English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 04/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.may04.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 06/34-40: “They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 03-04/2022
Sheikh Jichi, Khomeini, the CIA and Israel/Elie Aoun/May 04/2022
Lebanon’s Rai Calls for Calming Southern Front to Resume Border Demarcation Talks
Lebanon's Grand Mufti Warns of Danger of Boycotting Parliamentary Elections
Qabalan says voting is 'religious duty', calls for 'purging state of US influence'
President Aoun: Work to deliver the honorable, for honor protects them from humiliation
Corona - MOPH: 33 new coronavirus infections, 1 death
Maronite Patriarch Al-Rahi, Riachy meet
Bouchikian thanks Iraq for lifting the ban on Lebanese products from entering its territory
Sami Gemayel: Vote for those who did not and will not harm people’s interests
Mikati, Makari partake in a live interview tomorrow on Tele Liban
MAKARY LAUNCHES SAMIR KASSAB AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AND MEDIA
Grillo salutes media outlets on World Press Freedom Day

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 03-04/2022
Pope Says he Wants to Go to Moscow to Meet Putin over Ukraine
Biden Meets with Parents of Missing Journalist Austin Tice
Russia steps up Ukraine fight as more Mariupol evacuations expected
US Official: Russia Plans to Annex Parts of Eastern Ukraine
WHO to Hold Urgent Meeting on Ukraine Invasion’s Health Impact
Russia Says Israel Supports Neo-Nazis in Row over Ukraine
West ‘has given up hope’ of revived Iran nuclear deal, say expert analysts
Nuclear Talks on Verge of Collapse, Europe Counts on Iranian Concessions
Iran's oil minister meets Maduro in Caracas
Israel Says Iran Tried to Recruit Agents via Social Media
Iran grows uneasy with Afghan refugees as tensions with Taliban rise
Syrian Authorities Release Prisoners in Presidential Amnesty
Years after Daesh defeat, northern Iraq struggles to rebuild
Turkey's shutdown of ‘Mekameleen’ signals end of an era in Muslim Brotherhood activity, regional policy shift
US primaries will test Trump's sway with Republicans

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 03-04/2022
European Union's Border-Protection System Now A Tourism Agency for Migrants/Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/May 03/2022
Election Integrity Dead: Killed in Court/J. Christian Adams/Gatestone Institute/May 3, 2022
Three Koran Verses Fueled the Slaughter of a Christian Priest/Raymond Ibrahim/May 03/2022
Erdogan’s overture to Assad is About Turkey’s next election/Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/May 03/2022
Israel, furious over Lavrov’s Hitler comment, cannot burn its bridges with Russia/Mohammed Najib/Arab News/May 03/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 03-04/2022
Sheikh Jichi, Khomeini, the CIA and Israel
Elie Aoun/May 04/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108477/elie-aoun-sheikh-jichi-khomeini-the-cia-and-israel/
In a recent speech, Sheikh Nazir Jichi referred to “the Zionist enemy which killed our people and committed massacres.” He also made a reference to religious leaders (Shiite, Sunni, or Christians) who are acting against their own communities, while wearing the religious robe.
Following please find twelve (12) pages from a CIA decalssified document, the “Tower Board Report” (pages B174 to B185). It proves the shipment of weaponry from Israel to Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war.
This is a clear evidence that what Sheikh Jichi referred to applies to Khomeini himself – a religious man acting against his community, and furthering the Zionist plot of killing “our people” and committing massacres.
The Bible says: “My people were destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Sheikh Jichi, and many other Hizballah and Khomeini followers, proclaim to be the “protectors” of Islam and consider Khomeini as a role model. In reality, Khomeini is a traitor. He allied with Israel to kill millions of Muslims. Since the “Islamic Republic of Iran” is founded on treason, all its “branches” (such as Hizballah) are an advancement of that treason. The sooner they recognize it, the better.
Since Hizballah’s model (Khomeini) is a traitor himself, we should not expect of the Hizballah leadership, wearing the religious robes, to be anything other than traitors to “our people.”
Following are the excerpts from the CIA decalssified report:
Click Here to read the complete report.PDF
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90G00152R001001910004-4.pdf

Lebanon’s Rai Calls for Calming Southern Front to Resume Border Demarcation Talks
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai has called for “calming the southern front,” so that Lebanon, “under international auspices, resumes border demarcation negotiations with Israel.”His remarks came a day after Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah threatened to respond to any Israeli strike immediately, during maneuvers organized by the Israeli army along the border area. Rai’s mass sermon on Sunday, focused on a number of crises including the migrant boat that sank off Tripoli’s coast last month. “Images of the sinking boat disaster off Tripoli’s shores are still vivid before our eyes, and the pain continues in our hearts as we see the death of children, youth, mothers and fathers,” the patriarch said. He continued: “It is not permissible for this tragedy to be a mere passing event, as some people try to turn its page just as they are trying to turn the page on the Beirut port blast and the explosion in the village of Al-Tleil in Akkar and others. He urged the authorities “to conduct a transparent and impartial investigation to determine responsibilities and put an end to questions and suspicion on the eve of parliamentary elections.”The Patriarch also urged Lebanese citizens to vote massively in the polls, stressing that the elections “give citizens the opportunity to tell the world which Lebanon they desire… and that they reject every proposal for a settlement … that is inconsistent with the reality of the country.” “It is clear that the majority of the Lebanese adhere to a free, democratic and neutral Lebanon; a Lebanon of national partnership and charter; a Lebanon of historical identity, justice and equality; a Lebanon of one army and constitutional institutions,” Rai said, underlining that the Lebanese want to “live, prosper and have a free economy.”

Lebanon's Grand Mufti Warns of Danger of Boycotting Parliamentary Elections
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian warned against the danger of boycotting the upcoming parliamentary elections, calling for a heavy turnout. During his Eid al-Fitr sermon on Monday, Derian stressed the importance to seize “the opportunity to achieve change through the elections.”The prayers were attended by Prime Minister Najib Mikati, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and a number of ambassadors, including Kuwaiti Ambassador Abdul-Al Al-Qenaei. The Grand Mufti lashed out at those who “turned Lebanon into a failed state,” saying: “None of those useless ones has the courage to admit what their dirty hands committed in corruption and illicit dealings. They classify themselves as angels and saints in order to return to the crime scene again. Beware of their deceptive and misleading statements.”He went on to say: “They try to make the abuser a well-doer and the criminal a hero, elevating the useless to the highest levels of praise and honor. They are the ones who transformed Lebanon into a failed state begging for water, electricity and bread.”Derian stressed that the parliamentary elections “are an opportunity for us to change.” “Let it be a change for the better,” he underlined. He said that the Lebanese were “capable of rebuilding their country and restoring the collapsed state institutions, based on the selection of members of parliament, which is the gateway to the desired reform.”The elections are scheduled for May 15. Following the prayers, Mikati and Siniora visited the tomb of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in downtown Beirut.

Qabalan says voting is 'religious duty', calls for 'purging state of US influence'
Naharnet/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
A senior Shiite cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Qabalan, on Tuesday announced that voting in the upcoming parliamentary elections is a “national and religious duty,” as he called for “purging state administrations and institutions of U.S. influence.”
“We reiterate that one of our biggest national and electoral battles must be focused on purging state authorities, administrations and institutions of U.S. influence,” Qabalan said in his Eid al-Fitr sermon. Addressing “Lebanese in general and Shiites in particular,” Qabalan added: “The electoral juncture is a major act of worship and a crucial national, moral and religious duty. Hesitation is forbidden or rather haram (banned in Islam), leaving the electoral battle is haram and a blank ballot is haram, because God entrusts us with the country and its authorities.” “Those who abandon the electoral battle would be abandoning God’s biggest acts of worship… The Americans along with a normalizing regional alliance are fighting the battle of exhausting Lebanon and burning everything with the aim of Zionizing Lebanon,” Qabalan warned. “Neutrality is a grand crime and the battle is crucial,” the cleric added, noting that “fasting and prayer have no value” if not complemented with “political partnership and ballot boxes.” “Religious and national duties begin at the mosque and are completed in politics, and those who abandon politics would be abandoning the mosque,” Qabalan went on to say.

President Aoun: Work to deliver the honorable, for honor protects them from humiliation
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, wrote the following tweet:
“As the electoral money level rises, I recall what I wrote back in 1998:
“Avoid electing candidates for what is in their pockets, this is for them, rather elect them for what is in their hearts and minds, since this is for you. Work to deliver the honorable people who have the will to work, for honor protects them from humiliation, and the will to work gives them the ability to implement and achieve”.

Corona - MOPH: 33 new coronavirus infections, 1 death
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Lebanon has recorded 33 new coronavirus cases and 1 death in the last 24 hours, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Tuesday.

Maronite Patriarch Al-Rahi, Riachy meet
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, is currently meeting with the "Lebanese Forces" candidate for the Catholic seat in the northern Matn, former minister Melhem Riachy. Rahi also met with the bishop in the French Army, Antoine de Romainet de Beaune. On the other hand, Patriarch Al-Rahi will chair, at nine in the morning tomorrow, the monthly meeting of the Maronite Archbishops' Council, with ecclesiastical and national affairs on its agenda.

Bouchikian thanks Iraq for lifting the ban on Lebanese products from entering its territory
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Industry Minister Georges Bouchikian thanked Iraq for lifting the ban on importing Lebanese food products. The Minister believed that this decision opens the Iraqi markets to Lebanese products which are able to compete with those from other sources, especially since the Lebanese industry, particularly the food industry, has proven its ability to market in global markets with high requirements in terms of conditions, standards and specifications. Bouchikian had been informed by the Central Organization for standardization and quality control “to lift the import ban on the foodstuffs mentioned below.
The Lebanese food products for which the ban has been lifted are:
1. beer.
2. Soft drinks and sodas
3. Fruit juice
4- Energy drinks
5- Mineral water
6- Pasteurized Milk and Yogurt
7. Corn and Potato Chips
8- Ice cream
9- Table salt
10 Noodles and pasta
11. Table eggs
12. Live chicken and whole slaughterhouse chicken

Sami Gemayel: Vote for those who did not and will not harm people’s interests
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
The head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, Sami Gemayel, stressed "the need to protect the country and unite around one cause, which is Lebanon, 10,452 kilometers." He called for "voting for those who did not and will not harm the interests of the people and to hold the political class that has brought Lebanon to this stage accountable."Gemayel's words came during a meeting of the Kataeb Party in the West Bekaa region - Rashaya, in the presence of members of the "Towards Change" list: Guita Ojeil, Alaa Al-Shamali, Amer Kaddoura and Shawky Abu Ghosh.

Mikati, Makari partake in a live interview tomorrow on Tele Liban
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Prime Minister Najib Mikati will appear in an interview with journalist Walid Abboud, at 9:45 pm tomorrow, Wednesday, on state-owned "Tele Liban" channel, in the first episode of the "With Walid Abboud" program, which will be broadcast every Wednesday. The episode includes a special look for Minister of Information Ziad al-Makary, who will unveil a surprise about the channel. The episode with the Prime Minister will address current issues, starting with Lebanon’s return to its normal relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, to the extent of Lebanon’s ability to overcome the crisis of confidence between it and the International Monetary Fund, the controversy surrounding the demarcation of the maritime borders stuck in lines 23 and 29, the sinking of the Tripoli boat Recently, as well as investigations into the bombing of the port, and the 2022 parliamentary elections.

MAKARY LAUNCHES SAMIR KASSAB AWARD FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AND MEDIA
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Information Minister Ziad Makary will launch the "Samir Kassab Prize for Photography and the Media" on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, on the case of the photojournalist of "Sky News Arabia", Samir Kassab, who was kidnapped in the Aleppo countryside in Syria. On this occasion, the Ministry of Information, under the supervision of Minister Makary, and in cooperation with state-run television (TL), produced a video on the case of Samir Kassab, who was kidnapped in Syria with two colleagues since October 15, 2013. The video, titled: "The truth has been deleted, set it free", begins with a video of Samir Kassab in Syria, while he was on a journalistic assignment for "Sky News Arabia". The video includes a speech by Minister Makary, as well as statements from the Kassab family, whom the minister met during a visit to their home in Hardine. The video also includes three testimonies from three Kassab colleagues.

Grillo salutes media outlets on World Press Freedom Day
NNA/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
"At this difficult stage, Lebanon needs more than ever a free, independent and responsible press," said French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo, via its Twitter account, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. She added: "On World Press Freedom Day, all support to the journalists who work every day, in Lebanon and other countries, to strengthen our democracies."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 03-04/2022
Pope Says he Wants to Go to Moscow to Meet Putin over Ukraine
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Pope Francis said in an interview published on Tuesday that he asked for a meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to stop the war in Ukraine but had not received a reply. The pope also told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has given the war his full-throated backing, "cannot become Putin's altar boy". Francis, who made an unprecedented visit to the Russian embassy when the war started, told the newspaper that about three weeks into the conflict, he asked the Vatican's top diplomat to send a message to Putin.
The message was "that I was willing to go to Moscow. Certainly, it was necessary for the Kremlin leader to allow an opening. We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting". He added: "I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time. But how can you not stop so much brutality?" Before the interview, Francis, 85, had not specifically mentioned Russia or Putin publicly since the start of the conflict on Feb. 24. But he has left little doubt which side he has criticized, using terms such as unjustified aggression and invasion and lamenting atrocities against civilians. Asked about a trip to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which Francis last month said was a possibility, the pope said he would not go for now. "First, I have to go to Moscow, first I have to meet Putin ... . I do what I can. If Putin would only open a door," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Biden Meets with Parents of Missing Journalist Austin Tice
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
US President Joe Biden met Monday with the parents of American journalist Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria nearly 10 years ago, the White House said. “During their meeting, the President reiterated his commitment to continue to work through all available avenues to secure Austin’s long overdue return to his family,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement summarizing the meeting with Marc and Debra Tice. She described the encounter as an outgrowth of “multiple meetings and conversations” between the Tice family and White House national security officials.
Debra Tice was introduced Saturday night as being in attendance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, where Biden paid tribute in his remarks to journalists who are missing or detained. Biden also said at the event that he wanted to meet with the Tices to speak about their son.
“After the president made those comments, obviously we went into action to work to set up the meeting,” Psaki said Monday, adding that the White House has “been very closely engaged with the family.” Tice, who is from Houston and whose work had been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets, disappeared in August 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. A video released weeks later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. According to The Associated Press, Syria has never acknowledged holding him. In the final months of the Trump administration, two US officials — including the government's top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens — made a secret visit to Damascus to seek information on Tice and other Americans who have disappeared in Syria. It was the highest-level talk in years between the US and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice. Psaki told reporters earlier in the day that there had been multiple meetings between members of the Tice family and administration officials in the last six months, including one last week.

Russia steps up Ukraine fight as more Mariupol evacuations expected
Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Fighting raged in the critical port city of Odessa and across Ukraine's east as fresh evacuations of civilians from war-ravaged Mariupol were set to take place Tuesday. The United States was warning that Moscow is preparing to formally annex regions in the east, while the European Union told member states to brace for a complete breakdown in Russian gas supplies as it prepared a new package of sanctions. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meanwhile sparked outrage by alleging Adolf Hitler may have "had Jewish blood", invoking a conspiracy theory in a bid to discredit Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who is of Jewish ancestry. Israel -- which has sought to keep a delicate balance between the two sides since Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- condemned the remarks and summoned Moscow's ambassador. Zelensky also slammed Lavrov's remarks as "anti-Semitic", and said they showed Russia had "forgotten all the lessons of World War II"."It is no coincidence that they are waging a so-called total war to destroy all living things, after which only the burned ruins of entire cities and villages remain," he added.
- 'We don't live, we survive' -
The war has seen Moscow, after failing to take the capital Kyiv, shift its two-month-old invasion to largely Russian-speaking areas and step up pressure on Odessa, a cultural hub that is a crucial port on the Black Sea. Odessa's city council said a Russian strike hit a residential building housing five people. A 15-year-old boy was killed and a girl was hospitalised, the council said on Telegram. Russia's invasion has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 13 million in a war the scale of which has not been seen in Europe for generations. Among the most battered cities is Mariupol, where an untold number have died and survivors have little access to food, water and medicine as Russia battles to connect the southern and eastern strips of land under its control. The city is now largely calm, AFP journalists saw on a recent press tour organized by Russian forces, apart from the muffled rumble of explosions coming from the direction of the Azovstal steel plant, the last holdout of Ukrainian forces in Mariupol.
Daily life is now dominated by the hunt for the most basic of essentials, locals say.
"We don't live, we survive," said Irina, a 30-year-old video game designer wearing a grey sweatshirt, the little face of a Yorkshire Terrier sticking out from her backpack. Kyiv said more than 100 civilians were evacuated over the weekend from the sprawling Azovstal complex, where soldiers and civilians have been sheltering in a maze of underground tunnels. Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine's Azov military unit, said another 20 people were transferred out on Monday evening, but only after a five-hour delay as "the enemy's artillery caused new rubble and destruction". Mariupol's city council said evacuations were set to restart at 7:00 am local time (0400 GMT) on Tuesday. AFP could not confirm if the evacuations had started. Ukraine and Russia have been coordinating civilian evacuations with United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ukrainian forces have recaptured some territory in recent days, including the village of Ruska Lozova, which evacuees said had been occupied for two months. "It was two months of terrible fear. Nothing else, a terrible and relentless fear," Natalia, a 28-year-old evacuee from Ruska Lozova, told AFP after reaching Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city. But Kyiv has admitted that Russian forces have captured a string of villages in the east and has asked Western powers to deliver more heavy weapons to bolster its defenses there. Ukraine's defense ministry said Monday that its drones had sunk two Russian patrol boats near the Black Sea's Snake Island, which became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance after soldiers there rebuffed Russian demands to surrender.
- 'Sham referenda' -
The fresh onslaught came as the United States warned that Moscow was preparing imminently to annex both Lugansk and neighboring Donetsk. Pro-Russian separatists in the two regions declared independence in 2014, but Moscow has so far stopped short of formally incorporating them as it did that year with the Crimean peninsula. "Russia plans to engineer referenda upon joining sometime in mid-May," said Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. He said Russia was considering a similar plan in a third region, Kherson, where Moscow has recently solidified control and imposed use of its ruble currency. "We think the reports are highly credible," Carpenter told reporters in Washington. As with Crimea, he vowed that the international community would not support Russian-dictated changes to Ukraine's borders. "Such sham referenda -- fabricated votes -- will not be considered legitimate, nor will any attempts to annex additional Ukrainian territory," Carpenter said.
"But we have to act with a sense of urgency."
- Bracing for new sanctions -
Western powers have levelled unprecedented sanctions against Russia over the war while delivering money and weapons to Ukraine, including a $33 billion (31 billion euro) arms and support package announced by US President Joe Biden last week. The European Commission will on Tuesday propose a new package, including an embargo on Russian oil, officials said. It will also involve "more Russian banks" being pushed out of the global SWIFT payment network, the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrell said Monday. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will announce another £300 million ($376 million, 358 million euros) in military aid for Kyiv, his office said. In a remote address to Ukraine's parliament -- the first by a foreign leader to the Verkhovna Rada since Russia invaded on February 24 -- Johnson is set to hail the country's resistance as its "finest hour". After talks on Monday, the European Union warned member states to prepare for a possible complete breakdown in gas supplies from Russia, insisting it would not cede to Moscow's demand that imports be paid for in rubles. Germany, Europe's largest economy, was heavily dependent on Russian gas prior to the war, but European views quickly hardened after the invasion. EU and French officials said the 27-member bloc was united with Poland and Bulgaria, whose gas supplies were cut last week after they refused to pay in rubles. Western nations have been trying to show support by reopening embassies in Kyiv that were closed due to the invasion, with Denmark the latest to make the move Monday.Kristina Kvien, the US charge d'affaires, announced in the western city of Lviv that Washington hopes to have diplomats back in Kyiv by the end of May.

US Official: Russia Plans to Annex Parts of Eastern Ukraine
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Russia plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine later this month, a senior US official warned, and the Mariupol steel mill that is the city’s last stronghold of resistance came under renewed assault a day after the first evacuation of civilians from the plant. Michael Carpenter, US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Monday that the US believes the Kremlin also will recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. Neither move would be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said. Russia is planning to hold sham referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that would "try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy" and attach the entities to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would engineer an independence vote in Kherson. Mayors and local legislators there have been abducted, internet and cellphone service has been severed and a Russian school curriculum will soon be imposed, Carpenter said. Ukraine’s government says Russia has introduced its ruble as currency there. More than 100 people - including elderly women and mothers with small children - left Mariupol's rubble-strewn Azovstal steelworks Sunday and set out in buses and ambulances for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) to the northwest. Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that the evacuees were making slow progress.
Authorities gave no explanation for the delay.
At least some of the civilians were apparently taken to a village controlled by Russia-backed separatists. The Russian military said some chose to stay in separatist areas, while dozens left for Ukrainian-held territory. In the past, Ukraine has accused Moscow’s troops of taking civilians against their will to Russia or Russian-controlled areas. The Kremlin has denied it. The Russian bombardment of the sprawling plant by air, tank and ship resumed after the partial evacuation, Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, which is helping to defend the mill, said on the Telegram messaging app. Orlov said high-level negotiations were underway among Ukraine, Russia and international organizations on evacuating more people. The steel-plant evacuation, if successful, would be rare progress in easing the human cost of the almost 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors out of the southern port city and other places have broken down, with Ukrainian officials accusing Russian forces of shooting and shelling along agreed-on evacuation routes. Before the weekend evacuation, overseen by the United Nations and the Red Cross, about 1,000 civilians were believed to be in the plant along with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders who have refused Russian demands they surrender. As many as 100,000 people overall may still be in Mariupol, which had a prewar population of more than 400,000. Russian forces have pounded much of the city into rubble, trapping civilians with little food, water, heat or medicine. Some Mariupol residents left on their own, often in damaged private cars.
As sunset approached, Mariupol resident Yaroslav Dmytryshyn rattled up to a reception center in Zaporizhzhia in a car with a back seat full of youngsters and two signs taped to the back window: "Children” and "Little ones." "I can’t believe we survived," he said, looking worn but in good spirits after two days on the road. "There is no Mariupol whatsoever,'' he said. "Someone needs to rebuild it, and it will take millions of tons of gold." He said they lived just across the railroad tracks from the steel plant. "Ruined," he said. "The factory is gone completely." Anastasiia Dembytska, who took advantage of the ceasefire to leave with her daughter, nephew and dog, said she could see the steelworks from her window, when she dared to look. "We could see the rockets flying" and clouds of smoke over the plant, she said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Greek state television that remaining civilians in the steel plant were afraid to board buses, fearing they would be taken to Russia. He said the UN assured him they could go to areas his government controls. Mariupol lies in the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, and is key to Russia’s campaign in the east. Its capture would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for fighting elsewhere. More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday, according to state-owned news agency TASS. Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said that number included 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, in the previous 24 hours, "without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities." Those civilians "were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics," and other parts of Ukraine, according to the report. No details were provided. Zelenskyy said Monday that at least 220 Ukrainian children have been killed by the Russian army since the war began, and 1,570 educational institutions have been destroyed or damaged. Failing to seize Kyiv, the capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin shifted his focus to the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014. Russia said it struck dozens of military targets in the region, including concentrations of troops and weapons and an ammunition depot near Chervone in the Zaporizhzhia region, west of the Donbas. Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow's troops are firing indiscriminately, killing many civilians while making only slow progress.
The governor of the Odesa region along the Black Sea Coast, Maksym Marchenko, said on Telegram that a Russian missile strike Monday caused deaths and injuries. He gave no details. Zelenskyy said the attack destroyed a dormitory and killed a 14-year-old boy. Ukraine said Russia also struck a strategic road and rail bridge west of Odesa. The bridge was heavily damaged in previous Russian strikes, and its destruction would cut a supply route for weapons and other cargo from neighboring Romania. However a satellite image captured by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press showed the bridge still standing as of noon Monday. Another image, taken Monday, showed nearly 50 Russian military helicopters at Stary Oskol, a Russian base close to the Ukrainian border and some 175 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. The helicopters were stationed on the tarmac, runway and grass of the otherwise civilian airport, with military equipment nearby. In the war in Ukraine, Russia has been flying military attack helicopters low to the ground to try to avoid anti-aircraft missiles.

WHO to Hold Urgent Meeting on Ukraine Invasion’s Health Impact
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
A World Health Organization spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed that its European region would hold a special meeting next week on the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on health and healthcare. "There will be a meeting on 10 May on the impact of war on Ukraine health system," said Tarik Jasarevic at a Geneva press briefing. Reuters reported last week that Kyiv had requested the meeting, citing a letter written by the Ukraine diplomatic mission in Geneva signed by some 38 other countries.
Russia, one of the 53 members of WHO's Europe region, has not yet responded to a Reuters' request for comment on the event.

Russia Says Israel Supports Neo-Nazis in Row over Ukraine
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Russia's foreign ministry accused Israel on Tuesday of supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine, further escalating a row which began when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins. Israel lambasted Lavrov on Monday, saying his claim - made when talking about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who is Jewish - was an "unforgivable" falsehood that debased the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. Leaders from several Western nations denounced Lavrov's comments and Zelenskiy accused Russia of having forgotten the lessons of World War Two.
The Russian ministry said in a statement that Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid's comments were "anti-historical" and "explaining to a large extent why the current Israeli government supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv". Moscow reiterated Lavrov's point that Zelenskiy's Jewish origins did not preclude Ukraine from being run by neo-Nazis. "Antisemitism in everyday life and in politics is not stopped and is on the contrary nurtured (in Ukraine)," it said in a statement. Lavrov made the Hitler assertion on Italian television on Sunday when he was asked why Russia said it needed to "denazify" Ukraine if the country's own president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was himself Jewish. Israel has expressed support for Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February. But wary of damaging relations with Russia, a powerbroker in neighboring Syria, it initially avoided direct criticism of Moscow and has not enforced formal sanctions on Russian oligarchs. However, ties have grown more strained, with Lapid last month accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

West ‘has given up hope’ of revived Iran nuclear deal, say expert analysts
Arab News/May 03/2022
JEDDAH: Western politicians and diplomats have largely given up hope of reviving the nuclear deal with Iran and are looking at other ways to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, according to expert analysts. There is a growing belief among negotiators from the major powers that the agreement, under which Iran restrained its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions, may be beyond salvation. “They are not yanking the IV out of the patient’s arm ... but I sense little expectation that there is a positive way forward,” one diplomatic source told the Reuters news agency. Four Western diplomats also described hopes of a revived deal as “withering away.” The agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in 2015 but abandoned by the US in 2018 — appeared on the brink of revival in early March after lengthy talks in Vienna. However, Tehran brought progress to a halt by demanding that the US remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Aides to US President Joe Biden say that if Washington were to take a such step, then Tehran must also address issues outside the deal — including its regional meddling, and its ballistic missile program.“If they’re not prepared to drop extraneous demands, continue to insist on lifting the FTO, and refuse to address our concerns that go beyond the JCPOA then, yes, we’re going to reach an impasse that is probably not going to be surmountable,” said a senior US official.
“I don’t think anybody wants to say enough is enough,” one Western diplomat said. “Does this go on indefinitely with neither side conceding that it’s over? Probably.”

Nuclear Talks on Verge of Collapse, Europe Counts on Iranian Concessions
London – Tehran – Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Western officials’ hopes for reviving the Iran nuclear deal are dwindling. This is forcing them to weigh how to limit Iran's nuclear program even as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has divided major powers. While they have not completely given up on the pact, there is a growing belief it may be beyond salvation. “They are not yanking the IV out of the patient's arm ... but I sense little expectation that there is a positive way forward,” one source told Reuters under the conditions of anonymity. Four Western diplomats echoed the sentiment that the deal is withering away. The pact appeared on the brink of revival in early March when the European Union, which coordinates the talks, invited ministers to Vienna to seal the deal. But talks were thrown into disarray over last-minute Russian demands and whether Washington might remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from its Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list.
The Russian demands appear to have been finessed but the IRGC designation has not, with the impending Nov. 8 US midterm elections making it hard for US President Joe Biden to buck domestic opposition to remove it. Reuters’ report was published a day after another report by the Wall Street Journal about European attempts to take a new step to save the talks from collapsing. The report cites a phone call that took place between the European Union foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, about 10 days ago. Borrell had warned the Iranians of the consequences of prolonging the negotiations, suggesting that his deputy and coordinator of the talks, Enrique Mora, should be sent again to Tehran to break the current deadlock in the diplomatic track. So far, Iran seems unwilling to budge on the FTO removal. “That is our redline and we will not cave on that,” an Iranian security official told Reuters.

Iran's oil minister meets Maduro in Caracas
Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Iran's oil minister has paid an official visit to ally Venezuela to meet President Nicolas Maduro and discuss ways to "overcome" the effects of U.S. sanctions against both nations, officials said. "I received His Excellency Javad Owji, Oil Minister of the sister Islamic Republic of Iran," Maduro said on Twitter, calling it a "a productive meeting to deepen the ties of brotherhood and cooperation in energy matters." State television showed images of the meeting at the presidential palace in Miraflores.Earlier Owji met his counterpart Tareck El Aissami to discuss "the construction of routes and mechanisms to overcome the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States government and allied countries," according to a statement from the Venezuelan Oil Ministry. Javad Owji's visit to Venezuela, which sits on the world's largest proven reserves of crude, came just weeks after a visit by United States officials in the midst of rising global oil prices due to the war on Ukraine.In March, a US delegation held a hushed meeting with Maduro, whose very legitimacy as president Washington disputes.Iran is a major oil producer and said last month that production capacity was back to levels before the reimposition of U.S. sanctions in 2018.
El Aissami, named a narcotics "kingpin" by the United States which has placed him on a most-wanted fugitives list, posted a video on Instagram Monday of him receiving Owji at his office with a handshake. Bilateral ties between the two oil producers were strong under the reign of socialist leader Hugo Chavez (1999-2013) and bolstered further under his successor Maduro. Venezuela, under strict U.S. sanctions that it blames for the collapse of its once-flourishing oil industry, has strong allies in Iran, Russia and China. In 2020, Venezuela received two shiploads of fuel and derivatives from Iran to help address crippling domestic shortages. Just a few years earlier, it was still the United States' main supplier. Also in 2020, on a visit to Caracas, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said his country would remain on Venezuela's "side."
The March meeting with Maduro caused questions to be raised in Washington, prompting the White House to clarify it was not in "active conversation" with Venezuela on oil imports.

Israel Says Iran Tried to Recruit Agents via Social Media
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Israel's internal security agency on Monday accused Iran of using a fake Facebook profile to try and get Israelis to collect information and harm people in their country. Shin Bet's allegation comes days after Israel claimed that Iran had plotted to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey, as global powers seek to revive a nuclear deal with Tehran. According to the Shin Bet, the profile of a young Jewish-Canadian woman called Sara Puppi with ties in Israel was fake and belonged to an Iranian agent using the social network to befriend primarily Israelis. After contact was made, Puppi would use the WhatsApp messaging app to try and persuade her new friends "to gather information on Israeli figures while gauging their willingness to harm them, using pressure and promising thousands of dollars", the Shin Bet said. "Emotional and romantic manipulations were also used," the agency added in a statement.
It said that Shin Bet agents had posed as "friends" of Puppi -- whose account had more than 2,000 friends before disappearing on Monday -- and received a Bitcoin payment from her. "The Iranian operative behind the account used a business cover story to give various missions," the Shin Bet said. Puppi expressed a will to harm "business representatives and diplomats from Arab countries operating in Israel", it said. Those behind the account also tried to damage Israel's ties with Russia by encouraging people to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war, the Shin Bet said. The Shin Bet told AFP they could link the account to Iran with intelligence they obtained. The Shin Bet called on Israelis to exercise vigilance and caution given the threat posed by various terrorists on social media, and to inform the Israeli police of any suspicious activity.

Iran grows uneasy with Afghan refugees as tensions with Taliban rise
TEHRAN, Iran/The Arab Weekly/May 03/2022
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh lamented last month that “waves of displaced Afghans cannot continue to Iran” because Iran’s “capacities are limited.”As Afghanistan plunged into an economic crisis after the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, the 960-kilometre long border with Iran became a lifeline for Afghans who piled into smugglers’ pickups in desperate search of money and work.But in recent weeks the desert crossing, long a dangerous corner of the world, has become a growing source of tension as an estimated 5,000 Afghans traverse it each day and the neighbours, erstwhile enemies that trade fuel, share water and have a tortured history, navigate an increasingly charged relationship.In past weeks, skirmishes erupted between Taliban and Iranian border guards. Afghans in three cities rallied against Iran. Demonstrators hurled stones and set fires outside an Iranian consulate. A fatal stabbing spree, allegedly by an Afghan migrant, at Iran's holiest shrine, sent shockwaves through the country.Political analysts say even as both nations do not want an escalation, long-smouldering hostilities risk spiralling out of control.
“You have one of the world’s worst-simmering refugee crises just chugging along on a daily pace and historical enmity,” said Andrew Watkins, senior Afghanistan expert at the United States Institute of Peace. “Earthquakes will happen."
The perils are personal for Afghans slipping across the border. Since the Taliban takeover, Iran has increased its deportations of Afghan migrants, according to the UN migration agency, warning that its sanctions-hit economy cannot handle the influx.
In the first three months of this year, Iran's deportations jumped 60% each month, said Ashley Carl, deputy chief of the agency's Afghanistan mission. Many of the 251,000 returned from Iran this year bear the wounds and scars of the arduous trip, he said, surviving car crashes, gunshots and other travails.
Roshangol Hakimi, a 35-year-old who fled to Iran after the Taliban takeover, said smugglers held her and her nine-year-old daughter hostage over a week until her relatives paid ransom.
"They would feed us with polluted water and hard, stale bread,” she said. “We were dying.”The lucky ones land in the jumble of Tehran, squeezing into dank and crowded alleyways. Iran estimates at least a million Afghans have sought refuge in the country over the last eight months. As more Afghans arrive, helping them gets harder. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh lamented last month that “waves of displaced Afghans cannot continue to Iran” because Iran’s “capacities are limited.” Iran's youth unemployment hovers over 23%. Iran’s currency, the rial, has shrivelled to less than 50% of its value since 2018. “The biggest challenge is that Iran is not ready for the new situation of refugees," Tehran-based political analyst Rea Ghobeishavi said of the increasing friction between Afghans and Iranians.
Iran has grown more anxious as a string of bloody attacks in Afghanistan targeting the country's minority Hazara Shia makes clear that extremist threats proliferate despite Taliban promises to provide security.
“There are reports that some extremists are entering Iran easily with refugees,” said Abbas Husseini, a prominent Afghan journalist in Tehran, describing mounting paranoia in Iran. Last month, Iran’s most sacred Shia shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad turned into a scene of carnage when an assailant stabbed three clerics, killing two, a rare act of violence at the compound. The attacker was identified in media as an Afghan national of Uzbek ethnicity.
In the following days, a surge of videos agitating against Afghan refugees flooded Iranian social media. Impossible to authenticate, the grainy clips, footage showing Iranians insulting and beating up Afghans, have been dismissed as misleading in Iran but in Afghanistan they have dominated headlines, stoking public fury. Demonstrators attacked the Iranian consulate in the western city of Herat with stones and protested at Iran's embassy in Kabul. “Stop killing Afghans," pleaded protesters in the Afghan capital. “Death to Iran," chanted crowds in Herat and the southeastern Khost province. Iran suspended all of its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan for ten days. Even as the gate of its consulate smouldered, Iran’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi blamed the escalating tensions on a vague “enemy" seeking to subvert the nations' relations. Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi raised his concerns with the Iranian ambassador. “The ill-treatment of Afghan refugees in Iran adversely affects relations between the two countries ... allowing antagonists to conspire,” Muttaqi was quoted as saying.
His careful tone betrays a troubled history. In 1998, Iran nearly went to war against the Taliban after ten of its diplomats were killed when their consulate was stormed in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. But after the US-led invasion, Tehran's Shiite leaders grew wary of the American military presence on their doorstep and took a more pragmatic stance toward the Sunni militant group.
Now, analysts say, with both nations severed from the global banking system and starved of cash, they have come to depend on each other. Neither wants to see tensions mount further. “Through neighbours, Iran can sanctions-bust, exchange currency, barter and keep its economy alive,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. But the neighbours nearly came to blows last week when Taliban guards tried to pave a new road across the border. Iranian guards went on high alert. The vital crossing closed. Aware of the stakes, both countries are vigorously pursuing diplomacy. Last week, Khatibzadeh promised Tehran would accredit Taliban diplomats for the first time to help process the mountains of consular cases. Taliban officials visited the capital to discuss Iran's treatment of Afghan refugees. Many of those refugees fleeing Afghanistan's repression and destitution harbour humble dreams of scraping by as construction labourers, factory workers and farmhands in Iran.

Syrian Authorities Release Prisoners in Presidential Amnesty
Damascus - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
Dozens of prisoners were released in Syria on Monday under the general amnesty issued on the eve of Eid al-Fitr. A presidential decree called for “granting a general amnesty for terrorist crimes committed by Syrians” before April 30, 2022, “except for those leading to the death of a person,” the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. The new amnesty is considered the widest since the start of the conflict in the country in 2011, according to SANA. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Monday that around 60 detainees, some of whom have been detained for 10 years, have been released across Syria. According to the new decree, “tens of thousands of detainees” are expected to be released, many of whom are accused of “terrorism offences,” which director of SOHR Rami Abdel Rahman described as “a loose label used to convict those who are arbitrarily arrested.”
SOHR data shows that more than 105,000 detainees have been killed under torture in regime prisons since 2011. Sources reported the return of a number of detainees to their families on the morning of the first day of Eid al-Fitr, as well as the release of dozens of prisoners from several Syrian governorates, including detainees in Sednaya Military Prison, which is one of the most dangerous detention centers inspired by the Soviet architectural style. Among the released were people who have been sentenced to death, including a detainee from the town of Al-Otaiba in Eastern Ghouta. Others had been detained for more than ten years while their relatives did not have any information about their fate. President Bashar al-Assad has previously issued several amnesty decrees, the last of which was in May last year, weeks before his re-election as president for a fourth tenure. Half a million people have entered regime prisons and detention centers since 2011, with around 100,000 dying under torture or as a result of horrific detention conditions, according to SOHR. Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, accuse the Syrian regime of exploiting anti-terror laws to “condemn peaceful activists.” The Syrian regime is also accused of torturing inmates to death, of rape, sexual assaults and extrajudicial executions.

Years after Daesh defeat, northern Iraq struggles to rebuild
AFP/May 03, 2022
HABASH, Iraq: In Iraq, “maku” means “nothing,” and father-of-five Issa Al-Zamzoum says “maku” a lot: no electricity, no home, no rebuilding and no job. Eight years after heavy fighting between Daesh terrorists and the army, the reconstruction of his war-ravaged village in northern Iraq is at a standstill.
“There is nothing here, no electricity,” 42-year-old Zamzoum sighed. “Even work, there is none.”Zamzoum lives with his wife and family in Habash, some 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, a village dotted with dozens of bomb-blasted houses still ruined from intense fighting in 2014.
Part of their roof, which caved in during the bombardment, still lies in crumbling and bullet-scarred wreckage. In one room, a hen watches over her chicks. In another, filthy mattresses are piled up against the wall. The building does not even belong to Zamzoum: his own home was left uninhabitable. While the Baghdad government eventually celebrated military “victory” over Daesh in December 2017, the scale of destruction was immense. “Reconstruction? We do not see it,” Zamzoum said gloomily. “Nothing has happened since the war.” Habash paid a heavy price during Daesh’s siege of Amerli, a town less than 10 kilometers away. In 2014, the jihadists, who controlled the key northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas, moved south to attack Amerli, using surrounding settlements such as Habash as bases for their assault. The combined forces of the Iraqi army, Shiite militias and Kurdish forces launched a counterattack to break the siege with gruelling street fighting, and Daesh forces were pushed out. But for residents of the already hard-hit area, it was not the end of their suffering. According to Human Rights Watch, after the siege “pro-government militias and volunteer fighters as well as Iraqi security forces raided Sunni villages and neighborhoods” surrounding Amerli, including Habash. HRW used satellite imagery to map “heavy smoke plumes of building fires, likely from arson attacks” in the village. Today, nearly 20,000 people displaced by the conflict need aid in the area, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid agency.
“Humanitarian needs are significant,” the NRC said. As well as basic needs like clean water and electricity, even obtaining identity papers is a challenge for many. “Many people have been displaced across governorates and face major barriers to travel to obtain civil documents,” the NRC said.
“Others face security clearance issues related to perceived affiliation with the Islamic State” group, it added. Like most of the residents of Habash, Zamzoum’s neighbor Abdelkarim Nouri is a Sunni Muslim.In Shiite-majority Iraq, Sunnis have sometimes been viewed with distrust, suspected of being complicit in past support of the extremists.
Daesh jihadists follow a radical interpretation of Sunni beliefs. “Our life is a shame,” Nouri said. “I don’t have a job. I have five sheep, and they are the ones who keep me alive.” He said he had appealed to his member of parliament for support, but nothing had changed. Nouri does not mention religion or talk of sectarianism — a deeply sensitive topic in a country where tens of thousands of people died during bloody inter-religious conflict in 2006-2008. Now, over four years since the end of Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Iraq, many Sunnis say they are victims of harassment and discrimination. A US State Department report last year cited concerns among Sunni officials that “government-affiliated Shia (Shiite) militia continued to forcibly displace Sunnis.”The report quoted officials describing “random arrests of Sunnis in areas north of Baghdad” and detentions made on suspicion of Daesh links. In Salaheddin province, where Habash is located, officials speak of “security risks” which are delaying reconstruction — without mentioning Daesh jihadists by name. While Habash is under government control, the militants still operate just 15 kilometers further north. On the road that leads to the village of Bir Ahmed, forces of the Hashed Al-Shaabi — a Shiite-led former paramilitary coalition now integrated into Iraq’s state security apparatus — stand guard. “The situation in Bir Ahmed is beyond our control and that of the army,” a senior officer said. “You can get in, but I can’t guarantee you can get out.”

Turkey's shutdown of ‘Mekameleen’ signals end of an era in Muslim Brotherhood activity, regional policy shift
ANKARA/ CAIRO-The Arab Weekly/May 03/2022
Ankara seeks to reap the dividends of new phase in its relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The announcement of the shutdown of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Mekameleen ” channel and the suspension of the TV outlet’s broadcasts from Turkey have indicated that the era in the Islamist group’s media activity has come to an end, while Ankara seeks to reap the dividends from a new phase in its relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. “Mekameleen ” was among the satellite TV channels used in the past by Erdogan’s Turkey to put pressure on its Arab neighbours and also carry out the agendas of both Ankara and the Brotherhood in the region. The TV channel put out a statement on Friday announcing the definitive end of its broadcast and the closure of its studios, eight years after it started operating from Istanbul. It said that it “will resume broadcasting and start again its activity from other countries, soon,” but did not specify from which countries or at what date. Turkey had expelled a number of media professionals from its territory, as a prelude to closing the channels after the goals for which they were created were no longer part of Ankara’s priorities. Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated TV channels operating from Turkey were part of Ankara’s propaganda arsenal against Egypt and Arab Gulf countries. In the past few years, hey spearheaded a multifaceted showdown between the international organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood and Cairo. From 2018, Ankara also employed them to assail and pressure Saudi Arabia by trying to spin to its advantage the case of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
As part of its regional policy shift, Ankara is now seeking reconciliation with Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. For that purpose, it needs to further demonstrate its intent to introduce tangible changes in its regional agenda. That includes distancing itself from the Muslim Brotherhood. The move to close “Mekameleen” coincided with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s first visit to Saudi Arabia since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi four years ago. During his visit, Erdogan spoke of launching “a new era” in Turkish-Saudi relations and his desire to strengthen political, military, economic and cultural ties.
Former Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister, Ambassador Hassan Haridy told The Arab Weekly that “the demise of the Brotherhood channels comes in the context of the gradual return of Egyptian-Turkish relations to normal, a step preceding the exchange of ambassadors between the two countries”. He noted that Cairo had objected to appointing an ambassador to Ankara as long as hostile channels continued to air from Turkish soil. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu recently declared that his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, will visit Turkey soon, but he did not specify the exact date of that trip. He pointed out that relations with Cairo are improving and are expected to move to higher ground, despite the differences in views between both countries. He asserted that improvement in relations will benefit both countries.
Analysts say that Ankara has tried to send a useful signal to Egypt and Arab Gulf countries through the closure of the TV channel but retains in its service a gamut of soft power and propaganda tools that can carry out its bidding, including criticism of Egypt if it needed. Qatar-owned “Al-Jazeera” TV channel continues to promote the political agendas of Qatar and Turkey and to show that neither country has abandoned the Brotherhood and both also intend to maintain their influence among Islamists in certain Arab countries where they have sought to position themselves since the “Arab spring” upheaval.
Islamist groups’ expert Munir Adib said Ankara is expected to continue its action against the Brotherhood TV channels pending the outcome of the political rapprochement between Turkey and the Arab countries.
High among Turkey’s concerns are its economic crisis and the need to secure more investments from Arab Gulf countries, analysts say. This focus, they add, does do not serve the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood nor of its relations with Ankara.
Erdogan now seeks to further boost ties not only with Saudi Arabia and the UAE but also with Egypt even if it means further undermining the Muslim Brotherhood’s regional propaganda operations. Last March, Ankara had asked Brotherhood activist Yasser Al-Omda to leave the country after the broadcast of statements in which he criticised Cairo’s policies and called for a “popular revolution” in Egypt. Many TV presenters have left Turkey while others topped attacking Cairo. They understood Ankara no longer offered them a political safe haven.

US primaries will test Trump's sway with Republicans
Agence France Presse/May 03/2022
A series of bruising May primary contests will test Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party as voters weigh his preferred candidates ahead of November's midterm elections, starting Tuesday in Ohio. A dozen states are holding nominating contests, with a particularly brutal battle playing out on the Republican side among hardline right-wingers adopting the former president's scorched-earth campaign style. Trump has made endorsements in most of the contests, making them a litmus test of his influence 18 months after being defeated by President Joe Biden, and of his prospects for another run at the White House in 2024. Across the key battlegrounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Alabama, nearly four in ten Republican 2022 Senate primary ads mentioned Trump, according to an AdImpact analysis provided to Punchbowl News. "The results of the primaries will test whether the Republican base is still the Trump base," Alexander Heffner, host of PBS's long-running "The Open Mind" and co-author of the forthcoming "A Documentary History of the United States," told AFP. "If Trump-endorsed candidates do not perform favorably, the trajectory to the 2024 presidential nomination will appear different, with the potential for independent wings of the party to reemerge." In Ohio, the former reality TV star picked bestselling author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance as he bids to be a Senate candidate in one of the most-watched races. Vance, whose 2016 memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" became an Oscar-nominated Netflix movie, was plucked out by Trump over more popular rivals in a wide-open primary to replace retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman.
Political capital -
Trump couldn't get Vance's name right at a rally in Nebraska on Sunday.
"We've endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel," Trump said during the rally, confusing Vance with one of his competitors, Josh Mandel. The former president's backing has nevertheless proved a huge boon for Vance, who once called his new patron "America's Hitler" but moved from obscurity in the race to a five-point lead after successfully courting Trump's endorsement. While Ohio is on course to reaffirm Trump's role as Republican kingmaker, the 75-year-old has also banked much of his political capital in contests that hint at the limits of his post-presidential clout. On May 17 the primary season takes in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, which has generated headlines with a Trump-backed celebrity Senate candidate of its own. Trump's support for Mehmet Oz -- known to his legion of fans on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" as Dr. Oz -- seems to have helped the TV surgeon leapfrog his closest rival, former Treasury official David McCormick. But while Oz has built a small lead, the polling doesn't show him clearing the field with a Vance-sized bounce.
Bitter fight
The stakes are high in Georgia in November, a state which voted Democrat last time around but could change the balance of power in the Senate if it swings back Republican, with broad implications for Biden's presidency. It is also the epicenter of Trump's election disinformation campaign and the increasingly bitter fight over voting rights. Trump has repeatedly berated Republican Governor Brian Kemp for certifying the 2020 results, which the governor was required to do by law after Biden's victory in the former Republican stronghold. In a direct appeal to Trump followers who continue wrongly to question the validity of the election, Trump-backed former senator David Perdue has made false claims about fraud a centerpiece of his campaign. Yet Perdue's fortunes are markedly worse since Trump's endorsement, with the gap behind Kemp widening from seven points to a massive 25. The clearest threat to Trump's kingmaker status has come in Alabama, where he enthusiastically backed congressman Mo Brooks, a prominent speaker during the January 2021 Washington rally where Trump fired up the mob that stormed the Capitol, for the Senate. Trump revoked that endorsement in an embarrassing about-face last month, however, with Brooks trailing badly. Brooks has since turned on Trump, claiming that the former president asked him to illegally "rescind" the results of the 2020 election and help remove Biden from office. Author, journalist and political profiler Mark Leibovich believes reminding Republicans that Trump's winning streak is not all it is cracked up to be could be the best hope for more traditional Republicans to win their nomination races. "The guy lost not only reelection, which is really difficult to do, he lost the Senate for Republicans, he lost the House for Republicans, the White House for Republicans," Leibovich told MSNBC in a weekend interview. "He's the first Republican in 100 years to lose all three chambers in a single term."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 03-04/2022
European Union's Border-Protection System Now A Tourism Agency for Migrants
Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/May 03/2022
This accusation is at the heart of the conflict in the European Union: should EU member states keep their borders open at all times? And is it Frontex's job to ensure that the borders of EU member states remain always open?
Whenever the European Union talks about "fundamental rights", it is the right of migrants to move freely that is being discussed. Never the rights of the host populations. In this context, a "pushback" is perceived as a capital crime.
Frontex alone illustrates the European Union dilemma: to welcome refugees and turn back illegal migrants looking for economic opportunity, or to welcome all migrants for fear of turning back genuine refugees ?
In his resignation letter, Leggeri wrote, "It seems that the mandate of Frontex on which I was elected and renewed in June 2019 has silently but effectively been modified." It was a way of saying that the mission of Frontex is no longer the protection of borders but only the protection of the right of migrants to settle wherever they want. With the departure of Leggeri, Frontex officially becomes a tourism agency for migrants, not an agency to protect Europe's borders.
With the resignation of Fabrice Leggeri (pictured) as director-general of Frontex, the European agency tasked with guarding the EU's borders, Frontex officially becomes a tourism agency for migrants, not an agency to protect Europe's borders. (Photo by Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images)
The pro-migrants lobby inside the European Union has won: Fabrice Leggeri, director-general of Frontex, the European agency tasked with guarding the EU's borders, was forced to send a letter of resignation on April 28, 2022. His resignation was accepted by the board.
Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, was created in 2004 to help EU member states and countries associated with the Schengen area -- countries allowing passport-free movement between them -- to protect the EU's external borders.
In 2021, Frontex had a budget of 544 million euros (half a billion dollars) and employed 1,000 European officials. By 2027, their number (coast guards and border guards) will increase tenfold. There are also plans that the European coast guards will be armed.
Importantly, Frontex is not under the direct supervision of the European Commission. The head of Frontex reports to a board of directors, composed of the ministers of the interior of Europe's 27 member states. However, the European Commission does have two representatives on the Frontex board.
The relative institutional independence of Frontex explains the nature of the means used to obtain the departure of a director general: his actions were perceived as hostile to the commission's open borders policy.
Fabrice Leggeri, appointed in 2015 and reappointed in 2019, has, for the past two years, been the target of multiple, relentless attacks. The Swedish Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson (Social Democrat), numerous pro-migrant NGOs (Sea Watch, Front-Lex and Progress Lawyers Network, Greek Helsinki Monitor...), members of the European Parliament -- all have accused Frontex and Leggeri of turning the European Union into a "fortress" and of undermining the human rights of migrants.
The intensity of the political conflicts surrounding the migration issues in Europe needs to be understood, as well as its link to the Second World War. Europeans have never recovered from having closed their borders to Jewish refugees persecuted by the Nazis. The European Union has therefore made it its duty to watch over the rights of "refugees" from all over the world; it does not matter if these "refugees" are actual refugees fleeing from persecution, or simply economic migrants looking for a more prosperous life. That European guilt is, unsurprisingly, often being exploited today by various political, economic and media lobbies. Defenders of multinationals corporations see mass immigration as a way to lower labor costs; self-declared "progressives", numerous in the media, defend a compulsory multiculturalist model that considers any criticism of immigration an apology for racism.
It was a report by the German television channel ARD, filmed with a hidden camera, that set off this latest powder keg. In October 2021, journalists from ARD channel filmed a "push back", the heavy-handed methods used by Greek border guards to turn back migrants, as well as the use of dogs to track them. Above all, media outlets -- the British Guardian and the German ARD -- criticized the way that Frontex had reportedly turned a blind eye to those abuses.
It was this passivity of Frontex agents that led to an investigation by OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office), the European Union's internal investigation service. The report drawn up by OLAF in February 2022 -- 129 pages and 700 pages of appendices – mauled Leggeri. Three grievances were established against him: non-compliance with procedures, disloyalty to the European Union and poor staff management. A proposal to open disciplinary proceedings against him, however, was overwhelmingly rejected by 22 votes against, 5 in favor and one abstention.
The three grievances against Leggeri boil down to one: Frontex would have helped some EU member states to "push back" flows of migrants outside their borders. It is not that Leggeri adopted personal anti-migrant attitudes. In fact, his enemies refused to take into consideration that in certain instances, the migrants were instrumentalized by powers antagonistic to Europe, such as Turkey or Belarus.
In February-March 2020, for instance, Turkey pushed several thousand illegal migrants on Greece, a hostile gesture that even German Chancellor Angela Merkel considered "unacceptable." "No one can blackmail the EU," the European Commissioner for Migration Margaritis Schinas chimed in as well.
A year later, in November 2021, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, in revenge for Western sanctions, imported migrants from the Middle East and launched them against the borders of Poland and Lithuania.
OLAF investigators, sadly, did not take into account the political aspect of these migration flows and accused Leggeri of betraying his mission of "monitoring" Europe's member states.
This accusation is at the heart of the conflict in the European Union: should EU member states keep their borders open at all times? And is it Frontex's job to ensure that the borders of EU member states remain always open?
The OLAF report criticizes Leggeri for having dragged his feet in recruiting "twenty fundamental rights monitors" -- political commissioners in charge of ensuring respect for migrants' rights -- and for having dragged his feet in creating a "fundamental rights" monitoring system.
Whenever the European Union talks about "fundamental rights", it is the right of migrants to move freely that is being discussed. Never the rights of the host populations. In this context, a "pushback" is perceived as a capital crime.
These "monitors" in charge of fundamental rights do not report to the director general, so Frontex alone illustrates the European Union dilemma: to welcome refugees and turn back illegal migrants looking for economic opportunity, or to welcome all migrants for fear of turning back genuine refugees?
In his resignation letter, Leggeri wrote, "It seems that the mandate of Frontex on which I was elected and renewed in June 2019 has silently but effectively been modified." It was a way of saying that the mission of Frontex is no longer the protection of borders but only the protection of the right of migrants to settle wherever they want. This view was confirmed by the Dutch MEP Tineke Strik, leader of the European Parliament's working group on Frontex. In a mocking tweet, Strik explained that Frontex has never changed. The reality, she said, is that Leggeri "has never understood that Frontex must protect fundamental rights in all its actions". She added: "The next director must make this a top priority."
With the departure of Leggeri, Frontex officially becomes a tourism agency for migrants, not an agency to protect Europe's borders.
*Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of

Election Integrity Dead: Killed in Court
J. Christian Adams/Gatestone Institute/May 3, 2022
Many election operatives know that elections are won or lost because of process. For decades, one side has been focused on policy, big ideas, and winning debates. Meanwhile, the other side has been focused on process and the rules of the elections game.
[A] war is taking place around elections that has nothing to do with voting machines being controlled by Italian satellites or Internet hackers. They don't need to be.
Election process fights have become a Darwinian "survival of the fittest." Whichever side can effectively adapt to a new technological or cultural environment often determines who wins and who loses.
In 2020, an unprecedented burst of mail ballots swamped election offices because of the fright of COVID. All over the country, judges struck down or suspended laws that would have ensured those mail ballots were processed according to the law. At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars in private money poured into election offices to change the way the elections were run.
It is a dangerous place we find ourselves, where citizens through the legislative process are enacting safeguards to keep our elections clean and manageable, yet a hyper-funded onslaught has mastered the art of killing real, verifiable, integrity in elections.
First, do not assume there will be a "red wave" this November. Many election operatives have demonstrated a fierce ability to adapt and leverage cultural and technological awareness into electoral wins.
Second, a "red wave" cannot overcome the "blue wave" tactics of 2020 seen in urban areas flush with outside cash.
Third, the Biden administration is already turning the battleship of the entire federal government toward turnout in 2022. Institutions have mobilized every single agency into a weapon to increase voter turnout among "historically marginalized communities." Decoded, that means racial groups. This is all happening with little fanfare, and little means to stop it.
It also means that every federal agency has had a year-long head start into morphing into a get-out-the-vote tool. It means housing, welfare, and education offices will be turned into turnout machines. Institutions have adapted and created an architecture using the powers of the state to target certain voters and get them to the polls.
For good measure, the Biden administration proposed a $10 billion federal fund available for the next decade to replicate and expand the cash injections to election offices like those seen in 2020. Another $5 billion is requested for the U.S. Postal Service so it can expand its role in voting-by-mail. Even if the administration gets a fraction of that request, it will make the $500 million spent in 2020 from private groups to increase urban turnout look like small potatoes.
Perhaps most of all, we can start to pay close attention to the fights going on behind the scenes -- the process fights. For so long, we have rightfully cared about policies such as taxes, government spending, education, and energy. We try to move heart and minds. But others put policy second: they are worried about whether process helps or hurts their ability to move bodies and ballots. Process is driving the outcomes of policies; it is time to fully engage before our ability to engage at all is extinguished.
Many election operatives know that elections are won or lost because of process. For decades, one side has been focused on policy, big ideas, and winning debates. Meanwhile, the other side has been focused on process and the rules of the elections game. (Image source: iStock)
In the wake of the 2020 election, states across the country enacted laws to try to prevent a repeat of the chaos from that election. In some states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida, laws were passed to prohibit the private funding of election offices. In others, ballot custody vulnerabilities were addressed, such as limits on harvesting and drop-boxes.
Predictably, an enormous litigation apparatus attacked nearly every post-2020 election reform in federal or state court. Too often, they were successful.
Arizona, for example, enacted legislation to ensure that only citizens are registering and voting. No sooner had the ink dried on Governor Doug Ducey's signature, than the state was hit with a federal lawsuit by Mi Familia Vota, an organization dedicated to "build[ing] Latino political power by expanding the electorate...." This promises to be another example of trench warfare-style litigation ultimately decided well into the future.
Before you think these sorts of lawsuits are frivolous, consider the fact that every lawsuit like it brought against other states has effectively won to the expense of election integrity.
Additionally, governors in five states – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and Louisiana -- have vetoed legislation that would have banned or restricted the Mark Zuckerberg-style private funding of elections.
Kansas thought it could require documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, but after a disastrous trial, a Republican-appointed federal judge ruled against Kansas in 2018. There was also no salvation on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, where, again, a panel that even included Republican-appointed federal appeals judges ruled against Kansas for not being able to demonstrate a data-driven justification for the law. The Supreme Court decided against taking up the matter, and Kansas taxpayers had to pay the victorious ACLU's court fees.
The big news on election integrity however, now comes from Florida. There, a federal judge recently wrote a 288-page opinion striking down SB90, an election integrity overhaul package passed in the wake of the 2020 election.
The omnibus law tried to do a number of important things.
First, it required that mail ballot drop-boxes be monitored. These resemble outdoor mailboxes where, during the 2020 election, the huge increase in mail ballots were delivered. The purpose of monitoring was to ensure the security of the ballots inside those drop-boxes.
Second, SB90 prohibited third parties from engaging with voters within 150 feet of the drop-boxes. This extended the usual zone of protection found near polling places also to include drop-box locations.
Third, Florida had been allowing a vote-by-mail request in one election to carry over to a subsequent election. The problem is that the voter requestor may die or move away by then, and a ballot would be floating around with no voter at the address ready to receive it. SB90 shrank the longevity of a vote-by-mail request from two elections to one.
Fourth, SB90 required voters requesting an absentee ballot to include verifying information that the request really came from the voter. That could include the last four digits of a Social Security number. The number would be verified before an absentee ballot was sent in the mail.
After a trial, United States District Court Judge Mark E. Walker in Tallahassee shredded SB90's new provisions.
Walker ruled that the requirement that drop-boxes be monitored resulted in fewer drop-boxes, and had a discriminatory impact on black voters who particularly use them. Walker heard evidence to this effect, and to the extent that rebuttal evidence was presented, Walker certainly did not find it noteworthy enough even to mention it in his opinion.
Fifth, Walker ruled that the prohibition on engaging with voters near a drop-box infringed on First Amendment rights. The limit on a vote-by-mail request rollovers shrinking from two elections to one election was found to be a violation of the Voting Rights Act because black voters particularly use mail voting.
On the other side of the ledger, the court did uphold the requirement that voters requesting a mail ballot provide a unique number that could be used to verify that the request was authentic. The court reasoned that, if anything, whites are hurt by this requirement more than blacks.
Apparently that makes it okay, at least to Judge Walker.
Mi Familia Vota was not the only not-for-profit group to sue over SB90. The case had a veritable dogpile of other groups attacking the law, including the League of Women Voters of Florida Inc., League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund Inc., Black Voters Matter Fund Inc., and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans Inc.
These groups might sound non-partisan. They are not. The Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, according to InfluenceWatch.com, is a big labor front group. Their purpose is to advance "left-progressive policy at the local and state levels while mobilizing retirees to be active in informing and activating their communities." According to federal records, they are funded by the AFL-CIO, the postal workers union, the SEIU, and the Amalgamated Transit Union. The latter is apparently the organizing arm of employees of ever-agitating government-run public transportation systems such as SEPTA in Philadelphia.
By now, you might be wondering, what do transportation workers and your postman have to do with voting issues?
Everything. Many election operatives know that elections are won or lost because of process. For decades, one side has been focused on policy, big ideas, and winning debates. Meanwhile, the other side has been focused on process and the rules of the elections game. One side is moving minds, the other side bodies and ballots.
Many groups have been using federal civil rights laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a weapon to help advance partisan interests. Elect more Democrats, they assume, then transit workers get more pay during the next collective bargaining round. Strike down laws against bothering voters within 150 feet of a drop-box, then, as I witnessed firsthand in 2004, the SEIU can flex its muscle around the polls and make it uncomfortable for some voters to vote.
Under Florida's SB90, voters near drop-boxes were protected from the strong arms of this SEIU theatre, but not anymore thanks to Judge Walker's ruling.
All of this should demonstrate that a war is taking place around elections that has nothing to do with voting machines being controlled by Italian satellites or Internet hackers. They don't need to be.
Election process fights have become a Darwinian "survival of the fittest." Whichever side can adapt to a new technological or cultural environment the fastest and the best often determines who wins and who loses.
In 2020, an unprecedented burst of mail ballots swamped election offices because of the fright of COVID. All over the country, judges struck down or suspended laws that would have ensured that those mail ballots were processed according to the law. At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars in private money poured into election offices to change the way the elections were run.
The reaction in many states in 2021 -- Arizona, Florida, Texas, Iowa -- was to adapt, ban private money, and strengthen safeguards. Unfortunately, these cures faced an even more powerful "Darwinian" response -- the well-established, often partisan control of the judiciary. Courtrooms became the forum where experienced killers of election integrity law went to hunt.
Lawyers trying to protect the integrity of elections -- many of whom have never tried a civil rights lawsuit related to election process before -- usually find themselves out manned and out-gunned by a battalion of well-funded lawyers whose job it is not to make sure that elections provide an even playing field for everyone, but that the group that hired them maintains, if possible, an advantage. It is a dangerous place we find ourselves, where citizens through the democratic legislative process are enacting safeguards to keep our elections clean and manageable, and a hyper-funded partisan onslaught has mastered the art of killing real, verifiable, integrity in elections.
What does this mean for 2022 and beyond?
First, do not assume there will be a "red wave" this November to serve as a cure-all. Many election operatives have demonstrated a fierce ability to adapt and leverage cultural and technological awareness into electoral wins.
Second, a "red wave" cannot overcome the "blue wave" tactics of 2020 seen in urban areas flush with outside cash. The threats of private money, dispensing with statutory election procedures through litigation, and renewed COVID hysteria each loom in 2022.
Third, the Biden administration is already turning the battleship of the entire federal government toward turnout in 2022. They have mobilized every single agency into a weapon to increase voter turnout among "historically marginalized communities." Decoded, that means racial groups. This is all happening with little fanfare, and little means to stop it.
It means every federal agency has had a year-long head start into morphing into a get-out-the-vote tool. It means housing, welfare, and education offices will be turned into turnout machines. Institutions have adapted and created an architecture using the powers of the state to target certain voters and get them to the polls.
"Isn't that illegal?" some voters might cry. Cite me the statute please. What law makes it illegal to try to get historically underserved communities to the polls? And, who can argue with a straight face that it is a bad thing to encourage Americans to vote? This is the deviousness of those designs. Election operatives develop tools that appear facially neutral but that can be used to have a partisan impact. They then use the power they have to ensure that they have more power, longer. The tricky legal questions are thought-through long before you have time to even get annoyed.
For good measure, the Biden administration proposed a $10 billion federal fund available for the next decade to replicate and expand the cash injections to election offices like those seen in 2020. Another $5 billion is requested for the U.S. Postal Service so it can expand its role in voting-by-mail. Even if the administration gets a fraction of that request, it will make the $500 million spent in 2020 from private groups to increase urban turnout look like small potatoes.
What can be done? The power of the purse in the House is in the hands of the Speaker of the House, presently Nancy Pelosi. No court will ever invalidate a federal effort to encourage voting. Citizens can and should sign up to work at the polls. You can make sure you vote and deliver your ballot yourself. Sadly, there is no silver bullet.
Sure, we can win some victories, as my organization did when it stopped Virginia from accepting mail-in ballots late, with no postmarks, in violation of state law.
Perhaps most of all, we can start to pay close attention to the fights going on behind the scenes -- the process fights. For so long, we have rightfully cared about policies such as taxes, government spending, education, and energy. We try to move heart and minds. But others put policy second: they are worried about whether process helps or hurts their ability to move bodies and ballots. Process is driving the outcomes of policies; it is time to fully engage before our ability to engage at all is extinguished.
J. Christian Adams is President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the nation's only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity. He served in the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice and currently serves as a commissioner appointed by President Trump on the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Three Koran Verses Fueled the Slaughter of a Christian Priest
Raymond Ibrahim/May 03/2022
On April 7, 2022, in Egypt, a Muslim man lunged at and viciously stabbed a Christian priest thrice in the neck with a knife; Fr. Arsenius Wadid died soon thereafter. Although the murderer was instantly apprehended by passersby—the crime was committed on a crowded street—Egyptian authorities initially tried to do what their Western counterparts often do: portray the murderer as “insane,” an aberration of society.
Due to a combination of public outcry (primarily from the Copts themselves), the testimonials of seventeen eyewitnesses, and even the murderer’s own coherent responses—to say nothing of the fact that of all the people he could have “randomly” murdered he targeted the one openly professing his Christian faith by wearing a large crucifix around his neck—prosecution finally confirmed that he would be tried as sane and cognizant of his actions.
Why both Westerners and non-Westerners constantly seek to portray Muslim murderers of non-Muslims as “insane” should be clear by now: the alternative—that Islam somehow promotes such behavior—would open a massive can of worms that no one wants to deal with.
But can one really say that Islam promotes even the unprovoked slaying of a Christian clergyman, Fr. Arsenius, who was peacefully engaged in a public charitable activity with the youth of his church when he was slaughtered?
Three Koran passages would seem to answer this question in the affirmative: 1. “Kill the polytheists wherever you find them (9:5); 2. “Fight the leaders of disbelief [kufr] (9:12); 3. “When you meet the disbelievers, strike [with your blades at their] necks (47:4).
Consider how these three verses apply to the current case: A Muslim man comes across a “leader of disbelief”—that is, a clergyman, a visible representative of Christianity, as demarcated by the cross around Fr. Arsenius’s neck. It did not matter that he came across him on an open and crowded street, since Allah also commands the believers to “kill the polytheists”—and Islam categorizes Christians as polytheists due to the Trinity—“wherever you find them.” Finally, the murderer took his deity’s advice by striking directly at the neck, the jugular, which he repeatedly stabbed with a knife.
Should this rather straightforward interpretation still seem farfetched or not “nuanced” enough, keep in mind that Muslims recite the aforementioned three and many more hate-filled and violent Koran verses every single day; these scriptures are highlighted, praised, and expounded in countless books, on countless televised programs, and all throughout the mosques of the world, especially Egypt’s. In other words, these verses are ingrained in the minds of pious, observant Muslims.
Even so, one may object that, if such verses are so influential, why aren’t their more such attacks? Such an observation can only be made by someone whose information is exclusively derived from “mainstream media” sources: random attacks on “infidels” are actually quite common—not a few of them featuring knife stabs to the neck.
In Egypt alone—where a Coptic clergyman once complained that attacks on Christians happen “every two or three days”—a murder nearly identical to that of Fr. Arsenius took place in 2017: then, a Muslim man wielding a butcher’s knife was seen and videotaped chasing a Coptic bishop in broad daylight; when he finally cornered him, the Muslim repeatedly stabbed the Christian in his neck and head, murdering him. Finally, to underscore that his handiwork was religiously (Islamicly) motivated, the murderer used the bishop’s own blood to draw a cross on his forehead.
Further confirming that this killer was motivated by Koran verses such as those cited above, neighbors said that he had recently “begun praying in the street, shouting loudly and calling Christians infidels.” As for motive, one report explained that “he had decided to kill any Coptic priest, purchased a dagger, and lay in wait for one to pass by, in a street leading to the local church.”
“Lay in wait for one to pass by” sounds awfully similar to Koran 9:5, which, after calling on Muslims to kill infidels “wherever you find them,” counsels the faithful also to “capture them, besiege them, and lie in wait for them on every way.”
There are other such examples. In 2013, Coptic priest Mina Cheroubim was shot dead as he left his church in al-Arish, Egypt. A botched attempt occurred in 2020: while traveling to his church in Alexandria, a Coptic priest was ambushed and “nearly murdered” by a Muslim parolee. According to the report, “the parolee, nicknamed Kareem Madi, has a history of attacking Christians—especially women and girls.”
Such murderous assaults are hardly limited to Coptic clergymen who, as the saying goes, wear their faith on their sleeves. Everyday Christians are also targeted and killed in what Egyptian media present as “random attacks” (with the only constant being the religion of the murderers, Islam, and the religion of their victims, Christianity).
As just two examples, in 2020 a Muslim man crept up behind a Christian woman walking home with groceries, grabbed her hair, pulled her head back, and slit her throat with a knife. Two days later, another Muslim man went for the jugular of a Christian man with a box-cutter; he only managed to sever an ear. On being questioned concerning his motive, this Muslim confessed that he did not know the Copt, but that he simply “hates Christians.” There are many more such examples from Egypt alone (to say nothing of the rest of the Muslim world); see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Such attacks are even spilling into the West. As one example, in 2016, two Muslim men marched into a church in France and slit the throat of the officiating priest, Fr. Jaques Hamil, then 85, killing him.
One may still protest: if certain Koran verses call for the outright butchery of infidels, “wherever you find them,” and if at least ten percent of Egypt’s population is Christian, shouldn’t there be many more—indeed, daily—murders?
The answer to this seeming conundrum is straightforward enough. First, although certain Islamic sects, past and present, have always accepted (and enacted) such murderous verses at face value, the mainstream did not, particularly in the context of the development of Islamic law, or sharia, which, in the case of Coptic Christians, made dhimmis of them, who are only to be killed if they rebel (which then and now can be and is interpreted differently).
More importantly, however, is that Egypt is a modern state—meaning the random killing of a citizen on the charge of being an “infidel” is strictly prohibited. As such, only the most zealous—or as they are often portrayed, the most insane—are willing to accept the consequences of impulsively enacting the hate-filled and violent verses of their holy book, which include long or even life prison sentences.
That said, such killings would certainly be much more frequent—especially on Fridays, when the more “radical” mosques repeatedly cite such verses to rile their attendees against the hated “infidels”—were they not outlawed and punished by the state.

Erdogan’s overture to Assad is About Turkey’s next election
Haid Haid/The Arab Weekly/May 03/2022
Hurriyet newspaper reported that Turkey’s main priorities for restoring ties with Syria were to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their country and to counter the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey has recently suggested that it wants to establish dialogue with the Syrian government after years of fraught relations. The gesture came as a surprise to many given there is little indication that such talks would lead to any tangible breakthrough. There remains a bitter hostility and distrust between presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad more than a decade after Turkey threw its weight behind Syrian opposition fighters battling Assad’s forces. Russia at one time could have played the mediator role, but the invasion of Ukraine means Moscow is in no position to take on such a task now.
Erdogan’s initiative becomes less puzzling, however, when viewed through the lens of the upcoming general elections in Turkey. By appearing to be willing to mend ties with Assad, Erdogan hopes to ease the widespread resentment caused by his policies toward Syria and its refugees, which might, among other issues, cost him the 2023 elections.
Ankara’s willingness to enter talks with Damascus was revealed by the pro-government Hurriyet newspaper. Using anonymous sources, the Turkish daily reported that Turkey’s main priorities for restoring ties with Syria were to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their country and to counter the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey has been locked in a decades-long battle with militants from the PKK, which it views as a terrorist organisation.
In an attempt to appear optimistic, Turkish government officials quoted by the newspaper framed Assad’s visit last month to the United Arab Emirates as a sign that he is seeking new openings and support. The sources also blamed Russia and Iran for obstructing previous opportunities to improve relations with Syria. Through these remarks, they indicated that the situation is now more suitable for a new beginning with Damascus, given that the Syrian regime’s closest allies are preoccupied with their own issues: Russia with Ukraine and Iran with the nuclear talks.
However, Damascus does not seem as eager to return the apparent goodwill. Syrian foreign ministry sources, quoted by the pro-government daily Al Watan newspaper, stated that Syria remains firm on its pre-conditions to entering any dialogue with Turkey. Chiefly among these is the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria, which is a deal-breaker for Turkey. The latter’s presence in Syria is the main obstacle preventing the regime from recapturing the last opposition-held pocket in the northwest. Assad’s ability to achieve such a military victory would strip Turkey of its main negotiating card in Syria. It would also send more Syrian refugees to Turkey, which would exacerbate Erdogan’s problems instead of solving them.
The Syrian regime’s reluctance to seek reconciliation with Ankara does not appear to be a typical pre-negotiations tactic. The relatively short window before the Turkish general elections means that any dialogue would only benefit Turkey. Entering such talks would allow Erdogan to gain political ground at home, regardless of the outcome. Besides, Assad’s personal hatred of Erdogan means he would avoid doing anything that would help Erdogan domestically in the hope he would be ousted in the elections and replaced with a friendlier government in Turkey.
That his initiative could bear no fruit appears to be secondary to Erdogan. The Turkish president hopes that even by just sending conciliatory signals to Syria he would help lift his image at home and drum up political support. There is deep resentment among the Turkish population toward the four million Syrian refugees in Turkey. In Turkey’s polarised political climate, the Syrian refugees are viewed as a by-product of Erdogan’s failed Syria policy. As such, many analysts view them as one of the main causes behind the ruling Justice and Development Party’s historic loss in local elections in 2019.
As a result, the Turkish government’s approach to Syrian refugees changed significantly. Security forces started to round up refugees and send them back to the Turkish provinces where they were registered. Some have been deported while others are being encouraged to return to Syria.
Nonetheless, Erdogan’s main political opponent, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), continued to criticise the Turkish government’s handling of the issue and promised to deal directly with Assad to send Syrian refugees back. Earlier this year, the CHP’s leader pledged to prepare the groundwork for returning refugees within two years.
In the absence of mass deportations before the elections, Erdogan appears to be left with only one choice: mimicking the CHP’s promise. Through such a move, Erdogan hopes to reconnect with his election ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, as well as many of his former supporters who currently prioritise the return of Syrian refugees over their loyalty to the ruling party.
Even if it is unsuccessful, the Turkish government would be indirectly showing Turkish voters that it is trying to fix its mistakes by attempting to engage with Assad to return the refugees. It would also offer a hint to voters of an end to Ankara’s direct intervention in Syria.
It is not clear how successful Erdogan’s calculated move will be in reconnecting with those Turks who withdrew their support for him over his Syria policy. But what seems to be certain is that Assad and Erdogan will not be shaking hands anytime soon.
*Dr Haid Haid is a Syrian columnist and a consulting associate fellow of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

Israel, furious over Lavrov’s Hitler comment, cannot burn its bridges with Russia
Mohammed Najib/Arab News/May 03/2022
RAMALLAH: There are signs that a diplomatic crisis between Israel and Russia, caused by a comment by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, could escalate. Israeli leaders were furious when, during an interview with an Italian TV channel on Sunday, he suggested that Hitler was of Jewish origin.
Asked how Russia can claim to be fighting to “de-Nazify” Ukraine when President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish, Lavrov said: “I could be wrong but Hitler also had Jewish blood. (The fact that Zelensky is Jewish) means absolutely nothing. Wise Jewish people say that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”Six million Jews were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi Germany in the Holocaust during the Second World War. Lavrov’s comment sparked a storm of anger in Israel and the country’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Tuesday, demanding a clarification and an apology.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid described Lavrov’s words as “unforgivable and disgraceful,” and “a grave historical mistake.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said: “Such lies are meant to blame the Jews themselves for the most terrible crimes in history and thus free the oppressors of the Jews from their responsibility … No war we are witnessing in this era is comparable to the Holocaust and there is no war similar to it.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, hit back, saying: “We have paid attention to the anti-historical statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, which largely explain the current Israeli government’s approach in support of the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.”
Israeli political analyst Yoni Ben-Menahem told Arabs News that Bennett and Lapid are trying to put pressure on Russia to strengthen the position of US President Joe Biden against Iran, and to pave the way for the reopening of the US Consulate in East Jerusalem. Biden is planning to visit Israel and Palestine in June. However, he added that Israeli authorities face a balancing act as they do not want to strain ties with Russia so much that it threatens their operations against Iranian elements in Syria. “Bennett and Lapid are trying to escalate against Russia to win Biden and assure him that Israel supports the US position regarding Ukraine,” Ben-Menahem said. “But at the same time, Israel does not want to reach a rupture with Russia so as not to impede the actions of the Israeli air force against Iranian targets in Syria.”
Israeli sources told Arab News that Lapid hates the Russians and is trying to show himself to be a supporter of democracy and human rights in Russia. In doing so, they added, he is trying to get closer to Biden and influence his policies.
Although tensions are rising in Russian-Israeli relations, the dispute has not reached the point of a diplomatic crisis just yet. However, with Israeli officials insisting on an official apology for Lavrov’s comment it is hard to predict how and when the tensions will ease.
Relations between Russia and Israel are currently largely based on shared interests in Syria. Moscow supports President Bashar Assad and wants to stabilize his regime and help to restore the country because this gives it the legitimacy to maintain Russian military bases there.
Israel has respected these objectives and has not targeted the Syrian regime. However, the option to attack Assad’s palace was considered by the head of the Israeli army more than two years ago because the Syrian president had allowed Iranians to enter the country and conduct military activities there. As a result the Iranians were considered legitimate targets for Israeli air attacks, in coordination with the Russians, who did not object.
Israeli experts told Arab News that if the relationship between Russia and Israel grows even more complicated the Israelis might bomb Syrian targets, which could weaken Assad and leave Moscow in the embarrassing position of being unable to protect an ally.
Ksenia Svetlova, a former member of the Knesset and a research fellow at the Institute for Policy and strategy at Reichman University, told Arab News: “Russia should mind its business. It has enough on its head and there is no need to open another front with Israel, which has no intention to anger anybody.
“However, it has to stand, as a Jewish state, for the victims of the Holocaust and it’s impossible to just move on, ignoring such horrific statements. Therefore, things will not get back to normal unless there is a formal apology from Russia.”