Sat. 4 June. 2011

SYRIA COMMENT Twitter messages posted by @ProfKahf who attended the

Antalya conference………………….……………………….1NYTIMES

House scolds Obama on Libya ………………………………2 A Former Spy Chief Questions Israeli Leaders Judgment …..4 President Assad’s Bloody Hands …………………………....8

KHALEEJ TIMES Losing reason in Damascus ………………………………...10

WORLD TRIBUNE U.S. still holds exchanges with Syrian military despite kills ...11

YEDIOTH AHRONOTH Syrians relive Hama massacre ……………………………...13

INDEPENDENT ONLINE Rights group calls for Syria sanctions ……………………...15

INNER CITY On Syria Draft Russia, China & India Won't Engage, S.

Africa Won't Without Them………………………………..17VATICAN RADIO

Syria: violent unrest raises concern for Christian future ...…17TRIBUNE DEMOCRAT

Obama has no authority to meddle ……………………...…18HAARETZ

U.S. to offer Turkey major role if it stops Gaza flotilla ……21DAILY TELEGRAPH

The faces of revolution ……………………………………..22 Syria: bloody protests over the slaying of 30 children ……..26

COUNTER PUNCH Israelis Rush for Second Passports ………………………...28

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HOME PAGETwitter messages posted by @ProfKahf who attended the Antalya conference Syria Comment,3 June 2011,

Antalya conference is electing a 31-member working-group to continue coordination among the conference workshops.

Will the “Tribe List” or the “Kid List” win the vote – who [will] continue Antalya conference work?

Antalya conference :List 1 includes Ikhwan , Kurdish , Christian , Alawite , human rights organization chiefsList 2: includes new names , emerging activists

It’s just a vote for a conference working-group, nothing more, but it was a thrill anyway.

Lists were compiled and you voted for the Whole Shebang ( one list or the other ).

total votes caste: 253List1 : 203List2: 50

Immediate breakdown, with color pie graphics projected on Antalya conference hall screen.

Oddly, some folks found out they were on a List just 5 minutes before the vote (eg. me , Mariam Jalabi).Antalya conference Sloppy process

Mariam & I were on (losing) Kid List.Goodwill all’round . Khawla Yusef, Sondos Soleiman, Melhem Drooby, Ammar Qurabi, on winning list

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Young activsts were promised 10 seatsList1 ended up with only 3 , including @Mohammad_Syria who withdrew to protest level of youth inclusion

AND again, it’s only a conference WORK group. The young gen’ers were saying “ we are who will end up doing the actual work anyway”

You know, people are always gonna say stuff like this when you have a conference, and If you don’t have it, you’re also damned.

Beauty vibes , solidarity (which is not the same as no diffs) predominate at this conference ,despite differences.

New blood @ Antalya #Syria conference, says“ Regarding List 1: Fine , let well-known “Opposition Faces” be the slap to the regime ; we will do the work.”

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House scolds Obama on Libya The House voted Friday to rebuke President Obama for continuing to maintain a U.S. role in NATO operations in Libya without the express consent of Congress and directed the administration to provide detailed information about the cost and objectives of the U.S. role in the conflict.JENNIFER STEINHAUERThe New York Times4 June 2011,

WASHINGTON — The House voted Friday to rebuke President Obama for continuing to maintain a U.S. role in NATO operations in Libya without the express consent of Congress and directed the administration to provide detailed information about the cost and objectives of the U.S. role in the conflict.

The resolution, which passed 268-145, was offered by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to siphon off swelling Republican support for a measure sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, which

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called for a withdrawal of the U.S. military from the air and naval operations in and around Libya within 15 days.

The resolution criticizing the president passed with the support of 45 Democrats and all but 10 of the Republicans who were present. The measure from Kucinich, one of the most liberal members of the House, failed by 148-265, with 87 Republicans voting in favor.

As a legislative matter, Boehner's resolution has no practical effect. A decision by the Supreme Court more than two decades ago suggested that Congress is not empowered to enforce a resolution or other directive that, unlike a bill, the president has no chance to veto.

But as a political matter, the resolution is an unusually blunt confrontation with a president during a military conflict, and it underscores a bipartisan distaste among members of Congress for attempts to bypass their authority when waging war. Overall, roughly two-thirds of the House members who voted Friday backed one or two measures disapproving of the president's actions. (Kucinich voted for both.)

Boehner's resolution demands that the administration provide, within 14 days, detailed information about the nature, cost and objectives of the U.S. contribution to the NATO operation, as well as an explanation of why the administration did not come to Congress for permission to continue to take part in the mission. The language suggests the House may consider funding requests for the Libya operation in a harsh light if not satisfied with the response to its requests for information.

The issue is unlikely to be taken up by the Senate, which seems to be taking the opposite tack. Last month, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., both military veterans, introduced a resolution to express support for the Libyan mission.

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The roughly two-hour debate Friday concerning both resolutions provided some interesting alliances among far-left and hard-right lawmakers, and a bit of a role reversal in the discussion of executive power and the relevance of Libya to America's vital interests.

"It seems the running shoe is on the other foot," said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., noting that Republicans had accused Democrats of "cutting and running" on military operations in the past. Rep. James Moran, D-Va., chided Republicans, saying "to tie the president's hands is inconsistent with the legacy of this body, which is to do what is necessary to protect American interests."

In contrast, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who voted for both measures, said: "We're not going to go to war without the people of this country supporting it."

Obama ordered airstrikes in March after a U.N. resolution and limited consultation with Congress. The Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war, and the 1973 War Powers Resolution requires the president to obtain congressional authorization within 60 days of the start of military operations, a deadline that passed last month.

The United States is providing NATO with intelligence, logistical support and armed drones in what is largely a bombing campaign against Libyan government forces.

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A Former Spy Chief Questions the Judgment of Israeli LeadersBy ETHAN BRONNERNYTIMES,3 June, 2011,

JERUSALEM — The man who ran Israel’s Mossad spy agency until January contends that Israel’s top leaders lack judgment and

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that the anticipated pressures of international isolation as the Palestinians campaign for statehood could lead to rash decisions — like an airstrike on Iran.

The former intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, who stepped down after eight years in the post, has made several unusual public appearances and statements in recent weeks. He made headlines a few weeks ago when he asserted at a Hebrew University conference that a military attack on Iran would be “a stupid idea.”

This week Mr. Dagan, speaking at Tel Aviv University, said that attacking Iran “would mean regional war, and in that case you would have given Iran the best possible reason to continue the nuclear program.” He added, “The regional challenge that Israel would face would be impossible.”

Mr. Dagan went on to complain that Israel had failed to put forward a peace initiative with the Palestinians and that it had foolishly ignored the Saudi peace initiative promising full diplomatic relations in exchange for a return to the 1967 border lines. He worried that Israel would soon be pushed into a corner.

On Thursday he got more specific, naming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, but this time through a leaked statement to journalists. The statement had to do with his belief that his retirement and the retirement of other top security chiefs had taken away a necessary alternative voice in decision making.

In recent months, the military chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, and the director of the Shin Bet internal security agency, Yuval Diskin, have also stepped down. Mr. Dagan was quoted in several newspapers as saying that the three of them had served as a counterweight to Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak.

“I decided to speak out because when I was in office, Diskin, Ashkenazi and I could block any dangerous adventure,” he was

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quoted as saying. “Now I am afraid that there is no one to stop Bibi and Barak,” he added, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname.

Journalists recalled that Mr. Dagan, who had refused contact with the media during his time in office, called a news briefing the last week of his tenure and laid out his concerns about an attack on Iran. But military censorship prevented his words from being reported.

“Dagan wanted to send a message to the Israeli public, but the censors stopped him,” Ronen Bergman of the newspaper Yediot Aharonot said by telephone. “So now that he is out of office he is going over the heads of the censors by speaking publicly.”

Mr. Dagan’s public and critical comments, at the age of 66 and after a long and widely admired career, have shaken the political establishment. The prime minister’s office declined requests for a response, although ministers have attacked Mr. Dagan. He has also found an echo among the nation’s commentators who have been ringing similar alarms.

“It’s not the Iranians or the Palestinians who are keeping Dagan awake at night but Israel’s leadership,” Ari Shavit asserted on the front page of the newspaper Haaretz on Friday.

“He does not trust the judgment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.”

It was Mr. Shavit who interviewed Mr. Dagan on stage at Tel Aviv University this week. And while Haaretz is the home of the country’s left wing, Mr. Shavit is more of a centrist.

“Dagan is really worried about September,” Mr. Shavit said in a telephone interview, referring to the month when the Palestinians are expected to ask the United Nations General Assembly to recognize their state within the 1967 border lines. The resolution is expected to pass and to bring new forms of international

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pressure on Israel. “He is afraid that Israel’s isolation will cause its leaders to take reckless action against Iran,” he said.

Nahum Barnea, a commentator for Yediot Aharonot, wrote on Friday that Mr. Dagan was not alone. Naming the other retired security chiefs and adding Amos Yadlin, who recently retired as chief of military intelligence, Mr. Barnea said that they shared Mr. Dagan’s criticism.

“This is not a military junta that has conspired against the elected leadership,” Mr. Barnea wrote. “These are people who, through their positions, were exposed to the state’s most closely guarded secrets and participated in the most intimate discussions with the prime minister and the defense minister. It is not so much that their opinion is important as civilians; their testimony is important as people who were there. And their testimony is troubling.”

This concern was backed by a former Mossad official, Gad Shimron, who spoke Friday on Israel Radio.

Mr. Shimron said: “I want everyone to pay attention to the fact that the three tribal elders, Ashkenazi, Diskin and Dagan, within a very short time, are all telling the people of Israel: take note, something is going on that we couldn’t talk about until now, and now we are talking about it. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and that is the decision-making process. The leadership makes fiery statements, we stepped on the brakes, we are no longer there and we don’t know what will happen. And that’s why we are saying this aloud.”

Neither Mr. Ashkenazi nor Mr. Diskin has made any public statements, and one high-level military official said he did not believe that they shared Mr. Dagan’s views.

While in office, Mr. Dagan served three prime ministers, was reappointed twice and oversaw a number of reported operations that Israelis consider great successes — forcing delays in Iran’s nuclear program through sabotaging its computers and

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assassinating scientists; setting the groundwork for an attack on a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007; and assassinating Imad Mughniyeh, a top Lebanese Hezbollah operative, in 2008.

When Ariel Sharon, the prime minister in 2002, appointed Mr. Dagan, he was reported to have told him he wanted “a Mossad with a knife between its teeth.” Mr. Dagan is widely thought to have complied and is not seen as a soft-hearted liberal.

Although Mr. Dagan is barred by law from elected office for three years, some suspect that he is laying the foundation for a political career. Others, like Yossi Peled, a government minister from the Likud party and a former military commander, think he is doing more harm than good.

“It damages state security,” Mr. Peled said on Israel Radio. “There is no need to give the other side directions of thought, activity or readiness. I am sure he is very worried and is acting out of good intentions, but I still think there are things that shouldn’t be declared in public.”

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President Assad’s Bloody Hands Editorial,NYTIMES,3 June, 2011,

Syrians have shown extraordinary courage, standing up to President Bashar al-Assad’s reign of terror. We wish we could say that about the international community. So long as Mr. Assad escapes strong condemnation and real punishment, he will keep turning his tanks and troops on his people.

Human rights groups believe that more than 1,000 protesters have been killed in a three-month crackdown and that 10,000 more have been arrested. Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, the 13-year-old boy whose tortured body was shown in an online video, has become a

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heartbreaking symbol of the regime’s brutality. According to activists, he was arrested at a protest on April 29 and not seen again until his broken body was delivered to his family almost a month later.

His murder and that of at least 30 other children who joined the protests show the depths to which Mr. Assad and his thugs have sunk.

On Friday, in some of the biggest demonstrations yet, thousands of people again returned to the streets to demand political freedoms. Activists said dozens of protesters were killed in Hama after troops and regime loyalists opened fire. Independent journalists are barred from the country, so the full extent of the violence is unclear. What we do know is that the Syrian government has unleashed a wave of repression, perhaps the most vicious counterattack of the Arab spring.

After the killing began, the United States and Europe imposed sanctions — mostly travel bans and asset freezes — on certain key regime officials while exempting Mr. Assad. Only later did they add his name to the list. The rhetoric is stiffening. On Thursday Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that Mr. Assad’s legitimacy is “if not gone, nearly run out.” But some American and European officials still buy the fantasy that Mr. Assad could yet implement reforms.

Most appalling, the United Nations Security Council is unable to muster the votes to condemn the bloodshed much less impose sanctions. Russia, cynically protecting longstanding ties with Damascus, is blocking meaningful action and China has fallen in lockstep. India is also reluctant to act — a shameful stance for a democracy that has been bidding for a permanent seat on the Council.

If Russia and China, which have veto power, can’t be won over, the United States and Europe must push a robust sanctions

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resolution and dare Moscow and the others to side with Mr. Assad over the Syrian people.

We do not know how this will turn out. But arguments that Mr. Assad is the best guarantor of stability and the best way to avoid extremism have lost all credibility.

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Losing reason in Damascus Editorial,Khaleej Times,4 June 2011

Syria’s cup of woe seems to have run over. Despite the recent amnesty declared by Syrian president for political dissidents including the members of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation — banned in the country since their revolt against President Bashar Al Assad’s father, Hafez Al Assad in the eighties — and the release of several hundred political prisoners, the unrest only seems to be growing.

This is of course being attributed to the continued use of force being pursued by Damascus. With reports of fresh killings of protesters in the central city of Rastan, the number of those killed at the hands of the security forces only seems to be growing. The biggest contradiction is that for every released prisoner, several more are arrested.

Moreover, the Syrian government’s promise to launch an investigation into the death of the teenage boy Hamza al-Khatib — who has become a symbol for the Syrian uprising — for alleged torture and killing by the security forces is being dismissed by the anti-regime opposition. A preliminary query resulted in the Syrian authorities saying that Hama died as a result of bullets that were fired at demonstrators in Deraa in April.

Hamza’s death while tragic epitomises the degeneration of the Syrian crisis. Ironically, every death at the hands of the state at

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this point has only strengthened the resolve of the opposition to continue its efforts for the ouster of a regime that cannot be trusted. Rastan is a case in point. Despite the amnesty the government did not consider restraint, as a result of which more people lost their lives. The Syrian opposition groups that are represented by the Local Coordinating Committee have denounced the government offer saying it comes too late. Considering the widespread unrest and the growing anger towards the regime, it is likely too late for remedial measures.

At the same time, the credibility of the regime in delivering on its promises has plummeted to zero. The adoption of a dual policy entailing concessions and force has hardly gained the trust of people whose disappointment in the government has obviously crossed all limits.

The question is how long will this continue. Sooner or later Assad will face defections within his regime and loss of support among his security establishment. What could be worse is that he will have the blood of thousands on his hands once this bloody turmoil finally ends. Instead of plunging his country into a bigger ordeal than the one it is currently going through, it may be better for the Syrian ruler to put an immediate end to the use of force. By starting negotiations with the opposition and allowing political factions fair and free participation in the electoral process, much worse can be averted. Unless reason prevails and restraint exercised, things will only get worse.

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U.S. still holds exchanges with Syrian military despite 1,000 civilian deaths ANKARA — The U.S. military continues to engage Syria. World Tribune (American)Friday, June 3, 2011,

The U.S. military is still meeting representatives of the Assad regime despite the killing of more than 1,000 civilians in Syria.

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The encounters have taken place in U.S.-sponsored or -assisted regional forums in which Syria continues to be invited. "The sad truth is that U.S. and Western policy toward Syria has not changed at all," a Western diplomatic source said.

On May 28, Syria was invited to attend a U.S.-sponsored seminar on threats to the Horn of Africa. The four-day seminar took place in Istanbul, Turkey and discussions included security and regional instability in the Middle East.

"The seminar included representatives from U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Central Command, the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, and the countries of Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Turkey and Yemen," a statement by U.S. Africa Command said on June 2.

In all, more than 80 representatives from Africa, the Middle East, and the United States attended the Horn of Africa seminar. The seminar was conducted by several institutes, including the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the Cairo Center for Training on Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping in Africa and the Regional Defense Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program.

The seminar was addressed by a senior State Department official, identified as Reuben Brigety, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. It was not known whether Brigety met the Syrian delegation.

Over the last month, the United States imposed two sets of sanctions on the Assad regime amid its crackdown that killed a reported 1,200 civilians. The sanctions focused on freezing assets and preventing business dealings between Americans and regime leaders.

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On June 2, Africom was asked whether it was restricted from dealing with representatives of the Assad regime. The military command did not provide an immediate reply.

Administration officials, however, acknowledged that U.S. and international pressure on Assad has been limited. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has insisted that Assad could remain in power.

"The legitimacy that is necessary for anyone to expect change to occur under this current government is, if not gone, nearly run out," Clinton told a news conference on June 2. "If he's not going to lead the reform, he needs to get out of the way. Where he goes, that's up to him."

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Syrians relive Hama massacre Three decades after tens of thousands die in military crackdown ordered by Assad's father, city endures second massacre as security forces kill dozens of protesters. 'You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now' says activist Yedioth Ahronoth (by News Agencies)4 June 2011,

A Syrian city that was bombed into submission three decades ago after a crushed uprising has become a new center for protest and violence, as activists said troops opened fire on a crowd of thousands in the city of Hama and killed at least 53.

Syrian opposition sources said the number of casualties was much higher than reported earlier, putting the death toll at 130.

In 1982, Hafez Assad's army crushed a Sunni uprising by the Brotherhood in Hama over a three-week period, flattening much of the city and killing 10,000 to 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates.

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"Today's protests are a reaction to the so-called overtures by the regime which has lost all credibility. It's the people saying we will not accept this anymore," said Najib al-Ghadban, a US-based Syrian academic and political activist.

Al-Ghadban said the Hama demonstration was especially significant, calling it "a qualitative leap that will encourage others to do the same."

He said most of the protesters were born after the 1982 massacre and do not harbor the same fear as their elders. "They heard about it, which is positive because it makes them more bent on keeping their protest movement peaceful. They don't want a repetition of the massacres."

"You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now. It's the same trend, but of course the world has changed so it cannot be on the same scale," he said.

People nationwide poured on Friday into the streets in unprecedented numbers, defying the crackdown and a government chokehold on the Internet.

In Hama, the witness and activists said at least 100,000 people took part in the protest, making it one of the largest in the city since the start of the 11-week uprising.

Rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed nationwide since mid-March.

"It is a real massacre," said a witness who took part in Friday's Hama protests and fled the gunfire. "People were running, shouting. We ran up to people's homes and hid there until the gunfire died down," he said.

The eyewitness in Hama said chaos broke out Friday as troops fired tear gas and live ammunition and snipers opened fire on tens

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of thousands of peaceful protesters who were calling for freedom and Assad's ouster.

"People started running while the dead littered the streets," he said. The activist, who like many involved in the protests requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, said hospitals were calling on people to donate blood.

A Syrian activist said authorities cut Internet service in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and the government crackdown and from organizing new resistance. In Damascus, several people contacted over the phone said the Internet was down. The government has cut Internet service in areas of military operations before and occasionally disrupted service, but Friday's outage appeared to be the most widespread.

Renesys, a trusted US firm that specializes in keeping tabs on Internet connectivity, confirmed the Syrian outage and said two-thirds of all Syrian networks were unavailable.

Still many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload videos, such as satellite connections.

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Rights group calls for Syria sanctions Independent Online (This is the South African Independent not the British one)June 3 2011

Human Rights Watch has called on the UN Security Council to impose sanction on Syria and to hold the government accountable to the International Criminal Court, following the deaths of more than 800 people in recent weeks.

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The organisation released a report on Thursday based on interviews with victims and witnesses.

The report strongly suggests that the systematic killings and torture qualify as crimes against humanity.

According to witnesses, many people were left with lethal head, neck and chest wounds. Civilians were deliberately targeted by security forces who used lethal force against protesters and bystanders, in most cases without warning.

"For more than two months now, Syrian security forces have been killing and torturing their own people with complete impunity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "They need to stop - and if they don't, it is the Security Council's responsibility to make sure that the people responsible face justice."

The protests first broke out in Daraa in response to the detention and torture of 15 children accused of painting graffiti slogans calling for the government's downfall. In response and since then, security forces have repeatedly and systematically opened fire on overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators.

Nine witnesses from the towns of Tafas, Tseel, and Sahem al-Golan described an attack which took place on April 29, when thousands of people from towns surrounding Daraa attempted to break the blockade on the city. Witnesses said that the security forces stopped the protesters who were trying to approach Daraa at a checkpoint near the Western entrance of Daraa city.

One of the witnesses from the town of Tseel who participated in the protest said: "We stopped there, waiting for more people to arrive. We held olive branches, and posters saying we want to bring food and water to Daraa. We had canisters with water and food parcels with us. Eventually thousands of people gathered on the road - the crowd stretched for some six kilometers. Then we started moving closer to the checkpoint. We shouted "peaceful,

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peaceful," and in response they opened fire. Security forces were everywhere, in the fields nearby, on a water tank behind the checkpoint, on the roof of a nearby factory, and in the trees, and the fire came from all sides. People started running, falling, trying to carry the wounded away. Nine people from Tseel were wounded there and one of them died."

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On Syria Draft Russia, China & India Won't Engage, S. Africa Won't Without ThemMatthew Russell Lee, ExclusiveInner City Press,3 June, 2011,

UNITED NATIONS, June 3 -- At a UN meeting Thursday about the draft Syria resolution, Russia, China and India said there was no reason to begin word by word negotiation: they overall oppose the resolution. Then the European sponsors tried to reach out to South Africa and Brazil, to see if they would engage in negotiations without the nay-saying three. They were rebuffed.

As South Africa's Permanent Representative Baso Sangqu put it to Inner City Press on June 3, “We are in solidarity with the E[lected] Ten, we will not go into some cocoon of the Security Council. If they won't negotiate, either will we.”

Also on June 3, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative Pankin asked Inner City Press, “Why a new resolution -- for more bombing?” The reference was to what NATO has done in Libya after Russia and China, along with non veto wielding India, Brazil and Germany, abstained on Resolution 1973.

Hint: The draft resolution is attached as pdf.

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Syria: violent unrest raises concern for Christian future Vatican Radio,

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4 June 2011,

Deadly violence against anti-government protestors in Syria has intensified, with more than 60 civilians reportedly killed in incidents throughout the country heading into the weekend. Since it began 11 weeks ago, Christians have been participating in the reform agitation along with Syrians from other minority groups, including many from President Bashar al-Assad’s own Alawite community.

Nevertheless, there is a persistent public perception that Christians favour the Ba’ath party regime of Assad.

Latin auxiliary of Jerusalem, Bishop William Shomali shared his concerns and those of all the faithful in the Holy Land. “The experience of Iraq [could] be for us a paradigm,” he said, recalling the mass exodus of Christians from their ancient homeland, beginning two decades ago and intensifying in the period of violent instability that followed the ouster of the late dictator, Saddam Hussein. “We are afraid in some way, of such results,” said Bishop Shomali, adding, “we are waiting, we are praying that the situation of Iraq is not repeated in Syria, for example.”

Bishop Shomali spoke to Vatican Radio on the sidelines of an international gathering of delegates to the Pontifical Commission for International Eucharistic Congresses from over 70 countries, who were in the capital of IEC 2012 host country, Ireland, this week.

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Obama has no authority to meddle Bill JonesThe Tribune Democrat (American),June 4, 2011

The Tribune-Democrat Sat Jun 04, 2011, 01:00 AM EDT

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— My mother used to say, “If you stick your nose into somebody else’s business, you might get it cut off, or at least bloodied.” What she said 70 years ago still has merit today.

In November 2008, Sen. Barack Obama was elected president of the United States.

Whether he knows it or not, he was not elected president of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Israel, Palestine or any other nation, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.

If he continues to stick his nose into other nations’ business, he most assuredly will get it bloodied. He has neither the authority nor the right to tell other countries how they should conduct their governments, and he has no right to tell other heads of state that they should step down, no matter how vile or dictatorial they may be.

In fairness, Obama is not the first president to aspire to world leadership, and he is not the first to desire to control other nations, or at least direct the path of world events. That does not make it right.

Pay attention, Mr. President. The United States is a land of laws, and the principal law is the U.S. Constitution. It is the document you swore to uphold and defend when you took your oath of office, way back on that cold January day of 2009.

The Constitution sets forth the powers and duties of each branch of the federal government, including the presidency. The wisdom of the authors of that precious document placed limits and inferred restraints on the federal government as a whole, and on the individual branches thereof.

Through the years, presidents have assumed more and more executive powers that are not included in our Constitution, and neither the Congress nor the Supreme Court has sought to bridle

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the presidency and keep it within the boundaries of constitutional law.

If, indeed, the Constitution is the law of the land, any action that conflicts with it is outlawed. In fact, it would appear that the Constitution is very specific in granting and limiting the powers of each branch of our government.

The 10th Amendment is very plain when it says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

That amendment has never been repealed by the amendment process contained in the Constitution. Therefore, it remains the law of the land.

What it means now, just as it did in 1791 when the Bill of Rights became official, is that no branch of the government has any power or authority not specifically listed in the Constitution and its amendments – neither the president nor the Congress nor the Supreme Court.

It does not matter what any chief executive, legislator or justice thinks the Constitution means, or wishes it would mean, or says changing times should change it to mean, the document still stands on its own. It means what it says until it is officially amended and ratified by the states.

Nowhere does it say that the president of the United States should stick his nose, or our collective noses, into the business of other nations. That seems like a sure way to get our noses bloodied.

We would not like it if some other head of state told us how to conduct our business, or told our president he should step down, or told the United States to give Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California back to Mexico.

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Please, Mr. President, the United States has enough people in the Middle East and elsewhere who already don’t like us. Don’t look for more.

Bill Jones is a retired senior writer for The Tribune-Democrat.HOME PAGE

Report: U.S. to offer Turkey major role in Mideast talks if it stops Gaza flotillaAccording to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, U.S. may offer Ankara to host major Israeli-Palestinian peace talks if it mends its ties with Israel and prevents upcoming Gaza-bound flotilla.By Haaretz Service4 June 2011,

The U.S. government is considering to offer Turkey a deal in which Ankara would stop a second Gaza flotilla that is due to depart later this month in exchange for the opportunity to host an Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Ankara, the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported Friday.

Israel has been preparing to block the second aid flotilla sailing from Turkey to Gaza, one year after the Israel Defense Forces' deadly raid on the first Gaza flotilla in which nine Turkish activists died. Turkey has demanded Israel apologize for the raid in order to restore Turkish-Israeli ties.

Today's Zaman quoted the Turkish Hurriyet daily as reporting that the U.S. was due to officially ask Turkey to host a major peace conference in return for mending its ties with Israel and preventing the second Gaza-bound flotilla. The proposed peace summit would be similar to past major talks such as the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.

According to Hurriyet, U.S. officials have been trying to get a sense of how Turkey would react to such a proposal, and one U.S. official said that Ankara seems unlikely to accept the offer without Israel apologizing for the IDF raid.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel prefers a diplomatic move to thwart the flotilla expected at the end of June, but if necessary would exercise force against anyone who tries to disobey the navy's orders and head to Gaza's shore.

The Israel Navy has held takeover drills and mobilized reserve combatants, on the assumption the large number of vessels (about 15 ) planning to take part in the flotilla will require reinforcements. The preparations include intelligence surveillance, based mainly on open communications and Internet sites.

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The faces of revolution This week, a battered Syrian boy’s body brought his country’s struggle into focus. Michael Burleigh argues such casualties have long been powerful global symbols. Michael Burleigh,Daily Telegraph,04 Jun 2011

This was the week when the almost anonymous bloody conflict in Syria suddenly found a face, becoming ''real’’ to most of us for the first time. Footage of the battered and mutiliated body of a 13-year-old boy, Hamza al-Khatib, made its way onto YouTube. It is claimed that his secret police tormentors physically emasculated him at some point, before he was shot dead.

While nothing should surprise us about such a brutal regime – slashing victims with scalpels, stitching up the wounds, and then beating the scar tissue at 10-minute intervals is a Syrian speciality – torturing a 13-year-old represents a new low. Even the British-educated ophthalmologist Bahar al–Assad, who presides over Syria, affected crocodile tears, and commiserated with Hamza’s parents in a meeting they could not refuse. ''We are all Hamza al-Khatib,’’ declared Syrian protesters, who brandished placards reading: ''Did Hamza scare you that much?’’

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Revolutions and struggles against repression have a habit of crystallising themselves in the image of one person – a single image can come to represent a whole nation’s grievances. This has been the case throughout the wave of uprisings which have spread through the Middle East this year. They have undoubtedly found individual victims of regime brutality who have served to symbolise the conflict, helped along the way by the online technology which has often fuelled the people’s rage. Without Facebook, YouTube et al, how else would we have heard of Hamza’s gruesome fate, as journalists are banned from Syria?

Such human emblems not only focus people’s passions, but in the wider world they put a face, and an individual story, on what otherwise are simply endless chanting crowds being scattered by gunfire, the banal fare of 24/7 news bulletins, when they are not dominated by the overwheening bulk of a John Simpson.

And so, Hamza joins a select group of martyrs of the Middle Eastern revolutions. The first was the 26-year-old Tunisian street-trader Mohamed Bouazizi, who, on December 17, 2010, set fire to himself with a can of petrol after a contretemps with a female municipal inspector over a missing permit to sell fruit and veg in his hardscrabble home town of Sidi Bouzid. She denies having slapped him, but the row had much deeper causes than who did what to who.

Despite having a high school diploma, Bouazizi had been a street trader for seven years in order to support his parents’ family of eight. Leaving aside the question of whether educational qualifications in this part of the world mean what they formally suggest, it is undoubtedly the case that corruption and nepotism are a massive obstacle to anyone unfortunate enough to lack wasta – that is the ''clout’’ – to get ahead. Bouazizi became the face which fanned the smouldering sparks of the Jasmine Revolution.

Such political symbols obviously gain potency if the victim is not unattractive, although even the death of someone resembling a

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fashion model does not guarantee that the movement succeeds against a really brazen and brutal regime. Anything less than death tends to complicate things, as a 26-year-old Libyan law student, Eman Al-Obeidi, has discovered since she burst into a Tripoli hotel frequented by western journalists screaming that she had been kidnapped and gang-raped by soldiers loyal to Gaddafi. After fleeing via Tunisia to Qatar, she has been dumped back in Benghazi after meeting a less than sympathetic reception from the authorities in Doha.

Neda Agha-Soltan became the symbol of the Green Revolution following her death in Tehran in June 2009. Not only was Neda very good looking, but she seemed to exemplify a certain Iranian modernity: a middle-class graduate who worked for a travel company, with hopes of becoming a pop singer. Neda was driving home with her music teacher and two others when their car was caught in a traffic jam caused by a demonstration against the Ahmadinejad regime’s fiddling of the presidential election.

Shortly after alighting from the Peugeot to see what was happening, she was shot in the chest by one of the Basij militia cruising around on motorcycles. Someone was on hand to record on camera the startled look on Neda’s face, in the moments before she bled to death on the road. To say that the runaway circulation of this footage on the internet rattled the Ahmadinejad regime would be an understatement. Failing to get its lies straight, it claimed that the bullet was ''foreign’’, and fired ''into her head’’ by either the CIA or other anti-government protesters. It also claimed that the shaky film footage was shot by the BBC or CNN. Eye-witnesses to Neda’s murder were arrested for ''poisoning the international atmosphere against Iran’’, while her parents were offered a substantial pension if they blamed the opposition for the death. Despite these attempts to shove the genie back in the bottle, Neda’s beautiful face, and the horrific footage of her death, has become iconic for dissident Iranians.

But while the technology has changed, there is nothing new (or particularly Middle Eastern) about individuals being converted

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into potent symbols of revolution. The great Jacobin painter Jacques Louis David turned a republican boy soldier, Joseph Barra, into a martyr after he was killed suppressing Catholic counter-revolutionaries in the western Vendée in the early 1790s.

In the 1930s the Bolsheviks and Nazis lionised boys who were killed by ideological opponents. Coincidentally, both of the major martyrs were slain in 1932. Pavel Morozov was murdered by a relative after he denounced members of the family as counter-revolutionary hoarders of grain, thus becoming the ideal Communist Young Pioneer. Herbert ''Quex’’ Norkus became the chief symbol of the Hitler Youth after he died in a Berlin brawl with young Communists. Under such regimes the truth about the individual is lost in the big lie - making a martyr is not always an act of the angels, after all. Another Nazi martyr – the Brown Shirt Horst Wessel, in whose honour their party anthem was named – was killed in a fight over a prostitute by her pimp.

Martyrdom, of course, can occur by violence against the self. These images are often the most powerful of symbols. In 1963 a Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, poured petrol over himself in the middle of a Saigon street and set fire to himself in protest at discrimination Buddhists were undergoing at the hands of the Roman Catholic dictator Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. The similar deaths of four more monks and a nun contributed to the delegitimisation of the Diem regime, which was toppled in a CIA-backed coup that year.

The practice spread to the US anti-war movement when an 82-year-old pacifist, Alice Herz, immolated herself in Detroit in 1965, while a Quaker, Norman Morrison, set fire to himself outside the Pentagon. One of the most haunting scenes from the Prague Spring was of a student, Jan Palach who, in early 1969, set himself alight in Wenceslas Square in protest against Soviet occupation of his country. Two other Czech students died in similar circumstances a month later, though only Palach has become a national martyr, with even an asteroid named in his honour – 1834 Palach.

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In India during the 1990s, higher caste medical students tried to incinerate themselves in protest against affirmative action programmes on behalf of lowest caste untouchable Dalits – for like hunger strikes, the causes people are prepared to die for are often dubious, with several IRA hunger strikers turned into the shaggy visual equivalent of the suffering Christ.

But the individual who, perhaps, has become the ultimate symbol of standing up to oppression, remains nameless and faceless: Tank Man, or the Unknown Rebel, who confronted tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This unknowability has allowed Tank Man to become a canvas for other causes – a worldwide symbol of resistance, despite the fact he was, most likely, subsumed into Laogai “rehabilitation” through forced labour complexes.

For regardless of the cultural background, or whether the political causes seem secular, what this universal quest for martyrs and symbols suggests is a common human need for stories of extreme sacrifice, to provide an individual focus for what are much more complicated political events, with outcomes no one knows, and whose players are a mystery to us. Since sentiment is easy to manipulate, it should be the last thing to determine policy, though nowadays, it is invariably among the first.

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Syria: bloody protests over the slaying of 30 children Dozens of people were killed on Friday as Syrian protesters demonstrated over of the killing of 30 children at the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's security forces. Adrian Blomfield,Daily Telegraph,3 June, 2011,

Alarmed by the impact of a widely circulated video showing the corpse of a 13-year-old boy allegedly tortured to death while in prison, the government instituted an internet shutdown.

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The death of Hamza el-Khatib spurred tens of thousands of demonstrators to join marches across the country. Activists said up to 150,000 people gathered in the northern city of Maarat an-Numan, which, if confirmed, would be by far the largest protest since protests began in March.

The violence, which killed at least 34 people, was centred on the historically volatile city of Hama, scene of the worst civilian massacre in modern Syrian history. In 1982, government forces put down an Islamist uprising, killing 20,000 people.

Yesterday’s violence came after protesters attempted to burn down the local headquarters of the ruling Ba’ath party. Some in the crowd were said to be carrying hunting rifles. An estimated 50,000 people rallied against Mr Assad.

Security forces unleashed “intense gunfire” against the crowd as they marched and the death toll was likely to rise, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian observatory for human rights.

Protesters also came under live fire in a district of Damascus and two eastern towns as a call to observe a “Day of Child Martyrs” after Friday prayers was met with an unprecedented response.

“Yet again the Syrian government has shown an abhorrent disregard for human life as ordinary Syrians took to the streets today in memory of the innocent children who have died during the unrest,” said Alistair Burt, Foreign Office minister for the Middle East.

The previously flagging protest movement has been given renewed impetus by horror over Hamza el-Khatib’s death. Activists say the images of his mutilated body show that he was repeatedly subjected to cigarettes burns, electric shocks and beatings. He also had his neck broken, his penis cut off and was shot through both arms and his head.

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Many other children have become victims of regime repression.

In the past week, three girls — one of them four years old — have been shot dead by the security forces. Hajar Tayseer el-Khatib, 12, who was killed as her school bus came under fire, has been named “the flower of Syria’s martyrs” by the protest movement.

In an attempt to unify support against Mr Assad’s regime, protesters uploaded clips on YouTube.

“They killed my father last night,” said one girl aged around 8-years-old from Tel Kalakh, near the border with Lebanon. “We could not even catch a goodbye sight of him. Three of my uncles have been in jail for two years. Two other uncles and my grandmother are dead, and my father was killed yesterday. May God take their lives. I will get my revenge one day.”

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Israelis Rush for Second Passports "Perhaps as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving Palestine in the next few years if political and social trends continue."By FRANKLIN LAMBCounter Punch,

BeirutPerhaps historians or cultural anthropologists surveying the course of human events can identify for us a land, in addition to Palestine, where such a large percentage of a recently arrived colonial population prepared to exercise their right to depart, while many more, with actual millennial roots but victims of ethnic cleansing, prepared to exercise their right of Return.

One of the many ironies inherent in the 19th century Zionist colonial enterprise in Palestine is the fact that this increasingly fraying project was billed for most of the 20th century as a haven in the Middle East for “returning” persecuted European Jews. But today, in the 21st century, it is Europe that is increasingly being

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viewed by a large number of the illegal occupiers of Palestinian land as the much desired haven for returning Middle Eastern Jews. To paraphrase Jewish journalist Gideon Levy “If our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport to escape from Europe, there are many among us who are now dreaming of a second passport to escape to Europe.”

Several studies in Israel and one conducted by AIPAC and another by the Jewish National Fund in Germany show that perhaps as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving Palestine in the next few years if current political and social trends continue. A 2008 survey by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that 59 per cent of Israelis had approached or intended to approach a foreign embassy to inquire about or apply for citizenship and a passport. Today it is estimated that the figure is approaching 70 per cent.

The number of Israelis thinking of leaving Palestine is climbing rapidly according to researchers at Bar-Ilan University who conducted a study published recently in Eretz Acheret, (“A Different Place”) an Israeli NGO that claims to promote cultural dialogue. What the Bar-Ilan study found is that more than 100,000 Israelis already hold a German passport, and this figure increases by more than 7,000 every year along an accelerating trajectory. According to German officials, more than 70,000 such passports have been granted since 2000. In addition to Germany, there are more than one million Israelis with other foreign passports at the ready in case life in Israel deteriorates.

One of the most appealing countries for Israelis contemplating emigration, as well as perhaps the most welcoming, is the United States. Currently more than 500,000 Israelis hold US passports with close to a quarter million pending applications. During the recent meetings in Washington DC between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s delegation and Israel’s US agents, assurances were reportedly given by AIPAC officials that if and when it becomes necessary, the US government will expeditiously issue American

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passports to any and all Israeli Jews seeking them. Israeli Arabs need not apply.

AIPAC also represented to the Israelis that the US Congress could be trusted to approve funding for arriving Israeli Jews “to be allocated substantial cash resettlement grants to ease transition into their new country.”

Apart from the Israeli Jews who may be thinking of getting an “insurance passport” for a Diaspora land, there is a similar percentage of Jews worldwide who aren't going to make aliyah. According to Jonathan Rynhold, a Bar Ilan professor specializing on U.S.-Israel relations, Jews may be safer in Teheran than Ashkelon these days—until Israel or the USA starts bombing Iran.

Interviews with some of those who either helped conduct the above noted studies or have knowledge of them, identify several factors that explain the Israeli rush for foreign passports, some rather surprising, given the ultra-nationalist Israeli culture. The common denominator is unease and anxiety, both personal and national, with the second passport considered a kind of insurance policy “for the rainy days visible on the horizon,” as one researcher from Eretz Acheret explained.

Other factors include: The fact that two or three generations in Israel has not proven enough to implant roots where few if any existed before. For this reason Israel has produced a significant percentage of “re-immigration” — a return of immigrants or their descendants to their country of origin which Zionist propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding, is not Palestine. Fear that religious fanatics from among the more than 600,000 settlers in the West Bank will create civil war and essentially annex pre-1967 Israel and turn Israel more toward an ultra-fascist state.

Centripetal pressures within Israeli society, especially among Russian immigrants who overwhelmingly reject Zionism. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, some one million Jews have

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come to Israel from the former Soviet Union, enlarging the country's population by 25 per cent and forming the largest concentration in the world of Russian Jews. But today, Russian Jews comprise the largest group emigrating from Israel and they have been returning in droves for reasons ranging from opposition to Zionism, discrimination, and broken promises regarding employment and “the good life” in Israel.

Approximately 200,000 or 22 per cent of Russians coming to Israel since 1990 have so far returned to their country. According to Rabbi Berel Larzar, who has been Russia’s chief Rabbi since 2000, "It's absolutely extraordinary how many people are returning. When Jews left, there was no community, no Jewish life. People felt that being Jewish was an historical mistake that happened to their family. Now, they know they can live in Russia as part of a community and they don’t need Israel."

No faith in or respect for Israeli leaders, most of whom are considered corrupt.

Feelings of anxiety and guilt that Zionism has hijacked Judaism and that traditional Jewish values are being corrupted.

The recent growing appreciation, for many Israelis, significantly abetted by the Internet and the continuing Palestinian resistance, of the compelling and challenging Palestinians narrative that totally undermines the Zionist clarion of the last century of “ A People without and land for a land without a people.”

Fear mongering of the political leaders designed to keep citizens supporting the government’s policies ranging from the Iranian bomb, the countless ‘Terrorists” seemingly everywhere and planning another Holocaust or various existential threats that keep families on edge and concluding that they don’t want to raise their children under such conditions.

Explaining that he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a member of Democrats Abroad Israel, New York native Hillel

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Schenker suggested that Jews who come to Israel "want to make sure that they have the possibility of an alternative to return whence they came." He added that the "insecurities involved in modern life, and an Israel not yet living at peace with any of its neighbors, have also produced a phenomenon of many Israelis seeking a European passport, based on their family roots, just in case."

Gene Schulman, a former American-Jewish fellow at the Switzerland-based Overseas American Academy, put it even more drastically, emphasizing that all Jews are "scared to death of what is probably going to become of Israel even if the U.S. continues its support for it." Many observers of Israeli society agree that a major, if unexpected recent impetus for Jews to leave Palestine has been the past three months of the Arab Awakening that overturned Israel’s key pillars of regional support.

According to Layal, a Palestinian student from Shatila Camp, who is preparing for the June 5 “Naksa” march to the Blueline in South Lebanon: “What the Zionist occupiers of Palestine saw from Tahrir Square in Cairo to Maroun al Ras in South Lebanon has convinced many Israelis that the Arab and Palestinian resistance, while still in its nascence, will develop into a massive and largely peaceful ground swell such that no amount of weapons or apartheid administration can insure a Zionist future in Palestine. They are right to seek alternative places to raise their families.”

Franklin Lamb is an American doing research in Lebanon.

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