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“An injured Palestinian construction worker screams in pain after an Israeli army driver drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs, as he tried to block him when Israeli forces stopped workers on January 25, 2012 from building a house in al-Dirat village, south of Yatta in the southern Bank town Hebron region. The Israeli forces were seizing the equipment and trailer from the construction workers as the site falls in the occupied zone C in which Israel prevents Palestinians from building on their land. AFP PHOTO / HAZEM BADER“.  (thanks AK)

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Today’s Cairo demonstrations, multiple marches to Tahrir all aimed at protesting military rule, have apparently included both renewed instances of sexual harassment and assault, which has become all too common in Egypt, and clashes between the young revolutionaries and the Muslim Brotherhood. So far I have mostly bits and pieces from Twitter and may have the wrong impression, but if the theme of the afternoon was tension between the young revolutionaries and the Islamists, then it’s a good day for SCAF. My personal sentiments lie closer to those of the revolutionaries, but the elections demonstrated that the MB represent a broad and real sector of Egyptian public opinion. “The people” who are demanding the fall of military rule are the same people who elected the Brotherhood with 47% of the seats in Parliament. Polarization between the demonstrators and the Brotherhood, unfortunately, simply entrenches the Army: in fact, it adds to the impression, which the Army loves to foster, that the Army is the only guarantee of order.

If the revolutionaries and the Islamists go to war with each other before the Islamists have actually done anything objectionable, the revolutionaries ensure their own defeat. That doesn’t mean the Brotherhood wins; it means the Army wins. The revolutionaries, to be sure, believe the MB are allied with the Army. The MB may think so too. I suspect the Army sees things rather differently: its is playing its foes against each other. If that the case then the verdict for today has to be: Advantage: Army.

Via Hossam Bahgat

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“…Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam have transformed the Republican primary by pumping $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC, thereby enabling his surge against Mitt Romney. So it’s surprising that comments Gingrich made last week about what the Adelsons expect in exchange for their money haven’t gotten more attention.

Ted Koppel asked Gingrich the key question: what do the Adelsons get if you win?
Gingrich, in response, suggested it all comes down to U.S. policy toward Israel.

Koppel: But there has to be a so-what at the end of it. So if you win, what does Adelson get out of it?
Gingrich. Well, he knows I’m very pro-Israel. And that’s the central value of his life. I mean, he’s very worried that Israel is going to not survive.

That’s in line with what we know about the Adelsons, who have supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank and once pulled their money out of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) because of that group’s putative softness on the concept of a peace deal with Palestinians.
ABC, meanwhile, reports that “a source close to” Adelson says he wants “nothing” in exchange for his contributions. That claim doesn’t amount to much, especially coming from an anonymous source.
The latest $5 million to the pro-Newt super PAC was donated by Miriam Adelson, who is reportedly a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. And here, as reported in the New Yorker, is a small but telling example of how Miriam previously interacted with the recipients of the Adelsons’ largesse:

The Adelsons seem not to take their power for granted. Recently, Miriam told an associate, “I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the [Bush] White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’ It really is amazing that we have this influence.”

And here is another episode from that New Yorker article in which Sheldon personally leaned on the president:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. … A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.”

So the idea that the Adelsons expect “nothing” from the recipients of their millions is belied by their previous behavior.
Gingirch himself seems to have gone through a transformation on the Israel-Palestine question. As Wayne Barrett recently documented, Gingrich was as recently as 2005 praising the Palestinians, referring to “their ancestral lands” in historic Palestine, and, amazingly, inveighing against “the desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land.”
That’s the type of language – Gingrich even used the phrase Israeli “land grab” in that 2005 essay – one wouldn’t hear even from alleged anti-Israel radical Barack Obama.
Fast forward to the current election cycle, of course, and Gingrich has veered way to the right, famously questioning the very peoplehood of the Palestinians and blasting calls to end Jewish settlements as a “suicidal step” for Israel. (Adelson, by the way, personally praised Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”) …”

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Where is Ziocon Victoria Nuland when you need her!
“…Obama’s administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales — without any formal notification to the public.
The congressional offices that led the charge to oppose the original Bahrain arms sales package are upset that the State Department has decided to move forward with the new package….
The State Department has not released details of the new sale, and Congress has not been notified through the regular process, which requires posting the information on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) website. The State Department simply briefed a few congressional offices and is going ahead with the new sale, arguing it didn’t meet the threshold that would require more formal notifications and a public explanation.
At today’s State Department press briefing, The Cable asked spokeswoman Victoria Nuland about the new sale. She acknowledged the new package but didn’t have any details handy.(she was busy with Syria & Russia!)
Our congressional sources said that State is using a legal loophole to avoid formally notifying Congress and the public about the new arms sale. The administration can sell anything to anyone without formal notification if the sale is under $1 million. If the total package is over $1 million, State can treat each item as an individual sale, creating multiple sales of less than $1 million and avoiding the burden of notification, which would allow Congress to object and possibly block the deal….
Regardless, congressional opponents to Bahrain arms sales are planning to fight back. Wyden is circulating a letter now to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating that Bahrain’s government continues to commit human rights violations and should not be rewarded with U.S. arms sales…
“Supplying arms to a regime that continues to persecute its citizens is not in the best interest of the United States,” Wyden said…. … …
“This message of ‘business as usual’ will only strengthen the regime’s belief that there will continue to be lack of consequences to their human rights violations internationally,” she said. “At a time when the United States is already being criticized for practicing double standards when it comes to the so-called Arab spring, to the protesters in Bahrain, the U.S. selling any arms to the government of Bahrain is exactly like Russia selling arms to Syria. Bahrain has become the United States’ test on how serious they are about standing against human rights violations, and they are failing miserably.”

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‘The Cable has obtained a copy of the draft resolution on Syria currently being discussed inside the U.N. Security Council. It calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and says additional measures would be taken if he doesn’t comply within 15 days.
U.N. Security Council diplomats are meeting behind closed doors on Friday to discuss what’s being called the Arab-European draft resolution on Syria. The Moroccan ambassador is presenting the draft resolution, which is designed to implement the recommendations of the Arab League transition plan laid out on Jan. 22… …
Importantly, the draft resolution requests that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon report on the implementation of the resolution every 15 days and also directs the Security Council “to review Syria’s implementation of this resolution [in] 15 days and, in the event that Syria has not complied, to adopt further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States.”…
She indicated the United States was hopeful that Russia, which has been openly supporting Assad and sending him weapons, will work with the rest of the Security Council to produce a resolution that is strong and effective. Russia and China vetoed European resolution on Syria last fall and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday that Russia would veto any resolution that seeks to remove Assad from power…”

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AP – Israel is proposing to essentially turn its West Bank separation barrier into the border with a future state of Palestine, two Palestinian officials said Friday, based on their interpretation of principles Israel presented in talks this week.

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AMMAN – Security forces killed 37 people in Syria on Friday, activists and residents claimed, as the UN Security Council prepared to discuss Damascus later in the day ahead of a possible vote next wee
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As Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz intensify, some energy experts are calling on Arab Gulf states to find alternative ways to export their petroleum. Experts differ, however, on whether
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