"If there is any significant disenchantment with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is largely hidden behind the fear that many feel in speaking out against the group.
In dozens of interviews across Gaza on Friday, less than a week after the start of a tenuous cease-fire, Palestinians generally expressed either unbridled support for Hamas or resignation to the idea that the group's reign in Gaza will continue for the foreseeable future. No one suggested that the group is vulnerable, despite the hopes of some Israeli officials who have theorized that their military campaign could ultimately spur Palestinians to rise up against Hamas rule."
WSJ: and then there's counter-productive in the long-term
"Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric...
When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and '80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank...
After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the [Muslim] Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.
At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank...
In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers...The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly...
In fact, the cleric and Israel had a shared enemy: secular Palestinian activists. After a failed attempt in Gaza to oust secularists from leadership of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Muslim version of the Red Cross, Mujama staged a violent demonstration, storming the Red Crescent building. Islamists also attacked shops selling liquor and cinemas. The Israeli military mostly stood on the sidelines."
NYT: the cleavage endures: Hamas targeting suspected Fatah supporters
"Many Fatah members and supporters said in interviews that Hamas might feel somewhat weakened by the Israeli offensive and was concerned that its political rivals not take advantage of the disorder created by the war.
The Palestinian human rights worker shared that view. “The internal security department is sending a very clear and strong message to Fatah to be quiet,” he said.
The shoemaker’s cousin, who actively supports Fatah, said that he had been moving from house to house after Hamas members searched his home on Sunday while he was out.
“They’re afraid that Fatah will take advantage of the chaos to come back to power,” the cousin said. “The message is: Stay at home. Be afraid. We didn’t lose power.”
A few patterns did seem to be emerging. Those who had Fatah and Hamas political affiliations within a single family tended not to be targets. And the cousin said it was not the central Hamas leadership that was looking for him, but only people from the party’s neighborhood branch, confirming, in part, what Mr. Nunu of the Gaza government said.
Several people said Hamas had given children cellphone credits to keep tabs on them. They are called “drones,” and when they pass, everyone knows to stop talking, said a man in Bureij, a town south of Gaza City, who said he had been told by local Hamas supporters to stay inside his house."LAT: Hamas leadership still in hiding
LAT: debating what happened - and legal and moral implications
WP: tough terrain in Afghanistan hinders counterinsurgency
"Bessey, a tall, athletic-looking West Point graduate from Michigan, glanced over at the stalled convoy while he settled in on a pile of rocks and waited for help to arrive. He vigorously worked a plug of tobacco in the corner of his mouth while he listened to Malik Dalawar, the Khuga Kheyl tribal elder, plead his case.
Thick-fisted and balding, with a stubbly white beard, Dalawar took Bessey's measure with a long, hard look. We need guns, he said. At night, there are few NATO forces or Afghan police or troops around to safeguard local villagers. Dalawar said he and his people needed some way to defend themselves against the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who regularly sweep into the area from Pakistan. But Bessey was not entirely convinced.
Dalawar, a member of the Mohmand tribe, said he is no fan of the Taliban. But in places such as Khuga Kheyl, the pressure on tribal elders to join the Taliban is intense. Electricity is scarce. Paved roads are nonexistent. And insurgent hideouts are abundant on both sides of the border. Dalawar said insurgent commanders regularly try to entice him to join the fight against coalition forces...
"I am an elder, so if someone has a gun and I don't, I can't do anything," Dalawar said.
"If the area is secure, then you don't need a weapon," Bessey replied.
Dalawar tried again: "If something happens and I do not have an AK-47, it could be a problem."
"If you have a weapon, it could be a problem for someone else," Bessey said.
In other parts of Afghanistan, the debate over whether to arm local tribal leaders has been largely settled. In southern Afghanistan and in provinces near the capital, Kabul, where the Taliban is strongest, the training and arming of local tribal militias will soon be underway.
Nevertheless, some Afghans have said they fear that arming local militias will lead to abuses and could reignite the same intertribal frictions that sparked a protracted and brutal civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s."
LAT: the debate about 'public guard' forces
"For many Afghans, the notion of private militias also evokes nightmarish memories of urban battles between warlords in the early 1990s. Entire districts of the capital, still rocket-pocked and battered, serve as a testament to that spasm of factional fighting that helped set the stage for the rise of the Taliban.
Critics also point to a disastrous 2006 effort by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to create an auxiliary force to supplement the regular police. With little or no screening of recruits, large numbers promptly deserted to join the insurgency, taking their government-issued weapons with them.
"We need to protect our country with our police and army, not a bunch of uneducated guys running around with guns," said Khan Mohammed, a businessman in the southern city of Kandahar. "One trained soldier or policeman is better than 10 or even 50 militiamen, because they won't follow any rules."
But to authorities in places like Wardak, where long stretches of the main national highway are littered with the remains of bombed-out convoys and government control is tenuous everywhere except district centers, the idea seems worth trying.
"We need something to fill the gap; there aren't enough police and there aren't enough troops," said Mohammed Halim Fidai, Wardak's governor. "Who is more motivated than someone guarding his home and family?"...
Many of the plan's Afghan backers say, however, that they expect the public guards to be modeled on traditional tribal groups called arbakais -- in no small measure because in rural Afghanistan almost everything breaks down along tribal lines.
Some Afghan officials worry tribal leaders' main goal in supporting the initiative is to expand influence, particularly because money to pay guards will be funneled through tribal councils, which are also supposed to vouch for those picked to serve as "paid volunteers."
Another sensitive point is weaponry. If the public guards are given guns, as expected, it would fly in the face of years of efforts by the Afghan government to disarm private militias. But few believe village-based groups would dare confront the Taliban, even indirectly, unless they have ready access to weapons.
U.S. and NATO officials said they did not envision arming the public guards. But one American military official acknowledged that nearly every village home has weapons, and use of them might be tacitly allowed.
Critics consider that hypocritical."
WP: US continues air strikes in Pakistan
"The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart and involving five missiles fired from Afghanistan-based Predator drone aircraft, were the first high-profile hostile military actions taken under Obama's four-day-old presidency."
AJE: ...as Zardari meets with tribal leaders in Islamabad
Slate: how many prisoners are still in Guantanamo, who are they, who has been released, and how many have returned to (or joined) terrorist groups?
Slate: ...and how many have gone to rehab?
"Detainees selected to enter Saudi Arabia's counseling program—usually Saudis who committed terror-related crimes and don't repent of their extremist beliefs in one-on-one interviews—are sent to a former desert resort outside Riyadh. There they swim in a pool, play soccer and volleyball, use Playstation, do art therapy, and learn to practice a more moderate form of Islam. They also take classes taught by clerics and social scientists. Coursework covers 10 subjects, from religious concepts like jihad (religious struggle) and takfir (calling someone an unbeliever) and walaah (loyalty) to psychological courses in self-esteem. The clerics impart the laws of Wahhabism—the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia—which prohibit jihad unless there is an official fatwa. At the end of six weeks, students take an exam. If they pass, they may be approved for release. (That is, if they have already served out their original jail sentence.) If not, they have to take the class again.
The goal of the rehab program is to give the "students" a stable social network that doesn't rely on terrorist organizations. Detainees eat and cook communally and live in rooms with fellow prisoners. Family members visit regularly, and detainees can phone them whenever they want. They can even request furlough for weddings and funerals. Families also receive generous stipends, since prisoners can't earn money...
Saudi Arabia isn't the only country to offer rehab to terrorists. Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Sinagpore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and now Iraq have similar programs. But none of these are as elaborate or well-funded as Saudi Arabia's. They have different approaches, too. In Indonesia, they bring in reformed extremists to talk to detainees. (The highest profile convert was Nasir Abas, who split from the group Jemaah Islamiya after the Bali bombing in 2005 and has since become the poster child for rehabilitation.)
So, does rehab work? Recidivism figures come from the local governments, so they aren't particularly reliable. The Saudis claim that, since 2003, they have converted and released 1,400 participants; as of 2008, only 35 of them—or 2 percent—had been rearrested. Of the 121 or so prisoners repatriated from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, six have been rearrested. These are, of course, cases of known recidivism. The real numbers may be much higher."
Slate: speaking of social networks - how they influenced soldiers' decisions and survival in the US Civil War
"Costa and Kahn look at the larger stakes decision of whether Union soldiers [in the US Civil War] chose to risk death by remaining to fight or desert and save their own skins. The authors reason that social bonds are stronger among soldiers from similar backgrounds. New England-born soldiers, for example, will feel greater kinship with other New Englanders, the Irish with other Irish, blacksmiths with other blacksmiths. In companies where men had shared backgrounds, fewer soldiers would be expected to abandon their comrades, both because of the greater kinship among men with a sense of social connection and because their shared network would make it easier to punish and censure cheaters back home...
The military service records of every Union soldier—including birthplace, occupation, age; whether he deserted, got captured, won a Medal of Honor—were sent to the National Archives after the war. To test their theory, Costa and Kahn analyzed the records of soldiers in 354 Union companies, a total of 41,000 men. They found that on average, nine out of 100 men deserted. However, in companies populated by a relatively homogeneous group of men—of similar ages, born in the same place, who worked similar jobs before the war—the desertion rate was closer to two in 100. Belief in the cause mattered—enlistees from pro-Lincoln counties were less likely to desert. And the likelihood of catching a bullet by staying and fighting naturally figured into soldiers' decisions to go AWOL as well—desertion rates went down when the war tilted in the Union's favor. But neither belief in the war nor hopes for survival mattered nearly as much as the strength of social bonds in predicting who would stay and fight.
This wasn't because soldiers felt safer surrounded by friends whom they could count on for life-saving favors—a soldier's best chance at survival was to desert, regardless of the strength of his fighting unit. Rather, it was the shame and embarrassment of abandoning one's comrades. A community quickly got word of cowardice as well as heroics through soldiers' letters home, and deserters were nearly 50 percent more likely to pick up and move to a different state after the fighting ended."
BBC: remembering Roma victimization in the Holocaust
"Historians often call it "the forgotten Holocaust". Up to 500,000 Roma are believed to have died in mass shootings and Nazi gas chambers."
NYT: Nkunda caught
wronging rights: why did Rwanda turn on him?
BBC: Congo seeking extradition
Econ: a brief synopsis of the convoluted war
Gdn: Thai gov't turning away migrants from Burma and Bangladesh without enough provisions to survive at sea; more than 400 have died
AJE: immigrants and asylum-seekers break out of holding center on Italian island, march to city hall
"Police said the group forced open the gates of the camp and marched peacefully to the town centre to protest against their detention.
They were joined by a few hundred locals who also want the inmates transferred to bigger camps elsewhere in Italy...
The UNHCR said it is only built for 850 people but now has up to 2,000 crammed in, many sleeping under plastic sheets. Originally a temporary stop for people waiting for transfer to other centres in Italy, the camp's role has changed this year with tough new immigration rules meaning all those rescued are kept in Lampedusa until being granted asylum or expelled... Italy's interior ministry estimates that 31,700 immigrants landed on Lampedusa in 2008, a 75 per cent increase on the previous year." AJE: Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will return to peace talks if Philippine gov't puts secession back on the agenda WP: reviews of 'Slumdog Millionaire' in Mumbai
"The 12,000-strong MILF has...continued the struggle for political autonomy, becoming one of four groups that are fighting for a separate Muslim state in the southern Philippines."
"Some of Mumbai's poor also are taking offense. On Thursday, a small band of slum residents, organized by a social activist, held up banners reading "Poverty for Sale" and "I am not a dog" outside the home of Anil Kapoor, one of the film's stars.
But many more slum residents -- the people who keep this teeming metropolis running by working as drivers, tea wallahs (or vendors), cobblers, laundry men and tailors -- say it's about time they received some attention in a country that tries to present itself as a success story, better known for its booming economy and its growing roster of millionaires than for the mayhem of its slums, among the world's largest. They say slumdogs are underdogs who deserve a film about their lives."
WP: slums receiving short shrift in Colombia as well
"Yodiris Parra, 32, one of 55,000 people who arrived in Cartagena during the past decade after being displaced by war , says her life has changed very little in recent years.
Her home is a wood-plank shack in the teeming Villa Hermosa slum. There is no running water, and raw sewage flows in the streets outside. Though Parra's husband works in construction, ostensibly benefiting from a building boom, she said that the typical meal she serves her three children is soup filled out with a bone...
As Uribe lobbies Washington for a free trade agreement, held up so far because of Democratic concerns over human rights abuses, he makes the case that his twin policies of fostering a healthy business climate and fighting armed groups have improved the lives of ordinary Colombians...
Here, inside Cartagena's ramparts and along an adjacent stretch of luxury seaside high-rises, it is easy to see signs of that investment and feel the optimism that has come with it...But to Jesús Mercado, who takes tourists on romantic carriage rides, the city that tourists see is far from being the real Cartagena. "They show the tourists and the foreigners the good face of Cartagena," he said. "But the dark side, the southeast side, they do not show that. They hide it."
Indeed, in this city of 1 million people, 600,000 are poor, and tens of thousands are destitute. The percentage of residents lacking basic necessities -- a yardstick used by demographers to measure poverty in Colombia -- is 26 percent, nearly three times the rate in Bogota, the capital."
BBC: the state of the landless movement in Brazil
Gdn: referendum on new constitution to be held in Bolivia on Sunday
Ind: Castro starting to fade
"On Thursday night, he instructed Cuban officials to start making decisions without taking him into account. In a column titled "Reflections of Comrade Fidel", he suggested his days are numbered, saying Cuban officials "shouldn't feel bound by my occasional 'Reflections', my state of health or my death. I have had the rare privilege of observing events over such a long time. I receive information and meditate calmly on those events. I expect I won't enjoy that privilege in four years, when Obama's first presidential term has ended." The lines had the ring of a farewell."
BBC: with spiraling crime, Mexico considering reinstatement of the death penalty
NYT: hip hop in China
" 'Hip-hop is free, like rock ’n’ roll — we can talk about our lives, what we’re thinking about, what we feel,' said Wang Liang, 25, a popular hip-hop D.J. in China who is known as Wordy. 'The Chinese education system doesn’t encourage you to express your own character. They feed you stale rules developed from books passed down over thousands of years. There’s not much opportunity for personal expression or thought; difference is discouraged.' "
NYT: the gag rule is gone!
No comments:
Post a Comment