In early 1982 the Syrian government, under the control of then President Hafez al-Assad, carried out a military operation against its own citizens in the city of Hama. In 2011, now under the control of Hafez’s son, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian government is again conducting military operations against its people. Estimates of the death toll differ, but Syrian human rights organizations put the number near, or over, 2,000. Unlike 1982, however, Syria does not have the Soviet Union as superpower patron state to protect it. It is faced with an Iraq no longer controlled by the Ba’ath party, a Lebanon struggling to shrug off Damascus’s authority, and a heavily militarized Israel controlled by a hawkish right wing government. Why then, is the world seemingly standing by as unarmed civilians challenge tanks in the streets of Syria?

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Weathering a Front of the Arab Spring

A U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the killing of a former Lebanese leader released its indictment against members of Hezbollah named in the killing.

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Indictment in Hariri Assassination Is Published

A UN-backed tribunal publishes charges against four suspects in the assassination of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, saying it has enough evidence to try them.

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Trial ordered for Hariri suspects

MOUNT GRETNA, Pa. — A Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman says rescue crews freed a woman trapped when a Greyhound bus overturned on the interstate, injuring about two dozen people. Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFebo said the westbound bus flipped on its side at about 6 a.m. Saturday at milepost 267, one mile east of the Lebanon-Lancaster exit. DeFebo says 20 to 25 injuries were reported, and the entrapped woman was taken to a nearby hospital. He said his earlier report that some victims were flown out was incorrect. Read full article > >

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Officials: Bus overturns on Pennsylvania Turnpike near Lancaster; about 2 dozen injured

Forces kill 11 near Lebanon border.

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Clinton Urges More Syria Sanctions

A UN convoy is hit by a bomb near the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon, wounding six Italian peacekeepers, officials say.

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UN convoy in Lebanon hit by bomb

A roadside bomb targeted a United Nations convoy near a southern Lebanese port Friday, wounding several Italian peacekeepers and a Lebanese passerby, officials said.

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Italian Peacekeepers Injured in Lebanon Bombing

Funerals are to be held in Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon following the deaths of 12 people in demonstrations on Israel’s borders.

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Palestinians bury protests’ dead

Israel’s borders erupted into deadly confrontations as thousands of Palestinians marched from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

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Israel Clashes With Protesters on Four Borders

Thousands of Palestinians and their supporters marched toward Israeli border positions from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Read full article > >

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Israeli troops fire at Palestinian protestors on borders, killing at least 12

Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.

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VIDEO: Israel anniversary sparks violence

Israeli security forces open fire at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon, as protesters mark the anniversary of the creation of the state in 1948.

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Violence erupts at Israel borders

PALMACHIM AIR FORCE BASE, Israel — Israel might be the Middle East’s predominant military power, but recent wars have exposed an Achilles’ heel: the vulnerability of its population centers to missile attacks. In a 2006 campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and again during an offensive in late 2008 and early 2009 against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Israeli cities within range were pounded by rockets, testing the resilience of ordinary Israelis and their support for the war efforts. Read full article > >

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Israel shows off missile defense against Palestinian rockets

On 9/11, I was in Beirut with the U.N. envoy for the Middle East peace process and with the late former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, watching on television with disbelief as the twin towers came down. The next day, we traveled in a nearly empty aircraft across Israeli airspace to Cairo. We were met by Ahmad Maher, then the Egyptian foreign minister, who during our meeting broke down in tears and said, “I am really scared, I don’t know what to do.”

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Out with bin Laden, in with Arab spring

The following piece,Was Osama bin Laden a relevant, popular leader in the Middle East at the time of his killing? written by Aslan Media Founder Reza Aslan, originally appeared at KCET.com. Reza takes a closer look at what the death of Al-Qaeda’s leader means for the future of the terrorist group. Here are a few things to keep in mind as news continues to circulate about Osama bin Laden’s death. According to poll numbers: not really. In Lebanon, according to a Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project poll conducted this year, he had a 1 percent support base. In Turkey, his approval rating was at 3 percent, and in countries like Jordan and Egypt, bin Laden only had 13 percent and 22 percent popularity, respectively. Even in Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment is usually high, his popularity is only at 18 percent. It wasn’t always this way. For example, in Jordan, bin Laden’s popularity reached a staggering 56 percent in 2003, but al-Qaida’s attacks on Muslims had by 2006 begun to deeply alienate the “Arab Street.” Indeed, as former Ambassador Marc Ginsberg noted in a Huffington Post column yesterday, “15 percent of the 3,010 victims resulting from al-Qaida’s attacks between 2004 and 2008 were NON-Muslim.” A Sheik from Anbar Province in Iraq described his reaction to bin Laden’s death this way : “All orphans, widows and people who suffered that butcher should be happy now … The killing of Bin Laden is victory for all humanity, not only for Americans.” How relevant is Bin Laden’s death in “ending” the “War on Terror” and to the region as a whole? Perhaps al-Qaida’s most effective branch is in Africa, where the al-Shabab group in Somalia have successfully attacked and killed numerous Africans, including a deadly attack in Uganda last summer. Just last week, al-Qaida organized and planted a bomb in the popular Moroccan café Argana (one of my favorite destinations in the country), killing 16 people. So while it has recently been less of a lethal force, al-Qaida’s attacks will most likely continue with or without bin Laden. Analysts like Shadi Hamid with Brookings Doha Center view bin Laden’s death as a minor event in terms of its regional significance. Hamid tweeted yesterday, “Al Qaeda, in recent yrs, morphed from an organization into an idea. And the idea has proven increasingly unattractive to most Arabs.” Others, like popular Arab blogger The Arabist , agree. “But the sentiment Bin Laden evokes today is probably indifference. Bin Laden simply wasn’t an important figure in recent years, and was particularly irrelevant to the Arab uprisings.” Indeed, the world had not heard from bin Laden in more than six months; he was conspicuously silent about the recent democratic movements in the Arab world. Al-Qaida had tried on numerous occasions to tie itself in with the Arab uprisings but its words fell on deaf ears. Khalil el-Anani, an expert on al-Qaida, told the Associated Press , “Bin Laden became part of the past, just like the Arab regimes that have been toppled” What a coincidence that the same year Arab authoritarian rulers collapse, bin Laden dies.” Regardless of bin Laden’s relevance to the recent Arab uprisings, many believe that his death will fracture an already weak organization. Lawrence Wright, writer of the popular book on al-Qaida, The Looming Tower, says the death of bin Laden is a milestone . “He was important all along. Just the fact that he was able to elude capture or being killed for nearly a decade — or more than a decade, if you go back to the embassy bombings in 1998 when we first went after him — he’s been a symbol of resistance and of the failure of American policy to reach out and stop this kind of terror. It emboldened other imitators all around the globe. So getting bin Laden is immeasurably important.”   Read more of Reza Aslan’s piece here , at KCET.org Photo Credit: Mike Kline

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Bin Laden’s Dead. What Now?