LEBANON: Pushing for Obama abroad

David Munir Nabti says he realizes he's just a small link in a big chain. Nonetheless, the Lebanese American political activist says he believes that his alternative voice as a U.S. citizen living overseas will eventually reach policymakers back home.

Despite moving to Lebanon in 2004 to bond with his roots and work in the development field, Nabti never really lost his connection with the U.S. It is in California, where he grew up and later studied political science.

So last year, with a small group of like-minded people, he decided to start the Lebanon chapter of Democrats Abroad, which is the official overseas branch of the U.S. Democratic Party with members in 164 countries.

A big supporter of Sen. Barack Obama for president, Nabti wanted to encourage Lebanese Americans and U.S. nationals residing in Lebanon to vote in the upcoming presidential race.

His group has begun to carry out voter registration drives in to engage Lebanese who hold U.S. citizenship but do not feel particularly connected with their second country.

But Nabti thinks that he has a bigger role to play. He hopes to bring a “new perspective, and a crucial voice” to the U.S. political process during this tumultuous time in the Middle East.

In March, he was the first American from the Arab world to become a delegate to the committee for the Democrats Abroad Europe-Middle East-Africa region. He will participate at the end of August in the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where he will get the chance to interact with fellow Democratic activists.

Nabti recently sat down with the Los Angeles Times to talk about his organization and his hopes for a better U.S. foreign policy in the region. 

Los Angeles Times: What is the main goal of the Lebanon Chapter of Democrats Abroad?

David Munir Nabti: The whole idea for us in Lebanon is to try to find ways to engage Americans in the U.S. political process, whether this involves domestic U.S. issues, foreign policy or the environment.... We believe that the voice of Americans abroad is desperately needed in the U.S. political process to give a sense of international awareness that is largely lacking within the U.S. population and the U.S. political process.... A big reason why the U.S. [Middle East] policy in the past years was so disastrous is because of the failure to know more about the region and feel concerned about it.... In many ways, Americans living abroad tend to have different perspectives because of their exposure to many different cultures and environments.

IRAQ: A baseball field, TV show and now a cross.

At the Marine base at Al Asad, Iraq, a playing field is dedicated to Marine Majs. Michael Martino and Gerald Bloomfield, who were killed when their Super Cobra helicopter was shot down Nov. 2, 2005.

Helicopter squads, decompressing after daily flights throughout Iraq, gather at the Flying Diamonds Bloomfield-Martino Baseball Field.

The opening episode of the sixth season of the TV series "24" also was dedicated to the two crewmen, after Camp Pendleton Marines helped the producers with some helicopter scenes for one of Jack Bauer's adventures.

Now it might be said that the 43-foot cross atop San Diego's Mt. Soledad is also a memorial to Martino and Bloomfield.

The cross is at the center of a complex legal issue involving the constitutional separation of church and state vs. the federal government's right to have crosses on its property. More litigation is possible.

But in his ruling Wednesday that the cross is a war memorial and not predominantly a religious symbol, and therefore can remain on the promontory near Interstate 5, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns cited a brief filed by the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Martino's parents and Bloomfield's widow.

In a ceremony attended by 300 Marines, plaques memorializing Bloomfield and Martino were added in May 2006 to the 2,000-plus already affixed to the base of the cross.

In his opinion, Burns noted a photograph showing the ceremony attached to the brief: "The cross plays no noticeable role in the ceremony itself. An objective observor happening upon such a ceremony would immediately perceive its patriotic and military character and would not take away a religious message."

The ACLU, which believes the cross should be removed, may appeal Burns' ruling. But for the moment, lawyers for the two families are celebrating what they call a victory.

--Tony Perry

Photo: The cross atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego

Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Lebanese pop diva murdered in Dubai

From the spotlights of concert halls to the dark corners of tribunals and police stations, Suzanne Tamim experienced a full life with the tragedies that come along with it.

This Lebanese pop star certainly knew the glamour of fame, but she also suffered the tribulations of a troubled marriage.

And finally, after months of hiding away from the showbiz scene, Tamim was found brutally murdered in her apartment in a chic Dubai district. The mysterious death of the sultry pop star made headlines this morning across the Arab world.

EGYPT: Legendary director is gone

Wearing no make-up or fancy costumes, Egypt's top actors and actresses gathered this week in a Cairo church to bid farewell to director Youssef Chahine, one of the nation's most internationally remarkable moviemakers.

Chahine, 82, passed away earlier this week after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He was flown to Paris to undergo surgery in mid-July and then transferred back to a Cairo hospital, where he remained in a coma until his death.

Draped with the Egyptian flag, his coffin made its journey from Cairo to the tomb of Chahine's family in Alexandria on Monday. 

In a career that lasted more than five decades, Chahine directed more than 30 movies that drew on different schools of thought. He earned several international prizes, including the lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.

IRAQ: After the bombing, Shiite pilgrims walk on

The sea of pilgrims moved toward the majestic Imam Kadhim mosque complex with its twin gilded domes and towering minarets. They came to mourn Imam Kadhim, the Shiite saint who died in 799 when, his followers say, the Islamic world's caliph, a Sunni, poisoned his food in prison.

The pilgrims —  women in black robes, and men in traditional dishdashas or simple T-shirts and sweatpants —  marched long distances from all over Iraq to mourn his death. They covered their heads with T-shirts to protect themselves from the sun.

Since the U.S.-led invasion, Shiite holidays have been marred by attacks by Sunni extremists and other tragedies. On Monday, three female suicide bombers struck pilgrims, killing 32 people and wounding 102 others. On the anniversary of Imam Kadhim's death in 2005, a stampede left nearly 1,000 dead when pilgrims panicked at the rumor of a suicide bomber on a bridge.

On Tuesday, men and boys walked through the crowd, with tanks of water on their backs, to spray the perspiring crowd. Tents stood on the side of the road to shelter people from the heat.  Inside, water, juice and tea were served.

Some enterprising teenagers pushed exhausted women on carts since cars and motorcycles were banned.  Packed trains ferried pilgrims from the city's main station to the outskirts of Kadhimiya. People dangled from the sides of the individual cars and sat on the roofs.

Green and red  banners of Islam adorned the neighborhood of Kadhimiya, and the sound of lamentations from speakers blurred with the buzz of hovering Iraqi helicopters.  People spotted the gunner in a helicopter and he flashed a grin.

Near Haifa Street, once synonymous with Sunni militants, pilgrims rested in shelters, not alarmed about possible attacks.   

"When I heard about the explosions, I continued on my way and did not hesitate," said Alaa Hadi, 26, who marched to Kadhimiya.

Homemaker Umm Bashar, 45, came from south of Baghdad by bus and was dropped off in the center of the city, towing her 3-year-old daughter, in order to honor a pledge. 

"I asked the imam a gift to have a child and God gave me my daughter. So I brought her here to fulfill my vow and see the imam," she said.  Close to the shrine, men raised their hands as if performing a ritual, but soldiers were actually checking them for explosives.

The pilgrims stood around a fake cell, mean to resemble Imam Kadhim's prison, and threw money at it, asking the beloved saint to grant their wishes.

By a symbolic black coffin for the imam, a parade of men practiced self-flagellation with chains, bloodying their backs. Some women knelt down to the coffin asking for a blessing. Thinking about Monday's violence, one pilgrim was defiant.  "The suicide attacks were meaningless; they just wanted to sabotage the election," said Ahmad Abed Muhaimen, a 29-year-old teacher. "Tell everyone that we are still alive and working."

— Usama Redha in Baghdad

Photo by Saad Khalaf / Los Angeles Times

IRAN: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks tough against the West

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a typically fiery speech today, attempting to rally together nonWestern nations on his country's behalf.

Ahmadinejad has become popular in the Third World for his rhetorical defiance of the United States and Israel. He called on the world's poorer nations to band together against the power of the West, which he accused of a number of things, including excessive bullying and exacerbating the AIDS crisis.

Ahmadinejad delivered the keynote speech to foreign ministers attending a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Here are excerpts from the Associated Press report:

The big powers are going down. They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era. ... The rich and powerful countries continue to exercise an inordinate influence in determining the nature and direction of international relations, including economic and trade relations, as well as rules governing these relations, many of which are at the expense of developing countries.

IRAQ: The colonel deploys to Fallouja

Fallouja, once the hub of the Sunni insurgency, is now deemed safe enough for American fast-food franchises.

In a neighborhood where the U.S. fought two bloody battles against insurgents in 2004, a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet has opened.

Said to be popular with Iraqis and with Marines who still patrol the streets.

-- Tony Perry

Photo: A Marine buys a bucket of wings at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Fallouja. Credit: Marine Corps

KUWAIT: Migrant workers take to the streets

An extraordinary uprising by hundreds of expatriate workers has erupted in Kuwait over the last three days. The workers, many of them from South Asia, are rebelling against their poor living conditions, staging demonstrations at various locations to demand better salaries.

In Kuwait, as in other Persian Gulf countries, laborers often remain in the shadows, silently tolerating grueling work conditions and low wages. They rarely reap the benefits of the huge profit from soaring oil prices, and they are condemned to suffer the subsequent rise in prices even as their salaries remain largely unchanged.

EGYPT: A shocking acquittal

As the judge read out the verdict, some wept or shouted hysterically, while others could not stand the shock and eventually collapsed on the ground at the door of the courtroom.

This is how relatives of those who died when a ferry sank two years ago, which killed more than 1,000 people, reacted Sunday to a ruling acquitting five of six defendants.

"May God take our revenge," shouted a victim’s relative, raising his hands to the sky as he walked out of the court building in Safaga, 432 miles southeast Cairo, according to the footage broadcast by Al Jazeera.
 
In February 2006, the ferry Al Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea as it was carrying about 1,400 people, mostly from poor Egyptian families, from Saudi Arabia to the Egyptian port of Safaga. The disaster sparked a wave of national outrage. In the aftermath of the incident, a parliamentary commission was formed to investigate. The commission concluded that the ferry company should be held responsible for the calamity because it operated the vessel despite "serious defects."

EGYPT: Crackdown on Facebook activists

It seems that the government has declared another war on Facebook activism. Last weekend, police arrested about 14 Facebook activists who earlier this year called for a national strike over inflation.

The activists, in their early to mid-20s, were arrested during a peaceful protest Wednesday at the coastal city of Alexandria, about 130 miles north Cairo. The prosecutor reportedly accused them of instigating civil disobedience and blocking traffic and ordered their detention for 15 days pending investigation.

Amnesty International is said to have expressed concern over the arrests and called upon the Egyptian authorities on Saturday to release the detainees.

The social networking site Facebook has recently become one of the prime outlets to voice criticism of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. In the spring, a Facebook group that called itself April 6 and encompassed thousands of activists, circulated messages calling for a national strike to protest price hikes and political blockade. The call was followed by riots in the town of Mahalla in Egypt's Nile delta, an alarming occurrence for Mubarak's regime, which had never faced such a challenge.

Nevertheless, the call was not heeded by large sectors of the society. The girl who set up the group was arrested and held a few weeks until the interior ministry heeded an appeal made by her mother.

Since then, the regime has seemed adamant about curbing Internet activism. Last month, the local press unveiled notorious would-be legislation to regulate the media.  Under the bill’s provisions, Facebook activists and bloggers are subject to legal retribution.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: Facebook activist Israa Abdel Fattah. Credit: Agence France-Presse

ISRAEL: Nine hours at Eretz checkpoint

By Ashraf Khalil in Chicago

My adventures as an Arab American journalist crossing in and out of Israel have already been documented here.

But even for someone who goes in expecting delays, aggressive questioning and the occasional strip search, my experience on Sunday leaving the Gaza Strip through the Eretz border crossing was a shock.

About 18 months ago, Israel completed construction of a massive automated inspection terminal at Eretz.

The size of a warehouse, a bewildering high-tech cattle pen built with one primary goal: to ensure that everyone coming out of Gaza gets their bags and their body thoroughly screened long before they ever get in a room with an Israeli.

Dozens of automated doors and gates open and close before you; disembodied Israeli voices tell you where to stand, when to walk into various scanning devices and when to open your bags, display them to the cameras and place them on conveyor belts.

The terminal was built...

LIBYA: Gaddafi son's arrest leads to oil embargo on Swiss

Libya does not react lightly to authorities in another country getting in the way of its leader’s son.

The brief detention by the Swiss police of the youngest son of Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal, last week for allegedly beating two of his servants in a luxury hotel has sparked a serious international row between Switzerland and the North African nation.

Libya decided Thursday to cut its oil shipments to Switzerland as a result. The state-run shipping company threatened to take more actions against the Swiss if they do not apologize for the arrest.

ISRAEL: Obama's Western Wall prayer made public

Before leaving Israel on Thursday, Barack Obama took out a sheet of King David Hotel stationery and penned a heartfelt prayer to God. It was meant to be private, but his early morning visit to the Western Wall, where he deposited the folded piece of paper into a crevice, was a public event.

As the Democratic candidate headed for the airport, a young Orthodox religious student searched the Wall until he found the note and turned it over to Maariv. The newspaper's decision to publish the prayer drew a storm of criticism in Israel.

"It was unworthy and inappropriate to publish this note," fumed Shmuel Rabinovitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall. "This violates a request that is private and personal." The rabbi's objection follows a 1,000-year-old Jewish edict against snooping on someone else's mail.

Bloggers joined in denouncing the newspaper, even as they speculated how much Obama's letter would fetch on eBay. But one critic, attorney Guy Mashiach, figured the senator probably anticipated the invasion of his privacy.

"Obama is intelligent enough to understand that in Israel, nothing remains private, discreet and secret for more than a few hours and that one mustn't count on a secret meant to be shared only by you and God for eternity being kept even in the holy of holies," he wrote on the Haaretz newspaper's web site. "Obama didn't fall into the trap of asking for John McCain's disappearance ... and penned a remarkably beautiful note, as though he had known the note would go directly to one of the more tabloid-like papers."

Read more about Obama's stolen Western Wall prayer

— Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem

Photo: Barack Obama places a note in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City. Credit: Tara Todras-Whitehil / Associated Press

IRAQ: An IED in Ramadi

By Saif Rasheed and Doug Smith in Ramadi

It was a comfort when our host, Capt. Jonathan Hamilton, told us attacks in Ramadi were down to about seven a month.

A Marine patrol had just dropped us off at Joint Security Station Karama, the outpost in western Iraq where we would spend four days with Hamilton’s weapons company. We were there to learn about the rebuilding of Ramadi, and we didn’t relish the idea of dodging bombs or seeing people get hurt.

But it didn’t take long to find out that Marines still face hazards.

Later that day, we were interviewing Lt. Col. Amer Ubaid Hays Rishawi, head of intelligence for the southern precinct of Ramadi police, when a policeman came in and told him to cut it short because there was an emergency.

We soon learned that three Marines were injured when their Humvee hit a roadside bomb. We were relieved to hear that the injuries were minor and that none of the Marines required hospitalization.

But our feelings about the attack took an eerie turn when someone mentioned that it was the same convoy that had dropped us off. The attack occurred on its return to Camp Ramadi.

Despite assurances that the patrol would have been out there whether we were in Ramadi or not, we felt in some way responsible.

These thoughts had drifted out of mind three days later when we returned to Camp Ramadi, the main base where we would start our journey home.

We didn’t remember Sgt. Josef Surunis, who worked behind a desk in the adjutant’s office and greeted us on our return.

But he remembered us. The fact that Surunis is the base personnel director doesn’t keep him from going on patrol. He was in the convoy that took us to Karama and in the vehicle that got hit. With him were Sgt. Micheal Lauderback and Lance Cpls. Michael Riddle and Patrick Minick. 

Surunis motioned us around his desk to show us photos of the wrecked Humvee. After realizing he was not seriously hurt, Surunis had taken out his camera to document the close call.

ISRAEL: Waitin' for Obama

Last December, a Kassam rocket tore through Pinhas and Aliza Amar's kitchen. Pinhas and Aliza were home with two of their daughters. Aliza was injured, the rest unharmed. The Israeli family is rebuilding its home and renting two houses away.

In the southern Israeli city of Sderot, this isn't big news. But it swept the Amar family into the American presidential campaign. Sen. John McCain met with the family and inspected the damaged house when he visited Israel in March. This week, Sen. Barack Obama dropped by.

The Democratic candidate's visit was brief. For the Amars, it took up the entire day.

The Amars' door is always open. On principle. It is the family's way of life, inherited from Aliza's parents along with the house where she was born, which now has no roof. First one up opens the door, last one to bed shuts it. In between, everyone and anyone are welcome.

Reporters spotted the family on Obama's itinerary, and the phones hadn't stopped ringing. Aliza is having to juggle interview requests while preparing gifts and contemplating food for the distinguished guest. I figure the best way to cover Obama's visit is to hang out with the family for the day, observing and trying to blend in.

I arrive as Aliza holds court at a dining table that takes up the living room. Over coffee, cigarettes and two cellular phones, the woman who describes herself as "simple" puts army generals to shame. Ordering flowers, outsourcing shopping, giving interviews and commissioning special pastries, the matron shows grace under fire. Some days, it's Kassam fire. Today, it's media fire.

Come in, she signals. I'll be right with you. Right after Channel 10.

It's hot. There are fans everywhere. Pinhas steers me out of the sun and into the house. The last of the reporters had left at 11 the previous night, and the first had called before 7 a.m. Wednesday. A bit of chutzpah, no? remarks Aliza, who had spoken to them and countless others anyway.

LEBANON: Beirut nightlife again starts to sizzle

Beirut will be back on the world map and, this time, it will be for good reasons. That was the message behind the relaunching party of Time Out magazine’s Beirut edition, after a two-year hiatus, at the Riviera Beach Lounge along the capital's seafront.

With fireworks and champagne bottles in sparkling boxes, the party was designed to mirror the reemerging face of Beirut: a city of glitz and glamour boasting many trendy open-air rooftop nightspots, underground nightclubs and funky bars.

MIDDLE EAST: Among Arabs, disappointment over Obama's visit

Sen. Barack Obama’s declarations in Israel yesterday left many Arab observers sour and doubtful that the presidential candidate could bring change in U.S. policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Some Arab newspapers commented angrily over Obama’s description of Israel as a “miracle” and his justification for the summer 2006 Israeli attack on Hezbollah as the Jewish state’s “right to defend itself."

The Arab nationalist, Beirut-based Assafir newspaper, for instance, criticized Obama’s “bias” toward Israel and printed a front-page photo, above in lower right of page, of him wearing a Kippah and solemnly laying flowers by a Jewish memorial in Jerusalem:

The democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency seemed very far yesterday from the line of moderation and change that he claims as his. He revealed, in Jerusalem and Sderot, a new political bias regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, supplemented with the flattering of the leaders of Israel, which he called a “miracle”. [He] did not show enough attention to the peace process and was even about to ignore the Palestinian leaders whom he quickly met in Ramallah.

IRAQ: Trapped in Taqaddum with the Lioness

By Doug Smith, in western Iraq

If I was going to be trapped on a base with 4,000 U.S. service members, I ought to be able to find a story.

“Find the PAO,” I thought. The public affairs officer is the person in a military unit whose job is to get the good news out and to facilitate the work of embedded reporters. Facilitating can mean anything from vigorously assisting to artfully getting in the way, depending on the story and the reporter.

My search turned out to be something of an Arthurian quest. Suffice it to say after three hours of walking aimlessly and riding buses that seemed to be going nowhere I found 1st Lt. Lori Miller in an underground bunker inherited from Saddam Hussein’s air force. Taqaddum (an Arabic word meaning progress) was a giant air base built by the deposed Iraqi dictator.

A bright young woman from Indiana, Miller did a quick read on me and, despite my faux Iraqi facial hair, decided to open doors.

Her first offering was the Lioness. She was coming into the bunker’s makeshift sound studio to record a satellite interview with NBC. I could talk to her after the interview, Miller said.

Though feeling some qualms about poaching on a fellow reporter’s work, I thought it would do no harm to listen in.

The Lioness was Cpl. Nicole Estrada, a 22-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga. The sobriquet comes from the fact that she, along with a few dozen other women Marines on the base, volunteered to step into a combat role beside fighting men.

In Iraq the tradition of the male-only infantry has yielded slightly to the reality that every civilian, man or woman, is a potential suicide bomber. The Marines have set up highway checkpoints where they stop and physically search every person driving through.

A man, particularly an American in uniform, could sour these inherently tense encounters by just looking too directly at a woman, let alone patting her down.

So the word went out to the diverse branches that make up a base — administration, food services, motor transport and postal — that women were needed to team up with the infantry outside the wire.

Estrada, a field wireman by training, stepped forward.

She received two weeks of training in search technique and the culture and language of Iraq. Then she joined an infantry unit.

In the interview, she told NBC’s Jay Blackman that she was not authorized to say where she was stationed.

I sympathized with Blackman’s efforts to elicit drama and emotion from a Marine over a satellite feed with a bad delay.

Asked why she chose to put her life at risk, Estrada said she wanted to interact with the Iraqi people, to see what their culture was like and how they lived. Nothing particularly scary or threatening had happened. She had done her job.

Estrada’s best line was an inadvertent double entendre, obviously unsuitable for broadcast. Asked whether Iraqis could see she was a woman in her military garb, Estrada said they could identify women by their hair, using the plural of the common three-letter word for the knot of hair many women Marines tie behind their heads. The whole office burst out laughing.

ISRAEL: Gaza, my uncles and 'the cousins'

By Ashraf Khalil in Gaza City

Last week I took a vacation to Egypt to visit family, the first time I’d been back to Cairo since I was posted to Jerusalem in February.

My relatives peppered me with questions about life in a country next door that they know they’ll never visit.

What’s Al-Aqsa Mosque like? Have you crossed through the wall? How do “our cousins” (one of the more polite local euphemisms for Israelis) treat you at checkpoints?

Two uncles asked me what was the Palestinian, especially the Gazan, opinion on Egypt.

I hesitated.

“Well, do you want the honest answer or the diplomatic one?”

They wanted honesty, so I gave it to them.

“Ya amo (uncle), the Palestinians think that Egypt is an equal partner in the siege of Gaza and the suffering of the people there. Actually 'partner' is the wrong word. They think Israel and America are partners and Egypt is taking orders from them.”

Technically, there is a host of diplomatic commitments — some dating back to the original Camp David accords — that govern the status of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and the Sinai. But on the ground, there’s nothing to keep Egypt from unilaterally opening the border, something Cairo has done before to let in emergency medical cases.

At other times, the Gazans have initiated their own unilateral border openings, blowing open the border wall in January of this year and flooding into the northern Sinai for almost two weeks.

But the general status quo for more than a year has been Egyptian soldiers helping to turn Gaza into a massive boiling prison.

“If you were a lifelong Gazan,” I asked my uncles, “what would your opinion of Egypt be?”

EGYPT: Sexual harassment of women on the rise

“Oh, what a beauty!” “Your hips look great!” “Wow, I like your breasts!” are all comments that a woman hears frequently on Cairo streets. Yet, the harassment is not always verbal; sometimes it gets physical with the harasser grabbing a woman’s breast, hitting her hips or exposing himself to her.

A recent study has shown that almost half of Egyptian women get harassed on a daily basis.

“Sexual harassment has become an overwhelming and very real problem experienced by all women in Egyptian society, often on a daily basis, in public places,” said the study released last week by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, a Cairo-based organization.

The survey showed that 83% of Egyptian women of different ages reported ...

LEBANON: Halting Jewish legacy's descent into oblivion

A few landmarks and shadows still testify to their existence in Lebanon: scattered cemeteries with dust-covered stars of David and Hebrew inscriptions; remnants of synagogues engulfed by colonies of wild plants; fading stories about a neighbor who departed long ago. 

The Jews of Lebanon are almost forgotten today. This in a small country that boasts 18 officially recognized religious communities, including Judaism.

Before the 1975-1990 civil war, they numbered in the thousands. But today, according to some estimates there are only a few hundred Lebanese Jews, who live in anonymity, mostly pretending to be Christians for fear of persecution. With Lebanon in a state of war with Israel, some do not differentiate between Jews and Israelis.

In an interview published recently on NowLebanon, a local news website, Liza, one of the few remaining Jews in Beirut, said:

I am Lebanese, 100% Lebanese. But I am rejected, because people think I am Israeli, or a Zionist or a Mossad agent. For me to have a normal life here, you will need real peace between the Arabs and Israelis.... Until then, I will not be welcomed in this country, and actually, no one will feel stable here.

ISRAEL: The rich, the wasteful and the distasteful

OK, what do you get if you cross an alligator with a chinchilla?

A $242,424 coat.

And four of these mustn't-have, uh, things, have actually been sold by a Tel Aviv boutique named "Philosophy."

According to the owner of the boutique, its clientele of hundreds consists of Russian oligarchs and other high-flying foreigners -- and one former minister, said to be among the country's leading fashion mavens. "If you knew anything about fashion, you'd know right away who I'm talking about," he told a business reporter.

Seventy percent of their customers are not Israeli, says the owner. Duh. Globes, a leading Israeli business newspaper, calculated the cost of that, uh, thing to be worth 17 years of work at minimum wage. Two had been bought by a wealthy Moscow client, it was said.

Poverty rates in Israel are high. Four hundred twenty thousand families live below the poverty line, one in every three children in Israel is poor.

For others, a $242 pair of underwear awaits in that Tel Aviv boutique. It's the cheapest item. And they might still have one of those reptile on the outside, rodent on the inside, uh, things.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.

Photos: chinchilla and alligator, Wikipedia.

LEBANON: An uneasy return for Damascus

Syria’s foreign minister came to Lebanon today to open the door for a new era of ties between the two neighboring states.

But Walid Moallem’s visit went not so smoothly. The Syrian official was greeted by women holding a peaceful protest close to the presidential palace where he met Michel Suleiman, Lebanon's newly elected president. They demanded that Syria uncover the fate of their family members who are believed to be held in Syrian prisons. 

Local TV showed footage of security forces clashing briefly with the demonstrators who were trying to block the road.

Hundreds of cases of Lebanese who allegedly disappeared at the hands of Syrian security and intelligence forces since 1975 are still unresolved. For the last three years, the mothers of those who disappeared in Syria have been carrying a sit-in in front of a United Nations building in downtown Beirut. But until now, they haven’t received any conclusive information regarding their children.

Moallem, who handed an invitation to Suleiman to visit Damascus soon, didn't ignore the issue at a press conference:

We hope the Syrian-Lebanese Committee restarts its work on the issue of the Lebanese and Syrian detainees. We hope a solution will be reached in the end… I say to the families of those missing and those detained that he who has been patient for 30 years can wait a bit longer.

ISRAEL: A gathering of 'The Formers' in Gaza

By Ashraf Khalil in Gaza City

The evidence of last year’s power shift in Gaza (Hamas in, and the Fatah faction very, very out) is apparent in lots of big and small ways. Green Hamas flags are everywhere, of course, and the black-clad security guys keeping order in the streets are more likely to be sporting bushy beards.

But every now and then, it sneaks up on you in more subtle ways.

Yesterday, my colleague Rushdi and I met with Faisal Abu Shahla, a doctor who heads a major medical assistance charity. As soon as we walked in his office, we noticed the pictures of the late Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the wall. It was clear this was one of Gaza’s dwindling patches of Fatah ground.

Abu Shahla identified himself as "the former director general of all hospitals in Gaza." Then he introduced several middle-age guys sitting on his office couch, sipping tea and smoking. There was a former director of administrative services and a former chief of engineering for the health ministry.

Quickly we realized we were in a room full of senior Ministry of Health guys who were purged for their Fatah connections after Hamas took over Gaza last summer.

The last man on the couch was a ministry of health doctor who had managed to keep his job. "He’s hasn’t become a ‘former’ yet," Abu Shahla joked.

This doctor responded with a morbid, but deeply funny, joke. He quoted an Arabic proverb normally spoken when passing a graveyard, a phrase designed to emphasize the fleeting nature of our time on this earth.

“Entu al sabiqoon, wa nahnu al lahiqoon,” he said, grinning.

Loose translation: “It was your turn and soon it will be ours.”

IRAQ: Trapped in Taqaddum -- I become a local national

By Doug Smith in western Iraq

“Welcome to Taqaddum,” the sign said.

I looked at my Iraqi colleague, Saif Rasheed. He shrugged. The name meant nothing to him except “progress” in Arabic. All we knew was that we were on a base somewhere in Iraq’s western desert.

A mechanical problem had cut short our flight to Ramadi. The crew chief told us, shouting through our earplugs in the dark noisy belly of the helicopter, that another would pick us up at 9.

It was dusk. Not too bad. We’d be back on our way to Ramadi in barely an hour. Or so we thought.

A Ugandan guard in a floppy hat who carried an assault rifle across his beige bush jacket stopped us with a humorless stare.

“Search.”

He looked suspiciously at our cellphones, laptop, tape recorder and video camera.

A sign on the wall said all were prohibited, but we were carrying credentials issued by the U.S. military’s Combined Press Information Center in the Green Zone.

“DOD badge?” he asked.

“We’re press,” I said.

Unimpressed, he ordered us into the hooch, a dim room with four handmade benches and a few cots squeezed in the back. Three Iraqi translators from our flight were already there. Two more Ugandans sat at a desk. I saw our passports tucked into an old ledger book.

“We’ll keep these,” one of the guards said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just for security,” she said.

IRAQ: Backpedaling in Baghdad

If evidence were needed that Iraq’s nascent government is at last ready for prime time, it seemed to come these past few days in two episodes of backpedaling by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government.

Like every U.S. administration, Maliki and his cabinet now have an echo chamber to obfuscate any thoughts they might utter with too much specificity, or inexactitude, while improvising on the world stage.

Maliki touched off the message massagers by talking to the German magazine Der Spiegel about the sensitive topic of a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals.

In a Q&A published Saturday, he also inadvertently stepped into U.S. presidential politics. The magazine quoted him endorsing the 16-month timeline for withdrawal proposed by the presumed Democratic nominee Barak Obama.

Not that it implies any behind-the-scenes pressure, but the U.S. military took the unusual step today of translating and distributing a clarification written by Maliki spokesman Ali Dabbagh.

ISRAEL: Underwater archaeology

A rare 2,500-year-old marble discus was found last week by an Israeli lifeguard diving in the underwater antiquities site of Yavne-Yam, an ancient port city settled in the middle Bronze Age and inhabited until the Middle Ages. (Today, the beach is named for the nearby kibbutz of Palmahim.)

The convex object is believed to have been fixed to the front of ancient ships as a talisman, its shape and painted circles connoting the pupil of a forward-looking and vigilant eye to protect mariners from misfortune. Kobi Sharvit, director of the Marine Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, explained it is known from drawings on pottery vessels, coins and other historic sources from the 5th century BC that this model was very common on the bows of ships and was used to protect them from the evil eye, acting as a pair of eyes to aid navigation and warn of dangers. Variants of the decoration are still common on modern boats in Portugal, Greece and other coastal countries, and eye-shaped amulets and good luck charms are extremely common throughout the Mediterranean.

Although believed to have been commonly used in the region, the object -- Ophtalmoi in Greek -- is surprisingly rare, and only three have been found before, all in the Mediterranean. Two, dating to the same period, were recovered from an ancient Greek cargo shipwreck found off Tektas Burnu along Turkey's western coast, and another one was found off Israel's northern coast around the Carmel.

Israel's sea coast is 200 kilometers long (about 124 miles) and 500 meters wide (about three-tenths of a mile); the waters are rich with evidence of ancient history and cultures, but this underwater heritage is endangered by construction of wave breaks, ports and marinas, as well as by contractors dredging sand for the construction industry. Diving has become an increasingly popular sport in recent years, and most of the estimated 100,000 divers are in it for the fun. But the authority worries that others are removing antiquities illegally for sale to dealers or private collectors. Last month, inspectors seized dozens of ancient artifacts stolen from underwater antiquities sites in northern Israel. Among the artifacts found in a Haifa house were Roman-era bronze figurines, pottery and glass vessels and three anchors from ancient ships. 

There are around 30,000 known antiquities sites in Israel, most of them open-air and unguarded. Hundreds of sites are damaged every year by robbers looking for valuable artifacts for sale or collection. Thieves frequently use metal detectors to locate ancient coins or other valuables. Many ancient graves are desecrated, their contents plundered and sold. The authority has a special unit for preventing antiquities robbery, as well as an online form for reporting stolen artifacts.

Ironically, one pilferer of Israeli archaeology was apparently Moshe Dayan, renowned Israeli general and later political figure. Bitten by the antiquities bug in the early 1950s, Dayan had a deep, genuine passion for archaeology but was believed to have taken liberties with (and artifacts from)  dozens of sites throughout the country in Israel's early decades. Some of his collections were sold and others donated after his death in 1981. 

So sun-hats off to David Shalom, the lifeguard who found the object and handed it over to the Antiquities Authority.

-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.

Top photo: Dror Planer of the Marine Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority with the rare find. Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority.

Bottom right: Ohptalmoi, the eyes of the ship. Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority.

Bottom left: Depiction of a boat bearing an example of an Ophtalmoi, on a ceramic jar from Athens. Credit: The British Museum, London.

IRAN: Inside nuclear talks, frustrating diplomacy

No one expected a miracle. But faint hopes that historic talks Saturday in Geneva between Iranian diplomats and world powers over Iran's nuclear program could lead to an immediate breakthrough were quickly dashed.

In truth, insiders were gearing up for the talks to fizzle days before they took place.

European officials say they urged the United States to send Undersecretary of State Willam J. Burns to the meeting in part to give Americans understanding of what they are up against in convincing ideologically hard-line Iranian officials close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to halt enrichment of uranium, a process which can be used to create fuel for power plants or a nuclear bomb.

Despite recent positive remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and others in Tehran’s foreign policy circles, Europeans say they’ve grown increasingly frustrated with Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who they say talks without listening and never gives a straight answer.

“Jalili is a perfect representative of Ahmadinejad,” said a Western diplomat in Tehran.

EGYPT: Nation still annoyed by Iranian film

It seems that Egypt will take too much time until it turns the page on a recent Iranian documentary that condemned the late President Anwar Sadat as a traitor and celebrated his assassination.

In a new move in protest of the movie "Execution of the Pharaoh," Egypt canceled last week a friendly football match with Iran that was set for Aug. 20 in the United Arab Emirates.

"We have decided to cancel the match because of tensions in relations," said Samir Zaher, president of the Egyptian Football federation as quoted in the local press.

On its turn, the Iranian football federation vowed to file a complaint against Egypt with the FIFA, the federation governing football worldwide.

"This is a political issue, and we will mention to FIFA that the Egyptians are mixing political issues with sports," said Ali Kafashian, the head of Iran's Football Federation.

Zaher downplayed Iranian threats and affirmed that the Egyptian decision was driven by fears of the eruption of violence between Egyptian and Iranian supporters over the movie during the game.

Since the Egyptian press first reported its release a couple of weeks ago, the Iranian movie has provoked several angry reactions in Egypt, including a harsher media campaign against Iran and the annoucement of an anti-Ayatollah Khomeini movie. Simialar reactions may be still in the pipelines. 

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo from left: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Sadat in Camp David, where they concluded accords that led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in the late 1970s.

IRAQ: Marines learn to give camels the right-of-way

Camels have been part of the desert warfare environment since long before Lawrence deployed to Arabia.

As the Marines patrol the vast open spaces of Anbar province, they've had to learn how not to encroach on the camel's sense of entitlement to walk/run/jog wherever it wants.

To help the Marines, camel scenarios are part of a computerized convoy trainer called the Deployable Virtual Training Environment in which drivers have to react to various threats. Some Marines get the training while they're stateside, others on ships bound for the Persian Gulf.

Learning to navigate among camels has taken its place among other hazards of Anbar such as insurgents and roadside bombs.

— Tony Perry, in San Diego

Photo: A Marine Patrol last week near Lake Habbaniyah giving a wide berth to two camels during Operastion Bonneville Flats. Credit: Marine Corps

IRAQ: A slice of normality returns to Baghdad

By Caesar Ahmed in Baghdad

It is a place tinged in nostalgia for Baghdadis of a certain generation.

Many remember happy evenings strolling along Abu Nuwas Street, taking in the elegant homes, gardens and art galleries, and stopping at one of the many cafes for grilled fish, fresh from the Tigris River.

The riverside street, named after a respected Arabic poet, used to be famous for its nightclubs, restaurants and bars. In its heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was a favorite nightspot for tourists from the Persian Gulf region, who enjoyed visiting Iraq because of its relaxed attitude toward alcohol.

But as Iraq's war deepened with neighboring Iran, the security services forced most of the businesses to close. They were afraid the crowds they drew would provide cover for an attack on Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace, on the other side of the river. By the 1990s, the street was basically dead.

After U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, Abu Nuwas Street became a war zone. After repeated bombings, the entire street was blocked off with concrete barriers to protect several large hotels and what was to become the heavily fortified Green Zone on the other side of the river.

For some time now, however, I have been hearing that Abu Nuwas Street has come back to life after a major renovation effort by the Baghdad municipality and the U.S. military. With violence declining in the city, I decided to go see for myself.

IRAN: No U-turns on nuclear policy in Tehran

While the Bush administration appears to be making an eighth-inning adjustment to its Iran policy, there was little evidence of a gentler Iranian attitude toward the United States at prayers today.

The U.S. this week agreed to send an envoy to talks between European and Iranian negotiators over Iran's nuclear program. Hints increased that the U.S. may be interested in setting up a diplomatic outpost in Iran beyond the tiny Swiss-run interests section it now maintains.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki today heartily welcomed such an expansion and repeated a call for more direct air flights between Tehran and the U.S.

All this comes as Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, heads off to Geneva for talks with European, Russian and Chinese counterparts.

But not all Iranians were so chummy.

At Iran's 1,500th Friday prayer session since the once-outlawed sermons were resumed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami gave a typically fiery speech during which followers chanted slogans likening the U.S. to the Roman empire and punctuated the sermon with cries of "Death to America."

EGYPT: War on the silverscreen

As a rebuttal to the recent Iranian documentary in which late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is shrugged off as a traitor, an Egyptian writer announced that he was putting together a movie script that dismisses Ayatollah Khomeini as a “terrorist.”

“This movie aims to glorify President Sadat and show that the ideas, advanced by Khomeini, stood behind his assassination,” said Mohamed Hassan El-Alfy, screenwriter. “Khomeini’s ideas sowed the seeds of terrorism and extremism in the region.” 

El-Alfy said he was already working on his script “The Imam of Bood” (in reference to Khomeini) long before the Iranian documentary “Execution of the Pharaoh” came out. “However, the fury that I and many Egyptians felt made me rush to finish the script and produce the movie.” added El-Alfy, who expects his feature movie to be out in a few months.

LEBANON: A writer with many facets

Rabih Alameddine loves to tell stories, all sorts of them. Stories about intimate sexual experiences,  about twisted family gatherings and even ancient ones about an Arabian prince who failed to have a son.

And just like his diverse and multifaceted stories, this Lebanese American fiction and essay writer juggles various identities that he hates to label.

Alameddine, 48, is an openly gay writer, but that's not how he'd like to be categorized. He quickly adds that he also happens to be a writer with a hairy chest, and that he loves to play soccer. 

Born in Jordan in an upper-middle-class Lebanese family, he was raised between Kuwait and Lebanon. He went to the United Kingdom then to the United States after the civil war broke out in 1975, shifting his career from engineering to painting and writing along the way.

Today, Alameddine lives between San Francisco and Beirut, where he was recently promoting his new novel, "The Hakawati," or "The Storyteller."

Alameddine, also wrote the novels "Koolaids," and "I, the Divine," sat down for an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles Times: Your new book follows an old tradition in Arabic literature. Yet, what you present is a modern vision of the Arabian nights that seems more subversive and more overt. What is the book really about?

Rabih Alameddine: I am fascinated about how families start, where they come from.... In a large measure, the book is the stories I tell myself about myself. Those include personal stories.... Some are true, others are not true. But they are also stories that I tell about my family, how I fit among my family and my friends. There are stories that I tell also about my culture whether in the U.S. or Lebanon. It is the meeting of these stories that define a person, relationships and who we are as people. And that’s what I am interested in.

IRAQ: Are rules of engagement real rules or just words?

The talk at Camp Pendleton in recent days has been about the rules of engagement, which are meant to tell Marines in Iraq or Afghanistan when it's OK to use their weapons.

In HB0's new miniseries, "Generation Kill," which had its premiere on base last week, the Marines are constantly debating whether using deadly force in a specific incident is covered by the rules.

Much the same kind of debate is being heard in courtrooms where Marines are charged with abuses in Fallouja, Haditha and the Tharthar Lake region. Prosecutors routinely note that Marines get multiple lectures on the rules of engagement; defense attorneys counter that the rules are vague.

On Monday, a hearing officer in a case involving a Marine sniper who killed two Syrians and wounded two others seemed to want it both ways: He recommended that manslaughter and assault charges be dropped but that the Marine receive nonjudicial punishment for breaking the rules of engagement by not having positive identification that his targets were hostile.

Evan Wright, who wrote the book that is the basis for "Generation Kill,'' came to have a jaundiced view of the rules of engagement during his six weeks with a Marine reconnaissance battalion during the U.S.-led assault on Baghdad in 2003:

"However admirable the military's attempts are to create ROE, they basically create an illusion of moral order where there is none. The Marines operate in chaos. It doesn't matter if a Marine is following orders and ROE, or disregarding them.

"The fact is, as soon as the Marine pulls the trigger on his rifle, he's on his own. He's entered a game of moral chance. When it's over, he's as likely to go down as a hero as a baby killer. The only difference between [a Marine in the book] and any number of Marines who've shot or killed people they shouldn't have is that he got caught."

Tony Perry, at Camp Pendleton

Photo: Marines at Camp Pendleton training for deployment to Iraq. Credit: Los Angeles Times

IRAQ: Lawyer: Marine tricked in prisoner killing case

Marine Sgt. Jermaine Nelson made admissions during a taped interview with a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent that could go a long way toward convicting him of killing Iraqi prisoners during the fight for Fallouja in late 2004.

On the tape, played in a preliminary hearing last week at Camp Pendleton, Nelson said that he, Sgt. Ryan Weemer and Sgt. Jose Nazario fatally shot four prisoners rather than take time to process them according to the laws of war.

But Joseph Low, Nelson's attorney, argued in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Monday that the statements should be ruled inadmissible because they were obtained, in effect, through trickery.

Low told a judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks, that the NCIS agent did not read Nelson his rights until midway through the interrogation. Also, Low said, Nelson had just been told by a noncommissioned officer that he had done nothing wrong and thus felt he was free to talk in gruesome detail.

It's common in military and civilian courts for defense attorneys to try to keep juries from hearing damaging statements their clients made to the police.

But the issue of whether the Marine Corps has protected the legal rights of Marines accused of abuse in Iraq has arisen before.

The prosecution of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander in the Haditha case involving the deaths of 24 Iraqis in 2005, may unravel unless the prosecutors succeed in getting an appeals court to overrule a military judge. That judge, Col. Steven Folsom, ruled that the convening authority erred by letting a lawyer involved in the early investigation of the Haditha killings sit in on meetings where the case was discussed.

If the Chessani case falls apart, the case against Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad leader whose troops did the killings in Haditha, may also be thrown out on similar grounds.

In the Nelson case, Meeks set a hearing for later in the summer to hear arguments.

Tony Perry, at Camp Pendleton.

Photo: Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, accused of murder in the alleged killing of prisoners in Fallouja in late 2004.

IRAQ: One province gets extended weekend — whether it wants it or not

Another footnote to the absurdity of daily life in Iraq: On a recent Thursday I dropped by the Rafidain Bank in Amarah. I was surprised to find it closed. I was more surprised when I noticed bank employees moving about inside.

I told the guard I needed to get in to conduct some business.

"Today is a holiday," he said.

I knew of no holiday, and the weekend in Iraq begins on Friday.

"But there are employees inside," I protested.

"Today is just to do the Ministry of Finance work," he said.

No matter how hard I pressed him, he wouldn't let me in.

Asking around for an explanation, I learned that despite two weeks of military operations to restore the rule of law, Maysan province had retained its outlaw status in one respect. Of all Iraq's 18 provinces, Maysan is the only one that hadn't yielded to Baghdad's definition of the workweek.

Everywhere else, Friday and Saturday were the days of rest. Friday is the Islamic Sabbath. A few years ago, the government added Saturday as a second day off.

Under pressure from the followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, the provincial council of Maysan, a predominantly Shiite region, declared Saturday unacceptable because it is the Jewish Sabbath. The weekend in Maysan was officially made Thursday and Friday.

With the return of government authority, the