BULLETIN No.52

Questions for Dennis Ross: Handling Hamas
FT Radical forces in Mid East exploit cartoon backlash The controversy over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed took a violent turn at the weekend as radical forces in the Middle East sought to exploit it to score political gains.
Syria Comment Burning Embassies: an Eye Witness Account by Nate Abercrombie
Protesters Torch Danish Mission in Beirut By JOSEPH PANOSSIAN, Muslim rage over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad grew increasingly violent Sunday as thousands of rampaging protesters
BBC Lebanon minister quits over riot Lebanon's interior minister resigns after protesters torch the Danish embassy in protest at Muhammad cartoons.
Lebanon Protesters Set Embassy Afire By Anthony Shadid, Leaders call for calm as Danish embassy in Lebanon is set ablaze and unrest over published cartoons of Muhammad continues to grow
NYT Beirut Mob Burns Danish Mission Over Cartoons By KATHERINE ZOEPF and HASSAN M. FATTAH, The violence in the predominantly Christian Achrafieh section of East Beirut raised fears of deepening divisions in Lebanon.
Some See Gov't Roles in Cartoon Protests By BASSEM MROUE, Crowds set fire to Danish and Norwegian missions in Damascus and storm the Danish Embassy in Beirut. Gunmen seize European
Protesters Torch Danish Embassy in Beirut By ZEINA KARAM, Muslims protesting caricatures of Islam's prophet set fire Sunday to a building housing the Danish Embassy in Lebanon as
Syria Comment Syria's Opposition Dilemma
You Get What You Vote For. What Does Hamas Get Us? By Abdallah Alsalmi, Here in Gaza, we are holding our breath, waiting to see what the unprecedented victory of Hamas in our legislative elections will mean
Jerusalem Post The Region: Hamas's Fatah problem
Can Israel's new center hold? With Hamas on the border, will disagreement over unilateralism split Kadima? by Yossi Klein Halevi
Foreign Policy Getting Real With Hamas By Nathan J. Brown
Abbas tells Israel: I'll still handle peace negotiations
Abu Mazen's envoys stress the PLO, not the PA, is the body that has signed all prior deals with Israel.
Haaretz Hamas to boost ties with Iran, Syria
Israel Sends $55 Million Payment to Palestinian Authority By Scott Wilson, Olmert unfreezes funds that had been withheld after Hamas's victory in Palestinian elections
BBC Hamas leadership to meet Hamas leaders are to meet in Egypt to discuss forming a government after their shock Palestinian election victory.
New Republic Hamas's long-term strategy What the movement needs most is time. by Ehud Yaari
Hamas victory and Middle East peace process Jakarta Post, There are now two general political views and attitudes towards the victory of the Palestinian Hamas in the context of the Middle East peace process: Pessimism ...
Interviews: Michael Hayden on Spying Dennis Ross on Hamas John Bolton on Iran
Newsweek Will Israel Strike Iran? The X Factor: Israel's military planners say they know how to forestall Tehran's nuclear schemes. The options—and their cost.
Newsweek Zakaria: Islam and Power Is President Bush's plan to spread democracy turning into a fiasco? It doesn't have to. But it does need to change.
Newsweek Iran: Devoted and Defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he doesn't want nuclear weapons. The world is suspicious. How dangerous is he?
NYT Behind the Urgent Diplomacy: A Sense Iran Will Get the Bomb By DAVID E. SANGER, Many diplomats and nuclear experts say that the most realistic goal is to delay, not prevent, Iran from joining the nuclear club.
WSJ A Nuclear Iran: An 'Intolerable' Threat - Wall Street Journal
FT Iran warns West ‘we don’t need you but you need us’ Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad warned the West that ‘we do not need you...but you need [us]’, after the UN nuclear watchdog voted to report Tehran to the Security Council over its nuclear programme.
Iran Ends Voluntary Cooperation on Nukes By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Iran ended all voluntary cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency Sunday, saying it would start uranium enrichment and
Guardian Does the right to freedom of speech justify printing the Danish cartoons? Philip Hensher and Gary Younge: When one person's liberty collides with another's values, there is no clear occupant of the moral high ground.
The Islamic firestorm over the Danish cartoons is spreading. Some Europeans are refusing to back down... Der Spiegel ... London Times ... Die Zeit ... NYT ... Guardian ... IHT ... Beirut Star ... Independent ... London Times ... Wash Post ... Telegraph ... Journos rally ... Guardian ... Al-Ahram ... Telegraph ... “We are all Danes now” ... Euro round-up ... The cartoons
IHT Publishing those cartoons was a mistake ZSOFIA SZILAGYI By valuing freedom of speech over respect for a religious community, the Western media has eschewed its responsibilities.
Der Spiegel Democracy in a Cartoon Best-selling author and Muslim dissident Ibn Warraq argues that freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it against attacks from totalitarian societies. If the west does not stand in solidarity with the Danish, he argues, then the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest.
Haaretz The Muslim protest It is impossible not to understand the feelings of insult among Muslims worldwide, including in the territories and in Israel.
'Anti-European violence mars image of Islam' Compiled by Daily Star Staff
The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, condemned on Sunday the violence against Europeans in protests against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying it went against Islam's image as a peaceful religion. "Solana says those responsible at the local, political and religious level must prevent any repetition.
Violence plagues protest against cartoons of Prophet Mohammad By Rym Ghazal
What was meant to be a peaceful protest by thousands of Muslims in Beirut Sunday against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad turned into a vicious riot, which left at least one person dead and 30 wounded. The Danish Consulate was torched, churches were vandalized and a number of properties and vehicles were damaged.
Sunday Times SIMON JENKINS: These cartoons don't defend free speech
IHT A call for respect and calm RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN AND JOSÉ LUIS RODRÍGUEZ ZAPATERO With growing concern, we are witnessing the escalation in disturbing tensions provoked by the publication, in European newspapers, of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Der Spiegel European Arrogance Versus Muslim Fanaticism The cartoon battle touches on one of the most important questions of our time -- freedom of expression, Ibn Warraq wrote Friday on SPIEGEL ONLINE. Jürgen Gottschlich, a journalist living in Istanbul offers his rebuttal: Many Muslims are sick and tired of being unfairly labeled as bin Laden sympathizers.
Time A Right to Offend? Why the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad is deepening the divide between Islam and the West
IHT Free speech and civic responsibility TARIQ RAMADAN Things we have to bear in mind about the controversy over the cartoons published in the European media depicting the Prophet Muhammad.