economy, but I think that renewable energies are going to be a priority because they represent the future,” says Helene Pelosse, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). “Countries have to make choices and, since energy resources are limited, then this is the first field where they should invest.”

Industrial nations meeting in Copenhagen last month offered 30 billion dollars over the next three years to assist developing countries in establishing and implementing procedures to reduce their emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change. They also pledged to mobilise international support to raise 100 billion dollars annually, starting in 2020.

Yet critics have charged that the Copenhagen Accord conspicuously failed to establish the source and mechanisms of this funding – an oversight that could ultimately derail efforts to mobilise financial resources. “Many who were not enthusiastic about the outcome of the conference have considered the talk about funding just a transient one,” Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad, the United Arab Emirates minister for environment and water, said during the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. “The Accord did not clarify the sources of such funding, how the money is to be distributed and the systems by which these funds operate.”

Kilian Baelz, acting director of the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), a Cairo-based energy policy think tank, says clean technology is “still high on the agenda” of many Middle East nations, though not all have the same political will or financial means.

Oil-rich United Arab Emirates has shown no sign of abandoning its clean energy ambitions, which include the 22 billion dollar carbon-neutral Masdar City project. Other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) appear to be proceeding with caution. “The small Gulf states have taken a more conservative approach towards lending to renewable energy projects,” says Baelz. “They have seen that their wealth is not guaranteed and that they are vulnerable to developments in the international market.”

Poorer Arab states such as Syria, Jordan and Egypt have less capital, but Baelz does not foresee any significant scaling back of current projects. “Most of the projects in the pipeline right now are either financed from public budgets or donor funded,” he says. “In addition, many renewable energy projects are comparatively small, that is they are below the 100-200 million euro threshold that has been the lending limit for many banks.” According to Dunlop, the de-leveraging of the banking sector has put priority on consolidation and quality lending. Small-scale project developers and independent power purchasers (IPPs) will still need to field clean deals if they hope to obtain financing.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), based in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, had to invite Israel for its January 2010 meeting as per a commitment to be open to all, but Israeli Minister Uzi Landau had no meetings with UAE officials as per www.albawaba.com

 http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/259483

Israeli minister attends international conference in Abu Dhabi.

Posted: 17-01-2010 , 13:33 GMT

Israel for the first time sent a Cabinet minister to the United Arab Emirates, with which it does not have relations, to attend a conference on alternative energy. National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau told The Associated Press on Sunday he did not meet with any Emirati officials while attending a conference of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), based in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

An official with the UAE’s Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press that allowing Israel Cabinet minister to participate in the agency’s activities was “part of obligations in hosting (the agency) in the UAE.” He added, that Israel’s participation in the international event in Abu Dhabi will have “no implications or indications for bilateral links between the UAE and any other party.”

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From Israel the HAARETZ paper provides further enlightenment to the story.
 https://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143160…

IRENA is the first ever international organization based in the UAE.

IRENA was established a year ago with a mission to promote sustainable use of al forms of renewable energy. In June, Abu Dhabi was selected as the agency’s headquarters.

Last year the UAE denied entry to Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer to an international tournament in Dubai. The UAE officials said Peer was denied a visa because of anti-Israel sentiments in the Gulf state following last year’s three-week war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The tournament was fined a record $300,000 for refusing Peer the entry. Last week the UAE authorities sent a written assurance to the World Tennis Association that all players who will qualify for the 2010 championships will be allowed into the country and welcome to play in Dubai.

On Sunday, an official with the UAE’s Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press that “allowing an Israeli cabinet minister to participate in the agency’s activities was part of obligations in hosting (the agency) in the UAE.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. He added, that Israel’s participation in the international event in the oil-rich Abu Dhabi will have no implications or indications for bilateral links between the UAE and any other party.

Israel only has diplomatic relations with two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan.

Last year, Mauritania and Qatar suspended contacts with Israel to protest the Gaza bloodshed. Mauritania, an Arab League member, had full diplomatic relations with Israel. Qatar, an energy-rich Gulf state had maintained low-level relations with the Jewish state by hosting an Israeli trade office in the capital Doha since 1996.

Multifaith green writers unite in Madaba, Jordan.

December 29, 2009 news.

Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians hosted a cross-border workshop on environment blogging to spur Middle East change in response to a call from the United Nations (UN).
Since most countries in the Middle East have much to improve in all areas of environmental protection, UNEP, or as the information says – the UN – has called for more reporting on the environment in the Middle East to spur awareness and change.

Funded by the San Francisco-based United Religions Initiative, 19 prominent journalists and bloggers in Arabic, Hebrew and English met to brainstorm new ways to report on and instigate environmental change in areas of activism, design, urban health, religion and clean technologies. The bloggers plan on reporting their encounter on GreenProphet.com.

Green Prophet founder Karin Kloosterman says, “The environment is a leveler connecting Muslims, Jews and Christians in this part of the world. By focusing on our shared challenges like global warming, water and pollution, we hope to encourage the crucial conversations and work in the field for a cleaner, more rewarding and sustainable Middle East.”

The following are the top 28 finalists in the Official 2009 New 7 Wonders of Nature competition – nominated from among hundreds of sites around the world that have been proposed.

Many world leaders have emphasised the crucial importance of the global community acting to address climate change, by agreeing a comprehensive successor-pact to the Kyoto protocol. The United States president and United Nations secretary-general are among them. In looking ahead to the UN’s climate-change conference in Copenhagen on 7-18 December, they declared that 2009 “must be the year of climate change”.

* * *

No one from the region of west Asia-north Africa (WANA) – an enormous area facing huge environmental, social, and human-security problems – could disagree. Yet it is notable that despite the all-encompassing and interconnecting nature of climate change, inclusion of this region in high-level climate-policy discussion is lacking. Not one of the fifteen countries involved in preparatory meetings for the Copenhagen conference has come from this region; the Arab states, Israel, Iran and Turkey are simply not represented.

This is a signal of a wider dysfunction. The climate-change crisis is but the most alarming sign of dramatic changes in the world’s landscape, which require a move away from the failed unilateral strategies – lines drawn in the sand – of the past. If we want different results we all have to do things differently. For west Asia-north Africa, that means being included in global discussions.

* * *

The ingredients of change:

The world is facing what amounts to an existential crisis, for which it has neither the principles nor the capacities to solve. The most visible evidence of this crisis are widespread conflict and insecurity; its root causes are climate change, competition for resources, marginalisation of the majority world and global militarisation. It is a crisis where we are all wholly interconnected – in everything but policy.

The west Asia-north Africa (WANA) region is at the centre of this global crisis. The region is of great strategic importance as the intermediary meeting-point of Eurasia. As well as being home to the world’s greatest concentration of energy reserves, it also represents an arc of crisis; from Casablanca to Malacca, this is one of the most populous and poor and arguably the most volatile region of the world.

WANA must be at the heart of the efforts to address and remedy the crisis, rather than being pushed to the margins. But it must also generate its own solutions, involving approaches that dignify the human environment and ennoble people. In practical terms that also means partnerships to enable regional stabilisation, which bind the region together while looking outwards across the “energy ellipse” (from the Caucasus to the Straits of Hormuz) and beyond.

Both intra- and supra-regional dialogue is essential, but both must be driven by a vision and by people with the integrity to follow through. There are many precedents which can inspire this. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the nucleus after two terrible world wars that began in the continent of what became the European Union, required the inspiration and the example of its large-minded architects. This could be the template for a Community of Water and Energy for WANA; more ambitiously, the Arctic Council could be the model for a Water, Energy and Petroleum Authority to oversee both the oil-possessing countries and those of the hinterland. Resource-scarcity and resource-wealth could thus be transformed from a source of conflict into points of cooperation.

A regional community using modern technology could use the region’s deserts to develop clean energy. The jobs created in the fields of water-desalination and solar energy, together with their service industries, would go some way towards meeting growing demands for employment – estimated by the World Bank as amounting to 100 million new job opportunities required by 2020. Sustainable governance of shared resources would enable us to replace fossil-fuels, solve our energy crisis, reduce carbon-emissions, slow climate change and maximise the carrying capacity of the trans-border area. But only a thematic and integrated approach that puts people, human dignity and preventive security at the forefront can create regional coherence and solidarity.

The international community has a vital role to play here. Instead of attempting to seek a balance of power and influence in the region, it would be more constructive for it to focus on fostering practical collaboration. But this too requires a recognition that to leave millions of people to subsist on the peripheries of society is irresponsible, amoral, and a threat to everyone. There must be inclusion, in policy and attitude, and at every level. This means moving beyond narrow and unrepresentative forums which inevitably produce policies to serve the few. Rather than a G8 or a G20, both of which have given primacy to the very corporate world which has brought the world economy to its knees, a G192 could begin to present policies that meet the needs of the great majority of humanity.

The world’s poor can no longer be regarded as falling beyond the bounds of what are regarded as harmonious social systems, their plight little more than collateral damage (what the Brazilian senator, Cristovam Buarque, describes as “one and a half billion people protected by gold curtains”). The most marginalised and vulnerable must be involved as stakeholders in their own development. In the WANA region, this means encouraging young people to stay in their countries of origin by guaranteeing them positive opportunities and incentives to contribute to their own communities – rather than, as so often happens now, turning them into migrants who carry burdens of bitterness across the globe.

The partnership approach

The key requirement of a new approach to these problems is to avoid reinforcing processes of exclusion (as with “in or out of the club”) or securitisation (as with “stick and carrot”), which only create various forms of abandonment and entrapment. Instead, the goal must be a synergy of partnerships. This will require enlightened leadership from within WANA, working closely with Europe, and the Barack Obama administration in America – as well as the countries of a future G192 – in pursuit of a human-security approach to both development and security.

I would like to see a synergy between a regional and a global economic and social council. The economic council would oversee alternative sources of financing; the social council would assist in the guidance of the activities of citizens, local groups, regional systems and networks in the management and protection of global common goods to meet the Millennium Development Goals and other programmes.

This effort also needs to mobilise the “third sphere” of ad hominem participation by government officials, the private sector and civil society as the only way to gain consensus on the multiple challenges. A partnership can only be developed when partners on both sides of the equation can project an authentic foreign and security policy based on the promotion of human dignity and the empowerment of the poor.

The idea and the project

The establishment of regional stability cannot be based on projects alone. It requires the formation of concepts – a stability charter to address people, land, economy, demography, supranational cooperation; supported by a perspective that looks at the region as a whole, rather than adopts futile attempts to micro-manage it. Moreover, creativity is needed in formulating a regional approach to cultural and humanitarian issues via lateral linkages.

A regional cohesion fund – to which all countries within WANA would contribute – would aim to reduce economic and social disparities; for as well volcanic rifts, the region is pervaded by huge social fissures. This fund must also address the issue of building from the bottom up, creating participation as well as stakeholding. The G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy agreed on the need for a “global jobs pact”; welcome though that is, it needs to be supplemented by an agency that supports inclusion in the economy: an international labour-compensatory facility, or an international labour-training facility.

Such a facility would ensure that human-resource flows – the “brain drain” from the WANA region – receive the training to enable these valued citizens to contribute to shared economic advancement and to provide them with the social compensation they richly deserve. This will enable them to become the conduits for compensatory funds earmarked to contribute to the social progress, and particularly the education and training institutions of the country of origin – thereby turning migration into a “win-win” situation.

These concept-led projects, if backed by an international commitment to contribute to stabilisation, could be a mechanism for real progress: creating a complementarity between human-resource-rich countries and oil-producing countries that results in a WANA being seen as an area of stability rather than of instrumentality (a place for the extraction of oil or the sale of weapons). To get from here to there means to define common interests and priorities according to clear criteria that enables those involved to think globally and to act regionally and locally.

The regional vision

A vision is also needed for the development of a regional structure. The context of the Helsinki process on shared security is a guide to what is needed: freedom from insurgency, violence and weapons of mass destruction; an economy with a human face, with particular emphasis on social development, bridging the human-dignity divides; and a legally binding framework as regards culture and humanitarian norms.

Human rights are the first casualties of war and conflict. The degradation of human dignity in the WANA region has undone generations of agreement and convention on the rights of civilians to protection and wellbeing. Such a structure would offer policy instead of politics, regionalism instead of narrow nationalisms.

Independent and sustainable democracies depend on more than just the holding of elections. The challenge is to create a new culture of democratic participation in a diverse region, recognising the specific characteristics of each country. The focus has to turn very clearly towards human-security approaches to political violence. This means that the public discourse must redefine its purpose as world solidarity to ensure that détente is not at the expense of small nations and peripheral peoples.

The actions taken now will dictate the quality of peoples’ lives for many years to come.  Their results will decide whether there is to be hope or a continued downward spiral towards chaos and war, and hopelessness for the drifting and the dispossessed – an outcome that will mean disaster for everyone.

Again, no one – in west Asia-north Africa or beyond – can dispute the proposition that 2009 “must be the year of climate change”. But it must also be the year of casting off narrow nationalisms, private clubs and power-plays, and embracing a shared and inclusive WANA regional policy, for the sake of our peoples and our planet.

Succession Issues Face Key U.S. Middle East Allies.
Analysis by Helena Cobban

WASHINGTON, Jul 12 (IPS) – Two key U.S. allies in the Arab world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are now both facing succession crises that may absorb, or even split, their political elites. This promises a period of political unpredictability ahead in both countries.

It may well also complicate Pres. Barack Obama’s Israeli-Arab peace diplomacy, which is based centrally on the role these two large allies – and one smaller one, Jordan – can play in solving inter-Arab problems, reassuring Israelis, and helping to tempt everyone to the peace table.

Since January, the head of Egypt’s military intelligence, Lieut.-Gen. Omar Suleiman, has been in charge of three key Middle East mediations. He has been mediating between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas over both strengthening the Gaza ceasefire and winning a prisoner exchange between them. He’s also been mediating a chronically elusive reconciliation between Hamas and the other big Palestinian movement, Fatah.

Meanwhile, Washington is hoping this year, as always, that Saudi Arabia can buttress U.S. diplomacy with cash and some political leadership. Saudi Arabia has now won the support of all the relevant Arab leaderships, including Hamas’s political bureau, for a key 2002 peace initiative that promises Israel normal political and economic ties in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967 and a fair resolution of Palestinian refugee claims.

The Saudi king, Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz, will be 85 this August. His longstanding crown prince (and half-brother) Sultan ibn Abdul-Aziz, is 83, and was recently hospitalised for several weeks with suspected cancer.

The big question regarding the Saudi succession hangs over whether, and how, the kingship will ever be transferred from the numerous ageing brothers and half-brothers who stand in line after Crown Prince Sultan, to the “next generation” of princes – some of the more senior of whom are already nearing 70 years old.

Earlier this year, King Abdullah named his 76-year-old half-brother Naif ibn Abdul-Aziz as “second deputy prime minister”, a position that places him a likely – but not certain -second in line to throne after Sultan.

When King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, died in 1953, he left some 37 sons from his 22 wives. Various of these sons have ruled the kingdom in turn since then.

Many of Abdul-Aziz’s sons had a dozen or more sons of their own. Saudi Arabia has no system of “primogeniture” (first-son succession.) Thus, there are hundreds of possible eventual claimants to the throne. Indeed, the youngest of Abdul-Aziz’s sons, Prince Muqrin, is, at 64, some years younger than several of the next-generation princes who now hope to become king.

There have been no reports that any possible successor monarchs might want to change a foreign policy stance that, since the 1930s, has aligned Saudi Arabia very closely with Washington. But among the country’s political elite, including its princes, there are many differing views on domestic affairs, including oil policies, economic policies, the role of the country’s powerful religious institutions, and the role of women.

These differences are inevitably hard fought over at times of succession, and could at the least distract Riyadh from playing the role in regional diplomacy that Obama wants it to play. (At worst, the kingdom could see a struggle between its many power centres that is even deeper and more debilitating than the one now rocking nearby Iran.)

In Egypt, meanwhile, there have been many recent reports that the country’s 81-year-old president, Hosni Mubarak, is ailing and finally eager to quit. Some reports say he has already told the Saudi monarch he may not even finish serving his current six-year term in office, which ends in 2011.

Mubarak has led Egypt’s 76 million people since 1981. Throughout those years he has always refused to name a vice-president.

Now, one of the two main contenders to succeed him is his 45-year-old second son, Gamal, who has held an important post in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) since 2002.

(It is not wholly strange that, even in a republic, a son might succeed his father as president. It has happened in North Korea, Syria, several African countries and even -with an eight-year interlude – when George W. Bush became president of the United States.)

Behind the scenes in Egypt, though, the military is still almost the same big force in the political system – and economy – that it has been since 1952. There is a considerable question whether the shadowy power centres in the Egyptian military will support Gamal Mubarak, an investment banker who has no record of service in the military.

The leading military man mentioned for possible next president is none other than Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief who has been conducting so much of Mubarak’s sensitive Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. (It also remains possible that the military might throw its weight behind another “insider” candidate, not Suleiman.)

The fact that Suleiman has been tasked by Pres. Mubarak with diplomatic jobs that are so important to the broader progress of Washington’s regional peace diplomacy means this diplomacy may well become entangled in any succession struggle that occurs in Cairo.

For example, if – as many well-placed Egyptians claim – Pres. Mubarak strongly wants his son to follow him in office, he may be less than eager to see Suleiman gain public kudos as a successful negotiator. There has been some questioning whether Mubarak may have set Suleiman up for failure by giving him overly strict parameters for his diplomatic chores.

Certainly, though Suleiman has been heading all three of these building-brick negotiations since late January, he has not succeeded in any of them yet.

Egypt’s succession struggle is connected to the broader diplomacy in another way, too. Hamas has nearly always been closely aligned with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a broad, nonviolent Islamist movement that is the main challenger to Mubarak’s NDP.

Mubarak has never allowed the MB to participate freely in Egypt’s regime-dominated politics, though during a brief and very partial democratic opening in 2005, its candidates won 88 of the 444 elected seats in the Egyptian parliament.

If Suleiman succeeds in one or more of his diplomatic tasks, then Hamas would immediately gain much more international legitimacy as a valid participant in the broader peacemaking. Many NDP insiders fear that could reflect well on the MB, too.

Ominously enough, the most recent round of reports about Mubarak’s failing health has been accompanied by new arrest campaigns against MB leaders and activists. It is possible that Egypt might see additional political heat during the coming summer months. Jordan is smaller and weaker than Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There at least, the ruling monarch, Abdullah II, has laid to rest – for now – the questions that once swirled around his succession. On Jul. 2 he appointed his son Prince Hussein as crown prince.

Prince Hussein is only 15 years old. But since the king is only 47, there is a good chance the crown prince will not be taking over any time soon. (Or perhaps, ever. Back in 1999 when Jordan’s King Hussein died of cancer, in his very last days he revoked the appointment that his brother, Hassan, had held as crown prince since 1965; and he named Abdullah II his successor, instead.)

But in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, political succession issues are now taking centre stage.

*Helena Cobban is a veteran Middle East analyst and author. She blogs at www.JustWorldNews.org.

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NORTH KOREA LEADER KIM JONG IL REPORTED TO HAVE PANCREATIC CANCER.
The San Francisco Sentinel, 12 July 2009
BY RICHARD LLOYD PARRY

North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, is suffering from cancer of the pancreas and is in danger of dying of the disease, South Korean television reported this morning, the latest and most specific in a series of reports on the dictator’s health.

The information, which was attributed by Yonhap Television News to unidentified Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources, is consistent with a report in a Japanese newspaper over the weekend that Mr Kim has a “serious pancreatic disorder”, and with television images from North Korea last week, in which he appeared a frail-looking Kim Jong Il, emaciated and slow on his feet.

Mr Kim disappeared from public view for three months last year after what intelligence agencies assume was a stroke last August. Since then, judging from television footage of him, his health has declined.

The South Korean intelligence agency has reported signs that Mr Kim is paving the way for his youngest son, Kim Jong Un to succeed him; unconfirmed reports have even had the 25-year old visiting Beijing to get to know officials of the closest thing North Korea has to an ally – China.

All year, Pyongyang has staged a series of verbal and physical provocations, including the launch of an intercontinental rocket and an underground nuclear test, which suggest that it has abandoned expectations of negotiation with the international community in favour of whipping up nationalist fervour at home.

Thee are no obvious signs are that Kim Jong Il is in anything less than complete control, but close examination of recent internal developments leads many Pyongyang-watchers to the conclusion that he is leaning towards military hardliners, and away from the more reform-oriented advisers whom he favoured in the middle of the present decade.

————

For Immediate Release from ETE ON THE UN:
July 12, 2009, by Anne Bayefsky

This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in Forbes.
 info at EYEontheUN.org

President Obama in Ghana: What He Refused To Say in Cairo.
Stroking Muslim and Arab nations has become the hallmark of Obama’s foreign policy.

Speaking in Ghana on Saturday President Obama lectured Africans on local repression, corruption, brutality, good governance and accountability. The startling contrast to his June speech in Cairo was revealing. Stroking Muslim and Arab nations has become the hallmark of Obama’s foreign policy.

In Egypt, he chose not to utter the words “terrorism” or “genocide.” In Egypt, there was nothing “brutal” he could conjure up, no “corruption” and no “repression”.

In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned “good governance” seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to “make change from the bottom up.” He praised “people taking control of their destiny” and pressed “young people” to “hold your leaders accountable.”

He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states–despite the fact that not a single Arab country is “free,” according to the latest Freedom House global survey.

Before the Muslim world Obama donned the role of apologist-in-chief. Over and over again his examples of shortfalls in the protection of rights and freedoms were American: the “prison at Guantanamo Bay,” “rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation,” impediments to the “choice” of Muslim women to shroud their bodies.

Christian Africa was to be treated to no such self-flagellation. In a rare tongue-lashing for Africans from any American president, he chastised: “It’s easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict … But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy … or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants … tribalism and patronage and nepotism … and … corruption.”

He might equally have said to the Arab and Muslim world: “It’s easy to scapegoat Israel and blame your problems on the presence of Jews–albeit on a fraction of 1% of the territory inhabited by the Arab world–but Israel is not responsible for poverty, illiteracy, torture, trafficking, slavery and oppression rampant across your countries.” But he did not.

In Ghana he pointed to specific heroes that had exposed human rights abuse, singling out by name a courageous investigative reporter. In Egypt, though journalists and bloggers are routinely threatened, jailed and worse, no such brave soul came to mind.

In a Christian African nation he said, “If we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.”

To the Arab and Muslim world he could have said: “Since the day of Israel’s birth Arab and Muslim countries have made conflict with Israel a part of life, warring over land and manipulating whole communities into fighting in the name of Islam to render the area Judenrein.”

Instead, he turned on the only democracy in the Middle East and said the presence of Jews on Arab-claimed territory–settlements–is an affront to be “stopped.” It didn’t matter that agreements require ultimate ownership of this territory to be determined by negotiation or that apartheid Palestine is hardly a worthy pursuit.

From Ghana he chided Africans: “No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.”

For an Arab and Muslim audience he cooed: “America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities, which are also threatened.”

Ghanaians will likely turn the other cheek, secure enough to take it and even be grateful for the spotlight. But Obama’s double-standard is not a victimless crime. The disparity between the scolding he gave in Ghana and the love-in he held in Cairo illuminates an incoherent and dangerous agenda.

In his lofty, but empty, rhetoric in Ghana, Obama promised “we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst,” pledged “a commitment … to sanction and stop” warmongers and embraced the Zimbabwe non-governmental organization that “braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person’s vote is their sacred right.”

These are devastating words for Iranians struggling valiantly to keep the hope of democracy alive but forced to bear witness to the contradiction. Betrayed, they have watched the Obama administration pledge to move forward on negotiations with illegally ensconced Iranian thugs–at the very same time their victims are being rounded up, tortured and readied for show-trials in advance of certain execution.

On Friday, Obama, and the rest of the G-8 with his blessing, announced that thinking about more sanctions on Iran can wait until September. And then we can expect yet another round of Security Council dickering over minimalist responses to more Iranian stalling tactics–until an Iranian nuclear weapon is inevitable. Though it is 2,202 days since the U.N.’s atomic energy agency first declared that Iran was violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Obama pretends legitimizing those same nuclear-proliferating fascists makes it more likely the clock will stop ticking.

Iranians standing up for their allegedly “sacred rights” know Obama has it exactly backwards. Speechifying about “our interconnected world” and “common interests” in Ghana was cold comfort to the voices of Muslim dissidents and Jewish victims deserted in the Obama wilderness.

From: Hassan Mansour
He says: There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. So on behalf of the Egyptian Society for Environmental Sciences (ESES) it is our pleasure to welcome you to the fourth international conference on “Impacts of Climate Change on Natural Resources” that will take place in Ismailia, Egypt on November 10-11, 2009.

As in the past three years, this conference will offer outstanding international speakers. There will be ample time for abstracts, posters, and the many informal discussions that have helped make past meetings successful.

Those of you who attended the past conferences of ESES already know that Ismailia is a vibrant modern city, and that Suez Canal University makes an outstanding venue for this meeting.

for more information, please feel free to contact:

Hassan Mansour
Representative of the Organising comittee
 hmansour at uga.edu,  man_griesh at yahoo.com
Or visit our website: www.eses-catrina.com

further, they say:

Recently, the environment has been the topic of the hour, the whole world started to pay a great attention to the environment as a strategic choice to conserve the natural resources which will ensure the continuity and sustainability of these resources in the future.

Sinai Peninsula and Suez Canal area are characterized by their geographical importance and their richness in natural resources which include plants, animals, geological structures and marine habitats.

The natural resources of Egypt, especially these of Sinai Peninsula are facing many threats such as over collection, overgrazing, habitat destruction and urbanization which in return change the wild life, distinction of some species, threat some other and rarity of others.

Also, the unique geological structure affected by many threats as the random quarrying and overexploitation for material resources. The underground water also affected by the pollutants.

—————

Management Committee:

President:

Prof. Abdel-Raouf A. Moustafa

Vice-Presidents:

Dr. Nabil N. El-Masry

Secretary:

Dr. Mohamed S. Zaghloul

Treasurer:

Dr. Raafat H. Abdel-Wahab

Members:

Prof. Samira R. Mansour

Dr. Wafaa M. Kamel

Dr. Samy A. Abdel-Malek