We wonder why it has to be this way - but seemingly progress comes because of suffering.
Europe’s Muslims seemingly are making progress in their fight for emancipation when understanding what happened to the Jews befor them.

Now, if they write to their families, in their old homes, what they just learned in Britain, Europe, the US, and the understanding of reality hits
back “home” then perhaps the likes of Ahmedi-Nejad will lose their carrying capacity and understanding and eventual peace could prevail in the Middle East.

Do you think that then, without the economic effect of a potential oil-boycot startted by the Middle East brethren, there could also be less Xenophobia in the new country?

REUTERS
Mr Malik said that many British Muslims now felt like ‘aliens in their own country’

Today’s print edition

Muslims feel like ‘Jews of Europe’

Minister’s shock warning on rise of anti-Islamic prejudice

By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Friday, 4 July 2008

Britain’s first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims in the United Kingdom, saying that many feel targeted like “the Jews of Europe”.

Shahid Malik, who was appointed as a minister in the Department for International Development (Dfid) by Gordon Brown last summer, said it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority.

Mr Malik made clear that he was not equating the situation with the Holocaust but warned that many British Muslims now felt like “aliens in their own country”. He said he himself had been the target of a string of racist incidents, including the firebombing of his family car and an attempt to run him down at a petrol station.

“I think most people would agree that if you ask Muslims today what do they feel like, they feel like the Jews of Europe,” he said. “I don’t mean to equate that with the Holocaust but in the way that it was legitimate almost – and still is in some parts – to target Jews, many Muslims would say that we feel the exact same way.

“Somehow there’s a message out there that it’s OK to target people as long as it’s Muslims. And you don’t have to worry about the facts, and people will turn a blind eye.”

The claims are made in an interview to be broadcast on Monday in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to coincide with the third anniversary of the London bombings of 7 July.

A poll to accompany the documentary highlights the growing polarisation of opinion among Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims, who say they have suffered a marked increase in hostility since the London bombings.

The ICM survey found that 51 per cent of Britons blame Islam to some degree for the 2005 attacks while more than a quarter of Muslims now believe Islamic values are not compatible with British values. While 90 per cent of Muslims said they felt attached to Britain, eight out of 10 said they felt there was more religious prejudice against their faith since the July bombings.

The Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, presented by the writer and broadcaster Peter Oborne, examines claims that negative attitudes to Muslims have become legitimised by think-tanks and newspaper commentators, who use language that is now being parroted by the far right.

Mr Malik, who narrowly escaped serious injury when a car was driven at him at a petrol station in his home town of Burnley in 2002, said he regularly receives anti-Muslim hate mail at his constituency office in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, which has the highest BNP vote in the country and was home to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the suicide attackers who killed 52 people in London in 2005.

The MP said the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media, including a story run by several national newspapers in December last year wrongly stating that staff in the Dewsbury and District Hospital had been ordered to turn the beds of Muslim patients towards Mecca five times a day, was a key example of how his co-religionists were being alienated from the mainstream.

He said: “It’s almost as if you don’t have to check your facts when it comes to certain people, and you can just run with those stories. It makes Muslims feel like aliens in their own country. At a time when we want to engage with Muslims, actually the opposite happens.”

The Dispatches programme also speaks to Andy Hayman, the former Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner who was Britain’s most senior anti-terrorism officer until he resigned last December. Mr Hayman, who was criticised for failing to tell senior Scotland Yard officers that an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, had been shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, is asked why he thinks it is important to engage with Muslims expressing extreme views.

Mr Hayman said: “Because we’re tackling head on the people that we feel are at the heartbeat of this whole complex agenda. Not to have a dialogue with them would seem that we are apprehensive, we’re scared, we’re frightened… So even if it’s appeasement in some quarters, that is still a conversation that is not being had and needs to be had.”

Mr Malik’s comments were backed by Simon Woolley, a member of the Government’s task force on race equality, and co-founder of Operation Black Vote. He said: “On an almost daily basis, there is rampant Islamophobia in this country, the effect of which is not for our Muslim community to get closer to a sense of Britishness but to feel further away from a feeling of belonging in British society.”

——————-

Also:

The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain’s new disease

Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society – and nobody seems to care. By Peter Oborne

The Independent, Friday, 4 July 2008

Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding.

In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets.

Sarfraz Sarwar is a pillar of the Muslim community in Basildon, Essex. He is constantly abused and attacked, and the prayer centre he used has been burnt to the ground.

Mr Sarwar, who has six children and whose wife is matron of an old people’s home, is a patently decent man. His only crime is his religious faith. He and his fellow worshippers now meet in secret to evade detection, and the attacks that would follow.

The first abuse that Mr Sarwar’s family suffered was in October 2001 – just after the 9/11 attacks – when pigs’ trotters were left outside their door, the walls of their house were covered with graffiti and two front windows were broken.

Since then, the family has suffered many attacks, including a failed fire-bombing. In February, the tyres of Mr Sarwar’s new car were slashed; in March his windows were broken again. He has now installed CCTV cameras, replaced his wooden back door with one made of steel and erected higher fences.

An investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity.

Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathiser in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, “I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act.”

The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story.

There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed.

Why? Britain’s Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Many are a different colour. As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent.

Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures.

Islamophobia – defined in 1997 by the landmark report from the Runnymede Trust as “an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination” – can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England.

Its appeal is wide-ranging. “I am an Islamophobe,” the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. “Islamophobia?” the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, “Count me in”. Imagine Liddle declaring: “Anti-Semitism? Count me in”, or Toynbee claiming she was “an anti-Semite and proud of it”.

Anti-Semitism is recognised as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia.

Its practitioners say Islamophobia cannot be regarded as the same as anti-Semitism because the former is hatred of an ideology or a religion, not Muslims themselves. This means there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended.

“There is a definite urge; don’t you have it?”, the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.” Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism. Yet his books continue to sell, and his work continues to be celebrated.

And we found the language of Islamophobic columnists such as Toynbee, Liddle, or novelists such as Amis, duplicated by the British National Party and its growing band of supporters.

All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won’t work if they are serious about electoral success.

To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people’s fears about immigrants and Britain’s ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists.

They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state.

Griffin’s strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: “We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it’s the thing they can understand. It’s the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with.”

Last month, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a BNP heartland with nine BNP councillors, a council second only to Barking and Dagenham in far-right representation. The party has made this progress in large part by mounting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP has tried to link this decline to Muslim immigration.

Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques, a flashpoint elsewhere too. The BNP accuses the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. Wherever we explored tension between Muslims and the local community we tended to discover the BNP was present, fanning discontent.

Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans; gays were held to subvert decency and normality until the 1980s, blacks until the 1970s, and Jews for centuries. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. And it is the perception that Muslims receive special treatment that fuels the most resentment. When we investigated clashes at a Muslim dairy in Windsor, we found the perception that police had failed to investigate what seemed to be a racist attack by Asian youths on a local woman played a powerful role in fanning resentments.

But by the same token we believe that Muslims should be given the same protection as other minority groups from insults or ignorant abuse. This protection is not available. Ordinary Muslim families are virtually a silenced minority.

We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture.

Peter Oborne’s Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, will be screened on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The pamphlet Muslims Under Siege, by Peter Oborne and James Jones, is published next week by Democratic Audit

Sharia law ‘coming to Britain’

By David Barrett
Friday, 4 July 2008

GETTY
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, said the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments were misunderstood

Sharia could play a role in some parts of the legal system, the most senior judge in England and Wales said today.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, ruled out the possibility of sharia courts sitting in this country or deciding penalties.

But in a speech at the East London Muslim Centre, in Whitechapel, he said there was no reason why sharia principles could not be used in “mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution”.

Sharia, a set of principles governing the way many Muslims believe one should live one’s life, suffered from “widespread misunderstanding” by the rest of the world, he added.

Lord Phillips said: “There is no reason why sharia principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

“It must be recognised, however, that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of mediation would be drawn from the laws of England and Wales.”

The Lord Chief Justice said severe physical punishments such as flogging, stoning and the cutting off of hands would not be acceptable.

He added: “There can be no question of such courts sitting in this country, or such sanctions being applied here.

“So far as the law is concerned, those who live in this country are governed by English and Welsh law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts.”

The judge said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had been misunderstood when it was reported that he said British Muslims could be governed by sharia. Dr Williams suggested sharia could play a role in “aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and authorised structures of mediation and conflict resolution”.

The Lord Chief Justice told his audience: “It was not very radical to advocate embracing sharia in the context of family disputes, for example, and our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the Archbishop’s suggestion.

“It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.”

Sunday, June 29, 2008

EDITORIAL The Japan Times online.  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/ed20…

Subtle change in the Middle East.

It did not take long before the ceasefire that went into effect on June 19 between Israel and Hamas was tested. The launch of rocket attacks last week from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory prompted Tel Aviv to launch an armed incursion, leaving the truce tattered, but not yet terminated. Peace must be restored.

Obscured amid the confusion was one important development: the beginnings of a dialogue, however tentative, between Israel and Hamas. This could be the first step toward real peace in the region.

Egypt, which controls one of the borders of the Gaza Strip, has worked for months to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that wrested control of the territory last year from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and is now trying to prove that it can govern as well as it can lead the armed struggle against both Israel and the PA. Cairo’s efforts culminated in an agreement that called for a complete end to mutual attacks in and around the Gaza Strip.

Israeli security forces killed two Palestinian militants Tuesday in the town of Nablus, which is in the West Bank and, according to the Israelis, not part of the agreement. The militants were from Islamic Jihad, a radical group that responded with rocket launches from inside the Gaza Strip. Israel rightly denounced the attacks as a “grave violation” of the truce and closed the border with Gaza. Israel kept the border closed after a rocket attack Thursday.

Hamas’ instinct is to escalate, but it has very good reasons to look for ways to restore the truce; indeed, both sides do. Hamas wants the borders open after a yearlong closure brought considerable hardship to most residents of the Gaza Strip. Despite substantial aid and assistance, Gaza today is one of the poorest areas in the Middle East.

The Tel Aviv government has launched attacks against Gazans as well, in retaliation for the frequent rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians living near the Gaza Strip.

Hamas wants some relief, not only to end the suffering of those people but to demonstrate that it can govern. Both sides also launched negotiations for a prisoner swap that would win the release of an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza since 2006.

While trying to persuade them to honor the agreement, Hamas has said it will not enforce the truce against other Palestinian groups. That policy is not good enough.

An essential — if not defining — attribute of government is its monopoly on the use of force within its territory. If Hamas is not willing to enforce that monopoly, then it does not deserve to be considered the ruling authority in Gaza.

To make its point, Israel has decided to respond to violations of the ceasefire with border closings. After three days, the flow of goods will increase, and then a week later, will increase yet again, to include other essential items, such as fuel. Each time the truce is broken, the clock will restart. That is a structured and measured response that should give Hamas incentive to step up its efforts to enforce the deal.

Apart from the hope that the agreement can end the violence and provide some relief to the long-suffering Palestinians, this truce is significant because it represents the first real engagement between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli officers insist that Egypt produced the real compromise and that “the Israeli position regarding Hamas as a terror organization has not changed one iota.” But the truth is the truce constitutes de facto recognition of Hamas — and that should give the Islamic group even more incentive to enforce the agreement.

Israel’s readiness to deal with Hamas would make it more difficult for others — such as the United States and other Western governments — to refuse to do so. And if it can deliver on a real peace, then Hamas will have shown the world that it can do what Mr. Abbas cannot: Enforce a peace among militant Palestinians.

If Hamas can take control of the border with Egypt — it is currently in negotiations with the PA and Cairo to do just that — then it will have demonstrated yet another attribute of a functioning government.

Peace aside, this is the real significance of the truce. It is the first critical step in Hamas’ struggle for international legitimacy. The world should encourage the group to continue down this path, to give up violence in exchange for recognition and the right to rule the Palestinian people. It is a long process, but these past weeks have marked the first tentative, and vital, steps forward.

———–

so, we were right all along in having two buttons for Palestine - The Bank and Hamasstan. In the meantime the two areas are being governed separately. The PA has no power in The Bank and even less in Gaza. If Hamas proves it can handle Gaza better, and Israel agrees to talk to them - then the Japanese see here a road to peace. It can be assumed that a President Obama, despite what others at Japan Times think, will also come along and help in negotiations for Middle East peace.

Further, let us note that the last moves were done without US help, and perhaps even in spite of a n Administration’s position of not talking to terrorists. 

nbsp;http://other-news.info/index.php?p=2520

Saving the planet will be difficult, but do not despair.
06/20/08 The Financial Times - By Philip Stephens oas per a new report of the London School of Economics - key elements to saving the planet.

The shortest distance in the discourse about climate change is that between denial and despair. The head wrested from the sand soon becomes the head in the hands. “Nothing needs doing” slides effortlessly into “nothing can be done”.

For all the accumulated evidence to the contrary, there are still a determined few who see global warming as the invention of woolly-hatted do-gooders and of scientists who want to be soothsayers. The small band of sceptics seizes on the inevitable imprecision of the effort to predict the future relationship between greenhouse gases and changes in temperature as an excuse to ignore the overwhelming weight of scientific knowledge.

The tactic is familiar, once used to grim effect by those who sought to refute the link between smoking and cancer – if you cannot prove everything, you cannot prove anything. This is a cynical thought perhaps, but I often wonder whether it is entirely coincidental that so many of the climate change sceptics are of a sufficient age to be sure they will be gone before they can be proved wrong.

Denial is a still a big problem, as demonstrated by the latest survey of global attitudes from the Pew Research Centre. The good news is that majorities in 14 of the 24 countries covered by this annual poll see global warming as a very serious problem. The bad news is that those countries with the smallest concerned majorities are the ones that are also contributing most to the stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Less than half – 42 per cent – of people in the US think the rising temperature of the planet is a serious problem. In China, the figure is a mere 24 per cent. That compares with figures of 70 per cent and above in Japan, France, Tanzania and Turkey and 92 per cent in Brazil. That for Germany, surprisingly, is only 61 per cent and for Britain, less surprisingly, 56 per cent.

The state of opinion in the world’s two worst polluters is worrying. In both the US and China, people are less concerned about climate change than they were a year ago. The proportion in China has almost halved from the previous 42 per cent.

These two nations – one the largest per capita emitter, the other now pumping out the most carbon dioxide overall – must be at the forefront of any serious global effort to slow the rate of climate change.

Just as worryingly, they each seem to blame the other. Four in 10 Americans, Pew records, think China is the villain, compared with less than a quarter who think their own gas-guzzling habits may be the main reason for the rising concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. Slightly more than a quarter of Chinese think the US is to blame, while fractionally under 10 per cent believe their own country is most at fault.

Which takes us to despair. This comes in two guises. The first is political short-termism that says there are too many immediate problems to handle. We have seen that happening since oil prices have climbed from the lower to the higher stratosphere.

A year or so ago, the political conversation in most developed economies was how to reduce the amount of carbon released into the skies. Carbon-free was cool. Now the priority is to persuade Saudi Arabia to get more hydrocarbons out of the ground. How, the politicians plead, can we tell voters to make sacrifices when the prices of energy and food are so high? Greenery goes out of fashion when times are tough.

Soaring oil prices do have some upside. Concerned Americans can celebrate the demise of General Motors’ Hummer division. Britain is witnessing a slump in sales of 4×4s – the so-called Chelsea tractors beloved by London’s ostentatious rich.

It can scarcely make sense, though, that the cost of a modest fall in greenhouse gas emissions is another huge transfer of wealth to a handful of oil-producing nations. In any event, what is a few gallons saved from a switch to less vulgar modes of transport against the exponential expansion of the carbon footprint of the developing countries?

The Chinese are adding two new coal-fired generating stations every week. And what about those projections showing that within 20 years or so new car sales in China will reach 18m a year against fewer than a million at the turn of the century. This before we consider the voracious appetite for fossil fuels in that other vast, rising economy, India.

Which brings us to despair in its second guise: it is all too difficult. The climate can be stabilised only if everyone moves simultaneously towards a low-carbon economy. If the US is not ready to curb its profligacy and China is unwilling to risk its future growth, what hope is there of a global compact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050?

The answer is that, yes, it is difficult but, yes too, it is possible. Those who insist otherwise would do well to read a new study by a group of experts led by Nicholas Stern, the UK economist. (Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change, London School of Economics.)

Written in the sober style of the original Stern review, this latest short report forsakes magic solutions. Instead it breaks down the challenge into its component parts and offers plausible responses in the form of market mechanisms, technological advances and behavioural changes. Its central conclusion is the antidote to despair: “The challenge is far-reaching, comprehensive, and global; but it is manageable”.

In particular the report maps a path to settle the argument at the heart of the present stand-off: how the burden of adjustment might be shared between rich and emerging nations.

Ceilings on the developed economies – responsible for the vast proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere – should bite immediately, it says. But a new international trading system would not impose binding targets on developing countries until 2020. In the interim, poorer nations would be able to sell emission reduction certificates to finance the eventual shrinking of their own carbon footprint.

I doubt the strategy is perfect. But alongside the technological opportunities, it demonstrates that the problem is tractable. Both candidates in the US presidential election support carbon trading. Saving the planet, an American friend tells me, could yet become a US mission, uniting entrepreneurs looking for profits with evangelical Christians demanding better stewardship of the planet.

As for China, for now it may have other priorities, but I am not sure that it wants to grow rich in a world getting unbearably warmer.

The Transatlantic Institute has a panel debate on -

‘How Europe sees the Middle East’

Monday, 23rd June 2008

17.30 – 19.00

At the:
MaeIbeek Room, International Press Center, Residence Palace
Rue de la loi 155, 1040 Brussels

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Mark Heller has been affiliated with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, now incorporated into the Institute for National Security Studies, since 1979. He was Coordinator of Research at the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security in 1991, Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University in 1992, and Research Associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 1999.

Robin Shepherd is a Senior Research Fellow Europe at Chatham House in London. His area of expertise include European foreign policy, Transatlantic relations, Prospects for the European Union and European relations with Israel. Mr Shepherd’s forthcoming publication on EU attitudes towards Israel, called ‘A State Beyond the Pale’, will be published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, in early 2009.

Wolfgang Barwinkel is based in the Middle East/Mediterranean Region Unit at the Council of the European Union. He is active in areas including WMD non-proliferation and the Middle East peace process.

Moderator: Emanuele Ottolenghi
Dr. Ottolenghi is the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Institute

To participate, please contact the Transatlantic Institute at +32 2 500 72 85
or by e-mail at  fellow at transatlanticinstitute.org

  Permalink | Printer Friendly |  Email This Article
Posted in Reporting from Washington DC, Israel, Future Meetings, European Union, Egypt, Turkey, Arab Asia, Belgium

del.icio.us Digg Reddit Google Technorati Windows Live Yahoo! | what's this?

Discuss this article

A paper entitled “Mitigation Options for Turkey in the Post-2012 Period, Based on the Analysis of Emissions of GHGs in the Period 1990-2004” will be presented at the 31st IAEE International Conference in Istanbul on June 18-20, 2008, by Yunus ARIKAN, the Senior Climate Change Project Manager of Regional  Environmental Center Country Office Turkey (REC Turkey).

The research and analysis for the paper have been conducted within the scope of the project entitled “Promoting Climate Change Policies in Turkey” , funded by the LIFE Third Countries Fund of the European Commission, co-financed by the Italian Ministry of for the Environment and  Territory, implemented by REC Turkey in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Greek consultant Exergia.

The paper shows that, in the period 1990-2004, increase in total emissions (74%) and per capita emissions (37%) are higher than the increase in the economic income (68%) and the increase in the population (28%) in Turkey. As of 2004, the country’s per capita emissions (4.1 ton CO2-eq/cap) are still well below the OECD average and slightly above the global average. However, the trend in 1990-2004 shows that the carbonization of the economy and lifestyles are also as effective as the increase in the growth of the population and economy, typical features of a developing country. Hence, it has been observed that the increase in the carbon intensity (7%) of Turkey’s economy is higher than the increase in the energy intensity (1%). Within this period, the 11% decrease in the carbon intensity of electricity consumption is the most significant positive progress in terms of climate friendly production. This outcome is primarily the result  of a shift to natural gas in the period between 1997-2001 and the enhanced utilization of hydroelectric power in the period between 2001-2004.

The paper proves that the lack of progress in enhancement of energy efficiency and better utilization of renewable energies can be considered as the major consequences of lacking climate change policies in Turkey in 1990-2004, due to Turkey’s position with respect to the UNFCCC. However, the huge potential in energy efficiency and renewables in Turkey also imply that the country has a huge potential in mitigating carbon emissions, provided that the country is appropriately involved in the global carbon regime and market in the post 2012 period.

As a conclusion, adopting sectoral carbon intensity targets specifically on energy efficiency and non-hydro renewables as a means of controlling emissions of greenhouse gases might enable Turkey to be involved in global efforts for mitigation of climate change. As being a country listed in Annex-I of the UNFCCC in a position that is different than that of other Annex-I countries and a country that is not listed in Annex-B of the KP, such a mitigation option for Turkey might also introduce a new model for other “advanced developing countries”, (e.g.  Non-EU, Non-Annex-B countries of OECD (i.e. S.Korea and Mexico)) which could provide significant contributions in on-going negotiations to broadening international efforts on mitigation of climate change in the post-2012 period.

The abstract and full versions of the paper, together with more than 100 proceedings of the conference can be accessed at:    www.iaee08ist.org

Yunus ARIKAN
İklim Değişikliği Proje Yöneticisi / Climate Change Senior Project Manager
Bölgesel Çevre Merkezi Türkiye Ofisi (REC Türkiye) / Regional Environmental Center Country Office Turkey  (REC Turkey)
Address: Ilkbahar Mah. 15. Cad. 296.Sok No:8 Yildiz 06550 Ankara TURKEY
Tel: +90 3…
Fax: +90 312 491 95 40
e-mail:  yunus.arikan at rec.org.tr
Web: www.rec.org.tr

News: Israel and Hamas Agree to a Cease-Fire, Egypt Says.
Wednesday 18 June 2008, Middle East Time.

by: Isabel Kershner and Graham Bowley, The New York Times

A Photo shows - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egypt’s Intel chief Omar Suleiman.

Jerusalem - Israel and the Islamic group Hamas have agreed on a mutual cease-fire to take effect Thursday following negotiations brokered by Egypt, Egyptian state media announced on Tuesday.

The official Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA and state-run television quoted an unidentified senior Egyptian official as saying that the truce would start at 6 a.m. Thursday. Israeli officials would not immediately confirm or deny that any agreement had been reached.
Talks, brokered by Egypt, have been proceeding intensively between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Both sides have appeared keen on achieving a cease-fire, but until the truce comes into effect neither side is likely to stop exchanges, and on Tuesday three Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.
Palestinian medical officials in Gaza said that at least six militants were killed in the strikes and two others wounded.
However, a Palestinian official quoted by Reuters said that despite the deaths the negotiations for a truce were still on track.
“The two sides agreed, and the implementation of the truce will begin” on Thursday, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to announce a deal, said.
Meanwhile, according to the Bloomberg news agency, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on al-Quds Radio: “We are so close to hammering out a final truce agreement. The cease-fire will include a cessation of fire, ending the blockade and reopening the closed border crossings of the Gaza Strip.”
On Monday, Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which controls Gaza, said that the talks brokered by Egypt for a period of calm with Israel were nearing completion and that he hoped for a “happy ending.”
Witnesses to the airstrikes on Tuesday said five of the six killed in the strikes were members of the armed wing of the radical group Islamic Jihad. The sixth was also a militant but was not immediately identified.
The Israeli military said the first two strikes hit vehicles carrying what they called “terror operatives.” The third strike was against “other activists,” the army said.
The medical officials in Gaza said four militants were killed in the first strike against a car driving on a road east of Khan Yunis, while the second strike was also on a car.
Towns and villages in southern Israel have been under continual rocket and mortar fire from Gaza in recent months, while Gaza has been subject to frequent Israeli military strikes aimed at militants and incursions.
Israel’s Security Cabinet decided last week to pursue an arrangement for mutual quiet, though it also instructed the military to prepare for more serious action should the talks fail or the truce break down.
The developments Tuesday come after Israel appeared to be making diplomatic progress on other fronts Monday: a possible prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and a second round of indirect talks with Syrian representatives in Turkey.

Israeli officials refused to comment about possible developments with Hezbollah and said it would be premature to draw any conclusions about understandings with Syria.
Some Israelis, meanwhile, have suggested that the current flurry of diplomatic activity is intended to distract attention from the political and legal troubles of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who the police say is suspected of receiving illicit funds.
The possibility of an imminent exchange with Hezbollah, involving the two Israeli Army reservists whose capture by the militant group set off the 2006 war in Lebanon, seemed more likely on Monday when Zvi Regev, the father of one of the reservists, said he had been told about the men’s possible return. Mr. Regev, the father of Eldad Regev, told Israel Radio that Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official in charge of the soldiers’ case, informed the family two weeks ago “that a deal was about to be carried out.”
Mr. Dekel did not go into detail, he said, and did not know about the soldiers’ condition. Both were wounded in a Hezbollah ambush across the Israeli border that led to their capture in July 2006; the Lebanese group has offered no proof that they are alive.
Two Lebanese newspapers, Al Akhbar and As Safir, reported on Monday that a prisoner exchange could take place as early as the end of this week.
On June 1, Hezbollah representatives unexpectedly handed over to Israel the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 war, and Israel sent back across the border a Lebanese civilian who had completed a six-year prison term in Israel for spying for Hezbollah.
Any broader swap is likely to include the release of Samir Kuntar, the most notorious of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israel. He was sentenced to multiple life terms for killing four Israelis, including a 4-year-old girl, during a terrorist raid in Nahariya in 1979.
Later on Monday, Turkish and Israeli officials announced that Israeli and Syrian representatives had completed two days of indirect talks through Turkish mediators. The talks were “serious, positive and constructive” and were to be continued, an Israeli government official said.
Israel and Syria announced three weeks ago that they were engaged in negotiations through Turkish mediators for a comprehensive peace treaty, the first talks in eight years.
The Israeli news media have been rife with reports that the Israeli team will try to persuade the Syrians to have their leaders meet face to face in Paris in mid-July at the conference, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to establish a Mediterranean Union. Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed that Mr. Olmert had been invited to the Paris conference and that he hoped to attend. But “anything beyond that is speculation,” Mr. Regev said.
Turkish Foreign Minster Ali Babacan said Tuesday that the latest talks had been “completed with success” and “more importantly, the calendar was set for the next two meetings which will be held in July,” news agencies reported from Luxembourg, where the Turkish official was attending a European Union meeting.
But, Mr. Babacan said, he did “not wish to elevate the expectations because this is a very complicated matter,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. He added that Israeli and Syrian officials at the talks “left extremely satisfied with the negotiations.”
On Monday, Israeli troops killed three militants in Gaza as they were trying to plant explosives by the border fence. Islamic Jihad said the militants were laying a bomb meant to blow up an Israeli jeep on patrol.
Later, a rocket fired from Gaza by militants fell in a cemetery in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon about 10 miles north, and the military said one Israeli civilian was lightly wounded.
At least one militant was killed in a subsequent Israeli strike against a rocket-launching squad, the military said.
——–
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Graham Bowley from New York. Michael Slackman contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

——————————-

Hamas ceasefire could bring ‘new reality’ to Gaza.
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Wednesday, 18 June 2008

A ceasefire between Israel and armed factions in Hamas-controlled Gaza will start tomorrow, according to announcements by Hamas and the Egyptian government.

Israel did not confirm an agreement. But the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, acknowledged there would be a new “reality” if armed factions ceased their attacks on Israel and showed “movement” on Cpl Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held hostage for two years.

The predictions of a “calm” starting at 6am tomorrow were repeated after three Israeli air strikes killed at least six gunmen in southern Gaza. The dead men reportedly included members of Army of Islam, a small ultra-militant group that took part in the seizure of Cpl Shalit and which was held responsible for the kidnap last year of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston.

If sustained, a ceasefire would bring at least a temporary halt to the conflict, in which more than 560 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed in the year since Hamas took control of Gaza by force in June 2007.

It would also mean a successful end to months of Egyptian efforts to broker a ceasefire, which were given new momentum after Hamas and other armed factions dropped their pre-condition that Israel should refrain from military operations in the West Bank.

The Israeli government has also been under internal pressure to bring an end to more than 4,000 rocket and mortar attacks on border communities in Israel over the past 12 months.

The Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has reportedly been in favour of giving the ceasefire option a try despite pressure from cabinet hardliners for a full-scale ground operation in Gaza, still being actively prepared by the Israeli military. One of these, Haim Ramon, had been calling for the military to secure “regime change” in Gaza.

According to one unconfirmed account given to Associated Press by Egyptian and Hamas officials, Israel would begin reopening its crossings into Gaza to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies if the ceasefire is maintained for three days.

In a final phase, Israel would consider sanctioning the opening of the Egypt-Gaza crossing at Rafah in parallel talks to those on the release of Cpl Shalit. Hamas has been seeking a large-scale release of Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of the corporal.

————

The “NEW REALITY” seems to be an acceptance that a Palestine II (Hamasstan) will run its negotiations in parallel to the old Palestne I of the West Bank.

=====================

Just received from Daniel Levy from Israel  as posted on his blog www.prospectsforpeace.com

Ten Comments on the Gaza Cease-Fire and What Next.
by Daniel Levy

June 17, 2008

Ten Comments on the Gaza Cease-Fire and What Next:

Reports are emerging from the region that the long awaited truce effort mediated by Egypt between Israel and Hamas (representing all the Palestinian factions in Gaza) is reaching closure.  According to reports, the arrangement will come into effect at 0600 on Thursday, barring any negative developments.  It is still unclear whether this will be a formal ceasefire or a set of informal arrangements—though you can certainly forget any theatrical hand shaking ceremony with accompanying pyrotechnics (well not those kinds of fireworks, anyway).  Negotiations have been taking place for several weeks and if there is a cease-fire, or tahadiyeh, then it will be fragile, have implications for Israeli and Palestinian politics, for the peace process, for the region, and for the US.  So here are 10 quick and initial thoughts on where we are, what to expect, and what to look out for.

1. Will the Cease-Fire Actually Happen?

The next 24-48 hours will be crucial and tense, and will determine whether the cease-fire even begins let alone holds.  Both sides will want to go into any de-escalation from a position of perceived strength and as having the upper hand, especially for mutual domestic marketing purposes.  So both sides can be expected to try one last push, one last strike in the coming hours (the Israeli Air Force mission that killed 6 Army of Islam militants this morning can probably be seen in this context).  If there is a harsh PIJ or other Palestinian response, or more Israeli strikes and things escalate out of control before zero hour, then all bets are off.  Both sides probably have a sense of just how far the envelope can be pushed.  Expect this kind of mutual prodding, but nothing game- changing, and therefore yes, one can expect with caution the cease-fire to actually happen.

2. What the Cease-Fire will include and setting realistic expectations

Any cease-fire will include a package that extends beyond the basic cessation of hostilities.  The package will include: (a) the easing of the closure on the Gaza Strip thus allowing not only essential supplies to enter Gaza but also materials that allow the Gazan economy to gradually return to some kind of normality; (b) greater efforts to prevent weapons from entering the Gaza Strip from Egypt for use against Israel; (c) progress on the prisoner exchange deal for the release of Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier who next week will mark two years of being held in Gaza.

Certainly both sides will be preparing themselves for a possible next round of fighting, so expect Israel to reinforce its defensive systems along the border area with Gaza and expect Hamas to do likewise on its side and to continue its efforts to enhance its rocket capacity.  Israel on its part will be fast-tracking the development of its missile interception systems.  Some see the truce as an inevitable prelude to a next and bloodier round of escalated conflict.  Neither side will eschew this option, but neither side necessarily welcomes it.  It is not inevitable but maintaining a fragile cease-fire will require progress on all the items in the cease-fire package as well as patience and the setting of realistic expectations.

3. Potential Deal Breakers

I will discuss the internal rumblings on the Israeli side below and will focus here mainly on the potential spoilers coming from the direction of Palestinians and “friends”.  The most obvious deal breaker would be for a relatively minor infraction such as a rogue rocket attack or pinpoint Israeli mission to usher in a cycle of counter-response and therefore escalation.

Particular things to look out for include: (a) can Hamas control the other factions.  In particular, whether Palestinian Islamic Jihad—very possibly with Iranian encouragement—will be too eager to push the envelope.  Small splinter groups such as the Army of Islam/Daghmush clan also fall into this category; (b) Fatah-affiliated militias inside Gaza may themselves seek to undermine the cease-fire in order to deny Hamas any victory and to stir up trouble for their domestic opponents.  Fatah groups could work with or influence renegade elements of the Popular Resistance Communities in such actions; (c) the problem of the West Bank—the cease-fire does not extend to the WB so both Israel and the Palestinian factions may want to make a point by continuing to carry out operations in and from the West Bank.  The IDF will continue its arrests and other military operations which could provoke a response from Gaza or an escalation that sucks in Gaza, Palestinian groups might launch attacks against Israel from the WB that have similar effects on the cease-fire prospects.

4. The Israeli Dilemma

There has been an intense debate inside Israel over the desirability and efficacy of a possible truce, including disagreements within both the Defense establishment and inside the cabinet.  The Defense Minister (Ehud Barak) and IDF Chief of Staff (Gabi Ashkenazi)  carried the day, having consistently advocated a preference for the cease-fire option over a military assault that would likely carry significant human and other costs and would be unlikely to significantly improve Israel’s even medium term security.  Ehud Barak has shown considerable leadership in pushing this through.  There are though weighty dissenting voices, including from the Shin Bet, and they may be looking for any opportunity to push back against the cease-fire, undermine it and pursue their preferred military path.  This tension will be ongoing and will be put to the test every time there is a glitch.

Some claim that the Israeli intention is to declaratively support the cease-fire arrangement so that the afterwards the inevitable military operation will receive greater domestic and international understanding and support.  I would question this assumption—it may be a consideration for some but I think many are not convinced that there is any good military option and have learnt the lessons of 38 years of occupying Gaza and the toll that took.  But again, expect fragility.  Of course, the political uncertainty in Israel is also playing a role, with accusations that a discredited Israeli Prime Minister is ill-positioned to launch a major military operation—I would argue that this particular dynamic should not be exaggerated, it is a factor but a limited one.

5. Where is President Abbas?

Let there be no doubt that this is an Egyptian mediated deal between Israel and Hamas.  If there is a successful cease-fire with an improvement in the Gaza situation then further standing and credit will accrue to Hamas among the Palestinian population.  The division in the Palestinian polity and the fact that President Abbas represents only one part of that equation, both politically and geographically, means that he could not be a significant party to any understandings regarding Gaza.  Elements in the Fatah may indeed try to undermine the cease-fire.

One of the next issues to deal with will be whether or not there is a serious effort at internal Palestinian reconciliation.  Abbas has recently called to renew a unity dialogue with Hamas and Hamas has consistently stated its willingness to participate in such a dialogue.  Three considerations probably led President Abbas to move in this direction:  (a) anticipating a possible cease-fire, Abbas wanted to initiate the move so that it would not be seen as a response to Hamas having gained additional leverage as a consequence of this tahadiyeh; (b) the flip side to the above, if the cease-fire fails and there is an ugly and bloody escalation—namely that Abbas would be seen as having reached out to his fellow Palestinians in Gaza  in earnest rather than having abandoned them; (c) given the political developments and complications in Israel, Abbas may now feel that the peace talks with Olmert are reaching a dead end and in this context he is returning to the option of a unity dialogue with Hamas.  I would suggest that it would be no bad thing to allow the Palestinians to engage on these issues themselves rather than to force through an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on paper in a situation where one side has basically lost legitimacy and the other is so deeply divided and perhaps also legitimacy-challenged.  It is not yet clear whether the Abbas call for unity talks is a serious one or that it will go anywhere.

6.  And Where is the US?

The Bush Administration was not a party to this mediation effort, and until recently displayed little enthusiasm for what Egypt was trying to help the parties achieve.  There are hints that that has changed—not the basic position regarding Hamas, but an appreciation of the necessity of de-escalating the conflict around Gaza as an end in itself and as something that could otherwise definitively topple the Abbas-Olmert peace talks.

While the US has not yet welcomed the cease-fire, during her recent Middle East visit Secretary Rice did set out a position that at least did not contradict the parameters of the understanding being brokered by Egypt.  It is unclear whether Secretary Rice encouraged the truce effort during this last visit, although the close proximity of today’s announcement to that visit may provide a clue.

This much is clear:  the US has been noticeably absent from all the major recent diplomatic developments in the region—the Qatari brokered Lebanon deal, the Turkish sponsored Israeli-Syrian proximity talks and now this Egyptian mediated cease-fire.  Secretary Rice was in Lebanon yesterday and did welcome the new developments within that country, perhaps suggesting that the State Department at least is taking a more realist approach and is happy to see others pursue diplomatic solutions that are opposed by conflicting elements within the US administration, but that can be welcomed by the Secretary of State after the fact as fait accomplis.

7. The Egyptian Role

Egyptian mediation will have been a significant factor should a cease-fire be established and locked in.  For both Israel and Hamas (and the Palestinians in general), the relationship with Egypt has strategic significance, and in this particular instance Egypt is more player than bystander—having a role to play in both prevention of weapons smuggling into Gaza and an agreed modality for opening the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.  Neither side want to go too far out on a limb in embarrassing the Egyptians by precipitously undermining the cease-fire—a small but not insignificant factor in favor of this effort’s success.

Egypt of course has its own interests and is concerned about the repercussions of the ongoing deteriorating humanitarian, economic and social situation in Gaza which already once already spilled over into the Egyptian Sinai and is likely to do so again.  Egypt also has a complicated relationship with its own Muslim Brotherhood domestic movement and this impacts its considerations vis Hamas.  In the long term, an exclusive Egyptian mediation role with Hamas is not a good idea for anyone including the Egyptians themselves.

8.  The Cease-Fire vs. the Peace Process

It is difficult not to see this cease-fire deal as more significant than anything that has been going on in the formal peace negotiations between the Israel government and the PLO/PA Ramallah.  Any effective truce will further enhance the sense of the futility of those negotiations even though an improved security environment will create a more promising backdrop to those talks.  The opposite is certainly true, that a significant deterioration and expensive Israeli military campaign in Gaza would have effectively put an end to or at least led to a suspension of the Abbas-Olmert talks.  Under normal circumstances, a cease-fire, far from undermining parallel peace talks, would actually enhance their prospects.  But these are not normal times, Olmert is unfortunately too politically handicapped and Abbas presides over too divided a Palestinian polity for either of them to cut a deal.

9.  The Regional Equation

Any truce would not take place in a regional vacuum.  Part of the Israeli logic for exploring the cease-fire is to remove a possible card from the Iranian hand and decrease the possibilities of Gaza being used as an Iranian front against Israel.  A similar logic could be applied to Israel’s pursuit of renewed negotiations with Syria, and the Lebanon deal may also have similar consequences in narrowing Iran’s regional options.    This could be, but is not necessarily an indication of Israel’s intentions vis Iran.

Also worth noting is that Hamas is anything but comfortable when it is excessively dependent on Iran, it is not a proxy, and is uncomfortable when Fatah accuses it of acting in Shia or Persian interests.  So in that respect, Hamas prefers to have an Egyptian or other option.

10.  The Cease-Fire Betting Index…

Well it doesn’t exist yet as a betting option on intrade (unlike the peace deal by year’s end, which trades at a 17% probability).   But the odds would not be good.  The cause for hope is that neither side really thinks it has a better option.  Israel cannot deal a definitive military blow to Hamas and the opposite equation is even more unlikely.  The residents of the Israeli communities in the south bordering Gaza, including Sderot and Ashkelon, will welcome a respite from the intolerable and unpredictable realities of life in the shadow of rocket fire.  The 1.4 million Gazans who are not expecting to spend next year in the US as Fulbright Scholars have been subject to the devastating humanitarian consequences of the collective punishment imposed on their small strip of territory.  Both of these communities will bear the ultimate price if the cease-fire does not hold.

It is just possible that a cease-fire could take effect and create a self perpetuating dynamic of success.  But that is unlikely if the bigger picture issues continue to be neglected including—what happens on the West Bank, reducing tensions in the region, and creating a livable-with security equation for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Posted by Daniel Levy on June 17, 2008

————————

The above shows that indeed new realities may come into existance without the micro-management by the US.

Israel uses now Egypt and Turkey as intermediaries (obviously both these countries do this for their own reasons - but who cares if there is a little stir?) and these new realities may indeed be nothing less then the recognition of facts on the ground. There are two Palestines - so deal with them separately - but so that each part can say they got some minimum of fairness out of this. In the case of Lebanon and Syria, at this stage, the issue is one - and it is not the Sheba Farms - neither is it a story of oil. It is rather that the different groups want their recognition and Syria wants to make sure that there is no progress without also a p