English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 19/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Matthew 16/11-20: “How could you fail to perceive that I was not speaking about bread? Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!’Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.””

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 18-19/2022
Lebanon….The Legend Nation/Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz/May 19/2022
Aoun discharged from hospital after medical checkups, x-rays
EU urges fast govt. formation in Lebanon and timely presidential vote
BDL extends circular allowing banks to buy dollars via Sayrafa
Bread, fuel, gas and electricity crises in Lebanon as dollar surges anew
Franjieh says Marada 'barely made it' in elections, urges new law
Hizbullah, Amal urge against rallies, gunfire, call for 'dialogue, rapprochement'
Nasrallah says no camp has parliamentary majority but it may be good thing
EU Says Vote Buying, Clientelism Were Widespread in Lebanese Elections
Tense Times Ahead for Lebanon after Elections
Lebanon reformists weigh choices after election surge
From Iran to Lebanon, Signs of an Uprising/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al awsat/May 18/2022
On the Results of the Lebanese Elections and Hezbollah’s Options/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al awsat/May 18/2022
Lebanon….The Legend Nation/Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz/May 19/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 18-19/2022
Israeli Defense Minister Says Iran is Preparing to Install 1,000 Additional Centrifuges
Iran Awaits US Response to Nuclear Talks ‘Solutions’ Submitted to Mora
UN Calls on Tehran to Halt Imminent Execution of Dual Iranian-Swedish Doctor
Tehran Criticizes Washington's Support for Peaceful Assembly of Iranians
Iran detains protesting bus drivers
US Reopens Kyiv Embassy after Three-Month Closure
Finland, Sweden apply to join NATO as first Ukraine war crimes trial begins
Moscow Says More Mariupol Fighters Surrender; Kyiv Silent on Their Fate
Macron Concerned about Israel's Decision to Build 4,000 New West Bank Settlements
Grundberg Calls for Overcoming Outstanding Challenges, Extending Yemen Truce
Bashagha to Set Up Govt in Sirte after Tripoli Clashes
Algeria, Russia Discuss Military Cooperation

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 18-19/2022
Why Erdoğan's NATO Blackmail Is Subversion/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute./May 18, 2022
Facebook’s Censorship Campaign Against Persecuted Christians/Raymond Ibrahim/May 18/2022
Murder on the Beach/Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet Website/May 18/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 18-19/2022
Lebanon….The Legend Nation/Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz/May 19/2022
Below Is the Arabic version of this document in three parts
الوطن الأسطورة … لبنان القداسة والتاريخ والبطولة والرسالة/الجزء الثالث والأخير- التراث
ابو أرز- اتيان صقر/25 شباط/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108748/etienne-sacre-abu-arz-lebanon-the-legend-nation-%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%a3%d8%b1%d8%b2-%d8%a7%d8%aa%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%b5%d9%82%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%88%d8%b7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84/

Aoun discharged from hospital after medical checkups, x-rays
Naharnet /Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
President Michel Aoun returned Wednesday morning to the Baabda Palace after being discharged from the Hôtel-Dieu de France hospital in Beirut, the Presidency said.
The Presidency added that Aoun left hospital “after the completion of the medical checkups and x-rays that he underwent yesterday.”Al-Arabiya’s al-Hadath TV said Aoun had been admitted to hospital after he “fractured his shoulder.”

EU urges fast govt. formation in Lebanon and timely presidential vote
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The European Union has welcomed the holding of parliamentary elections in Lebanon on May 15, commending the Lebanese people, those who voted and those who were involved in preparing and implementing the electoral process, for “their civic participation, despite the difficult political, economic and social circumstances surrounding these elections.”“We also commend the state security forces for their contribution to maintain a calm and safe environment overall, and help in ensuring that the elections were conducted without major security incidents,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said in a statement distributed by the EU Delegation to Lebanon. “The EU has contributed to making these elections possible, by providing extensive technical assistance to the Electoral Management Bodies and dispatching an Election Observation Mission (EOM),” Borrell noted. “The EU EOM issued today its preliminary statement of findings. It noted that the electoral system, irregularities and vote-buying resulted in a lack of level playing field. A final report will follow,” he added. Moreover, the EU official called on the newly elected Parliament to “support the process of a swift formation of a government, assume its responsibility to work together to serve the interest of Lebanon and its people by adopting all legislation and implementing reforms necessary to improve governance and stabilize the economy,” in particular to “contribute to the implementation of the prior actions required in the Staff Level Agreement of 7 April in order to initiate an IMF program.” Borrell also said that the presidential and municipal elections should be held “according to schedule, in line with Lebanon’s democratic principles, traditions, and commitments,” while stressing that the EU “will continue to stand by Lebanon and its people.”

BDL extends circular allowing banks to buy dollars via Sayrafa
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The central bank has extended the implementation of Circular 161 until the end of July, allowing banks to continue to purchase dollars via the Sayrafa platform, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh announced on Wednesday.The circular, which has been in place since January, allows commercial banks to buy U.S. dollars from the central bank with the Lebanese pounds that they or their clients have, based on an exchange rate specified by the Sayrafa platform, which is usually lower than that of the black market. The implementation of the circular had led to a recovery of the Lebanese pound on the black market but the dollar exchange rate began surging again in recent days.According to MTV, some banks were not allowing clients to benefit from the circular on Wednesday morning.

Bread, fuel, gas and electricity crises in Lebanon as dollar surges anew
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Lebanon was witnessing a host of renewed crises on Wednesday against the backdrop of a continuous surge of the dollar exchange rate on the black market. “The flour crisis will grow and we will witness more queues outside bakeries,” Ali Ibrahim, the head of the Syndicate of Bakery Owners in Lebanon, told al-Jadeed TV, amid a shortage of Arabic bread in the market. Antoine Seif, the head of the Syndicate of Bakery Owners in Mount Lebanon, meanwhile said that “bakeries do not possess a large quantity of flour and the available quantities are only sufficient for a few days, based on the size and consumption level of each bakery.”“We are in a crisis and six mills have stopped operating due to the failure to pay for wheat at the silos,” Seif added. Economy Minister Amin Salam meanwhile reassured that the subsidization of Arabic bread “will continue.”“I will not accept that subsidization be lifted off bread in an arbitrary manner… In the (Cabinet) session of Friday, I will ask the Finance Ministry to pay for the (wheat) ships,” Salam added, noting that a line of credit of $21 million is needed to subsidize the quantity of wheat. He also warned that measures will be taken against “mills that might monopolize the subsidized flour.”Separately, the secretary of the gas distributors syndicate, Jean Hatem, said “there is no (cooking) gas crisis,” adding that “the quantities are available but the problem lies in the dollar” exchange rate surge. “Some companies delivered around 10% of the gas yesterday, but supply completely stopped today, and Energy Minister Walid Fayyad has promised us to issue a rate list today so that gas can be delivered again to the market,” Hatem added, noting that distributors have asked for a dollarization of the rates. Some fuel stations meanwhile ran out of gasoline and long queues returned in some areas, especially in the southern city of Sidon. “Gasoline is available in the depots of the companies and in ships present at sea. We are not in a fuel crisis in Lebanon, because the issue is related to some delay in the completion of bank transactions aimed at providing the importing companies with dollars through the Sayrafa platform,” a top member of the fuel station owners syndicate of Lebanon, George Brax, told MTV. “The issue should be solved quickly… Companies are distributing gasoline in limited quantities and some stations ran out due to the delay in gasoline deliveries,” Brax added.
Separately, sources at the Deir Amar and al-Zahrani power plants told al-Markazia news agency that the two plants have been shut down due to a lack of diesel.
“No ships are coming in the foreseeable future, which means that Lebanon will be plunged into total darkness,” the sources added.

Franjieh says Marada 'barely made it' in elections, urges new law
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh on Wednesday admitted that his Movement “barely made it” in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which witnessed the defeat of several prominent figures from Franjieh’s Hizbullah-led political camp. “We can say that we barely made it after this bizarre battle,” Franjieh said at a press conference, adding that a new electoral law that “resembles Lebanon” must be devised. In addition to the win of Franjieh's son Tony in Zgharta, Marada's ally William Tawk won in Bsharri, the bastion of the Lebanese Forces. Independent MP Farid al-Khazen of Keserwan will also be a member of Franjieh's bloc. Franjieh added: “We must look forward to see how we can rescue our country, and if we all don’t take part in a national unity government, the country will get paralyzed. We must talk to each other and show openness towards each other.”As for the presidential race, Franjieh said the results of the parliamentary elections “are not related to the presidential calculations.”“My name was proposed from the very first day, but I did not present myself as a presidential candidate,” he added. “The presidency is not my goal like the others,” he stressed. Franjieh also noted that although no political camp has the parliamentary majority, at least two political camps have a one-third share that can serve as a veto power.Commenting on the results of the elections in Bsharri, the Marada leader said: “Neither the LF are Israelis nor William Tawk is Hizbullah. Let them identify their mistakes to know why they lost a seat and we will do the same.” “Hizbullah has never been in Zgharta,” Franjieh added.

Hizbullah, Amal urge against rallies, gunfire, call for 'dialogue, rapprochement'
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Hizbullah and the Amal Movement urged supporters Wednesday not to stage motorbike rallies while calling on all political parties to “return to the approach of dialogue and rapprochement in order to overcome the suffocating economic and financial situation.”“While the Amal Movement and Hizbullah understand the sentiments of their supporters after all the incitement, polarization and provocations that preceded the parliamentary elections, and as they express gratitude for all the displays of joy and celebration over the results of these elections, they call on their supporters not to stage motorbike rallies… so that some fanatic or nervous individuals do not take things to places that distort the electoral success,” the two parties said in a joint statement. They also called on their supporters “not to carry out any behavior or action that might be labeled as a provocation against the supporters of other political sides and parties.”“The electoral juncture is behind us and today all parties must return to the approach of dialogue and rapprochement in order to overcome the suffocating economic and financial situation,” Hizbullah and Amal added. Moreover, the two parties called on security agencies to “rein in the phenomenon of (celebratory) gunfire and arrest violators, no matter what side they belong to, in order to preserve civil peace.”They also called for “the arrest of those who opened fire at the supporters of the Amal Movement and Hizbullah over the past hours.”

Nasrallah says no camp has parliamentary majority but it may be good thing
Naharnet/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced Wednesday that the fact that the parliamentary elections did not produce a clear parliamentary majority might be a good thing for the country in the wake of the polarization that accompanied the electoral campaigns. “No political camp in the country can claim to have the parliamentary majority. We are rather before political blocs and independents and the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese people might be in what happened,” Nasrallah said in a televised address over the elections outcome. “The size of the financial, monetary, economic and social crises present in the country does not allow any one camp to address them on its own, even if it wins the majority, and when no one has the majority this means that everyone is responsible,” Nasrallah explained. “It is not true that the majority has shifted from one place to another,” Hizbullah’s leader added.’Addressing rivals, he said bickering “will not lead to a result except for stoking tensions in the country.” “It won’t contribute to addressing the current situations. What’s needed is for the country to calm down and to give priority to the files that were present before the elections, which are the subject of people’s pain. This can only be addressed through partnership and cooperation regardless of rivalry,” Nasrallah said. Addressing supporters, Nasrallah stated: “The big results give strong messages about clinging to the resistance, the golden equation, the just and capable state, reforms, civil peace, coexistence and the priority of addressing social and economic crises.”
“You have provided the needed safety net for the resistance and its arms in the face of the declared campaign,” he said. “You achieved a very big victory and we must be proud of it in light of the battle's circumstances,” Nasrallah added, pointing out that “the resistance and its allies have a strong and big presence in the new parliament.”Separately, Nasrallah called on supporters not to stage motorbike rallies after his speech, especially in areas where they might “provoke” residents who have other political orientations. “We want calm and stability and we don't want provocations,” Nasrallah said. Commenting on the celebratory gunfire that accompanied the announcements of the elections’ results, Nasrallah reiterated that “any Hizbullah member who shoots in the air will be expelled” from the party, adding that “shooting in the air is haram (forbidden in Islam).” Nasrallah also said that Hizbullah and the Amal Movement have told their supporters that the "Shia, Shia, Shia" slogan is inappropriate and sectarian.

EU Says Vote Buying, Clientelism Were Widespread in Lebanese Elections
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Due to a lack of financial and human resources, election preparations in Lebanon started very late, with the budget allocated less than a month before the polls, said the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) in Lebanon Chief Observer, Gyorgy Holvenyi. On election day, the EU EOM deployed 167 observers to all 26 minor districts of the country and visited 798 polling stations. Holvenyi reported that the atmosphere accompanying the electoral process was generally calm, but there were cases of local tensions. The lack of training of polling staff became visible during the day through procedural errors. The lack of training and the massive presence of candidate agents led to situations in which the polling staff was not entirely in control of the process. The mission's initial report stated that widespread practices of vote buying and clientelism overshadowed the elections, distorted the principle of equal opportunities, and significantly affected voters' choices. The campaign was vibrant but marred by various instances of intimidation, including on social media and instances of campaign obstruction, and the legal framework for campaign finance suffers from severe shortcomings concerning transparency and accountability. While the freedom of speech was generally respected, the media failed to provide equal visibility and balanced coverage. Head of the European Parliament delegation Brando Benifei said that democracy goes beyond elections. Benifei stressed: "The structural political and economic reforms, which Lebanon needs to tackle the socio-economic crisis, the widespread corruption, and the political stalemate, cannot be postponed any longer. "To this end, I would like to strongly urge all political forces in the newly elected parliament to focus on the well-being and the aspirations of the Lebanese people instead of pursuing short-term political gains."

Tense Times Ahead for Lebanon after Elections
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Hezbollah's opponents might rejoice at their loss of majority in parliament but Lebanon's packed political calendar now sets the stage for protracted deadlocks at best or violence at worst. Sunday's polls passed without any major incident, in itself an achievement in a country which has a history of political violence and is suffering its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. Iran-backed Hezbollah is described by its supporters a bulwark against enemy Israel and by its detractors as a state within a state whose continued existence prevents any kind of democratic change in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its allies lost the clear majority they had in the outgoing parliament, despite a flurry of televised addresses by the party's leader Hassan Nasrallah in the week running up to the vote. The biggest winners were the Christian Lebanese Forces party and new faces born of a 2019 secular protest movement, all of whom have a clear stance against Hezbollah. "Old guard parties will seek to assert their political dominance in the face of the reformists who have entered parliament for the first time," said analyst Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.
Speaker election
As of May 22, after the current assembly's mandate expires, the new lawmakers will have 15 days to pick a speaker, a position Nabih Berri has held since 1992 and is not intent on leaving despite reaching the age of 84. By convention, Lebanon's prime minister position is reserved for a Sunni, the presidency goes to a Maronite Christian and the post of speaker to a Shiite. Berri is a deeply polarizing figure but all Shiite seats in parliament were won by Hezbollah and the veteran speaker's own Amal party, which rules out the emergence of a consensual candidacy. The election will be a first test of how willing Hezbollah's opponents are to challenge the Shiite tandem. MP Mohammed Raad, the leader of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, set the tone as early as Monday when he warned rivals against becoming "shields for the Israelis". His words were a reply to Samir Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces have championed the case for disarming Hezbollah, and had laid down the gauntlet by vowing never to support Berri's re-election or join a unity government. The new polarization of Lebanese politics raises fears of a repeat of deadly violence that broke out in Beirut last year between Hezbollah-aligned fighters and FL supporters. The L'Orient-Le Jour daily stressed in an analysis that Hezbollah's parliament majority in recent years had enabled it "not to resort to terror to impose its decisions and preserve its red lines".
Government formation
"The risk of a total stalemate is real, deadlocks are a Lebanese specialty," said Daniel Meier, a France-based researcher. In Lebanon's unique and chaotic brand of sectarian consensus politics, forming a government can take months, even when the country faces multiple emergencies. Between the two latest elections, two out of four years were spent under a caretaker government with limited powers as the country's political barons haggled over cabinet line-ups. The latest government, led by billionaire Najib Mikati, has only been in place since September 2021 after a 13-month vacuum. It was billed a mostly technocratic government tasked with guiding Lebanon to recovery, but each minister was endorsed by one of Lebanon's perennial heavyweights. Whether any of the 13 MPs labelled as representing the interests of the 2019 anti-establishment uprising would consider joining a coalition government with that same establishment is doubtful. "There is change in the balance of power but this will not translate in a program for change because despite everything Hezbollah keeps its veto power," analyst Sami Nader said. A quick fix would be to keep the Mikati government in a caretaker capacity until the presidential election.
Presidential election
That is the last but not the least of the major hurdles in the institutional calendar. Due by the end of the year, the new parliament's pick for a president to succeed Michel Aoun, who will be 89 by then, was further complicated by the latest election. He groomed his son-in-law Gebran Bassil for years but the electoral surge of the Lebanese Forces, the rivals of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, is a spanner in the family works. Army chief Joseph Aoun has already been tipped as an alternative but talks could drag on. "Probably we will have a long period of stalemate in the parliament," said Joseph Bahout, a professor at the American University of Beirut. He predicted a tunnel of institutional deadlocks could delay reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund for a critically needed rescue package until the spring of 2023.

Lebanon reformists weigh choices after election surge
Njia Houssari/Arab News/May 18, 2022
Analysts have added up MPs to figure out the size of the parliamentary blocs, which are divided between sovereign blocs and pro-Hezbollah groupings
BEIRUT: Newly elected reformist MPs in Lebanon are planning strategies following election breakthroughs that grant them significant sway in the parliamentary balance of power.
Thirteen reformist MPs in Lebanon who entered the legislative race on the values of the 2019 anti-establishment uprising, as well as 21 independent MPs, have entered the newly elected Lebanese Parliament. Analysts have added up MPs to figure out the size of the parliamentary blocs, which are divided between sovereign blocs and pro-Hezbollah groupings.
Figures show that elected MPs may be positioned within 13 blocs divided into two opposite larger camps, forming the 128-MP Parliament.
The sovereign MPs can be classified based on their previous positions. A total of 68 MPs are opposed to Hezbollah. They include members from the Lebanese Forces Party, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Islamic Group and the Lebanese Phalanges Party, as well as independents and reformists. Meanwhile, the pro-Hezbollah camp includes the party itself, the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Marada Movement, the Tashnaq Party and Al-Ahbash, for a total of about 60 MPs. There is much speculation about how the new independent MPs will deal with upcoming events, and how they will position themselves on the parliamentary map. A political observer told Arab News: “We will see the true colors of every MP when topics related to core issues are discussed.”
The observer added: “Will these MPs change their stance regarding Hezbollah’s illegal weapons, although some have avoided addressing this sensitive issue in the past? Will these MPs be able to form a unified bloc that can influence decisions within Parliament, or will they remain independent, each working alone?”Suleiman Franjieh, head of the Marada Movement and a candidate for the Presidency, appealed to reformist MPs, saying: “Do not place strict conditions on yourselves so that you do not become isolated, because theory is one thing, and practice is another.”
Fouad Siniora, former Lebanon PM, who backed a list in Beirut and whose candidates all failed to reach parliament, said: “Sovereign MPs must develop a correct vision for the future on how to confront Hezbollah’s domination and control in order to restore the Lebanese state.”
He added: “In 2008, the sovereign forces had won 72 seats in parliament, but Hezbollah at that time refused to form a majority government.”
Siniora warned against backing down as the March 14 forces did in 2009, which cost them their power.A video shared on social media shocked voters in Tripoli and around the country. The elected MP Firas Salloum, who was on the Real Change list with the Islamic Group, was filmed celebrating his victory by dancing to a song supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The video prompted the Islamic Group to issue a statement renouncing Salloum. It said: “He does not represent us as he seemed proud of his affiliation to the criminal tyrant, who blew up the Al-Taqwa and Al-Salam Mosques in Tripoli, and killed our people in Syria.”The statement demanded that Salloum resign “because he does not represent the city and does not resemble its people.”
Reformist MP Elias Jarada said: “Taking the revolution from the street to the Parliament necessitates adopting a policy of reaching out to all for dialogue so that the 17 October revolution becomes a model for dynamic political action. It is important to be realistic because parliament includes groups that represent other categories of the Lebanese people.” Several reformist MPs rushed to convene with their groups to determine their next steps in Parliament. Elected reformist MP Ibrahim Mneimneh, whose list won three parliamentary seats in Beirut’s second constituency, said: “The reformist MPs will be the revolutionary voice in parliament. We will not compromise with the criminal regime that destroyed our lives, and we will not compromise in the face of intimidation with weapons, nor over the sale of state assets, the money of depositors, or the path of justice with the Beirut port blast and the explosion in Akkar.”
Leaked news suggested that reformist MP Melhem Khalaf, former head of the Beirut Bar Association who took part in protests against state corruption and helped release detained protesters, could possibly be elected deputy parliament speaker, succeeding Elie Ferzli, who has held the position since 2000, but failed to reach Parliament in the recent elections. Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is seeking a new term, is reportedly making efforts to win over civil society, and supports having Khalaf as his deputy.
Major challenges await the newly elected house, the first of which is electing a speaker and a deputy speaker, followed by parliamentary consultations to assign someone to form a new government, then electing a new president in September or October after Michel Aoun’s term ends.
There are also significant legislative obligations, within the framework of reforms required by the international community to extricate Lebanon from its worsening economic crisis.

From Iran to Lebanon, Signs of an Uprising
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al awsat/May 18/2022
The results of the recent Lebanese elections point to an uprising that begins in Iran and passes through Iraq, to Lebanon, against the Iranian project and its supporters in the region. They also show us that the region is not enduring a conflict by proxy, as reported by Western media, Western politicians, and the United States.The outcome of Iraq’s elections, the results of the recent legislative polls in Lebanon - which saw the defeat of Syrian symbols and Hezbollah’s allies – in addition to the demonstrations in Iran, all confirm that the opposition to the Iranian project is real.
The revolt against the Tehran regime is taking place in Iran itself and within countries that Tehran has always considered its areas of influence, i.e. Iraq and Lebanon.
We are seeing the same rejection in Yemen. Moreover, if the Syrians were able to express their opinion, we would have witnessed more than an uprising there against Iran and its followers.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah lost its allies. Despite the low turnout, voters dealt a blow to the political figures who identify with the Iranian project. The Amal Movement has also lost its partners, while the opponents of the Iranian alliance regained their strength.
All these developments underline a rejection to the Iranian project, which starts from Iran itself, reaching what was known as its areas of control. This is a loud message to the West and the United States in particular. It is a message to all those who believe that Iran has real supporters among the citizens of our region.Opponents to the Iranian project do not belong to a specific sectarian component, that is, the Sunnis. Rather, the Shiites, along with the different sects in our region, are increasingly voicing their rejection to this project. This phenomenon has become evident in Iran. It is something the West must understand well.As for Iraq and Lebanon, the failure of the Iranian scheme does not mean that the danger is gone. On the contrary, after losing votes, pro-Iranian groups will perhaps resort to their weapons, and we have seen this in Iraq.
In Lebanon, the features of the danger are clear. Our newspaper quoted Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as saying that the “situation is dangerous,” warning that the post-May 15 phase would be difficult, with increasing extremism trends. He added that he was considering drawing a roadmap for the next stage.
As for Hezbollah, the head of its parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, said: “We are keen on coexistence,” but warned: “Beware of making us your enemies, for civil peace is a red line,” calling on the opponents to cooperate with the party.
Raad continued with more daring statements, threatening the Lebanese with civil war: “If you reject a national government, you are leading Lebanon to the abyss,” adding: “Beware of being fuel for a civil war.”Accordingly, the real rejection of the Iranian project is clear, and the West should pay attention to this. The sane people of our region should wisely reflect on this development, and avoid being overly optimistic, because the path is not only long, but perilous.
Iranian groups and militias, from the Popular Mobilization Forces to Hezbollah, will now resort to weapons, after they have failed to achieve their gains through the ballot boxes.
The confrontation is ongoing. It requires a deep breath, and real tools.

On the Results of the Lebanese Elections and Hezbollah’s Options
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al awsat/May 18/2022
The old and new Lebanons took down Hezbollah and its allies, especially the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). The old and new Lebanons bore down on the party, together, simultaneously, and took them down during the latest elections.
The old Lebanon, the Lebanon of religious sects, which can no longer stand the duplication of arms, removed the FPM from their position as the top representatives of the country’s Christians, halving this prerogative between them and the Lebanese Forces (LF); it also elected hawkish Sunnis despite Saad Hariri’s stance and safeguarded Walid Jumblat's leadership of the Druze. This shift deprived Hezbollah of most of its allies who carry weight among their sects, leaving the party confined to its own sect. This shift also deprived Hezbollah of some of the party’s most prominent satellite deputies from different sects, who are also among the most prominent satellites of the Syrian security regime.
The new Lebanon, “civil society” youths who sprung from the October 17 revolution and are concerned with pushing back against plunder and corruption, has unequivocally shown that it is aware that the regime and its armed protector are interdependent. Rallied around their opposition to the two sides of this link, they managed, for the first time in Lebanon’s history, to get a considerable number of deputies who could develop new meanings for politics and pave unfamiliar paths.
These are the same youths who had been clamped down on by Hezbollah after having challenged the regime of plunder and corruption in 2019. Since then, Hezbollah’s journalists and talking heads have been smearing them and accusing them of treachery.
As far as they and the new Lebanon they symbolize are concerned, resistance seems like a wretched relic of the past, an old, outdated concept, even though it is besieged politically by the rest of the old guard.
Indeed, time and again, we see new parallels between Lebanon and Iraq’s states of affairs: the old Iraq, the Iraq of sects and ethnicities, is pushing back against Iranian influence through the Sunni and Kurdish blocs. Meanwhile, the youth’s Iraq is waging a struggle against Iranian influence and proxies through the civic revolution that modernist and secular Shiites launched three years ago.
Nonetheless, we should not get carried away into thinking that Hezbollah will “be understanding” of the fact that the majority of Lebanese can’t stand its weapons and regime. We should not fall into a sort of “parliamentary naivety” and assume that the party will comply with the new parliament’s decisions and legislation. The nature of this party should make us very skeptical that it will acquiesce to the “will of the people” voiced during the parliamentary elections.
True, Hezbollah seniors, including its Secretary-General and his assistant, have emphasized the significance of these elections and the need to recognize their results on several occasions. These affirmations were evidently reiterated to be used in the event of victory. The opposite was affirmed on other occasions to be used in the event that the party is defeated, which is what has happened. In the latter version, those who won are conspirators; behind them stand embassies, foreign non-governmental organizations, and massive sums of money. They are “Israel’s shields;” they seek to normalize relations with it and are “civil war fodder.” Of course, one cannot hand the country over to these types.
Hezbollah’s penchant for militarizing political life, especially elections, has always been obvious. Lacking a democratic toolkit and discourse, Hezbollah pushes a narrative loaded with talk of supremacy and subjugation, martyrs and martyrdom, and blind worship of its leader.
More dangerous are the warnings in Hassan Nasrallah’s fiery speeches before the elections, especially his insistence on oil exploration in the southern Lebanese coast. It is more dangerous because the Lebanese, as the Secretary-General put it, possess a “treasure” that they do not dare to use for fear of Israel and the United States. As for the resistance, it is fully prepared to protect a brave step of this sort.
This narrative could translate into military action aimed at garnering popular support at any moment: it promises the Lebanese, who are drowning in poverty and hunger, a “treasure” that would leave their lives brimming with prosperity after they have been brimming with misery.
The party betting on some sort of military adventure waged based on the need for gas exploration is not far-fetched. It would turn attention away from the latest parliamentary election results. Indeed, it would be a sort of rendition of the July 2006 war, which Israel launched because the party had kidnapped two of its soldiers in an effort to deflate the independence agenda that the 2005 assassinations had imposed.
This outcome could advance hand in hand with the political- and may be security- tensions that will be part and parcel of every major parliamentary vote: from naming the Speaker and the Prime Minister to forming a government to electing a new President. Tensions would become even more acute if the party’s opponents, old and new, were to establish some kind of front in which they come together and coordinate.
Thus, it would not be shocking to see the party, once again, lean towards punishing the rest of the Lebanese for how they voted, punishing them in the name of protecting them or defending their prosperity. And we know, through many previous experiences, how vast the party’s deposit of noble objectives is. Used to cover for their ignoble actions, this deposit is not worth more than the Lebanese' seized bank deposits.

Lebanon….The Legend Nation
Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz/May 19/2022
Introduction: Talking about Lebanon never ends. The country’s story is as old as history and requires volumes to tell all its chapters. We are therefore compelled to be concise in telling this unique and marvellous story that is akin to a legend. We shall shed light on some of the high moments when this small nation made stunning civilizational contributions to the wider world scene and left its clear imprint on the pages of history and the world’s human heritage.
First: The Land
1 – Lebanon is the first land to bear a name in history, as British historian Arnold J. Toynbee said. One of the first names it bore was “Land of El” or the land of God, El being the god of the Lebanese since time immemorial. This name is cited numerous times in the epics of Ugarit-Ras Shamra in northern Lebanon.
2 – The sea of Lebanon too was known as the “Sea of El”, the sea of God, and its fields as the “Fields of El” or fields of God. Its cognate in the Phoenician language is “Shadom-Elom”, which the French used as an inspiration for naming the most beautiful spot of their capital as the Champs-Elysees, according to Toynbee.
3 – The 14th century BC Phoenician historian from Beirut, Sanchuniathon, whose writings were explained by Philo of Byblos and was cited by Aesop the Greek, says that the name of Lebanon precedes the name of Phoenicia by thousands of years. Which means that Phoenicia is Lebanese and not the other way around, and that we were Lebanese before we were Phoenicians.
4 – Lebanon was also known by the name of Canaan who was the first to refer to himself as Phoenix and whose emblem was the eagle that rose from the dead in Phoenician rituals. It was from Canaan-Phoenix that the Phoenicians derived their name in the 3d millennium BC.
5 – Some historians believe that the name Phoenix signifies the red color in the ancient Greek language, and that the Greeks gave that name to the Lebanese in reference to the purple color that the Phoenicians extracted from the Murex shells and used to dye their clothes and the sails of their ships.
6 – According to the historians Diodorus and Herodotus, Lebanon was also known as the Fragrance Mountain because its scents and aromas filled the Lebanese coastline. As one of King Solomon’s psalms says, “The fragrance of your garments, my bride, is the like the aroma of Lebanon”, to which she replies, “And you my beloved are magnificent like Lebanon.”
7 – Lebanon was also known as the Land of Milk and Honey, for it was a land of plenty “flowing with milk and honey”. To this day, there are two rivers in Lebanon bearing the names of the “Spring of Milk” and the “Spring of Honey”.
8 – Researchers also derive the name “Lebanon” from the Hebrew word “Laban” of “Lavan” which means the color white, in reference to the snows that cover the peaks of its mountains year-round.
9 – Jawad Boulos defines the geography of Lebanon as a bond between the mountain and the coast, which may be the secret behind the perennial endurance of this country and its people through the ages. The mountain secured its protection against invaders and conquerors, while the coast opened the vast horizons of the sea upon which it built its glory, its colonies, and its legendary adventures, thus granting it worldwide reputation in the arts of sailing and commercial trade and bestowed great wealth on it.
10 – This alliance between mountain and sea granted the Lebanese individual’s character distinctive and inseparable qualities. The mountain carved in him a spirit of endurance and defiance, forbearance in the face of life’s vicissitudes, a passion for liberty, and an attachment to the land he would defend to death.
11 – The coast gave him a spirit of openness, adventure, and ambition, and an excellence in the arts of sailing, which enabled him to circumnavigate the globe by sea and discover America long before Christopher Columbus by thousands of years, as we shall see later.
12 – As for the large and fertile Bekaa Valley nudged between the Western and Eastern ranges of the Mountain, it gave its people the characters of nobility and generosity and allowed them to develop the multi-faceted skills of agriculture. It is said that in Roman times, the Bekaa Valley was able to fill the wheat granaries of Rome.
13 – The geography of Lebanon is essentially that of a longitudinal and compact mountainous mass bounded in the east by the Syrian desert and by the Mediterranean in the west. Its relatively narrow coastline hugs the shores of the Mediterranean, running about 225 kilometers from the Great River in the north to Naqurah in the south.
14 – As indicated above, the mountainous mass consists of two parallel chains:
– The Western range runs uninterrupted from north to south; its slopes overlooking the sea and are dotted with most of the towns and villages of the country. This means that the historic orientation of Lebanon is towards the sea which has, since time immemorial and to our present time, constituted Lebanon’s breathing space.
– The Eastern range which also runs uninterrupted from north to south, with its slopes ending eastward where the Syrian steppe begins, thus separating Lebanon from the Arab desert hinterland.
15 – These two mountain chains, which separate Lebanon completely and tightly from the Arabian desert, were deemed by Dr. Fuad Ephrem Bustani to be “two lines of defense” that have always constituted a natural and impervious barrier against the successive invasions that threatened it from the desert.
16 – It is our belief that the aforementioned alliance between the mountain and the seacoast was a determining factor in the establishment and prosperity of the great Phoenician kingdoms:
– The Kingdom of Tyre extended from the coast up to the hills of the Galilee
– The Kingdom of Sidon extended from the coast up to the mountains of Jezzine
– The Kingdom of Byblos extended from the coast up to the mountains of Afqa-Aqoura
Separating these kingdoms were the rivers that flowed from the mountain slopes to the sea.
17 – Tripoli, for its part, was the “federal” capital of these kingdoms which gathered there periodically to coordinate amongst themselves. They thus named it Tri-Polis – the three cities – which suggests that the Lebanese people aimed for unity into a single nation state since time immemorial.
18 – The mountain-coast duality may also be behind today’s traditional owning by most Lebanese of two homes, one on the coast to shelter in winter and another one in the highlands to shelter in summer, in a unique and ancient phenomenon.
19 – Another unique aspect of this duality is the possibility for the Lebanese to engage within half an hour in both beach (e.g., swimming) and snow (e.g., skiing) activities, given the short distances between the coast and the mountain.
20 – Whereas history is the daughter of geography, as Jawad Boulos said, and man is the product of the land, the mountain-sea alliance has imprinted in the Lebanese character a special convergence of mastering the arts of battle in times of war and the arts of commercial trade in times of peace.
Second: The People
21 – If Lebanon is the first land to bear a name according to Arnold Toynbee, it is also the first land to have been inhabited by a people according to the same historian. Evidence of this fact is found in the discovery of flint artifacts and skeletal remains of Homo Sapiens by the Jesuit archaeologist Fr. G. Zumoffen in Kanarit-Adloun in the 19th century AD.
22 – When Fr. Franklin Ewing continued the excavations with his team, he uncovered the skeleton of a juvenile he named “Egbert” that was buried in a sedimentary rock level dating back to 44,600 AD, which may be the oldest H. sapiens skeleton ever found. The Jesuit archaeologist Fr. Martens went so far as to suggest that the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden may have taken place in the town of Ehden in the north of Lebanon, and not in the Yemeni town of Aden, and that Noah’s ship rested on Lebanon’s Eastern Mountain range, and not on Mount Ararat in Armenia.
23 – The historian May Murr has asserted that the human skeletons excavated in Zahrani and Antelias may date back to 700,000 years ago, which means that the first Homo sapiens to become self-conscious and begin using his brain to think was a Lebanese individual, according to the scientific research performed on the skulls belonging to these skeletons.
24 – It was these facts that inspired Saiid Akel’s famous poem, “Qasidat Lubnaan”, which was put into song by Fairuz. In it he says, “Here on a shore or a rise / mind bloomed mind stirred.”
25 – These scientific discoveries refute claims by historians that the Lebanese people came from somewhere else, such as the Arabian Peninsula or Mesopotamia, as if the land of Lebanon was void of inhabitants and people migrated to it to fill the void.
26 – Historians do say that the name of Lebanon has not changed since its inception, despite the successive invasions that it witnessed. For the Assyrians it was “Libnanu”, for the Hebrews “Levanon”, for the Greeks and the Romans “Libanos/Libanus”, and for the Arabs “Lubnaan”.
27 – These facts affirm the ideological tenet of an original, authentic Lebanese identity, reject qualifying its identity with external attributes, and refute the claim of an Arab identity to Lebanon.
28 – In this context, we remind the Arabists and all those who seek to falsify the Lebanese identity that 400 years of Ottoman occupation, one of the longest and harshest in our history, failed to suppress or alter the identity of Lebanon. The occupier left, but the identity remained.
29 – It is extremely concerning that the falsification of Lebanon’s identity into an Arab identity was legitimized in the Taef constitution, which ought to compel the honorable patriots in this country to do their utmost to amend the constitution and rectify this historical error as soon as possible and by all means necessary. It is noteworthy that among all countries of the region, Lebanon is the only one whose land has no deserts or nomads.
30 – And since man is the product of his land, and in accordance with the dialectic of man and land and the interaction between them, and whereas the geographic milieu in which a human lives and before him his ancestors have lived has the greater impact on his nature and character, the Lebanese individual is therefore different from an African, a Scandinavian, or a desert dweller in his appearance, skin color, traditions and customs, and characteristics.
31 – And given that history is the product of geography (according to Jawad Boulos), people living in a specific geographic milieu will, over time, fashion their own nationhood, their own history including their own heritage, traditions and characteristics that distinguish them from other people. Therefore, the Lebanese people have over their long history fashioned a specific sense of nationhood, namely Lebanese Nationalism.
32 – Yet, no nation on earth can claim a purity of race or ethnicity. Wars, conquests, and human migrations have eliminated any purity of races, for they blended the original ethnic stock with outside groups, thus becoming over time an inseparable part of the nation and writing a common history with it.
33 – A perfect example of the preceding is the emergence in recent history of the American nation in the United States as a result of the cross-breeding between people of various origins and ethnicities, creating within the span of 300 years a great nation, a shining example of the rise of nations.
34 – This model also confirms that the cross-breeding between diverse peoples and groups is a source of cultural wealth for nations in contrast to what some believe, and that complete fusion requires a period of time on the order of six or seven generations, i.e., about 200 years.
35 – Closer to home here, we note that Prince Fakhreddin Maan the Great, who founded the modern State of Lebanon and extended its dominion from Aleppo in the north to Acre and beyond in the south, hailed from the Arab tribe of Maan which found refuge in the Lebanese mountains around the 10th century AD, fleeing the persecution exacted by the Fatimids of Egypt of the Druze sect. The Druze assimilated with the Lebanese people in the mountains and with time became a pillar of the Lebanese nation. Thus, some like to say that Lebanon is the product of a Maronite-Druze alliance, and that the unity of the country rests upon the unity of Mount Lebanon, whereas the truth and history say that the Lebanese nation has much deeper roots in history, long before the rise of Christianity and Islam.
36 – Prince Fakhreddin Maan the Great was very keen on promoting the country’s Lebanese identity. He rejected an offer by the Ottoman Sultan to grant him the title of Emir of Arabistan, insisting on the title of Emir of Lebanon instead, and going so far as to sign his official correspondence as Emir of Phoenicia.
37 – Prince Fakhreddin (1591 – 1635) understood the importance of the unity of Mount Lebanon – from Jezzine in the south to the Cedars in the north – as a requisite to the unification of Lebanon. He succeeded in rallying the Marada Army to his own army, which enabled him to deal a crushing defeat to the army of the Wali of Damascus at the famous battle of Anjar. This allowed him to expand the borders of Lebanon, become independent of the Ottoman Sultanate, and declare the State of Greater Lebanon.
38 – This corroborates our earlier statement on the importance of Mount Lebanon in the defense of Lebanon, where the latter derives its strength from the former. Were the people of Mount Lebanon cognizant of this foundational equation, they would not have conducted themselves in the shameful, destructive, and irresponsible manner that they did during the episodes of 1840, 1860, and 1983.
39 – On the subject of the Marada and Mount Lebanon, the commonly held yet fallacious view that the Maronites came from Syria ought to be corrected, as if the Mountain was initially somehow uninhabited and people migrated to it.
40 – The fact, however, is that the people of Mount Lebanon retained their Phoenician beliefs well into the 5th century AD, worshipping gods such as El, Baal, Adonis, Ishtar, etc. According to legend, the people in the region of Byblos-Jbayl continued to celebrate the resurrection of Adonis from death three days (emphasize three days) after he was killed by a wild boar, thanks to the supplications of Ishtar to the gods.
41 – The Adonis River was the venue for these celebrations, with people carrying torches as they trekked up the highlands to the Afqa Cave on the third day of the god’s return to life and make offerings to the gods. Meanwhile, the more urban dwellers of cities and coastal towns adopted the new religion of Christianity from its inception.
42 – During the 5th century, the monks of Saint Maron escaped from the mountains of kourosh as they fled persecution at the hands of the Jacobites and the Nestorians. They settled in Jobbet Bsharri and in the village of Kfarhayy in the district of Batroun, where they proselytized for the Christian religion.
43 – Most famous among those monks was Ibrahim Al-Qureshi whom the highland people of the Byblos-Jbayl district followed for his wisdom and piety. By the end of the 5th century, the majority of the inhabitants of the Mountain had adopted the Christian religion. They became known as the Maronites after their patron saint Maron who lived and died as an ascetic monk in the mountains of kourosh. The Maronites renamed the Adonis River as the Ibrahim River after the monk Ibrahim Al-kourshi.
44 – In the middle of the 7th century, Mar Yohanna Maroun [Mar in Aramaic means Lord, and by extension, Saint] was elected Patriarch of Lebanon. He embarked on organizing Maronite community in its national, ecclesiastical, social, and military aspects. The Mountain became an impregnable fortress against invaders and conquerors, most notably the Arab conquest which occupied the Lebanese seacoast but not the Mountain, at a time when the Muslim Arab armies were at the gates of Europe. It is said that the Arabs signed a peace treaty with the Marada in the north of the Mountain in which they paid a tribute of Arabian horses and sacks of gold.
45 – The Maronite Patriarchs of the time were known for their piety, holiness, austerity, asceticism, devotion, and their love of country. It was said of them, “Their staffs are of wood, but their hearts are of gold”. In time of war, the Patriarch sounded the bugle and mobilized the troops with their horsemen, up to 20,000 men, from all regions of the Mountain. Some of the Patriarchs liked to march at the head of their army carrying their staffs made of oak wood. They thus preserved the freedom and independence of Lebanon, well deserving of the biblical mantra, “The Glory of Lebanon was given to him” (Isaiah 2: 35).
46 – We said earlier that the Lebanese seacoast was first in adopting the incipient Christian religion, and that was for three main reasons:
First, Jesus-Christ visited no other countries except Lebanon where he performed many miracles, most notably the conversion of water to wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, today in the south of Lebanon. The importance of this miracle is that it took place before the time of Jesus’s divine mission and upon his mother’s request and insistence. “My hour has not come yet”, he first said to his mother, only to later submit to her will. After the miracle, the gospels tell us that “His disciples believed in him”, which means that he came to Lebanon as Jesus and became the Christ on our land (Saiid Akel).
Second, the Apostles embarked on their missions to Greece from Lebanon’s ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos-Jbayl. As many of them were from the Galilee, the Apostles must have first evangelized the local Lebanese population.
Third, there is great resemblance between the Phoenician and Christian religions, so much so that some theologians said that the Phoenician religion was a precursor to the Christian religion, referring to it as “Pre-Christian”. The major similarities are as follows:
*The Phoenician god El is the only one among the ancient pagan peoples’ gods to have called for love, inviting people to seek peace at a time when wars and invasions were the discourse between humans. Manuscripts from Ugarit reveal that El said to his people, “Sow love in the bosom of the earth, and disseminate peace between people”, a statement that preceded the coming of Christ by thousands of years. It is for this reason that the wars of the ancient Lebanese were always defensive and within their own borders. Never did they engage like others did in invading or plundering the countries of other people.
The Phoenicians believed in life after death, as in the legend of Adonis and his resurrection from death after three days, echoing the core of the Christian faith.
All ancient peoples worshipped their deities by way of the sacrifice of animals like calves, rams, and others. Instead, the Phoenicians made offerings of bread and wine, which is exactly what the Christ did during the Last Supper when he blessed the bread and the wine and instructed his disciples to adopt this Phoenician custom in offering the divine sacrifice, a custom still practiced in Christian masses and churches.
Before surrendering his soul on the cross, Jesus lifted his eyes to the sky and called on his father saying in Aramaic, not Hebrew, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani”, which translates into “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, and using the Phoenician god’s name rather than any other god, including Yahweh, the Jewish god.
And isn’t the name of the Christ as prophesized, Ammanu-El, that is “God with us”?
Third: The Heritage
47 – The ancient Lebanese civilization had reached its zenith during the Phoenician period between the 12th century BC and the third century BC. During this period, a constellation of scientists, poets, and philosophers emerged that contributed to a great extent in the development of the broader human civilization; indeed, they were its principal pillar, as we shall see later.
48 – Around the second millennium BC, our forefathers invented the phonetic alphabet when other people were using the pictorial alphabets. The Phoenician alphabet transformed the world by enabling humans to communicate with each other and express their ideas using only 22 letters. The Phoenician alphabet was then transferred to the Greeks by Cadmos and his brothers, and from Greece to the rest of the world. To this day, the alphabet is used by most countries around the world, under the unfortunately false label of the “Latin” alphabet.
49 – Cadmos and his brothers voyaged to the Greek islands in search of their sister “Europa” whom the supreme Greek god Zeus had abducted and taken to the island of Crete. There, he installed her as a queen of Crete and gave her name to the continent of Europe. This was around the year 1500 BC.
50 – Cadmos and his brothers visited several Greek islands, and having not found their sister, they feared returning without her to their father Agenor, King of Tyre, and decided to settle there. Each of them settled on an island that bore his name, and he became its ruler. Cadmos’s brothers were Cilix, Thassos, and Phoenix. Cadmos himself settled on the island of Thebes where he became king.
51 – With the arrival of Cadmos and his brothers, Phoenician civilization began spreading through the lands of the Greeks, from the alphabet, the democratic system, and all arts including literature, poetry, science, and philosophy, all the way to the know-how of sailing and commercial exchanges between people. This Cadmean-Phoenician campaign was the trigger for the rise of Greek civilization.
52 – Along the shores of the Mediterranean, our forefathers built a great empire that lasted 500 years and which disseminated science, knowledge, and the arts of writing, commerce, and such, not by the sword as other empires did. Once again, our people have from their beginnings and by their very nature, despised violence and wars because they distinctly embarked on a civilizing and humanistic mission.
53 – In addition to Africa and Europe, this civilization deployed its ships to the far shores of northern and southern America. The Phoenicians indeed were the earlier discoverers of the American continent, long before the Italian Christopher Columbus and the Scandinavian Leif Ericsson. These ships brought Phoenician civilization to the peoples of the world, beginning with the Greeks who then transmitted it to the Romans and the rest of the Western world.
54 – In his book, “The Name of Lebanon Across the Ages”, the historian Antoine El-Khoury Harb notes that archaeologists had discovered in 1872 AD in Brazil in the State of Parahiba, a rock bearing inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet. The text of the inscriptions says, “We arrived here, 12 men and 3 women, during the reign of our king Hiram, and we ask the gods for their help”. According to the bible, King Hiram ruled over the powerful Phoenician city of Tyre between approximately 980 BC and 917 BC.
55 – Historians say that Beirut was the center of the most ancient and eminent law school in the world. Attended by the nobility of the Roman Empire, it graduated senior lawmakers who developed the Roman Code, among whom Olympianus and Papinianus who hailed from Phoenician ancestry. Beirut’s motto was, and still is, “Berytus nutrix legum” or Beirut Mother of Law.
56 – The Phoenician kingdoms of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos adopted a system of democratic rule, that is of the people by the people. They practiced it in great transparency, as advanced nations do today.
57 – The ruling authority in Phoenician cities consisted of two councils and a government; a council of representatives elected by the people, and a senate that assembled the cultural elites and the nobles.
58 – The government ruled with the confidence of the two councils. It would resign if either of the councils withdrew its confidence. If both councils withdrew their confidence from the government, the latter was condemned. Lawmakers, however, provided the Grand Priest with the right to “withhold blood” (Saiid Akel).
59 – When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician system of governance, which was transmitted to them by Cadmos and his brothers, they attributed it to them and named it Demos-Kratos or the rule of the people or authority of the people. The Romans in turn took the democratic system from the Greeks and disseminated it throughout the western world. Democracy, just like the phonetic alphabet, is therefore a Phoenician invention, and both inventions have served human civilization like no other invention.
60 – In 814 BC, the Phoenicians built a second empire in the city of Carthage (from Phoenician “Qart-Hadasht” for “New City”. The city of Carthage was founded by Elissar (or Elissa or Dido), the daughter of the King of Tyre. The Carthaginian empire expanded and asserted its dominion from the north African coast to the Spanish coast under the rule of Hamilcar Barqa and his son Hanibaal the Great, where they founded Carthagena (Cartago-Nova, or New Carthage) later to become Spain. It was from there that Hanibaal launched his famous military campaign against the Roman Empire, crossing through the lands of the Gauls (today’s France) and up the Alps to reach Italy and threaten Rome, in a war that became known as the Punic War (Punic is from Latin poenus and punicus for Phoenician).
61 – Hanibaal occupied the north of Italy then large swaths of the peninsula after defeating the Roman army in several battles, most notably the battle of Cannae or Canna in which Hanibaal’s army crushed the enemy and killed 70,000 Romans and imprisoned several thousands. He then reached Rome and besieging it for 15 years, before losing the battle of Zama (in today’s Tunisia) after returning to Carthage which eventually fell to the Romans in 146 BC (according to George Masrouaa). The unanswered question that looms large over Hanibaal’s history is why did he refrain from entering Rome when it was militarily nearly defeated? Had he done so, he would have changed the course of history in unimaginable ways.
62 – Carthage continued the mission that the mother empire Tyre began, especially in the arts and sciences of sailing, commerce, agriculture, and warfare which Hanibaal brilliantly mastered. His military strategies are still taught today in the top military institutions around the world, as he is considered one of the celebrated commanders in history.
63 – If Carthage (in today’s Tunisia) was the daughter of Phoenicia, then Carthagena (in today’s Spain) is its granddaughter. The dialect spoken by the people of Tunis and its environs is close to the Lebanese dialect. If you ask the people of the Spanish city of Valencia, situated along the Western Mediterranean coast directly opposite the Lebanese shores on the Eastern Mediterranean, about their origins, they will answer, “Somos Fenicos” – we are Phoenicians. Near Valencia is the city of Carthagena, and not far from there is the French city of Marseille, one of the Mediterranean’s most important ports and whose name is derived from the Phoenician “Marsa-El” – El’s harbor – in honor of the Phoenician god El.
64 – The Phoenicians built many forts, edifices, and temples in honor of their gods throughout the regions of Lebanon. The archaeological remains still standing today testify to their skills in construction, sculpture, and engineering. One of the most renown of these edifices is the site of Baalbeck and its beautiful temples.
65 – The prevalent fallacy that Baalbeck is Roman is debunked by several lines of evidence, three of which are: First, its name bears the unmistakable signature of the Phoenician sun god Baal; Second, the ancient fort is located underneath the present site and was built by our ancestors two millennia before the Romans built their temples over the Phoenician site in 27 BC. Third, the manner and style of construction, engineering, form, sculpture, and the inscriptions are all Phoenician and differ markedly from Greco-Roman architecture.
66 – Following his invasion in 334 BC, Alexander the Great re-named the site Heliopolis – the City of the Sun. Later, the Romans re-named the temples of Baalbeck with the names of their own gods, Jupiter, Venus, and Bacchus, to replace the Phoenician gods Baal, Ashtarout/Ishtar and Adon. In their hellenocentric view, western historians assumed that the site was built by the Romans.
67 – All archaeologists who visited the site and studied its engineering and construction were awed at the unexplainable size of the stones used in building the temples at the site. The mass of the stones ranges from 100 to 300 tons, in addition to an exceptionally large stone known as the “Stone of the Pregnant Woman” (Hajar Al-Hublah) is the largest worked monolith on Earth, weighing a staggering 1,615 tons.
68 – The archaeologists were even more amazed at the fact that Baalbeck blends monumental size with exceptional beauty, a rare thing in ancient sites where size is often achieved at the expense of esthetics. Indeed, Baalbeck surpasses the Greek Parthenon and the Roman Pantheon in the enormity of its architecture and its elegance.
69 – The mystery persists as to how these largest worked stones on Earth could have been moved from their quarry, still unknown to this day, to the site, and then how they were raised into the walls of the edifices. Modern technology is unable today to repeat this feat, particularly with a stone like the aforementioned “Stone of the Pregnant Woman”. Some researchers, among whom the Russian scholar Lagrest, went so far as to suggest that the builders of Baalbeck are aliens from another planet who instructed the local people into the art of construction before returning to their planet.
70 – During the Phoenician cultural golden age, several names became prominent in such fields as poetry, philosophy, sciences, and others. Many of these intellectual contributions remain effective today in the global civilization and make up a good part of its foundations.
71 – It is, however, unfortunate that the Phoenician heritage was for the most part stolen and attributed to people other than the Lebanese people, particularly to the Greeks. This is due to at least two factors: First, the intense intellectual cross-fertilization that took place between the Phoenicians and the Greeks lasted long enough to make matters ambiguous for researchers and historians and prevent a clear distinction between the two civilizations. Second, the centuries-old neglect and abandonment by the Lebanese of their own heritage made it free for the taking by others, not to mention the ill-intent by many researchers and historians. Here are some of the most renown names: [See note from Joe Hitti on page 21]
72 – Homer, the poet of poets and one of the greatest of antiquity. Most references assert that he is Greek, until French historian Victor Berard (1864-1931), a specialist in researching the life and works of this great poet and the author of several volumes including “The Phoenicians and the Odyssey”, and “The Phoenicians and Homer’s Poems”, reached the conclusion that Homer was a Phoenician and not a Greek.
73 – In support of that claim is the ambiguity that surrounds Homer’s place and date of birth. Some have proposed 1200 BC as his year of birth, while for others it is 800 BC, somewhere in Asia Minor, which suggests that the Iliad and the Odyssey were written during the prosperous centuries of Phoenician renaissance that preceded the period of Greek awakening.
74 – Mochus of Sidon was born around 1200 BC and was the first to propose his Atomic Theory and was nicknamed “Father of the Atom”. He asserted that the atom can be broken down into parts and coined the name “Tomo” or “Tomos” (according to historian Strabo). Around 500 BC, i.e., 700 years after Mochus, two Greek scientists, Leucippus and Democritus, subscribed to Mochus’s theory but proposed that the atom cannot be broken down into smaller parts and gave it the name “Atomos”.
75 – We now know, ironically, that the atom has been broken down into smaller pieces, just as Mochus the Sidonian proposed 3,000 years ago. It is perhaps time to change the name of the particle from “atom” to “tomos”.
76 – Pythagoras, a philosopher and scientist of the 5th century BC, was born on the island of Samos to a father from the Phoenician city of Tyre and a Greek mother. He was schooled in Tyre and Byblos, graduating from a school in Sidon at the hands of Mochus’s disciples, according to philosopher Jam Belik.
77 – Thales, philosopher and scientist, was born around 547 BC from two Phoenician parents according to historian Herodotus. Plato reports that Thales descends from the lineage of Agenor, King of Tyre, and his son Cadmos.
78 – Euclid, philosopher and scientist, nicknamed “Father of Geometry”, was born in Tyre around the middle of the 4th century BC. He moved to Athens, then to Alexandria where he lived and taught.
79 – The philosopher Zeno, who founded the Stoicism school, was born in Tyre around 334 BC. He lived in Cyprus and Greece and died in 262 BC.
80 – Porphyry of Tyre, a philosopher known for his “Porphyrian Tree” describing the classification of matter and the superiority of quality over quantity, was born in Tyre in 234 AD. He died in 315 AD.
81 – The historian Strabo says, “Whoever wants learning should go to the schools of Tyre and Sidon”. Which is why we find that a majority of the intellectual giants in philosophy, science, and poetry graduated from these schools, as mentioned above.
82 – Some might argue that we exaggerate in our attribution of the origins of those giants in philosophy and science, because the prevalent belief is that they were Greeks. Not surprising since most references we rely on are Greek.
83 – Accordingly, we propose the appointment of a committee comprising an elite of Lebanese researchers and historians, whose mission is the gather all documents and evidence pertaining to this highly critical national issue and forward them to competent international bodies such as the various encyclopedias, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Google, and others with the stated objective of correcting this blatant historical error and restitute Lebanon’s rights to its pilfered heritage.
84 – We said earlier that the Lebanese did not engage in external wars during their long history. Their wars were rather of the self-defense kind and within Lebanon’s borders. This ancient custom is attributed to the nature of the peace-loving, tolerant Lebanese people who reject violence and seek open cultural exchanges with the world. Yet, when the issue requires defending the nation and their own self-defense, the Lebanese can change into tough and masterful warriors. The following are a few shining and dignified milestones in our military and militant history.
85 – After the Babylonian king Nabuchodonosor occupied the city of Jerusalem in 605 BC, deporting its people to his kingdom, he came to Tyre and besieged it in order to subdue it. But Tyre resisted for 13 years, forcing him to lift the siege, sign a peace treaty, and return disappointed to Babel.
86 – The Persian king Artaxerxes (465 – 424 BC) invaded the region with his large army of 330,000 troops. Upon arriving to Sidon, the city’s king, Tennes decided to hand over the city. The Sidonian people refused and decided to confront the invader, placing a young woman by the name of Ashtarim at the command of the army. She ordered to mobilize anyone capable of bearing arms, to burn the fleet to prevent the enemy from seizing it, and also to burn the city itself with everything and everyone in it to deny the invader the euphoria of victory. She then led her troops to face the enemy in the field.
History tells that the number of people who died in the fire neared 40,000, and that the events in Sidon constitute the first and largest collective suicide act in history. Artaxerxes had to call more troops into this battle.
87 – Before Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated the Persian armies and conquered their lands all the way to India, he came to Phoenicia en route to Egypt. All the kingdoms along the coast surrendered to him, except the Kingdom of Tyre which resisted him in an unprecedented legendary feat. Tyre had a mainland part and an island fortress part. Alexander easily conquered the mainland part but floundered under the island fortress walls for seven months, unable to breach them. He eventually had the sea between the mainland and the island filled by dumping timber and rocks, thus building a causeway with which his armies could reach and eventually breach the walls of the island fortress. This was in 332 BC.
88 – The three Punic Wars which confronted Rome and Carthage lasted from 264 to 146 BC. Together, they are considered the longest war of that period of antiquity. When Hanibaal invaded the Italian peninsula and occupied it for 15 years, his was not an expansionist objective. It was rather a self-defensive strategy based on the principle that the best defense is offense, since Rome had persisted in challenging Carthage and trying to humiliate and subdue it. As for why Hanibaal did not launch a final assault on Rome and end the war to his advantage, it remains a mystery that no one has yet unraveled.
89 – In the 7th century AD, the armies of the Arab Conquest ravaged all the countries of the region, including the Lebanese coastline, reaching the gates of Europe. These armies, however, were unable to penetrate Mount Lebanon where they were repelled by the Marada Army which repeatedly attacked them to force them to leave the coast. The invaders requested a truce in exchange for the payment of a tribute to the people of Mount Lebanon consisting of several sacks of gold and Arabian horses (Historian Fuad Efrem Al-Bustani).
90 – In the 16th century AD, Prince Fakhreddin Maan the Great emerged on the scene with a dream of liberating his country from Ottoman hegemony and expanding the borders of Lebanon. To achieve these two objectives, he had to unify the Mountain and prevail over the Wali (Ottoman governor) of Damascus. All rulers of the Syrian hinterland, past, present, and future, have always represented, and continue to represent, a permanent danger to Lebanon.
91 – Fakhreddin succeeded in unifying the Mountain, rallying the Marada Army to his own forces, and marched in a military campaign to face off with the Wali of Damascus. He caught up with him in Anjar where he dealt him a terrible defeat despite the unfavorable imbalance in the troop numbers. Fakhreddin then proclaimed Greater Lebanon with a territory stretching from Aleppo in the north to Acre in the south. This forced the Ottoman Sultanate to officially recognize this new fact. It is for this reason that Fakhreddin is considered the founder of the Lebanese modern State and the architect of its independence.
92 – Fakhreddin was keen on preserving the Lebanese identity of the country. He rejected an offer by the Ottoman Sultan to grant him the title of Emir (Prince) of Sea and Land, or Emir of Arabistan, and insisted on retaining the title of Emir of Lebanon. In fact, he often used the title of Emir of Phoenicia when signing his correspondence.
Many rumors have circulated about the death of Emir Fakhreddin in exile, until we came across the following story in a book entitled “Lebanon: Through Writers’ Eyes”, pages 89 and 158: Fakhreddin requested Sultan Murad give him a quarter of an hour for prayer before he was executed, and the Sultan agreed believing that the Emir will pray in the Ottoman manner. Instead, the Emir fell to his knees and crossed himself, which prompted the Sultan to shout at the executioner, “Kill this Christian pig right now”. After his death, they found on his chest under his clothes a golden cross resembling in shape the Lorraine Cross. If this story is true, then Fakhreddin died as a Christian martyr.
93 – Youssef Bek Karam (1833 – 1889). The Ottoman Grand Vizier asked him, “How dare you appear before me with your sword by your side?”, Karam replied, “This is the sword of Lebanon; if it falls from my hand, then Lebanon falls.”
Youssef is the son of Boutros Karam, the Governor of Ehden and its environs. He distinguished himself by a rare courage, doubled with wisdom, selflessness and decency, and a love of country after love of God. He refused to submit to the Ottoman occupation, rebelling against it and creating an army with his own money. The Grande Porte dispatched several military campaigns to subdue the Youssef Karam rebellion, and Karam confronted the Ottoman army at 12 sites and scored victories in all of them, despite a balance of power much favorable to the Ottomans.
94 – For example, at the Great Battle of Bnechaai on January 28, 1866, Youssef Karam led 400 fighters to defeat a 5,000-strong Ottoman contingent, hunting them down the mountain all the way to the gates of Tripoli. One thousand Ottoman soldiers were killed, and 600 rifles and 30 barrels of gunpowder were seized as bounty, while Karam lost only 8 of his own men.
95 – Youssef Bek Karam’s fame grew so much that the Sultanate, having failed to defeat him militarily, tried to find a political way to get rid of him. The Sultan struck a deal with the Consuls of the Western Powers to deport him, with the approval of the Maronite Patriarch and the collusion of the French Consul.
A meeting took place in Bkerki in presence of all concerned, including Youssef Karam. When the deportation decision was made to him, he said his now famous phrase, “If the choice for me is to die so that the people live, I welcome death and may my people and Lebanon live.”
A large crowd accompanied Youssef Bek Karam as he left Lebanon on January 31, 1867, on board of a French battleship sent to him by Napoleon III. He traveled across several European countries as he tried unsuccessfully to return to Lebanon. He died in the Italian city of Razinia on April 7, 1889, a fate he shared with many of Lebanon’s great heroes, including Fakhreddin before him.
96 – In 1958, Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to forcibly annex Lebanon into the Egyptian-Syrian Union known the as the “United Arab Republic”. The free-minded Lebanese, led by Camille Chamoun, fought back and sent Nasser back to Egypt much disappointed. A few months later, this un-regrettable Union fell through, followed later by a series of failed attempts at unions between other Arab countries.
97 – In 1975, Yasser Arafat launched the Palestinian War against Lebanon, assisted by all the Palestinian organizations and factions, as well as international terror organizations like the German Bader-Meinhof gang, the Japanese Red Army, the Italian Brigate Rosse, the terrorist Carlos, and a number of Arab and African mercenaries, all backed and funded by various Arab regimes, most notably the Syrian regime and its Palestine Liberation Army, the Saika organization, and others. This war was essentially the implementation of an American plan prepared by Henry Kissinger, which consisted in giving Lebanon as a substitute homeland for the Palestinians as a prelude to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
98 – Kissinger was able to obtain the endorsement of most countries, including those “friendly” countries like France for example, and he also succeeded in inciting the Lebanese
Against one another and to sideline the army as a prelude to its collapse. For its part, the Soviet Union was closely bound to Yasser Arafat and Hafez Assad by friendship and defense treaties.
99 – In spite of all this, and against expectations and advice to accept the fait accompli and not confront the Kissinger plan, the honorable Lebanese stood united, improvising an army made up largely of school and university students, and with individual and basic weapons they faced off this conquest-conspiracy.
100 – Within a few months, the Lebanese moved from a defensive to an offensive position. They launched attacks against the camps that the Palestinian organizations had turned into military fortresses. These camps fell one after another, beginning with the heavily fortified Tal Zaatar camp, and the Lebanese Resistance declared its victory over this hellish international plot.
101 – This phase of the war became known as the Two-Year War, during which the Palestinians attacked several isolated Christian towns and villages in Akkar, as well as the towns of Shekka, Damour, and Ayshiyeh, in which they perpetrated massacres against defenseless residents, many of whom were children, women and older men. These atrocities pale in comparison with the savagery of the infamous Tatar and Mongol invasions and embody the Palestinian hatred against a people whose only fault was to host them as refugees for decades on their soil.
102 – It is noteworthy that the international press and media went along with the said plot against Lebanon, adopted a policy of silence over the Palestinian massacres and exactions, and cast the light only on the losses suffered by the Palestinians. The much-denounced Sabra-Shatila massacre of 1982 was the most prominent, leading international public opinion to believe that it was the only massacre that took place during the entire war. This opinion remains prevalent to this day.
103 – In the aftermath of the massacre of Shekka, the northern forces in the highlands of Bsharri and Ehden unified their ranks and launched a devastating attack on the Koura region which had become a fortified stronghold for the Palestinian and leftwing organizations. From the coast, the forces of the Lebanese Front completed the pincer movement and the Koura fell within hours. The forces of the Lebanese Resistance reached the gates of Tripoli in Bahsass where they stopped and refrained from entering the city for fear of turning the war into a sectarian conflict.
104 – After liberating the Eastern regions from Kfarshima to the Cedars, several army officers – or whoever was left of them – held a meeting in the Fayadiyeh barracks in August 1976 during which they discussed a military plan to seize West Beirut. The plan had three stages: First, Aley would be taken by an attack up the mountain from Kahhale; Second, proceed with a march on Souk Al-Gharb; Third, descend on Khalde and outflank West Beirut from the rear.
105 – The officers requested a meeting with us – Bashir Gemayel, Dani Chamoun, a representative of the Tanzim, and I (Etienne Sacre). The plan was presented and approved by everyone, except I had reservations on the first stage and refused to participate in it because it would ignite a war between us and the Druze community. I proposed instead to move directly to Souk Al-Gharb via Qomatiyeh. When the group insisted on their opinion, I placed the fighters of the Guardians of the Cedars (GoC) on alert near Kahhale, ready to move on to Souk Al-Gharb and Khalde, should the others succeed in reaching Aley.
106 – The mission failed shortly afterwards when many of the attacking soldiers fell trying to cross the Dahr El-Wahsh point.
I wanted to note this event for two reasons. First, to show the high morale that permeated the Lebanese Resistance after the liberation of the Eastern regions in the summer of 1976; Second, to debunk the claims by the Syrians and their acolytes that the Syrian army had come to Lebanon to “rescue the Christians” from their impending demise. This rumor appeared just before the Syrians entered the Eastern region, and it became the fake narrative still circulating today. The glaring truth is that the Syrian occupation army entered Lebanon at a time when the “Christians” were at the peak of their power and the zenith of their victories.
107 – Why then did the leaders of the Lebanese Front accept the entry of the Syrian occupation army into the Eastern regions that had just been liberated from the Palestinian occupation, we leave big question marks for history to answer, although we have some information on this matter which we choose not to disclose at this time.
108 – The rejoicing of the Lebanese Resistance at its victories did not last. The US Administration in agreement with Hafez Assad decided to dispatch the Syrian Army into Lebanon to stop the so-called “Civil War”. The Syrian Army entered under the false guise of an “Arab Deterrent Force”, in numbers exceeding 40,000 and backed by tanks, cannons, and an arsenal of heavy and light weapons. A handful of soldiers from the Arab Gulf countries, Jordan and Libya were attached to the Syrian contingents as a way of putting lipstick on the pig, and they soon departed leaving the Syrian occupation to control the fate of Lebanon for the next 30 years.
109 – Hafez Assad, known for his cunning, was able to convince the Lebanese Front leaders to consent to his army entering the liberated areas. At this point, I requested that Sheikh Bashir Gemayel, whom we had elected a few days prior as leader of the Lebanese Forces, call for an emergency meeting between the Lebanese Forces and the Lebanese Front to discuss this matter. I had tried unsuccessfully to convince President Chamoun, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, and President Elias Sarkis to reject the entry of Syrian forces into the free zone.
110 – The meeting was held the next day at the headquarters of the Guardians of the Cedars (GoC), which was also the temporary HQ of the Lebanese Forces. All members of both parties attended, but the short meeting was a failure because everyone had previously agreed to the Syrian initiative. The die was cast.
111 – The Command staff of the GoC decided then to take a stance to express our rejection of the Syrian initiative-conspiracy. We called for a press conference the next day in our Sabtiyeh offices in which we declared a protest sit-in somewhere in the mountain, and we moved from Ashrafiyeh to Aqura, then to Tannourine, then to Ouyoun Al-Siman, ending up finally in St. Yohanna’s Monastery in Khonchara because of the bad weather.
112 – This went on during the 1976-1977 winter. By 1978, the people of the Eastern region had had enough of the exactions of the Syrian army. We decided to evict the Syrian troops from these areas with the agreement of our comrades of the Lebanese Front. In short order, the Lebanese Front forces were able to encircle the Syrian positions, in particular their HQ in the Murr Tower, the Rizk Tower, the Habiis building and the Karm Al-Zeitoun building, and impose a tight siege around them. Fierce battles erupted between the two sides for about a month, causing a high number of casualties among the besieged Syrians who, as we heard on our bugging devices, were calling on their command to surrender.
113 – Hafez Assad then ordered his troops to withdraw from the Eastern regions, and they began to evacuate their positions, one by one, humiliated and defeated. This was one of our most glorious moments of the war, equaled only by the sight of the Palestinian fortified camps falling one by one and surrendering to the Lebanese Resistance, from Tal El-Zaatar to Jisr El-Bacha, Nabaa, Dahr El-Jamal, Dbayyieh, and Karantina.
114 – By this phase of the war, our regions had been liberated for a second time from an occupation that dreamed of annexing Lebanon to the Syrian entity. But the exhilaration quickly vanished when Hafez Assad decided to retaliate in his own savage way. His army proceeded to position dozens of cannons and multiple rocket launchers on the hills overlooking East Beirut, and it began to blindly shell residential neighborhoods day and night, and over a period of several weeks. The liberated areas were destroyed, and many victims fell, with the rockets and mortar shells – in particular the internationally banned 240 mm caliber shells – hunting people down into their basement shelters. These events took place in the summer of 1978, which became known as the 100-day war.
115 – In sum, there were three phases of the Palestinian-Syrian war on Lebanon during which the Lebanese Resistance excelled: First, the improvisation of a substitute army to the Lebanese Armed Forces, and the resilience in facing the most dangerous international conspiracy against Lebanon that was to be executed by the Palestinian organizations and their allies. Second, the shift from a resistance/defensive stance to an offensive stance in which the fortified Palestinian camps were besieged and brought down. Third, besieging the Syrian troops and evicting them from the Eastern regions, albeit at an exorbitant price in civilian casualties and enormous destruction… Until 2005 came by when the Lebanese people in its entirety rose up against the Syrian occupation, marching in a million-man demonstration that led to the expulsion of the Syrian troops from all Lebanon.
116 – It must be noted that the Eastern regions were liberated three time, not just once. First in 1976, second in 1978, and third in 2005. The reason is the political errors committed by the Maronite leadership, which means that the military performance of the Lebanese Resistance was always superior to the political performance.
117 – In March 1981, the Syrians imposed a stifling siege on the town of Zahle as a prelude to storming it. The townspeople chose to fight back, and Sheikh Bashir Gemayel rushed logistics and military assistance. He then dispatched through the highlands 100 fighters led by Joe Edde, including 22 GoC fighters led by Kayrouz Barakat, who took Hawsh El-Omara as their base.
118 – The people of Zahle displayed their customary heroic courage in defense of their city, despite its isolated geographic location away from the Eastern regions. The imbalance of power was also pronounced between on one hand the attackers who used all manner of shells, rockets and even air power to destroy neighborhoods and bring down homes over the heads of their residents, and on the other side the defenders who fought back with individual weapons and rare courage.
119 – Three months into the fierce battles and the magnificent resistance of the people, the fighting stopped as a result of the enormous political pressure exerted on the international decisionmakers by Lebanese diaspora communities in general and the expatriates from Zahle in particular. The people of Zahle and their free Lebanese brethren elsewhere celebrated this victory over the invaders, though at a high price of dead martyrs and the unprecedented destruction of homes, neighborhoods, and businesses. The enemy losses did, however, significantly surpass those of Zahle in lives and military equipment.
120 – On June 2, 1982, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon from the south of the country and all the way to the capital Beirut. They eliminated the Palestinian organizations in Tyre, Sidon, and Beirut, and forced Yasser Arafat to leave Lebanon with 15,000 of his troops. They pushed the Syrian forces to withdraw from Beirut to the Bekaa Valley, which opened the way for Bashir Gemayel to be elected to the presidency, followed by his brother Amin. The Maronite leadership mismanaged this exceptional circumstance which would have allowed it to close the South Lebanon front for good as a gate of war and peace and force the Syrian forces to evacuate Lebanon along with the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
121 – True to its proclivity to miss opportunities, the Maronite leadership proceeded to abrogate the May 17, 1983, Accord which had been approved unanimously by Parliament without any coercion. This led to a unilateral Israeli withdrawal and a return of the Syrian occupation to Beirut, which amounted to the return of the war to square one.
122 – To add insult to injury, the Christian leadership sent its troops to the Shouf district to fight the Druze and wage a nonsensical futile sectarian battle that would dismember the Mountain and displace the Christians from their homes and villages to the Eastern regions.
123 – There are those who confuse the Lebanese Resistance with the Lebanese Forces. The former is as old as Lebanon and has consisted in resisting the successive invasions of the country over the centuries. The perennial existence of the country owes a lot to the continuous struggle of this Resistance over time and space, taking a variety of names over time such as the Jarajima or the Marada or the Muqaddams, etc. On the other hand, the Lebanese Forces (LF) was founded in the summer of 1976, immediately after the liberation of the Tal Zaatar fortified camp and its annexes by the Lebanese Resistance. The creation of the LF occurred in several meetings between the parties of the Lebanese Front at the headquarters of the GoC party, leading to the agreement over unifying the war effort and the command into one military organization called the Lebanese Forces. Bashir Gemayel was elected as its first commander, and its first business was to prevent internal strife.
124 – This organization made two major mistakes that led to its demise: First, it deviated from the military path that was provided for it in its charter, and into a political path that transformed it into a political party over all other parties, instead of being its military wing. It became a tool to grasp power. Second, it became mired in internal conflicts and infighting that were more deadly than all the battles the Lebanese Resistance waged against the Palestinian and the Syrian. It all started with the Ehden massacre in 1978, the Safra massacre in 1981, the battle of the Mountain in 1983, then the Elimination War between the LF and the Lebanese Army in 1990 which swept aside all the sacrifices, achievements, and gains. Not to forget the ambiguous and unjustified operation of displacing the people of East Sidon in 1985, and the unlawful and also unjustified Second Uprising of 1986.
Conclusion:
In this summary analysis, we have shed light on the bright moments of our glorious past, generally sliding past the darker periods of our history, and that is because we are living through the worst political phase of our contemporary history. The primary cause of our current torment is the ignorant, corrupt, and rogue political establishment that has specialized in pilfering people’s money and destroying the structure of the State in an organized and systematic fashion. The second cause is the course of history that governs the pathway that a nation takes toward its destiny, with its good peaks and bad troughs across time.
We hold the conviction that Lebanon will inevitably overcome this bleak period as it did through history. Fate has ruled that this country should live through dangers to cope with and should fight death to defeat it.
How many a nation has risen, grown, expanded, then ceased to be and vanished, leaving only its memory! Whereas Lebanon rose, grew, and lived in the midst of danger, yet survived and persisted, and it will continue to survive and persist.
It is true that Lebanon is a small country when measured in square miles, but it is one of the major countries of the world if it is measured in cubic miles, that is in depth and height.
Isn’t Lebanon the homeland of Adonis, the legendary god that would die and rise from death three days hence??? Isn’t it the land of the Phoenix, the legendary bird that would burn, then rise from its ashes to return and soar anew???
The answer is YES.
In service to Lebanon
Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz
N.B: Translated From Arabic To English by: Joseph Hitti

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 18-19/2022
Israeli Defense Minister Says Iran is Preparing to Install 1,000 Additional Centrifuges
Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Iran is working on advanced uranium centrifuges at new underground sites being built near its Natanz nuclear plant, Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday, providing figures that appeared to exceed those published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Centrifuges are used to purify uranium for civilian projects or, at higher levels, to make bomb fuel. Iranian progress in the field is being watched by world powers trying to resurrect a nuclear deal with Tehran, which denies having military designs. "Iran is making an effort to complete the manufacturing and installation of 1,000 additional advanced IR6 centrifuges in its nuclear facilities, including new facilities being built at underground sites abutting Natanz," Benny Gantz said in a speech at Reichman University. According to an IAEA report published on March 3, Iran has installed or is planning to install three IR-6 cascades, totaling about 660 machines.Last month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran had set up a new underground Natanz workshop to make centrifuge parts, an apparent precaution against attacks. In his remarks, Gantz hinted at Israel's long-standing threat to military action if it believes that diplomacy has failed to ensure its archenemy won't make nuclear weapons. "The cost of such a future war, which we hope will not happen, can be prevented or reduced" with more challenging negotiations by world powers, he said. "Iran continues to accumulate irreversible knowledge and experience in the development, research, production, and operation of advanced centrifuges," Gantz was quoted as saying by The Jerusalem Post. Iran is currently enriching uranium to 60 percent and 20 percent at the Natanz facility, levels it reached after US President Joe Biden, who announced his desire to revive the nuclear deal, took office. Iran and the United States have conducted indirect negotiations for more than a year, intending to reciprocate the commitments of the 2015 nuclear agreement, which stipulates that the enrichment rate must not exceed 3.67 percent, and Tehran is not allowed to operate advanced centrifuges. "It [Iran] stands just a few weeks away from accumulating fissile material that will be sufficient for a first bomb, holds 60 kg of enriched material at 60%, produces metallic uranium at the enrichment level of 20%," he added.

Iran Awaits US Response to Nuclear Talks ‘Solutions’ Submitted to Mora
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said diplomatic efforts to revive the nuclear agreement have “taken steps forward” when compared to the stalemate before Enrique Mora, the European Union’s nuclear talks coordinator, visited Tehran last week. Mora had held two days of discussions with Iran’s chief negotiator Ali Bagheri in Tehran last week, leading the EU to say talks had been unblocked. Nevertheless, Khatibzadeh said on Monday that Iran awaited the US response to “solutions” discussed with the EU envoy for breaking a deadlock in talks aimed at restoring the 2015 deal.The negotiations, aimed at bringing the US back into the deal and Iran to full compliance with it, had stalled for about two months.“Serious and result-oriented negotiations with special initiatives from Iran were held,” Khatibzadeh told reporters. “If the US gives its response to some of the solutions that were proposed, we can be in the position that all sides return to Vienna,” where the talks are held, he added during his weekly press briefing. “If the US announces its political decision today, which we have not yet received, we can say that an important step has been taken in the progress of the negotiations,” Khatibzadeh also noted. Iran has been engaged in direct negotiations with France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and China to revive the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The US has participated indirectly. The agreement gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb. Broad outlines of a deal were agreed in March, but the agreement stumbled over Russian and Iranian last-minute demands. Khatibzadeh pointed out that Mora’s visit came after a phone call between the EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, reported the state-run Mehr news agency.

UN Calls on Tehran to Halt Imminent Execution of Dual Iranian-Swedish Doctor
London - Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The UN human rights office has urged Iran to halt the execution order of Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali and reverse his death sentence. "We are deeply alarmed by the imminent execution in the Islamic Republic of Iran of Swedish-Iranian doctor, and academic Ahmedreza Djalali," UN rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. The office, she said, urged the Iranian authorities "to halt the execution and revoke his death sentence."Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency has reported that Djalali, sentenced to death on charges of spying for Israel, would be executed by May 21. Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Zabihollah Khodayian said Jalali's death sentence had been finalized. The spokesman said that Djalali was detained in Iran on espionage charges, and the Swedish government granted him citizenship after he was detained. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Iran may postpone the execution while stressing that the verdict is "final."Djalali resided in Stockholm, where he worked at Karolinska Medical Institute and was arrested in 2016 during an academic visit to Tehran. He was sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for Israel and providing information to its intelligence service (Mossad) about two Iranian nuclear scientists, which contributed to their assassination between 2010 and 2012. Sweden granted Djalali her citizenship while in detention in February 2018.Throssell stated that his sentence was "based on a confession that was reportedly extracted under torture, and after a trial that failed to meet international standards." "In the current circumstances, the execution would therefore constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life," she was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse (AFP). She also noted that the death penalty on espionage charges is not in line with international human rights law, stressing that "countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty may only impose it for the most serious crimes, which is interpreted as crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing."Relations between Stockholm and Tehran have been strained after Sweden arrested former Iranian official Hamid Nouri. He faces charges of crime against humanity and war crimes over killings and torturing political prisoners. Nouri's trial, which Iran has denounced, ended on May 4, and the verdict is expected in July. He could face life imprisonment in Sweden. The Iranian judiciary ruled out any exchange of prisoners between Tehran and Stockholm, specifically between Djalali and Nouri. Nouri's court is of great importance as it is the first time an Iranian official has gone on trial for executions.

Tehran Criticizes Washington's Support for Peaceful Assembly of Iranians
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Protests against deteriorating living conditions continued in several Iranian provinces, while Tehran protested the support of the US State Department's spokesman for the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in Iran. US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a tweet on Sunday: “We support their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression online and offline -- without fear of violence and reprisal”. “Brave Iranian protestors are standing up for their rights.”Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described the position of his US counterpart as “exaggerated enthusiasm.”He accused Washington of fearing the Iranian economy getting fortified. Nour News, the news platform of the Supreme National Security Council, protested Price's statement, describing it as “interference in Iran's internal affairs.”In a statement, it added that the US position “comes at a time when some citizens have expressed their concerns in the past few days without any problems.”Waves of protests hit the provinces of Lorestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and Fars in the south and west of the country. This comes two weeks after demonstrations erupted in the southwestern province of Ahwas. Demonstrators are rallying against the rise in flour prices, which raised the price of bread tenfold, according to Iranian websites.Footage widely circulating on social media showed police firing tear gas to disperse protesters at the Tehran (Sadeghiyeh) Metro Station, one of the largest metro stations in west Tehran.
Earlier footage showed the police using tear gas also in the city of Shahr-e Kord, the capital city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province in the southwest of Iran. On Monday, civil transport workers in Tehran joined the protests, chanting slogans calling for the dismissal of Tehran's mayor.
Protests had spread to about ten out of 31 Iranian provinces last week, after the government announced a price hike for four food commodities: oil, dairy, chicken, and eggs. Authorities cut off the Internet in some provinces that witnessed protests. The Iranian government began implementing its plan to stop the support allocated to the dollar for the purchase of food commodities. Last week, President Ebrahim Raisi tried to calm an angry public by vowing to speed up reform of the state aid payment system.Last Thursday, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami described what is happening in the country as “economic surgery” and gave tacit orders to the Basij forces to “help the people.”

Iran detains protesting bus drivers
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Iran arrested a number of bus drivers who have staged protests in Tehran for the second consecutive day over their living conditions, media in the country reported on Tuesday."A number of drivers were detained yesterday during a gathering in front of the central office of the Tehran Bus Company," Mohsen Bagheri, a company official, was quoted as saying by ILNA news agency. "A number of drivers were also arrested during today's protest," he added. Bagheri did not say why the drivers were arrested, only expressing hope that they would be released soon. "The workers do not want anything beyond the law; their demand is a legal increase in wages," Bagheri said. Striking bus drivers chanted slogans describing Tehran's mayor as "incompetent" and called on him to resign at a protest on Monday, the reformist Shargh newspaper said on Twitter. Buses were seen operating in different areas of the capital on Tuesday, AFP journalists said, but it was unclear if the strike was continuing. The mayor of Tehran, Alireza Zakani, met with a group of drivers on Monday and said a committee was looking into the possibility of salary increases, according to state news agency IRNA. Last week, Iran's government announced a series of measures to tackle mounting economic challenges, such as changing a subsidy system and raising the price of staples including cooking oil and dairy products. Hundreds have taken to the streets in a number of Iranian cities in the past week to protest against the moves, including in Tehran province, IRNA reported. MP Ahmed Avai said on Saturday that one person had been killed during demonstrations in the southwestern city of Dezful, according to ILNA. Iran's economy has been hit hard by sanctions imposed by the United States since 2018 as well as rising prices sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine this year. The Islamic republic has witnessed several waves of protests over living conditions in recent years, most notably in 2019 after a fuel price hike. In recent months, teachers have held successive demonstrations demanding the speeding up of reforms that would see their salaries better reflect their experience and performance.

US Reopens Kyiv Embassy after Three-Month Closure
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The US embassy in Kyiv reopened on Wednesday after a three-month closure due to Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. "We are officially reopening operations," spokesperson Daniel Langenkamp told Reuters shortly before the US flag was raised above the embassy. He said a small number of diplomats would return initially to staff the mission. Consular operations will not resume immediately and a no travel advisory from the State Department remains in place across Ukraine, Langenkamp said. The US embassy closed on Feb. 14, ten days before Russia launched a full-scale invasion. Embassy staff spent the first two months of the war in Poland, but Charge d’Affaires Kristina Kvien returned to the country on May 2, visiting the western city of Lviv. Many western countries, including France, Germany and Britain have reopened their embassies in Kyiv over the past month, after Russian troops pulled back from Ukraine's north to focus on an offensive in the east of the country.

Finland, Sweden apply to join NATO as first Ukraine war crimes trial begins
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Finland and Sweden on Wednesday submitted a joint application to join NATO as Russia's invasion of Ukraine forces a dramatic reappraisal of security in Europe. The reversal of the Nordic countries' longstanding policy of non-alignment came as the war nears its third month and Ukraine strives to evacuate the last of its soldiers holed up at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. Azovstal has become emblematic of the fierce Ukrainian resistance that has forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to reorient his military goals after a devastating campaign strewn with alleged war crimes. In Ukraine's capital Kyiv, the first war crimes trial of a Russian soldier since the invasion began was set to get under way at 1100 GMT. "By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility," prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said. At NATO headquarters in Brussels, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg formally received the applications from the Finnish and Swedish ambassadors, calling them "an historic step". "All allies agree on the importance of NATO enlargement. We all agree that we must stand together and we all agree that this is an historic moment which we must seize," he said. The membership push could represent the most significant expansion of NATO in decades, doubling its border with Russia, and Putin has warned it may trigger a response from Moscow. But the applications face resistance from NATO member Turkey, which has threatened to block them over accusations the Nordic neighbors act as safe havens for armed groups opposed to Ankara. Western allies remain optimistic they can overcome Turkey's objections and for now, several including Britain have offered security guarantees to Finland and Sweden to guard against any Russian aggression.
- Mediators for Azovstal -
On the ground, in the ruined port city of Mariupol, a unit of soldiers had been holding out in Azovstal's underground maze of tunnels, but Moscow said Wednesday that 959 of the troops had surrendered this week. Kyiv's defense ministry said it would do "everything necessary" to rescue the undisclosed number of personnel still in the steelworks, but admitted there was no military option available. "The evacuation mission continues, it is overseen by our military and intelligence," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. "The most influential international mediators are involved."Zelensky's aide, Oleksiy Arestovich, said he would not comment further while the operation was ongoing. "Everything is too fragile there and one careless word can destroy everything," he said. Those who have left Azovstal were taken into Russian captivity, including 51 who were heavily wounded, the Russian defense ministry said. The ministry, which published images showing soldiers on stretchers, said the injured were transported to a hospital in the eastern Donetsk region controlled by pro-Kremlin rebels. The defence ministry in Kyiv said it was hoping for an "exchange procedure... to repatriate these Ukrainian heroes as quickly as possible". But their fate was unclear, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refusing to say whether they would be treated as criminals or prisoners of war. Putin had "guaranteed that they would be treated according to the relevant international laws," Peskov said.
- 'My war is not over' -
Despite their last-ditch resistance in places such as Mariupol, and their successful defense of Kyiv, Ukrainian forces are retreating across swathes of the eastern front. White smoke from burning fields marks the pace of Russia's advance around the village of Sydorove, on the approaches to the militarily important city of Slovyansk and Ukraine's eastern administrative center in Kramatorsk. Army volunteer Yaroslava, 51, sat on a slab of concrete jutting out from the remains of a school in Sydorove where her husband's unit had set up camp before it was hit by a Russian strike. She stared at a spot where rescuers and de-miners had spotted a motionless hand reaching out from the rubble."We had settled in London before the war but felt like we had no choice but to come back," Yaroslava said. "My two sons have just signed three-year contracts with the army. We will fight. We will still fight," she said without moving her eyes.
"My war is not over."
The war crimes trial in Kyiv, expected to be followed by several others, will test the Ukrainian justice system at a time when international bodies are also conducting their own investigations. Vadim Shishimarin, 21, from Irkutsk in Siberia, is accused of shooting an unarmed 62-year-old man in Ukraine's Sumy region on February 28 -- four days into the invasion. Shishimarin faces a possible life sentence. Prosecutors said he was commanding a unit in a tank division when his convoy came under attack. He and four other soldiers stole a car and encountered the man on a bicycle, shooting him in cold blood, according to the prosecutors. The International Criminal Court said Tuesday it was deploying its largest-ever field team to Ukraine, with 42 investigators, forensic experts and support staff being sent into the field to gather evidence of alleged atrocities. The US State Department also announced it was creating a special unit to research, document and publicize Russian war crimes. The Conflict Observatory will "capture, analyze, and make widely available evidence of Russia-perpetrated war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine", the department said Tuesday.

Moscow Says More Mariupol Fighters Surrender; Kyiv Silent on Their Fate
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Russia said on Wednesday nearly 700 more Ukrainian fighters had surrendered in Mariupol but Kyiv was silent about their fate, while a pro-Russian separatist leader said commanders were still holed up in tunnels beneath the Azovstal steelworks. More than a day after Kyiv announced it had ordered its garrison in Mariupol to stand down, the ultimate outcome of Europe's bloodiest battle for decades remained unresolved. Ukrainian officials halted all public discussion of the fate of fighters who had made their last stand there. "The state is making utmost efforts to carry out the rescue of our servicemen. Let's wait. Currently, the most important thing is to save the lives of our heroes," military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzaynik told a news conference. "Any information to the public could endanger that process." Russia said 694 more fighters had surrendered overnight, bringing the total number of people who had laid down arms to 959. The leader of pro-Russian separatists in control of the area, Denis Pushilin, was quoted by a local news agency DNA as saying the main commanders were still inside the plant. Ukrainian officials had confirmed the surrender of more than 250 fighters on Tuesday but they did not say how many more were inside or what might become of them. "Unfortunately, the subject is very sensitive and there is a very fragile set of talks going on today, therefore I cannot say anything more," said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko. He said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Red Cross and the United Nations were involved in talks but gave no details. Negotiations over Mariupol's surrender came as Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO, bringing about the very expansion that Russian President Vladimir Putin has long cited as one of his main reasons for launching the "special military operation" in February.
The final surrender would bring a close to a near three-month siege of the port city of more than 400,000 people, where Ukraine says tens of thousands of civilians died under Russian bombardment. Ukrainian officials have spoken of arranging a prisoner swap for Mariupol defenders. Moscow says no such deal was made for the fighters, many from a unit with far-right origins which it calls Nazi. Russia says more than 50 wounded fighters have been brought for treatment to a hospital, and others have been taken to a prison, both in towns held by pro-Russian separatists. Russia's defense ministry posted videos of what it said were Ukrainian fighters receiving hospital treatment after surrendering at Azovstal. One man shown lying on bed said he had access to food and doctors, while a second said he had been bandaged and had no complaints about his treatment. It was not possible to establish if the men were speaking freely. The Kremlin says Putin has personally guaranteed the humane treatment of those who surrender. Other Russian politicians have called for them to be kept captive and even for their execution.
Finland and Sweden apply to NATO
The Swedish and Finnish ambassadors handed over their NATO membership application letters in a ceremony at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels. "This is a historic moment which we must seize," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. US President Joe Biden said Washington would work with Finland and Sweden to stay vigilant against any threats while their membership was being considered. Turkey has said in recent days it will block the Nordic members' accession unless they do more to crack down on Kurdish militants on their territory. Stoltenberg said he thought the issue could be overcome and Washington has also said it expects it to be resolved. Finland, which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, and Sweden were both militarily non-aligned throughout the Cold War. Although Russia had threatened retaliation against the plans, Putin said on Monday their NATO membership would not be an issue unless the alliance sent more troops or weapons there. Despite war and sanctions, Russia has remained the main source of energy for Europe. The EU's executive European Commission announced a 210 billion euro plan for Europe to end its reliance on Russian oil, gas and coal by 2027, including plans to more than double EU renewable energy capacity by 2030. In a further sign of Moscow's isolation, Google became the latest big Western company to pull out of Russia, saying its Russian unit had filed for bankruptcy and was forced to shut operations after its bank accounts were seized.
Victory
The steelworks surrender in Mariupol would let Putin claim a rare victory in a campaign which has otherwise faltered. Recent weeks have seen Russian forces abandon the area around Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv after being driven from the north and the environs of the capital Kyiv at the end of March. Nevertheless, Moscow has continued to press on with its main offensive, trying to capture more territory in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine which it claims on behalf of separatists it has supported since 2014. Mariupol, the main port for the Donbas, is the biggest city Russia has captured so far, and gives Moscow full control of the Sea of Azov and an unbroken swathe of territory across Ukraine's east and south. The siege was Europe's deadliest battle at least since wars in Chechnya and the Balkans of the 1990s. The city's near total destruction demonstrated Russia's tactic of raining down fire on population centers. Human Rights Watch said it had documented further cases of apparent war crimes by Russian troops in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions from late February through March, including summary executions, torture and other grave abuses. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Russia's defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the report. Moscow denies targeting civilians and says, without evidence, that signs of atrocities were staged to discredit its troops.

Macron Concerned about Israel's Decision to Build 4,000 New West Bank Settlements
Paris - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The Elysee Palace has said that French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his concern about Israel's recent decision to add 4,000 new illegal settlements in the West Bank. Most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law, a position Israel rejects. Macron held on Tuesday a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, during which they discussed security issues and bilateral ties. The Elysee Palace said Macron also urged Israel to quickly complete investigations into the killing of a Palestinian journalist last week, who was murdered during an Israeli attack in the West Bank. Al-Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead on May 11 wearing a helmet and a press vest. Her death, and Israeli police attacks on mourners who attempted to walk with her coffin at her funeral two days later in occupied East Jerusalem, have sparked Palestinian and international outrage. "The president said that he was moved by the death of Shireen Abu Akleh and reiterated France's position that a rapid conclusion of the investigation was needed," said the French president's office, according to Reuters. Israel and the Palestinians are conducting separate probes of her death, and both remain at loggerheads over the fatal shooting. Palestinians accuse Israel of assassinating her and demand an international response. A statement from Bennett's office following the call made no mention of Abu Akleh or the settlements.

Grundberg Calls for Overcoming Outstanding Challenges, Extending Yemen Truce
New York - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said on Tuesday that Yemenis can’t afford to go back to the pre-truce state of perpetual military escalation and political stalemate. With just two weeks left in a two-month cease-fire in Yemen, the envoy said he hopes the truce will be extended. "I continue to engage the parties to overcome outstanding challenges and to ensure the extension of the truce which is set to expire in two weeks," Grundberg said. After a closed briefing to the UN Security Council, the envoy said the truce, which came into effect in the country on April 2 left a considerable positive impact on the daily lives of many Yemenis. He applauded the parties to the truce for taking the “courageous” steps of agreeing to it, stressing that the truce is holding in military terms and that for the past six weeks civilian casualties have dropped considerably and fighting has sharply reduced. “Front lines across Yemen have quietened down significantly, and there are reports of increasing humanitarian access, including in some frontline locations that had previously been extremely difficult to access,” the envoy stressed during the virtual news conference. However, he added, “We continue to see concerning reports of continued fighting involving incidents of civilian casualties despite overall reduction.”Grundberg also mentioned that the first commercial flight in almost six years took off from Sanaa airport for Jordan’s capital, Amman, on Monday and another flight brought Yemenis back. “We are working with all involved to ensure the regularization of flights to and from Sanaa airport for the duration of the truce and to find durable mechanisms to keep it open,” he reassured. A second flight to Amman is scheduled for Wednesday. Also, the UN envoy said the Yemeni government allowed 11 fuel ships to enter the country’s Hodeidah port. “This means more fuel deliveries than during the six months before the truce,” he noted. Grundberg then said that priority now is to implement the truce agreement’s commitment to open roads in Taiz and other areas of Yemen. He revealed that the Yemeni government has appointed its delegation to a UN meeting on opening roads, adding that as soon as the Houthis appoint their delegation, the UN will organize the discussion in Amman. The UN envoy said he is not only working to extend the truce but to initiate talks on many issues so that the government, Houthis and other Yemenis can tackle critical issues and reach a political settlement to the war.

Bashagha to Set Up Govt in Sirte after Tripoli Clashes
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Libyan Prime Minister Fathi Bashagha said Wednesday he would seat his government in the central city of Sirte, after clashes forced him to abort his attempt the previous day to bring his Cabinet to the Libyan capital of Tripoli. He announced that he has chosen the city of Sirte, along Libya’s Mediterranean coast and half way between the country’s east and west, serving as a link between them. Bashagha, a former interior minister, was named prime minister by the country’s east-based parliament in February. But his rival, Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, based in Tripoli, in the country's west, has refused to step down, insisting he will hand over power only to an elected government. Dbeibah was appointed last year in a UN-led process, mired in allegations of corruption and bribery, to lead the country through elections in December that never took place. Bashagha attempted Tuesday to seat his government Tripoli, in a move that resulted in clashes with militias allied with Dbeibah just hours after Bashagha and his Cabinet ministers entered the Libyan capital. At least one man was killed and five others wounded in the clashes, authorities said. Both prime ministers blamed each other for provoking the violence, which raised fears that the country could once again return to civil war after more than a year of tense calm. "Libya will not be stopped by a city or region," Bashagha told reporters from Sirte late Tuesday, describing Tripoli as a "kidnaped city" held by his rival, Dbeibah. Bashagha said he would return to Tripoli once he makes sure that "there will no bloodshed."Sirte is also the gateway to the country’s major oil fields and export terminals. Bashagha’s move to Sirte is likely to deepen the political split in the already divided country and intensify the crisis. The idea of seating the Libyan government in Sirte was floated in the 2020 talks that ended the latest major bout of fighting in Libya. More recently, influential Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh - an ally of Bashagha - called for him to operate from Sirte rather than attempt to set up his government in Tripoli.

Algeria, Russia Discuss Military Cooperation
Algiers - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 18 May, 2022
Algeria and Russia are considering developing their military cooperation and the joint military exercises scheduled for next November in the Algerian desert. Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security Viktor Bondarev began a three-day visit to Algeria, where he met with Speaker of the Council Salah Goudjil and members of the Defense Committee. The National Assembly confirmed that the visit falls within the framework of activating the bilateral parliamentary cooperation protocol signed with the Russian Federal Council in 2014 and the memorandum of understanding concluded in 2010. The statement indicated that Bondarev's agenda includes meeting with the People's National Assembly Speaker, Ibrahim Boughali, and other senior state officials. Bondarev visited Algeria in the fall of 2018 when he was the commander of the Russian military operation in Syria. Algerian sources reported that the officials meeting with Bondarev are interested in discussing the developments of the war in Ukraine, including efforts by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Moscow has threatened to deploy its forces on its borders with Finland if it joined NATO. The sources stated that Bondarev's meetings would also address the bilateral military cooperation. They said it is likely that the Russian official will meet with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who returned Tuesday from a visit to Turkey. On Sunday, Bondarev said on his Telegram channel that Finland's desire to join NATO is worrisome, not from a military point of view but a geopolitical point of view. He said the United States "pressured" Helsinki and Stockholm to push them to join NATO. Algeria and Russia have had strong relations in the defense and military industry since the Soviet Union. The Algerian army is mainly equipped with Russian military weapons, and most of Algiers' arms deals were with Moscow. A week before Bondarev's visit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held several meetings in Algeria with senior officials.Lavrov said in a press conference that he informed Tebboune and Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra of the latest military developments in Donbas. They also discussed various international issues and the gas issue, noting that Russia agrees with Algeria on fulfilling gas supply contracts. Many European countries became interested in Algeria after its supply of Russian gas was interrupted at the beginning of the war. Algeria and Italy agreed earlier this month to increase the amount of gas exported to the Euro-Mediterranean partner. Lavrov thanked Algeria for its position and understanding of the Ukrainian crisis, describing the Arab position on the war as balanced and objective. Algeria says that it adheres to the "principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries," military non-alignment, and prioritizing dialogue over war. The Russian-Algerian joint exercises will be held next November and include drills against terrorism at the Bashar military base, in southwest Algeria. The TASS news agency quoted Russian officials as saying that the "maneuvers will consist of tactical moves to search for, detect, and destroy illegal armed groups."About 80 soldiers from the southern military region are expected to participate in the exercises.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 18-19/2022
Why Erdoğan's NATO Blackmail Is Subversion
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute./May 18, 2022
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is trying to turn what appears to be the most strategic move in NATO's history into carpet-trading at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar.
"The Russian-Kurdish nexus has been a recurring feature of Middle Eastern geopolitics for more than two hundred years, since Catherine the Great commissioned the publication of a Kurdish grammar in 1787." — Michael A. Reynolds, The National Interest, March 1, 2016.
None of the many examples of Russian appeasement of Turkey's "Kurdish terrorists" is secret. Russia has been doing all it could for its Kurdish friends overtly, with Erdoğan completely silent. Now the same Erdoğan is by trying to blackmail NATO by vetoing membership for two Western European countries on the grounds that these countries, threatened by Russia, are supporting Kurdish terrorists.
The Western military alliance should be strong enough to tell Erdoğan what he needs to hear.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is trying to turn what appears to be the most strategic move in NATO's history into carpet-trading at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Pictured: Erdoğan arrives for the NATO summit in Watford, England, on December 4, 2019.
Once again, Turkey is the odd one out in the NATO alliance. The country's Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is trying to turn what appears to be the most strategic move in NATO's history into carpet-trading at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar.
Erdoğan said on May 13 that his country is "not favorable" toward Finland and Sweden joining NATO, indicating Turkey could use its membership in the Western military alliance to veto moves to admit the two countries.
Erdoğan explained his opposition by citing Sweden and other Scandinavian countries' alleged support for Kurdish militants and others whom Turkey considers to be terrorists. That denunciation cannot be taken seriously. Erdoğan has the habit of calling anyone who is politically and religiously different from his own worldview a terrorist.
In the past few years, Erdoğan's hand-picked list of terrorists included citizens who invested in U.S. dollars, foreign credit rating agencies, opposition parties, municipalities run by opposition parties, main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Turks who vote against his wishes, Kurdish politicians and journalists. In February 2021, he accused student demonstrators of being terrorists as Turkish police arrested them for protesting his appointment of a new rector at one of the country's top universities.
Within a year after the local elections of March 2019, mayors were replaced by trustees in more than half of the roughly 65 municipalities won by the pro-Kurdish HDP party, with some of the mayors being arrested on charges of having terror links. Erdoğan's government appointed governors and other local authorities as trustees in those districts.
Today, credible opinion polls put the opposition block's rating at well over Erdoğan's. According to ORC Research, Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) would win 28% of the national vote if there were elections today, compared to a combined 42.5% vote for the two main opposition parties. In Erdoğan's world, that means two-thirds of Turks (about 56 million) were terrorists.
Except for a six-month period of "falling apart" when Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet along its border with Syria in November 2015, Erdoğan has been Russian President Vladimir Putin's "man in NATO" for the past twenty years.
Now that Erdoğan is blackmailing NATO because potential future members Sweden and Finland are "supporting Kurdish terrorists" let us see what his friends in Moscow have been doing in that regard.
The umbrella Kurdish militant organization that has been fighting Turkey since 1984 is the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK in its Kurdish acronym. The PKK is on the list of terrorist organizations issued by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. Turkey is also fighting the YPG, the Kurdish acronym for People's Protection Units, PKK's offspring in northern Syria. What about Russia? Russia does not recognize either the PKK or YPG as a terrorist entity. And that is fine with Erdoğan.
According to Michael A. Reynolds:
"The Russian-Kurdish nexus has been a recurring feature of Middle Eastern geopolitics for more than two hundred years, since Catherine the Great commissioned the publication of a Kurdish grammar in 1787. Catherine's interest in the Kurds was not purely academic. Kurdish tribes, tsarist officials recognized, were important actors along Russia's southern frontiers. From 1804 forward, Kurds played important roles in Russia's wars with Qajar Persia and Ottoman Turkey. As the century wore on, the Russian army made increasing use of Kurdish units to fight the Persians and Turks."
All that effort echoes in Putin's Russia of today. In 2016, Erdoğan accused Russia of providing anti-aircraft weaponry and rockets to PKK militants. In 2020, Turkey's Foreign Ministry officially condemned Russia for inviting and holding talks with a YPG delegation -- a red carpet treatment for Erdoğan's "terrorists." More recently, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, met with another YPG delegation in Moscow in November. More red carpet treatment for Turkey's "terrorists."
None of the examples of Russian appeasement of Turkey's "Kurdish terrorists" is secret. Russia has been doing all it could for its Kurdish friends overtly, with Erdoğan completely silent. Now the same Erdoğan is blackmailing NATO by vetoing membership for two Western European countries on the grounds that these countries, threatened by Russia, are supporting Kurdish terrorists.
The Western military alliance should be strong enough to tell Erdoğan what he needs to hear.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 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.

Facebook’s Censorship Campaign Against Persecuted Christians
Raymond Ibrahim/May 18/2022
Facebook is at it again—censoring the (Christian) victims of violence and sexual abuse while covering up for their (Muslim) abusers.
A few months ago, I wrote about how Facebook had variously “punished” and censored me for writing about the Muslim persecution of Christians. The only explanation the “social media giant” gave was that I had offended its “standards.”
If there were still any ambiguity as to Facebook’s true motivation, consider the following story which was reported by ReMix earlier this year:
A UK-based Catholic charity has accused Facebook of censoring its campaign to protect Christian women who have been exposed to violence in predominantly Muslim countries.
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) had launched a digital campaign in November to raise awareness of the violence often experienced by persecuted Catholic women in Islamic countries, and had chosen to spend money on Facebook to promote its posts.
However, the social media giant opted to severely restrict the organization’s ability to publish adverts online on Facebook, whilst simultaneously banning the charity from its affiliated platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The campaign had been directed towards United Nations authorities and the UK government, and had included a report titled Hear Her Cries which detailed the acts of sexual violence committed against Christian women in Muslim-dominated countries such as Nigeria, Mozambique, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and Syria.For the record, the plight of Christian women in Muslim nations is, indeed, deplorable. That is because they suffer from a “double whammy”: they’re both women and infidels. Thus, in the words of a 2018 report dealing with the Muslim persecution of Christians, “The most significant findings were that Christian women are among the most violated in the world, in maybe a way that we haven’t seen before.” Six women were raped every day simply for being Christian, the report found.
Another 2016 report states:
Unfortunately, more and more women are the target of [Muslim] terrorist groups. There are numerous international incidents of women being kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert from Christianity to Islam by radical extremist groups…. Many are also sold on the open market. This brutality is not only occurring in the Middle East but in Africa and in many other places. In many of these countries, women are subject to persecution because they are considered second-class citizens because of their gender. As minorities in both gender and faith, Christian women face double the persecution. Although we don’t have an exact number, we know that millions of women are being persecuted…. In these Muslim-dominated countries, Christian women are systematically deprived of their freedom to live and are denied basic human necessities.
Despite this pandemic that plagues the Islamic world, Facebook has decided that such information must be censored or heavily curtailed. As the ReMix report continues:
Facebook restricted the ACN’s [Aid to the Church in Need’s] campaign by 90 percent in November, explaining to the charity that it had taken the measures to limit the charity’s reach due to a number of users reporting the ads as “offensive, misleading, sexually inappropriate” or “violent.”
For the record, openly libeling organizations or websites that specialize in exposing and seeking to redress ongoing atrocities committed against Christian minorities as “pornography” is an old, communist tactic. According to Brother Andrew, author of the bestselling God’s Smuggler, that’s exactly what the Soviet Union labeled and confiscated smuggled Bibles as—pornography (p.227). Indeed, and as discussed here, “Big Tech” has used the very same tactic against me—banning my website, which is largely dedicated to exposing the persecution of Christians under Islam, on the claim that it is “pornographic”.
The Remix report concludes:
[T]he tech giant has not yet lifted any of the constraints imposed on the organization [ACN], and has repeatedly refused to explain exactly how the adverts violated its guidelines, despite numerous requests by ACN to do so.
“We are horrified,” said the director of the UK branch of Aid to the Church in Need, Neville Kyrke-Smith, in an official statement, “that our campaign which aims to help suffering women has been censored in such a draconian manner. By claiming to have banned our advert for violating its guidelines, but refusing to say which guidelines or how, Facebook have made themselves judge, jury and executioner.”
Meanwhile, censoring the victims of Islamic violence and abuse is only half of the problem. The other half, which few know about, is that Facebook and other social media and big tech do not censor Muslim hate speech and calls to violence—even calls to behead Christians—so long as such talk only appears in Arabic or other non-Western languages, thereby largely shielding it from non-Muslim eyes.
Update: More evidence of Facebook’s discriminatory policies continue to surface. Most recently, according to a PJ Media report titled “Facebook Blocks Christian Children’s Book Publisher From Advertising”:
A Christian children’s book publisher says that Facebook has disabled its ad account, severely limiting its ability to reach new customers.
Good & True Media is a Christian company dedicated to making wholesome children’s literature. Since launching in the Fall of 2021, they’ve already had several best sellers. Since September, they’ve been advertising on Facebook without any problems but found their ad account disabled two days after posting an ad containing a Bible verse….

تحقيق للصحافي المتخصص بملاحقة مهربي المخدرات والأسلحة إيمانويل أوتولينغي يتناول جريمة اغتيال المدعي الجنائي
في الأراغواي ، مارسيلو بيتشي
Murder on the Beach
Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet Website/May 18/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108737/emanuele-ottolenghithe-tablet-murder-on-the-beach-%d8%aa%d8%ad%d9%82%d9%8a%d9%82-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%b5%d8%ad%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d8%aa%d8%ae%d8%b5%d8%b5-%d8%a8%d9%85%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%ad/
المدعي الجنائي الباراجواي مارسيلو بيتشي كلن وراء التحقيقات التي خلقت له العديد من الأعداء بسب جهوده المستمرة طوال حياته لحماية سيادة القانون من المجرمين والمهربين وفي كان حزب الله.
كان المدعي الجنائي لأراغواي ، مارسيلو بيتشي ، رجلاً هادئًا يتمتع بسلوك متواضع. كان يتكلم باعتدال ولم يطلب الأضواء. كان شجاعًا أيضًا. بصفته عضوًا بارزًا في مكتب النيابة العامة ، قاد التحقيقات في مكافحة المخدرات والفساد والجريمة المنظمة وتمويل الإرهاب في باراغواي ، وملاحقة أقوى الشبكات الإجرامية في بلاده. لقد آمن بما فعله وحسن فعله.
Paraguay’s slain criminal prosecutor Marcelo Pecci made many enemies in his lifelong effort to protect the rule of law. One of them was Hezbollah.
araguay’s criminal prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was a quiet man with a humble demeanor. He spoke sparingly and did not seek the limelight. He was also courageous. As a high-profile member of the Office of Public Prosecution, he led Paraguay’s anti-narcotics, corruption, organized crime, and terrorism finance investigations, prosecuting the most powerful criminal networks in his country. He believed in what he did, and he did it well.In recent years, Paraguay has become a key transit hub for increasingly larger quantities of cocaine. Foreign crime syndicates have moved in, both to work with and compete against local networks. As if that were not enough, much of Paraguay’s political class is in bed with the narcos—Paraguay ranks among the most corrupt in the region. Politicians who do not take corruption money from foreign crime syndicates often run their own illicit businesses, such as large-scale cigarette smuggling and local marijuana production. Their crime generates more crime. Proceeds from the illicit economy are estimated to be between a quarter and half of the country’s GDP.
At age 45, Marcelo was a rising star and a serious contender to become the next attorney general of Paraguay. That made him even more dangerous to all whose interests he threatened with his investigations. And they were many. Marcelo’s cases put jacks of all illicit trade under lock and key, making powerful enemies along the way. He inhabited a cruel world. His enemies were the enemies of the rule of law, transparency, good governance, and public integrity: mafias, terror finance networks, and the corrupt politicians who sold their souls and the future of their country to transnational crime. Marcelo must have known the risks, but rejected the lure of a lavish life bought at the price of cowardice. He was incorruptible.
Eventually, last week, they came for him.
Marcelo had flown to Colombia a few days earlier with his newly wedded wife, to spend their honeymoon at the Isla Barú Decameron Hotel, an exclusive, secluded resort on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, near Cartagena. There, the happy couple announced on social media that they were expecting. But their child will never meet his father. On May 10, the last day of their honeymoon, as the couple was lounging on a private beach, two assassins rode a rented jet ski to the shore, dismounted, approached Marcelo, and shot him three times in front of his wife. The first shot was to the mouth—a clear message that he was being punished for not keeping it shut, and the signature of a skilled marksman, even at close range. Within seconds, as Marcelo lay dying on the sand, the hitmen took off, returned their rental, and vanished into thin air, likely aided by accomplices who were waiting to extract them by land. It reportedly took 16 minutes from the moment they rented the jet ski to the time they returned it. By the time police cordoned off the area, Marcelo’s murderers were long gone.
Marcelo’s enemies all had the means and the motives to kill him in Paraguay. Going after him in a foreign country is a different story. That required a high level of intelligence, logistical planning, and execution. Murdering Marcelo required significant amounts of planning, intelligence gathering, and monitoring before the hitmen hired for the job could carry out an operation as swiftly and accurately as they did. By Colombian standards, Isla Barú is a very safe place. Knowing where he was and when—at a precise spot on the beach, rather than in his room, the gym, the pool, the restaurant, or the bar—required local, real-time, human intelligence.
And while details are still emerging, only three categories of suspects fit the bill for such a complex operation: a state actor, a transnational criminal organization, or a terrorist organization. In the words of Colombia’s Director of National Police, Jorge Luis Vargas, those who ordered Marcelo’s murder are linked to either “international radical terrorism” or narcotraffic. Yet those categories are not mutually exclusive.
Marcelo was murdered by an assassin who likely wanted to derail his efforts, grant impunity to those who hired him, and ensure no one would pick up the pieces he left behind. His death made front page news across the globe, in ways he might not have expected when he was still alive. He did not see himself as a larger-than-life hero—just a civil servant, performing his duty. The outcry is well-deserved, because every one of the cases he investigated and prosecuted has global repercussions. The dramatic spike in cocaine flows transiting Paraguay is heading to Europe. The money laundered for Hezbollah fuels conflict in the Middle East. The weapons smuggled into Paraguay arm regional gangs and cartels inside and beyond its borders. The spiral of violence fed by the increasing presence of criminal syndicates in the country spills over to neighbors, in a downward spiral that is corroding the rule of law, governance, and public safety across the entire Latin American continent.
Marcelo disrupted operations of transnational criminal organizations operating inside his country, which include Latin American, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern crime syndicates. And he poked terror finance networks linked to Hezbollah, whose agents have used Paraguay for decades to self-fund through criminal joint ventures with the cartels. All bad actors in Paraguay have bought influence and impunity from the local political cupola, with lavish bribes. Any one of them, or a joint venture between them, could very well be the culprit.
Where there is organized crime there is money laundering, and for decades, Hezbollah has been a key financial service provider to crime syndicates across Latin America. It operates in multiple locations, with Colombia being a historic hub of cooperation with organized crime. But its facilitators also operate along all of Paraguay’s frontiers, mostly in the Tri-Border Area, or TBA, a riverine junction of the Parana and Iguazu Rivers, which naturally separates the countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Hezbollah’s regional headquarters are in the large metropolitan area that sits astride the frontier. The TBA is a magnet for all criminals: More than a pirate island offering a haven to fugitives, it is a global hub for money laundering. Money has no political connotation—criminals need to launder it and shop for the best service providers. Hezbollah financiers are the best in the trade, and have an ecumenical approach to working with infidels. Money, after all, has no odor, as the old Latin proverb says.
Marcelo’s targets in recent years were increasingly located in the TBA, Paraguay’s criminal hotspot. Historically, the TBA has been the regional hub of contraband and money laundering on a large scale for organized crime as well as for terror groups, especially Hezbollah. That is what makes it a key suspect.
Hezbollah and Iranian agents have been in Colombia for years. Iran’s influence networks have an established presence not only in Bogotá, but also in other parts of the country, where they recruit and radicalize locals through Iranian-controlled mosques and cultural centers. Their influence operation is run by a proxy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U.S.-sanctioned Al Mustafa International University. Hezbollah has also been there for a long time, leveraging local Lebanese Shi’a expatriates to launder money on behalf of drug cartels. Their proceeds help Hezbollah self-fund over and above Iranian direct contributions. The combination of Iranian and Hezbollah networks creates a perfect environment to plan and carry out an attack. Not only do these networks have the capability to gather intelligence while seamlessly blending into the local environment; their connections to Colombia’s underworld can give them access to informants and contract killers.
Last year, Iran already tried to carry out an assassination in Colombia against an Israeli citizen by contracting locals. That they failed says nothing about Iran and Hezbollah’s capabilities to assassinate a man like Marcelo Pecci. After all, he was a Paraguayan on holiday—the level of security afforded to him was undoubtedly lower than that enjoyed by an Israeli target in Bogotá, and the intelligence gathering Paraguayan authorities might have done to ensure his safety while out of the country was likely minimal, even assuming they tried.
The case against Hezbollah is hardly airtight. Marcelo also investigated corruption at the highest levels of political power in Paraguay; he went after the growing menace of transnational criminal networks taking over his country. His murderers could have been acting on behalf of any of these groups, which could have used their own assassins, or subcontracted the hit to other parties, Hezbollah included. It is too early to tell whether Hezbollah was behind the order, its execution, both, or neither. But Hezbollah had both the means and also the motives to kill a man who had announced himself as its enemy.
In three distinct but interconnected cases, Marcelo took down key Hezbollah financiers in the TBA, dealing a hard blow to the terror group’s illicit finance infrastructure there. He arrested two of them, Mahmoud Ali Barakat and Nader Mohamad Farhat, in April and May 2018, and raided their offices and homes. The evidence seized in those raids likely assisted U.S. prosecutors in their efforts to identify other members of their international network. In Farhat’s case, two separate prosecutions (in New York and Miami) led to the indictment of nine additional people and possibly the identification of a third TBA-based Hezbollah financier, Kassem Mohamad Hijazi. Marcelo not only led the raids personally—he later worked tirelessly to have Barakat and Farhat extradited to the United States.
Barakat was a smaller pawn in Farhat’s scheme, but Farhat, now in jail in Miami awaiting trial, is a big fish. In court documents filed for his trial, U.S. prosecutors accuse him of running one of the largest drug trafficking and money laundering networks in Latin America. In 2018, the Lebanese Ambassador to Paraguay tried to intimidate Paraguay’s attorney general into blocking Farhat’s extradition. It didn’t work, and Marcelo doubled down. In August 2021, Marcelo handcuffed Hijazi. Hours later, the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of State announced sanctions against him, his cousin Khalil Ahmad Hijazi, a Paraguayan businesswoman named Liz Paula Doldan, and five Paraguayan companies they used in a money laundering scheme worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
For months, Hijazi remained in a Paraguayan cell alongside other captives from the Colombian and Brazilian criminal underworld, his extradition proceedings delayed by procedural gimmicks. If Hezbollah is behind the murder, this could be an attempt to block his extradition by sending a message to Marcelo’s colleagues: Keep Hijazi in Paraguay, where we can buy you all up and orchestrate a sham trial, or face Marcelo’s fate. It took Marcelo’s murder, and an unprecedented outcry, for Paraguayan authorities to hastily approve Hijazi’s extradition on Monday night, likely under international pressure.
Those who ordered this crime must pay the price. And those who seek justice must know they are not alone. They owe it to Marcelo Pecci’s memory. May he rest in peace.
*Emanuele Ottolenghi (@eottolenghi) is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute in Washington, D.C.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/murder-on-the-beach-marcelo-pecci