Friday, December 7, 2012
Constitution enshrining Shariah stands at core of Egyptian upheaval
Thousands taking to Cairo’s streets oppose prominence of Islam in country’s draft charter
CAIRO (AP) — One of Egypt’s most prominent ultraconservative Muslim clerics had high praise for the country’s draft constitution. Speaking to fellow clerics, he said this was the charter they had long wanted, ensuring that laws and rights would be strictly subordinated to Islamic law.
“This constitution has more complete restraints on rights than ever existed before in any Egyptian constitution,” Sheik Yasser Borhami assured the clerics. “This will not be a democracy that can allow what God forbids or forbid what God allows.”
The draft constitution that is now at the center of worsening political turmoil would empower Islamists to carry out the most widespread and strictest implementation of Islamic law that modern Egypt has seen. That authority rests on the three articles that explicitly mention Shariah, as well as obscure legal language buried in a number of other articles that few noticed during the charter’s drafting but that Islamists insisted on including.
According to both supporters and opponents of the draft, the charter not only makes Muslim clerics the arbiters for many civil rights, it also could give a constitutional basis for citizens to set up Saudi-style “religious police” to monitor morals and enforce segregation of the sexes, imposition of Islamic dress codes and even harsh punishments for adultery and theft — regardless of what laws on the books say.
The spiraling crisis is threatening to turn into an outright fight for the identity of post-revolutionary Egypt, splitting the nation between those who want an Islamic state and those who oppose it, two years after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
For Islamists, the constitution is the keystone for their ambitions to bring Islamic rule, a goal they say is justified by their large victory in last winter’s parliamentary elections. President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, has rejected opposition demands that he cancel a Dec. 15 nationwide referendum on the draft.
“Egypt is Islamic, it will not be secular, it will not be liberal,” thousands of Morsi supporters chanted Friday after the funeral of two men killed in clashes earlier this week. Witnesses say the violence began when Islamists attacked an anti-Morsi protest camp outside the presidential palace.
“Bottom line, this is a struggle between ideologies — the Islamic ideology moving with a clear plan with public support, and the secularists,” said pro-Morsi demonstrator Khaled Omar, his head bandaged from Wednesday’s fighting. “We are defending Islam, which people want.”
The opposition is determined to stop the draft, and thousands marched for a third straight day Friday on the palace.
The Brotherhood is “unleashing its gang chanting jihadi slogans, as if they are in a holy war against the infidels,” said businessman Magdi Ashri, who opposes Morsi. “Their agenda is to monopolize power in Egypt, whatever it takes.”
Egypt’s Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly debated the draft for months, until most liberal members — and all the Christian ones— walked out to protest what they called hard-liners’ railroading of the process.
Islamists rammed through approval of the final draft in an all-night session Nov. 30. Of the 85 members who voted, 80 percent were members of the Muslim Brotherhood or the ultraconservative movement known as Salafis, or their allies.
Some Salafis had been reluctant about the draft because they wanted more explicit commitments to Shariah. But several days before the assembly session, Borhami — who is also an assembly member — assured them that what they sought was there, hidden in subtler language.
He said that by defining Egypt’s political system as “democracy and Shura” — the Islamic term for “consultation” — the draft prevents what he called an “American or European” democracy that “gives the power of legislation to people and not to God.”
Before liberals and Christians quit the panel, Islamists convinced them to allow a number of crucial clauses that solidified Shariah, either because of bargaining or because they didn’t realize the articles’ significance, he said.
“They didn’t understand it well at first,” he told the clerics, according to a full video of his speech posted on YouTube. “They only got it later and that’s why they said it was disastrous.”
How much some of the Shariah provisions in the constitution come into effect depends on who would be implementing it. And attempts to use some of its provisions would likely bring court battles over what the constitution really allows. But Borhami expressed confidence the courts would be obliged by the charter to allow a widespread implementation of Shariah.
Three articles of the more than 230-article draft mention Shariah directly.
Article 2 states that the “principles of Shariah” are the main source of legislation, the same phrasing as past constitutions. The vague term “principles” previously gave lawmakers so much leeway that they could almost ignore tenets of Islamic law. As a result, Islamic law largely only governed rules on marriage, divorce and inheritance.
But at the insistence of Salafis, Article 219 was added, defining the principles of Shariah for the first time. It says the principles are based on “general evidence, fundamental rules of jurisprudence, and credible sources accepted in Sunni doctrines and by the larger community.”
The language is obscure, drawn from the terminology of religious scholars and largely incomprehensible to anyone else.
But “it is like a bombshell,” says Mohammed Hassanein Abdel-Al, constitutional law professor at Cairo’s Ain Shams University.
The article means that laws passed by parliament must adhere to specific tenets of Shariah that the four main schools of Sunni Islam agree on. That could include banning interest on loans, forbidding mixing of genders, requiring women to wear headscarves and allowing girls to marry when they reach puberty.
“The doors are wide open to restrict individuals’ freedoms,” Abdel-Al said.
Another new article says clerics from Al-Azhar, Egypt’s most prominent Islamic institution, are “to be consulted on any matters related to Shariah,” implicitly giving them oversight in legislation.
Other articles give sweeping powers for implementing Shariah, without directly mentioning it, often through subtle additions introduced by Islamists.
Article 10, for example, commits both the state and “society” to protecting “the moral values” of the “true Egyptian family.”
The vague language empowers private citizens to enforce Islamic morals, Abdel-Al said. It could even give a constitutional justification for the creation of religious police, known as commissions “for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.”
“If I’m walking with my wife and her face is not covered or she’s not wearing a headscarf, a man can come up and order me to cover her. I can’t protest or object because the constitution instructs him to do so,” Abdel-Al said.
Borhami pointed to Article 76, which he called “amazing.”
Originally the text said the only crimes and punishments can be those set by law. But Islamists amended the phase to “by law or by virtue of constitutional text.”
As a result, punishments could be implemented based on the constitution’s Shariah clauses even if they are not passed into law by parliament, such as bans on adultery and bank interest, Borhami said. Abdel-Al agreed on the article’s effect.
The charter includes a section on personal rights, including guarantees of freedom of belief, creative and political expression and the press. The section also bans arrests and searches without court order and explicitly forbids torture for the first time. Many of the rights are more firmly worded than past constitutions under Mubarak and his predecessors.
But the section’s final article says those rights cannot be implemented in a way contradicting the charter’s articles on Shariah and protection of morals — giving a tool for Islamists to limit the freedoms. “These human rights are now restricted by Article 2,” Borhami said.
The charter has a broad clause saying all citizens are equal, but an article specifying women have equal rights to men was dropped amid squabbles over the wording, and the article on children’s rights is vague, experts say.
Overall, the draft leaves it unclear who is “the final authority in law and its interpretation — the elected parliament, the senior clerics or the judiciary,” economist and former lawmaker Ziad Baha el-Din wrote in the independent El-Shorouk newspaper Wednesday.
The charter also limits the mandate of the Supreme Constitutional Court, which is seen as one of the strongest opponents of Islamists.
Islamists also wrote in a last-minute article shrinking the court to 11 judges, from 18, eliminating its younger members.
That removes some of the fiercest anti-Islamist judges on the body, such as the court’s only female judge, Tahani el-Gibali.
Youth activist Mahmoud Salem warned in his blog that “if this constitution is passed, Cairo will truly become Kandahar, with the blessing of the Egyptian president and the Muslim Brotherhood” —referring to the home city of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.
Yea! This is disturbing! Why would they do this? If you think their intentions are good then you better wake up!
Leviticus 19:19
19 “‘Keep my decrees.
“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.
“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.
Florida scientists prepare to release hundreds of thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes
If all goes as planned, mosquitos modified by some serious Frankenstein treatment will be introduced into the Florida Keys and ideally mate with skeeters that carry the deadly dengue fever, passing along in the process a fatal birth defect that will hopefully eradicate the offspring before birth. From there, scientists say they expect the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the dangerous disease will be decimated in only a few generations without causing any major implications for the native ecosystem.
"The science of it, I think, looks fine. It's straight from setting up experiments and collecting data," Michael Doyle of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District tells the Associated Press.
No vaccination against dengue fever is currently available in any part of the world, and although the mortality rate associated with it is low, it’s still a serious concern. In the Florida Keys where the economy relies on tourism, an epidemic of any sort could be catastrophic. Some fear that sending mutated mosquitos into the environment could have grave implications as well, though, and are asking for more thorough testing before the FDA makes a decision.
Of course, it doesn’t help the scientists’ case that it will take several rounds of releasing genetically modified mosquitos in order for their plan to work.
"The public resistance and the need to reach some agreement between mosquito control and the public, I see that as a very significant issue, outside of the (operating) costs, since this is not just a one-time thing," Phil Lounibos of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory tells the AP.
The plan to put lab-altered insects into the ecosystem is expected to not harm any humans since the female mosquitos that bite won’t become infected. Real estate agent Mila de Mier tells the AP that she’s still concerned, though, and clearly isn’t the only one: her petition on Change.org, “Say No to Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Release in the Florida Keys,” has garnered over 117,000 signatures.
“Even though the local community in the Florida Keys has spoken – we even passed an ordinance demanding more testing – Oxitec is trying to use a loophole by applying to the FDA for an ‘animal bug’ patent,” reads the petition. “This could mean these mutant mosquitoes could be released at any point against the wishes of locals and the scientific community. We need to make sure the FDA does not approve Oxitec's patent.”
“Nearly all experiments with genetically-modified crops have eventually resulted in unintended consequences: superweeds more resistant to herbicides, mutated and resistant insects also collateral damage to ecosystems. A recent news story reported that the monarch butterfly population is down by half in areas where Roundup Ready GM crops are doused with ultra-high levels of herbicides that wipe out the monarch's favorite milkweed plant.”
“There are more questions than answers and we need more testing to be done,” it continues.
Health officials believed that dengue fever was eradicated entirely years ago, but a handful of cases have been discovered in the Florida Keys in 2009 and 2010. If humans are infected, they can experience extremely high body temperatures, swollen nodes, full-on rashes, vomiting and, in some cases, death.
Damascus countdown: Is Syria about to use weapons of mass destruction? Could this trigger Biblical prophecies?
Are Syria’s leaders about to use weapons of mass destruction against Israel, and/or against their own people?
* “Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad’s order,” reads an NBC News headline. Excerpts from the report: “The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said. As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the “precursor” chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs. Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.”
In this context, is it possible that the Biblical prophecies regarding the future of Damascus come true in our lifetime? Are current events in Syria foreshadowing prophetic events? There are actually two key Biblical prophecies that explain that at unspecified time in the future, the city of Damascus will be completely destroyed — judged by God — and will not be inhabited again.
* Isaiah 17:1-3 — “The oracle concerning Damascus. ‘Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city and will become a fallen ruin. The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be for flocks to lie down in, and there will be no one to frighten them. The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and sovereignty from Damascus….’”
* Jeremiah 49:23-27 — “Concerning Damascus. ‘Hamath andArpad are put to shame, for they have heard bad news; they are disheartened. There is anxiety by the sea, it cannot be calmed. Damascus has become helpless; she has turned away to flee, and panic has gripped her; distress and pangs have taken hold of her like a woman in childbirth. How the city of praise has not been deserted, the town of My joy! Therefore, her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be silenced in that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts. ’I will set fire to the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the fortified towers of Ben-hadad.’”
These prophecies have not yet been fulfilled. Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. It has been attacked, besieged, and conquered. But Damascus has never been completely destroyed and left uninhabited. Yet that is exactly what the Bible says will happen. The context of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 are a series of End Times prophecies dealing with God’s judgments on Israel’s neighbors and enemies leading up to — and through — the Tribulation.
How exactly will Damascus be destroyed? When will exactly it be destroyed? What will that look like, and what will be the implications for the rest of Syria, for Israel and for the region? The honest answer is that the Bible does not say. I’m currently writing a novel entitled, Damascus Countdown, that envisions how these prophecies could come to pass.
Rebels circle Damascus airport; Russia, U.S. downbeat
(Reuters) - Rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared
Damascus International Airport a battle zone on Friday, while Moscow and
Washington both sounded downbeat about the prospects of a diplomatic push to end
the conflict.
Fighting around the capital city has intensified over the past week, and
Western officials have begun speaking about faster change on the ground in a
20-month-old conflict that has killed 40,000 people.
HRW demands Israel justify Gaza strike that killed 12 civilians
Reuters - Human Rights Watch urged Israel on Friday to provide a full account
of its air strike on a house in the Gaza Strip that killed 12 civilians last
month, saying the action appeared to have been illegal.
The November 18 attack on the three-storey home of the Dalu family was the bloodiest of the eight days of fighting between the Jewish state and Gaza's Islamist Hamas-led armed factions, in which around 170 Palestinians and six Israelis died.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Israel should have anticipated the civilian toll and censured it for not proving it was justified in targeting the home.
Ten members of the Dalu family were killed, along with two neighbors.
"Attacks in which the expected civilian loss exceeds the anticipated military gain are serious violations of the laws of war," HRW said in a report.
Israel launched its November assault on the Gaza Strip in what it described as a defensive effort to disrupt Palestinian rocket capabilities.
"The Israeli claim that the attack on the Dalu home was justified is unsupported by the facts," said HRW special adviser Fred Abrahams, who conducted research in Gaza.
"The onus is on Israel to explain why it bombed a home full of civilians killing 12 people. Anyone who violated the law should be appropriately punished."
At the time of the attack, the Israeli military said it had struck the commander of Hamas's rocket-launching operations, naming him as Yihia Abayah.
The chief military spokesman later said the air force had "tried" to hit Abayah and the outcome of that attempt was unclear. He acknowledged civilians had been hurt.
TARGET
On November 28, a mid-level military spokeswoman said one of the Dalu family members was a Hamas "terror operative" - signaling that Israel considered him a legitimate target - though she declined to give a name.
Neither would she say if the military knew there had been civilians in the building.
Among the dead was Mohamed Jamal Dalu, a low-ranking police officer for the Hamas government, according to Palestinian sources. They said he was not known to have taken part in fighting against Israel.
The Israeli chief military spokesman's office said on Friday it would respond to the HRW report in full in the coming days.
It issued an interim statement saying Israel had taken "numerous measures" to avoid causing innocent casualties, and accused Palestinian guerrillas of putting civilians at risk by fighting among them.
The military said the Dalu residence had been identified by Israeli intelligence "as the hideout of a senior Hamas militant who played an important role in the organization's rocket-launching infrastructure". It did not name the militant.
The November 18 attack on the three-storey home of the Dalu family was the bloodiest of the eight days of fighting between the Jewish state and Gaza's Islamist Hamas-led armed factions, in which around 170 Palestinians and six Israelis died.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Israel should have anticipated the civilian toll and censured it for not proving it was justified in targeting the home.
Ten members of the Dalu family were killed, along with two neighbors.
"Attacks in which the expected civilian loss exceeds the anticipated military gain are serious violations of the laws of war," HRW said in a report.
Israel launched its November assault on the Gaza Strip in what it described as a defensive effort to disrupt Palestinian rocket capabilities.
"The Israeli claim that the attack on the Dalu home was justified is unsupported by the facts," said HRW special adviser Fred Abrahams, who conducted research in Gaza.
"The onus is on Israel to explain why it bombed a home full of civilians killing 12 people. Anyone who violated the law should be appropriately punished."
At the time of the attack, the Israeli military said it had struck the commander of Hamas's rocket-launching operations, naming him as Yihia Abayah.
The chief military spokesman later said the air force had "tried" to hit Abayah and the outcome of that attempt was unclear. He acknowledged civilians had been hurt.
TARGET
On November 28, a mid-level military spokeswoman said one of the Dalu family members was a Hamas "terror operative" - signaling that Israel considered him a legitimate target - though she declined to give a name.
Neither would she say if the military knew there had been civilians in the building.
Among the dead was Mohamed Jamal Dalu, a low-ranking police officer for the Hamas government, according to Palestinian sources. They said he was not known to have taken part in fighting against Israel.
The Israeli chief military spokesman's office said on Friday it would respond to the HRW report in full in the coming days.
It issued an interim statement saying Israel had taken "numerous measures" to avoid causing innocent casualties, and accused Palestinian guerrillas of putting civilians at risk by fighting among them.
The military said the Dalu residence had been identified by Israeli intelligence "as the hideout of a senior Hamas militant who played an important role in the organization's rocket-launching infrastructure". It did not name the militant.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, and Washington.
As of June 2011, the organization’s annual expenses totaled $50.6 million.
The George Soros Open Society Foundation is the primary donor of the Human Rights Watch, contributing $100 million of $128 million of contributions and grants received by the HRW in the 2011 financial year. The $100 million contribution from the Open Society Foundation will be paid out over ten years in $10 million annual installments.
As of June 2011, the organization’s annual expenses totaled $50.6 million.
The George Soros Open Society Foundation is the primary donor of the Human Rights Watch, contributing $100 million of $128 million of contributions and grants received by the HRW in the 2011 financial year. The $100 million contribution from the Open Society Foundation will be paid out over ten years in $10 million annual installments.
Paris: NATO-Arab Syria intervention imminent
debkafile: The reference is to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar’s special forces.
French sources told Le Point magazine that the NATO mission for Syria, including the UK and the US, would be modeled on the Western intervention in Libya in 2011. It would combine an aerial blitz with ground action by special forces for destroying Assad’s chemical weapons stocks, his air force and his air defense systems.
Hamas political chief pays first visit to Gaza, vows next trip to Jerusalem
Khaled Mashaal’s visit is ‘a victory for our people,’ says terror group’s PM Ismail Haniyeh; Israel says it has no control over who enters Strip from Egypt
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal arrived in the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon for the first time, seemingly signaling a changing attitude in the region vis-a-vis the Gaza-based terrorist organization, and told crowds that his next visits would be to Ramallah, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Jaffa.
Upon crossing the border from Egypt, a tearful Mashaal was greeted by Hamas officials and representatives of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
Mashaal, who heads Hamas’s political bureau, embraced the group’s prime minister in the Strip Ismail Haniyeh and kissed the ground.
In a joint press conference with his celebrated guest, Haniyeh called Mashaal’s visit “a historic moment for the Palestinian people and a victory for our people.”
“I have been dreaming of this historic moment my entire life, to come to Gaza,” Mashaal told reporters as he stood alongside senior Hamas member Mousa Abu Marzouk and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. “I ask God to give me martyrdom one day on this land.”
An earlier report that the visit had been postponed by the Egyptian government due to the deteriorating situation in Cairo proved unfounded. London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat had claimed earlier Friday that Egyptian authorities were unable to provide adequate security for Mashaal in Gaza.
The visit by Mashaal appeared to signal a growing regional acceptance of the Islamic terrorist group in charge of the once isolated territory.
Mashaal is scheduled to stay in Gaza for three days, with Hamas’s 25th anniversary rally on Saturday set as the centerpiece. On Friday, he appeared before the charred car of Hamas terror chief Ahmad Jabari, assassinated by Israel at the beginning of last month’s round of violence.
The landmark visit is taking place just two weeks after the bloodiest round of Israel-Gaza fighting in four years, in which Hamas pounded Israeli cities with some 1,500 rockets and missiles. The Israeli military responded with roughly the same number of airstrikes.
Hamas has portrayed itself as the victor because Israel agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce after eight days, without sending ground troops into Gaza, as it initially threatened.
Mahmoud Zahar, senior Hamas member, said Mashaal’s first visit was in celebration of Hamas’ gains in the latest round of fighting.
“He should return after a victory,” Zahar said. “This return came after a victory.”
Mashaal’s visit, though widely cheered, is nevertheless sensitive because of Palestinian political infighting. Mashaal, considered more pragmatic than Hamas’ Gaza-based hard-line leaders, forged a reconciliation agreement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules the West Bank. But the Gaza-based leadership, unsupportive of the agreement, has held up implementing it.
On Friday Mashaal asked aides to remove a red carpet laid out for him and refused an honor guard ceremony for his arrival. He appeared sensitive to the fact that Abbas still has not visited Gaza since Hamas wrested control of Gaza from his Fatah Party.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank expressed hope that Mashaal’s visit would help finalize the Palestinian political unity deal.
On Thursday, workers set up the stage for the anniversary rally, including a 13-meter-high (43-foot-high) replica of an M-75, a missile Hamas has fired deep into Israel. “Made in Gaza,” was written on the rocket.
Mashaal, whose family left the West Bank when he was a child, grew up in Kuwait and moved to Qatar this year after abandoning his longtime base in Syria.
His visit was meant to coincide with the last stretch of secret internal Hamas elections that began seven months ago.
Mashaal, who has headed the group’s decision-making bureau since 1996, said earlier this year he is not seeking re-election, but some suggested his Gaza visit could signal a change of heart and an attempt to mollify Gaza Hamas hardliners with whom he clashed months ago.
Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri said he believes the main purpose of the trip was an attempt supported by Egypt, Turkey and Qatar to get Mashaal re-elected. “Egypt, Qatar and Turkey want Khaled Mashaal, simply because he is a moderate and can get things done between the West and the Islamists,” said al-Masri.
Israel, meanwhile, appears to be looking the other way.
Israel considers Hamas a terror organization, refuses to deal with it directly and imposed a Gaza border blockade after the Hamas takeover of the territory in 2007. However, since its Gaza offensive last month, Israel has conducted indirect talks with Hamas, through Egypt, on a truce and a further easing of the Gaza border restrictions, already relaxed somewhat in recent years.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Thursday that Israel has no say over who enters Gaza from Egypt. “We have no position on different individuals within Hamas,” he said when asked about the Mashaal trip. “Hamas is Hamas is Hamas.”
Fifteen years ago, Mashaal came close to being assassinated by Israel. In 1997, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then in his first term, ordered Mashaal killed in retaliation for Hamas suicide bombings in Israel. Israeli agents grabbed Mashaal in the streets of the Jordanian capital of Amman and injected him with poison, but were caught, forcing Netanyahu to send an antidote that saved Mashaal’s life. Netanyahu also had to release Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader, to bring the agents back home.
While Israel has not publicly challenged Mashaal’s Gaza trip, Hamas’ smaller sister group Islamic Jihad said Thursday that Israel is trying to prevent its exiled leaders from joining the Hamas chief on his journey. Two members of Islamic Jihad said Israel relayed warnings through Egypt that it would consider the Gaza truce over if Islamic Jihad’s top two leaders in exile attempted to enter Gaza.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have received money and weapons from Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy. During last month’s cross-border fighting, Hamas fired Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles that landed close to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in Israel’s heartland. After the ceasefire, Mashaal thanked Iran for its military support of Gaza.
At the same time, Hamas under Mashaal has been drifting away from the Iranian-Syrian camp, particularly after Hamas’s break with Syrian President Bashar Assad this year over his brutal crackdown at home.
Mashaal has been trying to move Hamas closer to its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni group.
The Brotherhood, a rival of Shiite Muslim-led Iran, rose to power in Egypt and Tunisia after last year’s Arab Spring uprisings.
Mashaal also has close ties with Turkey and Qatar.
Both Egypt and Qatar have tried to broker a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Abbas, from whom Hamas seized Gaza more than five years ago. The most recent deal was signed this year by Abbas and Mashaal in the Qatari capital of Doha, but Mashaal couldn’t move forward because of an uproar by Hamas hardliners in Gaza.
Senior figures in Gaza, including Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar, complained at the time that they hadn’t been consulted. But mainly they balked at the idea of restoring some of Abbas’s authority in Gaza ahead of new elections — as envisioned by the Doha deal.
Saeb Erekat, an Abbas aide in the West Bank, said Thursday that the Mashaal visit to Gaza might help a unity deal. “This would give a chance to everyone in Gaza to hear what the agreement in Doha was about,” he said.
However, the Mashaal visit and Hamas’s ostensibly successful dare of Israel — firing rockets toward Tel Aviv without triggering an Israeli ground offensive — also seemed to signal that the Gaza branch of Hamas is becoming increasingly influential at the expense of the exiles.
In the past, the exile-based political bureau was the main decision-maker and conduit for funds. In running Gaza, Hamas leaders there are increasingly making fateful decisions for the movement.
With Hamas basking in its self-declared victory over Israel, the group might be even less willing than before to compromise with Abbas for the sake of a unity deal. At the same time, reconciliation faces a host of other obstacles, including opposition from Abbas’s Fatah movement and lack of a clear path forward, including how to merge rival security forces.
Hamas leaders in Gaza portrayed the Mashaal visit as part of an extended celebration of what they see as their military triumph.
“Mashaal is coming at a time when we are celebrating victory in the war,” said Salah Bardawil, a local Hamas leader. “A Hamas leader should come and celebrate with his people.”
Syrian opposition chief implores international community to act
George Sabra says Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be an unforgivable crime
Syrian opposition leader George Sabra on Friday urged the international community to act against Bashar Assad’s regime before it inflicts a chemical weapon disaster on its people.
Assad would not “hesitate to commit such atrocities as he approaches his inevitable end unless he faces firm and unequivocal international opposition,” Sabra said.
“We ask the countries of the world to act before disaster hits not after,” the Syrian National Council president said, insisting on actions, not words.
Speaking reporters in Paris, he said his organization and the Syrian people deplore the use of weapons of mass destruction, and ”will neither forget nor forgive anyone who orders the use of weapons of mass destruction, or anyone who is complicit in the crime, or anyone who moves only after the crime is committed.”
“The danger does not only threaten just Syria and its neighbors, but will also have a negative impact on global security,” Sabra said.
The opposition chief implored soldiers in the employ of Syrian President Bashar Assad to defect to the rebellion and disobey orders. “We call on troops and members of the security forces, and tell them that Syria, the country and its people, are more important than anything else.”
Sabra denounced Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons the same day that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against the Assad regime, saying that any use of chemical weapons would amount to an “outrageous crime in the name of humanity.”
Ban urges Syria against using chemical weapons
UN secretary-general calls for more aid to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Syria and Jordan
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has renewed a call on Syria not to use chemical weapons, saying their use would amount to an “outrageous crime in the name of humanity.”
The regime has insisted it would never use chemical weapons, of which it is believed to have one of the world’s largest stocks, against the Syrian people. NBC reported on Thursday that forces loyal to President Bashar Assad had already locked and loaded precursory chemicals for deadly nerve agent sarin into bombs which could be dropped from planes.
Ban on Friday also called for an end to the violence to allow a “political dialogue” and urged the UN Security Council to “stand united and act decisively” to end the crisis.
Ban spoke to reporters after a visit to refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey for Syrians and appealed for more aid to help the hundreds of thousands who have fled the violence.
“I call on the international community and particularly the countries of the region to provide on (an) urgent basis humanitarian assistance,” he said at the Zaatari camp in Jordan. Approximately 250,000 Syrian refugees have sought safety in Jordan since the civil war began 21 months ago.
“We cannot close our eyes while people are suffering and dying.
We have to help them,” Ban entreated. “The United Nations is working hard to alleviate the suffering of Syrians inside and outside their country.”
“(The) UN appeal for humanitarian assistance has been only half funded. We have witnessed a tripling in the number of refugees,” and “any serious escalation in Syria would lead to a dramatic increase” in the number of those who fled Syria.
The Syrian civil war has left more than 42,000 people dead since its inception in March 2011, according to opposition group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Eighty-three were killed across the country on Thursday, the group reported.
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