Sun. 5 June. 2011 HAARETZ On Naksa Day, Syria's focus to be on Israel border ………....1 Opposition vs. Assad / Awaiting a push by Washington ……3 DEBKA FILE Rekindled Syrian protests could revive Assad's threat ……...4 CNN-IBN Will get in touch with intl institutions on Syria: opposition ...6 SYDNEY MORNING Throw out tyrant's envoy …………………………………….7 THE HINDU India weighs options as West tries to corner Syria ……..….10 EXPECTICA BELGIUM Syrian opposition gathers in Brussels ……………………...12 BOSTON GLOBE
Transcript
Sun. 5 June. 2011
HAARETZ On Naksa Day, Syria's focus to be on Israel border ………....1 Opposition vs. Assad / Awaiting a push by Washington ……3
DEBKA FILE Rekindled Syrian protests could revive Assad's threat ……...4
CNN-IBN Will get in touch with intl institutions on Syria: opposition ...6
SYDNEY MORNING Throw out tyrant's envoy …………………………………….7
THE HINDU India weighs options as West tries to corner Syria ……..….10
EXPECTICA BELGIUM Syrian opposition gathers in Brussels ……………………...12
BOSTON GLOBE A blind eye won’t end repression …………………………..13
BAWABA Amal Arafeh sings for conditions in Syria ………………....15
YEDIOTH AHRONOTH Report: Syria cancels 'Naksa Day' border march …………..16
HOTELIER Sofitel eyes Middle East expansion - pushing Syria …….…18
LATIMES The long view in Israel against the 1967 line ……………....19
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HOME PAGEOn Naksa Day, Syria's focus to be on Israel border Syria-Israel border expected to be site of demonstrations marking the anniversary of the Naksa, the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War, with protesters attempting to repeat the bloody clashes of Nakba Day.By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel Haaretz,5 June 2011,
If it appeared over the past two weeks that Syrian President Bashar Assad was gaining the upper hand in the battle against protesters in his country, events of the past weekend have shown that the issues across the border are far from resolved.
About 70 people were killed by security forces in Syria over the past two days. And today, as both sides try to take stock of the fallout from the latest clash, the focus will shift, at least in part, to the border with Israel. That border is expected to be the site of demonstrations marking the anniversary of the Naksa, the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War, with protesters attempting to repeat the bloody clashes of Nakba Day three weeks ago.
Assad has taken several steps in recent weeks to fend off protests against his regime. On the one hand, he has used brute force to suppress protests in cities and entire districts, such as Houran (especially Daraa ), Rastan and Banias; on the other, he continues to promise reforms, including a new election law and the transition to a multi-party system. Neither approach appears to have been effective, with protests erupting anew this weekend, in Hama, of all places.
It's been nearly 30 years since Bashar's father Hafez Assad and his uncle Rifat butchered city residents for their support of the Muslim Brotherhood, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving much of the ancient city in ruins.
On Friday, that chilling pair of words - Hama massacre - was heard once again on the Arab media, but this time, it was being used to describe actions undertaken by Hafez Assad's son and heir.
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Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Hama on Friday to protest the death and injury of children by Syrian security forces. At some point, without any warning, the soldiers opened indiscriminate live fire on the crowd, killing at least 60 demonstrators on the spot. Hundreds more were wounded, and Arab satellite channels interviewed eyewitnesses who described the carnage. Yesterday, not tens, but hundreds of thousands, filled the streets of Hama to take part in the funeral processions for Friday's victims.
The ease with which the Assad's soldiers pull their triggers has and continues to undermine him. He has not succeeded in suppressing the protests by force, and instead, appears to be doing nothing more than fueling the flames. The prediction made by a senior Israeli security official that Assad's regime may not last longer than a few months now appears to be a likely scenario.
Assad's troubles will reflect on Israel very soon. Of all the areas where Naksa demonstrations are planned today, the Golan appears to be the most sensitive. When Palestinian protesters infiltrated the border there last month, the army was caught off guard, and the outcome was quite serious. This time round, the Northern Command will be more prepared, and both deployment and intelligence operations have been improved. Still, the Syrian regime appears to have an interest in creating friction on the border, something that is already creating tension on the Israeli side.
In Lebanon, meanwhile, demonstrations have been canceled after the Lebanese army declared the border a closed military zone. No unusual protests are planned in the West Bank either, although it seems safe to assume clashes will take place at the usual flare points. Protests may also take place in Gaza and in Jordan, but no special protests are planned in the Arab Israeli community.
Still, if the previous round has proven anything, it is how difficult it is to predict and control the behavior of the masses.
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The opposition vs. Assad / Awaiting a push by Washington More than 70 Syrians killed over weekend; Kurdish source says Iraqi Kurdistan President refused to meet Syrian FM, who visited Iraq in an effort to convince the president to prevail on Syrian Kurds not to join the anti-government revolt.By Zvi Bar'el Haaretz,5 June 2011,
More than 70 Syrians were killed over the weekend in the largest anti-government protests yet against President Bashar Assad's regime, with around 50 killed in the city of Hama alone, according to a Syrian human rights group. A Kurdish source says Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem was in Iraq Tuesday in an effort to meet with Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan. He wanted to convince Barzani to prevail on Syrian Kurds not to join the anti-government revolt, but Barzani refused to meet with the Syrian minister, the source says.
The Syrian regime is operating on the assumption that if it can split the opposition to Assad's government by enlisting Kurdish support or entering a dialogue with opposition groups, it can paint the other protest groups as subversives who don't represent the public. To further that goal, Assad has decided to set up a national dialogue committee, which would be followed by a clear timetable for talks with the opposition.
A preparatory committee on the matter is being headed by Vice President Farouk Shara, but its members are all representatives of the regime. These moves make it clear that Assad believes he still has enough power to foil the protests and has no intention at this point to cede power to the opposition.
Leaders of the protest movement, some of whom are longtime rivals, have announced that a united opposition movement will convene in Syria, open to anyone who wishes to join. It's not clear yet if Assad will allow those plans to go forward, but the development is significant nonetheless: A common opposition front has been lacking in Syria.
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Syrian opposition leaders met in Antalya, Turkey, last week, where it was agreed that the protests in Syria should not be stopped and that reforms that Assad might propose should be rejected in favor of the fall of the current regime. The protest leaders are concerned, however, about divisions in their ranks that could work in Assad's favor.
The opposition is being put to the test and has to prove itself, one activist, Amar Abdel-Hamid, told the website Elaph. He spoke about the difficulty in convening a group with disparate worldviews, but added that the Syrian regime is facing a test as well. The opposition's main focus at this point is to enlist world public opinion to get Western countries, particularly the United States, to take a firm line against Assad and his regime. Syrian opposition forces are disappointed that the United States has not demanded Assad's ouster the way it did with former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
A source in Washington told Haaretz that this stems in part from Russia's strong support of Assad, as well as uncertainty over what would replace the current regime in Syria, where no independent government or economic institutions exist. There have been a number of unconfirmed reports from Syria on the arrest of senior Syrian officers who refused to have their units use force against demonstrators. The opposition assumes that if Washington demanded Assad's departure, the Syrian army could shift its stance.
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Rekindled Syrian protests could revive Assad's threat to hit Israeli border DEBKAfile Special Report June 4, 2011,
Two unforeseen events Friday, June 3 rekindled Syrian protests with full force - just as Syrian President Bashar Assad was preparing to celebrate his reassertion of authority after suppressing
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the uprising against his regime with active Iranian and Hizballah help: The leaders of the Syrian opposition-in-exile meeting in Antalya under Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's aegis struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood which brought 100,000 Brotherhood loyalists back on the streets in the northern town of Hama.
debkafile's military sources disclose: Just as the conference of major Syrian opposition party leaders approached a fruitless ending, the Muslim Brotherhood, consented to introducing a clause in the "National Unity Charter" providing for the separation of religion and state in the guidelines of the post-Assad regime.The MB made this concession after consulting with the group's leaders in Cairo and under heavy Turkish pressure.It means that, even if the Brotherhood, which is banned and persecuted under the Assad regime, does run for election, the regime taking over would not be religious in nature.This decision is of major significance not only for Syria but also for Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians where the Muslim Brotherhood has a strong presence.
Word of the Antalya accord flashed through Hama, center of the Brotherhood's revolt against the Assad family since 1982, and brought half the population out on the streets. Syrian security forces were caught unawares. Someone on the spot or along the higher Syrian and Iranian chain of command in Damascus panicked. An order went out to shoot directly into the crowd and break up the demonstration with maximum casualties. The result of up to 150 dead and 350 injured ignited fresh outbreaks in neighboring Homs, a town of more than 1.2 million inhabitants.
Northern Syria was aflame again after the uprising in the North and most other parts of Syria had largely subsided last week.Fresh disturbances also hit the southern province of Horan and its capital Deraa a month after unrest there had been suppressed by troops shooting dead more than 500 protesters and injuring thousands. Covert Saudi agents operating from Ramtha in neighboring Jordan managed to whip up fresh anti-Assad riots in
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Deraa and Deir a-Zur among the Shamar, a nomadic tribe which roams across the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi borders and whose center is in northern Saudi Arabia.The new outbreaks confronted President Assad with a fresh challenge at the very moment that he was polishing his victory speech to celebrate the crushing of the revolt against him.
He must now decide between carrying on with his iron-fist crackdown to douse persistent protests, or rely on the new bloodbath in Hama, Deraa and Deir a-Zur to act as a deterrent against the nationwide revival of mass demonstrations.
The third option, which he threatened earlier in the three-month revolt, would be to re-channel the fury directed against his regime into aggression on the Syrian-Israeli border.
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Will get in touch with intl institutions on Syria: opposition CNN-IBNJun 04,2011
Antalya (Turkey), June 4 (Anadolu) Members of the Syrian opposition say that they would get in touch with international institutions in order to stop the ongoing bloodshed in Syria.Following the "Change in Syria Conference" held at Antalya's Falez Hotel yesterday, members of the Advisory Committee elected at the conference, Ghassan al-Mufleh, Salim Mounem and Riad Ghannam, held a press conference and read out a document published at the end of the conference.Reading out the document, Salim Mounem said that the conference was held in order to extend support to the revolution in Syria after the Syrians made protests against the government.The demands of the Syrian people were brought onto the agenda.We demanded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign.According to Syrian laws, the vice-president must assume the powers of al-Assad.Once the vice-president assumes the office, a new parliament must be established within 15 days.Parliamentary elections must take place within a
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year.If this basic demand is not met, the revolution will continue until the existing order is demolished, the Antalya document said.The document emphasised the importance of the "territorial integrity of Syria, objection to military intervention in Syria by foreign countries, continuation of the revolution peacefully and the preservation of elements that form the national unity in Syria".We want the Arab society, Arab Union, Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the international community to extend support to the Syrian people in order for them to reach their legal demands, the document also said.Ghassan al-Mufleh thanked the Turkish government and nation for hosting them in Antalya and also thanked the media for making the conference heard in the world.Asked if the new Syrian state would be secular following the end of the current administration, Riad Ghannam said that there was no contradiction between Islam and democracy."We can all be democrats and Muslims," Ghannam underlined.President al-Assad has done nothing in the past 20 years.He took a decision in the last minute and issued an amnesty for those in prison.While some individuals were taken out of prisons, hundreds of others were placed in such prisons, Ghannam also said.The Antalya conference in Turkey provided a forum for 80 per cent of the Syrian opposition.Meanwhile, the election of a nine-member administrative committee by the Advisory Council was postponed to a future meeting. (Anadolu)
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Throw out tyrant's envoy Sydney Morning Herald,June 5, 2011,
HAVE you watched the video showing the tortured, mutilated remains of the 13-year-old Syrian schoolboy Hamza Ali al-Khateeb?
It is far easier to choose not to watch it. The boy lies on a plastic sheet, the eyes of his bruised and swollen, purple face clenched shut. The rest of his young body is a mass of bloated flesh, scarred by welts and cigarette burns, slashes and bullet holes.
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His knees and elbows are broken. Whoever did this has also cut off his penis.
I urge you to watch it, as profoundly disturbing as you will inevitably find the experience.
It is important to watch it so you know precisely how horribly this boy died at the hands of the paranoid, oafish, brutal, cowardly Syrian security forces - a mob which would give the old East German Stasi a run for its money and which acts directly on behalf (make no mistake about this) of the President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Nobody - nobody - deserves to be treated like this.
But Assad - a liar who, sensing his political demise, has promised his people greater democracy but only delivered more oppression - has allowed this to happen to a boy who dared attend an ''illegal'' rally where he chanted ''down with the regime''.
The security forces took the boy away a month ago and returned his body last week. His grieving father made the video so the world might see the extent of Assad's viciousness.
It seems the father has now been taken.
Now, if you have watched that video of young Hamza, please ponder this: should a representative of a regime that will do this to a child be allowed to live in comfort and safety in Canberra and be afforded the diplomatic privilege that goes with being an envoy to our government? No. No. No.
The Assad regime has always been expert at presenting an urbane, civilised face.
The young Assad himself is Western-educated, seemingly erudite. But he has only paid lip service to democratic reform,
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simultaneously tightening the screws on dissent through the old Stalinist tactics of intimidation and fear.
Now, like his father who killed thousands of protesters, the younger Assad is murdering to quash dissent. Assad has fooled the world for too long. His envoys in Australia, and elsewhere, are a part of that facade. Which is why it is so gratifying to hear voices of unanimity from the federal government and the opposition on the issue.
After the video of Hamza was released last week, the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, approached Kevin Rudd, who has been considering the Syrian presence in Australia closely for several years. He has given the Syrian representatives here short shrift and has refused consistent entreaties from Damascus for Canberra to reopen its Damascene embassy.
Rudd is deeply engaged with the question of Syrian representation - a fact he made plain to Hockey last Wednesday. On the same day in Parliament, Hockey appropriately evoked the memory of the 311 Australians from both world wars who are buried in the Commonwealth War cemetery in Damascus.
''Even though time and distance separate the fallen soldiers, the reason for the sacrifice of their young lives endures,'' he said. ''We must as a nation speak for the voiceless. We must stand up for the weak. So it is tonight in this House, where we have sent so many of our own children to war to fight and die for freedom and dignity, that I speak of the recently deceased Hamza Ali al-Khateeb … Australia needs to be a leader in its condemnation of the atrocities.''
Hockey praised Rudd for seeking to refer Assad to the International Criminal Court. But he also urged him to refuse to accredit Syria's ambassador-designate - a diplomat, Hockey says, ''who is close to President Assad … [and] should be given the opportunity to tell President Assad directly about the depth of
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feeling here''. Make no mistake. Australian support - and diplomatic action - is greatly appreciated.
After Hockey spoke in Parliament, his office received this email from someone involved in the freedom movement in Syria: ''… the situation is critical to day. Sir, hockeys speech is what is happening in syria. we r honored boss cares to speak about pain … the army does not care about people. we lose faith with Assad, but who lead syria then? the army not care if lady, girl or child, they will beat you protesting. they take ur phones and pounds. they try fear us into going home, but we syrians. in Daraa and lattakia and homs many people being killed by the army. and army kils his soldiers. and acuses the demonstrators who are innocent people.''
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India weighs options as West tries to corner Syria In principle, India would not support raising of the matter at UNSC: Special
Envoy Syria is already under sanctions by some Western countriesSandeep Dikshit,The Hindu,5 June 2011,
NEW DELHI: India is weighing its options as the West tries to report Syria to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a move that could upset the delicate balance in West Asia amid unrest in many countries in the region.
The U.S.-piloted proposal to refer Syria to the UNSC may come up before the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the coming week. Syria, an anathema to some western countries, is already under sanctions by some of them after the U.S. failed to convince the UNSC to go for global sanctions for alleged human rights abuses during public protests.
The latest attempt to corner Syria has been triggered by an IAEA report that felt that a building bombed by Israeli jets in 2007
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should have been declared by Damascus because “it was very likely a nuclear reactor.''
“The West is obviously building up the issue. It is an old issue at the IAEA which had asked for access while Syria denies the bombed building [which was later levelled] was a nuclear reactor. This will be discussed next week. India is studying…,'' said government sources.
“In principle, India would not support the raising of the matter at the UNSC,'' felt Chinmaya Gharekhan, India's Special Envoy to the Prime Minister for West Asia. “Syria is not proved to be in violation…the IAEA report spoke of “likelihood.” But one would have to wait for the text of the draft resolution.''
Asked to asses the game plan of the West, Mr. Gharekhan felt the western countries in general would be quite happy to break Syria's relations with Iran by hoping for a regime change.
Though Iran would lose its most important ally in the region, the implications of a regime change would be much wider. “The Hamas leadership is based there. What will happen to its supporters in case of a regime change? The Hezbollah in Lebanon is sustained through Syria. In case of a regime change in favour of the West, there will be region-wise repercussions. In the interest of stability, the international community should be supportive of any regime there.''
At the same time, he pointed out that Syria was a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and should abide by its obligations by cooperating with the IAEA.
“If this was a clandestine activity, like that of Iran, it is certainly a violation of the NPT. In this case, India's position should be that Syria must scrupulously abide by its obligations.''On the other hand, Syria could drag in Israel by raising the question of having a nuclear weapons free zone (NWFZ) in this volatile region.
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“Arab countries and others would want to raise the issue of an NWFZ and bring Israel into the picture [Israel does not comment on its nuclear weapon status]. If I were in Cairo, I would be thinking along those lines,'' said Mr. Gharekhan.
Reports from Vienna have already spoken of doubts being expressed by members of the Non-Aligned Movement about the wisdom of bringing in a resolution at this time. The IAEA Board can refer Syria to the UNSC which has already slapped four rounds of sanctions on Iran after an IAEA referral.
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Syrian opposition gathers in Brussels Expectica Belgium,5 June 2011,
Syrian opposition groups took their campaign to Belgium on Saturday where they demanded an end to the crackdown led by President Bachar al-Assad.
Around 200 activists gathered at a Brussels hotel for a two-day conference after Turkey hosted a similar meeting earlier this week.
The aim of the conference, said organiser Bassem Hatahet, was to send al-Assad the message that "if he is really a leader, he should stop his crimes, and that if his forces continue to imprison and torture protesters, there must be a regime change."
Hatahet said several different opposition groups and representatives from Syrian society were taking part in the conference. A statement would be issued at the close of the meeting on Sunday.
Following the conference in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya on Wednesday and Thursday, opposition groups urged al-Assad's
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immediate resignation and the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections within a year.
Large crowds attended on Saturday the funerals of 50 people killed by security forces during anti-regime protests in Hama the previous day, human rights activists said.
More than 1,100 civilians have been killed and at least 10,000 arrested in a brutal crackdown on almost daily demonstrations in Syria since March 15, rights organisations say.
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A blind eye won’t end repression By Jeff Jacoby Boston Globe,June 5, 2011
IT WAS the torture of elementary-school students in Deraa that gave momentum to the uprising against Bashar Assad’s brutal regime in Syria. The children, some as young as 10, were picked up by security agents for scrawling antigovernment graffiti on a school wall. When they were released days later, there were cigarette burns on their bodies, and the fingernails had been pulled from their hands. Word of the torture spread, fueling further protest. The government’s response has been a crackdown with appalling new levels of cruelty.
“The stories we hear now are unimaginable in their brutality,’’ a former Syrian intelligence officer who has turned against the regime told The Wall Street Journal recently. “It is not only to deter protesters. They enjoy hurting people for the sake of it.’’ One such victim, a shopkeeper from Homs, was seized after leaving a protest. As described by the Journal, the man was slashed with a scalpel on his back, then stitched up without anesthetic and beaten on the wounds. He was “kept naked and blindfolded in a room packed with detainees and excrement,’’
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where he listened to his cousin being burned with a poker, and was told to “kneel in prayer’’ before a portrait of Assad.
Syria, a human-rights hellhole where more than 1,000 protesters have been murdered in recent weeks, is among the “Worst of the Worst’’ — the 17 countries identified by Freedom House as the most repressive societies on earth. Founded in 1941 to promote democratic liberty worldwide, Freedom House publishes annual surveys that show a world notably freer than it was 30 years ago, when the Iron Curtain still stood. But little of that light has penetrated to the nations needing it most.
Three-fourths of the countries included in Freedom House’s “Worst of the Worst’’ have been on the list for more than 25 years. They include North Korea, Somalia, Cuba, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, China, Libya, and Syria. The endurance of those regimes — which perpetuate themselves through violence, fear, and the ruthless persecution of dissent — illustrate, as Freedom House puts it, “the deep entrenchment of the antidemocratic power structures in these countries and the difficulty of influencing them in any meaningful way.’’
But atrocious dictatorships are sustained as well by the willingness of free nations to turn a blind eye to their crimes — or, worse, to make excuses for them. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was justly slammed in March when she labeled Syria’s Assad a “reformer,’’ but Washington’s appeasement of Damascus has long been a bipartisan project. The same is true of the zeal with which Americans and other Westerners seek to “engage’’ other human-rights villains from Beijing to Riyadh. There may be good reasons to do business with the likes of China and Saudi Arabia, but there is never a good reason to deny the moral gulf that separates totalitarian regimes from their subjects — and from us.
The New York Times reported last week on the thriving commerce between the United States and Equatorial Guinea, a tiny African despotism where torture and corruption are rife, and which Freedom House has ranked for decades among the “Worst
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of the Worst.’’ US oil companies have billions of dollars invested there, a US military contractor provides maritime security and police training, and until March former Bill Clinton aide Lanny Davis even had a million-dollar-a-year deal to improve the image of Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the country’s vicious dictator.
Not surprisingly, US diplomats haven’t spoken bluntly about Obiang’s hateful rule. Instead (in diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks) they have praised his “mellowing, benign leadership’’ and advised Washington “to abandon a moral narrative’’ when dealing with Equatorial Guinea.
But refusing to tell the truth about the world’s most evil regimes, as Mario Vargas Llosa argued upon receiving the Nobel Prize for literature last year, only prolongs their brutality.
“Dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal,’’ he said. “It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters.
“Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.’’
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Amal Arafeh sings for conditions in Syria Al Bawaba (Jordanian)5 June 2011,
Syrian actress Amal Arafeh has made it a point to express her feelings about different circumstances and crises through writing, acting of singing to avoid making public statements. The actress is currently working on a new song she plans on releasing about the
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current crises taking place in Syria with the break of a revolution to overthrow the current government of President Bashar Al Asad.
According to the London base Elaph, Amal stated that the new song will be a big surprise to all her fans. Amal has announced that in the current period she is refraining from making any entertainment activities or interviews, feeling that the time is inappropriate due to the conditions in Syria.
The actress said that she prays for the Syrian people and is hopeful all the agony will come to an end in the near future.
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Report: Syria cancels 'Naksa Day' border march Organizers offer no explanation for nixing march to Israel's borders, but say protests will go on in refugee camps; IDF continue to brace for event Yedioth Ahronoth (original story is by The Associated Press),5 June 2011,
Palestinians in Syria canceled plans to march to the border with the Golan Heights on Sunday's "Naksa Day" - the anniversary of the 1967 war in which Israel captured the territory. Palestinians in Lebanon have also scrapped border rallies.
An organizer of Sunday's protests in Syria, Khaled Abdul-Majid, gave no explanation for the cancellation but promised the march would be held at a future date.
The official Egyptian news agency reported that the cancellation in Syria show that the authorities in Damascus disallowed the rally. Abdul-Majid stressed that protest events marking "Naksa Day" will go on in the Palestinian refugee camps in "Palestine and Lebanon."
'Peaceful way to embarrass enemy' The march in Lebanon had to be abandoned after Lebanese authorities declared the area around the border a closed military
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zone to prevent the demonstration. Instead, strikes were planned for all 12 of Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, organizers said Friday.
An unknown organization titled "The Association of Lebanese National Parties, Forces and People" issued a statement declaring that "Lebanon cannot let external pressures affect its national principles, especially the support for the Palestinian people in their critical choices and their peaceful means of embarrassing the enemy."
Another group, known as "Al-Tawhid Al-Islami," released a statement slamming the "pressures" that brought to the cancellation of Sunday's march. "This postponement is a result of international pressure applied by the American government on the Lebanese authorities not to repeat the May 15 rally, which exposed the Zionist entity as a weak entity," the statement read.
Bracing for possible protest The borders were quiet on Saturday, but Israeli security forces were bracing for possible protests.
Lebanese and UN armored personnel carriers patrolled the Lebanon-Israel border and a UN helicopter flew overhead.
Half a dozen Israeli soldiers stopped cars driving toward Majdal Shams, the border village in the Israeli-occupied Golan that became the epicenter of last month's protests after the border breach. Six Israeli police vans and a water cannon were parked in a lot nearby.
Village residents said Israeli tanks had been patrolling the Syrian border for the past two weeks. Since the border breach, the military has fortified the frontier with trenches and minefields. Similar protests turned deadly on May 15 when thousands of Arab protesters mobilized by calls on Facebook surged up to Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in
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an unprecedented wave of demonstrations. Those marches were to commemorate another key anniversary – of Israel's 1948 creation – and sparked clashes that killed at least 15 people.
In the marches in May, hundreds of Palestinians and their supporters poured across the Syrian frontier and staged riots, drawing Israeli accusations that Damascus, and its ally Iran, orchestrated the unrest to shift attention from an uprising back home.
Despite downsizing from 207 hotels to 120 two years ago, Sofitel is currently looking at expanding across the Middle East.
Sofitel vice president Middle East, Africa and Indian Ocean Sami Nasser confirmed: “We are looking all around the region, and I am really pushing to be in Syria when it will be quiet, of course I would also like us to be in Saudi Arabia — you cannot not be in Saudi Arabia.”
“We actually already have one property opened over there, in Al Khobar, which is doing very well but we would like to be in Makkah and also in Riyadh. Then we are looking at Jordan, and further afield South Africa, because that is also my region,” he added.
Sofitel dropped a number of its hotels several years as part of its repositioning into the luxury tier, and Nasser said that all the new hotels would be “new generation Sofitels”.
“We have a target, but we will not just go for things to have them open because we really would like to have the right hotels so we
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have to wait or to provoke the opportunities so that we have the right hotel and the right owner – this is really important,” Nasser concluded.
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The long view in Israel against the 1967 line For decades, Israel's greatest strategic minds have concluded that the Jewish state can safeguard its future only by retaining defensible borders beyond the 1967 line.By Dore GoldLATIMES,June 5, 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent statement that Israel can't defend itself with borders drawn along pre-1967 lines has been questioned in certain foreign policy circles. These critics have noted that Israel successfully fought two wars, in 1956 and in 1967, while based within those borders. And they have claimed that borders don't matter as much in modern warfare. But Netanyahu is right.
The idea that the 1967 line isn't defensible has actually been around for decades. Indeed, the architects of Israel's national security doctrine reached that conclusion soon after the Six-Day War. The main strategic problem that Israel faced at that time was the enormous asymmetry between its small standing army, which needed to be reinforced with a timely reserve mobilization, and the large standing armies of its neighbors, which could form coalitions in times of tension and exploit Israel's narrow geography with overwhelming numbers. True, Israel won in 1967, but the war also pointed out the country's many vulnerabilities.
In the years following the war, the main advocate for creating new boundaries to replace the fragile lines from before 1967 was Yigal Allon, then Israel's deputy prime minister. Allon had considerable military experience, having commanded the Palmach, the elite
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strike units of the Jewish forces, in the 1948 war that created Israel.
In 1976, while serving as foreign minister, Allon wrote an article for Foreign Affairs outlining the strategic logic for his position. He pointed out that the 1967 line was an armistice line from Israel's war of independence and never intended as a final political boundary. Allon quoted the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1967, Arthur Goldberg, who said that the 1967 line was neither secure nor recognized. Given this background, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, backed by both the United States and Britain, only called for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" — but not from "all the territories." The resolution also didn't specify strict adherence to the pre-1967 line, advocating only that "secure and recognized" boundaries be established.
Under the Allon plan, Israel would include much of the Jordan Valley within its border. This area is not within the pre-1967 line, but it is essential to Israel's defense. Because it rises from an area that was roughly 1,200 feet below sea level up a steep incline to mountaintops that are 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea level, it serves as a formidable line of defense that would enable a small Israeli force to hold off much large conventional armies, giving Israel time to mobilize its reserves. Control of the Jordan Valley also allowed Israel to prevent the smuggling of the same kind of weaponry to the West Bank that has been entering the Gaza Strip: rockets, antiaircraft missiles and tons of explosives for terrorist attacks.
Today, it might be argued that after the demise of Saddam Hussein, Israel no longer has to worry about Iraqi expeditionary forces racing across Jordanian territory. Yet Israeli planning for the future cannot be based on a snapshot of reality in 2011. No one can guarantee what the orientation of Iraq will be five years from now: a budding pro-Western democracy or a heavily armed Iranian satellite subverting the security of its neighbors. The
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Saudis, it should be noted, are not taking any chances and are constructing a security fence along the border with Iraq.
Israeli vulnerability has regional implications. Should it become clear that the great Jordan Valley barrier that protected Israel for more than 40 years is no longer in Israeli hands, then the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will become an increasingly attractive forward position for jihadi groups seeking to link up with Hamas to wage war against Israel. In 2007, when Al Qaeda activity in Iraq was at its height, the organization sought to build up a forward position in Irbid, Jordan, to recruit West Bank Palestinians. This effort was scuttled. But if Israel is back on the 1967 line, then the whole dynamic of regional security will change and the internal pressures on Jordan will undoubtedly increase.
Yitzhak Rabin, who promoted the Oslo agreements in 1993, understood better than anyone Israel's strategic dilemmas in the years that followed. In October 1995, one month before he was assassinated, he addressed the Knesset and asked it to ratify the Oslo II interim agreement, which he had just signed at the White House in the presence of President Clinton. In his speech, he laid out how he saw the future borders of Israel. He made clear that Israel would not withdraw to the 1967 line. He insisted on keeping Jerusalem united. And finally, like his mentor Yigal Allon, Rabin stressed that Israel would hold on to the Jordan Valley "in the widest sense of that term."
It is always possible to find Israelis who will say the 1967 line is just fine. But Israel's greatest strategic minds since the Six-Day War have disagreed. They overwhelmingly have concluded that Israel can safeguard its future only if it retains defensible borders, which means redrawing the 1967 line to include parts of the West Bank crucial to the country's survival.
Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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