 Israel has been roundly and repeatedly condemned by the UN and pretty much everyone else for civilian casualties in Gaza. We have repeatedly pointed out that there are numerous signs (including open admissions) that jihad groups in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon intentionally mount attacks from civilian areas in order to draw responses from Israel that kill civilians and can be used for propaganda purposes, but no one seems to care. And now, Gaza residents themselves are rising up against this. "Gaza Residents Enraged Over Hamas IEDs In Densely Populated Areas," from MEMRI, January 13 A website close to Fatah claims that Hamas militias are placing powerful IEDs near densely populated buildings in Gaza in regions far from the border with Israel, as part of preparations for war with Israel. It was reported that this is infuriating the residents and sparking clashes between them and Hamas members. Source: Alaahd.com With thanks to JihadWatch
 For some time now, the Shiite terror organization Hezbollah has been involved in drug trafficking. American officials have long known of ties between Hezbollah, Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, ties that earn it hundreds of millions of dollars per year. In August 2008, for example, U.S. and Colombian investigators dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money-laundering ring made up of members of a Colombian drug cartel and Lebanese members of Hezbollah.
Previously, the DEA had also targeted a Hezbollah drug trafficking ring in the Tri-Border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. According to Michael Braun, former administrator and chief of operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Hezbollah relies on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels. U.S. counterterrorism officials have been keeping a close eye on links between Hezbollah and the drug cartels, worried that al-Qaeda could also make use of the drug trafficking routes between the U.S. and Mexico to send its operatives across the border to carry out terror attacks on American soil. If this weren’t enough cause for concern, a weekend report in the German magazine Der Spiegel has established a clear link between Hezbollah, the European drug trade and the illegal transfer of funds from Germany directly to that terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. The report says that German police have arrested four Lebanese Nationals (all members of the same family) at Frankfort Airport who were found to be carrying millions of dollars in their carry-on-bags. Later, two other relatives were subsequently arrested, and under questioning admitted that they had sent money back to Lebanon to Hezbollah’s leadership. German police suspect that the two had trained in Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon. Although the link with South American drug cartels has long been known, this is the first time that a direct Hezbollah link with the European drug trade has been demonstrated, although one has been suspected for quite some time due to increased cultivation of drugs in Lebanon. In fact, a 2009 United Nations report by that organization’s Office on Drugs and Crime says that: [Lebanese] farmers in the Bekaa Valley (once the center of the Middle East’s largest hashish industry), appear to be resuming cannabis cultivation, as well as other drugs. This is a disturbing development. During the Lebanese civil war, the drug trade generated nearly $500 million a year in revenue, which was about 15% of Lebanon’s economy at the time. That money was a huge source of revenue for Hezbollah and other militias, also bringing enormous benefit to Syria and Iran, the primary providers of weaponry to Hezbollah. The links between Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking are real and are growing, and in countries such as Lebanon–where government control is weak–Hezbollah has become a state-within-a-state, and the drug trade has become a source of funds for the procurement of its arms and matériel. A fact, which has not gone unnoticed by Hezbollah, is that terrorism does not operate without money; and the drug trade is making them a lot of it. NewsReal Blog 
 German police suspect the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, of using drug trafficking in Europe to fund part of its activities, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.According to the report published on the magazine's website, German police arrested two Lebanese citizens living in Germany last October after they transferred large sums of money to a family in Lebanon with connections to Hezbollah's leadership, including the Shiite group's Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah. Suspicion was first raised in May 2008, when police found 8.7 million Euros in the bags of four Lebanese men at the airport in Frankfurt. Police searched the men's apartment in Speyer, Germany, and found an additional half a million Euros. According to the report, police suspected the men were selling cocaine in Europe and sending the profits back to Lebanon. The report added that the two suspects went through training at a Hezbollah camp. The suspects deny the charges against them. ( more)
 Damascus and Beirut protested today, albeit in differing tones of voice, at the US government's decision to intensify checks of citizens of some nations - including Syria and Lebanon - which are held to be sponsors of terrorism, or potential places of refuge and territories for the passage of suspect terrorists.
Receiving the US politician Alcee Hastings, in Beirut, the Lebanese President, Michel Suleiman, expressed his "concern at the security measures announced by the United States", stating that Lebanon "enjoys a climate of stability and has shown itself capable of fighting terrorism".
Following the failed attack on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight at Christmas, the United States has recently decided on tightening its security cordon at airports, especially concerning passengers originating from Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
For its part, Syria has strongly criticised Washington's decision, albeit unofficially, calling it "a dangerous return to the 'black lists' of the Bush era".
The editorial of daily newspaper al Watan, which is close to the government, this morning averred that "Mr Obama is staking his reputation on this affair".
 Sabine Durrant
JOUMANA Haddad, the Lebanese poet, author and critic, recently had a tattoo of a tulip imprinted on the lowest section of her back. She pulls down her waistband to indicate the area in question. ''My kids and my partner, they are not shocked that I have a tattoo, but by the fact that the guy tattooed my arse.'' She roars with laughter. Controversy is not something Haddad is afraid of. She is a figure of some repute in Lebanon, through her own writing as well as her roles as the cultural editor of An-Nahar, the main newspaper in Beirut, and the head of IPAF, the Arabic equivalent of the Booker prize. And now she has launched a magazine called The Body. Its subject matter - serious articles on masturbation, transsexuality and battered women, as well as riffs on ''my first time'' - has caused not just eyebrows but hackles to rise. Haddad's website has been hacked into on numerous occasions and she receives regular hate mail. Hezbollah tried to close her stand at the Beirut Book Fair, and the head of the Lebanese Council of Women has called for the magazine, which is sold in sealed plastic in Lebanon and by mail order in other parts of the Arab world, to be banned. It is this last denouncement that angers and upsets her most. ''Obviously, I acknowledge that some people are not going to like it. But that intellectuals have attacked me - and a women's association at that - I find that stupid and insulting. I launched the magazine because I felt that the body is a long-neglected, crucial part of the Arabic unconscious that needs to be re-explored. I felt it was unfair that the Arabic language had become castrated of an important part of its vocabulary - that the physical has become taboo,'' she says. ''Some of the things written in Arabic a long time ago would make the Marquis de Sade blush.
Now even the word 'breast' in Arabic would be shocking in certain circles. It is your right to approve of that if you want to and, if you do, don't buy the magazine. Ignore it. But, equally, it is my right to publish it, just as it is my right to walk naked if I want to.'' She shakes her cascading hair in a gesture that conveys both sensuality and determination. ''It is this crazy society. In Beirut you will see a woman with a skirt so short you can see her pants, walking beside a woman whose eyes are the only things you can see. That is Beirut. So long as the woman in the short skirt respects the other woman's right and the woman in the veil respects her, it's good. But it is not like that. The woman in the miniskirt feels claustrophobic and the other woman is appalled. More at The Age It is hard to be objective. Our country is a puzzle.'' Haddad, 39, is herself a bit of a puzzle. To watch she is kittenish, flirtatious, her dark-rimmed hazel eyes beneath their extraordinarily long lashes coy one minute, direct the next. She moves her hands all the time - flashing turquoise stones, jangling gold. Her words tumble over themselves - her musings on politics and her candid personal disclosures competing for space. She says she believes in ''the art of the schizophrenic''; that this is how she survived the suicide of her beloved maternal grandmother, life in a city at war, the personal criticisms levelled at her. She is an incredibly busy woman, combining her myriad commitments with her studies for a PhD in comparative literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. And she's incredibly accomplished. She speaks seven languages and claims that each one brings out another personality. ''All these people inside of me are different Joumanas,'' she says. (In Armenian she feels close to her grandmother; in Arabic, the language in which she writes, a poet; in English she is ''cooler, more relaxed''.) HADDAD repeatedly refers to herself as if she were someone else, a habit that denotes a certain self-confidence. ''I have an image of Joumana as a child, climbing in her father's library, to reach the forbidden books: Kafka, the Marquis de Sade.'' She lives in Beirut, by the sea, which is important to her not as a place to swim, but as a horizon. ''It is a very important part of my identity. It represents Joumana. All this unknown, outgoing, the need to see the other side.'' Haddad was brought up a strict Catholic by protective parents. ''I couldn't even go to the movies without my brother, or to a friend's house without my mother waiting there for me - even when I was 17.'' Top of the class at her convent, she was encouraged by her father to be highly competitive - ''I am never satisfied'' - and went to university at 16, two years early. ''In Lebanon, if you are clever, you become one of two things, a doctor or an engineer, so I went to medical school, even though I wanted to write.'' She wasn't happy and after two years found a way to establish her own independence. ''I got married. It wasn't a passionate act. It was my only way out.'' She transmuted her medical training into a degree in biology, then worked for a lingerie company to support her husband, who was still a student. ''Freedom for me happened like this: my head was liberated through books as a child, then expression through writing, and then physically through marriage.'' The marriage lasted 10 years; in that time Haddad gave birth to two children, learnt more languages (Italian, Spanish, German) and found work as a translator for An-Nahar newspaper. In 2005 she became the head of the cultural section. The editor is sympathetic to her other commitments. ''When I am travelling I edit the page in my hotel room in the morning; my laptop is my office.'' Her drive to succeed is exhausting, she admits. ''Because it is your nature, you cannot turn it off. It becomes something that is eating you.'' She is writing a book on Arab women, and the cliches that surround them, and would like to expand The Body, which has sold well, into other areas, namely ''a physical space: a small art gallery, a library, a coffee shop. But I don't dream. I usually plan.'' Her sons, Mounir, 17, and Ounsi, 11, are looked after by Haddad's mother, who lives nearby. ''I am an awful practical mother. I am just there for love.'' Her father is also supportive. ''I always say if my father had imagined when I was a child that I was going to write these things and do these things maybe he would have killed himself. But now he is proud. You do change your parents as well.'' Also part of Haddad's daily life is her ''life partner'', the French Lebanese poet Akl Awit, whom she met at the newspaper in 1998. They married three years ago, for technical reasons, and see each other every day, but sleep in separate houses. ''We like our spaces.'' With Awit, Haddad has found another form of freedom. ''It has been a journey with my own body on many levels. As an adolescent I used to love eating, but my mother used to forbid me, so I ate in secret. I hated my body. It all stopped when I got married. I found an inner equilibrium. But on the sexual level, I was a virgin when I was married, and it wasn't very satisfactory with my first husband. I was a late bloomer. But now, apart from the wrinkles, which I am starting to think about, I feel so good about myself. I mean, if I had to choose it would be the best time for me. From 35 until now!'' Did Awit back her plans for The Body? ''I mentioned it to him and he said I was crazy. He said: 'It isn't the time; it isn't the place.' Hell, I said, we have to invent the time. Invent the place." ''People often ask me why I still live in Beirut, why I have lived here through the war and why I have never written about it. I say, Why do you look for the knife? Look for the scars. ''The scars are this woman who is writing this stuff, doing these things. The war has given me a great deal of power. To survive in a city like Beirut, in this world, you have to keep on fighting.'' More at The Age It is hard to be objective. Our country is a puzzle.'' Haddad, 39, is herself a bit of a puzzle. To watch she is kittenish, flirtatious, her dark-rimmed hazel eyes beneath their extraordinarily long lashes coy one minute, direct the next. She moves her hands all the time - flashing turquoise stones, jangling gold. Her words tumble over themselves - her musings on politics and her candid personal disclosures competing for space. She says she believes in ''the art of the schizophrenic''; that this is how she survived the suicide of her beloved maternal grandmother, life in a city at war, the personal criticisms levelled at her. She is an incredibly busy woman, combining her myriad commitments with her studies for a PhD in comparative literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. And she's incredibly accomplished. She speaks seven languages and claims that each one brings out another personality. ''All these people inside of me are different Joumanas,'' she says. (In Armenian she feels close to her grandmother; in Arabic, the language in which she writes, a poet; in English she is ''cooler, more relaxed''.) HADDAD repeatedly refers to herself as if she were someone else, a habit that denotes a certain self-confidence. ''I have an image of Joumana as a child, climbing in her father's library, to reach the forbidden books: Kafka, the Marquis de Sade.'' She lives in Beirut, by the sea, which is important to her not as a place to swim, but as a horizon. ''It is a very important part of my identity. It represents Joumana. All this unknown, outgoing, the need to see the other side.'' Haddad was brought up a strict Catholic by protective parents. ''I couldn't even go to the movies without my brother, or to a friend's house without my mother waiting there for me - even when I was 17.'' Top of the class at her convent, she was encouraged by her father to be highly competitive - ''I am never satisfied'' - and went to university at 16, two years early. ''In Lebanon, if you are clever, you become one of two things, a doctor or an engineer, so I went to medical school, even though I wanted to write.'' She wasn't happy and after two years found a way to establish her own independence. ''I got married. It wasn't a passionate act. It was my only way out.'' She transmuted her medical training into a degree in biology, then worked for a lingerie company to support her husband, who was still a student. ''Freedom for me happened like this: my head was liberated through books as a child, then expression through writing, and then physically through marriage.'' The marriage lasted 10 years; in that time Haddad gave birth to two children, learnt more languages (Italian, Spanish, German) and found work as a translator for An-Nahar newspaper. In 2005 she became the head of the cultural section. The editor is sympathetic to her other commitments. ''When I am travelling I edit the page in my hotel room in the morning; my laptop is my office.'' Her drive to succeed is exhausting, she admits. ''Because it is your nature, you cannot turn it off. It becomes something that is eating you.'' She is writing a book on Arab women, and the cliches that surround them, and would like to expand The Body, which has sold well, into other areas, namely ''a physical space: a small art gallery, a library, a coffee shop. But I don't dream. I usually plan.'' Her sons, Mounir, 17, and Ounsi, 11, are looked after by Haddad's mother, who lives nearby. ''I am an awful practical mother. I am just there for love.'' Her father is also supportive. ''I always say if my father had imagined when I was a child that I was going to write these things and do these things maybe he would have killed himself. But now he is proud. You do change your parents as well.'' Also part of Haddad's daily life is her ''life partner'', the French Lebanese poet Akl Awit, whom she met at the newspaper in 1998. They married three years ago, for technical reasons, and see each other every day, but sleep in separate houses. ''We like our spaces.'' With Awit, Haddad has found another form of freedom. ''It has been a journey with my own body on many levels. As an adolescent I used to love eating, but my mother used to forbid me, so I ate in secret. I hated my body. It all stopped when I got married. I found an inner equilibrium. But on the sexual level, I was a virgin when I was married, and it wasn't very satisfactory with my first husband. I was a late bloomer. But now, apart from the wrinkles, which I am starting to think about, I feel so good about myself. I mean, if I had to choose it would be the best time for me. From 35 until now!'' Did Awit back her plans for The Body? ''I mentioned it to him and he said I was crazy. He said: 'It isn't the time; it isn't the place.' Hell, I said, we have to invent the time. Invent the place." ''People often ask me why I still live in Beirut, why I have lived here through the war and why I have never written about it. I say, Why do you look for the knife? Look for the scars. ''The scars are this woman who is writing this stuff, doing these things. The war has given me a great deal of power. To survive in a city like Beirut, in this world, you have to keep on fighting.'' More at The Age
 "The military might of Hamas in 2010 is equal to that of Hezbollah's in 2006," an analyst for Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar said. Ibrahim al-Amin, who is affiliated with the Shiite group, wrote "Fighters from Hamas and other (Palestinian) factions have been training for a year on the various uses of anti-aircraft missiles and on how to simultaneously set off a large number of explosives, which would enable it to blow up armored military vehicles the size of a Merkava-type tank." According to the analyst, the Islamist group also practiced firing mid and long-range missiles, as well bombing Israeli communities "located up to 100 kilometers (about 62 miles)" from Gaza. In addition, claimed al-Amin, Hamas has trained special units to expose spy networks and gather intelligence on the "occupation army's deployment and weaponry." "In light of these facts, it is safe to say that the (weapons) in Gaza are equal in their potency to what Hezbollah had on the eve of the ( Second Lebanon War)," he said. "At the time (Hezbollah) did not have the ability to threaten Israel's helicopters, but Israel had admitted that Hamas has been able to acquire anti-helicopter missiles. This will embarrass (Israel) on the battlefield." Al-Amin further claimed that in the past year Hamas fighters "went underground (referring to the construction of bunkers and ditches); this will give it added military capabilities in the face of Israel's aerial superiority." The analyst said Hamas was in possession of Russian-made RPG-29 anti-tank grenade launchers, which were employed by Hezbollah during the war with Israel, in addition to Kornet anti-tank missiles, "which can destroy a tank from five kilometers about three miles) out." Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that Hamas' current capabilities are "better than they were on the eve of Operation Cast Lead," adding that Hamas, as well as other Palestinian terror groups, "will continue to grow stronger in 2010." "Hamas will continue with its efforts to smuggle rockets with a range exceeding 50 kilometers (31 miles) into Gaza, as well as anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles and any other type of weapons," he said. In early November, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Major-General Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hamas held a successful trial launch of a rocket with a 60 km range. The rocket, which could reach Tel Aviv from Hamas' stronghold in the Gaza Strip, is apparently Iranian-made.
 AT LEAST two people were killed yesterday in a mysterious blast that shook Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, a security official said, amid reports it could have targeted the Palestinian Hamas movement. "At least two people have been killed and a number of others injured in an explosion in the southern suburbs" of Beirut where the Shiite Hezbollah movement has its headquarters, the official said.
"The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined."
Earlier the official national news agency NNA said the blast could have been aimed at a member of the Palestinian Hamas movement in Lebanon.
The blast was "the result of three bombs placed under a car whose owner is said to be a member of Hamas," the agency said, adding that two people were wounded in the explosion.
But in a terse report, quoting unnamed security officials, Hezbollah's Manar television said the "blast took place in an office of the Hamas movement causing casualties." It did not give further details.
 The Lebanese Defense Minister has made official what Israel long has charged, saying that Hizbullah will help defend the country even though United Nations resolutions call for disarming the terrorist organization. Defense Minister Elias Murr told the official government National News Agency Tuesday, "The role of the army is to cooperate with the UNIFIL in order to implement the resolution 1701, which calls for disarming Hizbullah." Murr then added, “The Lebanese army will defend the country against any Israeli aggression, the resistance [Hizbullah] will do that too; everyone has the right to defend the country." His statement further entrenches Hizbullah as a dominant force in the government, in which it already holds two portfolios out of 30 and together with pro-Syrian allies has veto power over major Cabinet decisions. Murr’s declaration goes further than previous statements that Lebanon will allow Hizbullah to remain armed, a foregone conclusion since UNIFIL officers said at the outset of the ceasefire resolution in 2006 that they would not carry out the mandate to disarm the terrorist group. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned last month that Hizbullah in effect is Lebanon’s army, stating that "the Lebanese government and Hizbullah are becoming interwoven in each other.” The government has a diplomatic excuse for ostensibly defying the U.N. resolution, which forbids arms to all "foreign armies” not authorized by the government. Formally adopting Hizbullah as a defense force effectively neutralizes the resolution at the same time Beirut promises to enforce it. Lebanon has concentrated on Israel’s obligations in the resolution, particularly the prohibition against surveillance flights that search out Hizbullah activity in southern Lebanon. INN
 Israel's new long-range unmanned aerial vehicle, unveiled by Elbit Industries this week, adds a new dimension to the military's capabilities against Iran -- not just boosting its surveillance reach but perhaps even attacking air defenses with remote-controlled Hellfire missiles. Elbit announced on Tuesday that its Hermes 900 had successfully completed its maiden flight and would enter production following additional flight tests. The UAV is based on Elbit's highly successful Hermes 450 model, which has accumulated 170,000 flight hours. The 450 is the primary UAV deployed by the Israeli military, and at least 20 of them were in action daily during the 34-day war with Lebanon's Hezbollah in July-August 2006. The 900 model is essentially a stretched and bulked-up 450, a 992-pound craft that was designed to carry two AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, the weapons systems used by U.S. UAVs targeting al-Qaida and Taliban chieftains in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 900 is similar in appearance to the U.S. MQ-1 Predator, which carries out most of the attacks in the AFPAK theater of operation. Both weigh around 1 ton. The Hermes 900 is designed primarily for endurance and for the first time gives the Israeli armed forces a long-range drone that can conduct surveillance flights over hostile territory as distant as Iran, some 950 miles. However, to do that would mean overflying Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and possibly Turkey, and risk political problems with those states. If such flights were undertaken, the new 900's primary mission would undoubtedly be spying out air-defense systems around Iran's nuclear facilities, the primary target for threatened Israeli airstrikes, supplementing intelligence from Israeli spy satellites. The UAV's attack potential could also prove useful in the event Israel does launch pre-emptive strikes to knock out Iranian nuclear sites and other strategic targets. It could hit air-defense systems ahead of attacks by the Israeli air force's F-16I and F-15I strike jets, reducing the risk of Israeli pilots being shot down over hostile territory. The last time that happened was when an F-4 Phantom went down over south Lebanon on Oct. 16, 1986. The new Hermes can stay in the air for 36 hours -- 16 more than the 450 -- with a payload of 650 pounds, enough to give it considerable loiter time over Iran. It has a cruising speed of around 80 miles an hour, can fly as high as 30,000 feet and has satellite communications capability. It also uses innovative avionics, operates silently, which allows for missions over urban areas, and carried high-tech systems such as electro-optic imaging, a laser designator that can be used to "paint" ground targets for aircraft, and electronic intelligence sensors. The Israeli air force, which operates the 450, has not yet acquired any of the new 900s, although it recently bought the Heron UAV manufactured by state-run Israel Aerospace Industries. That can remain airborne for more than 30 hours with a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. Meantime, there were reports that Israel's first unmanned stealth naval craft, designated Protector SV but known as the Death Shark, has been deployed in the Gulf region, able to cruise underwater off Iran for long periods. Operated from a surface ship or a shore base, the 27-foot craft reportedly carries a Close-In Weapons System for detecting and engaging anti-ship missiles and aircraft, as well as torpedoes and electronic jamming gear. It also carries four cameras with the resolution of satellite imaging systems as well as sonar and radar systems that can transmit three-dimensional images to its control base. SpaceWar
 In a Dec.7, 2009 article, the Daily Telegraph looks at the plight of Palestinian refugees living in squalid conditions in Lebanon and perhaps hits the nail on the head: "How could it be possible that for the past 61 years Palestinians are trapped in these camps," complained Mahmoud al-Jomaa, who chairs an organisation that provides health programmes for children. What hurts the most for the refugees is the feeling that they have been forgotten by the world - and particularly by other Arabs. "Seven million Jews worry about the fate of Gilad Shalit, while 300 million Arabs couldn't care less what happens to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians," said Walid Taha, who lives in the Shatila camp in Beirut. In fact, the bulk of UNRWA's funding comes from western donors with only a small proportion from the Arab states: According to an Oct. 2009 feature in The Independent: UNRWA's grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law.
According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, "The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees," and must "make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings" – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan. Indeed, the article states: In 2001, Palestinians in Lebanon were stripped of the right to own property, or to pass on the property that they already owned to their children – and banned from working as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists or in 20 other professions.
Even the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan, historically the most welcoming Arab state, has reason to feel insecure in the face of official threats to revoke their citizenship. The systematic refusal of Arab governments to grant basic human rights to Palestinians who are born and die in their countries – combined with periodic mass expulsions of entire Palestinian communities – recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe. In addition, the Palestinian Authority has not been at the forefront in helping relocate the residents of refugee camps into permanent housing facilities. Arabs have to share responsibility for the refugee issues since they rejected the 1947 partition plan and and launched a war of destruction. Had they, like Israel, accepted the partition, there would have been no war and no refugees. We congratulate the Daily Telegraph and Independent for going beyond the standard reporting on Palestinian refugees. Perhaps it is time for Karen AbuZayd to take a more sophisticated examination (including some self-examination) regarding the Palestinian refugee problem. Simply blaming Israel and "occupation" is simplistic and does little to resolve the issue. More at HonestReporting
 On Jan. 1, 2010, Hezbollah and its de-facto ruler Iran could have a direct line to the Security Council and gain access to all the confidential information to which Security Council members are privy. In October the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for Lebanon to be the Asian bloc's new non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for a 2-year term. Earlier today the Lebanese Government endorsed Hezbollah's demand allowing it to keep its huge weapons arsenal. In doing so the Lebanese government is able to maintain its shaky unity government in which Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group by the U.S. state department, holds two ministries. Critics worry that the Lebanese will essentially be sitting on the Security Council while ignoring Security Council resolutions that call for the disarming of armed militias, in other words Hezbollah. Analysts point to the influence wielded by the Iranian-funded Hezbollah in Lebanon as a cause for concern over Lebanon's acceptance into the Security Council. Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Fox News contributor on terrorism, was one of the architects of U.N. Resolution 1559 which passed in 2004 and called for the immediate disarmament of armed militias. Given the new structure of the Lebanese government that now includes Hezbollah, he says the organization will have "an arm and an eye inside the Security Council." Hezbollah's acceptance of joining the national unity government came with a promise of not having to disarm as well as receiving the power of veto following months of complicated negotiations. While repeated calls to the Lebanese foreign ministry in Beirut went unanswered, Lebanon's ambassador to the U.N., Nawaf Salam, was recently quoted in reports as saying that once on the Security Council, Lebanon would "work for a more just and democratic international system." More at Foxnews
 Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah group, has vowed to continue to build up its arsenal to protect the country against Israeli aggression. "The ongoing Israeli threat forces the resistance to continue to boost its capacity ... in order to fulfil its role in liberating occupied territory," he said on Monday in a rare news conference to present Hezbollah's new political manifesto. "The Israeli threat ... calls for Lebanon to have a defence strategy built on the presence of a popular resistance that helps to defend the country against Israeli aggression and a national army that protects the country and its stability." Nasrallah accused the US of being the world's leading exporter of terrorism and urged nations around the globe to stand up against such a threat. "There is no question that American terrorism is the origin of all terrorism around the world," he said. The US officially considers Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. Nasrallah accused George Bush, the former US president, of having turned the US into a threat for the rest of the world. "If a survey were to be held today, the United States would be the most hated nation in the world. "Standing up to the US threat must be a worldwide effort," he added. "This is a delicate and difficult task ... and one that will involve generations to come." Hezbollah fought a fierce war with Israel in 2006 that destroyed much of southern Lebanon. The party is the only faction which refused to disarm after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. It argues that its weapons are needed to protect the country against Israel, which withdrew its troops from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation. In presenting Hezbollah's 32-page political manifesto, Nasrallah ruled out any chance of ever recognising Israel and insisted on the right of the Palestinians to reclaim their homeland. "We categorically reject any compromise with Israel or recognising its legitimacy," he said. "This position is definitive, even if everyone recognises Israel." He insisted that Hezbollah, which has been accused of acting as a state within a state, was keen on a united Lebanon that represents everyone. "We want a Lebanon that is united through its land, its people, its state and institutions," Nasrallah said, rejecting any notion of the country being divided along confessional lines. Hezbollah's first manifesto in 1985 called for the establishment of Islamic rule in Lebanon, but the party leadership has toned down its rhetoric in recent years as it gained political clout. Nasrallah, 49, has headed Hezbollah since 1992 when his predecessor, Abbas Moussaoui, was killed in an Israeli helicopter raid. The party has participated in the Lebanese government since 2005. Al Jazeera
 BY HANIN GHADDAR The story of Hezbollah's halal hookups. Mohammad, a 40-year old Lebanese Shiite who lives in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, was holding forth on the virtues of resistance, loyalty, and sex. "You could create the most loyal army by providing political power, social services and fulfilling the desires of your men -- namely, sexual ones," he declared. "And Hezbollah has been very successful in this regard," Mohammad continued.
It is hard to disagree.
Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, expanded the Shiite community's political power within the country, and has provided social services, such as health care and education, to its constituency since the 1980s. Today, it is also working to fulfill the sexual needs of its supporters, though a practice known as mutaa marriage. Mutaa is a form of "temporary marriage" only acceptable within Shiite communities, one that allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures.
In conservative Muslim societies known for their strict sense of propriety, mutaa offers an escape clause. The contract is very simple. The woman says: "I marry myself to you for [a specific period of time] and for [a specified dowry]" and the man says: "I accept." The period can range between one hour and a year, and is subject to renewal.
A Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man, but a Muslim man can temporarily marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish woman, as long as she is a divorcée or a widow. However, those interviewed for this article confirmed that Hezbollah-the "Party of God"-has allowed the practice to spread to virgins or girls who have never married before, as long as the permission of her guardian (father or paternal grandfather) is obtained. Temporary marriage has long been practiced by Shiites around the world. However, it has recently become more commonplace in Lebanon, notably within Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut's southern suburbs and in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war with Israel, Hezbollah's recent encouragement of this phenomenon highlights the compromises it had been required to make in order to remain the preeminent force among its domestic Shiite constituency. As the party gained strength due to its effectiveness in fighting Israel, it was forced to cope with the reality that many Lebanese Shiites did not share the Iranian-inspired religious beliefs of Hezbollah's leaders.
They came to dominate a community that was shaped by the secular leftist trends of the 1970s and 1980s, and the cosmopolitan culture embodied by Beirut. Today, Lebanese Shiites are exposed to pop icons such as sexpot singer Haifa Wehbe, countless Western advertisements and programs, and technological innovations such as online dating. More at Foreign Policy
 This article by Peter Berkowitz in the Weekly Standard brings us up to date on the situation in Lebanon, where an election was held in June, but a new government is only now being formed. In the election, a moderate, pro-Western, pro-democracy coalition -- led by Saad Hariri, son of the linfluential anti-Syria eader whose death by car bombing in 2005 sparked the "Cedar Revolution" -- exceeded expectations and obtained a small parliamentary majority. The overriding issue, according to Peter, was "whether Lebanon would submit to Hezbollah and the political authority of Syria and Iran, or build a free and democratic state." Although the voters opted for the latter alternative, the winning coalition was unable to form a government for five months because Hezbollah blocked it -- formally, by means of the powers it obtained through the Doha Agreement (a deal reached after Hezbollah forces took over Beirut in 2008), and informally, through threats and intimidation. But the stalemate has finally been broken, at least for now, by the formation of a "national unity government" in which 2 of the 30 ministerial portfolios will go to Hezbollah politicians. Conventional wisdom holds that Israel is the key to undermining Hezbollah's influence. The idea is that if the Israelis would only abandon the small strip of land they control in Southern Lebanon (Shebaa Farms) and negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, Hezbollah would lose its status as the heroic resistance. It's a convenient analysis inasmuch as it relieves the Lebanese of responsibility for their own fate, but Peter rejects it. In his view, "resistance does not refer merely to armed struggle against Israel's occupation of this or that piece of land, or even the battle against Israel's very existence, but a fight to the death against the claims of liberty and democracy in Lebanon and throughout the region in the name of Islamic law as dictated by the Iranian mullahs." What should the United States do?
First, the Obama administration can stop encouraging the widespread view, rooted in decades of pan-Arab rhetoric, that the key to Middle East peace is solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians should be assiduously pursued, but to suppose that the absence of a final agreement between them is what stands in the way of security and stability in the Middle East is to play into the hands of Arab governments that cynically use the conflict to shift their people's attention from their own countries' internal failings and destabilizing ambitions. Second, the United States can expand programs to support civil society in Lebanon, particularly K-12 education, and also economic development, particularly in the south, since one way to loosen Hezbollah's grip is to enable the Lebanese government to better provide the social services and financial support that, thanks to Iranian financing, Hezbollah now delivers. Third, the administration can redouble efforts to degrade Iran's ability to deliver cash and transfer funds electronically to Hezbollah. Fourth, it can place at the heart of engagement with Syria an insistence on cutting off the enormous flow of ammunition, machine guns, bombs, rockets, and missiles that Iran pumps through Damascus to southern Lebanon.
But ultimately, the future of Lebanon depends "most of all on crafting strategies to thwart Tehran's export of Islamic revolution" which, in the near term "depends most of all on thwarting Iran's drive to acquire nuclear weapons." Powerline
 Lebanon's new cabinet has agreed on a policy statement that acknowledges Hezbollah's right to use its weapons against Israel, despite disagreement by some members of the ruling majority. Information Minister Tarek Mitri said late Wednesday after a cabinet committee set up to draft the statement met for the ninth time that an agreement had been reached. He said the new statement will retain the same clause approved by the previous cabinet as concerns the arsenal of Hezbollah, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006 and is considered a terrorist organization by Washington. The clause states the right of "Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance" to liberate all Lebanese territory. Hezbollah is commonly referred to as the resistance in Lebanon. Mitri said that reservations concerning the clause by members of the Western-backed majority would be noted in the government program. Christian members of the majority, including the Phalange Party and Lebanese Forces, argue that Hezbollah's arsenal undermines state authority and runs counter to UN resolutions. However, the Shiite party, which has two ministers in the 30-member unity cabinet, has made it clear that its weapons are not open to discussion. The party argues its arms are necessary to protect the country against any future aggression by Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation. Lebanon's new cabinet is headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, whose US and Western-backed alliance defeated a Hezbollah-led opposition supported by Syria and Iran in a June vote. YNet
 A man has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft because he makes predictions on television. Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year. A court in the city condemned him as a witch on Nov. 9. The only evidence presented in court was reportedly the claim he appeared regularly on Lebanese satellite issuing general advice on life and making predictions about the future. The case is causing outrage among human rights campaigners but has made little news elsewhere despite the ludicrous nature of the charges and the extraordinary severity of Sibat's sentence. "Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The crime of witchcraft is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state sanctioned executions." Ali Sibat's supporters say he was denied a lawyer at his trial and was tricked into making a confession. He is not the only victim of Saudi Arabia's literal witch hunt. Human Rights Watch says two other people have been arrested on similar charges in the last month alone. It claims a lower court in Jeddah started the trial of a Saudi this month who was arrested by the religious police and said to have smuggled a book of witchcraft into the kingdom. In another case the religious police are said to have arrested for "sorcery" and "charlatanry" an Asian man accusing him of using supernatural powers to solve marital disputes and induce others to fall in love. In 2006 a Jeddah court convicted an Eritrean national Muhammad Burhan for "charlatanry" because he possessed a phone book that contained writings in the Tigrinya alphabet used in Eritrea. FoxNews
 Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on Saturday on an Israeli drone that entered Lebanese airspace in the south of the country, the military said in a statement. "A surveillance drone of the Israeli enemy" overflew "the area of Bint Jbeil at medium altitude" in the morning, the statement said. "Army anti-aircraft batteries opened fire on the drone, forcing it to gain altitude before leaving Lebanese airspace." The country's military reports almost daily on airspace violations by Israeli aircraft, but does not normally open fire at them. The United Nations considers Israeli air incursions into Lebanon to be a violation of Security Council Resolution 1701. "To the best of my knowledge, there's probably no other country in the world -- probably, I may be wrong -- which is subject to such an intrusive regime of aerial surveillance," UN special envoy for Lebanon Michael Williams said this month. Resolution 1701 brought an end to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah militants based in southern Lebanon, although the accord has failed to seal a permanent ceasefire. It mainly insists on the strict embargo on providing arms to Lebanese militias, while also affirming the Beirut government's sovereignty across the whole country. Breitbart
 by Michael J. Totten Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah recently announced that he could hit any and every place in Israel with long-range missiles. That would mean that, unlike in 2006, Hezbollah could strike not only the northern cities of Kiryat Shmona and Haifa but also Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion International Airport, and the Dimona nuclear-power plant. I dismissed his claim as a wild boast last week, but Israeli army commander Major General Gabi Ashkenazi confirmed it this week. So while we've all been worried about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been quietly arming his chief terrorist proxy with more advanced conventional weapons. A Third Lebanon War could make the Second Lebanon War in 2006 look like a minor kerfuffle.
And the Second Lebanon War was anything but. When Noah Pollak and I covered it from the Israeli side, we found the whole northern swath of the country emptied of people and cars like it was the end of the world.
The city of Tiberias looked like a zombie movie set. Kiryat Shmona is so close to the border that the air raid sirens often didn't start wailing until after Hezbollah's incoming Katyusha rockets had already exploded. Meanwhile, pitched battles between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah seriously chewed up South Lebanon. The centers of entire towns were pulverized by Israeli air and artillery strikes. More than a thousand people were killed, many of them civilians used by Hezbollah as human shields. Hezbollah is much more dangerous than any terrorist group that has ever been fielded from the West Bank or Gaza. It managed to create hundreds of thousands of refugees inside Israel, and it did so with fewer and shorter range rockets than it has now.
And while the "Party of God" may think it's terrific that it can do what Hamas in Gaza only fantasizes about, its arsenal indirectly threatens Lebanon just as much if not more than it threatens Israel. Nasrallah can unleash a great deal of destruction, but it's still no match for what the IDF can dish out while fighting back. If Israel's nuclear power plant comes under fire, if Tel Aviv skyscrapers explode from missile attacks, if Hezbollah manages to turn all of Israel into a kill zone where there is no place to run, Israelis will panic like they haven't since the 1973 Yom Kippur War when it briefly appeared the Egyptian army might overrun the whole country. I wouldn't want to be anywhere in Lebanon while Israelis are actively fending off that kind of assault. No country can afford to be restrained while fighting for its survival. The last Lebanon war caught almost everyone by surprise, although it should not have. The next one might start much the same way because few seem to be taking its likelihood or its potential magnitude seriously. It's possible that a "balance of terror" on each side of the border will prevent anyone from doing anything stupid, but I wouldn't count on it. Hezbollah's rhetoric is more belligerent this year than ever. Not only does Nasrallah threaten to avenge the assassination of his military commander Imad Mugniyeh, he and the rest of the leadership fantasize in public about nuclear war. Christopher Hitchens went to a commemoration for Mugniyeh in the suburbs south of Beirut earlier this year and saw a huge poster of a nuclear mushroom cloud next to the stage. "OH ZIONISTS," read the inscription below, "IF YOU WANT THIS TYPE OF WAR THEN SO BE IT!” This, I'm certain, really is bombast – at least for now. Nasrallah doesn't have nuclear weapons. Apocalyptic imagery and rhetoric, though, tells us something important about Hezbollah's psyche. Just ask yourself how you would have felt during the Cold War if Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev said "SO BE IT" to nuclear war. I would have wanted to hide in my basement or go off-planet entirely. And I have a hard time imagining an American or Russian crowd roaring with applause and pumping its fists in the air in response to that sort of thing. That's just not how Americans or Russians thought about a nuclear holocaust. Israelis don't think about nuclear war that way either, nor do Hezbollah's opponents in Lebanon. The same is almost certainly true of the millions of Iranian citizens who brave beatings, arrest, and worse to yell "death to the dictator" in the streets of Tehran. Hezbollah's mindset is different. If you expect moderation, reasonableness, and restraint from that crowd, you are far more optimistic than I am. Commentary Magazine
 BEIRUT -- The militant Hezbollah group announced Thursday that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has been re-elected as the Shiite Muslim group's leader for a sixth term.
A Hezbollah statement didn't say when the group's top officials voted to re-elect Nasrallah, who has held the post since an Israeli helicopter gunship killed his predecessor, Sheik Abbas Musawi.
No one ran against Mr. Nasrallah. Naim Kassim also has been re-elected as Mr. Nasrallah's deputy, according to the statement. Hezbollah's leadership elections are usually held every three years but they were last held in 2004. A Hezbollah official said the two-year delay was caused by internal Lebanese differences and the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak to the media. Mr. Nasrallah, 49 years old, is a strong critic of the U.S., which lists his group as a terrorist organization. Under his leadership, Hezbollah became active in internal Lebanese politics and the group now has two Cabinet ministers and holds 11 of parliament's 128 seats. Founded in 1982, Hezbollah gained notoriety in the West when it was linked to the kidnapping of Western hostages and a series of bombings against Western targets. Hezbollah has over the years grown to run a network of interests -- clinics, schools, a TV station and a weekly newspaper. It caters mainly to Lebanon's 1.2 million Shiite Muslims, the country's largest single sect. WSJ
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Israel has been roundly and repeatedly condemned by the UN and pretty much everyone else for civilian casualties in Gaza. 
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