Jun
21
Mahmoud Abbas has accused Hamas militants of plotting to assassinate him
during a visit to Gaza last month. According to the Palestinian President, he recieved video footage showing militants planning the attack, which included digging a tunnel filled with explosives set to detonate when Abbas’ car passed over it. The video was broadcast on Al Jazeera (which you can see here), and here are some still captures from the MEMRI Blog. The video isn’t too long, about 25 seconds, but it shows a group of men talking in a slightly low voice about their plan. A few of the men are wearing what look like green shirts with the Hamas logo on them.
I suppose in light of this, Abbas’ decision to completely sever ties with the Islamist group comes as no surprise, although one wonders how long it will take before the two groups are talking again. Anybody up for another Mecca Accord?
Egypt is playing its part as a U.S ally and inviting Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders to a summit in Sharm El Sheikh, where world leaders come to accomplish nothing.
Previously: On Hamas Taking Over Gaza
Jun
20
Power Of The Pen
Filed Under education, Egypt | 2 Comments
I came across this article in Al-Ahram Weekly by Serene Assir, about the effects of literacy on the lives of Egyptian women, where a UNICEF supported program is providing education to people who did not recieve it when they were younger. I think this particular excerpt, the story of a woman named Neamat Sayes, highlights the importance of a basic education to the lives of the less fortunate:
Aged 54, Sayed did not learn to read properly until she was well into her 40s: “when I was a child, I attended school for six years. But my parents were poor, and they decided to pull me out, fearing my continued education would cost them too much. I forgot everything I learned. More importantly, I forgot how important it was to have an education. I lived most of my life not knowing how to read street signs, let alone the country’s history.” Her decision to enroll in adult literacy classes run by ICS came almost fortuitously. She and her family moved to Ain Helwan following the 1992 Cairo earthquake, which destroyed her home. “The classes were offered to us for free, and I had seen how the lives of other women living near me improved. Economically, they were better off because they could make extra money.” Literacy classes and vocational courses offered to men, women and young people are largely geared towards the economic empowerment of the family, providing it with a greater chance of living with dignity. Aside from teaching adults and young adults to read from scratch, with the choice to continue all the way to thanawiya amma, the ICS also hosts daily workshops in a wide range of professions from leather making, sewing and knitting to community business management. As Sayed puts it, “I did not realise what the lack of education was depriving me of until I started getting an education. You see, if you’ve been a non-active member of your family or your community, only by becoming active do you feel the difference.”
Jun
20
‘Hamastan’ Already A Threat To Israel; Fighting Erupts
Filed Under Terrorism, Palestine, Israel, News | Leave a Comment
Hamas fighters have already begun firing at Israeli troops, who had crossed into an area in Gaza conducting operations against “terrorist infrastructure”:
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said that their fighters opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades on Israeli troops, who had pushed up to a kilometer (more than half-a-mile) inside Gaza near the main southern city of Khan Younis.
The Israeli soldier was wounded after troops moved several hundred meters (yards) into the central Gaza Strip west of the Kissufim border crossing, an army spokeswoman said.
She said that a small number of Israeli forces were in the area to conduct “routine activity against terrorist infrastructure” and that troops had identified “hits” against seven Palestinian gunmen during exchanges of fire.
Wednesday’s exchanges marked the first deadly clashes between the army and the new rulers of Gaza since Hamas forces routed loyalists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last Friday after a week of ferocious fighting.
Israeli troops have been operating inside the Gaza Strip since Sunday but their operations had previously been limited to areas hard by the border.
Israeli officials have vowed to isolate Hamas in Gaza and work to boost the authority of the moderate Abbas and the emergency government that he installed in the West Bank after dismissing the previous Hamas-led unity government.
Jun
20
Did Egypt Support Hamas’ Takeover?
Filed Under Terrorism, Palestine, Egypt, War | 2 Comments
According to a report from the Middle East Newsline, Egypt quietly supported the Hamas takeover of Gaza and may have helped in supplying weapons to the Islamists. Accessing the whole article requires a subscription, but here’s what’s on the site for free:
Western intelligence sources said Egypt cooperated with Hamas in allowing shipments of weapons, munitions and explosives that facilitated the Islamic takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The sources said Egypt concluded that a Hamas takeover would halt or reduce insurgency infiltration in the Sinai Peninsula.
“The Egyptians were in the picture as early as several weeks ago,” an intelligence source said. “[Hamas leader Khaled] Masha’al discussed the Fatah strategic threat and said Hamas would stop [Fatah security chief Mohammed] Dahlan at any cost.”
In a recent telephone conversation with Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman, Masha’al said Dahlan and his allies were working with Al Qaida-aligned groups to undermine Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The sources quoted Masha’al as saying that Fatah was allowing Al Qaida to infiltrate the Sinai Peninsula to facilitate attacks on the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.
This of course contradicts what the mainstream press has reported, although the MENL has been right about military developments in the past. According to earlier news stories, Egypt has moved its’ embassy from Gaza to the West Bank, and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman had expressed his disapproval of Hamas’ actions:
6/19/2007 5:26:09 AM With the Gaza Strip under the total control of the Islamist militant group Hamas, Egypt has decided to send its diplomatic corps in the Palestinian Authority to West Bank city of Ramallah, Egyptian newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday.
The Egyptian move is a blow to Hamas, which has long been welcomed in Cairo despite being shunned by Western powers. Egypt borders Gaza and Palestinians have long considered it a vital outlet from a territory otherwise penned in by Israel.
The report by the newspaper also said that the head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman, spoke with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and expressed “fury” over the situation in the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Egypt recalled some 200 diplomatic staff stationed in Gaza in protest against the Hamas movement’s violent ousting of its secular Fatah rivals.
Jun
18
Empowering The Silent Majority With Conditional Aid To Egypt
Filed Under Extended Comment, mideast youth, Reform, U.S, Egypt, Politics | 1 Comment
My post at the Mid East Youth blog:
Since I last posted here, the U.S House of Representatives voted to conditionally hold back $200 million in military aid to Egypt, dependant on progress made by the Mubarak regime concerning democratic reforms and human rights abuses. This measure has been the subject of much debate for a while now, in light of Egypt’s rapidly deteriorating credibility on rights and democracy. The numerous arrests of political opponents, cyber-dissidents and successive failures to hold legitimate elections have caused some to challenge the real-politik view that funding autocratic regimes in the Middle East is in the interest of America and the world’s power structure.
However, that’s not what the Egyptian government will have you believe. Speaking to MENA, Egyptian Ambassador to Washington Nabil Fahmy said that “the aid which the United States gives to Egypt is not a gift but it is (based on) a U.S. assessment that it serves the U.S. interest… In other words, this aid is an investment for U.S. interests in the Middle East (link)”
An investment is right; Egypt has recieved over $60 billion in military and economic assistance over roughly 3 decades. I myself have benefited from USAID first hand, making use of educational resources at the AUC such as laptops and equipment donated from such aid progams (we were constantly reminded of this by the big red and blue stickers attached to everything). However one wonders if the recipient of this aid truly believes that what they are recieving is in the interest of the other, will the political status-quo ever change?
Read the rest of the post here.
Jun
17
Jailed Iranian Students
Filed Under activism, Human Rights, Reform, Iran | Leave a Comment
From City Boy Blog:
This is an appeal by bloggers against the detention of 9 Iranian students from the Amir Kabir Polytechnic University in Tehran who are been kept and repeatedly tortured at the notorious Evin prison:
Dr. Keyvan Ansari - Alumni Association of Iran, since September 18 (2006)
Ahmad Ghassaban - Editor of Sahar, since May 3
Maghdad Khalilpur - Editor of Atiye, since May 7
Majid Tavakolli - Member of ISA, since May 9
Puyan Mahmudian - Editor of Rivar, since May 9
Majid Sheikhpur - Editor of Sar-e Khat, since May 9
Ehsan Mansouri - ISA Secretary of Political Affairs, since May 22
Ali Saberi - ISA committee member, since June 6
Abbas Hakimzadeh - ISA committee member, since June 6
These students were jailed for exercising their basic freedoms; follow the link to learn more and help raise awareness:
Update: The link seems to be down, which is why the image isn’t showing. Be sure to check it out when it does come back up.
Jun
16
U.S Defense Secratary, Afghan Minister Deny Iran Arming Taliban
Filed Under afghanistan, Terrorism, Iran, Iran's Terror, News | 3 Comments
Both U.S Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his Afghan counterpart Abdul Rahim Wardak moved to back off claims made earlier this week about Iranian arms support for the Taliban:
“Actually, throughout, we have had good relations with Iran and we believe that the security and stability of Afghanistan are also in the interests of Iran,” Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press.
On Wednesday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Paris that Tehran was directly supplying weapons to the Taliban. He told CNN there was “irrefutable evidence” that arms shipments were coming from Iran’s government.
The State Department later appeared to step back from Burns’ assertion, but stressed that the United States has proof that weapons from Iran were reaching Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Tehran has denied the accusations. Wardak, who is attending a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels, also played down suggestions that Iranian authorities were sending arms shipments to the Taliban.
“There has been evidence of weapons, but it is difficult to link it to Iran,” Wardak said. “It is possible that (they) might be from al-Qaida, from the drug mafia or from other sources.”
Secretary Gates had this to say:
“I have seen analysis suggesting considerable flow of weapons and support from Iran and I have not seen information that will directly tie to approval by government of Iran,” US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told a press conference in Brussels after a meeting of NATO defence ministers Thursday evening.
Gates added, “I think it is the quantity that we are seeing makes it difficult to believe that the Iranian government doesn’t have some indication or some knowledge.”
While the U.S may not be able to directly link Iran to support for the Taliban yet, the Iranian regime have made it easy by openly admitting their support for Islamic “resistance” groups in countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan (From Al-Arabiya, May 18th):
Interviewer: How do you view the fears of the creation of a “Shiite Crescent”?
Hashemi Rafsanjani (Former President): Take Palestine, for example. We give support to the mujahideen in Palestine. Are they Shiites? No, they are Sunnis. Moreover, they are zealous Sunnis. Hamas is zealous with regard to Sunni Islam, but because of their Jihad and resistance, we supply them with aid. Likewise, when we supplied support in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo – were they Shiite? It’s not like that. Similarly, in Afghanistan, when we gave supported to the Jihad of the mujahideen, we support all the groups – Sunni and Shiite alike – as much as we could. In the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, many of our Sunni brothers found refuge in Iran, just like the Shiite brothers. In Lebanon as well, we gave support when Israel invaded Lebanese territories and occupied them. We gave support to whoever resisted the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. The late sheik Sa’id Sha’ban, who was a close friend of Iran – was he Shiite? He was a Sunni scholar. It’s not like that. It is not part of our plan… Naturally, Iran has good relations with the Shiites, but this is not directed against any other party. We are interested in the just resistance and when we feel a certain people is oppressed, we give it support. Rest assured that we believe that inter-sectarian politics are detrimental to us and to all Muslims, and we believe that these politics prevent us from achieving unity. All the Islamic countries can see that we never interfere. All we did was to give the support to the resistance everywhere.
Jun
16
Study Says Political Islam Correlated To Support For Terrorism
Filed Under Islam, Terrorism, Politics, News | Leave a Comment
A new study by the U.S Institute for Peace on polling data from the Pew Research Center says that support for Islamist political parties is correlated to support for terrorism. Data from 14 Muslim countries was examined, although its worth mentioning several countries did not allow certain questions to be asked.
On the question of support for terrorism (American Thinker):
The support for terrorism is also dispersed in the Muslim world: of the top five countries in the fourteen surveyed, two were in the Middle East (Lebanon and Jordan), two were in Africa (Nigeria, Ivory Coast) and one was in Asia (Bangladesh). It should be noted that Egypt refused to let the question be asked as part of the survey, and other presumably high terrorism support areas, including Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Saudi Arabia, were not included in the poll.
From the report:
- I find that support for terrorism is positively correlated with anti-Americanism, the belief that Islam should play a significant role in politics, the belief that the United States poses a threat to Islam, and, surprisingly, the perception of free expression. Moreover, education, perceived state of the economy, and support for democracy are not found to have any significant relationship to support for terrorism. (p.2)
- In the simple correlations, support for terrorism was found to be positively correlated with two views on Islam and politics. Both people who believed Islam should play a large role in politics and people who believed that Islam does play a large role in the politics of their home country were more likely to support terrorism. This relationship continues to hold in the statistical model. (p.13-14)
Jun
16
On Hamas Taking Over Gaza
Filed Under Palestine, Israel, U.S, War, News | Leave a Comment
From Show Me The Rules:
Now that the territories are effectively split between the newly declared Islamic state run by Hamas in Gaza, and the Abbas stronghold in the West Bank, the United States is going to recommend to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert that his country ease certain restrictions in the West bank, in order to give more political legitimacy to Abbas. The U.S has shown signs of acceptance towards Hamas in the Gaza strip, with some predicting the last option for Secretary of State Rice is to develop the West bank economically and improve living standards to show Palestinians they are better off under Fatah than Hamas. From an article in today’s IHT by Helene Cooper, which I can’t find online:
The State Department Insisted that the United States had no plans to abandon Palestinians living in Gaza. Many Diplomats and Middle East experts said they read Abbas’s decision (to dissolve parliament, surrender compound) as an attempt to cut his losses in Gaza and consolidate power in the West Bank. Israeli Officials are promoting a proposal that West Bank and Gaza be viewed as seperate entities and that Israel act more forcefully in Gaza to crack down on Hamas militants.
Read the rest here.
Jun
15
Amnesty For 30,000
Filed Under immigration, Netherlands, News | Leave a Comment
At a time when the immigration debate in the United States seems far from resolved, the Dutch parliament has approved residence permits for 30,000 immigrants who had previously applied for asylum and not gotten it. The move excludes immigrants who have been convicted of war crimes or been convicted to more than a month in jail. Despite arguments by some that this measure could portray Holland as ’soft’ on immigration, the government insists that this is a one-time deal, and that rules will be tightened after its completion:
Amsterdam, 13 June (AKI) - In a political U-turn, the Dutch parliament has approved residence permits for 30,000 immigrants who applied for and failed to get asylum before 2001. Anyone convicted of war crimes or sentenced to more than a month in jail is excluded from the new measure. The amnesty was proposed last November by the parliament elected in polls that led to the centre-left Labour party entering the governing coalition at the expense of the Liberal VVD party. The governing coalition is led by the Christian Democrats (CDA).
Former immigration minister, hardliner Rita Verdonk, ordered the deportation of 26,000 asylum seekers. However, the previous government collapsed last June following a political row sparked by its handling of the disputed citizenship of Somali-born Dutch politician and feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The immigration issue has gripped Dutch politics since the murders of two prominent campaigners against Muslim extremism - rightwing independent politician Pim Fortuyn and film-maker Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh was murdered in an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a Muslim extremist after his film ‘Submission’ highlighting domestic violence against Muslim women was aired on Dutch television. Hirsi Ali received death threats over the short film, for which she wrote the screenplay.
An estimated five percent of the Dutch population, around one million people, are Muslims. Most originally came from Turkey and North Africa. Muslim immigrants also hail from the former colonies of Suriname and Indonesia. There is also a substantial Somali minority. Antilleans form another immigrant group concentrated in poor areas of major Dutch cities such as Rotterdam.
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