تقرير من الجيرازالم بوست: فشل الجهود الأميركية التوسط بين لبنان وإسرائيل لترسيم الحدود البحرية بينهما/تقرير من الجيرازلم بوست: أعداد عناصر حزب الله في ألمانيا هي بإزدياد/US efforts to start Israel-Lebanon maritime border talks ‘failed’ – report/Increase Of Hezbollah Members In Germany State, Says Intel Report
تقرير من الجيرازلم بوست: التقارير تفيد بأن أعداد عناصر حزب الله في ألمانيا هي بإزدياد Increase Of Hezbollah Members In Germany State, Says Intel Report Jerusalem Post/July 03/2019
Lebanon Says Sea Border Talks With Israel Still Pending
السلطات اللبنانية تقول بأن المحادثات مع إسرائيل بخصوص الحدود البحرير لا تزال معلقة Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 3 July, 2019
US efforts to start Israel-Lebanon maritime border talks ‘failed’ – report تقرير من الجيرازالم بوست: فشل الجهود الأميركية التوسط بين لبنان وإسرائيل لترسيم الحدود البحرية بينهما Jerusalem Post/July 03/2019
Israel and Lebanon have a dispute over an 860 sq. km area that includes several blocs rich in natural gas. US Acting Secretary of State David Satterfield’s efforts to get Israel and Lebanon around a negotiating table to discuss marking their maritime border has failed, according to Lebanese media reports on Wednesday.
Satterfield, who was confirmed last Friday as Washington’s ambassador to Turkey and could be making his last visit to the region trying to deal with the maritime border issue, met in Beirut on Tuesday with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and House Speaker Nabih Berri.
According to these reports, Satterfield told his Lebanese interlocutors that Israel has refused their request for UN sponsorship of the talks, and their demands that the discussions should deal not only with the maritime border but also the land border as well.
Israel and Lebanon have a dispute over an 860 sq. km area that includes several blocs rich in natural gas.
One of the key sticking points holding up the launch of the negotiations has been whether they will be open ended – Lebanon’s demand – or whether there will be a six-month deadline, Israel’s position. The US reportedly has put forward a compromise solution whereby the talks will not have a firm deadline, but that the US – in announcing the talks – will say that the hope is that they are concluded within six months.
Al Joumhouria reported that Satterfield had suggested a verbal consensus on some of the negotiating mechanisms, but that Berri – a Hezbollah ally – rejected this and said to him that he does not even trust a written agreement with Israel, let alone an oral one.
Another point of contention has to do with the UN’s role, with Lebanon wanting to see an active role for the world body, and Israel wanting to see the talks mediated by the US. The US proposed that the talks be held at a UN facility in Nakura but not under their sponsorship, something rejected by the Lebanese.
Last month Energy Minister Yuval Steintiz said he expected US-mediated talks to start within a month. On Wednesdays his office did not respond to requests for a reaction to the developments.
Lebanon Says Sea Border Talks With Israel Still Pending Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 3 July, 2019 السلطات اللبنانية تقول بأن المحادثات مع إسرائيل بخصوص الحدود البحرير لا تزال معلقة Lebanon insists any demarcation of its sea boundary with Israel be implemented only as part of a wider package including the land border, and wants this in writing, the parliament speaker said on Wednesday. Senior US official David Satterfield has been shuttling between Lebanon and Israel in an effort to launch the talks between the countries, which have remained formally in a state of war since Israel was founded in 1948. Settling the maritime dispute could help both countries exploit offshore energy reserves. Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steintiz said on June 19 he expected US-mediated talks to start within a month.
But Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, speaking to MPs in his parliamentary bloc on Wednesday, said two issues were still pending and hoped that “work will be done towards solving them,” one of the MPs, Ali Bazzi, said in televised comments. “The first matter is related to the linking of the land and sea (borders),” Bazzi said. “The American position was talking about a verbal agreement, but everyone knows the stance of Speaker Berri on this issue – we don’t even trust Israel in a written agreement, let alone an oral one,” he said. Lebanon also wants the United Nations to sponsor the talks rather than simply host them, Bazzi cited Berri as saying. A statement from Berri’s office on Tuesday said Lebanon wants the UN representative in Lebanon to sponsor the meetings “to deny the Israeli enemy the opportunity of snatching Lebanese rights.”A senior Israeli official has said that a UN peacekeeper position at Naqoura in southern Lebanon would be a possible venue for the US-mediated talks. Berri, Lebanon’s point person with Satterfield, is a close ally of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, a political and military organization backed by Iran that has fought numerous conflicts with Israeli. Steinitz said it was likely that as soon as the talks begin, energy groups operating in both Israeli and Lebanese waters would be able to carry out the first seismological survey of the disputed area.
تقرير من الجيرازلم بوست: التقارير تفيد بأن أعداد عناصر حزب الله في ألماني هي بإزدياد Increase Of Hezbollah Members In Germany State, Says Intel Report Jerusalem Post/July 03/2019
Chancellor Merkel refuses to outlaw terrorist entity in Germany.
The intelligence agency for Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia revealed on Thursday that the number of Hezbollah operatives rose in 2018.
According to the intelligence document reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, the number of Hezbollah operatives climbed from 105 in 2017 to 110 in 2018 in North Rhine-Westphalia.
The report wrote that “for more than 20 years, the Islamic Center (Imam-Mahdi-Zentrum) in Münster has been a platform and meeting place for Hezbollah supporters in North Rhine-Westphalia and western Germany. Other focal points: Essen/Bottrop, Dortmund and Bad Oeynhausen.”
The 363-page intelligence report, which covers threats to the security of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, referenced the Lebanese terrorist entity Hezbollah 21 times.
Hezbollah has centers in Hamburg, Berlin and Münster, according to the report.
Hezbollah’s aim “of annihilation of the state of Israel and the establishment of ‘Islamic rule’ over Jerusalem remain unchanged to this day,” wrote the intelligence agents.
The intelligence agency noted that “in order to achieve these goals Hezbollah also uses terrorist means. For years it [Hezbollah] has been responsible for attacks in northern Israel, posing a direct threat to the state of Israel.”
The intelligence agency wrote that “Hezbollah continues to be an internationally well-networked terrorist organization that endangers foreign affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany through the use of force or preparatory acts directed at it. For this reason, and because of its activities against the idea of international understanding, it is monitored by the North Rhine-Westphalia constitutional protection agency.”
The North Rhine-Westphalia agency for the Protection of the Constitution is the formal name of the state’s domestic intelligence agency – a rough equivalent to Shin Bet.
Hezbollah-affiliated associations in the state and elsewhere in Germany celebrated May, 25, 2018 as a particular holiday – the 18th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon, noted the report.
According to the document, there are 950 Hezbollah members and supporters in Germany. However, a May German intelligence from the state of Lower Saxony said the number of Hezbollah members and supporters climbed from 950 in 2017 to 1,050 in 2018.
The intelligence agents from North Rhine-Westphalia wrote in the report that presently “it cannot be assumed” in North Rhine-Westphalia that Hezbollah’s organization is “pursuing concrete plans of attacks in Europe, in particular against Israeli or Jewish targets.”
However, the intelligence officials said “there is an abstract danger… spontaneous action by individuals in a violent escalation between Israel and hostile states is still to be expected.”
The Post has previously reported based on additional German state intelligence reports that Hezbollah operatives raise funds in Germany, recruit new members and spread their antisemitic and jihadi ideology across the federal republic.
US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has reportedly raised a full ban of Hezbollah – not merely its military wing – in every meeting with German officials. Kosovo recently decided to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton tweeted on Monday: “The U.S. commends Kosovo’s designation of Hizballah as a terrorist organization. This Iranian terror proxy continues to threaten stability in the Middle East and throughout the world. The world is recognizing Iran’s terror sponsorship and naming its chief beneficiary: Hizballah.”
Hezbollah is the main strategic partner for Iran’s regime. The US, Britain, the Netherlands, the Arab League, Canada and Israel all classify Hezbollah as a unified terrorist movement.
Germany and the EU merely banned Hezbollah’s so-called military wing in 2013. Hezbollah members and supporters are allowed to operate in Germany because the organization’s “political wing” has not been outlawed.
Post queries sent Steve Alter, a spokesman for Germany’s interior minister Horst Seehofer, declined to comment on a full ban of Hezbollah. Chancellor Angela Merkel has also staunchly refused to proscribe all of Hezbollah a terrorist entity.
This month will be the seventh anniversary of Hezbollah blowing up an Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, resulting in the murders of five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver.
