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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.

SNIPPET: "Adel Ben Mabrouk, 39, and Mohamed Ben Riadh Nasri, 43, are suspected of being members of a terror group with ties to al-Qaida. They were immediately taken into custody upon arrival in Milan and will be interrogated, a prosecutor told The Associated Press.

SNIPPET: "Arabic language schools in Nasr City are doing well and many Salafists come to Egypt in to learn the language of the Koran. Many deeply religious students from Europe come to Egypt to learn Arabic. The question is: are these European Salafists coming to study the language of the Koran or to prepare terrorist attacks?" SNIPPET: "In addition to language lessons, they usually follow courses in Islamic law offered by teachers ranging from the renowned Al-Azhar University to clandestine imams without permits. "Religious fanatics want to be taken seriously," says Walid al-Gohari, founder and director of the Al-Fajr institute,...

Tunisian authorities have reportedly arrested nine soldiers for allegedly planning attacks on visiting American military officers. The arrests were made under the Tunisian anti-terrorism law, lawyers said. The detainees, two of whom are officers in the Tunisian Air Force, planned to assassinate American military officers who visit the country periodically for military training and joint exercises with the Tunisian army, the German Deutsche Press Agency (DPA) reported. Dr. Jack Kalpakian, a political expert at Morocco’s Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, said he was not surprised to hear news of the terror sweep. “Tunisia’s government has followed a very secularist policy and...

On 9 November, a 38-year old Belgian named Muriel, blew herself to pieces in Baghdad near a group of Iraqi policemen, killing five other people. The woman had converted to Islam after marrying a Belgian of Moroccon origin. Her husband was shot down by American troops. The American authorities informed the Belgian authorities of the woman’s identity a few weeks ago, but Brussels kept it secret. Yesterday evening the Franco-Luxemburgian network RTL announced the news. Last night, the Belgian police arrested 14 people. Nine of them are Belgians, mostly of foreign origin, three are Moroccans and two are Tunisians. They...

A Tunisian court is looking into an unprecedented rape case filed by a Tunisian family against a man who allegedly "raped" their daughter over the phone during an erotic call, press reports said on Thursday. The defendant, 30, denied having ever touched the 20-year-old victim, but admitted that in one of their phone calls, while they were "totally into it," he heard her scream and say that a few drops of blood had come out of her. The victim's lawyer, Maha al-Metebaa, told Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabs that the forensic report showed that the girl had lost her virginity recently, but...

Dubai entered 2009 by becoming yet another victim of the global credit crunch; an exodus of foreign investors has been taking place during the first three months of 2009. However, not so far away, the Tunisian economy is telling a different story. Both the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 have bought good news for Tunisia's business climate; all the sectors that have previously been synonymous with investment in Dubai are now being referenced to this small North African country: tourism, manufacturing, services, etc. Entering into an 'Open Skies' agreement a few weeks ago, Tunisia has poised itself...

Rome - SNIPPET: "Moroccan Mohammed Essadek, 39, and Tunisian Sghaier Miri, 34, left Italy late on Saturday. Essadek had been living in the northern Treviso region. Miri, from the Udinese region in the northeast, was considered to be one of the leaders of the local Muslim community, the agency reported. Investigators alleged that Miri had links with members of Islamist fundamentalist groups active in Tunisia that were financed by al-Qaeda, said the agency report."

A pilot accused of praying when he should have been taking emergency measures to avoid a crash in which 16 people died has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court. Captain Chafik Gharby was at the controls of a plane belonging to the Tunisian charter airline Tuninter that crashed in the sea off the coast of Sicily four years ago. The 23 survivors were left swimming for their lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that stayed afloat after the turbo-prop aircraft broke up on impact. Gharby was at first hailed as a hero...

ERRIADH, TUNISIA // In 586BC the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar laid waste to Jerusalem, inadvertently sowing seeds for a Jewish haven across the sea that has outlived his realm by 25 centuries and counting. Legend tells that refugees fled to the Tunisian island of Djerba, carrying a block from the ruined Temple of Solomon. Today it lies beneath the El Ghriba synagogue, the cornerstone of a thriving Jewish community. And after decades of Jewish exodus from Arab countries, that community is growing. For western holidaymakers, Djerba is a strip of lavish resorts along a sandy Mediterranean coast. For Tunisians, it also...

SNIPPET: "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being tried in absentia for the 2002 attack" SNIPPET: "Telephone calls Kuwaiti-born Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of organising the bombing, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. Under French law the death of the two French means a trial can be held in France. According to court documents, suicide bomber Nizar Nouar called Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mr Ganczarski, a convert to Islam who specialised in communications, just before he drove the gas-laden truck into the synagogue."

A French crew has begun to repair two undersea cables in the Mediterranean that were severed on Friday, disrupting internet and phone communications. A robot submarine will locate the ends of the cables on the sea bed and bring them to the surface to be re-connected. They were cut somewhere between Sicily and Tunisia, probably by an anchor. Egypt says it has been able to restore most of its communications by re-routing services, but other parts of the Middle East remain badly affected. Experts have warned that it may be days before the fault is fixed and that the knock-on...

A man wanted by Interpol for his links to an alleged terrorist organisation has been advising Scotland Yard on countering Muslim extremism, a Times investigation has discovered. Mohamed Ali Harrath has been the subject of the Interpol red notice since 1992 because of his alleged activities in Tunisia, where he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT). Tunisia has accused Mr Harrath, the chief executive officer of the Islam Channel in Britain and an adviser to the Scotland Yard Muslim Contact Unit, of seeking help from Osama bin Laden. It says that the FIT wants to establish “an Islamic state by...

(ANSA) - Milan, December 2 - Two Moroccans arrested on Tuesday were planning terrorist attacks on targets in northern Italy after failing to make the ``necessary contacts`` to be sent abroad as jihad fighters, police said. Rachid Ilhami, 31, and Gafir Abdelkader, 42, are alleged to have been planning attacks on an immigration office and a police barracks in Milan as well as police stations, a supermarket and a night club carpark in smaller towns in the Lombardy region. Milan anti-terrorist unit chief Bruno Megale stressed that the pair were not ``an organic part of any organisation`` despite wiretapped conversations...

A Tunisian court on Monday convicted an alleged former logistics head of al-Qaeda's European operations of belonging to a terrorist group abroad and sentenced him to 11 years in prison, a defense lawyer said. Sami Ben Khemais, 40...

Expanding Afghan War Awaits New President An expanded U.S. military involvement awaits a new U.S. president in Afghanistan where the unfinished business of September 11 has flared over the past three years into a major insurgency. A raft of assessments and reviews now underway in Washington point to a fundamental rethinking of the Afghan war. But whoever is elected Tuesday will face choices on the size of the military buildup, how to strengthen the central government, how far to go in dealing with insurgent sanctuaries across the border, how to help stabilize Pakistan, and whether and how to reconcile...

The President returned from Camp David on Saturday and hosted a Tee Ball game on Sunday. The Vice President concluded his overseas trip with meetings in Italy on Saturday and Sunday and has now boarded AF2 for what I presume is the flight back to the US. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended on Sunday a three-day visit to North Africa, including Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco Pray for President Bush - Day - 2916 & McCain/Palin - Day - 10 Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Italy: 5 arrested on suspicion of planning attacks ROME - Police broke up a suspected terror cell Saturday and arrested five North Africans, including the alleged leader who Italian officials said recruited Islamic extremists for attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

Moroccans and Tunisians have rejected fugitive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's call to violence in two audio recordings aired last week. In bin Laden's first message, aired Wednesday (March 19th) by al-Qaeda's As-Sahab media unit, the terrorist leader accused Pope Benedict XVI of playing a role in a "new crusade" against Islam and warned of a "severe reaction" to cartoons containing images of the Prophet Mohamed reprinted in Danish newspapers in February. In the second message, aired on Thursday, bin Laden rejected negotiations and dialogue and called on Muslims to "liberate Palestine" with "fire and iron". He urged support for...

Al Qaeda's branch for North Africa on Thursday set a three-day deadline to meet conditions for the release of two Austrian tourists it claimed to have kidnapped in Tunisia last month. In a statement posted on the Internet - which included six photographs purportedly showing Austrians Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber - al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa said it would free the pair if all of the group's members were released from jails in Tunisia and Algeria. The posting gave Austrian authorities three days, starting midnight Thursday, to comply.

(IsraelNN.com) Members of the North African branch of the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda announced Monday that they are holding two Austrian tourists hostage "in retribution" for what they claim is Western support for Israeli counter-terrorism operations. Al-Qaeda threatened more such kidnappings. AQIM will issue their demands for release of the two Austrians soon, Abu Muhammad said. In an audio tape aired by the Gulf-based Al-Jazeera satellite network, a man who claimed to represent Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa (AQIM), Salah Abu Mohammad, identified the two Austrians and said they were in good condition. The alleged hostages, a man and a...

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for kidnapping two Austrian tourists last month in Tunisia in an audio recording aired Monday on Al-Jazeera television. A man who identified himself as Salah Abu Mohammed said in the recording that the terrorist group kidnapped the two Austrians on Feb. 22 in retribution for Western cooperation with Israel, but said the hostages were in good health. "We tell Western tourists that at the same time they are flowing into Tunisian lands seeking joy, our brothers are being slain in Gaza by the Jews with the collaboration of the Western...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

A Punic necropolis dating back to the 4th-5th century BC has been recently discovered at the museum of Sousse during extension and refurbishing works that started last May and are due to be completed by the end of the current year... This discovery comes following last year's discovery of a roman burial vault located near the roman catacombs in the district of Bouhsina in Sousse. The vault which is being restored by the INP, contains 2 tombs with the remains of some 13 members of the same family buried together along with sacred ceramic vessels.

Recruitment documents seized by American soldiers on the Iraqi-Syrian border have pointed to the involvement of a Swedish citizen in an organization with ties to al-Qaeda, Svenska Dagbladet reports. Born in Tunisia in 1974, the man - who goes by the cover name Abu Mua’az - moved to Sweden in 2000. Registered at an address in the northwestern Stockholm suburb Rinkeby, he is married with three children, the youngest of whom is two years old. In October 2006, a number of Sunni insurgent groups merged to form the Islamic State of Iraq (Dawlat al-'Iraq al-Islamiyya). Shortly after its foundation, Abu...

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is “Arab”Wednesday, December 19th, 2007Arabs have been unanimous in rejecting the idea of Israel being a “Jewish state.” Their reasons are that, by definition, a Jewish state would be discriminatory against Arabs and Muslims.If you define “Jewish” in purely religious terms, that would mean that any state that defines itself as “Islamic” is, by definition, equally guilty of this discrimination. If you define “Jewish” in ethnic or national terms, then any state that defines itself as “Arab” would be equally guilty of the racism that Israel is being accused of. Time to check out the official hypocrisy...

One of the highest-placed leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the man responsible for kidnapping and killing American soldiers, has been killed by American-led forces. Abu Usama al-Tunisi had become the "emir" of Yusufiyah and led foreign terrorists in their campaign against US and Iraqi forces: U.S.-led forces have killed one of the most important leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Tunisian believed connected to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers, a top commander said Friday. Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson said the death of the terrorist in a U.S. airstrike Tuesday south of Baghdad, and recent similar...

Tunisian president revokes Suha Arafat’s citizenship following rumors of affair with married brother-in-law, business disputes with Tunisian partners Roee Nahmias Published: 08.14.07, 09:45 / Israel News Suha Arafat, widow of former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, has had her Tunisian citizenship revoked, according to recent reports by several Arab media channels. Arafat, widow of former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, was said to have fled to Malta with her daughter last month. Presidential sources kept Arafat’s hasty departure secret, and the Tunisian government was vague about the reason behind her losing her citizenship. According to the London based al-Quds al-Arabi,...

Yasser Arafat's widow Suha lost her Tunisian citizenship, the London-based al Quds alArabi reported Monday. According to the paper, in a special decree published last week, Tunisia's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali announced the withdrawal of Arafat's naturalized status. The news was not reported by the Tunisian media. The Tunisian government did not state a reason for revoking the citizenship, but sources in the local justice system said Arafat lost her "moral and material rights." Arafat, who has been living with her daughter in Tunisia since the death of her husband in 2004, was naturalized in September 2006. Al...

Top advisor: China to deepen reciprocal cooperation with Zimbabwe www.chinaview.cn 2007-04-22 00:05:22 HARARE, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Top Chinese Political advisor Jia Qinglin said here Saturday that China will work with Zimbabwe to deepen bilateral reciprocal cooperation in economy, trade and other fields. Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body, made the remarks at a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He spoke highly of the smooth growth of bilateral relations and cooperation in various fields on the basis of mutual benefit. Jia, who arrived here Friday...

Unlike Islamic curricula in some Arab states, the Islamic curricula in Tunisia consist of a compilation of articles and book excerpts from a variety of original sources. For example, the 11th-grade textbook on Islamic thought is a compilation of articles by 29 authors - including excerpts of books and essays by renowned scholars such as 14th-century North African scholar and historian Ibn Khaldun, 9th-10th century Iraqi theologian Abu Al-Hasan Al-Ash'ari, and luminary Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, alongside Muslim reformist thinkers from the modern period, such as Rifa' Al-Tahtawi, Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani, Muhammad 'Abduh, Ali 'Abd Al-Razeq, 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid...

A play that deals with the roots of religious extremism and modern Tunisian history opened after months of delay. Critics and spectators have hailed the new play for its daring approach. ___________________________________________ A controversial play focusing on terrorism and extremism opened to critical acclaim in Tunisia this month, after authorities allowed it to be staged uncensored. Director Fadhel Jaibi previously refused to cut parts of the play as demanded by the culture ministry's censorship department, causing a delay of several months. "Khamsoun", written by Jalila Bakar, opened at the Municipal Theatre in Tunis earlier this month after debuting at the...

Britons suspected of fighting with Islamic forces in Somalia http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/12/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Somalia.php Britons suspected of fighting with Islamic forces in Somalia returning home The Associated PressPublished: February 12, 2007 LONDON: Four Britons seized in Kenya and suspected of fighting alongside Somalia's ousted Islamic movement were preparing to be deported Monday, Britain's Foreign Office said. The men were seized in January on the Somali border after escaping advancing Ethiopian troops who, together with Somali government troops, ousted the Islamic militants. At least 10 foreigners were held in Kenyan custody, including the Britons, two Americans, a Frenchman and a Tunisian woman, according to Kenyan...

Abdulwahab heard of a plan to put Jewish women in a brothel Israel's main Holocaust memorial centre has for the first time nominated an Arab to be recognised as a "righteous gentile" for saving Jewish lives.Researchers at Yad Vashem will now examine the life of Khaled Abdulwahab, who died in his native Tunisia in 1997, to see if he is eligible for the award. He is said to have sheltered Jews on his land during the Nazi occupation. The Righteous Gentile award has already been bestowed on about 22,000 non-Jews, including 60 Muslims from the Balkans. The request to...

The all out myth of 'all Arabs being natives in all of the middle east'     A myth that terrorists which have far greater ambitions such as to Islamize the entire region if not the entire world or racist local Arabization, have been using it (still do) to the loss of so many lives among Israelis, 'Palestinians', but it is a tool in the wider Arab land to fuel bitterness at the entire west, (with historic colonialists like Great Britain, France, Belgium, etc. in mind).   To be true to history, the Berbers were before the other Arabs...

Amsterdam, 19 December 2006 - Heineken N.V. (Nachrichten/Aktienkurs) announced today the acquisition of 49.99% of the shares in the Tunisian company, Société de Production et de Distribution des Boissons S.A.(SPDB). Heineken is very proud to have Mr. Boujbel, owner of major hotel operations, as its Tunisian partner. Mr. Boujbel holds the majority of the remaining shares and will add his long-standing experience to the venture. The joint venture company will invest in the construction of a new brewery and will brew and distribute Heineken® and local brands in Tunisia. Total initial investment is €27 million, financed through both debt and...

The Canadian edition of Time Magazine has chosen Syrian born Maher Arar as its Newsmaker of the Year. The Ottawa Ontario resident landed at JFK International Airport in New York in September 2002 after returning from Tunisia where his wife has family. The Canadian citizen was detained in New York and then shipped off to his native Syria where he was detained and tortured for over a year before being released. After returning to Canada, Arar chose not to blend into the woodwork but forced the Canadian government to hold an inquiry into his arrest and detention and to examine...

Ramadan 2006 may well be remembered as the Ramadan of the veil. In remarks widely reported in the Arab press, former U.K. foreign secretary Jack Straw described the veil as "a visible statement of separation and difference"; in the ensuing controversy, British Prime Minister Tony Blair lent his support to Straw and made similar comments. In a related development, a teaching assistant in the U.K., Aisha Azmi, was suspended for refusing to remove her veil when teaching. However, the most divisive controversy erupted not in Europe, but in Tunisia, where the government launched a campaign to implement "Decree 108," first...

By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology. The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

FEATURE-Mideast Jewish refugees campaign for recognition22 Oct 2006 10:16:54 GMT Source: Reuters By Jonathan Saul JERUSALEM, Oct 22 (Reuters) - World Jewish groups began a global campaign on Sunday calling for recognition of Jews from Arab countries as refugees in the Middle East conflict. "The world sees the plight of Palestinian refugees, and not withstanding their plight, there must be recognition that Jews from Arab countries are also victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict," said Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC). JJAC, a U.S.-based coalition of Jewish organisations, is one of the groups coordinating the...

Tunisia's headscarf controversy took on a new dimension when the Foreign Ministry closed its embassy in Qatar on Wednesday (October 25th) after the Tunisian government accused Al-Jazeera of favouring Tunisian fundamentalists on the issue. In an interview with the Doha-based satellite station on October 14th, Tunisian opposition figure Moncef Marzouki called for "civil disobedience, using peaceful means to impose rights and freedoms in Tunisia". The Foreign Ministry responded by accusing Al-Jazeera of waging "a hostile campaign aimed at harming Tunisia." Hédi M'henni, secretary general of the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally, opened the headscarf debate at the start of Ramadan when...

NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Defying the Islamic clamor in some European countries, Tunisia has served notice that it will continue to oppose any "sectarian dress" incompatible with its tradition. This includes head scarves for women, who have been reminded that, according to a 25-year-old government directive, they are not to wear the "Islamic scarf" in schools and public buildings. In contrast to neighboring Algeria, the veil has rarely been worn in Tunisia. Such a form of dress, a senior Tunisian official said, "reminds us of the time when extremists threw acid in the faces of unveiled women. Fundamentalists have totally failed...

What happened to the 50 tons of gold, silver and sacred treasures looted from Herod's Temple following the Roman legionnaires' sack of Jerusalem on Tisha b'Av in the year 70 CE? The Arch of Titus in Rome, erected shortly after the death of Titus who reigned as emperor from 79 to 81, clearly depicts Roman soldiers bearing on their shoulders the golden candelabrum, silver trumpets and bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence which the Roman emperor Vespasian and his son Titus carted back to Rome as trophies of war. Between 75 CE and the early 5th century, the treasure...

The Collapse of the Second Front Editor: John Feffer, IRC Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org It started in 2002 with a few hesitant probes that were low on intelligence, high on imagination, and short a couple of helicopters reportedly lost in the desert wastelands of northern Mali. Then, in 2003, the U.S. launch of a second front in its “war on terror” moved into top gear. In collaboration with its regional ally Algeria, the Bush administration identified a banana-shaped swath of territory across the Sahelian regions of the southern Sahara that presumably harbored Islamic militants and bin Laden sympathizers on...

Human rights groups in Tunisia say women who wear an Islamic headscarf are being persecuted by the authorities. The groups say that school girls with the headscarf are being harassed and forced to remove the headcover at schools and universities. The authorities deny this, but say they are encouraging women, instead, to wear modest dress in line with Tunisian traditions. This is a long-running battle between the authorities and Islamist groups. It is part of a wider war between the ostensibly secular - and at times despotic - Arab governments and increasingly assertive Islamist groups. The challenge facing the Tunisian...

VATICAN CITY, SEP 25, 2006 (VIS) - This morning in the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo, Benedict XVI received Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, and representatives from Muslim-majority countries that maintain diplomatic links with the Holy See. Participating in the meeting were heads of mission from Kuwait, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Albania, the Arab League, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Iran and Azerbaijan. Also present were 14 members of the Islamic Council of Italy and representatives from the Italian Islamic Cultural Center and the Office of...

France has deported a Tunisian man to his homeland despite protests that he could face torture there. Adel Tebourski, 42, was put on an Air France flight back to Tunisia on Monday, officials said. Tebourski had served a jail sentence in France after being convicted of helping the killers of Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Masood in 2001. The French authorities described Tebourski as a serious threat to national security. French campaigners have said he could be tortured in Tunisia, and the UN torture committee last month called on Paris to suspend his deportation, the French news agency AFP reports....

WHAT should Arabs do to meet the challenges they face in a world not made by, or for, them? Debated in Arab countries since the middle of the 19th century, the question has been posed with even greater urgency since the 9/11 tragedy persuaded many in the West to regard all Arabs as enemies. Remarkably, the answers given today are more or less the same as those of 150 years ago. One answer, long the one most popular with the elites, is that Arabs should Westernize as fast as they can. Abdul-Rahman al-Kawakibi, the father of modern reformism in the...