Sarkozy visit to Damascus signals thaw in relationsIan ...€¦  · Web viewYEDIOTH AHRONOTH. A friendship in progress…………………………….……….1. WOLD NET NEWS.

Mon. 27 Dec. 2010

YEDIOTH AHRONOTH A friendship in progress …………………………….……….1

WOLD NET NEWS Look what Obama expects Israel to give up now ……….…..4

AHRAM ONLINE Egyptian spy handed Israel files on Syria's nuclear program .6

LATIMES ISRAEL: Neighbors watchful as Israel demarcates maritime

borders with Cyprus………………………………………....8

HAARETZ A dangerous silence ……………………………………….11

WASHINGTON POST Egypt's real state of emergency is its repressed

democracy…..By Mohamad ElBaradei…………..………..13

SUNA TIMES Syria arrests, tortures, deports Somali immigrants ……..….15

NYTIMES Preserving Heritage, and the Fabric of Life, in Syria ………17

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HOME PAGEA friendship in progress Op-ed: Despite closer ties, ‘Muslim factor’ still undermines India-Israel relationship Arielle Kandel Yedioth Ahronoth,26 Dec. 2010,

The support expressed for Syria’s sovereignty on the Golan Heights by Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil during her state visit to Damascus made the headlines of Israeli newspapers a few weeks ago. However, President Patil’s statement is hardly significant and surprising in itself.

Although the president of India is theoretically the head of state and supreme commander of the Indian armed forces, the role is essentially ceremonial. In practice, it is the Council of Ministers and, in particular, the Indian prime minister that effectively govern the country.

Also, the backing by India’s president of Syria’s claims over the Golan is no startling news. Indian leaders have consistently called for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories, including the Golan Heights, and President Patil is a member of the Indian National Congress, a party traditionally very supportive of Palestinian and Arab claims. In fact, even senior representatives of the Bharatiya Janata Hindu nationalist party (BJP), far more sympathetic to the Jewish state, have upheld, although in less overt terms, Syria’s claims over the Golan Heights.

The visit to Syria of India’s President Patil, and her statement at the joint press conference with Assad, do, however, highlight several important and rather problematic features of the Indo-Israeli relationship.

First and foremost, they expose Israel’s inability, yet, to translate the progress achieved in bilateral relations since normalization into achievements on the multilateral front. Indo-Israeli diplomatic

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and political ties have substantially improved and cooperation has greatly expanded in the military sphere, as well as in agriculture and in science and technology, among other sectors. But it has proved difficult for Israel, not to say impossible, to gain explicit Indian diplomatic and political support in the regional and international arenas.

It is true that India has toned down its rhetoric toward Israel in the United Nations. In particular, it has stopped participating along with Muslim countries in the active promotion of resolutions adverse to Israel. Still, for the time being India’s voting records and speeches at the UN General Assembly on issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict remain resolutely in favor of Arab countries.

Disappointment over the lack of progress achieved in Indo-Israeli diplomatic and political ties goes beyond the multilateral level. Even though bilateral visits and agreements between the two countries have greatly increased since normalization, there have been very few visits of top Indian government officials to Israel. To date, no Indian president or prime minister has come to Israel.

Creative approach neededPrime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to India in 2003 was expected to pave the way for a reciprocal visit of Prime Minister Vajpayee. However, visit never came about, although Vajpayee had consistently expressed his government’s and political party’s sympathy for the Jewish state, and had greatly contributed to strengthening and expanding ties with Israel.

Prospects of an Indian prime minister coming to Israel have become even dimmer since the Congress party returned to power in 2004. In contrast, Indian leaders regularly visit Gulf and other Mideast countries. President Patil returned recently from a state visit to the United Arab Emirates and Syria. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Qatar and Oman in 2008, and Saudi Arabia last year.

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To a large extent, it is the so-called “Muslim factor” that hinders the development of closer diplomatic and political ties between India and Israel. The Muslim factor also drives Indian efforts to keep relations with Israel away from the glare of publicity.

Externally, the Muslim constraint relates to India's interdependence with the Middle East. India’s Israel policy is guided by fears to hurt close ties and strategic interests with the Muslim and Arab world, rather than real interest in or concern with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In its internal dimension, the Muslim factor refers to the constraints imposed by India's sizeable Muslim population. India is home to about 150 million Muslims, the world’s second largest Muslim population after Indonesia and one of the largest Muslim-minority populations worldwide. Many in the Indian political establishment are still convinced that India has to be careful when dealing with Israel, lest the parties in power will lose Muslim votes.

In recent years new fears have also surfaced that a segment of India’s Muslim population may be drawn to Islamic radicalism coming from outside India, and that a too visible and friendly relationship with Israel may hasten such developments.

India will likely continue to support Palestinian and Arab claims in the years to come. However, there is no reason to believe that the weight of the Muslim factor on India’s Israeli policy may not be lessened in the medium to long term. We can succeed in finding creative ways to address this constraint. The Israeli Embassy in New Delhi has engaged in the past year a series of efforts to reach out to the Muslim community in India. Such a program, along with other similar initiatives, should be encouraged.

Arielle Kandel, a fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute, specializes in Indo-Israeli relations

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Look what Obama expects Israel to give up now Negotiators push surrender of territory twice used to invade Jewish stateBy Aaron Klein,World Net News (American blog)December 26, 2010

TEL AVIV – The Obama administration is pressing Israel to enter into negotiations with Syria aimed at compelling an Israeli retreat from the strategic Golan Heights, WND has learned.

Syria is in a military alliance with Iran. The country twice used the Golan, which looks down on Israeli population centers, to mount grounds invasions into the Jewish state.

Informed Middle East security officials tell WND that Dennis Ross, an envoy for the White House in the Middle East, visited both Israel and Syria last week to discuss specifics of a deal in which Syria would eventually take most of the Golan.

According to the security officials, Ross is slated to become Obama's main envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian affairs issue, with the current envoy, George Mitchell, expected to step down.

With Israel, Ross discussed specifics of a deal with Syria, including which territory Israel would be expected to evacuate in both the Golan and the Jordan Valley, the security officials said.

The officials said that Ross told Syria it needs to scale back its relationship with Iran and stop facilitating the re-armament of Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah reportedly now has over 10,000 missiles and rockets, including a large number that can reach Tel Aviv and beyond.

During the 2008 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah's rocket attacks against the Israeli north in 2006 killed 43 Israeli civilians and wounded more than 4,000.

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The Middle Eastern security officials, meanwhile, told WND there were some signs U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran are having an effect on the regime in Tehran. The officials said that in recent months, Iran decreased its funding to Hezbollah as well as to the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Jewish Golan News media accounts routinely billed the Golan as "undisputed Syrian territory" until Israel "captured the region" in 1967. The Golan, however, has been out of Damascus' control for far longer than the 19 years it was within its rule, from 1948 to 1967.

Even when Syria shortly held the Golan, some of it was stolen from Jews. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland on the Golan were purchased by Jews as far back as the late 19th century. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire kicked out some Jews around the turn of the century.

But some of the Golan was still farmed by Jews until 1947, when Syria first became an independent state. Just before that, the territory was transferred back and forth between France, Britain and even Turkey, before it became a part of the French Mandate of Syria.

When the French Mandate ended in 1944, the Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria, which quickly seized land that was being worked by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Jewish Colonization Association. A year later, in 1948, Syria, along with other Arab countries, used the Golan to attack Israel in a war to destroy the newly formed Jewish state.

The Golan, steeped in Jewish history, is connected to the Torah and to the periods of the First and Second Jewish Temples. The Golan Heights was referred to in the Torah as "Bashan." The word "Golan" apparently was derived from the biblical city of "Golan in Bashan."

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The book of Joshua relates how the Golan was assigned to the tribe of Manasseh. Later, during the time of the First Temple, King Solomon appointed three ministers in the region, and the area became contested between the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and the Aramean kingdom based in Damascus.

The book of Kings relates how King Ahab of Israel defeated Ben-Hadad I of Damascus near the present-day site of Kibbutz Afik in the southern Golan, and the prophet Elisha foretold that King Jehoash of Israel would defeat Ben-Hadad III of Damascus, also near Kibbutz Afik.

The online Jewish Virtual Library has an account of how in the late 6th and 5th centuries B.C., the Golan was settled by Jewish exiles returning from Babylonia, or modern day Iraq. In the mid–2nd century B.C., Judah Maccabee's grandnephew, the Hasmonean King Alexander Jannai, added the Golan Heights to his kingdom.

The Golan hosted some of the most important houses of Torah study in the years following the Second Temple's destruction and subsequent Jewish exile; some of Judaism's most revered ancient rabbis are buried in the territory. The remains of some 25 synagogues from the period between the Jewish revolt and the Islamic conquest in 636 have been excavated. The Golan is also dotted with ancient Jewish villages.

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Egyptian spy handed Israel files on Syria's nuclear program Relations between Egypt and Syria remain strong as the two cooperate in the aftermath of the Israeli spy ringAhmed Eleiba, Ahram Online,Sunday 26 Dec 2010

A source in the Syrian foreign ministry has told Ahram Online that the Egyptian-Syrian security cooperation has not been

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damaged despite the sensitive political situation between the two countries.

On the contrary, they continue to work together in many cases, including the recently revealed network of spies, lead by the agent Tarek Abdel Razeq.

The source added that after the discovery of this conspiracy, Egypt handed over to Damascus a dossier of sensitive technical information relating to Syria’s nuclear program, including the project’s maps and strategic positions and means of obtaining nuclear materials.

The file has been a rich source of details for the discovery of a network cell in Syria. The most prominent piece of information is that of a chemical expert, a high ranking member of Damascus’ security apparatus, who cooperated with Israel for thirteen years.

The source says that the investigation remains open, with “other individuals” not yet identified. According to the source, existing information confirms there is a security breach extending to “security personnel in Syria.”

The source, who wished to remain anonymous, added that Israel maintains its position as “an enemy to Arabs” and this, in his words, is one of main consequences of the discovery of the tripartite networks in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. In his opinion the peace deal between Israel and Egypt did not prevent a continuation of an intelligence war by Tel Aviv to damage inter Arab relations. He concluded this from the Egyptian prosecutor general’s statements against Abdel Razeq, including that of Israel seeking to harm relations between Arab countries The source ruled out that it was on the operations agenda of the espionage case to assassinate figures in Syria such the Hezbollah leaders Emad Mughneyah (who was assassinated in February 2008) or Lieutenant Mohammed Souleyman (assassinated in August 2008) who worked as a consultant to the Syrian president.

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He added that Israeli “intelligence arms at this level” have been able to penetrate highly sensitive security positions in Syria.

National and territorial security experts described “the next scenario as more difficult.” The experts say that Israel wanted to form a large super network in several Arab countries and that the information available now indicates that the case of Abdel Razeq – and the disintegration of a similar network in Lebanon – is the beginning of the disintegration of the basis of internet wars, wars called, in the language of military experts, as wars “of the sixth generation” (of Israel) which it jumped to straight after the “fourth generation” wars which Israel also excelled in by procuring F35 fighter planes and Neutron bombs which kill people inside buildings without destroying the buildings. Cyber wars, on the other hand, destroy buildings without harming people.

Another expert says that after studying other espionage cases, a precise focus on the new axes that weren’t seen in espionage wars between the Arabs and Israel is demanded.

The first of these is the use of people with little knowledge or training in intelligence while the technical accuracy of intelligence equipment increases. But it is enough that the spy is sensitive to security as Mossad asked of Abdel Razeq to describe the security apparatuses in the Syrian airport and streets.

Israel has created a new map for spying on Egypt and Arab states, as well as, for the first time, states such as Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Macau and Thailand as well as China and India, where the Egyptian spy first met the Mossad agents who trained him.

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ISRAEL: Neighbors watchful as Israel demarcates maritime borders with CyprusLATimes,26 Dec. 2010,

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Huge gas fields discovered recently under the Mediterranean seabed have raised high hopes in Israel, a small, high-consumption country seeking alternative energy resources and a greater degree of independence from imports.

In a different geopolitical reality, the discovery could benefit the whole region — if it was on speaking terms. Everyone wants to tap natural resources — but this one taps into standing regional squabbles.

Israel and Lebanon, for example. The deposits extend into areas controlled by Lebanon, and it has accused Israel of moving in on its natural resources. Not so, says Israel, which maintains that the fields lie between its territory and Cyprus. Israel's minister of national infrastructures, Uzi Landau, even said Israel would "not hesitate to use force" to protect the fields and uphold international maritime law.

Then there's the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. Israeli officials have expressed concern that gas rigs off its northern coast would make an attractive target for rockets and terrorist attacks.

Maritime borders are a fluid affair. There are several methods for calculating these in lieu of a direct bilateral agreement, which is not an option for Israel and Lebanon.

Israel had neglected to sort this out with Cyprus, which "owns" the other end of the Mediterranean. Now the two countries have divvied up the roughly 200 nautical miles between them and the maritime border was demarcated in a recent agreement signed in Nicosia by Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou and Landau. Israeli diplomats say the agreement should secure Israel's economic interests in the Mediterranean. Cyprus says this doesn't conflict with a similar agreement signed with Lebanon, still awaiting ratification in parliament.

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Now Egypt is watching, to ensure the agreement doesn't infringe on Egyptian maritime territories and its interests. It too has signed a deal with Cyprus.

Agreement in the region is a short blanket; cover one side, and someone else's feet stick out. Now Turkey is angry.

Although Turkey has no claim to the area demarcated with Israel, the Turkish foreign ministry fiercely criticized the agreement saying it didn't consider "Turkish Cypriot" rights and jurisdiction over the maritime areas of the island.

Turkey's 1974 takeover of northern Cyprus remains internationally contested, as Israeli commentators were pleased to point out when Turkish officials slammed the agreement. Turkey has gall to demand rights based on its occupation of northern Cyprus, Israeli diplomatic sources said.

Israel, whose once warm relations with Turkey have suffered in the last year, is interested in patching things up. While willing to bend a little, senior Israeli officials draw the line at the apology Turkey has sought for the deadly raid on an aid flotilla headed to Gaza. Turkey's dispatch of planes to help put out the Carmel Forest fire this month opened the door to a reconciliation. There was some progress, then the talks foundered. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed internal disputes within the Israeli government, where coalition rivalries can result in contradictory messages.

Israel's own tough-talking Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman demonstrated this Thursday. Lashing out at a conference of Israeli diplomats, Lieberman said he can "no longer stand the lies" of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan or Davutoglu, who said it would have taken Israel days to send the kind of aid Ankara sent Israel during the fire. Reminding Turkey of Israel's extensive delegation in its 1999 earthquake, Lieberman called Turkey's demand for an apology for the May flotilla "more than chutzpah."

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He also had a go at the Palestinians and at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took a while before issuing a statement declaring that ministers may have different positions on matters, Israel's position is "solely the one the prime minister expresses."

Back to the gas. Beyond geopolitics, the discovery is also giving Israelis a bellyache. The two main sites — Tamar and Leviathan — could answer Israel's natural gas needs for decades. With the reserves' value estimated at about $300 billion, a bitter public debate is raging over who will benefit most and how to divide profits between state, tycoons and small investors.

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A dangerous silence Those who think that the world will forget about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are living with illusions. By Yehuda Ben Meir Haaretz,26 Dec. 2010,

The peace process has reached a dead end. The United States has thrown up its hands over anything related to the construction freeze in the settlements and has even acknowledged that it is powerless to revive direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians. This will certainly please some of us; some on the extreme right will even rejoice. They would imagine that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has overpowered the U.S. president and Israel has been saved from the wicked designs of Barack Hussein Obama. A real modern version of the Hanukkah miracle.

But it's all an illusion. The negative developments in the peace process should evoke deep concern in the heart of every Israeli familiar with international realities. The leadership provided in the peace process by the United States, which is still Israel's best friend (with the possible exception of Fiji ), has been a diplomatic asset of the first order for Israel. An erosion of that leadership and

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a rise in influence of other parties such as the European Union, Russia and even South America do not bode well for Israel.

Those who think that the world will forget about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are living with illusions. Israel is on a slippery slope leading who knows where. In the absence of a peace process and a real Israeli diplomatic initiative, the diplomatic siege on the country will continue to tighten. Companies are already moving their plants from Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria because they find it difficult to export their products. It's not a case of a single dramatic event, but a long-term disastrous process.

It should not be assumed that the United States will give up its leadership of the process. Sooner or later it will have to present bridging proposals on all the core issues. Under the current relations between Israel and the United States, it's highly doubtful those proposals will be coordinated with Israel. Israel, of course, could reject them, but what would begin in the first act as American bridging proposals would lead in the third act to UN Security Council resolutions and in the last act to sanctions. The United States will find it hard to veto a proposal that the Americans themselves suggested to the parties.

In addition to the difficult diplomatic situation, there is the erosion of Israel's image as a democratic state. The fact that it's the only democracy in the Middle East is the source of its support in the world. If the extreme right with the tacit consent of the moderate right continues to damage Israel's democratic image, which is also its Jewish image, we will face a hopeless situation.

The prime minister must come to his senses before it's too late. When the government is not ready to present its position on permanent borders (even on a conditional basis for negotiations ), its support for a two-state solution is perceived as misleading. The prime minister must show leadership, make his own proposals and head off stagnation. If he does, the people will be with him.

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Egypt's real state of emergency is its repressed democracy Mohamed ElBaradeiWashington Post,Sunday, December 26, 2010;

Egypt has recently held yet another fraudulent and farcical election. Ballot boxes were stuffed. Votes were bought. People who considered voting for the opposition were subjected to violence by professional thugs. And these transgressions have been well documented by human rights groups.

Democracy must mean more than merely going through the motions.

In theory, Egypt has a constitution and laws that reflect the will of its people. But in reality, the provisions are a hodgepodge that perpetuates the iron grip of the ruling regime. President Hosni Mubarak enjoys imperial powers. There is no legislative oversight of the military budget. No more than five people are permitted to assemble without permission to stage a peaceful demonstration. Universities have security forces on campus to ensure that students do not engage in political activities.

A recent constitutional amendment has made it almost impossible for an independent actor to run for president. Any candidate who is not a member of an officially sanctioned party is forbidden to have a headquarters or to raise funds. Political activists are often blocked from renting venues for meetings. In the 12 months since I began campaigning for reform in Egypt, I have received a flood of requests for interviews, but after the recent crackdown on the media hardly any local TV stations have dared to express interest in talking to me.

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In theory, Egypt has multiple political parties. In practice, establishing such a party requires permission from a committee dominated by the National Democratic Party (NDP) - the political machine that has kept Mubarak in power since 1981. And any new party must exist for five years before it can field a presidential candidate.

In theory, Egypt has an elected president. But over the past half-century, the country has had only three rulers. There were differences in their style and vision, but all have presided over an authoritarian and repressive political system. For the past 29 years, Egyptian society has existed under a draconian "state of emergency," a tool that has allowed the president to suspend basic constitutional protections and that has been used to detain, torture and sometimes kill those who dare to dissent.

In theory, Egypt has a democratically elected parliament. In practice, one-third of the members of its upper house are appointed by the president. Of the 508 seats, 440 are held by members of the NDP. In no way is the Egyptian parliament representative of the Egyptian people. Although about 10 percent of Egyptians are Coptic Christians, the Copts hold only 3 seats in parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood, a religious movement that managed to win 20 percent of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections, was shut out of the November elections and now holds no seats. The Wafd, the largest liberal party, won six seats. Both boycotted the run-off vote because of the substantial fraud committed and documented during the first-round voting last month.

In theory, Egypt has a court system; in fact, legal decisions are often ignored when they run contrary to government policy.

Egypt's economic and social fabric continues to deterioriate. Despite annual growth in gross domestic product of 5 to 6 percent the past few years, there has been little to no trickle-down effect. The obscene gap between rich and poor worsens daily. The middle class has all but disappeared. More than 40 percent of Egyptians

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live on less than $2 per day. Nearly 30 percent are illiterate - a sad commentary for the culture that, more than 2,000 years ago, gave the world the Library of Alexandria. In Cairo, a mega-city of more than 15 million, half the population lives in shantytowns next to gated communities that rival the opulence in Southern California.

Egypt urgently needs a new beginning. The voices of dissent are growing in number. We come from many orientations, from different vocations, from different parts of society, from different faiths. But we speak with a single voice in seeking social justice. We demand an accountable and transparent system of government, with meaningful checks and balances. We want economic opportunity for all Egyptians and the right to live in dignity and freedom. Together we are organizing around peaceful change. The international community ought to support our struggle for freedom and hold Egypt to its international commitments with respect to human rights. The rights of the Egyptian people should not be trampled in exchange for an elusive promise of stability.

The present pseudo-stability based on repression is a ticking bomb that is dangerously close to exploding. Lasting stability in Egypt, as in any nation, will come only through genuine democracy that responds fairly to the needs and aspirations of all its people.

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Syria arrests, tortures, deports Somali immigrants Shuaib GemalSuna Times (Somali blog)Sunday, December, 26 2010

DAMASCUS- Syrian security forces on the border with Turkey arrested, tortured and threatened deportation to at least 11 Somali immigrants who escaped from the violence in their country, police sources said.

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The war weary fleeing Somalis have considered Syria as safe sanctuary and human rights’ minder, but instead they are jailed, beaten and deported back to the ‘hell’ in Somalia.

Four of the immigrants who are women have escaped from Somalia after Somalia’s extremist group of Alshabaab have tried to get them forcibly married to foreign terrorists in their ranks.

" The 11 Somalis are in our jails and they were arrested on their to Turkey from Syria two weeks ago" A Syrian police official who asked not to be named says.

" Our commanders have ordered to punish them for the reason of entering Syria and deport them after a week" he added.

According to the police, the immigrants will be deported back to the world’s most dangerous country, Somalia where they have left for security reasons and poverty.Last week, human rights watch has angrily ordered Saudi Arabia to stop deporting Somalis fleeing their violence ridden country after Saudi authorities returned at least 150 Somali nationals, many of them children, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on December 17, 2010, press reports said. Saudi Arabia had deported an estimated 2,000 Somalis to Mogadishu in June and July, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

No comments could be reached from the human rights’ groups on the matter.Somalis in their country are subject to abuses by Somalia’s extremist group Alshabaab. Since last year, Alshabaab have executed more than 40 people after an ad-hoc courts’ verdicts without evidence of the alleged crimes.Al-Shabab, which vows allegiance to al-Qaida and whose members include foreign fighters, controls large parts of southern Somalia and much of the capital, Mogadishu.

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Somalia has not had an effective central government for 19 years. The U.N.-backed government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu, while its allies control much of central Somalia.Shuaib Gemal, is a freelance journalist based in Damascus, Syria. He writes for different int't and local media.

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Preserving Heritage, and the Fabric of Life, in Syria By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFFNYTimes,26 Dec. 2010,

ALEPPO, Syria — At first glance it seems an unremarkable scene: a quiet plaza shaded by date palms in the shadow of this city’s immense medieval Citadel, newly restored to its looming power. Foreign tourists sit side by side with people whose families have lived here for generations; women, both veiled and unveiled, walk arm in arm past a laborer hauling tools into an old government building being converted into a hotel.

But this quiet plaza is the centerpiece of one of the most far-thinking preservation projects in the Middle East, one that places as much importance on people as it does on the buildings they live in. The project encompasses the rebuilding of crumbling streets and the upgrading of city services, the restoration of hundreds of houses in the historic Old City, plans for a 42-acre park in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and the near-decade-long restoration of the Citadel itself, whose massive walls dominate the skyline of Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and a gem of Islamic architecture.

The effort, led by a German nonprofit group and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture working with local government, is the culmination of a major philosophical shift among preservationists in the region. It seeks to reverse a 50-year history during which preservation, by myopically focusing on restoring major architectural artifacts, sometimes destroyed the communities around them. Other restoration efforts have also sparked

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gentrification, driving the poor from their homes and, at their worst, fostering rage that plays into the hands of militants.

By offering an array of financial and zoning incentives to homeowners and shopkeepers, this approach has already helped stabilize impoverished communities in a part of the world where the most effective social programs for the poor are often still run by extremist organizations like Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The project in Aleppo is quite an exceptional model,” said Daniele Pini, a preservationist who has worked for Unesco, the United Nations cultural arm, throughout the region. In places like Cairo and Jordan, he said, those who would restore historic buildings and those who live in them are often at loggerheads. The Aleppo plan, he said, “allows people to adapt the old houses to the needs of modern life.”

Correcting Past Blunders The role of postwar urban planning in the rise of fundamentalism is well documented. In the 1950s and ’60s nationalist governments in countries like Egypt, Syria and Iraq typically viewed the congested alleys and cramped interiors of historic centers not as exotic destinations for tourists but as evidence of a backward culture to be erased. Planners carved broad avenues through dense cities, much as Haussmann had before them in Paris. Families that had lived a compartmentalized existence — with men often segregated from women in two- or three-story courtyard houses — were forced into high-rises with little privacy, while the wealthy fled for villas in newly created suburbs.

But while preservationists may have scorned Modernist housing blocks, they were often just as insensitive to the plight of local residents who got in their way. Even as they worked to restore architectural monuments in the Muslim world, they could be disdainful of the dense urban fabric that surrounded these sites. Neighborhoods were sometimes bulldozed to clear space around landmarks so they would be more accessible to tourists.

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Agencies like Unesco often steered governments toward a Western-style approach to preservation. Traditionally a family might have built onto a house to accommodate a newly married son, for instance, adding a floor or a shop out front. But those kinds of changes were often prohibited under preservation rules.

“The word ‘athar’ — ‘antiquities’ — became a horrible word because it meant preserving our houses but not our traditions,” said Omar Hallaj, the chief executive of the Syria Trust for Development and a preservationist who has worked in Syria and Yemen.

These tensions grew with the boom in global tourism, as cities around the world sought to give travelers the “authentic” experience they craved, but in a safe, tidy and germ-free environment. The Old City of Damascus, for example, has in the last decade become a major draw both for the international tourist set and for Arabs who began traveling closer to home after Sept. 11. According to informed estimates, the number of foreign visitors to Syria has quadrupled over the last five years.

Even as the city government races to preserve its character, its courtyard houses are being converted into boutique hotels and fashionable restaurants. Many 20th-century structures — including impressive examples of early modern architecture from the time of the French mandate period — remain unprotected. The city has introduced incentives to keep some homeowners, but many preservationists think it’s too late.

Militant Islamic hardliners, meanwhile, have had equal disdain for both the modernizers and for the preservationists, many of them Western, who followed them.

“I remember when we first moved into the city of Zabid in Yemen, the local imam started going to the mosque saying, ‘The Germans are here to transform your towns into cabarets and brothels,’ ” Mr. Hallaj said.

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What many militant extremists are fixated on is a utopia of the past: a vision of Islam in the era of the Prophet. Not only Western influence, but also three centuries of Ottoman rule — the period when the fabric of most Arab cities was created — is seen as a form of corruption.

“What is interesting about this whole argument between the modernizers on the one hand and fundamentalists on the other is that it all happens on the level of ideology,” Malise Ruthven, a historian who has written books on Islamic fundamentalism, said in a recent interview. Mohamed Atta, the central planner of the 9/11 attacks, once wrote an urban planning thesis on the Old City of Aleppo in which he said he wanted to tear out centuries’ worth of buildings, Mr. Ruthven said. He dreamed of “an Islamic city that was pure and unchanged — frozen in aspic.”

Benefits for Residents At first sight the plan for Aleppo’s rehabilitation may not seem a radical departure from preservation as usual. Led by GTZ, a nonprofit organization owned by the German government, it began with a two-year analysis of the city’s historic structures that included hundreds of interviews with residents.

With GTZ’s guidance the government began laying more than 323 miles of sewage and water pipes, removing the webs of dilapidated electrical wiring that stretched across its alleyways and replacing missing cobblestones. To encourage building owners and their tenants to stay, the group set up a pilot program that offered interest-free construction loans. For those who accepted, it helped ensure that any renovations followed preservation guidelines.

“The rationale was that if the state is forcing preservation on people,” Mr. Hallaj said, “then the state has a responsibility to pay for that burden. So if they want a historical hand-carved window instead of an aluminum one, the state pays the difference.” Other incentives were put in place to encourage local businesses to stay

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— the kind of small neighborhood commercial establishments whose importance was championed by urban thinkers like Jane Jacobs.

What makes the project such an auspicious model for the region, though, is its clear grasp of how architecture can both shape and define relationships among social groups. Long before developers got an inkling of what was going on, GTZ and its government partners divided the Old City into zones, with new hotels and restaurants confined to two areas, one around the Citadel and the other in the Jdayde neighborhood. (GTZ describes Jdayde as an area of crooked streets and tiny shops with a large Christian population that would be more accepting of tourists than some of the more heavily Muslim areas.)

These zones, in turn, are being anchored by increasingly ambitious — and often architecturally magnificent — public spaces. The first, Al-Hatab Square in Jdayde, is a small patch of stone shaded by a few trees. Once partly built over with squalid sheds, the square has become a vibrant mix of Syrian families and foreign tourists, framed by old jewelry shops, fish markets and cafes.

It has been a decade since the Aga Khan Trust for Culture began its meticulous restoration of the Citadel. Its enormous moat was cleared of garbage and lined with low-growing plants. The ruins of houses and shops built by Ottoman soldiers stationed here in the 18th century, and destroyed in the 1828 earthquake were torn down. The mazelike interior walls — a monument to medieval paranoia designed to keep invaders from reaching the court’s inner sanctum — were cleared of rubble.

Just as important is the social vision behind it. The road surrounding the Citadel, which choked it with cars and exhaust fumes, has been replaced by a pedestrian walkway bordered by the newly landscaped moat on one side and scattered historical buildings on the other. Many of these are being beautifully restored, including a palatial 1930 neo-Classical structure that is being transformed into a hotel by the Aga Khan Fund for

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Economic Development. But if some of them — former government ministries built during the early half of the 20th century — are being turned into luxurious hotels for the wealthy, it is the buildings, not the public, that seem to be confined behind iron gates.

What’s particularly striking is the sense of shared ownership and belonging. The poor seem as comfortable strolling along the Citadel’s paths as the rich, which is all the more striking given that Syria is controlled by the authoritarian government of Bashar al-Assad and the ruling Baath Party. It is a expression of how public space, when thoughtfully designed, can promote a more egalitarian vision of civic life.

This atmosphere filters into the surrounding streets. The cobblestones look freshly scrubbed; the heavy wood shutters that front the old shops have yet to acquire the patina of age. But the clash of historical styles and eras that shaped Aleppo — and that made it one of the world’s great cosmopolitan centers — have not been smoothed over. And for the moment at least, you get the encouraging feeling that it is possible to push back at the forces of displacement. It’s a city being adapted for human beings, not for some abstract vision of a global consumer.

There is more to come. A few months ago the Aga Khan Trust for Culture began building the foundations for the 42-acre park in an impoverished neighborhood just outside one of the gates of the Old City. This hilltop site is now strewn with garbage. A sprawling asphalt parking lot borders it on one side; crumbling modern apartment blocks — the kind that 9/11’s mastermind envisioned demolishing — and decrepit 19th-century houses line the other.

The project, which is being modeled on an earlier one in Cairo, Al-Azhar Park, will feature rambling walkways and gardens with views over the Old City to the refurbished Citadel. The trust plans to train local people in traditional crafts like carpentry and stonecutting so they can take part in the park’s construction.

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In a speech he gave in Aleppo two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Aga Khan described his mission as creating an intellectual garden “where there would be no possibility of suffocation from the dying weeds of dogma” and “beauty would be seen in the articulation of difference,” a statement crystallizing what preservationists hope will happen now in Aleppo.

A Search for Continuity The tricky question — and the one that may have the most longstanding impact for the Middle East — is whether Aleppo can carry its vision of social and historical continuity into the future. The government recently started an architectural competition for a new cultural complex that will include a 1,600-seat opera house, library and exhibition space in an area built during the French mandate.

And the city’s mayor, Maan Chibli, said that he recently asked GTZ to help plan for the redevelopment of the informal ramshackle settlements that have sprouted on Aleppo’s outskirts.

“These settlements date from the 1970s,” Mr. Chibli said. “They are part of a social pattern that leads back to the old villages. Someone arrives, then his brother follows. So the idea, as before, is not to destroy these areas. It is to begin by providing them with infrastructure and services, then work programs.”

But how to make the final link between historic preservation and the creation of a contemporary city remains blurry. Many preservationists working here, including some at GTZ, see the last 70 years as unworthy of their interest. And most contemporary architects, whose clients are almost uniformly drawn from the global elite, are out of touch with the complex political realities of the poor in the region.

These are not merely esoteric issues. They have to do with the real lessons that cities like Aleppo and Damascus can teach. Their power is not just the beauty of historical layers. It is that the

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coexistence of those layers, often piled one on top of the other, embodies a world in which every generation — including ours — has the right to a voice and individual creativity triumphs over ideological difference. It is the point at which tradition and modernity are no longer in violent conflict.

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