Sharmine Narwani, writing for The Huffington Post, talks to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders about their countries, US foreign policy, and TV programmes:
In early August and late October, I met with Hamas’ Osama Hamdan and Hezbollah’s Ammar Mousawi, chiefs of their respective organizations’ foreign relations portfolios….So where do things stand on rapprochement? What do they think of Obama? Do they have “hope” that US policy will “change?” What do they think of the peace process? Extremist groups in the Mideast – who are the worst offenders? Do they find inspiration in Americans and who might these figures be? Hamdan and Mousawi had plenty to say.
On Obama…
Ammar Mousawi: There is no doubt that we find certain traits that are distinguished in the character of Obama — that he is no repetition of former US presidents. When we listen to his speeches, we certainly note something new. However, the political forces that make policy in the US allow any exceptional steps to be only limited. There is no doubt that there is a change in tone, but it is doubtful that there will be a change in policy. If change were to take place, it would not be in Cairo University — it would have to be in the US Congress.
We know that Obama is experiencing political difficulties from his opponents. He is being besieged in domestic policy challenges and internal issues – healthcare reform, issues of his roots. So when he declared his ambitious approach for his solutions for the Mideast, they sent him the Israel lobby to put him in a corner. Read the rest of this entry »
There is no new information on yesterday’s assassination of Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s deputy representative in Lebanon, and three others in a bombing outside the Mieh Mieh camp near Sidon.
As we predicted, however, this is not stopping speculation and political point-scoring. For example, Hilal Khashaan, a professor at American University of Beirut, throws out the assertion, “All indicators seem to point in the direction of Iranian agents in Lebanon.”
Much more substantial and more serious is the fear that Medhat’s assassination may signal an escalation in intra-Palestinian fighting in Lebanon. Nabil Boumonsef of an-Nahar newspaper said yesterday, “I fear that this might be a sign of an expansion of Palestinian-Palestinian conflicts in Lebanon.”
Sources are talking of Mehdat’s attempt to mediate disputes within Fatah, a claim reinforced by Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan’s praise of Mehdat for “a very great role” in easing tensions. (It should also be noted that Hamdan put out his own allegation that Israel was behind the assassination.)
Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the deputy representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and Fatah’s former intelligence chief, Akram Daher, the head of the PLO’s youth organisation in Lebanon, and two bodyguards have been killed in a bombing. The attack occurred outside Mieh Mieh refugee camp, near Sidon in southern Lebanon.
Abbas Zaki, the PLO chief in Lebanon, was visiting the camp at the time of the attack but was uninjured. Zaki and Mehdat were offering condolences to the families of two men killed in a family feud in the camp on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Noah Feldman has written in The New York Times echoing the concerns set out by Andy Worthington below: “The Obama lawyers have not abandoned the argument for broad presidential power, just implied that such authority is unnecessary to get them what they want.”
I was a bit unsettled by the implication that this was a fundamental change in the US approach to detainees, given the Justice Department’s maintenance of the Bush Administration line in other cases in the War on Terror. The change in term so that “individuals who supported al Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was substantial” appeared to be more of a shift in legal approach rather than a fundamental review of detention policy. It’s not a scrapping of the Bush system but a more palatable face for it.
Changing the names of things was a ploy that was used by the Bush administration in an attempt to justify some of its least palatable activities. In response to the 9/11 attacks, for instance, the nation was not involved in a limited pursuit of a group of criminals responsible for the attacks, but instead embarked on an open-ended “war on terror.” Read the rest of this entry »
In the first meeting of its kind, two French senators travelled to Damascus two weeks ago to meet the leader of the Palestinian Islamist faction, Khaled Meshal (pictured)….Two British MPs met three weeks ago in Beirut with the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Usamah Hamdan.
9:45 p.m. Still pursuing a cease-fire agreement with Israel, a senior Hamas delegation led by Moussa Abu Marzouk will hold talks on Thursday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman on Thursday.
9:40 p.m. Philip Rizk, the protestor detained by Egyptian authorities after his walk raising money for Gazans, has been released after more than four days of round-the-clock interrogation.
9:30 p.m. A bit of proxy battling over the Palestinian movement in Ankara today. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak represented the Palestinian Authority side of the talks, pressing for confirmation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the legitimate umbrella group. Turkey was more muted in its statements but continues to press for greater Hamas participation.
10 p.m. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud and Avigdor Lieberman of Israeli-Beitenu have had a phone conversation about a possible coalition government.
9:40 p.m. A Qassam rocket has landed in the southern Negev in Israel.
8 p.m. Voting closes in Israeli election. First exit polls have Kadima (party of Tzipi Livni) at 30 seats; Likud (party of Benjamin Netanyahu) 28; “far-right” Israel-Beitenu (Avigdor Lieberman) 15. Labor (Ehud Barak) on course for worst performance ever.
As there are 120 seats in Knesset, there will have to be a coalition with at least 61 members to form a secure Government. That in turn means that even a Kadima-Likud coalition is not sure of a majority in the new parliament.
11 a.m. Hamas official Osama Hamdan says further manoeuvres for an agreement with Israel on Gaza will now depend on the outcome of today’s Israeli election: “”If [Likud leader Benjamin] Netanyahu wins, I don’t think that the current government will conclude an agreement. If the current government wins, they could reach an agreement.”
10:45 a.m. I’m Still Here. Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, trying to assert his leadership as Hamas negotiates an agreement with Israel, has said he is ready to talk to Tel Aviv if “the new Israeli government a halt to new settlements”.
This is just an opening move, however. The Hamas delegation has to confirm the 12-month offer with the organisation’s leadership in Damascus, and it is linked to a full opening of Gazan borders. Israel’s offer of an 18-month cease-fire, presented by the Egyptians to Hamas, held out only a partial opening of crossings.
10:45 p.m. Soft Power, Tehran Style. While aid to Gaza is held up by Israeli restrictions, Iran continues to further its political objectives with assistance. Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani said today that Iran will rebuild the Gazan Parliament destroyed by Israeli air raids.
9:30 p.m. While there were no concrete results from the Cairo talks, Egypt is publicly rushing away from Israel and towards “the Palestinians”. In Brussels, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit appealed to Europeans to press Tel Aviv to ease the economic blockade, “I ask the European Union to do (things) very, very quickly to rebuild to help the Palestinians to get out of this crisis. We need to force the Israelis to negotiate and also tell them to open crossings and to give Palestinians a chance to live in a normal way.”
Gheit’s statement is more rhetoric than substance, however. Egypt is refusing to have foreign monitors on its side of the border, so it is effectively passing the buck to Israel, which is balking at an arrangement on the Gazan side.
Meanwhile, some Europeans are still stuck on the old script of the Palestinian Authority’s triumphant re-entry into Gaza. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband proclaimed, “”The reunification of the Palestinians under the recognised and cherished voice of President Abbas is so important.”
Sharmine Narwani, writing for The Huffington Post, talks to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders about their countries, US foreign policy, and TV programmes:
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There is no new information on yesterday’s assassination of Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s deputy representative in Lebanon, and three others in a bombing outside the Mieh Mieh camp near Sidon.
Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the deputy representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Lebanon and Fatah’s former intelligence chief, Akram Daher, the head of the PLO’s youth organisation in Lebanon, and two bodyguards 
UPDATE: 
Update (9 p.m.): 
9:45 p.m. Still pursuing a cease-fire agreement with Israel, a senior Hamas delegation led by Moussa Abu Marzouk 
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