English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 04/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Letter to the Hebrews 10/26-31: “If we wilfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgement, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy ‘on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people. ’It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.””

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 03-04/2020

Ministry of Health: 1512 new coronavirus cases, 15 deaths
Foreign Ministry condemns terrorist attack in Vienna, expresses Lebanon's solidarity with Austria
Aoun, Hariri agree on 18-member Cabinet, seek to distribute portfolios
Fearing 'Disaster', Lebanon Mulls New Virus Lockdown
Parties Reportedly Agree on 18-Seat Govt. as Berri, Ibrahim Intervene
Report: Cabinet Delay Attributed to ‘Lack of Serious Criteria’
Strong Lebanon Vows Positivity but Won’t Cede 'Representation Rights'
Jumblat Slams Those 'Splitting Seats', Warns Hariri of Their 'Treachery'
Diab Warns of ‘Foiling' Forensic Audit into Central Bank Accounts
Lebanon PM Urges Central Bank to Hand over Documents for Audit
Report: Alvarez and Marsal in Beirut Soon after Audit Halt
Oueidat Decides Not to Charge Ghosn over Israel Trip
UNIFIL Holds Discussion on Resolution on Women, Peace and Security
Lebanese pound slightly up after leaders resume govt talks
Did Hariri communicate with us and obstruct him?
CANADA/Readout: Canada continues to lead Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 responding to global challenges

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 03-04/2020

More than 100 Million Voted Early in U.S. Election
Trump Says U.S. 'Entitled to Know' Winner on Election Day
US Election Day Begins as Voters Decide on Trump's Fate
Arab-American Voters Divided Over Biden, Trump
US Begins Consultations with UN to Lift Sudan Sanctions
Vienna attack: Austria police detain 14, reveal new details on ‘lone gunman’
Malawi, first African nation to move embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
Canadian Imam Younus Kathrada: Samuel Paty Was A Cursed, Evil-Spirited, Filthy Excuse For A Human-Being
Iraqi Militia Official Sheikh Yousuf Al-Nasseri: The West Trains People To Carry Out Terrorist Attacks, Then Blames The Attacks On Muslims To Prevent Conversion To Islam
Azerbaijani territories under Armenian control must be ‘liberated’: Iran’s Khamenei
Arab League Renews Call for UK to Recognize Palestine
Brexit Talks Fail to Agree on Fisheries, Two Other Issues
UK to Test All Liverpool Residents for the Virus
Vienna Gunman Tried to Join ISIS in Syria
Tourist Boat Capsizes Near Turkish Coast, One Person Dead
Facing Pandemic Economic Woes, Nepal Reopens to Adventurers
India, US, Japan and Australia Kick off Large Naval Drills
Health Minister: Ukraine Close to Virus Catastrophe
China Steps up Trade Restrictions Against Australia
Germany Eyes Antigen Tests to Keep Elderly Safe in 2nd Wave

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 03-04/2020

The Real Enemy of Islam/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/November 03/2020
Turkey Glorifies Historic Crimes/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/November 03/2020
The Many Unintended Consequences of the Electoral College/Justin Fox/Bloomberg/November 03/2020
It’s Not Just you. Lockdowns Make us Less Creative./Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg/November 03/2020
The Fatal Fear of Being Accused of Racism/Daniel Pipes/Critic/November 03/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 03-04/2020

Ministry of Health: 1512 new coronavirus cases, 15 deaths
NNA/November. 03/2020
The Ministry of Public Health announced 1512 new coronavirus infection cases, raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 85209.
15 deaths have been registered over the past 24 hours.

Foreign Ministry condemns terrorist attack in Vienna, expresses Lebanon's solidarity with Austria
NNA/November. 03/2020
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants condemned, in a statement this Tuesday, "the most vicious terrorist attack that targeted the Austrian capital Vienna on November 2, 2020, in which a number of innocent citizens were killed and wounded."The ministry expressed Lebanon's "full sympathy and solidarity with the Federal Republic of Austria, the people and the government, over this tragic attack and its repercussions," paying "sincere condolences to the families of the victims, and wishing speedy recovery to the wounded."

Aoun, Hariri agree on 18-member Cabinet, seek to distribute portfolios
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/November. 03/2020
BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri have agreed on an 18-member Cabinet of specialists and are currently working to distribute ministerial portfolios among the various sects, raising hopes for the government formation soon, political sources said Tuesday.
The two leaders’ agreement followed a wave of pessimism after Hariri’s attempts to form a new government had suddenly hit snags over rival factions’ jockeying for public services-related ministries, and demands by Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement to control three key ministries: Interior, Defense and Justice, bringing the Cabinet formation process back to square one. “There is now a positive atmosphere in the Cabinet formation process. The president and the premier-designate agreed during their meeting yesterday [Monday] on an 18-member Cabinet of specialists. They are now working to assign ministerial portfolios among the various sects,” a political source familiar with the process told The Daily Star.
The source said the next step would be for Hariri, in coordination with Aoun, to add the names of potential ministers to their apportioned ministries. Media reports said Hariri was expected to meet Aoun Wednesday to present him with a draft Cabinet lineup, his first since he was designated with the support of 65 MPs to form a new government on Oct. 22. Hariri has since met six times with Aoun, discussing the size and makeup of a new Cabinet made up of specialists who do not belong to political parties to deliver reforms in line with the French initiative to rescue Lebanon from a series of multiple crises.
An 18-member Cabinet of nonpartisan specialists means allotting one ministry for the Druze sect, mainly to the Progressive Socialist Party headed by Walid Joumblatt, while denying a ministerial post demanded by MP Talal Arslan, head of the Lebanese Democratic Party and Joumblatt’s Druze rival. Similarly, the proposed 18-member Cabinet – nine Christians and nine Muslims – would allocate only one ministry to the Melkite Greek Catholic sect, whose religious and political leaders are seeking to be represented with two ministries.
The LDP’s Political Council, which met Tuesday under Arslan, assailed attempts to exclude it from the next government.
“The [LDP’s] council affirms its rejection to exclude the Druze by reducing the percentage of their representation and insistence by some on unfairness against a sect that is a founder of the Lebanese entity merely to satisfy one side at the expense of another,” said a statement issued after the meeting, clearly referring to Joumblatt, whose PSP’s seven-member parliamentary bloc nominated Hariri for the premiership.The same source added that the issue of rotating the sectarian leadership of the three remaining so-called “sovereign ministries” – Defense, Interior and Foreign Affairs – had been settled.
The Interior Ministry, traditionally held by a Sunni belonging to Hariri’s Future Movement, will now be allocated to a Maronite Christian who is loyal to Aoun, the source said. In return for ceding the Interior Ministry, the Sunni sect will be allotted the Foreign Ministry now controlled by a Maronite, the source said, adding that the Defense portfolio, usually held by a Greek Orthodox, would go to the same sect. The issue of the Finance Ministry, one of the four sovereign ministries, had already been settled after Hariri earlier said he agreed to assigning it to the Shiite sect only for one time – a key demand of the two main Shiite groups, the Amal Movement and Hezbollah.Under the proposed rotation, the FPM’s Strong Lebanon bloc, the largest Christian bloc in Parliament headed by MP Gebran Bassil, was expected to lose control of the Energy Ministry, which has been held by FPM ministers for more than 10 years. Media reports said Bassil still insisted on retaining the Energy portfolio for his party.
Despite the fact that it did not nominate Hariri for the premiership during the binding consultations to appoint a new prime minister, the Strong Lebanon bloc Tuesday said it would not give up its constitutional right to be represented in the next government.
In a statement issued after an electronic meeting chaired by Bassil, the bloc called for the rapid formation of the government and the adoption of “unified constitutional criteria to facilitate the formation process.” It rejected “double-standards” in the Cabinet formation.
“The bloc, out of its constitutional and representative position, is determined to continue dealing positively [with the Cabinet formation]. But this does not deny it its right to consult and take the position it deems appropriate in the issue of the government formation or participating in it,” the statement said.
The bloc pledged not to back off on the rights and principles of representation as stipulated by the National Pact, stressing that these rights “do not contradict at all the criteria of specialization, competence and integrity.”The bloc rejected accusations that Bassil was obstructing the government formation. “The bloc leader had kept silent and did not participate in the [Cabinet] consultations at all in order to facilitate the formation process,” the statement said.
A political source told The Daily Star Sunday that Aoun and the FPM were obstructing Cabinet formation effort by seeking to control three key ministries: Defense, Interior and Justice.
However, Aoun’s media office released a statement Monday rebutting allegations of any such “third party” involvement in the Cabinet formation consultations aside from the president and the premier-designate.
Joumbatt Tuesday implicitly lashed out at the Strong Lebanon bloc’s push to be represented in the new government, even though the bloc did not nominate Hariri for the premiership.
“Among the wonders of the ministerial theater, those who did not nominate Saad Hariri, with the exception of the Lebanese Forces, are today sharing out [ministerial] seats and preparing to fully control power with all its security and judicial branches in a scheme [aimed at] elimination, isolation and revenge,” Joumblatt tweeted. Out of his keenness on the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the 1975-90 Civil War, the PSP leader called on Hariri to be wary of “their historic treachery and hatred.”Since his designation, Hariri has called for a small Cabinet of 14 nonpartisan experts to enact urgent reforms badly needed to unlock promised international aid to the country wrestling with an economic meltdown and the grave consequences of the August deadly explosion that devastated Beirut Port and left swaths of the capital in ruins. The Aug. 4 blast killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands, left 300,000 people homeless and caused billions of dollars in material damage. The proposed 18-member Cabinet was viewed as a compromise between Hariri’s call for a small Cabinet of 14 experts and Aoun’s demand, backed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah, for a 20-member Cabinet. Hezbollah MP Hasan Ezzedine Tuesday reiterated the group’s position on the need for each minister to be allocated only one ministry.
“Each minister must be assigned to one [ministerial] portfolio in order for the government to be productive and effective,” Ezzedine said in a TV interview. He called for the swift formation of a new Cabinet which, he said, “must be born through understandings and convictions among political forces.”The new government would be tasked with implementing a string of structural economic and administrative reforms outlined in the French initiative designed to steer the crises-hit country out of its catastrophic economic and financial crunch, the worst since the Civil War.
Lebanon has been left without a fully functioning government since caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab submitted his Cabinet’s resignation on Aug. 10 over the port blast.

Fearing 'Disaster', Lebanon Mulls New Virus Lockdown
Agence France Presse/November. 03/2020
Lebanon, mired in economic turmoil deepened by the Beirut port blast three months ago, is weighing a second nationwide lockdown to stem a surge in coronavirus cases. "Today we're at a very dangerous crossroads," said caretaker health minister Hamad Hassan, warning that hospitals are running out of intensive care beds. "We're approaching a disastrous situation," he was quoted as saying Sunday by the official National News Agency..The country of six million people has recorded 83,697 cases of Covid-19 including 652 deaths since February. Around a third of the population are Syrian or Palestinian refugees, many living in overcrowded camps. A first country-wide lockdown imposed in March was effective in stemming the spread of the virus, and restrictions were gradually lifted as summer beckoned people outdoors. But then daily infections slowly ticked up again -- and they surged after the monstrous Beirut port blast of August 4 ravaged swathes of the capital and overwhelmed hospitals.Daily new cases have risen from a few dozen in early summer to more than 1,000 now. Hassan sounded the alarm on Sunday, warning that "in some cases, there are no beds in intensive care. This needs to be taken very seriously." But, with poverty rising amid Lebanon's worst economic downturn since the 1975-1990 civil war, many people are deeply fearful about the country grinding to a halt for a second time this trying year. 'We'll die of hunger' -"If we shut down for a month, we'll die of hunger," said the owner of a clothes shop in Beirut's southern suburbs who asked to only be identified as Mike. Until now he has managed to pay the salaries of his two employees, but he says a new lockdown would force him to let them go. "How will I pay them? We've held up as much as we could, but we can't much longer," said the 38-year-old father of two. Lebanon has already imposed a raft of restrictions in recent weeks, but compliance has been patchy and the country has largely continued to function as usual. In early October it began imposing targeted lockdowns on 111 towns and villages where the virus was spreading fast.
And with infections climbing, authorities imposed a night-time curfew from Monday across Lebanon, after ordering the closure of bars and nightclubs. The authorities now fear the health sector will be overwhelmed, especially as several major Beirut hospitals were badly damaged in the August 4 explosion that killed more than 200 people and wounded thousands.
Hospital beds running out -
The World Health Organization said at the end of October that 88 percent of Lebanon's 306 intensive care beds were occupied. On Monday, Hassan announced that private hospitals -- which make up 80 percent of all those nationwide -- would have to ready themselves within the next week to receive Covid-19 patients. The first lockdown compounded an already devastating economic crisis that had caused tens of thousands to lose their jobs or take pay cuts. The value of the local currency has plummeted, prices have soared, and poverty has risen to impact more than half of the population. Caretaker interior minister Mohammed Fahmi on Sunday said he realised some people feared more economic hardship. "Some Lebanese say: 'I'd rather my children and I died of Covid than of hunger,'" he said during a televised interview. But he stressed he was still in favour of a new stay-at-home order for the entire country. Even the restaurant owners' syndicate -- usually opposed to confinement measures -- on Sunday called for a "total lockdown" for two weeks. "It's better to do it in November than in December during the (Christmas) holidays," the group said.

Parties Reportedly Agree on 18-Seat Govt. as Berri, Ibrahim Intervene
Naharnet/November. 03/2020
An agreement has been reached on an 18-minister format for the new government and discussions are now revolving over the distribution of ministerial portfolios, LBCI TV reported Tuesday. “Everyone is showing a will to facilitate the formation process,” the TV network added. Speaker Nabih Berri and General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim have intervened and are “holding contacts with all parties amid reports of positivity,” LBCI said. Al-Jadeed TV meanwhile reported that President Michel Aoun’s camp might accept an 18-minister format in return for retaining the energy portfolio.

Report: Cabinet Delay Attributed to ‘Lack of Serious Criteria’
Naharnet/November. 03/2020
The hurdles delaying the formation of Lebanon’s government are reportedly attributed to the “lack” of a serious criteria that should have been resolved in the first meeting between President Michel Aoun and PM-designate Saad Hariri after the latter’s designation, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday. A “prominent” parliamentary source told the daily that a number of “discrepancies” linger between the two parties concerned with the formation process, hinting at the groups close to Aoun and Hariri. According to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Aoun and Hariri should have agreed on a specific criteria to line up the cabinet. He said it might have thwarted the obstacles. “There is no criteria in distributing ministries among sects, nor about political or parliamentary blocs that will name the ministers, also there is no criteria about the rotation of portfolios, which seems inapplicable,” he said. He also pointed out to the insistence of the Shiite community to retain the Finance Ministry portfolio, and the reservations expressed mainly by the Free Patriotic Movement. “We should not overlook the fact that the issue of assigning the Ministry of Finance to a Shiite figure named by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is still a subject of great reservations for the president and his (FPM) team," he said.

Strong Lebanon Vows Positivity but Won’t Cede 'Representation Rights'
Naharnet /November. 03/2020
The Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc on Tuesday said that it is determined to “continue dealing positively” with the cabinet formation process, while stressing that it will not renounce “representation rights and principles.”In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, held electronically due to the pandemic, the bloc warned against “the use of double standards and the adoption of the policy of maneuvering.” It also warned that “accusing others, including the bloc’s chief, of obstruction is aimed at covering up for the real obstructors.” “This behavior is a type of a psychological intimidation aimed at preventing the bloc from voicing its opinion, declaring its stance or practicing its right regarding everything related to the issue of the government’s formation,” the bloc added. Defending FPM chief Jebran Bassil, the bloc said he has “maintained silence and did not at all take part in the consultations process, out of his desire to facilitate the formation process and give a chance to the president and the PM-designate to agree on a government respecting the unity of standards and comprising ministers capable of implementing the reformist mission.” “From its constitutional and representative position, the bloc is determined to continue dealing positively, but that does not strip it of its right to consultations, dialogue and taking the stance that it sees appropriate regarding the issue of forming the government or taking part in it,” the bloc added. “In any case, it will not renounce the rights and principles of representation and the National Pact, which do not at all contradict with the standards of speciality, competency and integrity,” Strong Lebanon stated.

Jumblat Slams Those 'Splitting Seats', Warns Hariri of Their 'Treachery'
Naharnet/November. 03/2020
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Tuesday lashed out at some political parties and advised PM-designate Saad Hariri to beware of their “plot.”“Those who did not name Saad Hariri, except for the Lebanese Forces, are today splitting seats and preparing to fully seize authority, with all of its security and judicial branches, in an elimination, isolation and revenge plot,” Jumblat warned in a tweet. “From the position of keenness on the Taef Accord, I warn Sheikh Saad (Hariri) to beware of their historic treachery and malice,” Jumblat added.

Diab Warns of ‘Foiling' Forensic Audit into Central Bank Accounts
Agence France Presse//November. 03/2020
Caretaker PM Hassan Diab issued a statement on Tuesday warning against attempts to foil a forensic audit into the Central Bank (BDL) accounts as part of reforms in line with a long-standing request of donors. Diab urged the central bank to hand over missing documents needed for a forensic audit demanded by international creditors. “Diab conducted a series of contacts to follow up on the file of forensic audit at the Central Bank and sent a letter to (caretaker) Minister of Finance to request that the bank acts according to the view of the Legislation and Consultation Commission, in order for restructuring consultancy Alvarez & Marsal company to operate according to the contract it signed with the Lebanese state,” the statement released by Diab’s press office said. It added that said contract “states that BDL must deliver to Alvarez the documents and information it requested to launch a forensic audit workshop,” noting that “the bank only handed over 42% of these files to the company, citing a Banking Secrecy Law.” “Any reform that fails to proceed from forensic audit of the central bank is a sham reform” aiming at covering “long-standing approaches that have driven the country to its economic and financial crisis,” said Diab in his statement. In September, New York based firm Alvarez and Marsal started a forensic audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon as part of measures towards reforms to lift the country out of its worst economic crisis in decades. It set November 3 as a deadline for the bank to provide it with all information needed for the review, a source at the finance ministry said. But the central bank has handed over less than half of the documents required to proceed with the audit. It says provisions of the Code of Money and Credit and the Banking Secrecy Law bar it from releasing the rest. “Today what is needed is for the central bank to give the forensic audit firm the documents and information it has requested, so that this audit can start to uncover the financial facts and causes of this collapse," Diab said in a statement. It was not immediately clear what would happen if Alvarez and Marsal did not receive all the information it had requested.
Diab's government has repeatedly accused central bank chief Riad Salameh of being responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound. Critics from across the political spectrum have charged that Salameh's financial policies led to Lebanon's ballooning sovereign debt and its first default in March this year. Salameh has defended himself, saying that the central bank "has funded the state, but did not spend the money".

Lebanon PM Urges Central Bank to Hand over Documents for Audit
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab urged the central bank on Tuesday to hand over missing documents needed for a forensic audit demanded by international creditors. In September, New York based firm Alvarez and Marsal started a forensic audit of the Bank of Lebanon as part of measures towards reforms to lift the country out of its worst economic crisis in decades. It set November 3 as a deadline for the bank to provide it with all information needed for the review, a source at the finance ministry said. But the central bank has handed over less than half of the documents required to proceed with the audit. It says provisions of the Code of Money and Credit and the Banking Secrecy Law bar it from releasing the rest. "Today what is needed is for the Bank of Lebanon to give the forensic audit firm the documents and information it has requested, so that this audit can start to uncover the financial facts and causes of this collapse," Diab said in a statement. He argued the Banking Secrecy Law does not apply to state accounts. "Any attempt to obstruct the forensic audit is tantamount to sharing responsibility for causing the suffering of the Lebanese people," he said. It was not immediately clear what would happen if Alvarez and Marsal did not receive all the information it had requested. Diab's government has repeatedly accused central bank chief Riad Salameh of being responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound. Critics from across the political spectrum have charged that Salameh's financial policies led to Lebanon's ballooning sovereign debt and its first default in March this year. Salameh has defended himself, saying that the central bank "has funded the state, but did not spend the money".

Report: Alvarez and Marsal in Beirut Soon after Audit Halt
Agence France Presse/November. 03/2020
The restructuring consultancy Alvarez and Marsal company expected to run forensic audit into Lebanon’s central bank accounts will reportedly arrive soon in Beirut after reports the audit was halted over insufficient documents, LBCI TV reported on Tuesday. LBCI said a team from Alvarez is expected to arrive in the coming hours to hold talks with caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni about the contract signed between the company and the Lebanese state. Alvarez believes the central bank handed insufficient documents and information required to proceed with the audit. In September, New York based firm Alvarez and Marsal started a forensic audit of the Bank of Lebanon as part of measures towards reforms to lift the country out of its worst economic crisis in decades. It set November 3 as a deadline for the bank to provide it with all information needed for the review, a source at the finance ministry said. But the central bank has handed over less than half of the documents required to proceed with the audit. It says provisions of the Code of Money and Credit and the Banking Secrecy Law bar it from releasing the rest. Diab's government has repeatedly accused central bank chief Riad Salameh of being responsible for the collapse of the Lebanese pound. Critics from across the political spectrum have charged that Salameh's financial policies led to Lebanon's ballooning sovereign debt and its first default in March this year. Salameh has defended himself, saying that the central bank "has funded the state, but did not spend the money".

Oueidat Decides Not to Charge Ghosn over Israel Trip
Agence France Presse/November. 03/2020
Lebanon's prosecutor general decided Tuesday not to charge fugitive ex-auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn for visiting Israel in 2008 because a statute of limitations has expired, a judicial source said. Three lawyers filed a motion in January calling for the 66-year-old businessman to be prosecuted over his trip to Israel as Renault-Nissan chairman. Lebanon is technically still at war with Israel and forbids its citizens from traveling there. "Prosecutor general Ghassan Oueidat decided... not to prosecute Ghosn for the crimes attributed to him of entering the enemy country and dealing with it economically," the source told AFP. "A statute of limitations of ten years had passed since the alleged crime," the source added. Ghosn on January 8 apologized to the Lebanese people for having visited Israel to sign a deal to produce electric vehicles, saying he traveled on business for Renault on a French passport. He also holds Lebanese and Brazilian nationalities. The ex-Nissan chief was arrested in Japan in November 2018 on financial misconduct charges and spent 130 days in detention, before he jumped bail and smuggled himself out of the country late last year. Ghosn appeared at a press conference in Lebanon on January 8, denying all charges and claiming he was a victim of a plot by Nissan and Japanese officials. Japan has called on Ghosn to return to the Asian country to be tried, while Lebanon has asked Japan to hand over his file on financial misconduct charges. He and his wife Carole are to take part in a documentary and mini-series about his life, the first of which started shooting in Beirut in September.

UNIFIL Holds Discussion on Resolution on Women, Peace and Security
Naharne/November. 03/2020t
UNIFIL on Monday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the landmark U.N. Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security with a virtual panel discussion with prominent women leaders of Lebanon. UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Stefano Del Col lauded "the essential role of women peacekeepers in U.N. peace operations around the world," a UNIFIL statement said. “They help improve all aspects of our operations and performance; they ensure better access to local communities; they prevent and reduce conflict and confrontation; and they serve as role models for their peers and others,” said the UNIFIL head. Although the number of women in U.N. peacekeeping operations remains very low, Maj. Gen. Del Col added, they have increased significantly in the past five years. “Amongst civilian staff, in the last year, UNIFIL achieved gender parity in three staff levels and made progress at all levels,” he said. On the military side, women account for about six percent of UNIFIL’s more than 10,300 peacekeepers -– up from 2.5 per cent in 2006. Del Col emphasized UNIFIL support to Lebanon in the establishment of its first National Action Plan for the implementation of the resolution 1325, which reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction. Del Col also stressed that, during the past year, more than 15 percent of the UNIFIL budget allocated for community assistance was spent in projects related to women, peace and security. Adopted on 31 October 2000, Resolution 1325 stresses the importance of women’s equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.
The resolution has been followed by nine other resolutions aimed at supporting its implementation, and they collectively form the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda. Moderated by UNIFIL Deputy Head of Mission, Jack Christofides, and hosted by the Mission’s Gender Advisor, Dr. Afaf Omer, the panel discussion titled ‘Twenty years of UNSCR 1325: Success and Challenges in Lebanon’ included as speakers the President of the Women and Children Committee of the Lebanese Parliament, MP Enaya Ezzeddine, the President of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, Claudine Aoun, and the MENA Representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Roueida Al Hage.

Lebanese pound slightly up after leaders resume govt talks
The Daily Star/November. 03/2020
BEIRUT: The Lebanese pound slightly rose against the dollar Tuesday, trading at around LL7,050 on the black market after a meeting was held between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and the president the night before. Black market traders were selling the dollar for around LL7,100 and buying it for LL7,000. The dollar was trading at around LL8,800 in September, dropping to as low as LL6,400 in October after Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri was appointed and held intensive talks over the Cabinet formation process raising confidence in the market.
A new government was expected to be formed over the weekend or early this week however the process hit snags over demands by rival parties, including those by President Michel Aoun and his political party to control three key ministries: interior, defense and justice, bringing the Cabinet formation process back to square one, political sources told The Daily Star Sunday. The unexpected last-minute hurdles emerged as Hariri and Aoun were reported to be putting the final touches on a draft Cabinet lineup in the hopes of announcing the government formation over the weekend or early next week. However Hariri’s meeting with Aoun Monday slightly raised hopes for a swifter government formation, as Lebanon remains in political vacuum, after caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s resignation on Aug. 10 in the aftermath of the Beirut Port explosion.
 

Did Hariri communicate with us and obstruct him?
AlKhaleej Today/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, Antoine Constantine, denied that there was a contract in the first place, saying that “we do not have data about the existence of a knot,” and he asked in press statements, “Is there any group presented by the president The government charged with Saad Hariri was rejected? Did Hariri communicate with us and obstruct him? ”He added,“ If Hariri did not make any offer to President Aoun, and he did not consult with us, then how can the accusation be directed at us of obstructing the formation of the government? ”
Constantine stressed that “we were not contacted, and nothing was offered to us,” he expressed his fear that there would be “an attempt to hide the real opponents and dress them up for the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement,” categorically denying “the accusations of obstruction to us, while reserving our right.” The constitution is like a parliamentary bloc to be consulted. ”He said,“ However, we did not consult with anyone, and no one offered us anything, ”considering that the accusations brought against Basil“ it seemed as if there was an orchestra programmed in advance to bring charges against him. ”
Constantine confirmed his party’s rejection of “any custom that is enshrined outside the constitution,” referring to the financial portfolio being devoted to the share of the Shiites, as he said: “We did not name Hariri, and we were waiting for a government of specialists with its president and ministers, and now he is forming a government and mixing up the views of those who called him. So why assume that the current is obstructing?Regarding the accusations leveled against the President of the Republic that he is fighting the battle of composition on behalf of the movement, Constantine indicated that “the formation process takes place in a full partnership between the President of the Republic and the Head of Government, according to the constitution,” rejecting those accusations to Aoun, “whom we have full confidence in,” and said: “If his opponents and those accused of obstruction are unable to confront the president of the republic or other opposing forces, then smothering behind Basil’s accusation of obstruction has become an open and blatant attempt.”These were the details of the news Did Hariri communicate with us and obstruct him? for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
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CANADA/Readout: Canada continues to lead Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 responding to global challenges
November 3, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
With the number of cases increasing throughout the world, the Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 continues to be a valuable forum to act together on global challenges related to COVID-19 and beyond.
Today, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, hosted the 11th call of the Ministerial Coordination Group on COVID-19 with his counterparts from Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Minister Champagne welcomed Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India to the group, noting the recent developments in India and emphasizing the critical role India plays in addressing global COVID-19 vaccine and pharmaceutical needs.
The group discussed their respective domestic responses, with many of their countries experiencing a second wave of COVID-19. Minister Champagne noted specifically Canada’s nation-wide implementation of the COVID Alert exposure notification app and federal support for provinces and territories in boosting testing capacity. Finally, the ministers reiterated their commitment to ensuring equitable access to successful COVID-19 vaccines and agreed that when conditions permit more international travel, it will be important to learn from each other on how to best manage borders, international travel, testing and contact tracing.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 03-04/2020

More than 100 Million Voted Early in U.S. Election
Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
More than 100 million Americans cast their ballots in advance of Tuesday's Election Day, according to the U.S. Elections Project watchdog, a record figure largely attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ballots, which were mailed in, deposited in drop boxes or cast at polling stations ahead of Tuesday, represent more than 72 percent of the total number of ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election, according to the tally by the watchdog based at the University of Florida. In the states of Texas, Hawaii, Washington and Montana the number of early votes exceeded the total number cast there in 2016.  Four years ago, some 57 million voters had cast an early ballot, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Of the more than 100.2 million early votes cast this time around, more than 64.5 million are mail-in ballots -- an option widely expanded across the country in response to fears of Covid-19 contagion in crowded polling stations. Several key states -- including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- do not begin counting mail-in ballots until Election Day itself, fueling fears a final result could take days. U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has launched repeat assaults on the credibility of mail-in voting, often claiming without evidence that the process will be rigged against him. Trump's Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, leads the race in national polls and in many of the battleground states that will decide the high-stakes race.

Trump Says U.S. 'Entitled to Know' Winner on Election Day
Agence France Presse/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday again sought to sow doubt over the counting of ballots beyond election day, saying the country was "entitled" to know who won on the day of the vote. "You have to have a date, and the date happens to be November 3," he said during a visit to Republican National Committee offices in Arlington, Virginia. "And we should be entitled to know who won on November 3." Trump was referring mainly to his disagreement with a US Supreme Court refusal to intervene in a decision allowing Pennsylvania to continue to count mailed ballots received up to three days after the election. The move was made due to logistic complications as the country copes with the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a flood of mailed ballots. Pennsylvania is seen as an important swing state in the election, and both Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden have repeatedly campaigned there in recent days. "You can't have these things delayed for many days and maybe weeks," Trump said as Americans voted nationwide and with more than 100 million people having cast early ballots.
"You can't do that. The whole world is waiting. This country is waiting. But the whole world is waiting."Asked whether he had written an acceptance or concession speech, Trump said he had not. "You know, winning is easy," he said. "Losing is never easy -- not for me it's not."

US Election Day Begins as Voters Decide on Trump's Fate
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The United States started voting Tuesday in an election amounting to a referendum on Donald Trump's uniquely brash and bruising presidency, which Democratic opponent and frontrunner Joe Biden urged Americans to end to restore "our democracy." The country is more divided and angry than at any time since the Vietnam War era of the 1970s -- and fears that Trump could dispute the result of the election are only fueling those tensions. Despite an often startlingly laid-back campaign, Biden, 77, leads in almost every opinion poll, buoyed by his consistent message that America needs to restore its "soul" and get new leadership in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people. "I have a feeling we're coming together for a big win tomorrow," Biden said in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a vital electoral battleground where he was joined by pop superstar Lady Gaga. "It's time to stand up and take back our democracy."But Trump was characteristically defiant to the end, campaigning at a frenetic pace with crowded rallies in four states on Monday, and repeating his dark, unprecedented claims for a US president that the polls risk being rigged against him.
After almost non-stop speeches in a final three-day sprint, he ended up in the early hours of Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- the same place where he concluded his epic against-the-odds campaign in 2016, defeating the apparent frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Despite the bad poll numbers, the 74-year-old Republican real estate tycoon counted on pulling off another upset. "We're going to have another beautiful victory tomorrow," he told the Michigan crowd, which chanted back: "We love you, we love you!"
"We're going to make history once again," he said.
Packing Trump's bags
While Tuesday is formally Election Day, in reality Americans have been voting for weeks. With a huge expansion in mail-in voting to safeguard against the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 100 million people have already made their choice. Biden has the wind in his sails after indications that Democratic enthusiasm in the early voting may be matching the more visible energy at Trump's impressive rallies. In one of US history's great political gambles, Biden stuck to socially distanced gatherings with small crowds right up to the last moment, in stunning contrast to Trump's constant, large rallies where few supporters so much as bothered with masks. But the Democrat, making his third attempt at the presidency, clearly senses that his calmer approach and strict attention to pandemic protocols is what Americans want after four tempestuous years. "It's time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home," Biden told supporters in Cleveland on Monday. "We're done with the chaos! We're done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility." In chilly downtown Pittsburgh, Justine Wolff said she had cast her ballot for Biden already and was cautiously hopeful he would carry Pennsylvania, which along with Florida may be the tightest of all the swing states that decide close national elections. "I hope that people have seen the writing on the wall," said the 35-year-old nurse. "We need some kind of change because this isn't working for anybody."
But where many early votes are believed to have been cast by Democrats, Trump's side is hoping for a massive wave of Republican supporters voting in person on Tuesday. "Whether he wins or loses, this is history," said Kolleen Wall, who turned out to cheer Trump in Grand Rapids. But "when you come to one of these rallies, all you think is, how could he not win?" Polls opened at 6:00 am (1100 GMT) in the eastern states of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut and Maine. But the first polling stations to open in the country were in two New Hampshire villages, Dixville Notch and Millsfield, starting at midnight. A tiny hamlet of 12 residents in the middle of the forest, near the Canadian border, Dixville Notch has traditionally voted "first in the nation" since 1960. The vote took minutes, as did the count: five votes for Biden, and none for Trump. Trump himself is planning to visit his campaign headquarters in Virginia on Tuesday, while Biden will travel to his birthplace of Scranton, the scrappy Pennsylvania town where Trump also visited on Monday. There are worries that if the election is close, extended legal chaos and perhaps violent unrest could ensue -- not least because Trump has spent months trying to sap public trust in the voting process in a nation already bitterly divided along political fault lines. He ramped up these warnings in the final days, focusing especially on Pennsylvania's rule allowing absentee ballots received within three days after Tuesday to be counted.
In a tweet flagged with a warning label by Twitter on Monday, he said this would "allow rampant and unchecked cheating."
"It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!" Trump tweeted.

Arab-American Voters Divided Over Biden, Trump
Washington- Moaz Al-Omari/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
Many analyses are trying to predict the choice of Arab and Muslim voters in the US presidential elections. While some opinion polls have shown that a large percentage of Arab Americans tend to vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, other surveys have found that they prefer the renewal of Republican President Donald Trump’s term. The number of Americans of Arab descent in the United States is estimated at three to five million people, which is approximately 2 percent of the total population of the country. While this percentage does not directly affect the lucks of any of the presidential candidates, it may constitute an important factor in local and legislative elections, and in some indecisive states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. According to the latest Arab-American Institute polls, Biden is the preferred candidate among Muslim voters (60 percent compared to 30 percent in favor of Trump) and among the Catholics (55 percent compared to 43 percent for Trump). Biden is popular among younger American voters of Arab origins (67 percent) and older adults (66 percent). The same poll indicates that the Democratic candidate is likely to obtain a greater number of votes from Americans of Arab descent, and even a greater percentage than that obtained by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. On the other hand, some analysts suggest that the Arab American community will support Trump, based on the positions taken by the US administration regarding the economy, tax cuts, and conservative social values. The votes of Americans of Arab descent in Michigan will be of high importance, as they represent around five percent of the total electorate, and in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where they represent between 1.7 and 2 percent of potential voters.
Meanwhile, the poll found that 40 percent of Arab Americans attach great importance in these elections to the issue of “deteriorating race relations in the United States”, followed by “jobs and economy” (23 percent), “health care” (21 percent), “the environment and climate change” (17 percent) and “social security” (10 percent). On all of these issues, with the exception of “jobs and economy,” Biden was favored by Trump by a large margin.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the only foreign policy issue mentioned in a list of public concerns and was listed as a top priority by only 5 percent of the Arab American electorate. But when asked about the main issue in the Middle East, 45 percent of Arab Americans said that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of their most important concerns.

US Begins Consultations with UN to Lift Sudan Sanctions
Washington - Muath al-Amri/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The United States announced that it has kicked off consultation with the United Nations to lift international sanctions imposed on Sudan over the Darfur conflict, following its removal from Washington’s lists of state sponsors of terrorism. “The United States is committed to working with the Sudanese government and our international partners to identify circumstances that could result in lifting sanctions related to the Darfur conflict at the earliest opportunity,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Monday. In 2005, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo, a ban on travel and a freeze on assets of anyone found to have inhibited peace efforts in Darfur. The then US administration of George W. Bush had supported international action on Darfur, which it characterized as “genocide” against the region’s mostly black people. Pompeo noted that despite extending a 1997 executive order on the national state of emergency in Sudan, “it does not reflect negatively on our improved bilateral relationship with Sudan or on the performance of the civilian-led transitional government and does not have any impact on the decision or procedures to rescind Sudan’s State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) designation.” He further lauded Sudan’s decision to join the Abraham Accords and make peace with Israel, adding that the government had made “substantial improvements” in human rights, including in Darfur. Last week, the US and Sudan sealed a deal that would settle all cases filed against Sudan in US courts over the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Khartoum agreed to pay USD335 million to victims of terrorist attacks in Africa.

Vienna attack: Austria police detain 14, reveal new details on ‘lone gunman’
AFP/Monday 02 November 2020
Austrian police have arrested 14 people in raids linked to Monday's deadly attack in Vienna and have found no evidence that a second shooter was involved, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said Tuesday. "There have been 18 raids in Vienna and Lower Austria and 14 people have been detained," Nehammer told a televised press conference. The minister added that police believe that the attack in central Vienna was carried out by a lone gunman, Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old ISIS sympathizer who was killed by police on Monday night. The video material evaluated by the police "does not at this time show any evidence of a second attacker," Nehammer said. Fejzulai, a dual Austrian and Macedonian national, was convicted of a terror offence in April last year for trying to travel to Syria. He was sentenced to 22 months in prison, but was freed on parole in December. Nehammer said he had been on a de-radicalization program and had managed to secure an early release. "The perpetrator managed to fool the de-radicalization program of the justice system, to fool the people in it, and to get an early release through this," the minister said. Asked whether the program had failed, Nehammer said there was a “fracture” in the system. While he said he did not want to “point fingers... we must look very closely at what can be improved.”

Malawi, first African nation to move embassy in Israel to Jerusalem
Reuters/Tuesday 03 November 2020
Malawi said on Tuesday it will open a full embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, becoming the first African nation to do so in the contested city. In a video statement during a visit to Israel, Malawi Foreign Minister Eisenhower Mkaka called the decision a “bold and significant step”.
He congratulated Israel on its budding relations with Arab and Muslim states under US-brokered deals, including new ties with African country Sudan, that Israel has hailed as marking the start of a “new era” in the region. Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said alongside Mkaka: “I look forward to your embassy opening soon, and I’m sure that more African leaders will follow this decision.”The embassy is expected to open by the summer of 2021, the Israeli foreign ministry said. Asked to confirm the embassy decision, Brian Banda, an aide to Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera, said: “Yes its going ahead, full embassy in Jerusalem.”Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, although that is not recognized by most countries. Palestinians seek the city’s east, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, as capital of a future state. Given the city’s disputed status and sensitivity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most countries that have embassies in Israel have opened them in its commercial capital of Tel Aviv. US President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election on Tuesday, enraged the Palestinians and angered many world leaders by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in late 2017. He moved the US embassy there the following year. Guatemala moved its embassy to Jerusalem soon afterwards, and Honduras has said it aims to do the same by the end of 2020. Brazil and the Dominican Republican are also considering the move.

Canadian Imam Younus Kathrada: Samuel Paty Was A Cursed, Evil-Spirited, Filthy Excuse For A Human-Being
MEMRI/November 03/2020
Canadian imam Younus Kathrada spoke about the re-publishing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad and the killing of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, who was murdered by a Muslim youth for showing them to his class, in a Friday sermon delivered at Muslim Youth Victoria on October 23, 2020.
He said that the response to the re-publishing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons by the Islamic world was weak and that the objection of the Muslim students of Samuel Paty and their parents garnered no attention. Kathrada added that "it is said" that a Muslim youth confronted and beheaded Paty, whom Kathrada described as "cursed," "evil-spirited," and" a "filthy excuse for a human-being." Kathrada called on his audience to boycott French products and services. He ended his sermon with a supplication to Allah, to support the mujahideen over the enemies of Islam and to annihilate those who slander the Prophet. The sermon was uploaded to the mosque’s YouTube channel on October 25, 2020. For more about Younus Kathrada, see MEMRI TV clips no. 8289, 8003, 7896, 7534, 7098, 6950, and 6906.
Younus Kathrada: "We know that some years ago, in some European countries, they published cartoons, claiming that these were depictions of the Prophet, insulting cartoons, depicting him as a criminal. That happened some years ago, and more recently it has happened again. Of course the Muslims objected, years ago, and the Muslims objected again, but this time, not as strongly as they did before.
"But nobody bothered... Nobody paid attention to what the Muslims said... And why should they? Because we, now, are a humiliated people – there is no worth to us – so nobody bothered listening.
"In any event, not too long ago, a teacher in France chose to show those insulting cartoons to his class, at school. And of course, some of the Muslim students who were there were very annoyed and upset and they objected – as did their parents. They spoke up, but nobody bothered listening to them. Nobody paid any attention to them.
"Then, about a week ago, it is said – I repeat, it is said – that a young Muslim man confronted this cursed individual, he confronted this evil-spirited man, he confronted this filthy excuse for a human being, on the street, and he beheaded him.
"Right now, we are angry at what these filthy people are doing, so one of the things that you and I can do is to boycott all French products and services.
"Oh Allah, give strength to Islam and Muslims, and humiliate the infidels and the polytheists. Oh Allah, destroy the enemies of Islam, and annihilate the heretics and the atheists.
"Oh Allah, support those who wage jihad for Your same everywhere.
"Oh Allah, annihilate all those who slandered Your Prophet Muhammad."

Iraqi Militia Official Sheikh Yousuf Al-Nasseri: The West Trains People To Carry Out Terrorist Attacks, Then Blames The Attacks On Muslims To Prevent Conversion To Islam
MEMRI/November 03/2020
Sheikh Yousuf Al-Nasseri, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Al-Nujaba Movement, said in an October 29, 2020 interview on Al-Etejah TV (Iraq) in the wake of recent affairs concerning the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that "the West" trains people, gives them drugs, and sends them out to carry out acts of terror like vehicle-ramming attacks in Western countries. He said that these attacks are then blamed on Islam in order to prevent Westerners from converting to Islam. In addition, he claimed that it is illegal in the United Kingdom to convert an unused church into a mosque because the British government is scared of the spread of Islam. Sheikh Yousuf Al-Nasseri: "The [Westerners] are taking advantage of... We remember that two years ago, [one of] the terrorists that they trained drove a trailer or a big truck, and ran over and killed the people who were standing there. Later it turned out that this man was mentally ill or insane.
"In fact, they give [the attackers] pills, and they use crazy people. They cultivate terrorists and push them towards killings and crime. Then they present them as terrorists, in order to generate a certain reaction among Westerners, in order to prevent people from converting to Islam.
"Most churches are being turned into mosques. At least in Britain. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of unused churches that have been turned into mosques. About 25 years ago, the British Parliament enacted a law banning the sale of unused and empty churches to Muslims. You may turn a church into a dance club, disco, cinema, or theater, but not into a mosque. That is because they have begun to fear the expansion of Islam, and the conversion of churches into mosques."

Azerbaijani territories under Armenian control must be ‘liberated’: Iran’s Khamenei
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Tuesday 03 November 2020
All Azerbaijani territories under Armenian control must be “liberated and returned to Azerbaijan,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday. “This military conflict must end as soon as possible ... of course, all the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia must be liberated and returned to Azerbaijan,” Khamenei said in a televised speech. Khamenei alleged that “terrorists” have entered the conflict zone, adding: “They should not come close to the Iranian border, and if they do, they will certainly be dealt with decisively.” Iran shares borders with both Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Hundreds of people have been killed since fighting broke out on September 27 between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but populated by ethnic Armenians, which have controlled the province since the 1990s. On Monday, Armenia’s prime minister called for an international investigation into the presence of “foreign mercenaries” in Nagorno-Karabakh after ethnic Armenian forces said they had captured two mercenaries from Syria. French President Emmanuel Macron and Armenian President Armen Sarkissian have said Turkey is funding Syrian mercenaries to battle alongside Azerbaijan against Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said last month it deployed troops along the border with Azerbaijan and Armenia, following reports of stary shells from the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh falling on villages near Iran’s northwestern border.

Arab League Renews Call for UK to Recognize Palestine
Cairo- Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The Arab League (AL) has renewed its call for the UK to recognize the independent Palestinian State. The pan-Arab organization also called on the UK to correct the 'historical British mistake', when then UK Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour promised to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The organization also demanded the UK correct the mistake by supporting peace through backing the two-state solution and pushing Israel to stop its crimes and violations against the Palestinian people. In a statement on Monday, marking the 103rd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the AL said that the British declaration was the start point of the tragedy of the century and caused historical injustice for the Palestinian people. The organization said the Palestinian people have been suffering the repercussions of the declaration for more than a century, undergoing displacement, ethnic cleansing, and other continuing crimes carried out by the Israelis, according to the statement. "There is only one path for comprehensive and permanent peace, which is ending the Israeli occupation and establishing the Palestinian State with Eastern Jerusalem as a capital, in accordance with the international legitimacy resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative," it added. It also stressed its full support to the Palestinian people in their fair struggle, slamming the Israeli violations and practices and the establishment of settlements. On 2 November 1917, Balfour promised the Anglo-Jewish community that the British Empire, which was occupying Palestine at that time, would support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. In a related development, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called on Britain to recognize the independent state of Palestine on the borders approved by the international legitimacy with East Jerusalem as its capital. Speaking during a weekly online meeting of the Palestinian Authority cabinet, Shtayyeh said that "the recognition of a Palestinian state must be the British compensation." For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement said in a press statement that the Palestinian people "will not yield to the plans that began with the Balfour Declaration."
 

Brexit Talks Fail to Agree on Fisheries, Two Other Issues
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
EU-UK trade negotiations have so far failed to make a breakthrough on their three most persistent disagreements - the so-called level playing field, fisheries, and settling disputes - Reuters quoted sources from both sides as saying on Tuesday. That comes after nearly two weeks of intensified talks to salvage free trade between the 27-nation European Union and Britain from 2021. The negotiations now are in a final stretch aimed at sealing a new trade agreement by Nov. 15. One of the sources, an EU diplomat following Brexit, said disagreements persisted over the divvying up of fish stocks, including Britain's demand for annual quota negotiations. "That's where we are stuck. They haven't moved beyond these items on fisheries," said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity. A British source also said there had not been much movement on fisheries. Britain left the EU in January and the estranged allies have since been locked in complex negotiations to try to agree a free trade deal for when a status-quo transition period ends on Dec. 31. Three EU diplomats also said the bloc's Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, was due to debrief the 27 national envoys to Brussels on the latest in the talks at a meeting starting at 1330 GMT on Wednesday.The EU diplomats also expected Barnier to announce good progress on agreeing a joint legal text of a future agreement with the UK on other elements, including social security.

UK to Test All Liverpool Residents for the Virus
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The British government plans to trial a new citywide coronavirus testing program in Liverpool, offering regular testing to everyone who lives and works in the city of 500,000 in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Testing will take place throughout the city using a variety of technologies, including new methods that can provide results in an hour or less. The Department of Health said: “These more advanced tests will help identify infectious individuals who are not displaying symptoms … so they can self-isolate and prevent the virus from spreading.”The Liverpool trial is seen as a test of how Britain might be able to roll out mass testing across the country, which is battling a surge in coronavirus infections, The Associated Press reported. England is scheduled to begin a second national lockdown on Thursday. Liverpool has one of the highest infection rates in England, with more than 410 cases per 100,000 people.

Vienna Gunman Tried to Join ISIS in Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The gunman shot dead in the Vienna attacks on Monday served a prison term for attempting to travel to Syria and join ISIS, the Austrian government said on Tuesday. The interior ministry in Vienna confirmed a report by APA news agency saying the man had been sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019. In December 2019, he had was released early due to his young age, according to the report, which cited Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer. The 20-year-old was shot dead by police near St. Ruprecht’s Church in Vienna, the report said.
According to Reuters, Kurtin S. had “Albanian roots” but his parents were originally from North Macedonia.

Tourist Boat Capsizes Near Turkish Coast, One Person Dead
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
A tour boat with 33 Russian tourists on board capsized Tuesday near the Turkish Mediterranean coast of Alanya, killing one of the tourists, officials said. The boat, Baba Selavi, capsized near a cave that is a tourist destination, some 50 to 100 meters (some 165 to 330 feet) from the coast, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Thirty-two of the passengers and all five crew members were either rescued or made it to the coast themselves, the coast guard said, while one person was found dead inside the boat. The local governor's office later identified the victim as Russian national Daniyar Mahitov. Fatih Urkmezer, a local administrator for Alanya, said prosecutors were launching an investigation into the accident. The private DHA news agency said the boat went down in rough weather. Two coast guard boats and a team of divers took part in the rescue. HaberTurk television showed the boat turned to its side in waters near what appeared to be a rocky coast. Coast guard rafts were seen transporting people to safety.

Facing Pandemic Economic Woes, Nepal Reopens to Adventurers
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
Adventurers looking to scale Nepal's Himalayan peaks and trek its mountain trails can finally do so for the first time in seven months, as the country reopens to foreigners even as the coronavirus pandemic has left it short of hospital beds. Foreign visitors are a major source of income for Nepal and the closure has impacted the estimated 800,000 people who work in the tourism industry. For now the reopening will come with restrictions and mainly be limited to those seeking to to climb or trek its famous peaks. Nepal is home to the eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, including the tallest, Mount Everest.
“We are not opening the country for all visitors and only mountaineers and trekkers who have taken prior permit will be allowed to come to Nepal,” said Rudra Singh Tamang, director general of Nepal’s Department of Tourism. “We are opening to a sector of visitors who we know we can handle and manage.”Rather than a visa on arrival, visitors now need to get prior approval, give details of their itinerary, hire a local outfitting company and have health insurance that covers COVID-19 treatment. They are required to take a coronavirus test before leaving their home country, stay for a week in quarantine at a hotel in Kathmandu and then take another coronavirus test before being allowed to go up the mountains. Local guides, porters, cooks and helpers who will be part of any mountaineering support team will be required to take coronavirus tests and prove they have been living in areas with no infections for the past two weeks. “We are trying to revive the tourism industry that was badly hit by the pandemic, but we are not taking any changes or any risks,” Tamang said. “We did a test run just recently with a foreign expedition team and now have good idea how to manage the adventure tourists.”
Spring is the mountaineering season when foreign climbers come to Nepal to attempt scale the highest peaks, while the fall is popular for trekkers who come to hike the mountain trails. The spring mountaineering season was canceled in March when the scale of the pandemic became clear and was followed by the country mostly closing its borders to outsiders. Nepal has reported 176,500 coronavirus infections since the pandemic began and 984 deaths. The nation of 30 million people is running short on hospital beds and the government has asked patients with less than life threatening symptoms to stay at home in isolation.
Earlier in the fall season, a team of mountaineers from Bahrain was given special permission to scale Mount Lobuche and Mount Manaslu. They were made to follow all the new rules placed by the government and reported no problems. The success of the expedition was celebrated by the mountaineering community in Nepal, as was the government decision to reopen to all qualified mountaineers and trekkers in October. “We need to give small ray of hope to the people in the adventure tourism industry that there is still a future somewhere to look forward to,” Tamang said. The pandemic hit as Nepal was preparing to double the number of tourist arrivals with a government campaign declaring 2020 as Visit Nepal year. People in the mountains have been the hardest hit. They normally work these spring and fall seasons to make enough money to last them all year. The prospect of trekkers and mountaineers returning to the mountain has been a welcome piece of news for those in the industry. “We in the adventure tourism industry are very excited that the country is finally open, and we are beginning to get many calls and inquiries from foreign clients,” said Ang Tshering of the Asian Trekking in Kathmandu.
He said there is particular interest in the spring 2021 climbing season, especially for Mount Everest. Still, with the virus still surging in many parts of the world, it will take time to for things to return to normal. On a recent day in the tourist hub of Thamel in Kathmandu, most of the shops, restaurants, pubs and hotels remained closed. The shops normally selling down jackets, tents, hiking boots and survival equipment were mostly closed and those that were open had few if any customers. “We have not seen any customer since March in my shop," said Bir Lama, who sells hiking and mountaineering gear. “While I am paying rent, draining my savings, I am keeping the shop open only to keep myself from going insane.”

India, US, Japan and Australia Kick off Large Naval Drills
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
India, the United States, Japan and Australia began their largest joint naval exercises in over a decade on Tuesday, Indian government sources said, seen as part of efforts to balance China's vast military and economic power in the region. The annual "Malabar" wargames that India holds with the US and Japan have been expanded to include Australia this year to cover all members of the Quad, an informal group of the four largest democracies in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has accused the Washington, which has been leading the effort to forge a common front among its allies, of a "Cold War mentality" and ideological prejudice, Reuters reported. Five ships of the Indian Navy, including a submarine, were deployed in the exercise along with US Navy's John S McCain missile destroyer, Australia's Ballarat frigate and a Japanese destroyer, the Indian ministry of defense said. There will be no contact between the military personnel of the four nations because of COVID-19 restrictions during the first phase of the drills running till Nov. 6, it said. Later this month, India and the United States will deploy aircraft carriers in the drills, a military source said. "The exercise will showcase the high-levels of synergy and coordination between the friendly navies, which is based on their shared values and commitment to an open, inclusive Indo-Pacific and a rules-based international order," the defense ministry said in its statement. The exercises comes at a time when the host, India, is locked in a military stand-off on the disputed land border with China. Thousands of troops are in close proximity in the western Himalayas, where India said Chinese troops have intruded across its side of the de facto border. Beijing denies any intrusion and says India has been building roads and other infrastructure in the disputed area, causing the crisis. Australia's diplomatic relations with China also worsened this year after Canberra led calls for an international inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing imposed trade sanctions on Australian beef and barley. Separately, Japan is embroiled in a dispute with China over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

Health Minister: Ukraine Close to Virus Catastrophe
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
The situation with the coronavirus in Ukraine is close to catastrophic and the nation must prepare for the worst, health minister Maksym Stepanov said on Tuesday. Ukraine registered a record 8,899 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, the ministry said, up from the Oct. 30 high of 8,312. Total infections stood at 411,093 by Tuesday with 7,532 deaths. "The situation quickly turns from difficult to catastrophic. We need to prepare for the inevitable - it is impossible to easily pass the second wave," Stepanov told the parliament. "If Ukrainians continue to severely disregard safety rules, we will not avoid a catastrophe. The hardest is ahead," he added, Reuters reported. The daily tally of coronavirus infections spiked in late September and remained consistently high throughout October, prompting the government to extend lockdown measures until the end of this year. Ukraine imposed a strict lockdown in March but eased it in May. Stepanov said the government would consider how to preserve the economy and save people at the same time. He said last month that Ukraine would introduce stricter lockdown restrictions if cases rise to 11,000-15,000 daily. He warned that the resources of the medical system would run out if the number of daily cases exceeds 20,000.

China Steps up Trade Restrictions Against Australia
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
China tightened its restrictions on Australian exports and suspended imports of some timber and barley, the agriculture minister said Tuesday, amid tension over the coronavirus, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Chinese authorities also are delaying clearance for a $1.4 million shipment of live lobsters from Australia. Beijing has blocked or limited imports of Australian coal, beef and other goods and announced an investigation into whether wine was being sold at improperly low prices, The Associated Press reported. That follows demands by Beijing for the Australian government to drop its support for an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic that began in central China in December. “We will work with the Chinese authorities to investigate and resolve these issues,” said Agriculture Minister David Littleproud. The latest controls apply to timber from Queensland and barley from an additional Australian producer. China is Australia's biggest export market. Beijing increasingly is using its status as a growing consumer giant as leverage against other governments in political disputes. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday that the quarantine measures were imposed in line with the law. “In the meantime, mutual respect is the foundation and guarantee of practical cooperation between countries,” said the spokesman, Wang Wenbin. “We hope Australia can do more things conducive to mutual trust, bilateral cooperation and the spirit of China-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership and bring the bilateral relations back to the right track as early as possible,” Wang said.

Germany Eyes Antigen Tests to Keep Elderly Safe in 2nd Wave
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 3 November, 2020
As Europe tries to break the surging second wave of coronavirus infections, Germany is counting on a new type of test to avoid closing nursing homes to visitors, a move that caused considerable anguish among residents and relatives in the spring. So-called antigen tests, which look for a specific protein on the virus, were first launched months ago. They are cheap and fast, but experts said at the time they are also less accurate than the standard PCR test, which detects even the tiniest genetic trace of the virus. Still, Germany - which has managed to contain the spread of the outbreak better than many of its neighbors - announced recently that it is bulk-buying millions of antigen tests each month. "We have a new strategy," Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters Monday. "We can now basically perform rapid tests on visitors to nursing and care homes." Nursing homes will receive up to 20 free monthly tests per resident. These can be used to test patients, staff and - crucially - visiting relatives, who might be unwitting carriers of COVID-19, posing a potentially devastating threat. "Health insurers will cover the costs for a certain number of visitors each month," Merkel said. "That´s huge progress in terms of protection."
Germany has one of the world´s oldest populations. More than 24 million people are 60 or older and about 900,000 people live in nursing homes. A further 2.5 million younger people have serious disabilities.
That means almost 30% of Germany's population of 83 million are particularly vulnerable to the virus, Merkel said. "Almost everyone knows somebody they don't want to infect," she said. Germany has reported about 550,000 coronavirus cases - less than half the number recorded in Britain, Spain and France. Germany's confirmed virus death toll of 10,669 is also one-fourth of Britain's. A Health Ministry spokeswoman told The Associated Press that manufacturers have agreed to supply Germany with 9 million such tests in November and 11.5 million tests in December.
Experts caution that while antigen tests have become more accurate, they should not be seen as a replacement for the standard PCR method.
Scientists in Switzerland recently scrutinized two widely available antigen tests, sold by Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories and Swiss pharma giant Roche. The researchers concluded that out of 100 people infected with the virus, only between 85 and 89 tested positive using the antigen method.
"It does fulfill the criteria that are published by the (World Health Organization), which should be more than 80% sensitivity," said Isabella Eckerle, who heads the Center for Emerging Viral Diseases at the University of Geneva, where the tests were validated.
While the tests are less accurate, they provide quick results, she noted. "One big advantage of these tests would be that you, for example, can build up a decentralized testing center," Eckerle told The AP. "So you build up a tent, let´s say, in front of a school or in a park, and then people can come. And then after 15 minutes, they will know if they are positive or not."
The tests still need to be carried out by a person qualified to take a nasal swab, however. "This test is not a home test," she said. "It´s nothing that you can do in your home before you visit your grandmother." Sandra Ciesek, who heads the Institute of Medical Virology at the University Hospital in Frankfurt, says the PCR test remains the "gold standard" for now. But Christian Drosten, one of Germany´s most prominent virologists who developed one the first PCR tests for COVID-19, has suggested that the antigen method has its uses if people take into account its limitations.
One distinct feature of the new coronavirus is its ability to multiply rapidly in the throat of newly infected hosts, causing them to spread the virus days before they show symptoms. By the time most people are diagnosed, the amount of virus they are expelling when they speak or even breathe has dropped significantly. While only the PCR tests can determine with near-absolute certainty if someone is infected, argues Drosten, the antigen tests can indicate whether a person is infectious - and therefore a risk to others. Some experts say a negative result from an antigen test could therefore be sufficient to allow people without symptoms to leave quarantine or return to school or work, giving greater freedoms particularly to children and young adults who are less at risk from serious illness. Eckerle, of the University of Geneva, was hesitant.
"I would not call them a game changer," she said. "They are a very nice and very important addition that comes exactly at the right time. But because they are less sensitive than our standard tests, we know that we would probably still miss a small proportion of infectious cases."
That's a risk some countries may be willing to take as the pandemic drags on and the availability of PCR tests reaches its limits. Antigen tests are already used at nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the United States. Spain warned of faulty tests early in the pandemic, but the World Health Organization has since touted them as an effective tool for low- and middle-income countries. Roche alone says it can provide over 40 million antigen tests per month worldwide and aims to more than double that by the end of the year. The company declined to disclose the price of its tests but said that "in pandemic situations like this, cost should not be a barrier to accessing diagnostics." "We are committed to delivering as many tests as possible to people who need them. We will certainly price the test responsibly." As new restrictions came into force in Germany on Monday with no certainty that they will effectively flatten the curve of infections, Merkel said the country might be able to get as many as 20 million antigen tests in January, offering some prospect of freedom.
"Then we can (...) start thinking about whether we can do this for visits to grandparents, not just care homes," she said.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 03-04/2020

The Real Enemy of Islam
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/November 03/2020
"The beheading of the French history teacher proves that political Islam has become a real threat to world peace in light of its expansionist tendency, which is currently embodied by Erdogan's project, which not only targets the societies of Muslim countries, but also other societies that incubate important Islamic communities." — Al-Habib Al-Aswad, Tunisian journalist, Al-Arab, October 28, 2020.
He wants to represent himself as a defender of Islam. Which Islam does he speak for? Erdogan has committed crimes in Libya, Syria and all Arab countries. He is the one who is offending Islam." — Mustafa Bakri, Egyptian media personality, Al-Dostor Studio, October 30, 2020.
The reactions of many Arabs and Muslims show that they view Erdogan as a more serious threat to Islam than Macron or others in the West.
Last week, France condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for comments he made about French President Emmanuel Macron's mental health and treatment of Muslims. Erdogan had suggested that the French president needed "some kind of mental treatment" because of Macron's attitude toward Muslims in France. Pictured: Macron (right) and Erdogan at a press conference on January 5, 2018 in Paris, France.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not authorized to speak on behalf of the Muslims, especially regarding the current controversy surrounding France's attitude toward Islam and Muslim terrorist attacks. That is what many Muslims are saying these days in the aftermath of Erdogan's attempt to present himself as the grand defender of Islam in a conflict that recently erupted between Muslims and France.
According to several Muslim political analysts and writers, Erdogan is trying to take advantage of the anti-France campaign in the Muslim world for his own political gain. The message the Muslims are sending to France and the rest of the world is that Erdogan is a hypocrite and opportunist, who is acting from personal interest and not out of concern for Muslims or Islam.
Last week, France condemned Erdogan for comments he made about French President Emmanuel Macron's mental health and treatment of Muslims. Erdogan had suggested that the French president needed "some kind of mental treatment" because of Macron's attitude toward Muslims in France. "What else is there to say about a head of state who doesn't believe in the freedom of religion and behaves this way against the millions of people of different faiths living in his own country?" Erdogan said in a speech at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party. He also called on Muslims to boycott French goods.
Erdogan's remarks came in response to Macron's pledge to crack down on radical Islamism in France after a Muslim terrorist beheaded history teacher Samuel Paty on October 16. Paty had taught a class on freedom of expression during which he used cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Even before Paty was murdered, Macron defended the right to caricature the Prophet Mohammed. In September, he described Islam as a religion "in crisis" and announced that he would present a bill to strengthen a law that separates church and state in France.
Some Muslims see Erdogan's attacks on France as an attempt to divert attention from the growing criticism in the Arab world toward Turkey's meddling in the internal affairs of a number of Arab countries. Saudi Arabian activists have called for a boycott of Turkish products to protest Erdogan's repeated attacks on Arab leaders and countries.
Other Muslims see Erdogan's attempt to position himself as the defender of Islam in the context of the Turkish president's effort to market himself as a new Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and leader of the Muslim world.
"In an attempt to divert attention from the Arab boycott of Turkish products, Erdogan tried to employ the campaign against France to the benefit of his political calculations," Arab experts told the Gulf newspaper Al-Ain.
"Erdogan's statements and his defense of Islam do not bear in their essence any religious dimensions, but rather an attempt to win the friendship of the angry street and also to save his country's economy, which is suffering badly after the success of the Arab boycott of Turkish goods."
Noting that Arab business executives and others have called for a boycott of Turkish products to protest the "hostile policies of the Erdogan regime," the newspaper quoted Egyptian political analyst Tareq Fahmi as saying:
"Erdogan's talk about adopting the defense of Islam has become unacceptable after everyone realized that the matter is purely political and has nothing to do with the religious dimension. The issue is also related to addressing Arab and Islamic public opinion so that Erdogan appears in the image of the great Arab and Islamic leader. Erdogan aims to ride the current wave and try to employ and invest it politically in his battles against Europe and France."
Lebanese journalist Joseph Abu Fadel scoffed at Erdogan's call for the protection of Muslims in France:
"Erdogan calls for the protection of Muslims in France! We ask the Ottoman dreamer Erdogan about the Muslims who were slaughtered by his Muslim Brotherhood group and the jihadists in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Turkey."
Egyptian political analyst Walid Abbas questioned Erdogan's motives in defending Islam and leading the attacks on France. "It does not seem that the motives of the Turkish president to launch his campaign against France and its president, Emmanuel Macron, is to defend Islam or Muslims," Abbas remarked.
"A simple example of this emerged about four years ago, when Erdogan stopped defending the Uighur Muslims in China and even arrested one of the movement's leaders, who was a refugee In Turkey. He also deported hundreds of Uighur refugees in his country to China in 2019."
Abbas pointed out that Erdogan was also motivated by his concern over the decline of his popularity in Turkey:
"The Turkish president, since the emergence of his internal difficulties and their impact on his popularity, changed his political strategy and turned to igniting battles on the international scene, in an attempt to assert his regional influence. Paris has been the main party that has consistently opposed these attempts and has always stood against it."
Erdogan's main goal, he added, "is to inflame an internal national and religious conflict that allows him to force the Turkish people to rally behind the leader who wages fierce battles with the world under the slogan of defending Islam."
Tunisian writer Al-Habib al-Aswad, reacting to the crisis between France and Turkey, said "political Islam seeks by all available means to drag Islam into its wars and conflicts, the latest of which is its war on France." Al-Aswad added that Erdogan was simply trying to demonstrate his power and influence in the Islamic and Arab countries.
"The beheading of the French history teacher proves that political Islam has become a real threat to world peace in light of its expansionist tendency, which is currently embodied by Erdogan's project, which not only targets the societies of Muslim countries, but also other societies that incubate important Islamic communities... When the Turkish president incited against France and President Macron, his primary concern was not religion or the Prophet Mohammed, but rather his geopolitical struggle with the French in the eastern Mediterranean, Libya, and generally North Africa and the Sahara region. Erdogan is convinced that Macron is a declared ally of countries that Ankara considers its enemies."
Egyptian media personality Mustafa Bakri said that Erdogan was taking advantage of various crises and cannot be sincere in his defense of Islam. Erdogan, he added, "is not an honest man."
"He took advantage of the situation against France and claimed to be defending Islam. He wants to represent himself as a defender of Islam. Which Islam does he speak for? Erdogan has committed crimes in Libya, Syria and all Arab countries. He is the one who is offending Islam."
Emirati writer Mohammed Khalfan al-Sawafi said he agreed with many Arabs and Muslims who consider Erdogan an opportunist exploiting Islam to serve his own political agenda:
"Some populist politicians think only about achieving their personal victories by using powerful and extremist rhetoric... What Erdogan came out with cannot be considered an endeavor to defend the interests of Muslims and the Prophet Mohammed, and he knows more than others what the consequences could be for the Muslim communities living in Western societies."
Al-Sawafi is apparently worried that Muslims in France and other European countries may face various restrictions, including the closure of Islamic charities and a ban on political activities in response to Erdogan's remarks.
Syrian journalist Baha al-Awwam said that Erdogan was trying to lead a "renaissance" or "revolution" in Islam as part of his effort to control the Arabs and Muslims. "The Arab region does not need an Islamic 'renaissance ' or 'revolution,'" al-Awwam argued. Erdogan, he said, is currently seeking to control Libya, Qatar, Syria and Iraq.
"The Sultan [Erdogan] attracts supporters by supporting the peoples persecuted by their rulers... But you do not know that the extremists and blood merchants are the greatest beneficiaries of Erdogan's support. Not to mention that the 'Sultan' persecutes the Turks themselves whenever he is able to do so, and the evidence for this is his imprisonment of tens of thousands of his opponents. Opportunism is the name of the game that Erdogan is playing. He wishes to start a world war against the backdrop of the crisis of the French teacher. Wars represent his only salvation from facing his accumulated failures. Unfortunately for him, this will not happen, and Erdogan will fail in his endeavors."
The reactions of many Arabs and Muslims show that they view Erdogan as a more serious threat to Islam than Macron or others in the West. The voices of Erdogan's critics, however, rarely find their way to the mainstream media.
Ironically, Erdogan, who is currently calling for a boycott of French products, is himself being boycotted by a growing number of Arabs and Muslims. It is Erdogan, bemoaning the "insults" to Islam made by Westerners, who is himself being accused by Muslims of killing Muslims and occupying their lands.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Turkey Glorifies Historic Crimes
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/November 03/2020
"In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region.... This is why our civilization is one of conquest." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.
"Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea.... This is why we are determined to do whatever is necessary politically, economically, or militarily. We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MEMRI.org, August 26, 2020.
"The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks 'were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.'" — Raymond Ibrahim, historian, Frontpage Magazine, August 7, 2019.
In 2018, the Speaker of Turkey's parliament, İsmail Kahraman, described Turkey's military offensive against northern Syria as "jihad." "Without jihad," he added, "there will be no progress." During the same offensive, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) also called for "jihad" and declared in a weekly sermon that "armed struggle is the highest level of jihad."
The Turkish government has, in recent years, escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest. On August 26, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a speech in which he said: "Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea." Pictured: Erdoğan in Ankara on October 5, 2020.
The Turkish government has, in recent years, escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest.
On August 26, for instance, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave a speech at an event celebrating the 949th anniversary of the Battle of Manzikert. This battle resulted in Turks from Central Asia invading and capturing the then majority-Armenian city of Manzikert, within the borders of the Byzantine Empire.
Parts of his speech were translated by MEMRI:
"In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region. "First of all, our nation removed the oppression from the areas that it conquered. It established justice. This is why our civilization is one of conquest.
"Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea. Just as we are not eyeing the soil, sovereignty, or interests of anyone else, we will never give any concession from ours. This is why we are determined to do whatever is necessary politically, economically, or militarily. We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed.
"We want everyone to see that Turkey is no longer a country whose patience is to be tried or whose determination, capabilities, and courage are to be tested. If we say we'll do it, then we will. And we will pay the price.
"If there is anyone who wants to stand against us and pay the price, let them come. If not, let them get out of our way, and we will see to our own business.
"And what did [Turkish poet] Yahya Kemal say? In the spirit of the armies here: 'This storm breaking out is the Turkish army, oh Lord! The army that dies for your sake is this one, oh Lord! May your renowned and strengthened name be raised up with the calls to prayer! Make us the victor, because this is the last army of Islam! '"
In another speech in May, Erdogan again commented on conquests, referring to the 1453 invasion of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks:
"Our ancestors saw the conquest not only as the seizure of lands, but as the winning over of hearts. Recently, some presumptuous people have tried to define the conquest as occupation. Believe me they are completely ignorant. Ask them what conquest means and they will not know. Conquest is to open [things]. Conquest is especially to win hearts, but they do not know this. Our ancestors, starting a thousand years ago, first embroidered every part of Anatolia, Thrace, and the Balkans through alperens [combatants], dervishes, veterans.... As the Conqueror [Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II] entered through the walls of Istanbul, the Greek ladies said, 'We wish to see an Ottoman turban rather than see the cardinal cone on our heads.'"
One of Turkey's major problems is systematic historical revisionism promoted by the government and all other institutions in the country, including the media. There are significant falsehoods in this revisionism, particularly about the invasion of Manzikert (Malazgirt) and of Constantinople (Istanbul).
When Turks, led by Sultan Alp Arslan (real name: Muhammad bin Dawud), arrived in Manzikert in the eleventh century to invade the region, they did not "win hearts." Instead, they committed massacres. Manzikert was then a predominantly Armenian city. The massacre "began in 1019—exactly one-thousand years ago," writes historian Raymond Ibrahim, "when Turks first began to pour into and transform a then much larger Armenia into what it is today, the eastern portion of modern day Turkey."
As Ibrahim describes, the conquests were not achieved by "the winning of hearts." They were accompanied by brutal slaughters of Christian natives, captivity of women, girls and boys and destruction of churches.
"The most savage treatment was always reserved for those visibly proclaiming their Christianity: clergy and monks 'were burned to death, while others were flayed alive from head to toe.' Every monastery and church—before this, Ani was known as 'the City of 1001 Churches'—was pillaged, desecrated, and set aflame. A zealous jihadi climbed atop the city's main cathedral 'and pulled down the very heavy cross which was on the dome, throwing it to the ground,' before entering and defiling the church...
"Not only do several Christian sources document the sack of Armenia's capital—one contemporary notes that Muhammad 'rendered Ani a desert by massacres and fire'—but so do Muslim sources, often in apocalyptic terms: 'I wanted to enter the city and see it with my own eyes,' one Arab explained. 'I tried to find a street without having to walk over the corpses. But that was impossible.'"
Another historical fact involves the atrocities committed during the invasion of Byzantine Greek city of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The claim that Greek women said "they preferred Ottomans" cannot be further from the truth. The city actually fell after several weeks of Greek resistance. Historian Mark Cartwright writes that "the Byzantines were hopelessly outnumbered in men, ships, and weapons."
When Constantinople was invaded on May 29, 1453, adds Cartwright, "the rape, pillage, and destruction began."
"Many of the city's inhabitants committed suicide rather than be subject to the horrors of capture and slavery. Perhaps 4,000 were killed outright, and over 50,000 were shipped off as slaves. Many sought refuges in churches and barricaded themselves in, including inside the Hagia Sophia, but these were obvious targets for their treasures, and after they were looted for their gems and precious metals, the buildings and their priceless icons were smashed, the cowering captives butchered. Uncountable art treasures were lost, books were burned, and anything with a Christian message was hacked to pieces, including frescoes and mosaics."
The fall of Constantinople brought an end to the Byzantine Empire and led to the takeover of the region by the Ottoman empire. The history of Ottoman Turks was also largely marked by persecution against Christians and other non-Muslims.
The Ottoman Empire lasted for some 600 years (from 1299 to 1923) and included parts of Asia, Europe and Africa. Christians and Jews under the Ottoman rule became dhimmis, second-class "tolerated" subjects, who had to pay a heavy jizya protection tax to stay alive. During this period, as historian Vasileios Meichanetsidis notes, the Turks engaged in oppressive practices, including:
"the ghulam system, in which non-Muslims were enslaved, converted and trained to become warriors and statesmen;
the devshirme system, the forced recruitment of Christian boys taken from their families, converted to Islam and enslaved for service to the sultan in his palace and to join his janissaries (new corps);
compulsory and voluntary Islamization -- the latter resulting from social, religious and economic pressure; and the sexual slavery of women and young boys, deportation and massacre."
Many Turkish beliefs about history are actually the complete opposite of historical truth. According to the Turkish study of history, for instance, what happened in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was not genocide against Armenians. Turkey's Institute of History has produced a documentary in five languages about what it calls, "The Armenian rebellion against the Ottoman state, terrorism and propaganda." The documentary – in line with how the Turks study history – falsely claims that it was Armenians who attempted to massacre Turks and commit other crimes against them and that Turks only acted in self-defense. Most objective historians, however, conclude that the events of 1915 constitute genocide against Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.
This revisionism in which Turkey engages is not only an insult to the victims of these crimes and to the descendants of the victims, but also a barrier that prevents many Turks from developing critical thinking and an understanding of empirical facts. A belief in jihad [holy war in the name of Islam], conquest in the name of Islamic doctrine and the dehumanization of kafirs (infidels) seem to play a large role in Turkish supremacist mentality and its leaders' current aspirations. In 2016, for example, Numan Kurtulmus, the then-deputy prime minister of Turkey, announced at a public meeting, "Independence means being able to stand up to kafirs (infidels) by calling them kafirs." In 2018, the Speaker of Turkey's parliament, İsmail Kahraman, described Turkey's military offensive against northern Syria as "jihad." "Without jihad," he added, "there will be no progress." During the same offensive, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) also called for "jihad" and declared in a weekly sermon that "armed struggle is the highest level of jihad."
Many Turks, therefore, still glorify Seljuk, Ottoman and Turkey's invasions and trivialize or deny altogether the crimes committed. Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus, for example, was accompanied by many crimes such as murders, rapes, torture, seizure and looting of properties and forced disappearances of Greek Cypriots. The Turkish government nevertheless officially calls the invasion a "Cyprus Peace Operation" and every year proudly commemorates it.
Hate speech is also widespread in Turkish media. According to a report by the Hrant Dink Foundation, Armenians were the group most targeted by hate speech in Turkish media in 2019, followed by Syrian refugees, Greeks and Jews.
When massacres and other atrocities are systematically referred to as "glorious events," and ongoing human rights abuses – such as the incarceration by Erdogan of political prisoners become socially normalized incidents, it should not come as a great surprise that most Turks do not raise their voices against grave human rights violations in the country or Turkey's continuing occupation of northern Cyprus or Syria.
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The Many Unintended Consequences of the Electoral College
Justin Fox/Bloomberg/November 03/2020
When it came time in 1787 to set the rules for choosing a president of the US, three of the principal authors of the Constitution — James Madison, Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson — argued that the best approach, the one most likely to inspire public confidence and national feeling, would be a nationwide popular vote. All three also understood the prospects of this happening were, as Wilson put it, “chimerical.” It was obvious the method would instead have to reflect the two great (or awful, if you prefer) compromises hammered out at the Constitutional Convention over political representation. To keep the slave-holding states on board, the delegates had apportioned seats in the House of Representatives on the basis of a population count that considered slaves to be three-fifths of a person. And to assuage the smaller states they had created a Senate with two members per state, regardless of population.
States were thus allotted presidential votes on the basis of how many Senators and House members they had. At first the plan was simply to have the members of Congress vote. But fears this would make the legislature too powerful led the delegates to create what later came to be known as the Electoral College, with the manner of its choosing left to the individual states. If no candidate got a majority of the electoral votes, then the decision went to the House of Representatives — albeit with each state delegation getting only one vote, in yet another concession to the small states.
It’s fair to say the men who designed this system did not entirely think it through. Complaints began springing up almost as soon as it went into effect and have continued ever since. In 2004, the Congressional Research Service found “more proposed constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress regarding electoral college reform than on any other subject.”
Only one amendment directly addressing the method of electing the president has ever been ratified (in 1804), while another (ratified in 1933) had some impact on the contingent election in the House.
There have been two periods, the 1810s-1820s and 1960s-1970s, when broader reform seemed possible or even likely, as Harvard Kennedy School historian Alexander Keyssar describes in his excellent new book “Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?”
But most of the time, political factions convinced that they benefit from the system as-is have stood in the way of change.
As I learned last year while writing about the near-miss 1960s-1970s effort to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote, these political factions and perceived benefits have not remained constant. The US presidential election system definitely favors particular brands of politics at particular times, as it did in 2016, when it gave Donald Trump the presidency even as Hillary Clinton received almost three million more votes. But it can perhaps best be thought of as a sort of random-number generator, with unpredictably shifting biases, that usually churns out the same result as the popular vote but occasionally does not.With an election coming up in which the makeup of the Electoral College appears to favor Trump again but probably not by enough to get him reelected (when last I checked, FiveThirtyEight’s election model gave him a 3% chance of winning the popular vote and an 10% chance of winning the electoral vote), a brief(ish) review of its post-Constitutional-Convention history seems in order.
The electoral-system amendment ratified in 1804 was the 12th, which arranged that vice presidents and presidents be chosen separately. In the original setup the vice presidency went to the runner-up in the presidential race, and in 1800 Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr ended up with the same number of electoral votes. The subsequent tiebreaker in the House of Representatives proved quite problematic, putting the election in the hands of a Federalist majority that had just been voted out of office in a Democratic-Republican landslide. Two state delegations couldn’t agree on how to vote until, as you may have heard set to music, Alexander Hamilton persuaded just enough of his fellow Federalists to let Jefferson win on the 36th ballot.
By changing when members of Congress and the president take office after an election, 1933’s 20th Amendment at least ensured newly elected House members, rather than lame ducks, would do the voting. But the threat of deadlocked state delegations and a deadlocked House remains.
The aspect of the real-world Electoral College that seemed most to surprise its designers, though, was how quickly it evolved into a rubber stamp for the partisan leanings of state legislators and voters. Many delegates at the Constitutional Convention assumed that — after voting for George Washington in the first election, of course — electors would choose independently for a variety of well-qualified men, leaving most elections (19 out of 20, predicted George Mason) to be decided in the House.
Instead, state political leaders quickly began insisting electors pledge to vote for specific candidates and increasingly arranged that all electors in a state vote for the same candidate, to maximize the national political clout of that state’s majority party. Maryland and Pennsylvania were the trendsetters, awarding all their electoral votes in the 1788-1789 election to the winner of each state’s popular vote (Washington, of course). By 1832 every state but two had adopted this winner-take-all approach. That’s where things stand now, with only Maine and Nebraska choosing some of their electors by House district instead.
As scholars started to put in mathematical terms in the 1940s but politicians suspected almost from the start, winner-take-all negates most of the small-state advantage the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had attempted to insert into the system. This is because when individuals or blocs control differing numbers of votes — as with corporate shareholders, the Council of the European Union or the Electoral College — the likelihood that a big bloc will cast the deciding vote is usually higher than its share of the overall votes (the exception is when there are multiple big blocs with identical numbers of votes).
Sure enough, four of the first five presidents came from Virginia, the most populous state in the 1790 and 1800 censuses and No. 2 in 1810. Not until New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce in 1852 was a president elected from a state in the bottom half of the population ranking, and that didn’t happen again until Dwight Eisenhower of Kansas was elected a century later. (Since then there’s just been Bill Clinton from Arkansas, although Delaware’s Joe Biden would be the fourth.) Thirty-seven of the 44 men who have served as president have come from a state in the top 25% of the population rankings, 26 from a state in the top 12%.
Possible paths for change
Electoral College opponents have in recent years tried an end-run of sorts with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in which states pledge to award all their electoral votes to the popular-vote winner as soon as states representing an Electoral College majority of 270 votes are on board. This does not seem at odds with the Constitution, which lets states select electors by any manner they choose. It’s not an approach the framers of the Constitution envisioned, but neither is the current setup.
The weakness of the NPVIC might be its fragility. States can back out at any time, and basing everything on the national popular vote when the counting of those votes and the determination of voter eligibility remains entirely in the hands of the states seems potentially fraught. Still, it’s a lot easier to achieve than a constitutional amendment, and is currently only 75 electoral votes short of going into effect.
Another reform that could shake up although not replace the Electoral College would be expanding the House of Representatives. Keeping its membership constant at 435 since 1912, even as the US population has more than tripled, has been an affront not only to representative government but to George Washington, whose only speech at the Constitutional Convention was a plea for each House member to represent no more than 30,000 people.
At the current US population of 330 million, this would mean a House membership of 11,000 and an Electoral College with 11,103 votes. A constitutional amendment that was thought to fall one state short of ratification in 1792 but maybe actually didn’t put the maximum at 50,000 constituents, which implies a House membership of 6,600. That’s a lot! But doubling or tripling the House membership seems like a reasonable reform that could be achieved without a constitutional amendment. Given that it would further diminish the voting power of smaller states in the Electoral College, it might force some movement toward a popular vote. “The history recounted here has a Sisyphean air,” Keyssar concedes near the end of his book. But Sisyphus had to keep rolling his boulder up a hill for eternity. We’ve only been trying to fix the Electoral College for about 230 years!

It’s Not Just you. Lockdowns Make us Less Creative.
Ferdinando Giugliano/Bloomberg/November 03/2020
As Europe struggles with the second wave of the virus and faces a new round of lockdowns, governments and businesses must ask themselves whether people will cope with more restrictions as well as they have striven to do so far.
For many white-collar workers, the pandemic has already made remote work the new normal. But for all of its advantages, like saving on commuting time, there is also a price to pay — one that increases the longer we are out of the office and not able to meet others in person. Not only does virtual and distanced working risk loneliness, it is also bound to reduce on-the-job learning, creativity and innovation — all of which are often tied to serendipitous encounters.
The case for having people work from home, if they can, is relatively straightforward. Governments and businesses have a joint interest in containing outbreaks to keep the pandemic in check. Politicians want to relieve pressure from the health-care system, while employers want to prevent disruptions to their workflow. Local authorities also want to limit the use of public transport to those who really need it. For employees, remote working means a smaller chance of catching the virus and spreading it to their own families.
The costs are harder to quantify. Several businesses simply can’t be run remotely. For occupations in which staying at home is an option, the impact on productivity remains an open question. A number of executives, such as Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase & Co., had warned in September that efficiency was bound to suffer unless employees came back to the office. The evidence, however, is less negative: Although productivity for some businesses can suffer, employees seem to compensate for it by toiling longer hours. In some cases, efficiency actually increases when employees stay at home.
Unfortunately, lockdowns bring additional complications. For starters, when governments require most people to stay home, remote working is no longer a choice for one’s preferred work environment but an obligation. This becomes even more problematic when schools are also forced to close, as parents have to juggle work alongside taking care of their children and helping them with distance learning.
Another peril comes when compulsory work-from-home is protracted. For example, it may be relatively straightforward to carry on performing the same tasks you did in the office from your living room. But what about starting new tasks or improving processes, which at some point will need to happen?
It becomes much harder to organize and innovate when people can only exchange ideas through mostly scheduled phone calls and teleconferences. It’s even harder when dealing with new hires who are not used to a company’s culture and ways of working. As for the idea that boredom can spark genius, this may be true for a few lone writers or mathematicians, but it seems less relevant for larger organizations.
Andy Haldane, the chief economist at the Bank of England, gave a thoughtful speech last month, arguing that excessive working from home can have a damaging effect on two important aspects of professional life: creativity and developing social connections. “Whether it is creative sparks being dampened, existing social capital being depleted or new social capital being lost, these are real costs and costs which would be expected to grow, silently but steadily, over time,” Haldane said. He added that these disadvantages reduce the benefits of home-working and raise doubts over whether it can be a permanent solution for employers. Haldane concluded that, as the pandemic recedes, the future will look like a combination of our past, in which clerical workers were always at the office, and our constrained present, in which they are stuck at home. The hope is to achieve some flexibility, for individuals to be able to choose where they work best. But it’s looking like this will have to wait until after winter.

The Fatal Fear of Being Accused of Racism
Daniel Pipes/Critic/November 03/2020
http://www.danielpipes.org/19918/the-fatal-fear-of-being-accused-of-
Recent evidence suggests that a major act of violence could have been averted had a security guard not feared being called a "racist." This incident raises questions about the West's ability to protect itself from jihadi attacks.
The foyer where the attack took place.
That act of violence was the bombing of a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande at England's Manchester Arena on May 22, 2017, killing 22 and wounding over 800. The bomber, Salman Ramadan Abedi, 22, was born in Manchester to refugee Islamist parents just arrived from Libya. Those who knew him described him as being very religious and none too bright.
An Al-Qaeda sympathizer, Abedi constructed a home-made bomb with thousands of nuts and bolts, placed it in a large rucksack, and made his roundabout way by foot to the arena. There he awaited the conclusion of Grande's "Dangerous Woman" performance while sitting on steps in the public foyer. At 10:31 p.m., he stood up, crossed the foyer toward the audience exiting the hall, and detonated his device.
Salman Ramadan Abedi walking to the Manchester Arena.
The Home Secretary Priti Patel established the Manchester Arena Inquiry "to find out exactly what happened" and "make recommendations to try to prevent what has gone wrong from happening again." The inquiry revealed important information about the security that evening provided by the private firm Showsec. The account starts with Christopher Wild as he waited for a child attending the concert. He noticed a dubious-looking Abedi about 10.15 p.m. and reported his concern to a Showsec guard, Mohammed Ali Agha, 19. Wild described Abedi as "dodgy" and "dangerous-looking" and pointed out his "massive rucksack."
Agha asked a colleague, Kyle Lawler, 18, to keep an eye on Abedi. Lawler approached within 10-15 feet of Abedi and found him "fidgety and sweaty." Lawler testified that he had "a bad feeling about him but did not have anything to justify that." He admitted to some panic even as he felt "conflicted" because he sensed something awry but also saw him as "just an Asian male sitting amongst a group of white people."
As Lawler told the inquiry,
I felt unsure about what to do. It's very difficult to define a terrorist. For all I knew, he might have been an innocent young Asian male sitting on the steps. I did not want people to think that I was stereotyping him because of his race. ... I was scared of being wrong and being branded a racist. If I got it wrong, then I would have got into trouble. It made me hesitant about what to do. I wanted to get it right and not to mess up by overreacting or judging someone by their race.
Although Lawler admits to "a guilty feeling" and placing "a lot of blame on myself," when asked if he still worries about being branded a racist, he replied "Yes."
Kyle Lawler on Oct. 27, 2020, testifying at the Manchester Arena Inquiry.
What to make of this incident? Note this key sentence: "I was scared of being wrong and being branded a racist." In one sense, this sentiment is entirely familiar; it is, for example, why the police in Rotherham and other British cities did not crack down on Pakistani rape gangs over a period of up to sixteen years.
In another way, it is startling. For a security guard not to follow up on his suspicions out of fear of "being branded a racist" points to a crisis. Unless the suspect is a jihadi planning a murderous rampage – something not at all likely – whoever voices worries potentially opens himself to being sanctioned, being fired, press outrage, lawsuits, and even riots. Slogans like "If you see something, say something" turn out to be fraudulent. Recalling how many jihadis have been caught in the course of routine traffic stops or by suspicious neighbors, this is a major problem.
Fear of the charge of racism has the counterintuitive consequence that a person who has darker skin or appears to be Muslim could get a free pass; the vigilant can afford to be wrong about a blond but not about a hijabi. Even stranger is the implication that someone intending to engage in mischief could find advantage in adopting a Muslim appearance.
Effective protection requires latitude for errors. Airline captains, police on the beat, even specialists on Islam must have the freedom to express their worries without fear of press defamation, losing their jobs, or facing legal retribution.
Unless these necessary changes take place, expect more jihadi violence.
*Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2020 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.