LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
September 07/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
You have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 11/52-54:”Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile towards him and to cross-examine him about many things,lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on September 06-07/2019
Pompeo Asks Lebanon to Dismantle Hezbollah’s Missile Factory
Aoun: Israel Would Bear Consequences of Any Attack Against Lebanon
Hariri: France Satisfied with Investment Plan Progress
Report: Berri Again Opts for PSP-Hizbullah Reconciliation
Macron Contacts Hariri, Praises 'Progress' Paving for CEDRE
Hariri Vows 'Huge Effort' by Govt. to 'Protect Lebanon from Storm'
Egyptian President Says Keen on Maintaining Lebanon’s Stability
Lebanon envoy summoned over anti-Turkey ‘provocations’
US blocks UN Security Council statement on Israel, says source
Who is Israel's true enemy?
Opinion/A Preemptive Attack Is a Must
Saudi Writers Attack Hizbullah: It Initiated The Military Escalation Vis-à-vis Israel To Serve Iran, Is Devastating Lebanon
Tanks and Tourists on the Israel-Lebanon Border: The Epicenter of the War That Wasn’t
Analysis/How Israel, Hezbollah and Iran Almost Went to War This Week
Washington should wake up to the fact that Hezbollah runs Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 06-07/2019
Iran continues high rate of executions in August
Pentagon Chief: Iran 'Inching' Toward Place Where Talks Could Be Held
Nuclear watchdog chief to meet top Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday
Pompeo says Iran nuclear commitment cuts ‘unacceptable’
Iran’s FM Zarif defends planned new steps away from nuclear deal
Britain will support US in Iran talks if deal can be made: UK Defense minister
Judges Reject Challenge to UK Parliament Suspension
Iran takes further step to scale back nuclear commitments
IRGC-affiliated Company to Operate Mobile Service Network in Syria
Pompeo thinks US to unveil Mideast peace plan in coming weeks
Arab Economic Ministers Stress Continued Support For Palestinians
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza border clashes
Egyptian Interior Ministry: Six Militants Killed Near Bahariy
Turkish-US land patrols in Syria to start on September 8
Egyptian Prosecution Probes Death of Morsi’s Youngest Son
Cracks in Saudi-UAE Coalition Risk New War in Yemen
Military Preparations for New Tripoli Battles
Morocco: ISIS Cell Plotting to Target Sensitive Areas Dismantled

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 06-07/2019
Israel must kick its pointless Nasrallah addiction/Ynetnews/Sever Plocker/September 06/2019
Who is Israel's true enemy?/Giora Eiland/Ynetnews/September 06/2019
Opinion/A Preemptive Attack Is a Must/Israel Harel/Haaretz/September 06/2019
Saudi Writers Attack Hizbullah: It Initiated The Military Escalation Vis-à-vis Israel To Serve Iran, Is Devastating Lebanon/MEMRI/September 06/2019
Tanks and Tourists on the Israel-Lebanon Border: The Epicenter of the War That Wasn’t/Gideon Levy and Alex Levac/Haaretz/September 06/2019
Analysis/How Israel, Hezbollah and Iran Almost Went to War This Week/Amos Harel/Haaretz/September 06/2019
Washington should wake up to the fact that Hezbollah runs Lebanon/Tony Badran/Monday, 22 July 2019
Trump Says China Will Suffer as Data Shows Trade War Hurting US/Ana Swanson/The New York Times/September 06/2019
How Despots Interpret Deals with the West/Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/September 6, 2019
Moscow Divided Between Two Proverbs/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 06/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on September 06-07/2019
Pompeo Asks Lebanon to Dismantle Hezbollah’s Missile Factory
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
Despite exchanges of reassurances by Hezbollah and the Israeli government that they were not seeking war, the Israeli army announced the transfer of Patriot missile batteries to bolster its air defenses and maintained a partial state of alert. Its former chief of staff, Dan Halutz, said the situation was tense on the border and could explode at every moment. The biggest problem is the intransigence on both sides, according to Halutz, who led the Israeli army during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. He noted that Israel would not allow Hezbollah to develop and modernize old Iranian missiles in its possession, while Hezbollah – backed by Iran - insisted on possessing deterrent weapons against Israel. “This insistence could certainly lead to war, unless one of the parties concedes, sooner or later,” he warned. Israeli sources revealed on Thursday that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent a warning letter to Lebanese President Michel Aoun, urging him to dismantle a second factory set up by Hezbollah in the Bekaa to develop and modernize the missiles before Israel attacks it. The US message was not conveyed by regular diplomatic means through the US Embassy in Beirut, but was transferred directly to Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who is known for his close ties to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Pompeo told Bassil that Israel had intelligence information about a second missile production plant set up by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Lebanon should immediately dismantle the second factory, otherwise Israel will attack and destroy it in the coming days,” he said, clearly admitting that the US would support the Israeli attack on Lebanon. The sources said that this issue was raised during Netanyahu’s meetings in London on Thursday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper. They revealed that the Israeli premier was accompanied by the air force commander, who informed the British and US officials of the Israeli plans for the coming days in Lebanon. On Wednesday evening, the Israeli army announced the deployment of air defense systems in several centers in northern Israel, including the US-made Patriot system, the Iron Dome, and others. A military source said that this step comes in light of Israeli security predictions that Iran and Hezbollah would try to penetrate the Israeli air by booby-trapped drones.

Aoun: Israel Would Bear Consequences of Any Attack Against Lebanon
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun warned on Friday that Israel would bear the results of any attack. Aoun's statement comes days after a flare-up at the border between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah. The frontier between the two countries has remained calm since Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah traded fire on Sunday, Reuters reported. Israel’s military said it had responded with fire into south Lebanon after anti-tank missiles targeted an army base and vehicles. Hezbollah said its they destroyed an Israeli armored vehicle, killing and wounding those inside, however, Israel said there were no casualties. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said this week that the episode had ended but had launched a “new phase” in which they would target Israeli drones that breach Lebanon’s airspace. According to Reuters, Aoun has likened the crash of the drones, including one that exploded, to a “declaration of war”.“Any attack on Lebanon’s sovereignty ... will be met with legitimate self-defense which Israel will bear all the consequences of,” Aoun’s office cited him as saying on Friday in a meeting with UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis.

Hariri: France Satisfied with Investment Plan Progress
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
French President Emmanuel Macron is satisfied with Beirut's progress on starting an infrastructure investment program, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's press office said on Friday, a day after a French envoy criticized the speed at which Lebanon is reforming its economy. Foreign governments and donor institutions last year pledged $11 billion in financing to Lebanon for a 12-year infrastructure investment program at the CEDRE conference in Paris, on condition that it carries out reforms. Hariri’s office said in a statement Friday that the PM received a telephone call from Macron, who “expressed his satisfaction with the progress made towards launching the CEDRE investment projects.”Macron called Hariri after French diplomat Pierre Duquesne concluded a four-day visit to Lebanon to assess Beirut's progress on starting work on the infrastructure projects and other reforms. Duquesne himself said that the donors' funding offers still stand, but stressed that Lebanese authorities need to speed up reforms, pass a state budget for 2020 this year and decide which of the 250 infrastructure projects will take priority. "Donors are still ready to help, provided that things happen in the required and right way," he said.
Funding has not yet begun to flow, he said, because Lebanon was without a government for nine months following elections last year. "And even after (government) formation, donors continue to question the Lebanese government. This view is shared by all donors," Duquesne said. He was also critical of how some Lebanese politicians were approaching the urgency of the economic problems in the country. "Some people still believe that there is a miracle solution, a magical solution to solve all the problems. This does not exist.""Time is running out and we cannot continue with the endless debates," he added. On Monday Lebanese politicians declared a "state of economic emergency” and Hariri said the government would take emergency measures to speed up reforms, including holding more meetings. With one of the world's highest debt burdens, low growth and crumbling infrastructure, Lebanon's economy is struggling and authorities are seeking to implement reforms to ward off a crisis. During Thursday’s phone call, “Macron also stressed France's commitment to Lebanon's stability and security, the strengthening of its state and institutions and the importance of preserving calm on the southern border,” Hariri’s office said.
The frontier between the two countries has remained calm since Israel and Hezbollah traded fire on Sunday.

Report: Berri Again Opts for PSP-Hizbullah Reconciliation
Naharnet/September 06/2019
A meeting has reportedly been arranged to bring together the Progressive Socialist Party and Hizbullah, media reports said on Friday.
The reports said that Speaker Nabih Berri is communicating with both sides to arrange a meeting to bridge the gap between the two, and that it will take place at his Ain el-Tineh residence. Ties between the two took a negative turn since December last year and peaked against the backdrop of “Jumblat’s repeated positions on the Syrian refugee crisis,” and a license annulment to establish an industrial complex in Ain Dara. Moreover, the June 30 Qabrshmoun deadly incident aggravated the conflict between the two when Hizbullah showed support for Jumblat’s Druze rival MP Talal Arslan.

Macron Contacts Hariri, Praises 'Progress' Paving for CEDRE
Naharnet/September 06/2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri received on Friday a telephone call from French President Emmanuel Macron who expressed satisfaction with the progress accomplished by Lebanon towards launching the CEDRE investment projects during the meeting of French envoy Pierre Duquesne with Hariri, the Premier’s office said. Macron also stressed France's commitment to Lebanon's stability and security and to strengthening its state and institutions, and the importance of providing calm and stability on the southern border. Hariri thanked Macron, during the lengthy call, for his efforts to contain the escalation after the Israeli attack on Beirut Southern suburbs. He expressed Lebanon's gratitude for France’s leading role in the extension of UNIFIL’s mandate in Lebanon. He stressed Lebanon's adherence to resolution 1701. Macron and Hariri agreed to pursue in-depth discussion on accelerating the implementation of reforms and investment projects in Lebanon and ways of enhancing stability during their upcoming meeting on September 20 in Paris.

Hariri Vows 'Huge Effort' by Govt. to 'Protect Lebanon from Storm'
Naharnet/September 06/2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday announced that the Lebanese will witness a "huge effort" by the government in the coming days that is aimed at “protecting Lebanon from the storm that it is going through.”“We are passing through difficult days, especially at the economic level,” Hariri said during a ceremony to honor pilgrims at the Mohammed al-Amin Mosque in central Beirut. “We are hearing a lot of theories, but the truth is that the work method in the country must change and we should be honest with people,” the premier added. “The problem these days is that some want to decide on behalf of all citizens, but everyone has rights, and we will hold accountable those who encroach on our rights,” Hariri went on to say.

Egyptian President Says Keen on Maintaining Lebanon’s Stability
Naharnet/September 06/2019
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi affirmed strong relations between Lebanon and Egypt, stressing keenness on the “safety, security and stability of Lebanon,” the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.
Al-Sisi’s position came during his meeting with visiting Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat. Sisi stressed Egypt’s keenness on distancing Lebanon from regional conflicts affirming “constant interest in Lebanon and its people.”Sisi received Jumblat on Thursday at the presidential palace in the presence of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, and Abbas Kamel, head of the General Intelligence. Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Ambassador Bassam Radi said “Sisi appreciates the constructive and essential role played by Jumblat to maintain stability and balance in Lebanon.”The spokesman added that talks have highlighted the means of enhancing bilateral relations including the possibility of benefiting from the Egyptian expertise in a number of developmental areas, strengthening trade relations between Egypt and Lebanon, and working to maximize the volume of mutual investments. The meeting also touched on the situation in Syria and the latest developments in the Palestinian file. Radi said that “Sisi affirmed the firm stand of Egypt in support of the Palestinian people in obtaining their legitimate rights in accordance with the relevant international principles.”For his part, Jumblat emphasized Lebanon’s keenness to strengthen the “strong historical ties between the two brotherly countries, which are based on solidarity and brotherhood.”

Lebanon envoy summoned over anti-Turkey ‘provocations’
AFP, Ankara/Friday, 6 September 2019
Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the Lebanese ambassador after protesters unfurled an anti-Turkish banner on its embassy in Beirut, state media reported on Friday. The meeting with Ambassador Ghassan Mouallem on Thursday came several hours after a small group of Lebanese protesters hung out the banner, which featured an image of death mixed with the Turkish flag. In Ankara, the foreign ministry denounced “these provocative acts” to the ambassador and called for quick action to protect Turkish interests in Lebanon, according to news agency Anadolu. It said the banner had been put on the Turkish embassy by supporters of Lebanese President Michel Aoun. It also comes several days after Aoun triggered anger in Turkey by referring to the “state terrorism” of the former Ottoman Empire in a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of Lebanese independence.

US blocks UN Security Council statement on Israel, says source
AFP, United Nations, United States/Thursday, 5 September 2019
The United States has blocked a UN Security Council statement on tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, rejecting any criticism of Israel and forcing the text to be scrapped, according to diplomatic sources on Thursday. In the first version of the six-point text, seen by AFP, council members expressed “deep concern at the recent incidents” during a flare-up between the arch-foes across the “Blue Line” border.The draft, drawn up by France, added that “members of the security council condemned all violations of the Blue Line, both by air and ground, and strongly calls upon all parties to respect the cessation of  hostilities.”According to diplomats, Washington blocked the statement twice, calling for Hezbollah to be specifically condemned in the text. Washington said it was impossible for it to back any statement putting Israel’s right to self-determination on an equal footing with Hezbollah, which it considers a “terrorist organization,” a diplomat explained. Several other members of the security council objected to the US stance, and the text was eventually abandoned. Any statement by the council must be backed by all 15 members. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement, alleged Israel launched a drone strike on its Beirut stronghold late last month. Lebanese President Michel Aoun denounced it as a “declaration of war.”Israel has not acknowledged that attack, but accused Hezbollah and Tehran of colluding to produce precision-guided missiles on Lebanese soil.

Israel must kick its pointless Nasrallah addiction
سيفر بلوكر من يديعوت أحرونوت: على إسرائيل أن تستفيق من أدمانها العبثي على حسن نصر الله
Ynetnews/Sever Plocker/September 06/2019
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Opinion: Let's put things in perspective: A few tunnels dug under the border and a device used in the production of precision missiles that was just lying about in some courtyard do not indicate there is some superior strategy in play on the part of Hezbollah
It is time for Israel to free itself of the dark spell cast by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. For years his likeness stared out from television screens and Israelis hung on his every word as if they were celestial utterances of a man who always delivers on his promises, despite facts to the contrary, but still mountains of analysis are piled up after each one of his speeches. The truth of the matter is that Nasrallah has never spoken the truth. Granted, he is good at making threats, but not so good at carrying them out. In the final tally, his achievements and those of the organization he leads are light years away from his promises and dreams. For the past 15 years, the Shi'ite leader has been confined to a bunker, surrounded by guards and living on borrowed time courtesy of Israel - probably because it is preferable to keep him in a cage rather than having his replacement running free. As a virtual leader, Nasrallah devotes his ample free time to political plotting. The Hezbollah party is increasing its hold on Lebanon, seizing more and more important positions in a failing political structure, taking advantage of a weakening country, its public's apathy and its political parties' leniency. But that is a Lebanese tragedy not an Israeli one. And only the Lebanese can put an end to it. Let us put things in perspective. A few tunnels dug under the border with Israel, and a device used in the production of precision missiles that was just lying about in some courtyard in the sun do not superior strategy make. Nor is a single attack on a military vehicle that mistakenly appeared on the wrong road a fitting response to an Israeli attack in the heart of Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut. The Iran-backed terror group was beaten badly in the 2006 Second Lebanon War and Nasrallah was forced to accept humiliating ceasefire terms. Due to successive Lebanese governments being unable to govern, those terms were never fully enforced and both the West and Israel had no interest in the small country's disintegration. Remember when Nasrallah threated to launch missiles at ammonia stores near Haifa and cause more death and destruction than a nuclear bomb? Well the Israeli media carried every word he uttered about, despite his ignorance of both chemistry and physics.
Hezbollah entered the cruel civil in Syria on the side of the murderous regime, thereby losing what was left of any Arab support for his cause outside Lebanon. But Israel is warned not to offend Nasrallah's honor. What honor is that precisely? Not only were Hezbollah fighters unhelpful to Assad in the war he waged against his own people, they kept getting in the way as they sustained heavy losses and ultimately fled back to Lebanon with their proverbial tail between their legs. When Hitler threatened Poland in the summer of 1939, making use of psychological warfare, he had the strength of the entire German army behind him. Behind Nasrallah is only the wall of his bunker and a background photo prepared for his next televised speech. Israel really does need to kick its embarrassing habit of taking Hassan Nasrallah seriously

Who is Israel's true enemy?
جيورا إيلاند/صحيفة يديعوت أحرونوت: من هو عدو إسرائيل الحقيقي
Giora Eiland/Ynetnews/September 06/2019
الكاتب يرى أن لبنان العدو ويجب القيام بهجمات وقائية ضده ما لم يلجم انشطة حزب الله
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Opinion/Following the recent attack in Avivim, Jerusalem must send a clear message to Lebanese authorities that it will not tolerate Hezbollah acquiring precision missiles
Hezbollah's attack at the beginning of the week, naturally has kept politicians, the public and the media busy. Much has been said about the attack and the willingness to divulge any kind of details about it. There are however two more urgent and strategic issues that the cabinet, current one or otherwise, will have to not only discuss, but make serious decisions about. 
The first issue is the question "Who is the enemy?"
Our tendency is to point to Hezbollah or its patron, Iran. That's what we did in 2006 and that's how we work today. That, in fact, is the way in which Israel has been pushing more and more countries to declare Hezbollah a terror organization.
The other option, which is the right one in my opinion, is to declare Lebanon as the enemy. Lebanon is not just the country that gets hit by collateral damage when we attack a Hezbollah target, it should be the official enemy.
One could argue either way, but this topic merits a clear strategic decision that would dictate both a military and political course of action.
Political action isn't propaganda; political action is, for example, convincing the United States to make it clear to the Lebanese government, that if they don't stop the Hezbollah push for precision-guided missiles, the U.S. will impose harsher and harsher economic sanctions on Beirut.
The second and more important issue on the table is whether Israel should start a preemptive war in Lebanon.
It is important to differentiate between a preemptive attack and a forward counterstrike.
A forward counterattack is done by a country that knows an enemy is about to initiate an attack within days, and then attacks first in order to disrupt the enemy's opening move.
Israel did it in 1967, and considered doing the same in 1973 at the behest of then-Chief of Staff David Elazar, but refrained at the last minute.
A preemptive war is something completely different, its when one side declares war on unwilling enemy. Its purpose is to hurt the enemy's current or future arming abilities.
The 2003 Iraqi-American war was a preemptive one, or at least, that’s how George W. Bush presented it to the world.
Most Israeli politicians are adamant Israel won't be able to deal with a situation in which Hezbollah has hundreds, or thousands of precisions- guided missiles.
The argument is that if a future war will break out, not only will Israel's infrastructure suffer unbearable damage, the Israel Air Force's ability to operate efficiently will suffer greatly.
Indeed, it would be best if we can sabotage any dangerous future developments with a few precise covert actions.
But what if the final conclusion would be that, in order to thwart such a threat, we need to initiate a massive, open attack on several high priority targets right now?
The answer is seemingly clear - but not necessarily.
For years Israel existed with the looming threat of a massive number of chemical weapons in Syria - weapons Syria could've used on dozens of Scud missiles to reach every corner of Israel.
There were a few singular votes that argued that it's not possible to live in the shadow of such a constant threat, and so, a preemptive war against Syria would be the right thing to do.
 Israel avoided taking such measures, and the arsenal of chemical weapons and Scud missiles is mostly gone.
There are a lot of differences between this old threat and the new one brewing in Lebanon, and so, this is a concrete issue and not just one based on principle.
If and when we understand that we can't guarantee the termination of the precision-guided missiles project in any other way, would a preemptive war be the right course of action?

Opinion/A Preemptive Attack Is a Must
Israel Harel/Haaretz/September 06/2019
إسرائيل هاريل/هآرتس: الهجوم الإسرائيلي الوقائي ضد حزب الله هو ضرورة ملزمة
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Contrary to the message that the IDF and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are conveying, the last battle concluded with a victory for a Hezbollah in terms of deterrence and psychological warfare. Hezbollah fired Kornet anti-tank missiles and Israel responded in the north as it has responded for the past 14 years in the south: With a useless bombardment of open areas. The helicopters called into action were also deliberately prevented from hitting the missile launchers.
The “crushing counter-blow” that Netanyahu threatened was, once again, a dummy strike. And the same goes for the childish “deception exercise.”
Israel’s acceptance of the Kornet fire has enabled Nasrallah (and his patrons) to conclude that the years’-long policy of containment in the south now applies to the north as well. In other words, the decision of when to open fire and when to hold fire will be up to Hezbollah, just as it is with Hamas.
Is it any wonder that Nasrallah was quick to declare, “we have no more red lines?"
Hezbollah knows full well that it cannot seize territory within Israel and stay there. And that it certainly cannot seize its ultimate desire: Jerusalem. Therefore, arming itself with more than 100,000 missiles has one purpose only:
widespread killing and destruction. No other country in the world is under such a threat; no other country in the world has a government and army that have fallen asleep on their watch and allowed terrorist organizations in the south, and even more so in the north, to arm themselves with such an abundance of missiles.
Only now, after it let Hezbollah build up this balance of terror against us, does the IDF remember to declare that it is determined to prevent Hezbollah from arming its missiles with precise navigation systems. What about the hundreds of missiles that have already been armed this way? What about the hundred thousand “dumb” missiles that could, without precise navigation, sow unprecedented death and destruction?
Iran has no intention of dispatching its army to conquer Israel. It does have a burning desire, as it has publicly proclaimed numerous times, “to destroy the Zionist state,” i.e., to annihilate as many Jews as possible.
However, the moment it launches missiles at us, Tehran will be laid waste, and Iran’s leaders know this. And Tehran is deterred. But when its emissaries, such as Hezbollah, launch missiles, at its orders and with its funding, thousands of missiles whose purpose is to destroy Israel, it does not worry that Tehran will be wiped off the map. Or Beirut for that matter. As long as this is Israel’s policy – Iran will keep on arming Hezbollah (and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza), in advance of the day when it will give the order to realize its objective.
Those who oppose the use of force in order to prevent, by means of a preemptive strike, the fulfillment of this evil plot, are only increasing the number of future victims there will be when Tehran’s proxies land the first blow. Nasrallah, like Yahya Sinwar, is acquiring and upgrading missiles while he awaits orders from Tehran.
And when the time is chosen (for these organizations are always the ones that get to choose the timing of the opening shot, as well as the timing of the end of the fighting), Israel will come under a massive missile barrage that can only partially be intercepted by its Iron Dome and Arrow missile systems. Yes, an offensive action would not be able to prevent the launching of painful reprisal attacks, but when we hold the initiative, the number of casualties and extent of the damage can be significantly reduced.
Only a credible and unequivocal proclamation by Israel that Tehran will also be destroyed even if “only” its proxies launch missiles of death and destruction at us can make the Ayatollahs’ regime rein in its emissaries. This is the challenge awaiting Israel as soon as the next government is formed.

Saudi Writers Attack Hizbullah: It Initiated The Military Escalation Vis-à-vis Israel To Serve Iran, Is Devastating Lebanon
موقع ميمري: مقتطفات من الصحافة السعودية تنتقد حزب الله وتتهمه بالعمل على تدمير لبنان وبالتسبب بحروب تخدم مصالح إيران
MEMRI/September 06/2019
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Following the military escalation between Israel and Hizbullah in the last two weeks – which included the August 25, 2019 Israeli drone attack on the Dahia, Hizbullah’s stronghold in Beirut; threats of retaliation by Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, and Hizbullah’s September 1, 2019 firing of anti-tank missiles into northern Israel – writers in the Saudi press published articles attacking Hizbullah and Nasrallah. The writers accused Hizbullah of dragging Lebanon into confrontations with Israel to serve the Iranian agenda and thereby harming Lebanon and its economy and perpetrating treason against it. They also wrote that Hizbullah has turned Beirut into a military base and taken over Lebanon’s vital centers of power, and called to restore sovereignty to the Lebanese government, so that it will be the only force in Lebanon authorized to make decisions on war and peace.
The following are excerpts from their articles:
Senior Journalist ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed: Hizbullah Is The Problem, Not Israel
On September 2, 2019, the day after Hizbullah’s missile attack on Israel, senior Saudi journalist ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, formerly the editor-in-chief of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and currently the head of the editorial board of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya TV and Al-Hadath TV,[1] published in the English-language Saudi daily Arab News an article titled “Imagine Lebanon without Hizbullah.” In it, he wrote:
“I think there is a group of people who still believe the lies Hezbollah and its leader spout to justify using Lebanon in this week’s attack against Israel. At the same time, I doubt there are any people, even from within this group, who agree with Hezbollah’s actions and the damage the group causes Lebanon while using excuses that no longer convince anyone.
“Hezbollah has given years of ethnic, patriotic and religious excuses, from the liberation of the south to the protection of religious places and the Syrian Shebaa Farms. Because of Hezbollah, Lebanon is beleaguered internationally in its financial transactions and trade and tourism, while nationally it is held captive and controlled, from the airport to the house of government…
“Hezbollah is the only cause of the state’s low income and political bullying…
“It is not hard to understand the damage caused to Lebanon’s 6 million people by Hezbollah’s presence as an armed militia. However, it is harder to understand those who are still supporting Hezbollah today, echoing its resistance claims against Israel and justifying its arms and daily defiance of the state and its authorities. All other front-line states have signed peace agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and even Syria, with the Agreement on Disengagement, which is why it used Hezbollah to carry out its heroic acts on behalf of Lebanon…
“Israel is not the problem, Hezbollah is. If Lebanon’s politicians do not address this problem, the country will not come out from the hole dug for it by Iran and its proxy.
“Hezbollah’s followers and fans can still preserve it, while preserving Lebanon at the same time, by forcing it to disarm and become a civil political party. Otherwise, more painful decisions are on the way.
“Finally, I would only like to say: Imagine Beirut, and all of Lebanon, without Hezbollah.”
Senior Saudi Journalist: Decisions Of War And Peace Must Not Be Left To Hizbullah; Lebanon Deserves To Be A Sovereign State
Salman Al-Dosari, the former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, wrote: “Hassan Nasrallah has controlled Lebanon’s affairs for long decades. He gives orders, and is obeyed. He makes decisions on war and on peace. No regime deters him and no country stops him. If he wants to make trouble for his country, he does so, and nobody dares to oppose him. When Iran impels him to implement its tactics, he does not care whether they serve Lebanon or harm it. He is party to Iran’s terror and punishes the Lebanese economically, politically and socially. He presents himself as a side in the Syrian crisis, and the entire [Lebanese] state suffers. Thus he has remained the ruler [of Lebanon], not only by relying on weapons more powerful than those of the state, but also by [employing] terrorism against all his opponents, [so that] nobody has been able to speak out or express any objection. The rivals who were punished by the [Hizbullah] organization live in our collective memory. [Hizbullah’s] custom is to act on sovereign issues independently of the state, and the response [to its actions] is surprising and is more than Lebanon can cope with. [But] obviously, no devastating consequences concern Hizbullah or its helpers. Its only concern is to attain its goal by means of this escalation, even if it develops into an all-out war.
“This time, following the clashes between Hizbullah and Israel, Hizbullah and its head Hassan Nasrallah were surprised [to find that], for the first time, the equation has changed. The terror [employed by Hizbullah against its] rivals has gradually lost its impact, because the Lebanese attitude towards the lies of the resistance, like the Arab attitude before it, has changed compared to what it was after [Hizbullah’s] escapade in 2006. Lebanese voices have begun to speak out against those who have hijacked their state and seek to eliminate it…
“It is no longer possible to leave decisions of war and peace in Hizbullah’s hands, so it can manipulate them according to the agenda dictated by Iran’s regional strategy, while the Lebanese government consistently remains passive and fails to discharge it duties – first and foremost [the duty to ascertain] whether these pointless clashes and battles [between Hizbullah and Israel] benefit Lebanon, or only the [Hizbullah] organization.
“The circle of protesters who say that Lebanon is not smaller than Hizbullah continues to expand. Lebanon deserves to regain its status as a sovereign state that is exclusively entitled to defend its citizens and their collective interest, rather than [the hostage of] a revolution that rides on the back of the state and brings the Lebanese nothing but ruin and destruction.”[2]
Saudi Columnist: The Conflicts With Israel Instigated By Hizbullah Reflect The Iranian Agenda, Not The Lebanese Will
A columnist in the Makkah daily, ‘Abdallah Al-‘Awlaqi, wrote: “In the wake of the effective sanctions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on the ayatollah regime, Iran is expected to [respond] by means of its proxies and tools in the region. The Lebanese Hizbullah no doubt constitutes an important political bargaining chip that [Iran’s Islamic] Revolutionary Guards [Corps] uses in [its] indirect negotiations with Europe and the U.S. – and the latest moves against Israel that were deliberately instigated by the Lebanese Hizbullah may be the best proof of this…
“The farce of the Lebanese Hizbullah has become obvious to the Arab public, and everyone now realizes that it is nothing but empty talk, because the [military] confrontations with the Zionist entity that Hizbullah initiated are not the result of a [Lebanese] national decision reflecting the conscience of all sectors of the Lebanese people. Instead, they are the implementation of an agenda imposed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards [Corps]. This is why the Lebanese people accuse this terrorist organization [Hizbullah] of treason against the nation. When the entire homeland serves as a worthless political tool in the hands of a terrorist party, this is a blatant sign of treason against the nation.
“The [most] unfortunate aspect of this [state of affairs] is that the Lebanese economy has reached a dangerous state, which heralds a complete collapse of the Lebanese currency, and is classified among the worst economies in the world. The one responsible for all this is the lunatic Hassan Nasrallah, because the foreign investors left Lebanon after Hizbullah turned Beirut into a military base and took over the state’s vital facilities. Furthermore, Hizbullah’s dubious activities in the domain of drug trafficking have turned it into a wealthy [organization] that has no need for the national economy as long as its mentality reduces the homeland into nothing more than a protectorate of the Iranian regime.
“Lebanon is geographically small… and militarily weak, whereas Israel enjoys unlimited American and European support that has enabled it to become a powerful military and technological force in the region, and its military history vis-à-vis its Arab surroundings perhaps indicate its superiority. This is not defeatist discourse, but merely recognition of the verdict of reason and common sense… Hizbullah’s dangerous independent recklessness in its failed wars against Israel is nothing but a cheap exploitation of the Palestinian cause…”[3]
Saudi Columnist: Hizbullah And Its Head Are The Emblem Of Treason Against The Nation
Hamoud Abu Talib, a columnist for the daily ‘Okaz, wrote: “The Arab’s catastrophe no longer [originates] outside their countries but within them, and they no longer fear a distant enemy but rather a traitor close by. In the past the treason was secret and hidden, but now it is public and overt, and is announced out loud as though it is a noble action rather than a despicable one of treason against the nation.
“The most prominent emblem of institutionalized national treason may be the model [represented by] Hizbullah and its leader Nasrallah. This man and his organization show up whenever there is a crisis in Lebanon and remind us of all the crimes that have committed against [this country]. [Nasrallah] emerges from his hideout after every crime and, without batting an eyelid, delivers a long speech filled with lies, errors, falsehoods and invective,… while his audience applauds him on his huge screen and repeats hollow slogans with fake enthusiasm. The latest incident, the attack on the Dahia by the two [Israeli] drones, was another episode in the chain of destructive [acts] perpetrated by Hizbullah against Lebanon. As usual it was an incentive for Nasrallah to deliver a speech that evoked in those who heard it nothing but loathing towards him and sorrow for Lebanon.
“[Nasrallah] talks of Arabhood but is consistently loyal to Iran. He calls for resistance against Israel but makes deals with it. He threatens to deter anyone who attacks Lebanon but crushes its security and destroys it politically and economically. He brutally attacks Lebanon’s institutions, including the army and security apparatuses, but turns into a shivering coward when Israel directs a simple threatening message at him. This is a clear and loathsome example of… treason – yet despite all this he still speaks of patriotism.”[4]
[1] According to the British daily The Guardian, Al-Rashed is also currently involved in the operations and funding of the London-based Saudi news channel Iran International. Thegardian.com, October 31, 2018.
[2] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (Saudi Arabia), September 5, 2019.
[3] Makkah (Saudi Arabia), September 3, 2019.
[4] ‘Okaz (Saudi Arabia), August 28, 2019.
https://www.memri.org/reports/saudi-writers-attack-hizbullah-it-initiated-military-escalation-vis-%C3%A0-vis-israel-serve-iran

Tanks and Tourists on the Israel-Lebanon Border: The Epicenter of the War That Wasn’t
جدعون ليفي وأليكس ليفاك/هآرتس: الدبابات والسياح على الحدود الإسرائيلية اللبنانية هي بؤرة ومركز الحرب التي لم تقع
Gideon Levy and Alex Levac/Haaretz/September 06/2019
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A tour of the north on the day after the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel.
At 6, after the almost-war, as the saying (almost) goes, some dusty Armored Corps soldiers were sitting in a small, blue tent next to three tanks, which were parked behind a water reservoir near Moshav Avivim on the Lebanon border, awaiting developments. They wore overalls, indicating that they were on high alert. A few hours earlier, two antitank missiles fired by Hezbollah had fallen a few hundred meters from them, leaving scorch marks on the new northern road; from their position, the soldiers had apparently fired back.
Three tank crews – two from the regular army, one made up of reservists – all under the command of Shlomo, a mechanical engineering student at Ariel University and a resident of that urban West Bank settlement. Affable and obliging, he’s nevertheless appalled by the sudden appearance of two uninvited guests on his battlefield; he was especially worried about his tank being photographed. It’s dangerous to follow the dirt path up to the hilltop, Shlomo said, but he didn’t keep us from doing just that.
The almost-war was over. Soldiers from the Military Police who had erected roadblocks at entrances and exits from the northern road, both the old one and the new, also knew that the almost-war had ended. In a rare spectacle here, they were now preventing military vehicles from using the roads – so, instead of a “closed military zone,” this was a sort of closed civilian zone. The Israel Defense Forces apparently has full confidence in Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who from the start of this bout of rising tensions, threatened to attack only military targets. As is also the case for the first few hours after every virtually every cease-fire arrangement on the Israel-Gaza Strip border, the IDF has faith that its enemies will in fact hold their fire. To the point where it’s impossible to escape the impression that everything here has actually been staged. In addition to the mannequins in the jeeps, whose photos were published in Lebanese media, and the fake evacuation of wounded soldiers that Israel acknowledged this week, much more is synchronized and coordinated between Israel and Hezbollah, ostensibly Israel’s great enemy. Maybe it’s all a play, with a beginning, a middle and an end, with all parts clear and predictable.
By the time of our visit on Monday, Shlomo’s tank crews had been up here a week already, between Kibbutz Yiron’s pasture land and Hezbollah’s Yarine, the Lebanese village across the way. The appearance of the villages in the southern part of Lebanon has altered in recent years. A quick glance across the border reveals more elegant homes, and fewer people wandering between them. Not long ago, the IDF brigade commander of this sector explained to locals that the culture of red-tiled roofs in Adaisseh, the neighboring Lebanese village, attests to the Iranian architecture that now dominates there. Everything here is very close: the groves, the fields, the homes and the flags – of Lebanon and Hezbollah on one side, of Israel and army units on the other side.
A strange-looking military jeep, packed with mysterious surveillance equipment, emerges from Moshav Avivim. In the lot next to the secretariat building, farmers’ cars and soldiers’ vehicles are parked together – but, as we know, only Hezbollah hides amid civilian populations.
“Fighting for our livelihood and saving our home,” a sign posted by Tzomet, the “settlement and agriculture party,” which is running in the election, promises at the entrance to Avivim. Its logo, a hand gripping a sheaf of wheat, evokes days of yore. You have to go to the end of the country to discover that an agrarian party is running in this campaign. There’s also a ubiquitous “Nach, nach, Nachman from Uman” poster, and signs advertising a locksmith and a door manufacturer. A young mother is carrying her baby in a sling across the semi-military parking lot of her moshav. A tractor approaches, an ambulance parks. There is a mikveh (ritual bath) and a beit midrash, a Jewish religious study center, with the blessed help of God. Khaled Assadi is at work with a Bobcat compact excavator. An abandoned playground in the sand. Moshav Avivim. The northern border.
There’s Harimon (pomegranate) Street and Hazayit (olive) Street, like in every Israeli suburb. The almost-war is almost no longer felt in Avivim, the site of a massacre by terrorists that killed 12 on a school bus in 1970.
“Welcome to Battalion HQ Avivim, Baram Formation,” reads the sign at the entrance to the base at the foot of the moshav. In its center is a British fortress-turned-Israeli stronghold. The red and black flag of the Artillery Corps is waving in the breeze. Next to the sign for the pizzeria are a few foreign television correspondents, ready to dispatch a last report from the battlefield that wasn’t.
The fields of Lebanon near the border that were burning the day before our visit rise, blackened, across the fence, just meters away; only a few rows of young peach trees and a fence separate the bus station at the Avivim junction from the field of fire. Buses No. 178 to Jish and No. 43 to Safed pass by here a few times a day. Labor-Gesher is the winner on this border road, when it comes to the presence of campaign posters. “Human beings ahead of everything” – Amir Peretz, Orli Levi-Abekasis and Itzik Shmuli at the edge of Hezbollah country. The roads are deserted. A couple from Mitzpeh Abirim has arrived in their Renault to see the remains of the war.
On the seventh day following the death of our beloved Senior Staff Sgt. Maj. Avishai Biton, there will be a Torah lesson for the elevation of his soul, evening prayers and meal, reads the fresh mourning notice affixed to the concrete wall of the old bus stop. Opposite it is a monument commemorating Amnon Bar Ner, who fell here in the month of Av in the Hebrew year 5730 (1970).
The head of the Merom Hagalil Regional Council, Amir Sofer, is speaking into the camera of some television team about the lack of bomb shelters in the area. The letters “U.N.” are written in white stones on the hill across the way, above a base of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. A white helicopter of the peace army hovers in the sky. The village of Maroun al-Ras is visible on the hill opposite, with a row of buildings that look like hotels or alluring resorts. There’s a Lebanese flag that’s torn in the middle, exactly where the cedar is supposed to be, and the yellow flag of Hezbollah fluttering next to it, a few dozen meters from the IDF’s Tzurit outpost, which also looks deserted. Israeli kiwi is growing in the valley.
A rock wrapped in an Israeli flag constitutes yet another monument on this blood-drenched border – this one in memory of Col. Yitzhak Rahimov, “a good man, friend and commander,” who fell in a 1990 battle “with terrorists” in the village of Yarine, which is visible behind the monument. A cool wind blowing from the Lebanese heights tempers the early-September heat slightly. “He fell in our war for life,” is also part of the inscription on the monument for all eternity, like the fir trees planted alongside it.
Ofer Moskowitz, aka Poshko, is waiting at the relatively new visitors center at Kibbutz Misgav Am; he’s the kibbutz spokesman. The center has a souvenir shop and a smallish lecture hall, with large windows looking out onto the Lebanese landscape. From here Adaisseh looks more like a Swiss hamlet than a Shi’ite stronghold. There are just a few dozen meters and a narrow valley separating the kibbutz homes and that village – stretch out your hand and you can almost touch them. In the past, until the first Lebanon War, in 1982, the local folk on both sides of the border were on friendly terms, visiting one another. Better a close neighbor than a distant brother – but no longer.
At present Israel is building a monstrous concrete wall, yet another concrete wall, that will separate the two communities, the Israeli and the Lebanese. It will ultimately cut across the land from Mount Hermon in the east to the Mediterranean, and will encircle Israel from the north, too. It will be a sister to all the fences and barriers with which Israel has been surrounding itself in recent years. A wound in the landscape, it recalls the separation walls in the West Bank and on the Gaza Strip border. The work is at its height.
The Beaufort castle peaks out from behind the hill to the north, on whose summit is Nabi al-Awadi, which, I’m told, some Jews consider to be the grave of the prophet Obadiah. Why not? The IDF has been perched on this ridge for years. In the past few days, a new flag, colored crimson, has been flying across from Misgav Am; no one here knows what it symbolizes and whom it represents. Opposite it are the flags of Israel and Germany, above the kibbutz visitors center. A group of German tourists is scheduled to come here today.
In the souvenir shop the kibbutz is selling the finest in Israeli fashion: T-shirts emblazoned with symbols of the IDF, the Mossad, the air force, Krav Maga, and slogans like “My Golani” and “Follow me to the Paratroops.” There’s even one that reads “Guns and Moses,” a local joke.
A white bus winds its way mutely up the hill. War or not, Israel’s friends are here. A group of young Germans, from an organization called Israel Contact. Dutch-born kibbutznik Joseph Abas welcomes them in the visitors center, speaking German with an unmistakable Dutch accent. Is Mount Hermon, to the right, the highest mountain in Israel? For now, Abas replies. After a brief survey of the area, he describes in detail the terrors of that night in 1980 when terrorists entered the children’s houses on the kibbutz in an attempt to take hostages.
The young Germans sigh, groan and chuckle after almost every sentence. Well, this is why they’ve come, to see the never-ending suffering of the Jewish people and atone for the guilt of their forebears. Abas’ cellphone rings a lot; his ringtone is “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He doesn’t know how to mute it. The terrorists enter the infants’ house, when the saints go marching in. And then they killed an infant, when the saints go marching in. And by the way the kibbutz also grows excellent avocado, most of it for export.
“What you hear at home in Germany is not exactly what is really happening,” the explainer explains. Questions: Are there also normal people living in the Lebanese village opposite? What have the last few days been like? What means does the IDF use against the terrorists? How do you know they won’t shoot again? That last question was asked by a young German man who is already wearing an IDF T-shirt. From here they are supposed to go on to meet some soldiers. Onward and upward, Israel.
“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great.” The flag of the State of Oregon and signs with bombastic biblical quotations below the visitors center lead to a firing post that’s been converted into a small house of worship, or a meditation temple. Peter Page, a kibbutz volunteer from Oregon, is in charge of this house of prayer. Every morning he hoists the flag of Oregon and every evening he lowers and removes it from the pole, before the astonished eyes of Hezbollah across the way. A South African native who fought in the Rhodesian army (don’t even think of saying Zimbabwe when he’s in hearing range or he’ll “Wash your mouth out with soap”), Page is here on a three-month mission with his Spanish wife, Ruth Abigail. The two are members of a Christian organization from Oregon called Zechariah’s Hope, whose goal is to paint bomb shelters – bunkers, in their lingo – in Kiryat Shmona. The symbol of the organization created wholly in order to aid Israel, is a paint brush that appears on Peter and Ruth Abigail’s T-shirts. “It’s a privilege for us to paint bunkers in Kiryat Shmona,” Peter says emotionally. He admires Israel for its courage and its innovation; there are so many adjectives one could apply to the country, he adds.
And suddenly everything gets foggy and mixed up in a jumble – the flag of Oregon, the visitors from Germany, the tanks, the tank crew of Shlomo from Ariel, the kiwi grove and the Hezbollah flag just across the way. To think that just yesterday a war almost broke out here.

Analysis/How Israel, Hezbollah and Iran Almost Went to War This Week
عاموس هاريل/هآرتس: كيف أن الحرب كادت أن تقع هذا الإسبوع بين إسرائيل وحزب الله وإيران
Amos Harel/Haaretz/September 06/2019
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Thankfully, strategic considerations trumped tactical ones during last week's skirmish ■ But threat from Beirut remains ■ Line between politics and military gets murky
At 4:10 P.M. on Sunday, Israel Defense Forces observation posts along the Lebanese border identified Hezbollah cells firing anti-tank rockets into the Israeli side of the border. These scenes were also picked up on the screens of the Northern Command bunker, deep underground beneath the command headquarters in Safed.
The decision, which was taken after brief deliberation, was not to respond to the launching of the rockets by striking at the main source of fire, though that was still possible. At the command they had already ascertained that no one had been wounded by the Hezbollah rockets; a lethal response would apparently have exacerbated the situation.
Hezbollah fired two rockets at the road that links Kibbutz Yaron and Moshav Avivim. They were aimed at an errant vehicle – the armored military ambulance in which the doctor in command mistakenly strayed beyond the permitted boundaries of the sector, putting himself and the four soldiers riding with him directly into the gunsights of the Hezbollah anti-tank snipers. The rockets missed their target, in one case by only a few meters.
In response, IDF fired about 100 artillery shells, about three-quarters of them smoke shells. The latter were meant to create a smokescreen to make it more difficult for the Hezbollah lookouts to see what was happening on the Israeli side of the border. The exchanges of fire took place in a sector and at sites that bring back bad memories from the frustrating days of the Second Lebanon War – the Shaked Ridge overlooking Avivim, and on either side of it the village of Maran a-Ras and the town of Bint Jbeil. It is to these areas that the IDF will return in the third Lebanon War as well, should it break out in the future. This week, it emerges in retrospect, we came quite close to that.
One can only imagine what the response of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu & Co. would have been in the press and the social media, from the darling son to the least of the tweeters, had a government of the left chosen restraint in response to anti-tank rockets fired into Israel’s territory. And had this happened on the watch of former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who has been labeled by the right as an enemy of the people, we would have been doomed this week to innumerable articles bewailing the loss of the IDF’s deterrent power, and explanations that this is what happens when an army promotes women warriors and is concerned with LGBT rights: It forgets the meaning of uncompromising war on the enemy.
The decision not to respond was justified, incidentally. The head of Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Amir Baram, is an outstanding commander in paratrooper units who spent most of his time in the IDF at the spearhead of the fighting forces. The new commander of the Galilee troops, Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder, previously commanded the Golani Brigade and the Sayert Matkal special operations unit. Both men’s military education, as well basic instinct, directed them to pull the trigger at a moment like this. However, both these commanders are sufficiently experienced to understand the elected officials’ directive and knew how they were expected to act in the circumstance that developed: to preserve what has already been achieved without a descent into war. In the command bunker, strategy had the upper hand, not tactics.
Disciplinary issues
Israel entered into the current round with Hezbollah after two attacks on the night of August 24: the killing of the two Lebanese in a strike on a cell operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps intending to launch explosive drones into Israel from the Golan Heights and, a few hours later, the attack at Dahiyyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut (for which Israel did not officially take responsibility), which aimed to cripple an essential element in the Hezbollah precision-weaponry operations. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah made it quite clear in two public speeches that he intended to respond with an attack on a military target near the Israel-Lebanon border.
Accordingly, preparedness was heightened along the northern border. Outposts were partially evacuated, guard posts were emptied. A reporter for the Russian RT television in Arabic even documented herself in a live broadcast walking around unimpeded in the command post of the abandoned artillery battalion at Avivim; not a single soldier remained there to ask her what she was doing.
The everyday life of civilians, however, was hardly affected. Sunday was also September 1, the first day of school. The school bus for children from Avivim left the moshav as usual, despite the painful historical echoes of the terror attack in 1970 on a bus traveling that route, in which 12 civilians were killed and 25 wounded.
However, it seems that the army is having difficulty maintaining discipline over time along the 140 kilometers (87 miles) of border. The weak link turned out to have been the ambulance crew from the artillery regiment, the movement of which, contrary to orders, exposed it to harm for some tens of seconds. That it escaped unscathed in the end gave rise to a wave of hypotheses and rumors to the effect that the vehicle was bait aimed in advance at deceiving Hezbollah, or alternatively that the ambulance was not manned at all but rather operated from afar by remote control. Both hypotheses are unfounded. The truth is more prosaic: Someone in the IDF goofed, but Hezbollah was not quick enough unto the breach.
Immediately thereafter the IDF threw up an intentional smokescreen, partly with the help of the much bruited maneuver in which an air force helicopter evacuated fake casualties to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. Indeed, in Lebanon they discovered the real results of the incident only two hours later. The confusion served the aim, closing the round of attacks. Out of the same considerations, the IDF did not strike the cell, which in the meantime apparently managed to disappear into the built-up area around Bint Jbeil.
A somewhat tragic footnote to the tension in the north came on Tuesday. When the alert relaxed, there was an incident in one of the outposts along the border. Soldiers from that same artillery regiment threw stones at one another in a stupid game and one of them was seriously wounded. For a few hours there was even fear for his life, until his condition stabilized. Unbelievable: After the peak of tension, the only Israeli injured this week on the border with Lebanon was a soldier hit in the head by a stone during a game. One can assume his regiment commander would have preferred to forgo this week, from beginning to end.
Reordering military priorities
But this opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Nasrallah has already declared that the attack in Dahiyyeh, which was carried out with the help of drones, will lead to a more belligerent approach by his organization towards Israeli drones and other flying objects in Lebanese skies. The UMV hunting season has begun. Presumably the humiliation Hezbollah experienced when it turned out that Israel had both managed to trick it and hadn’t suffered any casualties will contribute to continuation of the friction. At Dahiyyeh a taboo was broken: Israel hasn’t attacked openly in Lebanon for 13 years, since the end of the war in 2006. This is no small matter.
But the most important issue is the struggle concerning the precision-weapons project, the effort by Iran and Hezbollah to improve and increase the number of precision rockets in the hands of the organization. In Israel’s assessment, Tehran had hoped that in 2019 Hezbollah would already be in possession of about 1,000 precision rockets, with an average accuracy of about 10 meters (11 yards) from the target. In actuality, it is apparently in possession of a few dozen such rockets. The trouble is that both sides are determined to persist. Iran is patient and plans for the long term. Israel is doubling down on its red line.
Israeli officials have indicated, this week too, that the continuation of the precision-weapons project is liable to wreak destruction on Lebanon. These messages are coming, by means of leaders in the West, to the attention of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri and from him to Nasrallah. On Wednesday Hariri denounced Hezbollah in a television interview: “This organization is not only Lebanon’s problem, but rather the entire region’s. They are acting in southern Lebanon contrary to our position. Netanyahu knows this too.”
When a year ago former cabinet minister Naftali Bennett called for treating Lebanon in times of war as though it were all Hezbollah, his position sounded like a minority opinion. Now, it is practically official Israeli policy. If a war breaks out, the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon is expected to be targeted for attack (the first to have preached this was retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, immediately after the Second Lebanon War).
This year Netanyahu, it was reported this week, changed the order of priorities he set for the defense establishment. The revised list makes the struggle against the Iranian nuclear project the top priority, the campaign against the precision-weapons project second, and the one against Iran’s establishment of a military foothold in Syria third. (The second and third priorities have switched places.) The prime minister also apparently expanded the arena of the fight. Recently attacks on the Iranian armament efforts in Iraq and Lebanon have been attributed to Israel.
This is a dangerous reality, which perhaps deviates from the cautious management in the north which Netanyahu excelled at in recent years. Iraq is especially sensitive, because of the risk to American interests. A continuation of the attacks there is liable to undermine the stability of the Baghdad government and increase pressure to withdraw the 5,200 American soldiers from the country.
Meanwhile, France is investing efforts to bring the United States and Iran to hold direct talks on a new nuclear accord. In the past few days, both Washington and Tehran have presented particularly stringent approaches on the matter. The Americans have yet again toughened their stance toward the Iranian regime, imposing new sanctions, while Iran, on its part, said it would go further in breaching its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and announced it would begin to develop centrifuges on Friday.
Netanyahu said this week in a rare interview with The New York Times that he understands there might be direct talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rohani, “But this time we will have far greater ability to exert influence," as opposed to during the Obama administration. On Thursday morning, before his departure for London to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Netanyahu's remarks were even blunter: “This isn’t the time for negotiations with Iran, but rather for increasing the pressure on it."
Trump’s behavior in recent weeks is causing considerable concern in Jerusalem, although Israeli officials won't explicitly admit it. Direct negotiations between Trump and Rouhani are a wild gamble, which may end like the president’s cordial meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In both cases the belligerent Trump was revealed to be a pussycat the moment the tyrants heaped flattery on him. And the Iranians are no less sophisticated than their Russian and Korean friends.
When flexibility and religion meet in the IDF
Some 2,412 young women, graduates of the state-religious school system, enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 2018, a 20 percent spike compared to 2014 and several times more than a decade ago. The data shows an important and positive social development, emanating from the grassroots, and the young women who chose to enlist in the army despite the many obstacles set by rabbis, educators and some politicians from the religious-Zionist parties.
The military is treading on eggshells, trying not to enrage the rabbis, but in practice it is encouraging religious young women who are interested in joining its ranks to do so. At a time when women's enlistment rates are in decline (to a large extent because of secular women who pretend to be religious in order to be easily exempted from military service), the army is interested in absorbing high-quality and highly-motivated young women, while demonstrating some flexibility to accommodate their needs.
How far is the army taking this consideration? Too far, it sometimes seems. In the latest annual July-August induction, the army launched a course for female operations sergeant to be stationed in brigades and the regional divisions. In first, religious female soldiers, graduates of a religious high school for girls (or midrasha in Hebrew) in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank, were incorporated into the course.
These young women consider the most important and prestigious assigning to be the Gaza Division, where the operations rooms are very active. The final deployment depends on the commanders' assessment and the grades the soldiers achieve throughout the course. But secular female soldiers who requested to be assigned to the Gaza Division discovered that the number of places available there is relatively small since the army promised the religious recruits and the midrasha that a considerable number of them would be assigned as a group to the southern division.
The IDF's Manpower Directorate says that when the army wants to encourage certain populations to enlist for specific roles, it systematically assigns them as a group. Special efforts have been invested to incorporate religious women into the army as a group in order to make it easier for them to observe religious practices in a new environment. The IDF's Spokesperson Unit told Haaretz that “it isn’t the female recruits’ religious belief that constitutes a consideration for their assignment, but rather the track of their recruitment. The joint assignment of women coming from the same midrasha does not prevent secular women from being sent to the Gaza Division or in any reginal division.”
The army’s response is not persuasive. Group deployment is a desirable and reasonable move under such circumstances. However, who decided it has to be done only in units in which a posting is considered more prestigious and not in less desirable headquarters? The good intentions are leading to an unnecessary surrender to external pressure groups at the expense of other groups. And even though the top brass in the IDF are not aware of this, the phenomenon is also well-known in other professional training courses for female soldiers.

Washington should wake up to the fact that Hezbollah runs Lebanon
Tony Badran/Monday, 22 July 2019
The US State Department has invited Gebran Bassil to Washington to speak at a conference, despite the Lebanese foreign minister’s known ties with Hezbollah – which the US has designated as a terrorist organization since 1995. This is due to the US’s misguided policy toward Lebanon, which fails to acknowledge that an investment in the country’s “state institutions” is an investment in the Hezbollah state.
Lebanon’s foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, came to Washington last week at the invitation of the US State Department to participate in its Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. The State Department inviting a staunch Hezbollah ally like Bassil – to address a gathering devoted to religious tolerance, no less – encapsulates the deep confusion in Washington about Lebanon.
Just before he took off for Washington, Bassil met with newly sanctioned Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, with whom Bassil has a close relationship. Abbas Ibrahim, head of Lebanon’s Directorate of General Security, also joined the meeting, an indication of the structural synergy between Hezbollah and Lebanese state institutions.
The Trump administration is aware of Bassil’s relationship with Hezbollah. According to leaked cables originally sent from the Lebanese embassy in Washington to the foreign ministry in Beirut, a senior US Treasury Department official told a visiting Lebanese minister: “We hope the Minister of Foreign and Expatriate Affairs understands that we are following closely his statements about Hezbollah.” The official, the cable continued, “hoped Minister Bassil would distance himself from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his group.”
Prior to this, Bassil had made statements in support of Hezbollah following its designation as a terrorist group by the UK. He declared the group would “remain embraced by state institutions and all Lebanese people.” A month later, standing next to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Beirut, Bassil again defended Hezbollah, insisting it “is a political party, that it is not terrorist.”
The Lebanese foreign minister acknowledged the US classification of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but said his government’s disagreement should not preclude “good relations with the USA.” The US has hardly done anything to convince him, or Lebanon more broadly, otherwise. For this reason, Bassil likely felt confident he and his government can continue to have it both ways without consequences, which is why he ignored the US Treasury official’s warning.
Political alliances with Hezbollah have not jeopardized the Lebanese politicians’ ability to receive US support, thanks to the latter’s policy of investing in Lebanon’s so-called “state institutions” and political stability. The Lebanese appear to have concluded – not without justification – that this means the US will only push so far. The Hezbollah-allied foreign minister, therefore, rightly guesses he has little to worry about. Case in point: He was in Washington at the invitation of the State Department.
Incredibly, the US – the world’s lone superpower – has resolved that it needs to prove itself to the Lebanese, so as to convince them to view it as their partner of choice. The Lebanese pocket the goods, and face few demands beyond some measure of compliance by the banks with US sanctions on Hezbollah. The US-funded Lebanese Armed Forces are not asked to do anything to counter Hezbollah; only to “fight ISIS.” In short, US investment in Lebanon works to the advantage of Hezbollah, which dominates the political order.
Bassil, whose ambition is to succeed his father-in-law, Michel Aoun, as president, knows full well that Hezbollah runs Lebanon. Without Hezbollah’s approval, his ambition cannot be realized. The foreign minister understood early that Lebanon was Hezbollah’s domain, and he signed a formal alliance with it in 2006. He witnessed the group’s dominance repeatedly, especially when it paralyzed the country in order to impose his father-in-law as president. He saw how it forced Prime Minister Saad Hariri out of the country in 2011, allowing him back in to the country, and to head the government, only after he had capitulated fully to their demands.
Lebanese publicists dishonestly seek to minimize the group’s power by reducing it to the number of ministries they hold, or the number of their MPs in parliament — even as they hold a majority in both the cabinet and parliament. In fact, Hezbollah’s grip on Lebanon is comprehensive. It exercises decisive influence on the security sector, but also directs the entire political order.
The political order services it in turn. Bassil is not the only official Lebanese visitor to Washington in recent days. Last week, a delegation led by Ali Bazzi, an MP for the Amal party, was in town to discuss the US sanctioning of two Hezbollah lawmakers, which Bazzi called a threat to democracy.
Bazzi also compared Hezbollah to George Washington, saying: “George Washington fought the British occupation for the sake of freedom and independence, and also in my country there are people who resisted and are resisting occupation and terrorism.”
In April, a US official told an Emirati paper on background, “Hezbollah and Amal are one.” Regardless, Lebanese ministers who came to Washington at the time were reassured that Amal’s chief, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, would not be targeted with sanctions.
This is now a pattern. Lebanese delegates – both those allied with, and nominally opposed to, Hezbollah – all come to Washington and condemn any US action against Hezbollah, lobby to water down sanctions, and make the case for going soft on Lebanon, all while asking for continued aid even as they regularly collaborate with Hezbollah. The Lebanese government, in other words, is Hezbollah’s diplomatic and collections arm.
Washington’s long-standing policy that distinguishes between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state is sorely misguided. As Bassil’s relationship with Hezbollah exhibits, this distinction is a false one. An investment in Lebanon’s “state institutions” is an investment in the Hezbollah state.
**Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 06-07/2019
Iran continues high rate of executions in August
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Friday, 6 September 2019
Iran continued its high rate of executions in August in line with its long-term record for human rights abuses. Official figures released by the Islamic Republic acknowledge 13 executions for the last month, while human rights monitors reported an additional 25 cases, including the public hanging of a man accused of murdering a leading religious figure on August 28. A Norway-based Iranian human rights organization, Iran Human Rights (IHR), reported that 38 people were executed in Iran in August, double the rate in the same period last year. IHR said that based on information it collected, 32 of those executed were convicted of first-degree murder, while six were hanged for major narcotics and drug trafficking convictions. The recent killings are in continuation with Iran’s history of executions. British newspaper The Daily Express recently reported victim accounts of the 1988 Iranian massacre. In 1988, then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa that ordered the killings of political prisoners in Iran. It is now estimated that over 30,000 prisoners were murdered. Though tribunals for the 1988 massacre were held in London and The Hague, the Iranians accused of these crimes never stood trial. Despite holding no judicial power, the tribunals were significant for publicizing the testimony of witnesses. Current Iranian Justice Minister Alireza Avai was involved in the massacre of political prisoners in Khuzestan Province in 1988. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed Avai as minister of justice in 2007. Iran has continued its poor human rights record to the present day.

Pentagon Chief: Iran 'Inching' Toward Place Where Talks Could Be Held
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday it seems that Iran was inching toward a place where talks could be held. “It seems in some ways that Iran is inching toward that place where we could have talks and hopefully it’ll play out that way,” Esper said. Friction between the Tehran and Washington has grown since US President Donald Trump last year withdrew from a 2015 international accord under which Iran had agreed to narrow its atomic program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. Washington has since renewed and intensified its sanctions, slashing Iran’s crude oil sales by more than 80%, Reuters reported. At the same time US has rejected, but not ruled out, a French plan to give Tehran a $15 billion credit line. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, for his part, on Wednesday gave European powers two more months to try to save the multilateral pact. The moves suggested Iran, the US and European powers may be leaving the door open for diplomacy to resolve a dispute over Iran’s nuclear work, which the West has suspected was aimed at developing a nuclear weapon. However, Iran denies having sought a nuclear bomb. Asked about the prospect, Trump told White House reporters anything was possible. “Sure, anything’s possible. They would like to be able to solve their problem,” he said, referring to inflation in Iran. “We could solve it in 24 hours.” According to Reuters, senior US defense official said Esper and his French counterpart will discuss on Saturday how France’s navy could coordinate with Washington to ensure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Nuclear watchdog chief to meet top Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday
Reuters, Vienna/Friday, 6 September 2019
The acting chief of the UN nuclear watchdog policing Iran’s nuclear deal with major powers, Cornel Feruta, will meet senior Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday. “The visit is part of ongoing interactions between the IAEA and Iran,” the spokesman said. The trip comes before a quarterly meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors next week and after an IAEA report suggested Iran’s cooperation with the agency was less than ideal, saying: “Ongoing interactions between the Agency and Iran ... require full and timely cooperation by Iran. The Agency continues to pursue this objective with Iran.”

Pompeo says Iran nuclear commitment cuts ‘unacceptable’
AFP, Washington/Friday, 6 September 2019
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that Iran’s latest reduction in commitments of a nuclear deal -- made in retaliation for US sanctions -- was “unacceptable.”“They announced just yesterday that they’re going to continue to do more research and development on their nuclear weapon systems. Those things are unacceptable,” Pompeo told Kansas City radio station KCMO. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made the announcement on Wednesday and the country’s atomic energy organization is set to hold a press conference on Saturday, as Tehran shows its frustration with the 2015 deal. Iran has been negotiating with European powers that hope to salvage the accord despite the reimposition of sanctions by the United States, which last year pulled out of the deal. Despite his hawkish stance, President Donald Trump has said he is willing to speak with Iran, a prospect proposed by France. “For months now President Trump has said that he’d be happy to meet with Iranian leadership with no preconditions. But our outcome from those conversations is also unambiguous,” Pompeo said. In addition to ending the nuclear steps, Pompeo said the United States wanted Iran to end its “terror campaigns” through proxy groups and its development of missiles. Iran has already taken a series of small but symbolic steps to reduce compliance with the 2015 deal, in which it sharply curtailed its nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.

Iran’s FM Zarif defends planned new steps away from nuclear deal
The Associated Press, Jakarta/Friday, 6 September 2019
Iran’s foreign minister defended his country’s plan to take further steps away from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if Europe fails to provide a solution on reviving it by a deadline that expires Friday. The remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif came as Iran is poised to begin work on advanced centrifuges that will enrich uranium faster as the nuclear deal unravels. The crisis stems from President Donald Trump’s pullout from the accord over a year ago and the imposition of escalated US sanctions on Tehran that have choked off Iran’s ability to sell its crude oil abroad, a crucial source of government revenue, and sent its economy into freefall. Meanwhile, a last-minute French proposal offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran over the choked off crude sales looked increasingly unlikely. Zarif did not say what exact steps his country would take as he met with his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta. Marsudi said Indonesia would like to see the nuclear deal “implemented fully and effectively.”As the nuclear deal unraveled, the Iranian government scaled back its commitments under the accord earlier this year. It began breaking limits of the deal, such as just creeping beyond its 3.67 percent-enrichment limit and its stockpile rules. Using advanced centrifuges speeds up enrichment and Iranian officials already have raised the idea of enriching to 20 percent - a small technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. But in Jakarta, Zarif insisted Iran’s nuclear program remained peaceful and lashed out at the US. “Unfortunately, the US not only doesn’t normalize economic relations with Iran, but punishes others for normalizing economic relations with Iran, which is totally unacceptable,” Zarif said. Iran’s atomic energy agency was to make an announcement on Saturday detailing its next nuclear step, which President Hassan Rouhani has described as highly significant. Details would be unveiled at a press conference in Tehran, Iranian media said. Also Friday, Germany renewed its appeal for Tehran to return to full compliance with the agreement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said Germany views with concern the Iranian statements. “We call on Iran not to exacerbate the situation,” he said. “In light of the ongoing efforts toward de-escalation this announcement isn’t the right signal. “The German government will carefully examine which individual steps Iran takes,” Breul added. “It’s not too late for Iran to leave the slope it has put itself on.”

Britain will support US in Iran talks if deal can be made: UK Defense minister
Reuters, London/Friday, 6 September 2019
Britain will always help the United States along a path to talks with Iran if a deal can be made, British defense minister Ben Wallace said on Friday, although he cautioned that Iran should be judged by its actions rather than words. “Actions speak louder than words, so I think we’ll take them [Iran] at their actions rather than their words,” Wallace said at a news conference in London with his US counterpart Mark Esper, who earlier said Iran was “inching” towards a place where talks could be held. “But if there is a deal to be made, we will of course always help the United States along that path, because I think peace and stability in that region is the most important thing,” Wallace added.

Judges Reject Challenge to UK Parliament Suspension
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 06/2019
The High Court in London on Friday rejected a legal challenge against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to order the suspension of parliament from next week. The "claim is dismissed," Ian Burnett, the most senior judge in England and Wales, told the court after the challenge supported by former prime minister John Major. But the court granted permission for the case to be go to the Supreme Court for an appeal to be heard on September 17. The case was brought by Gina Miller, a leading campaigner who previously won a Supreme Court bid to force the government to seek parliamentary approval before triggering the two-year negotiating process with the EU."My legal team and I will not give up the fight for democracy," Miller said outside the court after the hearing. "We stand for everyone. We stand for future generations... To give up now would be a dereliction of our duty," she said.

Iran takes further step to scale back nuclear commitments
Reuters/Friday, 6 September 2019
Iran said on Friday it had taken a step to further downgrade its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal with the world’s most powerful nations, according to Iranian media, in retaliation to US sanctions reimposed on Tehran. Iran said on Wednesday it would begin developing centrifuges to speed up the enrichment of uranium, which can produce fuel for power plants or for atomic bombs. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons. “Foreign Minister (Mohammad Javad) Zarif, in a letter to EU (European Union) policy chief (Federica Mogherini) announced that Iran has lifted all limitations on its (nuclear) Research and Development (R&D) activities,” Iran’s Students News Agency ISNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying. Under the deal, Iran is allowed limited research and development on advanced centrifuges, which accelerate the production of fissile material that can be used to make a nuclear bomb. Iran also agreed to limitations on specific research and development activities for eight years. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal last year, arguing it did not go far enough, and reimposed sanctions that has slashed Iran’s crude oil sales by more than 80%.
Iran has responded by scaling back its nuclear commitments since May and has threatened to continue removing restraints on its nuclear program unless European parties to the pact did more to shield Iran’s economy from the US penalties. Britain and France, both parties to the pact, have called on Iran to refrain from any concrete action that does not comply with the agreement. State TV said Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization would unveil on Saturday details of Tehran’s new step, which President Hassan Rouhani will accelerate Iran’s nuclear program. Iran has said that it still aims to save the agreement and on Wednesday gave Europe a new 60-day deadline to salvage the pact, reached under former US President Barack Obama, which curbed Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of most sanctions in 2016.Iran’s new measures will be “peaceful, under surveillance of the UN nuclear watchdog and reversible” if European powers keep their promises, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday.

IRGC-affiliated Company to Operate Mobile Service Network in Syria
London - Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
An agreement between an Iranian company backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Syrian state-owned telecommunications corporation to operate a third mobile operator in Syria has been recently confirmed. The agreement will provide the acquisition of stakes from Syriatel and MTN, amid ongoing negotiations to finalize the terms of the contract and the distribution of shares among businessmen and official figures in Damascus and Tehran. The announcement came days after the start of proceedings against Syriatel, of which Rami Makhlouf - the cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – is the main shareholder. News emerged about some of the company’s shares being transferred to the “Martyrs’ Fund” of the Syrian army. Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis visited Tehran in early 2017, where he signed several MoUs concerning a third mobile operator to be run by an Iranian company, the investment in Syrian phosphate for 99 years, the acquisition of land for agricultural and industrial purposes, and the establishment of an oil port the Mediterranean, in addition to the signing of a new $1 billion credit line from Iran, part of which is used to finance the export of crude oil and petroleum products to Syria. Moscow’s intervention and a quota dispute have prevented the implementation of these agreements over the past two years. The Russian side has acquired the phosphate project near Palmyra. Syria has one of the largest phosphate reserves in the world with 1.8 billion tons, most of which is located in the east, and part of which is exported to Iran. With the decline of military operations near Damascus and southern Syria, Damascus and Tehran have given new impetus to their economic relations. Earlier this year, Khamis and Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri presided over the joint committee's meetings, where nine MoUs were signed in the fields of railways, building houses, investment, and “combating the financing of terrorism and money laundering, in addition to education and culture.”

Pompeo thinks US to unveil Mideast peace plan in coming weeks
Reuters, Washington/Friday, 6 September 2019
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that he thinks the Trump administration will unveil its much-delayed Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in the coming weeks. “I think in the coming weeks we'll announce our vision,” Pompeo said in response to a question after a speech at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Last week, the outgoing White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said the United States will not release the long-delayed political portion of its peace plan before Israel’s September 17 elections.

Arab Economic Ministers Stress Continued Support For Palestinians
Cairo - Sawsan Abu Hussein/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
Arab Ministers of Economy and Trade stressed the need to continue providing the necessary support to the Palestinian economy in order to strengthen the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli occupation.
The Arab Economic and Social Council concluded its 104th regular session on Thursday, under the current chairmanship of the Palestinian Minister of National Economy, Khaled Al-Assaily, in the presence of Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit. The ministers called on Arab councils and organizations to increase support to Palestine and direct part of their programs for the implementation of relief and development projects that would mitigate the effects of the Israeli aggression and help the Palestinians overcome their financial crisis. They also urged the General Secretariat to resume technical support programs for the least developed countries, including the State of Palestine, asking it to work closely with the Arab and International Labor Organizations and funding institutions to arrange for an international donor conference in the first half of 2020, with the aim of supporting the Employment and Social Protection Fund to alleviate poverty and unemployment rates in Palestine, which have reached unprecedented levels. The Arab Economy ministers encouraged the Arab private sector to invest in Palestine, and condemned the Israeli exploitation of the Palestinian national resources, “which are an inherited right of the Palestinian people.”In this regard, they called for the adoption of the necessary measures, in cooperation with the competent western and international institutions and the concerned Palestinian authorities to hold the occupation state accountable for the theft and exploitation of these resources.

Two Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza border clashes
The Associated Press, Gaza City, Gaza Strip/Friday, 6 September 2019
Gaza’s health authorities say two Palestinians, including a teenager, have been killed by Israeli gunfire during protests along the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence. The deaths on Friday came as thousands of Palestinians held protests at several sections of the Israel-Gaza border fence. Gaza's health ministry said 38 others were wounded by live fire. Sami al-Ashqar, 17, was shot in the neck in northern Gaza Strip and another unidentified man was hit in the chest in east Gaza City, doctors said. Gaza’s Hamas rulers launched the regular weekend protests in March 2018 to demand the easing of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has crippled the territory since 2007. More than 200 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have been killed during the marches, which have subdued in recent months after mediators brokered an unofficial cease-fire.

Egyptian Interior Ministry: Six Militants Killed Near Bahariya
Cairo - Waleed Abdul Rahman/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
Six militants were killed on Thursday in a shootout with security forces near the Bahariya oasis southwest of the Egyptian capital, the interior ministry said. Police carried out a dawn raid against "terrorist elements" in a desert area near Bahariya, roughly 300 kilometers southwest of Cairo, the ministry said in a statement. A shootout led to the death of six suspects, the ministry said, adding that a number of hunting rifles and four assault rifles were found at the site. Extremists have launched several attacks in the vast desert area west of the Nile. In October 2017, 16 policemen were killed and 13 injured in a shootout while raiding a terrorist hideout in Bahariya Oasis. A month later, the authorities arrested and killed the militants involved in the attack. Last year, Egypt's Prosecutor Nabil Sadek referred 43 suspects, including Libyan mastermind Abdel-Rahim Mohammed Abdullah, to military trial for their involvement in the Wahat terrorist attack. According to investigators, the Libyan defendant was trained in military camps in Libya on the use of heavy weapons and the manufacturing of bombs. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Interior Ministry released 587 prisoners on Thursday in line with a decision taken by President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. A total of 234 inmates were given a presidential pardon, while 353 others were released on parole, a statement said. On the same occasion, the ministry has released around 2,843 prisoners.

Turkish-US land patrols in Syria to start on September 8
Reuters, Ankara/Friday, 6 September 2019
Joint military land patrols by Turkish and US forces in northeast Syria are planned to start on September 8, state-owned Anadolu news agency quoted Defense Minister Hulusi Akar as saying on Friday. The two NATO allies are working to establish what Turkey says will be a “safe zone” along the border in northeast Syria - a region mainly controlled by Kurdish YPG forces - and have conducted multiple joint helicopter patrols over the area.

Egyptian Prosecution Probes Death of Morsi’s Youngest Son
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
The Egyptian general prosecutor has launched an investigation into the death of the youngest son of former president Mohamed Morsi. A judicial source said Thursday that the prosecutor’s office carries out routine investigations into such deaths. His brother Ahmed told Reuters that Abdallah, 24, died from a heart attack. Abdallah began to feel spasms while driving in Cairo with a friend and died shortly afterward, said Ahmed. Last year, Abdallah was detained briefly for spreading false news. He hasn’t been arrested or subjected to questioning ever since his release on bail in October 2018. In June, Mohamed Morsi collapsed and died in court during trial on espionage charges.Morsi headed an administration loyal to the now banned Muslim Brotherhood until he was deposed by the military in 2013.

Cracks in Saudi-UAE Coalition Risk New War in Yemen
Associated Press//Naharnet/September 06/2019
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are trying to repair the damage to their coalition in Yemen after heavy fighting between their allies for control of the country's south. Yemen's Saudi-backed president accuses the UAE of fomenting a coup by its allies, the separatist Yemeni militias. The dispute risks opening up a new spiral of violence and fragmenting the country even further. Last week saw a stunning escalation as Emirati warplanes blasted fighters loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi — the man the coalition is supposed to be trying to restore to power. Dozens were killed, and the Emirates rubbed salt in the wound by calling Hadi's forces "terrorists." The militias have overrun Aden and other southern cities, driving out Hadi's forces in bloody fighting.

Military Preparations for New Tripoli Battles
Cairo - Khalid Mahmoud/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
The Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar has said that “the time to storm the capital Tripoli has been approaching,” as forces loyal to the Government of National Accord chief, Fayez al-Sarraj, made reinforcements at their military posts. Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that both sides have been making reinforcements amid expectations on the eruption of a new round of fighting between the LNA and militias backing the GNA. LNA official Ali al-Qahtani said “zero hour for storming the capital has been set.”The army is ready for the direct orders to carry out the offensive, he added. According to Qahtani, all battlefields on Tripoli’s outskirts have been reinforced under clear instructions made by Haftar. He urged Tripoli residents to remain indoors and warned any side not to grant logistical or financial support to “terrorists.”“Our forces are united against all terrorist militias in addition to ISIS,” said Qahtani. A military official loyal to Sarraj said that the GNA has also been making preparations in the area of al-Arban south of al-Garyan city. The area, which now falls under the control of Sarraj’s forces, had previously been used by the LNA to send reinforcements to the National Army in its campaign to take over Tripoli from militias backing the GNA. The National Army will make another attempt to take over Tripoli, but the GNA has taken all measures to thwart such an attack, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency quoted the official as saying. Sarraj met on Thursday with the UN special envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, and Deputy Special Representative in Libya Yacoub El Hillo who has been recently appointed. A statement issued by Sarraj’s office said Salame reiterated during the meeting that Libya’s crisis cannot be solved through military means.

Morocco: ISIS Cell Plotting to Target Sensitive Areas Dismantled
Rabat - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 September, 2019
The Central Office of Judicial Research in Morocco dismantled Thursday an ISIS-cell of five members whose ages range between 27-41, revealed a statement by Morocco's Interior Ministry. The members were active in Berkane and Nador, in the northeast of Morocco. The operation also resulted in confiscating electronic devices and cold weapons. Initial information showed that the cell members planned to join camps of an ISIS division before they changed their plans and decided to conduct terrorist operations against sensitive locations in the country. The leader of the terrorist cell acquired skills in explosives to be used in subversive plots. The statement added that the suspects will be brought to justice once the search by the specialized public prosecution is over. Moroccan security authorities have dismantled more than 168 terrorist cells since Sept. 11 2001 in the US. A total of 341 criminal plots were foiled and more than 45 terrorist cells related to Syrian-Iraqi tension zones were captured. Official statistics showed that more than 1,600 Moroccan citizens volunteered to fight in Syria and Iraq.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 06-07/2019
Trump Says China Will Suffer as Data Shows Trade War Hurting US
Ana Swanson/The New York Times/September 06/2019
President Trump said on Tuesday that Chinese manufacturing would “crumble” if the country did not agree to the United States’ trade terms, as newly released data showed his trade war was washing back to American shores and hurting the factories that the president has aimed to protect.
Days after new tariffs went into effect on both sides of the Pacific, a closely watched index of American manufacturing activity fell to 49.1 from 51.2, signaling a contraction in United States factory activity for the first time since 2016. The companies responding to the Institute for Supply Management survey, which the index is based on, cited shrinking export orders as a result of the trade dispute, as well as the challenge of moving supply chains out of China to avoid the tariffs.
The manufacturing sector’s struggles are likely to increase as the world’s two largest economies continue to escalate their trade fight. On Sunday, Trump placed a new 15 percent tariff on a range of consumer goods, including clothing, lawn mowers, sewing machines, food and jewelry, and Beijing retaliated by increasing tariffs on $75 billion worth of American products. China also said on Monday that it was filing a complaint at the World Trade Organization over Trump’s new tariffs.
Markets sank on weaker economic news and worries about the trade war. The S&P 500 was down about 0.9 percent, with particular weakness in industrial and energy stocks.
Prices of key industrial commodities were also lower, with futures prices for benchmark American crude oil down roughly 3 percent. Copper, considered a barometer of the health of the global industrial sector, was down a bit less than 1 percent.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note declined to 1.45 percent, as jittery investors continued to buy government bonds, pushing prices up and yields lower. The drop in bond yields this year — the yield on the 10-year note was above 3 percent in late 2018 — suggests a broad-based cut in expectations for economic growth among investors.
“The U.S. trade war with the world has blown open a great big hole in manufacturers’ confidence,” Chris Rupkey, the chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, wrote in a note on Tuesday. “The manufacturing sector has officially turned down and is falling for the first time this year as the China tariffs and slowdown in exports has really started to bite.”The president has continued to insist that pain from the trade war is falling primarily on China, not the United States. On Friday, he said American companies were leaving China in response to his tariffs, a development that put the United States in an “incredible negotiating position.” And he said any business that complained about financial pain from the tariffs was suffering from bad management, not the trade war. On Tuesday, he warned Beijing not to try to wait for a new administration to come into office after the 2020 election, saying China’s supply chain “will crumble” and that it would be “a long time to be hemorrhaging jobs and companies on a long-shot.”
Many chief executives and trade groups say they support the president’s goal of changing China’s economic practices, particularly those that require businesses to hand over valuable technology as a condition of operating in China. But businesses have begun to express concern about the seemingly unending trade war. Many big companies, particularly those in the retail and manufacturing sectors, have downgraded sales and profit forecasts as a result of the tariffs.
The trade war’s potential to slow America’s economic expansion, including its impact on the manufacturing sector, has already prompted concern from Federal Reserve officials. The Fed cut interest rates for the first time in more than a decade in July, and officials have said they are prepared to cut them further to protect the economy against fallout from slowing global growth and trade risks.
Even some officials who did not vote in favor of July’s rate cut say economic risks have increased.
Eric Rosengren, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and a monetary policy voter this year, indicated that he still favored waiting and watching incoming economic data before making interest rate cuts beyond the July move, which he voted against.
But he also said it was “clearly reasonable” to judge that risks to the economy were elevated. “Should those risks become a reality, the appropriate monetary policy would be to ease aggressively,” he said, suggesting that he might favor rapid interest rate cuts if economic data soured meaningfully.
The Trump administration has been pressuring China for more than two years to make a trade deal that would strengthen its protections for American intellectual property and result in large purchases of American products. But the two sides continue to have significant disagreements, including which of Trump’s tariffs should be rolled back and what kind of legal changes China must make to treat American companies more fairly.
Since talks between the two countries stalled in May, Trump has moved ahead with his threat to tax nearly everything China sends to the United States. On Sunday, the Trump administration placed a 15 percent levy on roughly $112 billion worth of Chinese goods and plans to place tariffs on roughly $160 billion worth of cellphones, laptops, clothing and toys on Dec. 15. Trump has also said the United States will raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of products to 30 percent from 25 percent on Oct. 1.
China has vowed to retaliate on Dec. 15 with more tariffs of its own.
While a deal appears far from certain, the two sides could still avert the increases and declare another cease-fire. The United States and China have discussed a meeting in Washington in September, and American and Chinese officials will both be present on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York later in the month.
Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the two governments would have to work to restore some trust before any conclusion to the trade war would be reached — perhaps through Chinese purchases of American agricultural goods, something Mr. Trump has long focused on. “There’s a trust deficit between the two governments,” he said. “We need steppingstones to build confidence in the relationship so both governments are positioned to get a deal down the road.”

How Despots Interpret Deals with the West
Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/September 6, 2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14805/despots-deals
The European Union wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because as far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe's hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, "send Jews to the ovens," "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "kill the Jews."
The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should "bow down" to Iran. Seems it is.
Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."
Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was quoted as saying on August 28 that the US is "not seeking conflict with Iran." During the Pentagon press briefing, Esper repeated Trump's calls for diplomatic efforts with Iran.
The European Union says it will support talks between the US and Iran, but only if the current nuclear deal with Tehran is preserved.
The idea of direct talks between the US and Iran seems to have developed after President Donald Trump recently said he was ready to meet Iran's President Hassan Rouhani.
"We are always in favor of talks, the more people talk, the more people understand each other better, on the basis of clarity and on the basis of respect," EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said last month.
The EU wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because -- this might sound harsh, but it is increasingly hard not to believe it -- they are hoping that the leaders of Tehran will focus their efforts on achieving their goal of annihilating Israel. As far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe's hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, "send Jews to the ovens," "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "kill the Jews."
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was quoted as saying on August 28 that the US is "not seeking conflict with Iran." During the Pentagon press briefing, Esper repeated Trump's calls for diplomatic efforts with Iran. "You saw over the weekend some reporting. The president once again said that he's more than willing to meet with Iran's leaders to resolve this... diplomatically."
The Trump administration's gestures towards Iran, however, do not appear to have impressed the leaders of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Arabs and Muslims have a habit of misinterpreting gestures from Westerners as a sign of weakness and retreat. In addition, such gestures have historically whetted the appetite of Arabs and Muslims, leading to demands for yet more concessions.
The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should "bow down" to Iran. Seems it is.
In the eyes of many Arabs and Muslims, the US now appears to be courting the Iranian regime despite Tehran's increased support for terrorism, particularly in the Middle East. These Arabs and Muslims are even convinced that it is only a matter of time before the Trump administration comes knocking on Iran's door, begging for a meeting between Trump and Rouhani.
The Iranians are already making it appear as if they are the ones who need to consider whether or not to meet with the Trump administration. This policy is designed to send the following message to Arabs and Muslims: "See how these pathetic Westerners have come to us, begging? See how they have zero self-respect?"
Echoing this approach, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last month:
"It won't be possible for us to engage with US unless they stop imposing a war, engaging in economic terrorism... If they want to come back to the [negotiating] room, there is a ticket, and that ticket is to observe the agreement."
Zarif was referring to the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the JCPOA, but never signed by Iran and never submitted to the US Senate to make it a binding treaty.
Zarif is saying, in other words, that Iran has its own pre-conditions for talking with the Trump administration. Statements like these are aimed at making Iran appear to Arabs and Muslims as a country that can afford openly to challenge -- and even degrade -- the US.
For now, the Iranians appear as if they have the upper hand and final say in the crisis with the US. This bearing further emboldens Tehran's leaders and proxies throughout the Middle East, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the Houthi Shia militias in Yemen.
The Trump administration, rather than avoiding the telephone calls of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would do well to learn from Israel's experience when it comes to offering gestures and making territorial and political concessions: that striking deals with Arab and Islamic regimes and organizations, such as Iran and the Palestinian Authority -- as well as the Taliban, China, North Korea and Russia, which all seem to think that honoring agreements is for other people -- tends to come with a heavy price.
In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO -- a move that allowed then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and thousands of his "fighters" to move from Tunis to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Israelis were hoping back then that the Oslo Accords would lead to real peace and coexistence, with the Palestinians living under PLO rule. The Oslo Accords, nonetheless, have since proven to be a disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians. Why? As it later transpired, Arafat and the PLO never had any intention of implementing the agreements. Arafat, in fact, spoke of the Oslo Accord as a modern version of Mohammad's Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, in which the prophet had promised not to attack a Jewish tribe for ten years, but instead came back in two years and wiped it out.
PLO official Faisal Husseini on two separate occasions in 2001 described Oslo as a "Trojan Horse" – presumably first to open Israel to Palestinian demands and then to destroy it.
In 2006, Palestinian journalist Abdel Al-Bari Atwan revealed in a television interview that Arafat had told him that he was planning to turn the Oslo Accords into a curse for Israel.
"When the Oslo Accords were signed, I went to visit [Arafat] in Tunis. It was around July, before he went to Gaza. I said to him: We disagree. I do not support this agreement. It will harm us, the Palestinians, distort our image, and uproot us from our Arab origins. This agreement will not get us what we want, because these Israelis are deceitful.
"He [Arafat] took me outside and told me: By Allah, I will drive them [the Jews] crazy. By Allah, I will turn this agreement into a curse for them. By Allah, perhaps not in my lifetime, but you will live to see the Israelis flee from Palestine. Have a little patience. I entrust this with you. Don't mention this to anyone."
When Arafat and the PLO realized at the 2000 Camp David summit that their plan had been uncovered, they launched a massive wave of terrorism, called "the Second Intifada," against Israel. At that meeting, Arafat received the most generous offer to date from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak -- but the Palestinian leader still said "no."
Barak's proposal, according to various sources, included the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on approximately 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from land inside Israel; the dismantling of most of the settlements; and the establishment of the future Palestinian capital in large parts of east Jerusalem. (An offer in 2008 from then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, even more far-reaching, was rejected by the Palestinians without even a counter-offer.)
Israel had believed what the PLO and Yasser Arafat said, and ended up facing an unprecedented campaign of suicide bombings and different forms of terrorism that have claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis in the past 27 years.
In 2005, Israel again paid a heavy price for a move that was supposed to promote peace and stability in the Middle East: the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Then, Israel withdrew to the 1949 armistice line bordering the Gaza Strip after evacuating more than 8,000 Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip settlements. Israel's gesture, however, was misinterpreted by many Palestinians as a sign of weakness and retreat. The way most Palestinians saw it was: "Wow, we have killed 1,000 Jews in four and a half years -- and now the Jews run! What we need to do is step up our terrorism: today they are evacuating the Gaza Strip, tomorrow they will evacuate the cities of Ashkelon, then Ashdod, then Tel Aviv ... and from there to the sea."
So, the Palestinians continued to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel even after the Israeli pullout. They had evidently concluded that spilling more Jewish blood would force the Jews to make even greater concessions and lead eventually lead to the elimination of Israel.
Similarly, Israel has repeatedly paid a heavy price for other gestures, such as releasing convicted terrorists from prison or removing checkpoints. Virtually each time, the Palestinian response was mounting more terrorism and killing more Jews. Many Palestinians who were released by Israel in the past few decades have returned to terrorist activity. They clearly saw their release from prison as a sign of weakness, and not as a gesture of goodwill on the part of Israel. Their conclusion was: to get Israel to release more prisoners, kill more Jews.
Most of all, the Trump administration would be wise to learn from Israel's bitter experience in dealing with Iran's Palestinian proxies: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. How many ceasefire agreements has Israel reached with the Gaza-based terrorist groups in the past 15 years? Probably at least ten. What has happened since then? Most of the agreements were violated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sometimes within hours, days or weeks.
Israel has learned the hard way that agreements with terrorists and dictators (such as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas) are not worth the paper they are written on -- and usually simply serve to invite further violence.
The Trump administration, in its overtures towards the Iranian regime -- and China, North Korea, Russia and the Taliban -- could well be facing the same scenario. Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."
Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2019 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.

Moscow Divided Between Two Proverbs
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 06/2019
In Russia, August is often regarded as the uncertain season closing the short summer and opening the path to the long duet of autumn and winter. It was, therefore, no surprise in a recent visit to Moscow to see that sense of uncertainty reflected in the political mood of the Russian elites.
To be sure, the uncertainty one notices is still in filigree. Officials and intellectuals supporting the current government are still full of self-confidence, not to say bombast, defending President Vladimir Putin’s “strongman” politics. Nevertheless, conversations regarding the political situation in Russia soon reveal three sources of uncertainty, perhaps even anxiety.
The first is an as yet tentative concern that though Putin’s current presidential term has some four more years to conclude, it is not at all certain that the current ruling elite could find someone of similar stature to carry the torch. In other words, Putinism may end as other “isms” formed around a charismatic leader, something like Gaullism, Peronism or even Titoism.
The second concern is generated by anxiety about the durability of some of Putin’s trademark “successes” especially in the field of foreign policy. To be sure, he seems to have gotten away with annexing not only the Crimean peninsula but also South Ossetia and Abkhazia, chunks of Georgian territory captured in 2008. He has also managed to prevent Kosovo, the latest Muslim-majority nation to gain independence, from becoming a member of the United Nations. Putin has also succeeded in establishing Russia as the key player in war-torn Syria by marginalizing not only Iran but also Turkey and the United States. Putin adulators are especially proud of his success in playing the Iran card against the United States while squeezing the Tehran mullahs for unprecedented concessions.
The question is how durable, and profitable, those successes are?
With the initial glow of victory fading, the Crimean Peninsula is turning out to be as costly as a profligate mistress becomes as she ages. Counting infrastructure costs, including a new bridge, Crimea is costing Russia around $18 billion a year of which only a fragment is covered by revenue from tourism, in sharp decline because of Western ban on travel by their citizens to the peninsula.
Return on Russia’s investment in blood and treasure trying to save President Bashar al-Assad’s shaky regime may appear meager on a second count. To be sure, Assad has given Russia long lease for a major aero-naval base on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean. However, in military terms at least, the base could hardly be regarded as an asset for two reasons.
First, it is not at all certain that a future Syrian regime, something inevitable in the medium-term, would remain committed to the signature of a despot who controlled only a fraction of the country at the time of signing. Secondly, a base located in a territory where inhabitants are hostile would always be too vulnerable to count as an asset in a game of strategic brinkmanship.
Putin is also admired for his success in persuading the mullahs of Tehran to sign a convention that turns the Caspian Sea into a backyard under Russian hegemony. Rajab Safarov, a member of the Putin circle close to the Russian delegation that sold the convention to the littoral states, including Iran, openly wonders how the master of the Kremlin managed the mullahs to abandon all of Iran’s historic rights in the Caspian and sign a text prepared by the Russian Ministry of Defense without any Iranian input. And, yet, even this “Caspian victory” may not prove durable. Its signature by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has led to an upsurge of anti-Russian sentiments across Iran, forcing the ruling mullahs to slow down the process of legislation needed to give a legal basis to the so-called convention. In any case, is not at all certain that a future Iranian regime will not denounce the convention with reference to the principle of signing under duress and sic rebus stantibus or change of circumstances. Since the other littoral states, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are equally unhappy about the Russian diktat, Iran may lead a Caspian coalition demanding a more equitable regime for the inland sea.
The third cause of anxiety in Moscow these days is related to the lethargic performance of the Russian economy. After declining between 2012 and 2016, the number of households in poverty has risen to around 18 percent, a three-point increase since 2010. Worse still, according to the latest World Bank report, Russian economy has almost ceased creating new jobs. Sanctions imposed by Western powers are also beginning to bite, reducing Russian access to global capital markets at a time massive investment is needed to keep the vital energy industry, the nation’s main source of foreign income, going.
The impression one gets in Moscow these days is that reality may have started to bite at the edges of the hubris nurtured by Putin’s opportunistic tactics and the weakness of Western, especially European response. Well-to-do Russians, the backbone of Putin’s system, are sore about the fact that they are no longer treated as welcome friends in the Western world, to which they think they belong. The less privileged Russians are equally unwilling to find their nation grouped together with a number of “Third World” countries such as Syria, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. In Moscow’s political circles, talk of a review of foreign policy is no longer taboo even if the main theme is woven around “one-step-back-two-steps-forward” tactic formulated in the old days of Communist rule.
And, that provides an opportunity for Western powers to revisit their Russia policies in the hope of bringing Putin’s rogue state back into the fold. That may aim fanciful at present, so strong is the hubris inspired by Tsar Vladimir. However, visiting Moscow these days one gets the feeling that Russia may be getting ready to switch from one old proverb “better do and regret!’ to another old proverb “Do nothing you might regret!”