Egyptian officials delay break up of pro-Morsi protests

Egyptian police have delayed the dispersal of two pro-Morsi sit-ins as protesters brace for a crack down. The military backed government has warned for over a week that it would use all necessary means to break up the demonstrations, and interior ministry officials said they would begin to clear the protesters at dawn on Monday. According to one security official, the move had been stalled because the size of the crowds increased after the news of the planned crack down. Another official said it was postponed to "avoid bloodshed." Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has also received pressure from Western governments and Egyptian cabinet members to refrain from using force. Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the tens of thousands of demonstrators have vowed to remain in the two squares. A group of Morsi supporters called for anti-military marches on Monday.

Syria

The conflict in Syria has split the country into three distinct regions. While the boundaries remain fluid, the Syrian government retains control over territory from the southern border with Jordan, around the capital Damascus, and along the Mediterranean coast. The opposition forces control parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces in the north as well as some territory along the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border. Syria’s Kurds maintain control over the northeastern section of the country. As clashes increase between Kurdish fighters and Islamist forces, President Massoud Barzani of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region threatened to intervene if Kurds were "under threat of death and terrorism." Fighting intensified in Syria’s north Sunday with heavy clashes in Idlib and Raqa provinces. Meanwhile, a team of U.N. chemical weapons experts has postponed its trip to Syria due to "technical hitches." The team was scheduled to arrive in Syria Monday to conduct an inquiry into alleged chemical weapons usage in Khan al-Asal and two other sites.

Headlines

• Israel named 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners it will release ahead of peace talks this week after publishing bids Sunday for the construction of 1,200 new East Jerusalem and West Bank settlement homes.
• Suspected al Qaeda militants attacked a gas terminal in southern Yemen Sunday killing five soldiers as the United States reopened diplomatic missions closed over concerns of an attack plot.
• Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks, which killed an estimated 69 people in Iraq Saturday on the Muslim holiday of Eid.
• Iranian President Hassan Rowhani appealed to parliament to approve his largely technocrat cabinet.
• Bahrain has deported a U.S. teacher for writing articles "deemed to incite hatred against the government" and prevented the return of a human rights worker ahead of protests planned for Wednesday.

Arguments and Analysis

‘The innocents caught under the drones: For fearful Yemenis the US and al-Qa’ida look very similar‘ (Farea al-Muslimi, The Independent)

"The US is running to drones every time its counter-terrorism efforts fail. On each occasion the public rage against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula grows and its image is tarnished, and the US — via drone strikes — restores it again. In its recent actions, the US has become al-Qa’ida’s public relations officer.

Who else, other than al-Qa’ida, would benefit from the sudden, ill-thought-out and unneeded evacuation from Yemen by the US? If al-Qa’ida’s main goal is to spread fear, this has given it a free shot at doing just that.

If the threats the US talks about are real, why would it not leak the content of the conversations it claims to have recorded between two senior figures, including leader Ayman al-Zawahiri? In not doing so, the US is giving al-Qa’ida a credit note for fear, and is leaving Yemen alone in its struggle.

The evacuation of US embassies has raised serious questions about the sincerity of the US commitment to fighting al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Despite all of Washington’s recent commitments and actions in supporting the transition towards democratic elections in Yemen, the drones did nothing but edge Yemenis in the opposite direction. More than 10 million Yemenis remain in need of humanitarian assistance but none of that is on the tongues of policymakers in the west. Donor pledges of almost $8bn (£5.16bn) for Yemen, via the Friends of Yemen, seem nothing more than a lie.

The US comprehensive policy towards our country is comprehensive only on paper. Yemen is, once again, in the West’s view, a country where problems come from."

‘Peace Talks, Settlements and Smirking Into the Abyss‘ (Lara Friedman, Huffington Post Blog)

"Anyone familiar with the history of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking can be forgiven for viewing new Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with a certain degree of skepticism, in large part fueled by concern that settlements will, once again, be used to undermine the chances for achieving peace.

Recent settlement-related developments warrant such concern. Clearly, some are happy to use settlements to kill the new peace initiative, perhaps hoping this will be the final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution. If they succeed, there will be opportunities aplenty for hardliners and cynics alike to smirk and say, ‘We told you so,’ but they’ll be smirking into the abyss. Failure of this latest peace effort won’t create an alternative to the two-state solution or halt the march of settlements. It will only play into the hands of zero-sum ideologues on both sides, with devastating implications for everyone else.

These stakes are simply too high to give in to cynicism and defeatism. Instead, we should recall the words of Yitzhak Rabin, who famously said that he would ‘fight terrorism as if there is no peace process’ and ‘pursue peace as if there is no terrorism.’ In today’s context, Rabin’s formula applies equally to settlements: we must fight settlement expansion as if there are no peace negotiations, and we must pursue peace at the negotiating table, even in the face of settlement provocations."

–Mary Casey & Joshua Haber