English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 12/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.may12.22.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus said to them, 3It is I; do not be
afraid
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John
06/16-21/:”When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a
boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had
not yet come to them. The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing.
When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the
lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It
is I; do not be afraid.’Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and
immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 11-12/2022
UN blames Lebanon govt., BDL for crisis, urges change of course
Despite public anger, Lebanon elections set to entrench status quo
Timeline of Lebanon's economic and political dire straits
Lebanon elections: No hope for short-term fix as diaspora looks for a brighter
future
Aoun says Abu Aqleh's killing adds to Israel's 'bloody history'
Miqati urges for high turnout Sunday, says voting 'gateway for change'
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance deliver investor presentation at 4:00
pm to update Lebanon’s creditors on government’s Staff-level...
UN urges crisis-hit Lebanon to ‘change course’
EU EOM Chief Observer visited Ibrahim, Arslan, LADE and LTN
Transport Minister: First batch of French buses to reach Beirut port on May 23
Mikati: Let election day be a landmark station en route to democracy
Mawlawi urges Sunnis to pull Lebanon out of 'new type of war'
Representatives of Associations of Persons with Disabilities brief Al-Makary on
‘Code of Conduct for Persons with Disabilities and Media’
Lebanon to complete cenbank FX audit, an IMF condition, by June: Deputy PM
Lebanon: small, multi-religious country
Chiyah- Berlin- Chiyah/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/May 11/2022
Can Lebanon buck the Middle East’s trend of futile elections?/Sir John
Jenkins/Arab News/May 11/ 2022
Lebanese passports are exits to nowhere/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/May 11/2022
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 11-12/2022
Iran detains 2 Europeans; EU envoy in Tehran about nuke deal
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Shell Militant Bases North of Iraq’s Erbil, Says
State Media
US Intelligence: IRGC to Escalate Attacks in Case of Sanctions Waivers
‘This is a fight he really doesn’t want’: Pentagon chief warns Russia’s Putin
Russian FM visits Oman to discuss Ukraine, trade
US Senators to introduce resolution to designate Russia a state sponsor of
terrorism
Five Egyptian soldiers killed in attack north of Sinai
EU strongly condemns Abu Aqleh's killing as U.S. urges transparent probe
Al-Jazeera reporter killed during Israeli raid in West Bank
Shireen Abu Akleh: Al-Jazeera journalist shot and killed during Israeli raid in
West Bank
Biden Extends State of Emergency in Syria, Iraq, Yemen
Titles For The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 11-12/2022
Will NATO Fight?/Richard Kemp/ Gatestone Institute./May 11/2022
Palestinians Lie to Murder Jews; U.S. Rewards Them/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone
Institute./May 11/2022
More Islamic Death Threats in Europe: Dutch MP Targeted Twice/Pete
Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute./May 11/ 2022
Jihadist Conquests Were About Bringing “Justice, Freedom, and Equality” to
Conquered Infidels, Says Leading Muslim Scholar/Raymond Ibrahim./May 11/ 2022
Assad in Tehran… The Summit of Illusions/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/May
11/2022
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 11-12/2022
UN blames Lebanon govt., BDL for crisis, urges
change of course
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
The "destructive actions" of Lebanon’s political and financial leaders are
responsible for forcing most of the country’s population into poverty, in
violation of international human rights law, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on
extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, said in a report
published Wednesday.
Urging the country to "change course," De Schutter accused the central bank of
an "accounting sleight of hand regarding its losses... that covertly created a
massive public debt... which will condemn the Lebanese for generations."The
report follows a country visit to Lebanon and an investigation into the root
causes and impacts of the country’s worst economic and financial crisis in
history. “Impunity, corruption, and structural
inequality have been baked into a venal political and economic system designed
to fail those at the bottom, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” said De
Schutter, an independent expert appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council. “The
political establishment knew about the looming cataclysm for years but did
little to avert it. Well-connected individuals even moved their money out of the
country, facilitated by a legal vacuum that allowed capital to flow out of the
country. Truth and accountability must be sought as a matter of human
rights.”With parliamentary elections on 15 May, the U.N. expert called on the
next government to place accountability and transparency at the “heart and
center of its actions,” starting with publicly disclosing its own finances and
conflicts of interest and demanding that Central Bank officials do the same.
Lebanon’s "man-made" economic crisis started in 2019, and today the country
stands as "a failing State", the U.N. expert said. He cited current estimates
that put four in every five people in poverty.
“Political connections with the banking system are pervasive, pointing at
serious concerns about conflicts of interest in their handling of the economy
and people’s savings,” De Schutter said.
“There is no accountability built into the latest rescue plan, critical to
restoring the lost confidence of the population and the financial sector. We’re
talking about national wealth that belongs to the public in Lebanon and that was
squandered over decades of mismanagement and misplaced investments by the
Government and the Central Bank.“Central Bank policies, in particular, led to a
downward spiral of the currency, the devastation of the economy, the wiping out
of people’s lifetime savings and to plunging the population into poverty. The
conclusion of my report is that the Central Bank has brought the Lebanese State
into clear contravention of international human rights law.
“Political leadership is completely out of touch with reality, including with
the desperation they’ve created by destroying people’s lives. Lebanon is also
one of the most unequal countries in the world, yet leadership seems unaware of
this at best, and comfortable with it at worst.”
De Schutter also said there was a serious lack of robust social protection
mechanisms. “As it currently stands, it is a system that protects the rich while
leaving poor families to fend for themselves,” he said. “Public services,
including electricity, education, and healthcare, have been gutted, with a State
that heavily subsidizes private provisioning of these services. Over a quarter
of all public education expenditures go to the private sector, which exacerbates
inequality, does not lead to better education, and leads to higher dropouts
among children from poor households.
“More than half of families report that their child has had to skip meals, and
hundreds of thousands of children are out of school,” he added. “If the
situation does not improve immediately, an entire generation of children will be
sacrificed.”
The U.N. expert criticized decades of underinvestment in the public healthcare
system and the Government’s “disgraceful” partial removal of subsidies on
essential medicines. “Medicines remain in severe shortage and prices for chronic
disease medication have increased at least fourfold, an all but guaranteed death
sentence for those most in need,” the U.N. poverty expert said. Despite the
dearth of official poverty data -- which the Government does not systematically
collect, in part owing to the lack of census since 1932 -- estimates suggest
that multidimensional poverty nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021, affecting 82
percent of the population last year. The U.N. report
finds Palestinian and Syrian refugees face disastrous living conditions in
Lebanon, with 88 percent living under minimum survival conditions. Almost half
of Syrian families are food insecure. “The horrendous plight of refugees is a
direct result of the administrative and legal measures imposed by the State,
which continues to sideline and blame them for its own failure to provide basic
goods and services to the population, whether education, decent jobs, safe
drinking water or electricity,” he said. “If trust for
a better future is to be restored, the Government must strengthen the Central
Inspection, free the National Anti-Corruption Commission from potential
political interference, ensure independent oversight of Électricité du Liban,
and ingrain accountability and transparency into the recovery plan,” he added.
The U.N. expert also called on the incoming government to commit to
improving its human rights record in all spheres by reducing inequality,
fighting corruption and impunity, building strong and resilient social
protection, education, and healthcare systems, and placing the interests of the
public above private profits.
Despite public anger, Lebanon elections set to entrench
status quo
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
Lebanon's elections Sunday won't yield a seismic shift despite widespread
discontent with a graft-tainted political class blamed for a painful economic
crisis and a deadly disaster, experts say. Given Lebanon's sectarian-based
politics, it will likely "reproduce the political class and give it internal and
international legitimacy," said Rima Majed of the American University of Beirut.
"Maybe candidates from the opposition will clinch some seats, but I don't think
that there will be a change in the political scene," said Majed, an expert in
sectarianism and social movements. Beirut voter Issam Ayyad, 70, put it more
simply: "We will not be able to change." The small country's political system
has long distributed power among its religious communities, entrenching a ruling
elite that has treated politics as a family business. By convention, the
Lebanese president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim,
and the speaker of parliament a Shiite. In the current
parliament, the Shiite Hizbullah party and its allies, including the Christian
Free Patriotic Movement, command a majority. The system has held back the
emergence of non-sectarian political parties and civil society representatives.
The elections will be the first since a youth-led protest movement broke out in
October 2019 against a political class seen as inept, corrupt and responsible
for a litany of woes, from power blackouts to piles of uncollected garbage.The
anger exploded into months of street rallies but lost momentum as the Covid-19
pandemic hit, together with a financial crash that the World Bank has labelled
one of the world's worst in modern times.
'Game of loyalty' -
Popular fury flared again after a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate that had
languished in a Beirut port warehouse for years exploded in August 2020, killing
more than 200 people and devastating entire neighborhoods. Successive
governments have since failed to chart a path out of Lebanon's worst crisis
since the 1975-1990 civil war that has sparked runaway inflation, deepened dire
poverty and fuelled a mass exodus. Where the Lebanese
state has failed to provide basic services, traditional political leaders have
tended to step in with their decades-old patronage networks -- a trend more
alive than ever during the current crisis. "The elections are not meant to
assess the performance of politicians," said Majed. "They are more a game of
loyalty to whoever provides... the most basic services." Public sector jobs have
long been among the main handouts, but now fuel and cash assistance also feature
high on the list, giving an advantage to established parties over new opposition
groups that lack funds and foreign support. While bolstered by the 2019 protest
movement, new independent candidates have also failed to build a coherent front
that could energize a dispirited electorate, observers say. Nearly 44 percent of
eligible voters plan to abstain, according to a survey last month of more than
4,600 voters by British charity Oxfam.
Voter intimidation
Polling expert Kamal Feghali said many voters had hoped the newcomers would run
"with a unified list and program" but said that instead their competing
electoral lists "will scatter the vote." While independents will likely do
slightly better than in 2018, when only one of them won a seat, said Feghali,
the winner once more is likely to be Hizbullah, Lebanon's biggest political and
military force, and its allies. Iran-backed Hizbullah, first formed as a
resistance force against neighbor Israel, is now often described as a state
within a state that is all-powerful in regions under its control. Its
pre-election intimidation tactics are "salient", said Oxfam, warning that such
behavior tells voters "that change might be denied, and in turn might lead to
either a reduction in turnout or a distortion in voting behavior." In east
Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, three Shiite candidates were running on an
anti-Hizbullah list but withdrew last month, despite the expiry of a legal
deadline to do so. The move stripped the anti-Hizbullah list of essential Shiite
representation and was widely seen by local media as a result of pressure by the
powerful movement.
Timeline of Lebanon's economic and political dire
straits
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
Lebanon, which holds parliamentary elections on May 15, has been mired in a deep
financial, economic and social crisis, aggravated by a political deadlock.
Here is a recap since turmoil broke out in October 2019.
Protests erupt -
Mass protests follow a government announcement on October 17, 2019 of a planned
tax on voice calls made over messaging services such as WhatsApp.
In a graft-plagued country with poor public services, many see the tax as the
last straw, with demonstrators demanding "the fall of the regime."
The government of prime minister Saad Hariri scraps the tax the same day.
But protests continue over the ensuing weeks, culminating in huge demonstrations
calling for the overhaul of a ruling class in place for decades and accused of
systematic corruption.
Hariri's government resigns in late October.
First default -
Lebanon, with a $92 billion debt burden equivalent to nearly 170 percent of its
gross domestic product, announces in March 2020 that it will default on a
payment for the first time in its history.
In April, after three nights of violent clashes, then-prime minister Hassan Diab
says Lebanon will seek International Monetary Fund help after the government
approves an economic rescue plan.
But talks with the IMF quickly go off the rails.
Catastrophic blast -
A massive explosion on August 4, 2020 at Beirut port devastates entire
neighborhoods of the capital, kills more than 200 people and injures at least
6,500.
It emerges the huge pile of volatile ammonium nitrate that caused one of the
biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded had been left unsecured in a
warehouse for six years, further enraging the Lebanese public.
Political impasse -
Diab's government resigns shortly after the blast after just over seven months
in office.
Diplomat Mustafa Adib is named new premier but bows out after less than a month,
and Hariri, who already served as prime minister three times, is named in
October.
One of worst crises -
Amid runaway inflation, authorities announce in February 2021 that bread prices
will rise further.
In June, the World Bank says Lebanon's economic collapse is likely to rank among
the world's worst financial crises since the mid-19th century.
New government -
After nine months of political horse-trading, Hariri steps aside on July 15,
2021 saying he is unable to form a government.
Billionaire Najib Miqati, Lebanon's richest man and already twice prime
minister, forms a new government on September 10 after a 13-month vacuum.
Bloody clashes -
But the new government is shaken by demands from the powerful Hizbullah for the
judge investigating the Beirut blast to be removed on grounds of political
"bias."
Tensions come to a boil on October 14, 2021 when a shootout kills seven people
following a rally by Hizbullah and its ally Amal demanding Tarek Bitar's
dismissal.
Accord with IMF -
On January 24, 2022 the IMF launches talks with Lebanese officials.
Miqati's government meets for the first time after months of negotiations
between rival factions.
On February 11 the IMF calls for fiscal reforms to ensure Lebanon can manage its
debt load as well as measures to establish a "credible" currency system.
On April 7, the lender says it has reached a staff-level agreement to provide
Lebanon with $3 billion in aid over four years.
Lebanon elections: No hope for short-term fix as
diaspora looks for a brighter future
Tala Michel Issa, Al Arabiya English/11 May ,2022
In interviews with Al Arabiya English, the United Arab Emirates-based Lebanese
expats all shared one common notion: Change will happen, but only in the
long-run. They were not hopeful for any changes in the Levantine country’s
political and economic situation in the short term but said that the shift in
voter attitudes away from traditional parties was a step in the right direction.
The Lebanese diaspora in the UAE took to the polls on Sunday, where many
were voting for independent candidates that were not affiliated with any of the
traditional political parties.
“I’m not hopeful that things will change in the short term, but I’m hopeful for
the long-run,” said Lebanese expat Mark El-Khoury, 27.
“Everyone knows changing the constitution takes time, for you to change the
culture and mentality of a country takes time. You cannot erase the [Civil] war,
the trauma from the war, the programming that the previous generation has given
the current one. But what you can do is your part, which is to vote,” he added.
“Change is not going to happen in three or five or 10 years, but maybe my kids’
kids can finally have a country in the future, and I want to be able to
contribute to that. I don’t think change will happen in my time,” said
El-Khoury. Politics in Lebanon have left society
deeply divided, with many people choosing to support certain traditional
political parties for financial support driven by the worsening economic crisis.
Lebanese politics have long been a sensitive topic for people due to
their ties to religion, experiences from the Civil War, and the need for
backing, security and safety as the country grapples with endemic corruption and
a lack of basic necessities such as regular access to electricity and water.
In an interview with Al Arabiya English, Raphael Daniel, 31, said when
asked about his hopes for the diaspora making a change with their votes this
year: “In the short to medium term, I don’t think we will see change, but in the
long term, yes.” Regardless, “we need to take a step
forward,” he added. “If you think of it, voting [against traditional political
parties] is just taking a step forward, in the right direction, because if
nobody votes and nobody does anything, nothing will change. We are just trying
to make as much change as possible,” Daniel said, noting the exponential voter
turnout in Abu Dhabi this year. “Things are definitely going to change but they
won’t change overnight. I think it’s going to take probably a good eight to 12
years because this is the first battle. There’s going to be other battles in the
future, again and again, and gradually things are going to change,” said
Lebanese expat Omar, 34. “Nothing is going to change
overnight especially when it comes to politics unless you have a coup or the
people [bring about another] revolution, but in our case, right now, with all
the givens, I believe that it’s going to happen gradually, it’ll take some
time,” he continued. Citizens in Lebanon will take to
the polls on May 15 to elect new members of parliament, and a lot of hope is
riding on the global Lebanese diaspora to make a difference.This year’s
parliamentary elections mark the second time out-of-country voting is allowed,
with the first time being in 2018, and the first electoral test since the
country-wide Revolution in October 2019 and the infamous Beirut port blast.
Aoun says Abu Aqleh's killing adds to Israel's 'bloody
history'
Naharnet/May 11/2022
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday sent a cable of condolences to Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas over the killing of veteran Al-Jazeera journalist
Shireen Abu Aqleh with “treacherous Israeli bullets as she was practicing her
journalistic work.”“As she joins the procession of the martyrs of occupied
Palestine, who faced the Israeli occupation’s arrogance with their firm will,
she confirms once again, with her blood, that this brutal occupation has total
disregard for all international conventions and laws that govern journalistic
work,” Aoun says in the cable. “Through this crime, it adds to its bloody
history a new chapter of abuse, aggression and disregard for rights, life and
justice,” the President added.
Miqati urges for high turnout Sunday, says voting 'gateway
for change'
Naharnet /May 11/2022
Prime Minister Najib Miqati urged the Lebanese Wednesday to cast their votes in
the parliamentary elections on Sunday. "Voting is a right and duty that one
should not refrain from nor hesitate to perform," Miqati said. He added that
"this is the natural gateway for change." The elections on May 15 will be the
first since a youth-led protest movement broke out in October 2019 against a
political class seen as inept, corrupt and responsible for a litany of woes,
from power blackouts to piles of uncollected garbage.
The anger exploded into months of street rallies but lost momentum as the
Covid-19 pandemic hit, together with a financial crash that the World Bank has
labelled one of the world's worst in modern times. While independent candidates
are expected to improve slightly on their 2018 showing, experts believe the
elections will largely consolidate the status quo in a country beholden to
sectarian politics. Lebanese expatriates had kickstarted the critical election
on Friday and Sunday in 58 countries, as the unprecedented crisis has spurred a
mass population exodus.
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance deliver
investor presentation at 4:00 pm to update Lebanon’s creditors on government’s
Staff-level...
NNA/May 11/2022
Following the announcement made by the International Monetary Fund on 7 April
2022 on a Staff-level Agreement on Economic Policies with Lebanon for a 4-year
Extended Fund Facility, Deputy Prime Minister Saade Chami, with the
participation of Minister of Finance Youssef Khalil, will give a presentation
via webcast on Wednesday 11 May at 4.00pm Beirut time to update Lebanon’s
creditors on the latest macroeconomic developments, the content of the agreement
with the International Monetary Fund, and the government’s guiding principles
for the upcoming public debt restructuring. Parties who would like to attend the
presentation via webcast should register at:
https://lazard.webex.com/lazard/onstage/g.php?MTID=e9764e142f5fc5c0b360e965dbcc83368.
The deadline for registration is 3.30pm Beirut time on 11 May 2022.
For any investor enquiry, please contact
lb.bondholders@lazard.com
UN urges crisis-hit Lebanon to ‘change course’
AFP/May 11, 2022
The report said that the crisis was “manufactured” by failed government policies
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s government and central bank are responsible for an
unprecedented financial crisis that has impoverished the majority of the
population, the UN said Wednesday. The report, drafted
by the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that
the crisis was “manufactured” by failed government policies and it urged the
country to “change course,” days ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for
May 15. Since 2019, Lebanon’s currency has lost more
than 90 percent of its value against the dollar, prices have risen by more than
200 percent and the poverty rate has shot beyond 80 percent of the population.
“The misery inflicted on the population can be reversed with leadership that
places social justice, transparency and accountability at the core of its
actions,” the report contended. Special rapporteur
Olivier De Schutter visited the country in November last year to assess the
impact of the economic crisis. Nine in 10 people are finding it difficult to get
by on their income and more than six in 10 would move abroad if they could, the
report said. “The economic crisis was entirely
avoidable; indeed, it was manufactured by failed government policies,” the
report said. It accused the central bank of an “accounting sleight of hand
regarding its losses.... that covertly created a massive public debt... which
will condemn the Lebanese for generations.” The UN report comes as Lebanon
readies for parliamentary elections on May 15, the first since the onset of the
crisis. While independent candidates are expected to improve slightly on their
2018 showing, experts believe the elections will largely consolidate the status
quo in a country beholden to sectarian politics.
EU EOM Chief Observer visited Ibrahim, Arslan, LADE and LTN
NNA/May 11/2022
During his second visit to Lebanon, the European Union Election Observation
Mission’s Chief Observer György Hölvényi met yesterday Archbishop of the Melkite
Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Zahle and Ferzol, Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim with whom
he discussed the upcoming parliamentary elections that will be held on 15 May.
Today, he met the head of the Lebanese Democratic Party, MP Talal Arslan
to discuss the preparations of the party for the elections. Hölvényi also had a
meeting today with Executive Director of Lebanese Transparency Association
Julien Courson and Aly Slim, Executive Director of Lebanese Association for
Democratic Elections LADE to talk about the parliamentary elections that will be
held on Sunday 15 May. -- EU EOM
Transport Minister: First batch of French buses to reach
Beirut port on May 23
NNA/May 11/2022
Minister of Public Works and Transportation Ali Hamieh on Wednesday announced
that the first batch of public transport buses donated by France will reach
Beirut port on May 23. "A batch of fifty buses will sail from Marseilles on
Sunday, May 15, and will arrive in Lebanon on Monday, May 23," the Minister told
a press conference.
Mikati: Let election day be a landmark station en route to
democracy
NNA/May 11/2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Wednesday delivered a word in which he called
on the Lebanese in various regions to heavily participate in parliamentary
elections on Sunday, May 15, 2022. “Two
successful rounds of elections were held last week for expatriate voters, and
this has constituted an essential step in cementing ties between the Lebanese
diaspora and Lebanese residents,” Mikati explained. "The government, through the
Ministry of the Interior, has taken all the necessary measures to ensure voting
safety and freedom, but the main role remains entrusted to citizens who are
expected to head to polling stations and cast their ballots so that their votes
will be a practical translation of their opinions and aspirations,” the PM
added. “Voting on election day is a right and a duty that should not be evaded,
and it’s the responsibility of citizens, in the first place, is to choose whom
they want to represent them. This is the natural pathway towards the change that
the Lebanese aspire, regardless of their affiliations,” added Mikati. “Let us
vote and let election day be a landmark step en route to democracy for the
future of Lebanon and the Lebanese,” the PM concluded.
Mawlawi urges Sunnis to pull Lebanon out of 'new type of
war'
Naharnet /May 11/2022
Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has called on Lebanon’s Sunni community to turn
out heavily in the May 15 parliamentary elections, warning that “reluctance from
practicing the right of voting would deepen the country’s crises.”“You actively
took part in founding the country and enshrining its National Pact. You did not
take part in civil war and you did not take up arms. Today you are invited to
participate heavily in pulling Lebanon out of a war that is of another nature –
the war of poverty, deprivation and employment, which has entered into the homes
of all Lebanese,” Mawlawi said in an interview with the Saudi al-Bilad
newspaper. “You are asked to be loyal to your Arabism and keen on the legitimacy
of your state,” the minister added. Ex-PM Saad Hariri, the leader of the biggest
Sunni party in the country, had recently announced that his al-Mustaqbal
Movement would not take part in the elections.
Representatives of Associations of Persons with
Disabilities brief Al-Makary on ‘Code of Conduct for Persons with Disabilities
and Media’
NNA /May 11/2022
Information Minister, Ziad Al-Makary, on Tuesday welcomed at his ministerial
office a delegation representing associations of persons with disabilities, who
briefed him on the parliamentary elections’ code of conduct. Al-Makary stressed
"the importance of this code and adherence to it to the fullest extent."An
agreement has been reached between the Minister of Information and the
representatives of the aforementioned associations on the “Code of Conduct for
Persons with Disabilities and the Media”. This code seeks to transcend the
stereotypical view of the capabilities and needs of persons with disabilities
and to stop using the terminology of disability as insults against politicians.
It also seeks to offer persons with disabilities optimal treatment and to
involve them in everything that concerns them, with a special focus on their
political rights in terms of candidacy and voting at the current stage.
Lebanon to complete cenbank FX audit, an IMF condition,
by June: Deputy PM
Reuters, Beirut/11 May ,2022
Lebanon will complete the first in a set of conditions for an IMF bailout, an
audit of the central bank’s forex position, by June, the country’s deputy prime
minister said during a meeting with the creditors of the Lebanese state on
Wednesday. Lebanon in April reached a draft agreement with the IMF for a
four-year $3 billion bailout, the final approval of which was conditional on the
implementation of eight main requirements. An IMF program is seen as crucial for
Lebanon to begin emerging from a devastating financial crisis that has left most
people poor, due to the deep reforms it would entail and the international
funding it could unlock. Saade Chami said Lebanon required between $8 billion
and $10 billion over 10 years on top of the IMF funds. He said he could not give
a specific date for the completion of all conditions, as many require
parliamentary approval. Those include capital controls, amendments to banking
secrecy regulations and a framework for banking restructuring.
Lebanon holds its first polls in four years on May 15. “If parliament
approves the draft laws, the prior actions, then we can move very quickly,” he
said, suggesting parliament could do so by mid-June.
The World Bank has described Lebanon’s crisis, the result of decades of
corruption and mismanagement, as one of the worst in modern times. Chami said
that governance reform, though difficult, would be at the center of the
government’s recovery plan, which aims to reduce government debt from more than
300 percent of GDP in 2021 to 100 percent of GDP by 2026.
“To be frank, this entrenched problem cannot be solved overnight, it will
take some time in order to change the culture and make a difference, but I think
this is something the government intends to do,” he said.
Lebanon: small, multi-religious country
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
Lebanon, a small Middle East country wracked by political and economic turmoil
and the fallout of the decade-old Syrian conflict next door, holds parliamentary
elections on May 15. Here are some key facts about Lebanon.
Multi-confessional -
The country with the cedar tree flag is one of the smallest in the Middle East,
at about 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles). Its population of around
4.5 million Lebanese is dwarfed by its diaspora, spread across the Americas,
Europe, Africa and Australia. Lebanon is considered relatively liberal in a
broadly conservative region. Political power is split between 18 recognized
religious communities under a confessionalist form of government. Lebanon is a
parliamentary republic, with a 128-member house split between Muslims and
Christians. In line with Lebanon's "national pact" dating back to independence
from France in 1943, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime
minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite.
Between Israel and Syria -
Lebanon endured a brutal civil war between 1975 and 1990 and was under Syrian
domination from the 1990s until troops withdrew in 2005. Its political
institutions have long been paralyzed by disagreement between the pro- and
anti-Syrian camps.
In March 1978, Israel launched "Operation Litani" in south Lebanon, which it
said was to protect the north of its territory from fighters from the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO). It withdrew partially in June that year. In June
1982, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut, forcing the PLO to
flee. In mid-2006, a 34-day war pitted Israel -- whose troops had withdrawn from
southern Lebanon in 2000 -- against the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbullah, which
is backed by Iran.In 2013, Hizbullah said it was fighting in Syria alongside the
troops of President Bashar al-Assad, its involvement dividing the Lebanese
political scene even more.
Shelter for refugees -
Lebanon saw the influx of an estimated 1.5 million refugees following the
outbreak of Syria's civil war. More than three quarters of them live below the
poverty line, according to the U.N. Tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees
also live in Lebanon, mainly in the country's 12 camps.
Economic turmoil -
Lebanon is going through a severe economic crisis, described by the World Bank
as one of the world's worst since the 1850s. Lebanese residents have since 2019
suffered draconian banking restrictions on access to money. Meanwhile, the local
currency has plummeted some 90 percent against the dollar on the black market.
Around 80 percent of the population are struggling to escape poverty, the U.N.
says. For the first time in its history, Lebanon announced in 2020 it was
defaulting on its debt payments. The country lags in development in areas such
as water supply, electricity production and waste treatment. The pain was
worsened by the August 2020 Beirut port explosion of ammonium nitrate fertilizer
that devastated entire neighborhoods and killed more than 200 people.
- Ties with France -
France is a traditional ally of Lebanon, with which it has historic, cultural,
political and economic links, underpinned by the French language. The close
links go back centuries. In the 16th century after an accord with the Ottoman
Empire, the kings of France became the official protectors of the East's
Christians. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, France became in 1920 the
mandate power in Lebanon, setting the country's borders with Syria. It granted
it independence in 1943.
Chiyah- Berlin- Chiyah/Hazem Saghieh
Asharq Al Awsat/May 11/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108607/hazem-saghieh-chiyah-berlin-chiyah-%d8%ad%d8%a7%d8%b2%d9%85-%d8%b5%d8%a7%d8%ba%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d9%8a%d9%91%d8%a7%d8%ad-%d9%80-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%80-%d8%a7%d9%84/
Presenting the leader as a demi-god is among the features of Lebanese cronyism.
Those who present him this way are followers drawn to him by kinship loyalties,
primarily sectarian, which are reinforced with services that take an array of
forms, the most prominent of which is the provision of employment opportunities
in the public sector. The more public money is stolen, then, the bigger the
politician becomes.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is not the only one who has enjoyed and continues
to enjoy the image of an infallible leader. The other so-called “gravitational
poles” of Lebanese political life, who head blocs in their sects and regions,
share this same image.
Nevertheless, Mr. Berri may have had more glorifying chants dedicated to him
than any of the others, and praise of man has gone so far that any believer
could see it as explicit blasphemy. For example, among the slogans and phrases
on posters glorifying him, one reads: “If it were not for the h (in Nabih), you
would have been a prophet (Nabi in Arabic).” Another announces your arms
“purify” (in the religious sense). A third cries out for help: “Oh, what will
become of us after you’re gone;” a fourth is surprised: “By God, where did you
come from?” A fifth threatens: “All of you are doomed if he loses his patience.”
Recently, with the Lebanese diaspora voting in the general elections from the
countries where they reside, Lebanese followers of Berri exported this "culture"
to Germany, chanting:
“Oh, Nabih rest assured (irtah)
Berlin's turned into Chiyah”
Chiyah is a Shiite part of the southern suburbs of Beirut that is adjacent to
the Christian part known as Ain al-Rummaneh. The Two Years War (1975-1976) was
sparked by clashes between the two areas, leaving them both destroyed. Some of
the traces of the devastation wreaked at the time continue to attest to it. At
the time, the leftist youths showed unique enthusiasm for war in Chiyah, and a
communist tenor sang that he would plant “a million daisies” in that area. These
people looked and did not see, or that they saw the sectarian clashes between
the two neighborhoods as a struggle waged by “toilers” from both sides (who were
killing each other) against their both sides’ capitalists. And so, full of
confidence in the future, they chanted:
“The red flag is flying high!”
Over Ain Al-Rummaneh and Chiyah.”
Of course, as in every other area in the country, only the flags of sectarian
parties were waved, some green and some yellow, and all black. Amal Movement
flags were Chiyah’s fate. Then came the flags of Hezbollah, who fought one of
the Lebanese civil war’s most vicious wars against Amal in the second half of
the eighties. Chiyah was among the theaters of their war. Chiyah certainly got
its share of the destruction and killing wreaked by the Israelis in the 2006
war. As for the present, it is among the spots in the capital’s suburbs that are
described as steadfast and more than capable of standing up to a long list of
enemies.
In any case, Amal youths insisted on turning Chiyah into a model for Berlin.
Wasn’t the German capital itself, during the Second World War, destroyed and
impoverished to an immeasurably greater degree than Chiyah?
However, Germany broke with violence three-quarters of a century ago. Its
democracy has consolidated, and its economy has become the strongest in Europe.
Moreover, its two halves were then united three decades ago. With that, the
Lebanese youths insisted on preaching the need to embrace the Chiyah model. That
inclination could perhaps be seen as natural, similar to that of a merchant
promoting his products. Syrian youths did something of this sort after they fled
Assadist hell in droves and found refuge in Germany. Many jokes, inspired by
their country’s political culture under Assad, emerged about how to deal with
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: Merkel would rule “forever” and hand power down
to her son like Hafez had handed it down to his.
Unlike their Syrian counterparts, though, the Lebanese youths were not joking.
They seemed dead serious about exporting their model with Speaker Nabih Berri
firmly on top. It would not be far-fetched to claim that they expressed, in
their own way, a broad sentiment that has dominated Arab political culture for
half a century. After Chiyah once aspired to become like Berlin, the latter must
now aspire to become like Chiyah. This reversal of this course- which was set by
Rifaa Rafi al-Tahtawi before being adopted by intellectuals, politicians, and
educators who aspired to build their countries on the Western democratic model-
was a gradual process, but its rise was steady.
In the meantime, political disputes with Western countries went from being
political to cultural. Those intellectuals and politicians were slandered, and
the West was depicted as a factory manufacturing only conspiracies, occupation,
plunder, and aggression, while a key segment of contemporary culture was decried
as a form of cultural invasion and misleading supremacist orientalism.
Who wants to follow in those footsteps? Who wants to follow in the footsteps of
Berlin, whose war has ended and now despises wars in principle, while Chiyah
remains on constant alter and awaits nothing but wars and bloodbaths of glory
and heroism? Berlin should imitate the southern suburbs, not the other way
around. Berlin should find itself a Nabih Berri type, or a Bashar al-Assad, to
worship as Chiyah does.
We come to you with our idealized leader; Berlin, open your arms.
Can Lebanon buck the Middle East’s trend of futile
elections?
Sir John Jenkins/Arab News/May 11/ 2022
So, Lebanon is going to the polls again on Sunday. Excited? No, me neither.
Elections in the Middle East tend to follow a pattern as predictable as “Star
Wars.” You turn up at the polling station, queue patiently in the heat, cast
your vote, have your fingers marked with ink, go home, rejoice at democracy in
action and, when you wake up the next morning, absolutely nothing has changed.
Iraq currently provides a nonstop political cabaret illustrating the problem
vividly. On the face of it, the main gainers from last October’s national
elections were the Sadrists. They might not have increased their total vote
count, but these votes were distributed where they made most impact. Their main
opponents, the grouping of Shiite parties now known as the Coordination
Framework, were dismayed — but not discouraged. They simply prevented a new
government from being formed with a variety of stalling tactics straight out of
the playbook used to malign effect by Nouri Al-Maliki back in 2010, including
the co-opting of the chief justice and the cynical exploitation of ambiguities
in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution. They have been helped by divisions among the two
main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, which each demand the presidency for themselves.
The Coordination Framework has the impudence to claim it is acting in the name
of democracy and constitutional propriety — on the grounds that no government
should be formed that does not guarantee political control to the Shiite bloc as
a whole. They object to the Sadrists’ attempt to exclude them and include
independents and Sunni and Kurdish parties instead. They are supported in all
this by Iran, which is worried about losing influence if Iraqi politics were to
become genuinely more open and responsive to the real, material needs of all
Iraqis, not just a small number of ideologically motivated and power-hungry
stooges. So much for the national interest…
But this is exactly what you get if you have a system of “muhasasah,” known in
English as consociationalism — the distribution of political representation
along communal lines, as defined by self-appointed gatekeepers. Some will say
that this is a practical way to keep communal tensions in check, by guaranteeing
proportionate shares in political benefits to mutually suspicious groups. In
practice, it guarantees corruption, political opportunism and a freeze on any
positive political development.
And of all the countries in the region, the one with the longest experience of
this slow-motion car crash is poor Lebanon. I understand the reasons for the
National Pact of 1943 — and why the 1989 Taif Agreement failed to do more than
tweak the representational framework to take account of demographic changes.
After all, civil wars are exhausting and stopping them is always a priority. But
consociationalism is not a long-term answer. It promotes the representation or
well-being not of individuals or the community as a whole but of predatory small
groups and their leaders.
Electoral democracy is a process not an outcome. It is the product not the cause
of a political ideology.
In both Lebanon and now Iraq, it has produced professionally communalist
politicians who make decisions not on the basis of voter intentions as revealed
through elections but in negotiations behind closed doors with other elite
groups whose main aim is to preserve their power and the access to state
resources that this power affords — and that in turn supports the patronage on
which such a system depends. This has provided fertile ground for external
actors such as Iran to sponsor the growth of militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon
and Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq. In both places, they have
blocked change and hobbled good governance and, in the interests of their
sponsor, now effectively hold these entire countries hostage.
Where does this end? In Iraq, in massive economic inequality, environmental
catastrophe (with chronic water shortages, agricultural failure and, in recent
days, some of the worst sandstorms in living memory), wholly inadequate national
infrastructure, lawlessness and the looting of state coffers. In Lebanon, the
same again, as vividly illustrated by the complete failure of accountability for
last year’s Beirut port explosion, the collapse of the central bank, a
disastrous economic situation and rapidly rising poverty.
If you look at the evidence of elections, social surveys and other opinion
polling across the Middle East and North Africa since 2011 (or in Iraq since
2003), it is clear that many if not most Arabs — and indeed Iranians, Kurds,
Amazigh, Tuareg, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians and Yazidis — want a say in
choosing clean, competent, effective, accountable and responsible governments.
The absence of such governments was a major driver behind the events of the Arab
Spring.
But if you then consider the actual outcomes of these elections, you see a
graphic illustration of the observation of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci
— made in the context of 1930s Europe — that the new cannot be born, the old
will not die and the struggle between the two gives rise instead to a variety of
more or less morbid symptoms. More particularly, you see the continued grip that
systems of tribe, clan, ethnic, religious, sectarian and other group affiliation
have on the politics and sociology of the region and its constituent parts.
Neither Lebanese nor Iraqi elections have produced a permeable and removable
class of politicians that represent the interests of their constituents to the
best of their ability and judgment. They instead confirm in office a set of
elites whose power derives not from the ballot box but from the accumulation of
social capital, patronage and the purposeful construction of ethnic, communal or
sectarian boundaries.
This story is repeated with variations across the region. Some observers thought
that the Arab Spring would produce better and more accountable governance.
Instead, it produced insecurity, social turmoil, the instrumentalization of
religion, the rise of often violent identity politics and, where elections were
held, unresponsive and corrupt confessional elites that looked very much like
the old ones. And, as a result, in all elections in the region since 2011, we
now see the slow ebbing of popular confidence in the ballot box in response to
endemic and persistent problems of misgovernance, corruption and state capture.
If voting changes nothing, why bother voting?
Electoral democracy is a process not an outcome. It is the product not the cause
of a political ideology. In Europe — whose political liberalism is an exception
to be explained rather than a normative rule to be exported — the electoral
systems expressed in diverse ways in different countries are the result of a
highly contingent set of historical experiences and are underpinned by an
articulated ideology of individual rights and freedoms whose origins can be
traced back to Roman and common law.
And in the West, modernity was a cultural before it was an institutional
project. Successful electoral democracy requires the development of sustained
habits of mind and social practices and a shared sense of the past and the
future. It needs an acceptance that power can be transferred peacefully, a
living memory of efficient and non-predatory state behavior, and an
unintimidated civil society. It needs a common sense of justice and acceptance
of the rule of law. And it needs strong, independent and impartial state
institutions to arbitrate.
So, the real question is this: How do we think the conditions can arise in which
functioning electoral democracy can arise and be sustained in Lebanon, Iraq,
Tunisia or anywhere else in the Middle East and North Africa? At the heart of
this is a question not about democracy but about the state and about governance.
Most people want strong and accountable states that deliver security,
prosperity, services and jobs. Political systems like those in Lebanon and Iraq
have failed catastrophically to meet this desire. Sunday’s elections in Lebanon
will not fix the problem. They will simply illustrate it.
Everywhere these systems persist, there is probably a majority of people in
favor of something different. But first the existing systems must be swept away
or — at the very least — radically changed. And that brings its own huge risks,
especially in places where murderous militias are embedded. Nevertheless, there
is perhaps some comfort to be taken in the courage of those people — often the
young — who have taken to the streets over the past few years in Beirut, Basra,
Baghdad, Sidon, Tripoli and Tyre to demand fundamental change. In Iraq, some
have even got themselves elected. If their counterparts in Lebanon could come
together around a single agreed platform, they might just make some progress. It
will be slow, it will be hard and it will be dangerous. And it will need first
to construct a strong and effective state rather than simply a set of Potemkin
ballot boxes. But something has to give, doesn’t it?
• Sir John Jenkins is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange. Until December 2017,
he was corresponding director (Middle East) at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, based in Manama, Bahrain, and was a senior fellow at Yale
University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He was the British ambassador
to Saudi Arabia until January 2015.
Lebanese passports are exits to nowhere
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/May 11/2022
The August 4 Beirut port explosion did not only destroy half of the capital,
kill hundreds and injure thousands, but it also drove many people to give up on
the country and decide once and for all to leave their homeland in search of new
lives. A few minutes after the blast, a friend of mine
saw her next-door neighbor, bleeding and still in total shock, wet from taking a
shower, wearing only shorts and flip flops and dragging a suitcase. Holding his
passport he walked to the airport more than 7 kilometers away.
For the Lebanese, emigration always was, and remains today, a serious
option. As their country has time and again tested their resilience, it has
driven many of them to settle around the world with a diaspora exceeding 10
million.Unfortunately for many, this option has been curtailed by the current
political and economic breakdown as the Lebanese state has recently declared
that it can no longer issue or renew passports to meet such high demand. Stocks
are depleted, and it’s a problem which the Lebanese Security General in charge
of passport controls cannot replenish without the necessary funds.
The passport crisis is not merely one caused by excessive demand, but rather is
an analogy to the rapid spiraling collapse of Lebanon. The country’s political
establishment has yet to take any rational steps to mitigate its impending crash
landing.
In real terms, a passport is not merely a travel document but rather a set of
rights and duties which binds its carrier from the issuing country with a
document which can be a blessing. In the case of the Lebanese the passport
situation is a curse, making the ability to get visas to travel a constant
nightmare.
More than 60 per cent of those who have applied to renew or obtain a new
passport have yet to collect it. There is no point in making travel plans, at
least for the foreseeable future, but those waiting have already paid $45 for
the passport. It’s anyone’s guess how long they will wait.
There are many people in Lebanon that are desperate for their passport to exit
the country and set up home in faraway lands. These are a growing number who do
not see a future in the country and are waiting for the right moment to depart.
They will join the hundreds and thousands of their compatriots who have already
emigrated. Lots of them have no plans to return.
While emigration has for long been Lebanon’s unofficial national sport, when the
country sees a 346 per cent spike during 2021 in the number of people leaving
its shores it has dangerous implications. Few of those emigrating see any chance
of the land of the Cedars ever rising up again. The lack of progress of the
Beirut port explosion investigation compounds this. In
reality, the Lebanese have few options even if they decide to exit the country.
The global economic fallouts from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the
fact that many Arab Gulf states consider some Lebanese as a security risk makes
emigration an unsavory route. The hundreds of people who decided to venture onto
the migrant death boats in attempts to escape to Europe searching for better
lives didn’t require passports. Beware, it’s something other Lebanese might
consider given the unfolding situation.
Sooner or later Lebanon will be able to cater to the excessive demand for new
passports. Eager Lebanese will have their precious documents to tuck away in
their closets with what remains of their savings.
But, their real anxiety will fester as long as they do not address the crux of
their problem. A passport is only as good as the state that issues it, and as it
stands the Lebanese passport is not worth the ink that it is printed on. Even as
potential members of the diaspora, their search for better lives will always
bear on the hearts of those left behind in a country which needs to reform or
perish.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 11-12/2022
Iran detains 2 Europeans; EU envoy in
Tehran about nuke deal
Associated Press/May 11/2022
Shortly before the European Union envoy met Iran's nuclear negotiator in Tehran
on Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to salvage Iran's nuclear deal with world
powers, Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced it had detained two Europeans.
Photos surfaced of the EU coordinator of the nuclear talks, Enrique Mora,
looking stern as he shook hands awkwardly with Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri
Kani, who beamed and waved. The Intelligence Ministry gave scant details about
the detained Europeans, saying only that they shared the same unidentified
nationality and sought to "take advantage" of the protests springing up in
several Iranian provinces as laborers and teachers press for better wages. The
Europeans were held on vague charges of planning to cause "chaos, social
disorder, and instability," authorities said.
The provocation came as Tehran vows to execute an imprisoned Swedish researcher
later this month — a case that coincides with a landmark war crimes trial of an
Iranian official in Sweden. And, in yet another escalation, Iran's powerful
Revolutionary Guard reportedly shelled Kurdish targets in northern Iraq. A local
official confirmed the strike, saying it caused no casualties. The events could
have obviated negotiations with the visiting EU coordinator. Nonetheless, the
schedule proceeded. There were no immediate details from Kani's meeting with
Mora, who has sought to break the deadlock that has prevailed since talks to
revive the nuclear deal paused in late March. Four
years ago, former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal, which
granted Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for strict curbs on its nuclear
program. Talks in Vienna to revive the accord have apparently stalled over an
Iranian demand that Washington lift a terrorist designation on the paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard.
Despite the deadlock, officials say the urgency to close the deal has grown.
Iran's nuclear program has rapidly advanced, with its stockpile of enriched
uranium at some 3,200 kilograms (7,055 pounds) earlier this year compared to 300
kilograms (661 pounds) under the nuclear deal. Some of that uranium has been
enriched up to 60% purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade levels.
Iran has stopped the International Atomic Energy Agency from accessing its
surveillance camera footage, worrying nuclear nonproliferation experts.
Meanwhile, Russia's war on Ukraine has increased European interest in
sanctioned Iranian crude. Punitive sanctions on Moscow are driving the continent
to seek alternatives to Russian oil to curb rising energy prices. Iran says it's
selling its crude despite sanctions and benefiting from the windfall. Iran's
Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian offered his support for ongoing
negotiations. "Talks for the lifting of sanctions will
be pursued in the right direction with the aim of reaching a good, strong and
lasting agreement and observing Iran's red lines," he wrote on Twitter. However,
Iran's hard-liners have criticized any concessions on the designation of the
Guard. Despite repeated Iranian claims that a separate but closely linked deal
would unfreeze billions of dollars in assets tied up abroad and result in a
prisoner swap with America, the State Department has repeatedly said that no
such agreement is imminent.
The reported imprisonment of the two Europeans on Wednesday has revived
long-standing accusations from rights groups that Iran uses foreigners and dual
nationals as diplomatic pawns to gain leverage in its negotiations with the
West. Tehran denies this. As Swedish prosecutors
reported they would seek life imprisonment for Hamid Nouri over Iranian war
crimes allegedly committed during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq War in the
1980s, Iran announced plans to execute Ahmad Reza Jalali, the imprisoned Swedish
researcher, and separate reports emerged that authorities arrested a Swedish
tourist in the country. It was not immediately clear whether the Swedish tourist
was one of the two Europeans detained Wednesday. Iran's Intelligence Ministry
alleged the two Europeans were "expert" foreign agents hired by the unnamed
European country, adding that Iranian authorities had pursued them from the
"moment of their arrival" and tracked their attempts to mobilize teachers'
protests and assist illegal unions. Meanwhile, Iran's Guard said it struck a
"terrorist base" near Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the semiofficial
Tasnim news agency. Projectiles struck uninhabited areas in northern Iraq home
to Iranian Kurdish opposition parties, Ihsan Chalabi, a local official told the
Irbil-based Rudaw news agency. No damage or injuries were reported from the
strike, he said. The Guard in the past has fired missiles at Kurdish opposition
groups in the north of Iraq, stoking regional tensions.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Shell Militant Bases North
of Iraq’s Erbil, Says State Media
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 11 May, 2022
Iran's Revolutionary Guards shelled an area north of the Iraqi Kurdish capital
of Erbil on Wednesday, targeting what Iranian state television described as
terrorist bases. Iraqi Kurdish media reported that an artillery shell had landed
in a village in the Sidekan area near the Iranian border, around 60 miles (100
km) northeast of Erbil. The Iranian state TV said no casualties had been
reported and details of the attack would be announced shortly. Iran's Tasnim
news agency said the Guards have previously targeted Iranian Kurdish militants
based in northern Iraq. A local official, quoted by the Erbil-based Rudaw news
website, said shells have occasionally hit the area in the past. In March, the
Guards carried out an attack against what Iranian state media described as
"Israeli strategic centers" in Erbil, suggesting it was revenge for Israeli air
strikes that killed Iranian military personnel in Syria.
The Iraqi Kurdish regional government said the attack in March only targeted
civilian residential areas, not sites belonging to foreign countries, and called
on the international community to carry out an investigation.
US Intelligence: IRGC to Escalate Attacks in Case of
Sanctions Waivers
Washington - Rana Abtar/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 11 May, 2022
A US top official said Iran would increase its targeting of Americans and US
allies as a result of the Biden administration’s significant sanctions relief
and offer to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. US Army Lt. Gen. Scott
Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in a testimony before
the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) would increase targeting against US partners in the region,
as well as US forces if they had increased funding due to sanctions relief. He
warned that Iran - through its partners and proxies - threatens neighbors in the
Middle East and American forces, while enriching uranium to new levels. His
remarks came in response to mounting criticism by Republicans, who accuse
President Joe Biden’s administration of offering major sanctions waivers to
Tehran in exchange for its return to the nuclear deal. The US intelligence
hinted that Iran still poses a major threat to the United States and its
interests. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said during the same
hearing that the Iranian regime continues to threaten US interests as it tries
to “erode US influence in the Middle East, trench its influence, project power
in neighboring states and minimize threats to regime stability.”She also warned
that the iterative violence between Israel and Iran has the potential to
escalate or spread. Moreover, she remarked that Iran’s frequent efforts to
assassinate current and former US officials are an attempt to avenge Quds Force
commander Qassem Soleimani’s killing in a US drone strike in Iraq in January
2020. “A fair amount of their motivation in this scenario we assess to be in
relation to Soleimani as part of their sort of efforts for revenge, and is a
particularly challenging area, I think, to deter them from action in this
space,” she said, noting that she could go into further details in a closed
session. Bipartisan lawmakers' dissatisfaction with Biden's Iran policy was
evident during the hearing. Senator Jack Reed, Chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee said in the four years since then-President Trump pulled out
of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),
Iran has made key nuclear advances. “While
negotiations to return Iran to the JCPOA are in the final stages, the final
outcome has not yet been determined,” he added. He stressed that Iran and its
proxies continue to mount drone and rocket attacks in the region, including
against bases in Iraq and Syria where the US has forces deployed, Saudi Arabia,
and now the United Arab Emirates.
‘This is a fight he really doesn’t want’: Pentagon chief
warns Russia’s Putin
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/11 May ,2022
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Wednesday
against attacking any NATO nation, saying such a move would be a “game
changer.”“This is a fight that he [Putin] really doesn’t want to have,” Austin
told lawmakers during a hearing with the top US military general, Gen. Mark
Milley. But Austin said he believed Russia wouldn’t want to take such a risk.
“As you look at Putin’s calculus, my view… is that Russia doesn’t want to take
on the NATO alliance.” He added: “If Russia decided to attack any nation that’s
a NATO member, that’s a game-changer.”Austin revealed that NATO members had
already discussed what kind of response would be carried out in the event of a
Russian attack. Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that if a NATO ally is
attacked, “each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of
violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it
deems necessary to assist.”The US defense secretary pointed to the almost 2
million forces in NATO and the “most advanced capabilities of any alliance in
the world.”Asked if the US was prepared to respond to such an attack, Gen.
Milley said, “the short answer is yes.”
“Militarily, we are very capable of responding to any form or fashion of
escalation if directed by the president,” he said. Milley said the US was
monitoring the situation and the potential for escalation “every single
day.”Putin ordered a so-called “special military operation” in February,
claiming that he would liberate Russian-speaking towns in Ukraine from
“neo-Nazis.”After initially offering Ukraine’s president a route to flee the
country, Ukrainian resistance has drawn international praise and forced the West
to recalculate its belief that Russia would overthrow the government in Kyiv
within days. Fighting has gone on for over 75 days now, and Russia has had to
reshape and re-prioritize its goals in Ukraine. The international community has
united to provide Ukraine with military assistance as well as crushing economic
sanctions on Russia and its oligarchs. But NATO
members, including the US, have said they have no intention of deploying troops
to Ukraine to fight against Russia.
Russian FM visits Oman to discuss Ukraine, trade
Marco Ferrari, Al Arabiya English/11 May ,2022
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visited Oman to discuss a range of
issues including the Ukraine conflict, trade, and migration. The two countries
announced on Wednesday a mutual visa exemption program, amid a wider package of
bilateral agreements, the Oman News Agency (ONA) reported.
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said met with Lavrov and stressed the need to
adhere to the rules of international law in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. He
also urged parties to intensify efforts to reach political and diplomatic
solutions through dialogue “in a manner that preserves the independence,
sovereignty, and sound coexistence of countries and peoples,” according to ONA.
The two also discussed the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel,
with Lavrov stressing Russia’s belief in the importance of negotiations between
the two sides. Lavrov also extended President Vladimir
Putin’s good wishes. He also expressed Russia’s wish for Syria to return to the
Arab League, saying that he believes Oman can help with this goal.
Syria lost its Arab League seat in 2011 after civil war erupted. Russia
is one of the Assad government’s main backers in the ongoing conflict. The
Russian diplomat also discussed bolstering trade ties between the two countries.
It was his first visit to the Gulf country since 2016, Russia’s TASS news agency
reported. Lavrov also met with a number of officials, and gave a joint press
conference with foreign minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi. For his part,
al-Busaidi said that Oman is “following with great interest the situation in
Ukraine and calls on all parties to exercise restraint and resolve differences
peacefully in order to avoid aggravating the situation.”He also commented on the
negotiations over a proposed Iranian nuclear deal. Oman supports all
international efforts that work to make the negotiations a success, ONA reported
al-Busaidi as saying. “We do not blame any party for disrupting the
negotiations, but we support dialogue and direct talk,” al-Busaidi added.
US Senators to introduce resolution to designate Russia
a state sponsor of terrorism
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/11 May ,2022
Two US Senators said on Tuesday they will be introducing a resolution to
designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism over its war on Ukraine,
calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a terrorist.
“Last week, the Ukrainian parliament took a vote urging the US Congress to
designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. So, we heard their plea and
we're answering their request. Today we will be introducing a resolution urging
the Secretary of State and the Biden administration to designate Russia as a
state sponsor of terrorism because they are,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham
said at a press conference. He added: “The hope is that we can take this
resolution and put it in the Ukraine supplemental, because I think it does two
things. It sends a strong message to the people of Ukraine, we listen to you,
and we agree that the person who is destroying your country, who's murdering,
raping and killing your citizens runs a nation that is a state sponsor of
terrorism. And we're also letting the Russian people know that our fight is not
with you, but is with Putin.”Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said: “If
there is anybody who embodies terrorism and totalitarianism and torture, it is
Vladimir Putin. And Russia, unfortunately, is in his hands. And so, this
resolution is absolutely appropriate and it will put Russia outside the pale of
civilized nations.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked US
President Joe Biden to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism in
mid-April.
The US currently designates four countries as state sponsors of terrorism: Iran,
Syria, North Korea and Cuba. Graham added: “Putin has challenged the world. He's
put in question everything we believe in. If he's still standing when this is
over and he's not labelled a state sponsor of terrorism, we've missed a mark.
Every law on the books regarding war crimes have been violated. Every
international norm has been turned upside down. For 20 years, he's literally
gotten away with murder. Now it's time to designate him in a fashion befitting
his conduct. He is a terrorist and Russia is in the hands of a terrorist state
run by Putin.”
Five Egyptian soldiers killed in attack north of Sinai
The Arab Weekly/Wednesday 11/05/2022
CAIRO- At least five Egyptian military personnel were killed in a terrorist
attack on Wednesday in northern Sinai, two security sources said, the second
deadly strike against security forces on the peninsula in less than a week. Four
others were injured when armed men opened fire at a security post in the coastal
area of northeastern Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip, the sources said.
There was no immediate comment from Egyptian authorities. The deaths
follow a May 7 ambush at a checkpoint in Sinai which killed 11 Egyptian soldiers
and was claimed by Islamic State, one of the deadliest attacks in recent years.
Egypt expanded security control over populated coastal areas of northern Sinai
after a major counter-insurgency operation was launched in 2018, but sporadic
attacks by militants linked to Islamic State have continued. News of Wednesday's
attack came as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met US national security advisor
Jake Sullivan in Cairo. The Egyptian presidency said the two had discussed the
strategic partnership between Egypt and the United States, which is a major
provider of military aid to Cairo. On Monday, Sisi voiced hopes for deeper
counter-terrorism ties with Washington in a meeting with the general who
oversees US forces in the Middle East, a US military official said.
EU strongly condemns Abu Aqleh's killing as U.S. urges
transparent probe
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
The U.S. envoy to the U.N. on Wednesday said the killing of Palestinian-American
Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as she covered an Israeli army raid in
the occupied West Bank must be "investigated transparently."
"We're encouraging both sides to participate in that investigation so
that we can get down to why this happened," U.S. ambassador Linda
Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that Washington's "highest priority is protection
of American citizens and the protection of journalists."The European Union
meanwhile "strongly" condemned the killing and demanded an independent
investigation into the circumstances of her death. "It
is essential that a thorough, independent investigation clarifies all the
circumstances of these incidents as soon as possible and that those responsible
are brought to justice," it continued. "It is unacceptable to target journalists
while they perform their job. Journalists covering conflict situations must be
ensured safety and protection at all times."The European Union statement did not
attribute blame for the shooting. The 51-year-old
reporter's employer, Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera, charged that Israeli
forces had shot her deliberately and "in cold blood." Israel's Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett said it was "likely" that "armed Palestinians -- who were
indiscriminately firing at the time -- were responsible for the unfortunate
death of the journalist."An AFP photographer reported that Israeli forces were
firing in the area and that he then saw Abu Akleh's body lying on the ground,
with no Palestinian gunmen visible at the time.
Al-Jazeera reporter killed during Israeli raid in West
Bank
Agence France Presse/May 11/2022
Veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh was shot dead Wednesday as she
covered an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The Qatar-based TV channel said Israeli forces shot Abu Aqleh, 51, deliberately
and "in cold blood" while Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it was
"likely" that Palestinian gunfire killed her. Abu Aqleh, a Palestinian Christian
who also held U.S. citizenship, was a prominent figure in the channel's Arabic
news service. Another Al Jazeera journalist, producer Ali al-Samudi, was wounded
in the incident, the broadcaster added. An AFP photographer at the scene said
Abu Aqleh was wearing a press flak jacket when she was shot. The photographer
reported that Israeli forces were firing in the area and then saw Abu Aqleh's
body lying on the ground. The Israeli army confirmed it had conducted an
operation in Jenin refugee camp early Wednesday but firmly denied it had
deliberately targeted a reporter. The army said there was an exchange of fire
between suspects and security forces and that it was "investigating the event
and looking into the possibility that journalists were hit by the Palestinian
gunmen." "The (army) of course does not aim at journalists," a military official
told AFP. A statement from Al Jazeera said: "In a blatant murder, violating
international laws and norms, the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold
blood Al Jazeera's correspondent in Palestine." It called on the international
community to hold the Israeli forces accountable for their "intentional
targeting and killing" of the journalist.
- 'Palestinian gunmen'-
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Israel was seeking a "joint pathological
investigation into the sad death of journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh.""Journalists
must be protected in conflict zones and we all have a responsibility to get to
the truth," Lapid added. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, tweeted that
he was "very sad to learn of the death of American and Palestinian journalist
Shireen Abu Aqleh" and called for "a thorough investigation into the
circumstances of her death." The Israeli prime minister said Palestinian gunmen
in the camp were likely responsible for Abu Aqleh's death. "According to the
information we've gathered, it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were
indiscriminately firing at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death
of the journalist," Bennett said in a statement. The wounded Al Jazeera
producer, Samudi, said there were no Palestinian fighters in the area where Abu
Aqleh was shot. "If there were resistance fighters, we would not have gone into
the area," he said in testimony posted online, stating that the Israelis "fired
towards us."In recent weeks, the army has stepped up operations in Jenin, a
historic flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Several of the
assailants blamed for deadly attacks on Israelis in recent weeks were from the
area. The army said that during its operation in the camp, "massive fire was
shot toward Israeli forces by tens of armed Palestinian gunmen".People in the
camp "also hurled explosive devices toward the soldiers, endangering their
lives. The soldiers responded with fire toward the sources of the fire and
explosive devices. Hits were identified."
Rising tensions
The fatal shooting comes nearly a year after an Israeli air strike destroyed a
Gaza building that housed the offices of Al Jazeera and news agency AP. Israel
has said the building also hosted offices for key members of the Hamas Islamist
group, which controls the Israeli-blockaded Gaza strip. The Palestinian
Authority called Abu Aqleh's killing an "execution" and part of an Israeli
effort to obscure the "truth" about its occupation of the West Bank. Hamas
called the incident "a premeditated murder". Qatar's assistant foreign minister
Lolwah Al Khater said Israeli troops had killed Abu Aqleh "by shooting her in
the face" in what she called an act of "state sponsored Israeli terrorism".
Tensions have risen in recent months as Israel has grappled with a wave of
attacks which has killed at least 18 people since March 22, including an
Arab-Israeli police officer and two Ukrainians. A total of 30 Palestinians and
three Israeli Arabs have died during the same period, according to an AFP tally,
among them perpetrators of attacks and those killed by Israeli security forces
in West Bank operations.
Shireen Abu Akleh: Al-Jazeera journalist shot and killed
during Israeli raid in West Bank
Sky New/May 11/2022
A journalist has been shot and killed and another injured while covering an
Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry has
said. It is said that Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was working
for Al-Jazeera's Arabic language channel, was shot in the town of Jenin early on
Wednesday and died soon afterward. Another Palestinian journalist from the
Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper was wounded but is in a stable condition.
While the health ministry said the reporters were hit by Israeli fire, the
Israeli military said it is "investigating" the event and is looking into the
possibility the journalists were hit by "the Palestinian gunmen". In a statement
flashed on its channel, Al-Jazeera blamed Israel and called on the international
community to "condemn and hold the Israeli occupation forces accountable for
deliberately targeting and killing our colleague, Shireen Abu Akleh". Israel's
foreign minister, Yair Lapid, said it had proposed to the Palestinian Authority
a joint pathological investigation into the reporter's death. "Journalists must
be protected in conflict zones and we all have a responsibility to get to the
truth," he tweeted. In video footage of the incident, Ms Abu Akleh can be seen
wearing a blue flak jacket clearly marked with the word 'PRESS'. Citing the
Palestinian healthy ministry and its own journalists, Al Jazeera claims Ms Abu
Akleh was hit by a live bullet and rushed to hospital in critical condition,
where she later died. Al Jazeera's Nida Ibrahim told the broadcaster 51-year-old
Ms Abu Akleh was a "very well-respected journalist" who had been working with
the channel since 2000. The Israeli military said its forces came under attack
with heavy gunfire and explosives while operating in Jenin, and that they fired
back. Israel has carried out near-daily raids in the West Bank in recent weeks
amid a series of deadly attacks inside Israel, many of them carried out by
Palestinians from in and around Jenin. The town, and particularly its refugee
camp, has long been known as a militant bastion. Israel captured the West Bank
in 1967, and the Palestinians want the territory to form the main part of their
future state. Nearly three million Palestinians live in the territory under
Israeli military rule. Israel has built more than 130 settlements across the
West Bank that are home to nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers, who have full Israeli
citizenship. Israelis have long been critical of Al-Jazeera's coverage, but
authorities generally allow its journalists to operate freely.
Biden Extends State of Emergency in Syria, Iraq, Yemen
Washington - Heba El Koudsy./May 11/2022
US President Joe Biden has extended the state of emergency in Syria, Iraq and
Yemen, pointing out that the turbulent internal conditions in these countries
continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to US national security.
Biden sent a letter to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice
stating that the national emergency with respect to the actions of the Syrian
government is to continue in effect beyond May 11. “The regime’s brutality and
repression of the Syrian people, who have called for freedom and a
representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but
also generates instability throughout the region,” the letter read.
It stressed that the regime’s actions and policies, including with
respect to chemical weapons and supporting terrorist organizations, continue to
pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the US national security, foreign
policy and economy. The United Stated condemned the brutal violence and human
rights violations and abuses of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian and
Iranian enablers. It called on the regime, and its
backers, to stop its violent war against its own people, enact a nationwide
ceasefire, facilitate the unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance to all
Syrians in need and negotiate a political settlement in Syria, in line with
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. Biden said the US will consider
changes in policies and actions of the Syrian government in determining whether
to continue or terminate this national emergency in the future.
On May 11, 2004, the US declared a national emergency with respect to the
actions of the Syrian government. It imposed sanctions against the Assad regime
and accused it of supporting terrorist organizations in Lebanon and Iraq. Biden
also decided to extend the state of emergency in Iraq, stating that it is to
continue in effect beyond May 22. “Obstacles to the
orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and
security in the country, and the development of political, administrative, and
economic institutions in Iraq continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” he
said in a letter to the Federal Register.He also called for extending the state
of emergency in Yemen, noting that it is to continue in effect beyond May 16.
Biden said the actions and policies of certain former members of the Yemeni
government and others in threatening the country’s peace, security, and
stability continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security and foreign policy of the United States.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 11-12/2022
Will NATO Fight?
Richard Kemp/ Gatestone Institute./May 11/2022
If NATO blood would in fact be spilt should Russia invade Poland or the Baltic
states, why have we utterly rejected the prospect of spilling it to help protect
Ukraine from Putin's mass killings, torture, rape and destruction? Ukraine is
not a NATO member and NATO states have no treaty obligation to come to its
defence as they do to each other. But that is surely just a technicality, a few
lines on a page. There is no practical or moral difference between protecting a
friend who is a member of the alliance and one who is not.
[I]f nuclear terror applies to Ukraine, why doesn't it apply to any NATO country
that becomes the target of Russian military aggression? Why would NATO leaders
fear Putin's nukes any less if he takes a bite out of Poland or the Baltic
states? The reality is, if it is true that NATO could not risk intervention over
Ukraine for fear of Russian nuclear retaliation, it could not risk intervention
over, say, Latvia for the same reason.
On top of that, every country in the West has capitulated to a concerted and
systematic assault on its history, its virtue and its self-worth. Past glories
are denigrated because they are not in line with 21st century wokeism...
Governments, including defence and foreign ministries, the very people that must
lead any fight against Russian attack, have succumbed to this sickness to the
extent that even they abrogate their own past and repudiate their own present.
Meanwhile, in pursuit of a superstate, the European Union and its cheerleaders
have been doing their level best to openly undermine and cancel national or
patriotic spirit in member countries..
Can we expect Europeans to fight and die for countries whose histories and
modern sense of worth have been roundly denounced and condemned by their own
leaders?
No such feeling exists for the EU even as it seeks to replace national loyalty.
Allegiance to Brussels is transactional and in only one direction. People ask
not what they can do for the EU but what the EU can do for them. Of course many
of our young people would fight for their country — with as much courage and
commitment as their ancestors ever did — and we witness this whenever we send
them into battle. But when the time comes to expand our forces, how many more
will answer the call after being educated to despise their own country and the
very notion of fighting for it?
If somehow the political and popular will to defend NATO member states did
materialise, what would European countries fight with? Constantly expanding
social welfare programmes have driven the military out of the marketplace across
the continent.
While he remains in the Kremlin, Putin's objective is the neutralisation of
NATO. He knows that the alliance's failure to fight for its own under his
provocation would spell its final humiliation and signal the end of the US-led
world order. For the liberty, prosperity and security of future generations,
this cannot be allowed to happen.
This is not a rehearsal; it is a foretaste of the far greater threat that will
be coming from President Xi Jinping's Chinese Communist Party.
If NATO blood would in fact be spilt should Russia invade Poland or the Baltic
states, why have we utterly rejected the prospect of spilling it to help protect
Ukraine from Putin's mass killings, torture, rape and destruction?
Great Britain is Russian President Vladimir Putin's public enemy number one. In
March the Kremlin branded UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson the most active
anti-Russian leader. A few days ago on television, Putin's propagandist Dmitry
Kiselyov fancifully suggested Russia should drown Britain in a radioactive
tsunami created by Poseidon nuclear torpedos that would leave survivors in "a
radioactive desert, unfit for anything for a very long time".
Putin is upset about Britain's stance over Ukraine, leading Europe and much of
the world in aggressive sanctions against Russia; and pouring in financial and
military aid plus decisive secret intelligence to help keep Kiev in the fight.
Needless to say, front-line states facing Russia take the opposite view of the
UK. During visits to Poland and Finland in the last two weeks, the enthusiasm
for Britain was palpable — among politicians, military and ordinary people
alike. As a Brit I don't remember such a warm reception anywhere in the world
except perhaps in the US when we stood firmly by their side in the aftermath of
9/11.
Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians and other close neighbours of the Russian
bully also appreciate the UK's forward-leaning role in NATO's pre-emptive
deployment, positioning increased combat forces on their territory alongside
other allies, predominantly the US.
Promises by NATO leaders that Putin will face the consequences if any of his
soldiers so much as puts a toe-cap onto NATO soil of course reassure these
beleaguered countries. But are we giving them false hope? Can eastern states
really rely on the US and western European NATO members to ride to their aid if
they get into a fight with Russia? Would we actually throw our young men and
women against Putin's steamroller — even the rather ramshackle steamroller that
has been grinding its way across Ukraine?
If NATO blood would in fact be spilt should Russia invade Poland or the Baltic
states, why have we utterly rejected the prospect of spilling it to help protect
Ukraine from Putin's mass killings, torture, rape and destruction? Ukraine is
not a NATO member and NATO states have no treaty obligation to come to its
defence as they do to each other. But that is surely just a technicality, a few
lines on a page. There is no practical or moral difference between protecting a
friend who is a member of the alliance and one who is not.
A German general, once head of the Bundeswehr, told me the other day that he
believes NATO as a whole will fight if it comes to it. He cited the unity shown
in the 1999 Kosovo air campaign and operations against the Taliban in
Afghanistan after 2003. Both of these, especially Afghanistan, did risk NATO
soldiers' lives, but they were never going to incur anything like the scale of
casualties to be expected in a war with Russia. While accurate statistics are
not available, it is likely that Ukrainians killed and wounded in nearly three
months of war have vastly exceeded all NATO casualties in all conflicts in which
NATO forces have ever engaged, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Africa.
Nor have any of these previous conflicts ever run any risk of conventional, as
opposed to terrorist, attacks against NATO members' homelands. There was never
any prospect of air raids on Berlin, Paris or London as there would be if we
went to war with Russia. In citing previous conflicts we are not comparing like
with like.
Then there is the nuclear threat. In the event of a wider war between NATO and
Russia, this is unlikely to materialise, but it could, and that slim possibility
alone understandably terrifies NATO leaders. Like Pavlov's dogs, they fall over
each other to renounce any intention of military engagement in Ukraine each time
Putin blows his over-used nuclear whistle. His threats are actually very
convenient for NATO leaders, because the last thing they want to do is fight in
or for Ukraine and hardly anyone questions the wisdom of taking no action that
might provoke Armageddon.
But if nuclear terror applies to Ukraine, why doesn't it apply to any NATO
country that becomes the target of Russian military aggression? Why would NATO
leaders fear Putin's nukes any less if he takes a bite out of Poland or the
Baltic states? The reality is, if it is true that NATO could not risk
intervention over Ukraine for fear of Russian nuclear retaliation, it could not
risk intervention over, say, Latvia for the same reason. Or do a few lines on a
page actually justify risking nuclear war over a "quarrel in a far away country,
between people of whom we know nothing" (to borrow Chamberlain's words from the
30s)?
NATO demonstrated itself to be an unreliable ally last year. When US President
Joe Biden took the disastrous decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan
without any conditions, the British defence secretary claims to have approached
all other NATO countries with forces deployed there, asking them to consider
remaining in a UK-led force after US withdrawal. He said there were no takers.
Not one country was willing to honour its obligations to the Afghan government
and people.
NATO's abject surrender and humiliation in Afghanistan, compounded by its
indulgence of Germany's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, including Biden's reversal
of Trump's opposition to it, and early US assurances that there would be no
military intervention if Russia attacked, led directly to Putin's invasion of
Ukraine. As the "special military operation" unfolded, NATO's continued
pleadings that they would take no action against Russia beyond sanctions and
arms supplies further emboldened Putin, reassuring him that there is no direct
military risk from NATO.
As well as fear of nuclear weapons, there are long-entrenched structural issues
that also raise the question of whether NATO collectively would fight if one of
its member states were attacked. For generation after generation, western
European NATO countries have become very comfortable, not to say complacent,
with decades of virtually unchallenged peace and prosperity. In every country,
across most political parties, a strong pacifist culture dominates, with the
conviction that all conflict can be resolved by reasoned argument, compromise
and appeasement rather than violent military force. It is unlikely that even the
horrors witnessed today in Ukraine have shaken this deep-seated and widespread
conceit.
On top of that, every country in the West has capitulated to a concerted and
systematic assault on its history, its virtue and its self-worth. Past glories
are denigrated because they are not in line with 21st century wokeism. Statues
of national heroes of yesteryear are torn down. Any favourable mention on social
media, for example, of Winston Churchill, who did more than anyone to save the
world from Hitler's Nazis, is guaranteed to receive a barrage of vitriol in
response. Governments, including defence and foreign ministries, the very people
that must lead any fight against Russian attack, have succumbed to this sickness
to the extent that even they abrogate their own past and repudiate their own
present.
Meanwhile, in pursuit of a superstate, the European Union and its cheerleaders
have been doing their level best to openly undermine and cancel national or
patriotic spirit in member countries, fervently plastering their own flags
everywhere from car licence plates to city halls and spending millions on
propaganda indoctrinating young people in the virtues of the EU from elementary
school to university and beyond.
Can we expect Europeans to fight and die for countries whose histories and
modern sense of worth have been roundly denounced and condemned by their own
leaders? Will they fight for the bureaucratic agglomerate that is the EU?
Patriotism — of the kind that led millions across the world to volunteer to
fight the Nazis in World War Two — requires emotional investment in your own
country.
No such feeling exists for the EU even as it seeks to replace national loyalty.
Allegiance to Brussels is transactional and in only one direction. People ask
not what they can do for the EU but what the EU can do for them. Of course many
of our young people would fight for their country — with as much courage and
commitment as their ancestors ever did — and we witness this whenever we send
them into battle. But when the time comes to expand our forces, how many more
will answer the call after being educated to despise their own country and the
very notion of fighting for it? The British Army, for instance, has struggled
for decades to fill its ever-shrinking ranks from an ever-growing population.
If somehow the political and popular will to defend NATO member states did
materialise, what would European countries fight with? Constantly expanding
social welfare programmes have driven the military out of the marketplace across
the continent. Every country's armed forces are inadequate to fight a real war
together or alone.
Over the decades, successive American presidents have tried to cajole leaders of
European NATO countries to meet their minimum defence spending commitments. They
have been mostly ignored. True, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, shocked by
Russian depredations in Ukraine, announced 100 billion Euros over 10 years to
re-energise the defence forces that his predecessor, Angela Merkel, wilfully
neglected. But that will barely scratch the surface, even if the promised cash
actually materialises, which remains to be seen.
Meanwhile Britain, considered militarily the most powerful and dependable nation
in Europe, is still merrily implementing defence cuts agreed last year. Even
before the latest reductions were conceived, Britain's armed forces were at a
perilously low ebb, unprecedented in centuries of history. Almost three months
of shattering object lessons on why we should rebuild our armed forces have not
prompted any suggestion from the government that last year's defence review
might have been ill-judged — not so much fiddling while Rome burns as throwing
gasoline on the flames.
Looking at Europe one is tempted to think: can't fight, won't fight. What about
America? Will the president who shied away from even the comparatively mild
conflict in Afghanistan and has been desperate to convince Putin that the US
will not fight for Ukraine, send US boys to fight and die in Europe for
countries that many Americans have never heard of? Anyway, how could he do so if
European nations will not step up to the plate to defend their own backyard?
Putin knows all this despite his ludicrous rhetoric about feeling threatened by
NATO's eastward advance towards Russia — which actually means the defensive
alliance accepting membership applications from former Warsaw Pact countries
once again fearful of their erstwhile overlords in Moscow. Especially with the
unwelcome prospect of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, Putin will be tempted to
continue testing the alliance, including by intensive cyber war and military
incursions against member states' sovereignty.
While he remains in the Kremlin, Putin's objective is the neutralisation of
NATO. He knows that the alliance's failure to fight for its own under his
provocation would spell its final humiliation and signal the end of the US-led
world order. For the liberty, prosperity and security of future generations,
this cannot be allowed to happen. It will not be easy or quick to undo
generations of self-obsessed complacency, deep-rooted pacifism, deliberate
subverting of patriotic spirit and refusal to make hard sacrifices in the
national interest. Above all it will take strong leadership of the kind that is
hard to discern in any NATO country today. Whether or not this is mission
impossible depends on Putin's timetable and exactly how fast European countries
can re-forge their national steel.
This is not a rehearsal; it is a foretaste of the far greater threat that will
be coming from President Xi Jinping's Chinese Communist Party.
*Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of
the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer
and speaker on international and military affairs. He is a Jack Roth Charitable
Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 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.
Palestinians Lie to Murder Jews; U.S. Rewards Them
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./May 11/2022
The terrorists and their families are saying that they actually believe the lies
of the Palestinian leaders that the mosque is being attacked, violated and
desecrated by Jews. They are saying that this is the reason they are sending
Palestinians to murder Jews on the streets of Israeli cities.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, with whom the Biden administration is
currently talking, even had the gall to repeat the blood libel against Israel
and Jews when he issued a statement "condemning" the murder of Israeli civilians
in Elad.
Please note: in the very same breath that Abbas "condemns" the murders of
Israeli civilians, he continues to push his people to murder Jews for allegedly
desecrating the holy sites in Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders not only normally lie to their people about the fictitious
"danger" facing the mosque; they also lie to the Americans and Europeans, who
continue to believe that Abbas and his team are sincere about making peace with
Israel.
Americans and Europeans additionally fail to grasp that by using the Aqsa Mosque
as a pretext for terrorism against Jews, the Palestinian leaders are also aiming
to rally Muslims against Western "infidels" around the world.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that the Jews "have no
right to defile with their filthy feet" the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher. "We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of
Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah, Allah
willing. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be
rewarded by Allah." Pictured: Abbas speaks on PA television, September 16, 2015.
(Image source: MEMRI)
The Palestinian terrorists who used axes to murder three Israeli Jewish men in
the city of Elad on May 5 have cited the recent violence at the Aqsa Mosque
compound (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem as their main motivation for the attack.
The violence began when Palestinian rioters attacked Israeli police officers at
the compound with fireworks, stones and other objects during the Muslim fasting
month of Ramadan. The goal of the rioters: to prevent Jews from conducting
peaceful walking tours of the Temple Mount, as has long been officially agreed.
The rioters attacked the police because Palestinian leaders had told them that
Jews were planning to "storm into the mosque" during the Jewish holidays.
These leaders, who belong to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, had told
their people, falsely, that Israel was planning to "commit crimes" against the
Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site to Muslims, and the leaders urged
Palestinians to converge on the site to "defend" it against the "aggression of
Jewish settlers."
The lies of these leaders led thousands of Palestinians to clash with Israeli
security forces at the Aqsa Mosque compound. The rioters chanted slogans calling
for the slaughter of Jews, the bombing of Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, and
"blowing up the head of the Zionists." The rioters praised Hamas, the terrorist
group that explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel, and raised the Hamas
flag on the mosque's walls.
Importantly, despite the violence, Israeli police enabled tens of thousands of
Muslim worshippers to peacefully attended prayers at the compound during
Ramadan, thereby refuting more false allegations, that Israel had imposed
"restrictions" on the entry of Palestinians into the area.
The riots were the direct result of the vicious incitement and outright
falsehoods by the leaders of the PA and Hamas, who continue to spread the libel
that the Aqsa Mosque is "in danger" because of the Jews' allegedly evil schemes.
Days before the start of Ramadan, Mahmoud Habbash, adviser on religious affairs
to the Palestinian Authority president, claimed (again falsely) that Israel was
"preparing to commit a new crime" against the mosque. "The Palestinian response
to this crime will not be easy or normal," said Habbash, considered one of the
closest aides to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Earlier, the PA minister for religious affairs, Hatem al-Bakri, had warned that
visits by Jews to the Temple Mount during the Jewish holidays would be seen by
the Palestinians as a "crime" and "provocation." Bakri, like other Palestinian
leaders, went on to repeat the old provocative lie that Israel was planning to
"change the status quo" at the holy site by dividing it between Jewish and
Muslim worshippers in terms of time and space.
Abbas's chief spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, added to the fire by accusing
Israel of "waging war" on the Palestinians, Jerusalem and the Muslim and
Christian holy sites.
While Abbas and his senior officials were spewing their hatred against Israel
and Jews from the West Bank, the leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip were also
repeating these same old lies and libels.
Before and during the riots at the Aqsa Mosque compound, Hamas issued several
appeals to the Palestinians to arrive at the site to "defend" it and prevent
Jews from "desecrating" it. The terrorist group warned that allowing Jews to
tour the Temple Mount during the Jewish holiday of Purim would constitute a
"crime and provocation and against the feelings of our people and the Islamic
nation."
Later, Hamas issued another false and incendiary statement in which it claimed
that Jews were planning to conduct "animal sacrifice" and "religious rituals" at
the Temple Mount:
"This constitutes a dangerous escalation, a crossing of all red lines, and an
assault on the religion and feelings of the Palestinians and all Muslims during
the holy month of Ramadan."
Hamas warned that the Palestinians will not allow the Jews to carry out this
"criminal scheme."
Less than a week before the two terrorists carried out the axe-murders in Elad,
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a convicted murderer released by Israel in a prisoner
exchange agreement with the terrorist group more than 10 years ago, called on
all Palestinians to preparing "guns, cleavers, axes, and knives for the defense
of the Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem." Sinwar also threatened that his group would
target synagogues throughout the world if the Aqsa Mosque is "desecrated" by
Jews.
In a written will prepared by one of the terrorists before the attack, he wrote
that he and his friend were "prepared to kill and be martyred in order to defend
Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque."
Several Palestinian factions have confirmed that the attack in Elad was aimed at
"defending Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque. The factions praised the murder of the
three Israeli Jewish men as an "heroic operation."
The father of one of the terrorists also confirmed that his son went out to
murder Jews as part of a protest against Israeli "attacks and incursions against
the Aqsa Mosque." According to the father, his son used to "cry" each time he
watched the (nonexistent) "attacks" on the mosque.
The terrorists and their families are saying that they actually believe the lies
of the Palestinian leaders that the mosque is being attacked, violated and
desecrated by Jews. They are saying that this is the reason they are sending
Palestinians to murder Jews on the streets of Israeli cities.
The latest wave of terrorist attacks has continued, although the mosque has not
been harmed and the status quo at the Temple Mount remains unchanged. The
attacks by Palestinians continue even though Muslims have, and have always had,
perfectly free access to the mosque. The attacks by Palestinians continue even
though no Jewish "settler" has "stormed" the mosque or even set foot inside it.
The Aqsa Mosque libel is again being used by the Palestinians as an excuse to
carry out terrorist attacks to murder Jews. This, of course, is not the first
time that Palestinian leaders have lied about either the Jews or the Aqsa
Mosque. That goes back at least 80 years.
More recently, in 2015, Abbas said in a pretty unmistakable speech that the Jews
"have no right to defile with their filthy feet" the Aqsa Mosque and the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher. "We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of
Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah, Allah
willing. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be
rewarded by Allah."
Abbas's speech triggered what became known as the "knife intifada," during which
dozens of Israeli Jews were murdered or wounded by Palestinian terrorists.
Now, Abbas, Hamas and other Palestinians are repeating the same lies in order to
encourage young Palestinians to take to the streets and murder Jews. Abbas, with
whom the Biden administration is currently talking, even had the gall to repeat
the blood libel against Israel and Jews when he issued a statement "condemning"
the murder of Israeli civilians in Elad.
Abbas's ostensible condemnation included an implicit call to Palestinians to
continue the battle to "defend" Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque.
"The President [Abbas] renewed his condemnation of the ongoing attacks against
our people and their Muslim and Christian holy sites," read the statement issued
by Abbas's office, apparently under pressure from the Biden administration.
Please note: in the very same breath that Abbas "condemns" the murders of
Israeli civilians, he continues to push his people to murder Jews for allegedly
desecrating the holy sites in Jerusalem.
Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have become experts at gaming the Biden
administration and many in the international community. On the one hand they
pretend that they are opposed to violence and terrorism, while on the other hand
they explicitly encourage the murder of Jews.
Palestinian leaders not only normally lie to their people about the fictitious
"danger" facing the mosque; they also lie to the Americans and Europeans, who
continue to believe that Abbas and his team are sincere about making peace with
Israel.
Americans and Europeans additionally fail to grasp that by using the Aqsa Mosque
as a pretext for terrorism against Jews, the Palestinian leaders are also aiming
to rally Muslims against Western "infidels" around the world.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 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.
More Islamic Death Threats in Europe: Dutch MP Targeted
Twice
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute./May 11/ 2022
Geert Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and
religious tolerance...
What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for
freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric
Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like
Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to
Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."
"It is no use threatening me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else.
Fatwas won't stop me.... Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me." —
Geert Wilders, Twitter, April 15, 2022.
"An Imam who wants a politician dead is—however reprehensible—allowed to say
so." — Geert Wilders, NIS News Bulletin. March 15, 2005.
Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe." — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch
Parliament, September 6, 2007.
"There is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'. As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan
said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no moderate or immoderate Islam.
Islam is Islam and that's it."' — Geert Wilders, speech in the Dutch Parliament,
September 6, 2007.
"We must never give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us." — Geert
Wilders, Middle East Online, May 31, 2011.
"'I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the less freedom we
get.' He opened the press conference with a quote from George Orwell's preface
to Animal Farm: 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell
people what they don't want to hear'". — Margaret Davis, quoting Geert Wilders,
in The Independent, October 16, 2009.
The American version [of George Orwell's Ministry of Truth, the US
Disinformation Governance Board] is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on
disinformation, Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly
dismissing Hunter Biden's easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign
product;" supporting the notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National
Public Radio: "I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking
over more platforms," and, while discussing "online abuse" against women, she
actually recommended deploying the police...
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has
ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right
which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is
the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the
rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." — Frederick Douglass,
freed slave, December 9, 1860.
Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede imposing even more
limitations on freedom.
As the powers that be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should
cherish, we must recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and
even those who burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree
with their views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression
they enrich the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.
Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, has dedicated his life to
supporting freedom of speech and religious tolerance... What seems to have
earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for freedom. Pictured:
Wilders speaks to the media outside the Dutch Parliament on March 22, 2021.
Last month, a Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders -- the leader of the
Party for Freedom, which is the largest opposition party in the Netherlands'
Parliament -- received two fatwas. Fatwas, officially, are Islamic religious
opinions; they sometimes contain calls, however, to kill whomever might be
considered insufficiently supportive of Islam or its prophet, Mohammad.
Wilders has dedicated his life to supporting freedom of speech and religious
tolerance, and pointing out problems in radical, violent Islamist extremism.
Because of this, he has been the target of frequent death threats by Islamist
leaders. There are many who appear to prefer religious conformity, restricted
speech and often the death penalty for what they might consider blasphemy.
As for this author, born in the Netherlands, it was always a particular pleasure
for many years, while serving as a member of the US Congress, to meet with
political visitors from the Netherlands to the US. A special one, with whom I
often met, is Wilders.
What seems to have earned him these death threats is his unrelenting passion for
freedom. To others, it seems, this commitment, is not a plus. Radical cleric
Muhammad Abdullah Ahsan, for instance, recently proclaimed: "The rascals like
Geert Wilders can't be stopped by mere condemnation. He must be handed over to
Muslims for public execution to ensure world peace."
Another radical Islamist leader, Saad Hussain Rizvi Sahib, according to an
online post, "issued a fatwa against the Arrogant [sic] Greet [sic] Wilders, to
Kill [sic] him and he ordered Ummat-a-Muslima to spread this message to Muslims
of Haaland and kill him as soon as possible."
In response to these latest threats, Wilders tweeted: "It is no use threatening
me, Muslims in Pakistan, Netherlands or anywhere else. Fatwas won't stop me.....
Freedom is my ideology. And no one will stop me."
After years of countless threats, Wilders, since 2004, has been forced to live
with around-the-clock security, generously provided by the Dutch government. "It
is a situation," he has said, "that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy". "I am in
prison," he has said privately; "they are walking around free."
"An Imam," Wilders has noted, "who wants a politician dead is—however
reprehensible—allowed to say so."
Wilders' first alleged "offense," in 2004, was to have been part of a team that
created a ten-minute film, Submission, produced and directed by Theo van Gogh,
to dramatize the abuse of Muslim women that sometimes takes place based on three
Quranic suras: 4:34, 2:222 and 24:2.
Film critic Phill Hall wrote:
"'Submission' was bold in openly questioning misogyny and a culture of violence
against women because of Koranic interpretations. The questions raised in the
film deserve to be asked: is it divine will to assault or kill women? Is there
holiness in holding women at substandard levels, denying them the right to free
will and independent thought? And ultimately, how can such a mindframe exist in
the 21st century?"
After Submission (the English for the word "Islam") was released, a 26 year old
Dutch-Moroccan Muslim, Mohammad Bouyeri, murdered van Gogh by shooting him and
slitting his throat. Bouyeri later told a Dutch court, "If I ever get free, I
would do it again." Papers on a knife stuck in van Gogh's body warned that
Wilders, among others, would be next. Since then, for 18 years, Wilders has had
constantly to move from one safe house to another, unable to live in his own
home or with the freedom to go out alone in public. His life, every minute, is
in extreme danger.
Wilders, nonetheless, sees the personal sacrifice as the price to be paid to
advocate for a free society and free speech, saying:
"[T]he point is, if you really speak out in favour of freedom, let alone if you
use the freedom of speech. ... [a]nd why Islam (I'm not talking about the
people, but the ideology of Islam) why they are not free. ... [y]ou either get
fatwas as I got; you are taken to court by people who hate your guts. You are
silenced in parliament...."
Free speech, he comments, is "absolute for the people who talk according to the
wishes of the elite that are in charge. But if you diverge from that, it's very
relative, it's non-existent."
Wilders is indeed extremely outspoken. To the Dutch Parliament, he said, "Islam,
is the Trojan Horse in Europe, and, "there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'.
As Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said the other day, and I quote, 'There is no
moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it.'"
In New York, after the 9/11 attacks, he said, "We must never give a free hand to
those who want to subjugate us."
In London, he said, "I feel that the more Islam that we get in our societies the
less freedom we get [and quoting George Orwell]: 'If liberty means anything at
all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear'".
Yet, despite years of death threats and a lifestyle no one would want, he
remains a passionate advocate for free speech. This conviction -- aligned with
America's First Amendment and dating back to our founding fathers, flies in the
face of today's trends in the West where "cancel culture" runs rampant and
people try to silence those with whom they disagree.
Here in the US, you were not allowed to talk freely about the very real
possibility that the Covid virus, which has killed more than six million people
worldwide, may have escaped from a Chinese laboratory; and you were blocked from
making any statements about treatments for Covid that were not approved by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You also could not, in the middle of
a national campaign for the presidency, talk about Hunter Biden's laptop
computer, filled with potentially damaging evidence that voters might find
useful as they assessed which candidate to vote for.
The most recent assault on freedom of speech in the US now comes from the
Department of Homeland Security, which is armed: the Disinformation Governance
Board. According to its website, it supposedly "protects free speech." The great
American public, evidently sensing something awry, immediately renamed it "The
Ministry of Truth" after the government's propaganda center in George Orwell's
novel, 1984.
The American version is to be headed by a supposed "expert" on disinformation,
Nina Jankowicz, who already has a record of unexpertly dismissing Hunter Biden's
easily verifiable laptop as a "Trump Campaign product;" supporting the
notoriously false "Steele Dossier;" saying on National Public Radio: "I shudder
to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms," and,
while discussing "online abuse" against women, she actually recommended
deploying the police:
"We need to at least upskill police officers and local law enforcement to deal
with these things and perhaps start some collaboration... Online, that just
doesn't exist yet. So I'm hopeful for that architecture to come into play."
The historian Robert Spencer commented:
"'[D]isinformation' and 'hate' re entirely subjective categories, based on the
point of view of the person who is doing the evaluating.... [and] who gets to
decide what 'hate speech' is? Nina Jankowicz, apparently."
As the freed slave Frederick Douglass said in 1860:
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has
ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right
which they first of all strike down. They know its power.... Equally clear is
the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the
rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to
rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his
money."
Who really believes that the rhetoric of Wilders -- or just about all of us, for
that matter -- would ever pass the scrutiny of the new Orwellian-sounding
federal Disinformation Governance Board? Certainly not those who embrace free
speech. In my years in Congress there were frequent votes about flag
desecration, well-intended attempts by colleagues to ban defiling the American
flag. I love our flag as much as anyone can, but voted every time against making
flag desecration a crime. Freedom of speech in free nations should supersede
imposing even more limitations on freedom.
As Wilders receives still new fatwas, we would do well recognize the price that
he and others have paid for expressing their points of view. As the powers that
be continue clamping down on the free speech we all should cherish, we must
recognize the value and strength that people like Wilders, and even those who
burn flags, bring to the public square. We may or may not agree with their
views, but should recognize that through their freedom of expression they enrich
the debate and discourse. They make us stronger, not weaker.
*Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump
administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives
representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking
member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the
Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.
© 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.
Jihadist Conquests Were About Bringing “Justice,
Freedom, and Equality” to Conquered Infidels, Says Leading Muslim Scholar
Raymond Ibrahim./May 11/ 2022
On April 24, 2022, the grand imam of Islam’s most prestigious university, Al
Azhar, delivered an address before the heads of state, with Egyptian President
al-Sisi sitting in the front row. This occurred during state-level celebrations
of Laylat al-Qadr (the “Night of Power”), which, in Islamic teaching, is the
night when Allah first revealed the Koran to Muhammad.
Considering the occasion of the speech and the speech deliverer himself, Grand
Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb—arguably “the most influential Muslim in the
world”—Islam was praised to the ceiling. Of especial interest, however, was
al-Tayeb’s rendition of history. At one point he said:
In just a few years after the death of the prophet Muhammad (Allah pray on and
grant him peace), the Islamic conquests [literally, “openings,” futuhat] caused
the two most powerful empires that divided and controlled every corner of the
Middle East to collapse, and their lands in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa
to become Islamic lands to this very day.
This, of course, is true. The two empires the sheikh refers to are the Eastern
Roman Empire (“Byzantium”) and the Sassanian Empire of Persia. Most of the lands
cited by al-Tayeb—from Syria and Egypt in the east, to Morocco and Algeria in
the west—were Christian and governed by the Eastern Roman Empire. Only Iran and
parts of Iraq were under Sassanian rule and Zoroastrian in religion. During the
seventh century, Muslims conquered and Islamized all of these lands.
As usual, however, when it comes to Islamic retellings, facts are quickly
mingled with fiction. After making the above statement, al-Tayeb offered this:
These [Muslim] conquests were not conquests of colonization that rely on the
methods of plunder, oppression, control, and the policies of domination and
dependency, [all of which] which leave nations in ruin.
He went on to condemn conquests of colonization that are about oppression and
plunder—a swipe at Europe’s historic colonization of the Middle East—before
continuing:
Yes, the Islamic conquests were not like this—dominating peoples and controlling
them with the arrogance of force and weapons; rather, they led to a new
avalanche of life—full of knowledge, justice, freedom, and equality—which flowed
in the veins of those [once] powerless people.
It is difficult to emphasize how utterly surreal such claims are, at least for
those familiar with Islam’s true history. The conquests of all the Christian
lands mentioned by the Grand Imam (from Syria in the east to Morocco in the
west), as well as those Christian lands of later Islamic conquests (ignored by
al-Tayeb as they were eventually overturned)—in Spain, the Mediterranean
islands, Asia Minor, the Balkans, etc.—featured bloodshed, massacres, terror,
enslavement, plunder, and the oppression of the conquered and exploitation of
their resources on a grand scale. Page after page of Sword and Scimitar:
Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, clearly document this,
based on both Christian and Muslim sources.
Even more absurd is the grand imam’s claim that the Christian and Zoroastrian
peoples living under the Eastern Roman and Sassanian empires were happy to be
“liberated” by the sword of Islam, and that—seeing that Islam was a religion of
“knowledge, justice, freedom, and equality”—they eagerly responded by converting
in droves.
As is well known, the supposedly “liberated” peoples—the ones to survive the
initial massacres and enslavements, anyway—who preferred to remain Christian,
Zoroastrian, or Jewish, could do so only by becoming dhimmis, second-class
citizens who had to make regular tribute (jizya) payments and adhere to a host
of humiliating social strictures (as captured in the “Conditions of Omar”). The
desire not to be financially fleeced or treated inferiorly—or sporadically
persecuted, as many dhimmis were, depending on whether the next ruler was
“radical” or not—is what caused so many non-Muslims to convert to Islam over the
centuries.
This was the only way they could experience “justice, freedom, or equality”—at
least of a sort.
Especially ludicrous is that al-Tayeb depicts the Muslim conquests as somehow
being more virtuous than European colonization of the Middle East. In reality,
whereas jihads culminated in slavery, depopulation, and devastation—certain
regions especially in North Africa, Spain, and Anatolia never recovered—European
colonialists abolished slavery and introduced their Muslim subjects to the boons
of modernity, from scientific and medicinal advances to the radical concepts of
democracy and religious freedom.
Although it is difficult to find an analogy from Western history that captures
the lunacy of al-Tayeb’s claims, consider for a moment whatever the worst point
of American history might be—say slavery. Now imagine a state ceremony, attended
by the U.S. president, where a leading Christian delivers a speech about how the
enslavement of blacks was a wonderful and altruistic thing—certainly not to be
compared to the cruel enslavement practiced by those evil non-Christians—and
that it was really about bringing “knowledge, justice, freedom, and equality” to
enslaved Africans.
That is the level of absurdity of al-Tayeb’s claims.
But why all these lies? Here we come to the crux of the matter. To feel good
about themselves and their religion, Muslims must maintain this happy
fiction—that their non-Muslim ancestors were “liberated” by Islam and that they
were only too eager to embrace it, at which point they began to enjoy
“knowledge, justice, freedom, and equality.”
The alternative, the truth—that their ancestors were Christians or other
non-Muslims who were conquered and compelled to embrace Islam due to sporadic
bouts of persecution and systemic discrimination—is not quite as satisfying, not
to mention may get them thinking.
Hence the chronic chicanery of the Grand Imam of the Muslim world’s most
prestigious university—also known as Pope Francis’s closest Muslim ally.
*Raymond Ibrahim is author most recently of Defenders of the West: The Christian
Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
Assad in Tehran… The Summit of Illusions
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/May 11/2022
Bashar al-Assad conducted a secret visit to Tehran, the second since 2019.
What’s the significance of its timing? Its purpose? And what does it purport,
especially following efforts to remove Assad from the arms of Iran?
Before answering the above questions, we must stop at two statements broadcast
by Iranian TV. The first is for Assad, in which he says that the “strategic
relations between Iran and Syria have prevented the Zionist regime - Israel -
from taking control of the region.”
The second statement belongs to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He
reportedly told Assad that Syria today “is not the same as before the war.
Although there was no destruction at that time; but respect for Syria’s status
is now greater than before, and everyone sees this country as a force.”
These two declarations confirm that the Tehran summit was nothing but the summit
of illusions, and that the Assad regime and Iran are architecting a stage, in
which Russia is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and subject to more than
10,000 international sanctions.
We are not exaggerating by saying that it was the summit of illusions. Amidst
talk about the Iranian-Syrian strategic relations that prevented Israel from
controlling the region, according to Assad, and Syria’s strength and status, as
described by Khamenei, we find that the facts are different.
Israel has targeted Iranian and Assad forces, as well as Hezbollah militias in
Syria with more than 400 airstrikes since 2017. Crimes committed by Iran and the
Assad regime also contributed to improving Israel’s image in the region.
Accordingly, all that was said during Assad’s visit to Tehran is nothing but
propaganda and delusional talk. In fact, the two sides are trying to arrange
their cards with Russia’s preoccupation with the war, and in anticipation of an
expected Saudi and Gulf rapprochement with the United States.
Assad’s visit to Tehran shows that every attempt to contain the Syrian regime
and keep it away from the arms of Iran is bound to fail. The regime is wrecked.
No matter the effort to save it. Syria, as we used to know it, is also gone at
the foreseeable level.
Someone might say here: What is wrong with Assad visiting Tehran, while the
countries of the region are engaging in dialogue with Iran? The difference is
great. The countries of the region, including Saudi Arabia, are communicating
with Iran in a rational attempt to defuse a crisis caused by the Tehran regime,
and in the hope of stopping Iranian terrorism.
Assad, on the other hand, threw all his cards into the Iranian basket, in search
of protection from the Syrians. He has pushed the whole country into a narrow
sectarian corner, after it has turned into an arena for all Iranian militias.
Here is another observation that shows the difference between the Assad regime
and the entire region. Iraq is rising up, rejecting Iran and its militias, and
adopting the state logic. Assad, for his part, is succumbing to Tehran in the
hope of being protected from the Syrians.
What’s more striking is the fact that the West and the United States are
threatening to punish those who deal with the Assad regime through the Caesar
Act, while Assad visits the Iranian Supreme Leader and they both boast off
America’s weakness in the region. In parallel, Western countries and America
continue to scramble to reach an agreement with Iran.
Therefore, the summit was nothing but a Syrian-Iranian attempt to arrange cards
in a rapidly-changing region. But Assad is not relying on logic, rather on mere
illusions, like the recent meeting in Tehran.