Month: August 2007

Hamas’ mass weddings

This is an excellent of why Hamas, and many Islamist groups, get much support despite not really having mainstream ideas (at least at the beginning):

Hamas sponsors mass wedding in Palestinian camp in Syria

By The Associated Press

Some 60 Palestinian couples were married in a mass wedding ceremony at their refugee camp in Syria in the first event of its kind to be sponsored by the Islamist Hamas movement.

The pro-Hamas marriage ceremony late Friday night was attended by 5,000 people. It aimed to help young people deal with the prohibitive costs of marriage, according to Hamas officials at the event.

“Hamas helped me make my dreams come true. I want to thank Hamas simply because it made me happy,” said 27-year-old groom Abdel Rahman Taha.

In addition to organizing the event, Hamas provided each couple with $1,500 in a mixture of cash and household appliances, the couples said.

They just get it – “it” being core social and economic problems that affect young people, which happen to be the biggest demographic force in the Arab world at the moment. Governments should emulate this type of thing.

A pox on both their houses

Republican candidate advocates threat to bomb Islamic holy sites as response to terrorist attack on U.S.:

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo says the best way he can think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. is to threaten to retaliate by bombing Islamic holy sites.

The Colorado congressman on Tuesday told about 30 people at a town hall meeting in the state of Iowa that he believes such a terrorist attack could be imminent and that the U.S. needs to hurry up and think of a way to stop it.

“If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina,” Tancredo said at the Family Table restaurant. “Because that’s the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do.”

Yes, this is not a major candidate, but that anyone running for office is saying these things is incredible. To be fair and spread some bipartisan scorn, in a way it’s more shocking that Barack Obama wants to invade Pakistan:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country’s military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won,” he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, “The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

So if I get this right, Obama thinks Iraq is a piece of cake and American troops should withdraw, but believes Pakistan would be a piece of cake? While I certainly think Pakistan is much more of a problem than Iraq ever was, by now one would expect someone as electable as Obama to be more cautious about making this kind of statement.

Hamas’s intelligence tour-de-force

I mean to post this days ago. For those who missed it or don’t have a WSJ subscription, this Wall Street Journal piece on intelligence files seized from the Fatah security apparatus in Gaza by Hamas is a must-read. I am providing a PDF copy of it here. Excerpt:

Some of the most potentially explosive claims from Hamas center on the alleged activities beyond the Gaza Strip of Palestinian agents loyal to Fatah. Mr. Hayya alleged the CIA utilized Palestinian agents for covert intelligence operations in other Middle Eastern countries. Hamas, he said, now possesses a roadmap detailing the names and actions of “those men whom thought were going to continue to be their hand across the region.”

Some former U.S. intelligence officials who worked closely with the Palestinian Authority confirmed that such overseas spying arrangements beyond Gaza existed with the Palestinians in the past and said they likely continued, bolstering the credibility of Hamas’s claims.

Whitley Bruner, a longtime CIA officer in the Middle East, recalled that “some of our first really good information on [Osama] bin Laden in Sudan” in the early 1990s “came from Palestinian sources.” Before leaving the agency in 1997, Mr. Bruner participated in many of the first cooperative sessions organized by Mr. Tenet between the CIA and the Palestinians.

“It’s not unlikely that continued to do things for the U.S. well beyond the territories,” Mr. Bruner said. “Palestinians are embedded all over the place, so they have access to things that the U.S. doesn’t.”

Within three-four days of the takeover, rumors emerged in the Arabic press that Hamas officials had presented contact in Egyptian intelligence officials with a bunch of dossiers detailing the Dahlan-run spying operations against Egypt. Some of that information may include all kinds of embarrassing material — info on senior regime officials, documentation of military personnel’s involvement in smuggling operations, who knows. One has to wonder (with the caveat that this is pure guesswork, I am not privy to any intelligence that is not in the public record) whether this contributed to the noticeable change of tone of Egyptian officials, including Hosni Mubarak, after the initial shock of the takeover. And to Dahlan’s recent removal as Palestinian National Security Chief. Even if half of what is alleged by Hamas officials is true, then an important intelligence-gathering network has been blown (and the intelligence could end up in the hands of all kinds of people afterwards, starting with the Iranians.)

Christian convert seeks recognition in Egypt

Christian convert seeks recognition in Egypt:

CAIRO (AFP) – An Egyptian who converted from Islam to Christianity has launched a bid to have the change recognised officially in what is believed to be the first such case, he told AFP on Thursday.

Coptic rights group the Al-Kalima Centre brought the case on behalf of Mohammed Ahmed Higazi, 25, who said he wanted to have his conversion recognised officially so that his child would be born Christian.

In light of the current controversy of the Mufti’s flip-flopping on conversion and the more general concern over growing sectarian tension in Egypt, this could be explosive. I would not be completely surprised if State Securtity intervened to keep this matter out of the courtroom, considering their habit of turning every sectarian issue into a security one. It could also agitate the more unhinged Islamists out there.

Three recent articles on Syria

Dialogue is in Syria’s and America’s interests – Anthony Cordesman

Says Syria is not interested in sending troops back into Lebanon and that a dialogue is possible even if it is not about to budge on the tribunal or support for Hizbullah. An incremental US policy based on carrots as well as sticks (as opposed to the current stick-only policy) can yield results and is worth pursuing

The Golan Waits for the Green Light – Nicholas Pelham

How Israelis and especially Americans are blocking Israel-Syria peace talks. in light of current uncertainty and the potential for tensions to escalate, it would be in the interests of all to at least engage Syria since it appears ready to hold formal talks.

How to Manage Assad – Jon Alterman

Alterman interviews Bashar al-Assad, finds his English improved, and thinks that Syria is not about to be bluffed out by the US and that the best policy would be (cautious) engagement.

Although Nicholas’ piece deals at length with the Israeli side of the equation, overall these pieces are all overwhelmingly negative of the policies being pursued by the Bush administration, not only because they are unproductive but also, perhaps mostly, because they actually consist an obstacle to settling several lingering problems in the Levant as well as getting a better shot at correcting the situation in Iraq. On the return of the Golan to Syria, I am skeptical as always that Israel would give up the area without being forced to, either strategically or militarily. But Nicholas also offers plenty of evidence that at least, at the civil society level, there is some desire to end that part of the Arab-Israeli Cold War.

More repression of journalists in Tunisia

Tunisian Internet editor to stand trial:

New York, August 1, 2007— The managing editor of a Tunisian online magazine is due to appear in court in Tunis on August 2 on charges of defamation that could lead to his imprisonment for up to three-and-a-half years, according to one of his lawyers.

The charges against Tunisian rights activist Omar Mestiri stem from an article in French posted on the Web site Kalima on September 5, 2006, in which he criticized the Tunisian Bar Association for reversing a decision to disbar a lawyer close to the government who was convicted on several counts of perjury and fraud. Access to Kalima is blocked in the country.

Ayachi Hammami, one of Mestiri’s lawyers, told CPJ that the trial has, for unclear reasons, been scheduled for a time when the ordinary judicial year is in recess, which might afford it less scrutiny than it could receive otherwise. “There is no reason not to examine this case during the ordinary judicial year due to begin in mid-September,” he said.

Amira Hass on Vichy Palestine

Back to a corrupt occupation:

Under the auspices of what is called “the peace process” between 1994 and 2001, and under the mantra of “strengthening the Palestinian economy will advance peace,” many of the senior Fatah people and their circles hastened to make their personal fortunes. This might have been legitimate, of course, had the economic situation of a considerable part of the inhabitants of the occupied territories not become worse because of the Israeli restrictions on movement and had it not been a matter of money found for them in the coffers of Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or in shadier ways.

All too often there was a direct correlation between the newly rich Palestinian’s ties to members of a Palestinian security force and the latter’s ties to the Israeli Shin Bet security service or senior people in Israel. Closeness of this kind (to senior Fatah members and the Shin Bet) provided movement permits, ensured “family reunification,” and so on. These and other kinds of occupation-dependent protectionism led the Palestinians to make a connection between “the peace process” and corruption.

The failures of 2006 and 2007 have not produced any proof, yet, that Fatah has learned the lesson. It has not distanced itself from protectionism and the system by which those close to the right people have convenient opportunities to get richer – in a sea of impoverishment.

Back to the USSR

Not really Middle Eastern, but I’ve always been fascinated by Russia and this Figaro article about how Putin is rehabilitating the Soviet version of Russian history is very troubling:

UN VENT révisionniste souffle sur la Russie poutinienne et son rapport à l’histoire communiste. Preuve que, comme disait Orwell, « rien n’est plus imprévisible que le passé ». Lors d’une rencontre avec des spécialistes de sciences humaines en juin, Vladimir Poutine a jugé que l’histoire de l’URSS avait eu « moins de pages noires que celle des États-Unis » et que les répressions staliniennes avaient été « moins terribles » que la guerre au Vietnam ou le nazisme. « Nous n’avons pas utilisé d’armes nucléaires contre la population civile », a-t-il dit en allusion au bombardement d’Hiroshima par les Américains, ajoutant que la Russie n’avait « pas arrosé d’agents chimiques des milliers de kilomètres carrés » comme ce fut le cas au Vietnam. « Nos pages noires n’étaient pas si terribles… », a insisté le président qui, au nom d’un étrange relativisme historique, prône une approche « patriotique » de l’histoire.

Le message est clair. Plus question de condamner le totalitarisme communiste et ses millions de morts, comme le souhaitait son prédécesseur Boris Eltsine qui avait rêvé d’un procès de Nuremberg du communisme, avant d’y renoncer fin 1992 sous la pression de la nomenklatura ex-soviétique. Loin de vouloir exorciser les démons totalitaires, la Russie de Poutine semble au contraire tentée de puiser dans le passé communiste une forme de légitimité et de continuité, au risque d’en perpétuer les méthodes criminelles.

Most worryingly, independent efforts to document the millions of victims of the Soviet system are under threat.

Hizbullah’s House of Spiders

Charles Levinson visits a Hizbullah exhibition on last summer’s war:

The first exhibits are two reconstructed Hezbollah bunkers. One looks like some sort of command post. There is a manikin dressed like a Hezbollah fighter in fatigues with an AK47 slung over his shoulder. He’s eyeing a wall map of “Occupied Palestine”. There’s a desk with a laptop computer, a walkie talkie, a phone and two korans. On the other side of the passage way there is another reconstructed bunker, this one made to resemble the rooms where Hezbollah fighters sleep. There are two manikins here, one kneeling in prayer, the other relaxing on a mattress on the floor, a koran in his right hand, his left resting casually on an AK47. A radio blasts old Al Manar news reports from the front lines of last summers war, mixed with martial anthems.

Visitor move on and enter the main hall of the exhibit. The first display is a series of six foot tall portraits of US and Israeli leaders with quotes from last summer’s war underneath each picture.

A picture of Rumsfield has the quote in Arabic and English: “Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.”

Condi’s picture is accompanied by the quote: “This war is part of the birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

The picture of Bush shows him clutching a Thanksgiving turkey, presumably before the traditional holiday pardon. His quote: “Our nation is wasting no time in helping the people of Lebanon.”