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According to this article in the IHT, Egypt is planning to propose a 3-month ceasefire between Iraqi forces and “insurgents” at the upcoming security conference in Sharm El Sheikh:

Under the Egyptian proposal, the participants would “call on all parties to implement a cease fire for an initial period of three months to allow for a conducive environment to help foster the political process and national accord,” according to a copy of the draft final resolutions, obtained by the Associated Press. It did not elaborate on how insurgents could be brought on board a cease-fire. The draft resolutions are still being finalized by senior diplomats from the participating countries, but an Iraqi official close to the discussions said the Egyptian proposal is a nonstarter.

Of course, this is unrealistic and will never happen. Response from an Iraqi Diplomat:

“This is not a good idea. How can we have a cease-fire with terrorists?” said the Iraqi diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. Although the United States has been pushing al-Maliki to reach out for Sunni Arabs, it is highly unlikely that it would back a cease-fire call with insurgents who are battling U.S. forces as well as Iraqi troop.

Update: Another interesting article about the upcoming conference and its significance to U.S policy towards Iran.

At a summit set for next week in Sharm El Sheikh, there is high possibility of an Iranian-American meeting over issues concerning Iraq, with both sides expressing willingness to talk earlier. Today, Iraq’s FM reiterated that sentiment:

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s foreign minister said on Sunday there was a “high possibility” Iran and the United States would hold bilateral talks at a high-powered meeting in Egypt this week that will seek ways to stabilise Iraq.

Hoshiyar Zebari said such a meeting might not be at the ministerial level, but that it would be an important step.

“I think it’s important, it would be a major breakthrough and any reduction in tensions will positively impact the situation in Iraq,” Zebari told Reuters in an interview without saying what he thought the two foes might discuss.

“We don’t want Iraq to be a battleground for settling scores on other agendas at our cost. Really, this has been harming us, damaging us a lot.”

…

Zebari said he expected Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to attend the meeting, saying any level lower than this would “not be helpful, would not be welcome”.

…

He said Iraq’s neighbours had begun to realise how important it was to stabilise Iraq, which is being ripped apart by sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis since the US-led invasion in 2003.

“From my contacts, my trips, there is a gathering sense of the danger of Iraq failing, of chaos spilling across the region, sectarianism getting out of Iraq’s borders, civil war, the disintegration of Iraq,” Zebari said.

“There is a greater sense of these dangers by the region.”

Egypt is finally putting pressure on Hamas to reign in the militants and stop the firing of rockets into Israel:

Egypt has threatened to cut off its relations with Hamas unless the movement halts its rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinian Authority officials said Wednesday.

The officials said Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman sent a “tough” message to Hamas leaders, warning them against the continued rocket attacks. The message was delivered to PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas by Burhan Hammad, a senior Egyptian intelligence officer based in the Gaza Strip, the officials added.

They said that Suleiman also warned that Egypt would not side with the Palestinians if Israel launched a military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“We hope that the Hamas leaders will listen carefully to what the Egyptians are telling them,” said one official here. “Hamas must return to the period of calm so as not to give Israel an excuse to invade the Gaza Strip.”

Apparently the government has its hands full at home too, thwarting a recent suicide plot targeting Israeli’s in the Sinai Peninsula:

One Palestinian suspect was arrested and another ran away when security forces confronted them 1.5 kilometres from Sinai’s border with the Gaza
Strip, the ministry said.

Abdel Shafie Jabr Maraheel, who is suspected of smuggling explosives into Sinai, was seriously wounded when he threw a homemade explosive at the police, the ministry added.

None of the policemen was injured, but the second suspect managed to escape.

Security sources said Maraheel was suspected of having entered Egypt illegally via a smuggling tunnel on the border with the Gaza Strip. They could give no information on what he may have been planning.

Bombers have hit Red Sea resort areas in the Sinai Peninsula three times since 2004, killing well over 100 people in attacks Egypt blames on a group of Islamists from the Sinai Bedouin community with militant views.

The Egyptian government’s crackdown on the banned Muslim Brotherhood group continued Thursday, targeting its’ businessmen with 40 members of the group standing military trials for participating in the group and allegedly funding terrorism:

Defendants included Khayrat Al Shater, the number three man in the Brotherhood, who together with other businessmen linked to the group had their assets frozen and were referred to a military court in February.

Family members were initially banned from the proceedings before eventually being allowed in. They said the defendants remained silent because their counsel was not present.

In past military trials of Islamists, journalists and family members, as well as diplomatic observers, have been allowed into the courtroom at a military base in the desert outside Cairo.

Thursday’s session lasted for approximately four hours before being adjourned until June 3.

Shater was arrested last December in the continuing government crackdown on Egypt’s largest opposition bloc, following a university demonstration in which masked pro-Brotherhood students staged a military-style parade on the campus of Al Azhar University in the capital.

The targeting of Shater and other businessmen associated with the movement has been seen as an attempt to cripple the powerful organization financially.

Apparently, these charges have already been over ruled by civilian courts:

The military trial comes despite several judges in civilian courts throwing out the charges against the Brothers on the grounds of lack of evidence.

“There have been three verdicts from ordinary judges to release them, and none have been respected by authorities,” said Aryan. “This shows that the charges are nonsense.”

Egyptian authorities accuse the movement, which controls a fifth of the seats in parliament, of seeking to revive its underground military wing and of eventually trying to topple the regime.

“Khayrat Al Shater and the other Muslim Brotherhood detainees should never have been arrested in the first place,” Elijah Zarwan of Human Rights Watch said. “Now that an independent court has said as much, the government is resorting to a secret military tribunal to deliver the desired verdict.”

After two recent bombings in North African countries (Morocco, Algeria), Egypt fears it could the next country to be hit by a terrorist attack, and has moved to increase security in the country:

CAIRO: Egypt has beefed up security, especially in tourist areas, after Algeria and Morocco were rocked by a string of suicide bomb attacks, a security source said Sunday.

The source said that Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly had instructed his top aides on Saturday to “accurately carry out security plans” and to “secure tourist areas.” “Intense security efforts are underway to abort any potential extremist hotbeds, and attempts by organizations to revive their activities,” the source quoted the minister as saying.

“According to our security assessment, a wave of terrorist attacks is expected in the region, and our security measures are concentrating on this,” Al-Adly said.

According to Israel’s Shin Beth, Iran has been looking for people within Israel to spy on them:

JERUSALEM — Iranian secret services have been trying to recruit Israelis of Iranian origin to spy on the Jewish state, the Israeli domestic security service Shin Beth said Tuesday.

Iranian agents posing as consulate workers have on at least 10 occasions approached Israelis applying for authorization to visit their relatives in Iran at Tehran’s consulate in Istanbul, it said in a statement.

The Ha’aretz daily said that the Shin Beth had detained one Israeli of Iranian decent upon his return from Iran and the man had admitted being recruited and accepting money to cover his costs.

The man said that he had been asked to lure a relative who used to work for the Israeli security services to Istanbul, the paper said. It did not say when the man had been detained or whether he remained in detention.

Here’s an interesting side of Palestine you don’t hear often about:

The name Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has not been heard so frequently in the West Bank as in the past two weeks, during the Palestinian Mozart Festival. Fifty works by this great composer, some of them very rare, were performed in every musical art form: from solo songs to operas, and from chamber ensembles to orchestras. More than half the musicians were Palestinians; the others came from around the world. Some 20 concerts, as well as films, master classes and workshops, brought the music of this 18th century Viennese to West Bank towns for the first time.

Would they come, or wouldn’t they? This was the question that hung in the air in the two hours preceding the Choir of London concert at the Al Masri Cultural Centre in Nablus. Sami Hamad, director of the center and responsible for the festival in his city, chain-smoked as he waited.

“There is an important wedding in the city,” he sighed, “and it is simply impossible to tell if an audience will come.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Came across this article today, about a former female militant who fought for a Christian militia in Lebanon’s civil war of the late 70’s and 80’s. She’s all for peace now, but the article provides an interesting look into what armed conflict has meant to some in the region, and leaves hope for some sense of maturity and realization of the cost of war on society.

Jocelyne Khoweiry was 20 years old when she first carried arms during the 1975-90 civil war. Now 51, she is working forcefully for peace.

“In 1975 I was ready to die for my country. Today I want to live for its sake,” Khoweiry said on the 32nd anniversary of the outbreak of the 15-year civil war that killed more than 150,000 people.

Khoweiry, in a rare interview, said that she wanted to “relay a message of peace” at a time when many people fear that deeply divided Lebanon may plunge back into the devastating violence and chaos of civil war.

“I tell the young Lebanese of today war is not a game,” said Khoweiry, founder and director of the Pope John Paul II Center which provides social, psychological, and medical assistance for those in need. “When violence breaks out it becomes deaf. Nothing stops it.”

…

“After carrying arms, I thought repeatedly about becoming a nun. When you see so much violence and drama, you start asking questions about men, death, and God.”

In 2000 she founded the Pope John Paul II Center in Ghadir, a mountainous village in the Christian heartland northeast of Beirut, with the help of other “sisters in arms” who discarded their guns to become “messengers of hope and peace.”

The former militant insists that her military and spiritual endeavors have much in common.

“Military combat is also an ascetic, mystical experience: one sacrifices oneself in wars - just like in religion,” she said.

Iraqi cleric Muqtada Al Sadr has decided to make his political officials, associated with his movement, withdraw from parliament. The move comes in response to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s opposition to drawing up a timetable for U.S withdrawal from the country.

Officials from the movement, which holds six ministries and a quarter of the parliamentary seats in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite Alliance, said the formal announcement would be made on Monday at a news conference.

The move is unlikely to bring down the government, but it could create tensions in Maliki’s fractious Shi’ite-led government of national unity at a time when it is trying to heal sectarian divisions that threaten to tip Iraq into civil war.

“We are going to declare our withdrawal from government because the prime minister does not want to make a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq,” said one official in Sadr’s movement who declined to be identified. There was no immediate comment from the government.

Maliki says he sees no need to set a timetable. He said last week his government was working to build up Iraq’s security forces as quickly as possible so U.S.-led forces could leave.

The Democrats proposing a U.S military withdrawal in favor of a ‘political solution’ need to start sharing their solutions before the Iraqi government becomes so divided that it’s too late to accomplish anything.

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