Tues. 4 Jan. 2011
VOLTAIRE NETWORK
Ø Al-Assad: the Arab figure for the year 2010 …………….….1
HAARETZ
Ø Report: U.S. Jewish leader met Assad with message from Netanyahu…………………………………………………...2
FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE
Ø Obama Rewards Syrian Terrorism…………………………..4
NEW YORK POST
Ø The worst moment to suck up to Syria……………………....8
GUARDIAN
Ø Now it is Palestine's turn to create facts on the ground….…11
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Ø US ambassador to China hints at 2012 presidential bid…....14
INDEPENDENT
Ø The Islamification of Britain: record numbers embrace Muslim faith………………………………………………..15
HOME PAGE
Al-Assad: the Arab figure for the year 2010
Voltaire Network (an international non-profit organisation, based in Paris)
3 Jan. 2011,
If the Arab populations are ever to choose a figure for the year 2010, they should clearly vote for Syrian President Dr. Bashar al-Assad whose positions and actions constituted the only expression of the Arab aspiration for a future role, as well as an efficient dynamic at the service of the Arab interests to help contain the catastrophic consequences of the American-Israeli colonial invasion which left millions of victims and displaced and indescribable destruction in a series of wars which have and are still posing a great threat on the East.
The strategic vision and the will to secure liberation and independence have been the backbone of the Syrian dynamic which - during the last year - reaped massive accomplishments with which President Al-Assad crowned years of difficult battles. Through these accomplishments, he was able to consecrate Syria’s partnership with Iran and Turkey and the organic alliance with the Latin group. He was also able – on a wider scale - to work for the accomplishment of Arab interests while relying on Syria’s geographic and strategic position and what it could represent in terms of a linking point for the oil and gas pipelines and for global trade.
The vision put forward and adopted by President Al-Assad is based on the enhancement of the political partnerships backed by economic facts that constitute the bases for the continuation and strengthening of the understandings through the language of joint interests.
2010, was the year of President Al-Assad in the Arab space, at a time when major countries and active forces in the Arab states were burdened with the results of the American colonial invasion and the dead end reached by the wager on the negotiations track with the enemy.
Quite calmly and modestly, we can say that President Al-Assad was the maker of partnerships and the accomplisher of achievements which imposed respect on both the enemies and the friends, while the decision of American President Barack Obama to appoint his ambassador in Damascus by the end of the year marks a recognition of Syria’s status, its role, and what it embodies throughout the region as an Arab power that cannot be disregarded or ignored when undertaking whichever action.
HOME PAGE
Report: U.S. Jewish leader met Assad with message from Netanyahu
Malcolm Hoenlein denies Channel 10 report that he delivered a message from Netanyahu to Syrian president during recent trip to Damascus.
By Barak Ravid
Haaretz,
3 Jan. 2011,
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, met recently in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Channel 10 reported on Monday.
According to the Channel 10 report, Hoenlein delivered a message to Assad from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A senior official in Jerusalem said that Netanyahu knew about Hoenlein's trip but did not ask him to send a message or serve as a mediator. Hoenlein also denied that his trip involved diplomatic matters.
Channel 10 reported that Hoenlein told Netanyahu about his trip before it occurred and even received Netanyahu's blessing. According to the report, Netanyahu sent a message to Assad via Hoenlein and after the trip was updated on the details of Hoenlein's conversation with the Syrian president.
Hoenlein is one of the most prominent leaders of the U.S. Jewish community and is considered to be very close to Netanyahu.
In his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, Netanyahu sent another close associate, American Jewish businessman Ron Lauder, as a secret envoy to then-Syrian president Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar Assad.
The senior official in Jerusalem said that it was not a lack of emissaries or mediators preventing talks between Israel and Syria.
"What makes the resumption of negotiations with Syria tough is Assad's precondition – his demand that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights before the start of talks," the official said.
Hoenlein told Haaretz that he went to Damascus after receiving an invitation from the Syrian presidential palace and did not go as a messenger of Netanyahu or as a mediator between Israel and Syria.
"I went to Damascus on an important humanitarian issue to the Jewish people," he said. "Netanyahu did not ask anything from me and any attempt to link me to the diplomatic process with Syrian is manipulation."
Hoenlein said that among the issues he discussed in Syria was the restoration of ancient synagogues in the country as well as other humanitarian matters.
"I wanted to do something good for the Jewish people," he said. "If I speak about this it could lead to failure and to me the results are important."
A host of humanitarian issues exist between Israel and Syria, including Syrian help in securing the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, the whereabouts of missing IDF soldier Guy Hever who disappeared on the Golan Heights more than a decade ago and the repatriation of the remains of Israeli spy Eli Cohen who was executed in Syria in 1965. It is not clear if Hoenlein touched on these issues in his talks with Assad.
Netanyahu believes that Hoenlein's invitation to Damascus was part of an attempt by Assad to become closer to the American Jewish community. Assad thinks this could lead to warmer ties with the U.S. government. In September, during the United Nations General Assembly summit in New York, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem had lunch with a group of Jewish leaders.
Ø HOME PAGE
Ø
Jerusalem Post: 'Hoenlein confirms Syria trip, denies it was for PM'..
Ø HOME PAGE
Obama Rewards Syrian Terrorism
Frank Crimi
Front Page Magazine (Israeli),
January 4, 2011,
In a move that some say rewards Syria for its past and continued involvement in sponsoring terrorism, President Obama recently used a recess appointment to name [1] Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria since 2005.
The US ambassadorial post had gone unfilled [1] since the Bush administration recalled Ambassador Margaret Scobey in protest for what it said was Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005.
Fueling speculation that Ford’s appointment is undeserved is the news that a UN tribunal is now preparing [2] to indict members of the Syrian-backed Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah for its involvement in al-Hariri’s assassination.
The UN indictment is said to include [2] up to six members of Hezbollah, including Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah military commander and brother-in-law of Imad Mugniyah. Mugniyah, killed in a bomb blast in 2008, was the mastermind behind the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon in 1983, an action that killed 241 Marines. He and Badreddine are said to be linked to the car explosion that killed Prime Minister al-Hariri and 22 others in 2005.
Al-Hariri’s murder, which prompted a strong anti-Syrian protest by the Lebanese people (dubbed the Cedar Revolution), led to Syria ending its 29 year-old armed presence in Lebanon in April 2005. Since then, a Western-backed coalition government, which shares power with Hezbollah, has kept a fragile peace within the country.
It is a peace many fear could now explode with the indictment of the Hezbollah members by the UN, plunging Lebanon into a repeat of the sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that occurred in 2008, violence which killed 81 people.
Both Syria and Hezbollah have done nothing to allay those fears. Hezbollah’s No. 2 official, Naim Qassem, has said [2], “Such an indictment is a warning bell equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion, and is dangerous for Lebanon.” Added [3] Syrian Presdient Bashar Assad, “Any clash at any time between any group will sabotage Lebanon and destroy it.”
Acutely aware that a UN indictment could ignite renewed sectarian strife, the Lebanese government has even gone out of its way to downplay the role of Syria in the murder of al-Hariri. Lebanon’s current Prime Minister, Sa’ad al-Hariri, son of the murdered Rafiq al-Hariri, has said [4], “At a certain point we made a mistake in accusing Syria of assassinating the martyred prime minster. That was a political accusation and that political accusation has now come to an end.” The UN tribunal seems to have come to a far different conclusion.
Yet apparent UN corroboration of the Syrian connection to al-Hariri’s murder was not enough to deter Obama from naming Robert Ford as envoy to Damascus. Ford, whose term expires at the end of the next Congressional session in 2011, had been awaiting Senate confirmation since February 2010. However, no vote had been taken, primarily because of concerns expressed by lawmakers over continued transfers of long-range Scud missiles by Syria to Hezbollah.
Those apprehensions were voiced in a letter sent by a number of GOP senators to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in May 2010, which read [5] in part: “If engagement precludes prompt punitive action in response to egregious behavior, such as the transfer of long-range missiles to a terrorist group, then it is not only a concession but also a reward for such behavior.”
Unfortunately, the appointment of Ford as Syrian envoy seems to do nothing but compensate Syrian malfeasance. Incoming Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, echoed [1] that sentiment when she said of Ford’s appointment:
Making undeserved concessions to Syria tells the regime in Damascus that it can continue to pursue its dangerous agenda and not face any consequences from the US. That is the wrong message to be sending to a regime which continues to harm and threaten US interests and those of such critical allies as Israel.
Syria certainly doesn’t ascribe to Ros-Lehtinen’s view, laying any blame for its actions squarely at the feet of those in the West. As Syrian President Assad told [7] the German daily Bild:
The problem with the West is that they think they are the world, they forget about the rest of the world. The West cannot just keep following the ostrich policy where they put their head in the ground and they do not want to see what is happening in the world. In the world Syria’s image is very good.
Syria’s image has certainly improved in the eyes of the Obama administration, as it now argues [1] that ending the five-year ambassadorial absence will help persuade Syria to change its policies regarding Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as its willingness to support extremist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yet, that stance seems to now stand in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s own stated position announced only months earlier, when it was strenuously accusing Syria, Iran and Hezbollah of trying to destabilize Lebanon.
In October 2010, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, had singled [8] out Syria in particular for displaying “flagrant disregard” for Lebanon’s political independence by ensuring that Hezbollah was the most heavily armed militia in the region.
State Department spokesman PJ Crowley went further by adding [8], “These activities by Syria directly undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty and directly undermine Syria’s stated commitments to Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence. We believe we’re playing a constructive role in the region, and we believe that Syria is not.”
It remains unclear as to what constructive role Syria has actually played since that time to now warrant a resumption of full diplomatic ties with the United States. Obama’s decision to tap Ford as US ambassador only serves to add confusion to the entire situation.
In either case, Ford’s appointment was greeted warmly by Syria. Issa Darwish, a former assistant foreign minister and a senior member of Syria’s ruling Baath Party, said [9], “Syria has proven, as President Bashar al-Assad has, that it is for peace. And experience has proven, over the past four decades that Syria is an important player in the region and it is in Washington’s interest to have an ambassador in Damascus to understand the political position of Syria.”
As a nation designated by the State Department to be a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Syria’s political position as a longtime agitator of regional unrest is all too clear. As one analyst [10] said, “Syria views terror as a tool to achieve its political goals. Syria does not have a strong army and is using its terror support to show its presence and make the West take it into account as a major player in the Middle East.”
Unfortunately, the actions undertaken by the Obama administration only serves to demonstrate the wisdom of such a Syrian policy.
Ø HOME PAGE
World Net Daily: Obama wants Jews to pay terror-supporting state..
Ø HOME PAGE
The worst moment to suck up to Syria
New York Post (American newspaper supports Israel more than the Israeli newspapers)
January 4, 2011
The appointment of Robert Ford as US ambassador to Syria late last week may have been a shrewd move for Washington, but the timing couldn't have been worse for the Middle East.
Sources tell me that a Netherlands-based, UN-backed court investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will issue its first indictments as soon as the end of this week.
Remember that 2005 murder?
Shortly after the Hariri killing, with evidence of Syrian complicity abounding, a disgusted President George W. Bush pulled our ambassador from Damascus. But President Obama, filled with hopes of "engagement" with America's worst enemies, has long wanted to return an American ambassador to Syria.
Yet, even with last year's sizable Democratic majority, the Senate wouldn't hear of it. Unable to get the necessary confirmation and knowing that this year's Senate is bound to be even tougher, Obama decided to overcome objections by using the holiday congressional recess to appoint Ford as his conduit to President Bashar al-Assad.