Islamic group welcomes plan for first U.S. envoy,, A coalition of Muslim countries on Saturday welcomed U.S. President George W. Bush's recent decision to establish Washington's first envoy to the group.The Secretary General of The Organization of the Islamic Conference expressed hope that the president's move would improve ties between the U.S. and Muslim countries.

"I hope it would be a qualitative step in enhancing the U.S.-Islamic dialogue," Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said in a statement.

Bush announced Wednesday he would name a special envoy to the OIC. It would be the first U.S. diplomat dedicated to dealing with the group, the world's second-largest international organization, after the United Nations.

Bush had said Wednesday that the announcement represents "an opportunity for Americans to demonstrate to Muslim communities our interest in respectful dialogue and continued friendship."

On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who currently chairs the 57-member group, welcomed Washington's decision, saying it showed U.S. recognition of the need to engage the OIC.

The establishment of a U.S. envoy comes as the plodding war in Iraq has fanned anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.

The OIC was created in 1969 in response to an arson attack on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

Can the US administration say, "we were wrong"? Part #5 ,Can the US administration say, "we were wrong"? This administration can never admit to mistakes. A real leader and a mature administration can say, "we made a mistake. We failed in our policy. We have to rethink it and do it better." It takes a mature leader to admit mistakes and the American people would actually be happier if George Bush admitted that the administration was over-optimistic about Iraq.

Ironically, George Bush's great hero in history is Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister. Bush is always talking about Churchill but he does not realise that Great Britain, in the course of World War II, suffered many great defeats and was driven out of France in 1940, nearly lost Egypt in 1941, and Malay and Singapore in 1942. Nonetheless, Churchill went to parliament to say, "we failed. We lost. And we are going to have to change our policy and pick ourselves up and work harder."

Churchill did not say, like Bush today, "Oh everything is going okay and we are winning." Actually, few people in the outside world believe Bush, and a large number of Americans started not to believe him. He is blinkered and not able to say, "we made a real mistake."

Will the US withdraw from Iraq anytime soon?

It seems to me that Bush will leave it to his successor to pull out. The successor will then get the blame -- he will be the weak one, the appeaser, the one who did not stay the course; the same course that was wrong headed and desperately unfair. In a recent speech, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the US would stay unflinchingly in Iraq until the job gets done. That means more casualties and more American overstretch.

Will anything be left of Iraq?

It is already gone. I cannot see how to put the different ethnic and religious groups together again, especially the Kurds in the north.

It seems that reforming the United Nations, especially the Security Council, is an elusive aspiration. Do you agree?

I have two different covers for my last book on the United Nations, The Parliament of Man. The American cover stresses the United Nations of hope, of vision, of international cooperation, and of idealism. The British edition cover says we hope for peace and prosperity but you have to be realistic.

There are always big powers and when those powers agree you get lots done. When the big powers disagree, much less is done. We know that there are three countries, the United States, China and Russia, who feel if they want they can act independently. There is nothing the rest of the world can do about it. It is no use saying to China, "you must change your policy on Tibet," or telling Mr Putin, "you must change your policy on Chechnya." Both countries will tell you go away.

I would rather say the United Nations is always the scapegoat and if it were not there we would invent it.

Doesn't the international community need a strong central actor?

I think we need to achieve a balance between the two visions. It does not have to be quarrelling all the time or deadlock or gridlock, but it will never be ideal either. We have to be realistic and accept that sometimes there will be little or no progress because one of the great powers is threatening to veto. We are making very slow progress in terms of sending UN forces to Darfur because the Chinese government has a lot of reservations on it. Do not expect too much. People need to understand where the UN can work and where it does not. The UN can work in Lebanon if we get in 15,000 UN-NATO troops, and if Hizbullah and Israel do not break the ceasefire.
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Blair appointed Middle East envoy,Tony Blair is to become a Middle East envoy working on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.The announcement came just hours after he stood down as UK prime minister and shortly before it was announced he was to quit as a member of parliament. Mr Blair said a solution to Mid-East problems was possible but it required "huge intensity and work".

He faces an uphill task to address Palestinian misgivings over his ties to Israel and the US, say observers.

During his final prime minister's questions on Wednesday, Mr Blair was asked about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

He told MPs: "The absolute priority is to try to give effect to what is now the consensus across the international community - that the only way of bringing stability and peace to the Middle East is a two-state solution."

Challenge

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has welcomed Mr Blair's appointment - which was delayed because of Russia's reservations.


It doesn't matter whether Blair is put in that role or not, no-one outside of the Arab world can bring peace to that region
Andy, US
But the militant group Hamas said "it was not helpful in solving the conflict in the Middle East", arguing that Mr Blair's position mirrored those of the US and Israel.

Observers point out that Mr Blair's mission, as defined by the "Quartet" of international mediators which appointed him, is narrow.

His brief includes Palestinian governance, economics and security rather than the wider conflict between Israel and Palestinians - at least initially.

Mr Blair replaces the Quartet's previous envoy, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn who last year resigned in frustration at the lack of progress.

BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen says failure in the Middle East is more likely than success.

Israelis like Mr Blair because they believe he is on their side and Palestinians in the main do not trust him for the same reason, our correspondent adds.

'Peace maker'

Furthermore, Mr Blair's appointment comes at a time of heightened tension in the region.


Earlier this month Hamas overran the Gaza Strip, defeating the Fatah movement led by Mr Abbas, who now effectively controls the West Bank only.
But senior UN officials describe Mr Blair as a star player who will bring energy to the peace process.

Mr Blair, who had been UK prime minister since 1997, was replaced by Gordon Brown on Wednesday.

He has proved a controversial figure in the UK and elsewhere for his decision to lead the UK into the Iraq war.

But he has also been widely praised for his efforts in bringing the peace process to fruition in Northern Ireland.

At prime minister's questions, Northern Ireland First Minister Ian Paisley said: "I hope that what happened in Northern Ireland will be repeated and at the end of the day he will be able to look back and say it was well worthwhile."


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6244358.stm

Published: 2007/06/27 20:01:03 GMT

Israelis from Iraq remember Babylon,"During the Shia festival of Muharram we would take part in the procession and along with our Arab friends, beat our chests to remember the epic battle of Karbala," said Yakov Reuveni, remembering his youth in 1940s Iraq.


"My best friend was the son of the mayor of Ammara. After school we would go out to the date palm grove with the freshly caught fish from the river Hidekel, which we would barbeque in the fields over an open fire."
The river Hidekel, Hebrew for the Tigris, runs through his home province, Ammara, 380km (236 miles) south-east of Baghdad.

Among his most cherished memories, says Yakov, is the after-school stroll along the riverbank with his Arab friend.

He grew up in a moderately well-to-do Jewish home with his parents, four siblings and grandparents.

His father had a clothing store in the heart of Ammara's central market.

Nostalgia

It was an easy, happy life. Jews shared almost all aspects of life with their Arab neighbours, reminisces Yakov.

He was 17 years old in 1951, when his family emigrated to Jerusalem.

For the Jews of Middle Eastern origins, like their European co-religionists, coming to Israel was the culmination of a religious journey - it was the fulfilment of the centuries-old dream to live in the Promised Land.


I still think in Arabic, still I can't string together all my thoughts in Hebrew. You have to understand, my mother tongue is Arabic

Yakov Reuveni

But many who came over to Israel as part of the mass migration that followed the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, look back with nostalgia and fondness for the life that they had left behind.
Israel has a vibrant Iraqi Jewish community who arrived throughout the 1950s. Many Iraqi Jews settled in the area known as Mahane Yehuda in the heart of west Jerusalem.

It is a famous market with alleyways lined with grocery shops: rows after rows of shops laden with colourful fruit and vegetables, fresh fish, dried fruit, sweets, different kinds of bread, cheese, traditional salted fish.

These stores are still mostly owned by the descendants of the Iraqi and Kurdish Jewish immigrants.

Fish feast

"The most memorable taste was the fish called maskuf, from the river Hidekel," says Yakov.

"After the Sabbath, we would wander off to the fields and have a feast with fish cooked on the spit, Iraqi pita and arak."

After maskuf and arak, a strong aniseed flavoured local alcoholic drink, the boys would go to Ammara's club to watch belly dancing.


Most of us still feel connected to the country where we or our ancestors came from. Our parents and our grandparents still remember many things from their Iraqi past and they bring them to us, with food, music, language
Eli Mizrakhi
Yakov recalls, with vivid, powerful details, the life that he had once led, a life that was changed overnight by the political realities of the time.
"We used to eat with them, sleep with them, go to school with them, the Arabs and the Jews went to the same high school.

"We never thought of who was Jewish and who was Arab, until 1947. It all suddenly changed. The people that you knew as good people turned into bad people for you and you became bad for them. It was very sad."

Anti-Jewish sentiment flared up after the creation of Israel and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war in 1948-49.

This led to the departure of most of Iraq's ancient Jewish community. By 1952, 120,000 Jews had left Iraq for Israel.

Thinking in Arabic

In the heart of the Mahane Yehuda market is Cafe Mizrakhi, which specialises in certain traditional delicacies from Iraq. The word Mizrakhi means Oriental Jews.


It is owned by Eli Mizrakhi, whose family came from northern Iraq, or what is now known as Iraqi Kurdistan.
"Most of us still feel connected to the country where we or our ancestors came from. Our parents and our grandparents still remember many things from their Iraqi past and they bring them to us, with food, music, language."

Both Eli and Yakov agree that despite having gone through the process of assimilation into Israel, they keep alive many aspects of their previous lives, in particular, Iraqi food and speaking Arabic.

"We used to eat kubbeh and bamia, or okra. The kubbeh, made with minced lamb, was the national food for the Jews all over Iraq. Thursday was the day of khitchri - it's a dish cooked with rice and lentils.

"I still think in Arabic, still I can't string together all my thoughts in Hebrew. You have to understand, my mother tongue is Arabic," says Yakov.

Now living in a small cottage with his wife in south Jerusalem, Yakov keeps himself busy recreating sweet pickled orange from his youth, while longing to someday return to Babylon.

A close shave at the Cairo barber's,If there is one thing worse than an unfamiliar barber it is a blind one. But that is who greeted me at the door on my first trip to an Egyptian barbershop.
The elderly man in his slippers gingerly led me down the steep steps off one of Cairo's bustling, traffic-infested streets and showed me into the small basement salon.
I followed even more gingerly and the drone of car horns drifted away.

Coiffeur Deluxe, said the sign said on the front of the shop. In fact it was anything but.

Two dusty old, cracked leather chairs, in front of a grimy mirror, surrounded by dozens of multicoloured plastic bottles and jars containing dubious-looking hair products.

Many of these had clearly been there for quite some time and had something of an industrial look to them. I settled into one of the chairs, brushing off the fine coating of hair beneath me.

"Hairdresser come soon," my host said, and I realised to my great relief that, despite having the scissors clutched in his hand, he was only minding the barbershop until his friend, the barber, returned. The hairs on the back of my neck relaxed.

The inevitable offer of tea came, and the blind man carefully felt for the small portable television in the corner of the room and switched it on.

I watched and he listened as a kitsch Egyptian 1960s film crackled from the tiny box, the shrill singing voice of the garishly dressed heroine filling the salon.

The mullet

I have only been in Egypt two weeks but I already know that a useful motto to try to carry with you is, "Good things come to those who wait."


It was an hour, three cups of very sweet mint tea and half a half-decent film before the long-awaited barber finally arrived.
Adel Mohammed rather worryingly for me sported a mullet haircut, of the kind once seen on 1980s footballers.

Fingers on my temples, he sized me up, threw me a toothy smile which rebounded back and forth on the cracked barbershop mirrors, and asked me, by means of an inquisitive look, what I would like.

Back home in England for much of my life I have had my hair cut at the same South Yorkshire barbershop. Again, not a fancy place and certainly not deluxe.

The barber there offers three cuts: short back and sides, a trim or "the general tidy-up". As a teenager I once asked for a flat top, and the non-committal reply came: "I'll see what I can do".

Here in Cairo I decided to be more conservative and opted by means of hand signals for the general tidy up.

The haircut itself proceeded for the most part without incident with the sound of Adel Mohammed's nimble fingers working the scissors furiously in my ears.

Even the complementary shave with the cold cut-throat razor gliding across my neck produced no drama.

Thread bare

It was when we came to the optional extras, and I was to take the wrong option, that things took a downward turn. Adel Mohammed produced in front of me with a twinkle in his eye a long piece of fine, white Egyptian cotton and pronounced the word "fatlah" invitingly.


Not having any idea what he was suggesting, I nodded apprehensively as he brushed his fingers over my eyes to close them and began to twist the thread around his fingers into a kind of lasso.
I have since learnt that fatlah is an old Egyptian tradition, also known as threading, and common in India where it is called Khite.

It involves twisting the fine thread in such a way that it catches on the hairs on your face.

Whoever is conducting the fatlah holds one end of the thread in his hand and the other in his teeth, moving his head backwards and forward like a pigeon to tighten the thread which then rips the hairs away from the skin.

Adel Mohammed proceeded to do just this, working feverishly, with some glee I suspect, first on my eyebrows, then my cheeks, before finally moving onto the tops of my ears, a place where I was unaware I even had hairs. Needless to say I do not any more.

Blue murder are the two words that come to mind, like being pinched repeatedly around the face by someone who really does not like you. Be a man about it, some might say, but then if I were, perhaps I would not be having my eyebrows plucked in the first place.

Needless to say, in true English fashion, I said nothing. For what seemed like an age, Adel Mohammed plucked, I winced and tried to show a stiff upper lip - mercifully no hairs there.

Eventually the ordeal was over and I peeled open my tender eyes. Adel Mohammed admired his handiwork and I admired the two red raw strips of skin that surrounded my now dramatically reduced brows.

I declined a final bladder-busting cup of tea and shuffled out of the shop.

"Shukran," I muttered, ¿thank you," not entirely convincingly.

"Anything for the weekend sir?" Adel Mohammed might have asked.

"An ice pack and some dark glasses," might have been my reply."