Middle East Inside Line: West Bank Lands, Israel in China, Dubai Killing

Netanyahu announced on Sunday that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem (all in the West Bank) would both be added to the list of national heritage sites that the government plans to promote. He said that the rightist religious party Shas persuaded him add the two sites to the list and added:

Our existence depends not only on the IDF or our economic resilience - it is anchored in...the national sentiment that we will bestow upon the coming generations and in our ability to justify our connection to the land.

Following an unproductive Russia visit, a high-ranking Israeli delegation is to leave at the end of the month for Beijing. Both officials will not only talk about the increasing financial cooperation between two countries but also the request for sanctions on Tehran. Haaretz underlines that Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have not visited China and held no significant talks with Chinese officials on the Iranian issue but have always held meetings with the rest of the 5+1 camp (Russia, USA, Germany, UK, France).

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri blamed Israel on Sunday for seeking to start a war with Iran and Syria, despite the Arab nations' desire for peace. He said: "Israel can't claim to be interested in the peace process without doing anything tangible in this regard."

The U.A.E.'s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, urged European investigators to launch full-scale probes into how fraudulent passports were used by a hit squad accused of killing Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

According to the Sunday Times, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the hit squad in a Mossad headquarters and in early January authorized the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Iraq: How Serious is the Sunni Election Boycott?

We've been trying to get our heads around the significance of Saturday's announcement that one of Iraq's largest Sunni political parties is going to boycott the forthcoming national elections. The New York Times plays down the story. Juan Cole also thinks that the effect on the election will not be devastating, but he considers the longer-term maneouvres and probable benefits to the leading Shi'a factions:

The Los Angeles Times reports that the National Dialogue Front, a secular party led by Salih Mutlak, is calling for a boycott of the March 7 parliamentary elections in Iraq. The NDF has 11 seats in parliament, but Mutlak and another prominent party member were among over 500 candidates (out of over 6000) for parliament disqualified as too close to the prohibited Baath Party. Many of those excluded from running had openly criticized the provision in the Iraqi constitution that bans members of the Baath Party from public life. The purge of Mutlak has been widely condemned in Iraq as unfair, since he left the party in the late 1970s.


Mutlak announced that the boycott decision was taken after remarks by American leaders in Iraq that the banning of candidates had been instigated by Iran. Mutlak said that the upcoming polls in Iraq had been hijacked by Iran and were being conducted according to the Iranian rules, wherein the regime predetermines who wins and some candidates are excluded from running.

Some observers worry that there will be a mass Sunni boycott of the elections, as happened with disastrous effects in January of 2005. I don't think that catastrophe can now be repeated, because at that time the elections were held on a nation-wide basis. The current elections instead have Iraqi provinces as the electoral unit. Thus, the largely Sunni provinces of al-Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninevah will return a lot of Sunni members of parliament even with a boycott (the resulting members of parliament just would not represent that many people).

Liz Sly of the LAT says that there are two main Shiite blocs for the first time in this election (the first two parliamentary elections saw the Shiite religious parties unite into a single coalition). But she says that the two " have an informal agreement" to come together as a mega-coalition after the elections, which will enable them to form the government. (In the Iraqi constitution, the largest single party or coalition in parliament gets first shot at choosing the prime minister.)

I have argued that the Shiite-dominated Accountability and Justice Committee may have banned Mutlak precisely in hopes that his National Dialogue Front would boycott, thus depriving the Iraqiya list of enough seats to make a bid to form the government.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the National Dialogue Front gave as further reasons for its boycott that it was also concerned about the lack of security for elections, by the government's arbitrary arrest of its candidates and party workers, and by the lack of a truly independent high electoral commission.

In contrast, the National Iraqi List, headed by former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi-- which the National Dialogue Front had joined in a coalition effort-- announced that it would begin campaigning in earnest after last week's one-week hiatus. Allawi kicked off the campaign with a visit to the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, for consultations with King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia has backed Iraqi Sunnis behind the scenes, and is worried about Iranian influence in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the main Shiite bloc, the National Iraqi Alliance (which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, formed in 1982 in Iran), accused the United States of interfering in Iraqi domestic politics and of plotting to bring the Baath Party back into prominence as the "neo-Baath."

Iran Analysis: Re-alignment v. Crackdown --- Which "Wins"?

Forget all the talk and newspaper articles, which EA correspondents like Josh Shahryar took apart on Saturday, about this conflict being settled in favour of a heavy-fisted Government. While the opposition is still considering its next moves, there was more than enough to show that 1) this is far more than a simple narrative of Government putting down the Green Movement and 2) that Government is far from secure in its supposed victory.

NEW Iran: A Tale of Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests
Iran: “It’s All Over” for the Green Movement?

First, the less dramatic --- frankly, quite mundane --- but significant political move. The "ambiguous" Hashemi Rafsanjani is no longer ambiguous. His statement at the Council reaffirmed his basic position of siding with the Supreme Leader, but equally important were his call for unity and the need to make changes to ensure the security of the Iranian system.



Still a bit vague? Well, you have to join the statement to that of Mohsen Rezaei: Secretary of the Council, Presidential candidate, and Rafsanjani ally. Yep, ally. Rezaei's own declaration to the Council was for alterations to the electoral law that governed last year's unresolved campaign.

That might seems a bit too bureaucratic for much attention, but the significance of "alterations" is that they would take away power from bodies such as the Guardian Council, the group that tightly oversees and restricts Iran's political process. And that in turn means an opening up of space in the system for factions, parties, and individuals --- even critical parties and individuals if they stay within the legal framework of the system.

A Rafsanjani-Rezaei alignment is not new --- think "National Unity Plan" and the possible January initiative to clip the authority of President Ahmadinejad. In this case, however, it is narrower but more focused. Take away some of the political  power wielded by the executive and hand it to an ostensibly "neutral" body.

So how will the Government respond? Well, not directly. Saturday was another day where it was defending against attacks on the economy and trying to show its authority with more threats against the supposedly vanquished opposition and, perhaps, even "conservative" elements who are not on-board.

Iran police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam declared that media are the collaborators of intelligence services, assuring anyone listening that Iran's security services will take care of the foreign media in time to prevent any regime change.

Justice Minister Morteza Bakhtiari pronounced that you can forget the "official" figure of 300 detained on Ashura (27 December); it was actually 700. So let there be no doubt that the regime would also "get" Karroubi and Mousavi to prevent any significant challenge.

Ahmadinejad's media advisor Mehdi Kalhor chipped in with the news that the first "velvet revolution" in Iran was on 2 Khordaad 1376 (23 May 1997), the day that Mohammad Khatami was elected President. Neat twist, this. It is not the Ahmadinejad 2009 victory that is fraudulent but that of Khatami, who just happens to be one of the leading opposition figures, and the "reformists".

In Qom, Ahmadinejad's clerical backer, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, analysed that "the devil" played a role in the recent "riots" in Iran. Satan's companions includes "jinnis" and devious people, and democracy is another example of his ferocity and tyranny.

Not exactly the statements of a regime secure in its skin. Hmm....

Well, one easy read is that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi haven't exactly gone away. They met for the second time this week on Saturday, this in Karroubi's home. No details given by Karroubi's website Saham News, but the point is that they met. The Government watches and frets that 22 Bahman did not settle matters.

But it should not only be watch the devil's foreign and domestic minions. The situation is such that any shift, even with "the system", of power and oversight is a slap-down to a President and his advisors who have escalated this crisis to the point of no compromise.

So expect more threats against Hashemi Rafsanjani in the near-future. Look for more counter-attacks from members of Parliament who no longer have any respect for Ahmadinejad. And bring back the recurrent question.

What say you now, Supreme Leader?

Iran: A Tale of Cricket, Andre the Giant, and Protests

Josh Shahryar writes for EA:

Every so often, I read the news about Iran and it reminds me of growing up as a refugee in Pakistan.

The latest reminder came on 11 February, my birthday, which happened to be the Islamic Revolution’s birthday as well. The occasion brought Green protesters and government supporters to the streets. The government, holding its one mass gathering in the western part of Tehran, blocked off all entries with hundreds, perhaps thousands of security forces. It then transported foreign journalists to the rally and back again, instructing them to write. about their rally and nothing else.



Meanwhile, thousands of Iranians gathered on the streets of Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, and other cities to deminstrate against the government. They were beaten, arrested, and denied entry to main squares. Their leaders were attacked, sometimes arrested, sometimes forced to return home at all. The regime had blocked Internet access, jailed as many bloggers as possible, and attempted to prevent the flow of news out of the country.

The government's big move could have backfired if the protesters managed to make it through to the regime's mass gathering and put themselves on live national and international TV broadcasts. But the demonstrators could not.

Suddenly there was uproar by pundits previously sympathetic to the Iranian government: “The Green Movement is dead.” Reporters tired of covering the Iran affair published articles stating, “It’s all over.”

These biased and uninformed assessments reminded me of a series of cricket games I played in Pakistan way back when.

(For anyone who doesn’t understand cricket, here’s a quick lesson: One guy stands in front of three sticks with a bat and another tries to hit those sticks with a ball from 22 yards out. The guy with the bat tries to hit the ball as far as possible, but if he misses and the ball hits the sticks, he is replaced. The scoring is similar to baseball.)

At 17, I was the best thrower of a cricket ball in my neighbourhood in Peshawar. I was energetic, fast, but most of all, I was accurate and consistent. When I threw the ball, if the batsman missed it, it would hit the sticks 90% of the time.

I recall when our neighbourhood had a best-of-three match with the guys from another part of town. The reward was about $10 in prize money, but it was more about boosting our testosterone levels than anything else.

Our rival’s ace in the hole was a guy the size of Andre the Giant who could make the ball disappear every time he swiped it with the bat. In the first game, he started thrashing our bowlers, including me. After a while, I got angry and frustrated, and the thrashing went epic. We lost the game.

Later that evening, I was smoking a cigarette in the general hang-out area in my neighbourhood; it was just a concrete bench where we all gathered and told each other lies about how we’d lost our virginity. I felt horrible.

A friend snuck close to me and said, “You did everything you could. Just keep doing that. He’s terrified of you,”

"But I’m good at getting thrashed," I said.

“No,” he said, “You’re good at being consistent. In the beginning, he was just terribly lucky, then, you got angry and stopped being consistent. You'll hit the sticks if he misses; he just hasn’t missed, yet. He’s just big. He has no game.”

I took that sage advice with a grain of salt. Come on, it was Andre the Giant....

Yet the next game, I hit the sticks the third ball and we won.

The Iranian government, like that Andre, has no game. It’s strong, but it is scared of the Green Movement. It is having internal problems, most of its people are against it, and the international community is slowly tightening the noose around it day after day.

The key to the Iranian opposition’s success is consistency. Every time it has called for a protest, now over more than eight months, it has put people on the ground.

The government, on the other hand, has failed to keep the streets clear. It may have managed to keep foreign news correspondents from covering the protests on 11 February, but just because no one noticed the tree fall in the forest, does not mean it didn’t. Whether or not The Washington Post, The New York Times, or CNN cover the protests is irrelevant to their occurrence.

The Iranian opposition will continue to be successful. The Iranian government can only attempt to stop people from coming out to streets, but that’s just one, highly visible option. The people have other ways to challenge the regime.

This time, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed to hold his rally in peace. He used the occasion to continue his rant against the West, with the broadcast ending just as he was about to announce the coming of the 12th Imam.

But what if the Greens manage to storm the government’s rally next time? Ahmadinejad won’t get to announce the date for the 12th Imam’s appearance; worse, the government will be humiliated.

To put it in cricket terms: Watch out, Andre; consistency pays off.

(Oh, you ask, what about the final game of the series? It ended up in a massive brawl. That was even more fun than if we’d won the $10.)

The Latest from Iran (20 February): Questions

1730 GMT: Political Prisoner Update. Lawyer Massoud Aghaee was freed last night on bail. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109018)

1710 GMT: The Iranian Parliament has launched its 4th enquiry into the Kahrizak Prison abuses. (http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/20/1244)

1655 GMT: Economic Projections. Key member of Parliament Ahmad Tavakoli has warned of possible zero growth or contraction in the economy in 2010-11. (http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=13758)

1645 GMT: Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi has declared that officials should serve the people and that if the people do not appear in public anymore, there will be great difficulties. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109009)

1640 GMT: Conservative Watch. Mohsen Rezaei, Presidential candidate and Secretary of the Expediency Coucil, has called on the Council to "apply corrections" to electoral laws. (http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109015)

1630 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council, has declared at a Council meetint that "exclusion, elimination, and insulting" of figures in the Iranian system is a poison to domestic affairs and should be stopped.

Rafsanjani, reaffirming his position, declared that 22 Bahman invited Iranians to unity, following the Supreme Leader.
(http://www.ilna.ir/newsText.aspx?ID=109080)

1620 GMT: Afternoon Economy Watch. Bus drivers have gathered in front of the Social Security building in Tehran to protest against working conditions. (http://www.peykeiran.com/Content.aspx?ID=13750)

Iranian Labor News Agency warns that factories in many industrial sectors face closure. (http://www.ilna.ir/fullStory.aspx?ID=109010)

At least 1500 jobs have been lost in recent shutdowns. (http://en.irangreenvoice.com/article/2010/feb/19/1237)

Alireza Mahjoub, the head of a workers' syndicate, has said the promise of 50 percent increase in oil prices in next year's budget is "bizarre and inaccurate". (http://www.ilna.ir/fullStory.aspx?ID=109089)

1120 GMT: This Month's Twitter-Bash. This is almost as predictable as British weather: every few weeks, someone in the "thinking" press patches together faulty assumptions, a mis-understanding of social media, an Iran anecdote, and an "analyst" to claim that he/she has discovered: Twitter Had Nothing to Do With Post-Elections Events in Iran Whatsoever.

This month's 15-second fame of Twitter-bashing is enjoyed by Mary Fitzgerald of The Irish Times. She is not as obnoxious or arrogant as Will Heaven, but the piece plumbs the same shallow waters of "analysis" that does no justice to social media or, more importantly, to those in Iran. (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0220/1224264860222.html)

1045 GMT: The Flag Flap (cont.). Well, I guess the issue of the magically changing colour of the Iranian flag --- from red/white/green to red/white/blue --- isn't just a joke any longer.

At least not for the President's office: it has issued a statement that "light reflection twisted the colour" of the flag at Ahmadinejad's press conference this week. (http://bit.ly/crcDMW)

0905 GMT: Moscow's Two-Faced Missiles. Russia, meanwhile, plays its own game with Iran. Having given Israel one message by holding up immediate delivery of S-300 missiles to Tehran, Moscow balanced with reassurance to Iran on Friday. Press TV quotes Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, “There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran, and we will fulfill it … Delays (with deliveries) are linked to technical problems with adjusting these systems."

NEW Iran: “It’s All Over” for the Green Movement?

Iran & the “Non-Bomb”: The Real Story on Tehran’s Nuclear Programme

Iran Book Update: No More Good Reads in Tehran

Iran: Are The Banks Failing?

The Latest from Iran (19 February): Finding the Real Stories

0900 GMT: McClatchy News Service gets inside information on nuclear developments:

Iran has just sent a letter to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, repeating its request for fuel to run a research reactor in Tehran that produces nuclear isotopes for medical purposes, according to U.S. and European officials.

They are readi
ng the letter as Iran's latest, and perhaps final, rejection of an offer the United States and five other countries made last October to provide the fuel by taking low-enriched uranium out of Iran and enriching it for use in the research reactor.....

"We understand that Iran has recently sent a letter to the IAEA that simply repeats its request from last year for assistance to acquire fuel - a request the IAEA has responded appropriately to with its offer last October," National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer said.

"We see nothing new, and it would appear to reiterate Iran's rejection of the IAEA's proposal. Coupled with the IAEA's latest report on Iran's nuclear program, this reinforces why our concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions are deepening."

In other words, diplomatic stalemate. Tehran will continue to put forth its request for uranium through purchase or a swap inside Iran, while "the West" will insist on a swap in a third country. This could drag on for some time: both sides are getting public-relations value out of their positions.

0758 GMT: Cheeky Challenge of the Day. At the risk of reviving our own whimsical story of the changing colours of the Iranian flag, we read this morning:

A reformist member of Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Mahdi Shahriari said that if the replacement of color green with blue in Iranian national flag at the recent state ceremonies attended by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was deliberate, the president should answer for the change.

Speaking to Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) Shahriari, a member of national security and foreign policy commission of the Parliament (Majlis) added: "Such alteration is subject to questioning and giving notice to its perpetrators because it's against the constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran."

And where did we encounter this story? In some pernicious outlet of the Green Movement, spreading disinformation and trouble?

No. The recycling of the ILNA story comes from the pro-Larijani Khabar Online.

0755 GMT: The biggest question, however, is not over Tehran's nuclear intentions but over the state of the Green Movement. In The Washington Post, Thomas Erdbrink posts a devastating article which claims, from interviews inside Iran, that the opposition is crippled, if not over. We've offered a response.

0730 GMT: A Saturday morning which starts with questions and diversions. The "Western" news agenda is still dominated by the nuclear issue, but there are breaks in the narrative of an inevitable Iran march to the bomb. The Washington Post, a long-time bell-ringer of the Iranian threat, has this paragraph in its editorial, "Clamping Down on Iran's Nuclear Ambitions":

The number of working centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment plant is declining, though the overall output is still increasing. A recent study by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) showed that more than half of the Natanz plant's 8,700 centrifuges were not working in November; the new IAEA report records a further decline. Iran's enrichment of its stockpile is also proceeding at a snail's pace.

On the other side, the Supreme Leader's rhetoric, as he celebrated the commissioning of Iran's first domestically-made destroyer, deserves a bit of attention: "Our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them."

While this could be read as a boiler-plate denial --- why give the game away if Tehran was pushing for a military programme? --- it may also be a signal to the "West", especially the US Government, that Iran still wants "engagement" through nuclear talks. (It should not be forgotten that President Obama made at least two direct appeals in letters to Ayatollah Khamenei.)

Inside Iran, it was a quieter Friday, but ripples of confrontation continue. The Kahrizak Prison scandal resurfaced as member of Parliament Parviz Sorouri said that the cause of the death of Ramin Aqazadeh Qahremani is not yet known. Three protesters are already confirmed to have died from abuse in Kahrizak. detention center.