Palestinians call for guarantees before a return to talks

Palestinian leaders have not approved U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s plan for reigniting peace talks with Israel despite Arab League support for the formula. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with leaders from his Fattah Party and senior Palestinian Liberation Organization officials on Thursday to discuss the resumption of peace talks. Several Palestinian leaders said Kerry’s proposal was insufficient because it did not require an Israeli settlement freeze or that negotiations be based on the 1967 borders, with minor adjustments. They, however, did not close the door on talks and are drafting a formal reply to Kerry requesting specific guarantees, in writing or expressed publicly, including: the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations, an Israeli settlement freeze over the course of the talks, and a specified time limit for negotiations. The meeting came a day after the Arab League announced its support for Kerry’s formula. Kerry will travel to Ramallah Friday to meet with Abbas, after holding meetings in the morning with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. The U.S. State Department said there will be no announcement yet on the resumption of talks, however U.S. officials said the holdup is temporary. Meanwhile, Israel has maintained there should be no preconditions for negotiations.

Syria

Kurdish and Islamist opposition fighters clashed in several areas of Syria Thursday, showing increased infighting within the rebel lines. The heightened violence between the groups has come a day after fighters from the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) seized the town of Ras al-Ain, on Syria’s border with Turkey, from Islamist groups. Additionally, there have been reports of a standoff between Kurdish forces and the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra near the Tel Abyad border crossing between Turkey and the northern Raqqa province. On Friday, the PYD announced plans to set up an independent council to exercise authority over Kurdish regions until the Syrian civil war has ended. Head of the PYD, Saleh Muslim, said, "This is not a call for separation it is just that for a year now we have been on our own in our own territories and people have needs, they want some kind of administration to run their issues." Meanwhile, the Syrian government has given in to a rebel demand releasing 23 women prisoners, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In exchange, Syrian rebels are expected to release several Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who they have held since May 2012.

Headlines

• Egypt’s interim President Adly Mansour delivered his first address stressing a commitment to security and stability, meanwhile thousands of pro-Morsi protesters are rallying Friday in Cairo.
• A bombing inside the Sunni Abu Bakr al-Sadiq mosque in the Iraqi town of Wajihiya in Diyala province has killed at least 20 people on Friday.
• Lebanese authorities have said there was no political motive behind Wednesday’s killing of pro-Assad commentator Mohammed Darrar Jammo, and have arrested his wife along with her brother and nephew.
• Panamanian authorities have detained Ex-CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady who was convicted by Italy in absentia for his involvement in the abduction of an Egyptian cleric suspected of terrorism.

Arguments and Analysis

‘The GCC’s Non-Strategy in Syria‘ (Faysal Itani, The Atlantic Council)

"In response to Hezbollah’s deepening role in the Syrian civil war, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) pledged in June to target Hezbollah loyalists and their financial and commercial interests in the Gulf. Presumably, the GCC action, which will overwhelmingly affect Hezbollah’s Lebanese Shia support base, aims to convince them that its behavior in Syria is harming their interests, thereby turning them against the party. Several dozen Shia have been deported from Saudi Arabia and Qatar alone since the statement was made. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese live and work in the Gulf, and many others in Lebanon depend on remittances from them. The GCC’s most effective tools against foreigners are therefore withholding work visas and residencies from those seeking work in the Gulf, or deporting expatriates. The monarchies also realize that targeting the Lebanese diaspora and remittances threatens Lebanon’s economy, and can ostensibly be used to pressure the Lebanese government to take action against Hezbollah.

The GCC’s actions fit a historical pattern of Sunni leaders’ suspicion towards Shia politics in general, particularly the Lebanese Shia, who have been targeted in the past for their alleged pro-Hezbollah sympathies. A spokesman for Lebanese Shia living in GCC countries claims the United Arab Emirates alone has expelled more than 400 Lebanese Shia families since 2009 for unspecified security reasons. Prominent Lebanese businessmen with extensive interests and employees in the GCC (and no sympathy for Hezbollah) report serious difficulty in obtaining work permits for Shia workers. Lebanese have been interrogated and turned away upon entry to Bahrain, following the outbreak of unrest among its own Shia population, whom the monarchy accuses of collaborating with Hezbollah and its patron Iran. All of this points to much more divisive posturing related to the Sunni-Shia divide and further poisons relations between the two communities. The impact is felt far beyond the individuals and families affected; these actions carry weight and a symbolic message that perpetuates a negative sectarian narrative."

‘Trouble on the Border‘ (Raed El Hamed, Sada)

"Jabhat al-Nusra argued in one of its statements that ‘fighting against the Shiite Iraqi government in Baghdad is a jihad and sacred religious duty in order to liberate it from the Magi [a derogatory term for Iranians and Shiites].’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on April 9, 2013 announced the formation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and that Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, was actually ‘one of the Islamic State of Iraq’s soldiers, whom we assigned for action in Syria.’ Only two days later, Jabhat al-Nusra implicitly rejected this claim by announcing its loyalty to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the global al-Qaeda, who intervened to break up the dispute between the two. However, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rejected al-Zawahiri’s proposal that the merger be aborted and that he ‘continue to work in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq while Jabhat al-Nusra would be considered an independent branch of al-Qaeda, following the General Command,’ according to a message televised by al-Jazeera and attributed to al-Zawahiri. In the message, al-Zawahiri called for a stop to ‘the debate over this disagreement,’ since it could portend infighting between some of the most powerful and effective armed groups fighting against the Assad regime.

Sunnis in Iraq see the weapons captured by the Free Syrian Army and other rebel factions, especially Jabhat al-Nusra, in the border areas as a strategic reserve for them, safe from confiscation by Iraqi troops. However, if the Assad regime falls, or the situation in Iraq spirals out of control, the arms stored in Syria would rapidly pour across the border into Iraq. Likewise, seasoned Iraqi fighters would return from Syria, having acquired new experience in fighting local armies in urban warfare. Those fighters would battle the Iraqi government to curb Iranian influence in Iraq and the region at large, possibly supported by powers that share their goal including the US, Turkey, and the Gulf States. Free Syrian Army veterans and other Syrian and foreign fighters could also pour into Iraq, accompanied by a huge arms flow, a possibility recognized by both Islamist and non-Islamist leaders within the Syrian opposition."

‘Love in the Syrian Revolution‘ (Wendy Pearlman, The Huffington Post)

"After Hamzeh fled Syria for the second time, he dedicated himself to activism for human rights in the country of his birth. His work ranged from a new career in journalism, to filing a suit against Bashar al-Assad in the International Criminal Court. Yet his work was stymied by the fear that gripped his compatriots. When Hamzeh attempted to document the testimonials of victims of regime violence, he found that they were too afraid to speak.

His own colleagues became cynical. ‘Don’t waste your time,’ one fellow activist told him in late 2010. ‘The Syrian people have given up. The country will never change.’

Just a few days later, change began. A popular revolt swelled in Tunisia, and another in Egypt. One-by-one, untouchable dictators were toppled by the will of people on the streets.

Hamzeh was alight with the thrill of new possibilities. Visiting relatives in the United States at the time, he transformed the house into an activist headquarters. Phones rang nonstop and multiple television channels broadcast updates all day and night. Soon, the whole family was writing petitions and uploading video appeals to plea for a revolution in Syria, too. ‘Please have hope,’ Hamzeh’s teenage niece urged in a video clip that became a YouTube sensation. ‘We can end the Assad dictatorship. May justice prevail.’ Inside Syria, handfuls of brave protestors mounted scattered protests. Yet armed police suppressed one after another, and most people stayed home. Other Arab countries joked that Syrians were only brave in the historical soap operas that they produced, which romanticized fighters from a long-gone age."

–Mary Casey & Joshua Haber