Middle East: Washington Caught in a Lebanon-Syria-Israel-Iran Rectangle (Yenidunya)

After the Syrian Foreign Ministry blamed Israel for preparing a military strike by accusing Damascus of supplying Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon with long-range Scud missiles, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, "There is no truth to the suggestion that Israel is planning a military move against Syria."

Is Syria Arming Lebanon’s Hezbollah?

The following day, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates returned to the allegations: "Syria and Iran are providing Hezbollah with so many rockets that they are at a point where they have more missiles than most governments in the world."


Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi then said, during a visit to Damascus on Thursday, that "Iran and Syria are united against the internationally-backed enemies of Palestine." Syria's reaction was slightly different: Presidential advisor Buthaina Shaaban said that Israeli allegations that Damascus is supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles are aimed at undermining the country's improving relations with the United States.

Washington offered another quick response. The Obama administration warned Iran and Syria that America's commitment to Israel's security is unshakable and that they should understand the consequences of threats to the Jewish state. Spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters, ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's address to the American Jewish Committee, "We are concerned about the broader issue of the nature of Syrian support to Hizbullah involving a range of missiles, including that one [the possibility of Hezbollah's having Scuds]."

Despite accusations from Lebanon's Foreign Ministry and Hezbollah that a visit by a US security team to the Lebanese-Syrian border on Wednesday was a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the US Embassy said the trip was planned months ago and took place in coordination with the Lebanese Government.

Speaking to a Kuwait-based news channel, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel would be taking a great risk if it decided to open war on Lebanon. He also added that "that kind of war would change every parameter in the Middle East."

Israel-Palestine: The Golden Key to Proximity Talks? East Jerusalem (Yenidunya)

Soon after Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said, "It's time that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] decides to sit with Israel and conduct real negotiations whilst Jerusalem is out of any talks and is Israel's eternal capital," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that proximity talks would be launched in two weeks.

However, as Haaretz reported that there is a de facto freeze in the eastern sector of Jerusalem; Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat insisted that construction in East Jerusalem will continue. He continued:

We are going to build, we are not going to stop it, it's illegal to stop it. And we'll continue to do the best and the right thing for the city of Jerusalem.

Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu’s “Gestures” After Talks with Mitchell (Yenidunya)

In this atmosphere, the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee will convene next Tuesday, its first gathering since it affected the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden with its approval of new building. It will discuss general plans and then consider a small number of housing units in the eastern part of the city, although it is yet unknown whether the units are meant for Arabs or Jews.



Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah II again warned,  ahead of a meeting this weekend of the Arab League in Cairo, that the situation in the Middle East could "explode" due to Israel's building of settlements in East Jerusalem. Abdullah had said two weeks ago:

If we hit the summer and there's no active [peace] process, there's a very good chance for conflict, and nobody wins when it comes to that.

On Saturday, the Arab League's Monitoring Committee for the Arab Peace Initiative is scheduled vote on US proposals of Washington. The League has already stated that there would be no approval of proximity talks if there was no freeze in East Jerusalem.

Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu's "Gestures" After Talks with Mitchell (Yenidunya)

After his contact with US special envoy George Mitchell, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that as part of the indirect talks he would be open to a "frank exchange of views" regarding the core issues. Thus the Netanyahu Government looks towards direct talks after agreement on common points on core issues, especially on borders.

Israel-Palestine: Washington’s Carrots and Sticks for Netanyahu and Abbas (Yenidunya)

Meanwhile, Israel is aiming to satisfy both Washington and Ramallah through the  "gesture" of  a de facto freeze on construction in the eastern sector of Jerusalem.


Although Netanyahu has said repeatedly that East Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty, Jerusalem Councilman Meir Margalit of the dovish Meretz Party said on Monday that top Jerusalem officials told him that Netanyahu's office had ordered a halt to building. The shift occurredafter Washington expressed anger over the construction plans announced during US.Vice President Joe Biden's visit. Margalit added that the committees that deal with construction are not even meeting anymore.

Despite Haaretz's report in January that dozens of settlements in the West Bank were going through a building boom, the Netanyahu Government is claiming "progress" after the most recent meeting with Mitchell. Israel Defense Forces troops on Tuesday destroyed at least 10 Jewish structures in the West Bank as a requirement of the Prime Minister's declaration of a 10-month-freeze in expansion.

Israel-Palestine: Washington's Carrots and Sticks for Netanyahu and Abbas (Yenidunya)

Following his second meeting with U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed his government on Sunday and said that it would soon become clear whether there would be Middle East peace talks. He added that Israel and the United States want to "begin a peace process immediately."

In a statement summing up his visit, Mitchell said he held "positive and productive talks" with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort "to improve the atmosphere for peace and for proceeding with proximity talks".

On Thursday, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, received an official invitation to the proximity talks. In this message to Ramallah, the Obama Administration confessed that Washington had been unable to get a commitment from Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem but had received a guarantee that Israel would refrain from "significant" actions in the eastern part of the city during negotiations.



To  get Ramallah's consent for the beginning of proximity talks, the Obama Administration also put forward the idea of an Obama-Abbas meeting, an invitation confirmed by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo, told Palestinian radio that there is talk about an invitation for Abbas to visit Washington, possibly next month.

Washington also reportedly lined up possible sanctions against Israel in case of a failure to comply with its commitments. American officials reported said that if Netanyahu takes an uncompromising stance in the negotiations, like the one he displays in public, Israel's Labor Party might quit the coalition and pave the way for a new government.

The US message to Netanyahu: "natural growth" is OK in East Jerusalem during negotiations, along with other confidence-building measures, as long as you are ready to change your position on East Jerusalem's status and to come to terms with Ramallah on other border issues at the end of indirect talks. Otherwise, the Labor Party will be out, the coalition government collapses, and you will lose your Premiership.

And to Abbas: if you co-operate and accept that Israeli "natural growth" is not a barrier to discussions leading to a settlement, you will get the public acclamation, symbolised by your trip to Washington, of being an international leader.

The Latest from Iran (25 April): Build-Up

2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA reports that detainees in the women’s ward of Evin Prison staged a sit-in and asked the head of the ward to respect the Regulations Law which requires the separation of prisoners.

According to RAHANA, the head of the ward threatened the prisoners and claimed she needs prosecutor’s orders before separating the inmates. The political prisoners have stated that they will continue their sit-in until they achieve their goal.

NEW Iran Special: Tehran, Defender of Women’s Rights (P.S. Don’t Mention Boobquake
NEW Iran: The Green Movement and the Labour Movement (Assadi)
NEW Iran: Hyping the Threat from Tehran (Walt)
Iran: The List of 101 Journalists Who Have Been Jailed
Iran Document: Mousavi on the Green Movement’s Strategy and Goals (22 April)
The Latest from Iran (24 April): Speaking of Rights

1555 GMT:Corruption Watch. Reihaneh Mazaheri, writing for Tehran Bureau, sets out a detailed summary of the corruption allegations against the Ahmadinejad Government.


1550 GMT: Morality Will Be Observed. Tehran Police Chief Ahmad Reza Radan has assured that the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance's moral police will soon restart controls for better security.

1535 GMT: Media Corner. Journalist Zaynab Kazemkhah, arrested on 7 February, was fired by Iranian Students News Agency upon her release from Evin Prison. Her boss allegedly told her that she was "a traitor to the country".

1525 GMT: Mousavi Speaks Again. No doubt about it: both Mehdi Karroubi (see 0600 GMT) and Mir Hossein Mousavi are making a renewed push against the Government. Mousavi told a group of war veterans today, "The only way for Iran to get out of the crisis would be for you (the rulers) to change your approach. May God end the crisis in favor of the nation."

Mousavi again declared that the Government is working against the values of the Islamic Republic, "Islam would not beat anyone, would not take anyone into incarceration ... and would not keep anyone in prison....We can not accept closure of newspapers and jailing those who talk of freedom and people's right. This is against Islam."

The Presidential candidate assured the audience that the opposition has not been vanquished despite the Government crackdown on dissent, "Do not think that the reform movement does not exist anymore. Such measures can not block the reform path."

1520 GMT: Rumour of Day (2). Rah-e-Sabz claims that staged television confessions of reformist prisoners are planned for the eve of the anniversary of the election, 12 June.

1310 GMT: Culture and Political Prisoners. Ten prominent Iranian writers and poets, including Simin Behbahani, Ali Ashraf Darvishian, Shams Langroodi, and Moniro Ravanipour, have published an open letter demanding the release of journalist Masoud Bastani and other political prisoners.

1230 GMT: Boobquake Watch. Protecting Iran from earthquakes by pursuing immorality, Tehran police have reportedly banned tanning salons.

1210 GMT: Another Larijani Warning. Speaker of ParliamentAli Larijani has told President Ahmadinejad that the Majlis' laws should be implemented. The Khabar Online article supplements the warning has lots of detail on the government's alleged mismanagement, especially missing reports on the budget and on state broadcaster IRIB.

1205 GMT: Rumour of Day. The Sunday Telegraph of London claims, "Iran has struck a secret deal with Zimbabwe to mine its untapped uranium reserves in a move to secure raw material for its steadily expanding nuclear programme."

It was this agreement that underlay President Ahmadinejad's visit to Harare this week.

Caution is needed here: the Sunday Telegraph has been known to peddle exclusives based on suspect sources and/or speculation. This story rests on a "government source" and, rather unusually, "a senior official in the Iranian embassy" in Zimbabwe.

1200 GMT: All is Well Update. Minister of Interior Mustafa Mohammad Najar has declared, ''During nine months' efforts (since the 12 June Presidential election), police forces across the country slapped the enemy's conspiracy."
He said, ''Due to proper instruction, police forces used proper contact with people and the forces used less amount of shooting (than in the past).''

1035 GMT: Nuclear Breakthrough? Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has met the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, to discuss the uranium swap proposal. Mottaki told Iranian state television that he expected the discussions to be "decisive and detailed".

1030 GMT: We have posted a very special analysis linking Iran's suddenly-announced candidacy for the International Commission for Protection of Women’s Rights to the "Boobquake" episode.

(Just a thought, however. The Supreme Leader has his own Facebook page and has recently pronounced on Iran's defense of women's rights, so shouldn't he be informed of the Boobquake movement?)

0740 GMT: We have posted two features: an analysis of the Green Movement and labour movement by Jamshid Assadi and an assessment of the international "threat" from Iran by Stephen Walt.

0735 GMT: The Parliament Front. Another intervention by the Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani in the contest with the Ahmadinejad Government: he has criticized administration officials who have reacted angrily to reports released by the Supreme Audit Court (SAC).

The Supreme Audit Court, overseen by Parliament, is mandated to control the financial operations and activities of all ministries, institutions, state companies, and other organizations which receive Government funding.

0650 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Milad Fadayi has been sentenced to a year in prison for “propaganda against the system”. Fadayi was detained on 2 December in his home by plainclothes agents.

Mohammad Hossein Agassi, the lawyer for Amir Reza Arefi, has said that Arefi's death sentence for "mohareb" (war against God) has been reduced to a 15-year prison term. Arefi was condemned to death in February.

However, RAHANA reports that Habibollah Golparipour has been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Iranian Kurdistan.



0600 GMT: We are watching the signs that the opposition, inside and outside Iran, is seeking a renewed challenge leading up to the anniversary of the Presidential election. According to his website, Mehdi Karroubi has told the German magazine Der Spiegel, "Although tranquillity has been restored, society is awaiting a spark....People should know that we will continue the campaign. The campaign is not against the [Islamic] republic. On the contrary, it is aimed at observing the constitution in which freedom of conscience and democracy has been clarified."

Some other bits and pieces to start the day....

Clerical Downgrade

A second cleric in Qom has been stripped of his status by a court. Hojatoleslam Mir Ahmadi was sentenced to forced exile from the city for ten years and banned from clerical activities.

Ahmadi was arrested by security forces days after a memorial service in February for the 40th day of the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Ahmadi had debated a student who criticised Montazeri and post-election turmoil in the country. The next day, he was arrested and later released.

Seyed Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour, who recently began a one-year prison sentence, also faces a ban on wearing the traditional clerical robe.

No Foreign Talk, Please

The Islamic Republic News Agency claims that the Deputy Minister for Cinema Affairs has directed that no foreign words be used in Iranian movie titles. According to the agency, a letter to officials declared, “Based on an approval by the cabinet to ban foreign words in banners, advertisements, etc…from now on, Iranian movies are not permitted to use foreign words in titles. This ban applies to films currently in production as well.”

International Rumour of Day

Ayoub Kara, Israel's deputy minister for development in the Negev and Galilee, has told a public meeting that an academic with ties to Iran's nuclear programme recently asked for asylum in Israel after it helped him to defect.

"It is too soon to provide further details," Kara said, adding only that the unidentified academic was "now in a friendly country."

The claim follows the resettlement of Iranian physicist Shahram Amiri in the US in March.