Everyone in a democracy has the right to argue for their views and engage in public debate. But there is no equality when it comes to how the British government treats those who want to give physical support to Israel and those who want to do the same for the Palestinians. Such double standards feed resentment in Britain's Muslim community at the government's failure to recognise its legitimate grievances, as highlighted in yesterday's report by the thinktank Demos.

In recent months the media have reported on the recruitment of British Jews to fight in the Israeli army, now in its 40th year of occupation of Palestinian territory in defiance of international law and UN resolutions. Some are intending to emigrate; others to return to Britain after serving in the Israeli army. But we have not had a word of concern from the British government. In the Muslim community, however, the question is widely raised as to how British citizens can travel to another country and fight in its army of illegal occupation without any repercussions. Would that be the case if, say, a young Muslim or Briton of Palestinian origin travelled to the occupied Palestinian territories - let alone occupied Iraq - to protect his or her homeland or co-religionists? Of course not: such volunteers could expect to be arrested under this government's anti-terrorism legislation as soon as they returned.
These Britons who go to fight for Israel are volunteering to serve in the frontline of Israel's war in the illegally occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Some have acknowledged that they have been or will be engaged in the killing of Palestinians. Under international law they and those who facilitate their enlistment are committing war crimes.

Presumably the politicians' silence can be explained by Britain's support for the Israeli government, both diplomatic and military. But how does that sit with the government's regular homilies to the Muslim community about citizenship and loyalty to the flag? It might be argued that as Israel is a state - unlike the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian political organisations - and Britons are entitled to dual citizenship, with any military-service obligations that entails, there can be no objection. But the fact that the Palestinian people have no state is of course at the heart of this uniquely internationally inflammatory conflict. And those fighting against the illegal occupation of their land are entitled to do so under international law.

The British government's indifference to this recruitment is feeding the alienation and radicalisation of young Muslims, who can be labelled terrorists for even voicing support for the Palestinians.

Perhaps British citizens should not serve in foreign armies full stop. But the essential point is that there must be equality. If Britons are allowed to join the Israeli army, the same right should be accorded to those - particularly of Palestinian origin - who wish to volunteer to defend lands Israel occupies. Alternatively, both should be barred.

We need a shift in approach at the top. Tony Blair has expressed his desire to bring peace to the Middle East, but his actions - most recently his refusal to condemn Israel's Beit Hanoun massacre at the UN - scarcely suggest an honest broker. At home and in the Middle East, it is time the British government showed some real even-handedness.

- Ismail Patel is chair of the Leicester-based campaign Friends of Al-Aqsa

And notice how transparent and objective the process that sent the "report" to the New York Times: "The detailed report on the war was produced by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, a private research group headed by Reuven Erlich, a retired colonel in military intelligence, who worked closely with the Israeli military. An advance copy was given to The New York Times by the American Jewish Congress, which has itself fought against the use of "human shields," provided consultation and translated the study."

Of course, all those are organizations that have no interest in peddling Israeli propaganda. Those are outfits that seek the truth. Imagine if an Arab "center" offers the New York Times (through a Muslim American organization) a "report" to prove the crimes of Israeli military.

But it is Carter himself who constantly reminds us in his outlandishly titled book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, of the necessity of being an honest broker in advancing peace. It thus is startling that a former president who prides himself on his ongoing contribution to world peace would write a crude polemic that compromises any pretense to objectivity and fairness.

The book's inflammatory title is a case of false advertising, conjuring up comparisons between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, a comparison Carter never makes. South Africa's policies were racial in nature and deprived black subjects of basic rights in their own country. The only just solution was to give blacks full rights in the same state.

Carter never claims that Israel is engaging in racially-motivated policies and rightly argues for a two-state solution to the conflict. His use of the word "apartheid" is misleading, referring instead to his view that Israel's security fence and the "honeycomb" of settlements and roads behind it constitute a permanent Israeli control regime over Palestinian life. He neglects to mention that Israel's planned re-deployment from the West Bank would effectively remove such controls. That is precisely what happened in Gaza.

Carter leaves out what any reasonable observer, even those that share his basic views of the conflict, would consider obvious facts, but does include stunning distortions. I'll cite just two of the numerous examples of such mendacity.

First, discussing president Bill Clinton's peacemaking efforts, Carter discounts well-established claims that Israel accepted and Arafat rejected a generous offer to create a Palestinian state. "The fact is that no final offer was ever made," Carter asserts. To prove his point, he disingenuously cites a quote of then-prime minister Ehud Barak that there were "no negotiations" but "non-binding contacts" at the later stage talks in Taba. Barak made this statement in order to cut his political losses during an election, and to preclude the Palestinians from pocketing yet more concessions for future negotiations.

Moreover, anyone who read Clinton's account of the post-Camp David negotiations knows that he offered final "parameters" that substantially sweetened the pot for the Palestinians and met Carter's own stated standards for a fair settlement.

"I brought the Palestinian and Israeli teams into the cabinet room and read them my 'parameters' for negotiations," wrote Clinton. "In December the parties had met at Bolling Airforce Base for talks that didn't succeed because Arafat wouldn't accept the parameters that were hard for him." Carter must have known this history. But he conveniently ignores it in his book, leaving the reader to think that Barak's quote was the final commentary on the matter.

In another manifest distortion, Carter states that Israel plans to build a security fence "along the Jordan River, which is now planned as the eastern leg of the encirclement of the Palestinians."

Once again, any informed observer knows that Israel has modified the projected route of the security fence on numerous occasions (the current route roughly tracks the parameters that Clinton advanced to the parties in negotiations) and that there is no plan to hem the Palestinians in on the eastern border. Again,
Carter overlooks these well-known developments, leaving readers to think that a route that was once contemplated in proposed maps but never adopted or acted upon represents current reality.

The extent that Carter goes in propping up an extreme version of the Palestinian narrative, and in burying and devaluing any trace of the Israeli and American versions of events, is deeply disappointing. In accepting the Palestinian narrative, Carter has conveniently revised history, excused the Palestinians for their tragic failure to come to terms with Israel each time the chance presented itself, and blithely ignored Israel's very legitimate security concerns.

Many Israelis, including those that once greatly admired his role in fostering peace with Egypt, may never again trust Carter's diplomacy, including his vaunted role as an election monitor.
He can no longer claim to be an honest broker.

This book will not help the cause of peace, and with its publication, the world has lost a statesman at a time when one is most needed.

The writer, based in New York, is executive director of the American Jewish Committee.

The month-long political crisis that has roiled Lebanon, hurtling it dangerously close to the precipice of civil war, marks a revealing shift for the Shiite Muslim movement that for years, at least rhetorically, tried to stay above politics, entering the cabinet for the first time in 2005.

Clashes erupted over the weekend between Shiites and Sunnis as protests continue in Beirut. Thousands of opposition demonstrators took to the streets last week to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Now, by mobilizing its rank and file and pouring them into downtown Beirut to topple the government, the movement has framed that pursuit for political power in the same martial language of this summer's war with Israel.

The imagery is often blunt: "Just as I promised you victory in the past, I promise you victory once again," goes a recording by Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah played over and over, igniting cheers each time. Banners on tents, housing thousands of supporters camped out in front of the government headquarters, display the slogan: "As with victory, change is coming, coming, coming."

"Everything is at stake for Hezbollah," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an analyst on Hezbollah and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment Middle East Center in Beirut. "There is no way that Hezbollah would back down."

"They're putting this political struggle on a par with the military struggle to show how significant it is strategically," she added. "It's basically an existential struggle for Hezbollah. It's an extension of its war with Israel."

The protests that began last week continued Tuesday, part carnival, part show of force. The crisis has myriad dimensions: notably a contest over ideology toward Israel and a battle over whose patrons -- the United States and France on the government's side, Syria and Iran on Hezbollah's -- will have a greater say here.

And the protests are rife with irony. In pursuit of its political aims, Hezbollah has employed tactics praised by the Bush administration when mass demonstrations took place after the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005 helped end Syria's 29-year military presence in the country.

In the street today is a somewhat unlikely coalition of Shiites loyal to Hezbollah and to the allied Amal movement, and Christian supporters of Michel Aoun, an influential former general. The protests themselves represent an unprecedented attempt at popular pressure by Islamic movements that often act, or are forced to act, clandestinely in the Middle East.

But there remains a relentless logic to today's demonstrations: an attempt by Hezbollah to resolve in its favor the political uncertainty that has reigned since the Syrian withdrawal from a country in which two camps contest nearly every aspect of Lebanese political life. At stake, almost everyone agrees, is the direction of the state.

"This is not about one more cabinet minister or one less for either them or us. It is a battle equally important for them and for us," said Samir Geagea, veteran of a civil war militia who supports Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government.

Nayla Moawad, the minister of social affairs, was more direct. "This is a coup d'etat," she said.

"A balance of power within the government will be a guarantee for both sides," countered Amin Sherri, a Hezbollah member of parliament. "Before they were giving us a choice between bad and worse. We don't want to go on like this."

"We don't want to be merely witnesses to decision-making on important issues," he added.

Since Hezbollah's creation with Iranian patronage in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion, the group has often operated in different environments. During the civil war that ended in 1990, there were no rules. Afterward, Syria, long the kingmaker here, protected Hezbollah's interests, as well as determined the country's foreign policy. After the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah's popularity swelled, its militia credited with what most in Lebanon considered a victory.



But in the tumult and uncertainty of Lebanese politics today, once unasked questions are up for grabs: whether Hezbollah can keep its arms; its ties to Syria and Iran; the country's posture toward Israel and the United States; and the balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites and divided Christians. Underlying them is another question, sharpened by the contention of Hezbollah's foes that it started the latest war with Israel: Who has the right to make war and peace in Lebanon?

"The state, before the assassination of Hariri, was used to protect and embrace Hezbollah. The whole state served to protect it. And now this state has ended. So Hezbollah is looking for an internal role, to enter the political equation, and its entry into politics represents a huge upheaval," said Hazem al-Amin, an analyst of Shiite politics and writer for al-Hayat newspaper.

"Hezbollah wants to try its political training on us," he added.

Hezbollah's transformation over the years marks one of the most striking transformations of any Islamic organization in the Middle East. In its early years, it was notorious for imposing draconian restrictions in southern Lebanon -- banning mixed sunbathing and women's swimsuits at beaches, closing coffee shops, and prohibiting parties and dancing. Since then, it has evolved from a shadowy organization blamed for two attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks here, killing 241 soldiers, into a sprawling movement that fields a crack militia, serves in parliament and delivers welfare -- from education to compensation for war damages -- for its Shiite constituency, Lebanon's largest community.

Through that evolution, the movement has adapted itself at turning points in Lebanon's history. It took part in parliamentary elections in 1992 after the civil war. After the Syrian withdrawal, it entered the cabinet for the first time. As pressure built for its disarmament, as called for by U.N. Resolution 1559, it struck its alliance with Aoun a year ago. Each turn can be read as defensive: protecting its weapons, preventing Lebanon from growing too close to the United States, and promoting the ambitions of the Shiite community, long disenfranchised and still sometimes perceived as second class.

But the protests underway mark a far less certain tactic for Hezbollah than past decisions to participate in parliament or the cabinet. The stakes are higher -- bringing down the government -- and the outcome for a group that prides itself on deliberation, caution and prudence is by no means certain. The implications for its Shiite constituency are similarly ambiguous. A debate remains in Lebanon over what precisely Hezbollah wants and how much the rest of Lebanon is willing to give.

"They sort of painted themselves in a corner, and it's very difficult to back out now," said Timur Goksel, a former spokesman and adviser to the U.N. peacekeeping force here. That strategy entailed risk in Lebanon's notoriously mercurial, even cynical politics, he said. "At the moment, they are spending a lot of the capital they made out of this summer's war. Getting involved in local politics can erode the party's popularity very quickly."

In some ways, he added, "fighting Israel is much easier."

In the protests themselves, canvas tents sprawling across downtown during the day, engulfed by crowds at night, Hezbollah has played down any sectarian ambitions. Rather, it has promoted the protests as a campaign for "national unity." "One, united," banners read at the protest and on the movement's television station, al-Manar. On a recent night, a Hezbollah guard discouraged a couple from bringing a Hezbollah banner to the stage. "Please, only Lebanese flags tonight," he said.

Another dominant theme is resistance to American influence in Lebanon. That message appeals to its constituency, bitter over U.S. support for Israel in this summer's war, and underlines the almost existential threat that Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, perceives in a government too closely allied with the United States and its ambitions in the region.

"Hezbollah was extremely anxious where the country was heading. It seemed to be heading straight into the U.S. orbit. It was turning into a satellite state," said Saad-Ghorayeb, the analyst. "If they back down now, they will have effectively given up on Lebanon. That would mean Lebanon falls to their enemy, the United States and Israel."

Banners condemn Jeffrey D. Feltman, the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon, who is often a target of Nasrallah's speeches. "The government of Feltman," one slogan reads, "We'll bring it down." A homemade billboard was set up near Hussein Ismail, a 15-year-old protester from the southern town of Kafra. Under a picture of Siniora and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, it read, "Congratulations to the bride and groom." Another pictured the two shaking hands. "Peace with the enemies," it read.

"This is a struggle with a government that is not Lebanese but rather American," he said. "We want a Lebanese government that doesn't take its decisions from the Americans and the Zionists."

Behind Ismail was another poster of Nasrallah. "He promised a victory, and a victory is coming, just like he said."

Haddad-Adel made the remarks while speaking to domestic reporters who asked him to comment on the Zionist regime's move of establishing a ministry to deal with Iran's peaceful nuclear activities.

"This move of the Zionist regime has no value and meaning.

"Even before the Zionist regime created this ministry, it clearly wanted to slow down the pace of Iran's progress. The ministry issue is not linked to Iran's peaceful nuclear program," he said.

He said that Iran would continue down the road to achieving peaceful nuclear energy, saying the country's "nuclear scientists are faithfully doing their work and there has never been any doubt on Iran producing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."

"The world's six major powers (Russia, China, Britain, France, the US -- plus Germany) should explain why they still insist on imposing sanctions on Iran when International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei had time and again cleared Iran of any alleged diversion in its nuclear activities."
The speaker said that Iran was determined to take the final step to nuclear victory and fulfill the nation's aspiration of gaining access to peaceful nuclear energy despite American and European pressure.

"But enemies will never step aside. They will continue their efforts to derail us from our nuclear path."

He added that enemies are now trying to discourage investment in the country.

But, he said, "those who live in Iran will confirm that the Iranian nation supports the country's peaceful nuclear activities and there is no cause for concern for investors who may want to invest in the country."
The Iranian nation is willing to pay the cost of its battle to enforce its nuclear right in today's world, Haddad-Adel concluded.