High drama feuds prevail in art, crime, religion and politics, writes Dina Ezzat 'Lebanese fear a Syrian intervention'; 'Renewed Arab and Kurdish confrontation over Kirkuk'; 'An American raid on Baghdad kills eight Iraqis of the same family'; 'An intelligence scheme and special forces to pursue Al-Qaeda and the militias in Iraq'; 'In Nablus, Israeli occupation forces wound four citizens including a handicapped child'; 'In Gaza, Israeli fire injures two Palestinian men'; 'Palestinian economy: terrifying figures and gloomy future'; 'The IAEA to send a firm message to Iran'; 'Pirates take control of Somali shores'; 'Alert in Sanaa after the attack on the US embassy'; 'Eleven tourists and eight Egyptians kidnapped in southern Egypt'. These were some of the headlines in the Arab press this week. The headlines of the opinion pieces did not transmit an image any less tense of the situation in the region: 'Would Israel hit Iran's nuclear facilities?'; 'Zionist ideology continues to block any settlement of the Arab- Israeli struggle'; 'How would Arabs deal with a new Cold War?' It was hard to escape the sense of high drama. The news pages of the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Monday were reporting the story of "Iraqi mothers attending school with their primary schoolchildren for fear of their safety." They were also, like most other Arab dailies on Monday, reflecting on the latest episode of the unending saga of the Sunni-Shia feud whereby prominent Sunni clergyman Youssef Al-Qaradawi launched a new attack on an alleged Shia attempt to take control of the Arab and Muslim world and, of course, on the angry Shia reaction. On the opinion page of Al-Hayat, still on Monday, Lebanese commentator Hazem Saghiyah called for a break from this unsolicited and futile Muslim feud at a time of no Islamic victories of any sort -- not social, not political and not otherwise. The Saghiyah appeal went to both Sunnis and Shia alike. "To be honest it has become inevitable for all sects and factions to work on reducing the level of ideological tension and to liberate our lives from the unsolicited battles with the 'enemies' and the charged issues" that are draining the energy of societies from pursuing basic development requirements. In another pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, also on Monday, there came another call to refrain from upping tension and focus on development instead. Iran's former president Mohamed Khatami, whose moderation allowed Iran and the world to open up and even warm up, called on his successor, the current head of the Islamic Republic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to suspend his anti-Israeli statements. Translating statements that the Iranian newspaper Eitimad printed, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Khatami as reminding Ahmadinejad that his statements are considered by Israel as the "perfect prize" since it allows the Israeli government to lobby support to isolate and even attack Iran. In the Lebanese daily Assafir on Tuesday, Suleiman Taqieddin echoed a similar call to end division, this time in Lebanon. Reconciliation among the not so inevitable enemies in the nation must prevail, Taqieddin pleaded. "Animosities have so expanded among people to the extent that militant violence has become the norm. Every week, everywhere [in Lebanon] victims fall to this political absurdity. These clashes and feuds are just pointless." And the feud went beyond politics. Throughout the week, readers of the Arab press were continuously following developments of the legal charges levelled by Egyptian authorities against prominent businessman Hisham Talaat Mustafa for plotting and financing the $2 million killing of Lebanese pop artist Suzanne Tamim for having deserted him for another man. Day in and day out, the papers were reporting on the confused statements that Mustafa, the Tamim family and those of Mohsen El-Sukkari, the former Egyptian officer who stands accused of killing Tamim on behalf of Mustafa. In a perceptive commentary by Al-Hayat on Sunday, Dalal Al-Berzi, a Lebanese commentator wrote: "Suzanne Tamim had very little luck in life in the search [to amass fame and fortune]. It is but the optimum example of a crime; Tamim was killed by a monster that had already turned the open-door policy into an abuse policy." And beyond feud in politics, religion and crime there was also the real drama feud with all the Ramadan soap operas competing for the attention of viewers across the Arab world. The Ramadan stars, reported the culture and TV pages of the Arab press, such as Yossra, Nour El-Sherif and Yehia El-Fakharani, seemed to pale in the shadow of the stars of art and politics of by-gone days. "Asmahan" ranked high, if not outright first. It recalled a life of beauty, intrigue and heartbreaks of the 1930s' singer who was born to Syrian parents and brought up and lived in Egypt until her mysterious death in the 1940s in a car accident that many suspected to have been plotted by a jealous Queen Nazli of Egypt whose life for the chief chamberlain Hassanein was challenged by the overflowing presence of Asmahan's unique beauty and exotic voice, or by another jealous artist whose position as the diva of singing in Egypt could have been challenged by Asmahan's talent or by some betrayed lover or angry political partner. Asmahan is supposedly the embodiment of an otherwise hard to attain Arab cooperation. Primarily a Syrian production, Asmahan pooled talents from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Again, there had to be a feud. Egyptian artists complained that their roles were shortened just because they are Egyptians contributing to a predominantly Syrian production while other artists complained of unrecognised contribution compared to the Egyptians and Syrians.
