Excerpts: Islamic terror in Philippines.Hamas supports terror attack.Hamas
supports terror attack.Egypt continues mediation.Syria/Lebanon border
sollution unlikely.Arab world corruption September 24, 2008
+++SAUDI GAZETTE 224 Sept.'08:"Philippines to seek UN terror tag on Moro
chiefs
".By Jay Gotera
EXCERPT:MANILA - The Arroyo government is set to make a call to the United
Nations, urging the latter to declare certain leaders of the Moro insurgency
in Mindanao as "terrorists," authorities revealed on Tuesday.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said they are looking into the po
ssibility of asking the United Nations to declare 12 commanders and
sub-commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)... as
"terrorists."
+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 24 Sept.'08:"Hamas hails Jerusalem attack" ,Mohammed
Mar'i
RAMALLAH: Hamas yesterday(23 Sept.) hailed a Jerusalem attack in which a
Palestinian man slammed his car into a group of soldiers, wounding 13,
before he was shot dead.
"The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades welcome the operation in Jerusalem which
was a natural and legitimate response by the Palestinian people," the
military wing of the resistance movement said in a statement issued in the
Gaza Strip.
"This operation represents the continuation of the holy Jerusalem intifada,
a legitimate right and a response ... to the murders, arrests and house
demolitions, the Judaization of the holy sites and land expropriations," the
statement said....Relatives said Mughrabi had no known connection to any
Palestinian political group and had stolen the car from his brother.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held a security assessment
overnight, and discussed the need to demolish the houses of resistance
fighters as a measure of deterrence: "We need to take legal action in order
to drastically expedite the (legal) process, so we can take action shortly
after an attack happens and deter any future potential terrorists," he
said.. . . According to Israeli internal intelligence agency, Shin Bet,
data, 340 east Jerusalem fighters have been arrested between 2001 and June
of 2008.
+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 24 Sept.'08:"Hamas hails Jerusalem attack" ,Mohammed
Mar'i
RAMALLAH: Hamas yesterday(23 Sept.) hailed a Jerusalem attack in which a
Palestinian man slammed his car into a group of soldiers, wounding 13,
before he was shot dead.
"The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades welcome the operation in Jerusalem which
was a natural and legitimate response by the Palestinian people," the
military wing of the resistance movement said in a statement issued in the
Gaza Strip.
"This operation represents the continuation of the holy Jerusalem intifada,
a legitimate right and a response ... to the murders, arrests and house
demolitions, the Judaization of the holy sites and land expropriations," the
statement said....Relatives said Mughrabi had no known connection to any
Palestinian political group and had stolen the car from his brother.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak held a security assessment
overnight, and discussed the need to demolish the houses of resistance
fighters as a measure of deterrence: "We need to take legal action in order
to drastically expedite the (legal) process, so we can take action shortly
after an attack happens and deter any future potential terrorists," he
said.. . . According to Israeli internal intelligence agency, Shin Bet,
data, 340 east Jerusalem fighters have been arrested between 2001 and June
of 2008.
+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 24 Sept.'08:"Fatah OKs plan for new govt"Agence France
Presse
EXCERPTS:CAIRO: The ruling Palestinian faction Fatah has agreed to an
Egyptian proposal to create a new government that would be acceptable to the
international community, a senior Fatah official said yesterday.
The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah came two
weeks before members of their rival, Hamas, boycotted by the international
community, travel to Cairo to discuss the Egyptian mediated plan. "The
proposal is for forming a new government with people accepted by all the
organizations, and also by the Arabs and internationally," Abbas adviser
Nabil Shaath told reporters after meeting Egyptian intelligence chief Omar
Suleiman.. . .
. "The Arabs through Egypt and through some sort of security presence will
be able to monitor and guarantee implementation," Shaath said.
Shaath said he "absolutely" welcomed a recommendation last month... to put
Arab forces in Gaza if Palestinian factions agreed, but said Israel and
Hamas would not agree to it.
"Hamas is against an Arab army, but a sizable group of experts (overseeing
security reforms) might be acceptable, as much as Israel allows," he said.
Shaath also said parliamentary and presidential elections would take place
only after a restructuring of Palestinian civil and security institutions.
+++THE DAILY STAR (Lebanon) 24 Sept.'08:"Don't soon expect a Syria-Lebanon
border agreement",
By Nicholas Blanford*
QUOTE:Now that Hizbullah and its allies hold a one-third veto-wielding share
in the government, the prospect of the state actively attempting to seal off
the border is even less lkely"
EXCERPTS:When Lebanon's new president, Michel Sleiman, and his Syrian
counterpart, Bashar Assad, held a landmark meeting in Damascus last month,
one of the agreements reached between them was to delineate and demarcate
the 320-kilometer border between their two countries. Although the
announcement was widely welcomed, progress is likely to be slow as political
realities in Lebanon weigh heavily on what should be a straightforward
technical survey and joint agreement between Beirut and Damascus.
Complications are many and varied. The border remains disputed in numerous
places, Syrian troops remain deployed on Lebanese soil in several spots, the
border area is a transit route for weapons to Hizbullah as well as home to
small military bases manned by pro-Syrian Palestinian groups, and it is an
economic lifeline for residents of east Lebanon, long ignored by the state,
who survive on commercial smuggling. Defining, demarcating and securing the
Lebanon-Syria border, as called for by United Nations Security Council
Resolution 1701, woul threaten this status quo.
. . .
Delineating and demarcating the border is only the first step, however.
Resolution 1701, which helped end the war with Israel in 2006, called on
Lebanon to fully secure its borders. A maritime component of the UNIFIL
peacekeeping force keeps watch off Lebanon's coastline, and the government
has deployed some 8,000 troops along the land border with Syria.
But the troops lack border security training, coordination between different
security departments, and suitable equipment, such as standardized
communications, night-vision capabilities and transport appropriate for the
rugged eastern frontier. Commercial smuggling continues uninterrupted. The
Lebanese government appears to have chosen to turn a blind eye to the
practice, not wishing to enflame local sentiment in one of the poorest
regions of the country.
Arms smuggling and infiltration by militants also appears to be unchecked.
Hizbullah has claimed on several occasions that it has more than replenished
its pre-2006 arsenal. The Shiite group is evasive on how it receives its
weapons, but it has long been recognized that the porous Lebanon-Syria
border is the most likely transit route. A UN fact-finding team following up
on a 2007 tour of the border reported last month that the "situation along
the eastern Green Border and the Green Border [the illegal crossings]
remains as penetrable as it was during the mission of team 1 [in 2007]." Now
that Hizbullah and its allies hold a one-third veto-wielding share in the
government, the prospect of the state actively attempting to seal off the
border is even less likely.
Indeed, it is hard to imagine that the Lebanon-Syria border will be fully
delineated and demarcated until many of the unresolved questions affecting
it - Hizbullah's armed status, Syrian-Israeli peace talks, the fate of the
Palestinians - are answered first.
*Nicholas Blanford is a Beirut-based journalist and author of "Killing Mr
Lebanon: The
Assassination of Rafiq Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East." This
commentary first appeared at bitterlemons.
+++The Daily Star (Lebanon) 24 Sept.'08:"EDITORIAL:Corruption lies at the
heart
of many evils affecting the Arab world"
QUOTE: The remedy consists of enacting sensible legislation and of allowing
judges to apply it in an evnhanded fashion"
FULL TEXT:The latest Corruption Perceptions Index has been released by
Transparency International, and the results for most of the Arab world are
anything but pretty. In simple terms, the region is awash with bribery and
kickbacks, and far from working to curtail the phenomenon, most of our
governments are either looking the other way or hungrily feeding at the
trough.
Corruption's greatest ally is apathy: Having grown up in countries where the
rule of law remains a blessing bestowed on foreigners in distant lands, too
many Arabs have come to regard corruption as a fact of life, an unofficial
but unavoidable "tax" on dealings both public and private. But this is no
victimless crime. Instead, corruption plays a role in holding back
development, limiting educational opportunities and feeding the disaffection
that breeds terrorism. It makes for graduates who don't deserve their
degrees, teachers who can't teach their students, buildings that fall down,
pensions that don't get paid; and citizens who disdain their leaders. And
although an individual violation might serve to temporarily enrich one
company or another, the collective result of all those that take place is to
discourage investment, shrink markets and erode corporate incomes. All this
is not to mention the corrosive effect on stability in a region long known
for volatility deriving from a witch's brew of shameless foreign
interference and feckless local leadership.
From the humblest laborer to the wealthiest oil baron, virtually no one is
immune to this most pernicious of societal ailments. Fortunately, however,
there is a well-known cure that can be applied to any form of government,
from hereditary monarchies to socialist republics (genuine or otherwise):
The remedy consists of enacting sensible legislation and of allowing judges
to apply it in an evenhanded fashion.
The Arab world might have more sensational problems that more readily
preoccupy the shallow attentions of the media, but in some respects even all
of these, one way or another, go back to the ubiquity of injustice. Captive
judiciaries and illegitimate regimes go hand in hand, and together they
continue to dictate what it means - and what it costs - to be an Arab.
=========================================================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA
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