Excerpts: Israeli phone calls. Syria supports Russia on Georgia.No
celebrations. Don't pin hopes on Obama 22 August 2008

+++Lebanese bombarded with more phone messages from 'Israel'
By The Daily Star
Friday, August 22, 2008
BEIRUT: Lebanese citizens on Thursday reported receiving recorded phone
messages asking for information about missing Israeli soldiers.
The message asks people to view an Israeli Web site or call a phone number
in the United Kingdom if they have any information on the whereabouts of the
missing troops.
The Web site, www.10million.org, belongs to a foundation set up by the
Israeli government, according to the Associated Press. The site pictures
five missing Israeli soldiers, including Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down
over Lebanon in 1986. The Web site, in English, Arabic and Farsi, offers a
$10 million reward for information on any of the missing troops.
One editor for The Daily Star and three Associated Press staffers were among
those who received the calls on their mobile telephones Thursday. A
foundation spokeswoman refused to say if it was behind the calls.
Last month, similar messages in Lebanon criticized Hizbullah's leader Sayyed
Hassan Nasrallah and prompted Lebanese outrage over what some officials said
was the Jewish state's tampering with Lebanon's telecommunications system.

Telecommunications Minister Jebran Bassil said last month that he wrote a
letter of protest to United Nations chief Ban Ki Moon protesting over the
messages, calling them a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,
which ended the summer 2006 war with Israel.
Israel's Defense Ministry declined to comment on those claims. But an
Israeli official told AFP that Israel uses "all sorts of methods to weaken
Hizbullah" and that it was engaged in "intelligence and electronic warfare"
against the group.
Many Lebanese had received similar phone messages urging them not to support
Hizbullah during the course of the 2006 war, a conflict which killed more
than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians and more than 160 Israelis, mostly
soldiers. - The Daily Star, with agencies

+++JORDAN TIMES 22 Aug.'08:"Syria supports Russia on Georgia",Reuters
QUOTE:" Russia and Syria were preparing ... deals involving anti-aircraft
and anti-tank missile systems"
EXCERPTS:SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Syrian leader Bashar Assad backed Russia's
military action against Georgia at talks with President Dmitry Medvedev on
Thursday(21 Aug.) that were expected to cover purchases of Russian arms.
A diplomatic source in Moscow told Interfax news agency on Wednesday(20 Aug)
Russia and Syria were preparing a number of deals involving anti-aircraft
and anti-tank missile systems.
Syria, a foe of Israel in the Middle East which stands accused by the United
States of supporting international terrorism, become only the second country
after Belarus to voice public backing for Russia's operation in Georgia.
"We understand the essence of the Russian position and its military
response," Assad told Medvedev ... .Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem,
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni cited Syria's links with Iran, the
Palestinian Hamas group and Lebanon's Hizbollah, and said: "It is a mutual
interest of Russia, of Israel and of the pragmatic leaders and states in the
region not to send long-range missiles to Syria."

+++JORDAN TIMES 22 Aug.'08:"Birthday parties against Islam - Saudi cleric"
QUOTE:"celebrating...would make Muslims followers of other faiths including
Jews and Christians"
RIYADH (Reuters) - Celebrating anniversaries, birthdays or mother's day is
against Muslim "righteousness", Saudi Arabia's top cleric has said,... Grand
Mufti Abdul-Aziz Al Shaikh said celebrating such events would make Muslims
like followers of other faiths including Jews and Christians ... . Shaikh
embodies Wahhabism, the hardline Islamic doctrine that has ruled hand in
hand with the Saud family since the kingdom was founded some eight decades
ago.

+++AL-AHRAM WEEKLY 21-27 Aug.'08:"The Arabs and Obama",byAsmi Bishara
QUOTE: Vote Obama and win pain-free
change"

EXCERPTS:With Obama fully assimilated into the American machine, and with
Arab disunity as stark as ever, the region shouldn't expect change any time
soon.
The Obama phenomenon is a new and major development in US political life..
. .A major feature of this year's campaign season in the US is the American
public's thirst for settling scores with the Bush administration's deception
of the American people after 11 September . . . The Obama phenomenon feeds
this thirst, while the candidate himself ... benefits from this climate
without having to offer anything really new ... . He "sympathises" with
African Americans out of work and he "feels for" white women who feel
threatened by crime. He's smooth. He's very clever at sound bites. He
inspires admiration and threatens no one. Vote Obama and win pain-free
change. Vote Obama and ease your conscience without the trouble of
introspection. ... .The American public's ... fury is being vented and their
plagued consciences wrung, one senses a surge of self-purging reminiscent of
that which produced the John Kennedy phenomenon. On that occasion, the white
American conscience sought to purge its guilt for its racist past . . .. But
Obama is not a descendant of slaves; nor is he representative of the
suffering of African Americans. ...To mainstream whites in the US he is an
offer too good to refuse. With him they can ease their conscience ... all
they have to do is not vote for McCain. It's easy and cheap. ...On the
other hand, what the Obama campaign has stirred among American youth is
something new. ... Undoubtedly, too, it is one that the ruling
establishment will contain . . .As for Obama, the person, he is perfectly
contained in that establishment. In fact, he has fought for years to be
contained in it, and he has shown that he can be quite nimble at changing
his positions in order to facilitate the establishment's digestive process.
. . .In a sense, then, Obama is "less black" than Rice in that he is not
as representative of the African American experience . . ..Obama regarded
his Muslim parentage as a flaw, which is to say he failed in the racism test
with respect to Arabs and Muslims.
As a person Obama is certainly not new. He is an ambitious politician, a
young man who needed a huge amount of opportunism, thickness of skin and
very flexible principles to get where he is. In addition, all the emphasis
on how Christian he is makes a mockery of American secularism. ... .
Yet the Arabs have a persistent, ever regenerating Arab quirk that...
whenever an election year comes up they inevitably fall prey to the illusion
that it holds promise for the Palestinian cause.. . .
What is surprising, however, is that this quirk has latched on to Obama. ...
his parroting of the Bush administration's clich?s about terrorism and about
the Palestinians not only betray the extent of his opportunism but also the
magnitude of his disdain for the Arabs, regardless of whether he truly
believes what he says about Israel.
Not that he has encountered a unified Arab front to make him take heed or,
at least, to offer him some advice. . . ..
The Arabs' chief weakness is that they are disunited, fragmented, lacking a
common agenda and lacking the resolve and power to back any joint decision
or action they take. So even when propelled by some impending crisis to meet
and come up with a joint statement, they fail to back those words with
concrete action.
There are no shortcuts. The Arabs will not see change in their favour until
they do what is needed to make their presence felt as a cohesive and
forceful factor in the international arena. Meanwhile, as things stand,
there is, indeed, something new in the US. Sadly, there is nothing new with
the Arabs.
=============================================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA