LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 13/19
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the
lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.january13.19.htm
News
Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay
down my life in order to take it up again
John 10/17-21: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life
in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my
own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I
have received this command from my Father.’ Again the Jews were divided because
of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is out of his
mind. Why listen to him?’ Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one
who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’"
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on
January 12-13/19
Rahi calls for Maronite MPs meeting upcoming Wednesday to discuss role of
Maronites in confronting general conditions
David Hale arrives in Beirut
Shlala following a field exercise of the Arab Summit arrangements: All
facilities will be ready in the next two days
Lebanon Dollar-Bonds Tumble After Debt Rescheduling Report
Asian Cup: Saudi Arabia advances over Lebanon in the first half with a goal
Civil march sets out from Labor to Health Ministry in protest against
corruption, unemployment, and to claim economic and health rights
Aid agencies: Stocktaking after storm hit refugees in Lebanon hard, preparations
for looming storm underway
Regnard: We are witnessing the 'Lebanization' of French politics and we are now
in a crisis situation
Exclusive: Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses
Controversy in Lebanon Over Libya’s Invitation to Economic Summit
Bassil Says Syria Relation in Lebanon Interest, Slams Parties 'Exploiting' It
Report: Tensions Surge over Inviting Libya to Beirut Summit
Army Assures ‘Stable’ Situation on Border after Israeli Breaches
Hankache: Government of Specialists Needed to Manage Country's Affairs
Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss
Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on January 12-13/19
Israeli Warplanes Target Damascus Airport
Syria Says Israeli Warplanes Hit Damascus Airport Warehouse
Arab League: Inviting Syria to Tunis Summit Won’t be Discussed at Beirut Meeting
Pompeo talks Iran, ISIS and regional stability with Al Arabiya
Damascus Blackmails Diplomats to Reopen their Embassies
Iraq’s Hikma, Asa’ib Ahl el-Haq at Loggerheads after Sadr City Murder
US: No Further Waivers on Iran Oil Imports
India’s Iranian Oil Imports Fell By 41 Percent in December under US Pressure
Guterres Says 'Deeply Concerned' Over Widespread Violations of Human Rights in
Libya
Libya: Salame Says Parliamentary Elections Expected Before Next Spring
Government Shutdown Becomes Longest in US Histor
Egypt police kill 6 militants in shootout, says interior ministry
Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on January 12-13/19
Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses/Beirut- Paula Astih/Asharq
Al Awsat/January 12/19
Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss/Makram Rabah/The
Weekly Arab/January 13/19
Two Ways May Could Just End the Brexit Standoff/Therese
Raphael/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
US Should Go Back to the Moon/Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
Terrorists’ plots backfire on Iran/Reza Shafiee/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
While the Iranian regime’s elite bash US, their children reap its benefits/Ali
Hajizade/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
China: Ominous signs of a weakening economy/Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya
English/January 12/19
Engineering a historical narrative in Syria/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya
English/January 12/19
Detailed Interview With The Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik:‘Israelis Are
Living on the Titanic & No One Wants to Hear Bad News About the Army/Amos Harel/Haaretz/January
12/19
Extensive & Detailed Interview With The Outgoing Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi
Eisenkot - A look back/Gadi Eisenkot talks war, peace and legacy/Yaakov Katz,
Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/January 12/19
Iran’s opaque politics of succession to Khamenei/Gareth Smyth/The Weekly
Arab/January 13/19
Latest LCCC English Lebanese & Lebanese Related News
published
on January 12-13/19
Rahi calls for Maronite MPs meeting upcoming Wednesday to discuss role of
Maronites in confronting general conditions
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA -
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Butros al-Rahi, called Saturday for a
meeting upcoming Wednesday by Maronite deputies to deliberate on the role of
Maronites in facing the prevailing conditions in the country. In an issued
statement by the Maronite Patriarchate Secretariat earlier today, it indicated
that the Patriarch calls on the "heads of parliamentary blocs and honorable
Maronite deputies to attend a deliberation meeting to be held in Bkirki on
Wednesday, January 16, at 10 a.m. to discuss the role of Maronites in
confronting the general situation in Lebanon and the region and the
deterioration witnessed at the political, economic and social levels...and to
address the required initiatives and objectives to preserve the state of
Lebanon."
David Hale arrives in Beirut
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - US
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, David Hale, arrived at Beirut
International Airport this evening on an official visit, during which he will be
meeting with Lebanese officials, NNA correspondent at Beirut Airport reported.
Shlala following a field exercise of the Arab Summit
arrangements: All facilities will be ready in the next two days
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - In preparation for the fourth round of the Arab Economic
and Social Development Summit scheduled to take place in Beirut from 18 to 20
January, a field exercise was carried out this afternoon of the arrangements to
welcome the leaders and heads of state as they arrive at Rafic Hariri
International Airport and head to Beirut Waterfront's "Sea Side Arena" where the
Summit will be held. The security and logistics teams in charge of the
ceremonies participated in the exercise under the supervision of the Summit's
Executive Committee Head, Nabil Shedid, the Summit's Security Structure
Commander, Brigadier Salim Feghali, and the Summit's Media Committee Head and
Spokesperson, Rafic Shlala. Participants toured the halls of the Summit
headquarters and waiting lounges, and the bilateral meeting rooms, as well as
the main media center featuring the latest audio-visual equipments that can
accommodate more than 700 media representatives. The final touches on the
logistical, media and security arrangements were completed during the tour.
Following the field exercise, Shlala said: "The aim of the field exercise is to
ensure that all preparations for the arrival of the Arab leaders and
accompanying delegations are finalized in accordance with the plan set by the
executive committees since last August, in coordination with all concerned
ministries, public departments and the Municipality of Beirut." "During the next
two days all the Summit facilities and venues will be ready, including the
Phoenicia Hotel (the ministerial meeting venue), Monroe Hotel (media center) and
the Summit venue," Shalala added. It is to note that on Monday, January 14, a
press conference will be held at the Summit headquarters to explain all the
related operational, media and security measures to be adopted.
Lebanon Dollar-Bonds Tumble After Debt Rescheduling Report
Reuters/Saturday 12th January
2019/Lebanon’s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds tumbled for a second day on
Friday following a Bloomberg report quoting the finance minister saying a fiscal
reform plan included a debt rescheduling. Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil
said such a rescheduling would be undertaken in coordination with lenders and
the central bank, Bloomberg said, citing a statement. The plan did not include
any change to Lebanon’s fixed exchange rate, it added. Lebanon’s
dollar-denominated bonds suffered a second day of hefty falls with many issues
trading at record lows. The 2025 bond dropped 5.25 cents to a fresh record low
of 73.50 cents in the dollar. According to a summary of the comments to
Bloomberg circulated by the finance ministry, Khalil did say the plan under
consideration included a rescheduling, but he denied there was any intention to
“restructure” Lebanon’s public debt, which is equal to around 150 percent of
GDP. But a Lebanese newspaper cited him on Thursday as saying the ministry was
“preparing a financial correction plan including restructuring of public debt”,
which triggered Thursday’s sell-off in dollar-denominated debt. Asked by Reuters
on Friday whether a haircut - or writedown in value - was under consideration,
Khalil said: “There is absolutely no intention of touching the value of Lebanese
bonds or taking a percentage of them. “The proposals are an operation to
organise and manage the debt and to move ahead with reform measures that reduce
the burden of it,” he added. Tim Ash at BlueBay Asset Management said the
comments had caused concern in the markets. “The damage is done ...(this) just
reflects the extent of the problems faced by Lebanon - there is simply no space
for failing to adopt the right tone/language in all this,” he said. Khalil told
Reuters on Thursday that Lebanon was studying ways to manage its public debt and
its structure as part of plans for public finance reform. The International
Monetary Fund urged Lebanon in June to carry out “an immediate and substantial
fiscal adjustment” to improve debt sustainability. More than eight months since
an election, political leaders have still not been able to agree a new
government that could set about reforms to boost confidence. Khalil, a top
figure in the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, has recently
become more vocal in his warnings about the economy. Last month, he said Lebanon
was in an economic crisis that had started to turn into a financial one which he
hoped would not become a monetary one. Khalil has held the post of finance
minister since 2014 and is expected to retain the position in the new
government. A deal on forming the new cabinet to be led by Saad al-Hariri
appeared close last month but the last obstacle was not resolved.
Asian Cup: Saudi Arabia advances over Lebanon in the first
half with a goal
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - Dubai - Saudi Arabia advanced over Lebanon in the first
half of the match between them at the Al-Maktoum Stadium in Al-Nasr Club in
Dubai in the second interval of the first round of the fifth group of the 17th
Asian Football Cup hosted by the UAE until February 1.Saudi striker Fahd Al-Muallad
scored a direct shot in the 12th minute from the inside of the area to the roof
of the goalkeeper Mahdi Khalil, a ball he accidentally received from a Lebanese
defender while trying to cut a cross.
Civil march sets out from Labor to Health Ministry in
protest against corruption, unemployment, and to claim economic and health
rights
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - A civil march was organized this afternoon by the "We are
all affected means we are all responsible" Campaign against corruption and
unemployment in the country, and in demand for citizens' economic and health
rights. The march set out from the Ministry of Labor towards the Ministry of
Health, where participants gathered to voice their rejections for the existing
stalemate situation.Civil Activist Nada Nassif said, "All parties in the
authority are responsible for the economic, daily living, environmental and
unemployment crisis," adding that "we are all paying the price for corruption."
She pointed out that funds will become available when the State stops repaying
the public debts with high interest rates to banks and beneficiary accounts, and
when it adopts a fair and equitable tax regime. Nassif criticized the "inability
to form a government, at a time of accumulating crises," adding that "failure
extends to include the most basic obligations." Nassif called for movement in
demand for three pressing issues at this stage, namely the need for an
integrated health and hospitalization system, activation of Article 46 of the
Lebanese Labor Law relating to the annual adjustment of wages in parallel with
inflation, and preventing institutions from employing workers at less than the
minimum wage and without social security.
Aid agencies: Stocktaking after storm hit refugees in
Lebanon hard, preparations for looming storm underway
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Lebanon issued the following statement on the work of relief agencies during the
recent storm that hit Lebanon, particularly in assisting the affected refugees:
"A violent storm - Storm "Norma" - hit Lebanon hard on the morning of Sunday 6
January, and continued raging until the early hours of Thursday 10 January.
Several days of strong winds, snow and torrential rains have affected more than
570 informal tented sites all over the country, home to over 22,500 refugees.
UNHCR, UNICEF and other humanitarian agencies, together with Lebanese
authorities scrambled to attend to the needs of the affected Lebanese and
refugees. The emergency response to the extreme weather conditions was
coordinated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and UNHCR through the inter-agency
coordination mechanism. Aid agencies have deployed to pump water out of
inundated sites and provide affected refugees with relief items such as
mattresses, blankets, children winter clothes, dignity and hygiene kits, fuel
vouchers, plastic sheets, and wood poles. Given the scale of the challenges,
agencies prioritized assistance to the most affected refugees first. So far,
some 10,000 refugees have been reached with urgent distributions, and aid
agencies will continue working around the clock to reach all affected refugees
and sites. Over two months ago, UNHCR, UNICEF and partner organizations
pre-positioned contingency stocks and grants for the winter to help quickly
deploy relief items to vulnerable refugees during extreme weather conditions.
However, the storm still hit refugees hard. Spontaneous settlements in Lebanon
are made of temporary shelter materials. Such dwellings cannot sustain extreme
weather conditions for too long, despite all the efforts of humanitarian actors.
Tragically, the violent storm took the life of Fatima, an eight-year-old Syrian
refugee girl who was swept away by floods in Minieh, northern Lebanon. Across
the country, the Civil Defence and Lebanese Red Cross rushed to evacuate
distressed refugees who found themselves stuck in their shelters because of
floods or snow. Municipalities have also mobilized to ensure roads leading to
informal settlements are accessible, and that those whose shelters were
destroyed can be temporarily relocated to alternative sites where they can keep
warm and dry.
In the Bekaa alone, at least 847 Syrian refugees had to relocate due to floods
or severe damages to their shelters. In the North, the over 700 relocations are
reported so far. Aid agencies estimate that approximately 850 informal
settlements, hosting over 70,000 refugees, are at risk of being affected by
extreme weather. Agencies are preparing for another storm that is forecast to
begin tomorrow. Emergency stocks have been replenished and sanitation provisions
were delivered. Teams are also closely monitoring family separation cases to
make sure children are protected during possible evacuations. At this time of
emergency, the agencies are calling for all governmental and non-governmental
actors as well as communities to stay mobilized and to work jointly towards
protecting the most vulnerable people from further severe weather.Every year,
refugees walk over 2 billion km to safety. Please join our solidarity movement
to honor their resilience."
Regnard: We are witnessing the 'Lebanization' of French
politics and we are now in a crisis situation
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - French Senator representing French citizens living abroad,
Damien Regnard, held a dialogue session at the Smallville Hotel in Beirut on
Saturday, at the invitation of the French Republican Party's Lebanon Branch, in
the presence of the Consulate Advisor and Republican Party Representative in
Lebanon, Fabienne Blino, who introduced Regnard and called for a wide
participation in the European elections. Taking the floor, Regnard touched on
France's domestic policy and the policy pursued by the Republican Party, saying,
"We are witnessing the Lebanization of French politics...There is an immigration
crisis and a crisis of integration, and the challenges created by this crisis
must be considered." The Senator called on the French abroad to "vote heavily in
the upcoming European elections to be held in May to preserve their right to
vote." "All forces must be assembled to participate in the elections because
they are the only legitimacy we have, whether for the parliament council or
senators or consular representatives abroad," he said, noting that "the
percentage of voting must exceed 20 percent." Regnard pointed out that "the
current French President Emmanuel Macron does not support the French abroad, and
does not mention them in his statements." He also referred to reducing their
allocated budgets, including cutting-off the Foreign Affairs Ministry's budget
by approximately 13 percent, which he deemed as being a "disaster" that led to
the closure of a number of consulates across the world. "France is losing some
of its influence and its image in the United Nations because of this reduction,"
Regnard said. "It is no longer in a number of committees and bodies and is
replaced by the Chinese and the British, whose budget has increased by about 60
percent," he added. Regnard revealed that Germany is trying to convert the
French seat in the UN Security Council to a European seat.Regarding the yellow
jacket demonstrations, Regnard said, "I understand the mobilization that took
place and the demands of the November 17 demonstration...but I do not understand
the unjust demands that are now being raised, from the abolition of the Senate
to the referendum and others..."We are now in a crisis situation," he said. On
another level, Regnard indicated that this is his first visit to Lebanon at the
invitation of French Ambassador Bruno Foucher, during which he met with a number
of Lebanese parliamentarians at the Pine Palace. He disclosed that discussions
touched on educational services, since Lebanon hosts the largest network of
French accredited schools with the largest number of students, noting that he
met with a large number of school principals. Regnard added that he visited the
Higher Institute of Business and was briefed on the incubator of many companies
and how to finance entrepreneurs for their projects in the world. He also noted
that he will be visiting the French contingent operating within UNIFIL
peacekeepers in the South.
Exclusive: Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses
Beirut- Paula Astih/Asharq Al
Awsat/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/70999/paula-astih-hezbollahs-gains-from-syria-war-equal-its-losses-%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%84%d8%a7-%d8%a7%d8%b3%d8%b7%d9%8a%d8%ad-%d9%85%d9%83%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%ad%d8%b2%d8%a8-%d8%a7/
Nearly seven years have passed since Hezbollah got practically engaged in the
Syrian war – the movement’s biggest challenge since its establishment in 1982.
Today, as the battles calm down, the party has returned to the political work
inside Lebanon, seeking to invest what it considers “filed victories”. Thus, the
party leadership and observers have started to evaluate this experience.
Perhaps the first thing to look for in any attempt to assess Hezbollah’s
experience in the Syrian war is the number of party members killed on the field,
amid a total blackout on the matter. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights announced on the war’s seventh anniversary that around 122,000 members of
the Syrian regime and its pro-Syrian and non-Syrian armed forces were killed,
including 63,820 Syrian soldiers and 1,630 members of the Lebanese Hezbollah.
As battles intensified in Syria, specifically in 2013 and 2014, the number of
Hezbollah fighters there was estimated at 5,000. The AFP, in a past report,
noted that elements of the party received training in Lebanon and Iran before
going to the field. The number of party fighters in Syria has recently dropped
significantly, in conjunction with the decline of fighting intensity. The
director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, told
Asharq Al-Awsat that those were currently concentrated in the vicinity of Deir
Ezzor, Bukamal, Al-Qusayr, Rif Dimashq, Syrian Badia Aleppo and Al-Qamishli
airport. The movement refuses to set a date for its withdrawal from Syria. Its
secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said last summer that the pullout would be
at the request of the Syrian leadership.
Die Welt, a German newspaper, recently published a report on the end of
Hezbollah’s mission in Syria, after losing a large number of fighters on the
battlefield. The newspaper noted that the party would maintain an advisory role
after participating in the Syrian war with about 8,000 fighters.
Opinions converge over Hezbollah’s gains in the Syrian war. Supporters and
opponents alike agree that the party achieved a great combat experience. The
head of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies, retired Brigadier General
Dr. Hisham Jaber, said that the “combat experience gained by the party fighters
[during the war] cannot be provided through training organized by the party
leadership.”
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published in 2016 a study prepared
by an IDF officer in 2014, in which he concluded that Hezbollah could pursue a
more aggressive combat strategy in any future war with Israel in order to
shorten the duration of the conflict. He added that the deep engagement in Syria
affected the overall approach of the organization in the planning and
implementation of military operations. The military gains of the party are not
limited to combat experience. Military experts said that Hezbollah has probably
acquired large quantities of weapons over the past years, both from Syria and
Iran. Jaber noted that in the July 2006 war, Israel estimated the number of
surface-to-surface missiles possessed by Hezbollah at around 20-30 thousand, but
today, it puts them at around 100-150 thousand.
Politically, Hezbollah considers that the most important thing it has gained
from engaging in the Syrian war is to prevent what it calls “terrorist
organizations” from reaching Lebanon, especially after the battle of al-Qusayr.
Jaber said that the party also considered itself a major contributor, along with
Russia and Iran, to support the Syrian regime and prevent its collapse.
However, as much as the party won, it lost its popularity both inside Lebanon
and on the Arab level, in addition to losing hundreds of its members. Jaber
emphasized that the number of party members killed in Syria ranged between
1,500-2,000, in addition to hundreds of people with disabilities.
A study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2016 stated that
when Hezbollah began its intervention in Syria, its priorities, strategies and
rhetoric changed, and a much larger proportion of its budget was allocated to
military spending. Despite the continued funding for social services, a larger
proportion has been directed to families and institutions associated with
Hezbollah’s military infrastructure as part of the party’s efforts to support
its forces. Abdul Rahman told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party “lost most of the
popularity it enjoyed in Syria, especially in the Sunni and Shiite communities,
as well as among the other components.”
Controversy in Lebanon Over Libya’s Invitation to Economic Summit
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday,
12 January, 2019/The date for the Arab Economic Summit that is scheduled to be
held in Beirut on Jan. 19-20 has not changed despite a dispute sparked by
Speaker Nabih Berri following his objection to invite Libya after his earlier
call to postpone the event over Syria’s non-representation. On Friday, the
Organizing Committee of the Arab Summit for Economic and Social Development
issued a statement saying Berri has informed members of the Supreme Committee
that he agreed on inviting Libya, provided that the invitation be addressed
through diplomatic channels. “This was done by Libya's delegate to the League of
Arab States,” the statement said. The committee members also explained to Berri
that Syria’s invitation is not a Lebanese decision, adding that it was up to the
Arab League to approve the mater. However, Berri’s media office countered claims
that he had been notified of the status of the two countries’ attendance. It
stressed in a statement that “the information is made up and absolutely not
true.”In fact, the statement claimed, Berri’s top aide, caretaker Finance
Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, had visited President Michel Aoun on the Speaker’s
request to protest inviting Libya to the Summit. “The office expresses its
surprise that the level of fabrications reaches this level,” the statement
added. Berri is opposed to Lebanon having ties with Libya because of the 1978
disappearance of the movement’s founder, Imam Musa Sadr, and two of his
companions during an official visit to the country. Sources close to Aoun told
Asharq Al-Awsat that the Summit would be held on time. “We were not informed
about any decision to postpone it,” the sources said. Meanwhile, the Higher
Islamic Shiite Council held an emergency meeting and called on the concerned
Lebanese authorities not to invite the Libyan delegation to the Summit. The
Council warned against "ignoring the popular reactions that may result from
insisting on inviting the Libyan delegation," stressing that "meetings will be
kept open so as to follow-up on the developments and take the appropriate
measures."
Bassil Says Syria Relation in Lebanon Interest, Slams
Parties 'Exploiting' It
Naharnet/January 12/19/Free Patriotic Movement chief and caretaker Foreign
Minister Jebran Bassil stressed Friday that the relation with Syria is “in
Lebanon's interest,” as he noted that it should not be “exploited” by any
political party. “Our relation with Syria is in the interest of Lebanon and all
its components, but the relations with Syria cannot be the subject of domestic
overbidding or exploitation by a certain party seeking to improve its own
relation with Syria at Lebanon's expense,” Bassil said during a visit to Zahle.
“We have put an end to the subordinate and subservient foreign policy and we're
now practicing an independent policy based on reciprocity for the sake of
Lebanon,” the FM added. “When Syria was in Lebanon, we confronted it until its
withdrawal, and when Syria returned to its territory, we boldly declared our
determination to establish the best relations with it. We are not ashamed of
this and it changes nothing of our history,” the minister went on to say.
Turning to the controversy over Syria's return to the Arab League, Bassil said:
“We were the first to call for Syria's return to the Arab League and we will not
merely follow a certain side to Syria when they decide so.”“We objected against
the suspension of Syria's membership in the Arab League from the very beginning
and we preserved the best ties with it and it is normal today to help in its
return,” the FPM chief went on to say. He added: “We are keen on our national
unity but we also reject to subject our national interests to harm and we will
not await a decision from beyond the border.”“The war in Syria had suffocated us
and the Arab markets were closed in our face, so it is unacceptable to suffocate
ourselves during peacetime,” Bassil said. Tensions have surged in Lebanon in
recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be invited to a key Arab
economic summit in Beirut and others who reject its participation. Some parties
have meanwhile called for postponing the summit until after Syria's return to
the Arab League.
Report: Tensions Surge over Inviting Libya to Beirut Summit
Naharnet/January 12/19/The debate in Lebanon intensified over the Arab Economic
and Social Development summit scheduled in Beirut on January 19-20, due to the
opposition of Speaker Nabih Berri to Libya's invitation and his calls to
postpone the summit because of Syria’s lack of participation, media reports said
on Saturday. Asharq al-Awsat said some have interpreted Berri's position as “a
message to the Syrian regime after relations between the two have witnessed some
estrangement.” The country’s presidency has affirmed that the summit is going to
be held on time, as Speaker Nabih Berri’s office countered claims that he had
been notified of the status of Libya’s and Syria’s attendance. Deputies and
ministers of AMAL Movement and Hizbullah are “likely to boycott the summit,”
according to the daily. Meanwhile, Assistant Arab League Secretary-General
Hossam Zaki told reporters upon his arrival at Beirut's airport on Friday that
“the summit will be held on time. The (Lebanese) political tensions are domestic
and do not concern the Arab League. The League is concerned with the
organization of the summit and we are here to coordinate the arrangements with
the Lebanese authorities.”Presidency sources of President Michel Aoun said that
preparations for the summit are ongoing and that “no request had been received
from the Arab League or any country to postpone it. Invitations were sent to the
participants.”Tensions have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties
who want Damascus to be invited to the summit and others who reject its
participation. Controversy has also arisen over the invitation of Libya in
connection with the case of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who
disappeared in 1978 while on an official visit to the country.
Army Assures ‘Stable’ Situation on Border after Israeli
Breaches
Naharnet/January 12/19/The Lebanese Army Command assured on Saturday that the
situation on the southern border was stable following Israel’s provocative acts
and breaches that included construction works along the Blue Line. “The
situation is stable. The army command coordinated efforts with the UN Interim
Force in order to maintain stability along the Blue Line,” VDL radio 100.5
quoted the army command. Meanwhile, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted
unnamed military sources who said “there is a tendency to resolve the issue
diplomatically.”
“The army is deployed along the border and is closely monitoring Israel's work.
We are in full readiness if the situation develops, although we believe that no
one is suited to the military escalation,” added the source. On Thursday, Israel
embarked on the construction of a border wall, placing cement blocks near the
Miskav Aam settlement, that breached a number of points contested by Lebanon. An
army statement noted “the blocks had been placed without informing UNIFIL.” A
UNIFIL statement said after the first regular Tripartite meeting of 2019, that
the “focus of discussions was on tunnels and ongoing engineering works near the
Blue Line.”Tripartite meetings between with senior officers from the Lebanese
Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the UN position in Ras
Al Naqoura, have been held regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL since the end
of the 2006 war in south Lebanon as an essential conflict management and
confidence building mechanism.
Hankache: Government of Specialists Needed to Manage
Country's Affairs
Kataeb.org/ Saturday 12th January 2019/Kataeb MP Elias Hankache on Saturday
stressed that an apportionment government will be disappointing and
unproductive, reiterating the party’s call for a government of specialists that
will manage the citizens’ affairs while contentious political issues would be
addressed at the parliament. "Foreign allegiance, not the Consultative Gathering
knot, is the major obstacle that is preventing the government formation; the
prematurely-launched presidential race, the U.S. sanctions on Iran, the Yemen
war and many other issues are also hindering any breakthrough,” he said in an
interview on Future TV. Hankache rejected calls for the reactivation of the
caretaker government amid the failure to form a new one, deeming such a proposal
as a "heresy" that circumvents the Constitution. "Instead of opting for this
option, it would be better to form a new government because the Lebanese have
begun to feel desperate,” he said. Hankache pointed out that the country is
going through a very difficult phase, adding that the unemployment rate has
reached 40% with a high of businesses shuting their doors. “We need a work
environment, but there are many problems coming in the way; thus, a government
of specialists in needed to restore confidence in the country,” he stressed.
Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss
Makram Rabah/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19
The last time Beirut hosted a regional Arab summit, Lebanon and perhaps the
world were totally different. In 2002, Lebanon was a quasi-Syrian protectorate
with a political system subservient to the Assad regime.
More important, the US-led invasion of Iraq had not yet occurred and Iran and
its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were still at bay and forbidden from
meddling in the affairs of many Arab countries.
Seventeen years ago, the summit was a testament of Arab support for Lebanon and
its government under Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a larger-than-life figure who
protected Lebanon and its economy from both internal and regional turmoil.
As it stands, however, the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, later
this month in Beirut, rather than strengthening Lebanon’s position vis-a-vis its
Arab neighbours, will further expose it to the many regional schisms that
Lebanon’s political establishment neither has the acumen nor the will to
navigate.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Hezbollah’s main Christian ally, is adamant for
the summit to take place on time because it projects him as a true statesman and
conceals the fact that the country’s governance structure is in shambles.
Joining him in the desire to see the summit through is Prime Minister-designate
Saad Hariri, whose inability to form a government has been made even harder by
Aoun’s party’s unrealistic demands for government portfolios.
Equally, Hezbollah is working to impose its own terms on Hariri, who, over the
years, has made many concessions to both Syria and Iran, ones that have made him
a collaborator in the eyes of some Arab Gulf countries.
Mistakenly, both Aoun and Hariri see the summit as an occasion to lobby the Arab
world, mainly the oil-rich Gulf countries, to bail out Lebanon and its
unsalvageable economy and, just as it did on numerous other occasions, to
rebuild the country’s barely existent infrastructure.
However, if the Beirut summit does take place, it will only confirm a few
essential facts that the Lebanese refuse to acknowledge or even contemplate.
For any of the Arab monarchs or even for their crown princes to make the trip to
Beirut and to offer anything beyond token support, the Lebanese government must
unequivocally prove its friendship and camaraderie to its Arab guests. This
might prove an extremely difficult undertaking because the Lebanese government
has failed time and again to curb the influence of Hezbollah over the state and
prevent it from doing Iran’s bidding in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond.
Consequently, Lebanon under Saad Hariri is no longer the appealing post-war
success story that owes its resurgence to the Arabs but merely a willing hostage
of Iran and its militia.
Equally, this summit will antagonise and further radicalise the Syrian-Iranian
axis, which looks at the event as an opportunity to flex its muscles and gloat
about its so-called victories in the region.
Above all, Iran wants to return Syria to the Arab League, ending a suspension of
its membership since 2011. Yet this bullish wishful thinking is insufficient to
end Syria’s Arab isolation because it requires the consensus of all 21 members
of the Arab League for Bashar Assad to make his Beirut trip.
Iran’s and Syria’s local allies, chiefly among them Lebanese Foreign Minister
Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law and political heir, have been openly lobbying
for Assad’s return by claiming that such a measure would be within Lebanon’s
economic interests.
Bassil’s simplistic yet sinister logic exposes the crux of Lebanon’s problems:
The country’s political elite believe they can play both sides of the regional
conflicts and get away with it.
The Beirut summit might appear to be a much-needed economic lifeline to Lebanon;
however, the Lebanese would be better to wave off this perilous chance, which
will only be a disappointment to all sides involved but more so to the Lebanese
who are looking at a no-win situation at best, a scenario that can only pull the
country further into the political abyss.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of
History. He is the author of A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American
University of Beirut, 1967-
1975.
Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published
on January 12-13/19
Israeli Warplanes Target Damascus Airport
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/Israeli warplanes fired a number of
missiles toward the Damascus area on Friday, the Syrian state news agency said.
"The results of the aggression so far were limited to a strike on one of the
warehouses at Damascus airport," the SANA news agency cited a military source as
saying. The attack took place at 11:15 p.m., it said. Israel has previously
carried out several bombings in Syria against what it says are Iranian military
targets and advanced arms deliveries to Hezbollah. Many of them have been in the
area south of Damascus. "Two areas hosting military positions of Iranian forces
and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement have been targeted," the Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights monitor said. These were near the airport and around the Kisweh
area south of Damascus, the observatory said. In an earlier report, SANA had
spoken of Syrian air-defense batteries attacking "enemy targets".
Syria Says Israeli Warplanes Hit Damascus Airport Warehouse
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 12/19/Missiles fired by Israeli warplanes
struck a warehouse at Damascus International Airport late Friday, causing damage
but no casualties, a Syrian military official said. The unidentified official
was quoted by Syrian state media as saying Israeli aircraft coming from the
south fired several missiles at areas near Damascus about 45 minutes before
midnight. He said Syrian air defense units shot down most of the missiles, but
gave no details on other sites targeted. Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV said the attack
was broader than usual, targeting areas ranging from the eastern Damascus suburb
of Dmeir to Kiswa south of capital all the way to the village of Dimas in the
west near the Lebanon border. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights said airstrikes targeted an area near the airport while others hit the
area of Kiswa, which is home to positions and storage sites for Iranian and
Hizbullah forces allied with Syria's government. There was no immediate word
from Israel, which rarely comments on such attacks. Israel is widely believed to
have been behind a series of airstrikes in Syria that have mainly targeted
Iranian and Hizbullah forces. It was the first airstrike on the Damascus area
this year since Israeli warplanes struck areas near the capital on Christmas
Day. In last month's incident, Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon fired
missiles toward areas near Damascus, hitting an arms depot and wounding three
soldiers. Israeli drones and warplanes were heard flying Friday afternoon over
Lebanon. Russia announced it had delivered the S-300 air defense system to Syria
in October. That followed the Sept. 17 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane
by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike, a friendly fire incident
that stoked regional tensions.
Arab League: Inviting Syria to Tunis Summit
Won’t be Discussed at Beirut Meeting
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 12/19/Naharnet/January 12/19/Assistant
Arab League Secretary-General Hossam Zaki said on Saturday there were no plans
to discuss Syria's invitation to attend a summit in Tunisia next March, during
an economic summit scheduled in Beirut between January 19-20. In a statement he
made to Sputnik news agency, Zaki said: “The Arab League has no plans to discuss
Syria's invitation to the Tunis Summit during the economic summit in Lebanon,
which Damascus has not been invited to.”He assured that the summit will be held
on time despite the calls of Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri to postpone it. “The
summit will be held on time,” he stressed. A source in the Tunisian presidency
told Sputnik that “Tunisian President Béji Kayed Sibsi was holding consultations
during the economic summit in Lebanon on the invitation of Syrian President
Bashar Assad to the Arab summit to be held in Tunis next March.” Tensions have
surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be
invited to the summit and others who reject its participation. Controversy has
also arisen over the invitation of Libya in connection with the case of Imam
Moussa al-Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who disappeared in 1978 while on an
official visit to the country. In 2011, Syria was suspended from the Arab League
over its failure to end the bloodshed in a move that aimed to increase the
international pressure on President Bashar Assad.
Pompeo talks Iran, ISIS and regional stability with Al Arabiya
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 12 January 2019/In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya, United States Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo outlined Washington’s three main priorities in the Middle East which
include countering Iran, destroying ISIS and ensuring regional stability. The US
Secretary of State had harsh words for the Islamic Republic, saying that
“countering Iran, the threat from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror –
the Islamic Republic of Iran, is something President Trump has identified as one
of his top priorities. We are determined to do that, we will do it with our
partners in the Middle East. This is a mission for the world. It’s incredibly
important and we are determined to do it,” he said. Pompeo flew in to Abu Dhabi
from Manama and has already visited, Amman, Cairo, Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdish
regional capital of Erbil, as part of his ongoing tour in the Middle East which
Washington believes is “critical” to confronting Iran and extremist groups.The secretary was also asked to comment on the US-Saudi relationship in the
aftermath of the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi last year in Turkey.
“President Trump made clear since immediately aftermath of this murder that the
relationship is broader and deeper and bigger than that,” Pompeo said. “We
absolutely have expectations when things go wrong, when heinous acts have
occurred, people need to be held accountable for this, but this relationship
predated that and the relationship must go forward. We have to have a good
relation with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this administration intends to do
so”.The US Secretary of State is also planning on jointly hosting a ministerial
summit with Poland that aims at “promoting a future of peace and security in the
Middle East” in Warsaw on February 13-14. He’s expected to visit the other four
members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Damascus Blackmails Diplomats to Reopen their
Embassies
London - Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/The Syrian
Foreign Ministry has surprised a number of foreign diplomats residing in Beirut
with a decision to annul their residency permits as a means to exert pressure on
their governments to reopen their embassies in the Syrian capital. At the end of
2011 and in 2012, several western states, including the United States, closed
their embassies in Damascus, except for the Czech mission, which has represented
US diplomatic interests in Syria. A number of diplomats were therefore stationed
in Beirut, as western states activated their diplomatic missions in nearby
states, particularly Turkey and Jordan. Progressively, some western diplomats
began visiting Damascus. They also kept their diplomatic residencies, which is
granted by the Syrian Foreign Ministry. However, the Ministry recently informed
several diplomats residing in Beirut, including those from Chile, that it has
annulled their residencies. The decision excluded Norway, Spain and Japan.
Diplomats said the decision aims to “exert pressure on western states to reopen
their embassies in Damascus and resume diplomatic relations with it.” They said
such a move could effect assistance offered to Syria through the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Italy is studying the possibility of resuming activities of
diplomatic missions in Syria. “Italy is thinking about the possibility of
reopening embassies where they have been physically closed on a widest scale. As
for reflections on the Syrian particular case, they fully depend on the
development of the situation in this country,” Italian Foreign Minister Enzo
Moavero Milanesi said Friday.
Iraq’s Hikma, Asa’ib Ahl el-Haq at Loggerheads
after Sadr City Murder
Baghdad - Fadel al-Namshi/Asharq
Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/There was growing tension on Friday between
the National Wisdom Movement (Hikma) led by Ammar al-Hakim and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq
(AAH) headed by Sheikh Qais al-Khazali over a report broadcast by the Hikma-linked
Al Forat satellite television network on the involvement of an AAH member in the
assassination of Imad Jabar, the owner of the Laymounah restaurant, in the city
of Sadr, east of Baghdad. The television report said that police members
arrested the killer of Jabar, and found with him papers and documents proving he
is a member of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. The report drove AAH and its leader to launch
a fierce attack against Hikma, accusing the party of controlling state buildings
and lands in the neighborhood of Jadiriyah in Baghdad, and calling for large
demonstrations near the party’s headquarters to condemn the TV report.
Without naming the National Wisdom Movement, al-Khazali wrote on his Twitter
account: “A person reaches the utmost cynicism when he falsely accuses others
for simply disagreeing with them. Unless he is paid, he would then be excused
because he would be an agent.”Spokesperson for the Iraqi Interior Ministry Saad
Maan denied arresting the killer of the Laymounah restaurant owner, weakening
the credibility of the Forat channel report. However, the manager of the TV
station, Ahmed Salem al-Saedi, issued a strongly worded statement, criticizing
Khazali and parties close to Hikma. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t
throw stones,” he said. Observers are unaware of the real reasons behind the
confrontation between the two sides. But some political sources assume the
dispute is caused by the race for cabinet seats.
US: No Further Waivers on Iran Oil Imports
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/Washington will grant no more waivers
for Iranian oil after the reimposition of US sanctions, the special
representative for Iran said on Saturday, underlining America’s push to choke
off Tehran’s sources of income. “Iran is now increasingly feeling the economic
isolation that our sanctions are imposing...We do want to deny the regime
revenues,” Brian Hook said. “Eighty percent of Iran’s revenues come from oil
exports and this is (the) number one state sponsor of terrorism..We want to deny
this regime the money it needs,” he said. Tensions between Iran and the United
States have increased since May, when US President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015
nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, saying the accord was flawed in
Tehran’s favor, and reintroduced sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under
the pact. Washington granted waivers to eight major buyers of Iranian oil -
including China, India, Japan and South Korea - after restoring energy sanctions
in November.
India’s Iranian Oil Imports Fell By 41 Percent in December under US Pressure
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 11 January, 2019/India’s oil imports from Iran fell by
41 percent in December to 302,000 barrels per day oil (bpd), ship tracking data
reviewed by Reuters showed, as pressure from US sanctions took effect. The US
introduced tough sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s oil revenue-dependent
economy in November but gave a six-month waiver to eight nations, including
India, which allowed them to import some Iranian oil. India is restricted to
buying 1.25 million tonnes per month, some 300,000 bpd. In 2018 India shipped
about 13 percent more oil from Iran. According to Reuters, December imports from
Iran were 9.4 percent higher than November when some cargoes were delayed due to
lack of ships, the tanker arrival data showed. Iran was the sixth biggest oil
supplier to India in December compared to third position it held a year ago and
last month Tehran’s share of India’s overall imports declined to 6.2 percent
from 11.7 percent a year ago, the data showed. Government sources say Reuters’
calculations showing India’s oil imports from Iran in this fiscal year would be
higher than the 452,000 bpd, or 22.6 million tonnes, it imported in the previous
year, are correct. In April-December 2018, the first 9 months of this fiscal
year, India’s oil imports from Iran averaged about 533,800 bpd, up about 22
percent from a year ago, the data showed. India’s total oil imports in December
were about 4.9 bpd, up about 15 percent from a year ago, the data showed.
Guterres Says 'Deeply Concerned' Over Widespread Violations of Human Rights in
Libya
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
on Thursday called on the Libyan government to take measures to protect
detainees in Libya from torture and ensure a fair trial. "I remain deeply
concerned about the widespread violations of human rights, the attacks against
detainees and the arbitrary detention of thousands of men, women and children,"
Guterres said in a report covering the past six months. "The Libyan government
must implement procedures to allow all persons detained to be protected against
torture and other ill-treatment," he added. "All prisons must be under the
effective control of the government and not subject to any influence or
interference from armed groups."In his report, the Secretary-General referred
specifically to the situation of migrants and refugees "who are still subject to
deprivation of liberty, arbitrary detention and sexual assault in official or
unofficial prisons, as well as abduction or forced labor". According to the
report, more than 669,000 immigrants have been counted in the country, including
12% of women and 9% of children, during the period mentioned. The report pointed
out that the number of detainees in Libya has increased since last August. He
explained that about 5,300 refugees and migrants were detained in Libya during
the reporting period, including 3,700 people in need of international
protection. Guterres said women and children were "particularly vulnerable to
rape, sexual abuse and exploitation by government and non-governmental
entities."
Libya: Salame Says Parliamentary Elections
Expected Before Next Spring
Algeria - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/UN Special Envoy to Libya
Ghassan Salame said parliamentary elections “could take place as early as next
spring”. “Two or three weeks” of meetings between representatives of Libya’s
rival camps were still needed before a date could be set for the ambitious
event, Salame noted. “But the decision to convene the national conference has
already been taken and contacts between our Libyan partners have begun,” he
stressed. Salame revealed that the ceasefire in Tripoli is remarkably respected,
stressing that he along with 15 police commanders are closely watching the
implementation of the ceasefire. He also lauded efforts exerted by Interior
Minister at Government of National Accord Fathi Ali Bashagha for the to foster
security bodies, commending Bashagha’s step in replacing a number of security
officers at the ministry. Salame said there are 15 million unseized weapons,
which means that each Libyan owns two or three weapons. Withdrawing these
weapons won't happen overnight, and is a real challenge. Moreover, he noted that
a UN mission will be launched in Benghazi in the coming days, with ongoing plans
to launch another one in Sabha (south Libya).
Government Shutdown Becomes Longest in US History
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 12/19/The US government shutdown that has
left 800,000 federal employees without salaries as a result of President Donald
Trump's row with Democrats over building a Mexico border wall entered a record
22nd day Saturday. The Democrats' refusal to approve $5.7 billion demanded by
Trump for the wall project has paralyzed Washington, with the president
retaliating by refusing to sign off on budgets for swaths of government
departments unrelated to the dispute. As a result, workers as diverse as FBI
agents, air traffic controllers and museum staff, did not receive paychecks
Friday. The partial shutdown of the government became the longest on record at
midnight Friday (0500 GMT Saturday), when it overtook the 21-day stretch in
1995-1996, under president Bill Clinton. Trump on Friday backed off a series of
previous threats to end the deadlock by declaring a national emergency and
attempting to secure the funds without congressional approval. "I'm not going to
do it so fast," he said at a White House meeting. Trump described an emergency
declaration as the "easy way out" and said Congress had to step up to the
responsibility of approving the $5.7 billion. "If they can't do it... I will
declare a national emergency. I have the absolute right," he insisted. Until
now, Trump had suggested numerous times that he was getting closer to taking the
controversial decision. Only minutes earlier, powerful Republican ally Senator
Lindsey Graham tweeted after talks with Trump: "Mr. President, Declare a
national emergency NOW." It was not clear what made Trump change course. But
Trump himself acknowledged in the White House meeting that an attempt to claim
emergency powers would likely end up in legal battles going all the way to the
Supreme Court.
Opponents say that a unilateral move by the president over the sensitive border
issue would be constitutional overreach and set a dangerous precedent in similar
controversies.
Under siege
The standoff has turned into a test of political ego, particularly for Trump,
who came into office boasting of his deal making powers and making an aggressive
border policy the keystone of his nationalist agenda. Democrats, meanwhile, seem
determined at all costs to prevent a president who relishes campaign rally
chants of "build the wall!" from getting a win. Both Democrats and Republicans
agree that the US-Mexican frontier presents major challenges, ranging from the
hyper-violent Mexican drug trade to the plight of asylum seekers and poor
migrants seeking new lives in the world's richest country. There's also little
debate that border walls are needed: about a third of the frontier is already
fenced off. But Trump has turned his single-minded push for more walls into a
political crusade seen by opponents as a stunt to stoke xenophobia in his
right-wing voter base, while wilfully ignoring the border's complex realities.
For Trump, who visited the Texas border with Mexico on Thursday, the border
situation amounts to an invasion by criminals that can only be solved by more
walls. "We have a country that's under siege," he told the local officials in
the White House. Some studies show that illegal immigrants generally commit
fewer crimes than people born in the United States, although not everyone agrees
on this. More certain is that while narcotics do enter the country across remote
sections of the border, most are sneaked through heavily guarded checkpoints in
vehicles, the government's own Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2017
report. It said that most smuggling is done "through US ports of entry (POEs) in
passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate
goods on tractor trailers."Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of
Representatives and a key figure in opposing Trump's agenda, said money should
be spent in many areas of border security, but not on walls. "We need to look at
the facts," she said. But Trump accused the Democrats of only wanting to score
points against him with a view to the 2020 presidential elections.
"They think, 'Gee, we can hurt Trump,'" he said. "The Democrats are just
following politics."
Egypt police kill 6 militants in shootout, says interior ministry
AFP, Cairo/Saturday, 12 January
2019/Egyptian police killed six suspected extremists in a shootout early
Saturday in the country’s south, the interior ministry said. The clashes broke
out during a police raid on a militant hideout in a mountainous area on the edge
of the southern province of Sohag, some 460 kilometres (285 miles) south of
Cairo, the ministry said in a statement. Police seized weapons and ammunition,
it added. The operation is part of “the interior ministry’s efforts to confront
terrorist organizations aiming to undermine security and stability” in Egypt, it
said. Egypt has been battling an Islamist insurgency following the 2013 ouster
of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who was forced out by the military in the
face of mass protests against his rule. Attacks have largely been concentrated
in the turbulent northern Sinai region, but have also taken place elsewhere
across the country. Egypt launched in February a wide-scale operation centered
on North Sinai to wipe out extremists, including members of ISIS extremist
group, spearheading the insurgency there.
Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on January 12-13/19
Two Ways May Could Just End the Brexit Standoff
Therese
Raphael/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
Britain’s parliament hasn’t yet voted on Theresa May’s Brexit deal or on whether
it still has confidence in her government. The first will happen on Jan. 15 and
if, as expected, she loses, the Labour Party is threatening to hold a vote on
the latter soon after.
But two votes that members of parliament have held so far this week amount to
both a rejection of her deal and an informal vote of no confidence in the
government. The result is what May’s former chief of staff Nick Timothy calls a
“Mexican stand-off.” There are two ways May can end it; neither will please
hardline Brexiters.
Tuesday’s vote, in which 20 of May’s own Conservative MPs sided with the Labour
Party, was a warning lawmakers will do whatever it takes to stop a no-deal exit.
But that’s harder than it seems. While the vote ties the Treasury’s hands in the
event of a departure without agreement, it doesn’t actually prevent it.
The second defeat for the government, a day later, was more consequential.
Speaker John Bercow controversially dispensed with convention to allow an
amendment that forces the government to return to parliament within three days
of its deal being voted down to explain its Plan B.
That means MPs should get a chance soon to vote on other options than May’s
deal, including a second referendum. It would still require the government to
embrace a course of action, but at least it would clarify if there is a
parliamentary majority for it. Bercow’s decision suggests he will use his powers
liberally until he’s ousted at least. For now, though, the hand of parliament
has been strengthened at a key moment.
The government hasn’t given up on its deal, though. But its attempt to woo the
Democratic Unionist Party, the Northern Irish party May relies on for her
parliamentary majority, was dismissed by the DUP as “fairly meaningless.” A bid
to woo Brexiters with promises that MPs would decide whether to trigger the
controversial backstop doesn’t seem to have changed minds.
So who fires the first shot in the Mexican stand-off, and what’s May’s Plan B?
May has refused repeatedly to rule out a no-deal exit. Unless you believe she’s
actually willing to allow that to happen — I don’t — her refusal is tactical, a
punt on the hope that the threat will force MPs to vote for her deal instead.
For it to work, the threat needs to be credible, and MPs need to believe they
have no other choice. But they do.
Jeremy Corbyn has previously been unwilling to trigger a no-confidence vote he
will certainly lose, especially as Labour’s policy, if elections aren’t
possible, is to call a second referendum. That’s something that Corbyn doesn’t
really want. But Labour’s call for new elections has started to look like more
than empty posturing. What if a sufficient number of moderate Conservative MPs
see a confidence vote as the only way to avert a disastrous no-deal exit?
Careerism and party loyalties can usually be said to trump almost anything else
in British politics, but perhaps not now, not at this historical juncture and
not in the midst of a constitutional crisis that, as today’s announcement of
5,000 job cuts at Jaguar Land Rover reminds us, may soon turn into an economic
one. There may well be enough Conservatives who will say “not in my name,” and
even risk deselection to take a stand.
Or as the young Conservative MP Paul Masterton tweeted, “If hardline Brexiteers
want to lob a grenade for an ideological purist fantasy fire on. But my patience
+ goodwill will be gone. This deal is as far as I’m prepared to go.”
May will continue to try to get some assurances from Brussels to win votes, but
in return the EU will want to be confident that whatever they give won’t be
rejected; that’s tricky. If there is no EU white knight, then May has two
plausible, but fraught, options.
One is that she could seek to forge a cross-party consensus of some sort,
perhaps formalized in some form of consultative body composed of Labour and
other MPs — a de facto German-style grand coalition. That would suggest she’s
willing to accept demands for a softer Brexit, including remaining in the EU’s
customs union permanently.
This was something she couldn’t contemplate before last year’s confidence vote
in her leadership, but winning that bought her a 12-month reprieve from being
challenged by her own party. This option could eliminate the need for the
controversial backstop and win over enough Labour support to pass a deal. It
would be an extraordinary step, given Britain’s adversarial political history,
but we are also in uncharted territory.
Another option is to call a general election without waiting for a vote of
no-confidence. That would force Labour — which has remarkably not managed to
convert the Tories’ mess into a big poll lead — to spell out exactly how it
intends to proceed with Brexit. And it would force Conservative MPs to back
their leader’s plan for Brexit and rule out no-deal — under pain of being
deselected by their party. That would at least allow voters to elect a party
with a coherent view on the subject.
The 2017 election was a disaster, but it can also be seen as a rejection of
May’s early vision of a hard Brexit. A humbler party with a clearer, more
realistic offering on Brexit might do better, especially given voter skepticism
about Labour’s economic offering.
The parliamentary votes so far this week may seem like a noisy sideshow, but
they underscore the divisions that have made the Conservatives dysfunctional as
a ruling party as long as the Europe question remains unresolved. And they
underscore the strength of support for avoiding a no-deal exit, something
hardline Brexiters are now advocating.
It will be May who will have to decide if Britain leaves the EU without a deal.
If she fails to pass her deal, she could back down and agree to remain in the
customs union permanently. Or members of her own party could vote with Labour to
bring down the government. Either way, a showdown with the eurosceptic wing of
her own party is inevitable. Only one side can win.
US Should Go Back to the Moon
Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
To claim we’ve already been to the moon is like spending a day each in Iowa,
Arizona, Rhode Island and maybe Western Pennsylvania and saying you’ve already
been to Earth. There’s a lot more to see on the moon — including the whole far
side, the half that’s perpetually turned away from us. That’s one reason for the
excitement behind the Chinese-led mission Chang’e-4, which landed in this
unexplored region last week.
Images from lunar orbit show the geology there is strikingly different from the
sites where Apollo astronauts explored. The craft landed in a vast depression
called the South Pole-Aitken basin, which takes up a quarter of the lunar
surface and appears to have formed early in the history of our solar system,
said planetary geologist Seth Jacobson of Northwestern University. The rocks
there could hold clues to how our own planet formed.
The prevailing theory about the moon’s origin is a dramatic one: Soon after a
proto-Earth came together, it collided with another planet the size of Mars,
coalescing into a bigger planet and the moon. Jacobson said the lander is in an
area where rocks from beneath the moon’s crust may have been brought to the
surface by ancient impacts. Both NASA and the China National Space
Administration have proposed missions to go back to this area and collect
samples.
Though tantalizing, the far side is tough to visit because there’s no way to
communicate directly with a lander, he said. You need an orbiter to relay
signals. One of the scariest parts of the Apollo-8 mission, he said, was the
period when astronauts flew behind the moon and lost all contact with mission
control.
But the radio darkness is a plus for some astrophysics quests, including the
detection of subtle radio waves emanating from deep space — energy remnants of
the early universe that would be drowned out on the Earth. And so Chang’e-4 also
carries a prototype for the kind of lunar radio telescope that might one day be
built on a larger scale.
The US is still the unquestioned leader in space exploration — the Chinese
landing came just two days after an American probe's spectacular flyby of an icy
body 4.1 billion miles away, called Ultima Thule, which qualifies as the most
distant object ever reached by spacecraft. The same NASA craft, New Horizons,
had a close encounter with Pluto in 2015. But the moon is a place astronauts
might go, and so Chang’e-4 has spurred talk of a new space race.
The experts I spoke to were keen to send astronauts back to the moon, though
preferably not as part of an unfriendly international competition. Planetary
scientist Clive Neal of Notre Dame said that space races aren’t sustainable in
the long term. The Apollo missions were world-changing but ended after just a
few years. Now, informed by history, he said, we could go about a more
collaborative program that would get astronauts to the moon and beyond.
While sending people to the moon might seem like a modest goal compared to a
trip to Mars, learning to live on the moon would help scientists learn how to
keep humans alive and healthy on longer journeys. There are known deposits of
water ice on the moon, said Neal, and depending on its purity, these might
supply a moon base with water or be separated into hydrogen and oxygen and used
to fuel a Mars mission.
Humanity would get farther faster and would gather more scientific wisdom by
international collaboration than by space racing, but Congress currently
restricts NASA collaboration with the Chinese under what’s known as the Wolf
amendment, introduced by Virginia congressman Frank Wolf. The rationale was
prevention of espionage. There were concerns over Chinese hacking and a Chinese
scientist who left a NASA facility with an unauthorized laptop. Time Magazine
reported that the laptop contained pornography and pirated movies but no
national secrets.
Jacobson said it’s worth noting the symbolism of where the Chinese chose to land
on the moon: the crater-within-a-crater named after Theodore von Karman, who was
the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a mentor to a young Chinese
researcher — Hsue-Shen Tsien — who became one of the world’s great rocket
scientists. The two worked together before and during World War II, and Tsien is
now recognized for making a major contribution to the US space program. But
after the war, common enemies no longer sustained the alliance, and in the
1950s, during the Communist scare, Tsien was interrogated, put under house
arrest for five years and then deported. Upon release, he headed the Chinese
nuclear weapons program, putting it on the fast track to nuclear weapons and
long-range missiles.
Could sending the Chinese spacecraft to the Von Karman crater be an intentional
gesture of reconciliation and hope for further cooperation? Perhaps it’s just a
coincidence, but one that can serve as a reminder of the collaboration that gave
birth to space travel in the first place.
Terrorists’ plots backfire on Iran
Reza Shafiee/Al Arabiya
English/January 12/19
Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen announced January 8, along with other
officials on behalf of 28 members EU bloc, new sanctions targeting the Iranian
regime’s terrorist plots and assassinations in France, Denmark and the
Netherlands. The clerical regime used to getting free rides and actions without
consequences in the West was hard hit with the reality. It planned a series of
terrorist attacks against its opposition in both sides of the Atlantic last
year, but payback time has come in 2019. In a letter outlining its justification
for sanctions, the Dutch Foreign Ministry cited “strong indications that Iran
was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin,”
one in 2015 in the city of Almere, and another in 2017 in The Hague. “In the
Dutch government’s opinion, hostile acts of this kind flagrantly violate the
sovereignty of the Netherlands and are unacceptable,” the letter said.
For years, the EU tried to bring the Iranian regime to the table, and showered
it with incentive packages. Now, the regime has turned around and bit the hand
that has been trying to feed it for years
To send a strong message, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France,
Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to
convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior, according to the Dutch
letter.
What happened in 2018?
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his cronies in the regime planned a revenge for
their main opposition in response to what had happened in late 2017 and
throughout 2018 in Iran. Widespread protests in the country were not something
that the Iranian regime could take lightly. Khamenei has not missed a single
opportunity to remind its base support in Iran paramilitary Basij Force and
Revolutionary Guards, of the existential threat the People’s Mojahedin
Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) poses to the regime.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) with its partner in crime,
the Intelligence Unit of the Revolutionary Guards, and their sister, the Quds
Force, are accomplices in cynical plans against the regime’s opposition. A
section of the MOIS is the target of the January 8 sanctions imposed by the EU
bloc.
It all began by a failed MOIS plan to hit the Persian New Year Celebration of
MEK in their new residence in Albania in March.
Tehran has changed its pattern of dealing with its dissidents abroad and has
removed the “moderation” mask altogether.
In the 80s and early 90s, the nascent theocratic regime – not caring about the
consequences of its actions – hunted down opposition figures in European
capitals such as Paris, Berlin and Rome. Now it seems that the ruling regime is
revisiting the old terror tactics in Western cities again.The second stop in the
renewed terror campaign – this time using Iranian trained spies turned diplomats
instead of using proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah to do the dirty work – was
where a large gathering of Iran’s main opposition the National Council of
Resistance (NCRI) took place in Paris on June 30.
Even as the rally unfolded, security forces in France, with the help of their
German and Belgian partners, foiled a terrorist plot intending to target it.
Timing of the plot was significant because Hassan Rouhani was scheduled to visit
Austria the next day.
Assadollah Assadi, with MOIS nickname, Daniel, masterminded the plot while under
diplomatic immunity from the Austrian government. He was stationed in Vienna.
Assadi was caught red-handed when he was giving the explosives and detonator to
a sleeper cell, an Iranian born Belgian couple to carry out the attack. Later
Assadi was extradited to Belgium where he is imprisoned waiting for his trail on
terror charges.
Assadi is one of two individuals named in the European Union’s first imposed
sanctions against the Iranian regime since the nuclear accord was implemented
three years ago.
According to diplomatic and security sources last fall, France expelled an
Iranian diplomat in response to the failed plot. France’s foreign ministry said
on October 2, there was no doubt the Iranian intelligence ministry had been
behind the plot against the June 30 rally in Paris.
It subsequently froze assets belonging to Tehran’s intelligence services and two
Iranian nationals. The Iranian regime continued with its campaign of hunting
down its opponents in the summer and the next stop was the US.
On August 20, 2018, the US Justice Department announced two arrests on American
soil , Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, a 38 year old man born in America and from
Iranian immigrant parents, and Majid Ghorbani a US permanent resident of
California.
The two were charged with spying on members and supporters of Iran’s main
opposition group, the MEK.
In July 2018, Dutch authorities said they had expelled two Iranian diplomats,
who foreign officials say were linked to the assassinations of two Iranian
dissidents. US officials believed Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security
was involved.
Back in Albania where the country hosts thousands of MEK members, the Balkan
country – finally fed up with the Iranian embassy’s espionage and terrorist
plots – made a bold move and expelled the Iranian regime’s ambassador from its
soil. Many, including the US President and his close advisers welcomed the move.
What Albania did was setting a good example in dealing with the ruthless regime
in Iran. For years, the EU tried to bring the Iranian regime to the table, and
showered it with incentive packages. Now, the regime has turned around and bit
the hand that has been trying to feed it for years.
How to stop the theocratic regime in Tehran
Mohammad Mohadessien, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) tweeted on January 8th: “To prevent Iranian
mullahs’ terrorism in Europe, EU must black list MOIS and the IRGC, and expel
its agents and mercenaries. Mullahs must understand their terrorism will have
grave consequences for their repressive regime.”He added: “According to the
statement of 29 April 1997, EU must refrain giving visa to intelligence agents
of the Iranian regime, expel those agents from Europe, and end meetings between
European and Iranian officials at ministerial level.”
In 1997, the EU Council of Ministers issued a declaration for the expulsion of
all Iranian Intelligence operatives from European soil. That order came after a
trial in Germany found Iranian regime guilty of involvement in the assassination
of four Kurdish dissidents in what came to be known as the Mykonos murders.
While the Iranian regime’s elite bash US, their
children reap its benefits
Ali Hajizade/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
A distinguishing feature of the world’s pariahs is their hypocrisy.
During the 20th century, the examples of hypocrisy could be witnessed in the
Eastern bloc countries, where the elites were living separately from the people,
positioning themselves as the working class advocates.For example, while the
country was desolated by famine, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il became the
biggest private buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac. Iran’s theocratic regime
decided to follow the “good traditions” of the Eastern bloc and North Korea.
Moreover, mullahs decided to go far and send their children to the US for
education. It turns out that their favorite slogans like “death to America” and
epithets like “Great Satan” are only propagandist tricks to fool their people.
In a recent speech, Brian Hook assured that the US authorities are seized of the
matter. Namely, of people who have close relative ties with members of the
Iranian elite and have received a passport or a residence permit in the US.
In addition to information declared by a member of the Iranian parliament,
conservative politician Hojjatal-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, said that during the
negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Barack Obama’s administration had
granted citizenship to 2500 Iranians as encouragement, before signing the Joint
Plan of Action (JPOA). Among these 2500 holders of the US passports (or in some
cases, green cards) there were children and close relatives of Iranian high-rank
officials and tycoons close to the regime. The Iranians even launched a petition
on change.org demanding to deport the children of the Iranian officials from the
US. At the time of writing this article, the petition has collected 117000
signatures.When it comes to their children and close relatives, the Iranian
leaders do not mind to send them far from Iran. (Shutterstock)
Notable Iranians living in the US
After raising this issue in the US and Iran, some of the Iranians have left the
country. These are a few of the children of Iranian individuals who have close
relative ties with members of the regime, but live or have lived in the US:
Ali Fereydoun and Maryam Fereydoun – a son and a daughter of Hossein Fereydoun,
a close relative and assistant of President Hassan Rouhani.
Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani – a daughter of Ali Larijani, the speaker of the
Iranian Parliament.
Mahdi Zarif - a son of the Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Seyed Ahmad Araghchi – a nephew of Abbas Araghchi, who is currently the
political deputy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran.
Eissa Hashemi – a son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President of Iran. She became
known after acting as an interpreter for terrorists who took over the US Embassy
in Tehran, right after the Islamic revolution.
It is just a small part of the people linked to the regime, who could reap the
benefits of the US general education system (in certain cases, at the US
taxpayers’ expense).
China: Ominous signs of a weakening economy
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
While market analysts have been focusing and rightly so on the protracted trade
talks between the USA and China and its effects on the global stick markets and
economies, there has been little discussion on the underlying strength of the
Chinese economy.
This is important if one is to assess future economic growth in that country and
its impact on oil demand and oil prices and, in turn, the fiscal health of Gulf
oil producers. On the trade talks, things seemed a bit more optimistic. As 2018
drew to a tumultuous close, President Donald Trump went out of his way to
highlight the positive tone of a call he had just concluded with China’s
President Xi Jinping, focused almost entirely on the state of trade negotiations
between the two.
As relayed by Trump, the tone of the call was indeed friendly, but more to the
point, the two leaders confirmed a desire to refrain from any further escalation
of tariffs, to step up negotiations towards the removal of all additional tariff
threats, and to work towards a comprehensive agreement on trade, agreeing to the
now formally announced bilateral deputy-level meeting starting in Beijing on
January 7 which seem to have gone well as China promised to purchase more
American goods causing some uplift in US and global stock markets.
The issue of the Chinese currency and that the Chinese are using it to obtain
unfair trade advantage by fixing artificial rates, as opposed to market led
rates, has long been a sore point with the United States negotiators.
Managing their differences
All these recent interactions are positive signs that the world’s two largest
economies are trying to manage their differences to bring ties back on track
after months of trade war. Nevertheless, one might not be too uncharitable in
noting the real reason for the timing of Trump’s call to XI just may have been
to support the US stock market after the ugliest Christmas Eve plunge ever.
While the Chinese will find some comfort in that President Trump needs a
successful trade talk outcome for domestic reasons and with some in China
possibly urging fewer concessions, the economic picture in Beijing is not
exactly one of all roses either.
Following the release of China’s sub-50 (49.4) December 2018 Purchasing
Managers' Index (PMI) which are key economic indicators and derived from monthly
surveys of private sector companies.
The latest Chinese PMI readings spooked investors – the first contraction since
July 2016 and the weakest reading since February of the same year – and the
People’s Bank of China ( PBoC ) did not hesitate to announce a 100 basis points
cut in their Reserve Requirement Ratio ( RRR). That helped, at least for now,
stabilize their markets. The Chinese government has now set some policy
objectives to ensure that the world’s second largest economy does not go into a
recession.
First, the Central Party Committee agreed broadly to implement “countercyclical”
and “proactive” fiscal and monetary policies to ensure that GDP would not fall
below the coming year’s more modest 6.0-6.5% GDP target, and that the 6.0% GDP
floor would be defended at all costs, even in what we believe is the unlikely
event there is no agreement with the US to at least de-escalate tensions over
trade.
Second, on monetary policy, Premier Li Keqiang flagged the possibility of “some
loosening” in 2019 as downward pressure accelerates on the economy, with
expectations that the PBoC should be ready to deliver 4-5 RRR cuts next year.
That is significantly higher than the end of year market consensus for 3 cuts in
2019 - and the PBoC has the go ahead to even deliver an actual benchmark rate
cut if “very necessary.”
Some analysts have noted that even after the cuts announced last night go into
effect, the RRR rate for large banks will stall stand at 13.5%, and for small
banks at 11.5%. Third, tax cuts that are also to come, as hinted by Premier Li
Keqiang which some believe is a suggestion for a 2019 tax cut on businesses and
individuals equating to about 1.0-1.2 trillion Yuan. That would be up from the
800 billion Yuan of tax cuts instituted in 2018.
Chinese currency
The issue of the Chinese currency and that the Chinese are using it to obtain
unfair trade advantage by fixing artificial rates, as opposed to market led
rates, has long been a sore point with the United States negotiators. From all
accounts even with that stimulus, the Chinese have steered clear of any
suggestion they could be targeting or even condoning a weaker currency, sticking
to the mantra the Yuan- Renminbi is to be kept at a “basically reasonable and
balanced” level.
The desire to avoid political charges from the US or other trading partners over
FX depreciation was clearly confirmed in the wake of the RRR, where one stated
explanation for splitting the 100 basis points cut into two tranches was to
counteract any knee-jerk market weakening of the Yuan. Any structural and
fundamental changes in economic direction and policies needs the blessing of the
ruling Chinese Communist Party to the leadership.
It would seem the prospects of a looming economic slowdown that will affect many
parts of the country has prompted the need to hold a rare Communist Party
gathering of all provinces. President Xi Jinping may be clearing the calendar
for a long-awaited Communist Party gathering later this month. Nearly half of
China’s 31 regions that normally hold annual legislative and advisory meetings
have suddenly rescheduled them this month, to create a window from January 19 to
22. That’s the usual length of time required for a full meeting of the party’s
Central Committee, which involves more than 200 officials from the government,
military and state-owned enterprises and which approves major policy changes.
Is this enough to settle the Chinese markets? The initial readings after the
weak PMI number are that both central bank and regulatory sources expect
potential big swings in the Yuan FX rate in 2019 due to unsettled global
economic fundamentals, political uncertainties, and volatility in equity, bond,
and commodity markets. For these reasons, while that may well translate into
more two-way movement for the dollar as well, some analysts still see less room
for the dollar to rise in 2019 than it did in 2018 due to domestic US economic
slowdown and impasse in the American legislative bodies to act on a bi-partisan
basis.
The on-going US Federal Government budget shutdown is only a flavour of what is
to come. As for Gulf oil producers, a slowdown in Chinese economic growth will
translate into generally depressed oil prices for most of 2019, leading to
larger than budgeted fiscal deficits and reserve drawdowns.
Engineering a historical narrative in Syria
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
“We will go down in history either as the world’s greatest statesmen or its
worst villains.”
These were the indomitable words of Field Marshal Hermann Goring prior to the
Nazis facing a crushing defeat and Goring himself facing trial in the world’s
first war crimes tribunal. Had the Nazis emerged victorious, the tables would
certainly have been reversed. With Bashar al-Assad on the verge of complete
victory in Syria, we can expect his regime to follow a similar trajectory of
engineering the historical narrative to paint Assad as the greatest statesman
and the civilian uprising as nothing but a plot by dark foreign powers and
Islamists. In fact, much of this groundwork has already been laid by Putin’s
cyber warriors with the demonization of the White Helmets and declaring all
opposition to Assad as al-Qaeda and ISIS. And the West, suffering from guilt
after a complete dereliction of duty of standing up for their own values, will
likely not offer much resistance. After all absence of war is much more
important than justice and accountability. The Syrian people who rose up against
a brutal dictator and paid with their lives will simply be recast as enemies of
stability. This handbook for beating a civilian population into submission will
become a must read for any authoritarian regime facing a popular uprising within
its territory. Militarily, first encircle the target area and block all traffic
of food. Then, bomb hospitals to ensure insufficient medical facilities when
casualties start mounting up. Last, use munitions with the highest psychological
impact, such as cluster bombs and chemical weapons to break the targets into
surrendering. In case you were not certain, yes, all three of these tactics are
explicit war crimes.
Evidence of war crimes
What used to happen until now, however, is that the propaganda offensive by the
Russian information warfare machine to obfuscate and confuse the evidence for
war crimes committed by Assad and the Kremlin started either as during the acts
themselves, or immediately after.
But this has now changed, and the Kremlin has moved onto the next logical
evolution of its propaganda capabilities: pre-emptive misinformation. Prior to
any offensive, the Kremlin-backed “media” channels started pushing the narrative
that the rebels are acquiring and planning to use chemical weapons. This did two
things: 1) it supposedly gave Assad and Putin cause and urgency to step up their
offensive against the rebels; and 2) if chemical weapons were to be deployed,
well this time “we know” that it was the rebels who had such weapons on hand.
Translation: an all-out military assault is necessary even if it will be utter
bloodbath, complete with liberal deployment of chemical weapons and any other
illegal weapons and munitions against civilian targets deemed necessary to
shatter the psyche of the local population. Under normal circumstances, such
advance warning of intent to commit war crimes by clearly identifiable state
actors would be useful in formulating a response from the international
community, which might prevent such an attack, or at least mitigate it to some
extent. But we do not live in normal time. The incumbent administration in the
United States has no personal moral interest in humanitarian concerns, either
around the globe or indeed in their own country, China does not get involved in
these kinds of disputes as matter of policy, and the rest of Western Europe has
neither the leadership, nor the will, to risk direct confrontation with any
serious adversary.
The aftermath of this kind of assault is equally predictable. Tens to hundreds
of thousands dead, horrific pictures on the news, a new wave of refugees heading
towards Europe, and the tacit acceptance by the West that the situation is what
it is, and nothing can be done about it now – “at least the regime is killing
terrorists”, is what they will be telling themselves.
Detailed Interview With The Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik:‘Israelis
Are Living on the Titanic & No One Wants to Hear Bad News About the Army
مقابلة من الهآرتس مع اللواء احتياط يتسحاق بريك: الإسرائيليون يعيشون على تايتانيك
ولا أحد يريد سماع أخبار سيئة حول الجيش
Amos Harel/Haaretz/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71009/%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d9%85%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a1-%d8%a7%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b7-%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b3/
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik
wraps up a decade as army watchdog, having issued divisive reports on the IDF's
readiness for war. In an interview with Haaretz, he talks about low motivation,
the question of ground forces and 'the worst personnel crisis since 1965'
The Israel Defense Forces is suffering a failure in its organizational and
command culture resembling the plight of the Titanic, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak
Brik, who retired this week after 10 years as the IDF ombudsman, told Haaretz.
“This is the harsh disease that gives birth to the failures," Brik added, using
a different metaphor. "As long as we don’t treat it, we will continue to
deteriorate,” he said, adding that the main reason for the failures, from the
Second Lebanon War to the 2014 Gaza war, is cultural.
“When you look at it from an economic angle, the IDF is the biggest company in
Israel,” he said. “It has a budget of 31 billion shekels [$8.5 billion] a year
and hundreds of thousands of people, including reservists. Billions in
infrastructure and weapons are operated within this framework. This entire
economy needs to be managed, but there’s no management in the army. The
management falls through the cracks.”
Brik is bidding farewell to the defense establishment with harsh diagnoses, and
as usual he isn’t afraid of the reactions. For 53 years, with short breaks, Brik
has served in a number of roles in the IDF and at the Defense Ministry.
During the Yom Kippur War, the experience that has shaped his beliefs to this
day, he was seriously wounded as the commander of a company of reservists in
Sinai. He switched between damaged tanks seven times in the middle of the
fighting, and at the end of the war was awarded the Medal of Courage, the IDF’s
second highest award for bravery.
But his name has never been in the headlines as much as in the past seven
months. For years, in his ombudsman’s reports, Brik has harshly criticized the
army’s severe problems in treating its combat soldiers. He thus helped fix a
long list of ills he identified based on soldiers’ complaints.
Outgoing Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot IDF Spokesperson's
Unit
When he presented his last annual report in June, Brik ratcheted up his
criticism. After pointing out the problems in the IDF’s organizational culture,
he warned of the effects of these shortcomings on units' preparedness for war –
in the Gaza Strip but especially on the northern front.
This is when, in a series of reports and letters Brik presented to the security
cabinet and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he gradually
began to embarrass the top brass. So much so that Brik’s statements have cast a
shadow over the media rounds that IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is conducting
before he retires next week.
Eisenkot is an outstanding and admired chief of staff who enjoys a broad – and
rare – media consensus on the way he has done his job, even though the far right
is less enthusiastic. But it seems that Brik has launched the first serious
debate on the state of the army, and in particular on the ground forces and
reserves. It took time before the doubts began to spread.
Spokespeople, advisers and for some reason even a few journalists have made a
serious effort in recent weeks to silence Brik and undermine his conclusions.
Still, the public debate over these questions is growing. Brik’s stubbornness
has led to the appointment of two military commissions that examined the IDF’s
preparedness and rejected Brik’s main claim – but still recognized a long list
of faults and gaps.
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of his additional new role as
defense minister, invited Brik in for a meeting. Netanyahu has also consulted on
how to address Brik’s claims. A number of senior officers in the reserves took
part: reserve major generals Yaakov Amidror and Johanan Locker, and Brig. Gen.
(res.) Jacob Nagel. It seems that Netanyahu, to the army’s great disappointment,
is considering appointing another committee to look into the matter.
Armored personnel carriers during a training exercise in the Golan Heights Gil
Eliyahu
The past few months have been a kind of duel between Eisenkot and Brik. Eisenkot
especially disagreed with Brik’s across-the-board judgment on preparedness.
But his claims on the management of the IDF, the manpower crisis – which a
number of people in the General Staff still insist on denying – and the gaps
that the multiyear Gideon Plan has left should be heard out. Even if only some
of Brik’s claims are justified, these issues will affect the term of the next
chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi.
Brik points out a structural problem: In practice, the chief of staff is also
the commander of the ground forces. As opposed to the air force and navy, in the
ground forces there is no correlation between authority and responsibility. The
head of the Ground Forces Command is responsible for training and building up
these forces, but the regional commands are responsible for commanding on an
operational level – under the chief of staff.
In the air force and navy, the commanders have both responsibility and
authority, so they can function more effectively. Yes, the true commander of the
ground forces is the chief of staff, but he’s busy with so many other things,
thus much of his authority is given over to his deputy.
“The difficulty is that most deputy chiefs of staff are in the post for a
relatively short time and are busy most of their term preparing for the job of
chief of staff, for the dialogue with the political leadership, with strategy.
These are outstanding people, but they don’t have enough time. It’s an enormous
system that requires a high level of managerial ability,” Brik says.
“Until the deputy chief of staff begins to understand what’s going on there,
he’s already finishing his term. Therefore there’s no one to manage the army day
to day, no one who can coordinate preparing the army for war, which requires the
integration of the efforts of the General Staff, the ground forces and the
[regional] commands.”
Brik mentions an expansion in the number of orders in the military, and they’re
distributed in different ways than in the past – through email and WhatsApp at
the expense of radio. Often the IDF hasn’t developed an effective system to
follow up on the carrying out of these orders.
“Two years ago, an internal examination was conducted on what percentage of the
chief of staff and deputy’s orders were carried out in the ground forces. The
result was about 15 percent,” Brik says.
“A culture of not carrying orders has developed in the IDF. Every officer sends
out hundreds of emails and WhatsApp messages every day but there’s no oversight
and follow-up mechanism to guarantee that the orders are carried out. Officers
have told me many times: We can’t keep up with this flood. We simply delete a
large portion of the emails without carrying them out – and no one knows.”
As he puts it, “With this method, as a commander on the battlefield, you won’t
be convinced that they’ll carry out your orders. The anti-tank missile that hit
the army bus near the Gaza Strip [in mid-November] is a good example. There were
instructions from the [regional] command and the division, but they weren’t
enforced. It’s complete anarchy.”
A bus engulfed in flames after being hit by an anti-tank missile near the Gaza
Strip on November 12, 2018 Eliyahu Hershkovitz
A fear to present problems
During Eisenkot’s time, the army finally managed to launch a multiyear plan,
Gideon. During the term of his predecessor, Benny Gantz, two such plans were
shelved because of disputes over the budget. During the terms of Gantz and
Eisenkot, the IDF’s tank forces were cut and some 5,000 soldiers in the career
army were let go.
At the same time, positions in logistics and ordnance – mostly at warehouses and
bases where equipment for reserve units is maintained – were transferred to the
air force, intelligence and the cyberbranch.
The General Staff insists that these steps improved preparedness for war. Brik
reached the opposite conclusion. To him, the cutbacks in the emergency stores
make them the weakest link that will impede the ground forces during a war.
Brik also criticized the IDF’s agreement with the Finance Ministry to cut four
months off compulsory service for men, a decision that Eisenkot justifies in
retrospect.
An IDF officer standing outside an emergency storage warehouse in 2016 Gil
Eliyahu
Eisenkot has also expressed support for cutting mandatory service by another two
months, a proposal that the cabinet is due to examine this year. Kochavi opposes
a further cut. The cutbacks in the career army and the drop in the number of
conscript soldiers because of the shorter service period have muddled the
equation between the scope of the missions and the staffing to carry them out.
“The IDF suffers from a lack of transparency, from a fear to present problems.
The senior command doesn’t know what’s going on in the units. The cutbacks in
career-army positions and then the shortening of service, without the
appropriate reductions in missions, have created shallowness, superficiality, a
lack of ability to carry things out,” Brik says.
“When a junior commander complains, his commanders tell him: Make do with what
there is. If he complains a second time, he’ll get the image of a crybaby, and
then people prefer not to bring up problems again. Everyone learns to shut up.
The NCOs talk about the ‘Dr. Check Mark system’ – report you did it, regardless
of what was really done.”
When asked about the major procurement to fill the warehouses after the army’s
heavy use of weapons and ammunition in the 2014 Gaza war, Brik says: “In the
IDF’s presentations for ministers and Knesset members, it shows that there are
enough spare parts, inventory of weapons and ammunition, and exercises. But
there’s no connection between the pretty presentations and what’s being done on
the ground.”
In practice, the various weapons systems aren’t being maintained properly. “They
think they’ve solved the problem because they put in more money,” Brik says.
“The IDF maintains flimsy standards. A large proportion of the units don’t have
a mandatory daily routine. In a lot of places, every commander does what he
understands, without supervision. According to my impressions, based on
thousands of visits to all the IDF’s units over the past decade, company
commanders have spent less than half their time guiding and supervising their
subordinates,” he says.
“A huge amount of time is wasted on meetings and ceremonies. Over a year ago, I
toured the outposts in the Northern Command, the Golan and Lebanese border.
During the visits, I barely found the company commanders there. Every commander,
corps commander, wants the more junior officers to come to all the meetings with
him, and that’s what happens. Commanders of standing-army companies tell me: The
battalion commander doesn’t influence the battalion at all. Why should I want to
stay in the career army and be a battalion commander?”
Like A., a senior reserve officer who spoke with Haaretz last month, Brik
notices a steady drop in the professional knowledge of some reserve units in the
ground forces, which also stems from a limited number of training days a year.
The army has given priority to certain brigades and trains them more, but other
units have been left behind. At the same time, the standards are changing.
A team of IDF paratroopers training in a base in southern Israel, 2017 Eliyahu
Hershkovitz
“In reserve training at the Tze’elim [training base in the Negev], soldiers
don’t clean guns because the IDF hires a private company for that. Reservists
don’t know how to fix a weapon and take care of it; they don’t know how to
adjust sights [on a tank],” Brik says, before referring to the Yom Kippur War.
“If we soldiers had acted this way during wartime, we wouldn’t have survived.
Commanders are reinventing the wheel every time. The lessons of the wars that
were learned in blood are being forgotten. There’s no real organizational
memory. Every once in a while they make a change, and everything spins around on
its axis without being steadied.”
Armored personnel carriers during a training exercise in the Golan Heights, May
2018 Gil Eliyahu
The burning memories from 1973, and maybe also Brik’s past as a commander on all
levels in the Armored Corps, from a single tank to the division level, have
instilled skepticism about the IDF's dominant approach. Based on this thinking,
the tank’s importance has fallen, and, given the lack of an enemy with a
conventional army, it’s better to invest in things like precision aerial
weaponry and commando units.
The IDF, warns Brik – and here he sounds to many people like a vestige of a
different era – is taking excessive risks. “The most recent chiefs of staff
built a small and cunning army for 20 to 30 years ahead. The problem is that
they’re not taking into account that the expected threat can change again
because of the frequent changes in the Middle East,” he says.
“The army has built itself for a war on two fronts, Gaza and Lebanon. But what
will happen if the Syrian army revives after the Assad regime surprised everyone
and won the civil war? In two years it’s possible that we’ll once gain find
Syrian tanks facing us on the Golan border,” he adds.
“The response to Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets from Lebanon can’t only rely
on the air force and firepower from a distance. In the end, we’ll also need
ground maneuvers.”
Brik believes the army has to take into account preparations for a more extreme
scenario in which all fronts are on fire, including an outbreak à la the second
intifada in the West Bank.
But Brik saves his harshest words for the IDF’s manpower situation. Here he
identifies a broader problem that Haaretz has covered in recent years: a drop in
the motivation for service in combat units, a drop in young officers’ desire to
sign up for the career army, a shortage of officers in combat support roles –
such as logistics and ordnance – and a drop in commitment by many reservists.
“This is the worst crisis I’ve seen since I was drafted for compulsory service
in 1965. The Manpower Directorate shows presentations and says that on average
among the units, the situation is okay. They remind me of the joke about the man
who drowns in a pool whose average depth is 40 centimeters [16 inches]. The IDF
has good brigade commanders and battalion commanders, but among the company
commanders and the officers in combat support roles, many are fleeing because
they don’t want to stay in an army they see as mediocre,” Brik says.
“There’s a mix of factors here, which is related to the new model for the career
army, under which only a few officers know with certainty that they’ll be
promoted and continue in service until they retire. Also, if it’s necessary to
compromise on carrying out missions because there aren’t enough resources and
people, and you don’t admit it because you don’t want to damage the army’s
image, there are officers who say: I prefer to leave instead of them silencing
me when I say what’s really going on,” Brik adds.
“I hear these things all the time in meetings with young officers. The army has
a serious problem at the ranks of captain and major with high-quality officers
who want to leave. Within a year or two we may well reach the point of no
return.”
Of all the problems, it’s clear that this is the one that worries him most.
“This country is living on the Titanic,” he says, raising his voice and for a
moment sounding like the prophet of doom his opponents describe – behind his
back. “Everyone is happy in the restaurants and cafes; they don’t want to hear
bad news about the state of the army. The IDF tells stories and someone has
fallen asleep on their watch.”
When Brik is asked why his warnings about the army’s preparedness for war were
rebuffed by two military committees and the Knesset subcommittee on military
preparedness, he says: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has no teeth.
It relies too much on reports from the army. There’s also a political problem.
People are facing an election and party leaders don’t want to slaughter sacred
cows.”
Netanyahu and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter Emil
Salman
In recent months, a number of ministers have met with Brik, separately and at
their request. But no one has said anything explicit about the disagreements
between the army and the ombudsman.
Even the previous defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who listened patiently to
Brik, was wary about taking his side. A few months ago, at the height of the
dispute between Brik and Eisenkot, Lieberman even declared that the IDF’s
preparedness was at its best level since 1967. In conversations with retired
senior officers, Lieberman sounded much more skeptical.
At the farewell ceremony when Brik retired this week, he sounded much more
supportive of Eisenkot after their relations broke down last year. The IDF’s
representative at the ceremony, new Deputy Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, laid on
the praise for Brik.
It was a farewell ceremony, not a change-of-command ceremony. No one in the
defense establishment is in a hurry to find a replacement for Brik. Maybe they
just want to enjoy the quiet a little longer, before a more comfortable
candidate can be found.
A similar voice
While in public Brik argued with most senior officers, the outgoing ombudsman
held a long series of meetings where senior officers said somewhat different
things. For example, here’s a quote from a meeting Brik held in September with a
(very) senior officer who recently retired.
“There’s a problem of awareness. The senior ranks aren’t counting on the ground
forces. The message to the young commanders, not stated out loud, is that it’s
possible to conclude a war with good intelligence and a good air force. This
influences the spirit of the commanders. This is the reason for the fear of
sending ground troops into enemy territory. When it happens, in a wide-scale
war, it will be traumatic for the public. The Yom Kippur War will be a picnic in
comparison,” the senior officer said.
“After the Second Lebanon War and Protective Edge [the 2014 Gaza war], the IDF
didn’t conduct in-depth inquiries, and conclusions weren’t drawn. The subliminal
message sent downward is: The IDF is the air force. This is a disastrous
concept. As a result, the resolve of the young command is crumbling,” he added.
“There’s the lowest standard in the ground forces; without aspiration for
excellence or discipline. The air force alone can’t stop the firing of missiles
and rockets on the home front. In Protective Edge, the air force fired hundreds
of precision munitions without achieving very much. Everything was done to
relieve frustrations.”
Extensive & Detailed Interview With The Outgoing Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi
Eisenkot - A look back/Gadi Eisenkot talks war, peace and legacy.
جيروزاليم بوست :
مقابلة واسعة ومفصلة مع رئيس الأركان الإسرائيلي المستقيل غادي إيزنكوت - نظرة إلى
الوراء/حديث عن الحرب والسلام والإرث.
By Yaakov Katz, Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71017/jerusalem-post-extensive-detailed-interview-with-the-outgoing-israeli-chief-of-staff-gadi-eisenkot-a-look-back-gadi-eisenkot-talks-war-peace-and-legacy-%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%b2%d8%a7/
Plans for a future war are drawn
up by the IDF’s Operations Directorate in what is known in Israel as the Bor
(Pit), the heavily-fortified underground command center hidden beneath the Kirya
Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Back in 2007, just a few months after the end of the Second Lebanon War, Gadi
Eisenkot convened a series of debates there to discuss what the IDF would do if
a new war broke out with Hezbollah. Eisenkot had served during the war as the
head of IDF operations, but was named head of the Northern Command just a month
after the fighting had ended in a shaky United Nations-imposed ceasefire.
Eisenkot was pushing the military to approve a new policy, one he believed would
ensure that a future war with Hezbollah would end quickly but painfully,
although this time just for Lebanon. He called it the Dahiya doctrine.
It was named for the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut which, until the 2006 war,
could only be accessed by card-carrying Hezbollah members. During the Second
Lebanon War, the IDF bombed large apartment buildings there, claiming that they
were being used as Hezbollah command centers, and covered a series of bunkers
where the organization’s top leaders, including Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, were
hiding.
The idea was simple: Israel’s answer to a future war, Eisenkot explained, was
disproportionate damage to Lebanon.
“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every
village from which Israel is fired on,” Eisenkot said at the time. “We will
apply disproportionate force and cause great damage and destruction there. From
our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.”
That was 10 years ago. According to updated Israeli intelligence assessments,
the possibility of war with Hezbollah is higher today than it has ever been in
the 10 years since Eisenkot made that comment. It is especially poignant
considering that next week he will wrap up four years as Israel’s 21st chief of
staff and a term that ended without war. The Dahiya doctrine, will for now, stay
on paper.
ON TUESDAY, Eisenkot will hang up his uniform after 40 years of service. While
he has long been in the public eye, he remains something of an enigma. Short,
burly and quiet, Eisenkot is far different than some of his predecessors. He
shied away from the media and spoke in public only when necessary. Even then,
his remarks often seemed forced. His background as an infantry grunt in the
Golani Brigade provided him with a tough-guy persona, but even that was
dismissed in the beginning.
A few years into his service, for example, Eisenkot was sent to Bahd 1, the
IDF’s Officer Training School. When he returned to his brigade, though, he was
put in charge of the same soldiers he had once served alongside. At first, his
new subordinates didn’t take their new commander seriously. One night he told
them to all be outside their tents at 6 a.m. wearing shorts and sneakers for an
early-morning workout. Yet in the morning only one soldier was there. Eisenkot
went into one of the tents and flipped over a soldier’s bed. A half hour later,
everyone was outside and from that day on, it was smooth sailing.
He climbed the ranks, serving in every position in Golani up to brigade
commander. His first taste of the inner workings of the government came in 1999
when he was appointed military secretary to then-prime minister Ehud Barak. It
was there where he gained some of the diplomatic skills that helped him navigate
a government over the last four years that didn’t shy away from using the
military as a political tool.
How he will be remembered remains a question. Dan Halutz, the former head of the
Air Force, is remembered for serving as chief of staff during the Second Lebanon
War, which ended with a state-appointed commission of inquiry and his eventual
resignation. Gabi Ashkenazi is remembered as the IDF’s rehabilitator after that
war and the chief of staff who restored the public’s confidence in a military
that fought poorly against Hezbollah. Benny Gantz, now the head of a political
party, landed in the post after the unfortunate Harpaz Affair and is remembered
for overseeing Operation Protective Edge against Hamas, one of the longest wars
in Israeli history.
During Eisenkot’s term, though, there was no war or other single event to define
it. When he took up his post in early 2015, ISIS was roaming freely throughout
the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula; Iran was on track to getting a
nuclear weapon – the nuclear deal was finalized that summer; and Russia had
begun deploying its forces in Syria. At the time, tens of thousands of fighters
from Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias were deployed in Syria, fighting to
preserve the Assad regime.
FOUR YEARS later, all of that is different. While the United States has pulled
out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran has remained a part of the
deal and, according to Israeli intelligence, has stuck to the its restrictions;
Hezbollah and Iran’s ambitious plan to set up a base of operations in Syria has
been halted, and according to the IDF, there is a nearly 50% reduction in their
force deployment; Hezbollah’s attempt to obtain precision-guided weapons has
also been stopped, thanks to the hundreds of strikes the IDF has carried out
over the last few years. Without these attacks, defense officials say, Hezbollah
would today have hundreds, if not thousands, of missiles with the ability to
strike anywhere inside the Jewish state.
This was made possible by escalating what the IDF has grown accustomed to
calling the “War Between Wars,” code for a constellation of covert operations –
from the air and by ground – that continue below the radar against Israel’s
enemies. Israel’s policy over the years has been consistent; even after reports
emerge about another air strike in Syria, the country remains quiet – it neither
confirms it was behind it nor denies its involvement.
That is not always possible, like at the end of December when the IDF was forced
to activate its missile defense systems in response to Syria’s launching of
surface-to-air missiles at Air Force jets following another such bombing raid.
In the government, ministers give Eisenkot credit for keeping Iran at bay in
Syria and stopping the flow of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Privately, Eisenkot speaks proudly of the IDF’s achievement in getting Hezbollah
to dismantle its missile factories in Beirut, where it had planned to upgrade
the accuracy and range of its massive arsenal.
While Eisenkot – unlike his predecessors – managed to avoid an all-out conflict,
not everyone saw that as a positive achievement.
One such person was Avigdor Liberman, the former defense minister who worked
alongside Eisenkot for almost three years.
“Sometimes I feel like what I am hearing is a meeting of the leadership of Peace
Now,” Liberman said at a meeting with the military’s top brass around the most
recent flare-up with Hamas in November.
While Liberman and Eisenkot mostly got along throughout their joint terms, they
also butted heads. Liberman wanted an aggressive approach to Gaza while Eisenkot
pushed for ceasefires and moderation, urging the security cabinet to stay
focused on Israel’s true threat to the north – Hezbollah.
While this might have made sense, it raised the ire of a number of ministers who
felt that Eisenkot was playing politics, going over their heads and finalizing
issues – before they were even brought to the cabinet – with the prime minister,
a ploy used over the years by successive chiefs of staff.
“He is a serious officer,” one government official said. “But he made a great
effort to avoid escalation, even when it seemed like that was the right
solution.”
In October, in leaks to Hadashot news following a security cabinet meeting over
Gaza, one unnamed minister was quoted as saying,
“In the final analysis, Eisenkot’s policy on responding [to Gaza violence] has
failed and allowed the situation to deteriorate.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett went head-to-head with Eisenkot during the
“Great Return” marches over the summer on his handling of aerial incendiary
devices launched from Gaza that ravaged southern Israel.
The army was reluctant to shoot the Palestinians who launch the kites and
balloons, since children are often among the cells. Bennett didn’t agree. At a
security cabinet meeting in July, he urged Eisenkot to change the rules of
engagement. “These are terrorists for all intents and purposes,” the minister
said.
But the chief of staff stood his ground, and told Bennett: “I disagree with you.
It’s against my operational and moral positions.”
Likud MK David Bitan, a confidant of Netanyahu, also criticized the chief of
staff’s policy on Gaza, saying in a radio
interview that Eisenkot was “responsible for our lost deterrence in Gaza.”
Eisenkot, Bitan said, was “not recommending operations” and the cabinet could
not order broad military action without the backing of the army.
When it comes to Gaza, time will tell who was right. The current ceasefire is
not expected to last and with Israel now in an election season, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu will have difficulty transferring more Qatari cash to Hamas
or putting up with rocket fire. Any concessions like these would give his
political adversaries ammunition to use to attack him. If Hamas provokes Israel,
Netanyahu will need to respond with force. Eisenkot might have simply delayed
the inevitable.
WHILE EISENKOT worked hard to prepare the IDF for a future war in the North, his
legacy is now tainted by a report IDF Ombudsman Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick
released a few weeks ago in which he claimed that the military was not prepared
for war.
A Yom Kippur War hero, Brick launched an unprecedented campaign to warn of what
he termed a looming disaster, taking his case to the Knesset, the prime minister
and the press.
“The IDF is undergoing a process of deterioration that has reached its peak in
recent years,” Brick warned at a recent Knesset hearing. “In the past three
years, a lethal encounter between drastic, unregulated and sometimes
irresponsible cuts of thousands of career soldiers and… the [simultaneous]
shortening of male service has created complete incompatibility and critical
gaps.”
Eisenkot naturally pushed back. He appointed a panel of ex-officers to review
Brick’s report and independently investigate the ombudsman’s claims. They
released a new report at the end of December claiming that Brick was wrong and
that the IDF was as prepared as ever for a new ground war.
For Eisenkot, it no longer really matters. The test will eventually come and his
role in how that war ends will not be forgotten. If the IDF performs well on the
battlefield, it will be to his credit, but if it fails, Brick’s dossier will be
pulled out once again, although this time as an indictment of the former chief
of staff.
IN ADDITION to clashing with ministers, Eisenkot also had his run-ins with the
general public. A recent study by the Berl Katznelson Foundation and the Vigo
research company found that inflammatory comments against Eisenkot jumped online
by 35% over the past year.
According to the study, which looked at sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and Instagram, as well as blogs and forums, hate speech against Eisenkot jumped
by a huge 712% since 2015, when he began his term.
The study found that the large majority of inciteful comments – 74% – came from
right-wing users and only 5% from those on the Left. Another 21% came from
people whose political affiliation could not be determined.
One case that likely contributed to this trend was that of former IDF soldier
Elor Azaria, who was convicted of manslaughter in 2017 for the shooting of a
neutralized and unarmed terrorist in Hebron. The Azaria trial sparked
unprecedented national debate with many current and former generals finding
themselves on different sides of the case. Many in the IDF’s top brass,
including Eisenkot and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, called Azaria’s
actions “unethical.”
But that wasn’t necessarily the popular position. According to several polls,
there was widespread public support for Azaria, indicating a significant gap
between the views of the chief of staff and the Israeli public. And when Azaria
appealed his sentence in March 2017, hate speech against Eisenkot, the study
found, jumped again by 30%.
Eisenkot didn’t fold. He stood by his conviction for how a military is meant to
conduct itself as well as the values that should serve as its foundation.
Shooting and killing an unarmed Palestinian – even if he had moments earlier
attacked a soldier – was beyond Eisenkot’s pale.
Another place where he stood strong was in pushing women through the military’s
glass ceiling despite frequent opposition.
This year alone, the Armored Corps received its first four female tank
commanders and the Navy announced that the first female naval combat soldiers
will serve on the new missile ships due to arrive in the coming years. The first
woman was appointed to command an Israel Air Force squadron and another to
command transport planes.
Nevertheless, Eisenkot had his limits, making it clear that women would not
serve on the frontlines.
“People tried to accuse me of feminism, but I’m not a chauvinist or a feminist,”
the IDF chief said last year. “There is integration (of women), but it needs to
be to a certain extent.”
So what kind of military does Eisenkot leave behind? That remains to be seen.
The threats to Israel in recent years have continued to increase, even under
Eisenkot’s careful watch.
While a quiet day in the Middle East is not a small achievement, his successor
Aviv Kochavi will have to hit the ground running when he takes up the mantle
from Eisenkot next week.
In Israel, a new chief of staff is usually a cause for celebration and Kochavi
has all the experience and credentials to indicate that his tenure will be
successful. He is a known reformer; as head of Military Intelligence he built up
the directorate, incorporating new capabilities and technologies never used
before. But as events of the past few months indicate, there is no time to rest.
Israel’s enemies are not taking a break.
Iran’s opaque politics of succession to Khamenei
Gareth Smyth/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19
Discussion of the looming succession to Iran’s supreme leader, 79-year-old
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has little to go on. The sole precedent is 1989 when
Khamenei replaced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, charismatic leader of the 1979
revolution and architect of the Islamic Republic.
The constitutional rules are unchanged: Iran’s leader is chosen by the Iranian
Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari), an elected body that
currently has 88 clerics. Khamenei’s rise followed the removal of a
constitutional requirement that the leader be a pre-eminent cleric. It was an
amendment favoured by Khomeini to facilitate Khamenei. Within a day of
Khomeini’s death, careful management by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the era’s
wiliest politician, ensured the assembly backed Khomeini’s choice.
However, with the succession to Khamenei, questions abound. What influence might
lie with clerics in Qom or leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? How
might Khamenei shape the process? How important is theological standing?
Two recent events make these questions particularly important. The death
December 24 of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, 70, removed someone widely
seen as front-runner for leader until passed over in 2015 as head of the
Assembly of Experts.
Second, Khamenei appointed Sadegh Larijani, 58-year-old judiciary chief, to
replace Shahroudi as chairman of the Expediency Council (EC). The EC arbitrates
between state institutions, especially parliament, and the watchdog Guardian
Council. Shahroudi had held the post since 2017. The main contenders to follow
Khamenei appear to be Larijani and Ebrahim Raeisi. The latter was appointed by
Khamenei in 2016 to head Astan Quds Razavi, the foundation that manages the Imam
Reza shrine in Mashhad.
Other contenders lag much behind Larijani and Raeisi. Assembly of Experts
Chairman Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is also chairman of the Guardian Council,
is 91. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a 57-year-old substitute Friday prayer leader in
Tehran, has scant administrative experience. Iranian President Hassan Rohani,
70, has moved closer to Khamenei since winning the 2013 and 2017 elections but
is resented by many conservatives, who dominate the Assembly of Experts.
No doubt Khamenei wants a smooth succession to encourage stability and preserve
the leader’s office as an institution whose powers he has extended since 1989.
The size of the leader’s office contributes to a “serious succession issue,”
said Farideh Farhi, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii.
“The only person I can imagine managing the leader’s sprawling office with some
authority if Khamenei passed soon is Rohani, given his vast experience
throughout the life of the Islamic Republic and his ability to stand, if barely,
above the factional fray,” she said, “but Rohani is not so young, either, and
his selection seems unlikely given current power dynamics.”
By precedent, Larijani is due to stand down in the summer after a second 5-year
term as judiciary chief. As well as appointing him to the EC, Khamenei named him
a clerical member of the Guardian Council. This gives Larijani a firm standing
near the apex of the hierarchy. Rumours suggest Khamenei will appoint Raeisi
judiciary chief, although it is unclear if he would also continue as head of the
Imam Reza Foundation.
Does Khamenei have a preference? If so, he may resist designating a successor
given the need for unity in the face of tightening sanctions and recent protests
by factory workers, farmers and teachers.
Khamenei knows he lacks Khomeini’s standing. “For Khamenei to express a public
choice and the assembly then pick someone else could be dangerous,” said Saeid
Golkar, lecturer in Middle East and North African studies at Northwestern
University. “Khamenei’s office and even his family might be the target of a new
leader. It’s far more likely Khamenei will try to shape the outcome
discretely.”Hence Khamenei’s influence may remain as mysterious as the rest of
the process. “The Assembly of Experts already has the ‘Article 107 and 109
Committee,’ called after the constitutional articles dealing with the
succession, which has been meeting and presumably checking the backgrounds of
several candidates,” said Farhi. “Its proceedings are secret. Raeisi is a member
of this committee but its chairman is Ayatollah Morteza Moqtadai.”
There is another complication. In the interregnum between leaders, which could
be longer than in 1989, the constitution provides for a three-person leadership
council. That would be made up of the president, the judiciary chief and one of
the six clerical members of the 12-person Guardian Council to be chosen by the
Expediency Council. The last, then, could be Larijani.
Farhi said she is wary of predictions in what she calls a “guessing game.”
“Moving Raeisi to the judiciary requires a replacement [at the shrine] who may
not be easily found,” she said. “Raeisi also does not have much theological
heft. He went to Qom at 15, became a prosecutor at 21 and so has effectively
been a state functionary all his life. He is certainly a candidate but I don’t
think the choice is an easy one for Khamenei. The only two things that these
recent moves suggest are that Khamenei prefers conservatives, as we already
knew, and that his options are limited.”
**Gareth Smyth has covered Middle Eastern affairs for 20 years and was chief
correspondent for The Financial Times in Iran.