Links April 19th to April 22nd

Links from my del.icio.us account for April 19th through April 22nd:

Secure Enough to Sin, Baghdad Revisits Old Ways - NYTimes.com - Baghdad Vice. Some great lines and pics of cockfighting in this story.

Roy Greenslade: New law aims to stifle press freedom in Dubai | Media | guardian.co.uk -

Egypt's Gamal Mubarak Aims to Underpin Growth - WSJ.com - Interview with Gamal Mubarak, focuses on reform plans.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: The Mummified President - An article by As'ad AbuKhalil on Egypt.

World Bank: Israelis get four times more water than Palestinians - Haaretz - Israel News - "The water-supply regime used by Israel and the Palestinians must be changed, according to a World Bank report that is to be published today. The report notes that an average Israeli gets four times as much water as the average Palestinian, and warns that the Palestinian Authority water system is "nearing catastrophe."

CQ Politics | Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC - "Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington."

ArabComment » Yet Another Gulf-Bashing Article - Parody of Johann Hari's recent article on Dubai.

History News Network | 100 Years of Solitude: Tel Aviv's Anniversary - Historian Mark Levine on the hidden Arab dimension of Tel Aviv.

Six questions for Rashid Khalidi | Democracy in America | Economist.com - Khalidi on Obama, the Israel lobby, "Syria First" and more.

Israelis warn of Eritrea flashpoint - Times Online - More probable disinformation: "The Israelis fear Eritrea could be a flashpoint if Iranian Revolutionary Guards continue to ship arms to militants in Gaza via the Eritrean port of Assab. Israel is said to have two Eritrean bases, one a “listening post” for signals intelligence, the other a supply base for its German-built submarines."

AFP: Two Copts gunned down in Egypt after Easter vigil - Authorities say this is a case of 'tar' or vendetta as typical in the Said. Timed for Easter, though?

'Hezbollah surveyed Egyptian towns close to Israeli border' - Haaretz - Israel News - "According to the report, Nimer Fahmi and Nasser Abu Umra, both suspected of being involved in a Hezbollah cell operating in Egypt, passed on information about small Bedouin settlements in the Sinai Peninsula to the Iran-backed militant organization. Asharq al-Awsat reported that Fahmi received computerized forms on which he was supposed to fill in information about the number of residents, number of schools and entrances and exits to the villages, as well as a list of the prominent people living there. Mohammed Kablan, the man in charge of Hezbollah's intelligence operations, and Mohammed Youssef Mansour, also known as Sami Shihab, ordered Fahmi and Abu Umra to send them information on places in Sinai from which it would be possible to infiltrate Israel, as well as the positions of Egyptian police."

U.S.: Palestinians need not recognize Israel as Jewish state before talks - Haaretz - Israel News - Obama does not accept Bibi's demands that Iran be dealt with first and Palestinians accept Israel as Jewish state before negotiations begin.

Lieberman taps Franklin case diplomat for top slot | JTA - Jewish & Israel News - "WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Avigdor Lieberman asked an Israeli diplomat involved in a Pentagon classified leaks case to be his chief of staff. Lieberman, the foreign minister in the new Benjamin Netanyahu government, has asked Naor Gilon to take the top career slot at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, JTA has learned, effectively making Gilon his right hand man... Gilon, then the political officer at Israel's Washington embassy, allegedly met multiple times between 2002 and 2005 with Lawrence Franklin, a mid-level Iran analyst at the Pentagon who has since pleaded guilty in the case. The men allegedly discussed Iran's nuclear program and its disruptive role in Iraq."

'Israel could have made peace with Hamas under Yassin' - Interview with Dr. Zvi Sela, Israeli psychologist who met Samir Kuntar: "We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what - the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl's head. That's nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn't do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report."

CQ Politics | Will Congress Agree to Ease Conditions on Aid to Palestinians? - "The administration is looking for a way to keep aid flowing if the Palestinians form a government that includes elements of Hamas, the militant anti-Israel group that controls Gaza. Obama wants to alter language in the fiscal 2009 catchall spending law (PL 111-8) that makes the State Department worry about the possibility of a cutoff of aid to the Palestinian government should Hamas join the more moderate Fatah party in a power-sharing arrangement."

The Saturday Profile - Egypt’s Tomb Raider, Off and (Mostly) on Camera - Biography - NYTimes.com - NYT profiles Zahi Hawass.

Palestine Remembered, al-Nakba 1948- פלשתינה-فلسطين في الذاكرة - Project on Palestinian history.

MIDEAST: Gaza Changed Everything, But Its People Still Suffer - Helena Cobban on Gaza three months after the war.

At doctor's presentation, a Jewish woman says Gaza is slowly splitting the Jewish community and allowing others to speak out at last - Philip Weiss: "Yesterday we ran a report on Mads Gilbert’s lecture in Chicago on the Gaza onslaught. Gilbert was one of two Norwegian doctors to work at Shifa hospital in Gaza City for twelve days in January. I went to hear him..."

Children in Gaza 'want to die,' but the West Bank isn't Disneyland - Round-up of notes on Palestine, most notably Fatah and collaborators.

West Asia Program - Lowy Institute Program - On this page you can download "Putting the genie back in the bottle: ruling regimes and the new media in the Arab world" - but don't bother, it's a very cursory, outdated intro to Arab new media.

Jihadi Revisionism: Will It Save the World? - Khalil Anani says yes, if the political and social reasons for the rise of jihadism disappear. So, no, basically. [PDF]

Communication breakdow - The National Newspaper - Account of a debate on US-Israel relations between Alan Dershowitz and Michael Scheuer. It's incomprehensible that they did not get someone like Stephen Walt, Scheuer appears to have been quite incompetent.

The Arabist