Daniel

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July 15, 2011

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Dear Reader:

Please join me on a visit to Israel on March 7-15, 2012. Heritage Study Programs, a leading tour company, has asked me to lead an informative, enjoyable, and inexpensive week.

Our focus will be on my special interest – the 20 percent of Israel's population who are Muslim, often called Israeli Arabs. The trip will offer special insight into current problems. Are Israeli Arabs now Palestinians? How does Israel deal with this growing but alienated population to preserve its long-term welfare and survival?

With current attention on other matters (U.S.-Israel relations, the Hamas-Fatah accord, Iranian nuclear weapons, and regional turmoil), this topic gets brushed aside. But when other problems have been resolved, Israel must deal with this population, one that Shin Bet calls a "genuine long-range danger to the Jewish character and very existence of the State of Israel." Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman questions its citizenship. I have called it Israel's "existential danger."

Khaled Abu Toameh, the Jerusalem Post's distinguished West Bank and Gaza correspondent, will co-lead with me an unprecedented first-hand exploration of this and related subjects. The trip will include travels to key locations, informative meetings, and lively discussions. You will meet with Israeli-Arab leaders, academics and researchers, with intelligence, police, military officers, high government officials, policy makers and counterterrorism experts. We will participate in a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on Muslim attitudes toward Jerusalem.

I hope you will come with me to Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee, and Jerusalem. You will visit some of Israel's most renowned sites, including the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, the Western Wall, and areas around the Temple Mount.

Neither tour nor mission, this fact-finding expedition will challenge and change your understanding of Israel. Space is limited, for more information and an itinerary click here.

Sincerely yours,

Daniel Pipes

President

Middle East Forum

Lebanon, Stuck between Israel and Syria

by Daniel Pipes

July 15, 2011

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/07/lebanon-stuck-between-israel-and-syria

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Not the conventional weblog entry but excerpts from a news report today in the Jerusalem Post by Oren Kessler, "Hezbollah warns Israel against maritime border 'threats'." The article quotes Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem warning Jerusalem yesterday that the Lebanese government will protect its maritime sovereignty in the face of "Israeli threats" and "will remain vigilant in order to regain its full rights, whatever it takes." Kessler quotes me in response:

Hezbollah recruits - ready to take on the Israeli navy?

"I don't take it very seriously. What I do take seriously is the Turkish involvement. The Turks are making noises that they don't like the Cypriot agreement with Israel, and that I think could be a sign of troubles to come. The Turks themselves can't make claims on this side of the Mediterranean, but through Cyprus they can. I think the Hezbollah claims are a bit comical, but the Turkish ones are more serious." …

Pipes said Lebanon must be viewed in connection with the popular protests destabilizing neighboring Syria for the past four months. "Should the Bashar Assad regime hold out and prevail, Hezbollah will presumably continue to strengthen. But that's the question – Hezbollah's very future is connected to the Assad regime," Pipes said by telephone from Philadelphia.

Were the Syrian president to be toppled, he said, "Hezbollah would lose its patron and have to be more careful. I don't think we can talk about Lebanon on its own now – we have to wait and see what the denouement in Syria is. I'm inclined to think the regime is in major trouble. Things are pretty bleak for the Assad family – I wouldn't count them out yet, but I wouldn't bet on them.

"This week's attacks on the US and French embassies [in Damascus] – what were they thinking? I've always seen Bashar as a rookie. He's just not good at this. [He should be checking eyes, not running Syria.] He's an unsteady captain at the helm. That's crucial in my pessimism for the regime." (July 15, 2011)

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