English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 25/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.november25.21.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”
Letter to the Galatians 04/01-07/:”My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 24-25/2021
Ministry of Health: 1099 new cases, 10 deaths
President Aoun: Forensic audit is my duty, and it cost me a lot of time and seriousness
President Aoun chairs meeting to discuss obstacles being faced by Alvarez & Marsal
Aoun Slams 'Lies' and 'Political Assassination Attempts'
Lebanese Currency Sinks to New Low
2 Pro-Hizbullah Fighters Killed in Syria Airstrike
Australia lists neo-Nazi group and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations
Australia Lists Hezbollah as Terrorist Organization
Israel Thanks Australia for Blacklisting Hizbullah's Political Wing
US Ambassador in Bkirki
Economic Crisis Threatens Garbage Piling Up on Beirut’s Streets
Berri Wins Settlement of Bitar's Issue in Parliament if No Judicial Solution
FPM to Reportedly Attend Parliament Session for Settling Bitar Row
UNIFIL Dismisses 'Unsubstantiated Allegations' about Port Blast Case
Cabinet Won’t Vote on Sacking Kordahi
Jumblat Says Principle of 'Managing Disagreements' with Hizbullah ‘Still Valid’
A growing list of blacklistings/Nicholas Frakes/Now Lebanon/November 24/2021
Hezbollah experiencing political confusion, says political analyst/Najia Hossari/Arab New/November 24/2021
Mettre fin à l’extraterritorialité du Hezbollah/Charles Elias Chartouni/Novembre 24/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 24-25/2021
Syria Says Israeli Attack Kills 2 Civilians
IAEA Chief Says He 'Could Not Agree' in Talks with Iran
IAEA Chief Says Negotiations in Iran Proved Inconclusive
Envoy Says U.S. Will Not 'Sit Idly' If Iran Drags out Nuclear Talks
Iran Executes Man Arrested For Murder At Age 17 Israel, Morocco Ink Defense Deal after Normalizing Ties
Russian-Palestinian Summit Discusses Mechanisms to Revive Political Settlement
Damascus Reports Bombing of US Base East of the Euphrates
Qatari Ambassador In Gaza For Talks With Hamas, Israel
Security Forces Disperse Student Demonstration in Iraqi Kurdistan
Egyptian President Vows to Enhance Regional Economic Integration
Sudan: Hamdok to Review Appointments Made by Military
US Describes Hamdok, Burhan Agreement as 'First Step’
US Renews Support for Morocco’s Self-Determination in Sahara Dispute

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 24-25/2021
How Would Syria Change and 'Moderate?'/Hazem Saghieh/ Asharq Al-Awsat/November 24/2021
How America Lost Its Leverage on Iran/Richard Goldberg/Mosaic-FDD/November 24, 2021
How China Is Trying to Turn the U.S. against Itself/Nathan Picarsic and Emily De La Bruyere/Notional Review/November 24, 2021
In fight against Islamic State, the Taliban holds major advantage/Bill Roggio/FDD/November 24/2021
Europe's Migrant Crisis Demonstrates Biden's Weakness/Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/November 24, 2021
The Liverpool Bombing: Islam’s Mindboggling Deceptions Exposed/Raymond Ibrahim/November 24, 2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 24-25/2021
Ministry of Health: 1099 new cases, 10 deaths
NNA/November 24, 2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 1099 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 662269.
10 deaths have been reported.

President Aoun: Forensic audit is my duty, and it cost me a lot of time and seriousness
NNA/November 24, 2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, asserted that “From a political point of view, there are crises, some of which are artificial in terms of a political conflict on the ground, which could have been avoided and allowed international intervention in Lebanese affairs, and others are natural”.
“From the beginning, I was insisting that forensic audit should be carried out since it would be a new beginning, which would reveal those responsible for wasting money. This is my duty and cost me a lot of time and effort, and I confronted a lot of resistance and those who worked to put obstacles” the President said. Moreover, President Aoun stated that negotiations are underway with the International Monetary Fund to present an economic plan on the basis of which long-term loans can be obtained, after all which was said about the reality of the financial situation, according to reports which were received from the highest responsible authorities in this field.
In addition, the President referred to organized campaigns based on lies and distortion of facts which aim at political assassination, stressing that he is determined to try to bring about the necessary changes, “Regardless of challenges”. President Aoun also affirmed that forensic audit is the precursor to this desired change, especially in terms of monitoring those responsible for public funds in various official institutions.
The President’s stances came while meeting a delegation from the International Lions Club Association, District 351, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, today at the Presidential Palace. The delegation visited the President after the election of their new Governor, Aida Kaawar, and to offer congratulations on Independence Day.
Governor Kaawar:
Governor Kaawar congratulated the President on Independence, and delivered the following word: “From the land of the nobles, from the beloved Jordan and from Lebanon, we have come to you with a goal to serve the human being, a goal which we have dictated ourselves to. We serve by restoring around 1,800 homes, several hospitals, schools, and commercial establishments and providing a rescue boat to the Civil Defense. Our achievements are numerous, from medical and environmental campaigns, to fighting hunger through the implementation of the Good Meal Program. District 351 has received many gifts and grants, through which it established a dialysis ward at Al-Bwar Governmental Hospital, and an advanced academy and clinics for early diabetes detection at Al-Shamal Hospital. We also provide moral and care support to children with cancer and their families”.
President Aoun:
The President welcomed the delegation and congratulated Lions Club on electing a new Governor, praising the work such clubs do in Lebanon at social, health and humanitarian levels, including helping to equip Bwar Governmental Hospital to receive and accompany patients. President Aoun also thanked the club’s members for their dedication and devotion to humanitarian issues in Lebanon, and for embodying the values of free love which have become rare in our world today. The President expressed readiness to meet all the demands he receives, which would activate medical devices in government hospitals.
On the other hand, the President indicated that the bad conditions which Lebanon is experiencing are the result of the accumulation of problems, which are exacerbated by the new difficulties which have been resolved.
“Debt has reached around 200 billion dollars, the war in Syria has closed the outlets to the markets of Arab countries, and more than 1.5 million Syrians have been displaced, causing annual losses estimated at around 3 billion US Dollars. Lebanon also suffered from demonstrations, Corona pandemic and the tragic Port blast” President Aoun continued. “As for the political aspect, there are crises, some of which are artificial in terms of the political conflict on the ground that could have been avoided and allowed international interference in Lebanese affairs, and others are natural. It is true that we were able to maintain the security situation, but what is happening does not compensate for the need that the citizen suffers from, especially at the financial and economic level, after they lost their lives savings, which is unacceptable, but it was imposed on us because of the imbalance in the use of public money” President Aoun added.
“From here, it was necessary to conduct a forensic audit to reveal the culprits and who is behind this matter” President Aoun said, stressing that he was insisting from the beginning that such an audit should be conducted because it would be a new beginning, and it would reveal those responsible for wasting money. “This is my duty and it cost me a lot of time and effort. There was a lot of resistance and people working to put up obstacles to this procedure” the President asserted.
Moreover, President Aoun indicated that negotiations are underway with the International Monetary Fund to present an economic plan on the basis of which long-term loans can be obtained, after all talk was said in the air about the reality of financial conditions, according to reports that were received from the highest responsible authorities in this field.
In conclusion, the President referred to the organized campaigns based on lies and distortion of facts that aim at political assassination, stressing that he is determined to try to bring about the necessary changes, regardless of the challenges, and the forensic audit is the sign of this desired change, especially in terms of monitoring those responsible for public funds in various official institutions.
Letter from President Putin:
The President met Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Rudakov, and received from him a letter from Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The letter included Independence congratulations, and an affirmation of the friendly relations between Lebanon and Russia, where President Putin expressed his confidence that these relations will remain in the future “So that we can, thanks to our joint efforts, ensure further development for the interest of our two peoples and in order to enhance security and stability in the Middle East”.
In addition, President Putin affirmed Russian permanent commitment to “Support Lebanon’s sovereignty and unity, and the impermissibility of any external interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs”.
The meeting between the President and the Russian Ambassador tackled the results of the visit of Foreign Affairs’ Minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, to Moscow, and the talks he held with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, aiming to strengthen bilateral relations between Lebanon and Russia.
For his side, the President had conveyed Ambassador Rudakov his greetings to President Putin, and thanked him for the quick response shown by handing over to Lebanon the aerial photos taken by Russian satellites before and after the Beirut Port blast on August 4, 2020. The President also pointed out that these photos will be placed at the disposal of forensic investigation, hoping that they will help in knowing new facts about this crime.
Finally, President Aoun commended the initiatives undertaken by Moscow to help Lebanon overcome the difficult circumstances it is going through.
MP Maalouf:
President Aoun met MP, Cesar Al-Maalouf, and addressed with him general affairs and a number of issues that concern Zahle and its region.  Developmental needs of Zahle and its surroundings were also tackled, including the rehabilitation of Masnaa-Dahr Al-Baydar road, before the onset of winter due to the importance of this road in connecting the Beqaa valley with other Lebanese regions. MP Maalouf also indicated that the meeting discussed electricity issues and the necessity of providing diesel fuel, in addition to the high cost of living and the sufferings of Beqaa residents. -- Press office

President Aoun chairs meeting to discuss obstacles being faced by Alvarez & Marsal
NNA/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021 
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Wednesday chaired a meeting attended by Finance Minister, Youssef Khalil, Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, and former Minister, Salim Jreissati, to discuss the obstacles being faced by "Alvarez & Marsal" in its forensic financial audit of the Lebanese Central Bank’s financial accounts.

Aoun Slams 'Lies' and 'Political Assassination Attempts'
Naharnet/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday lamented the presence of “systematic campaigns that are based on lies and aimed at political assassination.”The President, however, stressed that he is determined to “try and make the necessary change, no matter the challenges.”“Politically, there are fabricated and normal crises, and the forensic audit is my duty and it has cost me a lot of time and effort and a confrontation against obstructors,” Aoun said in a meeting with a delegation from Lions Clubs International. The President had earlier in the day met with Finance Minister Youssef al-Khalil and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, in the presence of his advisor Salim Jreissati. The meeting was dedicated to discussing the financial situations in the country and the difficulties that the Alvarez & Marsal firm is facing regarding the forensic audit of the central bank’s accounts. During the meeting, Aoun insisted on “the start of forensic audit operations into the accounts of the central bank,” calling for granting Alvarez & Marsal full access to the requested data and documents so that it can “issue a preliminary reports by 12 weeks at the latest in line with the contract’s stipulations.”Khalil and Salameh for their part said that they are carrying out “the necessary measures with the possible speed in this regard.”Aoun meanwhile warned the conferees that the repercussions from failing to conduct the audit would be “negative on all levels,” noting that “the law stipulates that forensic audit should target all state administrations and institutions.”

Lebanese Currency Sinks to New Low
Agence France Presse/November 24, 2021
The Lebanese pound sank to a new low on the black market Wednesday, with no end in sight to the economic and political crisis plunging ever growing numbers into poverty. According to websites monitoring the black market rate, the pound was trading at 24,000 to the dollar, or 16 times less than its official peg value of 1,500. The new record, topping a previous peak in July, comes as the newly-formed government has failed to meet for more than a month amid a festering diplomatic crisis with Gulf countries. Lebanon's much-reviled political barons are also divided over the fate of the judge probing the deadly August 2020 Beirut port blast widely blamed on government negligence and corruption. With the currency losing more than 90 percent of its value in two years on the black market, the purchasing power of Lebanese is plummeting and the minimum wage is now worth less than $30. According to the United Nations, four in five Lebanese are now considered poor. The World Bank estimates Lebanon may need almost two decades to recover its pre-crisis per capita GDP.


2 Pro-Hizbullah Fighters Killed in Syria Airstrike
Agence France Presse/November 24, 2021
Israeli strikes targeting a part of Syria where fighters loyal to Lebanon's Hizbullah are based killed five people Wednesday, a war monitor said. The Israeli missiles struck an area near three villages in the west of Homs province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group with a wide network of sources on the ground. Three Syrian soldiers as well as two Syrian militiamen affiliated with Hizbullah were killed in the early morning strikes, the monitoring organization said. The official Syrian news agency SANA, citing a military official, had reported earlier that two civilians had been killed and seven people injured in Israeli "aerial aggression."Syria's air defenses "repelled the aggression and shot down most" of the missiles, SANA said, quoting the same source. The Israeli military, which rarely acknowledges individual strikes on Syria, declined to comment on "reports in the foreign media." Israel has said repeatedly it will not allow neighboring Syria to become a launchpad for its foe Iran. Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hizbullah fighters. SANA had reported on November 8 that two Syrian soldiers were injured by Israeli missile strikes on areas in the center and the west of the country. On October 30, five pro-Iranian militiamen were killed in an Israeli strike that destroyed Hizbullah and Iranian weapons and ammunition near the Syrian capital, the monitor said. An Israeli strike in mid-October killed nine pro-government fighters near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra in central Syria, according to the same source
.

Australia lists neo-Nazi group and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations
Reuters/November 24, 2021
Australia on Wednesday classified neo-Nazi organisation The Base and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, as terrorist organisations. The classification makes it illegal for anyone to be a member of The Base, the white supremacist group formed in 2018, or Hezbollah. Anyone convicted of being a member can be imprisoned for up to 25 years. "There is absolutely no place in Australia for violent extremism. There is no cause – religious or ideological – that can justify killing innocent people," Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews told reporters in Canberra.
Hezbollah is not believed to be active in Australia, though authorities have said The Base has actively sought to develop cells. Andrews declined to specify how many members of The Base there are in Australia. The Base was formed in the United States and has been listed as a terrorist organisation in Canada and Britain. U.S. ally Australia is on heightened alert after a series of “lone wolf” attacks in recent years.

Australia Lists Hezbollah as Terrorist Organization
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Australia on Wednesday listed all of Lebanon’s Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization", extending an existing ban on armed units to the entire movement. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said that the Iran-backed Shiite group "continues to threaten terrorist attacks and provide support to terrorist organizations" and poses a "real" and "credible" threat to Australia. Australia had since 2003 banned Hezbollah's so-called External Security Organization. From now membership of the entire organization or providing funding for it will be proscribed in Australia, which has a large Lebanese community. Matthew Levitt, a former US counter-terrorism financing official now with the Washington Institute for Near East policy, told AFP the move was "long overdue."In June, he testified to the Australian parliament that the previous designation was "insufficient" adding that "Hezbollah is structured and operates as a singular organization.""In recent years a laundry list of Hezbollah terrorist plots and illicit financial schemes have involved Australian citizens and/or activities on Australian soil," he said. No reason was given for the timing of Canberra's decision, which comes as Lebanon reels from spiraling political and economic crises.
Before 2018 polls, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the surprise move of recognizing west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, helping secure votes in a battleground Sydney seat with a sizable Jewish community. Israel's embassy in Canberra welcomed the decision, saying "there is no division between the political and the military wings of the terror organization Hezbollah, and this acknowledgement is essential to combating the enduring threat of terrorism."

Israel Thanks Australia for Blacklisting Hizbullah's Political Wing
Associated Press/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Australia on Wednesday listed all of Hizbullah as a "terrorist organization," extending a ban on the armed wing to the entire movement, which wields considerable power in Lebanon. Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said that the Tehran-backed group "continues to threaten terrorist attacks and provide support to terrorist organizations" and poses a "real" and "credible" threat to Australia. Some countries have sought to distinguish between Hizbullah's political and militant factions, fearing a blanket ban could further destabilize Lebanon and hamper contacts with authorities. Australia had such a policy since 2003, when it banned Hizbullah's so-called External Security Organization -- a part of the movement's military wing that is chiefly focused on shadowy overseas operations. From now, membership of the entire organization or providing funding for it will now be proscribed in Australia, which has a large Lebanese community. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett thanked his "friend" and Australian counterpart Scott Morrison for the move. "Hizbullah is an Iranian-backed terror organization in Lebanon responsible for countless attacks in Israel & around the world," he tweeted.
'Long overdue' -
No reason was given for the timing of Canberra's decision, which comes as Lebanon reels from spiraling political and economic crises. The move may play well domestically for Australia's conservative government, ahead of its own elections expected next year. Before 2018 polls, Morrison made the surprise move of recognizing west Jerusalem as Israel's capital, helping secure votes in a battleground Sydney seat with a sizable Jewish community. Matthew Levitt, a former U.S. counter-terrorism financing official now with the Washington Institue for Near East policy, told AFP the move was "long overdue."In June, he testified to the Australian parliament that the previous designation was "insufficient" adding that "Hizbullah is structured and operates as a singular organization.""In recent years a laundry list of Hizbullah terrorist plots and illicit financial schemes have involved Australian citizens and/or activities on Australian soil," he said. Australia's government also announced Wednesday that it would be listing far-right group "The Base" as a terror group. "They are a violent, racist neo-Nazi group known by security agencies to be planning and preparing terrorist attacks," Andrews said.

US Ambassador in Bkirki
NNA/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, welcomed at the patriarchal edifice in Bkeirki the US ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea.

Economic Crisis Threatens Garbage Piling Up on Beirut’s Streets

Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Lebanon’s economic crunch threatens to trigger another trash crisis as waste management companies have warned they would halt operations for failing to raise the wage of their employees. “Officials mock us, and we had offered them solutions, but it fell on deaf ears,” Ramco CEO Walid Abou Saad told Asharq Al-Awsat. “We had been promised that a session for the Council for Development and Reconstruction will be held to approve part of our just demands, and we were shocked last Wednesday that the Council did not meet due to internal problems, and the meeting may be postponed until after the New Year,” added Saad. Lebanon’s currency crisis has also been poorly reflected in the trash management sector. Contractors have fallen into a deficit, given that their contracts are in Lebanese pounds, while the prices of fuel, maintenance services, and the cost of foreign workers’ wages rose at a record level. While contractors continue to pay the high costs in dollars (23,000 Lebanese pounds on the black market), no adjustments had been made to the amounts received from the state.The government is still paying these contractors at the exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, exposing them to heavy losses. “We are the ones who pay the price,” said Saad, noting that his company is at a loss by the day. “Neither the government nor the Council for Development and Reconstruction cares about this matter.” “On the other hand, people say that Ramco is not doing its job, and we get blamed,” complained Saad.
Meanwhile, the streets of the Lebanese capital have fallen victim to accumulated garbage in containers, and an unpleasant odor has spread across neighborhoods. “Ramco can no longer collect waste daily due to the high costs we incur, and due to the lack of drivers, after we lost 50% of employees during the economic crisis,” noted Saad.

Berri Wins Settlement of Bitar's Issue in Parliament if No Judicial Solution
Naharnet/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
In his meeting with President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Speaker Nabih Berri “won the issue of settling investigative judge Tarek Bitar’s issue in parliament, should the judiciary fail to find a solution within a week,” informed sources said. Miqati was meanwhile promised with the resumption of Cabinet sessions although a specific date was not agreed, the sources told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.“President Michel Aoun, who mediated between Berri and Miqati, was relieved by leaving the issue of Information Minister George Kordahi to the minister himself,” the sources added.

FPM to Reportedly Attend Parliament Session for Settling Bitar Row
Naharnet/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
A “scenario” for resolving the governmental and judicial crises is making progress, highly informed sources said. The reported solution is based on the pledges that President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Miqati made to each other in their latest meeting in Baabda, the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday. Under the reported settlement, the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc would “attend a parliamentary session for referring the file of the ex-PM and former ministers charged in the port blast case to the Higher Council for Trial of Presidents and Ministers,” the sources said. “Cabinet would later convene with the participation of the Amal Movement and Hizbullah ministers, after which Information Minister George Kordahi would announce his resignation,” the sources added.

UNIFIL Dismisses 'Unsubstantiated Allegations' about Port Blast Case
Naharnet/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
UNIFIL Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti has dismissed what he called “unsubstantiated allegations,” after al-Mayadeen TV mentioned UNIFIL’s naval force in a report about the Beirut port blast and the ship that carried the huge quantity of the explosive ammonium nitrate substance.
“Some recent media reports speculating on the activities of the UNIFIL Maritime Task Force (MTF) in the context of the tragic Beirut port explosion of 4 August 2020 have made unsubstantiated allegations with disregard to UNIFIL's mandate and the way the MTF operates,” Tenenti said in response to a question by state-run National News Agency about the report. He explained that UNIFIL’s MTF has been deployed at the request of the Government of Lebanon for “very specific tasks in support of the Lebanese authorities.” “The nature of such assistance is clearly defined by the Lebanese authorities, who retain the sovereign prerogative and related responsibility to secure their maritime borders,” Tenenti added. “Accordingly, as requested by the government, the role of UNIFIL’s MTF is to hail ships that are approaching Lebanon and refer any suspicious ships to the Lebanese authorities, who are the ones responsible for carrying out the inspection of those ships independently. UNIFIL cannot board and conduct physical inspection of any vessel in Lebanese territorial waters unless specifically requested by the Lebanese authorities,” the UNIFIL spokesman pointed out. He added: “UNIFIL’s MTF is also not responsible for authorizing entry into Lebanese ports. This again is the sovereign prerogative of the Lebanese authorities. As such, after a ship has been referred to the Lebanese authorities, UNIFIL has no involvement unless the Lebanese authorities were to request any further assistance within the scope of UNIFIL's mandate.”“With respect to the Beirut port explosion, due to the ongoing judicial investigation, it will not be appropriate for UNIFIL to comment on this particular case. However, UNIFIL has been fully cooperating with the Lebanese judicial authorities and has provided them with all requested assistance within the scope of UNIFIL's mandate,” Tenenti stressed. “In this context, some accusations made in the media misrepresent the way in which UNIFIL operates,” he added, calling upon all concerned to “refrain from baseless and misleading speculations on such a serious and tragic matter.”

Cabinet Won’t Vote on Sacking Kordahi
Naharnet/November 24/2021
The first step in resolving the diplomatic crisis with the Gulf is Information Minister George Kordahi's resignation, political sources told LBCI. The sources affirmed to the TV channel that Kordahi’s sacking won’t be discussed in the cabinet for voting. “There is almost an agreement on the name of the minister who will replace Kordahi,” the sources revealed, adding that the minister-to-be is close to Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh.

Jumblat Says Principle of 'Managing Disagreements' with Hizbullah ‘Still Valid’
Naharnet/November 24/2021
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has said the principle of “managing or suspending the disagreements” with Hizbullah is still valid. He told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Wednesday, that “one has the right to raise his voice sometimes in order to express a position or a cry.”Jumblat had said earlier this month that his “patience on Hizbullah is running out,” describing the fuel trucks that Hizbullah imported from Iran as “beggary” and accusing Hizbullah of “ruining the lives” of the Lebanese who work in the Gulf in connection with the diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia.

A growing list of blacklistings
Nicholas Frakes/Now Lebanon/November 24/2021
Australia has designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization on Tuesday, but some analysts say that it is unlikely that the move has any significant impact on the group in Lebanon. Australia announced on Tuesday that it has designated Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization after having designated its military wing as such nearly two decades ago. The Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews announced the new designation, along with that of the white supremacist group, The Base, saying that this was meant to counter the growing threat of terrorism around the globe.
“We know there is a threat of terrorism here in Australia and that there is a threat of terrorism right across the world,” Andrews stated. “The Government has zero tolerance for violence, and there is no cause – religious or ideological – that can justify killing innocent people,” she later added. Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennet thanked Australia for the move. Hezbollah issued a statement on Wednesday strongly condemning the Australian authorities’ decision. The statement said that the Lebanese group “considers it servile submission to American and Zionist dictates and blindly engaging in serving Israel’s interests and its policy based on terrorism, murder and massacres.”“This decision and similar decisions made by some Western countries that are biased against the peoples of this region and their just issues and their right to liberation and independence will not affect the morale of our loyal people in Lebanon, nor the morale of the free and honorable people in the whole world, nor the position of Hezbollah. God and his natural right to resist, defend his country and people, and support the resistance movements against the Zionist occupation and aggression,” Hezbollah said in the statement released to the Lebanese media.
In Lebanon, the announcement has been met with silence, with very few exceptions. Politician Bahaa Hariri, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s eldest son, expressed his support for Australia’s decision, calling it “a positive step for Lebanon’s salvation from the militia that monopolizes the decision of peace and war, and isolates it from the world and cuts it apart.”
One more country
Australia, home to around 230,000 Lebanese or people of Lebanese descent, had banned Hezbollah’s External Security Organization in 2003. However, the United Kingdom expanded its proscription of Hezbollah from just the military wing to include the whole organization in March 2019, and called on both Australia and New Zealand – which also has blacklisted the military wing in 2010 – to follow suit. Hezbollah’s financial, political and military activities have also been under scrutiny in the past months in the region. Australia’s announcement comes a month after Saudi Arabia named the Hezbollah-affiliated Qard al-Hassan Bank as a terrorist organization.  Earlier this month, Kuwait detained 18 people that the country says are suspected of helping to finance Hezbollah. The individuals are currently in detention for 21 days while they are being investigated by Kuwaiti authorities for “membership in a prohibited party, money laundering and spying.”Lebanon is in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with several Arab Gulf countries, including Kuwait, over the continually expanding role and power that Hezbollah has in Lebanon. The US has also continued to impose sanctions on Hezbollah-affiliated businessmen, a process that went into overdrive under former President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. The US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions against nearly 1,000 people or entities linked to Hezbollah in and outside of Lebanon. Most recently, in October, the US sanctioned MP Jamil Sayyed and two other businesspeople who have close ties to Hezbollah were sanctioned after accusations of corruption and undermining rule of law in Lebanon. In September, the US sanctioned businessman Morteza Minaye Hashemi for supporting the Quds Force, a secretive group within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and major backer of Hezbollah, and Chinese nationals Yan Su Xuan and Song Jing for their aiding of Hashemi.
Symbolic moves
Middle East independent analyst Bachar el-Halabi says that this action by Australia is purely symbolic and will have little impact on the Lebanese group. “Australia is insignificant for Hezbollah’s global network of financiers and supporters and such designation from the Australian side is more political than legal,” Halabi told NOW. He argued that one of the most important designations that might have really impacted Hezbollah was by Germany in April 2020, when the European nation banned all activity of the Lebanese group on German soil following pressure from Israel and the United States.
The European Union as a whole banned Hezbollah’s military wing in July 2013, also after intense lobbying by both the Israeli and US governments. According to Halabi, Germany has a large Lebanese Shiite community, with a significant portion throwing their support behind Hezbollah.
In the German capital of Berlin and in other parts of the country, Hezbollah flags have been openly displayed on windows and balconies, he said. In addition to this, according to the German government, Hezbollah had several NGOs that were linked to the group, which they used to “send money and support the party.”Halabi also pointed out how Hezbollah and Germany, historically, “enjoyed really good diplomatic relations”. Germany played an important role in mediating prisoner swaps between Hezbollah and Israel in 2008. Designations and sanctions against Hezbollah might have an impact internationally, Halabi says, but locally, they are unlikely to impact the group’s power and image, mainly due to Iran’s unwavering support and the financial and military backing of the organization. “In Lebanon, nothing will impact Hezbollah’s standing as long as it has the weapons and as long as the regime in Tehran remains in power,” Halabi stated. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is set to give a speech on Friday, where many expect that he will mention the recent designation by Australia. “I think he would brush it off,” Halabi said. “Or [he may] use it as part of his conspiracy rhetoric about the world punishing Lebanon because of Hezbollah.”
*Nicholas Frakes is a multimedia journalist with @NOW_leb. He tweets @nicfrakesjourno.

Hezbollah experiencing political confusion, says political analyst
Najia Hossari/Arab New/November 24/2021
BEIRUT: Hezbollah is experiencing political confusion, writer and political analyst Sana Aljak said on Wednesday, amid reports of a disagreement between the party and the Amal Movement headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on their earlier call to remove Judge Tarek Bitar from his investigation into last year's Beirut port blast.
The government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati has been stuck over how to respond to calls for Bitar's removal, and the positive atmosphere that prevailed in a meeting on Monday between Berri, Mikati and President Michel Aoun had not materialized into concrete steps by the middle of the week.
There were also claims of a dispute between Berri and Hezbollah on the solutions proposed for resuming Cabinet meetings.
The two allies have boycotted the meetings since Oct. 12, against the backdrop of the port blast investigation, and the government turmoil has been aggravated by a provocative statement from Information Minister George Kordahi about the war in Yemen.
The meeting on Lebanon’s Independence Day produced, according to the information that followed, “flexibility, positivity, and openness to resolving outstanding problems.”
There has been an increasing level of conversation about solutions related to Kordahi. There are also reports that Aoun promised to facilitate understanding on solutions provided that the prime minister, after his Vatican visit to meet Pope Francis, invited a Cabinet session that conveyed to the international community the government’s seriousness about implementing commitments to save Lebanon from collapse.
The information circulated said the way out regarding Hezbollah’s demand to suspend Bitar was to limit his powers.
Accordingly, out of respect for the provisions of the constitution, Bitar should not be allowed to investigate accused officials, including ministers, MPs and a former prime minister, and try these officials before the Supreme Council for the trial of presidents and ministers.
This solution requires that Bitar be removed from the trial of political officials, rather than suspending him entirely.
Respecting the constitution was a requirement for Berri as well as other political parties, especially since the prime minister reiterated his refusal to interfere in the work of the judiciary and was committed to the separation of powers.
But this solution, according to the information circulated, means withdrawing the demand for Bitar's dismissal, a condition that Hezbollah is sticking to in order to let its ministers attend Cabinet sessions.
This development has led to claims of disagreement between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.
MP Mohammed Khawaja, a member of the Parliamentary Development and Liberation Bloc headed by Berri, confirmed that the speaker “has been making, since the beginning of the crisis, every effort for the return of the government to business and address the thorny files, including the judicial file, whose course is required to be corrected as a starting point to the rest of the issues, foremost of which is the living conditions that affect all citizens and pressurize most of the Lebanese who have become poor.”
Khawaja said: “It is natural that there is a difference in attitudes between the Amal Movement and Hezbollah, especially in their view of internal political affairs and how to deal with them since they are not one party. The two parties meet on strategic matters and complement each other. There is no need to exaggerate the dispute.”
Aljak said the dispute was “a division of roles” between Hezbollah and Berri.
She told Arab News: “Hezbollah was not able to completely remove Bitar from the file, so the party tried to overthrow the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, who protects Bitar. But it could not (do) either. Hezbollah, which is very powerful in Lebanon, has found that it is incapable of controlling everything and that it is even helpless. The party is now entering into reconciliation with the tribes of Khaldeh, that is, with the murderer of one of its leaders. Hezbollah can no longer use the excess power it possesses. When he boasts that he has 100,000 fighters, this is a sign of weakness, not strength.”
Aljak referred to the attack by a Hezbollah leader, Ghaleb Abu Zainab, against political leaders last Monday, and how the party was forced to say that he did not represent the party's positions.
“This is evidence that Hezbollah has reached a stage where it thought it could control everything, but suddenly it discovered that its excess power did not benefit it. Hezbollah intervened in many places in the region, but what did it gain? Everyone is talking about an Iranian occupation. Hezbollah's prestige has declined. Hezbollah has become like a dictator who no longer bothers to convince people to like him, but suddenly discovers that people hate him.
“The party no longer knows how to get out of all the places it has been involved in,” Aljak added.

شارل الياس شرتوني: حزب الله ووضع حد للاستثناء السيادي
Mettre fin à l’extraterritorialité du Hezbollah
Charles Elias Chartouni/Novembre 24/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/104381/charles-elias-chartouni-mettre-fin-a-lextraterritorialite-du-hezbollah-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d9%86%d9%87%d8%a7%d9%8a/

La décision de l’Australie de classer le Hezbollah organisation terroriste et mettre fin aux équivoques statutaires dont il se prévaut, est une démarche de bon augure dont il faudrait se saisir afin de finir avec l’extraterritorialité dont il se réclame au sein de la communauté nationale libanaise. L’Etat-lige qu’est le Liban doit sa fiction juridique d’État à l’alternance des vassalités qui lui ont concédé des statuts intérimaires d’existence nationale. L’importance de la démarche australienne, qui succède à celle des États Unis et de l’Allemagne, tient au fait qu’elle dénie à cette organisation terroriste et de criminalité organisée tout statut juridique qui lui permette d’avaliser une"normalité" et un mandement pro-étatique qui lui ont permis tout au long des trois dernières décennies, d’opérer sur la base d’une extraterritorialité de fait. Il est impossible de redonner au Liban une raison d’être étatique en perdurant le paralogisme de l’"armée, peuple, résistance" et des inepties auxquelles il a donné lieu, en en faisant un subterfuge juridique derrière lequel s’abritent des réalités disparates qui pourfendent la souveraineté libanaise, et des visées politiques impériales qui se recommandent de la politique de subversion chiite pilotée par l’Iran sur le plan régional.
Il est impératif de poursuivre cette politique de mise au ban de la communauté internationale d’une formation politique qui usurpe d’une titulature concédée par l’état de fiction juridique à laquelle se trouve être relégué l’État libanais, qui n’est que la sommation des condominiums alternatifs qui se succèdent depuis soixante ans. Ce travail de balisage bute sur un obstacle de taille, celui de la représentativité du Hezbollah au sein de la communauté chiite libanaise, de la contestation de légitimité de l’entité nationale libanaise qui prévaut dans le discours politique chiite, de l’état larvé de guerre civile, de l’instrumentalisation du Liban comme plateforme de subversion et de criminalité organisée, de la marginalité à laquelle notre pays est voué sur le plan international, et de l’état d’implosion d’une aire sans ancrages normatif ou géopolitique . Nous sommes face à un travail de recadrage qui ne peut pas faire l’économie d’un balisage conceptuel et de reconstruction des paradigmes étatiques et ceux d’un ordre régional en éclats.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 24-25/2021
Syria Says Israeli Attack Kills 2 Civilians
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
An Israeli "air aggression" on Syria's central region killed two civilians and injured seven others, official media said on Wednesday. State media said Syrian air defenses intercepted the attack above the city of Homs. "An Israeli air aggression targeted parts of the central region, and the air defenses are responding," it said. Two civilians were killed, and one civilian and six soldiers were injured in the attack, Syrian state TV said. The attack also resulted in material damage.

IAEA Chief Says He 'Could Not Agree' in Talks with Iran
Agence France Presse/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
The U.N. nuclear watchdog's head said on Wednesday that he "could not agree" in talks with Iranian officials to resolve disputes over the monitoring of the country's atomic program, a day after returning from Tehran. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the quarterly meeting of the board of governors that his talks in Tehran were "inconclusive," despite what he had earlier described as "intense" negotiations. "We could not agree yesterday, in spite of my best efforts," Grossi told reporters on Wednesday, shortly after addressing the board meeting. Among other officials in Tehran, he met Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. He had been hoping to make progress on several points of contention between the agency and Tehran. These include the constraints put on IAEA inspections activity earlier this year, outstanding questions over the presence of undeclared nuclear material at sites in Iran, and the treatment of IAEA staff in the country. The talks came ahead of the scheduled resumption on Monday of negotiations between Tehran and world powers aimed at reviving the 2015 deal that gave Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

IAEA Chief Says Negotiations in Iran Proved Inconclusive
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told his agency's Board of Governors on Wednesday that negotiations he had held in Tehran this week over Iran's nuclear program had proved inconclusive. Grossi returned from Tehran on Tuesday after meeting the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization and Iran's foreign minister as he sought to strike a deal with Iran to reinstall four of his agency's cameras at a centrifuge-parts workshop that was the victim of apparent sabotage, Reuters said. But he appeared to return without progress leaving a thorn in the side of relations between Iran and the West days before indirect talks between Tehran and Washington over reviving the battered 2015 Iran nuclear deal resume on Monday. "Despite my best efforts, these extensive negotiations and deliberations to address Iran's outstanding safeguards issues, detailed in the two reports, proved inconclusive," Grossi told the 35-nation Board of Governors at the start of its quarterly meeting, according to the text of the speech sent to reporters. He was referring to reports recently issued by the agency. The standoff over the Karaj workshop that makes parts for advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, is one of several issues that have soured relations between Iran and the IAEA and angered Western powers that say Tehran must back down. The IAEA also wants answers from Iran on the origin of uranium particles found at several apparently old but undeclared sites, and has told its member states that Iran keeps subjecting its inspectors to "excessively invasive searches, which resulted in them feeling intimidated" during security checks. The United States and its European allies would normally pressure Iran on those issues by trying to pass a resolution against it at the quarterly meetings. With the wider talks on the 2015 deal due to resume on Monday after a five-month break, however, diplomats say it is unlikely there will be any such attempt for fear of jeopardizing those talks.

Envoy Says U.S. Will Not 'Sit Idly' If Iran Drags out Nuclear Talks

Associated Press/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
The United States will not "sit idly" on Iran if it does not work quickly to return to a nuclear accord in talks resuming next week, the U.S. special envoy said. "If they start getting too close, too close for comfort, then of course we will not be prepared to sit idly," U.S. negotiator Rob Malley told National Public Radio.   

Iran Executes Man Arrested For Murder At Age 17                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
AFP/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Iran executed a man Wednesday who was arrested for murder at the age of 17, the judiciary said, despite appeals to spare his life by rights groups including Amnesty International. Arman Abdolali was executed at dawn in Rajai Shahr prison near Tehran, in line with the “qesas” eye-for-an-eye style justice demanded by the victim’s family, said the judiciary’s Mizan Online website. Amnesty International had appealed on October 11 for Iran to halt the execution of the 25-year-old who was arrested in 2014 and later convicted of murdering his girlfriend. The London-based rights group said he had been sentenced to death twice but that the execution was stopped both times following an international outcry. It said Abdolali had first been sentenced to death in December 2015 after “a grossly unfair trial” by a court that “relied on torture-tainted ‘confessions'” following his girlfriend’s disappearance the year before. It said Abdolali was sentenced to death again in 2020 in a retrial, as the court ruled that the teenager was responsible for the acts in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Amnesty reported. UN human rights experts also appealed to Iran to halt the execution. “International human rights law unequivocally forbids imposition of the death sentence on anyone under 18 years of age,” said the Geneva-based UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2020, there were 246 executions in Iran, according to Amnesty International. Iran has often faced international criticism for executing people convicted of crimes committed when they were minors, in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that has been ratified by the Islamic republic.

Israel, Morocco Ink Defense Deal after Normalizing Ties

Associated Press/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Israel and Morocco signed a landmark agreement Wednesday that lays the foundation for security cooperation, intelligence sharing, and future arms sales. The memorandum of understanding is the centerpiece of a visit this week by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to Morocco, which established formal relations with Israel last year as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. Gantz's trip is the first official visit by an Israeli defense minister to one of the Arab states that normalized ties under the accords. In a statement, Gantz said that the agreement was "very significant and will allow us to exchange ideas, enter joint projects and enable Israeli military exports here."The agreement was signed during a meeting between Gantz and his Moroccan counterpart Abdellatif Loudiyi in Rabat, with military attaches and two Israeli parliament members in attendance. Gantz also met with the Moroccan military chief of staff, and was greeted by a color guard of soldiers clad in red tunics, blue slacks and gleaming gold epaulets. Ahead of his meeting with Loudiyi, Gantz paid his respects at the tomb of Mohamed V, the grandfather of the reigning monarch. Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the Trump administration. Israel and Morocco enjoyed low-level diplomatic relations in the 1990s, but Morocco severed them after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000. Despite that, the two states have maintained informal relations. Nearly half a million Israelis claim Moroccan heritage — more than 200,000 immigrated to Israel after the founding of the state in 1948 — and thousands visit the country each year. Morocco is still home to a small Jewish community, and Rabat has one remaining synagogue, where Gantz will visit at the close of his two-day trip. In exchange for Morocco normalizing relations with Israel, the Trump administration promised in December 2020 to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed north African territory. The announcement upset decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that Western Sahara's status should be settled by a U.N. referendum. Since then, the Biden administration has cautiously walked back that recognition. The Abraham Accords broke a longstanding consensus among Arab states that normalization with Israel only take place as part of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because of that, the Palestinians view the agreements as a betrayal that eroded their leverage with Israel.

Russian-Palestinian Summit Discusses Mechanisms to Revive Political Settlement
Moscow - Raed Jaber/ Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a round of “comprehensive and detailed” talks on Tuesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Kremlin said. Putin underlined his country’s commitment to a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “on the basis of the relevant international resolutions and within the framework of a just solution that achieves the interests of all parties.” Abbas reiterated his call for organizing an international conference for the Middle East. At the beginning of the meeting, which took place in the Russian resort of Sochi on the Black Sea, Putin stressed that Moscow’s “firm position on settling the Palestinian issue has not changed.” “The Palestinian problem must be resolved in accordance with previous UN Security Council resolutions, on a just basis that takes into account the interests of all,” the Russian president said, pledging to “continue to work towards achieving this goal, no matter how difficult it is.” On bilateral relations, Putin said it was necessary to resume the work of the joint intergovernmental commission between Russia and Palestine as soon as possible. Abbas emphasized his appreciation of Russia’s firm position in support of Palestinian rights, and pointed to the importance of maintaining coordination in order to address major developments facing Palestine and the region.
Prior to his arrival in Russia, the Palestinian president announced his intention to discuss ways to revive the political process. In an interview with the Russian Sputnik agency, he said that he was counting on discussing the process with Putin, stressing his confidence in Russian support. He added that he was hinging on Moscow’s backing to organize an international peace conference. “If the two-state solution is not implemented, there will be other alternatives, including going to a one-state solution for all Palestinian and Israeli citizens living on the land of historic Palestine, or returning to the partition resolution issued in 1947,” Abbas told the agency. Earlier, Moscow confirmed its endeavor to revive the work of the International Quartet on the Middle East. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed disappointment over the reluctance of “some parties” to accept the repeated Russian invitation to hold a meeting at the level of foreign ministers of the Quartet. The committee, which includes Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, held three video conferences in the past months at the level of delegates, but Moscow insisted that in order to push the talks further, a meeting must be organized at the ministerial level to take decisions and establish practical mechanisms to advance the settlement process in the Middle East.

Damascus Reports Bombing of US Base East of the Euphrates
Qamishli: Kamal Cheikhou - Damascus: Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Sources in Damascus reported that a US base in northeastern Syria was bombed with five rockets at a time when a fierce campaign is being led against US economic aid being given to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The Kharab al-Jir military base used by US forces in the Hasaka Governorate in northeastern Syria was targeted by rockets, reported the Syrian state news agency SANA. According to the report, five rockets were fired at the base. No casualties have been reported. The sources explained that “immediately after the targeting of the base, the area witnessed an intense flight of helicopters and warplanes belonging to US forces.” According to SANA, US bases in the Al-Omar oil and Konico gas fields in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor and Kharab Al-Jir in the Hasaka countryside have been subjected to several missile attacks during the past two months.
“US forces removed a military convoy of 110 vehicles from their base at Kharab al-Jir airbase in the Hasaka countryside to northern Iraq through the illegal Al-Waleed crossing,” added SANA. Meanwhile, laboratory analysis at the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform have proven the invalidity of the Turkish-origin wheat seeds, which have been provided by the US forces through the so-called US Agency for International Development “USAID” to the farmers in several areas in the Qamishli countryside. “The Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Directorate in Hasaka province sent a sample of the wheat seeds provided by the American occupation to the laboratories of the Ministry of Agriculture, and it was found that they are not suitable for cultivation,” Head of the Directorate Eng. Said Hajji said in a statement to SANA. He warned farmers in the Qamishli countryside and the region against using these seeds, calling to destroy them and not plant them because the damage they cause will last for years and put the agricultural lands out of investment.

Qatari Ambassador In Gaza For Talks With Hamas, Israel
Ramallah - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Palestinian officials said that Qatari Ambassador Mohammad al-Emadi, who heads the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza, is working to achieve the implementation of an agreement with Egypt and Israel on the salaries of Hamas government employees in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Emadi is visiting the Gaza Strip to meet with Hamas and Israeli officials to finalize the agreement on supplying fuel and basic building materials for the area, which will resolve the salary crisis for Hamas government employees.
In this regard, the head of the government media office in the Gaza Strip, Salameh Maarouf, said the Qatari-Egyptian agreement was ready, adding that the relevant authorities in the Gaza Strip were waiting for the start of the fuel pumping operations.“Qatar will pay the value of the monthly grant to Gaza employees, which ranges between seven and ten million dollars in the form of fuel that will be delivered through the Rafah crossing, and then sold in the markets, provided that the money will be supplied to the treasury of the Ministry of Finance, which will be paid later for the benefit of the employees,” the Palestinian official said. The move came a few days after Israeli sources confirmed an expected breakthrough in the file, after long months of dispute over the matter. The sources revealed intensive efforts in Israel, Egypt and Qatar to reach an agreement on the mechanism for paying the salary grant to tens of thousands of employees in Gaza, in a move aimed at maintaining calm and delaying any possible escalation with the Gaza Strip. Since the last escalation in May, Qatar has paid twice a financial grant to 95,000 families in the Gaza Strip (USD 100 per family), after a long pause due to Israeli objections and Tel Aviv’s insistence on finding a new mechanism, which was finally reached in agreement with the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations. Qatar distributed the funds through the United Nations and via specific distribution centers in the governorates of the Gaza Strip.

Security Forces Disperse Student Demonstration in Iraqi Kurdistan
Sulaymaniyah – Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Security forces in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, on Tuesday, dispersed thousands of students partaking in a demonstration demanding the restoration of monthly payments. Riot police disbanded the protest, firing shots in the air and a volley of tear gas canisters. Such turmoil and severe social inequalities affect the image of the Kurdistan region, which is trying to emerge as a haven for stability and economic prosperity in an Iraq that repeated wars have undermined. According to AFP, thousands of students gathered on Tuesday for the third day in a row in front of Sulaymaniyah University and blocked the highway linking Sulaymaniyah to the city of Kirkuk. Demonstrators are demanding the repayment of $40-$66 monthly allowances that were granted to students but have been suspended since 2014. The financial stipend program was frozen after the collapse of global oil prices and due to budget disputes between Kurdistan and Baghdad. Security forces fired tear gas canisters at the demonstrators several times before firing warning shots into the air to force the students to disperse. This was followed by hit-and-run raids in the city featuring security forces and protesters who set piles of trash on fire. “We, as students, are demonstrating because of the six-year cut-off in stipends,” said one of the protesters under the conditions of anonymity. “We desperately need this small amount. There are students among our colleagues who are unable to travel to their home in the districts and sub-districts due to the lack of sufficient funds for that,” they added. “There are other students who can’t eat three meals a day,” revealed the protester. “The protesters’ demands are legitimate. Students are suffering from a difficult economic situation, and the government must respond to their demands,” said Sara Qadr, a PhD student at the Sulaymaniyah University.

Egyptian President Vows to Enhance Regional Economic Integration
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has pledged to achieve his country's vision of deepening economic integration among the regional countries and speed up the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. During his presidency of the 21st session of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African Countries (COMESA), Sisi stressed the vital role played by the regional economic group to achieve sustainable development for member states. In his acceptance speech to the presidency of the COMESA gathering, Sisi stressed the necessity of joint efforts to confront the challenges in the region, noting that the global and regional economies have witnessed many developments since the last COMESA summit in 2018. The president indicated that the progress made in continental economic integration has also been accompanied by many challenges.Despite the efforts made to confront the coronavirus pandemic, the region is still suffering from its repercussions and the recovery is slow. He explained that the achievements demonstrate a true will and a firm determination of COMESA member states to realize "regional economic integration in the area, by adopting the best practices and policies to free trade among our countries, upgrade the infrastructure, achieve industrial development, and work toward attracting more investments to the region.""This summit came up with tangible results represented in the launch of the COMESA medium-term Strategy 2021-2025, which came as evidence of a clear and thoughtful vision by all member states to enhance cooperation in all fields."Sisi confirmed Egypt's full support and continued assistance to all the African peoples in their pursuit of achieving regional economic integration. "We have confidence in the strength and determination of the continent's peoples to lead their countries towards achieving peace, security, stability, and justice, being the pillars for realizing economic development."Sisi explained that the repercussions of the pandemic assert the importance of regional integration and joint action to confront it. He indicated that the joint market must develop a clear plan to create regional integration in the health sector and national policies to ensure easy access to medical and pharmaceutical products among member states. The president urged member states to increase awareness among the citizens of the COMESA region to benefit from the COVID-19 vaccines.

Sudan: Hamdok to Review Appointments Made by Military
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok will review appointments and dismissals made by the military to key state posts, the General Secretariat of the cabinet said. After seizing power on Oct. 25, Sudan's military rulers drew on veteran ex-officials of toppled leader Omar al-Bashir for important positions in the state bureaucracy. Hamdok, who was arrested during the coup and then reinstated under a deal with the military reached on Sunday, issued a directive to freeze all hiring and dismissals in state jobs. "In addition, all the appointments and dismissals that have taken place in the previous period will be placed under study, evaluation and review," Reuters quoted the secretariat as saying. According to a statement from his office, Hamdok also said that an investigation has been launched into violations committed against protesters. Hamdok's comments came during a meeting on Tuesday evening with a group from the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), the main civilian coalition opposing military rule. FFC had previously said on Sunday that it does not recognize any political agreement with the military leadership. The group stressed during the meeting the importance of laying out a roadmap to implementing the political agreement, reversing all political appointments that took place after the military takeover and reinstating all those who were fired during that period, according to the statement. Last week, protesters and a Reuters witness said they saw security forces chase protesters into neighborhoods and homes to carry out arrests. At least 15 people were shot dead during the anti-coup protests, according to medics. Hamdok and the group called for political prisoners to be released as soon as possible and for the right to peacefully protest to be respected.

US Describes Hamdok, Burhan Agreement as 'First Step’
Washington - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, urged Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and the head of the Sovereign Council, Lieutenant-General Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan, to work rapidly to put Sudan's democratic transition back on track. State Department spokesman Ned Price stated that Blinken recognized the "important first step" taken with the release and reinstatement to the office of Hamdok but noted the outstanding transitional tasks. However, Blinken urged the need to "restore public confidence" in the transition and immediately release all political detainees, calling for the immediate lifting of the state of emergency. He underscored the imperative for all parties to renew their focus on completing Sudan's transition to democracy by implementing the transitional tasks outlined in the Constitutional Declaration and the Juba Peace Agreement. He reiterated the US' calls to respect peaceful protests and called on the security forces to desist from violence against demonstrators. The Secretary urged Hamdok and Burhan to take timely action to implement the elements of the agreement reached on November 21 in fulfillment of the aspirations of the Sudanese people, including creating a transitional legislative council, judicial structures, electoral institutions, and a constitutional convention. Both voiced their support for an effective and mutually beneficial US-Sudan relationship, reported the spokesman.
Asked about the $700 million in economic assistance to Sudan, Price said that "we don't have any announcements to make at this time regarding our assistance, any changes to our posture," noting that the decisions will be predicated entirely on what happens in the "coming hours, in the coming days, in the coming weeks." The spokesman noted that the US message is to continue to see progress, and Sudan must move back down the democratic path, which starts with the reinstitution of the prime minister, but it certainly doesn't end there. "We are encouraged by what we've seen so far, but this cannot – it must not – be the final step in what we see going forward."US Senator Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the agreement between Hamdok and Burhan reflects the complexity and imbalance of Sudan's democratic transition.
"While we all hope this deal will bring Sudan closer to the democracy desired by the Sudanese citizens that drove the 2019 revolution and helped install Prime Minister Hamdok, I remain skeptical,” Risch said.
He noted that the deal does not change the fact that Sudan's military leaders carried out a coup on October 25, seized power, and senselessly killed protesters demanding the restoration of the civilian-led transition.
"The United States must continue to support the Sudanese people in their quest for a more democratic country, insist on civilian leadership of the country, and hold accountable those who seek to undermine Sudan's future," he concluded.
Meanwhile, UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN confirms the need to protect the constitutional system and fundamental freedoms of political action in Sudan. He urged partners in the transitional phase to urgently address outstanding issues to complete the political transition while respecting human rights and the rule of law.

US Renews Support for Morocco’s Self-Determination in Sahara Dispute
Rabat - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 24 November, 2021
Washington renewed its support for the Moroccan initiative for self-determination by describing it as a durable and dignified resolution to the conflict in Western Sahara. “We continue to view Morocco’s autonomy plan as serious, credible, and realistic, and one potential approach to satisfy the aspirations of the people of Western Sahara,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press release following a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, in Washington on Monday. Price said Blinken and Bourita expressed strong support for the new Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General, Staffan de Mistura, in leading the UN-led political process for Western Sahara. The two ministers also discussed a range of regional issues, including the continued deepening of relations between Morocco and Israel. They hailed the upcoming first anniversary of the Joint Declaration among Morocco, Israel, and the United States on December 22, which enshrined the US recognition of Morocco's full sovereignty over the Sahara. In December 2020, US President Donald Trump announced his recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in return for Rabat agreeing to normalize relations with Israel. The Blinken-Bourita meeting came two days before the unprecedented visit of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz to Rabat that kicked off on Tuesday. In a brief statement before the start of talks with Bourita, the US top diplomat welcomed the "solid and longstanding" partnership between the US and Morocco, while reaffirming the will of his country to further consolidate it. For his part, the Moroccan minister highlighted the centuries-old and multidimensional relations binding the two countries as well as the importance of further consolidating them in the face of common challenges, in accordance with the Vision of King Mohammed VI. "We have a very longstanding partnership and it is time to enrich it further, to enrich our strategic dialogue, our military cooperation, and defend our interests and our values in the world," he said. Bourita mentioned, on this occasion, a series of common challenges, including climate change, extremism, peace and security, all of which, he said, "give more relevance to this relation.”

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 24-25/2021
How Would Syria Change and 'Moderate?'
Hazem Saghieh/ Asharq Al-Awsat/November 24/2021
Barack Obama’s decision to reject every form of intervention in Syria, limiting himself to fighting ISIS, revealed his weak sense of moral responsibility. However, and this is what concerns us here, his decision didn’t demonstrate political or strategic ingenuity either. Upon assessing some of the repercussions of the United States’ gradual withdrawal from the region, starting with Iraq, we find that what is more dangerous is the view that denies the significance of Syria, as well as the importance of Iraq.
Nevertheless, denying the importance of Syria- which has a substantial impact on Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and the conflict with Israel, and has some impact on Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Turkey- is taking different forms than that of Obama’s abandonment. We also have those implicated in belittling Syria and the Syrian people through engaging with its affairs. Among the manifestations of this trend, which rears its head every few years before swiftly putting it down after hitting a wall, is the theory of changing the Syrian regime from the inside, or at least changing its foreign alliances.
Let’s remember, here, that intermittent attempts to turn Syria from a country allied with the Soviet camp to one allied with the Western camp were made by Arab and Western powers during the fifties. At the time, in what Patrick Seal called the “struggle for Syria,” the attempts also bore very little fruit. Syria broke the monopoly of Western weaponry and introduced Soviet arms into the region before throwing itself so deep into Gamal Abdel Nasser’s lap that it disappeared. That did not happen without blood being spilled under the pretext of Officer Adnan al-Malki’s assassination.
How are the fifties similar to today, and Soviet Moscow to Khomeinist Tehran?
The beginning of the answer to the question has to do with the Syrian regime itself: in the fifties, it was a military and security regime, though hidden behind a political and parliamentary facade, and today it is far more of a military security regime. On top of that, its apprehensions are far more grave today, given Bashar al-Assad’s inability to take the reins and control his country and the fact that he has to share power with several internal and external forces. We also know that these forces’ intervention is what protected him from falling in the years preceding 2014.
And so, the first thing this regime needs, what it puts above any other consideration, is the provision of the tools needed to protect itself from its people. As for the only matter that could leave it reluctant and hesitant, it is a clash between its primary sources of its protection, Iran on land and Russia from the air, while opting for the former is likely if there is no choice between the two.
What distinguishes the Iranian (and Russian) regime, the quality that makes it irreplaceable, is that it is willing to protect the Syrian regime without stopping to think about the position, will, and suffering of the Syrian people for one second. The exact opposite is true: the resemblance between the regime supporting and the one being supported makes the arrangement uniquely appealing in the eyes of both.
For this reason, and because of the military-security regime’s longevity, Syria has been, between 1949 and today, the “Third World” country most opposed to the West, most prone to clashing with the countries that surround it, and most hostile to and skeptical about regional settlements. This is in the DNA of the Syrian military-security regime. Indeed, it is more than a little indicative that the moments in which Western and Arab powers cooperated with this regime came to nothing worth mentioning. Neither did it put Lebanon back in order, nor did it leave Syria included in a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict, nor did it undermine Damascus’ relationship with Iran in any way.
Some of those moments were very caricatural, like Husni al-Zaim’s regime which, in 1949, inaugurated the military coups. That regime, which was linked to Zaim’s deal with the US oil company Tapline, fell after only four months.
This early experience proves that Western states, even if they wanted to, were not equipped to support a security-military regime in Syria. On the other hand, such a regime supported by the West would necessarily be a caricature. The Soviet Union and Khomienist Iran are immeasurably better equipped and prepared for this task.
True, the military-security regime can open up to others in the region or the world described as “moderate,” either out of covetousness for financial aid or to give the impression that it is making a breakthrough, and Hafez al-Assad excelled at this for years. However, this regime is not drawn, viscerally and structurally, to any regimes but those that have weapons and nothing but weapons, regimes that would recommend greater severity in dealing with the Syrian people if consulted, seeing the rights they enjoy as excessive.
This is especially true today, as Iran is more offensive and radical than it has ever been, exactly as the Soviet Union had been at the beginning of the Cold War, especially after Joseph Stalin’s death and Moscow developing its strategy for the Arab world. Of course, in both cases, we have Israel, the West’s greed and the rest of the tune that goes with it to cement these alliances.
And so, the scenarios circulating today about Syria “moderating” its regional politics are not convincing. Syria only changes or “moderates” in one case: when protecting the regime stops being the top priority and the Syrian people, as free individuals and free communities, are allowed to build their future and strive to realize their interests as they themselves see them.

How America Lost Its Leverage on Iran
Richard Goldberg/Mosaic-FDD/November 24, 2021
Ten years ago, two senators, one Republican and one Democrat, joined together to force America to sanction Iran. In the years since, the leverage they built has dissipated. Why?
Next week, President Joe Biden will send his envoys back to Vienna for yet another round of indirect talks with Iran. This will be Iran’s first multilateral engagement over its nuclear program since President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August. But while the cast has changed, the Iranian script remains the same as it was when negotiations began during Barack Obama’s first term: buy time to stabilize an economy freed of the burdens imposed by U.S. sanctions enforcement, obscure its clandestine nuclear activities from international inspectors, and secure future pathways to nuclear weapons.
Without an unexpected change in direction, it should come as no surprise if, in the months ahead, we learn of an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities—or that Iran has tested a nuclear weapon. But for those in Congress who still hold out hope that Iran’s nuclear program can be dismantled through coercive diplomacy, the window for taking action is closing fast. A showdown in Congress about whether to preserve any economic leverage over Tehran may soon emerge from Biden’s diplomatic foray in Vienna. The results may leave America with only two options: military action or a nuclear-armed Iran.
This month marks the tenth anniversary of one of the most impressive foreign-policy accomplishments in the history of the Senate. Facing the ever-growing threat from Iran’s nuclear program, alongside the regime’s continued sponsorship of terrorism and accelerated ballistic-missile development, two U.S. senators—the Republican Mark Kirk and the Democrat Robert Menendez—introduced an amendment to the annual defense bill that would impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions would attack the economic lifeblood of the Islamic Republic—its oil export revenue—and cut the country off from the international financial system.
At the time, the price of oil hovered above $100 a barrel. The Obama administration fiercely opposed the amendment, fearing it could cause gas prices to spike in an election year and alienate U.S. allies that purchase Iranian crude. But Kirk and Menendez secured a unanimous vote in favor of the amendment.
Years later, President Obama would credit these sanctions with bringing Iran to the table to negotiate what would become the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). President Trump would then restore these sanctions and add new ones, in what his administration termed a “maximum-pressure” campaign, but it was the Menendez-Kirk amendment that forced other countries to cease importing oil from the Islamic Republic, dramatically reducing the regime’s accessible foreign-exchange reserves.
Rather than use the current sanctions to force Iran into a “longer and stronger” version of the JCPOA—in the words of Secretary of State Antony Blinken—the Biden administration has during these last nine months rolled back the Trump-era economic pressure. Although some of the White House’s defenders have pointed out that the sanctions are still formally on the books, that is hardly relevant, since the Treasury Department simply hasn’t been enforcing them.
A key tool of economic pressure is what are called secondary sanctions: if an entity from a third country, such as China, buys Iranian oil, the U.S. can use these sanctions to cut off Chinese state-owned enterprises from the American financial system. But if China understands that a president will not enforce U.S. sanctions, then it will violate them. And, indeed, that’s exactly what we’ve seen this entire year as Chinese imports of Iranian oil have increased dramatically with barely a peep from Washington.
Market psychology, too, plays a role. When the market perceives that sanctions are being enforced and more are the on the way, a regime like Iran enters a downward economic spiral from which it cannot escape. When the market perceives no more sanctions are coming and that sanctions may not even be enforced, the spiral is replaced with a flywheel—and the economy stabilizes. Biden, moreover, has also provided billions of dollars to Iran in direct sanctions relief, dramatically expanding its ability to use previously inaccessible foreign-exchange reserves to repay foreign debts and to import any goods that could conceivably be defined as “humanitarian” or “COVID-related.”
In short, there is no maximum economic pressure in place today. There hasn’t been since January. The failure to coax concessions out of Iran isn’t a result of an overreliance on sanctions, but of their underutilization.
Ten years on, America needs another Menendez-Kirk moment.
A return to the JCPOA, which the Biden administration professes to be its primary objective, would not prevent an Iranian bomb. The nuclear pact guaranteed Tehran pathways to advanced centrifuges, stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium, and nuclear-capable missiles within a few short years. It did not put Iran’s nuclear program “in a box,” as Biden’s advisers suggest, but rather on a slow and steady glide-path to the threshold of nuclear weapons. Iran essentially agreed not to race to a bomb—but to get paid instead to walk calmly toward it over a decade.
During the last year, however, Tehran has raced forward, rapidly expanding its nuclear activities while enjoying Biden’s sanctions relief at the same time. The regime heads to the Vienna talks with a key objective: maintain its nuclear advances and receive sanctions relief at the same time.
That’s essentially what President Biden’s proposed “Plan B” would deliver. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has already signaled that the goal is no longer to return to the JCPOA, and certainly not to achieve a “longer and stronger” deal, but simply to come to some agreement with Iran. Whatever the details, such a deal is apt to involve further easing of the Menendez-Kirk sanctions on Tehran’s central bank in exchange for Iran modestly curtailing its now vastly expanded nuclear program. In short, Iran gets more money to retain a more threating nuclear program. The arrangement might be characterized as interim, temporary, or a bridge to a longer, stronger deal. But once Iran gets more cash and banks its nuclear progress, the odds that it will become a nuclear power before the end of this decade increase significantly.
The administration’s claims that the JCPOA or some other kind of limited nuclear deal would “put a lid” on Iran’s advance to the bomb are deceptions. A lid atop a container with no sides doesn’t contain. Absent a credible threat of military force, and without unrelenting political and economic pressure, the clerical regime will carry the international community on its back, slowly but surely, all the way to the finish line: a test of a nuclear weapon.
To its critics on the left, maximum pressure was a recipe for war, perhaps even intentionally so. Sanctions would eventually meet with a violent response from Tehran, which would in turn provoke a military response from Washington. According to some of these critics, Trump’s talk of using maximum economic pressure to set up a negotiation with Iran over an agreement that was tougher, more comprehensive, and more enduring than the 2015 accord was just a ruse; the administration knew the mullahs would never accede to its conditions, and merely sought a pretext for military intervention.
On the right, some hawks saw the maximum-pressure campaign in the exact opposite light. Economic and political pressure alone, they argued, could never deter the Islamic Republic. Deterrence requires Tehran to believe that the United States is truly on the verge of using overwhelming military force to put the regime in jeopardy. And that belief can only result from a demonstration of Washington’s willingness use force, starting with a rollback of the Iranian military presence throughout the region. In this view, maximum pressure was the politically expedient way for Trump to satisfy his isolationist base while talking a tough game. These critics also worried that Trump’s vision of leveraging maximum economic pressure for a “better nuclear deal” would ultimately lead the president to legitimize and empower an evil and dangerous regime.
Both camps were wrong—at least in that they misunderstood the intention of the framers of maximum pressure. Economic warfare was conceived of as part of a strategy involving political and military power as well as covert action to turn the screws on Iran, based loosely on the approach Ronald Reagan used to defeat the Soviet Union. In practice, the economic element of the maximum-pressure campaign became its defining feature, but the entire strategy could only work if the United States were willing to use force as a last resort: to defend U.S. interests if ever attacked and to destroy nuclear and missile sites if red lines were crossed.
The Iranian response to this approach tested American resolve on two fronts. Starting in June 2019, weeks after Trump’s sanctions sent Iranian oil exports plummeting toward zero, Iran opened a two-pronged counter-pressure campaign: terrorist attacks against U.S. forces and allies, and incremental expansion of its nuclear program.
Trump did not respond militarily that June when Iran shot down an American drone. Nor did he defend Saudi Arabia three months later when its oil infrastructure was attacked. Nor did any retaliation come in the wake of Iranian mine and drone attacks on maritime shipping that same year. This passivity led to a fatal miscalculation in Tehran: that Trump was a Twitter tiger, that Iran would pay no price for continued violence, and that such violence could ultimately erode public opinion back in the United States, forcing Trump to pull back on the maximum-pressure campaign. Trump closed the door on that illusion when he ordered the killing of Qassem Suleimani.
After firing off a salvo of ballistic missiles that left no Americans dead, the Islamic Republic stood down. World War III did not start. The mullahs had executed a face-saving counterattack for propaganda purposes but were unwilling to risk further escalation. And while Iran kept producing more low-enriched uranium than the JCPOA allowed, it refrained from producing highly enriched uranium until it was clear that Trump, by then on his way out of office, was handcuffed from taking military action.
The conclusion from these years is clear: the regime may be made up of religious ideologues irrationally obsessed with the United States and Israel, but the mullahs at their core still fear anything that might threaten their survival. They know they can’t win a conventional war against the United States. And they act accordingly.
Today, it’s hard to imagine that Iran’s supreme leader believes President Biden is willing to use military means to prevent Tehran from crossing the nuclear threshold. Biden’s failure to respond forcefully to an Iran-directed attack on a U.S. base in western Iraq that left an American contractor dead was a reversal of Trump-era doctrine of defending American forces and interests. Even this past month, Biden declined to retaliate after an Iran-directed drone strike against U.S. forces in Syria. Combined with continued sanctions relief, the lack of a credible military threat invites miscalculation and adventurism by the mullahs—both on the nuclear and terrorism fronts.
In August 2013, 77 senators sent a letter to then-President Barack Obama urging him to “reinforce the credibility of our option to use military force” against Iran to deny the regime nuclear weapons. They demanded “a convincing threat of the use of force that Iran will believe,” and concluded that the U.S. “must be prepared to act, and Iran must see that we are prepared.”
The first signature on the letter: Robert Menendez, the current Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But also on the list: now-Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Jack Reed, Kirsten Gillibrand, Richard Blumenthal, and many others.
Legislators should deliver the same message to President Biden along with a clear defense of the Menendez-Kirk sanctions architecture.
The Central Bank of Iran, the National Iranian Oil Company, and the National Iranian Tanker Company are all currently subject to U.S. terrorism sanctions for their financing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It makes little sense to lift sanctions on these entities and allow them to funnel money into terrorist groups in exchange for mild concessions that neither end Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism nor permanently dismantle its nuclear weapons-related infrastructure.
Ideally, Congress should pass a law to prevent President Biden from lifting any terror-related sanctions until Iran has ceased all sponsorship of terrorism—and to establish rigorous oversight and accountability for enforcement. This would keep the Menendez-Kirk amendment fully intact and maintain significant economic leverage for the United States to negotiate something better than Biden’s Plan B.
Even if that’s not possible due to a lack of bipartisan support, members of Congress—and those running for president in 2024—can send a clear message to importers, banks, investors, insurers, and shippers: there is no evidence these institutions have changed their terror-supporting ways; U.S. sanctions will soon return with a vengeance; and investigations will be launched into anyone who did business with Iran’s Terror Inc. while Joe Biden was president.
Noting the loss of American leverage, the lack of an American military threat, and the potential for more Iranian escalation in the weeks ahead, Israel has launched a rather public effort to signal that it is developing its own military option against Iran. Its military is budgeting for preparations for a strike on the Islamic Republic, and sources tell the media the IDF will begin rehearsing various scenarios next year.
The moves feel a bit hokey coming from a military that built up its mystique by operating with a “show don’t tell” philosophy. Indeed, these pronouncements have a distinctly political flavor—especially in the context of the razor-thin majority of the fragile governing coalition and the desire to project strength vis-à-vis Tehran while Benjamin Netanyahu (who billed himself as Mr. Iran) leads the opposition. And President Biden might not mind a little Israeli saber rattling, believing it helpful to empower the negotiation of his disastrous Plan B nuclear arrangement.
No one truly knows the Israeli red line for military action, although there’s little doubt that it’s approaching much faster than America’s. The Israelis believe the U.S. military has the luxury of waiting longer because of its capabilities for penetrating deep underground mountain-covered facilities. The “zone of immunity” for nuclear-weapons capability, therefore, comes much sooner for Israel than it does for the United States.
The conventional wisdom posits that Israel has long maintained the military capability to degrade Iran’s nuclear program but not to destroy it. That may or may not be true. As evidenced by its Hollywood-style covert actions in recent years, the Mossad has deeply penetrated the inner sanctum of the Islamic Republic, gaining an unknown treasure trove of intelligence along the way. Through a combination of bombs, electronic warfare, cyberattacks, and sabotage, the Israeli Air Force, Mossad, and Unit 8200 (Israel’s National Security Agency) might well be able to do considerable damage to Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Whether it can destroy it, rather than just set it back, remains an open question—as does whether it can reach Iran’s under-the-mountain enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.
The Abraham Accords raise the possibility that Israel would no longer have to worry about the air-to-air refueling challenges that a sustained aerial bombing campaign would present, since Israeli jets could land on Arab desert airfields for quick refueling. Jerusalem, in recent days, expressed interest in buying America’s latest bunker-buster, a 5,000-pound bomb that can be launched from an F-15 fighter. The Biden administration should approve that request—and Congress should support it.
But Israel shouldn’t have to do the world’s dirty work. A nuclear-threshold terror-sponsoring regime with long-range missiles presents a grave threat to American national security. And while more creative and bolder than the American military at times, the IDF is no match for the power of the United States.
Mark Kirk was defeated for re-election in 2016. But Menendez is still there, and now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We need another Menendez-Kirk moment a decade after the last. Who will stand up and take on the mantle?
*Richard Goldberg is a Mosaic columnist and senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has served on Capitol Hill, on the U.S. National Security Council, as the chief of staff for Illinois’s governor, and as a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer. Follow Richard on Twitter @rich_goldberg. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

How China Is Trying to Turn the U.S. against Itself
Nathan Picarsic and Emily De La Bruyere/Notional Review/November 24, 2021
Across the country, Beijing has worked to cultivate relationships with state and local governments and private businesses in an effort to advance its agenda
As Congress advances a set of bills to protect against Beijing’s efforts to subvert American democracy, China is using our system of government to block and tackle. On November 12, Reuters reported that Chinese officials have been pressuring American companies, executives, and trade groups to lobby against the legislation, threatening to reduce their share of the Chinese market if the bills pass. Unfortunately, such attempts to turn the U.S. system of government against itself are not new, or unusual. And they take place at the subnational as well as national levels.
In 2015, Xi Jinping visited the United States for the first time since becoming general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During the trip, Xi made the requisite appearance at the White House and attended the 70th anniversary of the United Nations in New York. But those stops were not Xi’s priority. Instead, his first stop was in Seattle, where he attended the third China–U.S. Governors Forum.
The CCP has cemented a subversive influence apparatus across the United States. Xi’s visit to Seattle offers a roadmap of that apparatus: its pervasive presence, its targets, its sprawling objectives, and the cross-cutting mechanisms by which it achieves them. During his two days in Seattle, Xi prioritized three main groups: leading U.S. companies and their executives, local organizations dedicated to fostering closer U.S.–China ties, and, especially, state- and local-level government officials.
The CCP’s active-measures toolkit would make the Soviet Union drool. Beijing directs that toolkit at state and local elected officials, as well as the business, media, and nonprofit sectors. The Reuters report offered just the most recent example of the CCP’s subnational strategy, which is accelerating: Beijing has identified the vulnerable nodes through which it might defeat tough federal China legislation, and U.S. state, local, and nongovernmental actors are largely blind to the threat.
This is unsurprising: It’s not their job to guard against such threats. But it’s also dangerous: Beijing is poised to subvert the subnational U.S. system, turning the country inside-out against itself. The federal government needs to step up, recognize the challenge, and do its job. In the meantime, state and local governments will have to start doing the federal government’s job for it.
“There is a saying in American politics,” wrote Jia Zhongzheng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2017, “that all politics is local.” He suggested that state and local governments could be particularly open to China’s overtures, tempted by promises of trade and investment even when the federal government raised security concerns. “Chinese entrepreneurs who are willing to invest in state governments are generally treated as guests by state politicians and officials, regardless of their party or ruling philosophy,” explained scholars affiliated with the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization in a 2017 piece. Events over the past decade certainly suggest that that has been the case, to the detriment of U.S. prosperity and security. In 2011, the U.S. and China held the inaugural China–U.S. Governors Forum. The state-owned China Daily’s coverage of the event focused on a series of deals that provided China the necessary footholds to hollow out the U.S. renewable-energy industry. At the forum, the Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone in Anhui Province reached a deal with California-based NuvoSun for a thin-film solar-cells project; Asia Silicon (Qinghai) and New Hampshire-based GT Solar agreed to work together; and the chairman of China’s CHINT Group Corporation, a member of the Zhejiang Province delegation, announced plans to “write a billion-dollar check” as part of a partnership with a Missouri-based firm focused on semiconductor- and solar-related wafer products.
The precise details of those agreements remain unclear. What is clear is that the next year, the U.S. Commerce Department found that both Asia Silicon and the CHINT Group, among other Chinese players, were dumping solar products into the American market. Over the decade since, China has established a monopoly position in the international solar-panel supply chain, which the United States once dominated. China has done so in large part thanks to the acquisition of technology from American players, as well as domestic subsidies and preferential policies.
This example underlines the long-term costs that the U.S. private sector and state and local governments invite when they get into bed with Beijing. It also presents a cruel reminder of the human-rights risks that taint such arrangements: Revelations over the past year have made clear that China’s solar-power industry, bolstered by those deals signed at the 2011 Governors Forum, is associated with forced labor and the genocide of the Uyghur ethnic minority in Xinjiang Province. The solar sector has become ground zero in the fight to protect against such atrocities.
When Xi visited the United States in 2015, skirting diplomatic protocol to meet with subnational actors on the West Coast before visiting D.C., John Kerry was secretary of state. Six years later, as State Department climate envoy, Kerry has reportedly lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Asked how he is balancing his desire for climate-change-related cooperation with China and forced labor in the solar-panel supply chain, Kerry said in a November interview that such human-rights atrocities are simply “not my lane.”
This is just another example of Beijing’s active-measures toolkit. The CCP is shaping the incentives of U.S. political leaders and private companies, promising them short-term economic or climate-policy inducements in exchange for Beijing’s longer-term cannibalization of American industry, security, and values. And a decade after the first Governors Forum, the U.S. is still getting suckered.
The Chinese Communist Party seeks a united front of influence across the globe, including in the United States. The U.S. federal government has a responsibility to identify channels of malign influence and block Beijing’s advance on U.S. soil. But doing so will require waking up to the threat and actively coordinating a response with the subnational actors China is targeting across the country. Nathan Picarsic and Emily de La Bruyère are senior fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and co-founders of Horizon Advisory. Their recent report is “All Over the Map: The Chinese Communist Party’s Subnational Interests in the United States.”

In fight against Islamic State, the Taliban holds major advantage
Bill Roggio/FDD/November 24/2021
After defeating the Islamic Government of Afghanistan and taking control of the country on Aug. 15, the Taliban is beginning to ramp up its fight against the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province.
The Islamic State’s Khorasan Province or ISKP, which is often referred to as ISIS-K, has increased attacks against the Taliban over the past two months. ISKP has orchestrated a handful of high-profile suicide attacks on soft targets such as mosques and hospitals, and conducted smaller but more numerous IED and small arms attacks against Taliban military forces. In response, the Taliban has sent more than 1,000 fighters to battle the group in Nangarhar province, the hub of ISKP operations, according to The Washington Post.
Much of the reporting from Afghanistan has boosted the threat of ISKP while ignoring the Taliban’s very real advantages in the fight. The Taliban has the advantage in all of the key areas, save one. The Taliban has state sponsors, terrorist allies, regional support, a marked superiority in weapons and numbers, and controls all of Afghanistan. ISKP can only match the Taliban in one area, and this their will to fight and persevere.
To be clear, ISKP is a decided underdog when matched up against the Taliban. Either way, the United States and the West community should not be rooting for a Taliban victory over ISKP. The Taliban continues to support international terror groups that seek to overthrow friendly governments and attack the West. The Taliban’s relationship with Al Qaeda endures, and has strengthened after 20 years of war and victory in Afghanistan.
Here is the tale of the tape as a battle ensues between the Taliban and the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province:
State Sponsors
Advantage: Taliban.
Pakistan and Iran have both invested deeply in the Taliban project, providing the group with safe haven, weapons, financial support and training. Pakistan is certainly continuing its support of the Taliban. Iran’s support was initially focused on driving the U.S. and NATO from Afghanistan, and it is unclear if Iran’s support will wane or continue. Iran will likely continue a level of support to maintain a degree of influence. However, ISKP rejects state sponsorship, and Iran and Pakistan are both its enemies. State sponsorship is a key driver for a successful insurgency, and ISKP has no state sponsors.
Terrorist Allies
Advantage: Taliban.
In addition to the state sponsors of Pakistan and Iran, the Taliban has the support of all of the powerful regional terror groups, including but not limited to: Al Qaeda, The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, Ansarullah, Turkistan Islamic Party, Islamic Jihad Union, Jamaat Imam al Bukhari, and a host of other South and Central Asian terror organizations. The Taliban can pool thousands if not tens of thousands of fighters if needed in its fight against ISKP, just as it did in its victory against the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. ISKP, on the other hand, remains on an island with no regional terror allies as it insists its allies swear allegiance to its emir.
Neighbors
Advantage: Taliban.
With the exception of Tajikistan, which opposes the Taliban regime, all of the Afghanistan’s neighbors, including China, as well as Russia, which isn’t a neighboring country but wields significant influence in the ‘Stans, are pushing for international recognition and humanitarian support of the Taliban regime. However, the regional view that these nations can work with the Taliban to suppress the jihadist threats emanating from Afghanistan is deeply flawed. For instance, the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, as is Turkistan Islamic Party, which seeks to wage jihad in China. ISKP is a direct threat to all of Afghanistan’s neighbors, which seek to use the Taliban to suppress and defeat it.
Numbers
Advantage: Taliban.
The low end estimate of the Taliban forces, as noted by The Washington Post, is 70,000, while the Islamic State is estimated to have several thousand fighters in its ranks. The exact number of fighters for each group is impossible to know. FDD’s Long War Journal has estimated in the past that the Taliban has well over 100,000 fighters under its command, and given the sophistication and scope of its summer offensive to take control of the country, we stand by this estimate. The Taliban can flood the zone in key battlefields where the fight intensifies, as it is beginning to do in Nangarhar, while the Islamic State has limited resources. It remains to be seen if a brutal crackdown on the Islamic State increases its recruiting potential, or if it grinds it down.
Weapons
Advantage: Taliban.
The Taliban obtained a massive cache of weapons as it overran Afghan forces and seized control of Afghanistan over the summer. These weapons include small and heavy arms, armored vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, and HUMVEEs, artillery pieces, helicopters and aircraft. The Taliban has been adept at adapting these weapons systems to the battlefield. The Islamic State only possesses small arms, and its main tool to attack the Taliban has been IEDs and suicide bombs.
Terrain
Advantage: Taliban.
The Taliban is fully in control of all of Afghanistan 34 provinces while the Islamic State does not control any ground. The Taliban can muster the resources of all of Afghanistan’s provinces; troops, weapons, ammunition, fuel, food, and other supplies. The Taliban can operate hospitals, recruiting and training centers, and base troops. It can tax the local population and border crossings. ISKP must operate clandestinely and is extremely limited in how it can support its forces.
Will To Win
Advantage: Even.
The will to fight and ultimately win is perhaps the most important factor in this fight. Both groups have displayed a commitment to fight for the long haul. The Taliban displayed a remarkable will to win in its 20-year war against the U.S., Coalition, and Afghan government. The Taliban was written off in 2002 after suffering a string of battlefield defeats, and again in 2012 after the “surge.” Yet the Taliban persisted. After its victory over the summer, the Taliban again displayed its will to win by taking over the vaunted bastion of resistance in Panjshir in less than two weeks. Yet this is one area where ISKP can match the Taliban. ISKP has persisted for nearly a decade in Afghanistan despite long odds. ISKP has no allies or state sponsors, and has suffered a string of defeats at the hands of the Taliban. It is outnumbered, has inferior weapons and resources, and its recruiting pool is limited, at least at the moment. ISKP has persevered, which makes it a dangerous enemy.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
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Europe's Migrant Crisis Demonstrates Biden's Weakness
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/November 24, 2021
Mr Xi's confidence that he has nothing to fear from Mr Biden was clearly reflected in the patronising tone he adopted towards the US leader from the outset of their three-and-a-half hour meeting, referring to Mr Biden as his "old friend", when he is clearly no such thing.
By contrast Mr Biden proved unwilling to raise any issues that might prove uncomfortable for the Chinese leader, such as Beijing's role in causing the Covid-19 pandemic that has wrought havoc throughout the world.
The Russian autocrat [Putin] is also well aware of Mr Biden's weak disposition as a result of the three-hour summit the two leaders attended in Geneva last June, the most notable outcome being the American President's utter capitulation to Moscow on long-standing arms control demands.
Consequently, the only winners from Europe's latest migrant crisis are likely to be Mr Putin and his thuggish Belarusian ally....
Nothing better illustrates the ability of rogue states to take advantage of Joe Biden's pitifully weak leadership than the role Belarusian despot Alexander Lukashenko (pictured) has played in creating a migrant crisis in the heart of Europe. (Photo by Maxim Gucheck/Belta//AFP via Getty Images)
Nothing better illustrates the ability of rogue states to take advantage of Joe Biden's pitifully weak leadership than the role Belarusian despot Alexander Lukashenko has played in creating a migrant crisis in the heart of Europe.
As Mr Biden's unimpressive performance during his recent video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping has graphically demonstrated, the US leader appears increasingly out of his depth on the world stage, to the extent that Washington's adversaries see Mr Biden's weakness as working to their advantage.
Mr Xi's confidence that he has nothing to fear from Mr Biden was clearly reflected in the patronising tone he adopted towards the US leader from the outset of their three-and-a-half hour meeting, referring to Mr Biden as his "old friend", when he is clearly no such thing.
Furthermore, Mr Xi demonstrated his evident feeling of superiority over his American rival by warning him that Mr Biden that he was "playing with fire" over the issue of Taiwan.
"Some people in the US intend to use Taiwan to control China. This trend is dangerous and is like playing with fire, and those who play with fire will get burned," Mr Xi said, according to Beijing's readout.
By contrast Mr Biden proved unwilling to raise any issues that might prove uncomfortable for the Chinese leader, such as Beijing's role in causing the Covid-19 pandemic that has wrought havoc throughout the world.
Nor is China the only rogue nation that believes that the Biden administration's inherent weakness gives them carte blanche to cause mischief in other parts of the world.
Another example of rogue leaders taking full advantage of Mr Biden's inept leadership is the deepening migrant crisis in eastern Europe, where Mr Lukashenko has been accused of deliberately stirring up trouble on the Polish and Lithuanian borders by encouraging thousands of illegal migrants to try to seek asylum in the European Union.
EU officials believe Mr Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is personally responsible for provoking the crisis, accusing the Belarusian leader of adopting "an inhuman, gangster-style approach."
Mr Lukashenko's reasons for provoking the crisis is aimed at blackmailing the EU into lifting the sanctions it imposed after his regime launched a brutal crackdown against opposition activists following the country's 2020 presidential elections, which were widely condemned as a sham.
Further sanctions were imposed after Mr Lukashenko ordered the Belarusian military to intercept a Ryanair passenger jet in May, which was diverted to Minsk so that the authorities could detain two activists who were travelling on the aircraft.
While Mr Lukashenko's primary motivation in provoking the crisis is focused on getting the sanctions lifted, it is also abundantly clear that Mr Putin is keen to exploit the crisis as an opportunity to sow division and discord within the Western alliance.
The Russian autocrat is also well aware of Mr Biden's weak disposition as a result of the three-hour summit the two leaders attended in Geneva last June, the most notable outcome being the American President's utter capitulation to Moscow on long-standing arms control demands.
Since then Mr Putin has made clear his unwillingness to take arms control issues seriously by conducting a number of provocative acts, such as its recent demonstration of its ability to destroy a satellite with a newly-developed missile.
Mr Putin is always looking for an excuse to weaken the Western alliance, and the latest migrant crisis in Europe has therefore presented him with the perfect opportunity to cause trouble.
The Kremlin has issued its customary denials that it is in any way responsible for the crisis, but this has been dismissed by countries such as Poland, which have accused Russia of using the migrants as pawns in an attempt to further destabilise the EU.
To judge by the increasingly acrimonious exchanges taking place between European leaders, the migrant crisis is having the desired effect of causing division among EU member states.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision, for example, to schedule a telephone conversation with Mr Lukashenko, the first contact the Belarusian despot has had with a Western leader since the 2020 elections, has provoked bitter criticism from a number of east European states.
Poland, which is on the frontline of the crisis, has complained that it is being left out of discussions regarding its own border, while Lithuania, which has declared a state of emergency, has accused Mrs Merkel of playing into Mr Lukashenko's hands by giving him the recognition he craves.
Despite these tensions between member states, the EU is trying to present a firm line by resisting pressure to ease sanctions against Minsk.
In normal circumstances, moreover, the EU would expect to receive support from the US in its stand-off with Russia.
On this occasion, though, Mr Biden's inability to provide anything approaching clear and effective leadership has meant that the US has been required to take a back seat, a woeful state of affairs that will not be lost on Mr Putin, as well as other adversaries such as Mr Xi.
It is a measure of the Biden administration's impotence that, despite Europe being one of Washington's closest allies, the White House has still not managed to appoint new ambassadors to key European countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Poland, thereby severely limiting Washington's ability to maintain high level contacts with its allies.
Consequently, the only winners from Europe's latest migrant crisis are likely to be Mr Putin and his thuggish Belarusian ally, while for Mr Biden it will only serve as yet further evidence that, while he may still be in office, he has absolutely no power when it comes to exercising influence in world affairs.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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The Liverpool Bombing: Islam’s Mindboggling Deceptions Exposed

Raymond Ibrahim/November 24, 2021
On November 14, 2021, a man detonated an improvised explosive device near the main entrance of Liverpool Women’s Hospital in England. Only he died, though the taxi driver who had just dropped him off was also injured. Although he botched it, investigators concluded that his was a terrorist attack that was planned months in advance.
Emad al-Swealmeen, 32, the would-be terrorist in question, was a born Muslim who arrived in the UK in 2014 and applied for asylum by claiming he was a Syrian refugee. It turned out he was from Iraq or Jordan, and his asylum application was rejected.
Soon thereafter, Emad formally converted to Christianity; in 2015 he was baptized, and in 2017 confirmed, at Liverpool Cathedral. Although it is common for Muslim migrants to pretend to be Christian in order to receive asylum—based on their projected but erroneous belief that Western nations will naturally be more welcoming of Christians—those Christians close to him argue that his conversion was genuine:
[Thus] a church worker in Liverpool who once housed Al Swealmeen said he believed he was a “genuine Christian”… Members of the congregation at Emmanuel Church in Fazakerley, Liverpool, which Al Swealmeen attended from 2017 to 2019, said he had been “a committed Christian” who baked for church cake sales. The Reverend Mike Hindley said Al Swealmeen … was “a really kind guy.”
Moreover, according to a spokesperson from the cathedral that baptized and confirmed al-Swealmeen:
Liverpool Cathedral has developed robust processes for discerning whether someone might be expressing a genuine commitment to faith. These include requirements for regular attendance alongside taking part in a recognised Christian basics course. We would expect someone to be closely connected with the community for at least two years before we would consider supporting an [asylum] application.
Similarly, a spokesperson for the Church of England argued that their clergy would not baptize someone without first being “confident that those seeking baptism fully understand what it signifies…. We are not aware of any evidence to suggest a widespread correlation between conversion to Christianity, or any other faith, and abuse of the asylum system.”
From here, the problem becomes clear: if al-Swealmeen was a genuine Christian—and everyone seems agreed that he was—what motivated him to plot and try to execute a terrorist attack?
The arguments offered from those convinced that he was a true Christian range from claims that he was suffering from a mental illness to claims that Christianity no less than Islam promotes “martyrdom operations” (debunked here). Others argue that his conversion was indeed sincere, but he later regretted and sought to expiate it by becoming a jihadist “martyr.”
Few, however, are willing to consider that, from the very start, he may have been pretending to be a Christian. After all, who would spend years masquerading as something he’s not—going to church regularly, praying, reading the Bible, and overall expressing genuine faith—even baking cakes for church sales?
The problem with this position is that it fails to take into account the extent some Muslims are willing to go to in order to deceive their infidel enemies—especially when threatened with deportation from the boons of infidel living.
History offers an especially applicable example. In 1492, Granada, the final Muslim bastion of Spain, was reconquered. Its Muslims were initially granted lenient terms, including the right to travel abroad and practice Islam freely. However, whenever the opportunity arose, they launched many hard-to-quell uprisings—several “involving the stoning, dismembering, beheading, impaling, and burning alive of Christians”—and regularly colluded with foreign Muslim powers (e.g., Ottoman Turks) in an effort to subvert Spain back to Islam.
The Spanish crown eventually issued an edict that Muslims either had to convert to Christianity—and therefore slough off their jihadist animus—or quit the peninsula. In response, the entire population of Granada—hundreds of thousands of Muslims—openly embraced Christianity but remained crypto-Muslims. Publicly they went to church and baptized their children; at home they recited the Koran, preached undying hate for the infidel and their obligation to re-subjugate Spain to Islam. And all this deception was legitimized by the fatwas of leading Islamic clerics.
One historian explains the great lengths these “Moriscos”—that is, Muslim converts to Christianity who were still “Moorish,” or Islamic—went to deceive the Christians:
For a Morisco to pass as a good Christian took more than a simple statement to that effect. It required a sustained performance involving hundreds of individual statements and actions of different types, many of which might have little to do with expressions of belief or ritual per se. Dissimulation [taqiyya] was an institutionalized practice in Morisco communities that involved regular patterns of behaviour passed on from one generation to the next.
Despite this elaborate masquerade, Christians increasingly caught on: “With the permission and license that their accursed sect accorded them,” a frustrated Spaniard remarked in the seventeenth century, “they could feign any religion outwardly and without sinning, as long as they kept their hearts nevertheless devoted to their false impostor of a prophet. We saw so many of them who died while worshipping the Cross and speaking well of our Catholic Religion yet who were inwardly excellent Muslims.”
In short, generation after generation of Muslims pretended to be and lived as model Christians in Spain—even as they had nothing but hatred for Christianity and Christians—and all to remain and eventually reconquer Spain for Islam.
Nor do Muslims go to such great lengths of deception only to evade deportation. Some employ it for exclusively murderous ends. In 2013, for example, an assassination plot against a Christian pastor in Turkey was exposed; 14 Muslim suspects, including at least three women, were arrested. According to the pastor in question, Emre Karaali: “Two of them attended our church for over a year and they were like family.” One was even baptized. In reality, “These people had infiltrated our church and collected information about me, my family and the church and were preparing an attack against us.”
From here, the idea that Emad al-Swealmeen was baptized and attended church for a couple of years in order to gain asylum—and then showed his true colors by going full jihadist mode when denied—do not seem farfetched.
Historic quotes dealing with Islam in Spain were excerpted from and are documented in the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.