Please excuse any email on this. It is a "placeholder" attempting to correct a problem with the website hosting this blog (which is not posting recent entries in their correct order).

Jimmy Carter an Anti-Semite? An Anti-Zionist? Hardly!

In recent weeks, ex-President Jimmy Carter (who spent much of his retirement building homes for Habitat for Humanity), has been vilified with such appelations as "anti-Semite" and "anti-Israel." All this because of a book he published which used the word "Apartheid" in the title. Here are three stories on this topic, one from the on-line Israeli newspaper Ynet, and two from the FORWARD, the national Jewish paper in the US.

Toward the end of the first story, note Carter's role in forcing Anwar Sadat to sign a peace treaty with Israel: does that sound like "anti-Semitism" or "anti-Zionism (anti-Israel)".

As one example of the anti-Carter propaganda, it's been noted in some news stories that 14 board members resigned from the Carter Center. The FORWARD story reveals that all 14 are Jewish, which shows two facts suppressed by the press: First, Jimmy Carter had a very large number of Jews on the board of the Carter Center, and Second, those who resigned were not exactly disinterested persons, given the strong Jewish attachment to Israel. Does a man who has a large number of Jews on his board sound like an "anti-Semite"? Should those members, because of their personal interest in Israel, perhaps have "recused" themselves from judging President Carter? Did they not have a conflict of interest in this matter?

20070112 FWD below Reform Rabbis Cancel Carter Center Visit

20070119 FWD below Carter To Speak at Brandeis

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3354810,00.html

Carter calls his Mideast book 'accurate'

Former US president says storm of criticism he has recently faced has not weakened his resolve for fair treatment of Israelis and Palestinians

Associated Press

Published: 01.21.07, 09:34

Former US President Jimmy Carter said Saturday that the storm of criticism he has faced for his recent book has not weakened his resolve for fair treatment of Israelis and Palestinians.

"I have been called a liar," Carter said at a town hall meeting on the second day of a three-day symposium on his presidency at the University of Georgia.

"I have been called an anti-Semite," he said. "I have been called a bigot. I have been called a plagiarist. I have been called a coward. Those kind of accusations, they concern me, but they don't detract from the fact the book is accurate and is needed."

Following the publication of the book: "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," 14 members of an advisory board to his Carter Center resigned in protest. Those former board members and other critics contend the book is unfairly critical of Israel .

"Not one of the critics of my book has contradicted any of the basic premises ... that is the horrible persecution and oppression of the Palestinian people and secondly that the formula for finding peace in the Middle East already exists," the 82-year-old Carter said.

Carter said he was pleased the book has stimulated discussion of an issue that has been "omitted from the public consciousness" for at least the last six years.

"Israel needs peace and the Palestinian people need peace and justice and I hope my limited influence will help to precipitate some steps," he said.

Saved 1978 Camp David peace talks

Also Saturday, Carter, at times emotional, told a town hall meeting of how he saved the 1978 Camp David peace talks when it appeared Egyptian president Anwar Sadat would leave.

Carter said in the first three days of the talks Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin often argued. After about a week, Carter said, Sadat reached a breaking point and packed his bags to return to Egypt - and Carter "knelt down and prayed and I asked God to help me."

Carter said he then walked to Sadat's cabin.

"Sadat and I stood with our noses almost touching and I told him that he had betrayed me and betrayed his own people and if he left our friendship was severed forever and the relationship between the United States and Egypt would suffer."

Sadat agreed to stay, and the Camp David Accords were signed after 12 days of negotiations.

The three-day conference was arranged to mark the 30th anniversary of Carter's 1977 inauguration.

===== 20070119 FWD below Carter To Speak at Brandeis =====

http://www.forward.com/articles/carter-to-speak-at-brandeis/

Carter To Speak at Brandeis

Jennifer Siegel | Fri. Jan 19, 2007

Pro-Israel activists are gearing up for a showdown with Jimmy Carter next week at Brandeis University, where the former president will field questions on his controversial new book on Israel.

The visit, scheduled for January 23, was recently announced after weeks of contention between Carter and university officials, who previously proposed that he appear in a debate with Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz. Following the announcement, Dershowitz and his supporters are scrambling for a venue to present their views to the campus community. Earlier this week, an ad hoc student group invited the Harvard professor to speak following the Carter forum, which Dershowitz said he "absolutely" planned to attend, despite an announced university ban on all outsiders.

"I think the people who brought Carter to the campus are very anxious about having me speak," Dershowitz told the Forward. He added, "Brandeis will have to make the decision to exclude me [from the Carter forum], because I'm going to come. I'm not going to make it easy for them."

The stormy prelude to Carter's trip to Brandeis comes as the controversy over his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," continues to escalate on several fronts across the country.

On January 11, the day after the Forward revealed that the 1,500-member rabbinical arm of Reform Judaism had canceled a planned visit to the Atlanta-based Carter Center, 14 Jewish members of the center's board of councilors resigned in protest over the new book and Carter's recent public statements suggesting that powerful American Jews had stifled an open public debate on Israel.

"Your book has confused opinion with fact, subjectivity with objectivity and force for change with partisan advocacy," the councilors wrote in public letter to Carter. They added, "We can no longer support your strident and uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter we came to respect and support."

The departures followed the exit of Emory University professor Kenneth Stein, who resigned in December from his position as a Carter Center fellow. Several days after the councilors resigned, Emory professor Melvin Konner withdrew from a group advising the former president on managing his recent controversies.

According to press reports, the departures from the board of councilors were discussed for weeks, and the group unsuccessfully pressed for the resignations from some of the non-Jews on the 200-member board.

At the same time that Carter's critics are pressing their case against the former president, his defenders are stepping up their own efforts. In recent days, the Forward has learned, pro-Palestinian advocates have been circulating a boycott petition against Amazon.com. The online retailer has included a highly critical review, by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Washington Post, in the "editorial reviews" section under its listing for Carter's book.

"Because giving so much space in this location to such a negative review is so unusual - if not unprecedented - for Amazon, and because you have refused requests from many customers that you take a more balanced approach, we can only conclude that you are deliberately trying to discourage shoppers from ordering the former president's book," the petition says. It calls for a boycott of Amazon.com unless the retailer adds a positive review of similar length and substance to Goldberg's piece.

Nabil Mohamad, the organizing director for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination League, said he received the letter late last week, with several thousand signatures already attached, and forwarded it on to his group's members. He was unsure where it originated.

According to Mohamad, at some point since last week Amazon.com added a more positive, albeit brief, review from Publishers Weekly to the entry for Carter's book.

Amazon.com spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company was aware of the petition and routinely draws complaints about controversial books. Smith could not confirm whether the Publishers Weekly review was recently added.

At Brandeis, it is Carter's detractors who are concerned that the marketplace of ideas may be endangered. At the upcoming forum - which is not being run by the university's administration but by a committee comprised of four faculty members and one student - Carter will speak for 15 minutes and then spend 45 minutes answering 15 pre-chosen questions, culled from queries submitted by students in advance via the Internet.

"What disturbs me is that President Carter really declined to have a real debate and even with the current setup there will not be questions from the floor," said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis. "To my mind it is very unfortunate that there will not be an open forum for discussing some very serious allegations concerning the book and material that has now come out even beyond the book."

Dershowitz has said that he plans to bring up a new issue during his tentative speech at Brandeis: the funding of the Carter Center, which relies on a number of prominent Arab donors - including the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates - for a portion of its $36 million operating budget. These financial ties, Dershowitz said, may explain why the Carter Center has never issued a report on Saudi human rights abuses.

Another new line of criticism opened in the past week is the charge that Carter's book goes so far as to accept terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. In their letter, the councilors who resigned from the Carter Center drew attention to a passage from page 213 of Carter's book which states that "it is imperative, that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."

In recent days, a conservative newspaper, The New York Post, and a right-wing organization, the Zionist Organization of America, have also argued that the passage reads like an approval of suicide attacks.

In another passage, on page 15, Carter calls terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians "a course of action that is both morally reprehensible and politically counterproductive."

Fri. Jan 19, 2007

===== 20070112 FWD below Reform Rabbis Cancel Carter Center Visit =====

http://www.forward.com/articles/reform-rabbis-cancel-carter-center-visit/

Reform Rabbis Cancel Carter Center Visit

Jennifer Siegel | Fri. Jan 12, 2007

EDITOR'S NOTE: Shortly after this article was posted, 14 board members of the Carter Center announced their resignation from the institution.

The rabbis of America's largest synagogue movement have canceled a planned visit to the Atlanta-based Carter Center in response to the publication of former President Jimmy Carter's controversial new book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last month, the Forward has learned, leaders of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, a 1,500-member group representing Reform rabbis, called off a scheduled tour of the Carter Center after the public reaction to Carter's book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," reached a fevered pitch, and an interdenominational group of rabbis expressed disappointment over a meeting with the former president. CCAR members were to have had the opportunity to visit the center as part of an optional day of activities preceding the group's annual conference, which will be held in Atlanta from March 11 to 14.

Carter's book "used language and images and terms that have the effect of escalating anti-Israel or even anti-Jewish feeling," said the CCAR's president, Rabbi Harry Danziger, in an interview with the Forward. "This is both a statement to President Carter that we hope he will enter into dialogue about what we think of as misrepresented facts about the Middle East, and, at the same time, our own statement that we feel that this was an unfair attack on Israel and we did not want to be part of a visit to the center because of it."

Since the publication of his book in mid-November 2006, Carter has endured a steady barrage of criticism from Jewish figures. Among them are vocal defenders of Israel, such as Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz and the Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham Foxman, as well as former colleagues such as Emory University professor Kenneth Stein, who resigned from his post as a fellow at the Carter Center. Carter's critics have argued that his book is biased and unnecessarily inflammatory, and that it contains errors of both fact and interpretation.

In addition to placing the onus of the continuing conflict on Israeli settlement policies, Carter also asserted in his book that "powerful political, economic and religious forces in the United States" prevent the Palestinian side of the Middle East debate from being heard in Washington and the American media. During his book tour, Carter has been more outspoken in accusing the pro-Israel lobby and Jewish activists of stymieing debate.

With the rebuke from the CCAR, Carter, who brokered the Israeli-Egyptian peace deal and has been a leading proponent of a two-state solution, now finds himself being heavily criticized even by the leaders of the largest and most dovish of America's major synagogue movements.

"There's a real sense of sorrow, because many of us have said that he was in many ways our hero, and we've lost that sense of him," said Rabbi Andrew Strauss, president of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix. Strauss is one of the Jewish clergymen who met privately with Carter in early December, when the former president traveled to Arizona on his book tour.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism - the umbrella organization for the country's 900-plus Reform congregations, with 1.5 million members - praised the CCAR's decision to cancel the Carter Center tour. The Reform leader said that over the years, on "numerous" occasions, his organization has invited Carter to speak, only to be rebuffed.

"Despite significant disagreements with him, we have invited him to speak on various occasions," said Yoffie, a senior dove in the American Jewish community, who, since becoming head of the URJ in 1996, has displayed a willingness to reach out to political opponents.

"He has shown no interest in appearing under our auspices, even before the [debate over the book]," Yoffie said. "So at this particular moment, we have no desire to chase after him for a dialogue."

Yoffie, despite sharing Carter's support for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, criticized Carter's approach to the conflict. "When was the last time we heard a strong voice from President Carter criticizing a terrorist attack against Jews in Israel?" Yoffie said in an interview with the Forward. "There's something fundamentally skewed in his moral outlook. He's done some good things in the world, and we're the first to acknowledge that, but he has serious problems when it comes to dealing with Jews."

In contast, Rabbi Michael Lerner, who recently informed followers that he is exploring the possibility of working with Carter on building a left-wing alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, described the former president as open to dialogue.

"I just had several conversations [with Carter] in the past few weeks that made me feel that he totally cared about the Jewish people and Israel," said Lerner, who is the founding editor of the liberal bimonthly journal Tikkun.

Carter has repeatedly insisted that one of his primary motivations is to achieve a peace settlement that would ensure Israel's security and survival.

The Carter Center did not respond to a request for comment. In several recent media interviews, Carter has strongly rejected any suggestion that he is anti-Jewish.

In a December 8 opinion article in the Los Angeles Times, the former president criticized what he called "severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to "the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American Israel Political Action Committee."

"My most troubling experience" on the book tour, Carter wrote, "has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors."

The Carter Center did not respond to the Forward's request for additional details. But critics say that in the case of Brandeis University, it was the former president who decided against a visit to the campus. Last month, Carter rejected an invitation to speak at Brandeis after the school insisted that he appear in a debate against Dershowitz.

Fri. Jan 12, 2007

Would You Buy a Used Occupation From These People?

Israel and its supporters are always accusing the Palestinians of saying one thing in English to the world but saying something quite different in Arabic. Well, the Israelis do the same thing.

BEAR IN MIND THAT THE "DISENGAGEMENT" FROM GAZA WAS PHONY: ISRAEL MAINTAINS THE TIGHT CONTROL OF THE TERRITORY THAT ONE WOULD ONLY EXPECT TO SEE IN A PRISON CAMP.

QUOTE: "It's a new position made very clear in Hebrew before the courts but not something that Israel has made clear internationally," said Sari Bashi, Gisha's executive director.

20070115 LT below The victims of Gaza's identity crisis

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2548381,00.html

Times Online [London] January 15, 2007

Israel's 'invisible hand' still controls Gaza, says report

David Sharrock in Gaza

Israel continues to control Gaza, 16 months after it pulled out its settlements and military installations, with an "invisible hand" that has provoked a severe humanitarian and economic crisis, according to an Israeli human rights body.

Ending its 38-year military occupation of the Gaza Strip did not end Israeli control but simply changed the rules of engagement, charges Gisha, the Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement, in a report due to be published next week.

The organisation says that Israel's control over Gaza's borders, airspace, territorial waters, population registry, tax system and supply of goods means that it cannot absolve itself of responsibility for its citizens under international law.

"It's a new position made very clear in Hebrew before the courts but not something that Israel has made clear internationally," said Sari Bashi, Gisha's executive director.

"Sometimes Israeli soldiers still operate in the streets of Gaza but Israeli control of every aspect of the lives of Gaza citizens is constant, they know that their ability to do ordinary things like turn on a light or buy milk depends on decisions made by the Israeli military."

The report details how Israel has removed some of its elements of control while significantly tightening others.

"Far from improving the economy and welfare of Gaza residents, Israeli actions since September 2005 - including severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza and an economic stronghold on the funding of civil services - have contributed to an economic and humanitarian crisis in Gaza not seen in the 38 years of Israeli control that preceded the withdrawal of permanent ground troops."

Gisha says that Gaza has been cut off from the outside world for 42 per cent of the time since the Strip was evacuated of Jewish settlers and troops. The Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt is operated by the Palestinian Authority under the supervision of European Union monitors and Israeli security officials who monitor operations with live video footage and passenger lists.

Travel through the crossing is restricted to Palestinians registered in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian population registry.

This means that foreigners may only enter Gaza via the Israeli-controlled crossing points in the north.

"Reports and internal military documents suggest that Israel has used the closure of the (Rafah) crossing to exercise pressure on Gaza residents. In the first year following the completion of its disengagement programme, Israel kept Rafah Crossing closed for 148 days." Since June last year, when militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier, the Rafah crossing has been closed for 80 per cent of the time and, on days that it has opened, has functioned only for a few

hours.

At the same time Israel has also kept Gaza's other crossings mostly closed and has withheld monies needed to pay the salaries of civil servants and to run civilian institutions.

"The results of these controls have been devastating and have helped plunge Gaza into an economic and humanitarian crisis unprecedented in nearly four decades of occupation," says the report, seen by The Times.

Israel completely controls the import of goods into Gaza and exercises substantial control over exports from Gaza to third countries and to the West Bank.

The Karni Crossing between Israel and Gaza is the lifeline through Which commercial goods enter the Gaza Strip. Because imports to Gaza are not permitted via air, sea, or Rafah Crossing, only goods arriving first in Israel and inspected there can be brought into Gaza.

"The restrictions on imports via Karni Crossing have, at various points, caused severe shortages of basic goods that threatened the health and welfare of Gaza residents," the report says.

"Citing security warnings, Israel has closed Karni Crossing to exports for most of 2006, causing severe damage to Gaza's economy and rendering export crops virtually worthless. The closures caused an estimated $30 US million in losses in the first quarter of 2006 alone.

"During that time, farmers destroyed their crops, donated them, or left them to rot in the fields, because they could not get them out of Gaza and to export markets."

Another controversial are is control over the Palestinian Population Registry, which means control over who may enter and leave Gaza.

Since 2000, with few exceptions, Israel has not permitted additions to the Palestinian Population Registry, with the exception of children of Palestinian ID-card holders.

Tens of thousands of Gaza residents, primarily women who entered Gaza on visitor permits and married locals, cannot leave because they will not be permitted to return.

A result of these policies, says Gisha, is an unemployment rate which has risen between 2005 and 2006 from 33.1 per cent to 41.8 per cent, and Gross Domestic Product has declined by an estimated 30 per cent.

The report concludes:"So long as Israel exercises control over civilian life in Gaza, it will continue to owe obligations to those civilians whose lives depend on the decisions of a foreign military power."

===== 20070115 LT below The victims of Gaza's identity crisis

=====

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2547485,00.html

The Times [London] January 15, 2007

Ahmad el-Akad's wife, Elena, left Gaza to visit her dying mother in Siberia. She has no identity card in Gaza and has not been allowed to return with her children. (David Sharrock)

The victims of Gaza's identity crisis

David Sharrock in Gaza

# Israel has frozen Palestinian register

# Thousands have no official papers

She wants to leave but dares not, fearing that her return will be barred. He yearns for his wife and children to come home, trapped on the other side of Gaza's walled high-tech frontier. Both are victims of Israel's control of the Palestinian population register.

Under the 1993 Oslo accords, which charted a phased route to Palestinian statehood, any addition to the Palestinian population register was subject to Israeli approval. But Israel has frozen the register since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, leaving tens of thousands of ordinary people in Gaza, like Mirvat al-Nahal, a lawyer, and Ahmad el-Akad, an ophthalmologist, in limbo. Their plight is highlighted in a forthcoming report from Gischa, the Israeli Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement.

Ms al-Nahal was born in exile in Libya and was 19 when her parents took her home to Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border. "I finished high school here, then studied law at El Azhar University. But for the past 13 years I have never left Gaza because I have no official identity. My father was told he had no right to an identity card because he left Palestine before the Israelis invaded Gaza in 1967. Until a year ago my father couldn't even travel to Gaza City, 45 minutes away, because he was afraid the Israelis would catch him at a checkpoint and deport him.

"My mother Nadia's family also left and live in Syria. When we lived in Libya we could visit them, but since 1993 she has not seen them. In 2005 Nadia had a stroke and needed medical facilities that were only available in Ramallah.

"She was refused the right to cross to the West Bank because she had no identity card. She died while we were trying to arrange for a specialist to come from Ramallah to treat her.

"My children Taysir [an 8-year-old boy], Shahed [a 5-year-old girl] and Seifildeen [a 3-year-old boy] can travel because my husband has his Gazan identity papers and they are included under his name. But I am deprived of all my rights as a citizen. My husband's ID card says he is married but the box for 'spouse's name' is blank. I want to develop my career. I have been offered scholarships to do my masters abroad but if I take them I know that I will be refused entry on my return."

Dr el-Akad left Gaza in 1990 to study ophthalmology in Tomsk at the University of Siberia. He met Elena, a doctor, and in 1994 they married. A year later their son Mostafa was born. In 2000 he applied for a family visit visa so that they could return to Gaza. They got jobs, Elena as a paediatrician in the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Dr el-Akad in the private sector. In 2002 Daiana, a daughter, was born. Elena applied for her ID card but nothing happened.

"You apply through the Palestinian administration but it is up to the Israelis. We waited a long time. We wrote to President Putin, to Arafat, we tried everything. My wife's father died in 2005 and she was not able to go to the funeral. Last year her mother's [heart] condition worsened and she was calling Elena, saying 'I want to see you before I die'.

"She was caught between two emotions, to see her mother for the last time or stay with her husband and children. It was agonising. In July last year we decided that she should go to Siberia."

At this point Dr el-Akad began to cry. "We have tried everything. My children can come back, but how can they without their mother? It's not easy to find work for her or me in Siberia, while here she is respected in her profession.

"My children cry when I speak to them. They ask me: 'When are we coming home? When will we see you?' I send them $1,000 a month but now I must sell my furniture because there is no work here, the economy is collapsing. I know of people here in similar circumstances who eventually divorce because they cannot get back. I am afraid this will be my fate."

Iraq: Bush Losing to Sistani?

QUOTE: On the day of Bush's televised speech, a delegation led by Mowafaq al-Rubai, Iraq's national security adviser, unveiled its plan to secure Baghdad to Sistani. It envisages creating a new post of the commander-in-chief reporting directly to Maliki, thus bypassing the defence minister, Abdul-Qader al-Mifarji, a Sunni in thrall of the Pentagon. . .Bush's new plan envisages the American and Iraqi forces first securing Sunni and mixed neighbourhoods of Greater Baghdad and then entering the Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi army. It is unthinkable that Maliki will consider attacking Sadr City without consulting Sistani. And Sistani will never sanction armed action against fellow Shias.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2007/01/sistani_matters_more_than_bush.html.printer.friendly

Cords that cannot be broken

Dilip Hiro

January 15, 2007 11:45 AM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dilip_hiro/2007/01/sistani_matters_more_than_bush.html

Several months before his declaration in a televised speech on January 10 that the Pentagon would go after the Iranian networks in Iraq, President Bush signed secret orders authorising military action to counter Iran's ambitions in Iraq and the broader Middle East.

This revelation came from Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, in her January 13 interview with the New York Times. She added that Bush issued the orders to implement "force protection", arguing that Iran was providing explosively formed penetrators (EFP), capable of penetrating tanks, to Iraqi terrorists to target US forces.

So far the Bush administration had produced no evidence to prove its allegation.

Rice's statement explained the rationale behind the arrest of five Iranian diplomats in Irbil, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region's capital, by the Americans on January 11 - preceded by the detention of two Iranian officials in Baghdad, invited by Iraq's Kurdish president Jalal Talabani.

Bush's move is one of the several meant to isolate Iran. But, whatever success he has in persuading European banks not to deal with a couple of Iranian banks, he won't get far in creating bad blood between Iranians and the Shia and Kurdish Iraqis.

Bush cannot alter two facts, one geographical and the other religious. Iraq and Iran share a 750-mile long border which is impossible to seal.

Also, 90% of Iranians and 60% of Iraqis belong to Shia Islam. The links between Shia religious leaders in the two countries, and between Najaf, the Shia theological centre in Iraq, and Qom, the Iranian centre of Shia learning, span many centuries.

When Britain, as the mandate power in Iraq after the first world war, expelled the pre-eminent Shia clerics for their successful call to fellow-Shias to revolt against the British forces in 1920, they found refuge in Qom.

During the early years of Islam, Qom developed as a refuge for the opponents of the Umayyad Dynasty (661-750), in 685. These refugees were soon called Shia Ali, partisans of Ali. They stood apart from Sunnis, the people of the Sunna, custom of Prophet Muhammad and his three successors - Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman - whom Shias did not recognise as legitimate caliphs since they did not belong to the prophet's family. Qom became a symbol of resistance to the Sunni governors and their tax demands.

As the burial place of Imam Ali, the founder of Shia Islam, Najaf is the leading centre of Shia learning and pilgrimage.

The career of 76-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is illustrative. Born in the Iranian city of Mashhad, he pursued his theological studies first in Qom, and then in Najaf, where he obtained a degree in ijtihad, interpretative reasoning of the Islamic law. His return to Mashhad in 1960 was brief.

Back in Najaf, he became a theological teacher. He belonged to the quietist school of Shia clerics who limited themselves to providing social welfare to the community. This helped him to secure his base in Najaf after the secular Ba'athist party seized power in 1968 and repressed those Shia clerics who advocated intervention in state affairs.

By the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Sistani had acquired the status of an ayatollah, and gained popularity due to his Spartan way of life. After the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr in 1999, the government appointed him the Grand Ayatollah.

With the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the long-suppressed Shias came to the fore, backing the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the brainchild of Sistani, in the elections. The UIA includes the supreme council for Islamic revolution in Iraq (Sciri), al-Daawa al Islamiya (to which Ibrahim Jaafari and Nouri al-Maliki belong), and the Sadrists led by radical Moqtada al-Sadr, commander of the Mahdi army.

Jaafari, the prime minister elected by the transition national assembly, had the blessing of Sistani. When a crisis developed due to Jaafari's refusal to step down after he had won re-election by a single vote within the UIA, Sistani intervened.

Maliki invariably consults Sistani on major issues. When a stalemate developed between his office and US officials regarding the execution of Saddam Hussein, with the Americans referring to the pre-war law banning executions during Eid al-Adha, Maliki sought Sistani's opinion. Sistani gave the go-ahead.

On the day of Bush's televised speech, a delegation led by Mowafaq al-Rubai, Iraq's national security adviser, unveiled its plan to secure Baghdad to Sistani. It envisages creating a new post of the commander-in-chief reporting directly to Maliki, thus bypassing the defence minister, Abdul-Qader al-Mifarji, a Sunni in thrall of the Pentagon.

Bush's new plan envisages the American and Iraqi forces first securing Sunni and mixed neighbourhoods of Greater Baghdad and then entering the Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi army. It is unthinkable that Maliki will consider attacking Sadr City without consulting Sistani. And Sistani will never sanction armed action against fellow Shias.

So the scene is set for Sistani to trump Bush in Iraq - as he should.

CIA Kiss of Death for Lebanon?

Discovering that the CIA is behind the current government in Lebanon is not likely to increase its popularity.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/10/wleb10.xml

CIA gets the go-ahead to take on Hizbollah

By Toby Harnden, US Editor

Last Updated: 1:47am GMT 10/01/2007

The Central Intelligence Agency has been authorised to take covert action against Hizbollah as part of a secret plan by President George W. Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Senators and congressmen have been briefed on the classified "non-lethal presidential finding" that allows the CIA to provide financial and logistical support to the prime minister, Fouad Siniora.

The finding was signed by Mr Bush before Christmas after discussions between his aides and Saudi Arabian officials. Details of its existence, known only to a small circle of White House officials, intelligence officials and members of Congress, have been passed to The Daily Telegraph.

advertisement

Click to learn more...

It authorises the CIA and other US intelligence agencies to fund anti-Hizbollah groups in Lebanon and pay for activists who support the Siniora government. The secrecy of the finding means that US involvement in the activities is officially deniable.

The Bush administration hopes Mr Siniora's government, severely weakened after its war with Israel last year, will become a bulwark against the growing power of the Shia sect of Islam, championed by Iran and Syria, since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Mr Bush's move is at the centre of a fresh drive by America, supported by the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as well as Israel, to stop Iranian hegemony in the Middle East emerging from the collapse of Iraq.

The finding, drawn up at the White House by National Security Council (NSC) officials, is a sign of Mr Bush's growing alarm at the threat posed by Iran, which has infiltrated the Iraqi government and is training Shia insurgents as well as supplying them with roadside bombs.

A former US government official said: "Siniora's under siege there and we are always looking for ways to help allies. As Richard Armitage [a former deputy US secretary of state] said, Hizbollah is the A-team of terrorism and certainly Iran and Syria have not let up in their support of the group."

Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, is understood to have been closely involved in the decision to prop up Mr Siniora's administration and the Israeli government, which views Iran as its chief enemy, has also been supportive.

"There's a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far," said an intelligence source. "By removing Saddam, we've shifted things in favour of the Shia and this is a counter-balancing exercise.

Prince Bandar, now King Abdullah's national security adviser, made several trips to Washington and held meetings with Elliot Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the NSC.

Prince Turki al-Faisal resigned abruptly as ambassador to Washington last month. Intelligence sources said that a principal reason for this was his belief he had been undermined by Prince Bandar, who had not told him of the Lebanon plan or even that he was visiting Washington.

As a quid pro quo to the Sunni Arab states, Mr Bush and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, have agreed to work harder to re-start negotiations about a peace deal with the Palestinians.

According to the Swoop website (theswoop.net), which contains briefings on diplomatic and intelligence matters: "US officials point to the Israeli release of some tax monies owed to the Palestinian Authority as the first fruits of this approach.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former clandestine CIA officer, said that such a finding would involve "various steps and types of non-military activity" agreed to by the Lebanese. "It takes two to tango. You're only those things that the Lebanese themselves would want you to do," he said.

Bush administration officials have spoken of their desire to promote "mainstream" Arab states and have even spoken of the existence of a "Sunni crescent" in the Middle East. But there is tension between this policy and the support for Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-led government in Iraq, which has links to Shia death squads and Iran.

"The administration is reaping its own whirlwind after Iraq," said the intelligence source. "For 50 years the US preferred stability over legitimacy in the Middle East and now it's got neither. It's a situation replete with ironies."