Epstein Secrets

od faith. SPIEGEL: Libya has been liberated from Moammar Gadhafi's autocratic rule. Tensions in Syria, meanwhile, ha

U.N. bid, if unsuccessful, could spell the end of the Palestinian Authority. There's been a flurry of last-minute pressure f

me's use of violence against protesters and how the US has failed to force Israel to negotiate in good faith. SPIEGEL: Libya has been liberated from Moammar Gadhafi's autocratic rule. Tensions in Syria, meanwhile, have already claimed more civilian lives than the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia combined, and yet t

rorists if the regime collapses. EFTA_R1_00230154 EFTA01842830 In some respects, the potential worst-case scenario is more like Libya, where the Muammar Gaddafi regime lost control of mustard gas supplies and huge stockpiles of modern weapons. While the mustard gas, stored in bulk containers, reportedly wa

Syrian armed forces, which have remained relatively intact, unlike in Libya. Moreover, the Assad regime has more foreign allies than the isolated Gaddafi regime. It can rely on Moscow to block U.N. efforts and Iran and Hezbollah to help it resist a foreign intervention. Such differences would make a

k and East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War. Today, Israel draws a distinction between West Bank settlements and areas of Jerusalem built after 1967 -- the Palestinian Authority does not. (The label "East Jerusalem" can be misleading. It is generally applied to any land beyond the meandering pre-1967 Green Line, even if it

Syrian armed forces, which have remained relatively intact, unlike in Libya. Moreover, the Assad regime has more foreign allies than the isolated Gaddafi regime. It can rely on Moscow to block •. efforts and Iran and Hezbollah to help it resist a foreign intervention. Such differences would make any

ally could find their way to terrorists if the regime collapses. In some respects, the potential worst-case scenario is more like Libya, where the Muammar Gaddafi regime lost control of mustard gas supplies and huge stockpiles of modern weapons. While the mustard gas, stored in bulk containers, reportedly was

k and East Jerusalem in the Six- Day War. Today, Israel draws a distinction between West Bank settlements and areas of Jerusalem built after 1967 -- the Palestinian Authority does not. (The label "East Jerusalem" can be misleading. It is generally applied to any land beyond the meandering pre-1967 Green Line, even if it

o their age than both presidents had been to young Egyptians and Tunisians, and has not been around for too long, as the case with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Additionally his positions vis-a-vis Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, two topics that are d

e its northern neighbor? I am inclined to the second explanation. In a way, though, he'd boxed himself into a corner. Having forced both Israel and the Palestinian Authority into the cul de sac of settlements as the pivotal issue among the parties (a matter already implicitly but not definitively resolved between the tw

which have helped lay the foundations for Palestinian statehood - and endorse the position articulated by the World Bank and the United Nations that the Palestinian Authority is "well positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future." • Accordingly, support the establishment of an independent and

gs for nondemocratic regimes are always preferable to hard ones, even if the process takes some time. A moral argument can be made that monsters like Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and Kim Jong-il in North Korea should be overthrown any way they can, as fast as we can, regardless of the risk of short-term chaos. But tha

e required to hold the state together. To be sure, Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali neither ran police states on the terrifying scale of Libya's Qaddafi and Syria's Assad nor stifled economic progress with such alacrity. But while Mubarak and Ben Ali left their countries in conditions suitable for the

ashington can lawfully continue to provide aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if it includes Hamas as an equal partner. Af

ians and, on present evidence, a bloody stalemate that further destabilizes the region. It's distasteful to contemplate dialogue with leaders such as Gaddafi and Assad who, to put it bluntly, have blood on their hands. But this approach is worth exploring if it can foster a transition to a democratic gover

and Syria. In both cases, the insurgents are seen in the West as the "good guys," battling corrupt, autocratic leaders. Personally, I wish that both Moammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad would give up power tomorrow. But that doesn't seem in the cards: Both leaders have shown they're willing to kill thousands of th

ort—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028670

year ago, sanctions were "painful ... but make us more self-reliant". Indeed, for a regime to be sanctioned is to receive an elixir: witness Castro, Gaddafi, the ayatollahs and the ruling cliques of Burma, Afghanistan and North Korea. That sanctioned regimes sometimes come to an end is not proof that sanc

collapses, makes Israeli concessions or new flexibility in the West Bank impossible and puts paid to the entire "peace process." It brings Hamas into the Palestinian Authority government, ending a period of several years when Palestinian Security Forces have cooperated with the Israel Defense Forces against terrorism and ag

y, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well occasionally makes some correct analysis. Last week, while comparing the uprising in Libya against the Moammar Gadhafi regime and the growing unrest in the Syrian street against the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad, the prime minister correctly said Libya and Syria