Excerpts: Musil, Arab Americans identify with racial protests.Abbas backs
Egypt crackdown on Gaza tunnels. Palestinian Acid Attack on Israelis.Greece
condemns attack on Israel Embassy.German justice system on jihadist
overload.IAEA to get more 'monitoring' money December 12, 2014

+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 12 Dec.’14:”Arab and Muslim Americans find their
voice in Ferguson protests”, Joyce Karam

SUBJECT: MuslimAmericans identify with ‘racial protests’

QUOTES:”The events of Ferguson play a familiar tune especially for those of
Palestinian descent “Muslims and Arabs joining hands with the African
Ameican community.””

FULL TEXT:FROM Ferguson to New York, Palestinian flags and signs bearing
Arabic slogans against racism and for “Ittihad” (unity) were numerous in the
protests condemning the police killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

On one hand, they illustrate the common struggle that many Arabs, Muslim and
African-Americans seek against racial profiling, prejudice and
discrimination. For another, they bridge the gap that for a long time has
kept these communities apart.

While Arab-Americans and Muslims who immigrated to the United States, were
not instrumental in the struggle for civil rights for African-Americans from
the 1960s onwards, they are vocal and active in the demonstrations taking
place across the US today. Several Arab-American, Muslim organizations and
independent activists are either on the ground in different US cities or
raising awareness and hosting events in solidarity with the protestors.

9-11 as a wake-up call

Margari Aziza Hill, a co-founder and activist with the “Muslim Arc”
organization dedicated to combating racism, tells Al Arabiya News that the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were a “a wake-up call” for the Arab and Muslim
communities. Policies related to surveillance of mosques in the United
States or spying on Muslim student organizations, forced a more “pro-active
engagement in issues related to civil liberties” from the community.

“It has emphasized that we are part of the same tapestry in this struggle”
says Aziza Hill, explaining a shift in the narrative from withdrawing and
focussing on international issues prior to 9/11, into “taking a stand and
coming to table in fighting discrimination and ending racism”.

Surveillance of mosques and spying on Muslim student groups are some of the
many “anti-terrorism” efforts carried by the New York Police Department
(NYPD) following 9-11. In a way, it has “created greater empathy in the
community with what is happening in Ferguson” says Aziza-Hill, adding that
“racial profiling is the same whether it’s a Muslim at the airport or an
African-American on the street.”

More than three million Arab Americans live in the United States today, and
around two million Muslims according to PEW. The FBI has recorded 130 hate
crimes against Muslims in the US in 2012, while this number stood at 32 hate
crimes in 1999.

The shift has also occurred in the other direction, whereby Muslims “are no
longer perceived as foreigners” in the United States but rather “as a
minority with its own set of concerns and struggles.” More than a quarter of
Muslims in the United States are African-Americans, and key figures in US
society such as former activist Malcolm X, renowned boxer Muhammad Ali and
the first Muslim Congressman Keith Allison come from this community.

Familiar tune for Palestinians

The events of Ferguson play a familiar tune especially for those of
Palestinian descent, says Warren David, a life-long activist in the
Arab-American community and the executive director of “Arab America”. Many
Palestinian-Americans who have “seen firsthand the oppression in the West
Back and Gaza, are on the ground protesting the killing of Michael Brown and
Eric Garner”, David tells Al Arabiya News.

The US Palestinian Community Network and St. Louis Palestine Solidarity
Committee are two of many Arab-American and Muslim organizations that are
being active with the protests in major US cities today.

Palestinian-American Activist Bassem Masri has been live streaming the
events in Ferguson. “New generations of Arab-Americans have assimilated
better in the United States” says David, albeit that the struggle against
prejudice and discrimination “has been with us for a long time,” he adds.

Warren David reminds of the story of Vincent Jen Chin, a Chinese-American
who was beaten in a racially-charged attack in Detroit in 1982. Chin, while
not Japanese himself, was a victim of prejudice against Japanese automakers
whose sales then had hurt car sales in Detroit.

Alex Odeh is another name that David points to as a casualty of anti-Arab
prejudice in California. Odeh, a Palestinian activist, died in a bomb
planted near his office door in 1985.

The struggle against police actions is close to the heart of many Arab youth
who live in the US and who have fled authoritarian regimes in their home
countries. Aziza-Hill compares images of Ferguson to those she had witnessed
in “Cairo in protests against living conditions in 2007 and 2008” and which
were met by a heavy handed police force.

Both David and Aziza-Hill see the problem in the US, however, as deeper than
the symptomatic cause of police action. While addressing police reform is
important, they both point to structural problems in education,
inter-cultural training and dialogue and poverty as driving racial
discrimination and prejudice. For now, Muslims and Arabs joining hands with
the African-American community is one step in a long journey toward more
equal rights for those communities. — Al Arabiya News


++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 12 Dec.’14:”Abbas Backs Egypt Crackdown on Gaza
Tunnels”,Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Abbas backs Egypt crackdown on Gaza tunnels

FULL TEXT:Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he supported Egypt's
crackdown on tunnels linking the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to the Sinai
Peninsula and any other action the country took to protect itself from
militants, according to a media report Thursday[11].

"We have supported all the precautionary measures taken by the Egyptian
authorities to close the tunnels and stop the trafficking of arms and the
passage of people between Gaza and the Sinai," Abbas said in an interview
with Egyptian magazine Al-Ahram Al-Arabi due to be published on Saturday[13
Dec.], extracts of which were published by MENA news agency.

"We will continue to support any measure protecting Egypt from danger,"
Abbas was quoted as saying.

Since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian
army, the country's new authorities have accused Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood
of conspiring with Hamas.

The Egyptian military has stepped up the destruction of tunnels from Gaza
that it says are used by the Palestinian Islamist movement to smuggle arms,
food and money.

The army says it has destroyed more than 1,600 such tunnels since Morsi's
ouster.

Egypt has also begun setting up a buffer zone along its border with the Gaza
Strip, which will see hundreds of homes demolished, in order to prevent
militant infiltration and arms smuggling.

Bitter rivals Hamas, the de facto rulers of Gaza, and Abbas's Fatah
movement, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, agreed
on a national unity government earlier this year but reconciliation efforts
have repeatedly hit stumbling blocks.

Cairo also suspects Hamas militants of helping jihadists carry out a spate
of deadly attacks against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula
recently.

In one such attack in late October, at least 30 soldiers were killed in a
suicide bombing in the Sinai Peninsula.

"If it is proved that Hamas members are implicated in terrorist attacks
against Egypt, it has the right to go after them and punish them," Abbas
said, according to MENA.

Jihadists say they are taking revenge against a police crackdown on Morsi
supporters that has left more than 1,400 dead.

+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 12 Dec.’14:”Palestinian in Acid Attack on
Israelis, Including Children”, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Palestinian acid attack on Israelis

A Palestinian threw acid at a group of Israelis in the southern West Bank on
Friday[12Dec.] before being shot and wounded, the army said.

Israeli public radio said a man and three children were injured in the
attack at a checkpoint outside Bethlehem and near the Gush Etzion
settlement.

Palestinian security sources said the assailant was shot and arrested,
without elaborating.




+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) s12 Dec.’14:”Israeli Military Official Says
New Security Plan Aims to Counter Hizbullah Threat”
SUBJECT: Israel re Hizbullah
The head of the Israeli army's planning directorate has said the military
will formulate in the coming months a new security plan to counter
Hizbullah's growing arsenal.

In any future war, Hizbullah’s rockets will be “much more precise, (possess)
much larger warheads” than Israel has seen in the past, The Jerusalem Post
quoted Maj. Gen. Nimrod Shefer as saying at a diplomatic conference.

To address these threats, Shefler said the Israeli army - in conjunction
with newly appointed chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot - will spend the next six
months formulating a new security plan.

“We must find a way to develop the right tools Israel needs. I hope, in the
next sixth months – with a new chief of staff – (Israel will have) a good
opportunity for us to present a (security) plan for the next five years or
maybe decade,” he said.

In 2006, Hizbullah fought the Jewish State's far more advanced forces and
rained more than 4,000 rockets on northern Israel.

But Israel killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, according
to the United Nations. Hizbullah killed 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers
within Lebanese territory.


+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 12 Dec.’14:” Greece Condemns Gun Attack on
Israeli Embassy”,Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Greece condemns attack on Israel Embassy
QUOTE:”a ‘terrorist attack on democracy”
FULL TEXT:The Greek government condemned on Friday[12 Dec.] as a "terrorist
assault on democracy" a night-time gun attack on the Israeli embassy in
Athens that saw the building sprayed with gunfire but no one hurt.

A gunman riding on the back of motorcycle raked the embassy with at least 54
rounds from a Kalashnikov rifle, police said, as it passed the embassy,
which sits on the corner of a busy road in the chic northern suburbs of the
Greek capital.

Another two people on a second motorcycle were suspected of also taking part
in the attack, which happened at 3:20 am (0120 GMT).

Public Order Minister Vassilis Kikilias, who visited the scene, told the Ana
news agency, "No one is going to affect the relations between Greece and
Israel."

Relations between the two have warmed considerably recently as tensions have
risen between Israel and Turkey, once a close ally of the Jewish state.

"Every terrorist attack is an assault on democracy and the country," said
government spokeswoman Sophia Voultepsi, who added the Athens was taking
"determined steps" against terror groups.

Anti-terrorist police said first indications pointed to the far-left
People's Fighter group as being responsible. They have been blamed for a
series of similar attacks on embassies and the offices of the ruling
conservative New Democracy party.

The incident comes two days after a Palestinian official died following a
confrontation with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza have been widely condemned in
Greece, with many protests held in support of the Palestinians.

Embassies and diplomatic vehicles in Greece have been targeted in attacks by
far-left groups in recent years.

The residence of the German ambassador in Athens has been hit twice -- with
two assault rifles in 2013 and a rocket attack in 1999. No one was hurt.

In 2007, another rocket was fired at the U.S. embassy in Athens without
injuring anyone.

All three attacks were claimed by far-left groups, two of which have since
been dismantled by the police.

But the People's Fighter group remains active and its members at large.


+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 12 Dec.’14:”Jihadist cases stretch German justice to
the limit ---prosecutor”, Reuters
SUBJECT: German justice system on jihadist overload
QUOTE:”Germany’s justice system is struggling to cope with waves of
suspected jihadists returning from Syria and the speed at which young
Muslims are being radicalized”
FULL TEXT:KARLSRUHE, Germany — Germany's justice system is struggling to
cope with waves of suspected jihadists returning from Syria and the speed at
which young Muslims are being radicalised, the top public prosecutor said on
Thursday[11 Dec.].

Federal Prosecutor General Harald Range said his office was investigating 46
of the most serious cases, involving 83 people suspected of offences like
belonging to Islamic State (IS) or Al Qaeda. Regional prosecutors were
investigating 100 more.

That is a huge increase on the five investigations of eight suspects that
prosecutors had to deal with in 2013.

"We are at the limits of our capacity," Range said, adding that waves of new
cases were pending and Germany was "in the crosshairs of jihadist terror".

"What worries me is the speed with which people are radicalising, or being
radicalised. We are facing a phenomenon which needs a broad strategy of
prevention," he said.

Like their counterparts in Britain, France and other Western countries,
German security officials are concerned at the numbers of people travelling
abroad to join militant Islamist groups, then potentially returning to plot
attacks at home.

A court in Frankfurt last week jailed a home-grown jihadist for almost four
years after he admitted joining IS in Syria, in the first trial in Germany
over membership of the insurgent group.

Another trial is under way in Stuttgart of a Lebanese man who admitted
joining IS in Syria, then returning to Germany to buy military and medical
supplies for them.

Security forces estimate that about 550 people have left Germany for Syria
or Iraq, of whom some 60 have been killed and about 180 are believed to have
returned to Germany.

"Why are so many going?" said Range. "We still know too little about their
motives, but with every case we learn more."


+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 12 Dec,’14:”IAEA to get more money for Iran nuclear
deal monitoring”Reuters

SUBJECT:IAEA to get more ‘monitoring’ money

EXCERPTS:VIENNA — Several states pledged on Thursday[11 Dec.] to back a UN
nuclear agency request for 4.6 million euros ($5.7 million) as soon as
possible to pay for its monitoring of an extended, interim nuclear deal
between Iran and world powers. ……

……………………………………

Iran denies Western allegations it has been seeking to develop a nuclear
weapons capability. But its refusal to scale back uranium enrichment has
drawn international sanctions.

Iranian Ambassador Reza Najafi said negotiations on a final agreement had
made good progress and a "lasting solution is closer than ever".

IAEA inspectors now visit Iran's enrichment facilities of Natanz and Fordow
daily, compared to about once a week before the November 2013 agreement. The
agency has also procured specialised equipment for its analytical work.

Amano said the IAEA's workload had greatly increased and that many staff
"working on this matter will give up their Christmas and New Year holidays
this year".


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Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA