If even half of this is true, then people need to start being very afraid. (The extended article is highly worth reading).

Rosen is a bit vague, however, on two counts:

1) Fatah al-Islam’s origins.

2) Their continued source of funding.

He seems to concur with Rougier’s analysis that they may have been created (or promoted) by the Syrians in an effort to curb the financing of Sunni militias by KSA and the Future movement. It was the hope of Syria to distract militants from the Hariri funded militias (which were anti-Hizbullah) into a group that was only interested in combating Israel. But, as he says, they quickly got out of hand, such that the Syrians could not control them anymore, nor could the Future movement co-opt them.

So, then, who was funding them?

George Bush said;
1 Israel is jewish state.this implies Arab 48 must leave.
2 palastinians refugee should stay where they are,but compensated.
3 Israel promises a land for the palastinians, but the borders
adjusted as to what Israel wants.
4 nothing about Iraq.
5 threaten Iran, promise to attack Iran.
6 wants the arab gulf state,to give money to american banks, and
sell the oil cheap.
the question; was his trip successful?

There is little doubt that all of these groups in leb are deeply infiltrated by the syrian moukhabarat…and the true qaida attacked all the arab regimes but never attacked the syrian regime,now from time to time the regime kills some of those (jund sham ,ghorabaa…)who were manipulated by its moukhabarat via people like ghul aghasi abu qaaqaa and there must be plenty of others ,as proof that they are also victims of world terrorism.expect more of such attacks in the next days….

I guess Nir read Rougie’s book.

Rougie?
(Sorry this is T- not- (.), but my keyboard is sticking on the period instead of capitalizing properly.)
Who is Rougie- you mean of the Telegraph?
Some of this info is excellently laid out by Brisard in the Zarqawi book as well, if you are willing to sift. Magnus Ranstorp seems quite adamant that Syria didnt arm or finance Fat Islam.
Has anyone followed the outcome of the Majzoub murders? It seems now the espionage ring has been downgraded from triple AAA spy status to a generic “armed gang”.
Has Brammertz looked into this properly?

Feltman voices admiration for friend and foe alike

Daily Star staff
Thursday, January 17, 2008

BEIRUT: Departing US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman has expressed a personal commitment to Lebanon in a way that he described as unprecedented, while also expressing his admiration of the Lebanese people. In an interview with An-Nahar newspaper published Wednesday, Feltman said: “During 22 years of diplomatic work, I have never been impressed by people’s hospitality and friendship as I did in Lebanon.”

“I am not referring to those who share with me the same political opinion, I am even impressed by those who do not do so and who have always received me warmly,” he said. “Speaking of the Lebanese hospitality is a cliche but all diplomats who serve in Lebanon fall in love with this country. You have fascinated us all … Lebanon is a beautiful country.”

Asked about the current situation, the ambassador said that Lebanon was facing “very big” challenges on different levels, particularly the political and economic ones.

“However,” he added, “the Lebanon I am about to leave enjoys an international partnership that is much stronger than ever.”

“Never in the history of this country has the entire world focused on Lebanon as Lebanon,” he added. “In a nutshell, we can say that Lebanon has attracted the world’s attention in a very unique way.”

Feltman said he felt surprised by the extent to which the Lebanese rely on the outside to find solutions.

“I understand this now after I examined a history loaded with foreign interference and after I talked to people here,” he said. “But I have never expected that a certain Lebanese party seeks foreign support to help it against another Lebanese party.”

The ambassador also expressed his surprise over the “impudence” of some parties who ignore or surpass constitutional institutions.

“I do not understand how Parliament can be closed for more than a year, neither do I understand the interest of any party in having the legislature deprived of its characteristic as an arena for discussion over serious issues,” Feltman said.

According to him, the Lebanese leaders he had met with were all “national.”

“I am talking about leaders of different political stands and not only the March 14 Forces. They all honestly believe that they are working in favor of their country,” he said.

“Some of my toughest meetings have been with those accused of being the closest to us,” he added. “They were really tough with me when it comes to Lebanese interests and when they find that the US policy did not serve those interests.”

Asked about his best and worst memories during his three-and-a-half years of diplomatic service in Lebanon, Feltman said the worst were the summer 2006 war as well as the assassinations and assassination attempts.

“One of the greatest memories was seeing the Lebanese all together in the March 14, 2005, revolution,” he said.

As for his future mission, Feltman said he would return to the US State Department in Washington after 15 years of work outside the United States to be David Welch’s first assistant in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

“I am sure this will not please all the Lebanese, but I will continue to work for the US-Lebanese partnership,” the ambassador said.

Tackling his personal life, Feltman said he became a diplomat “coincidentally.”

“I have studied art at first before going into the diplomatic field,” he said. “I felt at the time that I like interacting with others and recognizing their culture. After the end of my art studies, I majored in international relations following my failure in my first admission test to the US State Department.

“Two years later, I sat for the same exam and passed it.”

Israel’s Winemaking Revolution
International consumers used to shun Israeli wines, but Golan Heights Winery managed to create a market for world-class wines — and retool an industry
by Stacy Perman

The Golan Heights Winery vineyards climb from the Sea of Galilee to snow-capped Mount Hermon near Israel’s border with Lebanon and Syria. A picturesque region of rolling hills, waterfalls, and gorges, the Golan Heights is perhaps best known as the contentious area Israel captured from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967—territory still claimed by Syria today.

However, the Golan Heights Winery has added an unexpected business significance to this 460-square-mile rocky plateau. Established in 1983, the winery is credited with remaking the Israeli wine industry and slowly transforming Israel’s reputation as a maker of unexciting, syrupy kosher brands to a producer of world-class, award-winning wines that appeal to sophisticated international consumers.

The state-of-the-art winery, located in the village of Katzrin, is owned by four kibbutzim (collective farms) and four moshavim (cooperative farms) that also maintain its vineyards. A professional management board of directors runs the winery. Its three labels, Yarden, Gamla, and Golan, produce some 17 different varieties and are the most widely exported Israeli wines in the world. In 2007 the winery’s 1,600 acres of vineyards produced 430,000 cases, up from 420,000 in 2006, and generated sales of $30 million. Today, says the head winemaker, California-born Victor Schoenfeld, “We have wine shortages. Our demand outstrips our supply.”

The success of Golan Heights Winery helped open the floodgates for what is known in Israel as the “quality revolution” in Israeli wine, creating a new market and brand identity for the country’s vintages. That helped spur the creation of new wineries as well as to push existing ones to improve the quality of their products. Michal Neeman, director of the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute’s food and beverage division, says of the Golan Heights operation: “Their role was crucial. Everyone agrees that they were the first winery to produce excellent wine. Then came the boutique wineries, then the medium-sized, and then the large ones. There were a lot of other factors as well, but when you pinpoint the revolution, it started at Golan Heights.”

Rising Exports
According to the 2008 edition of Rogov’s Guide to Israel Wines, written by Ha’aretz newspaper wine critic Daniel Rogov, the number of wineries in Israel has grown dramatically, particularly since 2001. In a country about the size of New Jersey, there are now about 130 wineries. Sales of Israeli wines reached about $140 million in 2007. According to the Israel Export Institute, wine exports hit $21 million in 2007, up 42% from 2006.

Winemaking in Israel dates back to biblical times. However, following the rise of Islam in the 7th century, it all but ceased when Muslim leaders banned alcohol. Serious winemaking resumed in 1882, when French philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild began underwriting agricultural settlements in the region with an emphasis on wine growing. In 1906, a collective of grape growers set up what would become the wine cooperative Carmel, for decades the country’s dominant player. The reputation of Israeli wine continued to be linked to kosher vintages mostly used for religious observances.

The turning point came in 1972 when Cornelius Ough, a renowned oenologist from the University of California at Davis, visited and surveyed Israel. He concluded that the Golan Heights was an obvious place to produce high-quality wine because of its volcanic soil, cool climate, altitudes, and water available through drip irrigation systems. Four years later, the area’s first vineyards were planted near El Rom, the site of one of the largest tank battles between Israel and Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In 1983 the Golan Heights Winery was established; it released its first vintages soon after. Almost immediately, Israel proved it was capable of producing world-class labels when the winery’s 1983 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc received the Winarsky Trophy for Best Cabernet Sauvignon Worldwide at the London International Wine & Spirit Competition in 1987. It was the first major prize for an Israeli wine and earned the winery global recognition. A number of awards followed.

High-Tech Vineyards
When Schoenfeld first arrived in 1992, the winery had been employing a rotating crew of experienced winemakers from California. Schoenfeld, a graduate of the viticulture school at UC Davis and a veteran of the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa and the Chateau St. Jean in France, was offered a three-year contract. “I figured that I would stay as long as it was interesting,” he says. “And it never got boring. It was a great stroke of luck to find myself in a situation … to lead a quality revolution, producing good results in a nonproducing area.”

At the time, the winery had only about 300 to 400 acres of vineyards and was producing 150,000 cases of wine a year. Although it had received several awards and the attention of a New York Times wine critic, the reputation of Israeli wines was still less then stellar. Schoenfeld saw the future in producing premium, high-quality wine. It was a radical break from the past.

Says Schoenfeld: “To make low-priced wine you have to be in a country with cheap land and labor costs or have a big size to amortize costs. In Israel we didn’t have any of these things and there was no advantage in producing low quality. If Israel wines were to exist and flourish we would have to go to the quality side of the market.”

Schoenfeld introduced new techniques to Israeli winemaking, such as using pneumatic membrane pressers and computer-controlled cooling of stainless steel tanks. Today, satellite imagery developed by NASA helps determine optimum planting while a network of meteorological stations placed throughout the vineyards along with a system of microsensors attached to the vines collect temperature and humidity readings on a minute-by-minute basis. The winery spends about $3 million to $4 million annually on research and development.

Slow to Sip
Although it was making top-notch wine, the winery still faced a number of challenges before it could improve its reputation and gain market share. Few Israelis were avid consumers of dry, complex wines like those in Italy or France. Initially, “we were producing a product for a market that didn’t yet exist. There was no demand for it,” Schoenfeld says. Although domestic wine consumption has recently increased to about 4 liters per year, it still lags well behind large wine-consuming countries like France, at 60 liters annually, or even the U.S., at 11.7 liters.

Like many successful Israeli businesses, a significant portion of the winery’s sales comes from exports, with North America and Europe accounting for about 20% of sales. But erasing the longtime stigma of poor quality remains a challenge. Israel Export Institute’s Neeman explains that not long ago, “when we would have the discussion with wine sellers, [they] would say they put [Israeli wine] on the shelves on the way to the toilet in their shops.”

The Golan Heights business began to change that perception. It had already earned a kind of mystique among a small group of connoisseurs who had tasted the wine on visits to Israel. The winery worked to sell itself as a brand of high-quality Mediterranean wine to buyers and critics. As its vintages earned a number of prestigious global wine awards and recognition, it rose in stature.

A major push for Golan Heights Winery and Israeli wines in general arrived in December, 2007, when the world’s most influential wine critic, Robert Parker, reviewed Israeli wines for the first time. Of 100 wines, he gave 14 vintages a score of 90 or higher on his 100 point scale (a score of 90 and above is considered world-class). As it happened, six of the best wines and 11 out of the top 14 also happened to be kosher. Golan Heights Winery earned a 93 for its 2005 Yarden Gewürztraminer Heights Wine and a 91 for its 2003 Yarden Katzrin. Mark Squires, who had participated in the tasting with Parker, wrote about it in the Wine Advocate newsletter, declaring, “Israel has a real wine industry that deserves consumer attention.”

Upper Galilee Venture
Of course, there is the possibility that one day the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. While the winery itself can be relocated, the vineyards cannot. Schoenfeld says his strategy is to keep going and making wine. In the mid-1990s, when it appeared that a peace deal was on the radar, the winery forged ahead with a $4.7 million expansion of its vineyards, the winery’s warehouse, as well as construction of a visitors’ center and tasting room. “The fact is the owners of our company have no mandate for us to look for alternatives. Who knows, it could happen in 100 years or in five—nobody knows. … We are not politicians and they don’t ask us our opinions,” says Schoenfeld.

In 2000, however, the winery invested in a joint venture with Kibbutz Yiron in the Upper Galilee to launch Galil Mountain Winery. The move was viewed by some as a potential Plan B should Israel hand over the Golan Heights to Syria. Now Galil Mountain produces nine different varieties and also scored high marks from the Wine Advocate. Last year, the young winery generated $5 million in sales.

Micha Vaadia, Galil Mountain’s head winemaker, remembers when the winery found itself on the front lines in the summer of 2006 during the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Just 200 yards from the southern Lebanese border, Katushya rockets rained down on Galil’s vineyards. Its Syrah crop took a direct hit. Only 12 vines of the 40 hit survived the attack. The area was sealed off by the Israeli Defense Forces and the winery was shut down during the 30 days of fighting that ended just before harvest time. The winery lost about 10% of its production capabilities for the 2006 harvest.

But Vaadia says he found something sadly optimistic about the surviving vines. “It was like they were saying, you do what you want—you fight, you stay, you leave—but I am going to continue living.”

Flip through this slide show for a tour of Golan Heights Winery and Galil Mountain Winery.

Perman is a staff writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.

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Sorry, I meant Bernard RougieR’s book, Everyday Islam.

FACEBOOK Victims in freedom of expression Lebanon

Four University students in Zahle have been arrested by the lebanese mokhabarat because they made fun, in graphic terms, on FACEBOOK of a girl who sang in a party they attended. They are accused of attempt to the public morality.
In Lebanon it seems that the mokhabarat are there to protect public morality not security.

L’orient lejour 17 january 2008
“Une affaire, soulevée ces derniers jours par les associations pour la défense des droits de l’homme, notamment, hier, par l’association Maharat, fait de plus en plus de bruit : quatre étudiants de l’Université Saint-Joseph de Zahlé ont été arrêtés jeudi dernier pour « diffamation ». Motif : ils se sont moqués sur « Facebook », et en des termes franchement vulgaires, d’une jeune fille qui chantait lors d’une soirée à laquelle ils se trouvaient. À la suite d’une demande du père de la jeune fille, un officier des services de renseignements de l’armée, selon les associations qui suivent l’affaire, les quatre jeunes hommes ont été arrêtés et déférés devant le procureur général près la cour d’appel de la Békaa pour « atteinte à la moralité publique ».
Les quatre étudiants ont été maintenus en détention provisoire depuis jeudi dernier, et le juge aurait requis leur incarcération.
L’association Maharat a dénoncé hier le principe de la détention préventive des quatre jeunes hommes, qui est conforme aux lois en vigueur mais constitue une violation flagrante des droits de l’homme et des conventions et pactes internationaux. L’ONG a donc appelé à la libération immédiate des quatre étudiants en vertu de la protection de la liberté d’expression.”

Very good article. He included a lot of information without forcing it into a single narrative. As a result there are some contradictions. One major omission, the al-Zarqawi – al-Absi link and the alleged involvement in the assassination of Laurence Foley in Amman. I feel tempted to add a comment to every paragraph… 😀

Please do, Desco, I’d read it all!

T_Desco

My questions above about the contradictions/ambiguities were indeed directed at none other than YOU. 🙂

Please do explain, if you are so inclined.

Qifa Nabki,

it will require some time to identify the sources of the article and do some fact checking. Rougier and the Saab/Ranstorp article “Fatah al Islam, How an Ambitious Jihadist Project Went Awry” seem to be major sources. However, that article was probably based on “documents obtained from … interrogations of Fatah al Islam members” and it seems that Rosen also had access to the same documents:

“The origins of Fatah al Islam are nebulous, but based on meetings with Palestinian-faction leaders and security officials, as well as documents obtained from their interrogations of Fatah al Islam members, it is now possible to piece together the group’s history.”

Even Rougier does not claim that Fatah al-Islam was “created” by the Syrians and I don’t think that Rosen fully endorses his analysis because he immediately points out the major contradiction in it (without further comment).

Here is the paragraph in question:

“Bernard Rougier suggests that the Syrians wanted to impede the Hariri strategy of controlling and enlarging an Islamist coalition that could be used to fight Hezbollah. To create division in the Hariri ranks, they inserted a Salafi jihadist group who wanted to fight Israel because it would divert Sunni support from Hariri. “Then it took on its own life. It had a magnetic effect on Islamists in the country,” said Rougier. He distinguishes the local agenda, which views the real enemy as Shias, from the jihadist agenda, which “views the real enemy as the West, and Shias are third or lower on the list.” However, Syria’s strategic ally is Hezbollah, and Syria would not introduce anti-Shia and anti-Hezbollah elements into Lebanon.”

(my emphasis)

One could add that the Syrians are probably doing what Rougier describes by putting their support behind Sheikh Fathi Yakan who (in contrast the takfiris in Fatah al-Islam) is acceptable to Hizbullah.

As I said, there are many contradictions in the text, but the following is by far the most important, in my view. It is probably based on the interrogation documents (and also happens to be the main flaw in the Saab/Ranstorp article), the idea that Fatah al-Islam became more radicalized in Nahr al-Bared:

“While Fatah al Islam’s original goals may have been to liberate Palestine, more radical jihadists influenced its leaders, shifting their focus toward global jihad.”

This is in direct contradiction to the following paragraphs:

On November 23 an armed patrol of different faction members was sent to the apartment (in Bedawi; t_d). … The men escaped to the Nahr al Barid camp. The security committee raided the other apartments, but the suspects had already communicated by radio and the others escaped. One Saudi was shot in the leg. When an armed Syrian comrade on a motorcycle attempted to rescue him, he too was shot and both were taken to a camp hospital. The Syrian had documents signed by Shaker al Absi. During interrogations by Palestinian security officials, the two admitted to being members of al Qaeda in Iraq who had come to Lebanon during the July war for training, recruitment, and jihad. Up to eighty men like them had entered Lebanon via Fatah al Intifada. They claimed to have come not to fight Israel but to assassinate seventeen Lebanese officials, including members of parliament, sheikhs, and members of the security forces.

A Fatah al Intifada commander handed the two men to the Lebanese army. Camp officials also found cameras, four computers, and scanners used to make fake identification documents. They found CDs with footage of training and members swearing oaths of loyalty to Osama bin Laden.”

(my emphasis)

You don’t get more radical than this. And it was only three days later, on November 26, that Fatah al-Islam was founded, so this nice story that the group somehow became more radicalized is totally bogus.