It’s funny to see how different views can be on a certain topic. Take Young and Hokayem’s articles vs. Seal’s as an example. Political bias is so evident in all that its safe to say that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

IC,

And only Syria Comment is neutral enough to bring you all those different views!

: )

Can someone explain to me once and for all why:
Peace, he knows, is an essential precondition for the creation of the modern and prosperous Syria he dreams of.

Syria does not need peace with Israel to be prosperous, it only needs to stop being a terrorist state.

AIG,

Israel is by far the number one terrorist state in the neighborhood.

Do you have any other comments?

Alex,
Then why are there sanctions by Europe, the US and your own country on Syria and not on Israel? You can have your opinion but Europe, the US and Canada support my opinion. Iran supports your opinion. Each one of us will keep the company he prefers.

1st off I would like to start out by saying that this was a very informative article, that shows more reality, than the other observations. Patrick Seale is like E.F. Hutton, when he talks about the mid east, everyone listens. Except narrowminded neo-cons, and zionist isrealis.
AnotherIsraeliGuy alls I have been hearing from Damscus the last 8 years, is that it wants peace. Syria has been dealt lemons for the past decade, and sure as the sun will come up tomorrow they will make lemonade all day till the cows come home. It’s war, Isrealis are quick to claim every arab that won’t stand down is a Terrorist. Open your eyes, they are resistence. Fighting for their freedom , and most of all dignity as a people. As fiery as Amedinajad is, he told it like it is, why are the Palestinians paying for Nazi crimes? Why can’t the Isrealies go back to 67 borders? They shouldn’t have bupkiss as your people would say. Terrorist…..70 years ago,the Hegena or whatever, Jewish resistence they did the same kind of shit the arabs are doing today, so weren’t they terrorist. It’s amazing that we all know the givens the tangibles to peace, why can’t the Isrealies do it. Are they fitting their own sterotypes about them? They don’t want to give back anything! They talk about Hamas charter on not recognize the Jewish state. Theordoe Herzel doctrine was the same, but vise-versa. Think about…………………….Sorry I ranted, but AnotherIsraeliGuy your always the 1st person to comment derogatoraly to whatever article praising Syria.

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST! GOD WILLING

Sam,
What freedom is Syria fighting for? The only person keeping the Syrian people not free is Asad. Israel did not put Kilo in jail, Asad did.

As for dignity, where is the dignitiy in being one of the most backward countries in the world? And where is the dignity of manipulating Lebanon and making it suffer for Syria instead of Syria fighting its own fight?

Wake up and understand that the problem is not Israel.

As for the 67 borders, that will not solve the problem. There is the matter of millions of Palestinians that insist on returning to Israel. Let’s solve that issue first, then it makes sense for Israel to compromise about the 67 borders.

For whom it may concern:
When the Mujahdeen were fighting the Russian army they were freedom fighters. When they started killing civillains they became terrorist.

Saddam Hussein saved Assad with his stupid attack of Kuwait. Baker calculated wrongly that he required Syria in the coalition against Saddam and from this came the “respect”. Of course, the Lebanese think Baker was the worst kind of neo-con for he sold their country to Syria for oil.

AIG,

Why did the sanctions of the 80’s lead to Baker and Bush Sr. and Chirac hugging Hafez Assad and giving him all the respect and recognition that he deserved?

Why did Ronald Reagan call the Afghani and Arab Mujahideen “freedom fighters” and now they call them “terrorists”?

Why don’t you want to remember that you have six comments per day exactly because you are back to your old habits of challenging everything every here wants to say and littering the comments section with silly Likud nad AIPAC propaganda?

On that smart note of yours to the sleepy Sam to “wake up” … you have exceeded your six comments … Go to sleep and try harder tomorrow to come up with polite and new comments.

And if you exceed six, I will have to ban you immediately for a whole month.

See what I mean, you people think you run the system.

[deleted by admin]
Sam … the part I deleted was not acceptable.

Sam,

I understand your points, and if you’ve read my comments in the past surely you know how much I agree with. But the minute you start a sentence with “Your race…”, you lose not only the attention of many Israelis who do need to hear your words but, I dare say, also that of many Arabs. If Racism is the subconscious root of our mutual hatred and suspicion (because of decades of brainwashing, on both sides), then it’s high time we uproot and condemn it, don’t you think?

مهارات سوريا وتوازنات المنطقة: هل يغادر اللاعب المصري موقع المتفرّج ؟ … بقلم : مصطفى اللباد

عادت سوريا لتتموضع من جديد في بؤرة المشهد الإقليمي بعد القمة الرباعية التي شهدتها دمشق، وضمت بالإضافة إلى الرئيس السوري كل من أمير قطر ورئيس الوزراء التركي والرئيس الفرنسي. وعكست القمة الرباعية المذكورة الحالة الراهنة في المنطقة، بكل ما تحمله من توازنات إقليمية وتقاطعات في المصالح بين دولها، بعدما كرّست سوريا “رمانة ميزان” القوى الإقليمية المختلفة و”مايسترو الإيقاع” في المشرق العربي. وهكذا لم تظهّر القمة الرباعية الأهمية الاستثنائية للموقع الجغرافي السوري فحسب، باعتباره مفتاحاً رئيسياً للنفاذ إلى معادلات المشرق العربي، بل إنها قامت بتظهير الإفلاس المدوي لما يسمى “محور الاعتدال” في المنطقة. ويقود تقليب النظر في القمة الرباعية أنها تترجم بكامل الدقة التوازنات الإقليمية والدولية، إذ أن مشاركة قطر رئيسة مجلس التعاون الخليجي بتحالفاتها الأميركية وروابطها الإيرانية المعلومة، بالإضافة إلى تركيا الدولة الإقليمية الوازنة بروابطها الأميركية، وفرنسا بثقلها الدولي المعروف، تعني بوضوح أن العزلة العربية والدولية التي فرضت على دمشق، منذ اغتيال رئيس الوزراء اللبناني الأسبق رفيق الحريري، قد أصبحت جزءاً لا يتجزأ من الماضي. كانت سوريا وما زالت جزءاً أساسياً من التصعيد والتهدئة الإقليمية بصفتها واسطة العقد في التحالف الذي تقوده إيران، حيث تنظّم سوريا النفوذ الإيراني في العراق وتربطه بمثيله في لبنان والأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة بكيفية تتسق مع مركزية جغرافيتها في خريطة المنطقة. وبالرغم من تحالفها مع إيران، فقد نجحت دمشق في جمع تناقضات التصادم الإقليمي بين المشروعات المختلفة ووظفته لمصلحتها. ويبدو ذلك واضحاً في تقويم التحالفات السياسية لسوريا في المنطقة مع الدولتين الإقليميتين الأهم: إيران وتركيا، إذ أن سوريا المتحالفة مع إيران ضمن المحور الإيراني – السوري هي في الوقت نفسه الدولة العربية الأقرب إلى المصالح التركية عما سواها. وسوريا المتحالفة مع طهران، والقريبة إلى قلب وعقل أنقرة، هي التي تفاوض تل أبيب الآن، وبشكل يجعل بإمكانها ترجيح كفة مشروعات على أخرى في المنطقة. وهكذا أصبح النظام السياسي السوري، الذي لا يتمتع بإمكانات اقتصادية ومالية خاصة، هو نقطة التوازن لكل القوى غير العربية في المنطقة. وتنجلي قدرات المساومة العالية لسوريا إذا ما عقدت المقارنة بينها وبين مثيلاتها لدى السعودية، حيث لم تستطع الأخيرة برغم الفورة الهائلة في أسعار النفط (أكثر من مليار دولار يومياً) والتحالف الراسخ مع الولايات المتحدة الأميركية، أن تستمر في سياستها الإقليمية المحاصرة لسوريا. وهكذا وبمرور الوقت تفكك الاصطفاف الإقليمي والدولي المواجه لسوريا، حيث اقتربت فرنسا بالأصالة عن نفسها وبالوكالة عن الاتحاد الأوروبي من المواقف السورية وشقت جدار العزلة الدولية التي فرضت على دمشق. يبقى هنا ملاحظة أن دمشق البارعة تكتيكياً والواعية لأهميتها لدى الأطراف الإقليمية المختلفة لم تكتف بمهاراتها العالية في المساومة لتحسين مواقعها السياسية، بل قدّمت بالإضافة إلى ذلك مثالاً عميقاً على استيعابها للغة المصالح وتأثيرها الكبير على السياسة الدولية. وتمثّل ذلك في إبرام دمشق عقود تنقيب عن النفط مع شركة “توتال” النفطية، وهي الشركة العملاقة التي تجسد النواة الصلبة للرأسمالية الصناعية في فرنسا. تختزل الجمهورية العربية السورية في طياتها فسيفساء المشرق العربي، عرقياً وطائفياً، كما تكثف في موقعها الجيوسياسي كل توازناته. حيث تتمثل في سوريا كل الأقليات الدينية والعرقية الموجودة في الشرق الأوسط، وبالتالي لا يبدو صدفة أن تكون سوريا هي لبّ ومحتوى معاهدة سايكس – بيكو، التي رسمت حدود وأقدار المشرق العربي منذ قرن من الزمان، أي منذ العام 1916 وحتى الآن. تمنع سوريا تركيا عن عمق شبه الجزيرة العربية، مثلما تحبس العراق عن شرق المتوسط، وسوريا في الوقت عينه هي متنفس لبنان الجغرافي الذي يعطيه معناه المَدَوي، كما تتجاور سوريا مع فلسطين بحيث تشكل عبر جنوبها الغربي رئتها الجغرافية والتاريخية. ولذلك لا ينطبق حتى مفهوم الدولة – الأمة على الحالة السورية إلا قليلا، بسبب غياب الجذر التاريخي للدولة السورية الحديثة في حدودها الراهنة. وهذه الحقيقة التكوينية ألزمت سوريا تاريخياً بهوية عربية للحفاظ على كيانها المادي المجرد، وبحيث لم تعد العروبة خياراً سياسياً سورياً مقارنة بمصر مثلاً، بقدر ما هي قدر جغرافي وتاريخي. وتقود هذه الحقيقة إلى نتيجة جيوبوليتيكية فائقة الأهمية مفادها أن سوريا كانت ومازالت الرافع الحصري للأدوار الإقليمية في المشرق العربي، وهي نتيجة يمكن التثبت من صوابها بتطبيقها تاريخياً على الأدوار الإقليمية لمصر منذ عصر محمد علي باشا وحتى اليوم.
وفي النهاية واتساقاً مع منطق الأسوياء الذي يقول: شجع اللعبة الحلوة إن كنت لا تلعب!، يقتضي الإنصاف رؤية الدور السوري المجتهد ومهاراته العالية في المناورة على توازنات المنطقة ومداورة أقطابها الإقليمية لتحقيق أهداف الحفاظ على النظام السياسي ومراوغة الضغوط الدولية. ومن يدري فربما يقود استيعاب ما يجري الآن في المنطقة والمساومات الكبرى التي تتربص بها، أن تغادر القاهرة مواقع المتفرجين، لتنخرط من جديد في توزيع أكثر توازناً لأوراق اللعب الإقليمية!

الكاتب : مدير مركز الشرق للدراسات الإقليمية والإستراتيجية – القاهرة

النهار

Shai

In reference to Nour comments and you replies
Whether you want it or not, Israel appears to many arabs as a huge Club-Med of 5 millions foreigners, speaking many languages, except arabic, settled in cozy little houses with gardens surrounded by countries whose main culture and language is arabic. No wonder many feel you are out of place. You remind most arabs of the old colonizers, french and british who built compounds with houses copied on their home countries. When you compare the new housing ( I admit very ugly) of the palestinians with these shiny, cute, california style isreali villages settled in the middle of the west bank, the clash of culture is very obvious. Most Israelis have no real connection to the geography of the area except through the memories of the sacred books, the same way a christians living in europe would have.
Also because of the aggressive nature of the Israeli politics, Israel appears to most arabs as a disturbing and malevolent foreign body. It is sad to say that but it may take decades and radical changes in Israel and the arab countries to make your country accepted as an integral part of the region

Why-Discuss,

I understand what you’re saying. But you must admit, that even to you, Israel is already a fact, for over 60 years now. Accepting Israel as an integral part of the region is, I believe, something that has already taken place amongst most Arabs. “Liking” that fact, or agreeing with it, is another story. Of course most Arabs do not agree with it. I agree that much has to change in my country, before the Arabs “accept us”. The real problem is that we’ve been creating self-fulfilling prophecies throughout the past 60 years. We fear the Arabs want to throw us to the sea, so we protect ourselves. How? By preempting attacks when need be, by occupying (illegally) another people’s land, by suffocating 1.5 million people’s lives. We’re committing crimes against, what most Israelis believe, are criminals (terrorists). It’s an illogical and dangerous cycle, in which the real victims are the poor people in Palestine that can barely place a proper meal on their table each day.

I detest seeing those “shiny, cute, California-style villages” (settlements) in the West Bank no less than you do. I assure you of that. This Occupation, created, encouraged, and supported by every government in Israel, has cost my nation and our society a price that will take decades more to pay back. It has ruined us from within. Many of us have become exactly the people we once hated – bigots and racists. And I do hope we can still change that. The Jewish people have, for most of history, been the oppressed, not the oppressors. The Palestinian people should not have to pay the price for that and, hopefully, soon they won’t.

By please understand that there is also much that needs to be done on “your side”. Perhaps it more in “marketing” to Israelis, but by continuing to support the resistance, and developing military alliances with belligerent (and religious) leaderships that use terminology like “erasing the Zionist entity”, Syria maintains its true, evil image in the eyes of most Israelis. As I’ve mentioned often in the past, since most Israelis have never met an Arab, let alone have a 30 minute conversation with him/her, no empathy or understanding of your side has ever occurred. Most Israelis believe what they’re fed by those with certain interests. In that sense, both our people’s are similar. We must get the Arab world, and Israelis, to interact more. If Israeli journalists were allowed to interview Bashar Assad, or to do a documentary on Syria, and vice-versa with Syrian journalists, or for that matter any other “enemy” Arab country, allowing Israelis in. This could have a tremendous effect. We can’t leave our future and our fate in the hands of a few corrupt politicians. It’s about us, no less than about them.

Why Discuss,
I have a question for you:
Do you accept the “shiny, cute, California-style villages” inside the 67 borders?

Officials: Future of Israel-Syria talks in doubt

Sep. 8, 2008
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was expected to travel to Russia this month to discuss the crisis in the Caucasus and lobby against Russian arms sales to Syria, has cancelled his trip, diplomatic officials said Monday.

While the Prime Minister’s Office never officially confirmed that the trip would take place, it had been tentatively scheduled for September 14.

Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office said the trip was postponed for “logistical reasons,” because no agreeable date was available to both sides.

Diplomatic officials, however, said the trip was not postponed but rather cancelled on Sunday, apparently because of the police recommendation to indict Olmert.

Olmert’s hastily organized trip led to the postponement of a trip opposition head Binyamin Netanyahu had planned to take to Russia on September 11.

Netanyahu, who had planned his trip some three months ago, cancelled when it appeared it would take place right around the same time Olmert was there.

Sources close to Netanyahu said he would expect the “same consideration from the opposition leader when he returns to the Prime Minister’s Office.”

In light of Olmert’s cancellation, diplomatic officials also wondered aloud Monday whether the fifth round of indirect Israeli-Syrian talks, scheduled for Turkey on September 18-19, would indeed take place.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if those talks are also postponed,” one official said, saying that it was quite possible that Syrian President Bashar Assad, aware of the tenuous political situation in Israel, would put everything on hold for now, waiting for a new US Administration.

The official said that Assad already felt he had gained what he wanted from the indirect, Turkish-mediated talks with Israel – namely, an end to his international isolation, something symbolized by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s trip to Damascus last week, and the ensuing “summit” there that included Assad, Sarkozy, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Assad himself said last Thursday that the talks would be postponed, only to be contradicted later that day by Erdogan – who Israeli officials said needs the Turkish involvement in the talks to prove to his countrymen that despite the recent constitutional crisis in Ankara, he is still an important figure on the world stage.

Meanwhile, diplomatic officials said that Israel has not publicly made clear whether it would welcome intensive US involvement in the talks, something Assad said was a condition to moving to direct talks with Israel.

While the US unequivocally denied reports over the weekend that it would send an envoy to the next round of Israeli-Syrian indirect talks, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office would only say that Israel had “no public comment” on the matter.

One diplomatic official said that it was clear to all that there would be no serious negotiations with the Syrians without intensive US involvement, and that Israel’s position on the matter was a good indication of how seriously Israel viewed the talks.

According to one school of thought, US involvement in the talks now – something the US Administration has not given any indication that it was interested in – would tie Olmert’s successor into the talks, because it would be much more difficult for whoever follows Olmert to back away from the talks once Washington had heavily invested in them.

Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1220802288361&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]
Copyright 1995- 2008 The Jerusalem Post – http://www.jpost.com/

Shai

Thank you for the thoughtful notes, it is important for all of us and for many who read these posts to recognize that given appropriate conditions, Israel is not necessarily an existential threat to Arabs. Nor are the Arabs an existential threat to Israel.

However, I would like to add that what needs to be done on both sides is not as simple as marketing our stories to each others. We should both learn to respect human life and dignity. On the Arab’s side this would manifest by democratic reforms and by reduction of corruption that steals human dignity, and by demonstrating a true intolerance to antisemitic sentiments. On your side it would first manifest by abolishing the bully mentality by those making the lives of Palestinians a daily trip to hell due to innate racism or to any other reason and also by demonstrating true intolerance to anti-arab sentiments.

A peace agreement between Syria and Israel is a good start, it would open the doors for us to question any further belligerent fear-based rhetoric, which is a “sin qua non” for demonetization of the other side leading to devaluing human lives, but the longer term regional prosperity will depend on both sides learning to value human life and dignity.

BTW, I love your idea about journalists exchange. I hope it finds traction in both countries.

AIG
I have a an Arab Israeli friend nearing retirement age. can he buy a house in one of these “shiny, cute, California-style villages” within Israel’s actual borders?

A different kind of Editorial from the daily Star!

Lebanon and Syria have vested interests in each other’s success
By The Daily Star

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Editorial

Over the past week, a number of Lebanese politicians have been harping about ominous warning signs emanating from neighboring Syria that seem to indicate that Damascus seeks to resume its security antics in Lebanon. But a much more serious and tangible threat is brewing next door, and the Lebanese will need to act quickly to avert potentially disastrous consequences. Lebanese politicians might be well-intentioned in pointing out the implicit threats made by President Bashar Assad in his recent remarks on Lebanon, but the real danger, to borrow a phrase from a former US president’s election campaign, is the economy, stupid.

Syria’s impending economic crisis is the quiet menace that threatens to seriously destabilize both that country and this one. Despite several daring efforts by Assad’s economic team, the country’s economy is poised on the verge of meltdown, with rapidly declining oil reserves, soaring inflation and a job market that is unable to keep pace with growing demand for employment. Lebanon will not be able to insulate itself against the consequences of economic disaster in Syria, so the two nations share an interest in acting as partners to avert the impending catastrophe.

The only way that the two countries can achieve that is for both of them to act in tandem in turning the tide – both economically in Syria and politically in Lebanon. The Lebanese are well placed to help expand Syria’s job market and build economic partnerships that will attract foreign investment, but they can only do so if and when they get their own house in order. Lebanon cannot act as an equal partner that brings benefits to its friends so long as its state remains so crippled that it continues to flirt with collapse. A state-building mission in Lebanon can be achieved in part through the kind of accommodating stances exhibited by both Future Movement chief MP Saad Hariri and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah over the weekend, when both leaders voiced their firm commitment to dialogue and reconciliation. But it will also require a more helpful stance from the Syrian regime, whose own behavior has proven instrumental in marginalizing – and indeed jeopardizing – the Lebanese state.

The fates of Lebanon and Syria are inextricably linked, and just as the dismal future of one will rub off on the other, so too can both states reap the benefits of mutual success. But this can only come about if both states take the necessary steps to work as equal partners.

Nice photos of Aleppo Suqs

http://blog.livleader.com/photos/aleppo_souq/index.html

((( Sarkozy — a self-declared ‘friend of Israel’– is concerned that time for a regional settlement is running out, in part at least because of Israel’s relentless expansion into Palestinian territory and Iran’s nuclear programme.

According to sources close to him, he is convinced that the creation of a Palestinian state, a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty and a deal with Tehran over its nuclear ambitions are the only guarantees of Israel’s long-term security. Without progress on all three fronts, Israel would, he believes, be condemned to live in a hostile environment for the foreseeable future and have to fight endless wars. Its very existence would then be in danger )))

That is exactly what i have been saying for the last three years ,

Israel should move to have a peace treaty before it is too late and the extremists become more of decision makers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ-9ZjYS74w

Look at this Alex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pf8h-hRVL4&feature=related

Here the Sheikh on Zahi Wehbeh program .RahimuhAllah

“… a trip opposition head Binyamin Netanyahu had planned to take to Russia on September 11.”

Unbelievable, eh? Always easier to sell your anti-Axis rhetoric on a day like 9/11…

OTW,

I of course agree, that much deeper changes need to occur within us. The “marketing” messages I was referring to are mere first steps. They get our attention, they begin to penetrate through our emotional and mental blocks, and they lead (hopefully) to a birth of mutual empathy.

There’s a kibbutz not far from where I live, with about 1400 residents. The kibbutz itself looks nothing like those “shiny, cute, California-style villages” in the West Bank. Out of 1400 people, there is one Arab. He is married to an Israeli woman, and finds himself an outcast in Israeli society. He tells me that he can move back to his village with his wife and now 2 kids, but she doesn’t want to. They can’t really live in any normal town or city, because it would be very difficult for him, and even more so for his children (“… his father is an Arab…”) So they live on the Kibbutz, because it is a little easier there. The kibbutzim have traditionally been much more Left-wing oriented, socialists, etc. They are more “open” to having an Arab amongst them, but that’s not to say he’s being treated, God-forbid, equally. He is now in a super-minority, of one. No “normal” Arab-Israeli would buy a house in an all-Jewish neighborhood.

But don’t worry, AP will soon comment back saying “How many Jews can buy a house in Ramallah?” 🙂 Given the above said, I should have used a 🙁

Shai,
An Arab can buy and many do buy a house in Tel-Aviv or Haifa or Acre or Upper Nazzareth and a few other places and be quite comfortable. Why do you have to exaggerate? What exactly are you trying to show? OTW does not understand Israel and you are not helping him.

Imagine any other country where a minority supported an outside enemy that used suicide killings to murder 1000 civillians. There would have been pogroms. This did not happen in Israel. Imagine if this would have happened in an Arab country. The streets would be flowing with Jewish blood.

if The Jews in the US are treated the way the non Jews are treated in Israel , we would call the US a racist country , it is time for Israel to treat it’s citizens as equal under the law with same obligations and privileges. ABA Eb an once said :: The issue is not if Israel is going to survive , The issue is what kind of Israel is going to survive , A SHAI Israel or an AIG Israel , i hope it is SHAI Israel for the sake of the Jewish people.

OTW, Shai

it is important for all of us and for many who read these posts to recognize that given appropriate conditions, Israel is not necessarily an existential threat to Arabs. Nor are the Arabs an existential threat to Israel.

I agree with you on the existential threat. Yet Israel may be perceived more as a cultural threat to the arabs because its society carries western values that are often contrary to the moslem and traditional values prevailing in the region. We already see the backlash of the western influences carried through TV dishes these days in the arab moslem society: Islamic radicalism, return to family moslem values, the expansion of the use of the veil in most arab countries who were more liberal( Kuwait, Egypt, etc..), growth of internet censorship.
While westernized Arabs may include Israel more easily, I believe the mass (in both countries) may not be able to deal with such cultural and language differences.
There is no magic solution. Only time and economical and cultural synthethis of the two people may bring them closer.

Norman,
If the Jews in the US treated the US as Israeli Arabs treat Israel, they would not be allowed to remain long in the US.

And if your standard is how the US treates minorities, then all the Arab countries are super-racist. Do you accept that?

A Shai Israel will not survive. Therefore your only option is to get used to an AIG Israel. I have a better plan for you. Instead of complaining how bad Israel is, how about making the Arab countries an example for how Israel should behave? The problem is that you do not have self-criticism in your arsenal. It is Israel that has to solve the problems for the Arabs instead of them solving the problems for themselves. Lead by example instead of criticizing.

AIG please qualify your comment: “As for dignity, where is the dignitiy in being one of the most backward countries in the world?”

How exactly is Syria a “backward” country?

In D,

There are many indicators created by by the UN and others. Check the UN development reports:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_20072008_EN_Indicator_tables.pdf

Or:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_per_com_percap-media-personal-computers-per-capita

Or:
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2008/Rankings.pdf

But forget the reports, don’t you agree that a country with 20% adult illiteracy is backward?

No “normal” Arab-Israeli would buy a house in an all-Jewish neighborhood.

Shai,

Where do you live, Umm-al Fahem?

There are PLENTY of Arabs who live in “all-Jewish” neighborhoods.

You kibbutz friend is an example.

Most people feel more comfortable with their own. Yet, Haifa is a great example of a mixed community.

AP will soon comment back saying “How many Jews can buy a house in Ramallah?”

Why bother? What the Arabs do never counts in liberal circles.

I’m sorry for my comments, it was hurtful to many. I let my emotions get the best of me.

Akbar,

I don’t know when was the last time you visited Israel, but there are certainly not “plenty” of Arabs who live in all-Jewish neighborhoods. In fact, there are almost none. Haifa, Jaffa, Ramleh, Lod, etc. are definitely not good examples, because the Arabs there live in their own neighborhoods. With the exception of about one or two settlements inside Israel (small villages) that were created with the sole purpose of enabling peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs, there are basically no Arabs living amongst Jews, or vice versa. Most of my friends have only met Arabs abroad, not even inside Israel, except for the laborers that come to build their houses. Very few Israelis know anything about what an Arab’s life is like, either inside Israel, in the territories occupied by Israel, or in the countries that surround us. We all pretend like we know so much about the “real intentions” of the Arabs, yet we’ve never even sat face-to-face with one.

Your (and AIG’s) attempt to depict Israel as an Arab-loving nation, where Arabs and Jews just intermix freely and happily, and where Arabs are equal citizens to the Jews, is a joke. Even Israelis (in Israel) don’t buy it, certainly the Arabs on SC won’t.

Sam,

We all suffer from innate hatred, anger, fear and suspicion towards one another. Some of it is perfectly legitimate. Other parts are exaggerated. We must be careful, though, not to let it guide us. We must begin to deprogram ourselves, so that we can offer our children a better future. Peace must happen within us no less than on a piece of paper signed by two leaders on a White House lawn. There is no other choice.

SHAI

They are hoping Americans will buy it.

SAM,

Don’t worry about it.

“I’m sorry” is a powerful tool… It works for those who have the strength to use it.

In D.

Check out Syria’s trends on the Human development Index

0.547
0.593
0.628
0.646
0.676
0.690
0.724 (in 2005)

Two more cycles and Syria will go from “Medium”, to “High” ratings.

Similarly, Those who are illiterate among the younger Syrians are about 5% … the 20%+ segment is mostly from older Syrians … those who did not go to school few decades ago.

Newer generations of Syrians are literate enough.

AIG, you have 3 more comments for today.

Alex,

Good to see SC up and alive again. Don’t worry about convincing Americans. If McCain wins, Palin won’t need to be convinced. She already knows what God wants (war in Iraq, etc.) I hope even a few Republicans are quivering when they find out more about Sarah… Can you imagine America, if she should god-forbid become President? Huntington’s clash-of-civilizations could turn out true…

“التغيير” لا تخافه سوريا ولا تعمل له السعودية!

صحيفة النهار اللبنانية – الثلاثاء 09 أيلول/ سبتمبر 2008

سركيس نعوم (sarkis.naoum@annahar.com.lb)

العارفون بالمملكة العربية السعودية من لبنانيين وغير لبنانيين يقرون بعدم ارتياحها الى النظام الحاكم في سوريا وخصوصاً منذ خروجه في رأيها عن سياسة التعاون معها ومع مصر وتحالفه مع الجمهورية الاسلامية الايرانية التي لا تخفي اطماعها الخليجية، ومساهمته مع الاخيرة في تغيير وجه العراق، واظهارها علناً رغبتها في السيطرة نهائياً على لبنان منذ عام 2004. ويعترفون ايضاً بالغضب الشديد الذي سيطر على المسؤولين الكبار في المملكة حيال قادة النظام المذكور سواء لامتناعه عن الوفاء بوعود او لإمعانه في سياسة التحدي. لكنهم يعترفون في الوقت نفسه بان المملكة العربية السعودية هذه لم تصل يوماً الى حد التفكير او التخطيط لاسقاط النظام السوري كما تعتقد مصادر اقليمية مطلعة عادة. وعدم وصول المملكة الى هذا النوع من التفكير يعود الى اسباب كثيرة. منها حرصها على عدم “الدق” بالنظام العربي السائد رغم انزعاجها الشديد من بعض اطرافه. وينبع هذا الحرص من ادراك بان التغيير اذا بدأ لن يقف عند نظام واحد الامر الذي يجعل الجميع في خطر. ومنها ايضاً ان لبنان الساحة الاساسية للصراعات بل للحروب لا يقتصر النفوذ فيه او التدخل على المملكة وحدها. فسوريا اكثر نفوذاً منها فيه لانها على حدوده ولانها ارتبطت بتحالفات مع “شعوب” فيه وحولت هذه الشعوب جيوشاً محترفة صارت هي الدولة بعد انتهاء الحروب عام 1990 ولانها مدعومة من ايران الاسلامية التي قوي نفوذها كثيراً في لبنان. في حين ان من للمملكة نفوذاً عندهم من اللبنانيين على اهميتهم السياسية والديموغرافية لا يتمتعون بالقوة اللازمة لمواجهة سوريا وحلفائها اللبنانيين، الامر الذي يجعلهم عاجزين عن اسقاط نظامها. ومن الاسباب ثالثاً ان المملكة هي حليفة لاميركا واميركا هذه تراجعت من زمان عن تأييد اسقاط النظام السوري، وتبنت بعد تدخل اسرائيل، سياسة المحافظة عليه والضغط عليه في الوقت نفسه لتغيير سلوكه. وكان الدافع الاسرائيلي للتدخل اقتناع بان نظاماً آخر سيكون اسلامياً اصولياً سلفياً عنفياً وتالياً اكثر خطرا على اسرائيل من النظام الحالي. ومن الاسباب رابعاً واخيراً ان اللبنانيين الذين تعتمد عليهم السعودية “للدق” بالنظام السوري هم عرضة ايضاً لنفوذ مصري. فهم كانوا موضع تجاذب مصري – سعودي عندما كانت الرياض والقاهرة على غير وفاق. وكانوا موضع تفاهم مصري – سعودي على دعمهم وحمايتهم عندما كانت هاتان العاصمتان على وفاق كما هي حالهما اليوم.

طبعاً لا يعني ذلك ان المملكة ومعها مصر ستستسلم الى سوريا بشار الاسد وخصوصاً في لبنان حيث المعركة الفعلية بين الفريقين. فهما ستدعمان من يحتاج الى دعمهما لمنع تحولهم مجموعة بلا قيمة ولا نفوذ في بلادهم ولمنع تحول لبنان جزءاً من المحور الاقليمي المعادي والخطر على العرب جميعاً. وقد ينتج من ذلك وفي ظل اصرار سوريا على الاستمرار في سياستها اللبنانية حرب اهلية او مذهبية لن يكون سهلاً على اي فريق حسمها لمصلحته الا اذا حصل تدخل خارجي. وعدم الحسم هنا قد يشكل على المدى الطويل خطراً على النظام السوري وإن من دون ان يكون مقصوداً سواء من السعودية او من مصر.

ماذا عن سوريا؟ وهل تشعر فعلا بالخوف على نظامها من اصوليي سنة لبنان وتحديداً شماله “المدعومين” من المملكة العربية السعودية؟

بداية يجيب العارفون بالنظام الحاكم في سوريا بان السياسة الاميركية في الشرق الاوسط عموماً وخصوصاً في فلسطين والعراق وافغانستان ولبنان وتحول معركتها ضد الارهابيين المسلمين الاصوليين حرباً على الاسلام في نظر المسلمين في صورة عامة أفادا هذا النظام وقوّيا قاعدته الشعبية ووسّعاها بعدما كان مصدر قوته مقتصرا على الاجهزة الامنية والعسكر. انطلاقاً من ذلك يمكن القول ان لا خوف على النظام السوري من اهله او بالاحرى ان الخوف قليل جداً وخصوصاً في ظل ترافق توسع القاعدة الشعبية له مع مواقف اقليمية ودولية رافضة تغييره بل منزعجة من الضغوط التي فرضت عليه الانسحاب من لبنان عام 2005 خوفا من سيطرة “حزب الله” عليه وقد حصل ذلك تقريباً، لكن العارفين يقولون، الى ذلك، ان استمرار قوة نظامها يقتضي محافظته على التقاء المصالح بينه وبين اسرائيل وتعزيز الانفتاح الاوروبي الاخير عليه والافادة من الامرين لتأمين انفتاح اميركا عليه وتسوية الخلافات التي تكاد ان تصبح مستعصية بينه وبين العرب الاخرين وفي مقدمهم مصر والسعودية. ذلك ان المنطقة العربية والاسلامية صارت منقسمة مذهبياً على نحو لا سابق له كما ان تحول هذا الانقسام عنفياً قد يورط الجميع ولا يعود في مقدور احد ان يحمي احداً ويصبح الجميع في خطر اي خطر الحروب الاهلية ذات الطبيعة المذهبية. وهذا امر قد يبدأ قريباً اذا لم يكن بدأ استنادا الى مصادر اقليمية مطلعة وقد يشمل كل مناطق العالم التي فيها مسلمون.

طبعاً لا يرمي هذا الكلام الى “احباط” المحاولة التي يقوم بها زعيم تيار “المستقبل” النائب سعد الحريري لمصالحة المتحاربين “مذهبيا” في طرابلس تجنباً لحرب واسعة في الشمال يظن هو وحلفاؤه ان سوريا تعد لها لاستعادة سيطرتها على البلاد وإن سياسياً او على الاقل لالحاق الهزيمة بهم. فنحن كما اللبنانيون كلهم مع نجاحها. لكن ذلك لا يتحقق الا اذا كان اللبنانيون الاخرون الذين ايدوها صادقين في تأييدهم لها واذا كانت سوريا متخوفة فعلاً من حرب مذهبية او من سيطرة سلفية على شمال لبنان. ويتطلب التأكد من الامرين بعض الوقت وخصوصاً بعدما طالب بعض حلفاء سوريا من الطرابلسيين وعبر التلفزيون الاحد الماضي بأمرين لا يعتبرهما اخصامهم مشجعَيْن. الاول، اعتبار “تيار المستقبل” طرفا في “حرب طرابلس” وليس وسيطاً. والثاني، الطلب من “المستقبل” والسلفيين التراجع عن اتهام سوريا بانها وراء اطلاق الفتنة المذهبية او الحرب في طرابلس والشمال والاصوليين.

I think the writer of the Daily Star article has missed a very important point. As Syria’s economy crumbles, an uprising against the regime which could lead to its downfall becomes more likely. This will solve the political problems of Lebanon and eventually improve the economic situation in Syria. Lebanon has already weathered, with the help of course of its Arab and Western friends, and became accustomed to Syria’s sabotage of the Lebanese State. Therefore, Lebanon must wait out until the Syrian regime falls as a result of economic meltdown. I don’t think that Lebanon’s and Syria’s interests under the current regime can be accommodating. Syria’s current regime perceives Lebanon as a mortal enemy, even more so than Israel, and that’s of course due to Lebanon’s multiethnic composition and its generally liberal lifestyle which is perceive as potentially contagious to Syria. Lebanon has very bad experience with Syrian occupation over 30 years and it is not so simple to overlook.

Shai,
Nobody is trying to depict Israel as a paradise of understanding between Israeli and Arabs. There are plenty of prejudiced people on all sides. But, my family for three generations has been working with Arabs and visiting them and them with us. I served in the army with quite a few Druze and some have become friends. And I am one example of many. Arabs are buying houses and apartments all over Israel. The second intifada hurt badly the relations between Arabs and Jews, but there were very few incidents of violence between the communities.

Alex,
Your analysis of the UN development report is misleading. Syria is falling behind other countries in most technological aspects.

AIG,

Show me a single community in Israel where Jews and Arabs live intermixed, and not in separate neighborhoods. With the exception of Neve Shalom, http://nswas.org/ no Druze, no Christian, and no Muslim Arabs live together with Jews. I also served in the army with a few Druze. When it was time for army leave, they went back to their Druze villages, and I went back to my Jewish city. There are indeed Israelis (myself included) who have Arab friends, who visit them, and who care about one another. But the overwhelming majority of Israelis, do not.

If we regard Arab-Israelis as equal citizens, it is high time we addressed the many problematic issues that exist between us. But we must, as a society, be willing to recognize our own dark sides, and to change them. I’m afraid we’re nowhere near that.

Alex,

I wonder what Palin has to say about today’s ushering of LHC at the CERN research center near Geneva? Probably something like this: “I am proud of the fact that a number of Americans have contributed to this project – what seems to be an amazing achievement that is attempting to reenact those first instants of time, and to explain the origins of the universe and how it came to harbor life, a little less than 6,000 years ago…” 🙂

Those of you with a facebook accounts; check out this group:

McCain/MILF ’08

http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/McCainMILF-08/24095947590?ref=share

Thanks Shebab. It’s hard to get the hatred out, it’s a work in progress. I’m a 1st gen american-syrian. My parents came here to flee the war, 1967 got married and had me. When I was 8 years old I came home from school after a Jewish student brought in dradles to play with. He gave me one, and when I went home and started to play with it, my mom almost had a heart attack. My father gave me the hardest kuff-a-boozay, that I still remember to this day. Ever since, my parents told me they were evil! I know it old school thought. That’s probably why there hasn’t been peace. Us Arabs & Isrealies are real stubborn and arhneed.

WASHINGTON (AFP)–Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday that Iran and Syria – long accused of fueling unrest in Iraq – now pose “no problems.”

“I’m glad to tell you, Mister President, that our relations with our neighbors is improved very well – with Turkey, with Syria, with Iran with the Arab countries,” Talabani said as he met with Bush at the White House.

“We have no problems with any of those countries.”

Very few Israelis know anything about what an Arab’s life is like, either inside Israel, in the territories occupied by Israel, or in the countries that surround us.

Shai,

Bullshit. “Very few?” Give us a number. Three? Three Hundred? Three Thousand? Thrity Thousand?
Once again Shai, you give us the impression you’re special. You aren’t. LOTS of Israelis know Arabs. They work with them every day. And liberals in Israel are a “dime a dozen”. There are scores of NGOs, Israeli peaceniks, yafeh nefesh, B’Tzelem, Peace Now, Seeds of Peace, etc, that meet with LOTS of Israeli Arabs all the time.

According to your “hypothesis”, Israeli-Arabs do not work in Israel or don’t interact with Israelis in business. All Israeli construction workers, automechanics, gardeners, farmers, kibbutz employees, restaurant owners, waiters, doctors, lawyers must be jewish. Nor do Arab-Israelis (according to your hypothesis) attend Israeli colleges or universities. Sure, relations are tense as each community fears the other, but for all the wars Israel has had to fight, the situation would be a LOT worse in any other part of the world.

While among Arab men the employment is on par with Jewish men – only 17% of Arab women work. This puts the Arab employment at 68% of the Israeli average. Druze and Christian groups have much higher participation than Muslims.[170]

A poll published in the Nazareth-based Arabic newspaper A-Sinara in 2007, reported that the majority (78%) of Arab citizens of Israel would prefer to remain under Israeli rule rather than move to a future State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel#Current_economic_situation

Alex,

Did Iraqi President Jalal Talabani tell U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday that he wanted Saddam Hussein back as President of Iraq?

My father gave me the hardest kuff-a-boozay, that I still remember to this day. Ever since, my parents told me they were evil! I know it old school thought. That’s probably why there hasn’t been peace. Us Arabs & Isrealies are real stubborn and arhneed.

Sam,

Your parents told you that Jews were evil? You don’t say? This will come as shock to our resident Israeli angel Shai.

http://images.ewins.com/digital_asset_manager/image_resize.php?vi=842310&mdx=600

This is an old photo from Bonfils collection(arround 1860) and in french we can read “couloir dans une cour de maison juive” ,i have many photos of jewish mansions in the syrian cities(and other centers of the Muslim world) like this.
The photo above show what will become later Maktab Anbar ,the famous school.You can notice ,in this great house ,an heavy influence of the Art of Al Andalus.

This old picture says a lot on the quality of life of the jewish inhabitants in the Islamic and Arab world…

The man who destroyed this friendship ,is the Hungarian journalist Theodor Benjamin Ze ev Herzl and followers,Ben Gurion and co.

In some way there is an alliance between our dictators and the governments of Israel both need each others to justify their survival.And a dictator like Hafez Asad would not have been president without the israeli pretext.
Anyway,the first thing that Israel must do after the arab world democratization ,is to destroy its nuclear arsenal which pose a threat for both people ,Israelis and Arabs,then the state of Israel will be integrated in the Arab body,and will change our ideals from an ideal of nationalism to an ideal of co existence,mutual respects and tolerance,then will begin this era of co existence as it existed in Andalusia ,from wich are originate some of the most important figures of the Jewish culture,Jewish philosophers and theologians.
Jews and Arabs are in fact cousins and Inshallah we will be brothers.But before this we should abandon these ideologies who belong to an another era.
If Zionism means the right of Jews to live in Palestine ,i say welcome to all of them in your and our land but not at the expense of an another people.For Jews ,this land between Nil and Furat rivers are sacred ,so there is enough place for all of them.100 esalameh.
But if Zionism remains prisoner,of its original concept a political ideal related to the philosophical and political views from 19th century which produced National Socialisme ,Fascism ,Marxism and also Zionism and even Arab nationalism ,we will remain at war and this is whatever the Arab regime is ,even after Peace between Syria and Israel and after democratization of the Arab world.
The only solution in my eyes ,it’s a full integration of Israel in the Arabic and Muslim middle eastern body.

QN,

How come things like these take place in Lebanon less than one week of your arrival,

I hope they do not blame it on you,

Police: Bomb kills Lebanese politician
By SAM F. GHATTAS Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Sept. 10, 2008, 7:13PM
Comments Recommend Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzBEIRUT, Lebanon — A bomb tore through a car in the hills east of Lebanon’s capital on Wednesday, killing a Druse politician who recently helped reconcile rival factions within that minority community, police said.

The bomb that killed Sheik Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratic Party, was planted under his car in the village of Baissour, police said.

It was the first political assassination in about a year in Lebanon and came less than a week before planned reconciliation talks among rival Lebanese factions. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora contacted Druse leaders and joined them in calling for calm.

Six other people were injured in the blast, which went off as Aridi got into his Mercedes sedan in front of his house in the Druse-populated hills near the resort town of Aley, police said. Police said the charge was stuck under the body of car, below the driver’s seat, and blew up as the car rolled. Officials believe it was triggered either by remote control or by a motion sensor.

The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of government regulations.

The bomb tore off the roof of the vehicle. Television footage showed investigators sifting through the blackened hulk of the vehicle with flashlights.

The United States was “deeply concerned” about the bombing and its support of the Lebanese government was “unwavering,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The bomb’s target was unusual — a politician in support of Syria, a nation that had long dominated its politically fractured neighbor. A string of bombs have largely targeted politicians opposed to Syria’s influence in Lebanese affairs, starting with the Beirut truck bombing that killed former Premier Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Those attacks were blamed by many on Syria, though it has denied involvement.

Lebanon’s political standoff between pro- and anti-Syrian factions boiled over into fighting in Beirut and the Druse hills east of the capital in May.

During those clashes, Shiite fighters of the Syrian-backed Hezbollah overran Sunni pro-government strongholds and fought an anti-Syrian Druse faction in the region where the bomb went off Wednesday. An Arab-brokered agreement defused the tension, leading to the election of a new president and the formation of a national unity Cabinet that included the two major blocs.

Nazih Abu Ibrahim, a colleague of Aridi in the party’s political bureau, said the aim of the assassination was to rekindle violence between rivals in the Druse-inhabited mountains. The area is controlled by two main Druse factions, the Lebanese Democratic Party led by Talal Arsalan and the Progressive Socialist Party of Walid Jumblatt.

“It was a bloody message,” Abu Ibrahim said on Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, noting the conciliatory atmosphere in recent weeks prompted party officials to relax their security measures.

In addition to the rivalry over control of the Druse community, the two parties are also on opposite sides of the divide over Syria. Arsalan is allied with the Syrian-backed Hezbollah and Jumblatt is a prominent leader of the anti-Syrian camp.

Since the May fighting, the two leaders reconciled. Aridi was a key liaison between the two sides and helped mediate an end to the fighting between Hezbollah and Jumblatt’s men in the region around his hometown.

The Druse are a secretive offshoot Islamic sect with communities in Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Jumblatt went to the village after the explosion to express solidarity and attempt to defuse tensions. He said whoever was behind the bombing did not like the conciliatory air among political factions nationwide in recent weeks.

Arsalan was out of the country. His deputy, Ziad Choueiri, said the attack aimed at undermining security. “Stability and civil peace are red lines. We will not allow them to be crossed,” he said on al-Jadeed TV from the scene.

The bombing came amid efforts to cement reconciliation among the factions and defuse sectarian tensions. In addition to next week’s conference called for by the president, Sunni and Alawite factions in Tripoli reached a truce and entrusted security in the city to the Lebanese army.

The last high-profile political assassination was of an anti-Syrian legislator a year ago in another Beirut suburb.

One of the deadliest bombings in Lebanon in the last three years occurred on Aug. 13, when a roadside bomb exploded near a bus in the northern port city of Tripoli, a Sunni stronghold, killing 18 soldiers and civilians.

Israel wants more indirect Syria talks

Sep. 10, 2008
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST
Israel wants a fifth round of indirect talks with Syria in Turkey, senior diplomatic officials said Wednesday, amid reports that the Syrians would prefer to postpone further negotiations until the spring, after the US election and the establishment of a new government in Jerusalem.

The United Arab Emirates newspaper Al-Khaleej on Wednesday quoted Syrian sources saying the indirect talks had run their course, and that a fifth round would not be necessary.

The report came a week after Syrian President Bashar Assad spoke of freezing the talks. Last Thursday Assad said they would be postponed because of the resignation of Yoram Turbowicz, the head of the Israeli negotiating team, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s chief-of-staff.

“The resignation of the chief Israeli negotiator led to the postponement of this round, which would have defined the course of these negotiations,” Assad said at the time.

Turbowicz, who headed the Israeli delegation, quit his post as Olmert’s chief-of-staff in the beginning of August, just after Olmert announced his intention to resign following the Kadima primary.

Olmert asked Turbowicz to stay on and continue heading the talks with Syria. The legal aspects of Turbowicz working as a volunteer, or setting up a new framework for him in the Prime Minister’s Office, are being dealt with by the attorney-general.

A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday that the matter had still not been resolved.

Turkish sources, meanwhile, said Ankara was still trying to fix a date for the negotiations. Last Thursday in Damascus, visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan contradicted Assad’s announcement that the talks had been postponed, and said they were set for September 18-19 in Turkey.

Neither side, however, has confirmed this date, according to the sources.

Diplomatic officials said it was unlikely the negotiations would be held on that date, a day after the Kadima primary, and that the Syrians would want to know whether the Israeli delegation – if Turbowicz was allowed to lead it by then – had the blessing of the next Kadima chairman.

Both Livni and Mofaz, the top contenders in the primary, have expressed reservations about pursuing the Syrian track at this time.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1221034879237&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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Copyright 1995- 2008 The Jerusalem Post – http://www.jpost.com/

Akbar Palace,

For someone who doesn’t live here, you sure have a lot of Chutzpah claiming to know better about Israelis, and how many do or do not know about Arabs. The fact that you’ve heard about Arabs working in Israel (probably never met one yourself) is not enough to suggest there is any kind of real mixing between the peoples. In car garages, in teams of gardeners, in construction staff, there are Arabs. How many of them go out with Jews in the evening? How many of them are invited to have dinner with Jews? How many of them have Jewish friends? Don’t do any guessing from your home in Bushland, speak to an Arab-Israeli one day, and find out. When I say “very few”, I don’t mean 3 or 30, or even 300. But I do mean that a very tiny percentage of Arabs interacts socially with Jews.

In the same breathe, you say: “Sure, relations are tense as each community fears the other, but for all the wars Israel has had to fight, the situation would be a LOT worse in any other part of the world.”

So there is some shred of knowledge in you, and indeed relations are tense, and indeed each community fears the other. Which is precisely why, Akbar Palace, Arabs and Jews hardly mix. Of course Arabs do much of the hard labor work in Israel. The average Arab probably earns 50% of the average Jewish Israeli, because of the professions they are generally in. And in those professions, the Jew is usually the boss, or the client. True, there are also Arab lawyers, and doctors, and teachers, and massage therapists in fancy spas. But VERY few still interact socially with Jews. Do you need to hear it again, or do you think you can take my “liberal” word for it?

But there is certainly truth in what you say about the so-called “liberal” movements in Israel. They do interact with Arabs. They do care about Arabs much more. But do I need to tell you how many Israelis belong to these groups? How many do you think? 20,000? 30,000? 70,000? Heck, let’s even say 140,000 people work in such organizations (probably a tenfold exaggeration). So that constitutes 2% of the State of Israel. Would you call that “few”, “very few”, or “very very few”? What percentage of 7,000,000 citizens would you call “not few”?

Please try harder to refrain from labeling me “resident Israeli angel”. It paints a slight aura of closed-mindedness around you. You had better get used to hearing opinions that may differ greatly from yours, especially from people who might be a little “closer” to a particular field than you are. If you’re really brave, you might even consider accepting some, every so often.

Shai,
I see you are back to patronizing. You have no problem accepting the opinons of Syrians living in Montreal (which part of Syria is that?) but AP’s opinions formed based on living in Israel for quite a few years are not relevant. Yeah, right.

I think the label “resident Israeli angel” is quite fitting. That you reject it shows how that you occasionaly lapse into states where your self-awareness is not as high as it could be. Reflect on what you write and you will see that AP could not have been more accurate.

Dearest AIG,

Since you too are in the business of labeling, if anything, you should refer to me as the “resident Israeli devil”. After all, unlike you, I’m actually capable of painting a slightly more horrific picture of Israel… aren’t I?

Unlike AP, Alex tends to give great credit to Syrians living in Syria, even when their opinion differs from his.

And yet, despite my endless harsh criticism of my own nation, and my own people, I’m still here. Go figure…

You know, slavery in America didn’t end because of Americans who kept yelling how great America was, and suggesting that slavery was worse in other nations. It ended, with patriotic Americans (living in America), who kept yelling “This is WRONG!” Capiche?

Dear Shai Ha’malach,
Let me explain this slowly. AP is saying that you portray yourself as Mother Theressa compared to the other Israelis on this blog. We are the devils. That is ok. We can live with that. It seems you have a problem with it. And of course you can make Israel as horrible as you like. Go for it.

What you say about Alex is not accurate, but we are talking about you not him. You believe Alex even though he lives in Montreal.

Slavery is a nice example but judging by what you have written so far on this blog, your position would have been in 1861 had you been an American the following: Let’s not go to war with the South. We cannot know better than them what is good for them and we need to let them change by themselves, not force change on them by war. And, we will save ourselves a vicious war in which hundreds of thousands will die. In fact, let’s legitimize the South by making peace with it and recognizing it.

After all, this is your position regarding democracy in Syria right now. No? So why would your position on slavery be different?

AIG,

I have no problem whatsoever with your views. You are not the only Israeli who is doing nothing to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although you ARE the first Israeli I ever heard, who required “Democracy-First” before peace. That doesn’t bother me, it entertains me. It is a shame, actually, that you are plainly incapable of feeling any empathy whatsoever towards “your enemy”, even when he resides in Montreal.

AIG,

You make me laugh. Slavery in America was supposed to connote Occupation in Palestine! And to end it, Israelis should not be telling everyone how wonderful Israel is, and how the Arabs are suffering elsewhere much worse than the Palestinians. They should be fighting to end the Occupation. Now do you get it? Since we are nearing the equivalent of 1861, where the Occupation truly is dividing Israel in two, I certainly hope the Settlers and their supporters (like yourself and AP) aren’t preparing their Jefferson Davis…

Yalla, I now have to go, and your 4 comments/day are about to run out… Keep up the non-angel image.

Shai,
Your problem is that you do not understand who your enemy is. I have the utmost empathy towards my “enemies”. I would rather die than not live in a democracy. Just to make things clear, my enemies are only the Syrian regime.

And the analogy Shai is between slavery and democracy. In fact the South claimed that the North was de facto occupying it because the North could force laws on the South and that is why they wanted to leave the union. I would have said slavery is worth fighting a war over, just as I am saying today that insisting on democracy is a reason not to make peace. But you on the other hand, are not willing to sacrifice for any ideals and would have been arguing against Lincoln and against the war and for recognizing the South and making them change their minds in “soft” ways. Lincoln was the father of all “neo-cons”.

And thank you for reminding me of my daily limit. After all, shutting someone up is easier than answering their arguments.

AIG,

Your daily limit is not intended to shut you up so far you used three out of your six daily comments, you still have three more …

It is intended to save this blog from your persistent attacks on anyone you are on a crusade against. If you had no limit, then you would go on and on replying to Shai until there are 20 comments that most readers do not want to read anymore.

Stopping your discussion with Shai at this point is optimal. I read it, and I found it interesting. But ten more comments would have been boring.

The kind of exchange that should be done by email between you and Shai … imagine you are at a dinner with many people and you would not stop talking

I’m sure you understand… or at least i hope you do.

Your enemy is not only the Syrian regime, but it is all the Syrians who are OK with the Syrian regime … that includes a majority of Syrians who decided to tolerate or even like the Syrian regime for its success in preserving Syria’s stability and Syria’s strength and dignity (perception, or reality)

This is how a majority of Syrians perceive things, and this is the compromise that THEY decided to make about their government. They know it is certainly not perfect … they hate the corruption and lack of freedom of political activism. But it is a compromise they went for.

Revolutions against dictatorships happened in many parts of the world … in 2005 the Lebanese people revolted against the Syrian army presence in their country forcing the regime to withdraw quickly. The Syrian people are capable of producing a revolution … when they want to, not when some AIG yells louder and louder at them.

Why don’t you go into people’s homes and tell women to divorce their Arab husbands who are monopolizing decision making in their homes at the expense of those women’s democratic rights? … this happens in many, if not in most, Middle Eastern homes.

It is not your business WHEN Syrians will move their attention from their current priorities to “democracy” … it is not America’s business, and it is not Saudi Arabia’s business.

Just like it is not my business to tell Israelis who to vote for, even though I have my favorite candidate (Livni).

Fairouz in Palmyra

فيروز تحيي صح النوم في تدمر
– 10/09/2008

خاص (كلنا شركاء) – دمشق: 10/9/2008

علمت كلنا شركاء أن الأمانة العامة لاحتفالية دمشق عاصمة للثقافة العربية وصلت إلى اتفاق مع السيدة فيروز لإعادة عرض مسرحية صح النوم في مدينة تدمر وذلك في ثلاث عروض أيام 16-17-18 /تشرين أول القادم، وسيتم تحديد أسعار البطاقات في وقت لاحق.
يذكر أن السيدة فيروز قدمت مسرحية صح النوم في دار الأوبرا في دمشق في 28 /1/2008 وكانت محدودية أماكن الحضور (1200 مشاهد ) إحدى المشكلات التي عانى منها جمهور فيروز الكبير نسبياً في سورية إضافةً لارتفاع ثمن التذاكر .

And a Syrian movie about Mandeans!

مخرج سوري يستعد لبدء تصوير فيلم عن الصابئة
– 10/09/2008

قال المخرج السوري نبيل المالح إنه يستعد للبدء في تصوير فيلم سينمائي عن طائفة الصابئة.
وأضاف المالح، في تصريح خاص لوكالة الأنباء الالمانية (د.ب.ا)، أنه وضع فكرة وسيناريو الفيلم وسيقوم بإخراجه عن هذه الطائفة التي تشكل أقلية في العراق وإيران وسوريا.
وأشار إلى أن المفكر والباحث السوري المعروف فراس السواح أعد المادة التاريخية عن طائفة الصابئة، موضحاً أن الفكرة بدأ العمل بها منذ أكثر من ستة أشهر حيث قابل عدداً من الشخصيات المعروفة في هذه الطائفة.
وأكدً أن آلافاً من أبناء تلك الطائفة تمّ تهجيرهم من العراق منذ الغزو عام 2003 وحتى الآن، مشيراً إلى أن نحو خمسة آلاف منهم يوجدون في سوريا ولديهم عاداتهم وطقوسهم الدينية الخاصة كما أن لديهم ملابسهم الخاصة يرتدونها في المناسبات الاجتماعية مثل الأعراس.
وأضاف المالح أن حوالي 17 ألفا من الصابئة يعيشون في السويد حالياً ومثل هذا العدد أيضاً في أستراليا.
وقال إنه بعد أن قابل العشرات منهم وجد أن هناك تشابهاً كبيرا بينهم وبين السوريين في بعض العادات الاجتماعية والتفكير تجاه بعض القضايا أيضاً، حسب وصفه.
ونقل المالح عن شخصيات بارزة من الصابئة قابلهم قولهم إن عددهم حول العالم يبلغ حوالي مئة ألف شخص وأنهم “في السنوات الأخيرة وبعد الحرب على العراق تعرضوا إلى ما يشبه الإبادة الجماعية على أيادي مختلف التنظيمات الإرهابية “.
وقال المخرج السوري إن بين الصابئة المقيمين في سوريا نسبة عالية من الحاصلين على شهادات جامعية ومن المثقفين.

جوني عبو : وكالة الأنباء الألمانية ( د ب أ )

AIG, boy, I am so glad to hear you make an AS* of yourself… it makes my morning.
“Lincoln is the father of all Neo-cons” I love the irony.

Actually, Lincoln clearly said in his quoted writings that he would have allowed slavery to continue if it would have kept the union together.
Lincoln was a complete compromiser in the sense that he was elected through a coalition of interests, Northern business and abolitionists among them. He was most interested in keeping the union TOGETHER, and asserting federalism over states’ rights, which is essentially what the civil war was about, not slavery per se.

That’s why i love it when Republicans throw out this ignorant statement about how they, are the “party of Lincoln” … it is the biggest ironic joke, when they also reveal their complete ineptitude regarding American history.

anyhow, Lincoln’s insistence on keeping the union together reminds me most of… ? hmmm… let me see… I think it is how certain other leaders and people put stability and keeping their country together… above all other concerns.

You are so full of it, AIG. Your analogies require great distortions of reality and history. You don’t actually know your American history even, never mind a damn thing about the countries surrounding Israel.

Ammo Norman,

I’m writing you from jail. Thanks for tipping off the police.

I don’t know if anyone else has read this, but it is smart and often hilarious reading from (gasp!) The Economist.

Sorry for the long cut and paste, but I fear that it won’t be on the website for long.

Enjoy…

Long division
Sep 11th 2008
From Economist.com

Monday

THE bus from Damascus crawls through traffic down Mount Lebanon. The passengers—guest-workers returning from Syria after the weekend, mothers smiling through their veils at children happy to be returning—gather their belongings. The eight year-old sitting next to me begins to shout “Beirut!”

Through the window I see the city spread out against the sea (pictured below). This view suddenly brings Lebanon’s recent history into focus. From my perspective (which is also that of an invading army), I can make out dense urban life, towers and wealthy suburbs. This is not the battle-scarred wasteland I imagined; this is a prize worth fighting for.

The drive to the centre provides me with my first lesson in Lebanese politics. The apartment blocks rise one over the other. Some are brand-new and shining; others remain scarred by damage from the civil war. Vegetation is as ubiquitous as political posters.

There is no obvious racial divide between the Lebanese sects, but the faces on the walls show who owns what. Faded images of Bashir Gemayel, a former president of Lebanon who led Christian militias during the long civil war, adorn buildings in Christian areas. Graphed “ticks” mark out areas dominated by Michel Aoun, a Christian ally of Hizbullah, and his Free Patriotic Movement. As you move into Shia areas, large murals of Hizbullah fighters festoon buildings from which Iranian flags fly, and Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah’s leader, glares down from countless posters.

I follow the moustache of the assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the pin-up of choice of the Sunni community and icon of the Future Movement, which is today led by his son Saad. There are no obvious front-lines; posters and flags just fade out into different neighbourhoods. They lead me to Hamra, the heart of Sunni West Beirut and the scene of street fighting this May when Hizbullah seized most the city.

On Sadat Street I sit down for a late-afternoon shisha with Tarik. His eyes never stop moving. He is permanently alert. In his early twenties, the recent violence has taken him from his former concerns. He speaks with the urgency of one still shocked.

“When they came, the Hizbullah and their allies, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, we took out our private weapons. My father passed me one of the guns he’s used in the civil war and we defended ourselves. I shot. I do not know if I killed. I just fired.”

I ask him if he knew anybody who got killed. “Yes. My cousin. Ziad Ghalayini.” He points to a massive poster of a teenage boy standing in front of Beirut’s famous Pigeon Rocks wearing a T-shirt that reads “Still Virgin” and a nice smile. He continues. “He died in my arms. They shot him when he was on his moped trying to come home. I’ll introduce you to his father.”

Over the road is the Ghalayini family bakery. The boy’s father is listening to the Koran on tape when I come in. A veiled women in mourning brushes past me clutching flowers. “That’s my wife. Those are for the cemetery,” Ramadan Ghalayini announces. When I ask him who killed his son he has a one word answer for me: “Shia.”

Over the road, the pharmacist tries to explain her neighbourhood to me. “You know, there is peace now in Lebanon. Just politics. But people died. And people remember.”

Tuesday

IN THE evening, I drive south into Dahiya. Beirut’s main division these days is less between Christian east and Muslim west than between the poor and mainly Shia south and the wealthier northern districts.

There are no obvious frontiers. The buildings just get closer together, dirtier and more dilapidated, and the electric wiring starts to become visible. Piles of rubble from the 2006 Israeli attacks are left seemingly untouched. Large posters announce “We will build it better than before.” Placards bearing the faces of stern Hizbullah martyrs adorn the lamp-posts.

I stop for a kebab outside the Assaha Traditional Village. Anas, my taxi driver, wants to show me around a bit. He points at the large and modern Rasoul al Aazam hospital across the road and then to the Iranian flags hanging from buildings.

“Thank you, Iran,” he announces. “Hassan Nasrallah is my protector. My brother died fighting Israel when we defeated them for the first time in 2006. I am proud of Hizbullah,” he says. Then he turns and points to the kebab shop. “This is Hassan’s favourite restaurant. We organise secret deliveries.” I’m not sure whether he’s joking.

The Assaha Traditional Village is a complex built to look like a medieval Arab castle. It contains a museum, bookshops, a pricey restaurant and a number of expensive shops selling jewellery and trinkets, including Hizbullah clocks, flags and refrigerator magnets.

The centre is associated with the charitable foundation of the Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah and financed by his supporters. Mr Fadlallah is one of the spiritual guides of Lebanese Shia. He played a key role in giving the community the necessary drive and convictions to overcome its traditional place at the bottom of Lebanon’s sectarian hierarchy, and was a key force behind Hizbullah.

For dinner I meet Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese political analyst who represents his country at Chatham House, a prestigious British think-tank. I am shocked to discover that in the middle of poor south Beirut, a stylish restaurant complete with a courtyard and fountains, is filled.

Mr Shehadi points out the extreme variety of clothing. “As you can see, the families eating here do not all dress in the same manner. Some men have full beards and their wives are wearing a chador; this means they will be following a more conservative spiritual guide. Others may simply be veiled and their husbands clean shaven. There may even be a secular member of the family or a nationalist.” My impression of Lebanese Shia as uniformly poor and religious are overturned; Beirut, it appears, is a city of facades.

“It’s such a pity we can’t have a glass of arak with such a good meal,” Mr Shehadi jokes before the conversation turns to politics. I ask if the coalition that comprised the previous government was defeated when the Hizbullah-led opposition forced its way into government after May’s fighting. “No, that’s the wrong way to see it. Imagine you and your opponent are 18th century English gentlemen, and he challenges you to a duel. Now imagine he challenges you at a moment you are certain to lose, in a place that will defeat you and with a weapon you cannot match. If you manage to change the time, place and weapon with which the duel is fought and live with your honour intact, then you have won the duel.”

Mr Shehadi believes that because the previous coalition managed, through clever manoeuvring and intelligent politics, to transfer Hizbullah’s challenge from street fights to negotiations in Doha, it transformed the situation from an unwinnable military confrontation into a potentially advantageous political one. He gestures to the happily dining families at the tables that surround us. “What I need to stress,” he says, “is the banality of Lebanon right now.”

Wednesday

TODAY I am having lunch with the Lebanese Forces (LF). During the civil war, Lebanon divided into sectarian mini-states. Then it split up along militia lines. Today most of the political parties are the children of these armed factions, and the LF are no exception.

They were once a feared Christian militia. Then they were banned during the Syrian occupation that followed the conflict, and their leader, Samir Geagea, was imprisoned for 11 years in a windowless cell under the ministry of defence. Now they stand for the right-wing and frightened among Lebanon’s Christians.

Nady Ghosn, the party’s spokesman, has come to pick me up in his car. He has a thick moustache, an addiction to Marlboro Reds, gold-rimmed Aviator glasses and a neatly ironed pink shirt. He appears straight out of the early 1970s, when Lebanon’s Christians were still on top.

On the road to his neighbourhood, I notice something about the sprawl. In Beirut people live on top of each other. The mountains above the city are covered in smart villas that slope down into tenement towers and a slumland of concrete blocks, cramped flats and problems. You can tell a poor area because children play in the streets, and the buildings are still peppered by bullet holes.

We draw into Ayn ar-Rummanah. Mr Ghosn points out the local sites. He speaks slowly, precisely. “Here is where the civil war began with the shooting up of a Palestinian bus.” Tacky plastic Madonnas are stuck onto buildings, and blood-red crosses painted on every wall. The cross is staked at the bottom, to show that it is driven into Lebanese soil. This is the symbol of Mr Geagea’s movement.

We park outside the local LF headquarters. On top of the buildings are two immense crosses. There is an urgency to Christianity here; I feel as if Christ died a few weeks ago and the word is spreading.

“This is the border.” A tattooed man guarding the door points to the end of the street. A giant wall painting of Nabih Berry, the Shia speaker of Parliament and an ally of Hizbullah, stares back at me. We can hear the call to prayer. “There are the Shia.”

Inside the headquarters I am led to a small tiled room. Turkish coffee is poured and a group of young men sit nervously around me. Mr Ghosn begins to speak. “People are becoming more religious. This is our 43rd year of troubles, destabilisation and war. Faith is what they are turning to.” Is the increased religiosity of the Lebanese Christians a marker of their decline from being a dominant group to an insecure one?

The walls are covered in stickers depicting Bashir Gemayel, posters of Mr Geagea and in the corner what looks like a little nativity crib made up of stones with stickers of yesterday’s warlords on them. “Are you a nostalgic movement?” I asked, a bit presumptuously.

“No. We’re proud. We are focusing on the elections. On mobilisation.”

It seems the chief spokesman is busy, so Jean Tawanil, a regular LF supporter, takes me for lunch in the local restaurant. The classic Lebanese spread is laid on: hummus, kebabs, fatoush salad, kibbe balls and spicy beef sausages. Jean smokes a water pipe.

Lebanese food is almost never bad, but the conversation makes for a strange meal. At one moment my companion is laughing about how he doesn’t like the dirty, stupid, smelly Shia Muslims who live over the road. Ten minutes later he is earnestly telling me how he has many good friends among them and it’s only the leadership he doesn’t like.

He begins what seems like a rant against Israel, which ends up with him announcing his respect for the Israeli army and how he expects Israeli troops to be operating in Beirut very shortly. His frequent toilet breaks allow me to gather my thoughts. It seems the long-standing identity conflict of the Lebanese Christians continue in the minds of even the most committed LF supporters. Then he turns the conversation turns to that traveller’s classic: “Don’t you think my country has the best girls?”

Jean gives me a lift back to the town centre. “You see,” he is trying to sum up his political position, “I like France, America and Israel. They like Iran, Syria.” He points over the road to the neighbouring Shia district of Ash Shiyah. “I don’t want that…it’s not any good.” Iranian flags are fluttering.

Many posters stuck to lamp-posts celebrate the recent release from an Israeli prison after nearly three decades years of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze who joined a Palestinian guerrilla group and was caught and convicted of killing five Israelis, including a baby girl. But Jean isn’t pointing at them. Instead, he points out the dilapidated state of the buildings, the cheap electric wires and the dirtiness of the streets.

Thursday

I AM waiting in downtown Beirut for Nayla Tueni (pictured below), the deputy general-manager of An-Nahar, a newspaper. Her publication is one of the freest in the Arab world and played a big part in the “Cedar Revolution” of 2005, when political manoeuvres and mass protests forced an end to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon.

She arrives at the restaurant (itself called Downtown) slightly late. This expensive, oddly-lit and highly fashionable spot could be in a trendier part of London or Paris. Yet, like the rest of downtown, it is eerily empty at the height of the tourist season.

The restaurant is on the edge of the rebuilt old-town known as Solidaire, made up of orange stone Parisian-style buildings with slightly Arabised façades. The district was the front-line during the civil war and was almost completely destroyed. Its reconstruction was supposed to symbolise the new Lebanon. But the late-afternoon half-silence shows that, for the moment, Lebanon’s political reconstruction is far from complete.

I suggest to Ms Tueni that we have a drink, but she orders a Diet Coke. Some little cakes arrive and we begin to chat about politics. She begins by describing the symbolism of our view onto St Martyr’s Square. She tells me that outside her newspaper’s building hangs a huge poster of her father, Gebran Tueni, a secular-minded Greek Orthodox politician and journalist who was assassinated (presumably by the Syrians) in 2005.

She points out other memorials. Over the road there is a massive mural of a murdered leader of the Maronite Christians’ Phalangist movement, Pierre Gemayel. Up to the left is the Rafik Hariri mosque, where the assassinated five-time prime minister is laid to rest. All were prominent in 2005. “So everybody is here,” says Nayla.

She is only 25, and often tipped for a bright political career in Lebanon. But she says she is not interested in becoming a politician immediately. “We need a new kind of politics in Lebanon, one that is actually concerned with proposals, social development and policies. We need new parties and new faces. Right now we just have corruption and blind followers. I believe that in this situation I can best serve Lebanon as a journalist by creating a civil society.”

The way she talks about the March 14th Movement betrays a certain disappointment. “There is still Syrian influence in Lebanon. Those who work for Syria, I think they don’t work for their country and should go to Damascus. But our country has always been a regional playing field. We don’t have good neighbours. I’m as frightened of Iran as I am of Israel. But for the moment there is peace. People are coming to Beirut again and I’m slightly hopeful.”

After the interview ends she suggests I wander over to Gemmayze Street to experience Beirut’s famous nightlife. Just after dark, this long old street, lined with 1960s concrete blocks and older houses with a somewhat Italianate appearance, becomes a stretch of dazzlingly cool bars and clubs.

Expensive cars pull up to be parked by valet service. You overhear the conversations of the Lebanese diaspora in mixtures of English, French and even Portuguese mixed into Arabic. Young men and women dressed in cutting-edge fashion drift along like a cosmopolitan wealth-parade, completely at odds with the sectarian slums around them. These groups of glamorous young people, with wildly differing political opinions, remind me that Lebanon is not segregated, just fractured. Sympathisers of different factions can be found drinking together. Many families are politically divided.

I am enthralled that you can hear club techno-beats pounding late into the night in a city partly controlled by the fundamentalists of Hizbullah. It seems to me that, because the civil war went on for so long and was so horrible for all sides, those that can afford it try to lose themselves in this New York lifestyle of bars, clubs, fashion and girls. It’s only late at night, because of the heat or the drink, that the Lebanese begin to tell you their real stories.

On a rooftop just off Gemmayze, overlooking the motorway and the port, I find myself drinking a bottle of whisky with a Druze youth-hostel employee and a Syrian guest-worker.

This is the other side of the story. These men struggle to make ends meet and sleep on dirty mattresses under the stars. Most of their friends are unemployed. They are growing old and are too poor to start a family. Maybe this is why they drink. By the time I am starting to feel slightly drunk, my Druze companion is telling me about the fighting in May.

“I have pictures of them crying. We have videos of them crying ‘don’t kill us’. The Hizbullah cried when they attacked my town, Aley. They’d be mad to do it again.”

Great aticle, QN…, but they had to go make this silly “correction”…! Why couldn’t they just let us dream on…?!

http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12079102#footnote1
Correction: Due to an editing error, Michel Aoun was mistakenly identified as Lebanon’s prime minister in an earlier version of this article. That position is held by Fouad Siniora. We regret the error. This article was corrected on September 8th 2008.

To All,

Looking at the exchange between AIG and Shai makes it clear that what divide us and unite us is not our nationality , ethnic back ground or religion , It is our deep belief in what is wrong or right .

Zenobia,
Ask any American what the civil war was about and he will say slavery. Why, because Americans understand fighting a war for ideals. They less understand fighting a war for worldly interests not grounded by their core values.

Lincoln was the father of all neo-cons because he started as a realist and ended up fighting for an ideology he firmly believed in. It was a process that Lincoln went through, but by the end of the war, Lincoln was the first President to articulate that the constitution was more a MORAL document and not only a LEGAL document.

This excerpt from wikipedia may help you learn something:
Redefining Republicanism

In recent years, historians have stressed Lincoln’s use of and redefinition of republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln shifted emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values — what he called the “sheet anchor” of republicanism.[43] The Declaration’s emphasis on freedom and equality for all, rather than the Constitution’s tolerance of slavers, shifted the debate. As Diggins concludes regarding the highly influential Cooper Union speech, “Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself.”[44] His position gained strength because he highlighted the moral basis of republicanism, rather than its legalisms.[45][46] Nevertheless, in 1861 Lincoln justified the war in terms of legalisms (the Constitution was a contract, and for one party to get out of a contract all the other parties had to agree), and then in terms of the national duty to guarantee a “republican form of government” in every state.[47] That duty was also the principle underlying federal intervention in Reconstruction.

In his Gettysburg Address Lincoln redefined the American nation, arguing that it was born not in 1789 but in 1776, “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” He declared that the sacrifices of battle had rededicated the nation to the propositions of democracy and equality, “that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” By emphasizing the centrality of the nation, he rebuffed the claims of state sovereignty. While some critics say Lincoln moved too far and too fast, they agree that he dedicated the nation to values that marked “a new founding of the nation.”[48]

The reason most americans say that is because they actually don’t study american history very well or remember anything about their studies,and that’s all they know about it, despite the fact that is was much more complicated than that.
And the second reason is because american’s (like many people in this world) love to write history and study history in some whitewashed way that makes them feel good about their country. It has nothing to do with accuracy. Well educated people, unlike yourself, and younger people have usually been able to part-take of the more accurate study of history that has been more prevalent in the last few decades. But there are still a lot of ignoramuses.

And by the way, the only thing relevant about the Wikipedia entry you just submitted , is that it supports my point that he was interested in “republicanism” as a philosophy of the union and of federal power superior to state sovereignty.

Exactly what I said. And the irony being that this republicanism has no resemblance to the attitude of today’s “Republican Party” and its values, for example, that of privileging state’s rights and sovereignty over the “moral” law of the land and the constitution as interpreted by the federal government making the laws (and thus having more power).

otherwise, your clip has little to do with the civil war or neo-con philosophy.
so, maybe you should “learn something” why don’t you.

Equating the Neo-Con so called idealism with that of the wisdom or idealism of Abraham Lincoln is about like spitting on Abraham Lincoln.

Zenobia,
Your reading skills need to be better developed. At the beginning of the civil war Lincoln viewed the constitution as a legal document that is binding and therefore one side alone could not invalidate it. By the end of the war, he viewed the constitution as setting down MORAL guidelines and NORMS to guide America. The constitution is not anymore for Lincoln a contract, but an ideological manifesto to guide the US. And when it says that all men should have equal rights, that is an imperative that the US should be willing to sacrifice for and stand behind.

It is LINCOLN that figured out that democracy was much more than a social contract. It is an inalienable right that the US must pursue at home and aboard. Or as Bush said it: The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.

Norman,

That is true, our view of right and wrong is quite different. You believe that one family should rule a whole nation and keep it in poverty and without freedom through intimidation for 40 years. I don’t.

I believe there should be a Jewish state in the middle east. You and Shai and Alex think this is only a temporary thing until Jews “grow up and get it” that they don’t need a state.

You believe that Asad is smart for supporting Hamas suicide bombing and for manipulating Lebanon. I don’t.

You believe that Israel should withdraw to its 67 borders and everything will be ok. I believe that will only bring more war.

But the main difference between us is the following. I believe democracy and freedom are the right of every Syrian. You believe that it is only the right of those Syrians that immigrated to the West. You and Alex are the worst kind of hypocrites. Living in democracy in the West, criticizing the US when it is not democratic enough while claiming that most Syrians in Syria do not want democracy. If you are so sure of that, let them vote Asad into power freely. Let them discuss and criticize the Asad regime freely. But of course, that won’t happen. Why? Because all Syrians love Asad. Yeah, right.

You cannot bring yourself to demand from Syria what you demand from the US. Why is that? Is it fear? Are you ashamed? Or do you really believe that Syrians in Syria do not deserve to have the rights YOU have?

AIG,

Following Zenobia’s argument, I will add that one of the most fundamental traits of Neocons that we realized after experiencing their rule for the past few years is that they are willing to lie to justify subjecting our planet to their chaos in order to reach their true “moral” objectives.

They would state a more universally acceptable moral objective like your favorite “democracy and freedom” while their real objectives have been

1) Oil Business
2) To secure the realm for Israel … destroy Israel’s “strong” neighbors .. Iraq, then Syria, then Iran … and Hzbollah of course.

If the neocons were really about promoting democracy .. I think they would have succeeded to some extent. It is possible that I would have been among their supporters for example.

All the hypocrisy surrounding those fighters for moral causes is becoming more difficult to hide … Sarah Palin’s “pro life” moral values do not go well with her photos shooting large animals for fun… or her “conservative” positions on sex before marriage, and her 17 year old daughter pregnant.

Gandhi was a fighter for moral causes …. but the neocons … were simply power hungry liars.

Even-dearer AIG,

I’m the last person to shut you up. The more you talk, the more “your enemy” feels your empathy. To make it easier for you, since I think analogies are a little confusing for you, I’ll tell you that if I was living under a dictatorship, chances are, I’d be one of the people fighting to change it. But I would do so smartly, not in a way that would get me thrown in jail the second day. But I would fight for my freedom. But (and this is a big BUT), it is neither my position, NOR YOURS AIG, to suggest, remind, or demand of the Syrian people to do the same. It is THEIR country, not yours or mine. It is THEIR people that are living there, not you. Instead of pontificating endlessly about Democracy in Syria, why don’t you first clean up your own “home”? Why don’t you first end the Occupation of lands that do NOT belong to Israelis? Why don’t you first end the mistreatment of Arab-Israelis?

Instead of focusing on what our enemies should do, why not at least show your enemy what you plan to do on your side? Use the opportunity that your enemy is sitting around the table with you (as your host, remember), and begin to demonstrate an understanding and willingness to do your part. And to do your part unconditionally.

Alex,
The neo-cons are not associated with oil at all. How are Feith or Wolfowitz or Sheransky related to oil interests? The US before Iraq had already bases in several Arab countries and as can be seen from what the government of Iraq is doing with the oil deals, they are not going to US companies only or predominantly.

As for securing the realm, it is a beneficial side effect of democracy in the middle east. I like Israel’s chances in a democratic middle east. Eventually of course because of their population size the Arab economies will be bigger and stronger than the Israeli one, but this will happen after decades of democracy so I am not worried.

There is just no way around it. Israel is well suited for the knowledge economy and globalization and in a democratic middle east it will flourish even more. It is a fact that if Syria becomes a democracy, Israel will get stronger. But is that a reason not to pursue democracy in Syria? For some it is.

This is the connundrum I have been talking about. If Syria does not democratize, that means it will grow weaker and fall behind other countries. If it does, it means accepting US “hegemony”. Ideologically something has got to give in the Syrian elites if they want Syria to propser long term.

Shai Ha’malach Ha’zach,

First I am glad to hear that you would be one of the persons fighting to change a dictatorship. We would be fighting shoulder to shoulder.

But how would you feel, if in the middle of your struggle against your dictator, your neigboring country together with the world’s leading power decided to find the dictator legitimate, reward him with land, trade agreements, money, techonology, international legitimacy, thus making your quest for freedom even more difficult than it is, in fact almost impossible?

This is where your lack of empathy shows. You would fight a dictator, BUT you would make it extra difficult for Syrians to fight one. In fact you would give aid to the dictator and his regime.

I believe that liberal democracy is a global value that is applicable to everybody. And if someone in the world lacks it, it IS my business. Most of the time, there is not much I can do. But in the case of Syria, Israel is clearly in a position to determine whether Asad and his regime will be locked in forever with no chance of change. That is what happened with Mubarak in Egypt because of the peace agreement with Israel and believe it or not, it saddens me immensely. Peace with Asad will postpone democracy in Syria for decades and it is not the right thing for Israel to do.

It is LINCOLN that figured out that democracy was much more than a social contract. It is an inalienable right that the US must pursue at home and aboard. Or as Bush said it: The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.

AIG you are the worst propagandist in “Mossad’s team”. To whom has USA brought liberty, freedom, democracy and prosperity? USA has 730 military bases around the world on which Americans spend 42 cents of every tax dollar. Do you AIG seriously claim that these bases are there for “liberty and democracy”. I would say they are there to secure providing USA cheap bananas and oil, besides of world domination.

AIG who had the right to vote in Lincoln’s USA? Wealthy white men. Some example democracy indeed. If you AIG refer to “all men are equal”, what about Israel where people with a small black hat are more equal than those without that hat? Is Israel really a democracy and all its citizens equal? Come-on AIG. By definition a Jewish state can’t ever be a real democracy, because the citizens are not equal so long one religious group has superior rights.

If God or better said Bush promised liberty to Iraqis, why must Iraqis tolerate in future permanent US bases, immunity to US citizens and insane (for Iraqis, extremely profitable for Americans) oil contracts.

By the way AIG Americans often call their president as “the leader of the free world. Why can’t we non Americans not elect our Leader? Well if we could vote in the elections the “leader of the free world” Bush had never been elected and Iraq would probably not have liberated of its oil. 🙂

Sim,
The US has brought freedom and liberty to France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands in fact all of Western Eurpe including Finland.
The US has also brought freedom to Poland, Hungary and in fact much of Eastern Europe.
The US brought freedom to: Japan, South Korea, China (by defeating imperial Japan), the Philipines etc. etc.
The US brought freedom to North Africa by defeating the Nazis there.
If it weren’t for the US, Finland would be by now part of Russia.

AIG ,

You are missing the point, Then , you always do.

Norman,
Then why don’t you explain yourself clearly?
I usually understand very well what people explain to me.

No, you really do not understand very well.

How many times did I ask you to stop going after other people here? .. I asked you to stick to the issues. Didn’t I?

Instead, here is a part from one of your comments above:

You and Alex are the worst kind of hypocrites. Living in democracy in the West, criticizing the US when it is not democratic enough while claiming that most Syrians in Syria do not want democracy.

For your information, I edited Zenobia’s message last night and removed two parts where she ridiculed you. But I just noticed your comment now… and I don’t know what to do with you. I really do not wish to answer that same point you raised and I answered at least ten times so far… And I do not want to allow it to remain there unanswered.

And we had enough of your old democracy argument … and your negativity and always aggressive comments

Let’s see if you really understand very well what people explain to you:

1) No talk about “democracy” in Syria except when we are discussing that topic. NOT everyday, every discussion topic like you now do.

2) No more than six comment per day. That will be enough to make you still one of the top five commentators on Syria Comment (and you are not Syrian)

3) No attacking others and no analyzing (and almost always) distorting their opinions. Stick to the issues.

Can you tell me that you understand these rules and will respect them?

You have two more comments for today.

AIG is really good at distorting history and twisting facts to suit his particular agenda. What Lincoln did in the US is no different than what Saddam Hussein was doing to keep Iraq intact or what Milosovic did to keep Yugoslavia from breaking apart. In fact, if “neo-cons” existed back then, say in Europe, they would have claimed that Lincoln was a regional bully who is threatening his neighbors and violating the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of the confederate states who merely wanted to protect and defend their independence. They would then have attacked the US, destroyed its infrastructure, overthrown Abraham Lincoln and arrested him on war crimes charges, dismantled the entire American security, military, and police system, installed a puppet government, and established permanent military bases in the US. That would have been a neocon course of action and I’m sure the US would have been in a much better situation today (sarcasm intended).

As for the US bringing freedom to others, please don’t make me laugh. The US is a nation with interests. It fights wars and engages in certain actions to protect those interests. The interest of the US is not to bring freedom and democracy to others, although sometimes that maybe a side consequence. In truth, the US did not bring democracy and freedom to any place that hadn’t already experienced an advanced form of governance. To claim that the US created today’s UK, France, and Germany is an insult to those people. Nowhere did the US bring advancement where it didn’t already exist. Moreover, the US was more than happy to overthrow democratically elected leaders and install brutal dictators in their place to protect certain interests. Therefore, to claim that the US has brought “freedom and democracy” to others is quite hillarious to say the least.

The World Bank’s 2009 study on “Doing Business” has been released.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/DB09_Overview.pdf

Syria’s 2009 rank is 137 out of 181 countries surveyed. Its 2008 rank was 140. The slight improvement came because of reforms associated within the ease of trading across borders category.

In total there are 10 categories that the World Bank covers before it ranks its list of countries. The 10 categories are:

1- Ease of starting a business
2- Ease of dealing with contraction permits
3- Ease of employing workers
4- Ease of registering property
5- Ease of getting credit
6- Ease of protecting investors
7- Ease of paying taxes
8- Ease of trading across borders
9- Ease of enforcing contracts
10-Ease of closing a business

While jumping from 140 to 137 is a positive step, it is worth noting that only 3 regional countries have fared worse (Iran, Sudan and Iraq).

Egypt was the 10th top performer in the study as it moved its ranking from 125 to 114. The improvements came from 6 out of 10 of the above categories. Saudi Arabia made a substantial jump moving from 24 to 16 ahead of Bahrain in the region.

Singapore held its rank as number one while the U.S also held its number 3 with New Zealand holding the second spot.

The study makes it clear that rankings do not tell the whole story about an economy’s business environment. The indicator does not, for example, account for macroeconomic conditions, infrastructure, workforce skills or security. Instead, the rankings help indicate if a government is creating regulatory environment that is conducive to operating a business.

AIG,

According to your rationale, you also wouldn’t have made peace with Egypt or Jordan. If that is so, then YOU my friend, are in a minority in Israel. I doubt you’ll find more than a handful of Israelis who think we should have only made peace with a democratic Egypt or Jordan. It “saddens you immensely”? So be sad. But don’t pretend to care more about Syria and Syrians, than the Syrians here on SC. You’ve been told before that because most Syrians here disagree with you suggestions, does not mean they want democracy any less than you do. I still find it absurd that you, the “Israeli Guy”, keep arguing Syrians about their freedoms and about their regime. That does require a certain level of “chutzpah”, can’t you see that?

I think you’re making an assumption which is not yours to make. You assume that by making peace with Assad, we’re delaying freedom in Syria for Syrians. First, how do you know? How do you know what Egypt would be like today, if it hadn’t signed a peace treaty with Israel? Or Jordan, for that matter? What example in history do you have where isolating a dictatorship has sped up democracy in that nation? Plus, if the rest of the world has embassies in Damascus, you think that by not having an Israeli one, you’re helping the Syrians any? That’s a joke. If you want to act responsibly, worry first about your own nation (Israel?), and the peace it needs no less than Syrians need their freedom.

Ehsani,

Are you saying that the highly corrupt and non-democratic Egypt and Saudi Arabia are doing good things sometimes?

Bizarre : )

This is from champress. As usual, they are not always reliable. But they do have to get approval before they post such an article.

The article has been on their site (top story) for two days now. Also unusual.

It is worth reading for those reasons.

نيو – قندهار في طرابلس .. كمان وكمان !!.. بقلم : خضر عواركة

يروي ديبلوماسي غربي مقيم في لبنان قصة تحول سعد الحريري من مشروع ” أبو مصعب اللبناني ” إلى حمامة سلام فيقول و(نترجمه بتصرف) :
وزير خارجية عربي عاد إلى بلده بعد زيارة قصيرة إلى لبنان وقبل أن ينال قسطا من الراحة نقل إلى رئيسه تأكيدا لتقارير مخابراتية كان قد شغلت بال الرئيس على الأمن في بلده.
ما شاهده وسمعه الرئيس ومساعديه الأمنيين عن الوضع في قندهار آل الحريري في شمال لبنان أفقده صوابه، لأنه إعتبر الموضوع خطرا على الأمن القومي لنظامه وليس حدثا عابرا، مستعيدا أحداث الإرهاب في بلده مع أن الإرهابيين وقتها لم يكونوا يحظون بحائط إسناد إعلامي وتدريبي أمني في بلد مجاور أو قريب،فكيف سيكون الوضع إن تحول شمال لبنان إلى مربع أمني وإستراحة تدريب وإعداد للإرهابيين الذين يحظون بجناح سياسي مشروع يقوده داعية الإرهاب الشهال ؟
( بعض الظرفاء يقول بأن لبنان هوأهم ساحة للإعلام الفني في العالم العربي فكيف إن صار ساحة للإعلام الإرهابي التكفيري؟ وقد بدأت تباشير ذلك عبر قيام الفضائيات بإستضافة نجوم الفن السلفي لعدة مرات وبينهم وريث عرش الدعوة ” داعي الشهال ” وغريمه المطالب مثله بالعرش الإرهابي حسن الشهال)
الرئيس العربي إتصل بملك السعودية وبالرئيس الفرنسي وبكوندليسا رايس ونقل لهم كلاما مفاده :
إدو موعد لمدير المخابرات بتاعي علشان يشرحلكم خطورة الوضع في لبنان. الواد سعد ده عاملي قندهار ومش ناقص إلا يعلنوا الإمارة ويأسسوا تلفزيون!
أنا ما قدرش أتحمل لعب العيال ده لسه ناقص يجيبو الواد بن لادن يستلم قيادة المعارك في طرابلس .
سفير تركيا في البلد العربي بعث ببرقية عاجلة نقل خلالها مضمون هذه المكالمة إلى الرئيس أردوغان وكان يحزم ملفاته تمهيدا لسفره إلى دمشق للمشاركة في القمة الرباعية .
صحافي فرنسي كبير رافق الرئيس الفرنسي في طائرته أفاد بأن الرئيس ساركوزي تابع هذا الملف شخصيا منذ الظهورالأول للسلفيين بشكل علني سياسي وقد لفت نظره أحد قادة أجهزة الأمن المقربين منه إلى أن زعيم السلفيين المزعوم أصبح
ضيفا شرعيا على الفضائيات اللبنانية والسعودية في الوقت الذي فقد فيه تيار المستقبل بزعامة سعد الحريري والسنيورة وأجهزتهم كل سيطرة على الاف المسلحين المتطرفين الذين مولتهم وسلحتهم ثمانية جهات (ثلاثة أجهزة أمنية سعودية متنافسة وخمسة من كبار الأمراء الناشطين في مد نفوذهم إلى خارج السعودية عبر الإرهاب ) طمعا في تحويل السلفيين إلى جيش سعودي في لبنان !
التقارير التي يملكها الأمن التابع للنظام العربي المعتدل حول الهيكلية الفوضوية للتعامل السعودي مع الوضع في لبنان حتمت عليه دق ناقوس الخطر، فجهاز بندر له مجموعات يمولها ويسلحها مباشرة ( النائب الأحدب هو ممثل بندر في الشمال ) ومجموعات مسلحة أخرى تكفيرية يمولها جهاز مقرن (يمثله السفير الخوجة وسعد الحريري وأشهر قادة هذه المجموعات هو ابو حسن الأصهب وكنعان ناجي ( ويدير حركتهما الأمنية والعسكرية على الأرض الضابط غسان – ب )
ومجموعات أمنية محترفة مختلطة بين القاعدة وزعران الشوارع المطلوبين أمنيا للقضاء اللبناني يمولهم خالد بن سلطان بن عبد العزيز ( يمثله خالد الضاهر بطل مذبحة القوميين في حلبا).
ونظرا إلى حساسية النظام العربي المعتدل من أي بؤرة يمتلكها الإرهابيين ( هل يظن السعوديين بأن الأتراك سيقفون متفرجين أمام سيطرة الإرهاب على ميناء لا يبعد عن شواطئهم إلا أربع ساعات بحرا؟) فقد عمم الرئيس العربي على كافة أجهزته السياسية والديبلوماسية والأمنية لتنتشر في الدول المعنية بالوضع في لبنان طارحا حلا وحيدا للموضوع :
القضاء على السلفيين في قندهار طرابلس قبل تحولها إلى دولة الخلافة الإسلامية ومبايعة أهل الشمال لبن لادن.
ساركوزي وعدة عواصم غربية بما فيها واشنطن كانوا يراقبون عن كثب التحركات السعودية في الشمال بكثير من القلق عززته تقارير أمنية إختراقية للقاعدة الإرهابية عن قيام قواعد وأسس صلبة في قرى عكار وفي بعض أحياء طرابلس المكتظة للقاعدة بتنظيمها الأساسي الذي ارسل بعض أفضل رجاله خبرة للتمركز في الشمال اللبناني وهي مجموعات أقامت لنفسها قاعدة عمليات وإخترقت بالمال والعقيدة والتطرف جهاز المعلومات اللبناني ( وصفت بعض المصادر صلاة التراويح في مراكز جهاز المعلومات فقالت بأن المرء ليظن بأن مجموعات من طالبان تعمل في هذا الجهاز فغالبية منهم متطرفون يحملون الفكر السلفي التكفيري وليسوا مسلمين عاديين يمارسون طقوسهم الدينية المحببة)
معلومات جهاز عربي وعملاء أمنيين فرنسيين أضافوا إلى معلومات تركية موثوقة معلومات أشد خطورة حذرت من أن الأمور في لبنان اصبحت خارج سيطرة السفارة السعودية وخارج سيطرة آل الحريري وأن كل مجموعة عنقودية للقاعدة علنية تقاتل ( لعيون أبو بهاء) أصبحت تشكل غطاء وساترا لتجنيد مجموعات أخرى لا يعلم عنها أحد ويمكن في المستقبل أن يشكل لهم التواجد على شواطيء المتوسط (طرابلس فيها مرفأ وجزيرة مهجورة ) منفذا يحتاجونه للتسلل إلى أوروبا
( مجموعة إرهابية كانت تقيم في جزيرة الارانب المهجورة مقابل طرابلس إشتبكت قبل أسبوع مع الجيش خلال إنتقالها من الجزيرة إلى سفينة شحن مسـتأجرة من الإرهابيين الدوليين بواسطة الزوارق المطاطية فأفشل الجيش مخططهم بعد معلومات فرنسية سلمت لمخابرات الجيش وليس لجهاز المعلومات لأنه صنف مؤخرا من الطرف الفرنسي بوصفه جهازا مخترقا من الإرهاب وليس مخترقا له. )
بمعنى آخر فإن السفن الحربية الغربية تقوم بدوريات في المياه الدولية المجاورة للصومال خوفا من أن يستخدم الإرهابيون ذلك البلد المنكوب كنقطة إنطلاق بحرية إلى أوروبا بينما شواطي شمال لبنان غير مراقبة ولا محروسة ( لأن الدوليين وفقا للقرار 1701 يركزون على السواحل التي قد تشكل منفذا لتسلح حزب الله وليس الشمال منها) .
هذه المعطيات الأمنية جعلت من اللعب السعودي بالنار الطرابلسية أمرا مستنكرا ومرفوضا من حلفاء السعوديين الأوروبيين والعرب.
الديبلوماسي قال بأن بعض من في الغرب يتسائل عن الطريقة التي يمكن لهم أن يقنعوا سوريا بها لتساعد في إيقاف تحويل الشمال وطرابلس وعكار إلى نيو- قندهار .
السعوديون أشاروا على دميتهم سعد الحريري تحت الضغط الأوروبي والمصري والتركي لكي يوقف هذه المهزلة، وقد بدأ ببعض التحركات من طرابلس إلى البقاع حيث هناك تواجد قوي للسلفيين .
السعوديون كانوا قد سمعوا قبل إتخاذهم القرار بالتهدئة والمصالحة في طرابلس والشمال كلاما صريحا من الفرنسيين عن وجوب إنهاء لعبة إستخدام سيف القاعدة ذو الحدين وإلا فهناك من هو جاهز ليضع حدا بنفسه للموضوع .
في دمشق يجيب العارفون ببسمة مرتاحة عن معنى (وإلا )..الفرنسية، ثم يضيفون :
ولكن من قال بأن سوريا تريد العودة إلى لبنان ؟

Here’s a revised version of comment which never made it on there eight hours ago.

Please AIG, don’t make me puke with your interpretations of Abe and or american historical philosophy.
My reading skills are fine, while your comprehension skills are that of a severely challenged person.

I don’t need a wikipedia lecture from you. I am not disagreeing with descriptions of Lincoln. READ MY LAST LINE OF THE LAST COMMENT, i am deeply offended by YOU OR ANY Other person… trying to equate Republican Party bullshit with the philosophies of the famous americans of history.
It is disgusting. all who do it are being irresponsible and manipulating language and history. You should keep your ideas as your own and so should the neo-cons. Their ideals are as deep as a bad wood veneer.

I see why you think the Neo-con agenda is so admirable, as you later reveal your warped belief that America is to thank for all freedom and development in the world. I have never heard such a grandiose claim even out of the mouth of the most hardcore neo-con.
But this is all a grand delusion of american narcissism.
The reality is few people on the rest of the planet thinks this way about america. IN fact often their sentiment is quite the opposite, that our record is at least as much harm to the globe as good.

Shai,
I would have made peace with Egypt. First, because it is advantageous to Israel and second because I thought it would lead to democracy in Egypt. Obviously I was wrong about that. Syria is not Egypt and the benefits of peace are such that it is not worth betraying the forces of democracy in Syria for.

Even Landis is clear that peace will delay democracy. He just wrote:”Peace with Israel will only strengthen the legitimacy of the regime because it will be good for the economy and help further stability — economic and political.” Furthermore, he does not believe that the Syrian elites want democracy and therefore it will not happen in Syria. He has been clear on this issue. So don’t believe me, believe Landis.

As for examples of how democracy came about by standing up and isolating dictatorial regimes, how do you think democracy came to Eastern Europe? Exactly by standing up and isolating the dictatorial regimes in Russia and in those countries. They had to change or face economic collapse. That is the only non-violent way that will work with Asad’s regime, if anything works at all.

The embassies in Damascus are not an indication of anything. The indication you should be looking at is that Syria cannot buy an Airbus plane. That means isolating the regime. And peace with Israel does not mean just one more embassy in Damascus. It means breaking the isolation of Syria and legitimizing the regime and letting it off the economic hook that is the only incentive the regime has to democratize.

You still have not answered my question:
But how would you feel, if in the middle of your struggle against your dictator, your neigboring country together with the world’s leading power decided to find the dictator legitimate, reward him with land, trade agreements, money, techonology, international legitimacy, thus making your quest for freedom even more difficult than it is, in fact almost impossible?

This is where your lack of empathy shows. You would fight a dictator, BUT you would make it extra difficult for Syrians to fight one. In fact you would give aid to the dictator and his regime.

Zenobia,
Where did I ever write that the US alone is responsible for democracy and liberty and development in the world?

Whoever ridcules the US, about its support of liberty and democracy has just not read history. The US did not colonize Japan. It help Japan become a world economic power. The US did not colonize Western Europe, with the Marshall plan it helped put these countries on their feet again. Compare that to what the Russians did in the areas they conquered. The US did not colonize Eastern Europe after the Cold War. It helped these countries in exonomic ways. Any reasonable person looking at the 20th century would agree that without the US there would have been much much less freedom and development in it.

Has the US made mistakes? Of course, when it fights for interests instead of ideals it usually makes mistakes. But wanting to bring freedom to another country is never a mistake. In 20 years time, all reasonable Iraqis will greatly appreciate the fact that the US ousted Saddam Hussein.

We do have opinion polls … Europeans think the neocon’s America is the most dangerous country on earth.

It does not get any worse than that.

Not to mention that 16-24 year old Americans also agree that their country, led by neocons, is the greatest threat to peace.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/70046760-27f0-11dc-80da-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1

Europeans see US as threat to peace

By Daniel Dombey and Stanley Pignal in London

Published: July 1 2007 18:09 | Last updated: July 1 2007 18:09

Europeans consistently regard the US as the biggest threat to world stability, a new poll reveals on Monday.

Perceived greatest threat to global securityA survey carried out in June by Harris Research for the Financial Times shows that 32 per cent of respondents in five European countries regard the US as a bigger threat than any other state.

In the US itself, North Korea and Iran are seen as the biggest risks. However, the youngest US respondents share the Europeans’ view that theirs is the biggest threat, with 35 per cent of American 16- to 24-year-olds identifying it as the chief danger to stability.

The level of European concern about the US has remained broadly consistent over the past year. In 11 previous polls dating back to July 2006 the proportion of respondents considering the US a threat to stability has ranged between 28 per cent and 38 per cent.

The latest poll comes in the wake of the “surge” that has increased US forces in Iraq to about 160,000 troops, but which has not been accompanied by political breakthroughs or a dramatic reduction of violence. During President George W. Bush’s second term the administration has also embarked on a more consensual international approach to issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme and North Korea’s nuclear bomb.

But the poll shows that the European public still considers Mr Bush a risk.

“It is evidence of the continued estrangement between the European public and the Bush administration, in spite of a real improvement in official ties,” said Ron Asmus, head of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, which works to bolster transatlantic ties.

“It is proof that the next president will be confronted with the major challenge of improving America’s image abroad, starting with Europe and our main allies.”

Inhabitants of Spain are most concerned about the US, with 46 per cent of respondents naming America as the biggest threat.

European poll respondents – who also come from France, Germany, Italy and the UK – are increasingly concerned about China, which 19 per cent perceive as the biggest threat, up from 12 per cent last July.

Meanwhile, 17 per cent identify Iran as the biggest threat, 11 per cent Iraq and 9 per cent North Korea. Only 5 per cent single out Russia, despite increased tensions between Moscow and the west.

The poll’s data on the US indicate that 25 per cent of Americans see North Korea as the biggest threat, followed by Iran with 23 per cent, China with 20 per cent, and the US itself with 11 per cent.

The poll is consistent with findings last week by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which found that favourable ratings of the US had declined in 26 of 33 countries over the past five years.

But the Pew poll also contrasted unfavourable ratings of the US with much more positive responses in Israel, Poland, Japan, India and parts of Africa and Latin America.

The survey for the Financial Times was carried out online by Harris Interactive between July 2006 and June 2007. More than 1,000 people were polled in each country each month.

AIG,

You’re talking nonsense. Explain to me why it is that 95% of the Syrians on SC have no problem with Israel talking to Bashar and to making peace with Syria, yet YOU, the Israeli, do!? Don’t you find the absurd here? Israelis want peace, Syrians want peace, yet you, the holier-than-thou, keeper of the Gate of Democracy, AIG, wants to wait it out, because you’re afraid of “betraying the forces of democracy”. What about betraying your own nation? The lives of your own people (let alone children, I don’t know if you have any in Israel). Their lives you’re not worried about. With a Syria that remains our enemy, that continues to support resistance groups from Hezbollah to Hamas, so as to pressure Israel to… make peace, with such a Syria, you’re not worried. You don’t see how Israelis are dying because an enemy like Syria is not “helping” Israeli soldiers’ lives.

I think you see this whole thing as some kind of game in a vacuum. You can just not interfere with a particular body (isolate it), and it’ll stay frozen in time, not effecting anything else around it. Well, Syria is our enemy. As such, it does what enemies do – it continues to search for ways to get back what we took from it. Either by force, or by more force, or by peace. You seem to accept that just fine. You seem to believe time is on our side. You’re ready to sacrifice the lives of Israelis, so as not to betray your Syrian freedom-fighters.

Don’t you think you have your priorities just a little mixed up here? Stop dealing in fortune-telling, and in guessing how much slower democracy in Syria will be, should the forbidden peace with Israel take place. Instead, try to imagine the lives you would save, in Israel to start with, by making peace with your Syrian enemy. Why is it that Begin, Shamir, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon, and Olmert, all saw the logic behind talking to Syria, and opting to make peace with the Arab world as is, not as some fantasy futuristic union of democratic states, yet you don’t? How do you explain that, AIG? What do you understand, that they didn’t? Or, perhaps, what don’t you understand, that they did?

I wonder why SC members keep wasting their time replying to a parroting member. Just ignore him and he may stop.

This is from our freind Offended. he is stuck in the SPAM filter today : )

Well in my comment, i just wanted to draw yours and others’ attention to this post by as’ad abkhalil, it corroborates what ChamPress article says:

Peace in Tripoli? I talked to a Lebanese politician in Tripoli (and he was one of the signatories of the peace treaty in the city). I was rather confused at the turn of events: that mini-Hariri would suddenly show up in the city and sponsor peace efforts and would meet with his rivals. This is very uncharacteristic of the Hariri family that never recognizes rivals within the Sunni community. Basically, I am under the impression that Hariri moved, not so much because of Saudi pressures, but becasue of U.S. and French (and even Egyptian) pressures on the Saudis to act. I am learning of some degree of factionalism within the Saudi government/royal family that is effecting Saudi foreign policy. The Saudi ambassador who visited the city sent a message of sectarian defiance to the city. The armed Sunni gangs fighting have many masters: Hariri, Miqati, and Karami, and some answer to princes in the Gulf who pay them money. Some Saudi officials wanted to use Tripoli to humiliated Syria and Hizbullah, and they even spoke of overrunning Ba`l Muhsin (the `Alawite stronghold). That was not easy to accomplish, and my source tells me that fighting in the city–no matter how prolonged–will stay in a stalemate–very much like clashes during the civil war. Clearly, Hariri rivals, espeically `Umar Karami, are beneficiaries and they received their rival’s ackowledgement of their stature in Tripoli. Some said that the French were willing to support a Syrian military entrance into Tripoli becuase the French and the Americans became alarmed at the rise of Bin Ladenite groups in the city. But what is not talked about much is that the Hariri-controlled Jihaz Al-Ma`lumat (Intelligene Apparatus within the Internal Security Forces–Al-Akhbar has been publishing series of articles about it) played a big role in arming and financing the Sunni armed gangs. Personally, I think that peace will not last in Tripoli: I am more of the view that there are those in Saudi Arabia (and perhaps elsewhere) who will not allow a parliamentary election to talke place in Lebanon becasue indications are that given the electoral law of qada’, Hariri will lose the majority within parliament.

Shai,

You have very few Syrian opposition members posting on this blog, so your statistics are just biased.

I am willing to allow cars in Israel even though I know for a fact that thousands will be injured and die from their use. Yes, not talking to Syria may cost Israeli lives, including that of myself or my children. But when taken relative to the long term benefit of democracy in Syria, the risks are such that I am willing to take them.

First you criticize Israeli politicians for being short sighted and stupid, and now you bring them as examples I should learn from. Come on. To me it is clear as day that real peace will only come to the middle east when Arab countries democratize. Rabin did not understand this and we paid a heavy price for Oslo. Barak did not understand this and we paid a heavy price for leaving Lebanon. I did not understand it for many years, but let’s face it. As long as Arab countries cannot give hope to their young people, the middle east will be a mess.

You still have not answered my question:
But how would you feel, if in the middle of your struggle against your dictator, your neigboring country together with the world’s leading power decided to find the dictator legitimate, reward him with land, trade agreements, money, techonology, international legitimacy, thus making your quest for freedom even more difficult than it is, in fact almost impossible?

This is where your lack of empathy shows. You would fight a dictator, BUT you would make it extra difficult for Syrians to fight one. In fact you would give aid to the dictator and his regime.

Shai please do not answer him. His comments for the day are finished, and we .. heard his opinion too many times already. We can live without another eloquent repetition.

AIG,

I realize you still did not answer my questions above to show me that you do understand what people say to you as you claimed earlier.

You don’t have to answer. But I will be strict.

AIG,

You and I should not be arguing what’s best for Syria. That’s for Syrians to do, not outsiders. We should be discussing what’s best for Israel. You seem to believe that for Israel, despite the toll in human lives, it is better to wait for the Arab world to become full of democracies. You seem to think that the Golan is an award to Bashar Assad, and not a rightful return to the Syrian people. You seem to think that economic relations with Syria only means money in Bashar’s pocket, not better living for the Syrian people.

I think you’re wrong. Since 1977, every Prime Minister Israel had, from Labor to the Likud, thought you were wrong. That includes the guy you’re about to vote for, Benjamin Netanyahu. It includes Begin, Shamir, Sharon, and Olmert, all lifelong Likud members and leaders. They all think you’re wrong.

Heck, with your logic, why doesn’t Israel go ahead and cut off relations with Egypt and Jordan now (being ready to pay your sacrifice), take a chance on war, and await a speedier course towards democracy. After all, last thing I want to do, is to betray the “forces of democracy” throughout the region, right? Most Egyptians and Jordanians are probably cursing us for making peace with them, because NOW it is so much tougher for them to be free, right? In fact, maybe once they do become democracies, they’ll cut OFF relations with Israel, because we betrayed them all along, right? AIG, I think even the Pope wouldn’t buy your “empathy”… 😉

(Alex, I’m sorry, I did not see your comment on time. I also do not wish to continue this record with AIG. I’m beginning to notice my own record playing as well…)

This coming Wednesday is a very important day for Israeli politics – the primaries in Kadima. For those interested, here’s a brief contrast between the two Kadima candidates, one of whom can become Israel’s next Prime Minister (Livni or Mofaz): http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3595760,00.html

Shai,
As usual your logic is flawed. First you argue that I have no empathy for Syrians and then you argue that we have to do what is best for Israel not what is best for BOTH Syria and Israel.

As for Egypt, don’t you admit that not being able to make any progress in democracy there shows that the peace deal was not structured correctly? No, I am not recommending renegging on the peace agreement because Israel has to stand behind what it signs. But that does not mean I cannot say that the peace deal with Egypt is EXTREMELY flawed and short changed the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people. Perhaps even this lack of reform will bring down the regime and create chaos as the Economist report shows.

You still have not answered my very basic question:
But how would you feel, if in the middle of your struggle against your dictator, your neigboring country together with the world’s leading power decided to find the dictator legitimate, reward him with land, trade agreements, money, techonology, international legitimacy, thus making your quest for freedom even more difficult than it is, in fact almost impossible?

This is where your lack of empathy shows. You would fight a dictator, BUT you would make it extra difficult for Syrians to fight one. In fact you would give aid to the dictator and his regime.

Great… but sufficient.

I will have to remove any new comment on this topic.

Hello Dear Friends!

Glad to see the comments section is up again, the wp_comments table all healed and repaired 😉 It seems like the mobile version of the site is still unavailable, though.

Really interesting discussion between Nour, Wasim, Why-Discuss, AIG, Shai, Akbar Palace, Off The Wall and Karim about what Israel “is” and “needs” to be in order to integrate peacefully into the mid-east. There were a lot of opinions voiced about what it’s really like for Arabs in Israel. I’d like to contribute my point of view and also comment about what I believe is other factors that are in play here.

I’ve mentioned before I lived in Haifa for 30 years until the year 2000 and I visit roughly every year. My extended family lives in Haifa and the north and as you can imagine I have lots of friends in that area.

The economic ties between Jews and Arabs run deep, and thread through all levels of the work-force, from day-workers through business owners through district judges and professors. It is true that the Arabs are in general a less skilled work-force and therefore are more likely found in professions such as construction, but this highly depends on their background. There are many Arabs who come to work in Haifa and its vicinity from the rural area of the Galilee. Like most rural areas around the world people brought up there are not trained to excel in scholarly domains, or learn the tricks of upward mobility. They are traditional people who often just want to continue living in their traditional ways in their villages. On the other hand, you have the urban Arab population which is extremely successful in academics and business, in the Haifa area. These folks can work wherever they want and live wherever they want and I believe that most Jews would also befriend them if they have the choice.

However, from what I can tell, they—the Arabs, most of the time prefer not to make extensive friendships with Jewish people. My parents both have successful Arab colleagues and they are invited and sought after in social gatherings. My best buddy while in grad school in the Technion was an Arab, a Muslim from a small village in the Galilee who made it all the way to a successful academic career in the US, despite all adversities. While at high school I dated a girl from a mixed family. But as I said, these “accessible” folks are the exception, not the rule, and it’s hard for an Israeli to therefore make friends with an Arab, because there just aren’t that many that are interested. Some of them truly don’t want to be our friends and some are afraid of being chastised by their community. My father was practicing law and for a while he had an Arab intern. After working together for a while he felt he could ask her where she stood politically. Her position was very similar to that of Nour and Wasim. She said, “look you’re a great person, but that cannot take precedence over what’s right from a national point of view for my people”. This type of attitude proves to Israelis that no matter what they do, they will not be able to pacify the Arabs (they are wrong—they could do more—I’ll write about this below).

There are a few neighborhoods where Jews and Arabs live together in Haifa. For example in Hadar low-income families of all religions live in the same buildings, but I wouldn’t say that they actually live as a community. They live together because this is what they can afford. It’s an area of crime and poverty and people there are predominantly preoccupied with how to make ends meet, rather than how to bring about eternal peace to the Middle East…

The German Colony area of Haifa was renovated about 10 years ago and it now flourishes with restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries and a shopping center, most of which I believe are owned by Arab residents, they play Arab music (and also other music…), display Arab artwork and more. This area is extremely popular with both Arabs and Jews and I wouldn’t be surprised if interesting dialogues are starting to brew there. The Haifa Theatre traditionally has a lot of Arab actors and a liberal agenda, and that is also something that has bored its way into the Haifa psyche.

This level of (mostly economic but also cultural) cooperation between Jews and Arabs is common I believe in the entire north of Israel. Ironic as it may seem, the 2006 war actually underscored a natural (missing) tie between the Haifa metropolitan area and the Lebanese towns to the north—we were both subjected to missiles and bombardments while other cities, such as Damascus and Tel Aviv were on the sidelines. It was fairly alienating to see reports of people in Tel Aviv continuing their daily and nightly routines without much solidarity with the north.

Here is another piece from the NYTimes that talks about another Jewish/Arab cooperation project in the north:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/world/middleeast/12jenin.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

I have noticed that people that grew up in the center of Israel, around and in Tel Aviv, do not have the same level of daily interactions with Arab *residents* in their home-towns; they only saw poor and hateful day-workers coming to serve them from the occupied territories and thus they don’t even know how to start thinking about practical coexistence. The people of the north (Jews and Arabs) can potentially help in building bridges to coexistence but unfortunately the north is quite marginal in the Israeli society.

Why-discuss and OTW had some interesting comments about the cute California style settlements and “attachment to the land” of the Jewish population. A few observations:

The striking majority of Israelis live in high-density construction in urban areas, not in cute little settlements. The fact that you can get a little house for cheap was a major draw for many people who moved to the west bank for economical reasons, and not ideology. This trend is pretty much over.

Still many Israelis can afford a house of their own, cute and everything, within the 67 borders. The question is why should the Arabs masses have a problem with that? Is it the outlandish architecture, or the divide between the have and have-nots? I can see the same tensions potentially brewing up between the masses and the richer populations of the Gulf. Jealously is hard to fix—it can only be fixed by the promise of upward mobility to the masses (by the way, these problem are also endemic *inside* the Israeli society).

On the question of colonial architecture, I hear you loud and clear. We have to face it, our ancestors, the Zionist Pioneers (and you’ll have to reserve judgment of the word “Zionist” for a second, I’m just using it as a self-label) were indeed pretty clueless about how to architect a Mediterranean city or village and of course they didn’t want to integrate or emulate Arab architecture. We are still grappling with some of the decisions that they’ve made about urban design and architecture. You would be surprised to know though that this is changing and there are new developments that pay close attention to these considerations.

This year I visited friends in a new village in the Galilee that is a stone throw from an Arab village. The neighbors’ relationships are good. .e.g., they take their kids to a pediatrician in the Arab village. From an architectural perspective they try to emulate the Arab village with the houses built close to the ground, hugging the hills instead of concurring them… There’s still a lot to do and as in many other areas, good taste and sensibility do not often prevail. It’s important to understand though that the Jewish villages are built by large construction companies whereas the Arab homes are traditionally built by the family. Thus it’s just natural that the Jewish developments look more artificial but it also explains why it’s so difficult to maintain reasonable infrastructure in the Arab municipalities.

On the question of whether an Arab can buy a home in one of those cookie-cutter villages there was a heated debate when an Arab named Ka’adan applied to join the village Katzir:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847352257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

He was rejected by the acceptance committee on the grounds of “lack of compatibility”. This was brought before court and the court said that it doesn’t fly. I’m not sure what happened in the end, but the morale is very clear: these societies do not welcome Arabs. However, they do not welcome anybody who is a little bit too different for their taste—imagine what a horror it should be to live there…

Somebody also said that we are not attached to the land in a meaningful way. Personally as a youth I crisscrossed by foot across Israel. One thing that is really noticeable when you visit Israel is the absolute freedom of the youth to get up and do stuff. Travel. Hike. Go to a festival. Surf the sea. What you’re saying is probably true to new immigrants, but not to anybody else. Of course you have kids that sit all day long at the home playing a video game and they’re connected to nothing. But that isn’t really an Israeli phenomenon.

So where does this all go? In all honesty the person who said that Israel cannot be a normal country as long as it is “Jewish” is correct. There are basically two options: the first, the two state solution is based on the premise that Israel would shed almost all of its Arab population (including some that are currently citizens). Then it would be free to be the semi-religious state that it is now, but it would basically segregate itself from its neighbors, because it wouldn’t be in its ethos to integrate—the ethos would continue to be Jewish supremacy—we’re here and you are there, and it’s likely that many Palestinians will still be unhappy about their inability to return to their land (48).

The other option is the one state solution where Israel/Palestine becomes a single secular entity with special recognition for populations that are culturally or otherwise linked to the country and should be able to immigrate to Israel relatively easily. As an example consider Spain that has easy immigration procedures to all Spanish-speaking countries. This status would naturally include the Palestinian refugees but also the Jewish Diaspora. People like to say that this is suicide for Israel but I don’t think this is necessarily true. What do Jewish people think they need? We think we need a safe-haven where Jewish people will be always able to come and live and not be persecuted. We don’t need an apartheid state. We don’t need a religious state either—the success of Jews in the US proves that. We’ll need very good gate-keepers to make sure that the folks who are coming in are committed to a pluralistic liberal democracy, and market forces will take care of the rest.

Of course the danger is that the Arab population will make this state into another Arab country and I don’t mean to offend anybody here but this is not something we are looking forward to because, well, we do like democracy (including the transvestite parades) and we do like the economic prosperity and we don’t appreciate the concessions that the rule of law makes to Islamic traditions in Arab states (e.g., in Egypt).

Look, it’s obvious that educated liberal people can all live together *in the same country* we actually do! Most of us live in the West and have Arab/Jewish friends and it works just fine. Why is that? Well, if you don’t try to make Canada a Jewish or a Muslim or a Christian country, if it’s not part of your agenda, then, well, what is there to quarrel about?

In order to get to a point where we have our own Canada in the mid-east we have to recognize what’s in the way. I’ll be very blunt, unlike many that are skirting around the issue here. The most important thing is to educate the next generation to secularism and pluralism. I think this is exactly where the tolerance towards Asad from the Syrian folks here comes from. Since with Asad, Syrian kids are learning math and reading and science, in schools that pay no homage to sectarian division lines, rather than sit in Madrasas and listen to an 8th century curriculum and go to war over who was really nominated by Him to represent The One a thousand years ago.

I totally trust that they’re making the right judgment call.

Peace and love to all.

Hello Dear Friends!

Glad to see the comments section is up again, the wp_comments table all healed and repaired 😉 It seems like the mobile version of the site is still unavailable, though.

Really interesting discussion between Nour, Wasim, Why-Discuss, AIG, Shai, Akbar Palace, Off The Wall and Karim about what Israel “is” and “needs” to be in order to integrate peacefully into the

mid-east. There were a lot of opinions voiced about what it’s really like for Arabs in Israel. I’d like to contribute my point of view and also comment about what I believe is other factors that

are in play here.

I’ve mentioned before I lived in Haifa for 30 years until the year 2000 and I visit roughly every year. My extended family lives in Haifa and the north and as you can imagine I have lots of

friends in that area.

The economic ties between Jews and Arabs run deep, and thread through all levels of the work-force, from day-workers through business owners through district judges and professors. It is true that

the Arabs are in general a less skilled work-force and therefore are more likely found in professions such as construction, but this highly depends on their background. There are many Arabs who

come to work in Haifa and its vicinity from the rural area of the Galilee. Like most rural areas around the world people brought up there are not trained to excel in scholarly domains, or learn

the tricks of upward mobility. They are traditional people who often just want to continue living in their traditional ways in their villages. On the other hand, you have the urban Arab population

which is extremely successful in academics and business, in the Haifa area. These folks can work wherever they want and live wherever they want and I believe that most Jews would also befriend

them if they have the choice.

However, from what I can tell, they—the Arabs, most of the time prefer not to make extensive friendships with Jewish people. My parents both have successful Arab colleagues and they are invited

and sought after in social gatherings. My best buddy while in grad school in the Technion was an Arab, a Muslim from a small village in the Galilee who made it all the way to a successful academic

career in the US, despite all adversities. While at high school I dated a girl from a mixed family. But as I said, these “accessible” folks are the exception, not the rule, and it’s hard for an

Israeli to therefore make friends with an Arab, because there just aren’t that many that are interested. Some of them truly don’t want to be our friends and some are afraid of being chastised by

their community. My father was practicing law and for a while he had an Arab intern. After working together for a while he felt he could ask her where she stood politically. Her position was very

similar to that of Nour and Wasim. She said, “look you’re a great person, but that cannot take precedence over what’s right from a national point of view for my people”. This type of attitude

proves to Israelis that no matter what they do, they will not be able to pacify the Arabs (they are wrong—they could do more—I’ll write about this below).

There are a few neighborhoods where Jews and Arabs live together in Haifa. For example in Hadar low-income families of all religions live in the same buildings, but I wouldn’t say that they

actually live as a community. They live together because this is what they can afford. It’s an area of crime and poverty and people there are predominantly preoccupied with how to make ends meet,

rather than how to bring about eternal peace to the Middle East…

The German Colony area of Haifa was renovated about 10 years ago and it now flourishes with restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries and a shopping center, most of which I believe are owned by Arab

residents, they play Arab music (and also other music…), display Arab artwork and more. This area is extremely popular with both Arabs and Jews and I wouldn’t be surprised if interesting dialogues

are starting to brew there. The Haifa Theatre traditionally has a lot of Arab actors and a liberal agenda, and that is also something that has bored its way into the Haifa psyche.

This level of (mostly economic but also cultural) cooperation between Jews and Arabs is common I believe in the entire north of Israel. Ironic as it may seem, the 2006 war actually underscored a

natural (missing) tie between the Haifa metropolitan area and the Lebanese towns to the north—we were both subjected to missiles and bombardments while other cities, such as Damascus and Tel

Aviv were on the sidelines. It was fairly alienating to see reports of people in Tel Aviv continuing their daily and nightly routines without much solidarity with the north.

Here is another piece from the NYTimes that talks about another Jewish/Arab cooperation project in the north:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/world/middleeast/12jenin.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

I have noticed that people that grew up in the center of Israel, around and in Tel Aviv, do not have the same level of daily interactions with Arab *residents* in their home-towns; they only saw

poor and hateful day-workers coming to serve them from the occupied territories and thus they don’t even know how to start thinking about practical coexistence. The people of the north (Jews and

Arabs) can potentially help in building bridges to coexistence but unfortunately the north is quite marginal in the Israeli society.

Why-discuss and OTW had some interesting comments about the cute California style settlements and “attachment to the land” of the Jewish population. A few observations:

The striking majority of Israelis live in high-density construction in urban areas, not in cute little settlements. The fact that you can get a little house for cheap was a major draw for many

people who moved to the west bank for economical reasons, and not ideology. This trend is pretty much over.

Still many Israelis can afford a house of their own, cute and everything, within the 67 borders. The question is why should the Arabs masses have a problem with that? Is it the outlandish

architecture, or the divide between the have and have-nots? I can see the same tensions potentially brewing up between the masses and the richer populations of the Gulf. Jealously is hard to fix-

–it can only be fixed by the promise of upward mobility to the masses (by the way, these problem are also endemic *inside* the Israeli society).

On the question of colonial architecture, I hear you loud and clear. We have to face it, our ancestors, the Zionist Pioneers (and you’ll have to reserve judgment of the word “Zionist” for a

second, I’m just using it as a self-label) were indeed pretty clueless about how to architect a Mediterranean city or village and of course they didn’t want to integrate or emulate Arab

architecture. We are still grappling with some of the decisions that they’ve made about urban design and architecture. You would be surprised to know though that this is changing and there are new

developments that pay close attention to these considerations.

This year I visited friends in a new village in the Galilee that is a stone throw from an Arab village. The neighbors’ relationships are good. .e.g., they take their kids to a pediatrician in the

Arab village. From an architectural perspective they try to emulate the Arab village with the houses built close to the ground, hugging the hills instead of concurring them… There’s still a lot to

do and as in many other areas, good taste and sensibility do not often prevail. It’s important to understand though that the Jewish villages are built by large construction companies whereas the

Arab homes are traditionally built by the family. Thus it’s just natural that the Jewish developments look more artificial but it also explains why it’s so difficult to maintain reasonable

infrastructure in the Arab municipalities.

On the question of whether an Arab can buy a home in one of those cookie-cutter villages there was a heated debate when an Arab named Ka’adan applied to join the village Katzir:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847352257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

He was rejected by the acceptance committee on the grounds of “lack of compatibility”. This was brought before court and the court said that it doesn’t fly. I’m not sure what happened in the end,

but the morale is very clear: these societies do not welcome Arabs. However, they do not welcome anybody who is a little bit too different for their taste—imagine what a horror it should be to

live there…

Somebody also said that we are not attached to the land in a meaningful way. Personally as a youth I crisscrossed by foot across Israel. One thing that is really noticeable when you visit Israel

is the absolute freedom of the youth to get up and do stuff. Travel. Hike. Go to a festival. Surf the sea. What you’re saying is probably true to new immigrants, but not to anybody else. Of course

you have kids that sit all day long at the home playing a video game and they’re connected to nothing. But that isn’t really an Israeli phenomenon.

So where does this all go? In all honesty the person who said that Israel cannot be a normal country as long as it is “Jewish” is correct. There are basically two options: the first, the two state

solution is based on the premise that Israel would shed almost all of its Arab population (including some that are currently citizens). Then it would be free to be the semi-religious state that it

is now, but it would basically segregate itself from its neighbors, because it wouldn’t be in its ethos to integrate—the ethos would continue to be Jewish supremacy—we’re here and you are

there, and it’s likely that many Palestinians will still be unhappy about their inability to return to their land (48).

The other option is the one state solution where Israel/Palestine becomes a single secular entity with special recognition for populations that are culturally or otherwise linked to the country

and should be able to immigrate to Israel relatively easily. As an example consider Spain that has easy immigration procedures to all Spanish-speaking countries. This status would naturally

include the Palestinian refugees but also the Jewish Diaspora. People like to say that this is suicide for Israel but I don’t think this is necessarily true. What do Jewish people think they need?

We think we need a safe-haven where Jewish people will be always able to come and live and not be persecuted. We don’t need an apartheid state. We don’t need a religious state either—the success

of Jews in the US proves that. We’ll need very good gate-keepers to make sure that the folks who are coming in are committed to a pluralistic liberal democracy, and market forces will take care of

the rest.

Of course the danger is that the Arab population will make this state into another Arab country and I don’t mean to offend anybody here but this is not something we are looking forward to because,

well, we do like democracy (including the transvestite parades) and we do like the economic prosperity and we don’t appreciate the concessions that the rule of law makes to Islamic traditions in

Arab states (e.g., in Egypt).

Look, it’s obvious that educated liberal people can all live together *in the same country* we actually do! Most of us live in the West and have Arab/Jewish friends and it works just fine. Why is

that? Well, if you don’t try to make Canada a Jewish or a Muslim or a Christian country, if it’s not part of your agenda, then, well, what is there to quarrel about?

In order to get to a point where we have our own Canada in the mid-east we have to recognize what’s in the way. I’ll be very blunt, unlike many that are skirting around the issue here. The most

important thing is to educate the next generation to secularism and pluralism. I think this is exactly where the tolerance towards Asad from the Syrian folks here comes from. Since with Asad,

Syrian kids are learning math and reading and science, in schools that pay no homage to sectarian division lines, rather than sit in Madrasas and listen to an 8th century curriculum and go to war

over who was really nominated by Him to represent The One a thousand years ago.

I totally trust that they’re making the right judgment call.

Peace and love to all.

Dear Shai ,a true peace can not happen between a dictator and an ideological zionist state ,only peace between people can last for decades.And you and even AiG ,have changed the views of many on the reality of the israeli society ,you are not the devil as painted by the propaganda promotted by these regimes which surive on this music.
My idea is that the wise people from both camps should meet eachothers and form an alliance against the extremists from the arabs or the jews.For example ,Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals have signed the Damascus Beirut declaration ,we hope the same kind of declaration signed by Israeli and Syrian intellectuals.Because as i said above ,Bashar ,Sharon,Olmert are not eternals ,we as people we are.

Dear Shai ,a true peace can not happen between a dictator and an ideological zionist state ,only peace between people can last for decades.And you and even AiG ,have changed the views of many on the reality of the israeli society ,you are not the devil as painted by the propaganda promotted by these regimes which surive on this music.
My idea is that the wise people from both camps should meet eachothers and form an alliance against extremists.For example ,Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals have signed the Damascus Beirut declaration ,we hope the same kind of declaration can be signed by Israeli and Syrian intellectuals.Because as i said above ,Bashar ,Sharon,Olmert are not eternals ,we as people we are.

Karim,

I agree with you. It is a terrible shame that 60 years of bloodshed have taken place because of the wrong leaders, not the wrong people. If I thought an external alliance between peace-loving people like yourself and myself could persuade the corrupt, amateur politicians, to move faster along the right track, I’d be there to help form it, yesterday. But you see what is happening with all these opposition groups. They start out with good intentions, then they get funding from some Neocon administration, then they start repeating someone else’s mantras (Bush’s), and then they alienate themselves from most (even from peace-loving people). It’s a huge dilemma – how do you overcome stagnation, or moving backwards?

Look at Ami Ayalon in Israel. I can’t imagine a better persona to have lead such an “alliance”, and he did, for peace with the Palestinians. He was a navy commando, chief of the navy, general, head of Shin-Bet, and then, fighter for peace. He lead the Geneva Initiative. He got some 400,000 signatures in Israel, and a similar amount in Palestine. And where is he today? Barely influential in his party, Labor. Not even a minister. If he joined Likud, along with those other idiot-generals, he might have a chance. But ideologically, he can’t bring himself to do so. So a great man, great intentions, hardworking, clean of corruption, got almost nowhere. It’s the others, the screamers, the “true” politicians that shed their skin on a daily basis, that will kiss babies and, when they’re not looking, will steal their cookies, that will make it.

It’s a sad world, isn’t it? Believe me Karim, if I thought Israelis could go for such an “alliance”, I’d form it myself. But one thing I do believe very strongly in, and that is contact and exposure. We must find a way to bring our people together. Via journalists, via meetings, discussions, forums, whatever. Israelis do not know anything about Syrians, and likely vice-versa. Most Israelis are not West Bank settlers, and most Syrians are not Jew-haters. Yet how can empathy be created without contact?

So Norman, which comes first? Security, Peace, or Contact? If up to me, I’d reverse the order: Contact, Peace, Security. To me, that makes the most sense. That has the best chance. Maybe that’s what we should try to force upon our leaders.

Shai

Contacts would be good, but I also like starting with mutual trust and respect.

(Alex please forgive repetetive posting, I’m not sure if I’m being filtered or the system still has some glitches…)

Hello Dear Friends!

Glad to see the comments section is up again, the wp_comments table all healed and repaired 😉 It seems like the mobile version of the site is still unavailable, though.

Really interesting discussion between Nour, Wasim, Why-Discuss, AIG, Shai, Akbar Palace, Off The Wall and Karim about what Israel “is” and “needs” to be in order to integrate peacefully into the

mid-east. There were a lot of opinions voiced about what it’s really like for Arabs in Israel. I’d like to contribute my point of view and also comment about what I believe is other factors that

are in play here.

I’ve mentioned before I lived in Haifa for 30 years until the year 2000 and I visit roughly every year. My extended family lives in Haifa and the north and as you can imagine I have lots of

friends in that area.

The economic ties between Jews and Arabs run deep, and thread through all levels of the work-force, from day-workers through business owners through district judges and professors. It is true that

the Arabs are in general a less skilled work-force and therefore are more likely found in professions such as construction, but this highly depends on their background. There are many Arabs who

come to work in Haifa and its vicinity from the rural area of the Galilee. Like most rural areas around the world people brought up there are not trained to excel in scholarly domains, or learn

the tricks of upward mobility. They are traditional people who often just want to continue living in their traditional ways in their villages. On the other hand, you have the urban Arab population

which is extremely successful in academics and business, in the Haifa area. These folks can work wherever they want and live wherever they want and I believe that most Jews would also befriend

them if they have the choice.

However, from what I can tell, they—the Arabs, most of the time prefer not to make extensive friendships with Jewish people. My parents both have successful Arab colleagues and they are invited

and sought after in social gatherings. My best buddy while in grad school in the Technion was an Arab, a Muslim from a small village in the Galilee who made it all the way to a successful academic

career in the US, despite all adversities. While at high school I dated a girl from a mixed family. But as I said, these “accessible” folks are the exception, not the rule, and it’s hard for an

Israeli to therefore make friends with an Arab, because there just aren’t that many that are interested. Some of them truly don’t want to be our friends and some are afraid of being chastised by

their community. My father was practicing law and for a while he had an Arab intern. After working together for a while he felt he could ask her where she stood politically. Her position was very

similar to that of Nour and Wasim. She said, “look you’re a great person, but that cannot take precedence over what’s right from a national point of view for my people”. This type of attitude

proves to Israelis that no matter what they do, they will not be able to pacify the Arabs (they are wrong—they could do more—I’ll write about this below).

There are a few neighborhoods where Jews and Arabs live together in Haifa. For example in Hadar low-income families of all religions live in the same buildings, but I wouldn’t say that they

actually live as a community. They live together because this is what they can afford. It’s an area of crime and poverty and people there are predominantly preoccupied with how to make ends meet,

rather than how to bring about eternal peace to the Middle East…

The German Colony area of Haifa was renovated about 10 years ago and it now flourishes with restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries and a shopping center, most of which I believe are owned by Arab

residents, they play Arab music (and also other music…), display Arab artwork and more. This area is extremely popular with both Arabs and Jews and I wouldn’t be surprised if interesting dialogues

are starting to brew there. The Haifa Theatre traditionally has a lot of Arab actors and a liberal agenda, and that is also something that has bored its way into the Haifa psyche.

This level of (mostly economic but also cultural) cooperation between Jews and Arabs is common I believe in the entire north of Israel. Ironic as it may seem, the 2006 war actually underscored a

natural (missing) tie between the Haifa metropolitan area and the Lebanese towns to the north—we were both subjected to missiles and bombardments while other cities, such as Damascus and Tel

Aviv were on the sidelines. It was fairly alienating to see reports of people in Tel Aviv continuing their daily and nightly routines without much solidarity with the north.

Here is another piece from the NYTimes that talks about another Jewish/Arab cooperation project in the north:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/world/middleeast/12jenin.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

I have noticed that people that grew up in the center of Israel, around and in Tel Aviv, do not have the same level of daily interactions with Arab *residents* in their home-towns; they only saw

poor and hateful day-workers coming to serve them from the occupied territories and thus they don’t even know how to start thinking about practical coexistence. The people of the north (Jews and

Arabs) can potentially help in building bridges to coexistence but unfortunately the north is quite marginal in the Israeli society.

Why-discuss and OTW had some interesting comments about the cute California style settlements and “attachment to the land” of the Jewish population. A few observations:

The striking majority of Israelis live in high-density construction in urban areas, not in cute little settlements. The fact that you can get a little house for cheap was a major draw for many

people who moved to the west bank for economical reasons, and not ideology. This trend is pretty much over.

Still many Israelis can afford a house of their own, cute and everything, within the 67 borders. The question is why should the Arabs masses have a problem with that? Is it the outlandish

architecture, or the divide between the have and have-nots? I can see the same tensions potentially brewing up between the masses and the richer populations of the Gulf. Jealously is hard to fix-

–it can only be fixed by the promise of upward mobility to the masses (by the way, these problem are also endemic *inside* the Israeli society).

On the question of colonial architecture, I hear you loud and clear. We have to face it, our ancestors, the Zionist Pioneers (and you’ll have to reserve judgment of the word “Zionist” for a

second, I’m just using it as a self-label) were indeed pretty clueless about how to architect a Mediterranean city or village and of course they didn’t want to integrate or emulate Arab

architecture. We are still grappling with some of the decisions that they’ve made about urban design and architecture. You would be surprised to know though that this is changing and there are new

developments that pay close attention to these considerations.

This year I visited friends in a new village in the Galilee that is a stone throw from an Arab village. The neighbors’ relationships are good. .e.g., they take their kids to a pediatrician in the

Arab village. From an architectural perspective they try to emulate the Arab village with the houses built close to the ground, hugging the hills instead of concurring them… There’s still a lot to

do and as in many other areas, good taste and sensibility do not often prevail. It’s important to understand though that the Jewish villages are built by large construction companies whereas the

Arab homes are traditionally built by the family. Thus it’s just natural that the Jewish developments look more artificial but it also explains why it’s so difficult to maintain reasonable

infrastructure in the Arab municipalities.

On the question of whether an Arab can buy a home in one of those cookie-cutter villages there was a heated debate when an Arab named Ka’adan applied to join the village Katzir:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847352257&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

He was rejected by the acceptance committee on the grounds of “lack of compatibility”. This was brought before court and the court said that it doesn’t fly. I’m not sure what happened in the end,

but the morale is very clear: these societies do not welcome Arabs. However, they do not welcome anybody who is a little bit too different for their taste—imagine what a horror it should be to

live there…

Somebody also said that we are not attached to the land in a meaningful way. Personally as a youth I crisscrossed by foot across Israel. One thing that is really noticeable when you visit Israel

is the absolute freedom of the youth to get up and do stuff. Travel. Hike. Go to a festival. Surf the sea. What you’re saying is probably true to new immigrants, but not to anybody else. Of course

you have kids that sit all day long at the home playing a video game and they’re connected to nothing. But that isn’t really an Israeli phenomenon.

So where does this all go? In all honesty the person who said that Israel cannot be a normal country as long as it is “Jewish” is correct. There are basically two options: the first, the two state

solution is based on the premise that Israel would shed almost all of its Arab population (including some that are currently citizens). Then it would be free to be the semi-religious state that it

is now, but it would basically segregate itself from its neighbors, because it wouldn’t be in its ethos to integrate—the ethos would continue to be Jewish supremacy—we’re here and you are

there, and it’s likely that many Palestinians will still be unhappy about their inability to return to their land (48).

The other option is the one state solution where Israel/Palestine becomes a single secular entity with special recognition for populations that are culturally or otherwise linked to the country

and should be able to immigrate to Israel relatively easily. As an example consider Spain that has easy immigration procedures to all Spanish-speaking countries. This status would naturally

include the Palestinian refugees but also the Jewish Diaspora. People like to say that this is suicide for Israel but I don’t think this is necessarily true. What do Jewish people think they need?

We think we need a safe-haven where Jewish people will be always able to come and live and not be persecuted. We don’t need an apartheid state. We don’t need a religious state either—the success

of Jews in the US proves that. We’ll need very good gate-keepers to make sure that the folks who are coming in are committed to a pluralistic liberal democracy, and market forces will take care of

the rest.

Of course the danger is that the Arab population will make this state into another Arab country and I don’t mean to offend anybody here but this is not something we are looking forward to because,

well, we do like democracy (including the transvestite parades) and we do like the economic prosperity and we don’t appreciate the concessions that the rule of law makes to Islamic traditions in

Arab states (e.g., in Egypt).

Look, it’s obvious that educated liberal people can all live together *in the same country* we actually do! Most of us live in the West and have Arab/Jewish friends and it works just fine. Why is

that? Well, if you don’t try to make Canada a Jewish or a Muslim or a Christian country, if it’s not part of your agenda, then, well, what is there to quarrel about?

In order to get to a point where we have our own Canada in the mid-east we have to recognize what’s in the way. I’ll be very blunt, unlike many that are skirting around the issue here. The most

important thing is to educate the next generation to secularism and pluralism. I think this is exactly where the tolerance towards Asad from the Syrian folks here comes from. Since with Asad,

Syrian kids are learning math and reading and science, in schools that pay no homage to sectarian division lines, rather than sit in Madrasas and listen to an 8th century curriculum and go to war

over who was really nominated by Him to represent The One a thousand years ago.

I totally trust that they’re making the right judgment call.

Peace and love to all.

Shai,

How can there be any contact? The Syrian regime does not allow Syrians to speak freely to each other. You think they would let Syrians talk freely to Israelis?

If you really believe contacts are the solution, they you should support the democratization of Syria.

Alex,

I agree, but how can mutual trust and respect occur, without first bringing Israelis and Syrians together, even if through the television set? Let 2 journalists from each side go on a week-long visit of the opposite nation, covering as much as they can. Interviewing people, politicians, etc. This would have tremendous effect in Israel, I can assure you of that. In my mind, this is the most efficient way to begin tearing down the walls of mutual fear, suspicion, and distrust.

When there is a disagreement every one is at fault and the conflicts will not go away until you (the smart ones of both sides) stop pointing fingers and understand that no one is innocent and everyone is looking out for their own profit. It is so childish to think that there is a victim and a terrorist it’s not a fairy tale where there is a good guy and the bad guy and it’s clear like the face of the sun. You are all too poetic to think clearly