WarSclerotic

Bahraini MP burns Israeli flag in parliament, escapes punitive action.

( These atavistic, evil fools are their own self-parody. – JW )

In protest against the recent Israeli war on Gaza, Bahraini lawmaker Osama Al-Tamimi, torches the Jewish state’s flag in parliament. (Photo courtesy Gulf News)

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Egyptian president pushes Islamist reforms, triggering fears of second revolution | The Times of Israel.

Egyptian protesters clash with security forces near Tahrir square, in Cairo, Egypt, on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 (photo credit: AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

CAIRO (AP) — Faced with an unprecedented strike by the courts and massive opposition protests, Egypt’s Islamist president is not backing down in the showdown over decrees granting him near-absolute powers.

Activists warn that his actions threaten a “second revolution,” but Mohammed Morsi faces a different situation than his ousted predecessor, Hosni Mubarak: He was democratically elected and enjoys the support of the nation’s most powerful political movement.

Already, Morsi is rushing the work of an Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly at the heart of the power struggle, with a draft of the charter expected as early as Thursday, despite a walkout by liberal and Christian members that has raised questions about the panel’s legitimacy.

The next step would be for Morsi to call a nationwide referendum on the document. If adopted, parliamentary elections would be held by the spring.

Wednesday brought a last-minute scramble to seize the momentum over Egypt’s political transition. Morsi’s camp announced that his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists will stage a massive rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the plaza where more than 200,000 opposition supporters gathered a day earlier.

Clashes at Tahrir Square, Cairo, on Wednesday (photo credit: Khalil Hamra/AP)

The Islamists’ choice of the square for Saturday’s rally raises the possibility of clashes. Several hundred Morsi opponents are camped out there, and another group is fighting the police on a nearby street.

“It is tantamount to a declaration of war,” said liberal politician Mustafa al-Naggar, speaking on the private Al-Tahrir TV station.

Morsi remains adamant that his decrees, which place him above oversight of any kind, including by the courts, are in the interest of the nation’s transition to democratic rule.

Backing down may not be an option for the 60-year-old US-educated engineer.

Doing so would significantly weaken him and the Brotherhood at a time when their image has been battered by widespread charges that they are too preoccupied with tightening their grip on power to effectively tackle the country’s many pressing problems.

Morsi’s pride is also a key factor in a country where most people look to their leader as an invincible figure.

He may not be ready to stomach another public humiliation after backing down twice since taking office in June. His attempt to reinstate parliament’s Islamist-dominated lower chamber after it was disbanded in July by the Supreme Constitutional Court was overturned by that same court. Last month, Morsi was forced to reinstate the country’s top prosecutor just days after firing him when the judiciary ruled it was not within his powers to do so.

Among Morsi’s first acts after seizing near-absolute powers last week was to fire the prosecutor again.

Unlike last year’s anti-Mubarak uprising, calls for Morsi’s ouster have so far been restricted to zealous chants by protesters, with the opposition focusing its campaign on demands that he rescind his decrees, disband the constitutional panel and replace it with a more inclusive one, and fire the Cabinet of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil.

“There is no practical means for Morsi’s ouster short of a coup, which is very, very unlikely,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a Middle East expert from Boston University.

Still, the opposition, whose main figures played a key role in the anti-Mubarak uprising, may be tempted to try to force Morsi from office if they continue to draw massive crowds like Tuesday’s rally, which rivaled some of the biggest anti-Mubarak demonstrations. They will also likely take advantage of the growing popular discontent with Morsi’s government and the fragility of his mandate — he won just 51 percent of the vote in a presidential election fought against Mubarak’s last prime minister.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (photo credit: AP/Maya Alleruzzo)

With the country still reeling from the aftershocks of the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak’s 29-year regime, activists and analysts warn that any escalation carries the risk of a second, and possibly bloody, revolution — pitting Islamists against non-Islamists, including liberals, women and minority Christians.

Ominous signs abound. Anti-Morsi crowds have attacked at least a dozen offices belonging to the Brotherhood across the nation since last week. Clashes between the two sides have left at least two dead and hundreds wounded.

The violence and polarization has led to warnings from some newspaper columnists and the public at large of the potential for “civil war.”

“As opposed to seeking face-saving compromises, (escalation by Morsi) would indicate starkly that Egypt’s leaders have increasingly come to understand the current moment in zero-sum terms,” said Michael W. Hanna, an Egypt expert from the New York-based Century Foundation.

“Beyond the political dangers it poses, the move will increase the risks that the contests for power will spill over into the streets, with civil strife a real possibility.”

While potentially destabilizing, Morsi’s tug-of-war with the liberal opposition pales in comparison to his battle with the powerful judiciary, which considers the president’s decrees an unprecedented assault on its authority.

On Wednesday, judges of the nation’s highest appeals court and its lower sister court went on strike to protest the decrees, joining hundreds of other judges who have not worked since Sunday.

The Supreme Constitutional Court, which is to rule Sunday on the legality of the constitutional panel and parliament’s upper chamber — both dominated by Morsi’s Brotherhood and other Islamists — admonished the president for accusing it of trying to bring down his government.

The loss of the judiciary’s goodwill could prove costly for Morsi.

Already, the judges are warning that, unless their demands are met, they will not assume their traditional role of supervising a referendum on a new constitution or the parliamentary elections that would follow. Without them, the legitimacy of any vote would be in question.

“This is the highest form of protest,” said Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession. “The judges felt that the constitutional declaration has taken away from them the dearest and most important mandates” — oversight of government decisions.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

( Mark, thanks for the notice on this. – JW )

From David Goldman at PJM:

Just a heads up about reports Im hearing. There has been an apparent ‘Nuclear Event’ today in Iran, now I dont know if its bullshit but this is one report –

UNCONFIRMED:

”Iranian nuclear officials are being secretive about the nature of an incident in the Iranian Isfahan nuclear plant that sent many staff members to nearby hospital emergency rooms Wednesday. The head of Iran’s Medical Emergency Agency told reporters that staff members of an Isfahan Nuclear plant “have observed some symptoms.”

He stressed that all medical emergency units in Iran should be ready to “confront nuclear incidents.” “Those who have been around UCF Isfahan, have shown symptoms and are receiving treatment,” said Gholamreza Masoumi to Iranian state-run news agencies. He did not mention a specific time for the incident nor did he volunteer any details about the nature of it.

“We have not yet had any incident outside nuclear designated areas,” he said. Masoumi said that the agency has been training the medical emergency unit staff on providing treatment for nuclear incidents. Masoumi told Mehr news agency that recently the Iranian government has formed a “Nuclear Emergency” task force to provide services that would be needed following nuclear incidents. Furthermore, Nuclear Emergency centers in provinces where nuclear sites are located will receive a boost. Masoumi stressed that there has never been an incident of nuclear leakage at any Iranian nuclear plant.

Radio Free Europe reported that following the publication of this incident, Mehr news removed the article from its website, however, on June 28, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Freidoon Abbasi, tried to play down the incident. “Any kind of incident may occur in any plant,” said Abbasi to Iranian Fars News. “However it does not mean that such events lead to spread of radioactive material.”

Syria has disappeared from the Internet | Fox News.

A few hours ago, Syria, the Middle Eastern country in the middle of an especially bloody civil war, disappeared from the Internet.

The research firm Renesys, which keeps track of the status and health of the technical underpinnings of the Internet around the world, just reported that at 10:26 UTC this morning — which, by my watch, would have been 5:26 am ET — effectively all of Syria’s international Internet connectivity shut down.

More technically, what happened was that within the global routing table, all 84 blocks of IP addresses assigned to Syria have gone unreachable. That means that Internet traffic destined for that country is going undelivered, and also that traffic coming from within it cannot get out to the world.

Renesys is still investigating what’s going on, but, as we’ve seen in other countries, cutting off the Internet is usually meant to try and control the flow of information to the world. It’s also a pretty sure sign that the regime of Bashar al-Assad is either getting nervous about how it is being perceived in the world, or that it is planning something unspeakably harsh in the coming days and w

More Secret Nuclear Sites Discovered in Iran | #1 News Site on the Threat of Radical Islam.

Iran Navy unveils new submarines, missile-launching warships – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Iran claims to have become self-sufficient in manufacturing all types of military vessels, but insists it would use its military strength only for safeguarding peace and security in the Gulf.

By DPA | Nov.28, 2012 | 11:10 PM | 17

An Iranian warship docked at the Syrian port of Latakia, Feb. 25, 2011. Photo by AP

The Iranian Navy unveiled two new submarines and two missile-launching warships on Wednesday, Mehr news agency reported.

The two domestically-built Ghadir submarines and the Sina-7 warships – together with two repaired hovercrafts – officially joined the Iranian Navy, Mehr quoted navy commander Habibollah Sayari as saying.

Iran said in June that it would use its nuclear technology know-how to design nuclear-powered submarines, which could enable the navy to have a constant presence in free waters as well as long-distance operations.

In 1996, Russia provided Iran with diesel-electric submarines, which at that time made it the only state in the Gulf with submarines. Iran started the production of its own submarines in 2008 and delivered four new types to the navy in August 2010.

The submarines have caused concern in the United States and the West, which considers them a threat to the strategic balance in the volatile Gulf region.

Iran claims to have become self-sufficient in manufacturing all types of military vessels, but insists it would use its military strength only for safeguarding peace and security in the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

The Washington Post’s Israel problem – and oursIsrael News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

(I’m waiting to hear from CNN’s ombudsman.  They seem to be out=BBCing BBC. – JW )

The ombudsman of a respected and influential newspaper cannot afford the luxury of reducing real people and real suffering to caricature.

By Bradley Burston | Nov.29, 2012 | 1:28 PM | 1

Israelis running for shelter after Red Alert sounds, warning of incoming rockets, November 10, 2012. Photo by AFP

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I can understand how the ombudsman for a respected and influential American news organization would have a problem with the Mideast conflict, in the same way that people tend to dislike chronic degenerative diseases. Depending on the state, the https://www.stdaware.com/chlamydia-test can give the clinician those partners’ names or simply get prescriptions written anonymously. Often the patient can then fill all those prescriptions at the pharmacy and give the medications—with typical drug inserts outlining proper use and side effects—to those contacts.

I can understand the ombudsman of the Washington Post having a particular problem with Israel – beginning with strident, even threatening letters from subscribers whose support of Israel is passionate to the point of extremism.

During the war, many of them were livid over the perceived imbalance of a powerful and important front-page photograph of a Palestinian father, wrenched in grief, cradling the swathed body of his 11-month-old boy, killed by an Israeli air strike.

The public has every right to its opinion. The pressure on anyone dealing with the story can be immense, as any journalist who covers it knows. You struggle to do your job faithfully describing the reality from close up as best as you can, while faraway armchair warriors on both sides do everything they can to sway you or stop you. We’re only human. At that point, anyone might well lose control. I believe that at some point last week, the Post’s ombudsman did just that.

After a reasoned defense of the use of the photograph, ombudsman Patrick Pexton wrote the following:

“I think we can all agree that the Gaza rocket fire is reprehensible and is aimed at terrorizing Israeli civilians. It’s disruptive and traumatic. But let’s be clear: The overwhelming majority of rockets fired from Gaza are like bee stings on the Israeli bear’s behind.”

There it is. The Washington Post’s Israel problem. Which is pretty much the same as the Israel problem of the left as a whole. From time to time, I readily confess, it’s my Israel problem too: Anger blinds. Frustration oversimplifies. We lose it.

People –the human, feeling, equally legitimate essence of each one of them –disappear. There is little balance left to look at the facts as anything more than the cartoon that we expect. There is little energy left to sort through the thicket, process the facts, leave our opinions and prejudices where they belong: on the cutting-room floor.

“These rockets are unguided and erratic, and they carry very small explosive payloads,” Pexton continued. The ombudsman did what none of us should: belittle the impact on real people of being targeted with missiles packed with up to 200 pounds of high explosive. The weaponry is written off as little more than toothless toys, jury-rigged in garages.

The targets, the Israeli people in missile range, were not a menacing beast. They were human beings, flawed, occasionally heroic, frequently moral. They deserve better than the cheap wisecrack of the bear’s behind.

From a distance, you might well think nothing’s changed. From a distance of 6,000 miles or so, it might elude notice that every single war destroys Israel. Every one, every time. Each war here is a watershed. It leaves an entirely different Israel and different Israelis in its wake.

You can’t see it, but this war changed everyone here. Out of view, deep inside, something shifted. For some, it may have been the horrifying sense that this is what we can expect – from the other side and from ourselves as well – every couple of years. Forever. Like hurricanes in Haiti. Bombs, rockets, a new cohort of children with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And every single time, it comes closer to your own home. Wherever you are.

A news ombudsman cannot afford the luxury of reducing real people and real suffering to caricature. The job of a news organization is exactly the opposite – to go beyond the easily merchandised story of Villain vs. Victim, the brutish, loutish predator against the virtuous, resourceful, all-but-defenseless prey.

Yes, as Pexton points out, just as in Operation Cast Lead four years ago, many, many more Gazans were killed than Israelis. What he fails to point out is that Israel conducted this war entirely differently. Whether out of fear of a second UN Goldstone inquiry or for other reasons, the military expended extraordinary efforts to minimize civilian casualties, from some 600 Palestinian civilian deaths in the 2008-2009 conflict, to 66 in this war.

It’s too soon to know what this war has done to us, and to Israel. The signs are still too contradictory, too vague. The ultra-hawkish government that came to power promising to topple Hamas with ferocity kept its ground troops from going in to Gaza. The ruling Likud, which has veered fiercely right, will muzzle itself –to an extent – during the UN vote on Palestine. Young moderates may elect a new Labor Party this week, or they may stay home.

The Washington Post covered the war well. But Patrick Pexton let his paper down. He did his colleagues a disservice. The Post deserves better than this. So do those millions of people whom leftists and journalists, this one included, so often stereotype and condemn rather than listen to with openness and respect –Israelis.

Israel is right to back away from war with Iran despite nuclear fears | Praful Bidwai | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

( Helpful advice and support from our good friends in the UK.  🙂 – JW )

Iran has shown itself amenable to diplomacy, while Israel’s security establishment advises against military interventionI

Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, with defence minister, Ehud Barak (right) and military secretary, Benny Gantz (left). Photograph: GPO via Getty Images

WPR Article | World Citizen: Events Move Israel, Iran Small Step Back From Brink.

The past two weeks have brought major political and strategic changes to the Middle East, particularly in Israel, which saw a military confrontation with Hamas-ruled Gaza as well as a feverish pace of political activity in advance of upcoming parliamentary elections.

Developments in Israel on both the military and political front have implications for the prospects of a much-discussed war with Iran. The question is whether the changes on the ground make a war with Iran more or less likely.

The war with Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza pitted Israel against groups linked and partly armed by the Islamic Republic, and the conflict saw a showdown between Iranian-supplied missiles and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield. On the political front, the selection of candidates to run in the January elections and, more importantly, the announcement by Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he will retire from politics after Jan. 22 could have a direct impact on Israel’s strategic calculus regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel used the Pillar of Defense operation to target some of the weaponry that Iran has provided to Israel’s foes in Gaza. The conflict also allowed Israel to measure the effectiveness of its Iron Dome missile shield against those weapons that Israeli air strikes did not eliminate.

If Iran and Israel went to war, Israel would face a much more sophisticated array of weaponry from Iran than that deployed by Hamas and the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Still, Israel can feel reassured by the performance of its evolving defensive systems against the short- and medium-range rockets, including the Iranian-made Fajr missiles, fired during the conflict from Gaza.

The success of Iron Dome, which shot down more than 80 percent of the missiles it targeted, gave further impetus to Israel’s efforts to quickly develop other anti-missile systems, such as the David’s Shield and Arrow systems, designed to counter longer-range attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, Tehran’s ally in  Lebanon, just across Israel’s northern border.

If Iran were to decide that its missiles are not effective weapons against Israel, how would that affect the chances for war? Some have argued that it would add to Iran’s incentive to develop nuclear weapons. That may be true. However, if Tehran decided to use nuclear weapons against Israel, it would surely trigger the kind of overwhelming retaliation that would spell disaster for the Islamic Republic. Assuming that Iran is not “suicidal,” the net result of the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas is thus to diminish, if only marginally, the chances of war.

Meanwhile, Iran could not have overlooked the fact that Washington sided unequivocally with Israel during the Gaza campaign. If Tehran had expected, as others might have, that U.S. President Barack Obama’s pro-Israel statements in the past were purely designed to win votes, and that once he secured re-election his support would waver, then the Gaza fighting proved doubly disappointing. Given the solidarity shown by the U.S. to Israel, the risks for Tehran of a conflict with Israel also look greater. That, too, could make Tehran more willing to compromise with the West on its nuclear program.

So far, however, there is no evidence of that. On Wednesday, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said that Iran will continue enriching uranium “with intensity,” including by substantially increasing the number of centrifuges in operation.

Meanwhile, the changes on Israel’s political front also have important, if somewhat ambiguous implications.

The most significant development was Barak’s retirement announcement. Barak, after all, has teamed up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to develop Israel’s strategy on Iran — a strategy predicated on raising international awareness of the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose and creating pressure for strict international sanctions backed by the threat of military action to take out Iran’s nuclear installations. That strategy probably includes contingencies for a unilateral Israeli attack if international measures do not work, although only Barak and Netanyahu know just how far Israel is willing to go.

The question now is whether Barak’s retirement will make Israel more or less likely to attack.

Israel’s most decorated soldier and a man of legendary intellectual powers, Barak has found politics to be a difficult and disappointing pursuit. For months the pollsters have predicted he would not gain a seat in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in the next election. The 70-year-old’s resignation was a way to avoid humiliation at the polls.

It is Barak who crafted the notion of a “zone of immunity,” a point in Iran’s nuclear development after which Israel would not be militarily capable of inflicting significant damage, and the point before which Israel would have to attack if other measures have not produced results.

As an advocate of military action, his withdrawal from the government could diminish the chances of an attack, depending on who takes over as defense minister when he’s gone.

There is great speculation about who might replace him.

One of the most likely candidates is Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief and the current minister of strategic affairs. Yaalon, the country’s vice prime minister, belongs to Netanyahu’s inner Cabinet, the eight-member group that makes the country’s most important decisions.

According to a number of unnamed sources, Yaalon and Barak clashed inside that kitchen cabinet. Although Yaalon supports military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, he reportedly opposes a unilateral move by Israel and favors giving international sanctions more time.

Should he become the next defense minister, that would diminish the chances of a military confrontation between Israel and Iran.

Other political changes inside Israel create the opposite result. The Likud primary election proved disastrous for two members of the inner cabinet who had opposed a unilateral strike. Ministers Benny Begin and Dan Meridor lost their slots to more hawkish party members. Given Likud’s commanding lead in the polls, that means the next government’s inner council will lean more toward military action.

In the end, Israel’s position regarding Iran will depend more on the prime minister than on anyone else, and Netanyahu’s path to re-election looks rather easy.

On balance, the recent developments in Israel constitute a very small step back from the brink. But the chances of a military confrontation with Iran could be most easily removed by decisions made in Tehran. If Iran decides to show flexibility in the face of crippling international sanctions, changes in the region and in Israel’s internal politics will become irrelevant in determining whether the two countries will go to war.

Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly WPR column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.