Israel

Significant Middle East Developments Lebanon. Renewed clashes broke out today in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli between Sunnis and Alawites, despite a ceasefire brokered yesterday. Since fighting first erupted four days ago, fifteen people have died and nearly one hundred have been injured. Prime Minister Najib Mikati voiced concern on Wednesday over "efforts to drag Lebanon more and more into the conflict in Syria when what is required is for leaders to cooperate ... to protect Lebanon from the danger.” This week’s clashes follow an outbreak of violence in June that killed fifteen people in addition to a number of retaliatory kidnappings of Lebanese citizens in Syria and Syrians residing in Lebanon. Syria. Syrian tanks and troops today swept into Daraya, a town near Damascus, after a twenty-four hour assault with artillery and helicopter gunships. Fifteen residents were killed in the attack with over 150 people wounded, bringing the total number of Syrians killed today to over 100. Over 200 people were killed across the country yesterday. This followed Monday and Tuesday’s attacks on the Damascus suburb of Moudamiya in which 86 people were killed. Amidst the violence, the Syrian government announced it was ready to cooperate with the new UN envoy, Lakdhar Brahimi, who took up the post previously held by Kofi Annan. Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad told reporters in Damascus today that “we have informed the United Nations that we accept the appointment of Mr. Brahimi” and hoped the envoy would help pave the way for a “national dialogue.” Meanwhile, Russian media reported Wednesday that Moscow had received guarantees that Syria would not use its chemical weapons. President Obama, along with British prime minister David Cameron, had reiterated their stance that Syria’s use of chemical weapons was “completely unacceptable” and that the United States would be forced to pursue a new course of action if Syria threatened to use them. The UN also pointed its finger at Iran over its arm supplies to Syria with UN undersecretary Jeffrey Feltman telling the Security Council that "The secretary-general has repeatedly expressed his concern about the arms flows to the two parties in Syria, which in some cases appear to violate resolution 1747 passed by this council banning arms exports under Chapter 7 authority." Despite this, reports emerged yesterday that UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon plans to attend a summit meeting of non-aligned developing nations next week in Tehran, defying the wishes of the United States and Israel. Egyptian president Morsi will also attend, making him the first Egyptian head of state to visit Tehran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Egypt. An Egyptian military source reported yesterday that Israeli and Egyptian officials have been meeting at the Kerem Shalom crossing to discuss Egypt’s military buildup in the Sinai. Israel publicly denies that Egypt has violated the terms of the Camp David agreement, limiting Egyptian military activity on the Sinai, though some Israeli officials accuse Egypt of moving tanks and other equipment without authorization. Israel’s defense ministry and military have sent a number of messages to Cairo in recent days with the a senior defense ministry official, Amos Gilad, saying yesterday that "When the Egyptians introduce weapons that are not included in the agreement we check it and we talk to the Egyptians about it. We have direct communication with the Egyptians and we have made it clear that we demand a complete adherence to the terms of the peace agreement.” The Sinai buildup, taken with President Morsi’s upcoming visit to Iran next week, has raised concern in Israel given the centrality of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt to its regional security. Meanwhile, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde visited Egypt this week to discuss economic cooperation. The Egyptian government has requested a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF in an effort to restore an economy still reeling from the political turmoil that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak last year. Finally, an Egyptian presidential spokesman announced today that President Morsi will visit the United States on September 23. Morsi will reportedly visit New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and then visit Washington. U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Syria Planning in Turkey. Turkish and U.S. officials began their first “operational planning” discussions yesterday over the Syrian crisis in Ankara. The United States sent an interagency team with officials from the State Department, Department of Defense, and the intelligence community. This latest round of consultations follows Secretary Hillary Clinton’s announcement on August 11 from Turkey that the United States was adopting a new approach to the Syrian crisis by pursuing joint efforts with Turkish officials. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday: "[R]emember what the secretary committed to when she was in Istanbul, which was an interagency conversation, U.S. and Turkey sitting down together to share operational picture, to talk about the effectiveness of what we’re doing now, and about what more we can do." Nuland added: "We are doing training on free media, countering the government’s circumvention technology, legal and justice and accountability issues, and how to deal with the crimes that have been committed during this conflict, programs for student activists who are encouraging peaceful protest on the university campuses, programs for women." Regional Naval Buildup. This week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told members of the USS Stennis aircraft carrier crew that they were needed back in the Middle East. The Navy News Service reported that the crew’s home stay was being cut short so as to respond to the increased concerns in Iran and Syria. At a send-off event in Seattle on Wednesday, Panetta highlighted the need to keep Iran’s nuclear program in check as well as its threats to oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Panetta also pointed to the need to keeping an eye on Syria’s chemical and biological weapons and provide non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition. Quotes of the Week “Egypt is the cornerstone of the region and has a special stature in the Arab and Muslim countries ... and we want relations of friendship and brotherhood with it,” – Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in an interview published Tuesday "Haniya and (exiled Hamas chief) Khaled Meshal are leading armed terrorism, Abu Mazen leads diplomatic terrorism and I’m not sure which is more dangerous to us," – Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman in a letter to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday "We have to demand that all sides in the [Syria] conflict rigorously respect international humanitarian law which as we can see has fallen apart due to the fault of both warring sides," – Vatican envoy to Syria Mario Zenari told Vatican radio on Wednesday "The arrogant powers are pulling their weight to force Iran to back down (on its stances) and the government should invalidate these illusions by using the nation’s full potentials," – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday in response to Western sanctions on Iran when he called for an “economy of resistance” While We Were Looking Elsewhere Libya. A spokesperson for the prosecution announced today that slain former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, will be put on trial in September in the Libyan town of Zintan. The International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for Seif’s arrest for crimes against humanity committed during the uprising that ousted his father. However, Libyan authorities have insisted that Seif stand trial in Libya. He has been held in Zintan since November. Bahrain. A judge overturned a conviction against the noted Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab today. Rajab had been convicted of posting alleged anti-government statements on Twitter. Rajab remains in jail, however, as he is currently appealing another three-year prison sentence for allegedly encouraging demonstrators to clash with security forces. Tunisia. A group of demonstrators, comprised of journalists and opposition activists, gathered in front of government headquarters yesterday to protest the appointment of a former police chief to lead the state-operated Dar Assabah media group. The protesters accused the government of attempting to control the media in order to influence the country’s upcoming elections. This Week in History This week marks the two hundredth anniversary of Petra, the wondrous UNESCO World Heritage archeological site in Jordan. The “rose-red city half as old as time” was once the capital of the Nabataeans, who are believed to have built the city in the fourth century BC. Petra was discovered by twenty-seven year-old Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812. Burckhardt originally sought to uncover the source of the River Niger. To pursue that effort, he secured funding from Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Society and studied Arabic. Burckhardt traveled around Syria, Lebanon, and Petra referring to himself as Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. When he heard of ruins in the mountains from locals, he paid a local guide to take him to the ancient site of Petra. Never discovering the River Niger, Burckhardt passed away from dysentery in Cairo in 1817. Today, Petra is Jordan’s most visited tourist site. Statistic of the Week Egypt has seen a wave of sexual harassment this week with thirty-two people being arrested over the course of three days. Various activists and anti-harassment campaigns are calling for a greater crackdown on the harassment with enforcement of harsher penalties. This spate of incidents underscores a previous finding from the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights which reported that nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admitted to having sexually harassed women with only 2.4 percent of women reporting incidents to the police.

Significant Middle East Developments Egypt. Clashes between militants and security forces continued today in Egyptian Sinai with gunmen firing on a police station and hundreds of troops entering the town of El-Arish searching for militants. The clashes were sparked by a brutal attack on Sunday in which militants ambushed and killed sixteen border guards at sunset as they were breaking their daily Ramadan fast. The attackers then fled the slaughter in an armored vehicle which they drove into Israel. A subsequent Israeli airstrike then killed at least six of the militants. In response to Sunday’s attack, the Egyptian military launched overnight airstrikes throughout the Sinai Peninsula, marking the first time Egyptian fighter planes have carried out strikes there since Egypt’s 1973 war with Israel. The army declared a tentative victory with the strikes on Wednesday, saying twenty militants had been killed. Sunday’s attack also prompted President Morsi to sack his intelligence chief as well as the northern Sinai governor on Wednesday. As a part of his reshuffling, Morsi has appointed an acting intelligence chief, General Mohamed Raafat Abdel-Wahed, and today named Mohamed Refaa al-Tahtawi as his new chief of staff and Hamed Zaki as new head of the presidential guard. A security source also said on Tuesday that Egypt had begun work closing off smuggling tunnels from the Sinai into the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Hamas also reportedly began implementing its own security measures in Gaza. A Hamas government official said that all smuggling tunnels under the shared border had been closed and additional security forces had been deployed to the border. Syria. Fighting intensified in Aleppo today as Syrian rebel fighters reportedly gained some ground in parts of the city while strategically pulling back from other areas. Today was the second day of a government-backed ground offensive which has produced heavy opposition casualties. Against this backdrop, President Assad appointed a new prime minister to replace Riyad Farid Hijab, who defected to Jordan earlier this week. The new prime minister, Wael Nader al-Halqi, previously served as the minister of health and is a Sunni Muslim from the southern town of Dara’a. On the diplomatic front, Iran has stepped up to take a more activist role by hosting a 29-country conference on Syria today in Tehran. Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi began the meeting by calling for "national dialogue between the (Syrian) opposition, which has popular support, and the Syrian government to establish calm and security." He added that Iran was opposed to foreign interference and military intervention in the Syrian conflict. No Western or Gulf nations participated in the meeting though Russian and Chinese officials attended. France announced yesterday that it is planning a ministerial meeting comprised of UN Security Council members on August 30. Meanwhile, refugees continue to pour out of Syria with two thousand refugees reportedly entering neighboring Turkey within the past two days alone. This brings the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey up to more than 50,000. For a recent tally of refugee estimates, see my recent post Syria by the Numbers. U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Clinton travels to Turkey. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Tuesday that she would hold emergency talks with Turkish officials in Istanbul this weekend, adding a stop to her current Africa tour. Clinton reportedly plans to discuss transition planning for a post-Assad Syria. Speaking from Pretoria, South Africa, Clinton remarked that “The intensity of the fighting in Aleppo, the defections, really point out how imperative it is that we come together and work toward a good transition plan.” The Istanbul talks are also likely to cover ways to move U.S. humanitarian assistance into Syria along routes from Turkey recently cleared by rebel gains in the northern Syrian territories between Turkey and Aleppo. The talks reflect the United States’ increasing involvement in the conflict in the wake of failed UN diplomacy as well as Turkey’s mounting concerns over the impacts of the civil war on its border. U.S. foreign policy toward Yemen. In a meeting hosted by CFR in Washington yesterday, John Brennan, assistant to President Obama on homeland security and counter-terrorism, defended the United States’ tactics in supporting Yemen’s fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Responding to increasing criticism of the Obama administration’s use of drone strikes in the country, Brennan emphasized the Yemeni government’s substantial successes in the south against AQAP, believed to be al-Qaeda’s most active franchise, and denied that the United States’ drones use was fermenting anti-American sentiment among the Yemeni people. Addressing the State Department’s announcement on Tuesday that aid to Yemen this fiscal year would exceed $317 million, Brennan said that more than half of this monetary aid was directed at humanitarian and economic development projects aiming to address widespread poverty and unemployment. Asked if the United States would consider imposing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria if rebels took significant control, Mr. Brennan said the United States was planning for all sorts of scenarios and that nothing was “off the table.” Quotes of the Week "Syrian society is a beautiful mosaic of ethnicities, faiths, and cultures, and it will be smashed to pieces should President Bashar Assad abruptly fall," –Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in an op-ed published by the Washington Post on Wednesday "As far as we know it brings the American assessment much closer to ours ... it makes the Iranian issue even more urgent and (shows it is) less clear and certain that we will know everything in time about their steady progress toward military nuclear capability," – Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday in response to reports that President Obama received a National Intelligence Estimate claiming Iran had made substantial progress toward achieving nuclear weapons capabilities “That’s what I am suggesting as maybe a new chapter in our cooperative threat reduction—that we think about our abilities really to be helpful to each other, but also the rest of the world.”  -- Senator Richard Lugar, calling on Tuesday for greater joint U.S.-Russian efforts to eliminate chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria While We Were Looking Elsewhere Iran. Iran engaged in multi-prong diplomatic efforts this week to try and secure the return of Iranians captured in Syria and Libya. On Tuesday, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi sent UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon a letter seeking his assistance. Forty-eight Iranians were abducted by Syrian rebels on Saturday and seven Iranian aid workers were seized in the Libyan city of Benghazi on July 31. Iran claims the Iranians in Syria were religious pilgrims; the Syrian opposition claims they are Revolutionary Guard members. Foreign Minister Salehi also sought Turkey’s aid in the matter during a visit to Ankara on Tuesday aimed at mending the strained relationship between Iran and Turkey. Iran’s top general Hassan Firouzabadi enraged Ankara earlier this week when he accused Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of helping the “war-raging goals of America” in Syria. On Wednesday, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Iran “in a frank and friendly manner” that “such statements have the potential to harm Iran as well.” Also this week, Iranian vice president Hamid Baghaei traveled to Cairo on Tuesday for a meeting with Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Moustafa Hussein Kamel and to invite Egyptian president Morsi to an upcoming summit in Iran. The visit marked the first time a senior Iranian official has traveled to Egypt in decades. Libya. Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) transferred power to the newly elected General National Congress on Wednesday. NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil passed over the governmental reins to the 200-seat legislative assembly, which was elected on July 7. Yemen. State media reported on Monday that Yemeni president Abrabuh Mansur Hadi had ordered a restructuring of the military, reducing the number of units led by rival chiefs—including the son of ousted president Saleh. According to military sources, hundreds of soldiers abandoned their posts in the southern part of the country to protest the restructuring. Meanwhile, Yemeni troops arrested seven alleged al-Qaeda militants in the southern town of Jaar, where a suicide bomber struck on Sunday killing more than forty-five people. This Week in History This week in history marks the 197th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Barbary War between the United States and the rulers of Algiers and Tripoli. The Second Barbary War was a series of naval engagements fought between U.S. naval forces and forces from Algiers and Tripoli--the area covered by modern day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia—over the North African states’ sponsorship of pirates in the Mediterranean. Prior to the Barbary Wars, the United States and other nations had been forced to pay tributes (bribes) to the Barbary pirates, a group of pirates supported financially by Arab rulers in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to maintain the safety of their ships along popular trade routes in the Mediterranean. The First Barbary War began in early 1801 when Thomas Jefferson, upon assuming the presidency, refused to pay tributes, eliciting a declaration of war by the Pasha of Tripoli on behalf of the pirates. Despite a U.S. victory in the First Barbary War of 1805, the Barbary pirates resumed looting in the Mediterranean in the period between 1805 and 1815, and the Dey of Algiers, the Ottoman-endorsed ruler of the area known as modern-day Algeria, declared war on the United States for refusing to pay tributes to the pirates for a second time in July 1815. The Second Barbary War ended with a decisive U.S. victory and the signing on August 6, 1815 of a treaty under which the Arab rulers in North Africa committed to end sponsorship of the Barbary Pirates. Statistic of the Week The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life published a survey today of the world’s Muslim populations, the product of more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in over eighty languages. The survey addressed religious commitment across generations, finding that the biggest generational differences are found in the Middle East and North Africa. In Lebanon, for example, Muslims ages 35 and older are 28 percentage points more likely than younger Muslims to pray several times a day, 20 points more likely to attend mosque at least weekly and 18 points more likely to read the Quran daily. On each of these measures, age gaps of 10 percent points or more also are found in the Palestinian territories, Morocco, and Tunisia. Somewhat smaller but statistically significant differences were observed in Jordan and Egypt as well.

Samia Errazzouki examines dissent in Morocco in the context of regional turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. Bernard Avishai questions the legitimacy of the University of Judea and Samaria. Mona Yacoubian and David Michel say that serious environmental threats could derail political transitions in the Middle East.      

Significant Middle East Developments Annan Resignation. Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy for Syria, tendered his resignation today, having served in the position since late February. In a statement announcing that Annan was stepping down at the end of the month when his mandate expires, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon said: “The hand extended to turn away from violence in favor of dialogue and diplomacy—as spelled out in the Six-Point Plan—has not been taken, even though it still remains the best hope for the people of Syria.” Ban announced that he was already working with the Arab League to find a successor to Annan, though it is hard to see who would undertake that mission without some fundamental change in either its mandate or the circumstances on the ground. Ban blamed both the Syrian government, the opposition, and the security council itself for Annan’s lack of success: “Both the government and the opposition forces continue to demonstrate their determination to rely on ever-increasing violence. In addition, the persistent divisions within the Security Council have themselves become an obstacle to diplomacy, making the work of any mediator vastly more difficult.” Annan himself, speaking to reporters, expressed expaspiration, saying, “You have to understand: as an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council, or the international community for that matter.” Annan pointed to the core weakness of his mission by saying that “without serious, purposeful, and united international pressure, including from the powers of the region, it is impossible for me or anyone to compel the Syrian government in the first place, and also the opposition, to take the steps necessary to begin a political process." Syria. Fighting continued to escalate in Aleppo, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting today that mobile phone and internet service have been cut off. Syria’s military has reportedly used fighter jets to fire on Syria’s largest city. In a development that could fundamentally alter the course of future fighting, NBC News reported on Tuesday that the rebel Free Syrian Army had acquired nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles or, MANPADs--man-portable air-defense systems--delivered via Turkey. The United States has denied providing the weapons. Meanwhile, a UN spokesperson announced yesterday that opposition forces have for the first time acquired “tanks” and “heavy weapons.” Violence raged elsewhere in Syria, including near Damascus and on the Turkish border. The daily average number of Syrians killed in the last week was 208. For a statistical breakdown of Syria’s bloodshed over the past seventeen months, see my previous blog, “Syria By the Numbers.” Meanwhile, France’s efforts to organize a ministerial-level Security Council meeting on Syria at the UN were delayed to avoid clashing with the Arab League’s efforts in the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution calling upon Assad to hand over power to a transitional government. Egypt. Egypt’s prime minister Hisham Qandil formally announced a new cabinet today as part of Egypt’s slow effort to shape a new government under President Mohammad Morsi. The announced cabinet includes more technocrats than Islamists, and retains at least six ministers from ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s regime, including Defense Minister General Mohamad Hussen Tantawi. The struggle over Egypt’s constitution was temporarily suspended on Monday when a court deferred until September the next step in a legal row that had threatened to dissolve the body tasked with writing it. Plaintiffs opposed to what they see as the Islamists’ overwhelming influence in the 100-person constitutional assembly had brought the case, demanding the body be dissolved on the grounds it had been formed illegally. Despite the allegations, the constituent assembly has resolved to continue writing the constitution between now and September 24 when the case is slated to be heard. Meanwhile, Israel released a copy of a letter on Tuesday sent to President Shimon Peres via Egypt’s embassy in Tel Aviv from President Morsi in which the Egyptian leader wrote, “I am looking forward to exerting our best efforts to get the Middle East peace process back to its right track in order to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including the Israeli people.” Soon after the letter appeared in the Israeli press, presidential spokesman for President Morsi, Yasser Ali, denied the reports, claiming, “There is no truth to these (reports). President Morsi did not send an letter to the Israeli president.” U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Panetta visits the region. U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta traveled to the Middle East this week, the latest in a series of recent visits by senior administration officials. Panetta arrived in Jordan today where he met with King Abdullah and reportedly discussed “a post-Bashar al-Assad Syria.” Pentagon spokesperson George Little said in a statement that "the United States will work with Jordan to explore ways to continue to provide humanitarian aid to those affected by violence in Syria.” Yesterday, Panetta met with Israeli officials and reportedly stressed that if economic sanctions do not work to compel Iran to end its nuclear program, the United States would consider military options. Panetta described the most recent round of Iran sanctions as the “toughest Iran has ever faced” and said  “the most effective way to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is for the international community to be united, proving to Iran that it will only make itself less secure if it continues to try to pursue a nuclear weapon.” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that "America and Israel have also made clear that all options are on the table. You yourself said a few months ago that when all else fails, America will act. But these declarations have also not yet convinced the Iranians to stop their program." Panetta then responded: "We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period. We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen." Earlier in the week, Panetta visited Egypt and met president Morsi and Field Marshall Tantawi, praising Egypt’s commitment to democratic reforms. Romney in Israel. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney visited Israel earlier this week as a part of a three-nation overseas tour, which also took him to Great Britain and Poland. Following meetings with Israel’s leaders, Romney gave a speech in which he said it was a “moving experience to be in Jerusalem,” identifying the city as Israel’s capital. On the United States-Israel relationship, he said "We serve the same cause and we have the same enemies. The security of Israel is a national security interest of the United States." On Monday, Romney sparked Palestinian anger when he compared Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s per capita economic output, saying: “And as you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel, which is about $21,000, and you compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality." Romney cited Harvard professor David Landes’ “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,” to explain economic history suggesting, in understanding why some civilizations have grown and others declined, that “culture makes all the difference.” In response, Saeb Erekat, aide to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, lashed out, saying: "It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation.” Iran Sanctions. Congress passed a new package of strong sanctions on Iran. The House voted 421-6 to send the measure to the Senate, where the bill received unanimous support. Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the legislation "seeks to tighten the chokehold on the regime beyond anything that has been done before." Quotes of the Week "I was convinced that President Morsi is his own man and... that he is truly committed to implementing democratic reforms here in Egypt," -- U.S. defense secretary Panetta following his meeting with Egyptian president Morsi on Tuesday "In that case, new arrivals could be housed inside Syria. Imagine 10,000 people are fleeing toward Turkey and tanks open fire on them from the Syrian side. What do you do in that case? Do you remain a spectator?" – Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday "If Aleppo falls, then automatically we are going to establish headquarters at the presidential palace," -- Burhan Ghalioun, member of the Syrian National Council late Wednesday in Paris "There is still no need for Syria’s circle of friends to fully enter the arena, and our assessment is that there will be no need to do so," – Iranian brigadier general Masoud Jazayeri reportedly said on Tuesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Bahrain. The U.S.-based human rights group Physicians for Human Rights published this week a report entitled “Weaponizing Tear Gas” criticizing the Bahraini monarchy’s use of tear gas. Based on dozens of interviews of victims and evidence gathered by the group in Bahrain in April, the report claims that in the 100-year history of tear gas, “there is no other example where a country has continually assaulted its people with this toxic chemical.”  The report acknowledges that official Bahraini authorities conducted a highly critical inquiry last year on the government’s rampant tear gas use, but it claims that the authorities’ promised improvements were never implemented. Yemen. Police officers and gunmen loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s ousted leader, stormed the Interior Ministry on Tuesday, killing fifteen and wounding forty-three. The police officers had been demonstrating outside of the building since Sunday, accusing the new government of corruption. The Saleh loyalists remained in control of the building hours after they stormed it, as well as the surrounding neighborhood. Iraq. Twin car bombings in Baghdad claimed nineteen lives and left at least forty-seven people injured on Tuesday. Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attacks. July was the deadliest month in Iraq in almost two years, with 325 people killed in attacks, according to official figures released on Wednesday. This Week in History This week in history marks the twenty-second anniversary of Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Although Kuwait had been an ally of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, claiming that Kuwait had been part of Iraq prior to the signing of the Anglo-Ottoman Convention in 1913 and the British occupation. Within two days of intense combat,  the Iraqi Republican Guard overran most of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces, and Saddam Hussein appointed a de facto provisional government in Kuwait.  Iraq subsequently occupied Kuwait for seven months until it was driven out by a United States-led international coalition that liberated the country in what became known as the first Gulf War. Statistic of the Week UN agencies announced today that as the Syrian crisis rages on, up to three million Syrians are likely to need food, crop, and livestock aid in the next year given that the violence has prevented farmers from harvesting crops. This includes 1.5 million Syrians who “need urgent and immediate food assistance over the next three to six months, especially in areas that have seen the greatest conflict and population displacement.”

What are the beliefs of the terrorist group Hamas and how likely is it any peace can be negotiated with Hamas?  Hamas is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the advent of an MB government in Egypt--with which American officials at the level of the Secretaries of Defense and State are now dealing happily--may lead some analysts to suggest that we, and Israel, should overcome our refusal to deal with Hamas. So we can be grateful that Hamas supplied us with a useful reminder of who it is and what it believes.  The Arab news site Maan today reports that Hamas has denounced the visit to Auschwitz of a Palestinian Authority official named Ziad al-Bandak, who is an aide to PA president Mahmoud Abbas. "It was an unjustified and unhelpful visit that served only the Zionist occupation," said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas....Barhoum further called Bandak’s visit to Auschwitz, a camp where the Nazis killed 1.5 million people, most of them Jews but also other Polish citizens, during World War Two, as "a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy." The Hamas Charter, the group’s constitutional or founding document, is a vicious anti-Semitic screed, but once in a while it is suggested that that’s an old document that does not really represent the organization’s views any more. That’s false, as this incident shows: hatred of Jews, including Holocaust denial, remains central to the Hamas belief system. It is a terrorist group, not a potential negotiating partner. Its hold on Gaza must be ended, not accommodated.

One of the stranger episodes of Egypt-Israel relations in the post-Mubarak era occurred yesterday with the emergence of a letter—first reported by Haaretz’s Barak Ravid—ostensibly from the Egyptian president to his Israeli counterpart.  The letter states, “I am looking forward to exerting our best efforts to get the Middle east peace process back to its right track in order to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including that Israeli people.”  This seems like routine and mundane for a correspondence between the heads of state of Egypt and Israel, but we are talking not about Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and Shimon Peres, but the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsy and Peres.  This is the same Muslim Brotherhood that was the first to raise the alarms about the threat of Zionism to Palestine in the 1930s.  This is the same organization that claims its members fought heroically—even though they really didn’t do much fighting—in the war of 1948-49, known throughout the Arab world as al Nakba (the setback).  These are the same Brothers who mobilized against the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.  This is the same group that opposed Cairo’s strategic alignment with Washington because the United States maintains a “special relationship” with Israel.  The same Muslim Brotherhood, which has vowed not to normalize relations with the Israelis until Israel fulfills the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which from the Brotherhood’s perspective demands the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The unambiguous willingness expressed in President Morsy’s letter to work with Israel to find peace that would benefit “that Israeli people” is a departure for the Brotherhood, to say the least.  Yet, this clear and surprising shift in Morsy’s position along with several seemingly technical problems with the actual letter has left its authenticity open to question: Whoever wrote the letter, which was in English, spelled the Israeli leader’s last name “Perez” instead of “Peres.”  True, in Arabic Perez can be spelled using the “zaay,” or "zayn," thus it would make sense to use a “z” in transliteration.  The name has also been rendered in Arabic using a “daad” and a “seen,” which is closest to the English spelling.  Regardless, do the Egyptians really not know how to spell Peres’s name by now?  How long have they been dealing with him? President Morsy’s signature does not appear on the letter and there is no presidential seal or stamp on it.  Anyone who has ever spent any time in the Arab world understands the importance of stamps and seals without which no document is actually official. Still, there may be an explanation for the missing stamps and signature.  I am told that since the letter was communicated via fax, a signed original could have been sent in a diplomatic pouch that is yet to reach Peres’s office.  In addition, an Egyptian diplomatic contact told me that the cover letter from the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv had all the requisite stamps and the language was correct, leading him to conclude that it “looked authentic.”  The Egyptians are denying that Morsy sent the letter.  Presidential spokesman, Yasser Ali, told al Ahram Gateway that “President Morsy has not sent any letter to the Israeli president.” So what is going on here? Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood has had a change of heart about Israel. Hope springs eternal, but such a turnabout is unlikely. Maybe the responsibilities of power have not necessarily altered Morsy’s worldview, but they have forced him to soften his position on working and dealing with Israel’s leaders on issues of mutual concern. This would be that “pragmatism” thing we’ve all been hearing about for many months. It is also entirely possible that Morsy is saying one thing about Israel to his constituents, but doing the opposite in private. If that is the case, he has certainly grown into the office quickly given the penchant among Arab leaders to behave this way. There is also the possibility that Morsy and his people are total rookies who had no idea that the letter to Peres would find its way into the Israeli press.  Maybe Morsy sent the letter, but did so in a way to maximize plausible deniability. Finally, as one member of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party cryptically suggested, the Egyptian presidency did not send the letter, but perhaps some other faction or group did in an effort to embarrass the new president. Conspiratorial? Without a doubt, but one can actually understand the logic train in this one, unlike most conspiracy theories. President Morsy has recently taken over a state apparatus in which large numbers of people are not necessarily predisposed toward him.  Some of those people—in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? General Intelligence Service? Supreme Council of the Armed Forces?—could conceivably use a sensitive issue like Israel to embarrass Morsy.  The question is: Are they competent enough to forge a letter that would get passed to the Israelis? I do not know what the answer is, but I’d like to discount the conspiracy theory and lean toward errors borne of inexperience if only because a former U.S. government official once told me that when it comes to the government—any government—“Count on incompetence.” The whole episode speaks to the ambiguous nature of Egypt-Israel relations at this moment in Egypt’s transition. The letter comes after three Israeli messages to Morsy (two from Peres and one from Prime Minister Netanyahu) that went unanswered.  If the note from Morsy is authentic, it is a good sign because it seems to defy predictions (including my own) that relations between the Egyptians and Israelis were going to get tough. Still, Yasser Ali’s denial is curious.  Why send a letter and then deny it? If Morsy and his team are not willing to own up to even routine communications with Israel’s leadership, it is not a good sign. The bilateral relationship cannot possibly be in the black forever. After all, this is the new, more democratic, transparent Egypt. In the end, the letter and the controversy surrounding it are likely to cause friction in Egypt-Israel ties if only because Morsy and the people around him may feel political pressure to burnish the anti-Zionist street credibility more fitting for Egypt’s first popularly elected and Islamist leader.  

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. Fighting raged today in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, where troops loyal to the regime and rebel fighters prepared for large-scale confrontation. Rebel forces earlier this week announced a major operation to “liberate” the city from government control. The Syrian army responded by sending thousands of reinforcements and special forces toward the city. As the fighting in Aleppo and other parts of the country intensified, Turkey announced yesterday that its border crossings into Syria would be closed to all but refugees. Earlier this week, Syria effectively acknowledged possession of chemical and biological weapons, though the regime attempted to mollify concerns when a foreign ministry representative told a press conference Tuesday that “any chemical or bacterial weapon will never be used… during the crisis in Syria regardless of the developments.”  The possibility that Syria would employ weapons of mass destruction elicited sharp rebukes from both the United States and even Russia. Meanwhile, a group of Arab states announced plans today to appeal to the UN General Assembly for action toward Syria since Russia and China have repeatedly thwarted movement in the Security Council. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the states leading the effort, reportedly hope that a General Assembly resolution would underline the widespread international support for Bashar al-Assad’s departure. Earlier this week, two more senior Syrian diplomats defected, including the country’s envoy to Cyprus and its ambassador to the UAE. Egypt. To the surprise of most of the country’s political observers, Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi on Tuesday announced the appointment of Hesham Kandil as prime minister. Kandil, who is not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, was relatively unknown until now, having previously served as an irrigation minister. With the military still wielding significant power in a number of key sectors in Egypt, it remains to be seen what role Kandil will play in the period ahead. The Egyptian government is expected to announce further appointments on Friday. Morsi met earlier today with Hamas’ rival Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. The meeting follows last week’s announcement that Egypt was easing travel restrictions on Palestinians. Meanwhile, thousands of Egyptians attended the funeral last weekend of Omar Suleiman, the once-powerful head of Egypt’s intelligence service. Suleiman, who had long served as former president Mubarak’s intelligence chief and key adviser, was accorded a military funeral in Cairo, following his death at a U.S. hospital in Cleveland last week. Iraq. A wave of deadly attacks in at least thirteen Iraqi cities on Monday produced the country’s deadliest day in more than two years, leaving over one hundred dead and hundreds injured. The violence continued throughout the week, with twelve Iraqis reported dead today, including five Iraqi policeman and seven militants in the town of Hadid, a former insurgent stronghold. Iraq’s violent escalation has raised considerable concerns over the Iraqi Security Forces’ capacities to counter the growing strength of al-Qaeda in the country. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for Monday’s attacks. The attacks suggest an escalation of sectarian violence, similar to a spike seen in 2007. Al-Qaeda forces in Iraq have announced their intentions to help the rebels in Syria, though Syrian opposition leaders have denied connection with any extremist groups. As Iraqi security forces struggle to keep the violence at bay, the government in Baghdad has condemned and banned Chevron from bidding for exploration licenses due to the company’s acquisition of oil interests in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of the country last week. The Baghdad government called Chevron’s deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government “illegal and illegitimate.” U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke on Wednesday at a conference on genocide held at the United States Holocaust Museum in cooperation with CNN and CFR. There, she told attendees that “We must remain vigilant against [Holocaust] deniers and against anti-Semitism, because when heads of state and religious leaders deny the Holocaust from their bully pulpits, we cannot let their lies go unanswered.” Clinton condemned the Assad regime and singled out Iran, Russia, and China for supporting it. In her remarks, she announced U.S. support for the Syrian Justice and Accountability Centers and its efforts to compile evidence of serious human rights abuses and violations as well as increased efforts to assist the opposition. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, held previously unannounced talks in Israel on July 25 with senior government officials. Brennan also met with Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad in Jerusalem. Brennan’s visit contributes to a surge of senior U.S. officials visiting Israel this month, including Secretary of State Clinton, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is set to arrive in Israel Saturday night as part of a three-nation swing that takes him to the United Kingdom and Poland. President Obama spoke out this week about Syrian chemical weapons. On Monday he warned President Assad that the Syrian regime "will be held accountable by the international community and the United States should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons.” Quotes of the Week "I don’t want to see any of my successors after twenty years visiting Syria and apologizing for what we could have done now to protect civilians in Syria, which we are not doing," – UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon speaking today during a visit to Srebrenica "Turkey and Israel are two important, strong and stable states in this region... We must find ways to restore the relations we once had... it is important, particularly now, for stability in the region in these times," – Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to Turkish journalists in a meeting on Monday "The Palestinian Authority has made steady progress in many years toward establishing the institutions required by a future state but the economy is currently not strong enough to support such a state," -- economist John Nasir said in a statement accompanying a World Bank report released on Wednesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Iran. Iranian and EU deputy negotiators met in Istanbul on July 24 to try to establish common ground for another round of talks on the country’s atomic program. Further talks are expected soon between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief negotiator, Ashton’s office said after the meeting without giving details. Despite this report, U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro commented today that the world powers currently negotiating with Iran have not yet decided how--or even whether--negotiations that began in April should continue. Shapiro emphasized high-level coordination between Israel and the United States on the matter, especially indicated by the arrival for talks of U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta next week. Jordan. The International Monetary Fund announced on Wednesday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with Jordan for a $2 billion loan to stabilize the country’s economy. Jordan’s economy has suffered recently due to instability in the region, which has hampered natural gas deliveries from Egypt and created an inflow of Syrian refugees. The agreement requires approval by the IMF’s executive board, which said it would consider the deal “in the near future.” UAE. The United Arab Emirates continued its crackdown on suspected Islamists with eight new arrests, bringing the total number of detainees to 39. The eight men detained were all linked to al-Islah, an outlawed Islamist group in the UAE. Authorities claim the group has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, although the group denies links to any overseas organizations. Despite these arrests, the oil-rich UAE has not witnessed widespread street protests like elsewhere in the region. This Week in History This week marks the 214th anniversary of the fall of Cairo during Napoleon’s Mediterranean Campaign, a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta. Napoleon lead the French campaign in Egypt and Syria from 1798-1801 aimed at protecting French trade interests and undermining Britain’s access to India. Napoleon landed in Alexandria on July 1 of 1798, and proceeded to occupy Egypt after a decisive French victory in the famous Battle of the Pyramids on July 18, 1798. Shortly after, Napoleon’s forces stormed Cairo on July 24 and gained control of the city. The expedition included 30,000 infantry, 2,500 calvary, and a group of 167 scientific researchers. The scientists’ discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their findings were published in the Descriptions de L’Egypte in 1809. The French had hoped to be welcomed by the Egyptians as liberators from Mamluk rule, but Napoleon and the French eventually retreated from Egypt in 1799 after military encounters with British and Ottoman forces across the Mediterranean led them to reconsider their position in Egypt. Statistic of the Week A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project conducted in March-April, following Egypt’s parliamentary elections but prior to the victory of Mohammad Morsi as president, found considerable support for Islam as a guiding force in politics. Roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of Egyptians saw Islam playing a big role in national politics, up 19 percentage points from 2010, when just 47 percent said this was the case. Although the survey indicates a broad acknowledgment of Islam’s rising profile in the political arena, the survey suggested greater uneasiness as to whether Islam’s influence will be positive or negative. When asked about their country’s current political life, 64 percent of Egyptians expressed a positive view of Islam’s role in politics, a significant decrease from two years prior. In 2010, 82 percent expressed a positive view of Islam’s role in politics. The percentage of people who held a negative view of Islam playing a role in politics increased 19 percentage points over the same two-year period (20 percent versus 1 percent).

Secretary of State Clinton is in Israel today, which is a surprising fact. According to several news sites, she has not visited there in two years. Secretary Condoleezza Rice visited there about 20 times, by my rough count. What accounts for this difference? Given the importance the United States usually places on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how is it that a secretary of state could be absent for two entire years? There are two reasons, I would judge. First, President Obama has always turned to others--initially his special envoy George Mitchell, appointed on Mr. Obama’s second day in office, and later Dennis Ross--to do the diplomacy that was needed (or not needed, but that’s another story). He has never viewed Clinton as his top diplomat when it came to the Middle East. Second, Clinton must have made a judgment a couple of years ago that visiting Israel and the West Bank was a losing proposition. After all, two years ago (in September, 2010) the White House staged an extravaganza to launch peace talks, inviting President Mubarak, King Abdullah of Jordan, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu, and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The talks broke down within weeks, and George Mitchell’s last trip to the region came in December 2010. It appears that Clinton looked at the wreckage and decided she had better ways to spend her time. Is this theory contradicted by her presence in Israel today? Not really, because she was visiting Egypt’s new president and its military leadership, and because there are other hot subjects to discuss now, such as the war in Syria. And given the presence on her delegation of the administration’s Iran negotiator, Wendy Sherman, her main topics with the Israelis are likely to be Iran, Syria, and Egypt, with a discussion of Palestinian matters thrown in at the end to be sure they could all say "sure, yes, absolutely, that was discussed in depth!" But the Secretary’s attention is elsewhere, on some dangerous crises, and it is very difficult to say that her absence from Israel for two years was a mistaken decision.  

Religious pluralism and abortion in Turkey. Maysaloon on the lies people tell about the Syrian revolution. A Lebanese action film on the 2006 war between Hizballah and Israel.  

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. UN Security Council members today began discussing a draft resolution on Syria in New York. Russia and the Western nations on the 15-member council have drafted rival resolutions on Syria. Britain, the United States, France and Germany have demanded sanctions against President Assad under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Moscow has vowed to veto any text that includes imposes sanctions or authorizes military intervention. The Security Council has until July 20 when the previous 90-day mandate for nearly 300 unarmed UN monitors in Syria will expire. Western members on the Security Council want to give Assad a ten-day deadline to halt attacks by heavy weapons or face sanctions. Yesterday, Syrian ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf al-Fares, became the highest-level Syrian government defector in the 16-month uprising. In an Al-Jazeera broadcast, al-Fares denounced the “criminals of the regime” and called on the army to stand by the Syrian people. Fares’ defection follows last week’s defection of Manaf Tlas, the Republican Guard commander and close friend to the Syrian leader. Opposition activists claim two more Syrian ambassadors are poised to defect in the new future. Meanwhile, UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan continues efforts to facilitate talks between Assad’s regime and its opponents. Earlier this week, Annan visited Damascus, Tehran, and Baghdad, calling on leaders in all three capitals to support his peace-making efforts. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the death toll since the uprising began exceeds 17,000 people. Egypt. The power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military rulers in Egypt continued this week following President Mohammad Morsi’s decree last Sunday calling for the recently dissolved parliament to reconvene. Members of the parliament met on Tuesday for a brief, albeit symbolic, 15-minute session. During the short meeting, participating members of parliament voted to appeal the Supreme Constitutional Court’s decision shutting down the parliament. The contending legislative and legal challenges are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Meanwhile, Morsi traveled yesterday to Saudi Arabia where he met King Abdullah and Crown Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz. Egypt news sources report that Morsi and the crown prince discussed Saudi investments in Egypt as well as job security for the 1.65 million Egyptians living in Saudi Arabia. White House spokesman Jay Carney this week confirmed that President Obama will meet Morsi when the two leaders are in New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments Middle East Diplomacy. Secretary Clinton harshly denounced Russia and China for “blockading” international efforts to address the Syria crisis. On a stop in Paris Friday as part of her current world tour that will soon take her to the Middle East, Clinton said that “The Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days, and so will the world.” She added that “It is time to abandon the dictator, embrace your countrymen and women, and get on the right side of history.” Clinton also met in Paris with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in an effort to restart stalled peace efforts. Meanwhile, U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns met in Cairo over the weekend with Egypt’s new president Mohammad Morsi. Burns met earlier today with Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to discuss Iranian nuclear developments as a part of the semi-annual Strategic Dialogue between the United States and Israel. Secretary of State Clinton will arrive in Israel on July 16 and 17, marking her first visit there in nearly two years. She will first travel to Cairo on July 14 where she too will meet President Morsi. The Gulf. The United States is building up its naval power in the Persian Gulf, according to various news sources. The U.S. Navy is reportedly sending small underwater drones to aid in seeking out and destroying Iranian sea mines. The move is a part of the broader U.S. response to the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz and will help increase the U.S. strike capability in case of a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Quotes of the Week “I ask ... the members of the military to join the revolution and to defend the country and the citizens. Turn your guns toward the criminals from this regime,” – Syrian ambassador to Iraq Nawaf al-Fares in a video statement posted to Facebook on Thursday morning “They are in Jordan trying to help people who have been hurt in Syria,” – Israeli deputy minister Ayoob Kara about Israeli government representatives in Jordan working to assist Syrian children and infants injured by the Syrian military "This is very positive news and we will be delighted to welcome these two athletes in London in a few weeks time,” – International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge in a statement about Saudi’s decision to send two female athletes to compete in the London Olympics "We do not know what will happen in Syria, but in our planning we have estimated up to 200,000 refugees could arrive," – Cyprus deputy Europe minister Andreas Mavroyiannis on Tuesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Libya. Libya held its first free nationwide elections in over forty years this past Saturday, with a strong voter turnout of over 65 percent. The majority cast votes for the General National Congress, a legislative assembly where eighty seats are reserved for party lists and 120 others are open to independents. Preliminary figures give an advantage to the NFA--a broad coalition of parties rallying behind liberal leaning Mahmud Jibril--over Islamist leading contenders. President Obama congratulated Libyans on the election. Iran. Deputies from the P5+1 group are scheduled to meet with Iranian officials in Turkey on July 24. A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief and lead negotiator for the six powers, said the meeting’s objective “is to look further at how existing gaps in positions could be narrowed and how the process could be moved forward.” The discussions were announced two days before the EU oil embargo began this past Sunday, halting the vast majority of imports into Europe. Iran has rejected demands to suspend uranium enrichment, and also stated that a suspension of sanctions is needed for the talks to succeed. Yemen. An al-Qaeda affiliated suicide bomber killed at least ten cadets outside a Sanaa police academy, Yemen’s capital. The bomber,  who survived the initial explosion, told security officials that he was associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula (AQAP). He later died of injuries sustained in the explosion. Sanaa was last hit by an al-Qaeda affliated attack in May when a suicide bomber in army uniform killed more than 90 people rehearsing for a military parade. Bahrain. Human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was placed under arrest and sentenced to three months in prison on Monday for criticizing prime minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa on Twitter. Rajab, who heads the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, had accused the prime minister of corruption and called on him to step down. Israel. A committee appointed by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu released a report this week that determined that Israel’s presence in the West Bank “does not meet the criteria of ’military occupation’ as defined under international law."  The committee, headed up by retired supreme court justice Edmund Levy, ruled that Israel must find a way to legalize and regulate settlement construction. The Levy committee based its ruling on the fact that "no other legal entity has ever had its sovereignty over the area cemented under international law.” The Obama administration expressed its displeasure with the report with State Department Spokesman Patrick Ventrelli saying that "Obviously, we’ve seen the reports that an Israeli Government appointed panel has recommended legalizing dozens of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity and we oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts... We’re concerned about it, obviously."  Prime Minister Netanyahu has refrained from commenting on the report so far. This Week in History This week marks the 130th anniversary of the Anglo-Egyptian War. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the importance of Egypt to Britain rose dramatically. Strangled by massive debts, then ruler Khedive Ismail Pasha sold his 45 percent stake in the Suez Canal to Britain in 1875, ceding control to the British. The increased British influence in Egypt allowed Ahmad Urabi Pasha Al-misri (also known as Arabi) to mobilize a popular nationalist movement, and by 1882, Urabi became the leading figure in the government as minister of war. Fearing that Urabi’s movement would undermine Britain’s stakes in the canal, Britain sent a small naval fleet to Alexandria in May of 1882. The arrival of the Anglo-French naval fleet heightened tensions in the city of Alexandria, and on June 11, 1882 a skirmish between street vendors incited widespread violence on the streets. Afraid that the revolts had been started by Urabi, Admiral Sir F. Beauchamp Seymour ordered a ten hour bombardment on Alexandria on July 11. Egypt fell into chaos, and British forces landed ashore in order to prop up and protect the government of Khedive Ismail Pasha’s successor, Khedive Tawfiq. Following a British victory in the war’s only battle, the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, Khedive Tawfiq’s government was re-instated, and permanent British military presence was established in the country until Egypt formally became a British protectorate in 1914. Statistic of the Week A recent Gallup poll indicates that more Arabs opposed rather than supported NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011. At least a plurality in all nine Arab countries (and a majority in six of those countries) surveyed opposed the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya. With the exception of Tunisia, the Arab uprisings’ first revolutionary country, North African residents were the least likely to say they were in favor of the NATO intervention with only 12 percent in favor of intervention in Morocco, 13 percent in Egypt, and 14 percent in Algeria. Attitudes in post-revolutionary Tunisia were notably more mixed with 33 percent in favor and 40 percent opposed.