SPY EYES

A new Syrian peace plan appears likely to go nowhere after it was rejected by both sides and
watered down due to differences between the United States and Russia. While there were reports that Moscow’s policies at the conference indicated some softening of its support for the Assad regime, the peace plan could actually make the Syrian crisis worse, at least in the short
term.

UN-Arab League Syria peace envoy Kofi Annan convened a conference in Geneva, Switzerland on June 30 in response to the spiraling violence in Syria and to salvage his failed peace plan. The conference issued a vague communiqué in which the attendees agreed to push Syrian parties toward a transitional government.

However, the communiqué failed to call for Assad to step down or stipulate whether he would be excluded from a transition process. U.S. and Russian representatives expressed strong disagreement over this point, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claiming the conference agreement included no demand for Assad to step down while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the meeting’s outcome meant, “Assad will still have to go.” Background An estimated 14,000 have been killed in Syria since the uprising began 17 months ago.

The Syrian opposition says 174 were killed on June 30, including 85 whom they say were killed by government forces while attending a funeral in Damascus. The violence appears to be growing worse as the Syrian rebels become a better armed and more effective guerrilla force and the government turns to using heavier weapons, including attack helicopters.

Convening the Geneva conference was difficult for Annan because of stark disagreements over whom to invite. Representatives from Russia, China, the UK, France, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq attended the conference along with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Araby. Annan and Russia pressed hard for the inclusion of Iran, a close ally of Assad, at the conference. This was rejected by the West, especially by the United States, due to Iran’s stalwart support of the government crackdown in Syria which reportedly has included the use of Iranian snipers.

Saudi Arabia was excluded as a compromise to Russia because of statements by Saudi officials calling for arming the Syrian rebels and reports that the Saudis are quietly providing the rebels with arms. The conference participants agreed to press the Syrian rebels and the Assad regime to support a new diplomatic effort led by Annan to implement a cease-fire. They also agreed that a transitional government be established in Syria “by mutual consent.” It is unclear how this can occur after the failure of the last peace plan that was supposed to lead to a cease-fire in April.
United States Out-Maneuvered by Russia Russia out-maneuvered the United States at the conference on the role of Assad in a transitional government and whether he should step down. The United States and its allies tried to push for a provision that would bar anyone from a transitional government “whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation” in Syria, language clearly intended to exclude Assad from a transitional government. After Russia threatened to block an agreement if this language was included in the communiqué, the United States dropped the language.

Secretary of State Clinton dismissed the significance of this concession and claimed the conference
was a step forward since Russia finally agreed to back a process for a political transition in Syria.
French and British officials took a similar position and tried to spin the results of the conference as
mandating Assad’s removal from power.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, however, portrayed the conference outcome as a major victory for Russian Syria policy and claimed that the success of the new peace plan depends on the Syrian rebels laying down their arms and Western and Arab states ceasing their military and financial support of the rebels.

The Assad regime did not officially comment on the conference outcome but Syrian state-controlled TV interpreted it as a victory for the regime. Syrian opposition members called the conference’s final communiqué “irrelevant” and denounced it for leaving open the possibility of Assad remaining in power and for buying the Assad regime more time to continue the crackdown.
The Syrian National Council, the main opposition group operating outside of Syria, plans to hold a twoday conference in Cairo starting today to discuss a political transition. Syrian rebel groups engaged in an armed struggle with the regime inside Syria announced that they are boycotting the Cairo talks because they reject the outcome of the Geneva meeting over its failure to endorse an international military intervention. The rebels also referred to the talks as a Russian-Iranian conspiracy.

Did Russia Help Syria Shoot Down a Turkish Jet? The Geneva conference opened in the wake of the most serious international incident related to the Syrian crisis when an unarmed Turkish F4 Phantom Air Force jet was shot down on June 22 by Syria.

NATO pledged its support for Turkey at an emergency meeting convened in response to this incident last week and Turkey moved military units to its border with Syria and warned Syrian forces to stay away from the border.

Turkey sent six F-16 fighter jets to the Syrian border yesterday after a Syrian helicopter approached the border, according to the BBC. Heightened tensions with Russia over its continued support of Assad are likely to grow worse this week over a press report that Russia played a role in Syria’s shooting down of the Turkish jet. The Sunday Times of London reported yesterday that Russia sold the missiles to Syria and Russian technicians helped train the Syrian army in their use. The paper reported that Russian technicians may be helping Syria operate the missiles and quoted an Israeli air force source who alleged Russian involvement in the shoot-down of the Turkish jet who said “We would not be surprised if these Russian experts, if they didn’t push the button, at least were beside the Syrian officers who did it.”

The Sunday Times also reported that Russia may have helped Syria fire on the Turkish jet to send a
message to NATO to not intervene militarily in the Syrian conflict.
Analysis
While some observers read Russia’s willingness to consider a transitional Syrian
government a small but significant step toward finding a solution to the Syrian crisis,
the conference accomplished far less than Annan and Western had hoped for.
Moreover, since Syrian parties view the outcome as a victory for Assad, it could cause
their positions to harden and the level of violence to increase.

Russia’s position on a transitional government could end up being a breakthrough, but
there are no signs that Moscow plans to push Assad to accept this idea. Instead, Russia
wants the Syrian opposition to make the first move by laying down its arms.
LIGNET believes it is very unlikely that press reports of Russia playing a role in the
downing of the Turkish jet are accurate because this would be a serious provocation
that would damage Russian security and economic interests on other fronts. LIGNET
believes that Moscow probably has counseled Syria to not engage in any more such
attacks. This story may be a press leak meant to pressure Moscow to cease its military
support of Syria.

Conclusion

The recent Syria conference in Geneva may have made some small steps toward
resolving the Syrian crisis by gaining support in theory for a transitional government;
but overall it was a flop that may set back peace efforts and cause the violence to
increase. By making concessions to Russia that seem to allow Assad to remain in
power, the United States violated an adage that all good negotiators know well:
Sometimes no agreement is better than a bad agreement.

The Lignet

One thousand dollars may not seem like a lot of money, but it was enough for a team of researchers from a Texas college to hack into and hijack a drone on a dare from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The scientists led by Professor Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas at Austin Radionavigation Laboratory managed to take control of a small but powerful drone in midair through a technique called spoofing, where a signal from hackers imitates the one sent to the drone’s on-board GPS.

The hostile takeover of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) owned by the college was done before the weary eyes of DHS officials, Fox News reported.

Hostile takeover: A team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin took control of a small drone midair

During the experiment conducted at the University of Texas stadium, the small red drone soared into the sky following a clear set of commands entered into its computer.

Shortly after, the aircraft suddenly veered to the side, making it obvious that it was no longer following its original orders. Then, the drone hurtled toward the ground as if given a self-destruct command and was saved in the last moment.

Humphreys told Fox News that for a few hundreds dollars, his team was able to build the most sophisticated spoofing system yet that tricked the drone into following a new set of commands.

Impressive display: The University of Texas team held a demonstration in New Mexico to show the Department of Homeland Security how they could take control of a drone

‘Spoofing a GPS receiver on a UAV is just another way of hijacking a plane,’ Humphreys said.

The stadium display was not the first time government officials witnessed spoofing in action.

Last Tuesday, officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Homeland Securitywatched as Humphreys’ team repeatedly hijacked a drone from a remote hilltop in the desert of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The implications of the experiments are both far-reaching and unsettling since the government is currently considering plans that will allow local law enforcement agencies and other groups to employ scores of drones in U.S. airspace.

Futuristic: Many local law enforcement agencies and other organizations are eager to employ drones in U.S. airspace

Even private companies like FedEx have expressed interest in building a fleet of unmanned aircraft for commercial purposes.

‘In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,’ Humphreys told Fox News. ‘Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.’

It is expected that by 2020, there will be tens of thousands of drones circling overhead if the FAA approves domestic use.

What’s more, unlike military unmanned aircraft, civilian drones are likely to use the same unencrypted GPS signals that the University of Texas team had successfully hacked, making it possible for anyone with $1,000 and a plan to turn a harmless FedEx UAV into a missile and crash it into a building.

Killing machines: Drones have been widely used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen to eliminate terror suspects

‘That’s the same mentality the 9/11 attackers had,’ Humphreys said.

DHS has been playing catch-up with the rapidly changing GPS interference technology through its new Patriot Watch and Patriot Shield programs, but the effort is woefully underfunded and mostly geared toward finding people using jammers, not the more sophisticated spoofers.

It is believed that a U.S. drone was brought down in Iran last December when someone jammed its GPS system.

Controversial plan: The U.S. Congress ordered the FAA to lay the groundwork for the expansion of the drone program beyond military uses by 2015

Drones have been widely used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen to take out terror suspects. Domestically, the use of UAVs has been limited to southern border patrols.

In February, the U.S. Congress ordered the FAA to lay the groundwork for the expansion of the drone program beyond military uses by 2015, allowing power companies, police departments and major corporations to launch drones in U.S. airspace.

Humphreys warned that it is crucial that the government address this grave security concern before it goes any further with plans that would allow drones to fly over American soil.

 Pakalert Press

A man in an Afghan police uniform has shot and killed three foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, Nato said.

It did not any other details, including the nationalities of the three. The statement said the man was wearing the uniform of an Afghan National Civil Order Police and that the incident was under investigation.

Their deaths bring to 39 the number of foreign troops killed this month, and 215 so far this year.

Earlier, Afghan police said a roadside bomb killed five Afghan civilians in the eastern province of Ghazni.

Deputy provincial police chief Major Mohammad Hussain said a bus full of people struck the explosives on Sunday morning while driving near Ghazni city, capital of the province of the same name.

He said another 11 people were wounded, and the dead included women and children. The bus was travelling from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

Belfast Telegraph

ISLAMABAD: Negotiations over the resumption of Nato supplies finally seem to be picking up pace – and this week is going to be crucial, according to sources. Resumption of supplies may be announced any time this week.

Sources add that Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington Sherry Rehman is arriving in Islamabad today (Monday), while Isaf commander has already arrived in Islamabad – for the second time this week. Gen Allen reportedly held meetings with both Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and army chief Gen Parvez Kayani. Military experts from both sides were also present at the meeting.

While Pakistan has been hinting at opening supply lines for some time, a formal announcement was hinging on an ‘acceptable’ apology from the US over the Salala attacks. While this is likely to come forth this week, according to sources, it is not going to come from the highest ranks.

They also said a meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Defence is to be held this week, to discuss the Nato supplies issue. Ambassador Rehman is notably being called back to Islamabad for the third in connection with the opening of supply routes.

The sources added that Pakistan and the US have already agreed upon technical and monitory issues regarding resumption of supplies through land routes. However, some aspects, which remain undecided, are to be finalised at the ‘highest-level of decision making’.

Hillary congratulates PM

Against the backdrop of this rapid thaw in Pak-US relations, US Foreign Secretary Hilary Clinton called Premier Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Sunday and congratulated him on his newly-attained office, and extended her good wishes to President Asif Ali Zardari.

According to media reports, Hilary expressed her hopes that relations with Pakistan would strengthen during Prime Minister Ashraf’s tenure. She pointed out that the two countries are allies in the ‘War on Terror’.

Premier Ashraf said that Pakistan was determined to eradicate terrorism. WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN WASHINGTON

The Express Tribune

The past month will go down as one of the most politically volatile and grisly periods in Pakistan’s history. Where the nation was still reeling from the superfluity of ‘gates’, scandals and courtroom theatrics, this week brought news of Taliban resurgence; the presence of TTP safe havens across the border; the killing and beheading of seventeen Pakistani soldiers, during a cross border skirmish by Afghan Taliban in north-western district of Upper Dir.

A video released on Wednesday by the Pakistani Taliban revealed that the erstwhile count of seven beheadings was actually higher. A voice recording by Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud  precedes gruesome footage of the heads of seventeen officers lined on a white sheet. Intelligence gathered suggests the militants were the TTP faction expelled from Swat that regrouped in Afghanistan under Maulvi Fazlullah. Pakistan criticized NATO and Afghan forces for lapse in security which allowed the hundred strong militants to raid the Upper Dir check post. Very little sympathy was offered as Pakistan has time and again refused to carry out operations in the Upper Dir region where the Haqqani Network has built safe havens.

The attack brings attention to the threat posed by the TTP despite several army offensives against them. TTP now not only commands presence on Pakistani territory but also has the ability to carry out sneak attacks from across the border. There is little love lost between TTP and Pakistan’s military; however both have intelligence and diplomatic ties with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network.  When the Lake side Hotel was besieged this week, the Haqqani Network was blamed and by extension so was Pakistan. Reports, rumors and the fortuitous timing suggest that the attack on Pakistani soldiers was carried out in retaliation for allowing the Haqqani Network to operate freely in the Waziristan region. Since planning a Military Operation in the area is now underway it would seem to be a mission accomplished. However assuming this to be mere conjecture, the question remains: How can Pakistan unfreeze its rigor mortis?

Pakistan’s diplomatic strategy with militant outfits in the region has so far yielded scant benefits. It has on the other hand been forced to deal with international isolation, US pressure; massive slashes in foreign aid and drone strikes which ended up killing more civilians than militants. On the other hand Pakistan claimed to use foresight in the matter: after 2014 when US presence in Afghanistan fizzles to a few training brigades, the popular Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network are expected to get up and usurp their former position of power. The deadlocked attempts by Karzai to hold talks with the Taliban and discuss a strategy for power sharing are a cause for embarrassment for the Afghan government and will lead nowhere. In such a situation developing close ties with the Taliban makes sense. Once the US leaves Pakistan will have to secure its border and counter terrorism on its own. In light of recent events however such a strategy needs a thorough reevaluation.

America and the Karzai government are currently looking towards India to assume the power of economic and political ‘lord protectorate’. The chasm that develops in the absence of US will be filled by another strong regional power. Billions of Indian Rupees have already been invested in Afghanistan and Foreign Minister SM Krishna has begun encouraging private investment there too. Two scenarios present themselves: once the US leaves these investments might become targets for the Afghan Taliban who historically have not warmed to India and might try to expel them by targeting their economic interests. In this case a Taliban friendly stance by Pakistan will leave it sandwiched between hostile Afghanistan and India; as well as flood in international back lash for supporting terrorism in a country. The ensuing isolation and economic sanctions is something we’re not new to but not fond of either. On the other hand reports suggest that the Taliban have already recast their rhetoric vis-à-vis India and might not even oppose it. Pakistan loses either way. Thus a thorough reevaluation of our diplomatic ties with these outfits is required. Once Pakistan sends the message to the Haqqani Network and Afghan Taliban that they are not welcome anymore it might see a resurgence of terrorist activity by TTP within the country. Such a move needs to be anticipated and counter measures must be taken in advance. A political approach should of course be the first step but considering the rigidity of Afghan Taliban in sitting down for power sharing talks, it might not lead anywhere.

While an operation in the region is the modus operandi, a joint operation with the US might lead to swift but not so agreeable results for Pakistan. Mistrust and outright dislike for America might turn into full-fledged hatred. This mistrust and dislike while mutual, has made political representatives of Pakistan belligerent towards the US and the issue of reinstating GLOCS has been shelved till an apology from the US is received. Such an attitude might lead the masses to heap laurels on Foreign Minister Khar but the writing on the wall spells trouble for all those who don’t comply.

Pakistan at this stage has enough internal political and economic problems to eat away at the nation’s grey matter. The energy crisis has reached unprecedented levels and there are no signs of measures being taken to salvage the situation. At this point terrorism and cross border attacks are a blow to Pakistan’s Achilles heel. Whether this was a bare faced message from the US or our ‘brothers’ across the border, fact of the matter is it is high time the War on Terror ended. Instead of negotiating favorable terms of engagement and apologies six months after the Salala incident occurred, GLOCS should be brought to the Parliament floor without further ado. By asking the US to build metaled roads along the supply route, Pakistan can not only gain for itself infrastructure that way but also ensure greater trade and jobs along the route.

More importantly Pakistani politicians need to end the rat race to one up each other for political gain. It’s time to stop cheating the masses by telling half truths and playing blame games; the public needs apt leaders to bring it on board with policy makers at this point. If fundamentalist leaders approach the grass roots to gain support for their cause our politicians need to take up the mantle to start countering the situation festering by the minute.

As far as Pakistan’s foreign policy is concerned, joint military and political cooperation with Afghanistan, India and US is required to achieve a viable semblance of peace in the region. We need to start recognizing India as a key player in Afghanistan and play our diplomatic cards right. Our strategy of aloofness has not gained much at this point and now that one of the most politically strategic military operations is soon to take place, Pakistan needs to be backed by as many ‘strategic partners’ as possible.

By Sara Eleazar
Spearhead Research

Textbooks with nationalist themes are helping prejudice to grow in the classroom, say analysts.

Should Israeli girls be prevented from associating with Palestinians?

This was among the questions asked in a new study guide for the end-of-year high school civics exam in Israel, prepared by a private company and approved by the country’s ministry of education.

One of the proposed answers was that Israeli girls should stay away from Palestinians, because “Arab youths pose a threat to the lives of Jewish girls” and because “relationships between male Arab youths and female Jewish youths pose a threat to the Jewish majority in the country”.

While the study guide has been condemned as encouraging racist stereotypes and promoting hatred, many activists argue it isn’t an isolated phenomenon. Indeed, they say it hints at a much deeper and ingrained problem: the ultra-nationalism that runs through the Israeli education system, and the negative impact this is having on Israeli youth.

“Israeli schoolbooks correspond to all categories of racist discourse, both verbal and visual,” said Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli professor of education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and author of Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education.

From negative, stereotypical portrayals of Palestinians in textbooks – if they are mentioned at all – and maps that don’t illustrate Israel’s correct borders, to strict censorship over what Palestinian citizens of Israel are allowed to teach and learn, Peled-Elhanan explained that virtually all subjects in the Israeli curriculum are imbued with some form of extreme nationalism.

“It’s going back to what’s characterised in the research as the education of the 1950s: a very blunt, nationalistic, non-scientific presentation of the world, of us, and of the political situation of the place,” Peled-Elhanan said.

“The purpose is to educate children to be good soldiers. You cannot be a good soldier if you do not have this image of an enemy which is a bit blurred, and you don’t know much about the people except that they are ‘problems’ and ‘threats’.”

Militarising education

Programmes run jointly by the Israeli education ministry and the Israeli army have existed in Israel for years. A new programme, named Derekh Erekh ["Path of Values"], was unveiled in mid-June and is meant to instil a sense of duty and allegiance to the state and to strengthen ties between Israeli schools and the army.

“Teachers are lifelong draftees,” said Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, as he launched the programme. It is expected to be implemented in thousands of schools across the country and has been allocated an annual budget of NIS 300,000 ($76,854).

“My expectations of the [educational] system are not just in the field of learning, but also in areas of values,” Saar reportedly said. “Encouraging service in the IDF is not a favour that we are doing for the IDF, but a moral issue.”

In 2010, a Tel Aviv-area high school principal said he received death threats after he decided not to participate in a similar programme that brings Israeli army colonels to schools to encourage students to join the army and sign up for combat roles.

According to Sahar Vardi, a member of New Profile, a feminist organisation that encourages the de-militarisation of Israeli society, the over-abundance of army symbols and ceremonies in Israeli schools and society naturalises military participation among young people.

“[The military] should be seen as something violent and something that, if it’s necessary, that it should be the last resort, but the way that it’s seen in Israel is very natural, it’s day-to-day life,” said Vardi, who refused to do her mandatory military service in 2008.

“[The education system teaches youth that] what the army does is okay, that violence as a form of solving problems is legitimate. It’s not only legitimate, but also promoted by society,” she said.

In 2010, the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME) released a textbook entitled Learning Each Other’s Historical Narrative. Written by a group of Israeli and Palestinian academics and historians, the book included the Israeli and Palestinian narratives of various historical events, and left a blank space open on each page for students to write their thoughts.

The book touched upon topics such as the Balfour Declaration, the founding of Israel in 1948, and the two Palestinian intifadas. It was used in one Israeli and two Palestinian high schools before reportedly being banned by both the Israeli and Palestinian education ministries.

State-sponsored settlement tours

In addition to strengthening ties to the army, Saar announced last year that he would be instating a programme to show students “the historic roots of the State of Israel in the Land of Israel”.

This programme includes visits to Israeli settlements, including Shiloh, in the northern West Bank near Nablus; the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the heart of Hebron; and the City of David archaeological park in Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.

“It is good to come to the settlement. It is good to see the settlement flourishing,” Saar said while visiting Shiloh in 2011. “We should not delude the Arabs that one day there will be no Jews here. Jews will always be here, and any other illusion will bring obstacles on the road to peace.”

More than 250 Israeli teachers sent Saar a letter in February of this year, announcing their refusal to participate in the minister’s proposed “Hebron Heritage” tours, meant to strengthen “Jewish and Zionist” values among students.

“We know that our vocation as educators is to present the students with the truth, as best as we can. A partial, conscripted truth is no truth at all. For that reason, we will not agree to be agents of such a policy, and won’t lie to ourselves,” the teachers’ letter read.

“We call on you to cease using the education system cynically for extreme political aims, and declare that if we are called to accompany such tours, we will not do so.”

A spokesperson for the Israeli ministry of education repeatedly declined to comment on the tours by the time of publication.

Today, more than 500 Jewish Israeli settlers live in the heart of Hebron under the protection of Israeli soldiers and police. As a result of the settlers’ presence, the Palestinian population of Hebron – who number about 200,000, the largest in the West Bank – face sweeping restrictions on freedom of movement, have lost access to their main commercial and economic centres, and deal with frequent violence and arrests.

“The kind of Hebron [that the students are] seeing [on the ministry tours] is a very narrow kind of Hebron. It’s not a Hebron that represents the city. It’s not a Hebron that represents the people who live there,” said Yehuda Shaul, from the Israeli organisation Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military veterans that served in the occupied Palestinian territories and that aims to educate the Israeli public about the realities of the occupation.

Shaul said that when the “Hebron Heritage” tours were first announced, Breaking the Silence approached participating schools and offered to bring students on their own alternative tour of Hebron. When the political nature of the ministry’s tours was revealed, however, the former soldiers urged schools to completely boycott the programme.

“Hebron is the one place where our great past comes to meet our disgusting present,” said Shaul. “I cannot think of a better place than Hebron to open a real discussion and conversation about the identity of our country and about who we are and what we should stand for, what are the values that should put us together as a society, but this is not what [Education Minister Saar] is aiming at.

“This is not even indoctrination, this is way worse than that: this is using children as soldiers. This is using children to reinforce Israeli settler presence in the city.”

According to a 2011 

Some 1,600 young people, aged 15-18 and 21-22 years old, were surveyed in the study, and most identified as right-wing. Approximately 70 per cent of Jewish-Israeli teenagers between 15 and 18 years old said that, in cases where state security and democracy were at odds, security should take precedence above all else.

Religious Jewish youth in particular, the study found, exhibited a “lack of trust in the institutions that are entrusted with maintaining democratic principles” and tended “to side with methods such as civil resistance (including violent civil resistance), to prefer strong leadership above the rule of law, to support the denial of basic political rights of the Arab citizens of Israel, and underrate the importance of democracy and peace as national goals”.

In a 2010 poll conducted by Israeli research institute Maagar Mochot, 50 per cent of Jewish Israeli teenagers between 15-18 years old believed that Palestinian citizens of Israel should not have the same rights as their Jewish counterparts.

Some 56 per cent of those polled said Palestinians should be prevented from running for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and 50 per cent of those who identified themselves as religious said they approved of the slogan “Death to Arabs”.

According to Peled-Elhanan, these attitudes can be attributed to an education system that places nationalism above real scholarship and a free exchange of ideas.

“They don’t care about international law. They don’t care about international decisions. They don’t care about international justice or human rights or all these things because they learn not to respect them,” Peled-Elhanan said.

She said that fixing the Israeli education system “from within” was impossible, since most Israelis do not view it as broken to begin with.

“It will be very hard to dismantle it,” she told Al Jazeera. “The big change can come only when America stops pouring money to ammunitions here and when there is a real, serious boycott. Otherwise, the authorities will not get the message.”

ALJAZEERA

Will Kofi Annan’s latest proposal for a political transition end the conflict in Syria? The short answer is no, not in its current form.

Syria is now, in the words of Bashar al-Assad, in a “state of war” as fighting intensifies between government forces and opposition fighters. While the diplomats have talked and talked, Syria has entered the point of no return.

The effects are plain for all to see: a regime increasingly unrestrained in waging war on its own people; a militarized opposition that is more effective and less controllable; and a region, as the downing of the Turkish military plane illustrated, that is more unpredictable and combustible.

It is under these conditions that Annan jettisoned Plan A, which sought to end the violence by placing unarmed U.N. observers in a war zone under the dual authority of the Syrian government and the U.N. Security Council. He now seeks to unite key international players such as Russia, the United States, China and the European Union by proposing Plan B: a Syrian national unity Cabinet that would include government and opposition members and exclude those who would undermine it. (Which is the closest Annan can get, without really saying it, that al-Assad would be excluded in the future government.)

But there is little hope among Syria’s opposition that this will work.

Leaders in the Free Syrian Army have dismissed Annan’s efforts outright as a colossal waste of time, while key figures in the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups remain highly skeptical. They are asking basic unanswered questions: What regime figures would be included in the proposed unity government? What guarantees are there that al-Assad and his family would be excluded? In conversations with those opposition figures, not one person has indicated they would be willing to join such a government. Many, however, have indicated their willingness to join such a government after al-Assad and those orchestrating the killings have been deposed.

Another unanswered question remains the position of Russia and whether it has finally turned against al-Assad. Some believe it might be doing so, especially by showing initial support for Annan’s unity government. But in recent U.S.-Russia meetings, the gap between the two countries has remained wide as Vladimir Putin flatly refuses to discuss a post-Assad scenario as a starting point for a political transition.

Russia still believes a political solution can only be achieved through a Syrian-led dialogue between the regime and the opposition. By contrast, the U.S. has given its support to Annan’s idea as long as, in the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “it starts from the basic premise that Assad and his regime must give way to a new democratic Syria.”

There has been much speculation on Russia’s motivation for standing by the al-Assad regime, but the simple fact is that it is not budging — at least not yet.

With the first direct route apparently closed, there is perhaps a second that could tip the balance or at least get Moscow to engage on a post-Assad political transition in Syria.

A much less discussed aspect of the diplomatic impasse has been the ongoing difficulty of forging a credible Syrian opposition platform that binds Syria’s diverse communities and different opposition movements.

The major opposition blocs will be attending an Arab League-sponsored conference in Cairo on Monday and Tuesday to discuss a transition plan for what they consider to be al-Assad’s inevitable ouster. While there are low expectations of the meeting and the fractured Syrian opposition itself, the goal— attempting to unite — should be strongly encouraged.

In many ways, such a platform has been developing despite the continuing dysfunction and shortcomings of the Syrian National Council, which is seen as the leading opposition bloc. The Council has recently been joined by other opposition figures and groups, such as a fledgling National Bloc, in the effort against al-Assad. And the realization that the Council cannot hold sway over all of Syria’s opposition groups — and is unlikely to influence external actors such as Russia — has led to new efforts in Istanbul, Sofia and Cairo to forge a common national platform united around a common national vision.

More on GPS: Circling the wagons on Syria 

The last few months have seen how representatives from Syria’s tribes; some of its minorities, including the leaderships of the Kurds and the Druze; the business elite; and recently exiled religious figures have sought to forge such a common national vision for a future of Syria without al-Assad. These groups have aimed to engage with the Syrian National Council and other established opposition groupings, but not to join them. All remain deeply suspicious of the control that Turkey and the well-organized Muslim Brotherhood have exerted on the opposition movement through the Council, which is based in Turkey. Instead, this diverse group has seen itself as a bridge to uniting Syrians against the al-Assad regime and articulating a vision of a modern, democratic and independent Syrian state after the regime has gone.

The international community and international mediators would do well to remember that it is these efforts to forge national unity that can best lead to a political solution in Syria. Aiming to forge a unity government with a regime that continues to bludgeon its people into submission and will not negotiate in good faith is the wrong approach.

With the situation on the ground spiraling out of control, there is no more time to waste. Faced with a genuine opposition platform and its vision for an independent, democratic Syria, Russia might also be forced to think again. Let us hope so. Only then could a successful Plan B and a political solution take hold.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Salman Shaikh.

Iranians are abandoning traditional eating habits, being thrown out of work at alarming rates and face running short of medicines as the nation braces itself for fresh sanctions aimed at forcing its leaders to scrap their suspect nuclear programme.

Amal Khan was born in 1982 in Swat. When the US-run Bagram prison in Afghanistan is handed over to the Afghan government in September this year, Amal Khan — who has been held there for 10 years — and the 31 other Pakistani prisoners will not be transferred. Instead, they will continue to be held by the US, their fate hinging on sensitive bilateral negotiations between the US and Pakistan. On May 30, the Pakistani government was ordered to explain to the Lahore High Court (LHC) what steps it has taken to move these negotiations forward. However, there has been no significant progress on these negotiations. Despite supporting documentation, the Pakistani government has failed to recognise most of the detainees as Pakistani — a situation that Justice Khaled Mahmood Khan of the LHC has found to be absolutely unacceptable in his ruling on May 28.

The simple reality is that many Pakistanis do not have proper documentations of identification. Many of the detainees hail from Fata, an area that has been abandoned by the Pakistani state. Ruled under the draconian, colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation, the entire legal framework governing Fata systematically denies residents their fundamental constitutional rights. The Pakistani government is not only denying these individuals their constitutional rights, but isalso denying that they are Pakistani — an egregious form of discrimination. Denying Pakistani citizens in US detention consular and other rights is to abandon them to an essentially stateless existence.

Many detainees possess proof of the deep ties characteristic of Pakistani citizenship, having grown up and graduated from school there, worked there, bought property, married and raised families there — the kind of evidence and life stories that more than substantiates their claims. But for these detainees to have any hope, their government first has to recognise them as their own — as Pakistanis. Whether guilty or innocent, they deserve justice and without their nationality, they will never have it.

Disturbingly, the ministry of foreign affairs doesn’t seem committed to the repatriation of its citizens. In an article published in The Express Tribune on May 28, a ministry official stated: “The US military-controlled Bagram prison in Afghanistan is expected to release 33 Pakistani prisoners soon”. But the very same detainees are being taunted by ministry officials in Bagram, who say it is not their duty to help until detainees can prove their Pakistani citizenship.

The Government of Pakistan has an obligation to work constructively with the US to resolve these cases and move forward with repatriation, resettlement and release. The Justice Project Pakistan, which represents nine of the Pakistani detainees at Bagram, is asking the government of Pakistan to do so — and, now, so are the Pakistani courts.

There are many workable solutions to meet these conditions, from probation and house arrest, to granting independent monitors access to detainees transferred to Pakistani prisons. But this requires good faith efforts by Pakistan. The above actions should deeply trouble all Pakistanis who care not only about equality before the law but also national identity and the right to be counted as Pakistani.

The Express Tribune

India is facing an energy crisis that is slowing economic growth in the world’s largest democracy.

At stake is India’s ability to bring electricity to 400 million rural residents—a third of the population—as well as keep the lights on at corporate office towers and provide enough fuel for 1.5 million new vehicles added to the roads each month.

Shortages of coal, oil and natural gas will require India to import increasing amounts of high-cost fossil fuels, say energy experts, risking inflation and putting the country in stepped-up competition with China, Japan and South Korea. Buying oil from Iran, one of India’s biggest suppliers, is tougher because of U.S. and European sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

With annual demand expected to more than double in the next two decades to the equivalent of six billion barrels of oil, the energy crunch threatens to knock India off its growth path. The national economy has already slowed amid paltry business investment and stalled reforms. It tallied just 5.3% growth in the quarter that ended March 31, the lowest level in almost a decade and well shy of the country’s 9% goal.

Expensive imports have taken a toll on the nation’s finances. Though global crude oil prices have eased in the past few months, India is seeing little benefit because its currency, the rupee, has been dropping against the dollar, the currency used to price oil.

State-run energy companies are racking up billions of dollars in losses by selling auto fuel, cooking gas and electricity at artificially low prices to protect consumers from global cost increases. In May, India’s oil marketers raised gasoline prices 11.5%, the largest increase ever. The move was a sign of new urgency in the government to improve the fiscal health of the oil companies, though prices were cut 3% after a public backlash.

Economists say gasoline prices need to increase more, with the tougher task of deregulating the prices of diesel and cooking gas still ahead.

“The prime minister and a few wise men are beginning to realize that there’s a very bleak outlook in terms of energy security, and that this is going to create the single largest constraint on the economy, one of alarming proportions,” said Gokul Chaudhri, a partner at New Delhi-based consultancy BMR Advisors, whose clients include Indian and foreign energy firms.

Vast tracts of rural India lack electricity. Even in such business hubs as Delhi’s suburb of Gurgaon, companies employ backup generators because of regular outages. Factories are forced to curtail production. And vaccines that require refrigeration go bad because of spotty service.

After top power companies lobbied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the government in April issued a presidential directive ordering Coal India Ltd., 533278.BY +0.68% India’s state-run monopoly, to increase production or imports. Officials also cut India’s electricity generation target for the next five years by 25%, reflecting worries the coal shortage will continue.

The government had looked to natural gas. But a production shortfall at the nation’s largest known gas field—operated by Reliance Industries 500325.BY 0.00% —has India racing to increase gas imports.

India now imports three-quarters of its oil, and the price tag has been growing. The import bill was $141 billion in the past fiscal year, a 41% jump over a year earlier. As global oil prices have declined, India’s crude oil import costs have decreased about 15% in dollar terms since January. But the rupee has depreciated 12% over that time, canceling out the gain.

New Delhi is the second-largest importer of Iranian oil behind China, but will increasingly have to look for alternative suppliers in light of U.S. and European sanctions. India has already reduced Iranian oil imports from 16% of total crude purchases in 2008 to about 10%. The government pledged to reduce purchases another 11% in the current fiscal year. Washington last month exempted India along with some other countries from new sanctions.

Domestic oil fields are maturing, production is barely increasing and companies complain regulations are stifling. Cairn India Ltd., 532792.BY +2.16% India’s largest private oil producer, said in March it might scrap a $6 billion spending plan after the government proposed an 80% increase in taxes on its production.

“We are headed 100 miles an hour into a brick wall on energy security unless we do something radically different,” Rahul Dhir, Cairn India’s chief executive, said.

Plans to boost nuclear energy production faltered after the Indian Parliament passed a law that foreign equipment suppliers say would burden them with liability after accidents, rather than plant operators, which is the international standard. Environmental protests after the Fukushima disaster in Japan last year also have delayed the opening of new nuclear plants.

“Are we doing enough to produce our own energy?” Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the government’s Planning Commission, said. “The short answer is that we need to do more.”

Energy imports will be costly for India’s already shaky public finances, economists say, and the government will have to pass on higher costs to consumers and businesses. That won’t be easy. Residents depend on government subsidies to lower prices for electricity, auto fuels and cooking gas.

Last month, Standard & Poor’s cited India’s yawning 5.8% budget deficit and inability to reform fuel subsidies as reasons it was considering downgrading the country’s debt from investment-grade to junk status. Fitch, another ratings firm, later joined S&P in cutting its outlook on India’s sovereign debt from “stable” to “negative.”

“India has a very distorted system of subsidies,” Jaipal Reddy, minister for petroleum and natural gas, said. “But how, in a vibrant democracy like in India, do you change the system suddenly?”

The country’s energy crunch can be overcome, he said: “We’ll have to pay for more, that’s about all. It does not weaken the long-term growth story.”

Coal shortages are largely a result of Coal India’s inability to produce enough. The state-controlled firm said in April that production in the fiscal year that ended in March was 435.8 million tons—1% more than the previous year but 16% short of the target set by India’s Planning Commission.

At the end of March, 32 power plants had coal stocks described as “critical” by the government—less than seven days worth—and two dozen plants were running at less than 60% capacity.

Coal India needs to accelerate exploration, step up mining operations, improve its rail delivery system and spend some of the $8.8 billion in cash on its books to upgrade equipment, according to a recent draft of a government audit. Coal India didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In Jharli, a village 60 miles west of New Delhi, pharmacist Ram Singh Luhach said he routinely throws away tetanus and rabies vaccines that go bad in a refrigerator that only gets a few hours of electricity a day. Down the road, mustard seed farmer Satveer Singh has a water pump to irrigate his fields. But he only gets about two hours of electricity during the day and five or six at night.

Mr. Singh hooks his water pump up to a tractor that keeps it running for several more hours—with the cost of diesel fuel eating into his $120 monthly income. “If I get more electricity,” he said, “I could double my production.”

A few miles away, a 1,320-megawatt power plant built by Hong Kong-based CLP Holdings Ltd. 0002.HK +1.23% has sprung up, along with housing for 2,500 workers. The first of two 660-megawatt units was ready in January but has been mostly idle for six months because of a lack of coal. CLP said at best it would likely get 60% of what it was originally promised from Coal India and would either have to import coal or run the plant well below capacity.

Rajiv Mishra, CLP’s managing director in India, said in recent months he would start his day by asking how many rail wagons of coal had arrived. The second power-generating unit is ready but the firm won’t start operations without reliable supplies, according to CLP, which has invested $1.3 billion in the plant.

“In India we just don’t solve a problem until it becomes a crisis,” Mr. Mishra said. “We have done what was our responsibility, which is build one of the country’s largest plants on time. But obviously full-scale operation depends on getting sufficient coal supplies.”

At Coal India’s mine 700 miles away in Jharkhand state, 15 men worked in a 400-foot-deep pit on a recent afternoon, digging coal with bulldozers and hauling it across dirt roads in dump trucks. The coal was loaded into rusted train wagons for its three-day journey to the CLP plant.

Workers, who wore scarves against the dusty air, said aging equipment slows their work. They also face security threats from leftist militants who want a share of the mining profits. The militants, part of a broader Maoist movement in India, issued 22 threats last year that forced the Jharkhand mine to shut down—usually for two days at a time, mine officials said.

The coal shortage is hobbling London-listed Vedanta Resources PLC, which is building a 2,400-megawatt power plant in the eastern state of Orissa. Coal India said it could deliver only half the supply promised in 2006, before construction started. “If we’d known this fact,” said Abhijit Pati, the plant’s chief operating officer, “we would never have invested in this.”

After spending $2 billion on the 2,800-acre complex, company officials said they had no choice but to accept a reduced supply. The plant’s three operating units are running at 65% of capacity.

The presidential directive in April requires that Coal India supply at least 80% of what it promised plants or face financial penalties. Coal India’s only choice is to ramp up imports.

To expand production, the Indian government has allotted some coal mines to private firms. But of 194 private mining blocks issued through April of last year, only 28 were running. Many companies blame delays in obtaining environmental permits from the government. The government has said it is the companies that are dragging their feet getting mining operations set up.

Natural gas—which is used in public transportation, cooking fuel and the making of fertilizer—has its own troubles. India was banking on a $5.6 billion project in the Bay of Bengal off India’s east coast. Reliance Industries discovered the gas in late 2002, an apparent energy bonanza.

Output was projected to reach 2.8 billion cubic feet per day in the fiscal year that began April 1. Instead, output is now about 1.05 billion cubic feet per day and could fall to 600 million units in the next two years, the company said.

India’s efforts in April to strike a long-term gas supply deal with Qatar faltered over price, about $20 per million British thermal units, or more than triple the cost of Indian domestic gas.

Exploration for gas and oil discoveries isn’t going well. Since 1998, the government has issued 87 exploration blocks to companies through competitive bidding. Only three blocks have gone into production.

Interest in India is waning among the global oil companies that dominate exploration: Eight of the 37 companies that bid in the last round of auctions were foreign companies, down from 21 in 2008.

Mr. Reddy, the oil and gas minister, said he was considering allowing firms to sell what they produce at higher prices to attract more investment. Companies complain that government price caps are too low.

Policy makers are resigned to costly imports for now. “In all probability the import dependence in primary energy is going to increase,” said Mr. Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission. “The real issue is, ‘Can we pay for that energy?’ ”

—Andrew Browne in Beijing and Arup Chanda in Jharkhand, India, contributed to this article.

The Wall Street Journal