Tues. 5 Apr. 2011

VOLTAIRE NET The plan to target Syria and its backdrop ……..……………..1

SYRIA COMMENT As Calm Returns to the Streets, Syrians Ponder Their

Future……………………………………………..…………2 WASHINGTON POST

Hillary Clinton’s uncredible statement on Syria ……...……..7

FOREIGN POLICY A Decade of Wishful Thinking ………………………….…11

WALL ST. JOURNAL West's Response to Syria Blasted ………………………….16

NYTIMES Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan ……….…….19

HAARETZ Top defense official: Israel faces isolation 'no less severe than

war'………………………………………………………....21 Egypt ready to 'open new page' in relations with Iran ……..22

DAILY TELEGRAPH Syria promises to unveil road map to end emergency laws by

Friday ……………………………………………………...23LATIMES

What's behind Goldstone's flip-flop? ....................................25

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HOME PAGEThe plan to target Syria and its backdrop Voltair net,5 Apr. 2011,

Israel: first beneficiary from the fall of the current Syrian regime / Saud al-Faysal’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu / Facts confirming the implication of the Future Movement / Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and the American position / Al-Assad pledges to annul the emergency law / The Americans need Al-Assad to secure the exit of their remaining troops from Iraq.

The plan to target Syria is linked to a new American strategy to adapt to and exploit the Arab changes. It seems clear that the American empire has adopted a plan to weaken, deplete and drown Syria in chaos if possible, under headlines related to the support of the demands of reform, for reasons linked to the American-Israeli interests in the region. The Americans endured a great loss and an even greater disappointment due to the popular response to the calls for action in Egypt. Indeed, this action imposed the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Vice President Omar Suleiman, whom the Americans were hoping to appoint as the president’s successor to guarantee the continuation of the Egyptian regime’s commitments toward the United States and Israel. The American inclination took the character of the support of the action for reform in Syria, through the transfer of the protests and the provision of a regional Saudi-Lebanese-Jordanian network to support the groups which are linked to the American project and include opposition Syrian sides and figures living abroad and are loyal to the American and Western influence. The conflict over Syria was always the pivotal point of the colonial invasions in the region, and the Americans - who have been leading an ongoing invasion in partnership with Israel for over forty years - know this strategic reality. This time, they are bluntly engaged in the conflict against President Bashar al-Assad through tools and powers connected to them. The conflict is mainly between Al-Assad’s project to establish a Middle East that is made by the people who are drawing up its free choices, and a

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Middle East that is under Israeli hegemony. It can thus be summarized by the conflict between Al-Assad and Obama over Egypt and its future choices toward the Palestinian cause and the Zionist enemy.

The Arab fileSyriaIn Syria, millions gathered on the squares and the main roads of the different cities to express their support toward President Al-Assad, his reform project and national unity in the face of the strife plan which is targeting the country. In the meantime, the Syrian community abroad and especially in a number of Arab countries staged demonstrations, while Arab unions, parties, organizations and forces assured that through their wisdom, the Syrian people will be able to thwart all the plans aiming at tampering with the country’s national unity, security and stability.

American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believed it was unlikely to see the United States interfering in Syria the way it was currently interfering in Libya, saying that each Arab uprising had its own specificity.

President Bashar al-Assad received several calls from a number of kings, princes and heads of states wishing to check up on the situation in Syria.

On Wednesday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spoke before the People’s Assembly regarding the circumstances Syria was going through, thus assuring the country “is going through a test that is repeated from time to time due to the conspiracies,” and indicating that strife - which erupted in Syria - started weeks ago with an instigation campaign via satellite channels.

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As Calm Returns to the Streets, Syrians Ponder Their Future Syria CommentMonday, April 4th, 2011

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Syria experienced its first day of political calm in over two weeks on April 3. The Sunami of protest and youth awakening that swept over Syria as part of the earthquake that hit the Arab World over two months ago has profoundly shaken Syrians. So accustomed to being the “island of stability” in the Middle East, Syrians are now wondering how long the Assad regime can last.

The Baathist regime has presided over Syria for 48 years; Bashar al-Assad has been president for eleven since inheriting power from his father. Both remain in firm control, although badly bruised and shaken. Western accounts of the protest movement in Syria have been exaggerated. At no time was the regime in peril. No officials resigned or left the country as happened in Libya. The Syrian army remained loyal to the president, unlike the armies of Egypt and Tunisia. And the protest movement that grew large in the Syrian countryside failed to take root in the cities. The number of demonstrators that turned out in Damascus, Aleppo, and Hama, three of Syria’s four largest cities- counted in the hundreds and not the thousands.

Damascus was the only one of these three cities to have demonstrations. There were four in all. The two most significant occurred early in the process on March 16 and 17. Dozens of young demonstrators marched through the al-Hamidiyeh and Hariqa souqs on March 16 shouting, “God, Syria, Freedom – is enough,” a chant that became the standard slogan of the movement that spread to other parts of Syria in the following two weeks. The day after, scores of human rights activists and the relatives of political prisoners demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry. After Deraa flared up, the citizens of Damascus fell quite rather than getting on the bandwagon.

Aleppo, a hotbed of Muslim Brother support in the 1970s, was completely unaffected by the anti-government movement. Instead, Aleppines turned out in sizable numbers to support the government.

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Hama was also unaffected. It was the city that the Muslim Brotherhood was able to take over in 1982 before having its old districts destroyed brutally by the regime. A friend from Hama, who was asked, “Why isn’t Hama rising against the regime and taking revenge?” answered, “Syrians demonstrate for their own reasons. Don’t ever think anyone in Daraa will shed a tear for Hama or the other way around.” He said there is no great Syrian revolution – just locals having internal issues.”

In Homs, by contrast, a sizable protest took place near the old city on Friday. Demonstrators chanted “Allahu Akbar” and called for “Freedom”. It was localized; violence flared up at the end. There were wounded on both sides, including security forces. The protest in Homs indicates that the cities are not immune to the movement. The hallmark of the successful Middle Eastern revolution has been the ability of the protesters to overwhelm security forces in the capital city. Damascus dispatched over a million of its inhabitants to a pro-Assad rally, leading many to conclude that the broad public remains on Bashar’s side.

All the same, many suspect that the protest movement, even if contained and sporadic, may become a nagging problem for the regime. Business will be reluctant to invest. The five year economic plan that was rolled out last year already looks wildly unrealistic. Its centerpiece is the gamble that Syria can attract 10 billion dollars of foreign investment a year. This year foreign investment will probably be less than 2 billion dollars. Economic failure will compound the regime’s problems. Opposition members insist that the barrier of fear in Syria has been punctured and that the long contained waters of liberty will eventually sweep it away. Others argue that the government will hit hard at the opposition to rebuild the wall of fear, making the protest movement a short lived phenomenon.

Deraa has been the site of the greatest demonstrations and the most violence. Tens of thousands took to the streets; some one hundred persons were killed in there and in the neighboring towns; many more were wounded. The protests were sparked for a very

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local reason. Fifteen high school kids were arrested for scrawling anti-government graffiti on the walls. But the long-term causes were not entirely local. The slogans chosen by the schoolkids mimicked those used by protesters in Egypt and their call for freedom. A six-year drought has also hit the entire East of Syria hard, devastating agriculture a ruining the wheat crop along with incomes just at the time that the youth bubble generated by decades of an elevated birthrates have brought frustrated and unemployed young onto the streets of Syria’s provincial cities. What is more, Deraa is a tribal region, which some blamed for the severity of the demonstrations. Tribal tradition requires local leaders to protest the incarceration of their children and for the members of the tribes to come out in force. Even today, the tribes can provide a vehicle of resistance to the central state. Arab and Kurdish tribes were some of the last social units in Syria to buckled in the face of central authority and national identity.

Latakia on the coast also saw several days of demonstrations and violence. This was surprising because it is the capital of the Coastal region dominated by Alawites. Twelve were killed. A number were also killed in Duma, a town outside of Damascus. Demonstrations broke out in many provincial cities indicating that opposition demands for curtailing corruption, lifting the emergency law, and greater freedoms and speedy reform have widespread resonance across the country.

What Has Changed?Even if the government in Damascus remains powerful for the time being and Syrians cling to the stability it promises, there can be little doubt that we are witnessing a profound break from the past. The Arab Street has finally come into its own. Rulers will have to think twice before treating their people like sheep. Economic failure will be punished. The video phone has become the Arab equivalent of the six-shooter in the American West. It is the new “equalizer.” It offers a modicum of equity and justice to the ordinary man who can now hold his phone aloft to capture police brutality and send it to Youtube. Technology has been

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transformative. The recent unrest could not have been sustained without it.

The Syrian community abroad has been irrevocably reunited with Syrians inside the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this change. The young of Syria can no longer be isolated from foreign movements and intellectual trends. Those who go abroad used to become dissociated from Syria. Calling home was prohibitively expensive and returning made difficult by mandatory military service. Technology has attached the two communities. Skype, Facebook, and email have been all important to this revolution. In the past, the brain drain siphoned off Syria’s best and brightest; opposition leaders were sent into exile. Now they are leading the the charge against the regime, pumping sedition into every Syrian household with Youtube and Twitter updates.

A number of Arab states, in particular Tunisia and Egypt, have earned the right to be called nations. Their people have stood up as one to demand sovereignty. Although emergency rule has yet to be lifted in Egypt and a stable government has yet to take shape in Tunisia, there is good reason to believe they will. For other Arabs, particularly those of the Levant it is too early to make such bold statements about national integrity. The leading reason Syrians did not take to the streets in larger numbers is fear of communal strife and possible civil war. They do not dislike their government enough to risk going the way of Iraq. Among large segments of Syrian society, Bashar al-Assad remains popular. As a multi-ethnic and religious society, Syria could come unglued.

But in a four or five years, the next generation of Syrian youth will not remember the turmoil in either Lebanon or Iraq. Palestine will be a cause remembered only by grandfathers. Instead of defeat and hopelessness, invoked by Iraq and Palestine, young Arabs may well have the examples of Egypt and Tunisia. They may well be on the road to becoming the Arab World’s first democracies.

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This begs the question of how long the Assad regime can last. Syria’s youth are no longer apathetic. They have tasted revolution and their own power. Many commentators have remarked on Bashar al-Assad’s stubbornness. He may be a “modernizer,” but not a “reformer,” is how Volker Pertes recently explained it. This is a polite way to say that he is not preparing the way for a handover of power from Alawites to Sunnis. Assad’s refusal to prepare the present regime for a soft landing spells bad news for Syria. The day that regime-change will come to Syria seems closer today than it did only a short time ago.

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Hillary Clinton’s uncredible statement on Syria By Glenn KesslerWashington Post,4 Mar. 2011,

“There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months

have said they believe he’s a reformer.”

--Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on “Face the Nation,” March 27, 2011

“I referenced opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”

--Clinton, two days later

Hillary Clinton is known for making provocative statements, but few have generated such a firestorm as her comment last week that the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, may be a reformer. She made her remarks after “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer noted that Assad’s late father had killed 25,000 people during an uprising against his regime. Clinton responded by noting that the son was now in power and he was a “different leader.”

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Lawmakers and columnists quickly condemned her remarks. So two days later Clinton tried to deflect the criticism by telling reporters she was only referencing “the opinions” of lawmakers who had met with Assad and that she was not speaking for the administration. But then she added: “We’re also going to continue to urge that the promise of reform, which has been made over and over again and which you reported on just a few months ago – I’m a reformer, I’m going to reform, and I’ve talked to members of Congress and others about that, that we hear from the highest levels of leadership in Syria – will actually be turned into reality.”

Officially, the State Department has taken a dim view of Assad’s pledges, describing him as “authoritarian” in the most recent human rights report. “The government systematically repressed citizens' abilities to change their government,” the report said. “In a climate of impunity, there were instances of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life.”

There’s no question that Assad had promised reform to reporters, most recently in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. But have “many of the members of Congress of both parties” who have met with Assad actually come away from those meetings believing that Assad was a reformer?

The Facts Relations between the United States and Syria hit a low point in 2005 after the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated and the Bush administration withdrew the U.S. ambassador. But President Obama has sought to repair relations, believing a peace deal between Israel and Syria would help stabilize the region. Over congressional opposition, he returned the ambassador to Damascus.

In a meantime, a number of congressional delegations have made trips to Damascus to meet with Assad. Most famously, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Assad in 2007 over the objections of President Bush, though Republicans such as Rep.

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Darrell Issa of California also traveled there, believing it was important to maintain a dialogue. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made repeated visits to Damascus to meet at length with Assad.

We will take it as a given that a number of Democrats believed Assad could be a reformer. On March 16, for instance, Kerry said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.”

But what about Republicans? Clinton claimed that “many of the members of both parties” who had gone to Syria “in recent months” had decided Assad was a reformer. The State Department, however, refused to provide any names.

So, using news articles, the Internet and other sources, we tried to identify every Republican lawmaker who had gone to Syria on an official trip since Pelosi’s visit in 2007. We came up with a list of 13 names, some of whom are now retired and some of whom have made repeated visits. We then checked every public statement or news release the lawmakers made about their trips or meetings with Assad.

We could not find anything close to sentiments indicating Assad was a reformer. Issa, for instance, urged a need for dialogue but said that “we should hold no illusions about the regime of Bashar al-Assad.” Issa added, “Our discussions were tense and focused on Syria’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas, interference in Lebanon, the movement of foreign fighters to Iraq and the repression of the Syrian people.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that “public comments by members shouldn’t necessarily be the only source of your fact check.”

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Two cables that have been released by Wikileaks provide insight into the tenor of the meetings between lawmakers and Assad. During a March, 2009 meeting that included Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), the lawmakers pressed him on human rights. Assad replied, “We are a country in process of reform. We aren’t perfect. You are talking about 12 people out of 20 million. It’s a process. We are moving forward, not fast, but methodically.”

Another meeting, in January 2010, included Sens. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). At one point, Bayh is recorded as saying: “Many things in Syria had changed for the better since his 2002 visit. Now, there were positive indicators that bilateral relations might be on the upswing as well.” But otherwise, there was little discussion of reforms.

The most recent congressional delegation involving Republican lawmakers took place in February and included Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who led it, as well as Enzi, Wicker, Cornyn, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). News reports indicate that Assad put on a sell job, saying, “Arab leaders should tune in to their people’s needs.”

But did any of these lawmakers come away from the meeting believing Assad was a reformer? Shelby, through a spokesman, said he never believed or said that (and also did not brief Clinton after the trip). “He has known both the father and son, and believes they are brutal dictators with horrible reputations,” said spokesman Jonathan Graffeo. Other senators on the trip also denied that, though not all immediately responded.

Interestingly, even Kerry seems to have lost patience with Assad, blasting him in a statement on Thursday, just four days after Clinton suggested Assad was a reformer.

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The Pinocchio Test Throughout the Middle East uprisings, Clinton has had trouble calibrating her comments to the mood of the moment, such as when she pronounced the Mubarak regime to be “stable’ and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” Days later, Mubarak was gone.

We grant that we have no way of really knowing what lawmakers may have said privately to Clinton. But there is only a small universe of GOP senators and members of Congress who have recently traveled to Syria — 13 or so — and the word “many” would suggest at least half of those traveling.

The State Department’s refusal to identify these lawmakers is also suspicious, especially after Clinton backtracked and sought to pin the blame for the sentiments she expressed on others. So we are left with a public record that suggests Clinton was exaggerating or inventing the chorus of support on the GOP side.

In fact, Clinton’s remarks gave a highly misleading impression — that there was general consensus by experts on Syria in both parties that Assad was a reformer, even though Clinton’s own State Department reports label him otherwise.

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A Decade of Wishful Thinking Western policymakers and pundits tried for years to convince themselves that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was a reformer. He's not. Foreign Policy Magazine,April 4, 2011

When Hafez al-Assad died in June 2000, many in the West held out hopes that his son, Bashar, who had been tapped to succeed his father as president of Syria, would usher in a series of bold political reforms for his strategically vital country. The Western wish list was long -- domestic political and economic liberalization, peace with Israel, an end to the pursuit of weapons

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of mass destruction, ceasing support of Hezbollah and Hamas -- and much hope was placed on the shoulders of the lanky, 34-year-old Western-educated ophthalmologist.

Reforms never came. Eleven years later, however, Bashar's "reformer" label still sticks -- on March 27, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the latest to apply it to him. Faced with a nationwide uprising against his regime in recent weeks, Bashar has once again promised reforms, but his government continues to harshly crack down on any hint of protest; demonstrations in the city of Douma on April 1 were met with deadly force, resulting in 8 casualties. It may be time for all those Western officials who defended Bashar over the years to reconsider just how much of a "reformer" their man in Damascus truly is.

Hillary Clinton and Congress: "Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer." (CBS News: "Face the Nation", March 27.)

Even when Bashar was persona non grata in Washington during the George W. Bush administration, at least a dozen members of Congress found time to meet with the Syrian president as part of "fact-finding missions" to the Middle East. Most prominent among them was Nancy Pelosi, who arranged a trip to Damascus in April 2007, less than five months after a landslide midterm election made her speaker of the House of Representatives. At the time, Pelosi was the highest-ranking official to meet with Bashar following Bush's 2003 decision to isolate the Syrian regime. "We come in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is the road to peace," she said upon arriving there. Pelosi's trip angered Bush administration officials, who claimed she was undermining U.S. policy in negotiating with a "state sponsor of terror," but the congresswoman -- together with colleagues ranging from Dennis Kucinich to Dick Lugar -- insisted that Bashar was ready to play a constructive role in the region.

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Sen. John Kerry: "Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it." (Speech at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 16.)

Kerry has served as the Barack Obama administration's de facto Syria envoy -- meeting personally with Bashar five times over the past two years. But in early March, just before protests erupted in the Syrian city of Deraa, he offered a kind assessment of the regime: "[M]y judgment is that Syria will move," he said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kerry's meetings with Bashar were the leading edge of a broader strategic choice made by the Obama administration from the very beginning of its term. Middle East envoy George Mitchell was tasked with pushing for rapprochement between Israel and Syria as a way to clear the path for peace between Israel and Palestine, and Obama confirmed in early 2010 the appointment of an ambassador to Damascus -- the first since 2005 -- while Congress was in recess. Obama has also approved softening of some sanctions toward the Syrian regime. "President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had," Kerry said in his speech. "I think it's incumbent on us to try to move that relationship forward in the same way."

Flynt Leverett: "I think who a man marries says a good deal about him. Now, the woman that Bashar chose to marry, and chose to marry over his mother's objections, which is not insignificant in his cultural setting, that woman is the daughter of an expatriate Syrian physician, a world-class interventional cardiologist who's made his career in the United Kingdom. ... Now, you may question what it says about her judgment that she gave up Harvard Business School to accept that proposal. But I'm more interested in what that says about Bashar's judgment, that the person he selects to be beside him on a daily basis is someone who is going to bring exposure to absolute world-class standards and practices in the globalized economy of the 21st century. I find that a very striking

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statement about him." (Talk at Brookings Institute, April 25, 2005.)

Flynt Leverett was a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff during the Bush administration, but he left his position because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror more generally. Leverett has since become a Middle East scholar affiliated with the New American Foundation and Pennsylvania State University. Leverett has gained a reputation as an iconoclast when it comes to Middle East policy, both because of his nuanced take on Bashar's leadership (as captured in his book Inheriting Syria), and his controversial views on the extent of political discontent among the Iranian population. Leverett was a harsh critic of the Bush administration's insistence on sanctioning Syria, and has been a proponent of the Obama administration's policy of engagement with Bashar.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac: "I know the importance of Syria in this region and its influence on a number of players," Sarkozy said in Damascus in December 2008, as Israel was staging a military intervention in Gaza. "I don't have any doubts that President Bashar al-Assad will throw all his weight to convince everyone to return to reason."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first prominent Western statesman to break with the Bush administration's policy of isolation, in favor of engaging with Bashar. Sarkozy invited the Syrian president to attend Bastille Day celebrations in Paris in 2008, and also to the founding meeting of the Union of the Mediterranean. But his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, almost unabashedly believed in the Syrian regime, calling the ties between Paris and Damascus as "an indestructible friendship." Chirac worked from the start to establish close ties with Bashar: Chirac was the only Western head of state to attend his father's funeral in Damascus in 2000. And Chirac defended Bashar publicly, insisting that the young Syrian president was intent on instituting political reforms in Syria and playing a constructive role in Lebanon. However, Chirac quickly turned on Bashar after

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the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, with whom the French president shared a close friendship. In September 2004, France co-sponsored U.N. Resolution 1559, which demanded the withdrawal of all Syrian troops occupying Lebanon.

Daniel Pipes: "But I'm hopeful that, within the context of Syrian political life, which has been totalitarian, brutalized, impoverished -- that within this context, the fresh face, fresh approach of Bashar Assad could lead to good things." (Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, June 14, 2000.)

A scholar of the modern Middle East, Pipes is known as a strident and controversial conservative on the subject of Islam. Unsurprisingly, his optimistic assessment of Bashar's politics, offered shortly after the death of his father, quickly curdled. One year later, Pipes was criticizing Assad for his ineffectual leadership, and two years after that, he was a vocal proponent of the Bush administration's efforts to sanction the Syrian regime. Late in 2003, Bush appointed Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace.

Tony Blair: "Whatever the differences of perspective, we both understand the importance of re-starting the Middle East peace process," Blair said in 2002 of his government's relationship with Bashar.

Blair had tense relations with Syria throughout his tenure as Britain's prime minister, but continued to hold out hopes that the Syrian president would play a constructive role in aiding Western efforts in the broader Middle East, especially Iraq. Blair invited Bashar to London shortly after his accession to the Syrian presidency. In October 2001, Blair visited Bashar in Damascus, the first such visit by a British prime minister in 30 years -- though one that didn't adhere to traditional diplomatic protocol, with the Syrian president publicly haranguing the visiting head of

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government for the deaths of civilians in the pending war in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to the Bush administration, however, Blair insisted on maintaining personal ties with the Syrian leader. As Iraq descended into sectarian warfare in the wake of the allied invasion in 2003, Blair extracted promises from Bashar -- unfulfilled, many analysts say -- that Damascus would prevent insurgents from entering the battle via the Syrian border. Blair also held out hope that Bashar would play a decisive role in ending the conflict between Israel and Palestine: In 2006, the United States and Israel both responded coolly to news that Blair had secretly dispatched a diplomatic envoy to meet with Bashar to discuss prospects for a regional peace deal.

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West's Response to Syria Blasted Jay Solomon,Wall Street Journal, 5 Apr. 2011,

WASHINGTON—Human-rights activists and leaders on Capitol Hill are increasingly criticizing the West's tepid response to the Syrian uprising, saying it squanders a vital chance to weaken President Bashar al-Assad and his alliance with Iran.

The White House and State Department have issued a series of statements calling for Mr. Assad to end a violent crackdown that is believed to have killed hundreds of Syrian demonstrators in recent weeks. Eight more people—prisoners in Latakia, a flashpoint for violence in recent weeks—died of suffocation and burns after an inmate set fire to mattresses on Monday, said the state news agency.

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But neither Washington nor the European Union has mapped out any specific penalties Mr. Assad's government would face.

This approach contrasts with the moves the White House and European states took to impose sanctions and begin legal proceedings against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi after his forces began a military offensive against protesters in February.

Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, publicly suggested Syria's ruler could emerge as a political "reformer" in response to his country's crisis, before walking back their statements in recent days.

These comments confused Syrian protesters as to which side the U.S. was on, said human-rights activists.

"The administration still seems like it's seeking to engage Assad," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a leading Syrian democracy activist based in Washington. "I don't see the point at this stage, as Assad has shown his true colors by engaging in such violence."

Syrian democracy activists are calling for U.N. action as well as sanctions targeting the top members of Assad's government. Senior U.S. officials wouldn't discuss the possibility of new sanctions on Syria. They acknowledged Western countries have been discussing a possible special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, a move taken during the Libya crisis.

"In creating the Human Rights Council, the U.N. General Assembly decided that countries wishing to become members should have a demonstrated commitment to human rights," said a senior U.S. official. "We do not think Syria has demonstrated such a commitment."

Syria's unrest has proved to be among the trickiest for the West to manage of all the uprisings in the Middle East this year.

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Mr. Assad is Iran's closest ally in the Arab world and a central partner in Tehran's efforts to fund and arm the militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Syria has also played a major role in facilitating the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq.

Many U.S. officials acknowledge that a weakening of Mr. Assad's government, or its collapse, would greatly undermine Iran's ability to project its power across the Middle East.

Still, the Obama administration has sought over the past two years to engage Mr. Assad in the hope of weakening Iran and wooing Syria into peace talks with Israel. And the unrest that has swept across Syria in recent weeks has spooked some U.S., European and Israeli officials, who cautioned that an even more hostile regime could emerge on Israel's border. There is also a fear Syria's ethnic and sectarian cleavages could fuel major bloodletting should Mr. Assad fall.

"What is the regime that would follow?" asked a senior European official. "You could have an even more radical government."

Some Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they weren't swayed by these arguments. They said Mr. Assad has been in power for more than a decade and hasn't introduced any meaningful political changes. They were unlikely to be swayed by his Monday appointment of a new governor to rule the troubled Daraa province. Lawmakers also said they couldn't imagine a regime in Damascus any more hostile to Western interests than Assad's.

"Assad is not a reformer," said Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York, the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. "Anyone who thinks so is at best fooling themselves, and at worst, serving as a useful idiot to a murderous dictator and a proud sponsor of terrorism."

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Prominent Israelis Will Propose a Peace Plan By ETHAN BRONNERNYTIMES,4 Apr. 2011,

JERUSALEM — A group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military, are this week putting forth an initiative for peace with the Arab world that they hope will generate popular support and influence their government as it faces international pressure to move peace talks forward.

Called the Israeli Peace Initiative, the two-page document is partly inspired by the changes under way regionally and is billed as a direct response to the Arab Peace Initiative issued by the Arab League in 2002 and again in 2007. It calls for a Palestinian state on nearly all the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in much of East Jerusalem, an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, and a set of regional security mechanisms and economic cooperation projects.

“We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well,’ ” said Danny Yatom, a signer of the document and former head of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. “We feel this initiative can bring along many members of the public.”

Another member of the group, Yaakov Perry, a former head of Shin Bet, the internal security agency, said he sent a copy of the document on Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who replied that he looked forward to reading it. The official unveiling is set for Wednesday in Tel Aviv, but a copy was made available to The New York Times.

“We are isolated internationally and seen to be against peace,” Mr. Perry said in a telephone interview. “I hope this will make a small

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contribution to pushing our prime minister forward. It is about time that Israel initiates something on peace.”

Mr. Yatom has been a member of Parliament from the Labor Party, and Mr. Perry, now a banker, has recently joined Kadima, the main opposition party. Like all 40 people who signed the initiative, they are politically to the left of Mr. Netanyahu and most of his rightist government.

But the group was selected to seem as mainstream as possible. It includes scholars, businesspeople, and the son and daughter of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995. While polls show that the Israeli public has moved right in recent years, many political analysts argue that the public worries about the country’s diplomatic isolation and is open to a peace deal.

The initiative’s goal is resolution of all claims and an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict. It acknowledges “the suffering of the Palestinian refugees since the 1948 war as well as of the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries.” It says it shares the statement of the Arab Peace Initiative “that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties.”

The two-state solution envisioned for Israel and Palestine resembles the Clinton parameters of 2000. Palestine would be a nation-state for the Palestinians, and Israel “a nation-state for the Jews (in which the Arab minority will have equal and full civil rights as articulated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence).”

The document calls for the 1967 lines to be a basis for borders, with agreed modifications based on swaps that would not exceed 7 percent of the West Bank.

Jerusalem’s Jewish neighborhoods would go to Israel, and Arab neighborhoods to Palestine; the Temple Mount, known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, would be under no sovereignty, although the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter of the Old City would be under Israel. On Palestinian refugees, the plan suggests

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financial compensation and return to the state of Palestine, not Israel, with “mutually agreed-upon symbolic exceptions” allowed into Israel.

Regarding Syria, the proposal calls for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, with agreed minor modifications and land swaps in stages taking no longer than five years.

Mr. Yatom said one goal was to be heard in neighboring states. “We want to signal to moderate Palestinians and Syrians that there is a new horizon and light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

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Top defense official: Israel faces isolation 'no less severe than war'In remarks made behind closed doors, Amos Gilad warns that ongoing freeze in the peace process could yield third Intifada as Palestinians prepare to ask UN for recognition of statehood in September.By Barak Ravid Haaretz,4 Apr. 2011,

The chief of Israel's diplomatic-security bureau warned this week that Israel faced an isolation "no less severe than war" should the United Nations recognize Palestine as an independent state this September.

In remarks carried by Channel 10, General (res.) Amos Gilad said behind doors that the Palestinian Authority leadership was organizing an "international assault against Israel".

The Palestinians have warned that if peace talks with Israel do not resume by the deadline set for December, they will ask the UN general assembly to recognize their sovereign state.

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"Israel's isolation in September, the beginning of the isolation, will be no less severe than war," Gilad told participants in a private session.

The central issue facing Netanyahu come September was whether Israel should enter "a partnership for peace [with the Palestinians] and spare itself international pressure or go head to head with them," said Gilad, hinting that the ongoing freeze in the peace process was likely to bring about a third Intifada.

"If you don't enter negotiations, you gain stability, but also international isolation," said Gilad. "The isolation will legitimize the clashes that could erupt from a coincidental event or incident that with Twitter and Facebook could spark an entire fire."

Gilad's remarks were similar to those made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently in an address to the National Security Institute in Tel Aviv. Barak warned then that a "diplomatic tsunami" would wash over Israel should the world recognize a Palestinian state according to 1967 borders in September.

Barak emphasized in that address that Israel must develop its own political initiative to end the conflict in order to prevent disaster.

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Egypt ready to 'open new page' in relations with Iran Egyptian Foreign Minister Elaraby meets Iranian official Amani, says people in both countries 'deserve mutual relations reflecting their history and civilization'.Haaretz (original story is by Reuters),4 Apr. 2011,

Cairo is ready to re-establish diplomatic ties with Tehran after a break of more than 30 years, Egypt's foreign minister said on

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Monday, signaling a shift in Iran policy since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

"The Egyptian and Iranian people deserve to have mutual relations reflecting their history and civilization," said Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby after meeting Iranian official Mugtabi Amani.

It was the first publicly announced meeting between officials from both countries since Mubarak was toppled on Feb. 11, handing power to the army.

Shi'ite Muslim Iran and mainly Sunni Egypt severed ties in 1980 following Iran's Islamic revolution and Egypt's recognition of Israel. Both have competed for influence in the Middle East.

Egypt has long been an ally of the United States and Israel but since Mubarak was toppled there have been signs of warming ties between Cairo and Tehran.

"Egypt is open to all countries and the aim is to achieve common interests," Elaraby said, adding that Cairo welcomed "opening a new page with Iran".Amani carried a message from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, who welcomed Egypt's initiative.

"Foreign Minister Salehi ... called for developing bilateral cooperation, beginning with hosting Egypt's foreign minister in Tehran or having Iran's foreign minister visit Cairo," Menha Bakhowm, spokeswoman for Egypt's foreign ministry, said in a statement.

In February, two Iranian warships passed through Egypt's Suez Canal after approval from the military rulers in Cairo. Israel called Iran's move a provocation.

Egypt and Iran have been at odds on a number of issues including the Middle East peace process and ties with Israel and the United States.

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Syria promises to unveil road map to end emergency laws by Friday Syria authorities will unveil new legislation to replace the country's dreaded emergency laws before the weekend, a newspaper considered close to the government has said. Daily Telegraph,04 Apr 2011,

The al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday that sources in a judicial commission studying the issue had said "it would, by Friday, finish formulating the necessary legislation to replace the emergency law."

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, had responded to a wave of violent unrest in the country by setting an April 25 deadline for the commission to study the revocation of the emergency law.

Syria's emergency law, which has been used to impose drastic restrictions on political and personal freedoms ever since the ruling Ba'ath party took power in 1963, was a key demand of protesters who led three weeks of unprecedented pro-reform rallies across the country.

Al-Watan said the commission's work is inspired by the "experience and legal frameworks of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, while taking into account both the dignity and safety of all citizens".

The newspaper also reported that a separate committee investigating the street violence in Deraa and Latakia, where protests were met with deadly force, had questioned "many witnesses and will soon end its work."

Mr al-Assad has already moved to placate protesters by replacing the governor of Deraa, an agricultural town near the Jordanian border where dozens have been killed in two weeks of unrest.

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Mohammad Khaled al-Hannus was appointed governor of Deraa in place of the reviled Faysal Kalthum, who was sacked on March 23 at the height of a brutal crackdown on anti-regime rallies that left dozens dead and the governor's residence in flames.

Residents of Deraa had also accused the former governor of undermining their property rights and preventing farmers from drilling water wells for irrigation.

A lawmaker from the region issued a scathing indictment of Mr Kalthum's administration in Syria's parliament, accusing security forces of opening fire "without mercy" and criticising the president for not offering his condolences to the victims.

It is unclear if the regime's actions will help defuse the pro-reform movement, which brought thousands on the streets last Friday. In one sign that the authorities fear further unrest, the Syrian football federation has indefinitely postponed the domestic football league.

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What's behind Goldstone's flip-flop? Jurist Richard Goldstone found that Israel had intentionally targeted civilians during its 2008-09 assault on the Gaza Strip. He's now backpedaled, but his explanation that Israel gave him new data is insufficient.Editorial,LATIMES,5 Apr. 2011,

Few recent events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been as wildly controversial and polarizing as the release of the Goldstone report, a United Nations-sponsored study prepared in the aftermath of Israel's devastating, 3-week-long assault on the Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008-09.

The report was the work of a U.N. fact-finding mission chaired by Richard Goldstone, a former justice of South Africa's highest court. Although Israel had publicly defended Operation Cast Lead

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as a tough but legitimate response to months of cross-border rocket attacks by Hamas militants, Goldstone and his colleagues saw it differently: They concluded that Israel had intentionally targeted civilians in "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population." A blunt, no-holds-barred broadside against Israel, the report was dismissed as biased and exaggerated by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which felt it gave moral support to those seeking to "delegitimize" the Jewish state. But it was taken extremely seriously by many others, because of Goldstone's respected mainstream credentials and the U.N.'s imprimatur, and because about 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the assault, compared with 13 Israelis.

For much of the world, that's where the story ended. Until Friday, that is, when, in a bizarre denouement, Goldstone himself disavowed one of the central claims of his report. In an op-ed article in the Washington Post, Goldstone shocked supporters and opponents alike by saying that he no longer believes that Israel intentionally killed civilians in Gaza and that "if I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document."

Well, uh, OK. Acknowledging one's mistakes is generally considered a virtue. But is it really that easy? The original report contained 575 pages of damning details — attacks on mosques, hospitals, apartment buildings, refugee shelters. The fact-finding mission made three trips to the region over four months, conducted 188 interviews, reviewed 300 reports, solicited testimony and held public hearings. In case after case, the final report alleged that Palestinian civilians were targeted by Israel in violation of a host of international laws. But now the chairman of the panel says … never mind?

Goldstone explains his new position as follows: When he and his colleagues wrote that Israel had deliberately targeted civilians, it seems, they didn't really have solid evidence. Rather, he says, they "had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable

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conclusion" (partly, he says, because the Israeli government did not cooperate with the investigation). Now, as a result of Israel's subsequent investigations into some 400 allegations of misconduct, he sees that the facts "indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy." If only the Israelis had cooperated with his investigation from the start, he suggests, this unfortunate misunderstanding might never have occurred!

Goldstone gives only one example in his article: the killing of more than 20 members of the Samouni family. The report says the deaths occurred at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2009, as a result of "projectiles" apparently shot from Apache helicopters. Goldstone and his colleagues visited the site and interviewed numerous witnesses, concluding, among other things, that the "conduct of the Israeli armed forces in these cases would constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of willful killings and willfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility."

Now, however, Goldstone says that the shelling was "apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander's erroneous interpretation of a drone image" and that an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.

Goldstone's flip-flop is fascinating but mystifying, and his explanation is utterly insufficient. Deliberately killing civilians is a crime of war under international law. If civilians die, by contrast, as "collateral damage" in a legitimate operation against a legitimate military target, that's a very different thing — a horrible and tragic but sometimes unavoidable reality of armed conflict. At the very least, Goldstone needs to offer substantially more explanation than was available in his brief op-ed article. If he honestly believed his initial assertions but now has been persuaded as a result of Israel's follow-up investigations that he was wrong, then he ought to make the world aware of the facts that changed his mind. (While he's at it, he might let us know whether it was perhaps irresponsible to have made such sweeping assertions in the first place.)

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On the other hand, "intentionality" is only one of the allegations in the Goldstone report. What are we to make now of all the other charges? What about the charge that Israel's military applied "disproportionate force," and that it failed to "take all feasible precautions" to avoid and minimize loss of civilian life? How about the allegations of "unlawful and wanton" destruction of property, not justified by military necessity? What about the victims denied access to ambulances and medical care? Are we to throw all of these serious charges out the window as well, or just the ones that suggest that Israel intentionally targeted civilians?

Israeli officials understandably feel both frustrated and vindicated by Goldstone's disavowal of one of his own chief findings. The report was a public relations catastrophe for Israel, and it's no surprise that Netanyahu now wants the entire document officially withdrawn. On the other side, those who agreed with the report's conclusion that the Gaza war was punitive and disproportionate are now unsure what to believe.

The charges leveled by the Goldstone report were extremely tough — tough enough to help reframe the Israeli-Palestinian debate around the world. If any of them were wrong, then Goldstone owes the world a detailed explanation so that the truth can be revealed.

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Providence Journal: ‘Mrs. Al-Assad: Totalitarian fashion plate’..

Daily Telegraph: 'Bush 'invited bin Laden's son to US''..

Haaretz: 'Peres to Clinton: Mideast 'storm' must bring peace and democracy'..

Cnn: 'Survey: Israeli youth moving rightward'..

Yedioth Ahronoth: 'ElBaradei: We'll fight back if Israel attacks Gaza'..

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