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Ed Webb

President's eldest son, Mahmoud al-Sisi, sidelined from powerful intelligence position ... - 0 views

mada21.appspot.com/...o-diplomatic-mission-in-russia

Egypt nepotism succession Sisi UAE military intelligence authoritarianism

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • Mahmoud al-Sisi, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s son and a senior official in the powerful General Intelligence Service (GIS), is being reassigned to a long-term position at Egypt’s diplomatic delegation in Moscow
  • perception within the president’s inner circle that Mahmoud al-Sisi has failed to properly handle a number of his responsibilities and that his increasingly visible influence in the upper decision-making levels of government is having a negative impact on his father’s image
  • suggestion that the president’s son be sidelined also came from senior government figures in the United Arab Emirates, a close and influential ally of Egypt, who view Mahmoud al-Sisi’s role as having become damaging to the president
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Russia seemed like an appropriate choice due to its close relations with Egypt, as well as the longstanding admiration among many senior Egyptian officials for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s style of governance
  • Among the primary reasons for sending Mahmoud al-Sisi to Moscow was his failure to properly handle most of the responsibilities assigned to him, according to the GIS sources. Chief among them was the media, over which he has exercised direct control for more than a year. In 2017, the GIS began to exert direct control over the media through acquisition, purchasing a controlling stake in the Egyptian Media Group, the biggest media conglomerate in Egypt. The corporation has several influential newspapers and television outlets under its control, including ONtv and the Youm7 newspaper. GIS also owns the DMC television network. Yet during Mahmoud al-Sisi’s tenure, the president has been unsatisfied with the media’s performance to the extent that he publicly criticized local media coverage on several occasions, one GIS official said.
  • A number of informed sources told Mada Masr at the time that, on the president’s orders, Mahmoud al-Sisi oversaw the fierce crackdown that followed the protests, with over 4,000 people arrested, including prominent activists, lawyers, university professors, and political opposition figures. At the time, the president was in New York to take part in the UN General Assembly on the advice of his closest aides, particularly Abbas, a longtime confidant of the president and current head of GIS.
  • Sending Mahmoud al-Sisi to Moscow will also help alleviate growing tensions within GIS about the role of the president’s son in the removal of senior officials from their posts in the intelligence apparatus since the president formally came to power in 2014
  • The process of removing senior members of the GIS came under the pretext that they were “Omar Suleiman’s men” (the late intelligence chief under Mubarak) who had no loyalty to the “new state.”
  • “I think that President Sisi knows very well that there is a general state of dissatisfaction within governmental institutions. There are considerable worries inside the state apparatus that cannot be underestimated,” the source close to Abu Dhabi’s decision-making circles said. “I think he understands that his popularity on the streets has declined for various reasons, some of which are economic, while others are rooted in social and political grievances. Besides, the wound inflicted by his handover of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia three years ago has not healed. Sisi will certainly not ignore the growing signs of anger altogether.”
  • The new Russia post may instead be an attempt to hone his skills by becoming a military envoy in a country of great strategic importance to Egypt, including in its role in constructing a nuclear power plant in Dabaa.
  • His two siblings include Mustafa, who works in the Administrative Control Authority, and Hassan, who moved from the oil sector to a GIS position nearly three years ago.
  • “The advice was that the son should not cast a shadow over the president’s position, so that the situation of Hosni and Gamal Mubarak is not repeated.”
Sana Usman

Islam prevents atomic weapons & mass destruction arms. Nejad - 0 views

www.newsspeedchannel.eu/ss-destruction-arms-nejad.html

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad global powers in Baghdad Islamic Republic of Iran's security policy western city Borujerd 1980-1988 Iran official news agency IRNA supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini atomic attack U.S. Secretary State Hillary Clinton Israe

shared by Sana Usman on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • Sana Usman on 23 May 12
     
    Islam prevents atomic weapons and other arms of accumulation destruction, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed on Wednesday ahead of his country's nuclear discussion with global powers in Baghdad, as Israel recommended to world powers not to hesitate in key talks with Iran.
Alana Garvin

Iran Hints at Cooperation on U.N. Nuclear Deal - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...30nuke.html

Iran nuclear cooperation Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

shared by Alana Garvin on 29 Oct 09 - Cached
  • After days of uncertain signals, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hinted Thursday that Iran would accept a United Nations-sponsored plan to send the country’s uranium abroad for processing, saying, “We welcome cooperation on nuclear fuel, power plants and technology, and we are ready to cooperate.”
  • But it remained unclear whether Iran would insist on shipping the material in installments, which would undercut the intent of the plan: to leave Iran without enough nuclear material to build a weapon for at least a year, time in which the West would work toward an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
  • The uranium would be returned to Iran in the form of fuel rods, usable only in a civilian nuclear facility and not for weapons.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Reports from Tehran this week have suggested persistently that Iran will seek changes in the plan drafted last week. The proposal provides for Iran to ship 2,645 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia for further processing. That amount, representing most of the country’s known stockpile of low-enriched uranium, would take about a year to replace.
  • Indications continued Thursday that Iran would not agree to ship the uranium all at once, as France — one of the deal’s brokers — has insisted.
  • The pro-government newspaper Javan said Thursday that Tehran would seek two changes in the plan: the gradual transfer of low-enriched uranium rather than a single shipment, and the “simultaneous exchange” of fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.
  • Some of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s conservative rivals have already criticized the plan as a risky concession to the West, and on Thursday, the opposition leader Mir-Hussein Moussavi joined them, suggesting that any response to the plan would have negative consequences for Iran.
Michael Fisher

Future of Palestinian Authority Is in Question - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...10mideast.html

Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian Authority Palestine diplomacy

shared by Michael Fisher on 10 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Michael Fisher on 10 Nov 09
     
    The collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel's negotiating partner, was raised as a possibility on Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow.
Michael Fisher

Memo From Jerusalem - Abbas's Threat to Quit Imperils Mideast Peace Talks - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...19abbas.html

Israel-Palestine international relations Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian Authority New York Times Israel Palestine diplomacy

shared by Michael Fisher on 19 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Michael Fisher on 19 Nov 09
     
    Two weeks after the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, vowed not to run for re-election and hinted that he might resign, the Middle East peace process has sunk into a deep crisis amid urgent efforts to revive it.
Ed Webb

Iranian MP claims sexual abuse of protesters has been proved | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...iran-ayatollah-khamenei-us-uk

Iran election Khamenei UK USA conspiracy

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Khamenei expressed doubt over claims by conservative hardliners that opposition leaders were backed by the west, in direct contradiction to charges set out during recent mass trials.The comments yesterday came as a surprising contrast to the assertions from other Iranian leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that the US, Britain and others played a direct role in fomenting unrest and violence during the disputed presidential election in June.
  • added that the unrest was calculated by Iran's enemies "whether or not its leaders know"
Ed Webb

Syria Comment » Archives » "Bush White House Wanted to Destroy the Syrian Sta... - 0 views

www.joshualandis.com/blog

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shared by Ed Webb on 05 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Ed Webb on 05 Sep 10
     
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Jim Franklin

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Palestinian U-turn on Gaza report - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8294880.stm

diplomacy Israel politics Palestinian Authority peace process Gaza war crimes Goldstone

shared by Jim Franklin on 08 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Many Palestinians have expressed anger at PA President Mahmoud Abbas for seeming to let Israelis off the hook following Goldstone's trenchant criticism of Israel's blockade of Gaza and attacks on its citizens.
  • Academics and rights workers held a street protest on Monday.
  • Hamas, which controls Gaza, has lashed out at the decision as "shameful and irresponsible", and posters saying "to the trash heap of history, you traitor, Mahmoud Abbas" have appeared in the Strip.
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  • Israel has rejected the evidence and said it had already investigated its troops' conduct, clearing most of the subjects of wrongdoing.
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the report's conclusions would "devastate the peace process", although peace talks are currently stalled anyway over Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.
  • Palestinians and human rights groups say more than 1,400 people were killed in the violence between 27 December 2008 and 16 January 2009, more than half of them civilians.
  • Israel puts the number of deaths at 1,166 - fewer than 300 of them civilians. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israeli soldiers were also killed.
Ed Webb

Afghan refugees in Iran: Go back home | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...e-being-penalised-go-back-home

Iran Afghanistan refugees

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Thirty years of war in Afghanistan have left Iran with perhaps the largest urban refugee population in the world. More than 1m Afghans are registered as refugees in the Islamic Republic, which is also home to another 1.5m-plus illegal Afghan migrants. But a mixture of Iran’s worsening economic malaise and its government’s policies has prompted an exodus of Afghans back home or westward to Turkey and Greece. Some 200,000 of them are reckoned to have gone back in the past seven months; 5.7m—15% of Afghanistan’s population—have returned in the past ten years, most of them during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that began in 2005
  • During the Soviet invasion of 1979, hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled to Iran, though it was itself in the throes of revolution. For a decade they were ignored by the government, denied dignified work and often derided in the press as violent criminals and drug dealers. During the “construction period” of the 1990s under Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency, the government sought to naturalise them
  • Children of an illegal immigrant have no legal status, barring them from education and health care
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  • Referring to illegal refugees, he says “everything is about money. The police look for their houses, steal savings and then deport them.”
Ed Webb

Cultural heritage and violence in the Middle East | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...ge-and-violence-in-middle-east

culture heritage archaeology genocide Syria Turkey Armenians sectarianism

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • According to reports of the activist Facebook group Le patrimoine archéologique syrien en danger, all six UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria have been damaged, major museum collections at Homs and Hama have been looted, and dozens of ancient tells have been obliterated by shelling. In Iraq, recent media stories recount ISIS fighters’ use of antiquities to raise revenues. So-called blood antiquities function as cash-cows, fetching high prices from unscrupulous collectors and netting a handsome cut for ISIS. As devastating as this news is, Syria and Iraq are simply additional chapters in the long-running story wherein conflict is characterised by a two-fold assault on humanity: human bodies themselves as well as the objects and sites that people create and infuse with cultural meaning.
  • So-called blood antiquities function as cash-cows, fetching high prices from unscrupulous collectors and netting a handsome cut for ISIS.
  • Current scholarly discussion on the Armenian genocide, however, focuses almost exclusively on the human destruction, not taking into consideration the systematic annihilation of Armenian sites and monuments that has taken place since then
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  • The destruction of human communities is incomplete without cultural violence. This was the conclusion of lawyer and human rights advocate Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-born jurist who coined the term “genocide” and fought successfully for its recognition by international legal bodies as a crime. In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), he argued: By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group…[It signifies] a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. (Lemkin 1944: 80) Among the “essential foundations” of the life of human societies, Lemkin argued, were cultural sites, objects, and practices. The Holocaust galvanised his human rights work, but it was the tragic case of Turkish Armenians during the beginning decades of the twentieth century that served as the basis for Lemkin’s theory of genocide.
  • Also significant in this context was the systematic replacement of Armenian place names (on streets, buildings, neighbourhoods, towns, and villages) with Turkish names. The erasure of Armenians from collective memory was completed during the Turkish Republic; in their history textbooks, Turkish children hear nothing about Armenian culture or learn simply that they were enemies of the Turks.
  • the Turkish state and its governments have systematically removed all markers of the Armenians’ civilisation
  • This is cultural death, and it is especially dangerous because it legitimates the denial of diversity by authoritarian states and their societies.
  • Historical records document previous erasures of peoples and their culture: the Native Americans and First Nations of north America; the Mayas and Aztecs of Mesoamerica; and the Roman destruction of Carthage (north Africa), which some scholars point to as the earliest recorded organised genocide.
  • the harrowing plight of Syrian journalist Ali Mahmoud Othman, co-founder of Le patrimoine archéologique syrien en danger. Othman was arrested by government forces in March 2012 and has not been heard of since his televised “confession” in May 2012
  • Recurring Internet images of ISIS fighters beheading western men obscure the equally outrageous and horrific acts of sexual violence against women, torture of children, and destruction of homes, markets, churches, Shi’a mosques, and ancient monuments. All of this constitutes the challenging environment in which cultural activists must do their work.
  • Lemkin’s teachings still have something to say to us today: without monuments and cultural objects, social groups are atomised into disaffected, soulless individuals
Ed Webb

US And Britain Sending Warships To Gulf - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ending-warships-to-gulf-2012-9

Iran Israel US USA UK NATO France military gulf GCC

shared by Ed Webb on 17 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise. The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region. They will practise tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills. The multi-national naval force in the Gulf includes three U.S. Nimitz class carrier groups, each of which has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force. The carriers are supported by at least 12 warships, including ballistic missile cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and assault ships carrying thousands of U.S. Marines and special forces. The British component consists of four British minesweepers and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Cardigan Bay, a logistics vessel. HMS Diamond, a brand-new £1billion Type 45 destroyer, one of the most powerful ships in the British fleet, will also be operating in the region. In addition, commanders will also simulate destroying Iranian combat jets, ships, and coastal missile batteries.
  • Next month, Iran will stage massive military maneuvers of its own, to show that it is prepared to defend its nuclear installations against the threat of aerial bombardment.
  • the British Response Task Forces Group — which includes the carrier HMS Illustrious, equipped with Apache attack helicopters, along with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle — will be conducting a naval exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. The task force could easily be diverted to the Gulf region via the Suez Canal within a week of being ordered to do so
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  • Both Downing Street and Washington hope that the show of force will demonstrate to Iran that NATO and the West will not allow President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, to develop a nuclear armory or close Hormuz. Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, reportedly met the Israeli prime minister and Ehud Barak, his defense secretary, two weeks ago in an attempt to avert military action against Iran
  • One defense source told The Sunday Telegraph last night: “If it came to war, there would be carnage. The Iranian casualties would be huge but they would be able to inflict severe blows against the U.S. and British forces. “The Iranian Republican Guard are well versed in asymmetrical warfare and would use swarm attacks to sink or seriously damage ships. This is a conflict nobody wants, but the rhetoric from Israel is unrelenting.”
  • Ed Webb on 17 Sep 12
     
    International Relations question: if military might can be deployed in an attempt to deter Iran, why can it not also or instead be deployed to deter Israel, since both actors are reportedly threatening to act against Western policy and interests?
Ed Webb

The Middle East's New Divide: Muslim Versus Muslim - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middl... - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...east-muslim-versus-muslim.html

sectarianism religion politics geopolitics fitna Muslims Islam analysis clash

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • For much of the last decade, most have digested the narrative of a Muslim-West divide. It was so pervasive that newly elected US President Barack Obama, portrayed as a symbolic messiah bridging two worlds, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize before even completing a year of his term. Twelve years after the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks, much of the discussion about the "Muslim world" has internalized this language, and why not? The conflict between the Palestinians and US-supported Israel remains unresolved, US drone strikes continue unabated in Pakistan and Yemen and terrorist attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing are still occurring in deadly fashion.
  • in recent years approximately 90% of terrorism-related fatalities have been Muslim
  • The battle lines have shifted from Islam versus the West to Muslim versus Muslim, and it is time for politicians and pundits in the United States and the Middle East alike to catch up
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  • In 2008, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad were regarded as the most admired leaders in the Arab world. Subsequent events and sectarian strife have made such a result today inconceivable
  • With the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan — in which the Americans and Muslim jihadists were allies — and the fall of the Soviet Union, a new dynamic began to set in. The 1991 Gulf War raised the specter of an American hegemon and also led inadvertently to the development of al-Qaeda as an anti-Western force. Over the next two decades, underlined by the 9/11 attacks, the notion of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations appeared to be coming to fruition. With the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in full throttle, alongside the second Palestinian intifada, this divide sharpened in the early 2000s.
  • Al-Qaeda’s own ideology was based heavily on the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood leader executed in 1960s Egypt. Qutb had, in turn, borrowed heavily from the 14th-century theologian Ibn Taymiyyah, both of whom promoted intra-Muslim violence. The basis of the call to jihad was not against the West, but rather against "un-Islamic" regimes, even if they were helmed by Muslims. Embedded in al-Qaeda’s fight was a rejection (takfir) of regimes within the Muslim world. The United States and its Western allies were targeted for being the guarantors of these governments in the eyes of al-Qaeda
  • The ripping open of the political space in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia has brought contestation for power into play, and in the spotlight stands the debate over the role of Islam
  • three concurrent battle lines pitting Muslim against Muslim across the region: militants versus the state, Shiites versus Sunnis (and Salafists versus Sufis) and secularists versus Islamists
Ed Webb

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Fresh push for Middle East talks - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8253764.stm

israeliarab israel palestine USA diplomacy MEPP peace negotiations

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Mr Mitchell, who arrived in Israel on Saturday, has been trying to secure a deal involving a halt to settlement building and Arab nations taking steps towards recognising Israel.
  • The US hopes that the renewed impetus will lead to a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York later this month.
  • Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas insists he will not meet his Israeli counterparts until there is a freeze on new settlements in the West Bank. The settlement of occupied territory is illegal under international law but Israel last week said it had given permission for 455 new homes to be built. The move prompted Mr Abbas to say that there was no point attending a summit with Mr Netanyahu.
Julianne Greco

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Obama to meet Middle East leaders - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8265141.stm

Obama Netanyahu Abbas peace talks Gaza settlements

shared by Julianne Greco on 20 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Mr Obama will hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before a joint meeting.
  • The announcement of the meetings, which will take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, came after US envoy George Mitchell's latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.
  • Mr Netanyahu had previously offered a temporary freeze for several months, but not in East Jerusalem or in cases where homes have already been approved.
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  • On Saturday, both sides were reported as blaming each other for the lack of any agreement to resume the peace process following Mr Mitchell's visit.
Ed Webb

A campaign for war with Iran begins - War Room - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...trita_parsi_jeffrey_goldberg

Iran Israel nukes US USA politics neocons analysis opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The most critical assumption that Israeli officials have presented publicly for the past 18 years -- long before the firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped on the scene -- is that the Iranian government is irrational and that Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel. These departing points in the Israeli analysis eliminate all options on Iran with the exception of preventive military action. An adversary who isn’t rational cannot be deterred nor contained, because such an actor -- by definition -- does not make decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, if the foe is presented as an existential threat, then preventive action is the sole rational response. These Israeli assumptions short-cut the entire policy process and skip all the steps that normally are taken before a state determines that force is necessary. Judging by Israel’s rhetoric, it is easy to conclude that these beliefs are genuinely held as undisputable truths by the Israeli security apparatus. But if judged by its actions rather than its rhetoric, a very different image emerges -- one that shows an astute Israeli appreciation for the complexity of Iran’s security calculations and decision-making processes, and a recognition that conventional arguments are insufficient to convince Washington to view Iran from an Israeli lens.
  • Goldberg’s lengthy essay fails to recognize that throughout the 1980s, in spite of the Iranian government’s venomous rhetoric against Israel and its anti-Israeli ideology, the Jewish state sought to retain relations with Iran and actively aided Iran in the Iraq-Iran war. Only three days after Iraqi troops entered Iranian territory, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan interrupted a private visit to Vienna to hold a press conference to urge the United States -- in the middle of the hostage crisis -- to forget the past and help Iran keep up its defenses.
  • it wasn’t new Iranian capabilities or a sudden discovery of Iran’s anti-Israeli rhetoric that prompted the depiction of Iran as an existential threat. Rather, it was the fear that in the new post-Cold War environment in which Israel had lost much of its strategic significance to Washington, improved relations between the US and Iran could come at the expense of Israeli security interests. Iran would become emboldened and the U.S. would no longer seek to contain its growth. The balance of power would shift from Israel towards Iran and the Jewish state would no longer be able rely on Washington to control Tehran. "The Great Satan will make up with Iran and forget about Israel," Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University in Israel told me during a visit to Jerusalem.
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  • Goldberg’s article is perhaps better understood as the starting salvo in a long-term campaign to create the necessary conditions for a future war with Iran
  • Even an Iran that doesn't have nuclear weapons but that can build them would damage Israel's ability to deter militant Palestinian and Lebanese organizations. It would damage the image of Israel as the sole nuclear-armed state in the region and undercut the myth of its invincibility. Gone would be the days when Israel's military supremacy would enable it to dictate the parameters of peace and pursue unilateral peace plans.
  • This past summer in Israel, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevi told me the same thing and pointed out that speaking of Iran as an existential threat exaggerates Iran’s power and leaves the false -- and dangerous -- impression that Israel is helpless and vulnerable.
  • e under the Clinton years -- most importantly with the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 -- serious preparation for selling an Iran war to the American public under a Republican president (Palin?) in 2013 must be undertaken now, both to establish the narrative for that sell and to use the narrative to remove any obstacles in the White House along the way
  • even raising the specter of war undercuts the opposition in Iran
Bertha Flores

Freeman's Speech - 0 views

www.mepc.org/...ce-middle-east-openings-others

shared by Bertha Flores on 01 Sep 10 - Cached
  • disinterested
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 01 Sep 10
       
      He means 'uninterested,' I think
  • It will be held under the auspices of an American president who was publicly humiliated by Israel’s prime minister on the issue that is at the center of the Israel-Palestine dispute — Israel’s continuing seizure and colonization of Arab land
  • Peace is a pattern of stability acceptable to those with the capacity to disturb it by violence. It is almost impossible to impose. It cannot become a reality, still less be sustained, if those who must accept it are excluded from it. This reality directs our attention to who is not at this gathering in Washington and what must be done to remedy the problems these absences create.
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  • Must Arabs really embrace Zionism before Israel can cease expansion and accept peace?
  • a longstanding American habit of treating Arab concerns about Israel as a form of anti-Semitism and tuning them out. Instead of hearing out and addressing Arab views, U.S. peace processors have repeatedly focused on soliciting Arab acts of kindness toward Israel. They argue that gestures of acceptance can help Israelis overcome their Holocaust-inspired political neuroses and take risks for peace.
  • Arabic has two quite different words that are both translated as “negotiation,” making a distinction that doesn’t exist in either English or Hebrew. One word, “musaawama,” refers to the no-holds-barred bargaining process that takes place in bazaars between strangers who may never see each other again and who therefore feel no obligation not to scam each other. Another, “mufaawadhat,” describes the dignified formal discussions about matters of honor and high principle that take place on a basis of mutual respect and equality between statesmen who seek a continuing relationship.Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s travel to Jerusalem was a grand act of statesmanship to initiate a process of mufaawadhat — relationship-building between leaders and their polities. So was the Arab peace initiative of 2002. It called for a response in kind.
  • I cite this not to suggest that non-Arabs should adopt Arabic canons of thought, but to make a point about diplomatic effectiveness. To move a negotiating partner in a desired direction, one must understand how that partner understands things and help him to see a way forward that will bring him to an end he has been persuaded to want. One of the reasons we can't seem to move things as we desire in the Middle East is that we don’t make much effort to understand how others reason and how they rank their interests. In the case of the Israel-Palestine conundrum, we Americans are long on empathy and expertise about Israel and very, very short on these for the various Arab parties. The essential militarism of U.S. policies in the Middle East adds to our difficulties. We have become skilled at killing Arabs. We have forgotten how to listen to them or persuade them.
  • In foreign affairs, interests are the measure of all things. My assumption is that Americans and Norwegians, indeed Europeans in general, share common interests that require peace in the Holy Land. To my mind, these interests include — but are, of course, not limited to — gaining security and acceptance for a democratic state of Israel; eliminating the gross injustices and daily humiliations that foster Arab terrorism against Israel and its foreign allies and supporters, as well as friendly Arab regimes; and reversing the global spread of religious strife and prejudice, including, very likely, a revival of anti-Semitism in the West if current trends are not arrested. None of these aspirations can be fulfilled without an end to the Israeli occupation and freedom for Palestinians.
  • The Ottoman Turks were careful to ensure freedom of access for worship to adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths when they administered the city. It is an interest that Jews, Christians, and Muslims share.
  • pathologies of political life in the United States that paralyze the American diplomatic imagination. Tomorrow’s meeting may well demonstrate that, the election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the United States is still unfit to manage the achievement of peace between Israel and the Arabs.
  • the American monopoly on the management of the search for peace in Palestine remains unchallenged. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia — once a contender for countervailing influence in the region — has lapsed into impotence. The former colonial powers of the European Union, having earlier laid the basis for conflict in the region, have largely sat on their hands while wringing them, content to let America take the lead. China, India, and other Asian powers have prudently kept their political and military distance. In the region itself, Iran has postured and exploited the Palestinian cause without doing anything to advance it. Until recently, Turkey remained aloof.
  • the United States has been obsessed with process rather than substance. It has failed to involve parties who are essential to peace. It has acted on Israel’s behalf to preempt rather than enlist international and regional support for peace. It has defined the issues in ways that preclude rather than promote progress. Its concept of a “peace process” has therefore become the handmaiden of Israeli expansionism rather than a driver for peace. There are alternatives to tomorrow’s diplomatic peace pageant on the Potomac. And, as Norway has shown, there is a role for powers other than America in crafting peace in the Holy Land.
  • Few doubt Mr. Obama’s sincerity. Yet none of his initiatives has led to policy change anyone can detect, let alone believe in.
  • t. For the most part, Arab leaders have timorously demanded that America solve the Israel-Palestine problem for them, while obsequiously courting American protection against Israel, each other, Iran, and — in some cases — their own increasingly frustrated and angry subjects and citizens.
  • the Obama administration has engaged the same aging impresarios who staged all the previously failed “peace processes” to produce and direct this one with no agreed script. The last time these guys staged such an ill-prepared meeting, at Camp David in 2000, it cost both heads of delegation, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, their political authority. It led not to peace but to escalating violence. The parties are showing up this time to minimize President Obama’s political embarrassment in advance of midterm elections in the United States, not to address his agenda — still less to address each other’s agendas. These are indeed difficulties. But the problems with this latest — and possibly final — iteration of the perpetually ineffectual “peace process” are more fundamental.
  • The Mahmoud Abbas administration retains power by grace of the Israeli occupation authorities and the United States, which prefer it to the government empowered by the Palestinian people at the polls. Mr. Abbas’s constitutional term of office has long since expired. He presides over a parliament whose most influential members are locked up in Israeli jails. It is not clear for whom he, his faction, or his administration can now speak.
  • American policies in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the prospects for peace in the Holy Land
  • Yet, as I will argue,  the United States has been obsessed with process rather than substance. It has failed to involve parties who are essential to peace. It has acted on Israel’s behalf to preempt rather than enlist international and regional support for peace. It has defined the issues in ways that preclude rather than promote progress. Its concept of a “peace process” has therefore become the handmaiden of Israeli expansionism rather than a driver for peace. There are alternatives to tomorrow’s diplomatic peace pageant on the Potomac. And, as Norway has shown, there is a role for powers other than America in crafting peace in the Holy Land.
  • Yet, as I will argue,   the United States has been obsessed with process rather than substance. It has failed to involve parties who are essential to peace. It has acted on Israel’s behalf to preempt rather than enlist international and regional support for peace. It has defined the issues in ways that preclude rather than promote progress. Its concept of a “peace process” has therefore become the handmaiden of Israeli expansionism rather than a driver for peace. There are alternatives to tomorrow’s diplomatic peace pageant on the Potomac. And, as Norway has shown, there is a role for powers other than America in crafting peace in the Holy Land.
  • Yet, as I will argue,   the United States has been obsessed with process rather than substance. It has failed to involve parties who are essential to peace. It has acted on Israel’s behalf to preempt rather than enlist international and regional support for peace. It has defined the issues in ways that preclude rather than promote progress. Its concept of a “peace process” has therefore become the handmaiden of Israeli expansionism rather than a driver for peace. There are alternatives to tomorrow’s diplomatic peace pageant on the Potomac. And, as Norway has shown, there is a role for powers other than America in crafting peace in the Holy Land
  • The resentment of mostly Muslim Arabs at their governing elites’ failure to meet these standards generates sympathy for terrorism directed not just at Israel but at both the United States and Arab governments associated with it
  • Arab governments willing to overlook American contributions to Muslim suffering
  • suspending its efforts to make peace in the Holy Land
  • invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq
  • It has caused a growing majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to see the United States as a menace to their faith, their way of life, their homelands, and their personal security
  • But I do think it worthwhile briefly to examine some of the changes in the situation that ensure that many policies that once helped us to get by in the Middle East will no longer do this
  • “peace process,”
  • The perpetual processing of peace without the requirement to produce it has been especially appreciated by Israeli leaders
  • Palestinian leaders with legitimacy problems have also had reason to collaborate in the search for a “peace process
  • Israeli backing these leaders need to retain their status in the occupied territories. It ensures that they have media access and high-level visiting rights in Washington. Meanwhile, for American leaders, engagement in some sort of Middle East “peace process” has been essential to credibility in the Arab and Islamic worlds, as well as with the ever-generous American Jewish community.
  • “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.”
  • It has no interest in trading land it covets for a peace that might thwart further territorial expansion
  • Obviously, the party that won the democratically expressed mandate of the Palestinian people to represent them — Hamas — is not there
  • “peace process” is just another in a long series of public entertainments for the American electorate and also a lack of confidence in the authenticity of the Palestinian delegation
  • the Arab peace initiative of 2002. This offered normalization of relations with the Jewish state, should Israel make peace with the Palestinians.
  • But asking them even implicitly to agree that the forcible eviction of Palestinian Arabs was a morally appropriate means to this end is both a nonstarter and seriously off-putting
  • has been met with incredulity
  • Only a peace process that is protected from Israel’s ability to manipulate American politics can succeed.
  • establishing internationally recognized borders for Israel, securing freedom for the Palestinians, and ending the stimulus to terrorism in the region and beyond it that strife in the Holy Land entails
  • First, get behind the Arab peace initiative.
  • Second, help create a Palestinian partner for peace
  • Third, reaffirm and enforce international law
  • American diplomacy on behalf of the Jewish state has silenced the collective voice of the international communit
  • When one side to a dispute is routinely exempted from principles, all exempt themselves, and the law of the jungle prevails
  • Fourth, set a deadline linked to an ultimatum
  • The two-state solution
  • That is why the question of whether there is a basis for expanded diplomatic cooperation between Europeans and Arabs is such a timely one
  • Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has made inter-faith dialogue and the promotion of religious tolerance a main focus of his domestic and international policy
  • President Obama’s inability to break this pattern must be an enormous personal disappointment to him. He came into office committed to crafting a new relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds. His first interview with the international media was with Arab satellite television. He reached out publicly and privately to Iran. He addressed the Turkish parliament with persuasive empathy. He traveled to a great center of Islamic learning in Cairo to deliver a remarkably eloquent message of conciliation to Muslims everywhere. He made it clear that he understood the centrality of injustices in the Holy Land to Muslim estrangement from the West. He promised a responsible withdrawal from Iraq and a judicious recrafting of strategy in Afghanistan.  Few doubt Mr. Obama’s sincerity. Yet none of his initiatives has led to policy change anyone can detect, let alone believe in.
Ed Webb

BBC News - Barack Obama condemns Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's UN speech - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-11407326

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • "This is not a matter of us choosing to impose punishment on the Iranians," he told the BBC. "This is a matter of the Iranian government ultimately betraying the interests of its own people by isolating it further." And he pointed out that countries such as Russia and China had also backed the UN sanctions. "Most of these sanctions are targeted at the regime, at its military, and we think that over time, hopefully, there's enough reflection within the Iranian government, that they say to themselves, you know, 'This is not the best course for our people. This is not the best course for Iran.'"
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 24 Sep 10
       
      This is similar to the language the Bush I and Clinton administrations used about Iraq in the 1990s.
  • the Iranians "seem to be talking about talks about talks".
anonymous

freedomhouse report on Iran - 0 views

freedomhouse.org/template.cfm

Freedomhouse Women Iran

shared by anonymous on 07 Dec 10 - Cached
  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Despite massive participation by women in the revolution and a subsequent increase in the
  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Despit
  • Despite massive participation by women in the revolution and a subsequent increase in the levels and forms of women's social presence and educational achievements, the Islam
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • assumed political control under a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Desp
  • The women's rights movement is reasonably well-organized and surprisingly effective considering the repressive conditions within which it operates.
  • Continuous pressure from women's groups led to government reforms concerning women's education, employ
  • ment, suffrage, and family law under the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled from 1925 until 1979.
  • The "era of construction" under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–97) ushered in some positive changes to the government's gender policies.
  • a of uneven reform under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Women's sociopolitical participation and civic activism increased considerably, while restrictions on personal freedoms and dress were loosened.
  • Iran experienced an er
  • However, attempts by reform-oriented members of the parliament (the Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis) to make progressive changes, including ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Wo
  • men (CEDAW), were blocked by the conservative Guardian Council.
  • The election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 marked a return to power for hard-liners and negatively affected alm
  • ost all areas of women's social life. Violations of human rights generally an
  • omen's rights in particular have intensified, and censorship has increased. The overall condition of women in Iran has also suffered from revived sociopolitical restrictions on women's dress, freedom of assembly, social advocacy, cultural creativity, and even academic and economic activity.
  • growing globalization
  • ased access to new communications technology, and recent demographic changes have countered some of these negative trends
  • c Republic brought many negative changes to women's rights and personal freedoms.
  • The system explicitly favors men over women
  • Article 19
  • Article 20
  • Article 21
  • Shari'a is the only source of legislation under Article 4 of the constitution. Therefore, any changes or reforms made to women's rights are contingent upon th
  • e political influence of the ulema (Islamic clerics) and their interpretation of Islam.
  • In an effort to protect their members, many women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are depriving themselves of the resources available to similar groups in other countries. Even international awards that include monetary prizes have become a source of tension and political divisions among the activists.[25] While most groups avoid accepting any financial help or even symbolic awards from "Western" sources, some see this as yielding to government pressure in a manner that is contrary to their practical needs and interests.
  • Since the women's NGOs cannot simply wait for or rely on the CEDAW ratification, they should both pursue major campaigns like Change for Equality and continue to create smaller movements focused on individual issues, like
  • equality in inheritance and access to justice for victims of domestic violence.
  • Women in Iran have the right to vote and run for public office but are excluded from holding leadership roles in the main organs of power, such as the office of the supreme leader, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, the judicial branch, and the presidency
  • There has been very little female representation in the executive branch or the diplomatic corps. President Khatami appointed the first woman as one of Iran's several vice presidents, and she also served as head of the Environmental Protection Organization. Another woman was appointed as Khatami's presidential adviser on women's affairs and led the Center for Women's Participation Affairs within the President's Office.[62] Ahmadinejad also chose a woman for this post but changed its name to the Center for Women and Family Affairs. Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, who had held a seat in parliament twice before, was appointed as the Minister of Health in September 2009, becoming Iran's first female cabinet minister. At the same time, two other female minister c
  • andidates nominated by Ahmadinejad were rejected by the conservative parliament
  • While most feminists have maintained their independence from state-sanctioned bodies and organizations, they still collaborate and build coalitions with women's groups that wo
  • rk within the reformist Islamic camp or lobby the state organs for legislative changes.
  • In the run-up to the 2001 presidential election, 47 women nominated themselves as candidates, and in 2005 that number grew to 100, though it fell to 40 in 2009.
  • involvement in city councils as a method of influencing community life and policies.
Ed Webb

Iran foreign minister fired - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...20101213134449653556.html

Iran diplomacy diplomats

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has fired Manouchehr Mottaki, his foreign minister, the official IRNA news agency has reported. The announcement came on Monday, but no reasons were given for Mottaki's dismissal, which comes as Iran is engaged in talks with world powers over its sensitive nuclear programme. Ahmadinejad appointed the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, a close ally to the president, as caretaker for the ministry, state television reported.
Jim Franklin

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Hamas sets new unity talks terms - 0 views

english.aljazeera.net/...20091010104118293581.html

Hamas Palestinian Authority Abbas Israel peace process Gaza war crimes

shared by Jim Franklin on 10 Oct 09 - Cached
  • A Hamas delegation is meeting Egyptian officials in Cairo to try to set a new date for the signing of a Palestinian unity deal
  • Egypt had earlier announced that Hamas and Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would travel to Cairo to sign the long-delayed reconciliation deal on October 25-26.
  • The postponement was requested because of the decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) delegation at the UN Human Rights Council to drop its backing for an immediate vote on a report on the Gaza war, the Hamas source said.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "betrayed" the Palestinian victims of the offensive.
  • Abbas has since sought to backtrack, saying he welcomed a move by Libya to hold an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the report.
  • "this step is likely to defuse tensions, although it is still not clear whether the Palestinians will be able to secure enough votes from states to convene this session of the UN Human Rights Council".
  • US pressure and Israeli threats
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