Deal could take place ‘within a few days,’ source says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25439385/
The Associated Press
updated 3:38 p.m. ET, Sun., June. 29, 2008
JERUSALEM - The Israeli government agreed Sunday to free a Lebanese gunman convicted in one of the grisliest attacks in the country's history in exchange for the bodies of two soldiers killed by Hezbollah guerrillas.
The German-mediated deal gives a rare political victory for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and closes a final chapter from Israel's inconclusive war against Hezbollah two years ago and hinted in the direction of a wider accommodation.
But critics warn that the heavy price could offer militant groups an even greater incentive to kill captive soldiers, and Hezbollah declared victory and planned celebrations.
Israel's Cabinet voted 22-3 in favor of the deal to return the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured by Hezbollah in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a vicious monthlong war. Before the six-hour debate, Olmert announced for the first time that the soldiers were dead.
Regardless, he pushed for the deal to be approved, citing the country's deep moral commitment to its dead and captive soldiers.
"Since we were children, we have been taught that we don't leave wounded in the field and we don't leave soldiers in captivity without doing all we can to free them," he said.
Israel will also receive the remaining body parts of its soldiers from the Lebanon war and a thorough Hezbollah report about Ron Arad, a missing Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.
Israel must release prisoner
The most difficult part of the trade for Israel is the release of Samir Kantar. He is serving multiple life sentences for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing three Israelis — a 28-year-old man, his 4-year-old daughter and an Israeli police officer.
Witnesses said Kantar smashed the little girl's head against a rock and crushed her skull with a rifle butt. The attack has been etched in the Israeli psyche as one of the cruelest in the nation's history. Kantar denied killing the girl or smashing her skull.
Her mother, while trying to silence the cries of her other daughter as Kantar and three others rampaged through the apartment, accidentally smothered the 2-year-old.
On Sunday the mother, Smadar Haran Kaiser, said she was devastated by the decision but understood it.
"The despicable murderer Kantar was never my own personal prisoner, but the state's prisoner," she told a news conference. "Even if my soul should be torn, and it is torn, my heart is whole."
Israel also agreed to release four other Lebanese prisoners, dozens of bodies and an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners.
Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, who voted against the deal, told The Associated Press that he objected to the deal because "it included releasing Palestinian prisoners."
Israel's military chief of staff, the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, the commander of the Shin Bet security service and other defense officials briefed ministers before the vote. The Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs opposed the deal, while the military chief, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, supported it.
Critics of the deal
Critics argued that swapping bodies for Kantar was a dangerous precedent that would offer militant groups an even greater incentive to capture soldiers and less of a reason to keep them alive.
Dovish lawmaker Yossi Beilin told Channel 10 TV he would have backed the deal if the soldiers were still alive. "There is tremendous difference in my view between saving someone's life and receiving coffins," he said. "I pray that we didn't give these people ideas that they can carry out more kidnappings and then ask for whatever they want."
Israel is simultaneously negotiating a trade with Palestinian Hamas militants for the release of an Israeli soldier captured in a June 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip. Unlike his comrades in Lebanon, the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, has sent letters and an audio tape to his parents and is believed to be alive, though he has not been seen since his capture and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him either.
There are indications that the prisoner swap could signal a decrease of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, though the warlike rhetoric on both sides is likely to continue.
On June 1, without prior notice, Israel freed a convicted Lebanese spy and Hezbollah returned parts of bodies of three soldiers. Also, Israel has been indicating at new flexibility about solving the other outstanding issue with Hezbollah — a rocket border hill known as Chebaa Farms.
Though the U.N. drew a border that leaves the small parcel outside Lebanon, Hezbollah insists it is part of the country. Israel indicates it would turn the land over to the U.N. as a deposit for a final decision, which could defuse tensions if both sides want that.
In Beirut, Hezbollah said the Israeli approval of the deal reflected the guerrilla group's strength.
"What happened in the prisoners issue is a proof that the word of the resistance is the most faithful, strongest and supreme," the group's Al-Manar TV quoted Hezbollah's Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine as saying.
In the southern city of Sidon, members of the Popular Democratic Party were decorating the central Martyrs Square with pictures of Kantar and hanging banners such as "Freedom to the hero, prisoner Samir Kantar," "the chain must break," and "freedom comes with blood not tears."
No signs that soldiers are alive
Hezbollah had offered no sign that Goldwasser and Regev were alive, and the Red Cross was never allowed to see them. Ahead of the vote, Olmert said for the first time that Israel has concluded the two soldiers were dead — killed during the raid or shortly after.
"We know what happened to them," Olmert told the Cabinet, according to comments released by his office. "As far as we know, the soldiers Regev and Goldwasser are not alive."
Goldwasser's wife, Karnit, praised Olmert for pushing for the trade, while still trying to come to terms with the prime minister's declaration.
"My heart aches. It is very difficult for me. I am very tired, drained inside," she told reporters. "All I want to do is to digest things, try to understand what happened ... to rest a bit ... to have my pain."
Israeli officials said the deal could take place as early as next week. The trade will likely take place in Germany.
Ofer Regev, brother of kidnapped soldier Eldad Regev, said he hadn't given up hope yet.
"Until we see otherwise, we will continue hoping for a miracle to happen to us," he said.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25439385/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2008 MSNBC.com
30 June 2008
25 June 2008
Olmert Averts Split in Coalition
By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 25, 2008; 9:42 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062500068.html?hpid=topnews
JERUSALEM, June 25 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bought himself more time in office Wednesday, fending off a rebellion by coalition partners who had threatened to bring down his government if he did not resign amid a burgeoning corruption probe.
But in exchange for keeping his coalition together temporarily, Olmert was forced to allow internal elections in his centrist Kadima party by late September. Rivals within Kadima are already jockeying for his job, and it is unclear if Olmert will even run.
Olmert has been fighting for his political life for nearly two months, ever since allegations surfaced that he had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars -- much of it in cash -- from a New York business executive. Olmert has denied all wrongdoing, but testimony last month by the businessman, Morris Talansky, was considered especially damaging. Since then, Olmert has faced calls from erstwhile allies for him to step aside.
The most serious challenge to his authority has come from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who leads Kadima's largest coalition partner, the center-left Labor party. Barak had vowed to support a bill to dissolve the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The vote was scheduled for Wednesday, and with Labor's support, the bill would have almost certainly passed. A last-minute deal in which Kadima agreed to a party primary within three months averted the showdown.
Olmert's term is slated to run until 2010, but if he sits out or loses the primary it would effectively end his 2 1/2 year premiership. It would also likely trigger new elections. Neither Kadima nor Labor is believed to be eager for that, however, since polls show the right-wing Likud party beating them both.
Olmert is hoping the extra time he won Wednesday will give him the chance to exonerate himself in court before any decisions are made about his political future. Talansky's cross-examination, scheduled for mid-July, is considered especially critical to that effort. Olmert is also hoping to push forward with a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, including negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and Syria.
"We have stability for the coming months," said Olmert spokesman Mark Regev. "There are very serious issues on the table, and we now have the time to move forward."
Talks with the radical Islamist group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, have already borne fruit in the form of a six-month cease-fire in Gaza. That truce was rattled on Tuesday, however, when the armed group Islamic Jihad fired three rockets from Gaza in response to an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus that left two of the group's members dead.
In retaliation for the rocket fire, Israel on Wednesday closed all commercial crossings leading to the coastal strip and would not say when they would reopen. Under the terms of the truce, Israel is supposed to gradually loosen the strict economic embargo that it imposed a year ago, when Hamas toppled a unity government with the rival Fatah party and took control of the territory.
Hamas said Israel's decision to close the crossings represented a violation of the truce. But Hamas also said it planned to continue to honor the week-old cease-fire, and the lack of an Israeli military response suggested that it does as well.
The truce is controversial in both Israel and Gaza, with hard-line critics in each place arguing that now is not the time for quiet.
Retired Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces, said that instead of holding its fire, Israel should be conducting targeted killings and medium-scale military operations so that, ultimately, Hamas "will cry for [a truce] without conditions."
Yaalon doubts the current ceasefire will last.
"It's not a stabilized situation, and it's not going to last for six months," he said.
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 25, 2008; 9:42 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062500068.html?hpid=topnews
JERUSALEM, June 25 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bought himself more time in office Wednesday, fending off a rebellion by coalition partners who had threatened to bring down his government if he did not resign amid a burgeoning corruption probe.
But in exchange for keeping his coalition together temporarily, Olmert was forced to allow internal elections in his centrist Kadima party by late September. Rivals within Kadima are already jockeying for his job, and it is unclear if Olmert will even run.
Olmert has been fighting for his political life for nearly two months, ever since allegations surfaced that he had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars -- much of it in cash -- from a New York business executive. Olmert has denied all wrongdoing, but testimony last month by the businessman, Morris Talansky, was considered especially damaging. Since then, Olmert has faced calls from erstwhile allies for him to step aside.
The most serious challenge to his authority has come from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who leads Kadima's largest coalition partner, the center-left Labor party. Barak had vowed to support a bill to dissolve the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. The vote was scheduled for Wednesday, and with Labor's support, the bill would have almost certainly passed. A last-minute deal in which Kadima agreed to a party primary within three months averted the showdown.
Olmert's term is slated to run until 2010, but if he sits out or loses the primary it would effectively end his 2 1/2 year premiership. It would also likely trigger new elections. Neither Kadima nor Labor is believed to be eager for that, however, since polls show the right-wing Likud party beating them both.
Olmert is hoping the extra time he won Wednesday will give him the chance to exonerate himself in court before any decisions are made about his political future. Talansky's cross-examination, scheduled for mid-July, is considered especially critical to that effort. Olmert is also hoping to push forward with a flurry of diplomatic initiatives, including negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and Syria.
"We have stability for the coming months," said Olmert spokesman Mark Regev. "There are very serious issues on the table, and we now have the time to move forward."
Talks with the radical Islamist group Hamas, mediated by Egypt, have already borne fruit in the form of a six-month cease-fire in Gaza. That truce was rattled on Tuesday, however, when the armed group Islamic Jihad fired three rockets from Gaza in response to an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus that left two of the group's members dead.
In retaliation for the rocket fire, Israel on Wednesday closed all commercial crossings leading to the coastal strip and would not say when they would reopen. Under the terms of the truce, Israel is supposed to gradually loosen the strict economic embargo that it imposed a year ago, when Hamas toppled a unity government with the rival Fatah party and took control of the territory.
Hamas said Israel's decision to close the crossings represented a violation of the truce. But Hamas also said it planned to continue to honor the week-old cease-fire, and the lack of an Israeli military response suggested that it does as well.
The truce is controversial in both Israel and Gaza, with hard-line critics in each place arguing that now is not the time for quiet.
Retired Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, a former chief of the Israel Defense Forces, said that instead of holding its fire, Israel should be conducting targeted killings and medium-scale military operations so that, ultimately, Hamas "will cry for [a truce] without conditions."
Yaalon doubts the current ceasefire will last.
"It's not a stabilized situation, and it's not going to last for six months," he said.
24 June 2008
A Living-Room Crusade via Blogging
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/world/middleeast/20blogger.html?ref=technology
May 20, 2008
By ROBERT F. WORTH
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country.
And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”
The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.
Ms. Novak, working from a laptop in her Monmouth County living room “while the kids are at school,” has started an Internet petition to free Mr. Khaiwani. She has enlisted Yemeni politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others around the globe. Her blog goes well beyond the Khaiwani case and has become a crucial outlet for opposition journalists and political figures, who feed her tips on Yemeni political intrigue by e-mail or text message.
She says her campaign is a matter of basic principle. “This is a country that lets Al Qaeda people go free, and they’re putting a journalist on trial for doing his job?” she said. “It’s just completely crazy.”
But Ms. Novak does admit to a personal interest in the case. She and Mr. Khaiwani have become close friends, though they have never met, and neither speaks the other’s language. One of the charges against him is receiving a cellphone text message from her, as part of an alleged plot (which he denies) to aid the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
“The penalty for this crime is usually death,” Mr. Khaiwani said during an interview at his home in the Yemeni capital, Sana, in January. A lanky 42-year-old with large, piercing eyes and a dark sense of humor, he has already been jailed four times by the authorities in connection with his journalism. Last year he was kidnapped and beaten by men he says were plainclothes police officers.
Mr. Khaiwani added, with a broad smile: “If you add to this my relationship with Jane Novak, it means the death penalty for sure.”
Ms. Novak does not fit the profile of a dilettante in exotic causes. A former sales manager for a textile company, she speaks with a distinct Brooklyn accent, having grown up in Flatbush. When a Yemeni government minister visited the United States last year and invited the notorious “Jane,” as she is known throughout Yemen, to go to Washington for a meeting, she turned him down. “It was too much, the money, the kids, all for a one-day trip,” she said.
Nor does she have any background in Middle East studies. One of her opponents in Yemen accused her of being a Zionist member of Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “I had to Google it,” Ms. Novak said with a chuckle. “I didn’t know what it was.”
It was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that Ms. Novak, who used to work not far from the World Trade Center, first took an interest in the Arab world. “I thought it would be a good idea to write in the English-language Arabic press on subjects we could all agree on, freedom of the press, equality, stuff like that,” she said.
In 2004, she started her blog, www.armiesofliberation.com, adorned with a Stars and Stripes logo, and soon wrote an article defending Mr. Khaiwani, who was in prison. He wrote her a letter of thanks, addressing it to “Jane Novak, the American journalist and political analyst.”
“Leaders in our region transform into gods,” he wrote. “They even come to believe in their fake holiness, which we aim to shatter, as they know they are humans just like us. Democracy and freedom are not granted by a leader of a regime. It is a worldwide human achievement of all the free people on earth.”
Moved by the letter, Ms. Novak started her first petition campaign on Mr. Khaiwani’s behalf. Through translators, the two began corresponding.
“He’s just such a nice guy,” Ms. Novak said. “He really believes in democracy, and he’s paying the price for it.”
It was months after their first letters before Ms. Novak could bring herself to tell Mr. Khaiwani that she was not, in fact, a journalist and political analyst, but a homemaker blogging on a laptop at home. “I didn’t want to tell you before, because I didn’t want you to lose hope,” she wrote.
Mr. Khaiwani wrote back to say that the news made him even prouder of her and her work.
Since then, she has written numerous articles defending him in the Yemeni press.
By taking up Mr. Khaiwani’s cause, Ms. Novak was wading into one of the most obscure and complex conflicts in the Arab world. The Houthi rebellion began in 2004 when rebels began fighting with government soldiers in Saada Province, northwest of the capital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The government accuses Iran of aiding the rebels, a charge Iran denies. Thousands of people have died in the fighting.
For Ms. Novak, the basic issue was freedom of speech. The Yemeni government has banned journalists from traveling to Saada and has tried to suppress coverage of the conflict.
Mr. Khaiwani, almost alone among Yemeni journalists, managed to get vivid photographs and accounts of the bloodshed in Saada, which he published on his Web site, now defunct. His reports have helped spread a sense of outrage at the government’s raids, which appear to have extended the fighting by provoking Saada residents who did not initially side with the Houthi rebels.
“I have a very deep relationship with people in Saada,” Mr. Khaiwani said during the interview in January. “Many citizens in Saada wanted to show a real image of what is happening in the war there.”
The Yemeni government considers the Houthis terrorists and accuse Mr. Khaiwani of abetting their cause. He is being tried in Yemen’s State Security Court, which is used for terrorism cases.
Ms. Novak, whose blog includes a strong counterterrorism focus, says that is a bitter irony. Yemen has a long history as a refuge for jihadists, and the Yemeni government has released numerous men convicted of terrorism charges. One of them, Jamal al-Badawi, is wanted by the F.B.I. for his role in Al Qaeda’s bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, in which 17 American sailors were killed. Mr. Badawi was apparently returned to prison last fall after American officials protested.
Ms. Nowak’s perpetual harping on these themes appears to infuriate the Yemeni authorities. In late 2005, Al Jazeera included her as a guest on a special about Yemen, along with a former United States ambassador, a leader of the Yemeni opposition, and a spokesman for the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. As soon as the spokesman came onto the line, he began a tirade, ignoring the moderator’s pleas to let others speak.
“She doesn’t speak Arabic, she’s never visited Yemen, and she’s not a real journalist!” the spokesman shouted. “She just has a Web site that she uses to attack Yemen!”
Some professional Arabists speak a little disdainfully of Ms. Novak’s blog and seem to consider her an amateur with a jingoistic American attitude and no real knowledge of the Arab world.
Ms. Novak readily admits that she is no expert, and that she cannot pronounce Arabic words properly. But she estimates that more than 2,000 Yemenis have contacted her since she began writing articles in 2004. She receives dozens of letters every month. Some are just a few words — “Thank you Novak don’t stop” — and some are long narratives of grief and anger.
Reaching out to people like Mr. Khaiwani, who are struggling thousands of miles away with Yemen’s poverty, injustice and corruption, has given her a new vocation, she said.
“Some say there’s no progress in the Middle East,” she said. “But if they could just see these people — they’re really modern heroes.”
Visit Ms. Novak's Blog: Armies of Liberation
May 20, 2008
By ROBERT F. WORTH
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country.
And yet Ms. Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”
The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.
Ms. Novak, working from a laptop in her Monmouth County living room “while the kids are at school,” has started an Internet petition to free Mr. Khaiwani. She has enlisted Yemeni politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others around the globe. Her blog goes well beyond the Khaiwani case and has become a crucial outlet for opposition journalists and political figures, who feed her tips on Yemeni political intrigue by e-mail or text message.
She says her campaign is a matter of basic principle. “This is a country that lets Al Qaeda people go free, and they’re putting a journalist on trial for doing his job?” she said. “It’s just completely crazy.”
But Ms. Novak does admit to a personal interest in the case. She and Mr. Khaiwani have become close friends, though they have never met, and neither speaks the other’s language. One of the charges against him is receiving a cellphone text message from her, as part of an alleged plot (which he denies) to aid the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
“The penalty for this crime is usually death,” Mr. Khaiwani said during an interview at his home in the Yemeni capital, Sana, in January. A lanky 42-year-old with large, piercing eyes and a dark sense of humor, he has already been jailed four times by the authorities in connection with his journalism. Last year he was kidnapped and beaten by men he says were plainclothes police officers.
Mr. Khaiwani added, with a broad smile: “If you add to this my relationship with Jane Novak, it means the death penalty for sure.”
Ms. Novak does not fit the profile of a dilettante in exotic causes. A former sales manager for a textile company, she speaks with a distinct Brooklyn accent, having grown up in Flatbush. When a Yemeni government minister visited the United States last year and invited the notorious “Jane,” as she is known throughout Yemen, to go to Washington for a meeting, she turned him down. “It was too much, the money, the kids, all for a one-day trip,” she said.
Nor does she have any background in Middle East studies. One of her opponents in Yemen accused her of being a Zionist member of Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “I had to Google it,” Ms. Novak said with a chuckle. “I didn’t know what it was.”
It was after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that Ms. Novak, who used to work not far from the World Trade Center, first took an interest in the Arab world. “I thought it would be a good idea to write in the English-language Arabic press on subjects we could all agree on, freedom of the press, equality, stuff like that,” she said.
In 2004, she started her blog, www.armiesofliberation.com, adorned with a Stars and Stripes logo, and soon wrote an article defending Mr. Khaiwani, who was in prison. He wrote her a letter of thanks, addressing it to “Jane Novak, the American journalist and political analyst.”
“Leaders in our region transform into gods,” he wrote. “They even come to believe in their fake holiness, which we aim to shatter, as they know they are humans just like us. Democracy and freedom are not granted by a leader of a regime. It is a worldwide human achievement of all the free people on earth.”
Moved by the letter, Ms. Novak started her first petition campaign on Mr. Khaiwani’s behalf. Through translators, the two began corresponding.
“He’s just such a nice guy,” Ms. Novak said. “He really believes in democracy, and he’s paying the price for it.”
It was months after their first letters before Ms. Novak could bring herself to tell Mr. Khaiwani that she was not, in fact, a journalist and political analyst, but a homemaker blogging on a laptop at home. “I didn’t want to tell you before, because I didn’t want you to lose hope,” she wrote.
Mr. Khaiwani wrote back to say that the news made him even prouder of her and her work.
Since then, she has written numerous articles defending him in the Yemeni press.
By taking up Mr. Khaiwani’s cause, Ms. Novak was wading into one of the most obscure and complex conflicts in the Arab world. The Houthi rebellion began in 2004 when rebels began fighting with government soldiers in Saada Province, northwest of the capital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The government accuses Iran of aiding the rebels, a charge Iran denies. Thousands of people have died in the fighting.
For Ms. Novak, the basic issue was freedom of speech. The Yemeni government has banned journalists from traveling to Saada and has tried to suppress coverage of the conflict.
Mr. Khaiwani, almost alone among Yemeni journalists, managed to get vivid photographs and accounts of the bloodshed in Saada, which he published on his Web site, now defunct. His reports have helped spread a sense of outrage at the government’s raids, which appear to have extended the fighting by provoking Saada residents who did not initially side with the Houthi rebels.
“I have a very deep relationship with people in Saada,” Mr. Khaiwani said during the interview in January. “Many citizens in Saada wanted to show a real image of what is happening in the war there.”
The Yemeni government considers the Houthis terrorists and accuse Mr. Khaiwani of abetting their cause. He is being tried in Yemen’s State Security Court, which is used for terrorism cases.
Ms. Novak, whose blog includes a strong counterterrorism focus, says that is a bitter irony. Yemen has a long history as a refuge for jihadists, and the Yemeni government has released numerous men convicted of terrorism charges. One of them, Jamal al-Badawi, is wanted by the F.B.I. for his role in Al Qaeda’s bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, in which 17 American sailors were killed. Mr. Badawi was apparently returned to prison last fall after American officials protested.
Ms. Nowak’s perpetual harping on these themes appears to infuriate the Yemeni authorities. In late 2005, Al Jazeera included her as a guest on a special about Yemen, along with a former United States ambassador, a leader of the Yemeni opposition, and a spokesman for the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. As soon as the spokesman came onto the line, he began a tirade, ignoring the moderator’s pleas to let others speak.
“She doesn’t speak Arabic, she’s never visited Yemen, and she’s not a real journalist!” the spokesman shouted. “She just has a Web site that she uses to attack Yemen!”
Some professional Arabists speak a little disdainfully of Ms. Novak’s blog and seem to consider her an amateur with a jingoistic American attitude and no real knowledge of the Arab world.
Ms. Novak readily admits that she is no expert, and that she cannot pronounce Arabic words properly. But she estimates that more than 2,000 Yemenis have contacted her since she began writing articles in 2004. She receives dozens of letters every month. Some are just a few words — “Thank you Novak don’t stop” — and some are long narratives of grief and anger.
Reaching out to people like Mr. Khaiwani, who are struggling thousands of miles away with Yemen’s poverty, injustice and corruption, has given her a new vocation, she said.
“Some say there’s no progress in the Middle East,” she said. “But if they could just see these people — they’re really modern heroes.”
Visit Ms. Novak's Blog: Armies of Liberation
Muslim Voters Detect a Snub From Obama
This article really made me, well sad. I mean I guess like everyone else I believed that with Obama's "Hope" campaign and his Muslim name that there would be some sort of Muslim identification or at least Arab, if Muslim is too scary for him... But he has continually sided with Israel, and now he's trying to back step over his Jerusalem comment... It just really let me down :o(
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/politics/24muslim.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
June 24, 2008
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.
Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.
“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message.’ ”
When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.
While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.
In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.
“This is the ‘hope campaign,’ this is the ‘change campaign,’ ” said Mr. Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota. Muslims are frustrated, he added, that “they have not been fully engaged in it.”
Aides to Mr. Obama denied that he had kept his Muslim supporters at arm’s length. They cited statements in which he had spoken inclusively about American Islam and a radio advertisement he recorded for the recent campaign of Representative Andre Carson, Democrat of Indiana, who this spring became the second Muslim elected to Congress.
In May, Mr. Obama also had a brief, private meeting with the leader of a mosque in Dearborn, Mich., home to the country’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans. And this month, a senior campaign aide met with Arab-American leaders in Dearborn, most of whom are Muslim. (Mr. Obama did not campaign in Michigan before the primary in January because of a party dispute over the calendar.)
“Our campaign has made every attempt to bring together Americans of all races, religions and backgrounds to take on our common challenges,” Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman, said in an e-mail message.
Mr. LaBolt added that with religious groups, the campaign had largely taken “an interfaith approach, one that may not have reached every group that wishes to participate but has reached many Muslim Americans.”
The strained relationship between Muslims and Mr. Obama reflects one of the central challenges facing the senator: how to maintain a broad electoral appeal without alienating any of the numerous constituencies he needs to win in November.
After the episode in Detroit last week, Mr. Obama telephoned the two Muslim women to apologize. “I take deepest offense to and will continue to fight against discrimination against people of any religious group or background,” he said in a statement.
Such gestures have fallen short in the eyes of many Muslim leaders, who say the Detroit incident and others illustrate a disconnect between Mr. Obama’s message of unity and his campaign strategy.
“The community feels betrayed,” said Safiya Ghori, the government relations director in the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Even some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Muslim supporters say they are uncomfortable with the forceful denials he has made in response to rumors that he is secretly a Muslim. (Ten percent of registered voters believe the rumor, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.)
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Mr. Obama said the rumors were offensive to American Muslims because they played into “fearmongering.” But on a new section of his Web site, he classifies the claim that he is Muslim as a “smear.”
“A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, by the way,” Mr. Ellison said.
Mr. Ellison, a first-term congressman, remains arguably the senator’s most important Muslim supporter. He has attended Obama rallies in Minnesota and appears on the campaign’s Web site. But Mr. Ellison said he was also forced to cancel plans to campaign for Mr. Obama in North Carolina after an emissary for the senator told him the state was “too conservative.” Mr. Ellison said he blamed Mr. Obama’s aides — not the candidate himself — for his campaign’s standoffishness.
Despite the complications of wooing Muslim voters, Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, may find it risky to ignore this constituency. There are sizable Muslim populations in closely fought states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia.
In those states and others, American Muslims have experienced a political awakening in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the attacks, Muslim political leadership in the United States was dominated by well-heeled South Asian and Arab immigrants, whose communities account for a majority of the nation’s Muslims. (Another 20 percent are estimated to be African-American.) The number of American Muslims remains in dispute as the Census Bureau does not collect data on religious orientation; most estimates range from 2.35 million to 6 million.
A coalition of immigrant Muslim groups endorsed George W. Bush in his 2000 campaign, only to find themselves ignored by Bush administration officials as their communities were rocked by the carrying out of the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of Muslim immigrants and other security measures after Sept. 11.
As a result, Muslim organizations began mobilizing supporters across the country to register to vote and run for local offices, and political action committees started tracking registered Muslim voters. The character of Muslim political organizations also began to change.
“We moved away from political leadership primarily by doctors, lawyers and elite professionals to real savvy grass-roots operatives,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a political group in Washington. “We went back to the base.”
In 2006, the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee arranged for 53 Muslim cabdrivers to skip their shifts at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to transport voters to the polls for the midterm election. Of an estimated 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state, 86 percent turned out and voted overwhelmingly for Jim Webb, a Democrat running for the Senate who subsequently won the election, according to data collected by the committee.
The committee’s president, Mukit Hossain, said Muslims in Virginia were drawn to Mr. Obama because of his support for civil liberties and his more diplomatic approach to the Middle East. Mr. Hossain and others said his multicultural image also appealed to immigrant voters.
“This is the son of an immigrant; this is someone with a funny name,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who is a Christian who has campaigned for Mr. Obama at mosques and Arab churches. “There is this excitement that if he can win, they can win, too.”
Yet some Muslim and Arab-American political organizers worry that the campaign’s reluctance to reach out to voters in those communities will eventually turn them off. “If they think that they are voting for a campaign that is trying to distance itself from them, my big fear is that Muslims will sit it out,” Mr. Hossain said.
Throughout the primaries, Muslim groups often failed to persuade Mr. Obama’s campaign to at least send a surrogate to speak to voters at their events, said Ms. Ghori, of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Before the Virginia primary in February, some of the nation’s leading Muslim organizations nearly canceled an event at a mosque in Sterling because they could not arrange for representatives from any of the major presidential campaigns to attend. At the last minute, they succeeded in wooing surrogates from the Clinton and Obama campaigns by telling each that the other was planning to attend, Mr. Bray said. (No one from the McCain campaign showed up.)
Frustrations with Mr. Obama deepened the day after he claimed the nomination when he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel. (Mr. Obama later clarified his statement, saying Jerusalem’s status would need to be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians.)
Osama Siblani, the editor and publisher of the weekly Arab American News in Dearborn, said Mr. Obama had “pandered” to the Israeli lobby, while neglecting to meet formally with Arab-American and Muslim leaders. “They’re trying to take the votes without the liabilities,” said Mr. Siblani, who is also president of the Arab American Political Action Committee.
Some Muslim supporters of Mr. Obama seem to ricochet between dejection and optimism. Minha Husaini, a public health consultant in her 30s who is working for the Obama campaign in Philadelphia, lights up like a swooning teenager when she talks about his promise for change.
“He gives me hope,” Ms. Husaini said in an interview last month, shortly before she joined the campaign on a fellowship. But she sighed when the conversation turned to his denials of being Muslim, “as if it’s something bad,” she said.
For Ms. Ghori and other Muslims, Mr. Obama’s hands-off approach is not surprising in a political climate they feel is marred by frequent attacks on their faith.
Among the incidents they cite are a statement by Mr. McCain, in a 2007 interview with Beliefnet.com, that he would prefer a Christian president to a Muslim one; a comment by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that Mr. Obama was not Muslim “as far as I know”; and a remark by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, to The Associated Press in March that an Obama victory would be celebrated by terrorists, who would see him as a “savior.”
“All you have to say is Barack Hussein Obama,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Islamica Magazine. “You don’t even have to say ‘Muslim.’ ”
As a consequence, many Muslims have kept their support for Mr. Obama quiet. Any visible show of allegiance could be used by his opponents to incite fear, further the false rumors about his faith and “bin-Laden him,” Mr. Bray said.
“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/us/politics/24muslim.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
June 24, 2008
By ANDREA ELLIOTT
As Senator Barack Obama courted voters in Iowa last December, Representative Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim congressman, stepped forward eagerly to help.
Mr. Ellison believed that Mr. Obama’s message of unity resonated deeply with American Muslims. He volunteered to speak on Mr. Obama’s behalf at a mosque in Cedar Rapids, one of the nation’s oldest Muslim enclaves. But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison’s Washington office to explain.
“I will never forget the quote,” Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide’s words. “He said, ‘We have a very tightly wrapped message.’ ”
When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.
While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.
In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.
“This is the ‘hope campaign,’ this is the ‘change campaign,’ ” said Mr. Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota. Muslims are frustrated, he added, that “they have not been fully engaged in it.”
Aides to Mr. Obama denied that he had kept his Muslim supporters at arm’s length. They cited statements in which he had spoken inclusively about American Islam and a radio advertisement he recorded for the recent campaign of Representative Andre Carson, Democrat of Indiana, who this spring became the second Muslim elected to Congress.
In May, Mr. Obama also had a brief, private meeting with the leader of a mosque in Dearborn, Mich., home to the country’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans. And this month, a senior campaign aide met with Arab-American leaders in Dearborn, most of whom are Muslim. (Mr. Obama did not campaign in Michigan before the primary in January because of a party dispute over the calendar.)
“Our campaign has made every attempt to bring together Americans of all races, religions and backgrounds to take on our common challenges,” Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman, said in an e-mail message.
Mr. LaBolt added that with religious groups, the campaign had largely taken “an interfaith approach, one that may not have reached every group that wishes to participate but has reached many Muslim Americans.”
The strained relationship between Muslims and Mr. Obama reflects one of the central challenges facing the senator: how to maintain a broad electoral appeal without alienating any of the numerous constituencies he needs to win in November.
After the episode in Detroit last week, Mr. Obama telephoned the two Muslim women to apologize. “I take deepest offense to and will continue to fight against discrimination against people of any religious group or background,” he said in a statement.
Such gestures have fallen short in the eyes of many Muslim leaders, who say the Detroit incident and others illustrate a disconnect between Mr. Obama’s message of unity and his campaign strategy.
“The community feels betrayed,” said Safiya Ghori, the government relations director in the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Even some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Muslim supporters say they are uncomfortable with the forceful denials he has made in response to rumors that he is secretly a Muslim. (Ten percent of registered voters believe the rumor, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.)
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Mr. Obama said the rumors were offensive to American Muslims because they played into “fearmongering.” But on a new section of his Web site, he classifies the claim that he is Muslim as a “smear.”
“A lot of us are waiting for him to say that there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, by the way,” Mr. Ellison said.
Mr. Ellison, a first-term congressman, remains arguably the senator’s most important Muslim supporter. He has attended Obama rallies in Minnesota and appears on the campaign’s Web site. But Mr. Ellison said he was also forced to cancel plans to campaign for Mr. Obama in North Carolina after an emissary for the senator told him the state was “too conservative.” Mr. Ellison said he blamed Mr. Obama’s aides — not the candidate himself — for his campaign’s standoffishness.
Despite the complications of wooing Muslim voters, Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, may find it risky to ignore this constituency. There are sizable Muslim populations in closely fought states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia.
In those states and others, American Muslims have experienced a political awakening in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the attacks, Muslim political leadership in the United States was dominated by well-heeled South Asian and Arab immigrants, whose communities account for a majority of the nation’s Muslims. (Another 20 percent are estimated to be African-American.) The number of American Muslims remains in dispute as the Census Bureau does not collect data on religious orientation; most estimates range from 2.35 million to 6 million.
A coalition of immigrant Muslim groups endorsed George W. Bush in his 2000 campaign, only to find themselves ignored by Bush administration officials as their communities were rocked by the carrying out of the USA Patriot Act, the detention and deportation of Muslim immigrants and other security measures after Sept. 11.
As a result, Muslim organizations began mobilizing supporters across the country to register to vote and run for local offices, and political action committees started tracking registered Muslim voters. The character of Muslim political organizations also began to change.
“We moved away from political leadership primarily by doctors, lawyers and elite professionals to real savvy grass-roots operatives,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a political group in Washington. “We went back to the base.”
In 2006, the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee arranged for 53 Muslim cabdrivers to skip their shifts at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to transport voters to the polls for the midterm election. Of an estimated 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state, 86 percent turned out and voted overwhelmingly for Jim Webb, a Democrat running for the Senate who subsequently won the election, according to data collected by the committee.
The committee’s president, Mukit Hossain, said Muslims in Virginia were drawn to Mr. Obama because of his support for civil liberties and his more diplomatic approach to the Middle East. Mr. Hossain and others said his multicultural image also appealed to immigrant voters.
“This is the son of an immigrant; this is someone with a funny name,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who is a Christian who has campaigned for Mr. Obama at mosques and Arab churches. “There is this excitement that if he can win, they can win, too.”
Yet some Muslim and Arab-American political organizers worry that the campaign’s reluctance to reach out to voters in those communities will eventually turn them off. “If they think that they are voting for a campaign that is trying to distance itself from them, my big fear is that Muslims will sit it out,” Mr. Hossain said.
Throughout the primaries, Muslim groups often failed to persuade Mr. Obama’s campaign to at least send a surrogate to speak to voters at their events, said Ms. Ghori, of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Before the Virginia primary in February, some of the nation’s leading Muslim organizations nearly canceled an event at a mosque in Sterling because they could not arrange for representatives from any of the major presidential campaigns to attend. At the last minute, they succeeded in wooing surrogates from the Clinton and Obama campaigns by telling each that the other was planning to attend, Mr. Bray said. (No one from the McCain campaign showed up.)
Frustrations with Mr. Obama deepened the day after he claimed the nomination when he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel. (Mr. Obama later clarified his statement, saying Jerusalem’s status would need to be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians.)
Osama Siblani, the editor and publisher of the weekly Arab American News in Dearborn, said Mr. Obama had “pandered” to the Israeli lobby, while neglecting to meet formally with Arab-American and Muslim leaders. “They’re trying to take the votes without the liabilities,” said Mr. Siblani, who is also president of the Arab American Political Action Committee.
Some Muslim supporters of Mr. Obama seem to ricochet between dejection and optimism. Minha Husaini, a public health consultant in her 30s who is working for the Obama campaign in Philadelphia, lights up like a swooning teenager when she talks about his promise for change.
“He gives me hope,” Ms. Husaini said in an interview last month, shortly before she joined the campaign on a fellowship. But she sighed when the conversation turned to his denials of being Muslim, “as if it’s something bad,” she said.
For Ms. Ghori and other Muslims, Mr. Obama’s hands-off approach is not surprising in a political climate they feel is marred by frequent attacks on their faith.
Among the incidents they cite are a statement by Mr. McCain, in a 2007 interview with Beliefnet.com, that he would prefer a Christian president to a Muslim one; a comment by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that Mr. Obama was not Muslim “as far as I know”; and a remark by Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, to The Associated Press in March that an Obama victory would be celebrated by terrorists, who would see him as a “savior.”
“All you have to say is Barack Hussein Obama,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Islamica Magazine. “You don’t even have to say ‘Muslim.’ ”
As a consequence, many Muslims have kept their support for Mr. Obama quiet. Any visible show of allegiance could be used by his opponents to incite fear, further the false rumors about his faith and “bin-Laden him,” Mr. Bray said.
“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”
18 June 2008
Israel Open to Deal With Lebanon on Disputed Land
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19lebanon.html?hp
By ETHAN BRONNER and ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: June 19, 2008
JERUSALEM — Israel offered on Wednesday to start direct peace talks with Lebanon, saying all issues would be negotiable including a tiny piece of Israeli-held land on the countries’ mutual border that Israel has long argued does not belong to Lebanon but that the Lebanese say is theirs.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Mr. Olmert had spoken of his desire to start such talks in an internal Israeli meeting and had decided to make that desire public.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Israel at the weekend and made a surprise stop in Lebanon on Monday. On her trips, she spoke to both the Israeli and Lebanese governments about Washington’s desire to find a solution to the land dispute as a catalyst for solving bigger issues in the region, including strengthening the Beirut government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a senior Israeli official said, and Mr. Olmert agreed to this.
The announcement comes amid intense regional diplomatic activity, including the planned start on Thursday of a six-month truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, which the Israeli government confirmed on Wednesday, and the end of a second round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria for a comprehensive peace treaty.
Since Syria has such strong influence in Lebanon, Mr. Olmert argued that the talks with Syria should lead logically to discussions with Lebanon, Mr. Regev said.
Israel is also very close to a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that it fought a war against two years ago.
The disputed piece of land that will be under negotiation is known as the Shabaa Farms.
When Israel withdrew from the occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations Security Council stated that the withdrawal was complete despite its holding onto the disputed area of land because Shabaa, the United Nations said, was part of the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel.
But Lebanon and Hezbollah say the land is Lebanese and Syria has not contradicted them. Moreover, Hezbollah has used the Israeli hold over Shabaa as a pretext for keeping its men under arms despite United Nations resolutions calling for the disarming of all Lebanese militias.
Hezbollah says that as long as part of the Lebanese homeland is occupied, it needs its weapons because the national army is weak.
But the West, especially the United States and France, wants to reduce the power of Hezbollah, a client of both Syria and Iran, and has been looking for ways to strengthen the pro-Western government of Lebanon. Neither the Lebanese government nor Hezbollah made any immediate official statement on Wednesday. However, Al Manar television, which is run by Hezbollah, said “the real target behind Rice’s position on Shabaa Farms is the resistance’s weapons.”
Next month, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to brief the Security Council on the implementation of Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. In that report, it is likely that he will announce a revised or clarified stand on the sovereignty of Shabaa.
For Israel, the main concern in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s increasing power. Israeli military officials say that Hezbollah has far more rockets and far deadlier ones today than it did two years ago when the two fought a month-long war after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers.
It is unclear whether Shabaa and Hezbollah have been discussed by Israeli and Syrian officials negotiating in their talks, which are being mediated by Turkey. But the Israelis and Syrians say their latest round of talks went well and there is now the possibility that Mr. Olmert and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, will find themselves at a table together in France next month. Both men have accepted an invitation to a regional conference there on July 13 on immigration, security and the environment, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has said they will be seated at the same table.
In the past, the Lebanese government has consistently ruled out negotiations with Israel.
Last week, it issued a statement saying there were “pending bilateral issues between Lebanon and Israel which are governed by international resolutions which Israel must respect, and which cannot be the object of political negotiations."
Specifically, it said, Israel must “respect Lebanon’s sovereignty over its territory and its water, release prisoners, and provide maps on mines and cluster bombs” left over from the 2006 war.
Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem and Robert F. Worth from Beirut, Lebanon
By ETHAN BRONNER and ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: June 19, 2008
JERUSALEM — Israel offered on Wednesday to start direct peace talks with Lebanon, saying all issues would be negotiable including a tiny piece of Israeli-held land on the countries’ mutual border that Israel has long argued does not belong to Lebanon but that the Lebanese say is theirs.
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Mr. Olmert had spoken of his desire to start such talks in an internal Israeli meeting and had decided to make that desire public.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Israel at the weekend and made a surprise stop in Lebanon on Monday. On her trips, she spoke to both the Israeli and Lebanese governments about Washington’s desire to find a solution to the land dispute as a catalyst for solving bigger issues in the region, including strengthening the Beirut government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a senior Israeli official said, and Mr. Olmert agreed to this.
The announcement comes amid intense regional diplomatic activity, including the planned start on Thursday of a six-month truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, which the Israeli government confirmed on Wednesday, and the end of a second round of indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria for a comprehensive peace treaty.
Since Syria has such strong influence in Lebanon, Mr. Olmert argued that the talks with Syria should lead logically to discussions with Lebanon, Mr. Regev said.
Israel is also very close to a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that it fought a war against two years ago.
The disputed piece of land that will be under negotiation is known as the Shabaa Farms.
When Israel withdrew from the occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, the United Nations Security Council stated that the withdrawal was complete despite its holding onto the disputed area of land because Shabaa, the United Nations said, was part of the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel.
But Lebanon and Hezbollah say the land is Lebanese and Syria has not contradicted them. Moreover, Hezbollah has used the Israeli hold over Shabaa as a pretext for keeping its men under arms despite United Nations resolutions calling for the disarming of all Lebanese militias.
Hezbollah says that as long as part of the Lebanese homeland is occupied, it needs its weapons because the national army is weak.
But the West, especially the United States and France, wants to reduce the power of Hezbollah, a client of both Syria and Iran, and has been looking for ways to strengthen the pro-Western government of Lebanon. Neither the Lebanese government nor Hezbollah made any immediate official statement on Wednesday. However, Al Manar television, which is run by Hezbollah, said “the real target behind Rice’s position on Shabaa Farms is the resistance’s weapons.”
Next month, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to brief the Security Council on the implementation of Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. In that report, it is likely that he will announce a revised or clarified stand on the sovereignty of Shabaa.
For Israel, the main concern in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s increasing power. Israeli military officials say that Hezbollah has far more rockets and far deadlier ones today than it did two years ago when the two fought a month-long war after Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers.
It is unclear whether Shabaa and Hezbollah have been discussed by Israeli and Syrian officials negotiating in their talks, which are being mediated by Turkey. But the Israelis and Syrians say their latest round of talks went well and there is now the possibility that Mr. Olmert and Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, will find themselves at a table together in France next month. Both men have accepted an invitation to a regional conference there on July 13 on immigration, security and the environment, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has said they will be seated at the same table.
In the past, the Lebanese government has consistently ruled out negotiations with Israel.
Last week, it issued a statement saying there were “pending bilateral issues between Lebanon and Israel which are governed by international resolutions which Israel must respect, and which cannot be the object of political negotiations."
Specifically, it said, Israel must “respect Lebanon’s sovereignty over its territory and its water, release prisoners, and provide maps on mines and cluster bombs” left over from the 2006 war.
Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem and Robert F. Worth from Beirut, Lebanon
17 June 2008
Israel and Hamas Agree to a Cease-Fire, Egypt Says
Ilhamda'allah!!
June 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By ISABEL KERSHNER and GRAHAM BOWLEY
JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas have agreed on a mutual cease-fire to take effect Thursday following negotiations brokered by Egypt, Egyptian state media announced on Tuesday.
The official Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA and state-run television quoted an unidentified senior Egyptian official as saying that the truce would start at 6 a.m. Thursday. Israeli officials would not immediately confirm or deny that any agreement had been reached.
Talks, brokered by Egypt, have been proceeding intensively between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Both sides have appeared keen on achieving a cease-fire, but until the truce comes into effect neither side is likely to stop exchanges, and on Tuesday three Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.
Palestinian medical officials in Gaza said that at least six militants were killed in the strikes and two others wounded.
However, a Palestinian official quoted by Reuters said that despite the deaths the negotiations for a truce were still on track.
“The two sides agreed, and the implementation of the truce will begin” on Thursday, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to announce a deal, said.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg News, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on al-Quds Radio: “We are so close to hammering out a final truce agreement. The cease-fire will include a cessation of fire, ending the blockade and reopening the closed border crossings of the Gaza Strip.”
On Monday, Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which controls Gaza, said that the talks brokered by Egypt for a period of calm with Israel were nearing completion and that he hoped for a “happy ending.”
Witnesses to the airstrikes on Tuesday said five of the six killed in the strikes were members of the armed wing of the radical group Islamic Jihad. The sixth was also a militant but was not immediately identified.
The Israeli military said the first two strikes hit vehicles carrying what they called “terror operatives.” The third strike was against “other activists,” the army said.
The medical officials in Gaza said four militants were killed in the first strike against a car driving on a road east of Khan Yunis, while the second strike was also on a car.
Towns and villages in southern Israel have been under continual rocket and mortar fire from Gaza in recent months, while Gaza has been subject to frequent Israeli military strikes aimed at militants and incursions.
Israel’s security cabinet decided last week to pursue an arrangement for mutual quiet, though it also instructed the military to prepare for more serious action should the talks fail or the truce break down.
The developments Tuesday come after Israel appeared to be making diplomatic progress on other fronts Monday: a possible prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and a second round of indirect talks with Syrian representatives in Turkey.
Israeli officials refused to comment about possible developments with Hezbollah and said it would be premature to draw any conclusions about understandings with Syria.
Some Israelis, meanwhile, have suggested that the current flurry of diplomatic activity is intended to distract attention from the political and legal troubles of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who the police say is suspected of receiving illicit funds.
The possibility of an imminent exchange with Hezbollah, involving the two Israeli Army reservists whose capture by the militant group set off the 2006 war in Lebanon, seemed more likely on Monday when Zvi Regev, the father of one of the reservists, said he had been told about the men’s possible return. Mr. Regev, the father of Eldad Regev, told Israel Radio that Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official in charge of the soldiers’ case, informed the family two weeks ago “that a deal was about to be carried out.”
Mr. Dekel did not go into detail, he said, and did not know about the soldiers’ condition. Both were wounded in a Hezbollah ambush across the Israeli border that led to their capture in July 2006; the Lebanese group has offered no proof that they are alive.
Two Lebanese newspapers, Al-Akhbar and As-Safir, reported on Monday that a prisoner exchange could take place as early as the end of this week.
On June 1, Hezbollah representatives unexpectedly handed over to Israel the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 war, and Israel sent back across the border a Lebanese civilian who had completed a six-year prison term in Israel for spying for Hezbollah.
Any broader swap is likely to include the release of Samir Kuntar, the most notorious of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israel. He was sentenced to multiple life terms for killing four Israelis, including a 4-year-old girl, during a terrorist raid in Nahariya in 1979.
Later on Monday, Turkish and Israeli officials announced that Israeli and Syrian representatives had completed two days of indirect talks through Turkish mediators. The talks were “serious, positive and constructive” and were to be continued, an Israeli government official said.
Israel and Syria announced three weeks ago that they were engaged in negotiations through Turkish mediators for a comprehensive peace treaty, the first talks in eight years.
The Israeli news media have been rife with reports that the Israeli team will try to persuade the Syrians to have their leaders meet face to face in Paris in mid-July at the conference, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to establish a Mediterranean Union.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed that Mr. Olmert had been invited to the Paris conference and that he hoped to attend. But “anything beyond that is speculation,” Mr. Regev said.
Turkish Foreign Minster Ali Babacan said Tuesday that the latest talks had been “completed with success” and “more importantly, the calendar was set for the next two meetings which will be held in July,” news agencies reported from Luxembourg, where the Turkish official was attending a European Union meeting.
But, Mr. Babacan said, he did “not wish to elevate the expectations because this is a very complicated matter,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. He added that Israeli and Syrian officials at the talks “left extremely satisfied with the negotiations.”
On Monday, Israeli troops killed three militants in Gaza as they were trying to plant explosives by the border fence. Islamic Jihad said the militants were laying a bomb meant to blow up an Israeli jeep on patrol.
Later, a rocket fired from Gaza by militants fell in a cemetery in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon about 10 miles north, and the military said one Israeli civilian was lightly wounded.
At least one militant was killed in a subsequent Israeli strike against a rocket-launching squad, the military said.
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Graham Bowley from New York. Michael Slackman contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
June 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By ISABEL KERSHNER and GRAHAM BOWLEY
JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas have agreed on a mutual cease-fire to take effect Thursday following negotiations brokered by Egypt, Egyptian state media announced on Tuesday.
The official Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA and state-run television quoted an unidentified senior Egyptian official as saying that the truce would start at 6 a.m. Thursday. Israeli officials would not immediately confirm or deny that any agreement had been reached.
Talks, brokered by Egypt, have been proceeding intensively between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Both sides have appeared keen on achieving a cease-fire, but until the truce comes into effect neither side is likely to stop exchanges, and on Tuesday three Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.
Palestinian medical officials in Gaza said that at least six militants were killed in the strikes and two others wounded.
However, a Palestinian official quoted by Reuters said that despite the deaths the negotiations for a truce were still on track.
“The two sides agreed, and the implementation of the truce will begin” on Thursday, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to announce a deal, said.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg News, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on al-Quds Radio: “We are so close to hammering out a final truce agreement. The cease-fire will include a cessation of fire, ending the blockade and reopening the closed border crossings of the Gaza Strip.”
On Monday, Ismail Haniya, a senior leader of Hamas, which controls Gaza, said that the talks brokered by Egypt for a period of calm with Israel were nearing completion and that he hoped for a “happy ending.”
Witnesses to the airstrikes on Tuesday said five of the six killed in the strikes were members of the armed wing of the radical group Islamic Jihad. The sixth was also a militant but was not immediately identified.
The Israeli military said the first two strikes hit vehicles carrying what they called “terror operatives.” The third strike was against “other activists,” the army said.
The medical officials in Gaza said four militants were killed in the first strike against a car driving on a road east of Khan Yunis, while the second strike was also on a car.
Towns and villages in southern Israel have been under continual rocket and mortar fire from Gaza in recent months, while Gaza has been subject to frequent Israeli military strikes aimed at militants and incursions.
Israel’s security cabinet decided last week to pursue an arrangement for mutual quiet, though it also instructed the military to prepare for more serious action should the talks fail or the truce break down.
The developments Tuesday come after Israel appeared to be making diplomatic progress on other fronts Monday: a possible prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and a second round of indirect talks with Syrian representatives in Turkey.
Israeli officials refused to comment about possible developments with Hezbollah and said it would be premature to draw any conclusions about understandings with Syria.
Some Israelis, meanwhile, have suggested that the current flurry of diplomatic activity is intended to distract attention from the political and legal troubles of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who the police say is suspected of receiving illicit funds.
The possibility of an imminent exchange with Hezbollah, involving the two Israeli Army reservists whose capture by the militant group set off the 2006 war in Lebanon, seemed more likely on Monday when Zvi Regev, the father of one of the reservists, said he had been told about the men’s possible return. Mr. Regev, the father of Eldad Regev, told Israel Radio that Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official in charge of the soldiers’ case, informed the family two weeks ago “that a deal was about to be carried out.”
Mr. Dekel did not go into detail, he said, and did not know about the soldiers’ condition. Both were wounded in a Hezbollah ambush across the Israeli border that led to their capture in July 2006; the Lebanese group has offered no proof that they are alive.
Two Lebanese newspapers, Al-Akhbar and As-Safir, reported on Monday that a prisoner exchange could take place as early as the end of this week.
On June 1, Hezbollah representatives unexpectedly handed over to Israel the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 war, and Israel sent back across the border a Lebanese civilian who had completed a six-year prison term in Israel for spying for Hezbollah.
Any broader swap is likely to include the release of Samir Kuntar, the most notorious of the few remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israel. He was sentenced to multiple life terms for killing four Israelis, including a 4-year-old girl, during a terrorist raid in Nahariya in 1979.
Later on Monday, Turkish and Israeli officials announced that Israeli and Syrian representatives had completed two days of indirect talks through Turkish mediators. The talks were “serious, positive and constructive” and were to be continued, an Israeli government official said.
Israel and Syria announced three weeks ago that they were engaged in negotiations through Turkish mediators for a comprehensive peace treaty, the first talks in eight years.
The Israeli news media have been rife with reports that the Israeli team will try to persuade the Syrians to have their leaders meet face to face in Paris in mid-July at the conference, organized by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to establish a Mediterranean Union.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed that Mr. Olmert had been invited to the Paris conference and that he hoped to attend. But “anything beyond that is speculation,” Mr. Regev said.
Turkish Foreign Minster Ali Babacan said Tuesday that the latest talks had been “completed with success” and “more importantly, the calendar was set for the next two meetings which will be held in July,” news agencies reported from Luxembourg, where the Turkish official was attending a European Union meeting.
But, Mr. Babacan said, he did “not wish to elevate the expectations because this is a very complicated matter,” he said, according to Agence France-Presse. He added that Israeli and Syrian officials at the talks “left extremely satisfied with the negotiations.”
On Monday, Israeli troops killed three militants in Gaza as they were trying to plant explosives by the border fence. Islamic Jihad said the militants were laying a bomb meant to blow up an Israeli jeep on patrol.
Later, a rocket fired from Gaza by militants fell in a cemetery in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon about 10 miles north, and the military said one Israeli civilian was lightly wounded.
At least one militant was killed in a subsequent Israeli strike against a rocket-launching squad, the military said.
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem and Graham Bowley from New York. Michael Slackman contributed reporting from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
14 June 2008
The end of intervention (OP-ED)
The New York Times
June 11, 2008
By Madeleine K. Albright
The Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.
The first and most obvious reality is the survival of totalitarian government in an age of global communications and democratic progress. Myanmar’s military junta employs the same set of tools used by the likes of Stalin to crush dissent and monitor the lives of citizens. The needs of the victims of Cyclone Nargis mean nothing to a regime focused solely on preserving its own authority.
Second is the unwillingness of Myanmar’s neighbors to use their collective leverage on behalf of change. A decade ago, when Myanmar was allowed to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I was assured by leaders in the region that they would push the junta to open its economy and move in the direction of democracy. With a few honorable exceptions, this hasn’t happened.
A third reality is that the concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground. Many diplomats and foreign policy experts had hoped that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the creation of an integrated world system free from spheres of influence, in which the wounds created by colonial and cold war empires would heal.
In such a world, the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.
During the 1990s, certain precedents were created. The administration of George H. W. Bush intervened to prevent famine in Somalia and to aid Kurds in northern Iraq; the Clinton administration returned an elected leader to power in Haiti; NATO ended the war in Bosnia and stopped Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of terror in Kosovo; the British halted a civil war in Sierra Leone; and the United Nations authorized life-saving missions in East Timor and elsewhere.
These actions were not steps toward a world government. They did reflect the view that the international system exists to advance certain core values, including development, justice and respect for human rights. In this view, sovereignty is still a central consideration, but cases may arise in which there is a responsibility to intervene — through sanctions or, in extreme cases, by force — to save lives.
The Bush administration’s decision to fight in Afghanistan after 9/11 did nothing to weaken this view because it was clearly motivated by self-defense. The invasion of Iraq, with the administration’s grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption, was another matter, however. It generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes. Governments, especially in the developing world, are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even when the human costs of doing so are high.
Thus, Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.
Political leaders in Pakistan have told the Bush administration to back off, despite the growth of Al Qaeda and Taliban cells in the country’s wild northwest. African leaders (understandably perhaps) have said no to the creation of a regional American military command. And despite recent efforts to enshrine the doctrine of a “responsibility to protect” in international law, the concept of humanitarian intervention has lost momentum.
The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to the principle of sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty unless and until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.
At the heart of the debate is the question of what the international system is. Is it just a collection of legal nuts and bolts cobbled together by governments to protect governments? Or is it a living framework of rules intended to make the world a more humane place?
We know how the government of Myanmar would answer that question, but what we need to listen to is the voice — and cry — of the Burmese people.
June 11, 2008
By Madeleine K. Albright
The Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.
The first and most obvious reality is the survival of totalitarian government in an age of global communications and democratic progress. Myanmar’s military junta employs the same set of tools used by the likes of Stalin to crush dissent and monitor the lives of citizens. The needs of the victims of Cyclone Nargis mean nothing to a regime focused solely on preserving its own authority.
Second is the unwillingness of Myanmar’s neighbors to use their collective leverage on behalf of change. A decade ago, when Myanmar was allowed to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I was assured by leaders in the region that they would push the junta to open its economy and move in the direction of democracy. With a few honorable exceptions, this hasn’t happened.
A third reality is that the concept of national sovereignty as an inviolable and overriding principle of global law is once again gaining ground. Many diplomats and foreign policy experts had hoped that the fall of the Berlin Wall would lead to the creation of an integrated world system free from spheres of influence, in which the wounds created by colonial and cold war empires would heal.
In such a world, the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.
During the 1990s, certain precedents were created. The administration of George H. W. Bush intervened to prevent famine in Somalia and to aid Kurds in northern Iraq; the Clinton administration returned an elected leader to power in Haiti; NATO ended the war in Bosnia and stopped Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of terror in Kosovo; the British halted a civil war in Sierra Leone; and the United Nations authorized life-saving missions in East Timor and elsewhere.
These actions were not steps toward a world government. They did reflect the view that the international system exists to advance certain core values, including development, justice and respect for human rights. In this view, sovereignty is still a central consideration, but cases may arise in which there is a responsibility to intervene — through sanctions or, in extreme cases, by force — to save lives.
The Bush administration’s decision to fight in Afghanistan after 9/11 did nothing to weaken this view because it was clearly motivated by self-defense. The invasion of Iraq, with the administration’s grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption, was another matter, however. It generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes. Governments, especially in the developing world, are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even when the human costs of doing so are high.
Thus, Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.
Political leaders in Pakistan have told the Bush administration to back off, despite the growth of Al Qaeda and Taliban cells in the country’s wild northwest. African leaders (understandably perhaps) have said no to the creation of a regional American military command. And despite recent efforts to enshrine the doctrine of a “responsibility to protect” in international law, the concept of humanitarian intervention has lost momentum.
The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to the principle of sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty unless and until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.
At the heart of the debate is the question of what the international system is. Is it just a collection of legal nuts and bolts cobbled together by governments to protect governments? Or is it a living framework of rules intended to make the world a more humane place?
We know how the government of Myanmar would answer that question, but what we need to listen to is the voice — and cry — of the Burmese people.
05 June 2008
Wonderful Abayas!!
I stumbled upon this wonderful blog that sells abayas from Indonesia. Though the shipping is atrocious, figured into the total price of the abaya it evens out with something that would be bought in the US. The designs are lovely and very attractive, while remaining modest. I'm going to be ordering several!
USA Women's Size Standards
US Sizes 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Bust (inches) 32 ½ 33 ½ 34 ½ 35 ½ 36 ½ 38 39 ½ 41 43 45
Waist (inches) 24 25 26 27 28 29 ½ 31 32 ½ 34 ½ 36 ½
Hip (inches) 34 ½ 35 ½ 36 ½ 37 ½ 38 ½ 40 41 ½ 43 45 47
Bust (cm) 82 ½ 85 87 ½ 90 92 ½ 96 ½ 100 ½ 104 109 114
Waist (cm) 61 63 ½ 66 68 ½ 71 75 79 82 ½ 87 ½ 93
Hip (cm) 87 ½ 90 93 95 98 101 ½ 105 ½ 109 114 119
the price of the abayas:
- with height up to 170 centimeters, Indonesian sisters standart.
(As i dont know other nationality standart)
2/XS is USD 8
4/S is USD 8.5
6/S is USD 9
8/M is USD 9.5
10/M is USD 10
12/L is USD 10.5
14/L is USD 11
16/XL is USD 11
18/1XL is USD 12
20/2XL is USD 12.5
the Indonesian Post EMS maximum shipment for USA is 20 Kg.
one XS to M abaya approximately is 475 gr
and L to 2XL is about 550 gr
the shipping fee to USA is: in USDollar
up to 500gr is 23
up to 1000gr is 31
up to 1500gr is 40
up to 2000gr is 49
next 500 gr is 12
while the volumetric tariffs : in USD
1500 up to 2000gr is 47
2000 up to 2500 gr is 51.40
2500 up to 3000 gr is 55.27
3000 up to 3500 gr is 58.41
3500 up to 4000 gr is 61.18
next 500 gr is 12
http://baynamuslim.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-abaya-design.html
USA Women's Size Standards
US Sizes 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Bust (inches) 32 ½ 33 ½ 34 ½ 35 ½ 36 ½ 38 39 ½ 41 43 45
Waist (inches) 24 25 26 27 28 29 ½ 31 32 ½ 34 ½ 36 ½
Hip (inches) 34 ½ 35 ½ 36 ½ 37 ½ 38 ½ 40 41 ½ 43 45 47
Bust (cm) 82 ½ 85 87 ½ 90 92 ½ 96 ½ 100 ½ 104 109 114
Waist (cm) 61 63 ½ 66 68 ½ 71 75 79 82 ½ 87 ½ 93
Hip (cm) 87 ½ 90 93 95 98 101 ½ 105 ½ 109 114 119
the price of the abayas:
- with height up to 170 centimeters, Indonesian sisters standart.
(As i dont know other nationality standart)
2/XS is USD 8
4/S is USD 8.5
6/S is USD 9
8/M is USD 9.5
10/M is USD 10
12/L is USD 10.5
14/L is USD 11
16/XL is USD 11
18/1XL is USD 12
20/2XL is USD 12.5
the Indonesian Post EMS maximum shipment for USA is 20 Kg.
one XS to M abaya approximately is 475 gr
and L to 2XL is about 550 gr
the shipping fee to USA is: in USDollar
up to 500gr is 23
up to 1000gr is 31
up to 1500gr is 40
up to 2000gr is 49
next 500 gr is 12
while the volumetric tariffs : in USD
1500 up to 2000gr is 47
2000 up to 2500 gr is 51.40
2500 up to 3000 gr is 55.27
3000 up to 3500 gr is 58.41
3500 up to 4000 gr is 61.18
next 500 gr is 12
http://baynamuslim.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-abaya-design.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
