Tonight, al-Jazeera reports on the death of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. Reuters quoted a US Department of Homeland Security official saying that the instructions issued to the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) team were to kill bin Laden, not capture him. President Barack Obama announced bin Laden’s death in a speech late last night, describing it as “the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al-Qaeda.” Americans gathered by the thousands in a number of cities to celebrate the news.  

The BBC reports on the mixed reactions to the death of bin Laden in the Arab world. Many expressed happiness and relief over his killing, while others doubted that bin Laden was actually dead. Hamas has condemned the killing, describing bin Laden as a “holy warrior.” The Saudi Arabian government has expressed hope that his death will be a step forward in the international efforts against terrorism.

In other news, Future TV reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested that the US end monetary support of the Palestinian Authority if a united national government is formed that includes Hamas. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh responded by demanding that the Palestinian Liberation Organization withdraw its recognition of Israel. Some political analysts believe that a third intifada is inevitable, whether or not the UN recognizes the Palestinian state.  

Al-Alam reports that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has refused to sign the deal put forth by the Gulf Cooperation Council. The opposition’s Joint Meeting Parties are holding Saleh responsible for the failure of the agreement. Meanwhile, the Yemeni people remain determined to attain what they consider to be their most important demands, including Saleh’s resignation and prosecution.

New TV reports on the disastrous consequences that violence in Libya is having on children. Forced to live amidst war and death everyday, children have been drawing pictures of weapons, bombs, and other violent scenes. Teachers have reported that children have also been drawing people crying and frequently using the color black.

The documents released by WikiLeaks continue to be disseminated around the world, providing the public with an unprecedented glimpse into U.S. diplomacy. Some of the information cited in the documents was direct, open and damaging even if the U.S. continues to question the legitimacy of the leak.

The 250,000 U.S. Embassy diplomatic cables reveal communications between 274 embassies in countries around the world and the U.S. State Department, effectively impacting the entire world and the Middle East is no exception.

Many Arab state-run media outlets have been skeptical in their coverage of the cables. Some chose to focus on issues unrelated to their country while others opted to undermine the implications of the leak.

Tarek al-Homayad, editor-in-chief of al-Sharq al-Awsat, a leading Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily, portrayed the leaks as a crisis for America, but called into question the accuracy and relevance of the reports:  “We must take care that not everything written by the American embassies is fact. Some contain analysis and reporting while the rest merely express points of view, not actual policies.”

The documents prompted the two main Palestinian rivals, Hamas and Fatah, to exchange accusations and blame, especially in regard to the recognition of Israel.

Wasn’t recognizing Israel part of the negotiation process?  So why is it now a major issue? It seems that each faction is trying to undermine the other in a bid to rally public support and avoid accountability.

The next revelation, however, didn’t only come as a shock to Palestinians, but raised concern over the credibility of their leadership in Ramallah.  Among the documents was a claim by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Israel consulted Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) before launching its Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Barak is quoted in the cable saying both Egyptian and PA officials rejected offers to assume control of Gaza after Hamas’ defeat.

Would the PA have conspired with Israel had it known that more than 1,400 Gazans, mostly civilians, would be killed in the three-month armed conflict? If this is the case, shouldn’t the PA be held accountable, along with Israel, and perhaps face war crimes charges?

This revelation, if accurate, does not only indict the PA. It seems that Egypt also played a conspirator role in the war on Hamas. In a meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus in the summer of 2009, Egyptian Security Chief Omar Suleiman complained that neither the ‘Hamas terrorist organization,’ nor Fatah really want to reconcile. Suleiman said his country cooperates with Israel in its effort to prevent ‘arms smuggling and money into Gaza.’

Egypt has been playing the role of mediator between Fatah and Hamas since the latter’s violent takeover of Gaza more than three years ago.

Nearly two months ago, the two Palestinian rivals agreed to take the required steps to end their division, share power and vowed to hold more talks before signing a final deal in Cairo. 

Now with the WikiLeaks revelations, which raise questions about Cairo’s role as an honest peace broker, Hamas and Fatah may have to find another sponsor or it may be time for the Palestinians to assume responsibility and solve their own problems.

The 251,287 cables that have been published are filled with juicy gossip. The repercussions of the recent leaks on world diplomacy remain undetermined, but we can be certain the damage they caused Palestinian reconciliation is irreversible.

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Relations between the United States and Pakistan have quickly soured following a helicopter strike on a border post that killed three Pakistani soldiers last week. The incident prompted Pakistan to close an important border crossing for NATO supplies into Afghanistan. Criticism of the U.S. and NATO has dominated the news in Pakistani media even after the U.S. apologized for the incident.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has recently accused some elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting the terrorist networks in the country, thus undermining the war against terrorism by the U.S.-led international forces in the region. Recently, militants attacked 50 NATO supply trucks in Pakistan's northwestern town of Nowshera, the seventh attack in a short period of time. The U.S. has dramatically ramped up strikes with unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan's tribal areas in recent weeks.

But these are not the only stories that dominate Pakistani news. Reports about the human suffering due to the recent devastating floods, though they have all but vanished from Western newspapers, remain in the headlines in Pakistani ones. Terrorism acts are constant reminders of instability and insecurity for the average citizen, most recently punctuated by two blasts at a shrine in Karachi which left 9 dead and scores injured. The economy has tanked, inflation is at 18-20 percent, and the government seems to be helpless to do anything about it.

Pakistan is a troubled nation with deeply divided loyalties.

Even the once prestigious military establishment is now in trouble. A video purporting to show a group of Pakistani soldiers gunning down six blindfolded men in the country's troubled northwest has been circulating on the Internet for weeks. The troubling video has renewed long-standing concerns about military human rights violations during operations against the Taliban.

The war in Afghanistan has entered its tenth year. Many Pakistanis believe that “America’s War” has become their war. Fears are growing in Pakistan that the U.S. could bolster its drone attacks with a bombing campaign using fixed-wing aircrafts. This would most certainly increase Pakistani anger that could spill over into violence aimed at the thousands of Americans who are currently stationed in the country.

“The U.S. is trying to win its war in Afghanistan, through Pakistan,” says journalist Imtiyaz Mohammed.

He added that Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari is in a major predicament of trying to appease the United States while also trying to calm down an angry population.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is currently ranked the 10th most failed state in the 2010 Failed State Index released by Foreign Policy magazine this summer. Just three places below Afghanistan.

But former President Pervez Musharraf attributes Pakistan’s woes to "failure" of governance.

"I would say failure of governance is the greatest threat today," said Musharraf, who has announced his return to active Pakistani politics from London where he has been living in self-imposed exile since the general election of 2008.

However, many Pakistani pundits believe that this announcement is no coincidence, and has the United States' markings all over it.

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U.S. special envoy George Mitchell has been frantically shuttling between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in order to salvage the month-old direct negotiations. The European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has also been recruited to throw the weight of the EU behind the peace efforts. Even President Obama himself has been personally involved, trying to find "common ground between the parties."

In fact, in order to secure Israel's support for a sixty-day settlement building moratorium extension, the Obama administration, in a draft letter, has offered a string of assurances to Israel ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached. The details of the letter were published on the Washington Institute for Near East Policy website by senior researcher David Makovsky. According to Haaretz, The United States is reportedly incensed over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of the draft letter.

Equally incensed is the head of the Palestinian negotiation team, Saeb Erekat, who said on Wednesday that "there are no half-way solutions on the settlements issue." Erekat and other PA officials have been recently hinting at a Palestinian walk out on the negotiations if Israel refuses to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. This decision could happen as early as Saturday when the Palestinian leadership meets, and be officially announced at the Arab League meeting in Cairo next week.

To make matters worse, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, revived his plan for "population exchange" before the UN General Assembly.

Lieberman, who heads the second largest party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, called for an "intermediate" accord with the Palestinians because it will take "a few decades" to establish the trust needed for a so-called final-status agreement. He suggested ceding parts of Israel with large Arab populations to a future Palestinian state in exchange for Israel keeping large settlement blocs in the West Bank, a proposal which has been part of his party's platform.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from the speech, but many Palestinians believe that this is part of a well-coordinated 'good cop, bad cop' strategy. They also regard the remarks as incitement and advocacy of ethnic cleansing.

A recent poll released by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center revealed that fifty-four percent of respondents said that the direct talks serve the national interests of the Palestinians. However, 58% said they believed the Palestinian leadership agreed to hold the talks because of external pressure, and more than 55% said they did not expect the talks to produce major changes in the status quo.

But there are rapid changes happening on the ground. Israeli building crews have already resumed work the day after the settlement freeze expired at several settlements, such as Ariel, Oranit, Tekoa and Adam. The building has actually never stopped in many other settlements. In the West Bank, there are more than 300,000 Jewish settlers living in around 100 settlements built adjacent to Palestinian towns and villages and are protected by the Israeli army. Approximately, 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers account for just one percent of the population of the West Bank, according to Dutch cartographer Jan de Jong, but are claiming 60 percent of the land.

"They are just one percent of the whole West Bank population, but they are claiming 60 percent of the land. The settlements are actually just built-up pockets, but the settlers include huge tracts of land around them by laying down barbed wire. So in effect it's more like estates, containing just a few houses."

De Jong who has been monitoring changes on the ground through satellite imagery and other means, says that construction was going on in the settlements even during the 10-month building moratorium which has just expired. "There was building work every day, except on Jewish holidays. That's why I call it a virtual moratorium."

The way things are progressing now, should the "direct talks" continue, a virtual Palestinian state might be the end result.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post
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Today, 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan. However, one renegade pastor of a church with fewer than 50 members, Rev. Terry Jones, has cast a shadow on their festivities. For the past several weeks, the media has treated us to live theater of the absurd by amplifying a statement made by an unknown preacher from Gainesville, Florida proposing to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

Jones has garnered worldwide news media attention these past few days and become an overnight influence

on American foreign policy and public image abroad, even receiving a call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and many pleas from world leaders and celebrities asking him not to go ahead with his plans. The President of the United States urged him to listen to "those better angels," and military leaders warned that his actions would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool.

The media frenzy over Jones' actions reached a peak this Thursday when he announced he was canceling, and later, that he had only "suspended" what he had dubbed International Burn a Quran Day.

The New York Times sent this "breaking news alert" to my Blackberry: "The pastor planning a burning of the Koran (Quran) on Saturday said he will cancel the event, adding he plans to meet with the Imam planning to build an Islamic center near ground zero."

Minutes later wire services competed to report that Rev. Jones had backed off and then threatened to reconsider burning the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks saying that he was lied to with a promise to relocate the "Ground Zero Mosque" from its current location.

This story has also become headline news all over the Middle East, in an almost coordinated fashion to what is being reported on US networks. This means that viewers in the region were treated to viewing this story not only on CNN International and Fox News, but also on Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and hundreds of regional and international television networks carried on satellite systems in the region. Television viewers in the Arab world had to endure endless coverage of the pastor from Florida, coupled with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near Ground Zero. Making the matter worse, this happened during the month of Ramadan, the biggest time for watching television in the Arab world, akin to the sweeps season in the United States. This could not have happened at a worse time!

Will Jones set Islam's holy book on fire? Will there be copy-cats? It does not matter.

To millions of Muslims across the globe, the mere thought of such a thing happening is repulsive. If the satanic ritual (as an Egyptian Sheikh has described it) does not occur, then that's because the pastor from Florida has been under intense pressure to give it up. Furthermore, the controversy over the Islamic center in lower Manhattan is not going to disappear anytime soon. Ramadan has been tainted by Islamophobia over the building of a mosque, and Eid has been hijacked by one bigot. The media has created a monster.

Article originally published on the Huffington Post

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