A regularly updated roundup of commentary from Arab newspapers.
Israeli aggression against Lebanon
Lebanon's Daily Star said in its December 15 editorial that Lebanon had received many condolences and condemnations for the assassination of Lebanese legislator and journalist Gibran Tueini, but "no one came to the defense of the Lebanese on December 14 when our country was invaded by a foreign military".
The independent English-language daily complained that as the Lebanese were burying Tueini, Israeli warplanes violated Lebanese airspace, "yet not one of our friends in the international community even dared to whisper a word of condemnation".
The paper argued that "this unchecked aggression contributes to an atmosphere of instability in which heinous acts, such as the killing of Tueini, can be committed", adding that with aggressors behaving in this way, "the real perpetrators of these crimes know that they can comfortably hide behind a smokescreen, blaming Israel for all of Lebanon's crises".
The daily asked how the Lebanese can stand united when "Israeli aggression threatens to tear us apart" and while these "provocations stir the fears that fracture and divide our communities".
The paper suggested that Lebanon's allies could pressure the Jewish state to end its activities against Lebanon.
The million dinar question
Another Arab English-language daily, the Bahrain Tribune, warned in a December 15 commentary that the Iraqi parliamentary elections will confirm the united Iraqi state is nearing its end, "to be replaced by God-knows-what".
The pro-government paper predicted that the Shia religious party would grab 110 to 115 of the 275-seat National Assembly to form a coalition with the Kurds, whom it guessed would received 50 seats.
It said that the Arab Sunni list might get 50 to 55 seats "and be frozen out of power once more", adding that Iraq will likely "break up over the next year or two, with Kurds and Shia Arabs in the oil-rich north and in the south abandoning the recalcitrant Sunni Arabs of the center for the Americans to deal with".
The paper asked where the "Sunni Triangle" would go when the US forces withdraw.
"That is the million-dinar question, and the wrong answer could bring the whole house of cards tumbling down," it warned.
Elections won't turn Iraq into an 'oasis of calm'
The London-based Al Quds Al Arabi said on December 15 that the US administration was pleased about the expected Arab Sunni participation in Iraq's elections because it removes a huge burden in its path and drives a rift within the anti-occupation front.
The independent Palestinian-owned daily said that Washington was seeking a new government to be led by former prime minister Ayad Allawi to include secular Shias and Sunnis allied with the Kurds.
That is because the United States has begun to realize that its next war with neighboring Iran is very close, the paper argued, because Iran's conservative President Mahmud Ahmadinejad insists on going ahead with his country's nuclear program, enriching uranium and "refusing to bow to international pressures in this regard".
The paper said that in the wake of the political, and possibly military, escalation in the coming stage, Iraq must have a strong secular government that will reject Iranian influence in Iraq. It added that Iraq would not turn into an "oasis of calm and stability after these elections" and doubted that security conditions would improve.
"In fact, these conditions may get worse," the daily stressed, "that's why President [George] Bush's hopes to turn Iraq into a model of democracy for the region is difficult to achieve".
One Iraq or three?
Qatar's Al Watan daily said on December 15 that the Iraqi elections would have a big effect on the future of Iraq in terms of its divisions.
The pro-government paper said that regardless of who wins in these polls, the majority will vote on sectarian and ethnic lines, adding that it was natural to choose loyalties to the tribes "in self-defense in times of crises and wars".
It argued that the election results would not stop the violence of resistance and terrorism, but would shift the Iraqis to a "new station that will be instrumental in defining the issues of destiny, mainly choosing between one Iraq or dividing it into three states".
Whipping democracy into the Mideast
Jordan's independent Al Ghad on December 15 published a cartoon about the US role in the Iraqi elections and in trying to impose democracy in the Arab world.
The cartoon shows an American marine driving an old wooden cart as he sits on ballot boxes, holding a whip. The cart is being pulled by two impoverished, exhausted and miserable-looking Arabs.
Killing the 'torch of reform'
The London-based Ash Sharq Al Awsat said on December 14 that those who assassinated Lebanese journalist and legislator Gibran Tueini were seeking to assassinate his newspaper, An Nahar, because since its establishment 72 years ago, it has always stood for freedom.
The Saudi-owned daily said that this Lebanese paper had always been the voice of the people, not the voice of the state, adding that it was the only "large institution" that never sided with any warring faction during the country's 1975-90 civil war.
The paper added that though An Nahar's offices remained in the heart of Beirut during the worst fighting, bombings and kidnappings, it never closed its doors and never changed its position.
"This is a very unique record in the Arab world's press," the paper commented, adding that Egyptian papers became state-owned and were put under military censorship, while the press in Syria and Iraq were completely wiped out to establish ruling party newspapers instead.
"It has been a patriotic and ethical school, and those who killed Gibran Tueini wanted to kill the national torch and permanent independence, the torch of reform, progress and modernity," the paper stressed, adding that that was why An Nahar's front-page headline on Tuesday read "Gibran Tueini is not dead".
A 'voluntary abandonment of sovereignty'
Jordan's Ad Dustour on December 14 criticized the Lebanese government for resorting to the UN Security Council "as if it's not just a Mecca of justice, but a charity organization which has no other issues but to help the weak and retrieve stolen rights".
The mass-circulation daily's commentary said that the Lebanese government was demanding that the Security Council investigate all the assassinations in the country and for an international tribunal to try the perpetrators, adding that this would "violate all the state's security services, ministries and institutions, putting them in the hands of foreign investigators, who are mostly intelligence men, as proven with the Iraq precedent".
It said that seeking an international investigation was tantamount to "internationalizing national rights and duties, as well as voluntary abandonment of sovereignty and independence, a humiliation to the Lebanese judiciary and security services".
Hitting two birds with one stone
The Palestinian Al Hayat Al Jadeeda daily said on December 14 that Gibran Tueini's assassination, the 13th attempt since Hariri's assassination in February, shows that there are local, regional and international forces that do not want Lebanon's stability and recovery from its 15-year civil war.
The mainstream West Bank paper theorized that the implications of Tueini's killing on the day that the UN investigation commission into Hariri's assassination submitted its report to the international organizations were serious and were aimed at polluting the internal Lebanese atmosphere.
It said that it was also aimed at pushing President Emile Lahoud to resign and to use Tueini's assassination as an additional card to pressure Syria as it tries to de-link itself from Hariri's assassination.
It said that the assassination at this time also aims to increase international influence in Lebanon's internal affairs "as part of redrawing the map of the Arab world" and to shift attention away from Israel's aggressive policies in southern Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The paper concluded that Israel might have been behind Tueini's assassination because Syria has no interest in killing him when it is already under so much pressure, saying that the perpetrators wanted to "hit two birds with one stone, settling scores with this courageous journalist and settling scores with the Syrian regime".
America's bad reputation in the Arab world
Egypt's Al Gumhuriya daily said in its December 14 editorial that US President George W. Bush recently admitted to the killing of 30,000 Iraqis since the US-led invasion of Iraq, while at the same time he accused Arab television channels of trying to distort the image of America by presenting it as an enemy of Islam.
The semi-official mass-circulation paper asked whether it was not enough to give the United States a bad image by killing 30,000 "innocent Iraqis due to the illegal American invasion without finding weapons of mass destruction".
It asked: "Is it not enough to have a bad image with reports of CIA planes carrying thousands of Arab and Muslim prisoners to take them to strange countries to torture them in secret prisons so that America does not take responsibility for the crimes of torture after Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib?"
The Egyptian paper opined that America's support of Israel in its daily onslaught on the Palestinians and Washington's policy of entrapping "some Arab countries and exploiting internal differences to interfere and pressure them" was enough to give the United States a bad reputation in the Arab world without the aid of Arab media.
The rooster will not stop crowing
Commenting on the assassination of its director-general and Lebanese legislator Gibran Tueini, Lebanon's An Nahar daily said in a front-page editorial on December 13 that Tueini could have chosen the easier road, but instead, he chose the "road of courage and honesty".
The anti-Syrian mass-circulation paper said that Tueini, who had put his life on the line for his people and nation, cannot be killed by the "explosions of sick hatred", adding that those who carried out the crime will one day reap their "storms, no matter how long it takes".
The paper vowed the assassination of Tueini would not stop the paper from being issued every morning as it has been doing for the past 72 years, saying that the "rooster", or the daily's symbol, "will not stop crowing every morning to wake up the sleeping, alert the twisted and be an example of honesty, purity, love, forgiveness and hope".
It stressed that "Gibran Tueini remains, Lebanon and the Lebanese people remain, because whenever one of their martyrs falls, a new martyr rises".
Syria must 'come out clean'
The Jordan Times on December 13 denounced the assassination of An Nahar director-general and Lebanese legislator Gibran Tueini, saying that fear returns to the streets of Beirut, that more clouds hang over Syria and that more instability threatens the entire region.
Noting that this was the 13th bombing against Lebanese figures since the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February, Jordan's only English-language daily said that these attacks are counterproductive if they are aimed at silencing Syria's critics.
It insisted that the criminals orchestrating these attacks were not doing Damascus any favors, since they only isolate Syria further after each bombing in Lebanon.
The paper, partially owned by the government, said that "only backward elements, sad dinosaurs entrenched behind a long-gone cold war mentality and naïve enough to think that everyone could believe them in this twenty-first century of ours, would point the finger at their usual suspects: The Zionist enemy, imperialist America, or both."
It insisted that it was in everyone's interests for Syria to "come out clean, and only hard facts - not empty rhetoric - will achieve that".
Caves of backwardness
The London-based Al Quds Al Arabi on December 13 said that Gibran Tueini's assassination was another setback for free expression in the Arab world perpetrated by repressive regimes "living in the caves of backwardness which refuse to learn the language and culture of the times that respect political pluralism".
The independent Palestinian-owned daily said that Lebanon's free press and its people were targeted, adding that Tueini was brave in his positions and believed in every word he wrote, even if many disagreed with him.
It said that his paper, An Nahar, remained one of the very few Arab newspapers that refused to be of service to any external party.
It added that all Arab media were facing "terrorist campaigns" and that Lebanon's media was the most targeted because it was "media in a state without sovereignty, security, or government, a state that is controlled by the bats of darkness that avenge anything symbolizing progress".
The daily added that while it disagreed with almost everything Tueini believed, it agreed with him on "sticking to the ethics of differences, freedom of expression and giving others an opportunity to express different views in the paper he led".
It insisted that the terrorism that targeted Lebanese journalists only "pushes us to continue our professional and ethical path in holding on to freedom, democracy and political pluralism".
Sop claiming Damascus is the target
Another London-based daily, Al Hayat, said on December 13 that the common ground for all political assassinations in Lebanon for decades is that the victims have been critics of the Syrian behavior in Lebanon.
And every time, the Saudi-financed paper added, Syria has always denied its involvement and claimed that it was the one being targeted by the assassinations, just as what happened with the murder of Lebanese journalist and legislator Gibran Tueini.
The daily suggested that since the perpetrators of the assassinations continue to be unknown and in order to remove all doubts, mechanisms must be found to find the killers.
This means even resorting to foreign assistance to find the attackers as soon as possible, which the paper said requires "stopping claims that Damascus is targeted when the person killed on the ground is Gibran Tueini".
The 'gradual assassination' of Lebanon
The United Arab Emirates' Al Khaleej commented in its December 13 editorial, entitled "Stop the assassination of Lebanon", that the only objective for the assassinations of Lebanese figures is the "gradual assassination" of the entire country.
The pro-government daily said that the murder of Lebanese journalist and legislator Gibran Tueini and other assassination attempts in the past year shows that no one is immune from these crimes and everyone is targeted.
"This also shows that protection cannot be achieved except with the effective unity [of the Lebanese] and preventing any rifts that could be used by the criminal hands to destroy Lebanon and take it back to the years of sedition," the paper said, in reference to the 1975-90 civil war.
The Dubai-based daily added that the Lebanese were before a challenge to prove their ability to overcome difficulties to prevent those trying to assassinate their homeland by remaining united.
It warned that the country's past experience has shown that any "interference will have serious repercussions on Lebanon because the outside only works for its own interests and personal agendas, regardless of the identity of the outside".
Review of Arab editorials
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