English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 29/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint 02/19-23/:”When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 28-29/2020

Health Ministry: 1594 new Covid-19 cases, 15 deaths
President Aoun says will take the Coronavirus vaccine
Lebanon Secures COVID-19 Vaccines for 20% of Its Citizens
Aoun Authorizes Hassan to Negotiate with Pfizer
Paris Expected to Mediate between Aoun and Hariri
Baabda Reportedly Insisting on 5 Key Ministerial Portfolios
Kubis to Politicians: This is Lebanon, Not the USA
Lebanon Arrests 8 After Refugee Camp Set Ablaze
Jumblat Says Hariri Trying to 'Impose Certain Names' on Aoun
Hezbollah brags about precision-guided missile arsenal, vows revenge
Ghosn Case Haunts Japan a Year after Shock Escape
Akar visits Bkirki, presides over meeting to discuss measures during festive holidays
Lebanon’s corrupt politicians: All for one and one for allظDr. Dania Koleilat Khatib//Arab News/December 28/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 28-29/2020

Iran Warns Israel Not to Cross Gulf 'Red Lines'
Kadhimi faces complex options dealing with pro-Iran militias
Moroccan Team in Israel to Set Up Liaison Office
Turkish defence minister’s visit raises tensions in Libya
Erdogan says Turkey would like better ties with Israel, Palestinian policy still "red line"
Russia Reinforces Syrian Area where Turkey-Backed Fighters Clashed with Kurdish Forces
Two IRGC Members Killed in Eastern Syria
Egypt's Dar al-Ifta Authorizes Use of COVID-19 Vaccine Containing Pork Components
Hamas received $22m from slain Iranian commander Soleimani in 2006: Top Hamas leader
Vaccine Campaign Grows alongside Fears Covid Spreading Faster
Chinese Citizen Journalist Jailed for Wuhan Virus Reporting
Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to jail term, likely released in March
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 28-29/2020

Palestinian Joint Operations Room announces upcoming military maneuver/Joe Truzman/FDD/December 28/2020
How Iran's central bank currency system is manipulated to fund regional proxy wars/Hollie McKay/Fox News/December 28/2020
U.S. "Driving Stake Through Heart" of German-Russian Pipeline/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/December 28/ 2020
Two Years Apart… Two Decades Apart/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/December 28/2020
The Year of the Pandemic … Good Riddance/Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/December 28/2020
Iran Between Clash and Response/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/December 28/2020
Biden needs to build on Trump success to aid Iranian people/Mariam Memarsadeghi/Alarabiya/December 28/202

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 28-29/2020

Health Ministry: 1594 new Covid-19 cases, 15 deaths
NNA/Monday, 28 December, 2020
The Ministry of Public Health announced, on Monday that 1594 new Coronavirus cases have been reported, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 172820.
It also indicated that 15 deaths were also registered during the past 24 hours.

President Aoun says will take the Coronavirus vaccine
NNA/Monday, 28 December, 2020
The Presidency Media Office revealed that the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, will receive the Coronavirus vaccine, contrary to what was reported today on the media.—Presidency Press Office

Lebanon Secures COVID-19 Vaccines for 20% of Its Citizens
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Lebanon has secured about 2 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, which will cover 20% of the country's nationals, the health minister said on Monday. According to Reuters, Hamad Hassan said two weeks ago the country was about to sign a deal for supplies and that the first batch would arrive eight weeks later."We have reserved about 2 million doses of the vaccine and that will be enough for 20% of Lebanese living in the country," he said at the presidential palace on Monday. Lebanon's hospitals are under pressure as infections surge. Doctors warn ICU beds are filling up fast. The medical system has also been battered by the country's financial crisis, which caused supply shortages, and August's port explosion, which damaged major Beirut hospitals. The COVID-19 outbreak has killed nearly 1,400 people in Lebanon, which has an estimated population of 6 million including more than 1 million Syrian refugees. Lebanon had also detected its first case of a new more transmissible variant of the coronavirus on a flight arriving from London, Hassan said last week.

Aoun Authorizes Hassan to Negotiate with Pfizer
Associated Press/Monday, 28 December, 2020
President Michel Aoun met Monday in Baabda with caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan, who thanked the president for “authorizing him to negotiate with the Pfizer company on providing its anti-coronavirus vaccine,” the National News Agency said. Aoun gave Hassan the necessary instructions for “finalizing the agreement with the aforementioned company to achieve this purpose,” NNA added. “It is one of the honorable, responsible and wise junctures,” Hassan told reporters after the meeting. He said the president’s authorization allows for “securing all the financial credits for finalizing the agreement with the possible speed.”Asked how the first batch of vaccines will be distributed, the minister said “a national commission has been formed and is led by Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Bizri and comprises all medical syndicates, associations and authorities in addition to the advisers of the president and the caretaker PM.”
“Though this commission, we aim to devise a mechanism to secure the delivery of the vaccine to the accredited vaccination centers, enabling the poor, the needy and the rich to get it for free,” Hassan added. “We are emphasizing the need for the fairness of distribution and the quality and effectiveness of the vaccine,” the minister went on to say, reassuring the Lebanese that “there will be transparency and security, military and societal followup to achieve the goals.”Hassan added that Lebanon has reserved nearly 2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, an amount that covers up to 20% of Lebanese, noting that the vaccines are expected to be in Lebanon by February. The deal was expected to be signed Monday. Assem Araji, the lawmaker who heads the parliamentary health committee, said the deal being negotiated is for $18 a dose, a price that takes into consideration Lebanon's economic troubles. The $27 million deal would secure 1.5 million vaccines while the country negotiates to receive closer to 2 million. Araji told The Associated Press the government is to pay a $4 million deposit at signing, expected Monday. It hopes to cover the rest with a World Bank loan that has been diverted to cover expenses related to the pandemic. Lebanon has also signed up for another 1.5 million vaccines with COVAX, the World Health Organization-led partnership with humanitarian organizations that aims to provide vaccines for up to 20% of the population of poor countries hit hard by the pandemic. Lebanon has deposited $4.3 million to secure the COVAX vaccines, Araji said. Both vaccines would be offered for free in Lebanon. Commercially, hospitals and pharmacies can provide their own vaccines, Araji said. Lebanon has a population of nearly 6 million, including over 1 million Syrian refugees. Araji said U.N. agencies would cover the refugee population. The country has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks that has driven the number of reported infections to over 170,000 and more than 1,300 deaths. Lebanon's health sector is also under strain amid the economic crunch and following this summer's massive explosion in Beirut that temporarily knocked a number of hospitals out of service. The government resigned in the wake of the Aug. 4 explosion, and is acting in a caretaker capacity, requiring approval from the president before signing the commercial deal with Pfizer. Lebanon has 12 refrigerators in which the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can be stored between minus 80 degree Celsius and minus 60 degrees Celsius, and WHO has promised six more, Araji said.

Paris Expected to Mediate between Aoun and Hariri
Naharnet/Monday, 28 December, 2020
France will directly intervene in the beginning of the year in a bid to resolve the ongoing dispute between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri over some ministerial portfolios, media reports said. Next month might witness “French visits to Beirut aimed at pressing for resolving this dispute through proposals specifically focused on the justice portfolio,” informed sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper in remarks published Monday. The French will push for allocating the portfolio to “a specialist figure who is not loyal to any political party in light of the essential role that will be played by the justice ministry in the coming period,” the sources said.

Baabda Reportedly Insisting on 5 Key Ministerial Portfolios
Naharnet/Monday, 28 December, 2020
The Baabda camp is insisting on being allocated five key ministerial portfolios in the new government, a media report said. In the 14th meeting between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri, “the Baabda camp demanded the following portfolios: energy, telecommunications, interior, defense and justice, which means all the sensitive ministries in the period of opening files or the avoidance of opening other files,” sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Monday. Official sources informed on Aoun and Hariri’s meetings meanwhile said that the PM-designate is “insisting on the justice portfolio and will not give it up no matter what the circumstances and reasons might be.”“He is proposing for it Mrs. Lubna Omar Misqawi, while Aoun has proposed the name of the lawyer Adel Yammine for the interior portfolio,” the sources said. “But Hariri has also rejected that the interior portfolio be part of Aoun’s share along with the defense portfolio,” the sources added. Al-Liwaa also reported that the continued impasse might push Hariri to “expose the contacts that have taken place and the role of the team of advisers and the head of the Strong Lebanon bloc MP Jebran Bassil.”

Kubis to Politicians: This is Lebanon, Not the USA
Naharnet/Monday, 28 December, 2020
U.N. Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis on Monday admonished Lebanon’s political leaders over the ongoing delay in the cabinet formation process despite the country’s multiple and unprecedented crises. “The economy and financial, banking system is in shambles, social peace starts to crumble down, security incidents on the rise, the edifice of #Lebanon is shaking in its fundaments. And political leaders seem to wait for Biden. But this is Lebanon, not the USA,” Kubis said in a tweet.This is not the first time that Kubis has criticized Lebanese politicians over their failure to put together a new government.
 

Lebanon Arrests 8 After Refugee Camp Set Ablaze
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Lebanon's army said Sunday it had arrested eight people after a dispute led a group of Lebanese nationals to set fire to an informal refugee settlement in the country's north. The army said it "arrested two Lebanese nationals and six Syrians over a personal dispute... between a number of Lebanese men and Syrian workers," according to a statement. "The Lebanese men fired bullets in the air and torched the tents of Syrian refugees," it added, without elaborating on the cause of the altercation. The fire on Saturday night tore through the tented shelters of some 75 families near the town of Bhanine in the north Lebanon Miniyeh region, leaving only a charred wasteland. The camp's more than 370 residents were forced to flee, according to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and at least four people were taken to hospital for injuries. On Sunday, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement calling on “the competent Lebanese judiciary and relevant authorities to assume their responsibilities in providing protection and care for the displaced Syrians." It expressed deep regret over the fire that broke out in the Syrian refugee camp in the Miniyeh district. The statement was published by the official Syrian News Agency (SANA), quoting an official source in the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Damascus renewed the call on the Syrian citizens, “who were forced to leave the country by the unjust war on Syria, to return to their homeland.” The statement added that the Syrian government “is making all efforts to facilitate this return and provide them with the requirements of decent living in their cities and villages, based on the available capabilities.” Dozens of refugees returned Sunday to the remains of the camp to try to salvage anything that might have survived the blaze. "I came back to check on belongings inside our small tent only to discover that we no longer own anything," said Amira Issa, a 45-year-old mother of five who fled Syria eight years ago. "We lost everything in one moment," she told AFP, sobbing. The fire sparked an outpouring of sympathy on social media from Lebanese, who condemned what they called a racist attack. Syria's foreign ministry expressed "deep regret" over the incident and called on "Syrians forced to leave their country by an unjust war to return" home. UNHCR said most camp residents have found temporary shelter. "They have relocated to nearby informal settlements... or were taken in by area residents," said UNHCR spokesman Khaled Kabbara. "We saw a remarkable level of solidarity from the Lebanese community offering vacant shelters, including hospitals and schools."Lebanon says it hosts some 1.5 million Syrians, including around one million registered as refugees with the United Nations.
Authorities have called on refugees to return to Syria even though rights groups warn that the war-torn country is not yet safe. In November, around 270 Syrian refugee families fled the northern Lebanese town of Bsharre after a Syrian national was accused of shooting dead a Lebanese resident, sparking widespread tension and hostility.

Jumblat Says Hariri Trying to 'Impose Certain Names' on Aoun
Naharnet/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has blamed the ongoing delay in the formation of the new government on President Michel Aoun, PM-designate Saad Hariri, Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement. “So far I’m still positive, because there is still hope that France might be able to open the doors for negotiations with the World Bank and the international institutions should an acceptable government be formed,” Jumblat said in an interview with his party’s electronic newspaper al-Anbaa. Asked who is to blame for the government’s delay, Jumblat said: “Domestically, I hold these forces (Aoun, Hariri and Hizbullah) responsible. Let’s not forget that the FPM is also a main party.”“Hariri has also committed mistakes because he wants to impose certain names on Michel Aoun,” the PSP leader added. “Sheikh Saad initially thought that the formation of the government would be an easy task. He also thought of bringing specialists, but to be a specialist who is not familiar with politics is not something easy in Lebanon. You can be a specialist in France and other countries, but in Lebanon you want a specialist who is capable of imposing his political opinion,” Jumblat went on to say. He gave an example about the energy ministry. “For example, at the energy ministry, should we appoint a specialist as minister without cleaning the ministry from the remnants of Jebran Bassil and those who succeeded him in regards to the fuel deals and the Turkish ship deals?” Jumblat asked. “We want someone who knows how to impose himself, and the same thing applies to the justice and interior portfolios,” he added. He also criticized Hariri for “thinking that he can separate Jebran from Michel Aoun.”“This hypothesis is impossible,” Jumblat added.

Hezbollah brags about precision-guided missile arsenal, vows revenge
The Arab Weekly/December 28/2020
BEIRUT - The leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah said Sunday his group now has twice as many precision-guided missiles as it had a year ago, saying Israel’s efforts to prevent it from acquiring them have failed. Hassan Nasrallah, in an end-of-year interview with the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, said his group has the capability to strike anywhere in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. “The number of precision missiles at the resistance’s disposal has now doubled from what it was a year ago,” Nasrallah said. “Any target across the area of ​​occupied Palestine that we want to hit accurately — we are able to hit accurately.”Nasrallah said that when Israel threatened through a US official to target a Hezbollah facility in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa region, his group warned it would retaliate for any such attack. Israel has in recent months expressed concern that Hezbollah is trying to establish production facilities to make precision-guided missiles. During the four-hour interview, Nasrallah said there are many matters related to his group that Israel has no knowledge of because those are kept in a “very tight circle.”He alleged that Israel operating drones in Lebanese skies reflects “confusion,” adding that Hezbollah has adequate weapons against the drones and that the group has fired at them on several occasions. Earlier this month, Hezbollah claimed a drone of its own had managed to enter Israeli airspace undetected by the Israel Defence Forces and took footage of alleged army bases in the Upper Galilee.
Vows of revenge
Nasrallah also said that the last few weeks of the administration of US President Donald Trump are critical and must be treated with care. He called Trump “angry” and “crazy.”The Iran-backed Hezbollah is a sworn enemy of Israel, with which it has had a series of confrontations, including a full-scale war in 2006. Nasrallah repeated vows that Iran and its allies will avenge the US killing of the commander of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone attack a year ago in Iraq. “That revenge is coming no matter how long it takes,” he told Al-Mayadeen TV, sitting with a picture of Soleimani to his left. Nasrallah also vowed to avenge Israel’s killing of a Hezbollah fighter in Syria earlier this year. Addressing the incoming US administration of President-elect Joe Biden, Nasrallah said Iran would not negotiate with the US on behalf of its allies or discuss conflicts in the region.
He said Tehran would talk with Washington only about the Iranian nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew.
 

Ghosn Case Haunts Japan a Year after Shock Escape
Agence France Presse/December 28/2020
A year after Japan learned with horror that Carlos Ghosn had jumped bail to become the world's most famous fugitive, the fiasco and its repercussions continue to haunt the country. Ghosn was living in a monitored Tokyo apartment awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges when he casually boarded a train to Osaka in western Japan on December 29, 2019 with two accomplices. They smuggled him past customs at Kansai airport, reportedly in an instrument case, and a day later he emerged in Beirut, after changing planes in Istanbul. The former Nissan chief, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian nationality, declared in an astonishing press conference from Beirut that he had been forced to flee for fear of an unfair trial. Stunned Japanese officials took days to respond officially to his escape, and their extradition demands were rejected by Lebanon as the countries have no applicable treaty.
Facing an Interpol arrest warrant, Ghosn has remained effectively trapped in Lebanon, even as others face court over their links to his case. In mid-September, the trial began against his former Nissan colleague Greg Kelly, who was also out on bail in Tokyo when Ghosn escaped. Kelly is accused of having illegally and deliberately concealed payments of around 9.2 billion yen ($89 million at today's rates) that were promised by Nissan to Ghosn upon retirement. Kelly, who like Ghosn denies any wrongdoing, faces 10 years in prison if found guilty, and some have claimed the escape will make prosecutors more determined to win a conviction. "Dismissal of the charges would be a devastating loss of face that would allow Ghosn to crow from his hideout in Beirut," wrote Stephen Givens, a Tokyo-based corporate lawyer, in the Nikkei Asian Review in October.
"Ghosn's escape has sent the prosecutors up a tree from which they can no longer climb down. Do not expect a happy ending," he added.
Japan reviewing bail system
Others in the saga also face legal proceedings, including the alleged accomplices in Ghosn's escape, former Green Beret Michael Taylor and his son Peter, who are fighting extradition from the US to Japan. And in Istanbul, a court case is continuing against Turkish employees of a private jet company that was hired to assist Ghosn's escape. In Japan, the saga continues to cast a long shadow. The justice ministry has launched a review of the country's bail system with an eye to strengthening it, including possibly introducing an electronic monitoring bracelet system. Ironically, at one point while attempting to win bail, Ghosn offered to wear a monitoring bracelet but was rebuffed as it was not yet part of Japan's bail system. There is also debate about the country's judicial system, and the claim made by critics that Japan uses "hostage justice" -- lengthy detention of suspects before bringing charges, allegedly in a bid to secure a confession. Prosecutors in Japan can hold a suspect for up to 23 days for each charge they are investigating, and may interrogate a detainee without a lawyer during this period. That leaves suspects "extremely vulnerable", said Megumi Wada, a former member of Ghosn's defence team in Japan and a researcher for the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA). But wholesale reform looks unlikely, with the JFBA largely ignored by the government and carefully avoiding mention of the Ghosn case, instead urging the respect of rights protected by Japan's constitution. In November, Ghosn scored a victory when a U.N. working group on arbitrary detention concluded his arrest and detention in Japan had been "fundamentally unfair", a view Tokyo slammed as "totally unacceptable." Ghosn is currently beyond the reach of the Japanese courts and leads a comparatively quiet life, mostly in his Beirut home, though he recently released a book setting out his side of his case. He and Nissan continue to pursue each other through various legal actions. Proceedings in a $95 million lawsuit brought by the automaker against Ghosn opened in Japan, with Nissan seeking compensation for what it called "years of his misconduct and fraudulent activity". Ghosn, who is also under investigation in France, is seeking 15 million euros ($18 million) from Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors for wrongful termination of his contract in a procedure in the Netherlands, and is fighting a similar battle against former employer Renault.

Akar visits Bkirki, presides over meeting to discuss measures during festive holidays
NNA/December 28/2020
Deputy Prime Minister, Caretaker Minister of Defense, Zeina Akar, on Monday visited Bkirki, where she met with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Boutros Rahi. Discussions reportedly touched on the country's general situation and security developments. Minister Akar also well-wished the Patriarch on the festive season. On the other hand, Akar presided over a meeting at her ministerial office, attended by Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, and senior army officers. Discussions reportedly centered on the security developments and measures taken during the holidays, in addition to the country's socio-economic conditions. The various scenarios presented on the issue of subsidies were also discussed. General Aoun and senior army officers also well-wished the Minister on the festive season.

Lebanon’s corrupt politicians: All for one and one for all
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib//Arab News/December 28/2020
د. دانيا قليلات خطيب: السياسيون اللبنانيون الفاسدون: الكل للواحد والواحد للجميع

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/94351/dr-dania-koleilat-khatib-lebanons-corrupt-politicians-all-for-one-and-one-for-all-%d8%af-%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d9%82%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%ae%d8%b7%d9%8a%d8%a8/
On Christmas eve, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri wished the Lebanese people a merry Christmas — and the formation of a government that the Lebanese deserve, that will stop the economic crash and allow the country to recover from the port blast.
Despite many visits to the presidential palace, and although both Hariri and President Michel Aoun have said that their objective is a government of qualified technocrats in line with the French initiative, a government has still not been formed. The stated objective contradicts the political reality, which is why we have a deadlock.
To start with, despite being on different sides politically, all politicians profiteer from the system and have benefited from the spoils of corruption. Each one of them has a case against the others, so they will not allow one party to be in power while they are out, especially now that one of the stated objectives is to fight corruption. They are all interconnected and no party will gracefully exit the scene and leave their opponents to pillage the country on their own.
Unfortunately, this is the mentality. They are in a precarious position, so their only guarantee of survival is to remain in power, which takes the country back to square one. Also, the international community has lost faith in the current political class, who have embezzled aid over the years.
The president has designated Saad Hariri to form a government, but it is unlikely that the political elite will allow him to form an administration of clean technocrats untainted by politics. The current political elite are like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, all partners in crime against Lebanon. They will not allow one of their number to defect, leave the pack and act on his own. If reforms were truly initiated and forensic audits conducted in government ministries, most of the political class would be convicted, if not all. That is why the politicians in Lebanon are all for one and one for all.
The logical and conventional solution would be for the “hirak,” the protest movement, to prepare new figures to run for office, but elections are 15 months away and the country is in freefall. Delaying reforms for so long could be lethal. Also, Lebanon risks going back to the Hassan Diab scenario, a government of pseudo technocrats providing a cover for the political elite. The question is, what is the solution? How can this deadlock be broken? Already three leaders have called on the president to resign, each for their own reasons. Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces, said if he were in Michel Aoun’s shoes he would step down. The calls for the resignation of the president could be the start of a solution. The deteriorating economic situation, the political deadlock and the popular and international distrust in the political class can be solved only by a transitional government.
Despite many visits to the presidential palace, and although both Hariri and President Michel Aoun have said that their objective is a government of qualified technocrats in line with the French initiative, a government has still not been formed.
The 1952 scenario may present a solution. Facing popular wrath and in order to save Lebanon from armed conflict, Bechara El-Khoury resigned as president and asked the commander of the army to become acting president and head of a transitional government that prepared for new elections, in which Camille Chamoun won the presidency. The army is the only institution that people respect and trust. It represents the Lebanese across the different sects.
This scenario would not mean that the country would be governed by the military, but it means the possibility of having a government of technocrats from outside the political class. However, for the political class to agree on leaving would be like signing their own death warrant. In this case negotiations, pressure and pragmatism should be applied. Though Lebanese people have pledged “never to forget or forgive” and the elite have lost a large part of their following, they still have a constituency that can take to the streets and is willing to carry arms. The corrupt politicians will mobilize their base if they know that their survival is at stake. This is why they should be offered a graceful exit.
Though this may seem unfair to the average Lebanese, politics is the art of the possible. Sanctions under the Magnitsky Act should be used to exert pressure on politicians to leave the scene and return a large part of the embezzled funds in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Once they leave, the void would be filled by a transitional government headed by the commander of the army and comprising non-politicized technocrats who will conduct reforms and prepare for new parliamentary elections, following which a new president is elected and a new government is formed. The transitional period should not exceed two years. If this scenario is adopted there is hope for the resurrection of Lebanon; otherwise the country is heading toward a total crash.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She holds a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Exeter and is an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
 

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 28-29/2020

Iran Warns Israel Not to Cross Gulf 'Red Lines'
Agence France Presse/December 28/2020
Iran warned Israel on Monday not to cross its "red lines" in the Gulf in the final days of Donald Trump's presidency and following a reported Israeli submarine deployment. Foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh stressed the Islamic republic would defend itself against any American military "adventure" in the runup to the January 20 handover of power in Washington. The statement came a week after the U.S. Navy announced a nuclear submarine was being deployed to the Gulf, in a new show of force directed at Iran. Media in Israel have since reported that an Israeli submarine has crossed the Suez Canal also headed for the Gulf, a report that has not been officially confirmed or denied. "Everyone knows what the Persian Gulf signifies for Iran," Khatibzadeh told an online news conference. "Everyone knows the policies (of Tehran) regarding security and national security... Everyone knows very well how high the risk is raised if the red lines of Iran are crossed."Tehran accuses its regional foe Israel of responsibility for several anti-Iranian operations, including the assassination last month of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The United States, for its part, has accused Iran of involvement in a rocket attack last week near its Baghdad embassy, as Tehran prepares to mark the first anniversary of the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike in January. "We have sent messages to the U.S. government and our friends in the region (warning) the current U.S. regime not to embark on a new adventure in its final days at the White House," said Khatibzadeh. He said Iran was not seeking to increase tension and called for "rational people in Washington" to take the same line until President-elect Joe Biden replaces Trump in the White House. Decades-old tensions between Washington and Tehran have soared since 2018, when Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. The arch enemies have twice come to the brink of war since June 2019, especially following the killing of Soleimani.

Kadhimi faces complex options dealing with pro-Iran militias
The Arab Weekly/December 28/2020
BAGHDAD--Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi finds himself faced with complex options if a confrontation with Shia militias affiliated with Iran breaks out. The arrest of a senior leader in Qais Khazali’s Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia for his involvement in carrying out missile attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad opened the door to the possibility of an open confrontation between Kadhimi’s government and the armed factions. The crisis overtly reveals the mine-field on which the Iraqi state is treading in light of the proliferation of weapons and the attempt to legitimise these weapons without any legal basis. A clash between the government that represents the Iraqi state and the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) factions that represent Iranian interests is possible at any moment. Overcoming the current crisis is nothing but an attempt to delay that clash. Analysts in Baghdad are divided over the government’s ability to carry out another provocation against the militias that have been trained well by Iran and equipped with weapons equivalent to, and perhaps even better, than those of the official police apparatus. Apart from the type and quantity of weapons, Kadhimi may not be so sure if his security services are really willing to engage in an armed confrontation with the militias that may include officers’ own relatives. The Iraqi military establishment remembers how former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki enlisted the help of troops including Sunni soldiers and fighters from Anbar when he decided to attack the Shia Mahdi Army militia in Basra in 2008. Kadhimi cannot repeat this experience in any way, despite the fact that Defence Minister Jumah Inad is a Sunni officer, but with practically no power. Kadhimi’s bet on the military establishment in the event that he decides to confront the militias is clouded by some doubt, despite the fact that Iraqi forces fought against ISIS with great valour between 2015 and 2017.
On the level of external support, Kadhimi does not seem happy with the outcome of the US presidency, as Iran’s fierce opponent, Donald Trump, will leave the White House within weeks. Although US President-elect Joe Biden had an extensive experience dealing with the Iraqi file when he was vice-president under Barack Obama, the value of this issue has declined greatly since the US military withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. In Baghdad, the ceiling of expectations for the performance of the Biden administration on Iraq-related issues is rather low, because it is believed that the new president will be busy with several pressing internal files, most notably the economic recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. On the Iranian level, it cannot be said that Kadhimi is a reliable ally of anyone in Tehran, which means that the possibility of him obtaining help from Iraq’s neighbour to the east seems quite remote. Kadhimi’s relationship with Iran appears to be controlled by obligation, since each side is compelled to deal with the other as a fait accompli. Kadhimi cannot ignore the reality of the predominant Iranian influence in Iraq, nor can Iran omit that he is supported by the Gulf and the United States.It seems that the Iraqi prime minister wants to figure out if Iran is after a permanent truce with the United States, or is just trying to avoid giving Trump any excuse for attacking it in his last days in office. Iran has sent its most prominent military officer, General Ismail Qaani, to Baghdad to emphasise that his country “has nothing to do with the recent bombing of the US embassy.”Informed sources indicated that Kadhimi wants to double-check Iran’s intentions in this regard, by forming a delegation of some of its Iraqi friends and sending it to Tehran to feel the atmosphere.
However, Iraqi analysts believe that undermining the prime minister by heaping insults on him publicly does not in the end serve the interest of the PMF in the currently sensitive circumstances in which Iran’s followers are seeking to direct the public’s attention to the Iranian-American conflict. It is a game in which the aim is to obscure the reality of the economic collapse and the deterioration of the living conditions of the average citizen. “The vociferous tone of the conflict between the government and one of the PMF factions in will necessarily lead to the two parties losing their ability to convince public opinion of the soundness of their positions, and there is a great possibility that this campaign will increase Kadhimi’s popularity at the expense of the PMF candidates in the upcoming elections,” said Iraqi political writer Farouk Yousef. In a statement to The Arab Weekly, Yousef expressed his expectation that PMF leaders would quickly try to stop the scandal and bury it, because it is not in the PMF’s interest to start any internal clash right now, just as Iran would rather stay out of the conflict, lest its intervention provide an opportunity for mass American intervention in Iraq that the PMF factions would be unable to handle.

Moroccan Team in Israel to Set Up Liaison Office
Agence France Presse/December 28/2020
Moroccan officials are in Israel laying the groundwork for the opening of a liaison office in the Jewish state, a source familiar with the topic told AFP on Monday. The Moroccan "technical" team landed on Sunday, days after the North African kingdom and Israel signed a US-sponsored normalization agreement in Rabat, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The team was expected to remain in the country for a few days and would be followed at a later date by a larger delegation, the source added, without providing further details. Morocco is the third Arab nation this year to normalize ties with the Jewish state under U.S.-brokered deals, while Sudan has pledged to follow suit. Four bilateral deals were signed Tuesday between Israel and Morocco, centering on direct air links, water management, connecting financial systems and a visa waiver arrangement for diplomats. The countries are also due to reopen diplomatic offices. On Friday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had invited Morocco's King Mohammed VI for a visit during a phone call. Morocco closed its liaison office in Tel Aviv in 2000, at the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The kingdom has North Africa's largest Jewish community of about 3,000 people, and Israel is home to 700,000 Jews of Moroccan origin.

Turkish defence minister’s visit raises tensions in Libya
The Arab Weekly/December 28/2020
TRIPOLI--During a visit to Libya over the weekend, Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar highlighted his country’s intent to maintain its military presence in the North African country at the risk of disrupting the UN sponsored peace process there, analysts say. He also ratcheted up tensions by making threats to target the Libyan National Army (LNA) commander, Khalifa Haftar and his allies. Turkey has backed the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) with military advisers, material and mercenaries against an offensive last year by the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar Haftar. Ankara also has a large military base in Al-Watiya region on Libya’s border with Tunisia. Akar’s visit to Tripoli also came after the Turkish parliament this week adopted a motion extending the deployment of forces in Libya by 18 months.
Upon landing in the Libyan capital, Akar held talks with his counterpart Salah Eddine Namrouch and then met Khaled el-Mechri, who heads the High State Council aligned with the GNA, an HSC statement said. The Turkish and Libyan officials agreed during the talks to “pursue their coordination in a bid to repel any hostile” action by Libyan National Army commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the statement added. Turkish support for the GNA helped stave off the April 2019 offensive by the LNA.
Fueling tensions
Turkish military presence is sparking renewed tensions in Libya. The Turkish defence minister threatened that the forces of Khalifa Haftar and their supporters would be viewed as “legitimate targets” if they attempted to attack Turkish forces in the region. Speaking during a visit to Turkish troops in Tripoli, Akar said “Haftar and his backers should know that in the event of any attack attempt waged on Turkish forces, the killer Haftar’s forces will be viewed as legitimate targets everywhere”.“They should get this in their heads. If they do something like this, they will have nowhere to run,” he said. During a speech on Thursday, Haftar had said there would be “no peace in the presence of a coloniser on our land” and called on his forces to “get ready”. “We will therefore take up arms again to fashion our peace with our own hands… and, since Turkey rejects peace and opts for war, prepare to drive out the occupier by faith, will and weapons,” he said. Libya was thrown into chaos after a 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and led to the killing of long-time ruler Muammar Gadhafi. Wracked by violence since then, the North African country has become a battleground for tribal militias, jihadists and mercenaries and a major gateway for desperate migrants bound for Europe. Ankara’s role in Libya risks disrupting UN-sponsored settlement process, analysts says. Turkey has dispatched thousands of mercenaries from Syria and delivered military equipment, including advanced drones, to the GNA in its showdown with the LNA forces. But in October the GNA and the LNA struck a ceasefire agreement, which has been generally respected, setting the stage for elections at the end of next year, after negotiations sponsored by the United Nations. The process seemed to stir concerns in Ankara about losing its influence in Libya especially after intensified contacts undertaken by the GNA’s Minister of the Interior Fathi Bashagha with Egypt and France. Turkey’s military involvement could lead the political process to unravel, analysts say. On Saturday, the GNA’s defence minister Namrouch told local media that Libya was striving to build a military institution with the help of Turkey. “The Turks have helped the GNA and we thank them for that. But now we wish to reorganise the Libyan army and inject new blood into it,” he said.

Erdogan says Turkey would like better ties with Israel, Palestinian policy still "red line"
ANKARA/Reuters/December 28/2020
Turkey would like better ties with Israel but Israeli policy towards the Palestinians remains “unacceptable”, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Turkey and Israel, once allies, have had a bitter falling out in recent years. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians. It has also criticised recent U.S.-brokered rapprochements between Israel and four Muslim countries. “The Palestine policy is our red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s Palestine policies. Their merciless acts there are unacceptable,” Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul. “If there were no issues at the top level (in Israel), our ties could have been very different,” he said, adding that the two countries continued to share intelligence. “We would have liked to bring our ties to a better point.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Erdogan’s statement. Turkey and Israel expelled each other’s ambassadors in 2018 after Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in clashes on the Gaza border. In August this year, Israel accused Turkey of giving passports to a dozen Hamas members in Istanbul, describing the move as “a very unfriendly step”. Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, and the group has fought three wars with Israel since then. Turkey says Hamas is a legitimate political movement that won power through democratic elections. Israel has formalised ties with four Muslim countries this year - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. It said on Wednesday it was working towards normalising ties with a fifth Muslim nation, possibly in Asia. Ankara has slammed the U.S.-brokered deals, with Erdogan previously threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with the UAE and withdraw its envoy. Turkey also slammed Bahrain’s decision to formalise ties as a blow to efforts to defend the Palestinian cause. Palestinians see the U.S.-brokered deals as a betrayal of a long-standing demand that Israel first meet their demand for statehood. Egypt and Israel established full relations in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ali Kucukgocmen; Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Gareth Jones

Russia Reinforces Syrian Area where Turkey-Backed Fighters Clashed with Kurdish Forces
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Russia said late on Sunday it had sent more military police to an area in northern Syria where fighters backed by Turkey have clashed with Kurdish forces near a strategic highway patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops. The deployment comes ahead of talks in southern Russia on Tuesday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. Syria, where Moscow and Ankara have backed different sides, is one of the topics the two diplomats will discuss. Battles between Turkey-backed fighters and Kurdish forces broke out near the town of Ain Issa in northern Syria earlier this month. The town Ain Issa sits along the M4 highway that links major Syrian cities and where Russian-Turkish patrols usually take place. Turkish forces and allied Syrian opposition factions seized territory in the region in an offensive last year against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) which holds swathes of north and east Syria. The Russian defense ministry said in a statement it had sent more military police to the area on Sunday. "We note the unstable situation in the Ain Issa area," the statement said. "Earlier, during negotiations with the Turkish side, agreements were reached on the deployment of joint Russian-Syrian observation posts. Additional units of the Russian military police have arrived in the Ain Issa area today (Sunday) to step up efforts to stabilize the situation," it said. Moscow, whose warplanes also patrol the area, called on both sides to stop shelling each other and to de-escalate.It said it had not detected shelling from Turkish-backed fighters in the last 24 hours.

Two IRGC Members Killed in Eastern Syria
London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
An unidentified drone attacked on Sunday an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vehicle while it was leaving a pre-fabricated building on the outskirts of al-Mayadeen city, in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor, sources told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The attack resulted in the destruction of the vehicle and the death of two IRGC members who were on board.On Friday, the SOHR documented human and material losses due to new Israeli strikes on Syrian territory. Israeli missiles flying over Lebanese territory destroyed Iranian militias-affiliated warehouses and manufacturing centers for short and medium-range missiles in the scientific research area (the Defense Factories), which is part of al-Zawiya in Masyaf countryside. Centers and sites were targeted in al-Talay camp in Sheikh Ghadban area in Masyaf countryside as well. The strikes left six non-Syrian people dead. It is not yet known whether they were IRGC members or pro-Iranian militiamen. The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are in serious condition, amid reports of further casualties. Masyaf area hosts a center for developing medium-range missiles in al-Zawi village and al-Talay camp.

Egypt's Dar al-Ifta Authorizes Use of COVID-19 Vaccine Containing Pork Components
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta said the coronavirus vaccine, which is said to contain a porcine substance, is not forbidden according to the Islamic Sharia as long as this substance has been transformed into another one. In a fatwa issued on Saturday, Dar al-Ifta said the porcine substance has been transformed into another during the manufacturing process of the vaccine, and thus there is no judgment based on the impurity that it once was. In this regard, Dar el Iftaa has allowed people to be treated by the vaccine when its manufacturing substance is transformed. Also, Al-Azhar issued a fatwa prohibiting the violation of the precautions issued by authorities to curb the spread of the virus.Al-Azhar Fatwa Global Center renewed its warning against violating the preventive measures after the country reported a spike in infections. The Center reiterated Saturday that citizens must abide by the measures and the instructions of the Health Ministry, issued to limit the spread of the coronavirus.It warned that the virus can harm those who don’t follow the precautions, as well as their families and people they meet or work with. The Health Ministry also reiterated that it was necessary to clean and sterilize mosques throughout the country and ensure that worshipers maintain social distance while toilets and shrines remain closed. Egypt recorded on Saturday 1,133 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 130,126. The Ministry reported in a statement that 49 patients have also died from the virus over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 7,309.

Hamas received $22m from slain Iranian commander Soleimani in 2006: Top Hamas leader
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Monday 28 December 2020
A delegation from the Palestinian militant group Hamas received $22 million in cash from slain Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Qassem Soleimani during a visit to Tehran in 2006, according to a senior Hamas official. In an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language television network al-Alam on Sunday, Mahmoud al-Zahar, former foreign minister and senior Hamas leader, said he outlined some of the financial problems the Palestinian group faced during a meeting with Soleimani. “The following day, I found $22 million in bags at the airport” as the delegation was about to leave Tehran, al-Zahar said. “We had agreed on a higher amount, but we were only nine people, and we could not carry any more cash due to baggage allowance,” he added. Over the past decade, Iranian demonstrators have voiced their opposition to Tehran’s foreign policies and outside funding, accusing the regime of squandering the country’s resources on proxy groups.Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the overseas arms of the IRGC, was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3. There is increased concern about what Iran or its militias might do ahead of the first anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
 

Vaccine Campaign Grows alongside Fears Covid Spreading Faster
Agence France Presse/December 28/2020
Belgium on Monday joined a growing list of countries to launch Covid-19 vaccination campaigns, while a new coronavirus variant believed to be more infectious spread further and other nations ramped up restrictions. Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted of a "world record" vaccination drive that inoculated 380,000 of its 8.7 million people by Monday, began issuing shots to soldiers at 17 centers nationwide. While the IDF is "one of the first militaries in the world to launch a vaccination campaign for its soldiers," it will be "months" before all are protected, doctor Yael Arbel of the army medical corps said. The Middle Eastern country began its third coronavirus lockdown on Sunday, while Poland on Monday entered three weeks of new restrictions. Just as vaccination drives gather pace, global infections have raced past 80 million with nearly 1.8 million deaths. Fears have been raised by a new strain of Covid-19 first detected in Britain and believed by experts to be potentially more transmissible. After it spread to several European countries as well as Japan and Canada, South Korea became the latest nation Monday to detect the virus variant, in three individuals from a London-based family who arrived in the country last week. Five cases were also identified in Spain's southern Andalusia region. Itself hard hit by the strain, South Africa became the first African nation to log one million cases, official data showed Sunday. Authorities there considered reimposing restrictions to battle the second wave of infections, with leaders worldwide facing similar dilemmas over unpopular and economically damaging lockdowns.
Vaccine holdup
Most European countries began their vaccination campaigns over the weekend, boosting hopes of an end to the pandemic, especially in some of the hardest-hit parts of the continent. "Today is a big moment when you think back to all that we have been through," said Isabella Palazzini, an Italian nurse in Cremona who lost three colleagues to Covid-19. Belgium became the latest EU member to join the bloc's coordinated immunization drive. With old-age home residents first in line, followed by carers, medical staff and social workers, "I think it's a relief... Covid was a true trial for residents and staff," Brussels region health minister Alain Maron said. But pharmaceutical company Pfizer warned of delays to some shipments of the vaccine to eight nations from its factory in the country's north. A "minor logistical issue" meant some vaccine deliveries were "rescheduled", Pfizer spokesman Andrew Widger said, but insisted the problems had been "resolved".
'Critical point'
In the United States, the world's worst-hit country, known coronavirus infections surged past 19 million on Sunday after adding a million cases in less than a week. U.S. cases have been surging at an alarming rate in recent months. The world's largest economy has added at least one million new cases per week since early November, according to Johns Hopkins University data. But there was some relief for Americans Sunday when President Donald Trump finally signed a $900 billion stimulus bill, a long-awaited boost for millions of people whose livelihoods have been battered by the pandemic. While the U.S. has also begun vaccinations, top government scientist Anthony Fauci warned Sunday that the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come, driving the country to a "critical point" as holiday travel spreads the coronavirus. About two million Americans have been vaccinated so far, well below the 20 million the Trump administration has promised by year-end. But Fauci played down the shortfall as a normal hiccup in a massively ambitious project, saying he was "pretty confident" that by April, all higher-priority people would be able to get vaccinated, clearing the way for the general population.
'Food for thought'
Vaccination campaigns have also begun in China, Russia, Canada, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, and there was hope for one more successful vaccine on the horizon. But there are worries over vaccine hesitancy or outright refusal among the public -- especially because of anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns. Polls have shown many Europeans are unwilling to take the vaccine, which could impede efforts to beat the virus and reach widespread immunisation. A young German pilot found a unique way to raise awareness, tracing a giant syringe in the sky to mark the start of his country's rollout of vaccines. "I wanted to give people food for thought for the day the vaccine became available," 20-year-old Samy Kramer, a student and amateur pilot, said Sunday.
 

Chinese Citizen Journalist Jailed for Wuhan Virus Reporting
Agence France Presse/December 28/2020
A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia" surfaced in the central China city. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who arrived at court in a wheelchair, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak. Her live reports and essays were shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they curb criticism of the government's response to the outbreak. Beijing has congratulated itself for "extraordinary" success in controlling the virus inside its borders, with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world stutters through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year on from the start of the pandemic in Wuhan. Controlling the information flow during an unprecedented global health crisis has been pivotal in allowing China's communist authorities to reframe the narrative in their favor, with President Xi Jinping being garlanded for his leadership by the country's ruling party. But that has come at a serious cost to anyone who has picked holes in the official storyline. The court said Zhang Zhan had spread "false remarks" online, according to one of her lawyers Zhang Keke, but the prosecution did not fully divulge its evidence in court. "We had no way of understanding what exactly Zhang Zhan was accused of doing," he added, describing it as "a speedy, rushed hearing." In return the defendant "didn't respond [to questions]... She refused to answer when the judge asked her to confirm her identity."The defendant's mother sobbed loudly as the verdict was read out, Ren Quanniu, another member of Zhang's defense team, told reporters who were barred from entering the court. Concerns are mounting over the health of 37-year-old Zhang, who began a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed via a nasal tube. Her legal team said her health was in decline and she suffered from headaches, dizziness and stomach pain, and that she had appeared in court in a wheelchair. "She said when I visited her (last week): 'If they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end.'... She thinks she will die in prison," Ren said before the trial. "It's an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment." China's communist authorities have a history of putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year in an effort to minimize Western scrutiny.
Example made
The sentencing comes just weeks before an international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19. Zhang was critical of the early response in Wuhan, writing in a February essay that the government "didn't give people enough information, then simply locked down the city". "This is a great violation of human rights," she wrote. Rights groups and embassies have also drawn attention to her case, although diplomats from several countries were denied requests to monitor the hearing. "Zhang Zhan's case raises serious concerns about media freedom in China," the British embassy in Beijing said, urging "China to release all those detained for their reporting." Authorities "want to use her case as an example to scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year", added Leo Lan, research and advocacy consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO. A United Nations official following the trial also expressed "deep concern" about the verdict. "We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release," the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a tweet. Zhang is the first of a group of four citizen journalists detained by authorities after reporting from Wuhan to face trial.
Previous attempts by AFP to contact the other three -- Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- were unsuccessful.

Loujain al-Hathloul sentenced to jail term, likely released in March
The Arab Weekly/December 28/2020
LONDON--Loujain al-Hathloul, one of Saudi Arabia’s most high-profile women’s rights activists, was sentenced Monday to more than five years in prison after being convicted on charges that include seeking to change the Saudi political system and harming national security. But she seems set to be released by next March, sources said, based on time served. She was sentenced under a provision of the country’s counterterrorism law in a ruling that brings to a close a case that has drawn much international attention and criticism. With the verdict, Riyadh seems to be sending a signal that Saudi authorities will not interfere with the judicial process despite outside pressures and the possibility that US President-elect Joe Biden will take a more critical approach to Riyadh once he takes office, analysts say. At the same time, the ruling reflects the judiciary’s desire to ensure a quick release for the defendant.
Rights group Prisoners of Conscience said Hathloul could be released in March 2021 based on time served. She has been imprisoned since May 2018, and 34 months of her sentencing will be suspended. Her family said in a statement she will be barred from leaving the kingdom for five years and required to serve three years of probation after her release. Hathloul was found guilty and sentenced to five years and eight months by the kingdom’s anti-terrorism court on charges of pursuing a hostile foreign agenda, using the internet to harm public order and cooperating with individuals and entities that have committed crimes under anti-terror laws, according to state-linked Saudi news site Sabq. The charges all come under the country’s counterterrorism law. Earlier this month, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told AFP that Hathloul was accused of contacting “unfriendly” states and providing classified information, but her family said no evidence to support the allegations had been put forward. She has 30 days to appeal the verdict. Sabq, which said its reporter was allowed inside the courtroom, reported that the judge said the defendant had confessed to committing the crimes and that her confessions were made voluntarily and without coercion. The report said the verdict was issued in the presence of the prosecutor, the defendant, a representative from the government’s Human Rights Commission and a handful of select local media representatives. The 31-year-old Saudi activist has long been outspoken about human rights in Saudi Arabia, even from behind bars. In 2018, she attended a public meeting in Geneva to brief the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Her trial began in March 2019 in Riyadh’s criminal court after ten months in detention.The prosecutor had called for the maximum sentence of 20 years. In November 2020, her case was transferred from regular criminal court to a special terrorism court.
Anti-terrorism law
The women’s rights activist was convicted of “various activities prohibited by the anti-terrorism law,” Sabq cited the court as saying. The court handed a prison term of five years and eight months, but suspended two years and 10 months of the sentence “if she does not commit any crime” within the next three years, they added. “A suspension of 2 years and 10 months in addition to the time already served (since May 2018) would see her (released) in approximately two months,” Lina al-Hathloul, the activist’s sister, wrote on Twitter. Another source close to her family and the London-based campaign group ALQST said she would be released by March next year.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 28-29/2020

Palestinian Joint Operations Room announces upcoming military maneuver

Joe Truzman/FDD/December 28/2020
Palestinian militant groups that comprise most of the ‘Joint Operations Room’
Palestinian militant groups who comprise most of the Joint Operations Room (JOR) announced Wednesday they will be conducting a joint military exercise on Dec. 29.
The JOR – also known as the Common Room – is a grouping of Palestinian militant factions in Gaza that operate as a quasi-army against Israel.
Palestinian factions have been heavily promoting the event by publishing material detailing the militant groups involved in the exercise including the creation of a Telegram channel dedicated to the upcoming event.
According to Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, the military maneuver dubbed ‘Strong Supporter’ – which is taken from a verse in the Quran – is the first of its kind and is an effort to ready Palestinian militant groups against a potential military conflict against Israel. “The maneuver comes within the framework of strengthening cooperation and joint action between the resistance factions, and the embodiment of its efforts to raise its combat readiness permanently and continuously,” al-Qassam Brigades stated on their website. The upcoming drill is a first for Palestinian groups, however, the JOR has already fought several short lived conflicts against Israel in 2018 and 2019.
The last-large scale military exercise in Gaza was conducted by al-Qassam Brigades in 2018. The militant group heavily promoted the event by publishing videos of different military scenarios its fighters were training for.
In one example, al-Qassam fighters assaulted a mock Israeli Merkava IV battle tank and successfully captured the IDF soldiers operating it.
Additionally, in another exercise, explosions and anti-aircraft fire from an al-Qassam Brigades position unintentionally triggered Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system which launched multiple interceptor missiles against the airspace above Gaza.
The goal of the maneuver is to send a message of deterrence to Israel by projecting unity and military strength among the largest Palestinian factions in Gaza. How Israel will react to the message remains to be seen.

How Iran's central bank currency system is manipulated to fund regional proxy wars
Investigators say the IRBC uses the 'trust' exchange mechanism to bolster proxy wars
Hollie McKay/Fox News/December 28/2020
While subjected to years of sanctions and a "maximum pressure" campaign inflicted by the Trump administration, reports indicate that the Iranian regime and its military wing – the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – may have found a crack in their financing system giving them access to millions in funds.
Since March, Tehran has managed to acquire some $15 billion worth of foreign currencies; the money is then inflated and sold by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), its governor Abdolnaser Hemmati recently said.
However, according to a study by the London-based Iran International TV, the IRGC has its own system in place to effectively masquerade as official money-lenders to buy up dollars and euros from exporters at the black-market rate.
"The Iranian government injects millions of dollars into the market every day to prevent a further fall in the value of the rial [Iran's currency]," Shahed Alavi, editor at Iran International TV, told Fox News.
"These dollars must be made available to importers of goods and circulated in the market, however in practice, the Quds Force buys most of these dollars at low prices through its affiliated exchanges and with the help of the Central Bank. The money eventually goes to illegal IRGC-affiliated armed groups in the region."
That process is NIMA, an online currency system initiated by the CBI in April 2018 in anticipation of President Trump's withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which occurred the following month. It allows Iranian exporters to sell hard currency at a higher amount, typically between the official exchange rate of 42,000 rials per dollar and the unofficial rate of more than 260,000 rials.
NIMA functions only via the Islamic banking system referred to as hawala, which is widely used to move money outside the bureaucratic banking structure and is primarily based on trust.
The intention was to enable Iranian companies that import essential products not available in the country – including medicine, electronics and wheat -- to have access to the subsidized exchange rate. Meanwhile, exporters are mandated to declare and sell a significant portion of the hard currency earned from abroad to CBI's NIMA platform.
"NIMA is a platform controlled by the government of Iran for exporters and importers to exchange currency with each other. In Iran, the foreign currency gained through exports should come back to the country's financial system under the supervision of the central bank via imported goods or currency," explained Saeed Ghasseminejad, the senior Iran and financial economics adviser for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
"Not returning the currency to the country's financial system is against the law. Additionally, you need a permit from the government to engage in export and import. The goal of this system is for the government to have control over capital and foreign currency."
Ghasseminejad said the critical point about NIMA is that the foreign currency on the platform is not paper money and, in most cases, is already in the international financial system.
"For example, an Iranian exporter which received the proceed in euro in a bank in Turkey sells that euro to an importer which needs euro. The money does not necessarily touch Iran's financial system. That is very useful to an IRGC front company, which then can take that money and send it, for example, to a front company in Lebanon, which is working for Hezbollah," he explained. "Of course, this will need Iran's central bank's permission because, without that, the IRGC front company will be subject to criminal persecution for not bringing back goods or hard currency."
CBI is alleged to be well aware of the manipulation by the IRGC, which is believed to have established a number of authorized forex outlets – the marketplace where various currencies and currency derivatives are traded – to facilitate the trade. It uses formally registered money merchants to conduct the operation. Thus, the IRGC footprint is left off official documentation.
The result is, as per Iran International's findings, the monies derived are primarily administered by government bodies to bolster the IRCG's missions outside its border – carried out by the murky elite unit known as the Quds Force – in places ranging from Iraq and Syria to Yemen and Lebanon. Moreover, it is said to have led to a desperate shortage of foreign monies necessary for vital imports of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.
Alavi noted that, with this money, the Quds Force pays the salaries of Iranian-affiliated militias in the region, buys the necessary weapons and equipment for them, and provides the money needed to carry out acts of sabotage.
"Financing with the cooperation of the central bank and by abusing the mechanism of injecting dollars into the market is unprecedented," he continued. "Because before the tightening of sanctions, the Quds Force received the money it needed directly from the government budgets and the annual budget of the Revolutionary Guards."
Mark Gazit, CEO of cybersecurity and big data at analytics company ThetaRay, said the IRGC needs three ingredients to succeed: a way to get cash and move it to the places they need it to go, a way to do so that cannot be discovered or proven, and a way to eventually withdraw the cash. These ingredients are provided by the Central Bank of Iran.
"Essentially, the Central Bank is calling exporters and saying, 'We need euros and dollars to give to importers in exchange for necessary commodities for Iran,' but then they're giving that money to the IRGC, who instead spends it on weapons," he explained.
"To push these funds through the financial system without setting off alarms, the IRGC is running a large number of accounts under aliases and conducting a massive amount of small transactions that are difficult to catch because the dollar amounts are below the thresholds of banks' AML detection systems. This enables the Central Bank to deny knowledge that they are doing business with terrorists."
Iran International claims that the illicit diversion between the IRGC and money traders is overseen by the top echelons at the Ministry of Defense's Logistics and Industrial Research Office, and by figures such as Gen. Seyyed Hojjatollah Qoraishi and his colleague Rezagholi Esmaili, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2016 for playing a pivotal part in the development of Iran's ballistic missile program. His name was removed by the U.N. blacklist in October, in conjunction with the end of the weapons sanctions that had long been slapped on the country.
"Whenever there's a discrepancy between official rates and black market rates, corruption thrives. By manipulating foreign exchange, the Iranian central bank can divert the difference in rates to fund other projects," said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
"Put another way, if foreign companies and correspondent banks pay the official exchange rate in their business with Iran, they will be paying six times as much in dollars. Literally, that means more than 83 percent could go to the Revolutionary Guards, while only 17 percent goes to legitimate purposes."
The Iranian economy, which has been beleaguered for more than four decades in its post-revolution era, has struggled with dizzying devaluation. The government has endeavored to camouflage this through the creation of multiple exchange rates. An analysis by the Atlantic Council earlier this year underscored that business and financial players have faced the challenge of dealing with at least "two significantly different rial exchange rates when conducting international activities: the official rate that is defined and subsidized by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and a floating one controlled by unregulated market supply and demand."
"The imbalance between the two rates quickly brought inefficiencies to Iran's international trade activities that have persisted for decades," it said.
But when a third exchange rate – the NIMA system – was introduced almost three years ago, it struggled to make Iran's international trade and access to hard currency any smoother.
Gazit stressed that even with the persistent issuing of sanctions on the embattled regime, it remains difficult for the U.S. government to close this loophole, mostly because now everything is digital.
"It's very easy for entities to conduct transactions remotely," he said. "Also, by using sophisticated A.I. techniques, it's possible for groups like the IRGC to calculate and conduct large numbers of small transactions that look perfectly legitimate, but combine to equal tens of millions of dollars in terrorist funding."
However, Ghasseminejad said there are small steps that can be taken.
"To limit such an operation, Washington's best tool is to limit Iran's revenue in general, something that the Trump administration has done. The second step is to blacklist the vast network of the IRGC's business empire and more importantly the people who run that network," he said, adding a word of warning.
"[But] the moment the U.S. lifts the sanctions and Tehran gets billions of dollars and wide access to the international financial system, the IRGC one way or another will get its share to fund terrorism."
*Behnam Ben Taleblu, an FDD senior fellow, concurred.
"Relieving sanctions on entities active in funding Iran's revolutionary foreign policy, especially under the auspices of trying to claw back a fatally flawed deal that added to Tehran's coffers, would be the definition of a self-imposed strategic setback," he said.

U.S. "Driving Stake Through Heart" of German-Russian Pipeline
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/December 28, 2020
"We continue to call on Russia to cease using its energy resources for coercive purposes. Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security. — U.S. Department of State, "Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act," October 20, 2020.
On December 24, the Kremlin admitted that U.S. sanctions may succeed in preventing completion of the pipeline. The U.S. government is now readying a fresh round of congressionally mandated sanctions that could deal a fatal blow to the project, according to the Reuters news agency. A report by the Swedish Defense Research Agency found that Russia has threatened to cut energy supplies to Central and Eastern European more than 50 times. Even after some of those states joined the European Union, Russian threats continued. The United States is ratcheting up the threat of sanctions against European companies in an effort to deal a death blow to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Pictured: The Nord Stream 2 landfall facility in Lubmin, Germany, on September 7, 2020.
The United States is ratcheting up the threat of sanctions against European companies in an effort to deal a death blow to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. The pipeline would double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany by transporting the gas under the Baltic Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump, like his predecessor Barack Obama, has criticized the project because it would make Germany "captive" to Russia for its energy supplies. Trump has been especially critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in opposition to the United States and many Eastern European countries, has doggedly pursued the pipeline project, which would funnel billions of dollars to Russia at a time that Germany is free-riding on the U.S. defense umbrella that protects Germany from that same Russia.
U.S. sanctions have delayed completion of the 1,230-km (764-mile) pipeline by more than a year and added at least $1 billion to its cost. The €9.5 billion ($11.5 billion) project, which is 90% complete, was initially slated to become operational in 2020, but its completion date is now uncertain after several key participants were threatened with U.S. sanctions and bailed out.
The unfinished part of the pipeline includes a 2.6 kilometer (1.6 mile) stretch in shallow waters of Germany's Exclusive Economic Zone and 100 kilometers (62 miles) in deep-water off the coast of Denmark. Work on the pipeline was abruptly halted in December 2019, when Allseas Group SA, a Swiss company, was threatened with U.S. sanctions and suspended pipelaying operations in Danish waters. Allseas operated a fleet of highly specialized subsea pipelaying ships. The sanctions were included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill, which President Trump signed into law on December 20, 2019. The legislation required the U.S. State and Treasury departments to submit a report within 60 days that identifies "vessels that are engaged in pipe-laying at depths of 100 feet or more below sea level for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, the TurkStream pipeline project [a new gas pipeline stretching from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea] or any project that is a successor to either such project."
Hundreds of companies from more than a dozen countries are involved in the Nord Stream 2 project, including at least 350 German companies, according to the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK).
Nord Stream 2 suffered another setback in November 2020, when DNV GL, a Norwegian risk management and quality assurance group, backed out of the project due to the threat of U.S. sanctions. DNV GL's work involved reviewing documentation and observing construction activities to ensure compliance with its standards. This included monitoring the testing and preparation of equipment used by vessels to install the pipeline. It remains unclear how the pipeline activities can continue without quality assurance guarantees.
DNV GL's decision came after the U.S. State Department warned that it was "committed to fully implementing sanctions authorities in the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act of 2019 (PEESA)." An October 20 statement said:
"We continue to call on Russia to cease using its energy resources for coercive purposes. Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security.
"PEESA provides the United States with the authority to advance U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives, in particular, to address Russian pipeline projects that create risks to U.S. national security, threaten Europe's energy security, and consequently, endanger Europe's political and economic welfare.
"In accordance with PEESA Section 7503, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, is to submit a report to Congress for the relevant period, identifying (A) vessels that engaged in pipe-laying at depths of 100 feet or more below sea level for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, the TurkStream pipeline project, or any project that is a successor to either such project; and (B) foreign persons that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, determines have knowingly sold, leased or provided those vessels for the construction of such a project; or facilitated deceptive or structured transactions to provide those vessels for the construction of such a project."
The scope of U.S. sanctions was expanded further in a veto-proof bipartisan defense policy bill passed in December 2020.
In defiance of U.S. sanctions, Nord Stream 2, which is led by Russia's Gazprom, announced on December 11 that it had resumed work on the 2.6 kilometer stretch in shallow German waters. On December 22, the Danish Maritime Authority announced that deep-sea pipe-laying work would resume on the Baltic Sea bed beginning on January 15, 2021. On December 23, U.S. officials revealed that a Spanish shipyard in the Canary Islands had upgraded a Russian ship, the Oceanic 5000, to complete the subsea pipelaying activities that previously had been carried out by Allseas.
On December 24, the Kremlin admitted that U.S. sanctions may succeed in preventing completion of the pipeline. The U.S. government is now readying a fresh round of congressionally mandated sanctions that could deal a fatal blow to the project, according to the Reuters news agency. "We've been getting body blow on body blow to this, and now we're in the process of driving a stake through the project heart," an American official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. pressure campaign is backed by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who fear that Russia will gain a stranglehold over German energy supplies. U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson recently noted:
"There is a broad array of U.S. sanctions and guidance targeting the Nord Stream 2 project, reflecting years of bipartisan, bicameral, and interbranch efforts and constituting a whole‐of‐government consensus that the pipeline must be stopped."
A German-Russian Project
Nord Stream 2 is led by Russia's Gazprom, with half of the funding provided by Germany's Uniper and Wintershall, the Anglo-Dutch company Shell, Austria's OMV and France's Engie. Despite the multinational participation, the pipeline is essentially a German-Russian project promoted from its inception by Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which, even during the Cold War, viewed closer economic ties with Russia as a way to defuse East-West tensions.
Germany's former SPD chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been Europe's leading proponent of the pipeline. Schröder, who led Germany between 1998 and 2005, has been the Chairman of Shareholders' Committee of Nord Stream since 2006. He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil producer. He has used his connections in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to lobby for both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. In 2017, when Nord Stream was suffering from several serious setbacks, the former SPD leader and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel revived the project, as did his successor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now Germany's president. Not surprisingly, Germany's current Social Democratic Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, has criticized the U.S. sanctions as foreign interference. "Decisions on European energy policy are made in Europe, not the USA," he has tweeted. "We fundamentally reject foreign interventions and sanctions with extraterritorial effects."
Europe is, in fact, deeply divided over the Nord Stream project and Germany is in the minority position. Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to the EU, according to Eurostat. Just over 40% of EU imports of natural gas come from Russia, followed by Norway (at around 35%). Nord Stream 2, when combined with the existing Nord Stream 1, would concentrate 80% of the EU's Russian-imported gas along that pipeline route.
Germany's Nordic, Baltic and Eastern European neighbors have accused Berlin of ignoring their concerns that the pipeline is a threat to Europe's energy security and that it will strengthen Gazprom's already dominant position on the market.
In March 2016, the leaders of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, in a letter to the European Commission, warned that Nord Stream 2 would pose "risks for energy security in the region of central and eastern Europe" and generate "potentially destabilizing geopolitical consequences." They added: "It would strongly influence gas market development and gas transit patterns in the region, most notably the transit route via Ukraine."
A report by the Swedish Defense Research Agency found that Russia has threatened to cut energy supplies to Central and Eastern European more than 50 times. Even after some of those states joined the European Union, Russian threats continued.
In December 2018, the European Parliament, by a vote of 433 to 105, condemned Nord Stream 2 as "a political project that poses a threat to European energy security." It called for the project to be cancelled.
Ukraine has said that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will deprive the country of billions of dollars in transit fees and undermine existing economic sanctions imposed by the West to compel Russia to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine and end its occupation of Ukraine's Crimea region. Roughly one-third of Russia's gas supplies to the EU currently pass through Ukraine. A ten-year pipeline contract between Russia and the Ukraine was to have expired on December 31, 2019. The two sides have since signed a five-year, $7 billion deal on the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe.
Nord Stream 2 should have been operational at the end of 2019, but the project was delayed after applications to lay pipes under Danish waters were left pending since April 2017. Nord Stream Chairman Gerhard Schroeder blamed U.S. political pressure on Denmark as the main reason for the delay in approving the permits. "Denmark is putting Europe's energy security at risk," he said.
After Denmark's Social Democratic Party won the Danish general elections in June 2019, the new government removed the last major hurdle to complete the Russian-led project. In October 2019, the Danish Energy Agency approved a permit for Nord Stream to lay pipes in a 147-km section in the Danish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) southeast of the Danish island Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.
In August 2020, after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union, German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced intense pressure to pull out of the pipeline project. Merkel said that the two issues should be "decoupled."
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
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Two Years Apart… Two Decades Apart
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 28 December, 2020
Those who observe the situation in our Arab countries, their transitions from one year to the next, one decade to the next, feel like they are taking a tour of the past. 2020’s exceptional bleakness provides those taking this tour with a panoramic view.
Two epochs in this history are conspicuously apparent: the post-First World War and the post Second World War periods.
The first epoch is that of laying states’ foundations: of rearranging this vast territory and its massive population after the Ottoman Empire’s collapse in the nations-states’ clothing borrowed from Europe’s history and experience, of initiating the path toward political presence in a world where great empires had disintegrated, and of agreements being reached between a mosaic of scattered groups so that they would form nations and countries. The second epoch is that of these nascent states becoming independent a few years after they underwent European mandates: of underpinning the agreements and solidifying them into socio-political entities, a historic opportunity to challenge the racist notion that entire peoples are not fit for independence, and the initiation establishing a world with various voices, capacities, and colors.
Today, we seem like we are still there, in one of those epochs or one where they are blended together. We are trying to assemble our countries’ national social foundations and the relationships between groups of different stripes, shaping and making our states and, of course, granting our citizens rights since they are citizens and not subjects. We are also trying to create our link to this world, look into whether we are active members of it, concerned with it, its apprehensions, and also, its values. On several levels, the primordial and dominant question on the horizon remains: who are we? This regression was exacerbated by the defeat of the Arab revolutions that erupted 10 years ago and the explicit and implicit civil war victories in their military, security, and puritanical Islamic forms. We were thus not allowed to launch and progress, fated to a difficult regression to primary school while we should have already had graduated. If we compare this state of affairs to that which had preceded it, the situation we found ourselves in the previous years and decades, then we would find the roots of that regression and the accumulation of events that led us there: the early 50s witnessed the Egyptian July coup d'état that paved the way for undercutting possibilities for developing administrations, parliaments, institutions, and freedoms. The early 1960s was the time of the Yemen war, the first Arab-regional civil war. Algeria did indeed become independent at that time, and Syria obtained its second independence by rejecting the “United Arab Republic.” Still, both countries came under the control of brutal military and security dictatorships. The early 1970s: Jordan’s civil war, and Hafez al-Assad’s take-over of Syria. During early 80s, and building on the calamity that was the Khomeinist revolution: the Iraq-Iran war erupted, and Israel invaded Lebanon. Early 1990s: Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the wars he started. Early this century: Bin Laden’s “raid” against New York and Washington and the subsequent wars on terror. During the early second decade of the new century, things had been different with the “Arab Spring” outbreak, but this major gain was totally erased by the time the third decade came along.
However, the regression, like any other, does not allow for returning to the conditions of the period backslid to. We do not seem prepared for primary school: our current tools are far fewer and weaker than they had been after the first and second world wars. The tyranny is more stifling, and the dispersal accompanied by massive displacement is more severe. Kinship loyalties are more intense, and inter-group animosity is stronger than ever. Modern structures, which had been born after the First World War and began to grow feathers after the second, oscillate between fracture and collapse. Worst of all is that denial is more glaring and empowered; indeed, many of us, particularly in intellectual circles, do not hesitate to bestow success on the state of affairs described above. Of course, the century that separates us from the war of 1914 and the three-quarters of a century that separates us from that of 1939 were not the same for all the peoples of the world, neither in their content nor in their paths. This means that the requisites for primary education have become too difficult for our capacities.
But the regression is difficult for other reasons, too. Because of immigration and asylum to Europe, which have become widespread, as well as education and familiarization with Western ideas, the call for equality in all its forms and the furthered breakdown of governments’ grip on the media as a result of the information revolution, the space for individualism and free thinking has become more expansive and impossible to reverse.
But since we are fated to live in the world of 2021, as consumers of its science and technology, pay taxes, educate our children, and migrate to other countries, we have become like those in limbo, or are always in between, walking around dazed and confused, our heads caught in times gone by and our feet clinging to slippery ground. On vast streams of our history where we have no control or influence over events that could be determined by fragile contingencies and perhaps coincidences that could have been different.
True, the entire world is in crisis today, and it is also true that some of the most advanced countries in the globe are themselves the ones that fought the two world wars, the most devastating in human history. But it is also true that we don’t have the direction, traditions, or institutions that have allowed others to transverse, in some form or another, what they had been and what they had done.
In our part of the world, it is not clear which unstable pillar we can build on and rise from: states? Armies? Ideas? Public or private sectors?
“We have no one but you, God”, Syria’s revolutionaries cried out when they confronted the savage devastation machine. In their own way, they described the reality of the situation early on.

The Year of the Pandemic … Good Riddance
Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/December 28/2020
The computer is better than a human being. It can delete a sentence or an article without leaving a trace. It removes it permanently from its memory and files. I wished that man possessed this golden ability to irreversibly erase a dark spot from his life and memories. There is no harm in wishing this year to end. This year deserves nothing but to be thrown into the graves of oblivion. Sometimes a person has pictures that are not worth publishing. As if he dreams of summoning this month-long crime, and shooting it to satisfy this deep desire to take revenge on a murderer who faced us with countless corpses upon his arrival.
On such days in previous years, we used to blame time for passing so quickly. We tried to catch the fleeing moments with beautiful gatherings… There was time for hugs, laughter, expressions of longings and dinner reunions. The truth is that we did not fully appreciate the blessing of ordinary living. Living without masks, disinfectants, and arrows of doubt in every approaching human being. We did not value the joy of normal living until the fatal visitor drove us to the edge of Hell.
We have never experienced such extreme cruelty before. The British who have seen the horrors of World War II say that those were less brutal than the calamities of this year. They say that patriotic and national feelings and the determination to confront Nazism were providing the residents of the targeted cities with a kind of moral compensation. The raids of the killer planes could have been avoided, either by taking refuge on the ground floors or shelters, or by fleeing to the countryside, as it was difficult for the Führer planes to bring death to such an enormous number of targets.
Moreover, it was in the killer’s interest to waste his bombs only on strategic targets or sensitive sites. There was no point in killing ordinary people, which is a tempting practice for today’s murderer.
The French, who have tasted the humiliation of seeing Hitler walking arrogantly on the Champs-Elysée, say that the bitterness of those days is less than the sorrows of this year which is about to end. There was an overwhelming feeling of anger. The desire of many to resist. Hope that the season of humiliation will end. Death was probable. But man did not stand idle and paralyzed, as he did in the midst of this pandemic.
It is not simple for people to say that while war is global, it remains less brutal than a pandemic. In war, you know the location of your opponent and the excuses that he gave to attack you. You know the source of the danger and the site of the flames. You hide or run away. You get the help of a parent. You find refuge on your loved one’s chest. You wipe your mother’s tears. You walk to your friend’s funeral…
Today’s serial killer did not knock on the door, nor did it ask permission to enter or prepare its crime with an excuse or warning. It spread like air, flowed like rain, and crept into continents, states, cities and villages, with no arsenals or weapons.
We were not living in a rosy world before the outbreak of Covid-19. The Arab journalist is a book of pain during ordinary days, but what becomes of him during times of calamities? The past decade has not been simple, easy, or delightful. I always felt that I was practicing the role of a gravedigger in the press, as on most days I would find a place on the front page for a new massacre or a mass murder. That was the day when injustice and bad interests turned the “Arab Spring” into a terrible trap to drown angry youths in the waves of mud and blood.
We complained that the front pages were loaded with corpses from this capital or that city. We said for a while that the wave of killings diminished after the youths retreated from the squares due to raids and arrests. We thought that we have left the killing zone on a long vacation. The calculations were inaccurate, as we suddenly found ourselves in the custody of Covid-19, and we had to become specialized in its disasters and variants.
I don’t want to write about what the serial killer did to world economies. Losses are unprecedented and still not totally calculated. I will not discuss the impact of coronavirus on the distribution of seats in the club of the powerful, and the position that China will occupy in the coming years. I do not want to speculate about Biden’s ability to benefit from some countries’ thirst for an America that is capable of managing broad alliances to confront the worrying rise of forces that are known for their disrespect of human rights.
I also do not wish to talk about the urgent need for countries to have efficient and fair governments, rational management of resources, and the building of advanced health institutions, as the pandemic has demonstrated.
I am only looking forward to seeing this year depart quickly as a criminal who committed more sins than he could handle. I want the serial killer to stop hunting more lives. I want to salute the real guards, the members of the “white army”, who stood on lines of fire in hospitals and laboratories trying to raise the torch of hope in a world suffocated by the cough of the infected and the silence of the dead.
I want to see the humans achieve victory over the pandemic. 2020 is the year of the pandemic. The year of the serial killer. The year of the Third World War. I do not regret its end. We will celebrate its death after it celebrated ours. We will not forget to thank the writers, journalists, actors and musicians, and everyone who helped us fight the time and the one-year stay in this great prison that we call the world.
We will be happy to throw it away like we do dirty socks. Good riddance.

Iran Between Clash and Response
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/December 28/2020
Ever since a US missile killed Iran’s most important general almost a year ago, the regime has been vowing revenge, with the latest threat coming just last week. Yet aside from a barrage of missile strikes on an Iraqi base last January, causing traumatic brain injuries for US soldiers stationed there, Iran’s response has been relatively muted. That’s because, even as the US military prepares for anything Iran or its proxies might try, the regime is not looking for an open confrontation with the world’s most powerful military. So says General Frank McKenzie, the man in charge of the US Central Command.
“It’s a very complex issue,” McKenzie said in an interview Sunday with a small group of reporters. “At one level the Iranians are not looking for a major incident with the United States, they are not looking for a war.” At the same time, he acknowledged that there is a real desire for the regime to avenge General Qassem Soleimani’s death. That last part is understandable. Soleimani was a gifted military strategist, commanding a multi-front war and insurgency in the Middle East that at its peak included operations in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. His leadership abilities helped Soleimani coordinate this multi-front war and keep the disparate proxies and militias on the same page. Since Soleimani’s demise, McKenzie said, the US has seen fissures within the Shiite militias Iran supported in Iraq, some of which are more open to taking orders from Iraq’s elected government instead of its more menacing neighbor. Soleimani’s death, McKenzie said, “unhinged Iran’s ability to direct these units forcefully.”
On the one hand this makes it more likely that rogue units could launch unauthorized attacks. On the other, the frequency of attacks from Iranian-supported militias against the U.S. and its allies has diminished. “In the last few months, they have been few and far between,” McKenzie said.
All of this raises a question for President-elect Joe Biden. Most of his party denounced President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani in January as a reckless provocation. Biden himself wrote in Foreign Affairs that Soleimani’s killing “removed a dangerous actor but also raised the prospect of an ever-escalating cycle of violence in the region.” Will Biden attempt to de-escalate that cycle with Iran — and will that work? McKenzie’s perspective is instructive. Iran’s leaders have never doubted America’s “capability to respond” to their attacks, he said. Instead, the regime has doubted “our will to respond.” The Soleimani attack demonstrated a willingness “they did not think we would be able to have,” he said.
The events leading to Soleimani’s demise demonstrate the point. Iran began to escalate its attacks on US allies in the region in the spring of 2019. Its revolutionary guard corps attacked oil tankers. A fleet of drones attacked a Saudi refinery. In the weeks leading up to the strike against Soleimani, Iranian-backed militias overran the US embassy in Baghdad. All the while, Trump avoided striking Iranian targets inside Iran, fearing it would lead to a new war in the Middle East.
When Trump finally did escalate last January, the result was not a new war. The regime did fire on an Iraqi base and mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet. But eventually the pace of its attacks on US forces and allies in the region diminished. Deterrence was re-established.
That’s a valuable lesson for Biden as he prepares to take office. Iran’s supreme leader is now threatening revenge during a chaotic presidential transition. Biden should make it clear that the US has both the capability and willingness to respond to anything the Iranians are planning.

Biden needs to build on Trump success to aid Iranian people
Mariam Memarsadeghi/Alarabiya/December 28/2020
Five years after the Iran deal, many of the policy minds from the Obama era are headed back into government as US President elect Joe Biden prepares to step into the White House.
They say they are ready to re-enter the Iran deal, but despite partisan polarization, they cannot be oblivious to failures of their old policy. Following the deal, as the US provided massive injections of US dollars to the regime – totaling over $150 billion, with $1.8 billion in pallets of cash – the regime’s sponsorship of the annihilation of the Syrian nation was put on overdrive; its global terror, imperial dominion, proxy wars, and killing of American soldiers expanded; and nothing of the financial windfall delivered to the mafia state reached the people. While the deal was still in place, Iranians saw their livelihood plummet, in fact, and risked their lives to rise in protest in over 100 cities throughout the country.
Four years of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against the regime, combined with an increasingly unified Israeli and Arab front, as well as an Iranian society mobilized against any prospect for government-led reform and instead for wholesale, democratic overthrow mean the incoming Biden team wields tremendous leverage on the Islamic Republic.
Patience and strategic use of this leverage can make for a much better deal. This better deal should be one that addresses the full scope of security concerns while investing in development of that ultimate guarantor of peace and security – a free Iran.
Sanctions on the regime have targeted not only Iran’s threat to American interests and international security, but also the violation of the people’s most basic liberties. These violations are intensifying as the regime is doubling down on its decades long practice of executing innocents and taking foreign nationals as hostages. Though the sanctions hurt average Iranians, they have been welcomed by Iran’s leading dissidents at great personal risk, and the Iranian people’s protests, strikes and other acts of civil disobedience have taken aim squarely at the regime, not the US or its sanctions policy. It is common for Iranians to speak about the pain of sanctions as the price they willingly pay to be rid of their tyrants.
If there is to be lifting of sanctions, it should be only gradual, as calibrated rewards for improvements in human rights. Modeled on the experience of the Helsinki Accords between the West and the Soviet Bloc, opportunities for economic and political openings for the regime should be conditioned on clear, independently verified fulfillment of human rights demands.
Additionally, there are concrete steps the Biden administration can take to ensure that its Iran policy maximizes America’s chances to secure its interests while giving the Iranian people every chance to secure theirs.
Even barring the effect of crippling sanctions, the regime’s own internal contradictions, its endemic corruption and ineptitude, severe repression, and gross negligence of the COVID crisis make a repeat of nationwide protests a near certainty.
Future protests can result in democratic change or more massacres; much depends on the reaction from the US government. The Biden administration must learn from former US President Barack Obama’s betrayal of Iranians during the Green Movement and be ready to stand with the people in words and deeds. The Trump administration provided rhetorical support to the democratic opposition, but practical, strategic planning is needed to take advantage of the openings that will invariably be afforded by new civic mobilization and to prevent violent repression. The Biden administration should engage with the democratic opposition on this planning and devote up-front the coordination and resources needed to help foster peaceful transition to democracy.
A democratic Iran will mean a Middle East region freed from the terror and corruption of an imperial Islamist state. Thousands of those who have courageously waged the struggle for this future are in Ayatollah Khamenei’s dungeon today. But countless more, with their welfare plummeting and no hope for life under the regime, continue to fight. They deserve America’s support. Just as the Solidarity movement in Poland was aided by the US because of its existential potential to bring down communism, Iranian worker unions and civic networks must be aided in their struggle for fundamental change away from Islamist backwardness and toward a free, peaceful Middle East. To facilitate this, the State Department’s grantmaking to groups and NGOs focused on helping Iranians should be realigned away from longer term, development-oriented programming to initiatives aimed at usurping opportunities for political change.
To provide nuts and bolts assistance during peak civic mobilization, the Biden team should provide what the Trump administration promised but did not deliver: Nationwide emergency internet access when the regime shuts down service. This will effectively be a lifeline to keep the people’s movement alive when it reaches its tipping point. To ensure the Iranian people have access to quality news about their own movement and to ensure American values and support are conveyed directly, Voice of America Persian service must be rehabilitated. In its current state, with barely a sliver of audience, it is a waste of the American people’s tax dollars and discredited in the eyes of the very Iranians it is meant to honor and amplify – the country’s courageous dissidents. The Trump administration promised such change, but VOA Persian service remains as feckless as ever.
Another missed opportunity during maximum pressure was the immigration policy for Iranians. The Trump administration pledged to boot out from the US regime-affiliated individuals – but never did. The Biden administration should do so while lifting the Trump travel ban on ordinary Iranians who love America.
The Iranian democracy movement is fully deserving of American support. In its commitment to unity and bipartisanship, the Biden administration can put forth an Iran policy that melds the best of the Democratic and Republican foreign policy traditions to provide unambiguous backing to courageous Iranian women and men risking their lives for a free future.