While much attention is currently being focused on Egypt, there is much to learn from the current oil dispute between Sudan and its former territory, South Sudan. South Sudan’s oil shutoff reveals that it is not willing to bargain for permission to export oil.

With the other issues yet to be settled between the two governments, including final demarcation of the border, the SPLM-led South Sudanese government is taking the situation very seriously. The National Congress Party’s “take no prisoners” attitude in dealing with South Sudan’s government is strongly reflected in Omar al-Bashir’s actions and words. For example, the undersecretary of Sudan’s foreign ministry gave an interview just over a month ago in which he referred to the South Sudanese as “brothers” and the border issue between the two countries as a minor issue. Yet, Sudan’s actions have been much louder than the words of her paid employees, as the recent bombing of the Jau area on the border illustrates.

It is quite evident that Sudan’s government policies aren’t exactly encouraging. Bashir has taken the textbook Arab government approach to civil strife: distract and deny. Bashir knows he is in a difficult place, and losing 75% of Sudan’s oil reserves during South Sudan’s independence has definitely been on his mind. He’s followed in the footsteps of countless others; just as Qadhafi and Mubarak gave defiant speeches hoping to instill fear in their opponents before they were forced from office, Bashir has threatened war against South Sudan in a move that illustrates just how desperate things are at NCP headquarters. Bashir himself must understand that this is an empty threat; morale in his army hasn’t been this low since he came to power, and counting his allies will prove to be a sad effort (the article is from 2006, but one of few published writings on Sudan’s army).

From within, Sudan’s struggle to pay its employees on time is no secret. Even before South Sudan’s independence, a doctor’s strike over the government’s failure to pay their salaries resulted in empty promises of pay raises and better working conditions. Recent protests at Khartoum University went largely unnoticed by the international community, but it is important to note that December’s protest was the largest case of unrest in Khartoum since the 2007 attack by Darfurian rebels. Thus, the Sudanese people are watching Egypt’s events closely, and they are more interested in Egyptian events than the lack of media attention would suggest.

From: General Delegation of the PLO
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 07:42 PM
To: [various] 
Subject: Monthly Report on Israeli Incitement
  

Monthly Report on Israeli Incitement

January 2012 Issue                                                                                                                      

In order to facilitate an environment that is conducive for peace and security, it is important to mitigate factors that contribute to keeping both Palestinians and Israelis from achieving progress. Incitement has been one of those factors.

In this respect, the Palestinian Authority has undertaken initiatives that curb and diminish incitement against Israel; by 2006, the Palestinian Ministry of Education revised textbooks to ensure the removal of incitement. Additionally, President Abbas has repeatedly called for the activation of the trilateral incitement monitoring committee that was stipulated in the Wye River Memorandum of 1998.

This report seeks to highlight major incidents of Israeli incitement in public, media, and governmental spheres that occurred in January, in an effort to urge the Israeli government to condemn and redress incitement against Palestinians.[i]

January 4, 2012

Palestinian cars torched in Jerusalem 'price tag' attack

“Jewish extremists torched a mosque prayed the Star of David, "price tag," "Muhammad is a pig" and "A good Arab is a dead Arab" in Hebrew on the ancient building's walls.”

Read Article , Maan News Agency.

January 5, 2012

IDF rabbinate edits out Dome of the Rock from picture of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount

“Israel’s military rabbinate released an educational document ahead of the holiday of Hanukkah last month, featuring a photo of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount without the Dome of the Rock”

 Read Article, Haaretz.

January 9, 2012

Israeli foreign minister: Redraw map to oust Arabs

“Any future agreement with the Palestinians must address the matter of Israeli Arabs in the formula of territory and population exchanges,’’ Lieberman said. “Any other arrangement is simply collective suicide. This has to be clear and I think it is time to say these things out loud.”

Read Article, Boston Globe.

Lieberman tells Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee: "The only way forward is to manage the conflict, and not to end the conflict."

“The key, Lieberman explained, is to “manage” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, implying that it cannot be solved in the near future.”

Read Article, Jerusalem Post.

January 11, 2012

3 cars torched, mosque defaced in West Bank

“Three cars were set ablaze and a mosque was defaced in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. The words "price tag Gal Arya Yosef" was spray-painted across the Islamic house of worship.”

Read Article, CNN.

January 13, 2012

Israeli high court upholds controversial citizenship law

“Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that Palestinians will not be able to acquire Israeli citizenship through marriage. On Wednesday night, an expanded panel of 11 high-court jurists rejected a series of petitions against a provision in Israel's decades-old citizenship law that has been decried by many as a violation of the rights of the nation's Arab minority, many of whom are married to Palestinians. Rights organizations condemn the amendment as racist and a collective violation of the rights of the Arab minority, which makes up 20% of Israel's citizens.”

Read Article, Los Angeles Times.

January 22, 2012

Rivlin calling for Jerusalem capital of Israel

“Jordanian Parliament speaker takes offense at Rivlin's New Year's greeting letter.The Knesset speaker’s letter began with him explaining that he is writing from “the Holy City of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Massri called the letter racist, biased and political, and returned it to Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, Daniel Nevo. The Jordanian speaker specifically took issue with Rivlin calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel.”

Read Article, Jerusalem Post.

January 31, 2012

Israel Government to destroy Muslim cemetery to expand Jewish cemetery and build road in Norther Israel 

Read Article in Arabic, Al Jazeera.

 [i] Note: This report relies on Western, Israeli, and Arabic news sources reporting directly from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Preference is given to news stories in English, but in the event that a story is only available in Arabic, the headline of the original story is translated and posted in this report. In the event that a link becomes inactive or dysfunctional, please contact the PLO Delegation in Washington, DC, and an alternative link will be provided. 

NATO went in hard by air, and then left the NTC in charge to ensure democratization and guarantee semblance of unity in the country. Some felt that the US had proven the efficacy of the “time-limited, scope-limited” interventionist model, even though some earlier incidents in Libya – such as reports of extrajudicial killings and the racially-motivated targeting of migrant workers – did emerge to sour the warm welcome that the NTC was enjoying in Western capitals. Further comments of this nature, Jadaliyya notes, have barely registered in the media, or, it seems, in the capitals of the states who helped put the NTC in power.

The New York Times reports that Libyan militias are defying the government’s calls to lay down their arms. “Much about the scene on Wednesday was lamentable, perhaps because the discord was so commonplace,” the Times intones, but it’s also lamentable because this outcome should have been anticipated by more observers. After Iraq, it should be clear that removing the central authority from a country with extensive weapons stockpiles is a cause for concern over the new regime’s security (and therefore, its legitimacy). Without a military force to guard these depots, anyone and everyone can raid them for profit or to augment their militias. Given the animosities among rival militias – who to trust when everyone’s armed, and why give up the power you’ve gained by arms? – it is no wonder these militias don’t want to turn in their guns to the NTC and rely on the “new” Libyan Army to maintain order: “rival militias, most of them deriving from particular tribes,” Joshua Hammer reported, “withdrew their pledge to disarm [in November 2011], declaring that they would preserve their autonomy and shape political decisions as ‘guardians of the revolution’.”

This mistrust and opportunism, in turn, makes it that much harder for the NTC to guarantee security throughout the country, encouraging militias to continue augmenting their forces. The Arabist’s own Abu Rohan was in Libya this past August, and he hoped then that because of the popularity of NATO intervention, “proposals like bringing in the UN to help with the transitional process, as some Libyan politicians have proposed, [were] probably going to be broadly acceptable.” Political will within Libya – and the international community – has unfortunately not yet manifested towards this end.

Racially motivated violence and extrajudicial political murders remain a serious problem in Libya – largely because of the impunity that tormentors can exercise towards refugees and former members of the Qadhafi regime. The continued detention of some 1,500 people, who had fled reprisals from anti-regime militias, in Tripoli remains a major source of concern because some of these militias continue to try and raid the camp to exact revenge against a community they blame for assisting Qadhafi’s crackdowns. It is left to the goodwill and guns of those militias actually protecting the camp’s inhabitants to keep things from escalating.

In addition to concerns about missing weapons stockpiles, STRATFOR reports on the nagging concern that

thousands of armed Tuareg tribesmen who previously served in Gadhafi’s military have returned home to Mali. The influx of this large number of well-armed and well-trained fighters, led by a former Libyan army colonel, has re-energized the long-simmering Tuareg insurgency against the Malian government.

The analysis of the situation notes that the danger remains that these rebels could “re-establish Libyan lines of supply through a new relationship with the black and gray arms market there,” a market that radiates throughout the Sahel and offers good opportunities for those who possess stocks of Libyan arms (and very few scruples). It is clear that the NTC cannot secure Libya’s borders due to its own incapacitation in Tripoli. So where is the international response to the problem? Where is Doha (training pliant Islamist officers for the Libyan Army? Where are Geneva and Brussels? Where are Paris, London, and Washington?1

It should now be clear the rosy optimism and “fire and forget” mentality the international community displayed over Libya has been gravely misplaced, to the detriment of the country, its neighbors and to the West’s ostensible interests in regional security and stopping human rights abuses. Of course, had Colonel Qadhafi remained in power, these problems would have been present in different ways, particularly in the form of human rights abuses (the NTC’s current difficulties do not posthumously absolve the man of his actions). Yet the way Libya has been handled does not offer a good precedent for those arguing that we can intervene in Syria by arming opposition groups, hitting the regime hard by air, and then hoping that things will work themselves out on the ground in favor of the people we’ve intervened on behalf of.

If Western countries are truly interested in seeing a democratic transition in Libya (or Syria), and not just determined to remove a brutal dictator who has outlived his welcome, then these countries have to accept the fact that their “responsibility to protect” (R2P) cannot end when the last bomber drops its payload and heads for home. This does not necessarily mean putting a foreign army on the ground, or full-scale subsidization of reconstruction efforts. But it does mean more international aid (especially from those who helped Qadhafi dig Libya into a hole despite its oil wealth) and assistance that will focus on getting militias to lay down their arms and commit to a political process, instead of pretending they don’t exist as stumbling blocks to that process, or worse, deciding to resort to drone warfare to “suppress” the “insurgents” on the peripheries.

I don’t think we’ll be flying armed Predators over the Libya-Chad border anytime soon, but I brought in drones for a reason, and that reason is to note that such military responses from other countries become more likely to occur when a government fails to secure the country and be seen as being “responsive” to US interests. When a government is divided and unable to control its own people – whether through explicit violence or by gaining their trust – it enters a danger zone that can ultimately lead to outside military intervention. And then the cycle repeats itself. If “R2P” really does end – not just militarily, but diplomatically – when the last bomber heads for home, then we may be arguing in a few years over whether or not the bombers ought to go back.

Ethan (who drew the above cartoon) writes:

I am writing to spread a very cool project this Valentine's Day to which I am proud to have contributed a very small amount: a new website, Love Under Apartheid, a space for Palestinians to tell their stories of how Israeli policies of separation and apartheid have kept them from having a happy Valentine's Day.

You can check out the introductory video to the project at, of all places, FunnyOrDie.

And view the video testimonies at www.loveunderpartheid.com and find them on Facebook.

You can also follow the twitter hashtag #LoveUnderApartheid.

click for full size

This is the poster designed by graphic artist Ganzeer (whom we interviewed in this podcast) for the upcoming "general strike" announced by revolutionary movements on February 11, the anniversary of Mubarak's overthrow. As al-Ahram reports, the revolutionaries –regrouped under a new umbrella organization – have the following demands:

The Egypt Revolutionaries’ Alliance – which brings under its umbrella over 50 political groups including the country’s six most prominent revolutionary movements – listed seven demands to be met in order for its anticipated campaign of civil disobedience to end.

A host of political groups, university students and workers in various fields have been increasingly calling for a campaign of civil disobedience to begin on 11 February, the one-year anniversary of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.

The group’s chief demand is the immediate handover of power from the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to a civilian administration in the People’s Assembly (the lower house of Egypt’s parliament). The six additional demands are:

1. The immediate dismantlement of the incumbent interim government, led by SCAF-appointed premier Kamal El-Ganzouri, and the appointment of a bona fide government of national salvation members of which shall be selected by the People’s Assembly.
2. The immediate holding of presidential elections.
3. The formation of an investigative committee mandated with the judicial and executive authority to investigate all crimes and massacres committed by the ruling authorities since 25 January 2011.
4. The establishment of “revolutionary tribunals” to try all former regime figures found guilty of involvement in crimes committed after the January uprising.
5. The immediate dismissal of Egypt’s prosecutor general.
6. The purge and overhaul of Egypt’s Ministry of Interior, especially the National Security apparatus, which continues to be seen largely as a continuation of the notorious, now-defunct State Security apparatus.