LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 12/12

Bible Quotation for today/Jesus Predicts Their Punishment
Matthew 23/29-36: "How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You make fine tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of those who lived good lives; and you claim that if you had lived during the time of your ancestors, you would not have done what they did and killed the prophets. So you actually admit that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets! Go on, then, and finish up what your ancestors started! You snakes and children of snakes! How do you expect to escape from being condemned to hell? And so I tell you that I will send you prophets and wise men and teachers; you will kill some of them, crucify others, and whip others in the synagogues and chase them from town to town. As a result, the punishment for the murder of all innocent people will fall on you, from the murder of innocent Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar. I tell you indeed: the punishment for all these murders will fall on the people of this day!

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
Tehran inherits Lebanon/By: Hazem al-Amin/Now Lebanon/May 11/12
The BBC Broadcasts Its Own Dhimmitude/by David J. Rusin/PJ Media/May 11/12
Jihad Comes to Egypt/By: Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPageMagazine.com/May 11/12
The Catastrophe Called Nakba/By Sam Sokol/The Jerusalem Post/May 11/12
What an Israeli attack on Iran will mean for the Muslims/By Ahmed Rashid/Haaretz/May 11/12

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for May 11/12
Hizballah rushes arms to Syria, Iran sets up security cameras in Damascus
Syria troops fire on demos after deadly bombings
Canada Appalled by Ongoing Violence in Syria
Iran helps release of Turkish reporters in Syria
Syrian regime “trying to kill Annan plan”
EU set to slap new sanctions on Syria
Syria Envoy Says British, French, Belgian Fighters Killed
Amid fears of party split, Kadima MKs lambaste Netanyahu-Mofaz unity cabinet
President Peres successfully undergoes hernia surgery
Egypt presidential rivals pledge to review Israel peace treaty in historic TV debate
Egypt forces seize missiles, grenade launchers in Sinai raid
Clinton to Netanyahu: Use unity cabinet to advance Mideast peace
Panetta: Intel shows Qaeda operating in Syria
U.N. Security Council condemns 'terrorist attacks' in Syria
Egypt debate: Israel enemy or adversary?
Mofaz to Ynet: Unity gov't great opportunity
Hizbullah, PSP: For Further Talks on Electoral Law, Protection of Lebanon from Syria Repercussions
Citizen Kidnapped in Sidon, Another in al-Qaa
Huge fire erupts in carpet factory in Kesrouan’s Safra
Lebanese Officials Defend Army against Jumblat’s Criticism
US cautions Lebanese banks on Syria: Treasury
Lebanese hold 13 Syrians hostage in exchange for kidnapped citizens
Carpet factory north of Beirut catches fire
Connelly meets health minister, renews support to Lebanon
Tenants fear building collapse after digging in east Beirut
Probe into Geagea assassination attempt still ongoing
March 14 reiterates call for neutral Cabinet to oversee polls

Tehran inherits Lebanon
Hazem al-Amin/Now Lebanon/
May 11, 2012
More than 15 months have gone by since the start of the protest movement in Syria. The rebels have been worn out by the regime’s violence, but the regime, too, is worn out. Its economy is hit, it has lost control over several regions in the country and, most importantly, the Baath regime has lost a large swath of its regional influence. Rather than taking part in shaping government coalitions in Iraq, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is seeking to act as a mediator between Syria’s Baath regime and some parties to the Syrian opposition upon whom Maliki exerts some influence.
Furthermore, the Syrian regime has lost its Turkish flank. Following all the tacky “love” declarations between “young” [Syrian] President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish rhetoric has come to portray Assad as “his people’s killer.” The cautious relations that have prevailed over the past three decades between Damascus and Amman have also changed. While the Baath was perceived as a neighbor and social hinterland, Amman now feels that the time has come for a different kind of cautiousness, one that fears the Islamic opposition in Amman may take advantage of the Syrian uprising so that it exploits it, in turn, in Amman.
Israel, too, is concerned about the keeper of the Zionist entity’s backyard. 40 years of safe borders in the Golan [Heights] are worth such concern, and the 6 years of peace following the July War in Lebanon have been a worthy experience.
What about the smaller neighbor, Lebanon? How does it look like 15 months into the Syrian uprising and the staggering of the Syrian regime?
First, the Syrian regime has become weak and worn out, even in Lebanon, and this is plain for all to see. The current Lebanese cabinet was formed based upon a Syrian decision and as a monochromatic government. MP Walid Jumblatt was threatened, PM Najib Mikati was seduced and General Michel Aoun was lured. The cabinet was thus formed based on the scandalous concept, whereby the party that lost the parliamentary elections took over power. This would not have been the case had it not been for a conclusive Syrian decision to turn against the election results and the Doha Understanding.
The cabinet formed as a result of the Syrian miracle is staggering today much like the regime in Syria is staggering. Walid Jumblatt has withdrawn from the understanding and remained in the cabinet. Najib Mikati is, at times, portraying himself as supporting the regime in Syria and, at other times, steering away from this image of support. President Michel Sleiman pulls away [from supporting the Syrian regime] during the day and draws closer at night. Speaker Nabih Berri remains silent most of the time and scores but few achievements. All that remains of the alliance are Hezbollah and Michel Aoun.
Second, Lebanon is still a country with no sovereignty. Since the party monopolizing its sovereignty is worn out, a handover of power has taken place in broad daylight. Hegemony thus went to the Iranian brother, which – through Hezbollah and the Iranian embassy in Lebanon – is drafting today the broad guidelines of the staggering cabinet. The number of bilateral agreements between the Lebanese and Iranian cabinets has multiplied, and the Iranian ambassador in Beirut now gives a daily statement in which he discusses the domestic situation in Lebanon. Custody costs have noticeably risen, but this does not matter given the regional output resulting from Lebanon’s joining the system of Iranian influence.
Yet all of this was enabled by two factors. First, the Lebanese opposition – starting with the Future Movement – has been unable of taking advantage of the staggering Syrian influence in Lebanon. Second, there is no regional competitor; rather, it has mysteriously retreated and has generalized indigence and destitution among its allies.
In Iraq, the Americans threatened the powerful neighbor, i.e. Iran, after they toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, Iran took advantage of this downfall and of the resistance against the Americans at the same time, and Tehran is nowadays the main dealer of influence in US-liberated Baghdad.
The Iranian ambassador in Beirut feels today that he is the primary beneficiary of the lack of Syrian influence. Accordingly, Iran has taken advantage, in Lebanon, of the revolution in Syria.
This piece is a translation of the original, which first appeared on the NOW Arabic site on Friday May 11, 2012
There are those who ask if the STL is worth it. Seven years have passed since that tragic, yet era-defining day, but many argue that Lebanon has moved on and has had to face subsequent and even bigger challenges. They warn that the sectarian thermostat is in danger of overheating, especially given wider regional tensions, notably in Syria, and as such it would not be wise to embark upon such a highly charged project.
But to do this is to follow the path of least resistance, to take the easy way out. As a nation we are obsessed with not rocking the boat and avoiding trouble. Sweeping the dust under the carpet and forgetting about it has become a national pastime and look where that has got us. We still cannot seriously discuss the civil war; we cannot seriously address the issue of the missing and we have been unable to reach any conclusions on the 2006 conflict with Israel.
It is also important to move forward with the STL, even if it’s just to put pay to our default setting that Israel and the US are at the root of all our problems and that court is nothing but a sinister imperialist tool designed to create sectarian strife in Lebanon. The records of both countries when it comes to Lebanon are not stellar, but it is delusional to think that other nations such as Iran, and especially Syria, have done us nothing but good.
Rafik Hariri was not the first, and not the most recent Lebanese politician to be murdered, but it is fitting that the death of a man who had neither a civil war record nor a feudal past, and a man whose achievements were based on creation rather than destruction, be the point at which Lebanon is finally able to confront her own failings.
The STL is not necessarily a fiendish international plot to bring down the glorious Resistance and it is not necessarily a mark of Sunni favoritism. A criminal outrage was committed and those responsible will for once be brought to justice, even in absentia. One can argue that other murdered world leaders – Benazir Bhutto is the oft cited example – have not been afforded similar treatment but this does not diminish the severity of the crime, nor mean that it should not be investigated. Bottom line, the STL can drag Lebanon a little further out of the criminal quagmire that is Middle East politics and show that political assassination will not go unpunished. At a time when the rest of the region burns, fanned by the flames of authoritarian repression, we need it more than ever. The 58 victims would agree.

Hizballah rushes arms to Syria, Iran sets up security cameras in Damascus
http://www.debka.com/article/21997/
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 11, 2012/The shocking impact of the twin explosions which killed 55 people and injured almost 400 in Damascus Thursday, May 10, galvanized Bashar Assad’s allies, starting with Iran, into frenetic activity. Within hours, Tehran had ordered its Lebanese proxy Hizballah to open up its arms stores and run quantities of weapons and military equipment across the border to the Syrian army – a striking reversal of the routine direction of arms supplies. Thursday night, Washington quietly asked Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to put a stop to the traffic.
While the Syrian opposition and Assad regime blamed each other – or al Qaeda - for the worst attack Damascus has seen in the 14-month uprising, it was obvious to both that it must have been the work of a major and very professional undercover agency.
In Tehran, Moscow and Beirut, the scale of the bombing attacks which leveled a key Syrian security headquarters was judged a sharp escalation in the offensive for President Assad’s overthrow - more intense even than the NATO campaign which last year removed the Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
debkafile’s sources in Moscow say the event has consequently cast a dark shadow over relations between the Obama administration and Vladimir Putin at the outset of his third term as Russian president.
This week, Putin pointedly declined to attend the G-8 summit of world leaders meeting next week at the US presidential retreat of Camp David. He decided to send Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev over in his place.The Russian president has three large bones to pick with Washington: a) He suspects American hands of stirring up opposition demonstrations against him during his election campaign; b) He is flat against the US missile shield going up in Europe and the Middle East to intercept Iran’s ballistic missiles; and c) He is solidly behind the Assad regime which he accuses the US of seeking to overthrow.
In its message to Beirut, the US reminded the Lebanese president that the transfer of war materials by Hizballah to Syria was a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the 206 Lebanon war between the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group and Israel. Arms transfers between Syria and Lebanon were banned in both directions. But his prohibition was never upheld. Regular arms consignments have been crossing into Lebanon for Hizballah from and via Syria for the past six years without any interference by the United Nations force UNIFIL stationed in South Lebanon.
Washington knows perfectly well that no one in Lebanon will stop the arms flow to Syria either. But the request to President Suleiman is intended to lay the ground for expanded international and US intervention in the Syrian conflict.
Another step Tehran took straight after the Damascus bombings to firm up the Assad regime was to start organizing a network of closed circuit security cameras to be installed in all parts of Damascus and its exits and entries for three functions:
1. Opponents of the regime will have less freedom of movement in the capital;
2. The army and security forces can economize on manpower for securing the city. Patrols will fan out after cameras register hostile or suspicion movements.
3. Syrian and allied intelligence services can keep track of UN monitors’ movements. The UN mission is regarded by Syria, Iran and Russia as “the eyes and ears of the West.”

US cautions Lebanese banks on Syria: Treasury
May 10, 2012/The Daily Star /WASHINGTON: The United States is urging Lebanese banks to take "extra" caution in handling financial transactions with Syria, to prevent the Assad regime and its supporters from stashing money abroad, a senior Treasury official said Thursday. "We want to be as careful as possible that the regime, its cronies, its allies that may be trying to shield their assets might not be able to do so," said David Cohen, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "We're working particularly with the Lebanese financial sector, which is very integrated with the Syrian financial sector," Cohen said, speaking at a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. Cohen noted that there had been "some capital flight out of Syria" after a peaceful uprising in March 2011 degenerated into an armed conflict that has cost thousands of lives. Not all of Syria's capital exodus was unwelcome, if it came from opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he said. "We want to facilitate the capital flight of individuals in Syria who are not supporting the regime, and who want to leave Syria, who want to take their money with them.
"There's no reason that we would want to interfere with that."In May 2011, as the conflict escalated into a brutal crackdown by Assad, the United States slapped sanction on his regime and its supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration has steadily widened the Syria sanctions and called for tough United Nations sanctions to force Assad's regime to comply with a UN peace plan.

Syria troops fire on demos after deadly bombings
May 11, 2012/Daily Star
DAMASCUS: Syrian troops shot and wounded protesters in the capital on Friday, activists said, as thousands demonstrated across the country a day after twin bombings killed dozens of people in Damascus. Thursday's bomb attacks that struck during the morning rush hour were the deadliest in 14 months of unrest, killing 55 people and wounding nearly 400, to a chorus of international condemnation.
The United Nations called on both sides to the conflict to cooperate with a month-old ceasefire as President Bashar Assad's regime and the opposition traded accusations over the perpetrators of the Damascus carnage. "Five civilians were wounded when regime troops opened fire in the Tadamon neighborhood," of Damascus on Friday to quell protests, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Thousands of people took part in anti-regime demonstrations in towns across Syria after the weekly Muslim prayers, monitors said. Defying heavy troop deployments, protesters took to the streets of Idlib province in northwest Syria, Hama in the center as well as the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Observatory said. In the Hama region, troops shot and wounded 20 demonstrators in the town of Helfaya, where two civilians were killed in a raid, according to the Britain-based group. Regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo fired at demonstrators in the Salaheddin neighborhood, said the Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists.
Thursday's twin bombings have raised fears that extremist elements could be taking advantage of the deadlock in Syria to stoke the unrest. World powers condemned the attacks that targeted a military intelligence building and urged both sides to the conflict to adhere to the ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The 15 UN Security Council members urged the regime and rebels to "immediately and comprehensively" implement Annan's six-point peace plan, "in particular to cease all armed violence".
UN leader Ban Ki-moon, who earlier this week warned of possible civil war if Annan's plan failed, also renewed a call for all sides to cease violence and "to distance themselves from indiscriminate bombings and other terrorist acts."Syria's UN envoy, meanwhile, said British, French and Belgian nationals were among foreign fighters killed in the country's escalating conflict and that there was Al-Qaeda involvement. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told the Security Council that 12 foreign fighters had been killed and 26 detained in recent clashes with Syrian forces, "including one French citizen, one British citizen, one Belgian citizen".A list of the 26 detained had been sent to Ban and the Security Council.
Syria's main regional ally Iran accused Western powers of orchestrating Thursday's bombings, with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi saying the attacks were aimed at halting reforms in the crisis-hit country. "The terrorist acts were guided by (global) arrogance and the enemies of free nations," Rahimi said, quoted by state news agency IRNA, using the Islamic republic's term for Western powers.
Assad's regime and the opposition traded accusations over the attacks. The regime blamed foreign-backed "terrorists" while the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council, said authorities were resorting to "terrorism" to bury the Annan plan.
Middle East expert Joshua Landis wrote on his blog that given that law and order was breaking down in Syria, "we should expect the spread of radical groups."
"The Syrian state, being one of the most intrusive and repressive in the Middle East, was able to thwart radical groups," he wrote. "As its capabilities decline, so will its ability to keep such groups from penetrating Syrian society." The uprising in Syria began as a popular revolt but has turned into an insurgency amid mounting calls to arm rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the uprising began, according to the Observatory, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce went into effect.
Neeraj Singh, spokesman for the UN observer mission overseeing the putative truce, said 105 monitors had so far arrived in Syria out of an expected total of 300, and had been deployed in flashpoints including central Homs and Idlib."Where we have our military observers on the ground, they have had a calming effect on the situation," Singh said. "At the same time, we have seen a worrying trend of improvised explosive devices being used."Arab League Nabil al-Arabi joined the chorus of condemnation of Thursday's blasts as a "dangerous escalation" aimed at wrecking the observer mission.

Lebanese hold 13 Syrians hostage in exchange for kidnapped citizens
May 11, 2012/ The Daily Star /This file picture shows Lebanese soldiers patrolling the northeastern border area between Lebanon and Syria, on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. (The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir) BEKAA, Lebanon: Members from a Lebanese family are holding 13 Syrian men hostage in an attempt to swap them for two fellow citizens kidnapped by the Syrian opposition, Lebanese security sources said Friday.The sources said Khodr Jaafar and Abdullah al-Zein – both Lebanese – were kidnapped Thursday in the Syrian town of Zeita, 15 kilometers north of the Bekaa town of Hermel in east Lebanon by Syrian opposition members who belong to an Arab tribe.Jaafar had been visiting Zein, who resides in Zeita, when the abduction took place.
Hours later and in response to the kidnapping, relatives of Jaafar abducted 13 Syrian men from Hermel and Zeita in an attempt to swap them for Khodr and Zein, the sources said.
They said the majority of the Syrian hostages were workers employed in Hermel. Zeita is a small border town of mainly Lebanese inhabitants that lies inside Syrian territory.
Security sources said the two Lebanese were kidnapped after the Syrian opposition accused them of facilitating the arrest of a fellow rebel by Syrian security forces.

Carpet factory north of Beirut catches fire
May 11, 2012/Dana Khraiche/ The Daily Star
SAFRA, Lebanon: Several floors of a carpet factory building in Safra, north of Beirut, caught fire and collapsed Friday as Civil Defense personnel worked to extinguish the flames. At least five workers at the manufacturer were injured. The fire erupted on the east side of the last floor of the five-story Byblos Carpets factory building shortly after 9 a.m. but the flames soon engulfed the lower levels of the structure. An hour later, the top floors collapsed, raining chunks of debris down onto the street below. Five factory workers, who were evacuated from the building, are being treated by the Lebanese Red Cross for respiratory problems. Two Lebanese Army helicopters dispatched to the scene were assisting over 20 fire trucks on the ground to put out the flames.
In the afternoon, Civil Defense personnel were able to enter the building and worked relentlessly to isolate the fire from the factory's oil and diesel containers located on the first floor.
There were mounting fears that the flames could reach the containers. “I fear that if the remains of the fifth floor collapse they might hit oil canisters on the first floor of the building,” Silva Vereshitian, executive director of Byblos Carpets, told The Daily Star. Firefighters have sprayed the canisters with firefighting foam to prevent them from reaching extreme temperatures.
Vereshitian also called on the Civil Defense to put more effort to try and put out the fire to lessen the damage.
"They should dispatch more trucks and people. This is not enough," she said. Brig. Gen Raymond Khattar, the head of Civil Defense, defended his team and said the personnel were doing all they could to put out the fire given the defense's limited capabilities. “What we are trying to do is lessen the damage and we are doing the best we can,” Khattar told The Daily Star, adding that the factory's storage room is on the upper levels. The building, owned by the Festekedjian and Obegi families, was constructed in 1958 and over 100 workers are employed at the factory.
Nazareth Sabounjian, Treasury Secretary of the Lebanese Association of Industrialists, estimated the complex was between 10,000 and 12,000 square meters and that the damages to the building could amount to $80 million.
At around 2 p.m., fire fighters put out 60 percent of the fire as helicopters flew more frequently over the complex to drop some 15,000 liters of water per trip.
Industry Minister Vreij Sabounjian arrived at the scene and thanked the Civil Defense on their efforts and said he would wait for the investigation to reveal the circumstances surrounding the incident.
"Accidents like this happen and we have placed several new safety regulation for factories to abide by [to prevent such incidents]," Sabounjian said, adding that the ministry lacked the man-power to send out inspectors to each factory. Sabounjian also expressed anger at a member of the Safra municipality who the minister said had described the factory as ruining the image of the area and said the owner is "an Armenian.""I will hold him accountable for what he said ... this kind of talk is not acceptable," he said.

What an Israeli attack on Iran will mean for the Muslims
By Ahmed Rashid/Haaretz
If Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is likely to mobilize on the basis of the much wider support it can muster in the Muslim world.Iran's nuclear program, which could have the capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material sooner rather than later, remains a principal focus of international attention, despite a vast international policy crisis vis-a-vis the Middle East, due to the developments engendered by the so-called Arab Spring. The harshest sanctions regime applied in modern times is in place against Iran, even as other covert efforts, including a cyber-war intended to sabotage Iran's research, have been carried out, presumably by Israel and the United States. As a result of this global pressure, Iran has come back to the negotiating table to see if it can strike a deal that will alleviate some of the pressure.
Nonetheless, hawks in both Israel and the United States still maintain that bombing Iran's nuclear facilities is the only way to slow down, if not stop its nuclear progress. Yet the potential repercussions of such an escalatory step have not been sufficiently discussed in the media of either country. Rather, the debate has so far focused on the possible blockade by international forces of the Straits of Hormuz which, it is anticipated, would lead to a massive increase in oil prices. That in turn could be expected to severely affect the already recession-hit economies of Europe and the United States, not to speak of those poorer countries of the developing world that are dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
However, if Israel bombs Iran's nuclear facilities - a step that is bound to involve the United States, either actively or indirectly - Iran is unlikely to retaliate in an all-out confrontational style: by launching missiles against Israel, trying to sink U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf or even imposing its own closure of Hormuz. Instead Iran is far more likely to mobilize on the basis of the much wider support it can muster in the Muslim world, which is already seething with anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings.
The Islamic Republic's primary support would come from the small but politically active and well-financed Shia minorities that can be found in almost all the states stretching from Lebanon to India. In many countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan, the Shia communities constitute up to 15 percent of the population. In the Gulf state of Bahrain, and of course in Iraq, Shia constitute a majority.
Since the Iranian revolution, in 1979, Tehran has seen itself as both spokesman and protector of the global Shia population, even though many Shia may resent this fact. In this self-delineated role, it has funded local Shia organizations, provided educational scholarships to Shia students to study in Iran, trained and armed local Shia militias in such places as Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and provided military training and education to young Shias in their countries of origin.
In the Arab states of the Gulf, for example, these Shia minorities are often at odds with their own regimes because of the lack of protection or respect they receive, or the prejudice that is inherent to many Arab Sunni fundamentalist regimes. In countries that border Iran, such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which are subject to a powerful U.S. military or political presence, Iran, to protect itself against possible American incursions or sabotage, has trained local militants to attack U.S. targets in their respective countries in the event of any attack on Iran. This program had its origins during the second term of the Bush administration, when Vice President Dick Cheney spoke openly about attacking Iran. Iran organized and planned for retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets everywhere that it was in a position to arm and fund clandestine groups.
Thus, the Shia protest in the Muslim world would likely be organized and widespread, and would target Americans and Israelis, and include major acts of terrorism and extreme violence.
At the same time, anti-Americanism is reaching dangerous levels in predominantly Sunni countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both countries have extremist Sunni groups that engage in terrorism, as well as conservative Islamic parties that participate in electoral politics. Any attack on Iran could see a merging of all these Sunni elements as well as of the broader Sunni population, and one could expect widespread anger in the streets.
Such widespread and angry protests could make it almost impossible for Americans or Israelis to travel, work or do business across the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent. Such protests would almost invariably wipe out the gains and aspirations of the democratic movements within the Arab Spring countries, and lead to a reinforcing of Islamic fundamentalist parties, which could be expected to jump on the anti-American bandwagon. Widespread Sunni protests would invariably make the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan planned for 2014 much more difficult and possibly lead to the strengthening of the Taliban. It also could lead to a possible new intifada among the Palestinians, who in any case see little hope of an agreement with Israel on a two-state solution.
Thus any attack on Iran can be expected to unleash a violent reaction throughout the Muslim world, both in the more organized Shia minority camp where Iran has influence and in the majority Sunni countries where Iran may not have influence but anti-Americanism certainly does. The risk will be greater for Israel than for anyone else - a state already isolated and besieged by hostile states. With its conflict with the Palestinians unresolved, it will find itself even more isolated and under threat. The United States will find itself besieged in many parts of the Muslim world, making normal diplomacy unworkable and the effort to enlist Muslim states to support the U.S. war against Al-Qaida more difficult.
Israel needs to carefully consider the consequences of any military action against Iran.
Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and writer, is the author of five books, including the best-selling "Taliban" and "Descent into Chaos," and the newly published "Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan and Afghanistan" (Viking ).

Doing its job
May 10, 2012 /Now Lebanon
STL prosecutors sit during a public hearing of the international court investigating the 2005 murder of Rafik Hariri. (AFP/Valerie Kuypers)
It may have been out of the news but that doesn’t mean the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has not been going about its business of bringing murderers to book. The latest news to come out of the Hague, where the body created to try the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others on February 14, 2005 has its headquarters, is that it has allowed 58 out of the 73 victims – the injured and the families of the dead – of the massive blast to have their day in court. The reason why the STL has dropped off the nation’s radar may have something to do with the fact that Hezbollah, the party whose four members have been accused of carrying out the bomb attack and which known effectively controls the government, has discouraged any wider public debate on the matter. (Indeed, the victims’ ruling was made on the same day lawyers for the accused, all of whom still remain at large, filed papers to have the court declared illegal.)

Hizbullah, PSP: For Further Talks on Electoral Law, Protection of Lebanon from Syria Repercussions
Naharnet/11 May 2012, 17:11
Hizbullah and the Progressive Socialist Party have agreed on the need for further discussions among the various parties over the electoral law that will govern the 2013 parliamentary vote, and on the need to “protect Lebanon from the repercussions of the Syrian crisis,” a top Hizbullah official told al-Manar television on Friday, following a dinner banquet that gathered the two parties overnight Thursday.
The dinner was held at the house of Hizbullah Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan and attended by Hizbullah Minister Mohammed Fneish, member of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Hassan Fadlallah and Hizbullah top official Wafiq Safa. As to the PSP representatives, they included Ministers Ghazi Aridi and Wael Abou Faour, and MP Akram Shehayyeb.“This is the third meeting between the two parties and it is part of the routine contacts between the two sides,” the Hizbullah source told al-Manar. “There is disagreement over the approach towards the Syrian crisis,” the source said, but noted that the conferees stressed “the need to agree on an electoral law that would be the most representative of all parties and on the need to keep the current government and activate its work.” PSP leader MP Walid Jumblat hinted on Friday that members of his parliamentary bloc would reject a partial settlement to the controversial extra-budgetary spending if the issue was discussed at parliament again. In remarks to As Safir daily, Jumblat said: “We have previously said that we reject partial solutions and settlements.”
He made his statement in response to a question if his MPs would guarantee a quorum if Speaker Nabih Berri called for a session to discuss the $5.9 billion draft-law.
The parliament has previously failed to approve it after MPs from both the March 14 opposition and Jumblat’s National Struggle Front bloc blocked it over demands to include the spending of the governments of ex-PMs Fouad Saniora and Saad Hariri in the settlement. But the March 8 ministers led by Hizbullah, AMAL Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement are pressuring President Michel Suleiman to sign it based on article 58 of the constitution to avoid another parliamentary setback.

Canada Appalled by Ongoing Violence in Syria
May 10, 2012 - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird today issued the following statement:
“Canada condemns today’s deadly bombings in Damascus, which have left dozens of people dead and hundreds of others injured.
“This senseless violence has a tragic human toll that is entirely avoidable. Both sides should immediately respect the UN-monitored ceasefire called for by Canada and dozens of like-minded countries.
“Despite the potential of Joint Special Envoy Annan’s six-point plan, it is utterly regrettable that it remains unfulfilled.
“The international community must redouble its efforts to get adherence to these six points or explore other diplomatic solutions to the crisis in Syria.
“Canada stands with the Syrian people and supports their demands for freedom, dignity and a better, brighter future.”

The BBC Broadcasts Its Own Dhimmitude
by David J. Rusin/PJ Media
May 8, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3229/bbc-dhimmitude
Media outlets tiptoeing around Islam are a dime a dozen, but the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stands apart for the egregiousness of its self-censorship and bias. Even more striking than the number of controversies involving suppression of Islam-critical speech on its channels are the frank acknowledgements that BBC policy is shaped by fear.
During a recent interview (full transcript) for a University of Oxford project, BBC director general Mark Thompson provided the most in-depth admission yet of the BBC's double standards with respect to faith. Christianity, he explained, receives less sensitive treatment because it is "a broad-shouldered religion, compared to religions which in the UK have a very close identity with ethnic minorities." Specifically, Islam in Britain is "almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against, and where they may well regard an attack on their religion as racism by other means." Thus, when asked whether the BBC would run a Muhammad-mocking program on a par with the Jesus-ridiculing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which it aired over Christian protests in 2005, Thompson answered that it would not. Depictions of Islam's prophet, he maintained, could have "the emotional force" of "grotesque child pornography" for Muslims.
Concern about Islamist violence undergirds BBC self-censorship, as evidenced by Thompson's citations of the Salman Rushdie affair, which he described as "an absolute watershed," and 9/11. "A threat to murder … massively raises the stakes," Thompson pronounced. "'I complain in the strongest possible terms' is different from 'I complain in the strongest possible terms and I'm loading my AK47 as I write.'" Jonathan Neumann of Commentary observes, "The lesson the BBC appears to be teaching — a lesson we always knew and apparently is also policy — is that complaints get more credence if they are backed up by force."
Thompson's publicly enunciated views have evolved and serve as a microcosm of creeping dhimmitude, which refers to the subjugated status of non-Muslims under Islamic law. Four years ago, Thompson bemoaned the "growing nervousness about discussion about Islam and its relationship to the traditions and values of British and Western society as a whole." Seeing the BBC as a defender "of freedom of speech and of impartiality," he contended that it and other media outlets "have a special responsibility" to make certain that debate on any religion "should not be foreclosed or censored."
Just six months later, Thompson introduced his argument that Islam, as a minority belief system, must be dealt with carefully. "There's no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don't want to say that all religions are the same," he opined. In the BBC's defense, however, he boasted that it had not shied from displaying the Danish Muhammad cartoons — which seemingly had yet to reach the level of "grotesque child pornography" that they would in 2012. A BBC spokesman attempted to soften his words further: "What Mark Thompson said is that all religions are not the same — he did not say Islam, or indeed any faith, should be treated more sensitively than Christianity."
But now the mask has dropped for good, with double standards being confessed and visions of firearms elbowing out high-minded expressions of tolerance. Though his candor is refreshing, it does not begin to offset the lengthy and damaging record of cowardice that has defined Thompson's eight-year reign.
The BBC's asymmetrical approach to Islam and Christianity was palpable long before Thompson admitted to it. An internal memo leaked in 2006 provided an important glimpse of the prevailing worldview by revealing that BBC officials had deemed it acceptable to show a Bible, but not a Koran, being tossed into the garbage. Numerous insiders have gone public since then to confirm and criticize such policies. In 2008, comedian Ben Elton deplored how "the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass," which he attributed to "genuine fear … about provoking the radical elements of Islam." Former BBC radio host Don Maclean lamented in 2009 that programs "seem to take the negative angle every time" regarding Christianity, even as they are "keen on Islam." News anchor Peter Sissons, who left the BBC several years ago, echoed him in a book published in 2011: "Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended."
At its most obnoxious, this mindset is manifested in bizarre inversions of reality, such as the infamous scene of a fanatical British Christian decapitating a peaceful Muslim in a 2008 episode of the BBC archaeology drama Bonekickers. One reviewer slammed "the BBC's paint-by-numbers version of political correctness," adding that "a Martian watching TV drama of late would probably conclude that the country is crawling with homicidal Islamophobes." Christians accused the BBC of smearing evangelicals by attempting to "transfer the practice of terrorist beheadings from Islamist radicals" to them, but the BBC Trust exonerated the network. The BBC spy series Spooks ignited a similar storm in 2006 when it showed Christians carrying out grenade attacks against Muslims and a bishop organizing the assassination of an Islamic cleric.
Even as it concocts Christian terrorists, the BBC balks at depicting Islamic ones. Editorial staffers nixed the Islamic suicide bombers in a planned episode of the BBC medical drama Casualty in 2007, so as not to "perpetuate stereotypes." They were replaced with animal rights extremists. A year later, executives reportedly canceled a film on the 2005 London transit bombings because they found the script "Islamophobic" — discounting the opinions of the jihadists' own families who had backed the portrayal of their kin. Journalist Nick Cohen put it best: the BBC actually was advancing "the belief that all Muslims are potential terrorists … by arguing that a dramatic examination of terrorism would be offensive to all Muslims."
The BBC also constrains how real-world Islamists may be described. For example, the network prevented the Christian Choice alliance from characterizing Tablighi Jamaat, the organization that had been aiming to erect an enormous mosque by the site of the 2012 London Olympics, as "a separatist Islamic group" during a pre-election broadcast in 2008. The label fits: Tablighi Jamaat "preaches that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence," according to a Times of London article, and one of its UK leaders urged Muslims to resist the culture of Christians and Jews by nurturing "such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta." Nonetheless, the BBC demanded that "separatist" be changed to "controversial" and rejected the favorable mention of "moderate Muslims" opposed to the mosque project — because, in the words of the Times, "the phrase implied that Tablighi Jamaat was less than moderate."
Likewise, the BBC instructed its personnel this year not to refer to UK-based hate preacher Abu Qatada as an "extremist," despite his ties to al-Qaeda. Notes from a BBC editorial meeting indicate that he may be dubbed a "radical," but the "extremist" designation is unwelcome because it "implies a value judgment" — a throwback to the logic that limited general use of "terrorist" on BBC channels in 2005. For good measure, journalists also have been warned not to employ old photos in which Abu Qatada looks fat.
If undesired language does slip past the censors, the BBC grovels, as when it rushed to offer an apology and £30,000 to the Muslim Council of Britain in 2009 after a Question Time panelist accused the group of promoting attacks on British forces. Executives were unmoved by the fact that the UK government already had suspended links with the organization due to similar concerns. Hypersensitivity motivated another apology two years earlier when a BBC radio host, responding to the return of a British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing students to give a teddy bear the same name as Islam's prophet, innocuously joked that "her dog, Muhammad, is very pleased to see her." The BBC called the remark "ill-judged and entirely inappropriate" — words better applied to the notion of imprisoning somebody over a stuffed animal.
Perhaps most ironic of all, a spokesman for the BBC director general effectively declined a recent challenge from the head of DV8 Physical Theatre to screen a performance of Can We Talk About This? The courageous and well-reviewed dance production (watch the trailer) explores how fear stifles speech about Islam.
The BBC also has been accused of positively emphasizing Islam to the extent that other faiths are "brushed aside." This phrase was used by a British Sikh leader in 2008 after an analysis found that the BBC's religion and ethics department had rolled out 41 programs on Islam since 2001, but only five on Hinduism and one on Sikhism. "The bias towards Islam at the expense of Hindus and particularly Sikhs is overwhelming," a second protested. Furthermore, the Biased BBC blog noted in January 2011 that BBC Radio 4 had featured numerous shows highlighting Islam that month, but not one on any other minority religion. As for the majority faith, when Church of England representatives complained to Aaqil Ahmed, the Muslim controversially named chief of religious programming in 2009, about the BBC's diminishing focus on Christianity, he dismissed them as wanting to "live in the past."
Of course, the BBC's pro-Islamic — even pro-Islamist — slant does not stop at British shores. It also shades coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, a phenomenon well beyond the scope of this article but documented by Honest Reporting and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).
Mark Thompson plans to step down as BBC director general later in the year, but free speech advocates should not celebrate just yet. The culture that he has fostered is deeply ingrained and will not simply leave with him. Indeed, the corporation's editorial guidelines were modified in 2010 to mandate special procedures for "content dealing with matters of religion and likely to cause offence to those with religious views and beliefs," a move that the National Secular Society's president condemned as "entirely retrograde" for legitimizing faith-inspired bounds on expression.
Those who muzzle themselves to appease Islamists have surrendered their freedom, but when a behemoth such as the BBC does so, it chips away at the liberty of all. Powerful media entities that succumb to fear do not only embolden jihadists and help keep the citizenry in the dark about key issues; they also set a precedent that the less powerful often follow, a kind of trickle-down self-censorship that infects public life. Adding insult to injury, Britons are forced to fund the BBC's dhimmitude — and ultimately their own — through the license fee on televisions.
In an apparent disconnect with many of his other comments, Thompson asserted during the interview that "the best advice you can give" a person who feels uncomfortable with something on TV is "don't watch it," a philosophy that informs his habits as a Christian. Until network officials demand the same civilized behavior from Muslims and stop capitulating to the specter of Islamist rage, fed-up media consumers should remember his advice and turn off the BBC.
*David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Jihad Comes to Egypt
by Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPageMagazine.com
May 10, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3230/jihad-comes-to-egypt
Considering Egypt's presidential elections take place later this month, last weekend's Islamist clash with the military could not have come at a worse time.
First, the story: due to overall impatience—and rage that the Salafi presidential candidate, Abu Ismail, was disqualified (several secular candidates were also disqualified)—emboldened Islamists began to gather around the Defense Ministry in Abbassia, Cairo, late last week, chanting jihadi slogans, and preparing for a "million man" protest for Friday, May 4th.
As Egypt's Al Ahram put it, "Major Egyptian Islamist parties and groups—including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafist Calling and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya—have issued calls for a Tahrir Square demonstration on Friday under the banner of 'Saving the revolution.' … Several non-Islamist revolutionary groups, meanwhile, have expressed their refusal to participate in the event." In other words, last Friday was largely an Islamist protest (even though some in the Western media still portray it as a "general" demonstration).
There, in front of the Defense Ministry, the Islamists exposed their true face—exposed their hunger for power, their unpatriotic motivations, and their political ineptitude. For starters, among those leading the protests was none other than Muhammad al-Zawahiri, a brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a seasoned jihadi in his own right, who was only recently acquitted and released from prison, where, since 1998, he was incarcerated "on charges of undergoing military training in Albania and planning military operations in Egypt."
Before the Friday protest, Zawahiri appeared "at the head of hundreds of protesters," including "dozens of jihadis," demonstrating in front of the Defense Ministry. They waved banners that read, "Victory or Death" and chanted "Jihad! Jihad!"—all punctuated by cries of "Allahu Akbar!" Likewise, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya—the group responsible for slaughtering some 60 European tourists in the 1997 Luxor Massacre—was at the protests. Even the so-called "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood participated.
Two lessons emerge here: 1) an Islamist is an Islamist is an Islamist: when it comes down to ideology, they are one; 2) Violence and more calls to jihad are the fruits of clemency—the thanks Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) gets for releasing such Islamists imprisoned during ousted President Hosni Mubarak's tenure.
As for the actual protests (which, as one might expect from the quality of its participants, quickly turned savage) this Egyptian news clip shows bearded Salafis wreaking havoc and screaming jihadi slogans as they try to break into the Defense Ministry, homemade bombs waiting to be used, and a girl in black hijab savagely tearing down a security barbed-wire—the hallmarks of a jihadi takeover.
More tellingly, jihadis in the nearby Nour Mosque opened fire on the military from the windows of the minaret; and when the military stormed the mosque, apprehending the snipers, all the Muslim Brotherhood had to say was: "We also condemn the aggression [from the military] against the house of God (Nour Mosque) and the arrest of people from within"—without bothering to denounce the terror such people were committing from within 'the house of God."
It is worthwhile contrasting this episode with last year's Maspero massacre, when Egypt's Coptic Christians demonstrated because their churches were constantly being attacked. Then, the military burst forth with tanks, intentionally running Christians over, killing dozens, and trying to frame the Copts for the violence (all of which was quickly exposed as lies). Likewise, while some accuse the Copts of housing weapons in their churches to "conquer" Egypt, here is more evidence that mosques are stockpiled with weapons.
At any rate, what was billed as a "protest" was quickly exposed as Islamists doing their thing—waging jihad against the infidel foe. Yet this time, their foe was the Egyptian army; as opposed to SCAF—the entrenched, and largely disliked, ruling military council—the Egyptian army is popular with most Egyptians.
As one Egyptian political activist put it, "The public doesn't differentiate between Salafists, Wahhabis or Muslim Brotherhood any more. They are all Islamists. They have lost support with the public, it is irreversible. Egyptians have seen their army and soldiers being attacked. It has stirred a lot of emotions." A BBC report concurs: "The army holds a special, respected place in Egyptian society, and as far as many Egyptians were concerned it was attacked, not by a foreign enemy, but by Islamists…. One soldier died in the attack. Egyptian TV also showed dramatic pictures of injured soldiers."
The remarks of an Egyptian news anchorwoman as she showed such violent clips are further noteworthy. In dismay, she rhetorically asked: "Who is the enemy? They [protesters] are calling for jihad against whom? Are our soldiers being attacked by Israeli soldiers—or is it our own people attacking them? Why don't you go fight the Israeli enemy to liberate Palestine! Who are you liberating Egypt from? This is unacceptable. Do you people want a nation or do you want constant jihad—and a jihad against whom, exactly"?
To place her comments in context, known that, in Egypt, jihadis are often portrayed as the "good guys"—fighting for Egypt's honor, fighting to "liberate Palestine," and so on—while Israel is portrayed as the natural recipient of jihad. After Friday's violent clash, however, Egyptians are learning that no one is immune from the destructive forces of jihad, including Egypt itself and its guardian, the military. Two weeks before the presidential elections, perhaps voters are also learning that an Islamist president will bring only more chaos and oppression—just like his followers on display last Friday. Time will tell.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Question: "What does the Bible say about gay marriage / same sex marriage?"
Answer: While the Bible does address homosexuality, it does not explicitly mention gay marriage/same-sex marriage. It is clear, however, that the Bible condemns homosexuality as an immoral and unnatural sin. Leviticus 18:22 identifies homosexual sex as an abomination, a detestable sin. Romans 1:26-27 declares homosexual desires and actions to be shameful, unnatural, lustful, and indecent. First Corinthians 6:9 states that homosexuals are unrighteous and will not inherit the kingdom of God. Since both homosexual desires and actions are condemned in the Bible, it is clear that homosexuals “marrying” is not God’s will, and would be, in fact, sinful.
Whenever the Bible mentions marriage, it is between a male and a female. The first mention of marriage, Genesis 2:24, describes it as a man leaving his parents and being united to his wife. In passages that contain instructions regarding marriage, such as 1 Corinthians 7:2-16 and Ephesians 5:23-33, the Bible clearly identifies marriage as being between a man and a woman. Biblically speaking, marriage is the lifetime union of a man and a woman, primarily for the purpose of building a family and providing a stable environment for that family.
The Bible alone, however, does not have to be used to demonstrate this understanding of marriage. The biblical viewpoint of marriage has been the universal understanding of marriage in every human civilization in world history. History argues against gay marriage. Modern secular psychology recognizes that men and women are psychologically and emotionally designed to complement one another. In regard to the family, psychologists contend that a union between a man and woman in which both spouses serve as good gender role models is the best environment in which to raise well-adjusted children. Psychology argues against gay marriage. In nature/physicality, clearly, men and women were designed to “fit” together sexually. With the “natural” purpose of sexual intercourse being procreation, clearly only a sexual relationship between a man and a woman can fulfill this purpose. Nature argues against gay marriage.
So, if the Bible, history, psychology, and nature all argue for marriage being between a man and a woman—why is there such a controversy today? Why are those who are opposed to gay marriage/same-sex marriage labeled as hateful, intolerant bigots, no matter how respectfully the opposition is presented? Why is the gay rights movement so aggressively pushing for gay marriage/same-sex marriage when most people, religious and non-religious, are supportive of—or at least far less opposed to—gay couples having all the same legal rights as married couples with some form of civil union?
The answer, according to the Bible, is that everyone inherently knows that homosexuality is immoral and unnatural, and the only way to suppress this inherent knowledge is by normalizing homosexuality and attacking any and all opposition to it. The best way to normalize homosexuality is by placing gay marriage/same-sex marriage on an equal plane with traditional opposite-gender marriage. Romans 1:18-32 illustrates this. The truth is known because God has made it plain. The truth is rejected and replaced with a lie. The lie is then promoted and the truth suppressed and attacked. The vehemence and anger expressed by many in the gay rights movement to any who oppose them is, in fact, an indication that they know their position is indefensible. Trying to overcome a weak position by raising your voice is the oldest trick in the debating book. There is perhaps no more accurate description of the modern gay rights agenda than Romans 1:31, “they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
To give sanction to gay marriage/same-sex marriage would be to give approval to the homosexual lifestyle, which the Bible clearly and consistently condemns as sinful. Christians should stand firmly against the idea of gay marriage/same-sex marriage. Further, there are strong and logical arguments against gay marriage/same-sex marriage from contexts completely separated from the Bible. One does not have to be an evangelical Christian to recognize that marriage is between a man and a woman.
According to the Bible, marriage is ordained by God to be between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:21-24; Matthew 19:4-6). Gay marriage/same-sex marriage is a perversion of the institution of marriage and an offense to the God who created marriage. As Christians, we are not to condone or ignore sin. Rather, we are to share the love of God and the forgiveness of sins that is available to all, including homosexuals, through Jesus Christ. We are to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) and contend for truth with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). As Christians, when we make a stand for truth and the result is personal attacks, insults, and persecution, we should remember the words of Jesus: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).
**Recommended Resource: The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage: 6 Things You Must Know About What's Really at Stake by Erwin Lutzer.

The Catastrophe Called Nakba
by Sam Sokol/The Jerusalem Post
May 10, 2012
http://www.meforum.org/3231/catastrophe-called-nakba
"All of the world knows what happened here in 1948,' Daoud Abu Lebdeh says, while leaning against a table in a coffee shop on the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus.
"The Israeli soldiers or the Israeli militias like the Hagana, Kahane, the Irgun and Lehi came here and they [kicked] the people outside from their homes."
Daoud is a nondescript man of 24 from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz. A correspondent and blogger with the Palestinian website the Middle East Post, Daoud has come highly recommended as an expert on the Nakba, the "catastrophe" of the birth of the State of Israel, and concurrently, the start of the Palestinian refugee problem, by Fatah Youth activist and Jerusalemite Mousa Abassi.
Except for the historical inaccuracy of placing the radical Jewish nationalist movement of Kahanism in the 1940s, several decades too early, Daoud's statement echoes the standard Palestinian narrative of the Nakba, a topic which comes up every year as Arabs within Israel, the Palestinian Authority and around the world commemorate the what they see as the tragedy of Israel's establishment on May 14, 1948.
Elaborating on the Palestinian narrative regarding what they have termed "ethnic cleansing," Daoud explains that "the English books, the American history books, it's all the same. There is nothing to change. The whole world knows what happened here."
"[The Jews] came here and established their own state [and] until today they have prevented us [from] establishing our state near to their state."
The Palestinian narrative is very clear. According to Daoud and the Arab version of events, the Zionist movement began bringing in Jews to Palestine, then a peaceful backwater of the Ottoman Empire in which a distinct Palestinian culture had developed over centuries.
Having convinced the British to back their nationalist goals at the expense of the local Palestinians, the Jews began to bring in illegal immigrants and eventually drove the Palestinians out of their homes in an orgy of violence and massacre.
The Jews, explains Daoud, have no claim to any part of Palestine.
Asked why his predecessors did not accept the 1947 United Nations partition plan, unlike the Zionist movement which endorsed it wholeheartedly, and instead chose to go to war, the Palestinian journalist grabs my iPhone off of the table.
"I have taken your phone," he says. "What do you do?" The partition resolution, he claims, was like someone stealing a smartphone and then asking to split it. He asserts that the Zionist movement had no claim to any part of the land and that asking the Arabs to accept that they did was a trampling of their rights.
According to Daoud, the ancient Jewish presence in Israel, preceding the arrival of Arabs and Islam to the country by thousands of years, does not have any bearing on the current political reality.
Asked why, he counters that the Jewish presence in this land is similar to that of the Muslim Moors who conquered Spain.
"Just as I can't, in the name of Islam, go to Spain to occupy it and [expel] the Spanish because [in the past we were there]," he says, "it's the same thing that you [Israel] are doing now. It's not my problem that [King] David was here and Muhammad was there."
The Palestinian focus on the Nakba, and on the return to homes lost in the fighting and subsequent Arab mass flight from Israel in 1948, has intensified over the past few years, he asserts. Despite an emphasis on the Nakba, and Israel's illegitimacy, in the PA's educational curriculum since the early 1990s, Daoud is sure that his people have grown more attached to the Nakba narrative because they are disillusioned by the failure to achieve a two-state solution.
However, despite the popularity and wide currency enjoyed by the Palestinian version of events, not everybody subscribes to the Nakba narrative.
Efraim Karsh, an expatriate Israeli, historian and Arabist, is the editor of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Quarterly, published by Dr. Daniel Pipes's think tank the Middle East Forum, and, speaking with the Post by Skype from his home in the city of brotherly love, affirms his contention that the popular version of events is based on erroneous sources.
Karsh, who recently published Palestine Betrayed, a history of the Nakba, explains that it is precisely the widespread acceptance of Palestinian historiography that has stood in the way of implementing a two-state solution and accounts for, in his view, Palestinian intransigence.
An accurate history of the conflict, he opens, should be independent of political ideology. He believes history has no relation to political ideology. He himself, he continues, is an advocate of the two-state paradigm, despite his absolute rejection of the Palestinian narrative.
One of Karsh's main contentions in his book is the responsibility of the Palestinian and outside Arab leadership for the events of 1948.
"In 1947, prior to the first UN General Assembly vote, Palestinian leaders rejected any form of Jewish self-determination in Palestine. Hajj Amin Husseini, their most prominent leader from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, upheld that 'there is no place in Palestine for two races.' All areas conquered by the Arabs during the 1948 war were cleansed of Jews," he wrote in this newspaper last year.
Delving through Arab, Israeli and British archives, Karsh in Palestine Betrayed paints a portrait of a divided and not at all cohesive Palestinian-Arab society that, as he put it "all but disintegrated, with 300,000-340,000 of its members fleeing their homes to other parts of Palestine and to the neighboring Arab states."
Writing that "nowhere at the time was the collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society al-Nakba, 'the catastrophe,' as it would come to be known in Palestinian and Arab discourse – described as a systematic dispossession of Arabs by Jews," Karsh went on to quote contemporary Palestinian Arab leader Musa Alami, who stated that "If ultimately the Palestinians evacuated their country, it was not out of cowardice, but because they had lost all confidence in the existing system of defense."
Even more damning, in Karsh's eyes, is a statement by Sir John Troutbeck, the head of the British Middle East Office in Cairo, regarding a 1949 fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip.
"'We know who our enemies are,' they [the Arab refugees] will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes."
Referring to these and similar statements, Karsh tells the Post that "the beginning of my book basically tells it all. In 1948-1949 no one among the Palestinians spoke about the Jews as responsible for their plight. It came only later, ex post facto, that they started explaining why they ran away. If you look, there are quotes of refugees in Gaza in 1949 telling the British 'look, our leaders, the Arabs, they pushed us out but not the Jews' so I cannot think that you need much more than this [to understand the situation]."
In the Fifties, Karsh says, the narrative began to change, with the plight of the Palestinian refugees being used as a tool in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"In the Fifties you see the discredited Arab leaders like the Mufti and others begin an attempt to basically absolve themselves or rehabilitate themselves in their constituents," he says.
This alternative narrative, combined with statements by Daoud regarding repeated Israeli rejections of Palestinian peace offers which Karsh rejects as untrue, paint a picture, he says, of a people unwilling to face reality.
The current Palestinian historiography is "a combination of ignorance and reluctance to reconcile themselves to reality [and] the result is very dispiriting for the future for peace," he continues.
Certainly, the PA's continuing demand for the "right of return" would be looked upon differently by a world that believed the Palestinian exodus to be the fault of the Arab states and local communal leaders.
In fact, Karsh continues, while there has been, even after the Roman exile, a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel for millennia, the very concept of Palestinian nationalism is a 20th-century creation.
Among his sources, Karsh quotes former Arab nationalist, Knesset member and alleged Hezbollah spy Azmi Bishara, who once made an appearance on Israeli television to announce that he doesn't "think there is a Palestinian nation at all. I think there is an Arab nation.
"I always thought so and I did not change my mind. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation, I think its a colonialist invention – Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did it come from? I think there is an Arab nation. I never turned to be a Palestinian nationalist, despite my decisive struggle against the occupation. I think that until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was the south of Greater Syria."
Of course, Daoud is having none of this. He says that while he is ready to accept a two-state solution, there really is no legitimate Jewish sovereignty in Palestine and that the entire conflict is the fault of Zionist territorial hunger and ethnic cleansing. Karsh's opinion, he believes, is the historical revision, not the current Nakba narrative.
"The Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis. What we don't know is why we the Palestinians must pay the price for that."