September
30, 2011
The New York Times
By LAURA KASINOF
SANA, Yemen
— On the streets of Sana, the nation’s conflict-stricken capital, the news of
the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American propagandist for Al Qaeda who
inspired jihadists around the world, was largely overshadowed by the continuing
domestic turmoil here.
Many Yemenis had not even heard that Mr. Awlaki had been killed, even by Friday
night. And most had only a faint sense of why the United States considered him a
highly significant target. If anything, Yemenis thought his death would only
increase their woes.
“I don’t know why he was important, except that he was a terrorist,” said Belal
Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s old city. “But maybe this will
create a problem for us Yemenis, because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally
strike back larger. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another
country.”
Another man, Walid Seneb, who was sitting on a street curb with three friends on
Friday night, said, “We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us.
Mr. Seneb was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death.
“But right now there are worse problems,” he said. “Our national crisis is the
biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government
stopped.”
After eight months of antigovernment protests that began during the Arab spring,
Yemen’s government has been torn apart. The armed forces are divided between
those loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and those who follow a rebel
military commander. Conflict between the two sides turned into urban warfare in
Sana two weeks ago, with over 100 people being killed. With fears that a
large-scale civil war may break out and a debilitating economic crisis , Yemenis
are sufficiently absorbed with their own problems that they do not have much
time or attention to devote to the death of a man who was most known for
reaching out to the English-speaking world of Muslim extremists.
“Awlaki’s life or death doesn’t matter for Yemenis,” said Nadwa al-Dawsari, who
works for a nonprofit organization in Sana. “It is not a priority for us. Not
many Yemenis know who Awlaki was anyway. It doesn’t matter how many Al Qaeda
members are killed as long as the underlying causes that makes extremism thrive
exist.”
But a major concern for some, especially among Yemenis in the opposition, is
that the Saleh family provided information to the United States on Mr. Awlaki’s
whereabouts to gain political favor.
Although the Obama administration has been working diplomatically to find a way
to ease Mr. Mr. Saleh from office, his family controls the security apparatus
responsible for counterterrorism activities. They know that Mr. Awlaki’s death
was coveted by the United States, and they fear that it will somehow alter the
administration’s desire to have Mr. Saleh give up power.
“Now he is going to show the people he can kill al Qaeda,” Nader al-Qershi, a
youth organizer at Sana’s large antigovernment demonstration, said of Mr. Saleh.
“That there is al Qaeda in Yemen, and who can kill them except Ali Abdullah
Saleh?
“Why does Ali Abdullah Saleh kill him at this time? He has a lot of information
about these people in Al Qaeda. The protesters at the university are happy about
this action, but we just want to know why it happened at this time.”
It was widely assumed in Yemen that Mr. Saleh’s government must have been aware
of Mr. Awlaki’s whereabouts long ago, but was reluctant to hand over that
information to the Americans or kill Mr. Awlaki, because he is from a powerful
tribe in southern Yemen that might seek retribution if he was killed.
Then why was Mr. Awlaki tracked down on Friday? Some Yeminis thought they knew.
“Saleh wanted to show the world that he is a hero against Al Qaeda,” said
Hussein Mohammed, who runs a small hotel in Sana’s old city.
But Mr. Mohammed, like many people here, did not think that Mr. Awlaki’s death
would alter the political dynamic in their country. He said it was not al Qaeda,
but the struggle among Yemen’s political elites that poses the greatest risk to
the country’s future.
Tribesmen loyal to Mr. Saleh’s main political rival, Hamid al-Ahmar, have
engaged in almost daily street warfare with the government’s security forces in
a northern district of Sana over the past few weeks. The sound of artillery fire
echoing through the capital has become commonplace.
“They struck Anwar al-Awlaki, why don’t the Americans strike Ali Abdullah Saleh
and Hamid al-Ahmar?” Mr. Mohammed asked.
Activists in Arab World Vie to Define Islamic State
September
29, 2011
The New York Times
By ANTHONY SHADID and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
CAIRO — By
force of this year’s Arab revolts and revolutions, activists marching under the
banner of Islam are on the verge of a reckoning decades in the making: the
prospect of achieving decisive power across the region has unleashed an
unprecedented debate over the character of the emerging political orders they
are helping to build.
Few question the coming electoral success of religious activists, but as they
emerge from the shadows of a long, sometimes bloody struggle with authoritarian
and ostensibly secular governments, they are confronting newly urgent questions
about how to apply Islamic precepts to more open societies with very concrete
needs.
In Turkey and Tunisia, culturally conservative parties founded on Islamic
principles are rejecting the name “Islamist” to stake out what they see as a
more democratic and tolerant vision.
In Egypt, a similar impulse has begun to fracture the Muslim Brotherhood as a
growing number of politicians and parties argue for a model inspired by Turkey,
where a party with roots in political Islam has thrived in a once-adamantly
secular system. Some contend that the absolute monarchy of puritanical Saudi
Arabia in fact violates Islamic law.
A backlash has ensued, as well, as traditionalists have flirted with timeworn
Islamist ideas like imposing interest-free banking and obligatory religious
taxes and censoring irreligious discourse.
The debates are deep enough that many in the region believe that the most
important struggles may no longer occur between Islamists and secularists, but
rather among the Islamists themselves, pitting the more puritanical against the
more liberal.
“That’s the struggle of the future,” said Azzam Tamimi, a scholar and the author
of a biography of a Tunisian Islamist, Rachid Ghannouchi, whose party, Ennahda,
is expected to dominate elections next month to choose an assembly to draft a
constitution. “The real struggle of the future will be about who is capable of
fulfilling the desires of a devout public. It’s going to be about who is
Islamist and who is more Islamist, rather than about the secularists and the
Islamists.”
The moment is as dramatic as any in recent decades in the Arab world, as
autocracies crumble and suddenly vibrant parties begin building a new order,
starting with elections in Tunisia in October, then Egypt in November. Though
the region has witnessed examples of ventures by Islamists into politics,
elections in Egypt and Tunisia, attempts in Libya to build a state almost from
scratch and the shaping of an alternative to Syria’s dictatorship are their most
forceful entry yet into the region’s still embryonic body politic.
“It is a turning point,” said Emad Shahin, a scholar on Islamic law and politics
at the University of Notre Dame who was in Cairo.
At the center of the debates is a new breed of politician who has risen from an
Islamist milieu but accepts an essentially secular state, a current that some
scholars have already taken to identifying as “post Islamist.” Its foremost
exemplars are Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development
Party in Turkey, whose intellectuals speak of a shared experience and a common
heritage with some of the younger members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
with the Ennahda Party in Tunisia. Like Turkey, Tunisia faced decades of a
state-enforced secularism that never completely reconciled itself with a
conservative population.
“They feel at home with each other,” said Cengiz Candar, an Arabic-speaking
Turkish columnist. “It’s similar terms of reference, and they can easily
communicate with them.”
Mr. Ghannouchi, the Tunisian Islamist, has suggested a common ambition,
proposing what some say Mr. Erdogan’s party has managed to achieve: a
prosperous, democratic Muslim state, led by a party that is deeply religious but
operates within a system that is supposed to protect liberties. (That is the
notion, at least — Mr. Erdogan’s critics accuse him of a pronounced streak of
authoritarianism.)
“If the Islamic spectrum goes from Bin Laden to Erdogan, which of them is
Islam?” Mr. Ghannouchi asked in a recent debate with a secular critic. “Why are
we put in the same place as a model that is far from our thought, like the
Taliban or the Saudi model, while there are other successful Islamic models that
are close to us, like the Turkish, the Malaysian and the Indonesian models,
models that combine Islam and modernity?”
The notion of an Arab post-Islamism is not confined to Tunisia. In Libya, Ali
Sallabi, the most important Islamist political leader, cites Mr. Ghannouchi as a
major influence. Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader
who is running for president in Egypt, has joined several new breakaway
political parties in arguing that the state should avoid interpreting or
enforcing Islamic law, regulating religious taxes or barring a person from
running for president based on gender or religion.
A party formed by three leaders of the Brotherhood’s youth wing says that while
Egypt shares a common Arab and Islamic culture with the region, its emerging
political system should ensure protections of individual freedoms as robust as
the West’s. In an interview, one of them, Islam Lotfy, argued that the strictly
religious kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the Koran is ostensibly the
constitution, was less Islamist than Turkey. “It is not Islamist; it is
dictatorship,” said Mr. Lotfy, who was recently expelled from the Brotherhood
for starting the new party.
Egypt’s Center Party, a group that struggled for 16 years to win a license from
the ousted government, may go furthest here in elaborating the notion of
post-Islamism. Its founder, Abul-Ela Madi, has long sought to mediate between
religious and liberal forces, even coming up with a set of shared principles
last month. Like the Ennahda Party in Tunisia, he disavows the term “Islamist,”
and like other progressive Islamic activists, he describes his group as Egypt’s
closest equivalent of Mr. Erdogan’s party.
“We’re neither secular nor Islamist,” he said. “We’re in between.”
It is often heard in Turkey that the country’s political system, until recently
dominated by the military, moderated Islamic currents there. Mr. Lotfy said he
hoped that Egyptian Islamists would undergo a similar, election-driven
evolution, though activists themselves cautioned against drawing too close a
comparison. “They went to the streets and they learned that the public was not
just worried about the hijab” — the veil — “but about corruption,” he said. “If
every woman in Turkey wore the hijab, it would not be a great country. It takes
economic development.”
Compared with the situation in Turkey, the stakes of the debates may be even
higher in the Arab world, where divided and weak liberal currents pale before
the organization and popularity of Islamic activists.
In Syria, debates still rage among activists over whether a civil or Islamic
state should follow the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, if he falls. The
emergence in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria of Salafists, the most inflexible currents
in political Islam, is one of the most striking political developments in those
societies. (“The Koran is our constitution,” goes one of their sayings.)
And the most powerful current in Egypt, still represented by the Muslim
Brotherhood, has stubbornly resisted some of the changes in discourse.
When Mr. Erdogan expressed hope for “a secular state in Egypt,” meaning, he
explained, a state equidistant from all faiths, Brotherhood leaders immediately
lashed out, saying that Mr. Erdogan’s Turkey offered no model for either Egypt
or its Islamists.
A Brotherhood spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, accused Turkey of violating Islamic
law by failing to criminalize adultery. “In the secularist system, this is
accepted, and the laws protect the adulterer,” he said, “But in the Shariah law
this is a crime.”
As recently as 2007, a prototype Brotherhood platform sought to bar women or
Christians from serving as Egypt’s president and called for a panel of religious
scholars to advise on the compliance of any legislation with Islamic law. The
group has never disavowed the document. Its rhetoric of Islam’s long tolerance
of minorities often sounds condescending to Egypt’s Christian minority, which
wants to be afforded equal citizenship, not special protections. The
Brotherhood’s new party has called for a special surtax on Muslims to enforce
charitable giving.
Indeed, Mr. Tamimi, the scholar, argued that some mainstream groups like the
Brotherhood, were feeling the tug of their increasingly assertive conservative
constituencies, which still relentlessly call for censorship and interest-free
banking.
“Is democracy the voice of the majority?” asked Mohammed Nadi, a 26-year-old
student at a recent Salafist protest in Cairo. “We as Islamists are the
majority. Why do they want to impose on us the views of the minorities — the
liberals and the secularists? That’s all I want to know.”
Anthony Shadid
reported from Cairo, and Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey, and David D. Kirkpatrick
from Cairo, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya. Heba Afify contributed reporting from
Cairo.
September
28, 2011
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
— The White House and State Department on Wednesday sought to temper remarks by
the nation’s top military officer last week that the insurgents who attacked the
American Embassy in Afghanistan this month were “a veritable arm” of Pakistan’s
spy agency.
The comments by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for
Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with an assault on the United States, and
they ignited a diplomatic furor with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders,
who have denied the accusation.
Asked on Wednesday whether he agreed that the Haqqani network, the militant
group blamed for the embassy attack, was “a veritable arm” of the ISI, Jay
Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters, “It’s not language I
would use.”
He pivoted quickly to say the Obama administration is united in its assessment
that “links” exist between the Haqqani network and the ISI, “and that Pakistan
needs to take action to address that.”
Mr. Carney’s comments, echoed by State Department and other administration
officials, seemed aimed at supporting Admiral Mullen’s tough comments up to a
point, while giving Pakistan a small window to save face.
With American lawmakers considering legislation that would condition billions of
dollars in aid to Pakistan on that country’s cooperation in fighting the Haqqani
network and other terror groups associated with Al Qaeda, the administration is
trying to calibrate a response that prods Pakistan to act more aggressively
against the Haqqani network but does not rupture already frayed relations.
President Obama’s top national security advisers met Tuesday to discuss familiar
options — including unilateral strikes and a suspension of security assistance —
intended to get Pakistan to fight militants more effectively. So far, the
carrots and sticks have had little impact, American officials acknowledged.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the administration
was completing “the final formal review” to designate the Haqqani network a
terrorist organization, having already designated several of its leaders.
She discussed the matter with Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar,
when the United Nations General Assembly met last week, Mrs. Clinton said at the
State Department. “We discussed the urgency, in the wake of the attack on our
embassy in Kabul and on the NATO ISAF headquarters, for us to confront the
threat posed by the Haqqani network,” she said, referring to the International
Security Assistance Force.
Mrs. Clinton, echoing private statements by American diplomats, acknowledged the
strain that the attack — and its links to Pakistani intelligence — had caused,
but she also emphasized the need for Pakistan to address what has become a
threat to its own society.
She added that the United States remained committed to attacking any threats,
“in particular against those who have taken up safe havens inside Pakistan,”
suggesting a willingness to act on its own. But she emphasized previous
Pakistani efforts against Al Qaeda and other extremists. “And we’re going to
continue to work with our Pakistani counterparts to try to root them out and
prevent them from attacking Pakistanis, Americans, Afghans or anyone else,” she
said in an appearance with Egypt’s foreign minister.
In remarks last Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Mullen
went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining
the United States-led effort in Afghanistan. However, two administration
officials said he had overstated the precision of evidence linking the ISI to
the recent attacks, and some Pakistan specialists said the ISI did not control
the Haqqani network as tightly as the admiral had stated.
A spokesman for Admiral Mullen, Capt. John Kirby, said Wednesday that the
admiral stood by his remarks.
Two senior military officials said that while there was no evidence that the ISI
had directed or orchestrated the attack against the United States Embassy in
Kabul, there was evidence that ISI officers had urged and supported the Haqqani
fighters to carry out strikes against those kinds of Western targets. Pakistani
military officials have denied this.
Fearing
Change, Many Christians in Syria Back Assad
September
27, 2011
The New York Times
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
SAYDNAYA,
Syria — Abu Elias sat beneath the towering stairs leading from the Convent of
Our Lady of Saydnaya, a church high up in the mountains outside Damascus, where
Christians have worshiped for 1,400 years. “We are all scared of what will come
next,” he said turning to a man seated beside him, Robert, an Iraqi refugee who
escaped the sectarian strife in his homeland.
“He fled Iraq and came here,” said Abu Elias, looking at his friend who arrived
just a year earlier. “Soon, we might find ourselves doing the same.”
Syria plunges deeper into unrest by the day. On Tuesday, government troops
attacked the rebellious town of Rastan with tanks and machine guns, wounding at
least 20 people. With the chaos growing, Christians visiting Saydnaya on a
recent Sunday said they feared a change of power could usher in a tyranny of the
Sunni Muslim majority, depriving them of the semblance of protection the Assad
family has provided for four decades.
Syria’s Christian minority is sizable, about 10 percent of the population,
though some here say the share is actually lower these days. Though their
sentiments are by no means monolithic — Christians are represented in the
opposition, and loyalty to the government is often driven more by fear than
fervor — the group’s fear helps explain how President Bashar al-Assad has held
onto segments of his constituency, in spite of a brutal crackdown aimed at
crushing a popular uprising. For many Syrian Christians, Mr. Assad remains
predictable in a region where unpredictability has driven their brethren from
war-wrecked places like Iraq and Lebanon, and where others have felt threatened
in post-revolutionary Egypt.
They fear that in the event the president falls, they might be subjected to
reprisals at the hands of a conservative Sunni leadership for what it saw as
Christian support of the Assad family. They worry that the struggle to dislodge
Mr. Assad could turn into a civil war, unleashing sectarian bloodshed in a
country where minorities, ethnic and religious, have found a way to co-exist for
the most part.
The anxiety is so deep that many ignore the opposition’s counterpoint: The
government has actually made those divisions worse as part of a strategy to
ensure the rule of the Assad family, which itself springs from a Muslim
minority, the Alawites.
“I am intrigued by your calls for freedom and for overthrowing the regime,”
wrote a Syrian Christian woman on her Facebook page, addressing Christian female
protesters. “What does freedom mean? Every one of you does what she wants and is
free to say what she wants. Do you think if the regime falls (God forbid) you
will gain freedom? Then, each one of you will be locked in her house, lamenting
those days.”
The fate of minorities in a region more diverse than many recognize is among the
most pressing questions facing an Arab world in turmoil. With its mosaic of
Christians and Muslim sects, Syria has posed the question in its starkest terms:
Does it take a strongman to protect the community from the more dangerous, more
intolerant currents in society?
The plight of Christians in Syria has resonated among religious minorities
across the Middle East, many of whom see themselves as facing a shared destiny.
In Iraq, the number of Christians had dwindled to insignificance since the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein, driven away by bloodshed and chauvinism. Christians
in Egypt worry about the ascent of Islamists. Christians in Lebanon,
representing the largest minority by share in the Arab world, worry about their
own future, in a country where they emerged as the distinct losers of a 15-year
civil war.
This month, Lebanon’s Maronite Catholic patriarch urged Maronites, the
single-largest community of Christians in the country, to offer Mr. Assad
another chance and to give him enough time to implement a long list of reforms
that he has promised but never enacted.
The comments by the patriarch, Bishara Boutros al-Rai, prompted a heated debate
in Lebanon, which lived under Syrian hegemony for 29 years. A prominent Syrian
(and Christian) opposition figure offered a rebuttal from Damascus. But
Patriarch Rai, who described Mr. Assad as “a poor man who cannot work miracles,”
defended his remarks, warning that the fall of the government in Syria threatens
Christians across the Middle East.
“We endured the rule of the Syrian regime. I have not forgotten that,” Patriarch
Rai said. “We do not stand by the regime, but we fear the transition that could
follow. We must defend the Christian community. We, too, must resist.”
It is a remarkable insight into the power and persuasion of fear that the status
quo in Syria these days remains preferable to many. The United Nations estimates
that more than 2,600 people have died since the uprising erupted in mid-March in
the poor southern town of Dara'a and, given the desperation of some, even
activists warn that protesters may resort to arms. Estimates of arrests run into
the tens of thousands.
Some Christians have joined the ranks of the uprisings, and Christian
intellectuals like Michel Kilo and Fayez Sara populate the ranks of opposition
figures.
An activist in Damascus recalled over coffee at the upscale Audi Lounge how a
Christian friend found himself hiding in the house of a conservative Muslim
family in a town on the outskirts of Damascus. His friend was marching in a
demonstration, along with others. When security forces arrived at the scene
shooting randomly at people, they ran for cover, hiding in the nearest houses
and buildings, he said.
When the tumult was over, his new host asked him what his name was. Scared, he
thought for a moment about lying, but worried that they might ask for his
identification papers he told the truth. To his surprise, the host and his
family and all those hiding in the house began cheering for him. He had joined
their ranks.
The formula often offered of the Syrian divide — religious minorities on Mr.
Assad’s side, the Sunni Muslim majority aligned against him — has never captured
the nuance of a struggle that may define Syria for generations. Even some
Alawites, the Muslim sect from which Mr. Assad draws most of his leadership, had
joined protesters. When a few came to the central Syrian city of Hama to join
huge demonstrations in the summer, they were saluted by Sunni Muslims with songs
and poetry.
But while the promise of the Arab revolts is a new order, shorn of repression
and inequality, worries linger that Islamists, the single most organized force
in the region, will gain greater influence and that societies will become more
conservative and perhaps intolerant.
“Fear is spreading among us and anyone who is different,” said Abu Elias, as he
greeted worshipers walking the hundreds of stone steps worn smooth over the
centuries. “Today, we are here. Tomorrow, who knows where we will be?”
Day
After President Returns, More Than 40 Killed in Yemen
September
24, 2011
The New York Times
By LAURA KASINOF
SANA, Yemen
— A day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to this battered country
calling for a cease-fire, his forces escalated attacks on the opposition on
Saturday, leaving more than 40 people dead across the capital.
Sniper fire and mortar shells rained down on the square here where peaceful
protesters have gathered for months to demand Mr. Saleh’s ouster, killing at
least 17 and forcing hundreds to flee, according to doctors and witnesses.
In northern Sana, the capital, pro-government tribesmen battled those loyal to
the rival Ahmar family, killing 18, the Ahmar family said.
In the northwestern part of the city, rockets and mortar fire pounded the base
of the First Armored Division, an opposition force led by Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin
al-Ahmar, a defector whose forces have been protecting the protesters and no
relation to the powerful Ahmar family. Eleven of his soldiers were killed,
witnesses and news media reports said.
The uprising that has torn this country apart in the last seven months appeared
to have entered a new, violent phase, raising fears of an urban civil war. A
surge in fighting in the past week has claimed more than 100 lives and left the
city on edge.
Mr. Saleh, who had been in Saudi Arabia for three months recovering from an
assassination attempt, returned Friday, “carrying the dove of peace and the
olive branch,” he said, according to state television. The United States,
regional powers and the opposition here have all called for him to step down and
hand power to a provisional government as set forth in a deal brokered by the
regional Gulf Cooperation Council.
But Yemenis on all sides wondered whether his return would help resolve the
crisis or deepen it. Mr. Saleh has promised to address the nation on Sunday, but
so far the question has been answered loudest by the thunder of artillery and
the echo of AK-47s.
The seat of the protest, a tent camp and sit-in in front of Sana University, was
attacked in the darkness early Saturday. A doctor there said at least 17 people
were killed, adding that medics had difficulty reaching them because the attacks
continued throughout the night.
Protesters described a scene of panic, as the site, known as Change Square, was
hit by mortar shells and gunfire from snipers atop nearby buildings.
Some of the protesters who have been camped out there since February fled their
tents to seek refuge inside the gates of the university. “It is so dangerous,”
said Nader al-Qershi, a protest leader who left the sit-in in the morning.
While it was not clear who was attacking, protesters said the mortar fire was
coming from an area of the city under the control of government forces.
Overnight explosions also came from the northern Hasaba district, where
tribesmen fighting for the government have been battling forces loyal to the
Ahmar family, leaders of the Hashid tribe, a rival of Mr. Saleh’s tribe.
Tribesmen patrol the streets with an AK-47 on one shoulder and a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher on the other, and the buildings there are
peppered with bullet holes from a conflict in May.
A statement by the head of the Ahmars, Sheik Sadiq al-Ahmar, which was published
in the local news media, said that 18 of his tribesmen had been killed.
Meanwhile, witnesses and news reports described the assault on the base of
General Ahmar’s First Armored Division. It has been battling government forces
since last Sunday after the central security forces, led by President Saleh’s
nephew, attacked a peaceful protest march.
There was speculation that Mr. Saleh returned to Yemen to address the conflict
between his relatives who lead government forces and General Ahmar, a former
ally of the president’s. But the direct attacks on the general’s base on
Saturday indicated that the conflict was far from resolved.
The latest surge of fighting in Sana, which broke out a week ago, derailed
diplomatic efforts to ease Mr. Saleh from power after 33 years of autocratic
rule and resolve the crisis. While the peaceful protesters at Change Square
began the movement to oust him, their role has been largely overshadowed in the
past week by fighting among the three deep-seated and well-armed rivals: the
Saleh family, the Ahmars and General Ahmar’s First Armored Division.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional group that spearheaded the diplomatic
effort, issued a statement on Saturday condemning “the special use of arms and
heavy weapons against unarmed demonstrators” in Yemen and urging “restraint and
a commitment to full and immediate cessation of fire.”
The statement also called for the immediate “implementation of the peaceful
transfer of power” in Yemen.
Mr. Saleh, who had previously agreed to step down and then reneged, issued an
order on Saturday for the removal of blockades and checkpoints, and the
withdrawal of “all army and security personnel” to their barracks, the state-run
Saba news service reported. But there was no sign of a withdrawal or other
easing of tensions, and many Yemenis were skeptical of the president’s
professions of peacemaking.
“Ali Abdullah Saleh returned to blow up the situation in Yemen militarily and
ignite civil war,” General Ahmar said Saturday in a statement.
The protesters, several thousand of whom remained in Change Square on Saturday
afternoon despite the assault, were equally dismissive of Mr. Saleh’s
intentions. As they clung defiantly to the hope that they, like their
counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, could depose a longtime dictator, some
saw Mr. Saleh’s return as bestowing a new clarity on their movement.
“We consider his return as a good thing, because it will give life to our
revolution,” said Humaid Mansour, 25, a law student who has been protesting
since February. “When he was in Saudi, people said, ‘O.K., it’s over, he left.’
Now he came back. So now the goal is clear.”
U.S.
Quietly Supplies Israel With Bunker-Busting Bombs
September
23, 2011
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON
— The Obama administration has quietly supplied Israel with bombs capable of
destroying buried targets, like terrorists’ arms caches or perhaps sites in Iran
suspected of being part of that nation’s nuclear weapons program, American
officials said Friday.
The administration’s transfer of bunker-busting bombs, first reported in an
online article by Newsweek, began in 2009. American officials who confirmed the
shipments spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized
to discuss the matter publicly. They declined to comment on the number of bombs
that had been supplied to Israel or on their capabilities.
Israel had sought this class of weapons for many years. In 2005, the Bush
administration notified Congress of a pending transfer to Israel of bombs
designed to destroy buried targets. “This proposed sale will contribute to the
foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve
the security of a friendly country,” a news release from the Defense Security
Cooperation Agency stated.
Subsequent notifications of plans to sell Israel different models of
bunker-busting weapons were sent to Congress by the agency again in 2007 and
2008.
But the weapons were not given to Israel at the time. Pentagon officials were
frustrated that Israel had transferred military technology to China. And there
were deep concerns that if the United States supplied bunker-busting bombs to
Israel, it might be viewed as having tacitly endorsed an attack on Iran.
In the interim, Israel developed its own bunker-busting bomb, officials said,
but the American variants were viewed as more cost-effective.
George Little, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to comment on the reports
of a weapons transfer. “We’re not going to comment on these press reports, but
make no mistake about it: the United States is committed to the security of
Israel and Israel’s ability to maintain its qualitative military edge,” Mr.
Little said.
The issue is so sensitive that Israeli military officials asked the United
States not to release documentation of the arms transfers, even if requested
under the Freedom of Information Act, according to American officials.
The arms transfers could help President Obama’s political standing among Jewish
voters. Israeli-American relations have been bruised by a variety of political
and geopolitical matters, and efforts by the administration to strengthen the
Israeli military may convince some voters that the president is sufficiently
supportive of Israel.
September
23, 2011
The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The public assault by the Obama administration on the
Pakistani intelligence agency as a facilitator of terrorist attacks in
Afghanistan has been met with scorn in Pakistan, a signal that the country has
little intention of changing its ways, even perhaps at the price of the crumpled
alliance.
In injured tones similar to those used after the Navy Seals raid that killed
Osama bin Laden in May, Pakistani officials insisted on Friday that theirs was a
sovereign state that could not be pushed by America’s most senior military
officials, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Leon
E. Panetta, the secretary of defense.
The two Americans told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that
Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI,
worked hand-in-glove with the Haqqani network, a potent militant outfit
sheltering in the Pakistani tribal areas, to subvert American war aims.
Admiral Mullen accused the spy agency of supporting Haqqani militants who
attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week, and he called the Haqqanis a
“veritable arm” of the ISI. Mr. Panetta threatened “operational steps” against
Pakistan, shorthand for possible American raids against the Haqqani bases in
North Waziristan.
The connection between the spy agency and the militants has been at the center
of American complaints about Pakistan since the start of the war in Afghanistan,
but never before has the United States chosen to expose its grievances in such
unvarnished language in the most public of forums.
In his public reply, the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani,
said Mr. Mullen’s accusations were “not based on facts,” and suggested that they
were unfair given “a rather constructive” recent meeting. The ISI did not
support the Haqqanis, General Kayani said.
Similarly, the country’s defense minister, Ahmad Mukhtar, said Pakistan was a
sovereign nation “which cannot be threatened.”
The foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said it was “unacceptable” for one
ally, the United States, to “humiliate” another, Pakistan. “If they are choosing
to do so, it will be at their own cost,” Ms. Khar said.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States who is close
to the military, underscored that point. “Relations are headed towards a
breakdown if the U.S. continues its coercive approach of threats and public
accusations,” Ms. Lodhi said. “What is its plan B if there is an open rupture
with Pakistan?”
The anti-American feeling in Pakistan, and within the army, surged after the
raid that killed Bin Laden, which was kept secret from Pakistan’s leadership. It
remains intense, making the idea of bowing to American demands to take on the
Haqqanis almost unthinkable, Pakistani politicians, businessmen and analysts
said.
They said General Kayani, who was under great pressure from his troops after the
humiliation of the Bin Laden raid, had recovered some ground and recouped some
prestige. He has no intention of giving in to the Americans now because he is
betting that they still need Pakistan as the supply route for the Afghanistan
war, they said.
But the larger reason is a divergence of strategic interests with the United
States. The Haqqani network is seen as an important anti-India tool for the
Pakistani military as it assesses the future of an Afghanistan without the
Americans, a situation Pakistan sees as not far off.
General Kayani has said he fears that as the Americans exit, India will be
allowed to have influence in Afghanistan, squeezing Pakistan on both its eastern
and western borders, Pakistani analysts say.
Thus, the Haqqani fighters who hold sway over Paktika, Paktia and Khost
Provinces in Afghanistan, and who are also strong in the capital, Kabul, and in
the provinces around it, present a valuable hedge against the perceived India
threat, which American officials say is overblown.
The precise relationship between the Pakistani military and spy agency on the
one hand and the Haqqani network on the other remains murky, American officials
say.
In talks with the Americans, the leader of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha,
has said he has “contact” with the Haqqanis, a senior American official said.
“But he denies he has command and control.” The official said it appeared that
the Haqqanis had developed into such skilled fighters over several decades that
they had the Pakistani Army cowed.
According to American officials and Pakistani analysts, it appeared that the
Pakistani Army had struck a bargain with the Haqqanis: The Haqqanis would be
free to fight in Afghanistan, in part looking after Pakistan’s interests, and in
return, the Haqqanis would not attack Pakistan.
If the Pakistani army attacked Haqqani fighters in their bases in North
Waziristan, the blowback in the form of terrorist attacks in Pakistani cities
and towns could be overwhelming, Pakistani military analysts say.
In a startling image of the apparent symbiosis between the Pakistani military —
which controls the ISI — and the Haqqani fighters, both forces have bases in
Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
Five brigades of the Pakistani Army, about 15,000 soldiers, and the Frontier
Corps, a paramilitary force of about 10,000 men, have never touched the
Haqqanis, American officials familiar with the situation say. Visitors to Miram
Shah have said the army facilities are within sight of the Haqqani compounds.
Estimates of the Haqqani fighting strength in North Waziristan vary from 10,000
to 15,000. Technically, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who runs the group, is a member of
the Afghan Taliban leadership headed by Mullah Muhammad Omar and based in
Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province in southwest Pakistan.
The Pakistani Army struggled to defeat the Pakistani Taliban in battles in the
Swat Valley and South Waziristan in 2009 and 2010, but the Taliban are still
present in both places, a senior American military official said. “So why would
they take on the Haqqanis, who are world class fighters?” the official asked.
As much as the Americans criticize the Pakistanis for not taking on the
Haqqanis, the Pakistanis scoff at the inability of the Americans to deal with
the Haqqanis on the war front in Afghanistan.
In a sarcastic column in the English-language newspaper The News on Thursday,
Farrukh Saleem wrote, “If over the past decade the lone superpower has failed to
tame 10,000 to 15,000 tribesmen, then the American military-intelligence complex
has really failed and should be heading home.”
Pakistani military officers have contended that it is up to the American troops
in Afghanistan to prevent the Haqqanis from launching terrorist attacks in Kabul
and elsewhere.
In order to get to Kabul, the Haqqani fighters pass through provinces with large
American bases, they say. Mr. Haqqani is believed to spend much of his time in
Afghanistan, organizing his fighters.
In an interview with Reuters this week, Mr. Haqqani said he was working solely
in Afghanistan. It is the same argument that Pakistani officials have been
making this week as a way to rebut the American accusations that the Haqqanis
live in Pakistan at all.
Adm. Mike
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a truth teller. He led the way
among senior uniformed officers in urging repeal of the unconscionable “don’t
ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military and pressed to shift more troops
from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Now, as he prepares to retire next week after a 43-year career, he is telling
another hard truth. On Thursday, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee
that Pakistan’s spy agency — Inter-Services Intelligence — played a direct role
in supporting insurgents who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul last week,
killing 16 people. He also said that with ISI support, the Haqqani network of
terrorists planned and conducted an earlier truck bombing on a NATO outpost that
killed 5 people and wounded 77 coalition troops, and other recent attacks.
This was a calculated revelation after Admiral Mullen and other top officials
made countless pleas and remonstrances to Pakistan trying to get it to sever all
support and ties with the Taliban, the Haqqani network and other extremists who
are killing American troops and spreading mayhem on both sides of the border.
Pakistan’s military was unapologetic. According to the Pakistani Army’s Web
site, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of staff, dismissed the charge as
“very unfortunate and not based on facts.” Pakistan’s foreign minister warned
that Washington “could lose an ally” if it keeps humiliating Pakistan with
unsubstantiated allegations.
The Pentagon hopes public exposure will shame the Pakistanis — who receive
billions of dollars in aid — into changing their behavior. That didn’t happen
after Osama bin Laden was discovered hiding in plain sight next door to
Pakistan’s top military academy. But Washington needs to keep pushing and keep
reminding the Pakistanis that the extremists pose a mortal threat to their own
country.
We agree with Admiral Mullen and others who say the United States should keep
trying to work with Pakistan. It has little choice. The Americans need access
and on the ground intelligence to be able to go after Al Qaeda and Taliban
forces on both sides of the border. They also need Pakistani routes to deliver
military supplies to Afghanistan, although there are less attractive
alternatives that may have to be looked at more seriously. And walking away
could make the nuclear-armed government even more unstable — a chilling
prospect.
But Washington needs to ratchet up the pressure as well. The Obama
administration has already suspended or canceled $800 million in military aid
this year, and more could be at risk. Without provoking war with Pakistan, the
Americans are also going to have go after the Haqqanis whenever and wherever
they can.
Palestinians Request U.N. Status; Powers Press for Talks
September
23, 2011
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and STEVEN LEE MYERS
UNITED
NATIONS — Shortly after President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority
formally requested the Security Council to grant full United Nations membership
on Friday, international powers reached an agreement on terms to restart talks
between Israel and the Palestinians, diplomats and Obama administration
officials said.
Details of the understanding between the United States, the United Nations, the
European Union and Russia, known as the Quartet, were due to be announced later
on Friday. But officials said they hoped the statement would lead to a new round
of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership after many months
of stalemate.
Catherine Ashton, the European foreign policy chief, said the proposal did not
try to solve the preconditions that both presidents have stated before and
repeated Friday in their statements at the United Nations. The Palestinians have
demanded a freeze on settlement expansion, for example, while Israel wants to be
recognized as a Jewish state.
“What we have tried to do is to set the framework in which they can have those
discussions and reach agreement,” Ms. Ashton told a news conference. She said
the most important aspect of the statement was the time frame: beginning talks
within four weeks, significant progress on borders and security within three
months and a full agreement by the end of 2012.
Yet, the Quartet’s statement was a watered down document, avoiding any of the
difficult — and highly contentious — issues that have been the focus of
negotiations for months and that continue to divide the Israelis and
Palestinians. It did reaffirm “strong support for the vision of
Israeli-Palestinian peace” outlined by President Obama in May. That included two
states separated by the borders that existed in 1967 with “land swaps” to
account for Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
It called on the Israelis and Palestinians to meet and agree on an agenda and
schedule for resuming direct negotiations within a month and to come forward
with “comprehensive proposals” on territory and security within three months,
before the end of this year. The two sides should make “substantial progress”
within six months and complete a final agreement before the end of 2012.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emerged from the unexpected meeting of
the Quartet at the United Nations and praised the “concrete and detailed
proposal.”
She added: “We urge both parties to take advantage of this opportunity to get
back to get back to talks, and the United States pledges our support as the
parties themselves take the important next steps for a two-solution, which is
what all of us are hoping to achieve.”
Even though Ms. Ashton called it a comprehensive approach, the real prospects of
meaningful negotiations remained doubtful on a day when Mr. Abbas and the
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered strongly worded addresses
stoutly defending their respective positions. Even so, both leaders said in
their speeches they were open to talks, though neither reacted immediately to
the Quartet’s proposal.
Mr. Abbas was greeted by numerous standing ovations from the moment he
approached the lectern to deliver his speech to the General Assembly. “I do not
believe anyone with a shred of conscience can reject our application for full
admission in the United Nations,” Mr. Abbas said, calling statehood “the
realization of the inalienable national rights of the Palestinian people.”
The largest and most sustained applause, along with cheers and whistles of
approval, came as Mr. Abbas held up a copy of the letter requesting membership
that he said he had handed to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon shortly before. “The
time has come,” he said.
Less than an hour later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took to the
same lectern in “a hall that for too long has been a place of darkness for my
country” and said that he would not be seeking applause but rather speaking hard
truths. “The truth is the Palestinians want a state without peace and you should
not let that happen,” he said.
Mr. Netanyahu lashed out at the United Nations, whose prior actions against
Israeli he described as “a theater of the absurd,” and challenged a comment by
Mr. Abbas that the Palestinians were armed “only with their hopes and dreams.”
“Hopes, dreams — and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran," Mr.
Netanyahu said. He repeatedly stressed Israel’s small size, saying it needed
strategic depth to defend itself, particularly from the growing threat of
militant Islam in the region.
Both men spoke for about 40-minutes, often in almost professorial tones, with
Mr. Netanyahu sounding like a geography professor as he laid out the threat
Israel faced from so close at hand.
The request for Palestinian statehood on land occupied by Israel has become the
dominant issue at this year’s General Assembly, refocusing global attention on
one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
Both men used the occasion to summarize the history of the conflict from their
own perspectives. Mr. Netanyahu, in his early remarks, reviewed the many
occasions when the United Nations had issued resolutions against Israel, saying
the country had been unjustly singled out for condemnation “more often than all
the other nations combined.”
Mr. Abbas said every previous peace effort had been “shattered on the rock” of
Israeli settlements and cited what he said was the historical responsibility of
the United Nations to solve the problem.
He described the West Bank as “the last occupation” in the world, one that
showed no sign of ending. “It is neither possible nor practical nor acceptable
to return to conducting business as usual,” he said.
Drawing a line between his statehood request and the revolutions that swept
through the Arab world this spring, he said, “The time has come also for the
Palestinian spring, the time for independence.”
The Security Council is likely to take up the issue in earnest next week,
diplomats said, when the question becomes whether the United States and its
allies can stall it.
Washington is also working to prevent the Palestinians from gathering the nine
votes needed for it to pass in the full council and thus avoid further wrecking
the image of the United States in the Middle East by casting yet another veto
against something Arabs dearly want.
The United States and the other members of the quartet that guides the
negotiations — the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia — are all
trying to restart direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians before any
vote becomes necessary. The hope is that if negotiations begin in earnest, that
the membership request can be postponed until the negotiations are over.
The diplomatic wrangling at the United Nations is expected to take several weeks
before the question of a vote arises.
Among the 15 members, some are expected to stay solidly in the Palestinian camp,
including Brazil, China, India, Lebanon, South Africa and Russia. The United
States is a solid vote against, and the five European members — Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal — are all question marks.
The positions of Colombia, Gabon and Nigeria are also murky.
The African Union supports membership, but it is not entirely clear if Gabon and
Nigeria will go along. President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria did not mention
the issue in his speech to the General Assembly, unlike many leaders from the
developing world who support Palestine, and the statement by President Ali Bongo
Ondimba of Gabon, was somewhat enigmatic. He said he hoped to soon see a
Palestinian state, but noted that both the Palestinians and the people of Israel
are friends of Gabon.
In Europe, Germany tends to lean against, its relations with Israel always
overshadowed by the legacy of World War II. France leans the other way, while
Britain sits on the fence. Portugal and Bosnia have been close to the
Palestinians and the Arab world in the past, but their support is not assured
this time around.
In theory, United Nations procedures demand that the special 15-member committee
— one from each state — that studies the membership issue report back in 35
days, but nothing is more flexible than a deadline at the United Nations.
Security Council members can stall things for weeks and weeks by requesting more
information or by saying they are waiting for instructions from their capitals.
Behind them, though, looms the policy enunciated by President Nicholas Sarkozy
of France, who said that the Palestinians should get enhanced status in the
General Assembly, moving from an observer entity to a non-member observer state.
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said it would wait to see what happens
in the Security Council before moving forward. By tradition, the General
Assembly does not take up an issue when the Security Council is studying it and
vice versa, but it is not impossible.
The historic day of speeches engendered a sense that the issue of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict had come full circle. The Palestinians call their
membership application a desperate attempt to preserve the two-state solution
despite encroaching Israeli settlements, as well as an attempt to shake up the
negotiations that they feel have achieved little after 20 years of American
oversight.
The question is whether trying to bring the intractable problem back to its
international roots will somehow provide the needed jolt to get negotiations
moving again.
The general point of view of the Israeli government and its supporters is that
the Palestinians and their Arab allies gave up the right to the United Nations
resolutions detailing a two state solution by rejecting that original plan and
waging war against Israel for six decades.
But after every war, the United Nations resolutions and indeed the peace
treaties with other Arab states have all reaffirmed the resolutions that outline
the two-state compromise, starting with General Assembly resolution 181 in 1947.
In the annex of their membership application submitted to Mr. Ban today, the
Palestinians listed every United Nations resolution that envisioned a two-state
solution that has not been implemented, they said.
Neil MacFarquhar reported from the United Nations and Steve Lee Myers from
Washington. J. David Goodman contributed reporting from New York.
September
23, 2011
The New York Times
By ETHAN BRONNER
QUSRA, West
Bank — In this Palestinian village where a mosque was defaced and cars were
burned, young men now patrol nightly against settler intruders. Nearby, Jewish
settlers worry that Palestinian militants buoyed by international support of
their statehood will step up attacks. Settler rapid response teams are
practicing with M-16s; women are learning to shoot handguns.
As the Palestinians seek United Nations membership in New York, the situation on
the ground remains calm. But tensions lie just below the surface. Israel has
stationed thousands more police officers in the West Bank armed with tear gas,
noise machines and putrid liquid to stop possible marches on settlements.
The settlers themselves have no training in such crowd-control techniques, and
they fear for their communities, some of which reject fences for ideological
reasons, arguing that they live in their homeland and will not fence themselves
in. So the risk of their using live fire against Palestinians who might try to
march on their communities is quite real. In more remote outposts, wooden clubs
have been distributed.
“They feel the world is with them, so why not make an innocent march?” asked
Shimon Shomron, a former undercover commando who heads the rapid response team
of Bat Ayin, a fenceless settlement near Bethlehem known for its radicalism. He
stood on a ridge looking at the Palestinian town of Tzurif across the valley, an
M-16 across his shoulder. “But they know we will not meet them with flowers.”
For much of the world, the very presence of more than 300,000 Israeli settlers
in the West Bank amounts to a kind of violent crime. They are holding land
widely considered Palestinian by right, obstructing a two-state solution. And
they are armed and protected by one of the world’s most powerful militaries.
But geopolitics aside, the question facing security forces — both Palestinian
and Israeli — in the coming weeks and months is whether the relative quiet of
the past few years is coming to an end. And a wild card in their calculations,
they say, is the small group of radical, frightened settlers who have recently
attacked both Palestinian villages and an Israeli military base.
“I consider this a major threat,” Police Chief Yohanan Danino, Israel’s national
police chief, said recently of settler violence in announcing a new team of
police officers aimed at tracking radical Jews. “Those events are liable to
produce an escalation, and that is the last thing we need right now.”
The scale of the threat is a matter of controversy. The radicals, who probably
number in the hundreds, promote a policy they call “price tag,” in which they
attack Palestinian property — and occasionally the Israeli military — in
response to army curbs on their building or other activity. The security forces
recently dismantled three of their houses, causing an increase in retaliations.
The settler leadership has fiercely condemned “price tag,” saying it does not
represent the vast majority of their community. In addition, Israelis say that
there are few such episodes, but Palestinians say that they suffer constantly
from such settler violence and that lately it has gotten worse.
“Several times a week they break in and we don’t want them on our land,” said
Abdul Hakim Ahmed, a psychology teacher who lives here in Qusra, a village of
about 5,000 people near Nablus, and who is one of the organizers of the nightly
patrols. He spoke as a dozen young villagers with huge flashlights and
cellphones walked Qusra’s perimeter. “They uproot trees, torch cars, steal
sheep. We are threatened. They want to drag us into violence as an excuse to
take more land.”
Qusra is unusual because it lies outside the jurisdiction of the Palestinian
Authority and relies exclusively on the Israeli military for protection. Its men
have no weapons, and Mr. Ahmed says he wants to keep it that way.
“Any violence coming from the Palestinian side will benefit the government and
the settlers,” Mr. Ahmed said. “We lost thousands of martyrs in the second
intifada and we lost land too. They labeled us terrorists and they benefited. So
now we use different tools — media and diplomacy. We learned this from them.”
Whether things will stay so benign going forward is unclear. Mr. Ahmed added
that the Israeli Army response to the complaints of the villagers has produced
few results: “They come, they take notes, they leave. Nothing ever happens.”
The Israeli authorities acknowledge that few violent settlers have been caught
or prosecuted. They say they, too, are frustrated by that.
“In the government, we are all very worried about this,” said Benny Begin, a
minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government who is on the right
of the Likud party. “These people are scoundrels, but we have not been terribly
successful in catching them.”
The army says it is cracking down on radicals, barring some them from the West
Bank for the coming months.
The settlers contend that they, too, are insufficiently protected by their
military. It is the rising mistrust on both sides and the possibility of their
taking the law into their own hands that seems most perilous.
West of Hebron is the 70-family settlement of Adora, where in 2002 attackers
killed four people, including a 5-year-old girl in her bed. In a recent letter
to a volunteer group that supplies and trains defense teams, the settlement said
it was worried about what would happen “with the Arabs declaring statehood.”
(Settlers rarely use the word “Palestinian,” considering it a term of
propaganda.)
The appeal said: “Adora is exposed to many threats, including murderous
terrorist infiltrations, shootings on the nearby road from Arab houses and
passing vehicles and the organized and coordinated obstruction of the road by
the residents of neighboring Arab villages.”
Palestinians call that description a wild exaggeration. But other settlers take
it very seriously.
“We have to urgently resupply the security needs of 140 communities,” said
Yisrael Danziger, director of operations at Mishmeret Yesha, which trains and
supplies the settler response teams beyond what the Israeli military provides.
“But we have a long way to go. Once they are told they have a state, the Arabs
will feel they have been given the keys to the inn and that we are usurpers. The
future is here. What was once terror will now be policy.”
Mr. Danziger is shunned by the settler establishment as a dangerous firebrand,
but the response teams praise him. He raises money abroad, mostly in the United
States, to buy protective vests, helmets, plastic stocks to stabilize handguns
and other equipment that some of the teams say they need because the army has
not provided what it should. His group also hires security men to do additional
training for rapid response teams in anti-terror actions.
At a recent practice on a military training site in central Israel, Mr. Shomron
and the other members of the Bat Ayin security team were taking live target
practice and learning to inspect around corners for intruders.
The dozen young men, some bearded, with large skullcaps on their heads and
prayer fringes hanging from their sides, said they needed to be prepared for
potentially big changes ahead, starting with mass marches by Palestinians.
“If they march, I’m sure they will come with knives or rocks, not with candies,”
said Avraham Levine, a 28-year-old member of the team. “This government lets the
Arabs do whatever they want. But when a man feels unprotected, he takes the law
into his own hands.”
September
22, 2011
The New York Times
By KEITH ELLISON
THE United
States should support the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the
United Nations. The Palestinian people deserve a state now. As the current
debate unfolds, I am reminded of what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said
in 1965: “The time is always right to do what’s right.”
After almost two decades of unsuccessful negotiations among Israel, the
Palestinians and partner states, it is understandable that the Palestinian
Authority has elected to go to the United Nations — the international body
empowered to mediate conflict and recognize statehood. Despite the initial
promise of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s — particularly before the
horrific assassination of the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin — direct
negotiations have deteriorated to a dismally low point.
Given this impasse and Israel’s settlement expansion, the Palestinian Authority
is following the example of dozens of current United Nations members, such as
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Eritrea, as well as South Sudan, which successfully
seceded from Sudan after a protracted civil war and gained admission to the
United Nations in July. Israel, our ally, followed a comparable process and
rightfully gained admission to the United Nations in 1949. And in this case,
Arab countries that have never recognized Israel would implicitly be doing so
when they voted to recognize a Palestinian state that envisioned itself beside
Israel in a two-state solution to their conflict. That in itself would be a
breakthrough, confirming Israel’s solid standing in the region.
World leaders should pause before criticizing the Palestinians’ intention to
follow the same legal process by which many of their own nations achieved
international recognition. Palestinian leaders have sought statehood through
violence and terrorism: they hijacked planes and massacred Israeli athletes in
Munich in the 1970s, and bombed buses during the second intifada. These
abhorrent acts of terrorism were rightly rejected by the world community and
stymied the Palestinians’ efforts to gain statehood recognition. But the
Palestinian Authority, unlike Hamas, is pursuing statehood nonviolently and
diplomatically now, so why are we discouraging its efforts?
Criticisms of the Palestinian Authority’s desire for the United Nations to act
include assertions that this approach to statehood is unilateral and precludes
negotiations with Israel. Yet the process of gaining recognition from the United
Nations Security Council is multilateral by definition. No one disputes that
further direct negotiations will be needed to resolve the outstanding final
status issues of the conflict, including borders, repatriation of refugees,
national security and the claims of both sides to Jerusalem. Indeed, the
Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will urge Israel
to resume negotiations immediately after a United Nations vote. Both sides must
avoid violence and work to repair relations.
Some of my Congressional colleagues have threatened to cut off United States aid
to the Palestinian Authority if it continues pressing for statehood. However,
officials from all nations involved acknowledge that American aid has vastly
improved the security situation for Israel and the Palestinians. Thanks in large
part to American assistance, incidents of terrorism in Israel have receded from
the extraordinary levels of the first half of the last decade.
Given its successful security collaboration with the Palestinian Authority, the
Israeli government said in a report recently that it “calls for ongoing
international support for the Palestinian Authority budget and development
projects.” Undermining our current progress by cutting off American aid would be
counterproductive — especially for Israel and the United States — and would
further delay peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian people are a distinct group that desires, and deserves, to have
a homeland that is internationally recognized as a state. The international
community has a formal process for recognizing states, and the Palestinian
Authority is following that process. As it seeks to join the community of
nations this month, world leaders should not forget King’s important lesson
about doing what is right. The Palestinians’ use of multilateral diplomacy to
achieve statehood represents a step toward achieving the two-state solution and
achieving a more stable Middle East. It is an opportunity, not a threat. We
should seize it now.
Keith Ellison
is a Democratic representative from Minnesota.
September
22, 2011
The New York Times
By LAURA KASINOF and ROBERT F. WORTH
SANA, Yemen
— Eight months after the first protesters began calling for revolution in Yemen,
the beleaguered country has entered a new round of violence, in which street
demonstrators appear to have become little more than sacrificial pawns in a
long-term rivalry among members of Yemen’s political elite.
A shaky cease-fire largely held on Wednesday, after three days of gun battles
and artillery barrages that left dozens of unarmed protesters dead. But the
violence appears to have shattered the latest round of diplomatic efforts to
ease out Yemen’s long-term president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
That may have been precisely the point. The negotiations appeared to be making
progress last week, and foreign diplomats issued statements suggesting that a
deal to transfer power was just days away. Then, on Sunday, protesters in Sana,
the capital, advanced toward government troops and began throwing rocks — at
whose instigation is not clear — and the soldiers responded with deadly force.
Five more protesters were killed in scattered violence on Wednesday, including
three by snipers and one by a mortar attack.
The bloodshed of recent days threatens to spiral into a wider conflict between
the country’s most well-armed factions: a powerful tribal clan, a renegade
general and the family of Mr. Saleh. Each faction is struggling to impose its
will, even as outlying provinces slip further and further from anyone’s control.
Mr. Saleh, who once deftly balanced (and exploited) the country’s divisions,
remains in Saudi Arabia recovering from wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his
palace compound in June.
“Unfortunately, part of this is a power struggle amongst armed elites that do
not have the best interests of Yemen on their minds, but are doing this rather
for personal and political gain,” said a Western diplomat in Sana, who spoke on
condition of anonymity under standard diplomatic protocol.
Mr. Saleh has repeatedly agreed to step down in recent months, only to reverse
himself at the last minute, in a pattern that has infuriated his rivals and
foreign mediators, and engendered a toxic atmosphere of distrust. In his
absence, his son Ahmed Ali Saleh, who commands the highly trained Republican
Guard, mostly maintained an uneasy peace with his chief rivals. Those include
Hamid al-Ahmar, a telecom billionaire and scion of the country’s leading tribal
clan, and Gen. Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar (no relation), a powerful general who
defected to the opposition in March.
The rivalry between General Ahmar and Mr. Saleh’s son runs especially deep. For
years, they undermined each others’ roles in a war against rebels in Yemen’s
remote far north, prolonging the conflict and the suffering it caused to
hundreds of thousands of noncombatants. The two men are now said to be at odds
over their respective roles in any government that emerges after President
Saleh’s departure.
General Ahmar has been protecting the protesters camped out in a sprawling tent
city in Sana since March. For the most part, he — and the powerful Islamist
party with which he has links, known as Islah — have kept the demonstrators
contained in their camps, preventing provocations that would surely lead to
violence.
In recent weeks, many protesters, frustrated after months of deadlock and eager
to advance their movement, said they wanted to march beyond the area where they
had been confined for so long. Initially, General Ahmar and his troops, and the
Islamist party protest organizers, prevented such a display.
But on Sunday, the protesters scheduled a march into an area full of gun-toting
pro-government thugs. The demonstrators had long made clear that they were
willing to die for their cause, and the long sit-in appeared to have deepened
their commitment. Martyrdom is glorified in Yemen and the protesters, especially
the younger ones, seem to truly feel that they are part of something bigger than
themselves when they face deadly attacks.
This time, General Ahmar allowed the marchers to proceed. Many Yemenis question
his motives in doing so, and suggest that he may have deliberately provoked a
bloody response from government troops so as to make them look like killers, or
to derail a settlement that might not be to his advantage.
The general is fully aware that government troops “will respond violently, which
will backfire on” the Saleh family, said a high-ranking Yemeni diplomat who
spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. General Ahmar “knows that
there is always a possibility that Ahmed Ali may be able to play a political
role in any future agreement,” the diplomat said, and would like to damage his
rival’s reputation before that can take place.
Many other Yemenis say the government, and not General Ahmar, is at fault. Few
doubt that the first shots were fired by government troops and plainclothes
proxies. General Ahmar’s own soldiers came under fire and took over an important
intersection in the city. They later lost control of the crossing, but not
before more protesters had been killed in the cross-fire.
The backdrop to the violence was a renewed effort to negotiate a transition.
Talks between moderates from the ruling party and opposition had run for weeks.
In another step, Mr. Saleh announced this month that his deputy, acting
president Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, officially had the power to negotiate and
sign the transition agreement. Mr. Hadi was said to be in the ruling party’s
moderate camp, and the announcement fostered optimism.
The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Latif bin Rashid al-Zayani of
Bahrain, traveled to Sana on Monday to oversee what was supposed to be an
agreement between the two sides on the initiative’s implementation. But he left
Wednesday without a deal.
Laura Kasinof
reported from Sana, and Robert F. Worth from Washington.
September
22, 2011
The New York Times
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED
NATIONS — Evidently heedless of American attempts to engineer a thaw in
Turkish-Israeli relations, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey used
his appearance before the annual General Assembly on Thursday to enumerate a
long list of grievances with Israel, a former regional ally.
Mr. Erdogan was the second major Middle Eastern leader addressing the General
Assembly, with the widespread focus on the region’s most intractable problem,
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, due to culminate Friday with speeches by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the
Palestinian Authority.
Representatives of the so-called quartet — the United States, the United
Nations, the European Union and Russia — were still trying late Thursday to
reach an agreement on a statement about moving peace negotiations forward,
intended to counterbalance the controversial proposal for United Nations
membership that Mr. Abbas has vowed to present. The future of the Quartet could
be at risk, some diplomats suggested, with the Americans and the Europeans,
close to an agreement, ready to abandon the other two members and issue a
statement by themselves. It could go down to the very moment after the Netanyahu
and Abbas speeches, the diplomats said.
At the General Assembly, a couple of hours before Mr. Erdogan spoke, Iran’s
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, delivered one of his characteristic anti-Western
broadsides, embroidered with tinges of religious mysticism. He blamed the United
States, Israel and Europe for the global recession and a list of other ills.
He also suggested that the American military’s killing of Osama bin Laden last
May and the disposal of his body at sea were part of a dark conspiracy to
conceal the real perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks provoked what has become a ritual large-scale walkout
of delegations, led by the United States.
Mr. Erdogan, describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “bleeding wound”
that the international community can no longer accept, accused Israel of
thwarting all attempts to solve the problem. From nuclear weapons to control of
the occupied territories to humanitarian aid, Mr. Erdogan said, Israel has
contradicted the wishes and norms of the rest of the world.
“If you want to send a box of tomatoes to Palestine, this is subject to approval
from Israel, and I don’t think that is humanitarian,” Mr. Erdogan said,
suggesting that the new spirit of change in the Middle East meant Israel could
no longer continue to foster strife.
The Turkish leader repeated a drumbeat of accusations against the Israelis that
he has leveled for months, and there was no immediate reaction from Israel.
The tension is rooted in differences over the Gaza Strip, particularly a May
2010 raid by the Israeli military on a Turkish-organized flotilla trying to run
the Gaza blockade, which left eight Turks and a Turkish-American dead. Turkey
rejected a United Nations report that found the blockade legal but said Israel
had used excessive force.
Mr. Erdogan’s veiled threats to take action against joint efforts by Israel and
Cyprus over gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean did elicit a response
from Demetris Christofias, the president of Cyprus, divided into hostile Turkish
and Greek halves. He called Turkish naval maneuvers in the area “provocative and
a real danger for further complications in the region.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad, appearing before the General Assembly for the seventh year in a
row, said poverty, homelessness and denial of basic rights were traceable to
“greed for materialism in the United States and Europe.”
Iran has been estranged from the United States since the Islamic Revolution more
than 30 years ago, and Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech has become something of a
signature event at the annual session. There were no surprises in either his
criticisms or his singular interpretation of world events.
As he has done in previous speeches, Mr. Ahmadinejad raised questions about the
Holocaust, blaming the West for using it as an excuse for unwavering support for
Israel and for the oppression of the Palestinian people. “They threaten anyone
who questions the Holocaust and Sept. 11 with sanctions and military action?” he
said.
By the time he got to that line in his 30-minute speech, the low-level American
and European diplomats who had been there were no longer around.
The United States delegation was the first to leave when Mr. Ahmadinejad
referred to the Sept. 11 attacks as “mysterious” and suggested that the decision
to kill Bin Laden, instead of bringing him to trial, was intended to bury the
truth of who sent the planes to attack New York and Washington. “Is there any
classified material secret that must remain a secret?” he said.
After the Europeans walked out, the hall, not terribly full in the first place,
was mostly empty. Oddly, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain, whose
government has repeatedly blamed Iran rather than domestic ills for inflaming
the Shiite population there, stuck around.
The United States quickly condemned the speech, as did many other Western
governments and nongovernmental organizations. “Mr. Ahmadinejad had a chance to
address his own people’s aspirations for freedom and dignity, but instead he
again turned to abhorrent anti-Semitic slurs and despicable conspiracy
theories,” said Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States Mission to
the United Nations.
The Iranian leader, whose previous visits to New York have been contentious,
generated less interest this year. Though he did inspire protests outside the
United Nations and his Midtown Manhattan hotel, his power clashes at home with
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have cast some doubt over the
extent of his authority.
That doubt, in turn, has made him personally a less threatening figure, despite
significant international concerns about important issues like the possibility
that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
While even former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seems to put the onus on Israel for
the diplomatic clash at the United Nations, is anybody asking how the
Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, could have possibly walked away from the
peace initiative that Mr. Olmert presented in 2008?
Clearly, Mr. Abbas spurned what any fair-minded person must acknowledge was a
fair end to the conflict — just as his predecessor did in 2000 when the
Palestinians walked away from President Clinton’s peace initiative.
If anything, the fact that Mr. Olmert’s term was coming to an end was all the
more reason for the Palestinians to attempt to lock in the generous terms being
offered.
What has changed since 2008 (or 2000, for that matter) to make anybody think
that the Palestinians are now ready to end this conflict?
Serious peacemakers must confront the litany of evidence that even the so-called
moderate Palestinian leadership is not committed to a real two-state solution.
GREGG M. MASHBERG
New Rochelle, N.Y., Sept. 22, 2011
To the Editor:
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should be applauded for emphasizing the
urgency of this moment.
If there is to be peace in the Middle East, the longstanding dominance of
extremism, violence and intransigence will have to give way to an authentic
spirit of flexibility and compromise on both sides.
Mr. Olmert’s call for this kind of reciprocal recognition represents the
enlightened sensibility that has been absent from this conflict for so long, but
that is essential to its resolution.
JONATHAN S. ABADY
New York, Sept. 22, 2011
To the Editor:
Ehud Olmert did not mention that the Palestinian people democratically elected
Hamas, internationally recognized as a terrorist organization, to power in 2006.
Hamas is the elephant in the room.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has not set foot in Gaza since 2007
because of his own fears of Hamas. Are the United Nations and the international
community really being asked to recognize a state that includes territory that
its own president does not control and fears?
PETER REITZES
Chapel Hill, N.C., Sept. 22, 2011
To the Editor:
How can the Palestinians possibly enjoy an independent Palestinian state when
the West Bank is peppered with Israeli settlements, which are constantly growing
in size and number?
This is the clearest possible indication that the Israelis are insincere in
their constant claims that they genuinely desire negotiations, if only they had
a sincere partner on the Palestinian side.
GERALD P. O’DRISCOLL
Corona, Queens, Sept. 22, 2011
September
21, 2011
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
Correction Appended
UNITED NATIONS — President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian
Authority’s bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday,
throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab
democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations
that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N.,” Mr. Obama
said, in an address before world leaders at the General Assembly. “If it were
that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.”
Instead, Mr. Obama said, the international community should keep pushing
Israelis and Palestinians toward talks on the four intractable issues that have
vexed peace negotiations since 1979: borders of a Palestinian state, security
for Israel, the status of Palestinian refugees and the fate of Jerusalem, which
both sides claim for their capital.
For Mr. Obama, the challenge in crafting the much-anticipated General Assembly
speech was how to address the incongruities of the administration’s position:
the president who committed to making peace between the Israelis and the
Palestinians a priority from Day One, now unable to get peace negotiations going
after two and a half years; the president who opened the door to Palestinian
state membership at the United Nations last year, now threatening to veto that
membership; the president determined to get on the right side of Arab history
but ending up, in the views of many Arabs, on the wrong side of it on the
Palestinian issue.
The Arab Spring quandary, in particular, has been troublesome for Mr. Obama.
White House officials say that he has long been keenly aware that he, like no
other American president, stood as a potential beacon to the Arab street as the
ultimate symbol of the hopes and rewards of democracy. But since he is the
president of the United States, he has had to put American interests first.
So Mr. Obama’s 35-minute address appeared, at times, an effort to balance
support for democratic movements against support for Israel, America’s foremost
ally. From the start, everything he said seemed directed to the theme of what he
called “peace in an imperfect world.”
Mr. Obama called this year “a time of transformation.” This year, he said, “more
individuals are claiming their universal right to live in freedom and dignity.”
He congratulated the democratic movements in Ivory Coast, Tunisia and South
Sudan. He congratulated the Egyptians and Libyans who toppled their autocrats.
He sided with the protesters in Syria.
But, he said, Palestinians must make peace with Israel before gaining statehood
themselves. Israelis and Palestinians, he said, have grievances and the United
Nations must be an arbiter.
“This body, founded, as it was, out of the ashes of war and genocide; dedicated,
as it is, to the dignity of every person, must recognize the reality that is
lived by both the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he said. “We will only succeed
in that effort if we can encourage the parties to sit down together, to listen
to each other and to understand each other’s hopes and fears. That is the
project to which America is committed, and that is what the United Nations
should be focused on in the weeks and months to come.”
Several times as Mr. Obama spoke, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in
the audience, put his forehead in his hand. But Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu of Israel called the speech a “badge of honor.”
Three times under Mr. Obama’s tenure, the General Assembly meeting has put the
complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into stark relief.
In 2009, on Mr. Obama’s first visit as president, he abandoned his call for a
freeze of settlements in the West Bank, meeting immovable resistance from
Israel. The pivot was viewed as major setback in American efforts toward resumed
peace talks.
Then last year, Mr. Obama delivered an impassioned call for Palestinian
statehood within the next year, to be recognized, he said, in the United
Nations.
Mr. Obama tried to acknowledge the shift, recalling his pledge and his belief
that then, as now, “the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own.”
“But what I also said,” he added, “is that genuine peace can only be realized
between Israelis and Palestinians themselves.”
Neil
MacFarquhar contributed reporting.
Correction: September 21, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated the length of President Obama's
speech.
September
21, 2011
The New York Times
By EHUD OLMERT
Jerusalem
AS the
United Nations General Assembly opens this year, I feel uneasy. An unnecessary
diplomatic clash between Israel and the Palestinians is taking shape in New
York, and it will be harmful to Israel and to the future of the Middle East.
I know that things could and should have been different.
I truly believe that a two-state solution is the only way to ensure a more
stable Middle East and to grant Israel the security and well-being it desires.
As tensions grow, I cannot but feel that we in the region are on the verge of
missing an opportunity — one that we cannot afford to miss.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, plans to make a unilateral bid for
recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations on Friday. He has the
right to do so, and the vast majority of countries in the General Assembly
support his move. But this is not the wisest step Mr. Abbas can take.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared publicly that he
believes in the two-state solution, but he is expending all of his political
effort to block Mr. Abbas’s bid for statehood by rallying domestic support and
appealing to other countries. This is not the wisest step Mr. Netanyahu can
take.
In the worst-case scenario, chaos and violence could erupt, making the
possibility of an agreement even more distant, if not impossible. If that
happens, peace will definitely not be the outcome.
The parameters of a peace deal are well known and they have already been put on
the table. I put them there in September 2008 when I presented a far-reaching
offer to Mr. Abbas.
According to my offer, the territorial dispute would be solved by establishing a
Palestinian state on territory equivalent in size to the pre-1967 West Bank and
Gaza Strip with mutually agreed-upon land swaps that take into account the new
realities on the ground.
The city of Jerusalem would be shared. Its Jewish areas would be the capital of
Israel and its Arab neighborhoods would become the Palestinian capital. Neither
side would declare sovereignty over the city’s holy places; they would be
administered jointly with the assistance of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United
States.
The Palestinian refugee problem would be addressed within the framework of the
2002 Arab Peace Initiative. The new Palestinian state would become the home of
all the Palestinian refugees just as the state of Israel is the homeland of the
Jewish people. Israel would, however, be prepared to absorb a small number of
refugees on humanitarian grounds.
Because ensuring Israel’s security is vital to the implementation of any
agreement, the Palestinian state would be demilitarized and it would not form
military alliances with other nations. Both states would cooperate to fight
terrorism and violence.
These parameters were never formally rejected by Mr. Abbas, and they should be
put on the table again today. Both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu must then make
brave and difficult decisions.
We Israelis simply do not have the luxury of spending more time postponing a
solution. A further delay will only help extremists on both sides who seek to
sabotage any prospect of a peaceful, negotiated two-state solution.
Moreover, the Arab Spring has changed the Middle East, and unpredictable
developments in the region, such as the recent attack on Israel’s embassy in
Cairo, could easily explode into widespread chaos. It is therefore in Israel’s
strategic interest to cement existing peace agreements with its neighbors, Egypt
and Jordan.
In addition, Israel must make every effort to defuse tensions with Turkey as
soon as possible. Turkey is not an enemy of Israel. I have worked closely with
the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In spite of his recent
statements and actions, I believe that he understands the importance of
relations with Israel. Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Netanyahu must work to end this
crisis immediately for the benefit of both countries and the stability of the
region.
In Israel, we are sorry for the loss of life of Turkish citizens in May 2010,
when Israel confronted a provocative flotilla of ships bound for Gaza. I am sure
that the proper way to express these sentiments to the Turkish government and
the Turkish people can be found.
The time for true leadership has come. Leadership is tested not by one’s
capacity to survive politically but by the ability to make tough decisions in
trying times.
When I addressed international forums as prime minister, the Israeli people
expected me to present bold political initiatives that would bring peace — not
arguments outlining why achieving peace now is not possible. Today, such an
initiative is more necessary than ever to prove to the world that Israel is a
peace-seeking country.
The window of opportunity is limited. Israel will not always find itself sitting
across the table from Palestinian leaders like Mr. Abbas and the prime minister,
Salam Fayyad, who object to terrorism and want peace. Indeed, future Palestinian
leaders might abandon the idea of two states and seek a one-state solution,
making reconciliation impossible.
Now is the time. There will be no better one. I hope that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr.
Abbas will meet the challenge.
Ehud Olmert
was prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009.
September
21, 2011
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
UNITED
NATIONS — A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for
membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his
own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state. And President Nicolas
Sarkozy of France stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that
pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach.
The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark
new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or
even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking.
Even before Mr. Obama walked up to the General Assembly podium to make his
difficult address, where he declared that “Peace will not come through
statements and resolutions at the U.N.,” American officials acknowledged that
their various last-minute attempts to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations with help from European allies and Russia had collapsed.
American diplomats turned their attention to how to navigate a new era in which
questions of Palestinian statehood are squarely on the global diplomatic agenda.
There used to be three relevant players in any Middle East peace effort: the
Palestinians, Israel and the United States. But expansions of settlements in the
West Bank and a hardening of Israeli attitudes have isolated Israel and its main
backer, the United States. Dissension among Palestinian factions has undermined
the prospect for a new accord as well.
Finally, Washington politics has limited Mr. Obama’s ability to try to break the
logjam if that means appearing to distance himself from Israel. Republicans have
mounted a challenge to lure away Jewish voters who supported Democrats in the
past, after some Jewish leaders sharply criticized Mr. Obama for trying to push
Israel too hard.
The result has been two and a half years of stagnation on the Middle East peace
front that has left Arabs — and many world leaders — frustrated, and ready to
try an alternative to the American-centric approach that has prevailed since the
1970s.
“The U.S. cannot lead on an issue that it is so boxed in on by its domestic
politics,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator in the government
of Ehud Barak. “And therefore, with the region in such rapid upheaval and the
two-state solution dying, as long as the U.S. is paralyzed, others are going to
have to step up.”
Mr. Obama himself seemed to forecast this back in May when, speaking to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he warned that events in the Middle
East could lead to a challenge to the status quo if the Israelis and
Palestinians did not move quickly toward a peace deal.
“There’s a reason why the Palestinians are pursuing their interests at the
United Nations,” Mr. Obama said then. “They recognize that there is an
impatience with the peace process, or the absence of one, not just in the Arab
world, in Latin America, in Asia, and in Europe. And that impatience is growing,
and it’s already manifesting itself in capitals around the world.”
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, delivered on the threat. He announced
last Friday his plans to go to the Security Council in a quest for Palestinian
membership in the United Nations and international legal recognition of
statehood, putting Mr. Obama in the position of having to stand in the way.
Israel and its allies in Congress, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel enjoys broad influence, were sharply opposed.
So on Wednesday, Mr. Obama “did exactly what he had to do,” said David Rothkopf,
a former Clinton administration official and a visiting fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. “He made a clear statement for what is a
clear U.S. position and put himself squarely as a champion of the status quo.”
Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Rothkopf said, “has managed to read the U.S. political
situation perfectly, making Obama acutely aware that he could be losing part of
his base, and that, I think, in turn is what has locked Obama in.”
The Palestinians have never fully trusted the United States to serve as an
honest broker with Israel. But its credibility with the Palestinians has
crumbled with the recognition that Mr. Obama may not have the clout to press the
Israelis into a peace deal that requires significant compromises.
“The president in his speech at the U.N. today admitted that the U.S. somehow
failed in bridging the gap between the two sides,” the Palestinian
representative in Washington, Maen Rashid Areikat, said in an interview on
Wednesday. “He said that he feels frustration and he understands the frustration
of everybody. That’s good, but I think it goes much deeper. I think what the
U.S. administration needs to say is why it failed.”
He acknowledged the administration’s efforts — with the appointment of George J.
Mitchell Jr. as special envoy to the region and Mr. Obama’s own speeches,
especially in Cairo — but said the momentum of his early presidency flagged as
the administration bound itself so closely to the Israelis and their supporters
in the United States, especially Congress. The Palestinians ultimately decided
that the best hope for breaking an impasse with the Israelis rested with making
their case to a larger international forum.
“One big reason for losing that momentum,” he said, “was the failure of the
administration to use its leverage with an Israeli government that adamantly was
opposed to the efforts of the United States to bridge the gap in the Middle
East.”
After Mr. Obama laid out his defense of the peace process, Mr. Sarkozy took to
the same podium in a forceful disavowal of Mr. Obama’s position. “Let us cease
our endless debates on the parameters,” he said, calling instead for a General
Assembly resolution that would upgrade the Palestinians to “observer status” as
a bridge toward statehood. “Let us begin negotiations, and adopt a precise
timetable.”
The outcome of the Palestinian bid for membership remains uncertain. The
administration still hopes that the process of considering the Palestinian bid
at the Security Council could provide a fresh opportunity for new talks. The
move puts new pressure on Mr. Netanyahu’s government, reeling from setbacks to
its security from the turmoil of the Arab Spring, with results that analysts say
are hard to forecast. But a quick return to the status quo, when the United
States dictated the terms of talks, seems unlikely, given strong Russian and
French support for a new approach by the Palestinians.
Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, told reporters after Mr. Sarkozy’s
speech that the United States “cannot do it alone” in negotiations for a Middle
East peace, and that a collective approach was needed. Mr. Juppe said he thought
this time that the five permanent Security Council members should have a direct
role in shepherding talks.
Somewhat incongruously, Mr. Sarkozy visited Mr. Obama’s hotel on Wednesday
afternoon for a previously scheduled meeting with the president, and was
effusive, in front of the cameras before the meeting, in his praise for Mr.
Obama. Mr. Obama, for his part, refused to engage with reporters assembled for
the photo op. “Do you support the French one-year timeline?” one reporter asked.
Mr. Obama responded, “I already answered a question from you before.”
Another reporter asked Mr. Obama if he agreed with the French position on
Palestine. Mr. Obama smiled and replied, “Bonjour.” A third reporter queried if
that response constituted a “no comment.” The president’s response: “No
comment.”
Q+A:
Explaining the Palestinian drive to join the U.N.
UNITED
NATIONS | Wed Sep 21, 2011
10:11am EDT
Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED
NATIONS (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to request
U.N. membership for a Palestinian state when he addresses the U.N. on Friday,
defying opposition from Israel and the United States.
Here are some questions and answers about the Palestinian push at the United
Nations during this year's annual gathering of world leaders for the annual U.N.
General Assembly session in New York, as well as some of the possible
consequences.
WHY DO THE
PALESTINIANS WANT TO GO TO THE UNITED NATIONS?
Abbas says 20 years of U.S.-led peace talks have gone nowhere and wants a vote
in the United Nations to bestow the Palestinians with the cherished mantle of
statehood. He recognizes, however, that negotiations with Israel will still be
needed to establish a properly functioning state.
Justifying the move, the Palestinians point to the success of a Western-backed,
two-year plan to build institutions ready for statehood which they say is now
finished.
THE
PALESTINIANS WANT RECOGNITION ON 1967 LINES. WHY?
The Palestinian Authority says placing their state firmly in the context of
territory seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War would provide clear terms of
reference and mean Israel would no longer be able to call the land "disputed."
Instead, it would make clear that land is occupied. Israel fears this would
enable Palestinians to start legal proceedings in the International Criminal
Court against some 500,000 Israelis who live in East Jerusalem and the West
Bank.
HOW DOES
THE U.N. ADMIT NEW MEMBER STATES?
Countries seeking to join the United Nations usually present an application to
the U.N. secretary-general, who passes it to the Security Council to assess and
vote on. If the 15-nation council approves the membership request, it is passed
to the General Assembly for approval. A membership request needs a two-thirds
majority, or 129 votes, for approval.
A country cannot join the United Nations unless both the Security Council and
General Assembly approve its application.
COULD THE
PALESTINIANS JOIN THE U.N.?
In theory, yes. But Washington has made clear it would veto such a request,
meaning it has no chance of success. Even if the Palestinians secure a
two-thirds majority of votes in the General Assembly, there is no getting around
the need for prior approval of the Security Council.
DO THE
PALESTINIANS HAVE THE VOTES ON THE SECURITY
COUNCIL?
Nine votes and no vetoes from the five permanent members are needed for a
resolution to pass the Security Council. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad
al-Malki said his delegation was working to secure the minimum nine votes in the
council needed to secure U.N. membership and he was confident they would
succeed. [ID:nS1E78J0FS]
Diplomats say the United States is the only permanent council member expected to
use its veto to block a Palestinian membership bid.
WHAT
HAPPENS AFTER PALESTINE APPLIES FOR U.N. MEMBERSHIP?
Abbas has said he would bring an application for U.N. membership to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday. After an initial review, Ban would pass
it to the current president of the Security Council, Lebanese U.N. Ambassador
Nawaf Salam.
Salam would establish a committee to review and assess the application. Standard
practice is to complete the assessment within 35 days, but this can be waived.
Diplomats and U.N. officials say it is likely that council members will take
their time reviewing the Palestinian application. One diplomat said the review
process could drag on for years before there is a vote.
IS
"NON-MEMBER STATE" STATUS AN OPTION?
In addition to applying to become a U.N. member state, the Palestinians could
seek upgraded observer status as a non-member state. That is what the Vatican
has. Such status, U.N. envoys say, could be interpreted as implicit U.N.
recognition of Palestinian statehood because the assembly would be acknowledging
that the Palestinians control a "state."
One advantage of this option is that it would require only a simple majority of
the 193-nation General Assembly, not a two-thirds majority. Abbas has said that
more than 126 states already recognize the state of Palestine, meaning he could
probably win such a vote with ease.
WHAT WOULD
BE THE ADVANTAGE OF THAT?
Besides granting them the all-important title "state," diplomats say it would
likely enable the Palestinians to join the ICC, where it could pursue criminal
cases against Israel over the partial blockade of Gaza, the settlements and the
December 2008-January 2009 war in the Gaza Strip.
COULD
ISRAEL OR WASHINGTON EXACT PUNISHMENT ON THE PA?
Israel could pursue ICC action against the Palestinians for rockets fired
against Israel.
Israeli officials have suggested a range of possible measures, including
limiting travel privileges for Palestinian leaders seeking to exit the West
Bank, halting the transfer of crucial tax revenues to the Palestinians and even
annexing West Bank settlement blocs to try to sidestep ICC legal action. Some
U.S. officials have warned that they might cut their annual aid to the
Palestinian Authority, which runs to some $450 million.
(Additional
reporting by Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; editing by Christopher Wilson)
Obama
Praises Libya’s Post-Qaddafi Leaders at U.N.
September
20, 2011
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
UNITED
NATIONS — President Obama met Libya’s transitional leader for the first time on
Tuesday, and extolled what he called the Libyan people’s successful struggle to
depose Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The meeting came on the first of two days of
annual meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, during which the most
vexing issue confronting Mr. Obama will be the Palestinian quest for full
membership.
“Just as the world stood by you in your struggle to be free, we will stand with
you in your struggle to realize the peace and prosperity that freedom can
bring,” the president said at a meeting on Libya’s future, which included other
world leaders and emissaries from the Transitional National Council, the group
of former Libyan rebels whose forces ended Colonel Qaddafi’s four decades of
absolute rule last month. Before the meeting, Mr. Obama met privately with the
leader of the council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
In his remarks at the meeting, Mr. Obama warned the Libyans that it “will take
time to build the institutions needed for a democratic Libya — there will be
days of frustration.” But he said the successful overthrow of Colonel Qaddafi,
with aid from a NATO bombing campaign, had demonstrated that the world should
“not underestimate the aspirations and will of the Libyan people.”
Mr. Obama announced that the United States was officially reopening its embassy
in Tripoli, which was closed in the early days of the conflict. An advance
military team has been in the Libyan capital for the past week to prepare for
the reopening.
Mr. Obama was scheduled to meet with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan later
on Tuesday, but it was not clear whether that meeting would take place because
of the assassination in Kabul of the head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council,
former President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Mr. Karzai was making arrangements on
Tuesday to cut short his visit to the Assembly and fly home, aides to Mr. Karzai
said in Kabul.
Much of the diplomatic activity at the United Nations this week surrounded the
contentious question of the Palestinian bid for full membership as a state,
which the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, announced
publicly last Friday before traveling to New York. Israel and the United States
have expressed strong opposition to the plan, saying that Palestinian statehood
should come from direct negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. But
many, if not most, other members of the United Nations have expressed support
for Mr. Abbas’s approach.
Rick
Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.
U.S. Is
Quietly Getting Ready for Syria Without Assad
September
19, 2011
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON
— Increasingly convinced that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria will not be
able to remain in power, the Obama administration has begun to make plans for
American policy in the region after he exits.
In coordination with Turkey, the United States has been exploring how to deal
with the possibility of a civil war among Syria’s Alawite, Druse, Christian and
Sunni sects, a conflict that could quickly ignite other tensions in an already
volatile region.
While other countries have withdrawn their ambassadors from Damascus, Obama
administration officials say they are leaving in place the American ambassador,
Robert S. Ford, despite the risks, so he can maintain contact with opposition
leaders and the leaders of the country’s myriad sects and religious groups.
Officials at the State Department have also been pressing Syria’s opposition
leaders to unite as they work to bring down the Assad government, and to build a
new government.
The Obama administration is determined to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the
American invasion of Iraq. Though the United States did not stint in its effort
to oust Saddam Hussein, many foreign policy experts now say that the undertaking
came at the expense of detailed planning about how to manage Iraq’s warring
factions after his removal.
Syria is sure to be discussed when President Obama meets Tuesday with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on the periphery of the United Nations
General Assembly meeting in New York, administration officials say. A senior
administration official said the abandonment of Mr. Assad by Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and European nations would increase his isolation, particularly as his
military became more exhausted by the lengthening crackdown.
Another Obama administration official said that with 90 percent of Syria’s oil
exports going to Europe, shutting the European market to Damascus could have a
crippling effect on the Syrian economy and could put additional pressure on Mr.
Assad’s government.
“Back in the 1990s, if Syria wanted credit and trade and loans that they
couldn’t get from the United States, they went to the Europeans,” said Ray
Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations and a former Obama administration official. Now, Mr. Takeyh said,
Europe has joined the United States in imposing sanctions on Syrian exports,
including its critical oil sector.
Aside from Iran, he said, Syria has few allies to turn to. “The Chinese
recognize their economic development is more contingent on their relationship
with us and Europe than on whether Assad or Qaddafi survives,” he said,
referring to the deposed Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Eight months ago, the thought of Syria without a member of the Assad family at
the helm seemed about as far-fetched as the thought of Egypt without Hosni
Mubarak or Libya without Colonel Qaddafi.
But intelligence officials and diplomats in the Middle East, Europe and the
United States increasingly believe that Mr. Assad may not be able to beat back
the gathering storm at the gates of Damascus.
Mr. Obama’s call last month for Mr. Assad to step down came after months of
internal debate, which included lengthy discussions about whether a Syria
without Mr. Assad would lead to the kind of bloody civil war that consumed Iraq
after the fall of Mr. Hussein.
The shift moved the administration from discussing whether to call for Mr.
Assad’s ouster to discussing how to help bring it about, and what to do after
that.
“There’s a real consensus that he’s beyond the pale and over the edge,” the
senior Obama administration official said. “Intelligence services say he’s not
coming back.”
To be sure, Mr. Assad may yet prove as immovable as his father, Hafez al-Assad,
was before him. Many foreign policy analysts say that the longer Mr. Assad
remains in power, the more violent the country will become. And that violence,
they say, could unintentionally serve Mr. Assad’s interests by allowing him to
use it to justify a continuing crackdown.
Many factors may make his exit more difficult than the departures of Mr. Mubarak
in Egypt and President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. For one thing, both
the United States and Europe have become more distracted in recent weeks by
their economic crises.
Furthermore, while Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and even Yemen all imploded, those
eruptions were largely internal, with their most significant ramifications
limited to the examples they set in the Arab world. A collapse in Syria, on the
other hand, could lead to an external explosion that would affect Iran, Lebanon,
Jordan, Israel and even Iraq, foreign policy experts say, particularly if it
dissolves into an Iraq-style civil war.
“The Sunnis are increasingly arming, and the situation is polarizing,” said Vali
Nasr, a former Obama administration official in the State Department and the
author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.”
“Iran and Hezbollah are backing the regime,” Mr. Nasr said. “There’s a lot of
awareness across the regime that this is going to be pretty ugly.”
That awareness is fueling the desire to plan for a post-Assad era, Obama
administration officials say. “Nobody wants another Iraq,” one administration
official said on Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
At the same time, the administration does not want to look as if the United
States is trying to orchestrate the outcome in Syria, for fear that the image of
American intervention might do the Syrian opposition more harm than good. In
particular, administration officials say that they do not want to give the
Iranian government — which has huge interests in the Syrian government and is
Mr. Assad’s biggest supporter — an excuse to intervene.
But one administration official pointed to the remarkable call earlier this
month by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Mr. Assad to ease up on his
crackdown as a sign that even Iran’s leaders are worried about the Syrian
president’s prospects.
September
19, 2011
The New York Times
By LAURA KASINOF
SANA, Yemen
— Violence convulsed the streets of Yemen’s capital for a second day on Monday
as government security forces battled soldiers who have joined antigovernment
protesters in their movement to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign. It
was the worst violence since March in Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished
country and a haven for Islamic militants.
Medical officials in the capital said at least 28 people were killed on Monday,
pushing the death toll from two days of fighting in Sana, the capital, to more
than 50 — most of them unarmed protesters — and raising fears here that the
escalation of deadly mayhem is hurtling Yemen toward a civil war.
President Saleh, the long-time autocrat and American ally who has been
recuperating in Saudi Arabia from an assassination attempt at his presidential
compound more than three months ago, has vowed to return to Yemen, despite his
repeated pledges to relinquish the post in a negotiated transfer of power. The
protesters and their mutinous-soldier allies oppose any solution that would keep
Mr. Saleh or one of his subordinates in charge, and the prospect for any
negotiations seemed more tenuous on Monday.
The United States, which has been caught in a politically awkward situation in
Yemen by supporting President Saleh’s repressive government despite American
support for protests elsewhere in the Arab world, issued a statement expressing
regret over the casualties in Sana.
“In this tense situation, we call upon all parties to exercise restraint,” said
the statement, issued by the American Embassy here. “In particular, we call on
the parties to refrain from actions that provoke further violence. We reject
actions that undermine productive efforts underway to achieve a political
resolution to the current crisis.”
Motorcycles and ambulances carried mangled bodies away from the center of
fighting, an intersection just south of an area where protesters have been
holding anti-Saleh sit-ins for months.
After sporadic gunfire overnight, fighting intensified as rocket-propelled
grenades fell near the protesters, and forces loyal to Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsin
al-Ahmar, who has aligned himself with the protesters, fired artillery at
positions held by government forces nearby. At least one residential building
near the protest was in flames. Later Monday, witnesses said snipers were firing
at protesters from rooftops.
Soldiers from the First Armored Division, commanded by General Ahmar, had taken
over the area Sunday evening after clashing with security forces. Protesters set
up tents in the major intersection, improbably known as Kentucky Square because
of a restaurant resembling a KFC outlet that used to be there. The intersection
has become the new frontline of fighting.
The area is close to a residence of President Saleh’s family, in the direction
of the presidential palace.
Despite the renewed battles near the heart of the main antigovernment
demonstration, protesters remained on Monday.
“We are staying here until we die,” said Wuheib al-Youseffy, 32, sitting on a
curb with a group of men amid gunfire and booming artillery explosions. “Why
should we be scared? We are used to this.”
The bloodied bodies of protesters could be seen sprawled on the floor in videos
posted on Monday by activists in Sana’s central square. Many appeared dead,
including a young boy who activists said was killed by sniper fire.
South of the capital, fighting flared in the city of Taiz, according to news
reports, with at least one protester killed and more than a dozen wounded as
demonstrators battled government forces.
Yemen’s divided military has been at a standoff on the streets of Sana for
months, but after an attack Sunday on protesters, the First Armored Division
fought back.
A United Nations envoy, Jamal Benomar, arrived in Sana on Monday to oversee
negotiations between the vice president and leaders of opposition political
parties about the possible transfer of presidential powers.
But it was unclear whether such an agreement, even if it were struck, would stop
the latest fighting. The clashes began in Sana on Sunday when security forces
firing from rooftops and from the back of pickup trucks turned heavy-caliber
machine guns and other weapons on demonstrators, setting off battles between
army defectors and forces loyal to the government.
On Monday, many protesters in Sana were comparing their situation to the
fighting in Libya, where antigovernment forces supported by a NATO bombing
campaign ended the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
“The international community isn’t doing anything here,” said one protester Awad
Mansour, 26. “Look at Libya: they froze their assets, they helped the rebels,
and for us, they don’t do anything.” Others said they believed the
antigovernment movement, which has remained peaceful, would have to become
violent in order to finally remove Mr. Saleh.
Already the political paralysis has sapped the weak central government in a
country whose untamed reaches have become a base for Islamist militants linked
to Al Qaeda. Conflict has raged in outlying provinces for months. The vacuum of
authority has concerned American officials, who have struck at the Qaeda cells
with drone aircraft run by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The violence on Sunday began as the antigovernment demonstrators tried to march
for the first time in months beyond the part of Sana where they have camped in a
sit-in under the protection of General Ahmar. As they did, men in civilian
clothes opened fire from rooftops, the protesters said, and government security
forces shot at them from a Ministry of Electricity building and, using machine
guns, from the backs of pickup trucks. The gunfire lasted about an hour.
A separate group of protesters marching on what is known as the Ring Road, which
runs around the capital, were met with gunfire and tear gas as soon as they left
the area controlled by the First Armored Division, an attack that continued into
the evening.
“I swear to God what happened today is a horrible massacre, and we are not able
to even describe it, that the regime would use this violence against peaceful
protesters,” said Bassem al-Sharjabi, a lawyer who is one of the protest
leaders. “This is a crime against humanity. We demand from the international
community to intervene to stop these crimes.”
Protesters said that the army division that opened fire on them with heavy
weapons was under the command of Gen. Yahya Saleh, nephew of the president and
chief of central security forces. General Saleh denied his soldiers shot anyone,
accusing local citizens and protesters of shooting at each other.
The sit-in has woven itself into the fabric of the city. Protesters normally
stay within its boundaries or, at the most, stage marches within the territory
controlled by General Ahmar, who announced his support for the protesters in
March after more than 52 demonstrators were killed by snipers linked to the
government.
Robert F.
Worth and J. David Goodman contributed reporting from New York.
Tumult
of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington
September
17, 2011
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON
— While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities for
American diplomacy, the tumult has also presented the United States with
challenges — and worst-case scenarios — that would have once been almost
unimaginable.
What if the Palestinians’ quest for recognition of a state at the United
Nations, despite American pleas otherwise, lands Israel in the International
Criminal Court, fuels deeper resentment of the United States, or touches off a
new convulsion of violence in the West Bank and Gaza?
Or if Egypt, emerging from decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni
Mubarak, responds to anti-Israeli sentiments on the street and abrogates the
Camp David peace treaty, a bulwark of Arab-Israeli stability for three decades?
“We’re facing an Arab awakening that nobody could have imagined and few
predicted just a few years ago,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said
in a recent interview with reporters and editors of The New York Times. “And
it’s sweeping aside a lot of the old preconceptions.”
It may also sweep aside, or at least diminish, American influence in the region.
The bold vow on Friday by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to seek full
membership at the United Nations amounted to a public rebuff of weeks of
feverish American diplomacy. His vow came on top of a rapid and worrisome
deterioration of relations between Egypt and Israel and between Israel and
Turkey, the three countries that have been the strongest American allies in the
region.
Diplomacy has never been easy in the Middle East, but the recent events have so
roiled the region that the United States fears being forced to take sides in
diplomatic or, worse, military disputes among its friends. Hypothetical outcomes
seem chillingly present. What would happen if Turkey, a NATO ally that the
United States is bound by treaty to defend, sent warships to escort ships to
Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has threatened to do?
Crises like the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador in Turkey, the storming of the
Israeli Embassy in Cairo and protests outside the one in Amman, Jordan, have
compounded a sense of urgency and forced the Obama administration to reassess
some of this country’s fundamental assumptions, and to do so on the fly.
“The region has come unglued,” said Robert Malley, a senior analyst in
Washington for the International Crisis Group. “And all the tools the United
States has marshaled in the past are no longer as effective.”
The United States, as a global power and permanent member of the United Nations
Security Council, still has significant ability to shape events in the region.
This was underscored by the flurry of telephone calls that President Obama, Mrs.
Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made to their Egyptian and Israeli
counterparts to diffuse tensions after the siege of Israeli Embassy in Cairo
this month.
At the same time, the toppling of leaders who preserved a stable, if strained,
status quo for decades — Mr. Mubarak, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia — has unleashed powerful and still unpredictable
forces that the United States has only begun to grapple with and is likely to be
doing so for years.
In the process, diplomats worry, the actions of the United States could even
nudge the Arab Spring toward radicalism by angering newly enfranchised citizens
of democratic nations.
In the case of Egypt, the administration has promised millions of dollars in aid
to support a democratic transition, only to see the military council ruling the
country object to how and where it is spent, according to two administration
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic
matters. The objection echoed similar ones that came from Mr. Mubarak’s
government. The government and the political parties vying for support before
new elections there have also intensified anti-American talk. The officials
privately warned of the emergence of an outwardly hostile government, dominated
by the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of Mr. Mubarak’s party.
The upheaval in Egypt has even raised the prospect that it might break its Camp
David peace treaty with Israel, with Egypt’s prime minister, Essam Sharaf,
telling a Turkish television channel last week that the deal was “not a sacred
thing and is always open to discussion.”
The administration, especially Mrs. Clinton, also spent months trying to mediate
between Turkey and Israel over the response to the Israeli military operation
last year that killed nine passengers aboard a ship trying to deliver aid to
Gaza despite an Israeli embargo — only to see both sides harden their views
after a United Nations report on the episode became public.
Unflinching support for Israel has, of course, been a constant of American
foreign policy for years, often at the cost of political and diplomatic support
elsewhere in the region, but the Obama administration has also sought to improve
ties with Turkey after the chill that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Turkey, which aspires to broaden its own influence in the region, has been a
crucial if imperfect partner, from the administration’s point of view, in the
international response to the fighting in Libya and the diplomatic efforts to
isolate Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.
The administration deferred to Turkey’s request last month to delay new
sanctions on Mr. Assad’s government to give diplomacy another chance.
This month, only days before expelling Israel’s ambassador, Turkey agreed to
install an American radar system that is part of a new NATO missile defense
system, underscoring its importance to a policy goal of the last two
administrations.
Mrs. Clinton, in the interview, expressed hope that the United States would be
able to support the democratic aspirations of the Arab uprisings. She also
acknowledged the constraints that the administration faced at home, given the
country’s budget crisis and Republican calls in Congress to cut foreign aid,
especially to the Palestinians and others seen as hostile to Israel.
“It’s a great opportunity for the United States, but we are constrained by
budget and to some extent constrained by political obstacles,” she said. “I’m
determined that we’re going to do as much as we can within those constraints to
deal with the opportunities that I see from Tunisia to Libya and Egypt and
beyond.”
The administration has faced criticism from all quarters — that it has not done
enough to support Israel or has done too much, that it has supported some Arab
uprisings, while remaining silent on the repression in Bahrain. That in itself
illustrates how tumultuous the region has become and how the United States has
had to scramble to keep up with events that are still unfolding.
“Things are so fluid,” said Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. “They’re not driving the train. They’re reacting to the
train, and no one knows where the train is going.”
September
17, 2011
The New York Times
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I’VE never
been more worried about Israel’s future. The crumbling of key pillars of
Israel’s security — the peace with Egypt, the stability of Syria and the
friendship of Turkey and Jordan — coupled with the most diplomatically inept and
strategically incompetent government in Israel’s history have put Israel in a
very dangerous situation.
This has also left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a
hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election
season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it
knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.
Israel is not responsible for the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt
or for the uprising in Syria or for Turkey’s decision to seek regional
leadership by cynically trashing Israel or for the fracturing of the Palestinian
national movement between the West Bank and Gaza. What Israel’s prime minister,
Bibi Netanyahu, is responsible for is failing to put forth a strategy to respond
to all of these in a way that protects Israel’s long-term interests.
O.K., Mr. Netanyahu has a strategy: Do nothing vis-à-vis the Palestinians or
Turkey that will require him to go against his base, compromise his ideology or
antagonize his key coalition partner, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, an
extreme right-winger. Then, call on the U.S. to stop Iran’s nuclear program and
help Israel out of every pickle, but make sure that President Obama can’t ask
for anything in return — like halting Israeli settlements — by mobilizing
Republicans in Congress to box in Obama and by encouraging Jewish leaders to
suggest that Obama is hostile to Israel and is losing the Jewish vote. And
meanwhile, get the Israel lobby to hammer anyone in the administration or
Congress who says aloud that maybe Bibi has made some mistakes, not just Barack.
There, who says Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t have a strategy?
“The years-long diplomatic effort to integrate Israel as an accepted neighbor in
the Middle East collapsed this week, with the expulsion of the Israeli
ambassadors from Ankara and Cairo, and the rushed evacuation of the embassy
staff from Amman,” wrote Haaretz newspaper’s Aluf Benn. “The region is spewing
out the Jewish state, which is increasingly shutting itself off behind fortified
walls, under a leadership that refuses any change, movement or reform ...
Netanyahu demonstrated utter passivity in the face of the dramatic changes in
the region, and allowed his rivals to seize the initiative and set the agenda.”
What could Israel have done? The Palestinian Authority, which has made concrete
strides in the past five years at building the institutions and security forces
of a state in the West Bank — making life there quieter than ever for Israel —
finally said to itself: “Our state-building has not prompted Israel to halt
settlements or engage in steps to separate, so all we’re doing is sustaining
Israel’s occupation. Let’s go to the U.N., get recognized as a state within the
1967 borders and fight Israel that way.” Once this was clear, Israel should have
either put out its own peace plan or tried to shape the U.N. diplomacy with its
own resolution that reaffirmed the right of both the Palestinian and the Jewish
people to a state in historic Palestine and reignited negotiations.
Mr. Netanyahu did neither. Now the U.S. is scrambling to defuse the crisis, so
the U.S. does not have to cast a U.N. veto on a Palestinian state, which could
be disastrous in an Arab world increasingly moving toward more popular
self-rule.
On Turkey, the Obama team and Mr. Netanyahu’s lawyers worked tirelessly these
last two months to resolve the crisis stemming from the killing by Israeli
commandos of Turkish civilians in the May 2010 Turkish aid flotilla that
recklessly tried to land in Gaza. Turkey was demanding an apology. According to
an exhaustive article about the talks by the Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea of
the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, the two sides agreed that Israel would apologize
only for “operational mistakes” and the Turks would agree to not raise legal
claims. Bibi then undercut his own lawyers and rejected the deal, out of
national pride and fear that Mr. Lieberman would use it against him. So Turkey
threw out the Israeli ambassador.
As for Egypt, stability has left the building there and any new Egyptian
government is going to be subjected to more populist pressures on Israel. Some
of this is unavoidable, but why not have a strategy to minimize it by Israel
putting a real peace map on the table?
I have great sympathy for Israel’s strategic dilemma and no illusions about its
enemies. But Israel today is giving its friends — and President Obama’s one of
them — nothing to defend it with. Israel can fight with everyone or it can
choose not to surrender but to blunt these trends with a peace overture that
fair-minded people would recognize as serious, and thereby reduce its isolation.
Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle
diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before
this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America
along with it.
September
16, 2011
The New York Times
By ANTHONY SHADID
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — Syrian security forces shot dead 29 people Friday in some of the
country’s most restive locales, in yet another round of bloodshed that has led
some there to fear Syria’s six-month uprising may be headed toward an even more
violent turn.
The crackdown on the revolt in one of the Arab world’s most authoritarian
countries has continued unabated, with the United Nations saying government
forces have killed more than 2,600 people and diplomats estimating that arrests
may number in the tens of thousands. Though Syria’s government stands more
isolated than at any time in decades, it has managed to maintain cohesion within
the security forces and leadership.
The deaths occurred in regions that have witnessed some of the largest protests:
Homs, in central Syria; Dara’a, a southern town where the uprising began; the
suburbs of the capital Damascus; and the outskirts of Hama, Syria’s
fourth-largest city, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist
group. Though recent Fridays in Syria unfailingly witness violence, the toll
marked one of the bloodiest in weeks.
Activists also said military campaigns, with tanks and armored vehicles,
continued around Hama and in northwest Syria, a rugged region near the Turkish
border.
The Syrian government has cast the unrest as an insurgency, funded from abroad
and driven by religious sentiments. In a visit to Moscow this week, Bouthaina
Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, discounted the United Nations’
estimate of deaths, saying 1,400 people had been killed. She said 700 of them
were soldiers and 700 insurgents, apparently suggesting no civilians had died in
the protests and crackdown.
But international criticism has mounted, with the United States and European
countries demanding that Mr. Assad step down. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan, who once counted Mr. Assad as a friend, has signaled growing anger with
Syrian rebuffs of Turkey’s pleas to undertake reform. In Tripoli, Libya, where
Mr. Erdogan visited Friday as part of a tour of Arab countries, he warned Syrian
officials of their fate on Friday.
“Do not forget this: Those in Syria who inflict repression on the people will
not be able to stand on their feet,” he told a cheering crowd in a square in
Tripoli.
Later at a news conference, Mr. Erdogan used more explicit language. “Who comes
with injustice cannot rule,” he told reporters. “Anyone who sends tanks against
his own people cannot rule. He must be held accountable for what he has done.”
Mr. Erdogan made clear that he was referring to Mr. Assad.
Since they erupted in mid-March, the protests have demonstrated a remarkable
resilience, persisting despite one of the region’s most ferocious bouts of
repression. Some activists have acknowledged that, given the violence, the
demonstrations may have lost some momentum in past weeks, though they don’t see
the flagging numbers as decisive.
To many, fear is driving them to continue.
“Protesters are telling authorities that they have the patience of Job,” said
Iyad Sharbaji, an activist in Damascus. “They have faith and believe that, if
the protests stop, there will be revenge and killings that no one will survive
from.”
“That is why people are insisting to continue until the end,” he added.
Across the country, activists, diplomats and analysts have worried that as the
toll mounts, and international pressure fails to force concessions from Mr.
Assad’s government, protesters may take up arms. There are growing reports that
some already have in places like Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, and the
outskirts of Damascus.
“The suppression is becoming even more brutal,” said a Syrian activist in the
capital who gave her name as Hanan. “My biggest concern is the transformation of
this peaceful movement into another form — a violent reaction, for instance.”
Rod Nordland
contributed reporting from Tripoli, Libya.
September
15, 2011
The New York Times
By KATHRYN SIKKINK
Minneapolis
TIME is running out for former government officials accused of murder, genocide
and crimes against humanity. In the past few months, the final Serbian
war-crimes fugitives were extradited to The Hague, the trial of the former
Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, began in Cairo, and the International
Criminal Court opened hearings on the post-election violence that plagued Kenya
in 2007-8.
These events have provoked a chorus of trial skeptics, who contend that the
threat of prosecution undermines democracy, exacerbates conflict and could lead
to greater human rights violations.
Critics argue that the threat of prosecution leads dictators like Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi of Libya and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan to entrench themselves in
power rather than negotiate a transition to democracy. In El Salvador, where
domestic courts have refused to extradite officers accused of murdering Jesuit
priests 22 years ago, critics claim that such a prosecution would undermine
stability and sovereignty.
But we do not know whether extraditions would destabilize El Salvador, or
whether Sudan and Libya would have been better off than they are today if the
I.C.C. had not indicted Mr. Bashir or Colonel Qaddafi.
Indeed, those arguments rest on proving or disproving a counterfactual. While
the I.C.C. indictment may have prompted Colonel Qaddafi’s desire to hide once he
left power, we do not know whether it shortened his last days in power or
prolonged them.
Historical and statistical evidence gives us reason to question criticisms of
human rights trials. My research shows that transitional countries — those
moving from authoritarian governments to democracy or from civil war to peace —
where human rights prosecutions have taken place subsequently become less
repressive than transitional countries without prosecutions, holding other
factors constant.
By comparing countries like Argentina and Chile that have used human rights
prosecutions with those like Brazil that have not, I found that prosecutions
tended not to exacerbate human rights violations, undermine democracy or lead to
violence.
Of 100 countries that underwent a transition from 1980 to 2004 (the period for
which extensive data is available), 48 pursued at least one human rights
prosecution, and 33 of those pursued two or more. Countries that have prosecuted
former officials exhibit lower levels of torture, summary execution, forced
disappearances and political imprisonment. Although civil war heightens
repression, prosecutions in the context of civil war do not make the situation
worse, as critics claim.
Such evidence doesn’t tell us what will happen in any individual country, but it
is a better basis from which to reason than a counterfactual guess. The
possibility of punishment and disgrace makes violating human rights more costly,
and thus deters future leaders from doing so.
From the final Nuremberg trials in 1949 until the 1970s, there was virtually no
chance that heads of state and government officials would be held accountable
for human rights violations. But in the last two decades, the likelihood of
punishment has increased, and newly installed officials may be more cautious
before deciding to murder or torture their political opponents.
In addition, trials seem to project deterrence across borders. If a number of
countries in a region pursue prosecutions, nearby countries also show a decrease
in the level of repression, even if they have not held trials.
In Latin America, young military officers need only look to Argentina and Chile,
where 81 and 66 individuals, respectively, have been convicted for crimes during
previous dictatorships, to absorb the lesson that the possibility of punishment
is much greater than it was in the past. This may help explain why military
coups are now so rare in the region.
Likewise, the sight of Mr. Mubarak in a cage in a Cairo courtroom could deter
government officials elsewhere in the region who are considering repressive
measures against their populations. This may not help much with Mr. Bashir or
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who are already deeply complicit in violent
repression, and are unlikely to be deterred. But the history of dictators shows
that some leaders cling to power at any cost, so it is hard to argue that the
threat of prosecution is uniquely responsible for their continuing iron grip.
This does not mean that all governments must immediately and simultaneously
begin far-reaching prosecutions. The desire for justice is persistent, and if
political conditions for prosecutions are not ripe immediately after a
democratic transition, such prosecutions can be held later.
Cambodia issued its first war-crimes conviction last year, over 30 years after
the horrors of the killing fields. And domestic courts in Uruguay took 20 years
to sentence the former authoritarian leader Juan María Bordaberry for human
rights violations. Mr. Bordaberry died this summer in his home, where he was
serving a 30-year sentence for ordering the murder of political opponents.
It has never been easy for any country to confront its past. Almost all leaders,
when faced with calls for accountability, have wanted to turn the page and look
toward the future. But demands for justice are robust, and countries that have
held former leaders accountable have in most cases come away stronger.
Kathryn
Sikkink, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, is the
author of “The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World
Politics.”
Islamists’ Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya
September
14, 2011
The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
TRIPOLI,
Libya — In the emerging post-Qaddafi Libya, the most influential politician may
well be Ali Sallabi, who has no formal title but commands broad respect as an
Islamic scholar and populist orator who was instrumental in leading the mass
uprising.
The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader
of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.
The growing influence of Islamists in Libya raises hard questions about the
ultimate character of the government and society that will rise in place of Col.
Muammar el-Qaddafi’s autocracy. The United States and Libya’s new leaders say
the Islamists, a well-organized group in a mostly moderate country, are sending
signals that they are dedicated to democratic pluralism. They say there is no
reason to doubt the Islamists’ sincerity.
But as in Egypt and Tunisia, the latest upheaval of the Arab Spring deposed a
dictator who had suppressed hard-core Islamists, and there are some worrisome
signs about what kind of government will follow. It is far from clear where
Libya will end up on a spectrum of possibilities that range from the Turkish
model of democratic pluralism to the muddle of Egypt to, in the worst case, the
theocracy of Shiite Iran or Sunni models like the Taliban or even Al Qaeda.
Islamist militias in Libya receive weapons and financing directly from foreign
benefactors like Qatar; a Muslim Brotherhood figure, Abel al-Rajazk Abu Hajar,
leads the Tripoli Municipal Governing Council, where Islamists are reportedly in
the majority; in eastern Libya, there has been no resolution of the
assassination in July of the leader of the rebel military, Gen. Abdul Fattah
Younes, suspected by some to be the work of Islamists.
Mr. Belhaj has become so much an insider lately that he is seeking to unseat
Mahmoud Jibril, the American-trained economist who is the nominal prime minister
of the interim government, after Mr. Jibril obliquely criticized the Islamists.
For an uprising that presented a liberal, Westernized face to the world, the
growing sway of Islamists — activists with fundamentalist Islamic views, who
want a society governed by Islamic principles — is being followed closely by the
United States and its NATO allies.
“I think it’s something that everybody is watching,” said Jeffrey D. Feltman,
assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, visiting here on
Wednesday. “First of all the Libyan people themselves are talking about this.”
The highest-ranking American official to visit Libya since Colonel Qaddafi’s
fall, Mr. Feltman was optimistic that Libya would take a moderate path.
“Based on our discussions with Libyans so far,” he said, “we aren’t concerned
that one group is going to be able to dominate the aftermath of what has been a
shared struggle by the Libyan people.”
Mr. Sallabi, in an interview, made it clear that he and his followers wanted to
build a political party based on Islamic principles that would come to power
through democratic elections. But if the party failed to attract widespread
support, he said, so be it.
“It is the people’s revolution, and all the people are Muslims, Islamists,” Mr.
Sallabi said. Secularists “are our brothers and they are Libyans.”
“They have the right to offer their proposals and programs,” he said, “and if
the Libyan people choose them I have no problem. We believe in democracy and the
peaceful exchange of power.”
Many Libyans say they are not worried. “The Islamists are organized so they seem
more influential than their real weight,” said Usama Endar, a management
consultant who was among the wealthy Tripolitans who helped finance the
revolution. “They don’t have wide support, and when the dust settles, only those
with large-scale appeal, without the tunnel vision of the Islamists, will win.”
Yet an anti-Islamist, anti-Sallabi rally in Martyrs’ Square on Wednesday drew
only a few dozen demonstrators.
Many, like Aref Nayed, coordinator of the Transitional National Council’s
stabilization team and a prominent religious scholar, say that the revolution
had proved that Libyans would not accept anything but a democratic society, and
that the Islamists would have to adapt to that.
“There will be attempts by people to take over, but none of them will succeed
because the young people will go out on the streets and bring them down,” Mr.
Nayed said.
Some are concerned that the Islamists are already wielding too much power,
particularly in relation to their support in Libyan society, where most people,
while devout, practice a moderate form of Islam in which individual liberties
are respected.
Mr. Sallabi dismissed those fears, saying Islamists would not impose their
traditionalist views on others. “If people choose a woman to lead, as president,
we have no problem with that. Women can dress the way they like; they are free.”
Adel al-Hadi al-Mishrogi, a prominent businessman who began raising money for
the anti-Qaddafi insurgents early in the revolution, is not convinced by the
Islamists’ declarations of fealty to democratic principles. He pointed to a
well-organized Islamist umbrella group, Etilaf, which he said had pushed aside
more secular groupings.
“Most Libyans are not strongly Islamic, but the Islamists are strongly
organized, and that’s the problem,” Mr. Mishrogi said. “Our meetings go on for
hours without decisions. Their meetings are disciplined and right to the point.
They’re not very popular, but they’re organized.”
He complains that Etilaf and Mr. Sallabi are the ones who are really running
things in Libya now. Others say the picture is much more diverse and chaotic
than Mr. Mishrogi suggests, although it is true that Etilaf, with no fixed
address and still apparently operating underground, continues to issue decrees
of all sorts as if it were some sort of revolutionary guide.
“All offices here must make sure that they are headed by an acceptable person
within seven days of this notice,” read a leaflet pasted to the doors of offices
throughout Tripoli Central Hospital, dated Sept. 3 and signed, simply, Etilaf.
“They are behind everything,” Mr. Mishrogi said.
Youssef M. Sherif, a prominent Libyan writer and intellectual, said: “Every day
the Islamists grow stronger. When there is a parliament, the Islamists will get
the majority.”
“Abdel Hakim Belhaj is in effect the governor of Tripoli just because he was
elected by an Islamist militia,” Mr. Sherif said. Echoing debates in Egypt, Mr.
Sherif argued for a longer transition to elections than the planned eight
months, to give liberals a better chance to organize.
The growing influence of the Islamists is reflected in their increased
willingness to play a political role. Until recently the Islamists have kept a
low profile, and even many secular Libyan officials have expressed a reluctance
to criticize them, saying they should focus instead on the common enemy while
Colonel Qaddafi remains on the loose.
That seems to be changing. After the interim government’s acting prime minister,
Mr. Jibril, appeared recently in Tripoli and indirectly criticized politicking
by the Islamists as premature with a war still in progress, Mr. Belhaj and Mr.
Sallabi began agitating for his replacement.
“Jibril will be gone soon,” one aide to Mr. Belhaj said.
And Mr. Sallabi said that Mr. Jibril, along with the American-educated finance
and oil minister, Ali Tarhouni, were ushering in a “new era of tyranny and
dictatorship,” Al Jazeera reported.
During the 42 years of Colonel Qaddafi’s rule, underground organizations like
Mr. Belhaj’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the Muslim Brotherhood were the
only opposition. Although outlawed and persecuted, they had a network through
mosques that secular opponents of the government could not match.
That has also given them a head start in political organizing now, and they
appear to be wasting no time.
“There will be attempts by some parties to take over; it’s only natural,” said
one prominent official with the Transitional National Council, who spoke
anonymously so as not to alienate Islamists. “And definitely Etilaf is trying to
increase its influence. And we’re hearing much more from the Islamists in the
media because they are more organized and they are more articulate.”
Mr. Nayed conceded that might be true, but was unconcerned. “My answer to anyone
who complains about that: You must be as articulate as they are and as organized
as they are,” he said. “And I think we’re starting to see that among various
youth groups.”
Fathi Ben Issa, a former Etilaf member who became an early representative on the
Tripoli council, said he quit his position after learning that the Muslim
Brotherhood members who dominate that body wanted to ban theater, cinema and
arts like sculpture of the human form. “They were like the Taliban,” he said.
“We didn’t get rid of Qaddafi to replace him with such people.” The final straw,
he said, came when Etilaf began circulating a proposed fatwa, or decree, to bar
women from driving.
Most Libyans are quick to bristle at suggestions that their own Islamists might
one day go the way of Iran, where after the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stomped out a short-lived liberal government by
denouncing democracy as un-Islamic.
Mr. Sallabi said he hoped Libyans could find a leader on the model of George
Washington, whom he had been reading about lately. “After his struggle he went
back to his farm even though the American people wanted him to be president,”
Mr. Sallabi said. “He is a great man.”
Referring to Mr. Sallabi, Mr. Ben Issa, who said he has received death threats
since breaking with the Islamists, retorted: “He is just hiding his intentions.
He says one thing to the BBC and another to Al Jazeera. If you believe him, then
you don’t know the Muslim Brothers.”
This article
has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: September 15, 2011
The captions on two photographs in an earlier version of this article
incorrectly transposed the descriptions of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Ali Sallabi.
September
13, 2011
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON
— The United States is facing increasing pressure as the Palestinian quest for
statehood gained support from Turkey and other countries, even as the Obama
administration sought an 11th-hour compromise that would avoid a confrontation
at the United Nations next week.
With only days to go before world leaders gather in New York, the maneuvering
became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling
tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between
three of its closest allies in the region: Egypt, Israel and Turkey.
Nabil el-Araby, secretary general of the Arab League, said after meeting with
the Palestinians that “it is obvious that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab
countries are leaning towards going to the General Assembly,” where a successful
vote could elevate the status of the Palestinian Authority from nonvoting
“observer entity” to “observer state,” a status equal to that of the Holy See.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey ratcheted up
pressure on the United States and Israel by telling Arab League ministers that
recognition of a Palestinian state was “not a choice but an obligation.”
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that American
negotiators would return to the region on Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian
Authority in a final effort to avert a vote on the matter.
The administration, working with the European Union’s foreign policy chief,
Catherine Ashton, and Tony Blair, who serves as a special envoy to the region,
continued to seek international support for what Mrs. Clinton described as “a
sustainable platform for negotiations” between the Israelis and the Palestinians
to create a Palestinian state.
She did not elaborate, but the administration hopes that a negotiated agreement
on a prospective deal could avert a vote at the United Nations — or even be
submitted for approval by the Security Council or the General Assembly in lieu
of a Palestinian request for either membership or status as an observer state,
administration officials said.
“We all know that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen at the U.N., the next
day is not going to result in the kind of changes that the United States wishes
to see that will move us toward the two-state solution that we strongly
support,” Mrs. Clinton said Tuesday. “The only way of getting a lasting solution
is through direct negotiations between the parties, and the route to that lies
in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York.”
The administration has spent months trying to avoid casting its veto in the
Security Council to block membership of a Palestinian state. It also hopes to
avert a vote for the more symbolic change in status in the General Assembly,
which senior officials, echoing the Israelis, have warned would be harmful to
Israeli-Palestinian peace and could foment violence.
But with negotiations long stalled, the Palestinians and their allies say that
such a vote would preserve the idea of a two-state solution.
The timing of the confrontation has created a diplomatic quandary for President
Obama, putting him in the position of opposing Palestinian aspirations for
self-determination even as his administration has championed Arabs who have
overthrown leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya or who seek to in Syria. At the
same time, he faces pressure from Israel’s vocal supporters in Congress to block
the vote or cut off military and economic assistance the United States has given
to the Palestinians.
Internationally, however, the United States and Israel appeared increasingly
isolated, with even some European nations, from Russia to France, signaling
support for at least a General Assembly vote for the Palestinians.
The support for the Palestinians from the Turkish prime minister was not a
surprise, but the commanding tone of his endorsement — coupled with Turkey’s
souring relations with Israel, once a close ally — underscored the growing
sympathy for Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty and statehood.
“Let’s raise the Palestinian flag, and let that flag be the symbol of peace and
justice in the Middle East,” said Mr. Erdogan, the increasingly influential
leader of a NATO ally. He also took a harsh tone toward Israel, saying it is
“the West’s spoiled child.”
The Arab League signaled that it would press the Palestinians to seek a General
Assembly vote to elevate the status of the Palestinian Authority from nonvoting
“observer entity” to “observer state.” Some Palestinian leaders, though,
continued to press for a Security Council vote.
Although a vote in the General Assembly would not formally recognize a state of
Palestine, it would give the Palestinians rights to observe and submit
resolutions and join other United Nations bodies and conventions. It could also
strengthen their ability to pursue legal cases in the International Criminal
Court, something that alarms Israel and the United States in particular.
But the Palestinians also seemed open to the compromise being brokered by Mr.
Blair and the American envoys, David M. Hale from the State Department and
Dennis B. Ross from the National Security Council.
A top negotiator for the Palestinian Authority said Tuesday night that its
leadership was considering strong appeals by the Arab states and the Europeans
to turn to the General Assembly, where it is certain to have majority support,
and not the Security Council, where the United States can veto any resolution.
The negotiator, Saeb Erekat, added that Mr. Abbas told Arab ministers that the
Palestinian Authority had not yet decided, suggesting that it was still
considering its options. Mr. Abbas is expected to go to Amman, Jordan, on
Wednesday to discuss the issue with Mr. Blair. Mr. Blair and the Europeans “said
they have some ideas, and we are waiting to see the ideas formulated,” Mr.
Erekat said.
“We don’t intend to confront the U.S., or anyone else for that matter,” he
added. “We want to present the United Nations vote as an opportunity for all of
us to preserve the two-state solution.”
Mr. Abbas and his Arab allies argue that Israel’s unwillingness to take
sufficient steps to create a state of Palestine had obviated the path laid out
in the Oslo peace accords of 1993. Mr. Araby said that a United Nations vote
would “change the Israel-Palestinian conflict” and become an important step
toward a resolution. “It will turn from a conflict about existence to a conflict
about borders,” he said.
Some European diplomats have agreed, but urged the Palestinians to turn to the
General Assembly because they argued that its approval was more likely to
facilitate negotiations rather than a vetoed bid at the Security Council. Mr.
Araby said that Ms. Ashton, the European Union’s chief diplomat, expected strong
European support for an elevation of the Palestinians’ status to “observer
state.”
The consequences of that, however, remained unclear. In Congress, senior
Republican lawmakers have introduced language in an appropriations bill that
would sever American aid to the Palestinians if they proceeded with the vote.
Representative Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas who is the chairwoman of the
House appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, said she had
explained that view personally to the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad,
during a visit to Israel and the West Bank last month.
“It’s very bad,” Ms. Granger said of the Palestinian bid at the United Nations.
“If they take that step, then we no longer fund. We stop our funding because our
position is that it stops the peace process — because they are going outside the
peace process.”
She called the expected confrontation in New York next week “a train wreck
coming.”
Steven Lee
Myers reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Heba Afify
contributed reporting from Cairo.
September
13, 2011
The New York Times
By ALAN COWELL and RICK GLADSTONE
LONDON —
Iran’s president said Tuesday that two American hikers jailed on espionage
convictions in his country would be freed within two days as a humanitarian
gesture, a move that seemed intended to cast him in a more positive light as he
prepares to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week.
The remarks by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a television interview
with NBC’s “Today” show from Tehran, came a month after the two Americans, Shane
M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal, both 29, were sentenced to eight years in an
Iranian prison on the spying charges, which they have denied.
The sentence, after the pair had already spent nearly two years in prison, was
considered unusually harsh and seen as an increasingly tough public relations
problem for Mr. Ahmadinejad abroad, even when considering the longstanding
estrangement in American-Iranian relations.
The Iranian authorities have never publicly provided evidence to support their
contention that the hikers were American spies, and a wide range of outside
voices, including Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Amnesty International, had
called for their unconditional release. The Iranians have in the past filed
similar cases against American citizens, including Roxana Saberi, who was also
sentenced in 2009 to eight years on espionage charges she denied — only to be
released with great fanfare as a humanitarian gesture.
Mr. Bauer, Mr. Fattal and a third American hiker, Sarah E. Shourd, were arrested
near the Iraq-Iran frontier in July 2009 by Iranian border guards, who contended
they had intentionally trespassed into Iranian territory. Ms. Shourd was
released on $500,000 bail in September 2010 and returned to the United States
and all three have insisted all along they had inadvertently strayed into
Iranian territory.
“I think these two persons will be freed in a couple of days,” Mr. Ahmadinejad
said in the “Today” interview. He also repeated complaints about what he said
were the unjust imprisonments of Iranians in the United States, and said that
Mr. Bauer and Mr. Fattal were well cared for in Iran’s penal system. “”It’s like
staying in a hotel,” he said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Washington that she was
encouraged by the remarks but she declined to comment in detail. The State
Department said in an earlier statement that it was checking the status of the
two hikers through the Swiss Embassy, which represents United States interests
in Iran.
“We obviously hope that we will see a positive outcome from what appears to be a
decision by the government,” she said, without referring specifically to Mr.
Ahmadinejad.
The families of Mr. Bauer and Mr. Fattal issued a joint statement saying they
were “overjoyed by the positive news reports from Iran.”
“Shane and Josh’s freedom means more to us than anything,” the statement said, “
and it’s a huge relief to read that they are going to be released. We’re
grateful to everyone who has supported us and looking forward to our reunion
with Shane and Josh. We hope to say more when they are finally back in our
arms.”
Mr. Bauer, Mr. Fattal and Ms. Shourd, all graduates of the University of
California, Berkeley, who were either studying or traveling in the Middle East.
They say they made an innocent mistake in wandering over the unmarked border,
crossing when a soldier of unknown nationality waved to them to approach. They
were only then told they had crossed into Iran and were arrested, Ms. Shourd,
who is Mr. Bauer’s fiancée, has said.
There was no immediate reaction to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks from the families
of the imprisoned Americans, who have been careful about their public statements
in order to avoid jeopardizing efforts to free them. But a web site devoted to
their cause, FreetheHikers, festooned its homepage with the headline: “Iran Says
Shane and Josh to be Freed by Thursday!.”
Despite Mr. Ahmadinejad’s suggestion that they would be released without
conditions, there was confusion about whether they, too, would be required to
post bail — in effect, a ransom payment for their freedom.
A lawyer for the two men, Masoud Shafiei, was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency
as saying the families of the two men had been informed of their bail terms and
“Bauer and Fattal can leave Iran similar to Sarah Shourd.”
Mr. Shafiei said the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which looks after American
interests, had also been informed.
Iran’s detention of the Americans has aggravated what was already a tense
relationship which has been fraught since the break in diplomatic ties following
the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The two countries are also at odds over Iran’s nuclear program and its hostility
toward Israel.
The reported plan to free the two men came just a week after Iran on made its
first counterproposal in two years to ease the confrontation with the West over
its nuclear program.
Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, offered to allow
international inspectors “full supervision” of the country’s nuclear activities
for the next five years in return for the lifting of the mounting international
sanctions against his country.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Western powers
suspect it is designed to build atomic weapons.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said on Tuesday that
Iran was ready for further talks with world powers “with respect to cooperation
on common ground” and said “misunderstanding” about its nuclear program could be
cleared up through “positive, constructive” contacts, Press TV, a state-financed
satellite broadcaster in Iran, said.
Iran conducted talks with six international powers in Istanbul last January but
the meeting ended in disagreement.
Alan Cowell
reported from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.
Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Washington.
A United
Nations vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous. Yet with little time
left before the U.N. General Assembly meets, the United States, Israel and
Europe have shown insufficient urgency or boldness in trying to find a
compromise solution. The need for action is even more acute after alarming
tensions flared in recent days between Israel and two critical regional players
— Egypt and Turkey.
Last week, the United States made a listless effort to get Palestinians to forgo
the vote in favor of new peace talks. The pitch was unpersuasive. The
Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the Americans made no concrete
proposal. “To be frank with you, they came too late,” he said. His frustration
is understandable. Since President Obama took office, the only direct
negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mr. Abbas
lasted a mere two weeks in September 2010.
Both sides share the blame with Mr. Obama and Arab leaders (we put the greater
onus on Mr. Netanyahu, who has used any excuse to thwart peace efforts). But the
best path to statehood remains negotiations.
The United States and its Quartet partners (the European Union, the United
Nations and Russia) should put a map and a deal on the table, with a timeline
for concluding negotiations and a formal U.N. statehood vote. The core element:
a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps
and guarantees for Israel’s security. The Security Council and the Arab League
need to throw their full weight behind any plan.
To get full U.N. membership the Palestinians have to win Security Council
approval. The administration has said it will veto any resolution — ensuring the
further isolation of Israel and Washington. If they fail in the Security
Council, the Palestinians have said they will ask the General Assembly for
enhanced observer status as a nonmember state. Even the more modest General
Assembly vote, which the Palestinians are sure to win, would pave the way for
them to join dozens of U.N. bodies and conventions, and could strengthen their
ability to pursue cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court. But
Israel would still control Palestinian territory, leaving the Palestinians
disaffected after the initial euphoria.
Congress has threatened to cut millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian
Authority if it presses for a U.N. vote. Instead of just threatening the
Palestinians, Congress should lean on Mr. Netanyahu to return to talks.
Israel has said it would cut millions of dollars in tax remittances to the
authority. Such counterproductive moves could bring down the most moderate
leadership the Palestinians have had, empower Hamas and shred vital security
cooperation between Israel and the authority.
It is astonishing that this late in the game, America and Europe remain divided
over some aspects of a proposal for peace talks — like Israel’s demand for
recognition as a Jewish state.
Mr. Obama in particular needs to show firmer leadership in pressing Mr.
Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas to resume talks. If a U.N. vote takes place, Washington
and its partners will have to limit the damage, including continuing to finance
the Palestinian Authority.
AMMAN
(Reuters) - Syrian forces stepped up raids across the country to arrest
activists on Sunday after one of the bloodiest weeks in the six-month uprising
against President Bashar al-Assad, residents and activists said.
Dozens of people were seized in house-to-house raids in the eastern tribal
province of Deir al-Zor, in the southern Hauran Plain and in villages around the
city of Hama, which was among the hardest hit by armoured assaults on protest
flashpoints.
A lawyer from the southern city of Deraa, the cradle of the revolt against 41
years of Assad family rule, said he saw dozens of troops encircling the nearby
village of Yadouda.
"I saw them by accident and fled. I heard that they later went into houses. They
can come at any minute and raid and arrest," the lawyer, who asked not to be
named, said by phone.
He said detainees could expect ill-treatment or worse.
"You either disappear and are never heard from again, come back red and blue
with holes in your body from beatings and torture to make an example of you or
simply return in a coffin."
Syrian authorities do not comment on arrests or allegations of torture but have
said in the past that any arrests are made in accordance with the constitution.
They say they are fighting armed gangs who have killed at least 500 security
personnel.
The United Nations says 2,200 people have died in the uprising that erupted in
mid-March, while a Syrian grassroots organisation says security forces have
killed 3,000 civilians.
Syria has banned most independent journalists, making it hard to verify accounts
of the violence from either side.
CIVILIAN
TOLL
The Syrian Human Rights Organisation Sawasiah said at least 113 civilians were
killed last week in military raids and in gunfire aimed at protesters, including
a family of five in Homs.
It said in a statement that three activists also died from apparent torture in
prison in what it said was an increased drive by the authorities to eliminate
street protest leaders.
"Last week saw unprecedented repression. The rights of many Syrians to live free
of physical harm has been confiscated, among them women, children and elderly
people," it added.
Syrian demonstrators, while opposed to any foreign military intervention, have
begun demanding international protection.
The Arab League's secretary-general said after visiting Damascus on Saturday
that he had agreed with Assad on unspecified measures to end the bloodshed which
would be presented to an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.
Nabil Elaraby also said he had urged Assad to "speed up reform plans through a
timetable that will make every Syrian citizen feel that he has moved to a new
stage."
Assad's opponents say previous reforms announced by Assad, such as ending
emergency law, have made no difference.
The West, which had courted Assad before the uprising, has increased sanctions
on the ruling elite. The European Union plans tougher steps against the Syrian
oil sector, which is linked to Assad and his relatives, following a U.S.
embargo.
But there has been no hint in the West of any appetite for military action along
Libyan lines. Majority Sunni Syria has three times Libya's population and its
political system is dominated by Assad and members of the minority Alawite sect.
Upsetting Syria's ruling system would have major regional repercussions, given
Sunni disquiet over Assad's alliances with Iran's Shi'ite clerical rulers and
with the Lebanese Shi'ite guerrilla group Hezbollah led by Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah.
Assad has backed anti-Israel militant groups but has kept up his father's policy
of avoiding a direct confrontation with Israeli troops occupying the Golan
Heights since a 1973 war.
TOWNS
RAIDED
Southeast of the Golan, in the town of Hirak in Deraa province, Ahmad al-Sayyed,
a resident, said Syrian troops had been carrying out daily swoops to quell
dissent.
"They have stepped up arrests in towns that have seen heavy protests and that
have managed to send video feeds to al-Jazeera (satellite TV channel)," he said.
Listing the latest raids, Sayyed said at least 250 people had been detained in
Jeeza, 40 in Museifra, 50 in Busra al-Harir and 30 in Naimeh in the last 48
hours.
"They shoot in the air before they begin raids. They then drag young men and use
electric sticks to beat them up and haul them away to detention centres," he
said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headed by dissident Rami Abdelrahman,
said a 40-year-old woman was killed by bullets fired by security forces at
random in the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border while they were pursing
wanted people.
In the Damascus suburb of Darayia, residents said 17-year-old Ahmad Kamal Ayrout
died of wounds sustained when security forces fired at a funeral on Saturday for
Ghayath Matar, an activist who died in prison from apparent torture.
"Ghayath was 25. He used to organise campaigns to clean the streets while he was
growing up. In recent protests in Darayia he used to give flowers to soldiers.
He was arrested last week and his body returned with torture marks to his
family," said an activist in Darayia who did not want to be named.
A YouTube video purportedly of Matar's body showed a youth in a coffin with red
and brown marks on his chest and stomach.
"He was an outspoken voice for non-violence and they still killed him," the
activist in Darayia said.
(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
September
10, 2011
The New York Times
By ETHAN BRONNER
JERUSALEM —
With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the
Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found
itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically
transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.
The diplomatic crisis, in which winds unleashed by the Arab Spring are now
casting a chill over the region, was crystallized by the scene of Israeli
military jets sweeping into Cairo at dawn on Saturday to evacuate diplomats
after the Israeli Embassy had been besieged by thousands of protesters.
It was an image that reminded some Israelis of Iran in 1979, when Israel
evacuated its embassy in Tehran after the revolution there replaced an ally with
an implacable foe.
“Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters
tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern
neighbor, after 31 years,” Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of the left-leaning
Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote Saturday. “It seems that the flag will not
return to the flagstaff anytime soon.”
Egypt and Israel both issued statements on Saturday reaffirming their
commitments to their peace treaty, but in a televised address on Saturday night,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned that Egypt “cannot ignore the
heavy damage done to the fabric of peace.”
Facing crises in relations with Egypt and Turkey, its two most important
regional allies, Israel turned to the United States. Throughout the night on
Friday, desperate Israeli officials called their American counterparts seeking
help to pressure the Egyptians to protect the embassy.
President Obama “expressed his great concern” in a telephone call with Mr.
Netanyahu, the White House said in a statement, and he called on Egypt “to honor
its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy.”
Washington — for whom Israel, Turkey and Egypt are all critical allies — has
watched tensions along the eastern Mediterranean with growing unease and
increasing alarm. And though the diplomatic breaches were not entirely
unexpected, they prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity in Washington.
The mayhem in Cairo also exacted consequences for Egypt, raising questions about
whether its military-led transitional government would be able to maintain law
and order and meet its international obligations. The failure to prevent an
invasion of a foreign embassy raised security concerns at other embassies as
well.
The Egyptian government responded to those questions Saturday night, pledging a
new crackdown on disruptive protests and reactivating the emergency law allowing
indefinite detentions without trial, one of the most reviled measures enacted
under former President Hosni Mubarak.
Since the start of the Arab uprisings, internal critics and foreign friends,
including the United States, have urged Israel to take bold conciliatory steps
toward the Palestinians, and after confrontations in which Israeli forces killed
Egyptian and Turkish citizens, to reach accommodations with both countries.
Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador a week ago over Israel’s refusal to
apologize for a deadly raid last year on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza in which
nine Turks were killed. The storming of the embassy in Cairo on Saturday was
precipitated by the killing of three Egyptian soldiers along the border by
Israeli military forces pursuing terrorism suspects.
Israel has expressed regret for the deaths in both cases, but has not apologized
for actions that it considers defensive.
The overriding assessment of the government of Mr. Netanyahu is that such steps
will only make matters worse because what is shaking the region is not about
Israel, even if Israel is increasingly its target, and Israel can do almost
nothing to affect it.
“Egypt is not going toward democracy but toward Islamicization,” said Eli
Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo who reflected the government’s
view. “It is the same in Turkey and in Gaza. It is just like what happened in
Iran in 1979.”
A senior official said Israel had few options other than to pursue what he
called a “porcupine policy” to defend itself against aggression. Another
official, asked about Turkey, said, “There is little that we can do.”
Critics of the government take a very different view.
Mr. Benn, the Haaretz editor, acknowledged that Mr. Netanyahu could not be
faulted for the events in Egypt, the rise of an Islamic-inspired party in Turkey
or Iran’s nuclear program. But echoing criticism by the Obama administration, he
said that Mr. Netanyahu “has not done a thing to mitigate the fallout from the
aforementioned developments.”
Daniel Ben-Simon, a member of Parliament from the left-leaning Labor Party, said
the Netanyahu government was on a path “not just to diplomatic isolation but to
actually putting Israelis in danger,” he said. “It all comes down to his
obsession against a Palestinian state, his total paralysis toward the
Palestinian issue. We are facing an international tide at the United Nations. If
he joined the vote for a Palestinian state instead of fighting it, that would be
the best thing he could do for us in the Arab world.”
The Palestinians have given up on talks with Israel, and within the next two
weeks they plan to ask the United Nations to grant them membership and statehood
recognition within the 1967 lines, including East Jerusalem as a capital.
Potential side effects of the diplomatic disputes have already emerged.
The growing hostility from Egypt could require a radical rethinking of Israel’s
defense doctrine which, for the past three decades, counted on peace on its
southern border. As chaos in the Sinai has increased and anti-Israel sentiment
in Egypt has grown, military strategists here are examining how to beef up
protection of the south, including by the building of an anti-infiltration wall
in the Sinai.
A threat by Turkey last week to challenge Israel’s plans for gas exploration in
the eastern Mediterranean could threaten Israel’s agreement with Cyprus on gas
drilling and could worsen tensions with Lebanon on drilling rights.
Initial Israeli fears about the Arab Spring uprisings have begun to materialize
in concrete ways. When the uprisings began in Tunisia and Egypt at the start of
the year, little attention was directed toward Israel because so much focus was
on throwing off dictatorial rule and creating a new political order.
Traditionally, many Arab leaders have used Israel as a convenient scapegoat,
turning public wrath against it and blaming it for their problems. The faint
hope here was that a freer Middle East might move away from such anti-Israel
hostility because the overthrow of dictators would open up debate.
But as the months of Arab Spring have turned autumnal, Israel has increasingly
become a target of public outrage. Some here say Israel is again being made a
scapegoat, this time for unfulfilled revolutionary promises.
But there is another interpretation, and it is the predominant one abroad —
Muslims, Arabs and indeed many around the globe believe Israel is unjustly
occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at Israel for it. And
although some Israelis pointed fingers at Islamicization as the cause of the
violence, Egyptians noted Saturday that Islamist groups, including the Muslim
Brotherhood, distanced themselves from Friday’s protests and did not attend,
while legions of secular-minded soccer fans were at the forefront of the embassy
attacks.
“The world is tired of this conflict and angry at us because we are viewed as
conquerors, ruling over another people,” said Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a Labor
Party member of Parliament and a former defense minister. “If I were Bibi
Netanyahu, I would recognize a Palestinian state. We would then negotiate
borders and security. Instead nothing is happening. We are left with one ally,
America, and that relationship is strained, too.”
David D.
Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo,
September
10, 2011
The New York Times
By AHMED RASHID
Ahmed Rashid
is a journalist and the author of “Taliban” and “Descent into Chaos.”
LAHORE,
Pakistan
IN their shock after Sept. 11, 2001, Americans frequently asked, “Why do they
hate us so much?” It wasn’t clear just who “they” were — Muslims, Arabs or
simply anyone who was not American. The easy answer that many Americans found
comforting was equally vague: that “they” were jealous of America’s wealth,
opportunities, democracy and what have you.
But in this part of the world — in Pakistan, where I live, and in Afghanistan
next door, from which the Sept. 11 attacks were directed — those who detested
America were much more identifiable, and so were their reasons. They were a
small group of Islamic extremists who supported Al Qaeda; a larger group of
students studying at madrasas, which had expanded rapidly since the 1980s; and
young militants who had been empowered by years of support from Pakistan’s
military intelligence services to fight against India in Kashmir. They were a
tiny minority of Pakistan’s 150 million people at the time. In their eyes,
America was an imperial, oppressive, heathen power just like the Soviet Union,
which they had defeated in Afghanistan.
Now, with the United States about to enter the 11th year of the longest war it
has ever fought, far more of my neighbors in Pakistan have joined the list of
America’s detractors. The wave of anti-Americanism is rising in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan, even among many who once admired the United States, and the short
reason for that is plain: the common resentment is that American plans to bring
peace and development to Afghanistan have failed, the killing is still going on,
and to excuse their failures Americans have now expanded the war into Pakistan,
evoking what they did in the 1960s when the Vietnam war moved into Laos and
Cambodia. Moreover, while Pakistanis die for an American war, Washington has
given favored deals to Pakistan’s archenemy, India. So goes the argument.
The more belligerent detractors of America will tell you that Americans are
imperialists who hate Islam, and that Americans’ so-called civilizing instincts
have nothing to do with democracy or human rights. A more politically attuned
attitude is that the detractor doesn’t hate Americans, just the policies that
American leaders pursue.
But both groups feel trapped: Afghanistan is still caught up in war, and my
country is on the brink of meltdown. And so now there is something beyond just
disliking America. We have begun to ask the question of 9/11 in reverse: why do
Americans hate us so much ?
Ten years is a long time to be at war, and to be faced with a daily threat of
terrorist attacks. It is a long time spent in an unequal alliance in which the
battle gets only more arduous and divisive, especially for the weaker partner on
whose soil the battle is playing out. Under such long strain, resentments about
intrusions, miscalculations and feckless performance make a leap to an
assumption: that Americans must hate Pakistanis because they would otherwise
never treat them so carelessly, speak so badly of them, or distrust them so
much.
Americans should not be particularly surprised by this. War diminishes everyone
and all states, even the victors, and that is especially true if the war is
characterized by broken promises and dashed hopes, perceptions of betrayal, and
disappointment in an ally. For the people living in this theater of war, the
litany of such disappointments is long.
PERHAPS the greatest promise made after Sept. 11 by President George W. Bush and
the British prime minister, Tony Blair, was that the West would no longer
tolerate failed and failing states or extremism. Today there are more failed
states than ever; Al Qaeda’s message has spread to Europe, Africa and the
American mainland; and every religion and culture is producing its own
extremists, whether in sympathy with Islamism or in reaction to it (witness the
recent massacre in Norway).
Famine, hunger, poverty and economic failure have increased beyond measure, at
least in this corner of the world, where the Sept. 11 plans were hatched, while
climate change has set off enormous floods and drought brings untold misery to
millions in unexpected places. The latter is not the fault of Sept. 11, but in
the minds of many the catastrophes we face stem from America’s wars and the
diversion of America’s attention from truly universal problems. In this,
America, too, is a victim of its wars and the global changes it has not
addressed.
Of the two invasions — Iraq and Afghanistan — and the one state-salvaging
operation, in Pakistan, that Americans embarked on in the past decade, America’s
most glaring failure has been its inability to help rebuild the states and the
nations where it has gone to war. State-building is about setting up
institutions and governance that may not have existed before, as in Afghanistan,
or that have been in the hands of ruthless dictators, as in Iraq.
Nation-building is all about helping countries develop national cohesion, as
Iraq still struggles to do and as Pakistan has failed to do since its creation.
That is done not by blunt force, but by developing the economy, civil society,
education and skills.
Both state- and nation-building were dirty words in the Bush administration.
They are less so in the Obama administration, but they are also no longer used
to describe the Obama strategy in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Still, the much
vaunted counterinsurgency strategy framed by Gen. David H. Petraeus for
defeating Al Qaeda depends enormously on improving governance, rebuilding
institutions like the local army and police force, and empowering people with a
future — in other words, state- and nation-building.
Yet despite the billions of dollars spent on this strategy, America’s social
agenda has been pared down and the overall policy left in the hands of the
United States military and the C.I.A., for which counterinsurgency is
essentially a military tool. In Afghanistan, night raids and targeted killings
by American Special Operations forces and drone attacks by the C.I.A. have
replaced the B-52 bombers of post-Sept. 11 as the favored tools to deplete the
Taliban. The targeting is more precise, but the cost in civilian deaths is still
too high for the local population to bear.
Afghans now demonstrate in the streets every time a civilian is killed. In
Pakistan, drone attacks have infuriated the entire population because nobody can
quantify how successful they are in eliminating Al Qaeda or the Taliban. John O.
Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, said in June that for a
year “there hasn’t been a single collateral death” as a result of drone attacks.
So the C.I.A. may claim that the drones have killed 600 militants and not a
single civilian, but what Afghan or Pakistani can possibly believe that?
Pakistan has asked for all drone strikes to cease, and the Afghans have asked
for an end to night raids. But so far the Americans have not obliged. And
anti-Americanism flourishes.
The United States invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq without even a plan as to
how it would govern these countries. In both countries, policy was made on the
hoof, and much of it was initially implemented in secret — a sure way to forsake
civilian empowerment. The former Afghan warlords, whom the Taliban got rid of in
the 1990s, were re-employed by the C.I.A. They underwent metamorphoses, like
caterpillars to butterflies, from warlords into businessmen, drug dealers,
transport contractors, property magnates. But underneath the new Armani suit was
the same warlord hated by the people. So Afghans blame the Americans for
reviving their dormant tormentors.
Corruption is rampant, but not just because the rulers are kleptomaniacs. The
United States must share a major part of the blame in giving huge contracts to
the wrong people, forsaking accountability and transparency, and enriching only
a few rather than building an economy. All of these failings — warlords,
corruption, civilian casualties — have helped breed the new and vicious strain
of anti-Americanism.
Meanwhile, American aid and economic development in Pakistan and Afghanistan
have aimed at “quick impact projects,” which are intended to win hearts and
minds, but which, like instant oatmeal, dissolve quickly. The real business of
helping these states build an indigenous economy and creating jobs to replace
opium growing and smuggling in the rural lands, where government authority is
weakest, was left to chance. Yes, the American military became an employer, but
Afghanistan is about to enter an acute economic downturn when 100,000 American
troops leave and tens of thousands of Afghans who work for them become jobless.
A recent Congressional report says the United States has wasted at least $31
billion in the awarding of contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in Pakistan,
people see no lasting economic benefit from the $20 billion Washington has spent
there since 2001. It has bought a lot of military equipment, but no dam or
university or electric power plant.
The Pakistani military benefited from those purchases, but it thought it was
never consulted sufficiently by the United States and was not considered a true
ally. Acting on those assumptions, it created its own safeguards by backing both
President Bush and the resurgent Taliban insurgency, and it continued in that
vein after President Obama took over. Throughout the war, it has feared that the
United States was treating India as the real ally, so it maintained the
extremists it had trained in the 1990s to fight its larger neighbor. But nothing
stands still, and the military lost control as the extremists morphed into the
Pakistani Taliban and began focusing on the state itself.
Pakistan, which is now the fourth largest nuclear armed state in the world, has
been gravely destabilized by its involvement in wars in Afghanistan. This, at
least, did not begin 10 years ago. It has spanned three decades. The 1980s war
against the Soviet Union was fueled by C.I.A. operatives, Saudi money and
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Kalashnikovs, drugs, madrasas and
sectarian divisions proliferated then, while Pakistan was ruled by an
American-backed military dictatorship. Since Sept. 11, Pakistan has again been
destabilized by the insurgency in Afghanistan, and for most of that time it was
again being ruled by an American-backed military dictatorship.
There is a flip side to this coin of anti-Americanism, of course. The leaders of
both Afghanistan and Pakistan have found it convenient to play it for political
survival or to explain away their own lapses. Afghanistan’s president, Hamid
Karzai, has become a master at spilling tears to describe the latest American
perfidy, while failing to fight corruption or provide a modicum of good
governance. Similarly, Pakistan’s army and intelligence directorate regularly
brief the media and politicians on the long sequences of American betrayals,
Washington’s love for India and how Pakistan was trapped in this relationship.
These are false narratives — dry tinder for the question “Why do Americans hate
us?” — but they have now seeped into the national psyche, the media and the
political debate, and countering them is not easy.
That is because the army’s national security objectives, which many Pakistanis
still accept as a matter of national identity, are rooted in the last century,
rather than in what is needed today. They decree that the army must maintain a
permanent state of enmity with India; a controlling influence in Afghanistan and
the deployment of Islamic extremists or non-state actors as a tool of foreign
policy in the region; and that it must command a lion’s share of the national
budget alongside its control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
AMERICAN attempts to change this course with either carrots or sticks are
rebuffed, while the civilian government cowers in the background, not wanting to
get trampled by the two bull elephants of American and Pakistani military will.
Meanwhile the voices of extremism translate anti-Americanism into denunciations
of Americans’ own treasured ideals: democracy, liberalism, tolerance and women’s
rights. These days, all are pronounced Western or American concepts, and
dismissed.
Pakistanis desperately need a new narrative — one that is honest about the
mistakes their leaders have made and continue to make. But where is the
leadership to tell this story as it should be told? The military gets away with
its antiquated thinking because nobody is offering an alternative. And without
one, nothing will improve for a long time, because the American and Pakistani
governments are in a sense mirror images of each other. The Americans have
allowed their military and C.I.A. to dominate Washington’s policy-making on
Afghanistan and Pakistan, just as the Pakistani military and ISI dominate
decision making in Islamabad.
Since the death last year of Richard C. Holbrooke, who was devoted to creating a
political strategy to underpin American policy-making, but whom President Obama
seemed to ignore, there has been no American political strategy for Pakistan or
Afghanistan. After 10 years, it should be clear that the wars in this region
cannot be won purely by military force, nor should policy making be left to the
generals. The questions about who hates whom will become only more difficult to
resolve until the warfare ends and national healing begins.
After 42
years of erratic dictatorship, it would be unrealistic to expect a smooth
transition in the early days of Libya’s post-Qaddafi era. There have been water
and fuel shortages, episodes of vigilante justice, and power struggles among the
victorious rebel forces. There are also signs of progress on military,
diplomatic, economic and political fronts.
The last bastions of the regime are under assault, while Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi
remains unaccounted for. Foreign governments have begun releasing billions of
dollars of Libyan assets that were frozen during the fighting. Plans have been
drafted for electing a constitutional assembly by early next year. Technicians
are assessing damage to the oil wells and pipelines that account for 98 percent
of the country’s annual revenues, though full production may not be restored for
months or even longer. Considering the situation six months ago, there is reason
to be encouraged.
Nonetheless, the new regime faces many challenges. Among the most troubling
developments is the brutal treatment of dark-skinned Africans rounded up by
vigilantes and the regime’s security forces.
The overwhelming majority of sub-Saharan Africans in Libya are migrant workers.
Two and a half million worked there before the rebellion. Roughly two million
remain. Colonel Qaddafi is thought to have hired several thousand Africans to
fight for him in February. How many stuck with him to the end is unclear. But
Western journalists saw no evidence of mercenaries in Tripoli when the city
fell.
What they have seen is Africans being rounded up and treated differently from
Libyans who fought for the dictator, many of whom have already been set free.
Some Africans accused of being mercenaries were lynched after the rebels
captured Benghazi in February. To maintain its international credibility, the
transitional government must release innocent Africans and make sure that those
who fought for Colonel Qaddafi are treated fairly.
Much hard work remains in other areas as well. Vigilantes must be disarmed or
placed under firm government control. Tribes, factions representing different
regions and rival rebel leaders must be reconciled and represented in the
transitional government.
Other countries should help with technical assistance and cash until Libyan
assets are fully unfrozen and oil revenues flow again. Qatar and Kuwait have
been generous so far, as have the United States, Britain and France. Promises of
support are also flowing in from countries like Germany and Turkey, which
refused to take part in NATO’s protective airstrikes against Colonel Qaddafi’s
forces.
Libya’s new leaders may be tempted to skew future Libyan oil contracts and other
economic rewards toward nations that helped most in the fight against the
Qaddafi regime. But they should resist that temptation. Bidding for contracts
should be open and transparent to ensure the best returns for the Libyan people.
Colonel Qaddafi was a master at using Libya’s oil wealth to forge his
international alliances. That is a tactic his successors should not emulate.
September
9, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and HEBA AFIFY
CAIRO — A
demonstration that brought tens of thousands to this city’s central Tahrir
Square turned violent on Friday, when thousands of people — led by a heavy
contingent of soccer fans — tore down a protective wall around the Israeli
Embassy, while others defaced the headquarters of the Egyptian Interior
Ministry.
About 200 people were injured in clashes with the police at the Israeli Embassy
and 31 were injured near the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Health said late
Friday night. Protesters scaled the walls of the Israeli Embassy to tear down
its flag, broke into offices and tossed binders of documents into the streets.
Mustafa el Sayed, 28, said he had been among about 20 protesters who broke into
the embassy. He showed a reporter video from a cellphone, of protesters
rummaging through papers and ransacking an office, and he said they had briefly
beaten up an Israeli employee they found inside, before Egyptian soldiers
stopped them. The soldiers removed the protesters from the building, he said,
but let them go free.
By 11:30 p.m., about 50 trucks had arrived with Egyptian riot police officers,
who filled the surrounding streets with tear gas. Witnesses said that protesters
had set a kiosk on fire in front of a security building near the embassy, and
that the police had fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd from both
buildings. But at 3 a.m. Saturday, thousands of protesters were still battling
thousands of riot police officers. Demonstrators threw rocks and gasoline bombs
at the officers, sometimes forcing them to retreat, and the police fired back
with tear gas. To celebrate an advance, protesters set off the flares that they
typically use to cheer at soccer matches.
Egyptian airport officials said early Saturday that the Israeli ambassador was
waiting for a military plane to leave the country, The Associated Press
reported.
United States officials said Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel had called
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who in turn asked the Egyptian military to try
to restore order at the embassy.
In addition, a fire broke out in the basement of the Interior Ministry, but it
appeared to have been started from the inside and not by the protesters
surrounding the building. The fire was in a room believed to store criminal
records.
The scale of the protests and the damage inflicted represented a departure from
the previously peaceful character of the demonstrations staged periodically in
Tahrir Square since the revolution in January and February.
Organizers of Friday’s demonstrations had said they would call for a list of
familiar liberal goals, like retribution against former President Hosni Mubarak
and an end to military trials of civilians. But thousands of people marched off
from the square to express their anger over disparate recent events, including a
recent dispute along the border with Israel and a brawl between soccer fans and
the police at a match on Tuesday.
Thousands of hard-core soccer fans — known here as ultras — were for the first
time a conspicuous presence in the protests and a dominant force in the
violence. They led the attacks on the Interior Ministry and the security
building near the Israeli Embassy, and they kept up the fight outside the
embassy long after others had gone home. At the Interior Ministry, political
activists tried to form human barriers to protect the building, urging
protesters to retreat to the square and chanting, “Peacefully, peacefully.”
“Those who love Egypt should not destroy it!” they chanted.
The embassy, which has been the site of several previous demonstrations after
the Israeli armed forces accidentally killed at least three Egyptian officers
while chasing Palestinian militants near the border last month, was an early
target on Friday. In response to almost daily protests since the shootings, the
Egyptian authorities had built a concrete wall surrounding the embassy, and by
early afternoon thousands of protesters, some equipped with hammers, were
marching toward the building to try to tear down the wall.
After using the hammers and broken poles to break through sections of the wall,
protesters began using ropes attached to cars to pull away sections. By the end
of the night, the wall was virtually demolished.
Egyptian military and security police officers largely stood by without
interfering with the demolition. Instead, they clustered at the entrance to the
embassy to keep protesters out. The security forces had pulled back from Tahrir
Square and other areas before the start of the day to avoid clashes with the
protesters, although the military had issued a stern warning on its Facebook
page against property destruction.
Egyptians outside the embassy seized on the wall as a symbol. “We were attacked
inside our own land,” said Ahmed Abdel Mohsen, 26, a government employee. “They
can’t lock us out in a wall in our own country. Nothing will stand in the way of
Egyptians again.”
The soccer fans turned out in response to a melee with the police after a match
on Tuesday. Long known for their obscene chants and vicious brawls, the ultras
have become increasingly engaged in politics since the revolution.
The soccer match took place against the backdrop of the trial of Mr. Mubarak and
his interior minister, Habib el-Adly, who are accusing of conspiring to kill
protesters. The ultras chanted obscene songs denouncing both men and their
security forces, and at the end of the match, witnesses said, the security
police attacked the ultras, leaving more than 100 people injured and more than
20 fans in jail.
By Friday night, a few hundred protesters had managed to pull down 9 of the 13
letters in the Arabic signs on the wall of the Interior Ministry. And graffiti
on the wall went far beyond the soccer brawl to attack the military council
running the country in the name of the revolution and its leader, Field Marshal
Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
“Down with the traitorous council!” some of the graffiti read. “Down with the
Field Marshal.”
Elusive
Line Defines Lives in Israel and the West Bank
September
6, 2011
The New York Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER
BARTAA,
West Bank — For decades Israel has tried to erase from public consciousness the
Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank at the heart of stalled
negotiations for a Palestinian state.
Israel has built on either side of the Green Line and deleted it from textbooks
and weather maps. Israeli drivers plying the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway
crisscross the unmarked line at the Latrun Interchange every second of the day,
slicing through half a mile of West Bank territory and several more miles of no
man’s land, oblivious to the area’s fraught history.
In Jerusalem, where Israel annexed the eastern part of the city and its holy
sites after the 1967 war, a new light rail system traverses a patchwork of
Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods, gliding blithely across the invisible
boundaries.
Yet a recent journey along the line, from the northernmost Jalama checkpoint to
the tiny villages of Al Ghuwein and Sansana in the arid hills of the south,
shows that despite attempts to blur it physically, Israel has carefully
preserved the line in legal and administrative terms, and it defines lives on
both sides.
The Obama administration has called for negotiations for a Palestinian state
with borders based on the 1967 boundaries, with mutually agreed land swaps. In
the absence of talks, the Palestinian leadership plans to seek recognition of
statehood within the 1967 borders at the United Nations this month.
Israel rejects the Green Line as indefensible. At its narrowest point from the
Mediterranean coast to the line, Israel is only about nine miles wide — a
two-minute helicopter ride. Compounding Israelis’ sense of vulnerability, the
coastal plain fringed by the pre-1967 boundary rises up into a commanding
mountain ridge running through the West Bank, which fell on the Arab-held side
of the line until Israel occupied the territory after the 1967 war and placed it
under military rule.
Successive Israeli governments established Jewish settlements on the West Bank
hilltops, encouraged by Israeli religious nationalists who claim the area as
part of their biblical birthright. For Palestinian officials emboldened by the
rise of Palestinian nationalism, what began as a temporary cease-fire line has
become holy.
“If the Israelis do not recognize this line,” said Nazmi al-Jubeh, a Palestinian
historian and a former negotiator, “it means that they do not recognize the
territory beyond it as occupied.”
Yet many Palestinians still harbor claims to the land on the Israeli side and
reject any partition of the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine.
Driving the Green Line is like weaving a path between parallel universes, along
a seam that is both present and absent, and that fuses and divides.
Invisible
Wall
The Green Line was delineated as Israeli and Jordanian officers negotiated an
armistice in the months after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war; it was named for the
green marker with which it was drawn. The line held until 1967, when Israel
captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, along with the
Egyptian-held Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights.
While the boundary largely separates the Israelis from the Palestinians, about
1.5 million Palestinian Arabs are citizens of Israel, and more than 500,000
Israeli Jews now live east of the Green Line.
But for the Palestinians, the old line already serves as a virtual border,
though one without a state on the other side.
Here in Bartaa, a northern Arab village that straddles the Green Line in the
area known as Wadi Ara, one encounters a quirky reality where the Green Line is
alternately ignored and enforced — a paradox that, by extension, can be applied
to the entire land.
Bartaa’s market spreads across a narrow valley that is dissected by crossroads.
It is a riot of noise and color, with stores displaying gaudy evening gowns and
plastic toys strung above the sidewalks. Only a well-informed traveler would
know that the eastern half of the market sits in the West Bank, and the western
half in Israel.
The Green Line runs, unmarked, right through the market, an imaginary wall
separating two parts of a village that has long been inhabited by one extended
family, the Kabha clan.
With Israel’s conquest of the West Bank in 1967, the hostile frontier evaporated
and the two parts of Bartaa were reunited, the western part being part of Israel
and the eastern part falling under Israeli military rule. Then, when Israel
constructed the West Bank security barrier, which it said was essential to
prevent suicide bombers, it looped the fence east of Bartaa, deeper into the
West Bank territory. Although Palestinians see the barrier as a land grab, in
this particular case, the villagers accepted it as the lesser of two evils, to
prevent them from being redivided.
Israeli Jews and Arabs pour into West Bank Bartaa on weekends to take advantage
of the lower prices. But since the 1990s, when Israel began requiring permits
for the entry of Palestinians and tightened security measures as a result of
terrorism, the West Bank Kabhas have been prohibited from crossing over the road
into Israel.
Many in West Bank Bartaa have gotten around the problem by marrying relatives on
the Israeli side, which gives them a different status. But others, like Abed
Kabha, a Palestinian born here in 1967 who runs a grocery store on the West Bank
side, have to apply for special permits to enter Israel. They say they stick to
their own side of the village for fear of being caught by Israeli border police
patrols, although the Israeli military authorities say that within Bartaa, they
tend to turn a blind eye.
Until 12 years ago, Mr. Kabha worked in gardening in the Tel Aviv area. Now, he
says, he crosses the market only “for weddings and funerals.”
Worlds
Apart
For many Israelis, being near or just over the Green Line is a matter of little
consequence — so much so that some Israelis are not always sure which side they
are on. By contrast, Palestinians living near the line are mindful of every inch
of soil.
In the late 1990s, four idealists from the Tel Aviv area approached Ariel
Sharon, then a government minister, with the idea of establishing a new
community on the sandy dunes of Halutza in the Negev Desert, in southern Israel.
Mr. Sharon sent them to a former army base called Sansana in the Negev. Like the
forests that Israel planted there, the abandoned barracks hugged the Israeli
side of the Green Line. But according to Eliram Azulai, 34, the secretary of
Sansana, it soon transpired that the plan was to expand the village into the
West Bank.
Mr. Azulai and his neighbors, many of whom are doctors or work in
high-technology industries, unwittingly became settlers as Sansana grew to
incorporate an adjacent West Bank hilltop. Mr. Azulai said that at the time
“nobody asked questions.” Being sent to live on the Green Line, or across it, he
said, “was not an issue.”
Sansana is a rare case of an Israeli community that straddles the Green Line.
But even here, Israel has scrupulously maintained the administrative
distinction. The 50 prefabricated homes on the Israeli side of the village were
authorized by a district committee in southern Israel. The 60 permanent homes
going up on the West Bank side had to be approved by the Israeli military and
the Ministry of Defense.
Not far from Sansana, in the sparsely populated hills south of Hebron in the
West Bank, lies Upper Ghuwein, an unofficial Palestinian encampment. Here, two
extended families graze sheep and goats and tease crops from the parched earth.
Half a mile away, the fence, part of Israel’s barrier, courses along the Green
Line where the beige earth meets Israeli forest. The red roofs of Shani, a small
settlement, peep through the trees.
In Upper Ghuwein, by contrast with the accidental settlers of Sansana, the
history of every stone, tree and contour of the land is scored into
consciousness.
Khader Hawamdi, 77, recalls Israeli and Jordanian officers walking with maps in
the valley below, marking the armistice line with barrels. He says the villagers
were told to move to this point, farther up the hill.
But Upper Ghuwein was never recognized by the Israeli authorities. Its residents
cannot get building permits, so they live in temporary shacks and their original
cave dwellings. Only recently, the Palestinian Authority, which now governs
certain aspects of the Palestinians’ lives in the West Bank, hooked up the
village to electricity. Children as young as 5 walk about four miles to the
nearest school in the Palestinian village of Samua.
The clans here claim vast amounts of ancestral land on either side of the Green
Line, and concepts like borders and statehood have little meaning. They cling to
the place despite the hardship.
“We stay here,” said Khawla Ismail Daghamin, 37, a weathered mother of 10,
“because if we leave, the Jews will take the land.”
Refugees
Close to Home
All along the line are stories of Palestinian resentment and nostalgia for what
was left behind. But in this complex area, nothing remains static for long.
The village of Walajeh nestles in the terraced hills between Jerusalem and
Bethlehem, just across the Green Line in the West Bank, straddling the Jerusalem
city limits. Its residents crossed into Jordanian-held territory during the
fighting in 1948, when the original village, in what is now Israel, came under
attack from the Zionist forces.
Until the 1967 war, said Muhammad Abu al-Tin, 60, “people thought they still
might go back.”
Then, when the reality of the Arab defeat finally set in, he said, the villagers
built permanent houses on the village lands on the West Bank side, having become
refugees within sight of their former homes. “At night people would sneak back
to see their bombed houses,” he recalled. They were later razed by Israeli
bulldozers.
The Green Line still runs through the valley between the original village and
the new one, marked by a section of the old Jerusalem-Jaffa railway.
Now, though, more of the village lands, and the view, are disappearing behind
concrete as Israel constructs the latest section of its barrier here, separating
Walajeh’s houses from Israeli territory and from the adjacent Jewish settlement
of Har Gilo.
“The wall is eating up the village,” said Khaled Abu Tin, 45, another resident.
“If the wall was the final border of a state, that would be one thing,” he said.
“But here they change plans every year. You do not know where you are.”
Dislocation seems to be the common experience of many Israelis and Palestinians
on either side of the boundary. Yet the Green Line remains the visible and
invisible dividing line between two peoples and the core of the tortuous process
of creating two states.
Gideon Avidor, 70, a retired Israeli brigadier general, stared out from the roof
of a fort in the strategic Latrun bulge overlooking the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem
highway that was the site of one of the fiercest battles in the 1948 war. Israel
eventually conquered the fort in 1967.
In theory, he said, with land swaps that would include keeping Latrun, among
other places, the geography should not be a problem. The reality: First each
side would have “to decide to live alongside each other, or not to be looking to
expel one another, in the simplest terms.”
September
5, 2011
The New York Times
By ROGER COHEN
LONDON —
Here’s what the United Nations report on Israel’s raid last year on the
Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara had to say about the killing of a 19-year-old U.S.
citizen on board:
“At least one of those killed, Furkan Dogan, was shot at extremely close range.
Mr. Dogan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg.
That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was
delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.”
The four-member panel, led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of
New Zealand, appears with these words to raise the possibility of an execution
or something close.
Dogan, born in upstate New York, was an aspiring doctor. Little interested in
politics, he’d won a lottery to travel on the Gaza-bound vessel. The report says
of him and the other eight people killed that, “No evidence has been provided to
establish that any of the deceased were armed with lethal weapons.”
I met Dogan’s father, Ahmet, a professor at Erciyes University in Kayseri, last
year in Ankara: His grief was as deep as his dismay at U.S. evasiveness. It’s
hard to imagine any other circumstances in which the slaying in international
waters, at point-blank range, of a U.S. citizen by forces of a foreign power
would prompt such a singular American silence.
Senior Turkish officials told me Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had raised
Dogan’s fate with President Obama. But of course no U.S. president, and
certainly no first-term U.S. president, would say what Prime Minister David
Cameron of Britain said: “The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely
unacceptable.” Even if there’s an American citizen killed, raising such
questions about Israel is a political no-no. So it goes in the taboo-littered
cul-de-sac of U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, a foreign policy that is in
large measure a domestic policy.
The Palmer report, leaked to The New York Times last week, is a
split-the-difference document, with the Israeli and Turkish members of the panel
including notes of dissent. My rough translation of its conclusion would be this
message to Israel: You had the right to do it but what you did was way over the
top and just plain dumb.
It found that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is legal and appropriate — “a
legitimate security measure” — given Hamas’s persistent firing of thousands of
rockets from the territory into Israel; that the flotilla acted recklessly in
trying to breach the blockade; that the motives of the flotillas organizers
raised serious questions; and that the Israeli commandos faced “organized and
violent resistance.”
But it also called the raid — 72 nautical miles from land — “too heavy a
response too quickly.” The flotilla, it says, was far from representing any
immediate military threat to Israel. Clear prior warning should have been given.
The decision to board “was excessive and unreasonable.” It criticizes Israel for
providing “no adequate explanation” for the nine deaths or explaining “why force
was used to the extent that it produced such high levels of injury.” The panel
is left dismayed by Israel’s inability to give details on the killings. It calls
Israel’s policy on land access to Gaza “unsustainable.”
Overall, the panel finds that Israel should issue “an appropriate statement of
regret” and “make payment for the benefit of the deceased and injured victims
and their families.”
Yes, Israel, increasingly isolated, should do just that. An apology is the right
course and the smart course. What’s good for Egypt — an apology over lost lives
— is good for Turkey, too.
Israel and Turkey have been talking for more than a year. Feridun Sinirlioglu, a
senior Turkish foreign ministry official, has met with numerous Israeli
officials. At times agreement has been close. Ehud Barak and Dan Meridor,
Israel’s defense and intelligence ministers, have argued the case for an
apology; Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has led the hawks saying Israel
never bends; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had his finger to the wind.
In the end, Lieberman and the far right have won, as they tend to with this
abject Israeli government.
“It’s a typical case where coalition considerations trumped strategic thinking,
and that’s the tragedy,” Shlomo Avineri, an Israeli political scientist, told
me. “Given the Palestinian issue at the U.N., and relations with the new Egypt,
we could use strategic wisdom.”
That’s right. Instead, locked in its siege mentality, led by the nose by
Lieberman and his ilk — unable to grasp the change in the Middle East driven by
the Arab demand for dignity and freedom, inflexible on expanding settlements,
ignoring U.S. prodding that it apologize — Israel is losing one of its best
friends in the Muslim world, Turkey. The expulsion last week of the Israeli
ambassador was a debacle foretold.
Israeli society, as it has shown through civic protest, deserves much better.
“We need not apologize,” Netanyahu thundered Sunday — and repeated the phrase
three times. He’s opted for a needless road to an isolation that weakens Israel
and undermines the strategic interests of its closest ally, the United States.
Not that I expect Obama to raise his voice about this any more than he has over
Dogan.
Leak
Offers Look at Efforts by U.S. to Spy on Israel
September
5, 2011
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON
— When Shamai K. Leibowitz, an F.B.I. translator, was sentenced to 20 months in
prison last year for leaking classified information to a blogger, prosecutors
revealed little about the case. They identified the blogger in court papers only
as “Recipient A.” After Mr. Leibowitz pleaded guilty, even the judge said he did
not know exactly what Mr. Leibowitz had disclosed.
“All I know is that it’s a serious case,” Judge Alexander Williams Jr., of
United States District Court in Maryland, said at the sentencing in May 2010. “I
don’t know what was divulged other than some documents, and how it compromised
things, I have no idea.”
Now the reason for the extraordinary secrecy surrounding the Obama
administration’s first prosecution for leaking information to the news media
seems clear: Mr. Leibowitz, a contract Hebrew translator, passed on secret
transcripts of conversations caught on F.B.I. wiretaps of the Israeli Embassy in
Washington. Those overheard by the eavesdroppers included American supporters of
Israel and at least one member of Congress, according to the blogger, Richard
Silverstein.
In his first interview about the case, Mr. Silverstein offered a rare glimpse of
American spying on a close ally.
He said he had burned the secret documents in his Seattle backyard after Mr.
Leibowitz came under investigation in mid-2009, but he recalled that there were
about 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be
embassy conversations. He said that in one transcript, Israeli officials
discussed their worry that their exchanges might be monitored.
Mr. Leibowitz, who declined to comment for this article, released the documents
because of concerns about Israel’s aggressive efforts to influence Congress and
public opinion, and fears that Israel might strike nuclear facilities in Iran, a
move he saw as potentially disastrous, according to Mr. Silverstein.
While the American government routinely eavesdrops on some embassies inside the
United States, intelligence collection against allies is always politically
delicate, especially one as close as Israel.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation listens in on foreign embassies and
officials in the United States chiefly to track foreign spies, though any
intelligence it obtains on other matters is passed on to the C.I.A. and other
agencies. The intercepts are carried out by the F.B.I.’s Operational Technology
Division, based in Quantico, Va., according to Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence
writer who describes the bureau’s monitoring in a book, “Intel Wars,” scheduled
for publication in January. Translators like Mr. Leibowitz work at an F.B.I.
office in Calverton, Md.
Former counterintelligence officials describe Israeli intelligence operations in
the United States as quite extensive, ranking just below those of China and
Russia, and F.B.I. counterintelligence agents have long kept an eye on Israeli
spying.
For most eavesdropping on embassies in Washington, federal law requires the
F.B.I. to obtain an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
which meets in secret at the Justice Department. If an American visiting or
calling an embassy turns up on a recording, the F.B.I. is required by law to
remove the American’s name from intelligence reports, substituting the words
“U.S. person.” But raw transcripts would not necessarily have undergone such
editing, called “minimization.”
Mr. Silverstein’s account could not be fully corroborated, but it fits the
publicly known facts about the case. Spokesmen for the F.B.I., the Justice
Department and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment on either eavesdropping
on the embassy or Mr. Leibowitz’s crime. He admitted disclosing “classified
information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United
States,” standard language for the interception of phone calls, e-mails and
other messages by the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency, which generally
focuses on international communications.
Mr. Leibowitz, now in a Federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house in Maryland, is
prohibited by his plea agreement from discussing anything he learned at the
F.B.I. Two lawyers who represented Mr. Leibowitz, Cary M. Feldman and Robert C.
Bonsib, also would not comment.
Mr. Silverstein, 59, writes a blog called Tikun Olam, named after a Hebrew
phrase that he said means “repairing the world.” The blog gives a liberal
perspective on Israel and Israeli-American relations. He said he had decided to
speak out to make clear that Mr. Leibowitz, though charged under the Espionage
Act, was acting out of noble motives. The Espionage Act has been used by the
Justice Department in nearly all prosecutions of government employees for
disclosing classified information to the news media, including the
record-setting five such cases under President Obama.
Mr. Silverstein said he got to know Mr. Leibowitz, a lawyer with a history of
political activism, after noticing that he, too, had a liberal-minded blog,
called Pursuing Justice. The men shared a concern about repercussions from a
possible Israeli airstrike on nuclear facilities in Iran. From his F.B.I. work
from January to August of 2009, Mr. Leibowitz also believed that Israeli
diplomats’ efforts to influence Congress and shape American public opinion were
excessive and improper, Mr. Silverstein said.
“I see him as an American patriot and a whistle-blower, and I’d like his actions
to be seen in that context,” Mr. Silverstein said. “What really concerned Shamai
at the time was the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, which he thought
would be damaging to both Israel and the United States.”
Mr. Silverstein took the blog posts he had written based on Mr. Leibowitz’s
material off his site after the criminal investigation two years ago. But he was
able to retrieve three posts from April 2009 from his computer and provided them
to The New York Times.
The blog posts make no reference to eavesdropping, but describe information from
“a confidential source,” wording Mr. Silverstein said was his attempt to
disguise the material’s origin.
One post reports that the Israeli Embassy provided “regular written briefings”
on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza to President Obama in the weeks between his
election and inauguration. Another describes calls involving Israeli officials
in Jerusalem, Chicago and Washington to discuss the views of members of Congress
on Israel. A third describes a call between an unnamed Jewish activist in
Minnesota and the Israeli Embassy about an embassy official’s meeting with
Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, who was planning an
official trip to Gaza.
Mr. Silverstein said he remembered that embassy officials talked about drafting
opinion articles to be published under the names of American supporters. He said
the transcripts also included a three-way conversation between a congressman
from Texas, an American supporter of the congressman and an embassy official;
Mr. Silverstein said he could not recall any of the names.
At his sentencing, Mr. Leibowitz described what he had done as “a one-time
mistake that happened to me when I worked at the F.B.I. and saw things which I
considered were violation of the law, and I should not have told a reporter
about it.”
That was a reference to Israeli diplomats’ attempts to influence Congress, Mr.
Silverstein said, though nothing Mr. Leibowitz described to him appeared to be
beyond the bounds of ordinary lobbying.
Mr. Leibowitz, 40, the father of 6-year-old twins at the time of sentencing,
seems an unlikely choice for an F.B.I. translation job. He was born in Israel to
a family prominent in academic circles. He practiced law in Israel for several
years, representing several controversial clients, including Marwan Barghouti, a
Palestinian leader convicted of directing terrorist attacks on Israelis, who Mr.
Leibowitz once said reminded him of Moses.
In 2004, Mr. Leibowitz moved to Silver Spring, Md., outside Washington, where he
was a leader in his synagogue. Mr. Silverstein said Mr. Leibowitz holds dual
American and Israeli citizenship.
In court, Mr. Leibowitz expressed anguish about the impact of the case on his
marriage and family, which he said was “destitute.” He expressed particular
sorrow about leaving his children. “At the formative time of their life, when
they’re 6 years old and they’re just finishing first grade, I’ll be absent from
their life, and that is the most terrible thing about this case,” he said.
While treated as highly classified by the F.B.I., the fact that the United
States spies on Israel is taken for granted by experts on intelligence. “We
started spying on Israel even before the state of Israel was formally founded in
1948, and Israel has always spied on us,” said Mr. Aid, the author. “Israeli
intercepts have always been one of the most sensitive categories,” designated
with the code word Gamma to indicate their protected status, he said.
Douglas M. Bloomfield, an American columnist for several Jewish publications,
said that when he worked in the 1980s for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, a lobbying group, he assumed that communications with the embassy
were not private.
“I am not surprised at all to learn that the F.B.I. was listening to the
Israelis,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a wise use of resources because I
don’t see Israel as a threat to American security.”
Pakistan
Points to Help From U.S. in Qaeda Arrests
September
5, 2011
The New York Times
By SALMAN MASOOD
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan — American and Pakistani officials celebrated their cooperation on
Monday as Pakistan announced the arrests of three men they identified as senior
operatives of Al Qaeda who had been planning attacks on American and other
Western targets.
The shift in tone was particularly noticeable for Pakistan, which has been
bitter toward the United States in the four months since its military was
surprised, humiliated and infuriated by the Navy Seal raid in Pakistan that
killed Osama bin Laden.
“This operation was planned and conducted with technical assistance of United
State Intelligence Agencies with whom Inter-Services Intelligence has a strong,
historic intelligence relationship,” the Pakistan’s military said in a
statement, referring to Pakistan’s top military spy agency. “Both Pakistan and
United States intelligence agencies continue to work closely together to enhance
security of their respective nations.”
One of the men arrested was identified as Younis al-Mauritani who was captured
in southwestern city of Quetta, which has long been thought of as a safe haven
for Taliban and Qaeda leadership. American officials said Monday that he had a
central role in planning attacks in Europe.
The Pakistan military said he was “responsible for planning and conduct of
international operations” for Al Qaeda. “Al Mauritani was tasked personally by
Osama bin Laden to focus on hitting targets of economical importance in United
States of America, Europe and Australia,” the military said. “He was planning to
target United States economic interests including gas/oil pipelines, power
generating dams and strike ships/oil tankers through explosive-laden speed boats
in international waters.”
In Washington, the deputy White House press secretary, Joshua Earnest, praised
his capture and the collaboration behind it.
“This is an example of the longstanding partnership between the U.S. and
Pakistan in fighting terrorism, which has taken many terrorists off the
battlefield over the past decade,” Mr. Earnest said. “We applaud the actions of
Pakistan’s intelligence and security services that led to the capture of a
senior Al Qaeda operative who was involved in planning attacks against the
interests of the United States and many other countries.”
The last time Pakistan announced the arrest of a Qaeda operative, in mid-May,
the relationship between Pakistan and the United States risked spiraling out of
control as the Pakistan Army and NATO helicopters exchanged fire on the Pakistan
side of the border with Afghanistan. Two Pakistani soldiers were wounded in the
firefight, which came as some in Washington questioned the $3 billion a year in
aid to the country.
Tensions have run high since the May 2 raid on Bin Laden’s compound, which
inflamed Pakistani sensitivities over sovereignty while at the same time
heightening distrust of Pakistan in the United States.
Monday’s announcement sought to strike a note of respect for a relationship
portrayed as important and longstanding. “The intimate cooperation between
Pakistan and United States intelligence agencies has resulted into prevention of
number of high profile terrorist acts not only inside Pakistan/United States but
elsewhere also in world,” the Pakistan Army statement said.
Eric Schmitt
and Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington.
Syrian
Troops Conduct New Raids Against Protesters
September
5, 2011
The New York Times
By NADA BAKRI
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — Syrian troops carried out assaults Monday on several towns and cities
across Syria in an attempt to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad,
activists and residents said.
The Local Coordination Committees, a grass-roots group that organizes and tracks
the uprising, said that at least five people were killed, three in Homs, during
raids to arrest protesters; one in Tal Khalakh, a town in eastern Syria, along
the Lebanese-Syria border; and another in the northern province of Idlib during
raids on towns there.
Activists also said that one person was shot dead by armed forces loyal to the
government as he was trying to cross the border in northern Syria to Turkey.
Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for the coordination committees, said that several
military vehicles raided the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh in Hama, a restive city
in central Syria, looking for activists involved in planning protests.
The raids came as Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee
of the Red Cross, was preparing to meet with Mr. Assad in Damascus on Monday, in
a visit focused on granting the organization access to thousands of detainees
held since the unrest started in mid-March. Mr. Kellenberger met with Walid
al-Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, on Sunday
“The I.C.R.C. visits detainees in order to assess the conditions in which they
are being held and the treatment they receive,” the committee said in a
statement Saturday.
The statement added that Mr. Kellenberger would also raise the issue of enhanced
access to areas of unrest. “Ensuring that the sick and the wounded have access
to medical care will be among the particularly urgent humanitarian challenges to
be addressed with the Syrian authorities,” the committee said.
The United Nations said in a report last month that at least 2,200 people had
been killed since the demonstrations started more than five months ago. The
Syrian government, however, disputes the numbers and claims it is facing a
foreign conspiracy to divide the country. It says its security forces are
battling Islamic armed groups that have killed more than 500 police officers and
soldiers since mid-March.
Meanwhile, the secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil el-Araby, said that
he was planning a visit to Syria this week to relay Arab worries about the
continuing bloodshed there.
“The Syrian government told me that it welcomes the visit of the secretary
general at any time, and it will probably be this week,” Mr. Araby said from
Cairo on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, the Syrian state news agency SANA said that an “armed terrorist
gang” had ambushed a bus near Hama, killing nine people, including an officer
and five noncommissioned officers.
As
Police Clash With Families, Mubarak Returns to Court
September
5, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and HEBA AFIFY
CAIRO — As
crowds clashed with police outside and lawyers scuffled with each other in the
courtroom, Egyptian prosecutors had little success on Monday building their case
against former President Hosni Mubarak on charges of complicity in the killing
of demonstrators during the protests that ended his rule.
Mr. Mubarak, 83 and claiming poor health, was once again delivered by helicopter
and wheeled into court on a gurney. But for this session, the judge banned the
courtroom television cameras that for the first two sessions had broadcast to
the world the image of the enfeebled dictator lying down in a cage that serves
as docket in Egyptian courts.
The decision irked the Egyptian public, which has clamored to see swift justice
for Mr. Mubarak, and it may have contributed to an unusually violent day in and
around the court.
As its first witnesses, the prosecution called four senior police officials who
were expected to testify about Mr. Mubarak’s role in ordering the crackdown on
peaceful protesters. More than 800 died in the 18 days of demonstrations, and
Mr. Mubarak’s former interior minister, Habib el Adly, is also on trial in
connection with their killing.
But lawyers in the courtroom on Monday said the first police witness, whose
testimony occupied most of the day, defied expectations by suggesting that he
had heard no orders to use deadly force. He said the police were given orders to
use tear gas and rubber bullets and only used live ammunition to defend police
stations, news agencies reported.
Mr. Mubarak’s trial has captivated the region. He is the first autocratic leader
to go before a court in this year’s Arab Spring revolts. (Tunisia’s former
president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia after his ouster in
January, was convicted in absentia of a range of crimes, including embezzlement
and smuggling drugs, guns and archaeological artifacts.)
Mr. Mubarak’s Monday hearing was the first since Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was
forced to flee his fortress in Tripoli, and the new provisional government set
up by the rebels there is promising to apprehend him and bring him to trial as
well.
Reflecting the regional attention to the trial, a team of lawyers from Kuwait
arrived in Cairo to join the Mubarak defense, reportedly sent by the Kuwait
monarchy in gratitude for Mr. Mubarak’s support for the American-led war to
drive Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. The Egyptian authorities, however, did not allow
them in court on Monday.
Emotions around the trial remained intense. During a recess in the trial,
lawyers representing demonstrators killed during the protests scuffled
repeatedly with lawyers for the defense, most notable after one of them held up
a picture of Mr. Mubarak. Soon, people in the courtroom began chanting, “The
people want to execute the murderer,” a human rights lawyer, Gamal Eid, said in
a Twitter message. Military police entered the chamber for the first time,
though they left shortly after.
As with the first two sessions of the trial, stone throwing crowds outside
clashed with Egyptian riot police beforehand. On Monday, the crowd was dominated
by family members of those killed during the demonstrations, who initially
attempted to push their way into the makeshift courtroom set up in an Egyptian
police academy.
During the proceedings, defense lawyers sought testimony from a police official
about the number of officers and weaponry of Egypt’s central security police
during the period of protests. The defense also signaled a potential attempt to
blame the killings or the uprising on the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The
defense sought information about members of Hamas entering Egypt during the
period, Egyptian state television reported.
The judge’s decision barring cameras from the courtroom, delivered on the
trial’s second day, has not been fully explained. Lawyers said the ruling
appeared intended to limit witnesses’ knowledge of each other’s testimony.
But many Egyptians have also speculated about whether the decision is intended
to shield other powerful figures from the cameras. Some wonder whether the trial
— which centers on deliberations at the highest levels of the Mubarak government
— might also touch on the roles or testimony of the top Egyptian military
officials now running the country’s interim government.
September
4, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
TRIPOLI,
Libya — As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to avoid taking revenge
against “brother Libyans,” many rebels were turning their wrath against migrants
from sub-Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of fighting as
“mercenaries” for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi without any evidence except the color
of their skin.
Many witnesses have said that when Colonel Qaddafi first lost control of Tripoli
in the earliest days of the revolt, experienced units of dark-skinned fighters
apparently from other African countries arrived in the city to help subdue it
again. Since Western journalists began arriving in the city a few days later,
however, they have found no evidence of such foreign mercenaries.
Still, in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has become an
article of faith among supporters of the Libyan rebels that African mercenaries
pervaded the loyalists’ ranks. And since Colonel Qaddafi’s fall from power, the
hunting down of people suspected of being mercenaries has become a major
preoccupation.
Human rights advocates say the rebels’ scapegoating of blacks here follows a
similar campaign that ultimately included lynchings after rebels took control of
the eastern city of Benghazi more than six months ago. The recent roundup of
Africans, though, comes at a delicate moment when the new provisional government
is trying to establish its credibility. Its treatment of the detainees is
emerging as a pivotal test of both the provisional government’s commitment to
the rule of law and its ability to control its thousands of loosely organized
fighters. And it is also hoping to entice back the thousands of foreign workers
needed to help Libya rebuild.
Many Tripoli residents — including some local rebel leaders — now often use the
Arabic word for “mercenaries” or “foreign fighters” as a catchall term to refer
to any member of the city’s large underclass of African migrant workers.
Makeshift rebel jails around the city have been holding African migrants
segregated in fetid, sweltering pens for as long as two weeks on charges that
their captors often acknowledge to be little more than suspicion. The migrants
far outnumber Libyan prisoners, in part because rebels say they have allowed
many Libyan Qaddafi supporters to return to their homes if they are willing to
surrender their weapons.
The detentions reflect “a deep-seated racism and anti-African sentiment in
Libyan society,” said Peter Bouckaert, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who
visited several jails. “It is very clear to us that most of those detained were
not soldiers and have never held a gun in their life.”
In a dimly lighted concrete hangar housing about 300 glassy-eyed, dark-skinned
captives in one neighborhood, several said they were as young as 16. In a
reopened police station nearby, rebels were holding Mohamed Amidu Suleiman, a
62-year-old migrant from Niger, on allegations of witchcraft. To back up the
charges, they produced a long loop of beads they said they had found in his
possession.
He was held in a segregated cell with about 20 other prisoners, all African
migrants but one. “We have no water in the bathroom!” one prisoner shouted to a
guard. “Neither do we!” the guard replied. Most of the city has been without
running water to bathe, flush toilets or wash clothes since a breakdown in the
water delivery system around the time that Colonel Qaddafi fled. But the stench,
and fear, of the migrants was so acute that guards handed visitors hospital
masks before they entered their cell.
Outside the migrants’ cage, a similar number of Libyan prisoners occupy a less
crowded network of rooms. Osama el-Zawi, 40, a former customs officer in charge
of the jail, said his officers had allowed most of the Libyan Qaddafi supporters
from the area to go home. “We all know each other,” he said. “They don’t pose
any kind of threat to us now. They are ashamed to go out in the streets.”
But the “foreign fighters,” he said, were more dangerous. “Most of them deny
they were doing it,” he said, “but we found some of them with weapons.”
A guard chimed in: “If we release the mercenaries, the people in the street will
hurt them.”
In the crowded prison hangar, in the Tajura neighborhood, the rebel commander
Abdou Shafi Hassan, 34, said they were holding only a few dozen Libyans — local
informers and prisoners of war — but kept hundreds of Africans in the segregated
pen. On a recent evening, the Libyan captives could be seen rolling up mats
after evening prayers in an outdoor courtyard just a short distance from where
the Africans lay on the concrete floor in the dark.
Several said they had been picked up walking in the streets or in their homes,
without weapons, and some said they were dark-skinned Libyans from the country’s
southern region. “We don’t know why we are here,” said Abdel Karim Mohamed, 29.
A guard — El Araby Abu el-Meida, a 35-year-old mechanical engineer before he
took up arms in the rebellion — almost seemed to apologize for the conditions.
“We are all civilians, and we don’t have experience running prisons,” he said.
Most of the prisoners were migrant farm workers, he said. “I have a Sudanese
worker on my farm and I would not catch him,” he said, adding that if an
expected “investigator” concluded that the other black prisoners were not
mercenaries they would be released.
In recent days, the provisional government has started the effort to centralize
the processing and detention of prisoners. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the
Tripoli military council, said that as recently as Wednesday he had extended his
protection to a group of 10 African workers who had come to his headquarters
seeking refuge.
“We don’t agree with arresting people just because they’re black,” he said. “We
understand the problem, but we’re still in a battle area.”
Mohamed Benrasali, a member of the provisional government’s Tripoli
stabilization team, acknowledged the problem but said it would “sort itself
out,” as it had in his hometown, Misurata.
“People are afraid of the dark-skinned people, so they are all suspect,” Mr.
Benrasali said, noting that residents had also rounded up dark-skinned migrants
in Misurata after the rebels took control. He said he had advised the Tripoli
officials to set up a system to release any migrants who could find Libyans to
vouch for them.
With thousands of semi-independent rebel fighters still roaming the streets for
any hidden threats, though, controlling the impulse to round up migrants may not
be easy.
Outside a former Qaddafi intelligence building, rebels held two dark-skinned
captives at knifepoint, bound together at the feet with arms tied behind their
backs, lying in a pile of garbage, covered with flies. Their captors said they
had been found in a taxi with ammunition and money. The terrified prisoners,
22-year-olds from Mali, initially said they had no involvement in the Qaddafi
militias and then, as a captor held a knife near their heads, they began
supplying the story of forced induction into the Qaddafi forces that they
appeared to think was wanted.
Nearby, armed fighters stood over about a dozen other migrants squatting against
a fence. Their captors were drilling them at gunpoint in rebel chants like “God
is Great” and “Free Libya!”
U.S.
Appeals to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote on Statehood
September
3, 2011
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON
— The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to
avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition
as a state at the United Nations, but it may already be too late, according to
senior American officials and foreign diplomats.
The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks with the
Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to
abandon the bid for recognition at the annual gathering of world leaders at the
United Nations General Assembly beginning Sept. 20.
The administration has made it clear to Mr. Abbas that it will veto any request
presented to the United Nations Security Council to make a Palestinian state a
new member outright.
But the United States does not have enough support to block a vote by the
General Assembly to elevate the status of the Palestinians’ nonvoting observer
“entity” to that of a nonvoting observer state. The change would pave the way
for the Palestinians to join dozens of United Nations bodies and conventions,
and it could strengthen their ability to pursue cases against Israel at the
International Criminal Court.
Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a veto but
also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that would leave the
United States and only a handful of other nations in the opposition. The
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic
maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a wave of anger could sweep
the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world at a time when the region
is already in tumult. President Obama would be put in the position of
threatening to veto recognition of the aspirations of most Palestinians or risk
alienating Israel and its political supporters in the United States.
“If you put the alternative out there, then you’ve suddenly just changed the
circumstances and changed the dynamic,” a senior administration official
involved in the flurry of diplomacy said Thursday. “And that’s what we’re trying
very much to do.”
Efforts to head off the Palestinian diplomatic drive have percolated all summer
but have taken on urgency as the vote looms in the coming weeks. “It’s not clear
to me how it can be avoided at the moment,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former
Palestinian negotiator who is now executive director of the American Task Force
on Palestine in Washington. “An American veto could inflame emotions and bring
anti-American sentiment to the forefront across the region.”
While some officials remain optimistic that a compromise can be found, the
administration has simultaneously begun planning to limit the fallout of a
statehood vote. A primary focus is to ensure the Israelis and Palestinians
continue to cooperate on security matters in the West Bank and along Israel’s
borders, administration officials said.
“We’re still focused on Plan A,” another senior administration official said,
referring to the diplomatic efforts by the administration’s new special envoy,
David M. Hale, and the president’s Middle East adviser on the National Security
Council, Dennis B. Ross. Mr. Hale replaced the more prominent George J. Mitchell
Jr., who resigned in May after two years of frustrated efforts to make progress
on a peace deal.
The State Department late last month issued a formal diplomatic message to more
than 70 countries urging them to oppose any unilateral moves by the Palestinians
at the United Nations. The message, delivered by American ambassadors to their
diplomatic counterparts in those countries, argued that a vote would destabilize
the region and undermine peace efforts, though those are, at least for now,
moribund.
Two administration officials said that the intent of the message was to narrow
the majority the Palestinians are expected to have in the General Assembly. They
said that and the new peace proposal — to be issued in a statement by the
Quartet, the diplomatic group focused on the Middle East comprising the United
States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — could persuade
potential supporters to step back from a vote on recognition, and thus force Mr.
Abbas to have second thoughts.
“The fact is there are countries who would choose not to do that vote if there
was an alternative,” the first senior administration official said.
In essence, the administration is trying to translate the broad principles Mr.
Obama outlined in May into a concrete road map for talks that would succeed
where past efforts have failed: satisfy Israel, give the Palestinians an
alternative to going to the United Nations and win the endorsement of the
Europeans.
Diplomats are laboring to formulate language that would bridge stubborn
differences over how to treat Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and over
Israel’s demand for recognition of its status as a Jewish state. A statement by
the Quartet would be more than a symbolic gesture. It would outline a series of
meetings and actions to resume talks to create a Palestinian state.
The Quartet’s members are divided over the proposal’s terms and continue to
negotiate them among themselves, and with the Palestinians and Israelis.
Among the issues still on the table are how explicitly to account for the
growing settlements in the West Bank. The question of Israel’s status is also
opposed by Russia and viewed warily by some European countries. The Palestinians
have never acceded to a formal recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, in
deference at least in part to the Palestinians who live in Israel.
The Quartet’s envoy, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, visited
Jerusalem on Tuesday to negotiate the terms of the proposal with the Israelis.
He is expected to discuss it with the Palestinians soon.
The Israelis have so far responded positively to the draft, but the Palestinian
position remains unclear.
Two administration officials said that Mr. Abbas had recently indicated that he
would forgo a United Nations vote in favor of real talks. But a senior
Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, angrily dismissed the American proposal as
inadequate and said a vote would go ahead regardless.
“Whoever wrote this thought we are so weak that we cannot even wiggle or that we
are stupid,” he said in a telephone interview from Ramallah in the West Bank. He
added, “Whatever is to be offered, it is too late.”
Within the administration, there are different views of the situation’s urgency.
Some officials believe that the United States can weather a veto diplomatically,
as it has before, and politically at home because of the strong support for
Israel in Congress. But others view the Palestinian push for recognition as
deeply alarming, raising the specter of new instability and violence in the West
Bank and Gaza.
“The most powerful argument is that this will provoke a Palestinian awakening,
that there will be a new violence and that we’ll be blamed,” said Martin S.
Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel.
Ethan Bronner
and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem,
and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
September
3, 2011
The New York Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM —
As many as 400,000 Israelis demonstrated on Saturday night against the high cost
of living and for social justice in one of the largest protests in the nation’s
history, although questions remained about about what it might achieve.
The mass protest across the country had been planned for weeks and was
considered by many to be the grand finale of the street phase of the social
dissent that has swept Israel this summer. Organizers initially billed it as a
million-person march, but had tried to lower expectations over the last few
days, saying that it would be considered a success if the turnout equaled the
300,000 people who took to the streets on Aug. 6.
The police estimated that more than 300,000 people turned out on Saturday night,
but a company monitoring the turnout for the Israeli news media said the total
was about 400,000, with almost 300,000 gathering in Tel Aviv alone. Tens of
thousands more rallied in Jerusalem, Haifa and other cities.
The nationwide protest came after a lull in the movement over the last two
weeks. The country’s attention was first diverted by a mid-August attack by
Palestinian militants that killed eight Israelis near the southern city of
Eilat, near the Egyptian border, and a subsequent flare-up in violence along the
Israel-Gaza border.
The most visible symbols of the protest movement, the scores of tent encampments
that sprang up around the country, have gradually emptied as summer vacations
ended and people went back to work and school.
On Saturday, the main rally in Tel Aviv began with a march and ended in Kikar
Hamedina, a broad traffic circle and park lined with luxury stores. Television
commentators noted that not one display window was broken; these Israeli
protests, largely driven by the middle class, have been carnival-like and
nonviolent.
“This square is filled with the new Israelis who would die for this country, but
who expect you, Mr. Prime Minister, to let us live in this country,” Itzik
Shmuli, the chairman of the National Union of Students and a leader of the
protest movement, said from the stage at the Tel Aviv rally.
Daphne Leef, 25, the young woman who pitched the first tent in Tel Aviv in
mid-July and invited friends to join her on Facebook, told the crowd that the
fact that her generation had stood up and raised its voice was “nothing short of
a miracle — the miracle of the summer of 2011.”
Organizers have said that many of the tent encampments will end in the next few
days but that the spaces may become communal meeting places.
The protest movement’s next milestone is likely to come later this month when a
government-appointed committee on socioeconomic change led by Manuel
Trajtenberg, a respected professor of economics at Tel Aviv University, presents
its recommendations to the government. The panel was set up in response to the
protests.
The protests began over the lack of affordable housing, but grew to encompass
calls for tax reform and the creation of a welfare state, among other demands.
Mr. Shmuli has urged that protesters cooperate with the committee, but Ms. Leef
and other members of the protest movement’s informal leadership have rejected
such a move.
Mr. Shmuli said on Saturday night that the movement had “reached a very high
peak” that had to lead to dialogue and achievements.
