English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For July 08/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10/13-16:”‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2021
Ministry of Health: 401 new cases, two deaths
Aoun follows-up on implementation of measures regarding fuel and medicine with Diab, meets Patriarch Rahi
Qatar to provide 70 tons of food per month for a year to Lebanese Army
Dukan arrives in Beirut
French, US envoys to Lebanon to visit Saudi Arabia in bid to stem major crisis
U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea Travel to Saudi Arabia
Al-Rahi: No One as Concerned with Lebanon as President, Hariri Must Expedite Formation
U.S., French Ambassadors to Hold Talks on Lebanon in KSA
Qatari FM Urges New Govt. as Doha Donates Food to Lebanese Army
Hariri's representative discusses local, regional situation with Russian Defense Minister
Hariri to Meet Berri Anew, 'Won't Name' Successor
Protesters Storm Drug Warehouse in Tripoli
Gas Stations Say Will be Forced to Close if Not Protected
Lebanon Outages Force Asthma Patient to Plug in at Mosque
U.S. Central Command Envoy Visits Lebanon to Review Border Security Installations
Nissan CEO Tells Court Ghosn Had Too Much Power
As meat prices soar in Lebanon, veganism fills the gap for some
Lebanon’s economic crisis leaves women struggling to afford menstrual products
Saad Hariri has no easy choices/Michael Young/The National/July 07/2021'
Bassil welcomes Ambassadors of Czech Republic, Bulgaria
Intense Opposition In Lebanon To Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's Suggestion To Import Fuel From Iran As A Solution To Lebanon's Energy Crisis/O. Peri/MEMRI/July 07/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2021
Pope's post-operative condition continues satisfactorily, Vatican says
Explosion, fire off container ship docked at Dubai's Jebel Ali port
UAE’s deputy PM meets with Iran’s envoy in Abu Dhabi to discuss cooperation
Bases Housing U.S. Troops in Iraq, Syria Attacked, 3 Injured
Rocket attack on Iraqi base housing U.S. forces - Iraqi military sources
Haiti President Jovenel Moise Assassinated
Haitian President Jovenel Moise assassinated overnight at private residence
Failure of Libya Talks Endangers December Vote, Analysts Warn
Uncertainties surround fate of Egypt, Sudan efforts at UN over Nile dam crisis
Tunisian UN resolution calls on Ethiopia to cease filling Nile dam reservoir
Russia and China’s conquest of the United Nations
Donald Trump announces anti-censorship class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter
Ahmed Jibril, founder of pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla faction, dies at 83
Israel’s labor veteran Herzog sworn in as 11th President, replacing Rivlin

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 07-08/2021
Why Palestinian Leaders Are Really Inciting Violence Against Israel/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/July 07/2021
Afghanistan at risk of collapse as Taliban storms the north/Bill Roggio FDD Long War/July 07/2021
Palestinian Organizations at the United Nations/David May/International Organizations Monograph/July 07/2021
Libya’s predictable failure/Habib Lassoued/The Arab Weekly/July 07/2021
Islam’s Poisonous Projections onto Infidels/Raymond Ibrahim/July 07/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2021
Ministry of Health: 401 new cases, two deaths
NNA/July 07/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 401 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 546,366. Two deaths have been recorded.

Aoun follows-up on implementation of measures regarding fuel and medicine with Diab, meets Patriarch Rahi
NNA/July 07/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received Prime Minister, Dr. Hassan Diab, today at the Presidential Palace.
The meeting between President Aoun and Premier Diab was devoted to follow-up on the implementation of the measures and procedures taken in previous meetings regarding the issues of fuel and medicine, in addition to other living issues.
It was decided to hold subsequent meetings during the next few days, to complete the implementation of planned measures and remove all obstacles which emerged during the implementation process.
Patriarch Rahi:
The President met Maronite Patriarch, Mar Beshara Boutros Rahi, and was briefed on the results of the Vatican meeting, held at the invitation of His Holiness Pope Francis, on the “Day of Meditation and Prayer for Lebanon”.
After the meeting, the Patriarch made the following statement:
“You know that this visit is to put His Excellency the President, in the atmosphere of what had happened in Rome, knowing that he followed-up on this issue.
However, it is my duty to brief His Excellency more about the atmosphere which we were in. It was also important to tell His Excellency that the address of His Holiness the Pope, is a road map for us. And since we are heads of churches, we have to start our work within our ecclesiastical framework in order to implement this map which His Holiness put up in his address.
We, as heads of churches, must work in the line which concerns us. This was all my conversation with His Excellency the President, since in the end we all have to bear the responsibilities of our society and country, each from his position, His Excellency the President and I as the Patriarch and others as well. Lebanon is based on all of us, and we do not mean one group without the other.
Questions & Answers:
Asked about how what His Holiness said would be put into practice, the Patriarch said “We will proceed with the concerned parties to whom His Holiness made the appeal. When we read the speech, we can extract all these appeals. Now we will begin our contacts with all the groups to which these words were addressed. We will tell them that we want to live these words. I told His Excellency that His Holiness really carries the Lebanese cause in the depths of his heart. This means that he is taking it and carrying it to the international community. In Lebanon, we have to build our homeland and our home, and we know how to meet the Pope because it is not possible to work on the Lebanese cause while being different from it. From here, it is necessary that what I first should do is visit His Excellency, and then proceed to consult and make a plan of action”.
Asked if he considers that everyone bears responsibility for what we have reached, as he said in Rome, and whether the President of the Republic bears responsibility in violating the Constitution, Patriarch Rahi replied: “They commented on the word “contrary to the constitution” in all newspapers. I was asked if everyone is violating the constitution, and I replied yes everyone is violating the constitution, yes all of them are violating the constitution, but this is not our issue. Let’s not stop at a thing or a word. Nobody is concerned more in Lebanon than His Excellency the President of the Republic, no one, based on his responsibility as the President of the Republic”.
Then, the Patriarch was asked if he felt that there was a solution or initiative in terms of forming a government of technocrats that had nothing to do with politicians, because the Lebanese are all in the same predicament, and he replied: “We never entered into this technical issue. What you say, we all say every day, and this is what the authority says likewise, especially in terms of demanding a government of non-partisan technocrats. But I want to tell the Lebanese whom I understand, and His Holiness the Pope addressed his words to them and spoke of their oppression, but he also said to them: Hold on, for after the night there is dawn. We worked with them, and not only in words. We will be on their side in speaking and giving morale, and we will help them in every sense of the word so that they can resist spiritually, morally, and materially. We organize ourselves to be on the side of people so that they can withstand, but things cannot endure for a long time, because people want to live. There is a call to the Lebanese, about which His Holiness the Pope spoke, is very important, in terms of emphasizing that they have very important roots and history, so they persevered and the night will end. And we have to be by their side so that this night passes”.
Question: Is there a plan for Lebanon after the starvation they are experiencing?
Answer: “I spoke in my sermon on the Sunday before my trip to Rome about such a plan, as I indicated that there seems to be a plan targeting Lebanon. I am not surprised that there is such a thing, such a scheme, so does the thief not plan if he wants to steal, and whoever wants to assassinate someone does not plan to do so? But do I have to open the door or the window for the thief? It suffices to say, as was said in 1975: The war of others on our land. The fault of this is not to be said. It is true that it is the war of others on our land, but this does not mean that we shouldstand by and watch it. We have to know how to preserve ourselves and our internal unity. That we come to terms, reconcile and join hands, as the country does not rise and each of us is in a place”.
Asked what he would tell the PM designate, the Patriarch said: “I tell him to hurry up as soon as possible in forming the government with His Excellency the President, in accordance with the spirit of the constitution, because every day we delay, the ship sinks more and more, and we fall victims of this delay. I have said these words before and I am repeating them now”.
Asked whether the translation of the calls of His Holiness the Pope begins with the formation of a government, the Maronite Patriarch stated: “The door to entering this matter is the formation of the government. What brought us here is the absence of a government, when there is no government, the economy, trade, tourism and life are ruined, and bank interests stop, immigration and unemployment increases, and shops and institutions close. The government is the only door. It is the procedural authority. Who decides? The government does, where is it? It doesn’t exist, so no decisions are taken! Results are that the country dies. We cannot, in the spirit on national responsibility, delay a quarter of a minute, in not forming the government”.
MP Atallah:
The President received MP, George Atallah, and addressed with him the general situation in addition to recent political and governmental developments.
Needs of Koura region, and road networks in light of the international loan allocated for this purpose, were also tackled in the meeting.-- Presidency Press Office

Qatar to provide 70 tons of food per month for a year to Lebanese Army
Gulf Times/July 07/2021
FM conveys Qatar's support to Lebanese president
President of the Republic of Lebanon General Michel Aoun met Tuesday with HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani. At the outset of the meeting, HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs conveyed the greetings of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to the Lebanese president and the Amir's wishes to the president of the best of health and the government and people of Lebanon continued progress and prosperity. Gen Aoun entrusted HE Sheikh Mohamed to convey his greetings to the Amir, wishing the Amir the best of health and Qatar lasting progress, development and prosperity. The meeting reviewed aspects of bilateral cooperation between the two brotherly countries. HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs affirmed the supportive position of Qatar to Lebanon and its brotherly people to overcome the current crisis. Qatar announced support for the Lebanese Army with 70 tons of food per month for a year, during the visit of HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani to the Republic of Lebanon.
The support comes within the framework of Qatar's constant endeavors to help resolve the political crisis in Lebanon, and its firm commitment to support the Republic of Lebanon and stand by the brotherly Lebanese people, in addition to its firm belief in the importance and necessity of the joint Arab action.
HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs renewed Qatar's call on all Lebanese parties to prioritise the national interest, and to expedite the formation of a new government in order to achieve stability in Lebanon.
HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs affirmed Qatar's support to Lebanon, its brotherly people and the Army, praising the role of the Lebanese Army during the Beirut Port explosion crisis.
HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs met with Commander of the Lebanese Army General Joseph Aoun and reviewed aspects of the bilateral cooperation.
HE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani also met with the Prime Minister-designate of Lebanon Saad Al Hariri and Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri. The meetings reviewed aspects of bilateral cooperation between the two brotherly countries.

Dukan arrives in Beirut
NNA/July 07/2021
Coordinator of International Aid for Lebanon, Ambassador Pierre Dukan, arrived at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, and is scheduled to meet with a number of Lebanese officials.

French, US envoys to Lebanon to visit Saudi Arabia in bid to stem major crisis
AFP, Beirut/07 July ,2021
The French and US envoys to Lebanon are to visit Saudi Arabia, France’s embassy said on Wednesday, an unusual move amid international pressure to lift Lebanon out of a roiling political and economic crisis.
The visit on Thursday comes as Lebanese battle shortages and price hikes on basic goods in what the World Bank has called one of the world’s worst economic crises since the 1850s. World powers have demanded a new government before any financial aid to the cash-strapped nation, but for around 11 months Lebanese politicians have failed to agree on a line-up.“The (French) ambassador will explain how urgent it is that Lebanese officials form a credible and effective government to work on implementing necessary reforms,” the embassy said. The French envoy would, “with her American counterpart, express France and United States’ desire to exert pressure on those responsable for the deadlock,” it said. Last month the top diplomats of the United States, France, and Saudi Arabia jointly urged Lebanon’s squabbling leaders to come together. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held an impromptu meeting with his Saudi and French counterparts in Italy on the sidelines of talks of the Group of 20 major economies. They discussed “the need for Lebanon’s political leaders to show real leadership by implementing overdue reforms to stabilize the economy and provide the Lebanese people with much-needed relief,” Blinken wrote on Twitter. Lebanon’s economic crisis has slashed more than 90 percent off the value of the local currency against the dollar on the black market, and more than half the population now face poverty. In April, France imposed sanctions against Lebanese figures it says are responsible for the political crisis, banning them from entering its territory. The European Union has also threatened sanctions against Lebanese leaders unless they work together. The government resigned after a deadly port blast last summer that killed 200 people, but has stayed on ever since in a caretaker capacity

U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea Travel to Saudi Arabia
NNA/July 07/2021
The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea will travel alongside the French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Saudi Arabian officials on July 8, 2021. This visit follows U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s trilateral meeting on Lebanon with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud on June 29 in Matera, Italy on the sidelines of the G-20 conference. During her meetings in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Shea will discuss the gravity of the situation in Lebanon and emphasize the importance of humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, as well as increased support for the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces. In partnership with her French and Saudi counterparts, Ambassador Shea will also continue to develop our trilateral diplomatic strategy focused on government formation and the imperative of undertaking urgent and essential reforms that Lebanon so desperately needs. Ambassador Dorothy Shea will also use the occasion of this visit to reiterate the commitment of the United States to helping the people of Lebanon, highlighting over $3.7 billion in economic, humanitarian and security assistance contributed since 2016. -- US embassy

Al-Rahi: No One as Concerned with Lebanon as President, Hariri Must Expedite Formation
Naharnet/July 07/2021
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi declared Wednesday, after his meeting with President Michel Aoun in Baabda, that “no one is as concerned with Lebanon as the President” and called on PM-designate Saad Hariri to "accelerate the government formation.”Al-Rahi assured that the Pope's speech is “a guide for us, heads of churches,” and that “we will start working within our ecclesiastical framework to implement his recommendations.”“We don’t have time to waste,” the Patriarch warned, remarking that “His Holiness is carrying the Lebanese cause deeply in his heart and conveying it to the international community," and that "we must work on solving our internal issues,” because “it is not acceptable that the Pope carries our cause to the world when we are not thinking about it ourselves." Al-Rahi added that "everyone is violating the constitutional laws," calling on Hariri to "accelerate the government formation with President Aoun in accordance with the (Lebanese) constitution,” because “Lebanon is falling victim to this delay."The Patriarch mentioned that he does not rule out the presence of “a plot targeting Lebanon.”“Should we open the door for the thief, or should we fortify (our country)?" he asked.

U.S., French Ambassadors to Hold Talks on Lebanon in KSA
Agence France Presse/July 07/2021
The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea will travel alongside the French Ambassador to Lebanon Anne Grillo to Saudi Arabia for meetings with Saudi Arabian officials on July 8, 2021, the U.S. Embassy said on Wednesday. “This visit follows U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s trilateral meeting on Lebanon with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud on June 29 in Matera, Italy on the sidelines of the G-20 conference,” the Embassy added in a statement. During her meetings in Saudi Arabia, Shea will discuss “the gravity of the situation in Lebanon” and emphasize “the importance of humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese people, as well as increased support for the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces,” the statement said. In partnership with her French and Saudi counterparts, Ambassador Shea will also continue to “develop our trilateral diplomatic strategy focused on government formation and the imperative of undertaking urgent and essential reforms that Lebanon so desperately needs,” the statement added. Dorothy Shea will also use the occasion of the visit to reiterate “the commitment of the United States to helping the people of Lebanon, highlighting over $3.7 billion in economic, humanitarian and security assistance contributed since 2016.” The French ambassador will meanwhile "explain how urgent it is that Lebanese officials form a credible and effective government to work on implementing necessary reforms," her embassy said. The French envoy would, "with her American counterpart, express France and United States' desire to exert pressure on those responsible for the deadlock", it added.

Qatari FM Urges New Govt. as Doha Donates Food to Lebanese Army
Associated Press/July 07/2021
Qatar's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani visited Lebanon on Tuesday and met with officials including President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, caretaker PM Hassan Diab and Army Commander General Joseph Aoun. As part of its effort to mitigate the political crisis in Lebanon, Qatar announced it is donating 70 tons of food monthly for a year to the Lebanese Army, the Qatari news agency reported. The Qatari foreign minister urged political rivals to work for the common good and form a government quickly for the sake of stability in Lebanon. The economic meltdown is putting unprecedented pressure on the U.S.-backed Lebanese Army. It has affected its operational abilities, wiped out soldiers' salaries and hurt morale. France and the United States have pledged more assistance to the military, one of the few unifying institutions in the deeply divided country.

Hariri's representative discusses local, regional situation with Russian Defense Minister
NNA/July 07/2021
Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, Lieutenant-General Alexander Fomin, received this Wednesday in Moscow the Special Representative of Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, George Shaaban. "The Russian Ministry of Defense pointed out, in a statement, that the current conditions in Lebanon and the Middle East were discussed during the meeting. The issue of the return of displaced Syrians to their country was also tackled. The, which was held in an atmosphere of friendship, saw the two sides emphasizing the need to for constant communication and cooperation," according to a statement by the media office of the PM-designate.

Hariri to Meet Berri Anew, 'Won't Name' Successor
Naharnet/July 07/2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri will meet with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in the coming hours in order to decide on his next step regarding the formation of the new government, media reports said. “Hariri does not seem to be inclined to submit a new line-up to the President as has been widely circulated,” Annahar newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. “The consultations between him, Berri, the former premiers and his bloc are still ongoing and have not led to final decisions regarding any direction,” the daily added. Center House sources meanwhile told al-Joumhouria newspaper that the Hariri-Berri meeting would tackle several practical proposals that Berri had suggested. The proposals call for Hariri to “present a cabinet line-up at the Baabda Palace” or to “step down on the condition of naming (a successor) who enjoys prior approval from Hariri,” the sources added. The sources, however, noted that Hariri is “open to all choices, except for naming a successor, seeing as he does not want to repeat his September experience with Ambassador Mustafa Adib or the Hassan Diab nomination process.”

Protesters Storm Drug Warehouse in Tripoli
Naharnet/July 07/2021
A number of protesters stormed a drug warehouse in Tripoli on Wednesday and found large quantities of medicines that are absent from pharmacies’ shelves. The aforementioned medicines included antibiotics, fever reducers, and blood pressure and cough medications. The protesters called on the minister of health and security and inspection agencies to intervene immediately and distribute the medicines to pharmacies, because “people are suffering and cannot find medication."

Gas Stations Say Will be Forced to Close if Not Protected
Naharnet/July 07/2021
The assembly of gas station owners demonstrated on Wednesday during which they "the difficulties they are facing” warning that they might be “forced to sell our stocks and close.”According to Rashad Msharrafiyeh, who spoke on behalf of the assembly, in a press conference, “the importing companies are unable to secure sufficient quantities,” and “have imposed on the stations to pay their bills in dollars.”"Citizens also have a hand in the crisis, as some of them are standing in queues to later sell the gasoline on the black market,” Msharrafiyeh said. He added that “authorities are absent except when it comes to inspections and raids,” claiming that these procedures are “harmful to the stations.”He called on authorities to take action to secure fair and daily distribution, and protect station owners from the problems they are facing daily, such as fistfights and shootings.

Lebanon Outages Force Asthma Patient to Plug in at Mosque
Agence France Presse/July 07/2021
An asthma patient in Lebanon was forced to plug in his oxygen concentrator at a mosque Wednesday, its imam said, as growing power cuts cripple life in the crisis-wracked country. Lebanon is mired in what the World Bank has called one of the worst economic crises since the 1850s, and the cash-strapped state is struggling to buy enough fuel to keep the lights on. Many Lebanese blame what they see as a corrupt and incompetent political elite for the financial collapse that started in autumn 2019. Hassan Moraib, an imam in Beirut, said he encountered the patient early Wednesday making the best of a generator turned on to welcome worshippers to dawn prayers. The preacher posted a photo on Twitter of a man in a neatly pressed shirt sitting on a step and reading, as he breathed from a tube under his nose linked to a machine at his feet. "A worshipper who suffers from asthma turned up at the mosque at dawn to be able to plug in his oxygen machine while the mosque's generator was on," he said. They then kept the power on after the prayers ended, "because he had neither electricity nor a generator subscription at home." "God curse those who brought us to this," he added. For decades, those Lebanese who can afford it have paid two electricity bills -- one to the state and another to subscribe to a private back-up generator. Power cuts in recent months have lasted up to 22 hours a day in some parts of the country, but even generator owners have been forced to ration output as fuel becomes more expensive, leading to periods of complete blackout. The economic crisis has seen the Lebanese pound lose more than 90 percent of its value against the dollar on the black market, and left more than half the population living below the poverty line. As Lebanese struggle to put food on the table amid soaring prices, many can no longer afford to pay to receive extra power from a neighborhood generator. Calls have multiplied on social media from Lebanese pleading for help to keep on medical equipment for their loved ones. The international community has long demanded a complete overhaul of the electricity sector, which has cost the government more than $40 billion since the end of Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government since the last once resigned in the wake of a devastating explosion at Beirut port last year that killed more than 200 people.

U.S. Central Command Envoy Visits Lebanon to Review Border Security Installations
Naharnet/July 07/2021
A representative from the United States Central Command, in coordination with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, is conducting a visit to review security upgrades to border security systems installed at Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) land and maritime border regiments, the U.S. Embassy said on Tuesday. The two-week visit, which concludes on July 9, includes engagements with regimental commanders and the head of the LAF Navy to ensure the communications and surveillance systems integrate successfully into the operational framework at LAF headquarters, the Embassy added in a statement. “This visit is part of ongoing U.S. assistance to the LAF, which has totaled over $2 billion since 2010, and supplements LAF investments in training, equipment and resources for its staff,” the statement said. In June 2021, the United States provided $59 million as a reimbursement to the LAF for security expenses incurred in 2018, which is an addition to existing foreign military funding. The United States has also committed to provide $120 million in foreign military financing in 2021 to support LAF operations and capacities, an increase in $15 million over last year’s support, demonstrating “the ongoing U.S. commitment to Lebanon’s security and stability.”

Nissan CEO Tells Court Ghosn Had Too Much Power
Associated Press/July 07/2021
Nissan Chief Executive Makoto Uchida told a Japanese court on Wednesday that the company's former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, had held too much power, failed to listen to others, and stayed on for too long. Uchida said Wednesday that those were factors that led to financial misconduct charges for Ghosn. He was testifying as a witness for Nissan Motor Co., which as a corporate entity is standing trial on charges of having falsified securities reports in under-reporting Ghosn's compensation. It does not contest the charges. Greg Kelly, an American former executive vice president at Nissan, also is on trial on charges of failing to fully report Ghosn's compensation. Both he and Ghosn have adamantly insisted they are innocent. Ghosn was arrested in 2018, but fled to Lebanon while out on bail. Lebanon does not have an extradition treaty with Japan. "I felt ashamed and miserable when I learned that something this outrageous was happening," Uchida told the Tokyo District Court about the allegations against Ghosn and Nissan. "The Nissan brand was tarnished, the workers were demoralized, and trust for management has been lost," he said. Uchida said an atmosphere of fear prevailed at the company, with staff believing that challenging Ghosn carried serious risks. "We were only trying to play melodies that sounded good to our boss," he said. "I've been working to try to change that since becoming CEO."
Ghosn was sent to Nissan by its French alliance partner Renault about two decades ago, helping to revive a company on the brink of bankruptcy. From about 2014, he became less collaborative and the company began to chase sales volume, setting overly ambitious goals, Uchida said.
While some at Nissan may have felt Ghosn stayed at the helm for too long, in his testimony Kelly has insisted issues over reporting of his compensation arose because the company was trying to find legal ways to improve his pay to prevent him from leaving for a rival automaker. Ghosn took a huge pay cut when the disclosure of big executive salaries became required in Japan in 2010. Uchida became chief executive and president in 2019. He worked at major Japanese trading company Nissho Iwai Corp. before joining Nissan in 2003, when Nissho Iwai merged with another trading company, Nichimen, later becoming Sojitz Corp. Uchida's predecessor, Hiroto Saikawa, resigned after he became embroiled in a scandal of his own, also related to under-reported compensation. Saikawa has not been charged. Nissan has promised to strengthen its corporate governance and audits to prevent a recurrence of any financial wrongdoing. Ghosn has accused other top Nissan executives of plotting to force him out of the company due to fears he might push for Renault, which owns 43% of Nissan, to gain more control over the Japanese automaker.
Nissan executives have testified at the trial that this was a concern. The alliance of Renault, Nissan and smaller automaker Mitsubishi Motor Corp. shares technology, auto parts and production plants. That makes Nissan and Renault nearly inseparable, according to industry experts. It's unclear when the panel of three judges will hand down their verdict in the trial. It could take months. The maximum penalty Kelly could face is 15 years in prison.

As meat prices soar in Lebanon, veganism fills the gap for some
Reuters/07 July ,2021
While healthier lifestyles and greater awareness of climate issues have encouraged a rise in veganism around the world, some Lebanese are taking it up out of necessity.As the country faces a financial crisis that has driven more than half the population into poverty, many Lebanese find they can’t afford meat or chicken. Prices are spiraling and salaries are collapsing as the local currency continues to fall after losing 90% of its value over the past two years.
“There are many problems in the country, even the army can’t afford the right amount of meat and chicken in meals,” said Camille Madi, the director of Basecamp, an association that distributes meals to the needy. Budget cuts forced the military to cut meat from its meals last year. Basecamp, which started work after the Beirut port blast last summer, had been delivering daily food parcels that included protein, but with donations shrinking and prices rising, a workaround was necessary.
It now delivers one to three times a month to those in need, providing food boxes instead of hot meals, with no meat and chicken. Basecamp and the Lebanese Vegans Social Hub, which promotes veganism, joined forces to provide 100 vegan meals, Madi, explained as he oversaw volunteers delivering food parcels in Beirut’s Karantina area, badly affected by the port explosion. While delivering the aid boxes, Social Hub members were also raising awareness about vegan food and why it can be a solution now. “Delivering vegan food is healthy and in this economic situation is very suitable, because a person can substitute the protein they are getting from meat, calcium they are getting from cheese, and every animal product can be substituted by vegan food and it’s cheaper in this economic situation,” said activist Roland Azar. Madi says children who eat Manoushe, a Lebanese pizza topped with cheese, can improve the quality of their meals if they spend the same on vegan items. “The kid who’s eating a Manoushe every day won’t have the necessary nutrients, but today with the price of one Manoushe, you can buy a kilo or two of vegetables that can provide him with the needed nutrients.”

Lebanon’s economic crisis leaves women struggling to afford menstrual products
Tamara Abueish, Al Arabiya English/07 July ,2021
Women in Lebanon can no longer afford menstrual products as plummeting economic conditions in the country have pushed half of the population below the poverty line.
Reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the deadly Beirut port explosion, and a dire economy, Lebanese women have now been forced to deal with a 500 percent increase in the prices of menstrual products, according to the Lebanese non-governmental organization (NGO) Fe-Male.
“Period Poverty” is defined by the lack of access to sanitary products, a safe and hygienic place in which to use them, and the right to manage menstruation without shame or stigma. It is becoming a widespread issue in Lebanon.
In 2019, a packet of pads cost 3,000 to 4,000 Lebanese pounds ($2). Today, the same product costs anywhere from 13,000 pounds ($8.6) to 32,000 pounds ($21).
On average, a woman in Lebanon will spend around 90,000 pounds ($60) on pads alone every month.
With no other options in sight, many have been forced to find alternatives, such as using newspapers, old cloth or tissue paper. All are very unhygienic and cause health issues that they cannot afford to treat, the co-founder of the Dawrati initiative Line Masri told Al Arabiya English. “It’s very sad, it’s humiliating. [Women] are using tissue papers. Some of them are cutting the diapers of their child in two so they can use it as well. They use newspapers. They use old cloth. It’s very humiliating, and most importantly, it’s not hygienic whatsoever,” Masri said.
Thousands of Lebanese citizens have been propelled into poverty in what the World Bank has said is one of the top three worst global financial crises since the mid-19th century. Masri launched Dawrati – which means menstrual cycle in Arabic – along with her friend Rana Haddad in May 2020, in the midst of the financial crisis, and at the peak of the coronavirus outbreak. The two women noticed that while aid packages from NGOs began to include facemasks and sanitizers, a few essential items were missing – menstrual products.
“Women in Lebanon are going through an economic and financial crisis. We went through a double explosion in the Beirut port, an economic collapse. We are fighting COVID. So all this is already taking a toll on people in general, and more particularly for women, who cannot afford period pads anymore,” Masri told Al Arabiya English.Dawrati essentially aimed to help women and girls from low-income households. However, as the currency lost more than 90 percent of its value, Masri said that women of different socio-economic backgrounds can no longer afford to buy period products.
“Today, everyone is becoming vulnerable. There is a need to redefine what vulnerability is. Before, it used to be someone with no income. Today, it is someone with an income. These are educated girls who are working in a bank, in an institution, but their salary is no longer enough because of the inflation,” Masri added.Faten Menhem Aoun, a 36-year-old mother of two, told Al Arabiya English that the inflation has pushed people to re-evaluate what items are essential while they also struggle to put food on the table and deal with the imminent possibility that the hours-long power outages could last for days.
“Before, I used to buy a pack [of menstrual pads] for 2,500 Lebanese pounds. Now it’s almost 10 times the price or more,” she said.
“I am worried for the next day honestly. We are worried [the government will] deprive us of electricity. We are worried not to be able to put food on the table. It’s sad because the banks robbed us of our money that we worked our whole lives to save. [We have] no more savings and no more work. It’s scary.” For Tripoli resident Sahar Yahya, the circumstances have also pushed her and many of her friends to scout for cheaper brands and cut out other household items.
“Menstrual products are a priority, so we changed the brand we use. [We are] looking for ones that cost less. In general, Lebanese families changed their priorities. We cut out unnecessary products to buy important things,” Yahya told Al Arabiya English.
“The prices of [menstrual products] are up 10 times. It’s increasing day by day, according to the dollar exchange. Sanitary pads used to be 4,000 Lebanese liras. Now, the price became 28,000 because of the dollar exchange.”
Dawrati and other local organizations regularly donate menstruation kits to women across Lebanon. If the inflation continues at the current rate, eventually none can afford to hand out essential packages.
“When we first launched Dawrati in May 2020, our basic menstruation pack included period pads, pantyliners, and intimate wipes that were enough for one month. It would cost us 15,000 liras,” Masri told Al Arabiya English.
“Today, a year and two months later, our menstruation kit includes period pads and panty liners, and it costs between 30,000 and 40,000 Lebanese liras per woman. I had to remove the intimate wipes because the price was crazy

Saad Hariri has no easy choices
Michael Young/The National/July 07/2021
Nor can he be indifferent to the costs of failing to form a cabinet
In late May, in an indirect reference to the failure and cynicism of Lebanon’s politicians, a report by the World Bank underlined that the country was facing a prolonged and deliberate economic depression, which possibly ranked among the top three most severe crises since the mid 19th century.
Despite this, the country’s cabinet-formation process, which has lasted for nine months, has gotten nowhere. The prime minister-designate, Saad Hariri, has just returned to Lebanon to decide whether he will pursue his efforts or give up. Both he and President Michel Aoun have refused to compromise on their conditions and few people are optimistic they will do so in the coming weeks.
Mr Hariri does not have easy choices. Unless he shows more flexibility and imagination with Mr Aoun, and unless Mr Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil cease blocking Mr Hariri’s actions in the hope that this will make him give up on forming a cabinet, Lebanon’s disintegration will accelerate. This is a sensitive moment for Mr Hariri, whose decisions will largely determine his political future.
It is no secret that the prime minister-designate does not have unconditional support from his major regional sponsor, Saudi Arabia, which even people in his circles will admit. Nor has Mr Hariri visited the kingdom in a long time. Without Saudi endorsement, Mr Hariri’s claims that his government could attract Arab money for Lebanon’s economic revival are questionable
While this has not prevented Mr Hariri from trying to form a government, it has determined how he has approached the process. Had he come across as too accommodating, it would have undermined his communal credibility and reinforced regional doubts about his weakness. That is why the prime minister-designate has been intransigent with Mr Aoun, and why he has refused to meet with Mr Bassil, regarded as the real decision-maker on the presidency’s side.
Yet Mr Hariri cannot be indifferent to the costs of not forming a cabinet. Amid significant domestic, and even regional, scepticism about his return to power, his inability to do so would only deepen the prime minister-designate’s political marginalisation. That is what Mr Aoun and Mr Bassil are hoping for.
Mr Hariri may be consoled by the fact that he seems to have solidified his support within the Sunni community, which has backed him in the standoff with Mr Aoun. His anticipation is that he will be able to cash in on this during parliamentary elections next spring. A successful outcome for his lists of candidates, he feels, could revive his political fortunes, put Mr Aoun on the defensive, and strengthen Mr Hariri’s hand with some of the Arab countries that doubt him today.
There is one problem, however. Because Lebanon is breaking apart and the situation is likely to only worsen by election time, Mr Hariri’s gamble may fail if he doesn’t form a government now. Because an increasing number of Lebanese will hold him partly responsible for their dire situation, the elections may well bring bad surprises for members of the political class, including Mr Hariri.
Another factor that may affect his plans is that some of Mr Hariri’s major funders are leaving Lebanon. One of his main backers, Jihad Al Arab, a businessman who had won numerous public contracts, announced recently that he was shutting his Lebanese operations and going abroad. He is apparently not the only one who has taken such a decision, which means that Mr Hariri’s patronage networks may take a significant hit at a crucial time for him.
Another problem is that Mr Hariri, if he withdraws from forming a government, may try to prevent another Sunni from taking his place by denying him the approval of his mainly Sunni parliamentary bloc. It is to avoid such an outcome that Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker and currently the principal mediator to resolve the government imbroglio, reportedly wants Mr Hariri to name a Sunni replacement if he steps down, providing him with communal legitimacy.
If Mr Hariri were to block the arrival of an alternative prime minister it would be dangerous, as the stalemate would continue, with disastrous consequences for Lebanon. It may also mean that his remaining foreign promoters – Egypt, Turkey, and Russia – abandon Mr Hariri, concluding that his motives were all about political power, not reversing Lebanon’s financial and economic free-fall.
The paradox is that in 2016 Mr Hariri had wagered that a new relationship with Mr Aoun would revive his political viability, which had taken a hit in 2011, when he was ousted as prime minister with the help of the Aounists. Mr Hariri was essential for bringing Mr Aoun to the presidency. Today, because of both local and regional constraints, he is unwilling to adapt in a similar way.
It is not difficult to win against Mr Aoun and Mr Bassil in the court of public opinion. That is how incompetent the president has been and how destructively his son-in-law has behaved. But the challenge today is not about winning the argument, but about saving Lebanon. In that regard, Mr Hariri has appaeard to be part of the problem. He will have to be careful in the months ahead as public discontent rises.

Bassil welcomes Ambassadors of Czech Republic, Bulgaria
NNA/July 07/2021
Free Patriotic Movement leader, MP Gebran Bassil, on Wednesday welcomed Czech Republic Ambassador to Lebanon, Jiří Doležel, as well as Bulgaria’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Boyan Belev. Both meetings took stock of the country’s general situation and stressed the need to expedite the formation of the lengthily awaited government, according to Bassil's press office. For his part, Bassil explained to both diplomats the obstacles that still prevent the formation of a new cabinet, stressing "the importance of forming a government that aligns with international expectations, especially the European ones, to help Lebanon advance in the context of an integrated reform-corrective program." Bassil also addressed the need for an EU financial aid to Syrian refugees “allocated to help them return to Syria.”

أو بيري/ممري: معارضة شديدة في لبنان لاقتراح الأمين العام لحزب الله حسن نصر الله استيراد الوقود من إيران كحل لأزمة الطاقة في لبنان
Intense Opposition In Lebanon To Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's Suggestion To Import Fuel From Iran As A Solution To Lebanon's Energy Crisis
O. Peri/MEMRI/July 07/2021
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/100418/o-peri-memri-intense-opposition-in-lebanon-to-hizbullah-secretary-general-hassan-nasrallahs-suggestion-to-import-fuel-from-iran-as-a-solution-to-lebanons-energy-crisis/
In light of the severe energy crisis in Lebanon, which has caused long lines at gas stations and sparked protests across the country, as well as violent clashes between protesters and the Lebanese security forces, Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah suggested to deal with the shortage of fuel by importing gasoline and diesel from Iran, in violation of the international sanctions on this country. In a June 8, 2021 speech, Nasrallah promised that, if the Lebanese government is unable to handle the crisis, "Hizbullah will go to Iran, negotiate with the Iranian government … and buy gasoline tankers… and diesel tankers, bring them to the port of Beirut, and then we will see if the Lebanese state prevents gasoline and diesel from the people." He clarified that this fuel can be paid for in Lebanese pound, which will save Lebanon having to spend its dollars.[1] In a speech on June 25 Nasrallah repeated this suggestion, and stated that Hizbullah had already made all the necessary arrangements and that all the government had to do was make the move.[2]
Nasrallah's statements led to an exchange of accusations between the embassies of the U.S. and Iran in Lebanon. U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea said on June 25, on the Lebanese Al-Jadid TV channel, that importing fuel from Iran is not a valid solution for Lebanon's energy crisis, and that the Iranians want Lebanon to be "some kind of satellite state that they can exploit to pursue their agenda."[3] In response, the Iranian embassy tweeted that "there is no need for the nonsense of the U.S. ambassador about Iranian oil tankers arriving in Beirut," and that "it is not appropriate for the ambassador to intervene in the fraternal relations between the two countries [Iran and Lebanon] and between the Iranian and Lebanese people."[4] Some took the tweet of the Iranian embassy as an indication that Iranian fuel had already arrived in Beirut, but Lebanon's energy ministry denied this, and the Iranian embassy also clarified that the tweet had been only "a political response."[5]
Nasrallah's statements also drew pointed criticism from Lebanese figures, who accused him of usurping the state's decision-making authority, and warned that importing fuel from Iran would be a violation of the sanctions on it and could result in sanctions against Lebanon itself. The critics also noted that Iran is itself suffering from a severe economic crisis and wondered how it could possibly extend aid to Lebanon. Nasrallah retorted that Iran would have no difficulty exporting fuel to Lebanon, and that this could be done without risking sanctions against Lebanon.
This report reviews Nasrallah's suggestion to import fuel from Iran and some of the reactions to it in Lebanon. Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: Hizbullah Will Bring Fuel From Iran, And Let's See The Lebanese State Prevent This
s stated, in a June 8 speech Nasrallah suggested that Hizbullah could resolve Lebanon's energy crisis by importing fuel from Iran, saying: "We have seen on TV long queues at the gas stations. This is humiliating… Can't we fix it? We can… We can fix it today, but it requires making a brave political decision. We should stop being afraid of the Americans and stop taking them into consideration…
"Lebanon should decide that ships loaded with gasoline and diesel fuel will sail from Iran to Lebanon. You will have all the diesel and gasoline you want, and you can pay for it in Lebanese Pound… It is possible. This humiliation that you see in the gas and diesel stations can be resolved by one brave decision… When the state does not [function], should we despair? The state must continue, but what if it doesn't take responsibility? … If we reach a dead end and this humiliation continues, I'm telling you that Hizbullah will go to Iran, negotiate with the Iranian government – and they accept this – and we will buy… gasoline and diesel tankers, bring them to the port of Beirut, and then we will see if the Lebanese state prevents gasoline and diesel from [reaching] the people…"[6]
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, click here or below:
Lebanese Elements: Nasrallah Behaves As Though He Is The Decision-Maker In Lebanon
As mentioned, Nasrallah's suggestion to import fuel from Iran drew intense criticism and opposition from Lebanese politicians and journalists, many of whom accused him of usurping the authority of the state institutions and undermining its sovereignty. Elias Hankach, a former MP from of the Christian Kataeb Party, said: "This country has a government, and Hizbullah will not be the one to decide where we import [our fuel] from… Stop exposing the state [to harm], undermining its status and taking over its decision-making… Importing fuel from Iran will expose Lebanon to further sanctions and isolation…"[7]
Former Lebanese MP Fares Sou'aid spoke in a similar vein: "The danger in [Nasrallah's] statements does not lie in the exact wording he used, but in his [implied] assertion that the Lebanese state does not exist, that there is no law or constitution protecting it, and that there is no President of the Republic [residing] in Ba'abda [palace]… Nasrallah is the one who makes decisions about importing fuel and about war and peace. [He decides] when the government will be formed and who the president will be… In short, he is the decision-maker in Lebanon and the state institutions work for him."[8]
A legal source told the Saudi Al-Arabiya website: "Nasrallah's suggestion proves that the Lebanese state has lost every element of sovereignty and that there is a group [within it] that is larger and more organized that it is [i.e., Hizbullah]."[9]
Lebanese Politicians: Nasrallah Is Exposing Lebanon To Sanctions; Iran Can't Help Lebanon
Other Lebanese politicians and figures warned that importing fuel from Iran constitutes a violation of the international sanctions on it and could expose Lebanon to punitive measures. The legal source told the Al-Arabiya website that "Nasrallah's announcement could cause the Lebanese state to [face] American sanctions," and added that Lebanon would not be able to withstand this.[10] Kataeb Party head Samy Gemayel said that "Nasrallah, in his statements and decisions, violates the sanctions on Iran and exposes Lebanon to [possible] sanctions, a situation that nobody can tolerate."[11]
Lebanese international relations expert Sami Nader warned that importing fuel from Iran would increase Lebanon's international isolation, and asked: "How can we import oil from Iran, when it is a country under sanctions? Even China, with all its might, is unable to import oil from Iran… So can Lebanon defy the American sanctions and [thereby] increase its isolation?... We are facing this isolation [in the first place] because of Hizbullah's policy, which exposed Lebanon's politics and economy to regional conflicts… The [world] countries will help Lebanon if it displays the minimal degree of neutrality that will enable it to form an independent government, namely a government that can save Lebanon from the struggles between the axes and enable aid to arrive. Lebanon must therefore avoid identifying with Iran and keep [at least] a minimal distance from it, in order to save its economy."[12]
Many Lebanese politicians pointed out that Iran itself is experiencing a fuel shortage and wondered how it could supply fuel to Lebanon. Former MP Mustafa 'Aloush said: "[Nasrallah's] suggestion was a provocation meant to absolve [him] of responsibility [for the crisis], so he will [later] be able to say that he offered us a way out and we ignored it. [In any case,] since Iran is still under sanctions, I wonder how he means to import [Iranian fuel]? Moreover, we have seen queues at Iranian gas stations, just like in Lebanon. Will they send fuel to Lebanon in this situation?"[13]
Ziad Hawat, an MP from the Lebanese Forces party, wondered: "Iran is suffering the consequences of the economic siege on it, so how can it supply us with oil?"[14]
Some also noted that Iran has been unable to export oil to its ally, the Syrian regime, which is also suffering an acute energy crisis and has been using Hizbullah's help to smuggle in fuel from Lebanon.[15] Former Lebanese MP Fares Sou'aid said: "If Iran had been able to export oil to the region, it would have exported it to its protégé, Syria, and spared its ally, the Syrian regime, the pain of having to smuggle oil, as well as the dollars to buy it with, from the Lebanese market…"[16]
Elias Hankach of the Christian Kataeb Party said: "Hizbullah would do better to bring [Iranian] gasoline and diesel to Syria and stop smuggling it from Lebanon into Syria… We know exactly who controls the legal and illegal border crosssings through which petroleum products, subsidized by the Lebanese people, are smuggled [into Syria]…"[17] Antoine Zahra, a former MP and senior official in the Lebanese Forces party, said: "If the fleet of [Iranian] gasoline and diesel [tankers] is available, let them take it to Syria and stop the smuggling from Lebanon into Syria, which will solve three problems [at once]: Syria's fuel shortage, the problem of the [fuel] smuggled from Lebanon [into Syria], and the fuel shortage in Lebanon. "[18]
Lebanese Journalists: Lebanon's Economic Crisis Is Due To The Policy Of The Hizbullah-Iran Axis
Criticism of Nasrallah's suggestion also appeared in Lebanese press articles. Makram Rabah, a columnist in the Lebanese Al-Nahar daily, accused Hizbullah of evading responsibility for the crises in Lebanon: "Nasrallah's statements about importing gasoline and diesel from Iran and paying for them in Lebanese pound are a new episode in the [saga] of madness and political suicide, one that can expose Lebanon to American sanctions. [It will also] provide [Hizbullah] with billions of Lebanese pounds, which the government will have to print, and will strengthen Hizbullah, allowing it to tighten its grip on what is left of the Lebanese economy and to drown Lebanon in more inflation.
"Nasrallah's statements convey contempt and disdain for his opponents, and insult everyone's intelligence. At the same time, they are aimed at persuading his audience that Hizbullah is outside the Lebanese [political] system and that the current crisis, including the shortage of food and medicine, is the fault of monopolies, corruption and the economic siege imposed by the West and the Gulf states on Lebanon and the Lebanese – and has nothing to do with Hizbullah, with its hostile conduct vis-à-vis the world and with its defense of the corrupt political regime that legitimizes its Iranian weapons…
"Mr. Nasrallah, you know very well that the weapons of the 'resistance' defend corruption and that the constant crises in Lebanon, the shortage of fuel and medicines, the poverty and hunger, [all] result from the policy of the axis to which you belong…"[19]
Another Al-Nahar columnist, Ahmad 'Ayyash, wondered why Iran would not give Lebanon the fuel for free, and speculated that it will ultimately be paid for in dollars, not Lebanese pounds. He wrote: "Prominent Shi'ite circles explained that [Nasrallah], the leader of the [Hizbullah] organization, behaved like a merchant rather than a savior, because the Iranian merchandise will have to be paid for and will not be given for free. This raises questions regarding the monetary aspect of this [deal], and why the Iranian fuel is not provided as a gift, at a time when Lebanon needs gifts more than ever.
"As for the monetary aspect of this [deal], these circles ask how Iran intends to use the profit from [selling] its merchandise, which will be in Lebanese pounds. They say the Iranians surely don't intend to return to Tehran with the pounds they get for their merchandise. These [profits] will remain in Lebanon… The same circles believe that Hizbullah will turn to the domestic [Lebanese] market and exchange these profits for dollars, and it is capable of doing so. As for the Iranian fuel that will be [sold as] merchandise rather than [provided as] a gift, the Shi'ite circles regard it as proof that the heart of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] has never been with Lebanon, but only with a certain group [in it]… In sum, the Iranian fuel may cost Lebanon its dollars."[20]
Nasrallah In Response To The Criticism: Those Who Doubt Iran's Ability To Supply Fuel To Lebanon Are Ignorant; It Is Possible To Import Iranian Fuel Without Risking U.S. Sanctions
In his June 25, 2021 speech, Nasrallah responded to the criticism, stating that anyone who doubts Iran's ability to supply fuel to Lebanon is "ignorant." He said: "Some wrote or stated: 'Sayyed [Nasrallah] promised to bring us gasoline and diesel from Iran. [But] does Iran have gasoline and diesel? It has a gasoline and diesel crisis [itself].' Our problem here in Lebanon is that some people think they are experts on everything… All those who spoke about this are ignorant, and, with all due respect, they know nothing. The entire world set up a hue and cry over the Iranian tankers sailing to Venezuela. What [do you think] they were carrying, you ignorant people? They were carrying gasoline, diesel and [other] petroleum products. They were carrying gear for the oil refineries in Venezuela, because the Americans are besieging it and preventing it from obtaining gear and technology to operate its refineries…"[21]
Nasrallah also challenged the claim that importing fuel from Iran would expose Lebanon to the risk of sanctions, and asked his critics why they do not turn to their own allies to ensure Lebanon's fuel supply: "Some said that Sayyed [Nasrallah] would bring sanctions upon Lebanon. I have two things to say in response to this. The first is that, if we bring gasoline and diesel in this manner, namely, not through the [central] bank of Lebanon and through the energy ministry, the Lebanese state will be able to say to the Americans: 'We received [this fuel] against our will. Were we supposed to launch a civil war to prevent this?' So, contrary [to what was claimed, importing fuel from Iran] will not lead to sanctions. Second, I have always said that everyone should take advantage of his alliances to benefit Lebanon… We have friendly relations with Iran, so let us use them to benefit Lebanon and the Lebanese people… You have friendly relations with the U.S., France, Europe, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – so use them to benefit the Lebanese people, as we are doing, and avoid exposing our country to sanctions… Go ahead. Form a delegation that will go to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Ask them for gasoline, diesel and fuel – in return for Lebanese pounds, not for free – and [let's see if] they give them to you. We will be the first to support and welcome this. It will not result in sanctions, [because these countries] are friends of America, so America will not impose any sanctions. Go ahead. Why do you stand by and watch the humiliation of the people at the gas stations day and night, the problems that are getting too difficult, and the deadly shootings and incidents [at the protests]? Are you capable of nothing but criticizing, attacking and score-settling?..."[22]
*** O. Peri is a Research Fellow at MEMRI.
[1] Alahednews.com.lb, June 8, 2021.
[2] Alahednews.com.lb, June 25, 2021.
[3] Reuters.com, June 25, 2021.
[4] Twitter.com/IranEmbassyLB, June 26, 2021.
[5] Annahar.com, June 26, 2021; Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 27, 2021.
[6] Alahednews.com.lb, June 8, 2021.
[7] Al-ain.com, June 10, 2021.
[8] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 10, 2021.
[9] Alarabiya.net, June 10, 2021.
[10] Alarabiya.net, June 10, 2021.
[11] Al-ain.com, June 10, 2021.
[12] Annahar.com, June 9, 2021.
[13] Alhurra.com, June 9, 2021.
[14] Alarabiya.net, June 10, 2021.
[15] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1580 - How The Assad Regime Is Dealing With The Caesar Act Sanctions – Part I: Circumventing The Sanctions With Help Of Russia, Iran, Hizbullah – June 8, 2021.
[16] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 10, 2021.
[17] Al-ain.com, June 10, 2021.
[18] Al-ain.com, June 10, 2021.
[19] Al-Nahar (Lebanon), June 11, 2021.
[20] Annahar.com, June 12, 2021.
[21] Alahednews.com.lb, June 26. 2021.
[22] Alahednews.com.lb, June 26. 2021.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2021
Pope's post-operative condition continues satisfactorily, Vatican says
Reuters/July 07/2021
Pope Francis' recovery from colon surgery at a Rome hospital continues to be "regular and satisfactory", the Vatican said on Wednesday.
Spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement that the 84-year-old pope was eating regularly and that he was no longer receiving medication intravenously.
He said the final results of a biopsy on the removed part of the colon confirmed that the pontiff had been suffering from "severe diverticular stenosis," which is a narrowing of the colon. Bruni said the pope was touched by the many messages of good wishes and prayers he had received since he entered hospital on Sunday.--Reuters

Explosion, fire off container ship docked at Dubai's Jebel Ali port
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/07 July ,2021
A blast was heard across parts of the UAE’s city of Dubai on Wednesday night, with residents hearing a loud explosion, according to witnesses. A fire had broken out in a container within a ship anchored in Jebel Ali Port, Dubai Media Office confirmed in a tweet following the explosion. "A fire has been reported to have broken out in a container within a ship anchored in Jebel Ali Port. A Dubai Civil Defence (fire brigade) team is working to put out the blaze," the Dubai Media Office said. “The fire in a container on a ship in Jebel Ali was an accident that could have happened anywhere. Thank God, there are no injuries as a result of the explosion,” says Mona Al Marri, Director-General of the Government of Dubai Media Office. The explosion heard in Dubai came from a ship docked off Jebel Ali port, Al Arabiya sources can confirm. At least four residents living in the Dubai Marina area reported hearing the explosion and said their windows and doors at their homes were shaken as a result of the blast. DP World, which owns Jebel Ali Port, had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters. "I was outside on my balcony. My friend saw something yellow coming (like) the sun. I took the picture and after (there was) a sound," said intern Clemence Lefaix, who is staying near the blast site and posted a photo of a bright orange light against the night sky in front of apartment buildings. A resident of Dubai's Madina district, close to the Jebel Ali port, told AFP they "saw the windows shaking."
"I have been living here for 15 years and this is the first time I've seen and heard this," they said. (With inputs from Agencies)

UAE’s deputy PM meets with Iran’s envoy in Abu Dhabi to discuss cooperation
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/07 July ,2021
The United Arab Emirates’ Deputy Prime Minister met on Wednesday with Iran’s Chargé d'Affaires in the UAE to discuss ways of enhancing bilateral cooperation, according to state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM). “H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, received Sayed Mohammad Hosseini, Iran's Chargé d'Affaires in the UAE, at Qasr Al Watan, on Wednesday. During the meeting, the two sides discussed ways of enhancing bilateral cooperation to serve mutual interests of the two friendly countries. Issues of common interest were also discussed,” WAM reported on their meeting. The charge d'affaires is the highest-ranking Iranian diplomat in the UAE, and Sheikh Mansour is the brother of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. He is also minister of presidential affairs.Abu Dhabi downgraded its relations with Tehran in January 2016. Additionally, the UAE claims the Iran-controlled Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb islands located in the Gulf near the entrance to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.(With inputs from AFP).

Bases Housing U.S. Troops in Iraq, Syria Attacked, 3 Injured
Associated Press/July 07/2021
U.S.-backed Syrian fighters and American troops foiled an attack with drones Wednesday on a base housing members of the U.S.-led coalition in eastern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces said. In neighboring Iraq rockets hit a base housing U.S. troops, inflicting three minor injuries. The spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition Col. Wayne Marotto said that at around 12:30 p.m. Al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq was attacked by 14 rockets that landed on the base and perimeter. He said that Force Protection defensive measures were activated, adding that "at this time initial reports indicate 3 minor injuries. Damage is being assessed." He did not say whether those injured were Americans. In Syria, the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led SDF said in a statement that drones were used in the attack on the al-Omar oil field in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour. It added that the attack was foiled and more details will be released later in the day. Tension has been on the rise between U.S. troops and Iran-backed fighters after American airstrikes on eastern Syria killed six Iraqi fighters late last month in areas along the Syria-Iraq border. Wednesday's attack occurred at around 10:15 a.m. the SDF said adding that "early reports confirm that the attack was foiled and did not cause any damages."Al-Omar base was attacked with two rockets over the weekend without inflicting any casualties, according to the SDF and Syrian opposition activist. The U.S. military denied there were any attacks on Sunday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the drones took off from areas controlled by Iran-backed fighters in the eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen. It added that the drones were shot down. Drone attacks against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria have been largely uncommon. Hundreds of U.S. troops are stationed in northeastern Syria, working with the SDF to fight against the Islamic State group. Thousands of Iran-backed militiamen from around the Middle East are deployed in different parts of Syria, many of them in areas along the border with Iraq. The leader of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia vowed on Monday to retaliate against America for the deaths of four of his men in a U.S. airstrike along the Iraq-Syria border last month. Abu Alaa al-Walae, commander of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada said the attack will be a military operation everyone will talk about. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militias for attacks — most of them rocket strikes — that have targeted the American presence in Baghdad and military bases across Iraq. More recently, the attacks have become more sophisticated, with militants using drones. Late Tuesday, the counter-terrorism unit in Iraq's northern Kurdish-run region reported a drone attack on Irbil airport, near where U.S. forces are based. The statement by the counter-terrorism unit said the attack caused no damage, though the missiles fell in open fields and set fires.

Rocket attack on Iraqi base housing U.S. forces - Iraqi military sources
Reuters/July 07/2021
At least 14 rockets hit western Iraq's Ain al-Asad air base, host to U.S. and other international forces, on Wednesday, slightly wounding three people, a coalition spokesman said. U.S. Army Colonel Wayne Marotto, spokesman for the U.S.-led international military coalition, tweeted that the rockets landed on the base and its perimeter. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's attack. It came after at least three rockets landed on Ain al-Asad on Monday without causing casualties. Iraqi army officials said the pace of recent attacks against U.S. bases with rockets and explosive-laden drones is unprecedented. Iraqi military sources said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a mini-truck was used in Wednesday's attack and was found on nearby farmland. On Tuesday, a drone attacked Erbil airport in northern Iraq, targeting a U.S. base on the airport grounds, Kurdish security sources said.-

Haiti President Jovenel Moise Assassinated
Agence France Presse/July 07/2021
Haiti President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his home early Wednesday morning by a group of armed individuals, interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph announced. Joseph said he was now in charge of the country. Moise's injured wife was in the hospital, according to Joseph, who urged the public to remain calm, and insisted the police and army would ensure the population's safety. "The president was assassinated at his home by foreigners who spoke English and Spanish," Joseph said. Moise had been ruling Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, by decree, after legislative elections due in 2018 were delayed in the wake of disputes, including on when his own term ends. In addition to the political crisis, kidnappings for ransom have surged in recent months, further reflecting the growing influence of armed gangs in the Caribbean nation. Haiti also faces chronic poverty and recurrent natural disasters.
The president faced steep opposition from swathes of the population that deemed his mandate illegitimate, and he churned through a series of seven prime ministers in four year. Most recently, Joseph was supposed to be replaced this week after only three months in the post. In addition to presidential, legislative and local elections, Haiti was due to have a constitutional referendum in September after it was twice postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Supported by Moise, the text of the constitutional reform, aimed at strengthening the executive branch, has been overwhelmingly rejected by the opposition and many civil society organizations. The constitution currently in force was written in 1987 after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship and declares that "any popular consultation aimed at modifying the Constitution by referendum is formally prohibited." Critics had also claimed it was impossible to organizing a poll, given the general insecurity in the country.

Haitian President Jovenel Moise assassinated overnight at private residence
AFP/July 07/2021
A group of unidentified individuals attacked the private residence of Haitian PresidentJovenel Moise overnight and shot him dead, Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement released Wednesday. At around 1am on Wednesday July 7, a group of unidentified people, including some speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president, mortally wounding the head of state. The First Lady suffered bullet injuries, said a statement released by Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph’s office. Joseph said he was now in charge of the country. Condemning the “inhumane and barbaric act”, Joseph called for calm, saying the police and the country’s armed forces had taken control of the security situation.

Failure of Libya Talks Endangers December Vote, Analysts Warn
Agence France Presse/July 07/2021
The failure of U.N.-led talks on Libya to reach a compromise over December elections could endanger a roadmap that had raised hopes of ending a decade of chaos, analysts have warned. Seventy-five delegates from the war-torn North African country aired their differences at rowdy meetings in Geneva last week. But despite an extra day of unscheduled talks, they remain divided over when to hold elections, what elections to hold, and on what constitutional grounds -- a blockage that threatens to hurl Libya back into crisis. "No consensus was reached among the LPDF (Libyan Political Dialogue Forum) members" on the contentious question of a constitutional basis for the previously agreed December 24 polls, the U.N. acknowledged Saturday. Oil-rich Libya was plunged into chaos after dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.Two rival administrations later emerged, backed by a complex patchwork of militias, mercenaries and foreign powers. While Turkey supported a U.N.-recognized administration in Tripoli, eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar enjoyed backing from the UAE, Egypt and Russia. Under a U.N.-backed ceasefire agreed last October, an interim administration was established in March to prepare for presidential and parliamentary polls on December 24. The U.N.'s Libya mission UNSMIL, in its statement Saturday, warned that "proposals that do not make the elections feasible" on that date "will not be entertained".
Back into political crisis
But analysts said foreign parties were pushing Libya's rival camps apart. "The differences which emerged in Geneva were to be expected," said Khaled al-Montasser, professor of international relations at the University of Tripoli.
He identified three tendencies. "A first group called for elections to be postponed to next year, a second only wants parliamentary elections and a third remains committed to the roadmap" which envisions both legislative and presidential polls. The LPDF members were supposed to have agreed by July 1 on the constitutional basis for parliament to adopt an election law. "We had a consensus on a draft text... but right from the start of the (Geneva) meetings, it was brought into question by certain members who made new proposals," one delegate told AFP, asking not to be identified. They tried to "evade their commitment to holding elections" on schedule, he said.
'Orchestrated in advance' -
But Jalal al-Fitouri, a law professor, said the divisions were "orchestrated in advance". "It's not a secret to anyone that the (foreign) states monopolizing the Libya file... put pressure on those who represented them within the LPDF in Geneva," he said.
"Each state supports a particular side and has a position on how to hold the vote and on conditions for candidacy." By manipulating the process, foreign players are hoping to ensure their favorites come to power and can represent their interests in Libya's lucrative post-war reconstruction, he added. Since last year's ceasefire, the security situation in Libya has slowly improved. But progress has stalled, notably on another key prerequisite for the polls -- the withdrawal of all foreign forces. The United Nations has estimated that 20,000 foreign forces including Russian mercenaries are still on Libyan territory.
Turkey refuses to withdraw its military, saying its presence is based on an agreement with the previous unity government in Tripoli.

Uncertainties surround fate of Egypt, Sudan efforts at UN over Nile dam crisis
The Arab Weekly/July 07/2021
CAIRO - It remains uncertain how UN Security Council positions could affect Egyptian and Sudanese plans to pressure Ethiopia and prevent it from beginning the second phase of the filling of its Renaissance Dam, analysts say. The French delegate to the United Nations, Nicolas de Rivière, said he believed the Security Council is unable by itself to find a solution to the issue of the dam, calling on the three countries to return to negotiations to express their concerns and find a solution. The French delegate’s message made it clear that there is no solution outside the negotiated track, which is likely to strengthen Addis Ababa’s stubborn position and weaken Cairo’s bet on a neutral intervention that could indirectly help its international efforts in dealing with the crisis. After years of difficult talks between the three parties, Egypt had first hinted at the possibility of taking action in the dam crisis, without specifying what type of action it meant. Then, Egypt changed tack and the Sudanese followed suit in talking about lodging a complaint with the UN Security Council or the International Court of Justice.
Egypt and Sudan have spared no effort to reach a solution to the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis. They are left now only with the option of seeking the Security Council’s help, when it meets, Thursday, to discuss the crisis even though there are no indications that the UN body will take a decisive decision on the issue. Cairo received a great shock from Addis Ababa, when the latter informed it that it had started the second filling of the dam, in a sign of defiance and indifference to Egypt’s approach of the UN Security Council. Ethiopia is working on the basis that the members of the Council will not exert strong pressure upon it. Egyptian diplomatic sources said that Cairo is not waiting for the UNSC to pressure Addis Ababa because of the interests that major powers have in Ethiopia. They add that what Egypt expects is the issuing of a statement that will convince it either to continue talking or to stop searching for a negotiated solution. The sources told The Arab Weekly that the major powers are well aware of this predicament and will be keen to find a formula that opens the door for negotiation and forecloses the costly military solution that Egypt has threatened more than once.
The Vice-President of the Egyptian Council for African Affairs, Ambassador Salah Halima, said that the Egyptian request is clear regarding the necessity of the Security Council’s intervention, as the situation constitutes a threat to peace and security in the region. Moreover, Egypt holds the Council responsible for preserving peace by taking appropriate measures to stop Ethiopia’s unilateral behaviour which seeks to impose a fait accompli, violating international law and agreed principles by undertaking the second filling without prior agreement. Talking to The Arab Weekly, Halima added that Cairo’s demands are the subject of consultation among the members of the Security Council and it is assumed that there will be a decision or at least a statement that supports the search for an agreement that prevents any threats to peace and security.
If this does not happen, the three countries must reach a consensus-based solution; and if this is not achieved, Egypt will have the legitimate right to defend its water rights by the appropriate means.
The Egyptian government finds itself in a dilemma and with very few options. If the negotiation track is blocked, Egyptian citizens would expect a move towards a military solution to defend the nation’s dignity and security.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had previously warned against violating Egypt’s water rights, saying firmly, “We do not threaten anyone, but no one can take a drop of water from Egypt … Otherwise, the region will witness a state of instability that no one imagines.”
Cairo is still committed to returning to new talks and hopes to open new horizons through the UN Security Council if the latter decides to endorse and oversee negotiations in cooperation with the African Union which until now has been the sole platform for negotiation.
This formula may be satisfactory for the three countries, as it fulfils one of the important conditions for both Egypt and Sudan. Ethiopia also will not object to it after having embarked on the second filling unilaterally but without causing damage yet to the two downstream countries, because the filling will not be complete for now considering the technical problems that prevent the storage of the full amount (13.5 billion cubic metres).
This option would achieve Ethiopia’s moral goal, remove from Egypt the argument of material damage, encourage Sudan to avoid supporting any hard power options and provide major powers with the opportunity to intervene calmly to achieves their interests with the three countries at a low cost.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Sudanese counterpart, Maryam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, affirmed their categorical rejection of Ethiopia’s announcement of starting the second filling of the Renaissance Dam, as it represents an explicit violation of the provisions of the Declaration of Principles Agreement signed between the three countries. The Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the two ministers met in New York to continue coordination and consultation on the developments regarding the Renaissance Dam issue and to prepare for the Security Council session, which they will attend together. The Egyptian minister of water resources and irrigation had received an official letter from his Ethiopian counterpart informing him of the start of the process of filling for the second year of the Renaissance Dam reservoir. The Egyptian minister responded by rejecting this unilateral measure and sent a copy of his reply to the president of the Security Council to inform him of this development.Everything indicates that the three parties will look for a face-saving option that spares the countries of the region a direct military showdown between Egypt with Ethiopia.

Tunisian UN resolution calls on Ethiopia to cease filling Nile dam reservoir
The Arab Weekly/July 07/2021
NEW YORK - UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations called on Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on Tuesday to recommit to talks on the operation of a giant hydropower dam, urging them to avoid any unilateral action, a day after Ethiopia began filling the dam’s reservoir. The UN Security Council will likely discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) this week after Arab states requested the 15-member body address the issue. Ethiopia says the dam on its Blue Nile is crucial to its economic development and to provide power. But Egypt views it as a grave threat to its Nile water supplies, on which it is almost entirely dependent. Sudan, another downstream country, has expressed concern about the dam’s safety and the impact on its own dams and water stations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres backs the role of the African Union in mediating between the countries, Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. “What is also important, that there be no unilateral action that would undermine any search for solutions. So, it’s important that people recommit themselves to engage in good faith in a genuine process,” Dujarric said on Tuesday.
Egypt’s irrigation minister said on Monday he had received official notice from Ethiopia that it had begun filling the reservoir behind the dam for a second year. Egypt said it rejected the measure as a threat to regional stability. Solutions needed to be guided by example, said Dujarric. “Solutions… have been found for others who share waterways, who share rivers, and that is based on the principle of equitable and reasonable utilisation and the obligation not to cause significant harm,” he said.
Mixed reactions
While some countries, including the United States, urged all parties to avoid escalation and commit to talks, other countries, particularly in the Arab world, voiced support for Egypt and Sudan in the bitter dispute with Ethiopia. The US State Department on Tuesday said Ethiopia’s filling of the GERD had the potential to raise tensions, as it also urged all parties to refrain from unilateral actions on the dam. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States called for all parties to commit themselves to a negotiated solution acceptable to all sides. Saudi Arabia, however, threw its weight behind Egypt and Sudan in their bitter dispute with Ethiopia over a massive hydropower dam built by the latter on the Blue Nile, the Nile River’s main tributary. Saudi Arabia’s state news agency SPA said the kingdom supported Egypt and Sudan in “preserving their legitimate water rights”, as well as their efforts “to contain this crisis and their demands to solve it in accordance with the rules of international law”.“The kingdom calls on the international community to intensify efforts to find a clear mechanism to start negotiations between the three countries to get out of this crisis,” it said. The Saudi position echoes that of most Arab countries in the region, in an indication of an Arab consensus on this file. Ethiopia had earlier accused the Arab League of meddling with the country’s massive dam project in a protest letter filed to the United Nations. “Ethiopia rejects the unwelcome meddling by the League of Arab States on the matter of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD),” the letter said.
Tunisia’s draft resolution
Tunisia has also submitted a draft resolution calling on Ethiopia to cease filling the reservoir, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. The text calls on the three countries to resume negotiations and to finalise the details of an agreement on filling within six months.
It urges the “three countries to refrain from making any statements, or taking any action that may jeopardise the negotiation process, and urges Ethiopia to refrain from continuing to unilaterally fill the GERD reservoir.”No date has been set for the draft resolution vote and diplomatic sources have said it is unlikely it will be as early as Thursday’s meeting. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in an earlier note to the UN that negotiations are at an impasse, and accused Ethiopia of adopting “a policy of intransigence that undermined our collective endeavours to reach an agreement.”
Shoukry and his Sudanese counterpart Mariam al-Mahdi met in New York ahead of the Security Council talks and reiterated their “firm rejection” of Ethiopia’s move, Cairo said. Relations between Cairo and Addis Ababa have been icy over the past decade, while tensions have also risen between Ethiopia and Sudan as the Tigray conflict has sent refugees fleeing across the border into Sudan. Addis Ababa had previously announced it would proceed to the second stage of filling in July, with or without a deal. Ethiopia argues that adding water to the reservoir, especially during the months of July and August which typically enjoy heavy rainfall, is a natural part of the construction process. Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat. Sudan hopes the project will regulate annual flooding but fears its own dams would be harmed without agreement on the Ethiopian operation. The 145-metre (475-foot) tall mega-dam, construction of which began in 2011, has a reservoir with a total capacity of 74 billion cubic metres (2.61 trillion cubic feet). Filling began last year, with Ethiopia announcing in July 2020 it had hit its target of 4.9 billion cubic metres — enough to test the dam’s first two turbines.The goal is to add more than double that volume this year.
‘Unifying’ factor
Reaching that target would be a political boon for Ethiopia’s Abiy as he strains to end the brutal war in Tigray, said Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, a public policy expert at Addis Ababa University. “This is a unifying factor for Ethiopians in the middle of so many ethnic conflicts you see here, and therefore it’s important for the country and the leadership of the country to complete the dam in accordance with the schedule,” Costantinos said. Last year, Sudan said the process had caused water shortages, including in the capital Khartoum — a claim Ethiopia disputed. Costantinos dismissed the notion that further reservoir-filling would be harmful. “If anything it will have a positive impact as it will prevent flooding in Sudan, and this water is going to be available to them. It is not going to be withheld permanently,” he said.

Russia and China’s conquest of the United Nations
Clifford D. May/Washington Times/July 07/2021
After the 20th century’s first great war, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and other major powers founded the League of Nations. Its primary mission: To keep the peace. It failed, of course, and the result was World War II. After the Second World War, the major powers created a new and, what they hoped, was an improved model: the United Nations.
Keeping the peace was, again, the principal mission, but the U.N.’s contribution to preventing the Cold War from heating up was marginal at best. And wars between lesser powers continued.
There was other work for the U.N. to do. In 1948, the U.N. General Assembly established the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which claimed to “set out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.” Today, the authoritarian rulers of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and many other U.N. members do not secure such rights for their subjects. According to Freedom House, 2020 was the 15th consecutive year that the world has seen a “decline in global freedom.”
The most significant U.N. body is the Security Council where Moscow and Beijing wield veto power and use it to protect their interests and those of their allies, however despotic those allies may be. In the U.N. General Assembly, envoys of 193 states, most unfree and undemocratic, pretend to deliberate before voting on resolutions that are said to express the “sense of the international community.”
Affiliated with the U.N. is a long list of international organizations. Among them: The Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Some do useful work. Those that do not are under no pressure to improve. Those that do harm enjoy impunity. A significant number have the power to set “international norms.” Authoritarian regimes have been making concerted efforts – including through bribery and bullying – to dominate and direct them.
Republican and Democratic administrations alike have failed to appreciate how this threatens the post-World War II, American-led order, which was meant to be liberal and rules-based. Serious steps to prevent adversaries of the U.S. and other free nations from manipulating the U.N. system have not been taken.

Donald Trump announces anti-censorship class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter
AFP/07 July ,2021
Former US president Donald Trump announced Wednesday he is filing a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google, escalating his years-long free speech battle with tech giants who he argues have wrongfully censored him.
“Today, in conjunction with the America First Policy Institute, I’m filing as the lead class representative, a major class-action lawsuit against the big tech giants including Facebook, Google and Twitter as well as their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey -- three real nice guys,” Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The nation’s top tech firms have become the “enforcers of illegal, unconstitutional censorship,” added the 75-year-old Republican, who was banned from posting on Facebook and Twitter in the wake of the deadly January 6 siege of the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

Ahmed Jibril, founder of pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla faction, dies at 83
Reuters/07 July ,2021
Ahmed Jibril, whose Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command was one of the main guerrilla groups fighting against Israel in the 1970s and 1980s and more recently backed Syria’s government in civil war, died in Damascus on Wednesday. He was 83. “He has dedicated his life to serving Palestine and the front and stayed the course until his death,” the PFLP-GC, which is designated as a terrorist group by Washington, said in a statement mourning its leader. Jibril founded his PFLP-GC in 1968, after splitting from the PFLP of Palestinian nationalist leader George Habash.
In its early years the group carried out dozens of attacks in the Middle East and Europe, including airplane bombings, kidnappings and letter bombs. According to Israel’s International Insitute for Counter-Terrorism, these included the 1970 bombing of a Swiss airliner in mid-air, killing all 47 passengers and crew, and a 1972 attempt to blow up an El Al plane using a booby-trapped record player. It was also one of the first groups to use suicide squads. In 1974, three members attacked the town of Kiryat Shemona in northern Israel, killing 18 hostages before they were killed by Israeli troops. In November 1987 it used motorized hang-gliders to fly two guerrillas across the border from Lebanon, killing six Israeli soldiers. Jibril was later at odds with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas over their peace accords with Israel and the way the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was led.
A prisoner swap Jibril negotiated with Israel in 1985 won him fame among Palestinians at the time. The deal saw the release of more than 1,000 prisoners, including long-serving Palestinian detainees, in return for the release of three Israeli soldiers. Among those released was Hamas co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. For decades he took the side of Syria’s government, and was criticized by some Palestinians for aligning his group behind President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the civil war there over the past decade. PFLP-GC fighters fought alongside Syrian troops in battles to retake Yarmouk camp, a district in Damascus that is home to the largest concentration of Palestinians in Syria. The group, which has close ties to the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group that mourned him on Wednesday, has a small presence in Lebanon’s refugee camps. Jibril lost his son in a car bomb in Lebanon in 2002. He had relocated to Syria from Lebanon in the early 1990s.

Israel’s labor veteran Herzog sworn in as 11th President, replacing Rivlin
AFP, Jerusalem/07 July ,2021
Isaac Herzog, a veteran of Israel’s Labor party, was sworn in before parliament Wednesday as the Jewish state’s 11th president, replacing Reuvin Rivlin in the largely ceremonial post. With his left hand on a Torah and his right raised, Herzog said he was “humbled and thrilled” and vowed to be “everyone’s president.”He bemoaned polarization in Israeli society and the “unprecedented crisis” in its politics. “My mission is to do everything to build up hope once again,” said the 60-year-old, who is starting a seven-year term after beating out former headmistress Miriam Peretz in a vote among lawmakers last month.
The Israeli president exerts little power, with the prime minister wielding executive authority. When Herzog was elected, Benjamin Netanyahu was still premier, a post he had held for 12 years until he was dramatically ousted last month by his former chief of staff, now Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The presidency, however, assumed an outsized role during Israel’s unprecedented spate of four elections in less than two years. The president is charged with selecting the lawmaker best placed to form a government, a closely-watched process after Israel’s run of inconclusive votes. The president does have the power to grant pardons -- a potentially important function as Netanyahu stands trial for alleged fraud, bribery and breach of trust, charges he denies. The scion of one of Israel’s most prestigious families, Herzog was first elected to parliament in 2003, but was most recently leading the Jewish Agency for Israel, an organization focused on relations with Jewish immigrants and the diaspora. The son of Chaim Herzog -- Israel’s sixth president and a former ambassador to the United Nations -- and nephew of the famed diplomat and statesman Abba Eban, the new president supports the two-state solution to the conflict with Palestinians. During his 2015 campaign he vowed to relaunch a peace process, even saying he was prepared to “remove” Israeli settlements if necessary.

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 07-08/2021
Why Palestinian Leaders Are Really Inciting Violence Against Israel
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/July 07/2021
Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had "died after his health deteriorated during the arrest."
Banat's family has called for a neutral international committee to investigate....
The Palestinian government, which is responsible for the killing of Banat and assaults on journalists, political activists, and social media users, is now supposedly trying to beautify its image by joining a UN treaty against torture.
If the PA were really serious about human rights, it would stop arresting, torturing, harassing and intimidating its critics and political rivals. The PA talk about joining the anti-torture treaty is solely aimed at deceiving the international community into believing that Abbas and his government actually care about reforms and human rights.
Senior Fatah official Ahmed Bahar said that any Palestinian who protests against the Palestinian leadership, and not Israel, is a "traitor."
This is the same Palestinian leadership that has told the new US administration that it is keen on resuming the peace process with Israel. While Abbas and senior Palestinian officials are talking about the resumption of the peace process with Israel, they are at the same time urging their people to forget about the killing of the anti-corruption activist and continual attacks on their own citizens, and instead engage in violent confrontations with Israelis.
The Palestinian government, which is responsible for the killing of political activist Nizar Banat and assaults on journalists, political activists, and social media users, is now supposedly trying to beautify its image by joining a UN treaty against torture. Pictured: Plain-clothed Palestinian Authority (PA) security officers beat a man in Ramallah on June 26, 2021, during a demonstration to protest the death of Banat while in the custody of PA security forces. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian Authority (PA), facing growing criticism over the death of Palestinian anti-corruption political activist Nizar Banat, is trying to redirect the anger on the Palestinian street toward Israel.
Although Israel had nothing to do with the brutal killing of Banat, steering anger toward it is an old tactic used by Palestinian leaders for many years; whenever your people are angry with your corruption and repressive measures, you tell them that it is all Israel's fault.
Banat was killed on June 24, shortly after more than twenty Palestinian security officers raided the home where he was staying in the West Bank city of Hebron. Banat's family said that even before taking him into custody, the officers beat him with metal clubs and rifle butts.
Less than three hours after Banat, 42, was taken into custody, the PA announced that he had "died after his health deteriorated during the arrest."
The death of Banat, an outspoken critic of the PA leadership, triggered an unprecedented wave of protests in the West Bank, including Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians.
PA security officers and "enforcers" belonging to PA President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction were dispatched to break up the protests and beat Palestinians, including female journalists.
Some of the journalists said that the officers and "enforcers" stole their mobile phones and laptops to prevent them from covering the protests. During them, Palestinians had demanded the resignation of Abbas and called for the punishment of those responsible for the killing of Banat.
These ongoing protests have seriously embarrassed the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leaders, who are now searching for ways to deflect attention from their growing problems at home.
Although the PA government has reportedly formed a commission of inquiry to investigate the death of Banat, many Palestinians are saying that they do not trust the PA leadership. Banat's family has called for a neutral international committee to investigate the circumstances that led to his death.
The PA has still not offered an account of how Banat died or the identity of those responsible, including the officers who beat him until he died.
Instead of providing answers to the family and the protesters, the PA and Fatah leaders are continuing their incitement against Israel in the hope that the frustration and outrage on the Palestinian street would shift to the usual target that for them is less problematic.
The Palestinian leaders are also trying to create the impression that the protests against Abbas and the PA are part of a foreign conspiracy concocted by unnamed foreign parties.
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, who, in his capacity as Minister of Interior, is in charge of the Palestinian security forces, urged Palestinians "to display a spirit of high responsibility and not to distort matters in favor of political agendas and paid defamation campaigns." Shtayyeh also called on the Palestinians "to keep our national effort focused on confronting the [Israeli] occupation."
The PA premier, in short, is telling the Palestinians who are protesting the ruthless killing of a political activist at the hands of Palestinian security officers that they should direct their anger only at Israel, which had nothing to do with the incident.
Ironically, Shtayyeh revealed that his government was working to "embody the accession of the State of Palestine to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture," a treaty that supplements to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture.
The Palestinian government, which is responsible for the killing of Banat and assaults on journalists, political activists, and social media users, is now supposedly trying to beautify its image by joining a UN treaty against torture. If the PA were really serious about human rights, it would stop arresting, torturing, harassing and intimidating its critics and political rivals. The PA talk about joining the anti-torture treaty is solely aimed at deceiving the international community into believing that Abbas and his government actually care about reforms and human rights.
Senior Fatah official Ahmed Bahar said that any Palestinian who protests against the Palestinian leadership, and not Israel, is a "traitor." Speaking during a rally in support of Abbas and the PA leadership, Bahar said that the "true effort for the redemption of our people" should be directed against Israel. He added that any effort not directed against Israel is an act of "treason."
Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chairman of Fatah, warned that "internal conflicts" among the Palestinians would divert attention from the need to pursue the fight against Israel. The death of Banat, he said, was unfortunate and painful for everyone.
Aloul claimed that Israel was "working hard to divert the compass of the Palestinian resistance [against Israel] and turn it into conflicts within our Palestinian society. Our Palestinian people are facing great and difficult challenges and we will not allow anyone to divert the compass."
What the statements of these Palestinian officials show is that the Palestinian leadership is trying to initiate violent protests against Israel to cover up for its responsibility for the death of the Banat, now being described as the "Palestinian Khashoggi" -- a reference to the Saudi journalist assassinated in Turkey in 2018 by agents of the Saudi government.
This is the same Palestinian leadership that has told the new US administration that it is keen on resuming the peace process with Israel. While Abbas and senior Palestinian officials are talking about the resumption of the peace process with Israel, they are at the same time urging their people to forget about the killing of the anti-corruption activist and continual attacks on their own citizens, and instead engage in violent confrontations with Israelis.
*Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2021 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.

Afghanistan at risk of collapse as Taliban storms the north
Bill Roggio FDD Long War/July 07/2021
Afghanistan is at risk of complete collapse after the Taliban has made dramatic gains in recent days, striking at the heart of the Afghan government’s base of power in the north while seizing control of large areas of the country – often unopposed by government forces.
The security situation has deteriorated rapidly. In the lax six days alone, the Taliban has taken control of 38 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts – nearly 10 percent of the country – and most all of them in critical areas.
In all, the Taliban currently controls 195 districts and contests another 129 districts, according to the real time assessments by FDD’s Long War Journal.
Prior to the Taliban’s offensive, which began in earnest on May 1 – upon expiration of the date that the U.S. government originally committed to completing its withdrawal under the Doha Agreement – the Taliban controlled just 73 districts and contested another 210.
Put simply: The Afghan government controls only a little more than 20 percent of the country at the moment.
Afghan Districts As of May 1, 2021 As of July 5, 2021
Taliban Controlled 73 195
Contested 210 129
Gov’t Controlled 115 75
Data compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal
Much of the Taliban gains have occurred in the north. The importance of the Taliban’s northern thrust cannot be understated. The Taliban is taking the fight directly to the home of Afghanistan’s elite power brokers and government officials.
If the Taliban can deny Afghanistan’s government and its backers their base of power, Afghanistan is effectively lost. The government could not possibly keep its tenuous footholds in the south, east, west, and even in central Afghanistan if the north is lost. If the Afghan government loses the north, the Taliban could take the population centers in the south, east, and west without a fight, and begin its siege of Kabul.
The Taliban has been especially active in Badakhshan province, which prior to Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the U.S. served as the headquarters to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Over the past week, the Taliban has seized control of 26 of Badakhshan’s 28 districts (the Taliban currently controls 26 districts, two were previously Taliban-controlled). Only Faizabad, which is also home to the provincial capital, and Kuran Wa Munjan are contested, according to TOLONews.
The Taliban gains in Badakhshan have been stunning. Two of the districts previously had no reports of a hint of a Taliban presence. Many of the districts fell without a fight while Afghan military personnel and government officials have fled to neighboring Tajikistan.
A source in Afghanistan who wishes to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the work told FDD’s Long War Journal that the Taliban seized the Badakhshan district of Shignon after the Afghan military abandoned their outposts and they fled to Tajikistan along with the district’s governor.
“The same quiet takeover happened in Ishkoshim,” the source said. The provincial capital, Faizabad, is “surrounded by Taliban but the government is still holding on,” according to the source, however residents of the city “are expecting it to fall.” Images and videos of surrendered Afghan security personnel litter social media, with the Taliban shown in possession of large caches of weapons and ammunitions, as well as armored vehicles and even artillery pieces.
The situation in Takhar is equally dire. The Taliban control 14 of the 17 districts there. The remaining three, including Taloqun, which hosts the provincial capital, are contested. The Taliban has effectively surrounded Taloqan City and is launching raids into the city.
The complete loss of Badakhshan and Takhar would a major blow to Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, also known as the “Lion of Panjshir” who stood up to the Taliban and was assassinated by Al Qaeda just two days prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Panjshir was one of two provinces fully controlled by the Northern Alliance, and Badakhshan was the lifeline to the Massoud and his followers. With Badakhshan under Taliban control, the jihadi group will be free to assault Panjshir.
Taliban gains have not been exclusive to the north. In the south, the Taliban has taken control of several key districts, such as Gereshk and Nawa-i-Barakzai in Helmand, and Shah Wali Khot and Panjwayi in Kandahar. Gereshk is the first city to fall to the Taliban, and it is home to government loyalists who helped defend Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
Panjwayi is the birthplace of the Taliban movement, and is both a symbolic and tactical victory. With Panjwayi and Shah Wali Kot under Taliban control, the vise on Kandahar City will tighten. Additionally, in Kandahar, the Taliban are putting pressure on Spin Boldak, with its important border crossing to Pakistan. Spin Boldak is the base of power of Tadin Razaq, the brother of anti-Taliban commander Abdul Razzaq, who was assassinated by the Taliban in Oct. 2018 (General Austin Miller, the commander of Resolute Support and U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, was present during the attack). Tadin has helped defend Kandahar City, but will be forced to defend it or Spin Boldak.
The Taliban’s current phase of its offensive has gone largely unchallenged by the Afghan government and security forces. Afghan forces has wrestled only a handful of districts from the Taliban, but often those districts remain hotly contested or are quickly retaken by the Taliban. Afghan officials keep talking about plans to retake key districts, but nothing has materialized since the Taliban has pressed its attack over two months ago. The government has mobilized and armed militia, but their impact is marginal at best at the moment.
If the Afghan government does not get a handle on the security situation and finds a way to regain control of the north, its tenure may well be measured in weeks or months.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect the change in status of districts in Badakhshan. Seven more districts were determined to be Taliban controlled in the hours since the report was filed.
*Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Palestinian Organizations at the United Nations
David May/International Organizations Monograph/July 07/2021
Introduction
While Arab-Israeli normalization began to progress rapidly following the Abraham Accords in 2020, the United Nations continues to support multiple organizations that prolong the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 1968, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) created the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, which produces annual reports cataloguing alleged Israeli abuses.1 The special committee reports to the UNGA’s Fourth Committee, which focuses on decolonization affairs.
In 1975, the UNGA created another Palestinian-specific body, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). It was formed during the same session in which the assembly declared Zionism to be a form of racism, a move the body reversed in 1991. Two years later, the UNGA created what would become the Division for Palestinian Rights (DPR) as the secretariat of the CEIRPP.2 The DPR operates under the Division for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, which reports to the UN secretary-general.3
In 2004, the UNGA passed a resolution calling for another Palestinian-specific body, the UN Register of Damages (UNRoD), to assist Palestinians in filing claims against Israel for what Palestinians say were damages that were incurred during the construction of Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank, which was built after a significant increase in Palestinian terrorism against Israel.4
The United States contributes roughly $1.32 million a year to these bodies, not including contributions through other UN bodies and ancillary support provided by the UN Department of Public Information.5 The UNGA passes resolutions annually reauthorizing these entities.
Problems
The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices has a mandate solely to investigate alleged Israeli abuses.6 Its reports spur anti-Israel activism, International Criminal Court investigations of Israel, and anti-Israel UNGA resolutions.7 The committee’s reports include unsubstantiated allegations, such as claims that Israel requisitions Palestinian homes by placing ancient Hebrew coins in them as part of an effort to claim Jewish heritage for the sites, or that Israeli excavations undermine the structural foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.8
The DPR organizes meetings and conferences in coordination with anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting “advocacy for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” including the “right of return” – a euphemism for the demographic destruction of Israel. This advocacy often takes the form of hostile denunciations of Israel.9 As early as 2001, meetings held under the auspices of the CEIRPP called for boycotts, embargoes, and sanctions against Israel, even before the official launch of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign in 2005.10
The DPR also organizes an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which features untruthful attacks against Israel.11 For example, the CEIRPP’s 2020 Solidarity Day exhibit misleadingly portrayed David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founder, as an advocate of ethnic cleansing by attributing to him a quote in which he read someone else’s ideas.12 Meanwhile, a speaker at a Solidarity Day event in 2018 issued a veiled call for ethnically cleansing the Holy Land of Jews when he called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”13 At a Solidarity Day event in 2012, boycott activist and musician Roger Waters falsely accused Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.14 These lies, propaganda, and attacks on Israel come under the auspices of the United Nations, the world’s supposedly neutral peacekeeping body.
UNRoD is one of the clearer attempts by the United Nations to force Palestinian terms on Israel. UNRoD supplies Palestinians with assistance in seeking payment from Israel for purported damages caused by the security barrier; UNRoD does not make any payments itself. The 2007 UNGA resolution creating UNRoD makes no mention of the security considerations – the violent Second Intifada against Israel – that led Israel to create a separation barrier. Instead, the resolution focuses exclusively on damages incurred by Palestinians.15 The resolution also ignores the fact that Israel maintains its own system for compensating Palestinians, and that the Israeli Supreme Court ordered portions of the barrier to be rerouted to minimize harm to Palestinians.16 A May 2020 report by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services stated, “UNRoD expected that by the end of 2019, it will have largely completed the claims intake work,” calling into question the need for UNRoD’s continued existence.17
Collectively, these bodies reinforce often false Palestinian claims against Israel and ensure Israel faces a level of scrutiny and hostility no other nation receives. The United Nations is thus granting legitimacy to organizations and activists committed to destroying or harming the Jewish state.
Recommendations
These anti-Israel UN bodies perpetuate a systemic bias against the Jewish state. They support one claimant in a longstanding territorial dispute against the other. They often increase hostility in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and take actions wholly inappropriate for the world’s peacemaking body. The United Nations should eliminate these bodies. To that end, the United States should:
Withhold funding. U.S. law withholds American funding to Palestinian-specific UN bodies by an amount equal to the U.S. portion of the UN budget – some 22 percent.18 Congress should increase this amount to 100 percent as a step toward eliminating these bodies.
Launch a campaign for “no” votes. In 2020, a number of countries abstained on annual resolutions empowering the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, the CEIRPP, and the DPR.19 Support for the special committee’s resolution has waned over the years. The United States should lobby member states to weaken it further.
Convince countries to withdraw from the CEIRPP. The United States should encourage allied countries with ties to Israel, including Cyprus, India, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, to withdraw from the CEIRPP. These countries’ continued participation in the CEIRPP runs counter to improving their diplomatic ties with Israel. The United States should include withdrawal from the CEIRPP as part of all normalization agreements and, as applicable, as a prerequisite for receiving bilateral U.S. assistance for implementing the accords.
Introduce more stringent criteria for CEIRPP-accredited NGOs. The CEIRPP has accredited some NGOs that lack impartiality because they interface with terrorists or are supportive of boycotts against the Jewish state. As a member of the UN Economic and Social Council’s Committee on NGOs, the United States should demand that the council strengthen safeguards to prevent the inclusion of such groups.
Short of eliminating these bodies, the United Nations should:
Eliminate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This day has become a circus of UN-sponsored anti-Israel propaganda and hate-filled calls to eradicate the Jewish state.
Reduce anti-Israel resolutions. The mandated reports and resolutions targeting Israel are gratuitous. If only for budgetary reasons, they should be consolidated to reduce redundancy. The Biden administration has said that it will not support “one-sided” resolutions against Israel. Caution ought to be taken that “two-sided” resolutions do not end up being unfairly weighted against Israel.

Libya’s predictable failure
Habib Lassoued/The Arab Weekly/July 07/2021
What happened was expected, as the Brotherhood does not want elections which they know in advance they cannot win.
What was expected happened and the Political Dialogue Forum failed in its task, while two sides succeeded: those wishing to postpone the elections and those working to extend the tenure of the government of Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah.
Behind them stand the Islamists and their two wings represented by warlords and corruption barons. The international community was also defeated. The statements of Berlin I and II, Security Council resolutions, the latest of which were resolutions 2570 and 2571 for the year 2021, those of the Quartet and the Quintet, bilateral and collective efforts, regional and international pressures and the efforts of the UN mission were all to no avail. It is a source of scorn that the US ambassador, the US special envoy to Libya, Richard Norland, repeats the claims by some political leaders of their support for the elections, as if Washington is content with what it hears in official meetings in its assessment of the situation and does not have the analytical tools and realistic scrutiny of the true intentions behind these statements. Nor should foreign intelligence agencies be satisfied with merely following the events when they are expected to be examining their background and anticipating their associated fallout.
This is even more so because most ordinary Libyans were expecting the failure of the talks before they even began. They argued that the Dialogue Forum would not agree on a basis for the elections, because there are parties, whom Ambassador Norland knows very well, who do not want the elections to take place on time, nor for the people to have their say, nor for reconciliation to be achieved, nor for the crisis to end. Norland’s words confirm beyond any doubt that Washington is accustomed to dealing with the exterior manifestations of political life, not with the deep factors underlying it. It does not know that the Libyans’ decisions are not taken during official meetings but in private discussions and that the political developments in Libya are not shaped by parties with clear public references and commitments.
The political dynamics are determined by intertwined regional and tribal factors as well as financial and economic considerations. They are today subject, especially in the west of the country, to bargaining between corruption barons, warlords, leaders of political Islam and those who desire to preserve the privileges of the ruling power.
Most if not all of these players have evolved under the umbrella of the Turkish project, which would not have infiltrated the country had it not been for the preceding and subsequent US green lights.
When the roadmap engineer Stephanie Williams announced the list of those she chose for membership of the Political Dialogue Forum first held in Tunisia last November, it was clear that she planted the seeds of the destruction for the very task with which she was entrusted.
She allocated 45 seats out of 75 to the Muslim Brotherhood and those close to it. She brought in a number of crisis-mongers, chauvinists who consider themselves above the popular will, to dominate the Forum. The logic was the victory of a group over the whole of society and for a regional project to prevail over the interests of the homeland and the national state.
When there was talk about financial corruption and the allocation of huge sums to influence people at the Tunis Forum, the United Nations contented itself with talking about an investigation whose findings were then concealed even if some were leaked last January.
UNSMIL’s stated reason was that it did not wish to affect the results of the elections at the Geneva meeting in early February nor the vote of confidence on the Dbeibah government, last March.
A new international envoy was brought in who was not familiar with the issues and with the new authorities who were motivated by political cunning and the desire to avoid the mistakes of Fayez Al-Sarraj’s government, especially with regard to regional and international relations.
But without realistic attempts at overcoming the internal conflict, even the unification of key institutions did not go beyond discusions and did not deal with the security and military divisions caused by the deep chasm of contradictions which the Government of National Unity chose not to address.
Last week, the victory of the factions rejecting the elections broke the oars of the UN mission. So, what was planted by Williams was reaped by Kubis. The US ambassador concluded that “in the end, the future of Libya can only be determined by the Libyans,” but what is after that?
What happened was expected, as the Brotherhood did not want elections which they knew in advance that they could not win. They had in the past refused to accept the results of the 2014 election. The international community rewarded them by rehabilitation through the Skhirat Agreement in December 2015.
The international community sought to marginalise the Libyan people by claiming the figures they chose were unrepresentative. There was a clear plan to link the crisis and its solution to entities and individuals in a way that guarantees the interests of external forces, not to rebuild the state and turn the page of the past. The UN mission allowed some voices to question the level of awareness of the Libyan electorate and its ability to choose its rulers for the next stage, with the aim of excluding certain personalities from the race because they do not suit the interests of the Brotherhood and their allies. When these voices went nowhere, they did away with the most important stage in the road map. The Geneva meeting ended with the elites of the international community, which have been and still remain ignorant of the situation in Libya since 2011, attempting to drive events against the current, in a way that only benefits those who advocate for the continued exclusion of the people from decision-making process.

Islam’s Poisonous Projections onto Infidels
Raymond Ibrahim/July 07/2021
The recent execution of a Christian man by Muslim terrorists in Sinai showcased a little known but interesting fact: the reason so many “radical” Muslims target innocent “infidels” is often based on projection, a word defined as “the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people.” One academic article/book chapter elaborates: “Projection allows the killer to project his (unacceptable) desire to kill (torture, rape, steal, dominate, etc.) onto some target group or person. This demonizes his target, making it even more acceptable to kill.”
Thus, in the April 17, 2021 video of the execution of Nabil H. Salama, a 62-year-old Christian man, the Islamic State narrator said that he was guilty of and being killed for building a church in Sinai that was somehow engaged in nefarious activities meant to subvert the Islamic order—precisely what many mosques do in and to the West.
Similarly, after the Islamic State slaughtered 21 mostly Egyptian Christians on the shores of Libya in 2015, it made a video portraying its actions as “revenge” against the Coptic Church, which ISIS and other “radicals” regularly accuse of kidnapping, torturing, and forcing Muslim women to convert to Christianity—all things Muslims regularly do to Christians in Egypt. (Apparently the killing of nearly 60 Christians in a Baghdad church a few years earlier—which the jihadis then also portrayed as revenge against the Coptic Church’s forced conversion of Muslim women—was not enough).
When a Muslim cleric said that “whenever they [U.S.] invade a Muslim country, they strike on a Sunday. Always,” he too was projecting. Muslim mob uprisings against Christians and their churches, in and out of Egypt, are almost always on Fridays—and naturally so: for that is the one day of the week when Muslims congregate in mosques for prayers, only to hear sermons that rile them up against infidels.
But perhaps the best example is Ayat Oraby, a Muslim woman activist popular on social media. In a 2016 video (which appeared around the same time that one authority said Egyptian Christians were suffering attacks “every two or three days”), she sought to foment as much hostility for them as possible. After calling the Coptic Church a “bunch of gangsters” and a “total mafia” that “rules [Egypt] behind the curtains,” she accused it of “stockpiling weapons in churches” and “striving to create a Coptic statelet” in an effort to continue waging “a war against Islam.”
Meanwhile, back in the real world—which consists of some 200 nations—Egypt is the 16th worst nation for Christians to live in; there they experience “very high persecution.” The abduction of Christian women and children and their forced conversion to Islam is par for the course; entire Christian villages and churches are regularly set aflame on the rumor that a Christian somewhere “blasphemed” against Muhammad on social media, or that a Christian man is dating a Muslim woman.
But many Muslims, such as this Ayat Oraby, ever seeing themselves as victims, are blind to such facts; their notions of reality are informed by Islam. And if Islam calls for constant hostility against the “other,” who must be subjugated or subverted one way or the other, that must mean the “other” is constantly working to subjugate and subvert Muslims.
Oraby’s accusation that Egypt’s Christians control events “behind the curtains” is as ironic as it is old. In 2010, prominent Egyptian cleric Khalid al-Jundi complained that in Egypt “Muslims have fewer rights than Christians, and even do not have the right to worship like Christians.” In reality and as is well known, Christian churches face immense restrictions; just talk of building one sets off mass riots and attacks on Christians.
Moreover, in a country where Islam reigns supreme; where Sharia (which mandates the subjugation of non-Muslims, a la Koranic verse 9:29) is part of the Constitution; where every segment of the Muslim population—from terrorists, to mobs, to the authorities themselves—harass Christian minorities at various levels; where Christians have been conditioned over centuries of persecution to be grateful with just being left alone—is it reasonable to believe that these selfsame, down-trodden “infidels,” who make up only ten percent of the population, are planning a violent takeover of Egypt?
Oraby’s claims that Egypt’s Christians are “stockpiling weapons in churches” and “striving to create a Coptic statelet” to continue waging “a war against Islam” is yet another tired charge. Muhammad Salim al-Awwa, former secretary-general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, once appeared on Al-Jazeera and, in a wild tirade, accused the Copts of “stocking arms and ammunitions in their churches and monasteries”—imported from Israel no less, which he called “the heart of the Coptic Cause”—and “preparing to wage war against Muslims.” He warned that if nothing is done, the “country will burn,” inciting Muslims to “counteract the strength of the [Coptic] Church.”
In reality, all that ever burns are Coptic churches at the hands of Muslim mobs and terrorists—as when nearly 70 churches were attacked and many destroyed following the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi in 2013. Moreover, it is Muslims who smuggle and stockpile weapons, including in mosques, in order to fuel their separatist jihads to secede from “infidel” powers.
In short, and as activist Mounir Bishai once put it:
Suddenly we [Coptic Christians] have shifted from complaints to self-defense, from demanding [our] rights to [trying to] convince the public that we are not depriving others of their rights… now we are being accused of amassing weapons… How have we suddenly turned from persecuted into persecutors, from the weak [party] into the strong and tyrannical [one], from the attacked [party] into the infamous attackers, and from the poor [party] into the rich exploiters? How did these lies become widespread, without us gaining any ground or improving our situation one whit?
Even in the field of theology, Muslims are apt to project Islam’s notions of jihad and “martyrdom,” fighting to the death for Islam, onto Christian theology. In the midst of the accusation that the Copts are stockpiling weapons to wage war on Muslims, the Al Azhar Scholars Front, which consists of Al Azhar alumni, once declared:
Christianity…is constantly defining its overt and covert policy of eliminating all its rivals or degrading [the followers of other religions] and depriving them of every reason to live so that they will be forced to convert to Christianity.
In fact, this is precisely what Islam does: “eliminate all its rivals” through jihad; or, through the institution of dhimmitude, “degrade [the followers of other religions] and deprive them of every reason to live so that they will be forced to convert to” Islam.
Similarly, when Bishop Bishoy declared that Egypt’s Christians are reaching the point of martyrdom due to the increase in their persecution, this, too, was thoroughly “Islamized” as a declaration of “war-to-the-death,” including by al-Awwa, who, during his rant, asserted that “Father Bishoy declared that they would reach the point of martyrdom, which can only mean war. He said, ‘If you talk about our churches, we will reach the point of martyrdom.’ This means war!”
Of course, the notion that a martyr is someone who wages and dies in jihad, or “holy war,” is intrinsic to Islam (e.g., Koran 9:111). Even the authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary translates shahid (“martyr”) as “one killed in battle with infidels.” On the other hand, Christian martyrdom has always meant being persecuted and killed for refusing to recant Christianity—and this is precisely the definition that has for centuries applied to Egypt’s Christians, the definition that Bishop Bishoy clearly meant.
Incidentally, Muslim projections onto Coptic Christians are paradigmatic of Muslim projections onto all Christians—indeed, onto all non-Muslims (including if not especially Jews and Israel). The Copts merely furnish an in depth example of the phenomenon.
To recap:
Muslims regularly abduct, abuse, brainwash, and compel Christian girls to convert—and now Christians are accused of doing the exact same thing;
Muslims regularly smuggle and stockpile weapons, including in their mosques—and now Christians are accused of doing the exact same thing;
Muslims are constantly either trying to break away or conquer infidel nations—and now Egypt’s Christians are accused of doing the exact same thing;
Muslims seek to eliminate or subjugate the infidel according to the doctrine of jihad and dhimmitude—and now Christians are portrayed as seeking the exact same thing;
Islamic violence regularly erupts on Fridays, and now Christians (or merely Westerners) are accused of targeting Islam on Sundays.
Islamic martyrdom means killing others and oneself while waging jihad to empower Islam—and now Christian martyrdom, which has always meant accepting death rather than the renunciation of faith, is defined as the exact same thing.
In closing, this lengthy excursion into Islamic projections offers another, equally important suggestion: if civilizational projection so pervades the world of Islam, could that also be why the people of the West—most of whom either profess Christianity or are at least influenced by its ethics and mores—cannot accept the realities of Islam? Because they too project the ideals of their religious heritage—one that preaches love, tolerance, and forgiveness for enemies—onto Muslims and Islam, and therefore insists on seeing them in a positive light?