English LCCC Newsbulletin For Le

English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 17/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Peter Said To Simon The Magician: May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God.
Acts of the Apostles 08/09.13b-25:”Now a certain man named Simon had previously practised magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place.Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, ‘Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’But Peter said to him, ‘May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.’Simon answered, ‘Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.’Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 16-17/2021
Ministry of Health: 115 new infections, 4 deaths
Presidency Says Berri Remarks Evoke '1990-2005 Years of Persecution'
Berri Blasts Presidency, Says Hariri Named by MPs, Not by Aoun
Aoun addresses general affairs with Head of Evangelical Community in Lebanon, Syria
Presidency Press Office: Statement of Speaker Berri followed unusual method, in form and content
Parliament presidency affirms “initiative ongoing”
Pope Francis meets Abbot Najem who presents him with crucifix made of wood fragments left by Beirut port blast
Army Commander tackles with Royer and Chapelle cooperation between Lebanese, French armies
Hariri discusses political developments with Russian ambassador
Berri meets Jumblatt
Bassil Urges Fast Govt. Formation, Says Using BDL Reserve Inevitable
LibanPost Commits to General Strike over Govt Deadlock on Thursday
EU Approves Return of Travelers from Eight Countries Including Lebanon
Army Support 'Crucial' to Avoid Lebanon Falling into 'Chaos,' Military Official Says
Economic Crisis Threatens One of Lebanon's Few Unifiers, the Army
Report: EU Delegation to Arrive in Beirut this Week
World Bank Says Lebanon Crisis Threatens its Military Institution
Lebanon’s army struggles with crisis ahead of donor conference
Lebanese entrepreneur Fadi Daou defies country’s crises with tech hub
New Report Exposes Shadowy Network of Hizballah’s “Weapons Point Man”/Yaakov Lappin/IPT News/June 16, 2021
Germany’s Failed Hezbollah Ban/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/June 16/2021
Lebanon’s crisis threatens one of its few unifiers, the army
A Military Lifeline/Interview With Aram Nerguzian Focuses on the conference to be held this week to discuss support for Lebanon’s armed forces./Michael Youn/Carnegie/June 16, 2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 16-17/2021
US, Russia to return ambassadors to their posts, Putin says after meeting Biden
Russia’s Putin says satisfied with Biden explanation for calling him a ‘killer’
Iran election: Khamenei says high turnout would reduce external pressures
GCC says Iran missile program should be addressed in nuclear talks
Iran hardliners to retain hold on economy, foreign policy after election
Election of hardliner to tighten Khamenei’s grip on Iran
Palestinian Shot Dead by Israelis in West Bank after Alleged Attack
Israel strikes Hamas sites over fire balloons, after ‘March of Flags’
Arab League calls for international role in Nile Dam dispute
Israel Hit by More 'Arson Balloons' after Striking Gaza
Biden Says 'Last Thing' Putin Wants is New Cold War
Sudan PM warns of risk of ‘chaos, civil war’ amid upheaval
At his farewell briefing Griffiths paints bleak picture of Yemen mediation
Training centre launched for German imams, sparks Turkish unhappiness

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 16-17/2021
Audio from AFF/Tehran’s Nuclear Secrets/June 16/Foreign Podicy 2021
Tunisia sheltering from the big bang/Oussama Romdhani/The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021.
The Palestinian response to the Israeli stalemate/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021.
Suspend Syria and Russia from the WHO/David Adesnik/The National Interest/June 16/2021
Taliban takes control of 30 districts in past six weeks/Bill Roggio/ FDD's Long War Journal/June 16/2021
Lebanese Journalist: Palestinian Authority's Weakness, Hamas' Extremism Will Cause Palestinians To Lose Gains In World Public Opinion/MEMRI/June 16, 2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 16-17/2021
Ministry of Health: 115 new infections, 4 deaths
NNA/June 16/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 115 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 542934.
Four deaths have been recorded.

Presidency Says Berri Remarks Evoke '1990-2005 Years of Persecution'
Naharnet/June 16/2021
A war of words erupted Wednesday between the Presidency and parliament’s speakership in connection with Speaker Nabih Berri’s initiative to resolve the cabinet formation deadlock. Responding to a statement issued earlier in the day, the Presidency said “it is really regrettable for Speaker Berri to say that the president does not have the right to get a single minister in the government.”“This confirms that the real objective behind the campaigns against the president is to disable his role in the formation of the executive authority and in monitoring its work alongside the legislative authority,” the Presidency added. It also said that the “campaigns” are aimed at “eliminating” the president from “shouldering the responsibilities that the constitution entrusts him with.”“There was no need for Speaker Berri’s statement to realize that some have not yet forgiven the regaining of the (Christian) presence and role after the years of persecution and elimination between 1990 and 2005,” the Presidency added. It also said that Berri’s statement contained “a single positivity” which is “the desire to maintain his initiative for facilitating the government’s formation.” The Presidency, however, lamented that Berri’s statement strips him of the “mediator” role and turns him into a “party” who cannot claim to be acting “in the name of the Lebanese people.”Parliament's press office was quick to snap back at the Presidency’s statement. “We want to believe what you said if you yourselves believe it,” the press office said. “President Michel Aoun is the one who said that president Michel Suleiman had not been entitled to any ministerial portfolio. Let us go to a solution,” parliament’s press office added. Parliament’s statement drew another response from the Presidency, which noted that ex-president Suleiman did not have a parliamentary bloc, unlike President Aoun, who is supported by “the biggest bloc in parliament.

Berri Blasts Presidency, Says Hariri Named by MPs, Not by Aoun
Naharnet/June 16/2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday lashed out at the Presidency, after it accused him of interfering in the cabinet formation process. “The decision to designate a premier does not stem from the will of the president but rather comes from the decision of the MPs, or the legislative authority,” Berri said in a statement. “The person who carries out the parliamentary consultations to form the government is the PM-designate, according to Article 64 of the constitution, and accordingly I have the right, based on the PM-designate’s request, to try to help him in any initiative that he might find,” the Speaker added. Reminding that PM-designate Saad Hariri had agreed to increasing the number of ministers to 24 and to the solution reached for the interior portfolio, Berri said President Michel Aoun complicated things anew by “insisting on 8+2 ministers to be named by the president, who is constitutionally not entitled to even a single minister.” “In your statement yesterday, you openly said that you don’t want Saad Hariri as premier. This is not your right, the decision of his designation did not come from you, and parliament voiced a resounding stance in its response to your letter,” the Speaker added.
“A solution is needed… and the initiative will continue,” Berri went on to say.”

Aoun addresses general affairs with Head of Evangelical Community in Lebanon, Syria
NNA/June 16/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received Head of the Evangelical Community in Lebanon and Syria, Reverend Joseph Kassab, today at Baabda Palace. General affairs and current political developments in light of the living and economic conditions which Lebanon is witnessing were deliberated in the meeting. MP Edgar Traboulsi and Judge Fawzi Dagher also attended the meeting. The gathering which Pope Francis called for on the first of next July, for heads of Christian churches in Lebanon under the title "For Peace in Lebanon", was also addressed especially since Rev. Kassab will participate in it with the heads of other Christian sects. In parallel, the President presented his view of the events and developments taking place in Lebanon and a number of countries in the region, expressing his appreciation for the initiative of the Holy Father and his constant interest in Lebanon and its people, in addition to the prayers he raises from time to time for Lebanese stability and the promotion of peace and coexistence among the Lebanese.In addition, Rev. Kassab stated that he listened carefully to President Aoun's point of view, his vision, and the foundations which should be adopted to preserve Lebanon's role in its surroundings and the world.—Presidency Press Office

Presidency Press Office: Statement of Speaker Berri followed unusual method, in form and content
NNA/June 16/2021
The Presidency Press Office issued the following statement:
“An issue matter which we will not stop at in the statement issued by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri before noon today, is his unfamiliar method in political communication in form and content. However, it is worthwhile to stop with astonishment, that the statement issued yesterday by the Presidency of the Republic received an unexpected reaction from Speaker Berri, especially with regard to the position of the President of the Republic in the national structure enshrined in the National Accord Document, and what it symbolizes of the nation’s unity and its role in ensuring respect for the constitution and the preservation of the nation's independence, unity and territorial integrity, which makes it, through its constitutional oath and in accordance with its powers, entrusted with the interests and rights of the people. It is really unfortunate that Speaker Berri spoke about the President's inability to have a single minister in the government, justifying this by not participating in the vote, as if he wanted to confirm what has become certain that the real goal of the campaigns against the President of the Republic is to disrupt his role in the formation of the executive authority, monitoring its work with the legislature, and excluding it in action at times, and sometimes in words, from assuming the responsibilities that the constitution has placed on it.
As for President Berri’s understanding from yesterday’s statement that the President of the Republic does not want the initiative “approved by the East and the West” and does not want Prime Minister Saad Hariri as prime minister and builds on this approach what in his opinion is right or not, then it is the height of denial and estrangement from the truth, because the President of the Republic responded to the will of the Parliament, and Prime Minister Hariri was assigned to form the government by a decision issued, after overlooking many abuses and exposure to the presidency and the person of the president and the powers...all in order to facilitate the formation of the government despite the attempt to invent new constitutional norms.
Likewise, the President of the Republic did not demand the nomination of two ministers in addition to the eight ministers, nor did he ask for the blocking third, although there is nothing to prevent this. In addition, the President worked hard to implement the French initiative and dealt positively with Speaker Berri’s endeavor, as evidenced by the fact that he postponed the dialogue that he had intended to invite, to make way for the Speaker to succeed in his endeavor. It is useful for Speaker Berri to also remember that the “loud speech” issued by the parliament stressed that the prime minister-designate must agree with the President of the Republic to form the government, which did not happen despite the passage of more than 8 months since the assignment, and there was no need for a statement from Speaker Berri to realize that there are those who have not yet forgiven to regain presence and role after years of abuse and exclusion from 1990 until 2005. In any case, the Parliament Speaker and others must realize that the President of the Republic is seeking with all his might a solution to the governmental crisis that was provoked by practices that have become known to all, and complicated by desires to marginalize the role of the President of the Republic and limit his powers and responsibilities. Perhaps the statement issued today is the best evidence of that. The Presidency of the Republic, being satisfied with the foregoing, refrains from engaging in the inaccuracies mentioned in the Speaker’s statement, and notes for him the only positive point, which is the desire to keep his initiative continuing to facilitate the formation of the government, even if the statement issued today dropped the character of the “mediator” by Speaker Berri. Unfortunately, this made the Speaker a party that could not give itself the right to act "in the name of the Lebanese people”. The President, who is experiencing the suffering of the people, is keen to establish an executive authority through a rescue government capable of providing solutions to the living and life crises that have become a threat to the lives and livelihoods of the Lebanese people”. -- Press Office

Parliament presidency affirms “initiative ongoing”
NNA/June 16/2021
The Presidency of the House of Parliament on Wednesday affirmed in a statement that House Spear Nabih Berri’s initiative was ongoing. The statement recalled that the appointment of the Prime Minister was beyond the will of the President of the Republic and resulted from a decision made by the members of parliament, hence from the legislative power. The Parliament’s Presidency also noted that it was the Prime Minister-designate who carried out parliamentary consultations for the formation of the government, as per article 64 of the Constitution, noting that it was the right of the House Speaker, in accordance with the request of the Prime Minister-designate, to assist the latter, all in light of the President of the Republic’s will, whose responsibility it is to sign the cabinet formation decree, in agreement with the Prime Minister. The statement capitalized on the ongoing collapse in the country and the sufferings of the people in the shadow of the continuous rejection of initiatives approved by the East and the West and all Lebanese parties except for the presidency of the republic. The parliament’s presidency added in the statement that the presidential statement released on Tuesday blatantly refused Saad Hariri’s presidency of the cabinet. "It is not your right," added the statement, recalling that the appointment is the responsibility of the house of parliament, which has responded to the presidential letter. The statement finally reaffirmed that House Speaker Nabih Berri’s imitative was ongoing.

Pope Francis meets Abbot Najem who presents him with crucifix made of wood fragments left by Beirut port blast
NNANNA/June 16/2021
His Holiness Pope Francis welcomed this Wednesday the President of the Mariamite Maronite Order, Abbot Pierre Najem, accompanied by a delegation that thanked His Holiness for his love and care for the Order and for Lebanon in general, and stressed the Order's "commitment to its spiritual, social, national, and educational role."Abbot Najem presented His Holiness with a crucifix made of wood fragments collected from smashed doors and windows in the wake of the Beirut port blast of August 4, 2020. The crucifix was made at the Maronite Archdiocese of Beirut.

Army Commander tackles with Royer and Chapelle cooperation between Lebanese, French armies
NNA/June 16/2021
Armed Forces Commander, General Joseph Aoun, received this Wednesday deputy and member of the French Defense Committee, Guindal Royar, accompanied by Military Attache, Colonel P.S.C. Fabrice Chapelle, with whom he discussed cooperation between the armies of the two countries.

Hariri discusses political developments with Russian ambassador
NNA/June 16/2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri welcomed this Wednesday the Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Rudakov, with whom he tackled the latest political developments on the Lebanese scene, as well as bilateral relations.

Berri meets Jumblatt
NNA/June 16/2021
Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, met in Ain tineh with Progressive Socialist Party leader, Walid Jumblatt, accompanied by former MP Ghazi Aridi. The meeting touched on the general situation and the latest political developments, especially the government file.
The meeting lasted about half an hour, after which Jumblatt left without making a statement.

Bassil Urges Fast Govt. Formation, Says Using BDL Reserve Inevitable
Naharnet/June 16/2021
Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil on Wednesday said the Strong Lebanon bloc supports “the quick formation of a government led by PM-designate Saad Hariri.” “We are bound by this choice according to the constitution,” Bassil said in parliament. He added that the upcoming government’s “ultimate priority” should be the “implementation of reforms.”As for parliament, Bassil said the legislature can “offer a partial solution” to the subsidization crisis, firstly through “rationalizing subsidization and gradually lifting it” and secondly through “approving a ration card from which all Lebanese would benefit.”“The funding of the card can be provided by the central bank, which has the ability to lend the state according to Article 91 of the Money and Credit Law,” Bassil said.“Everyone knows, even those launching populist stances, that using the (central bank’s) foreign currency reserve is inevitable. The difference is that the rationalization of subsidization allows slashing this sum from $6 billion a year to $3 billion, which would put an end to the waste of people’s deposits,” the FPM chief added.

LibanPost Commits to General Strike over Govt Deadlock on Thursday
Naharnet/June 16/2021
LibanPost announced in a statement on Wednesday commitment to a general strike called by the Lebanese Trade Union on Thursday demanding a new government. “LibanPost announces its commitment to the general strike and therefore closes all its doors and ceases its services on Thursday, June 17, 2021,” said the statement.

EU Approves Return of Travelers from Eight Countries Including Lebanon
Agence France Presse/June 16/2021
European Union member states have agreed to lift coronavirus travel restrictions on travelers from eight countries and territories including the United States, officials and diplomats said Wednesday. The white list of countries and regions exempted from the travel ban will be expanded to include Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Lebanon, the United States, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong, they said. EU member states can still choose to require travelers from these areas to undergo Covid-19 testing or to observe periods in quarantine, but once the new list is approved the recommendation is that they should be exempted from a blanket travel ban. Because of the pandemic, the EU closed its external borders in March 2020 for non-essential travel, and for the past year has drawn up a regularly updated list of non-member states whose residents are allowed to travel to Europe. Japan, Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand were already on the approved list. Countries can be included if they have recorded fewer than 75 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants over the past 14 days. In the United States this rate is 73.9, according to figures from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC). News that the United States is to be added to the approved list came one day after Brussels and Washington renewed friendlier ties at a summit between President Joe Biden and EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel.

Army Support 'Crucial' to Avoid Lebanon Falling into 'Chaos,' Military Official Says
Associated Press/June 16/2021
A senior army official confirmed in remarks to the Associated Press on Wednesday that the economic situation in Lebanon has greatly affected the army’s morale. "There is no doubt that there is great resentment among the ranks of the military," the official said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. He noted that "many duties are demanded of the military," including maintaining internal stability. "The leadership is worried over developments in the security situation on the ground and the ability to deal with this issue," the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Supporting the army is crucial to avoid Lebanon falling into chaos, he added. The military itself has raised the alarm, unusual for a force that is perhaps unique in the Middle East in that it largely remains outside politics. Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun warned in a speech to officers in March that soldiers were "suffering and hungry like the rest of the people." He also openly criticized the political leadership, which has been paralyzed by infighting and has done almost nothing to address the crisis. "What are you waiting for? What do you plan to do? We have warned more than once of the dangers of the situation," he said — a startling comment since army officers are not allowed to make political statements. France is convening a virtual fundraising conference Thursday seeking emergency aid, after army chief Aoun visited Paris last month pleading for assistance. France warned that Lebanon's military "may no longer be able to fully implement their missions which are essential to the country's stability." The U.S., the army's largest backer, has pledged to increase aid in 2021.

Economic Crisis Threatens One of Lebanon's Few Unifiers, the Army
Associated Press/June 16/2021
Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country's divisions. But the military is now threatened by Lebanon's devastating financial collapse, one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years, according to the World Bank. The economic meltdown is putting unprecedented pressure on the U.S.-backed army's operational abilities, wiping out soldiers' salaries and wrecking morale. The deterioration puts at risk one of the few forces unifying Lebanon at a time when sectarian tensions and crime are on the rise amid the population's deepening poverty. "Such a decline could be harbinger of the kinds of instability not seen since the last time Lebanon's political elites gutted or set adrift the Lebanese armed forces, namely in the five years leading up to the 1975-1990 civil war," said Aram Nerguizian, senior advisor of the Program on Civil-Military Affairs in Arab States at the Carnegie Middle East Center. The military itself has raised the alarm, unusual for a force that is perhaps unique in the Middle East in that it largely remains outside politics. Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun warned in a speech to officers in March that soldiers were "suffering and hungry like the rest of the people." He also openly criticized the political leadership, which has been paralyzed by infighting and has done almost nothing to address the crisis. "What are you waiting for? What do you plan to do? We have warned more than once of the dangers of the situation," he said — a startling comment since army officers are not allowed to make political statements. France is convening a virtual fundraising conference Thursday seeking emergency aid, after army chief Aoun visited Paris last month pleading for assistance. France warned that Lebanon's military "may no longer be able to fully implement their missions which are essential to the country's stability." The U.S., the army's largest backer, has pledged to increase aid in 2021.
The military in part counterbalances Hizbullah, the Iranian-backed Shiite faction that boasts a powerful armed force as well as political dominance. Nerguizian warned that degradation of the military would allow Hizbullah to loom even larger -- an outcome few outside Lebanon, particularly in Washington, want to see materialize. It could also open the door for countries like Russia, China, Iran or Syria to co-opt the force and find ways to influence it. After decades of corruption and mismanagement by the political elite, Lebanon's economy began to disintegrate in October 2019. The once-thriving banking sector has collapsed, and the currency has lost around 90 percent of its value to the dollar on the black market. More than half the nation h as been plunged into poverty. Equally hit are the 80,000 members of the military. Before the crisis, an enlisted soldier earned the equivalent of about $800 a month, but that has now dropped to less than $100 per month. Officers' salaries are higher but have also dropped in value, now about $400 a month. The army has tightened spending. A year ago, it announced it would stop offering meat in meals given to soldiers on duty. It still offers free medical treatment, but those in the force say the quality and effectiveness has sharply deteriorated. "Morale is below the ground," said a 24-year-old soldier who quit the force in March after five years of service.
He said that by the time he left, the 1.2 million Lebanese pounds salary he received was barely enough for food, cigarettes and transportation. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Mohammad Olayan, who retired two years ago after more than 27 years in the military, told The Associated Press that his end-of-service pay has been wiped out by the crash. Instead of a decent retirement, he now must take odd jobs to sustain his 12-year-old twin girls."What incentive is there for young soldiers?" he asked. "I sacrificed so much for my country and look how I ended up because of this mafia," he said, referring to politicians. Nerguizian said that while overall cases of desertion remain relatively low, the force has seen increased instances of dereliction of duty, high AWOL rates and more moonlighting by personnel to augment salaries.The last three years have also seen some of the largest attrition rates, with personnel choosing to leave the military, he said. "More worryingly, the force is losing quality officers and noncommissioned officers - the gray matter and capabilities the force has spent more than a decade and a half developing," Nerguizian added.
After Lebanon's 15-year civil war broke out in 1975, the army split along sectarian lines. It reunited in the early 1990s under the command of Gen. Emile Lahoud, who later became the president. Since then, it has become one of the most professional militaries in the Middle East. The U.S. has given it more than $2 billion since 2007, hoping to build a bulwark against Hizbullah's power — though the aid is far below the around $3 billion a year it gives to Israel's military. The military is also one of the few state institutions that enjoy respect among the Lebanese public, in contrast to their politicians, so mired in infighting they haven't been able to form a government since October. During anti-government demonstrations that swept the country in late 2019, videos of soldiers overcome by emotion as they confronted protesters were widely shared on social media. Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese army general who is currently a researcher in military affairs, said he did not believe the collapse scenario is now possible. "This is not an army's crisis but a country's crisis. In the past there were major security problems that affected the army and led to its disintegration," he said, referring to the civil war. "That is not the case today."

Report: EU Delegation to Arrive in Beirut this Week
Naharnet/June 16/2021
A delegation of top EU officials are expected to arrive in Beirut on Saturday in preparation for an international conference on Lebanon scheduled on June 22-23 at the EU level, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday. The delegation is led by High Representative of the European Union Josep Borrell, accompanied by a technical and administrative delegation, said the daily. The delegation is scheduled to hold meetings with President Michel Aoun, PM-designate Saad Hariri, Speaker Nabih Berri and with several party leaders, it added. EU Ambassador to Lebanon Ralph Tarraf, and First Secretary and Political Affairs Officer in the Union Mission, Hanna Severin will join Borrell during his meetings with officials.

World Bank Says Lebanon Crisis Threatens its Military Institution
Naharnet/June 16/2021
The World Bank put high emphasis in a series of reports and statements it made recently on the deteriorating conditions inside Lebanon’s military institution. On Wednesday, the Bank cautioned saying that Lebanon’s “economic collapse is putting unprecedented pressure on the operational capabilities of the Lebanese army.”It also said the army is now threatened with one of the worst financial collapses.” Meanwhile, a military official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity on Wednesday that “providing support for the army is crucial to avoid Lebanon falling into chaos.” He said the “leadership is concerned about developments in the security situation and the ability to deal with this issue." Earlier in June, it said in a report that Lebanon's economic collapse is likely to rank among the world's worst financial crises since the mid-19th century. France is convening a virtual fundraising conference Thursday seeking emergency aid, after army chief General Jospeh Aoun visited Paris last month pleading for assistance. France warned that Lebanon’s military “may no longer be able to fully implement their missions which are essential to the country’s stability.”The U.S., the army’s largest backer, has pledged to increase aid in 2021.

Lebanon’s army struggles with crisis ahead of donor conference
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
BEIRUT – Lebanon is unable to pay its soldiers enough, the army warned Wednesday ahead of a UN-backed conference during which donors will seek to shore up one of the bankrupt country’s key institutions. Unlike previous conferences designed to provide training, weapons or equipment for Lebanon’s armed forces, the virtual meeting hosted by France on Thursday aims to offer the kind of humanitarian assistance usually reserved for countries grappling with conflict or natural disaster. “We are in need of food parcels, healthcare assistance and support with soldiers’ pay,” a military source said on condition of anonymity. “The devaluation of the Lebanese pound is affecting soldiers and they are in need of support. Their salaries are not enough any more.” Lebanon’s economic crisis, which the World Bank has labelled as one of the world’s worst since the 1850s, has eaten away at soldiers’ pay and slashed the military’s budget for maintenance and equipment, further threatening the country’s stability. Already mid last year, the army said it had scrapped meat from the meals offered to on-duty soldiers, due to rising food prices. “We are doing the impossible to ease the suffering and the economic woes of our soldiers,” army chief Joseph Aoun said in a speech on Tuesday. “We are forced to turn to allied states to secure aid and I am ready to go to the end of the world to procure assistance so that the army can stay on its feet.”
‘Specific needs’
Around 20 countries, including the United States, EU member states, Gulf countries, Russia and China have been invited to take part in the conference alongside UN representatives. It follows a visit by Aoun last month to Paris, where he warned that the army could face even darker days without emergency support. “The Lebanese army is going through a major crisis, which could get worse due to the deteriorating economic and social situation in Lebanon, which may worsen when subsidies are lifted,” he said. He was referring to a government plan to scrap subsidies on essential goods such as fuel, food and flour to shore up dwindling foreign currency reserves. A source close to French Defence Minister Florence Parly said Wednesday that the crisis was alarming as the Lebanese military is the “key institution” maintaining security in the country. The army has highlighted “very specific needs” for milk, flour, medicine, fuel and spare parts for maintenance, the source said, in requests amounting to “several tens of thousands of euros.” The aid was needed “as soon as possible”, the source said, stressing “the urgency of the situation.”
Key role
t counterbalances Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia faction that boasts a powerful armed force as well as political dominance. Aram Nerguizian of the Carnegie Middle East Centre warned that degradation of the military would allow Hezbollah to loom even larger, an outcome few outside Lebanon, particularly in Washington, want to see materialise. It could also open the door for countries like Russia, China, Iran or Syria to co-opt the force and find ways to influence it. The military is also one of the few state institutions that enjoy respect among the Lebanese public, in contrast to their politicians, so mired in infighting they haven’t been able to form a government since October. During anti-government demonstrations that swept the country in late 2019, videos of soldiers overcome by emotion as they confronted protesters were widely shared on social media. Whether or not the aid would be in cash or in kind was to be discussed on Thursday. France is expected to announce deliveries of medical equipment to combat the coronavirus and spare parts for armoured vehicles and helicopters. The United States pledged to make a contribution during a meeting Tuesday in Brussels between Parly and her American counterpart Lloyd Austin. The Lebanese army has been relying heavily on food donations from allied states since last summer’s monster port explosion in Beirut that killed more than 200 people and damaged swathes of the capital.France, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey are among the army’s main food donors. Iraq and Spain have offered medical assistance. The United States remains the biggest financial backer of the Lebanese military.It has bumped up funding for the army by $15 million for this year to $120 million. Nerguizian said “the Paris conference is meant to prompt partner nations to think creatively about how to help the LAF (army) through 2021.”In a report published on Wednesday, he said the assistance would “allow the command of the armed forces to focus on its missions,border security, counterterrorism, internal stability, as opposed to fighting a singular battle to maintain the LAF’s stability, with no real Lebanese government assistance.”
Low morale
Before Lebanon’s crisis, an enlisted soldier earned the equivalent of about $800 a month, but that has now dropped to less than $100 . Officers’ salaries are higher but have also dropped in value, now to about $400 a month. The army has tightened spending. A year ago, it announced it would stop offering meat in meals given to soldiers on duty. It still offers free medical treatment, but those in the force say the quality and effectiveness has sharply deteriorated. “Morale is below the ground,” said a 24-year-old soldier who quit the force in March after five years of service. He said that by the time he left, the 1.2 million Lebanese pounds salary he received was barely enough for food, cigarettes and transportation. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Mohammad Olayan, who retired two years ago after more than 27 years in the military, said that his end-of-service pay has been wiped out by the crash. Instead of a decent retirement, he now must take odd jobs to sustain his 12-year-old twin girls. “What incentive is there for young soldiers?” he asked. “I sacrificed so much for my country and look how I ended up because of this mafia,” he said, referring to politicians.
Nerguizian said that while overall cases of desertion remain relatively low, the force has seen increased instances of dereliction of duty, high AWOL rates and more moonlighting by personnel to augment salaries. The last three years have also seen some of the largest attrition rates, with personnel choosing to leave the military, he said. “More worryingly, the force is losing quality officers and noncommissioned officers, the gray matter and capabilities the force has spent more than a decade and a half developing,” Nerguizian added. After Lebanon’s 15-year civil war broke out in 1975, the army split along sectarian lines. It reunited in the early 1990s under the command of General Emile Lahoud, who later became the president. Since then, it has become one of the most professional militaries in the Middle East. The US has given it more than $2 billion since 2007, hoping to build a bulwark against Hezbollah’s power, though the aid is far below the around $3 billion a year it gives to Israel’s military.

Lebanese entrepreneur Fadi Daou defies country’s crises with tech hub
Reuters/16 June ,2021
His employees struggle to find petrol for their cars to drive to work and he has to offer a unique product to get customers to trade with a company based in high-risk Lebanon, but against all odds Fadi Daou’s technology firm is thriving.
The entrepreneur’s company, MultiLane, produces testing and measurement equipment for data center infrastructure, and its international clients include Microsoft, Apple, and Google. “Everything is conceived, designed and built out of Lebanon,” said Daou.
As Lebanon battles a financial crisis that the World Bank has dubbed one of the worst depressions of modern history, Daou has had to overcome numerous challenges, for example building his own solar power supply so as not to rely on the state electricity grid. He manages to export his products successfully.
He moved back to Lebanon in 2006, having spent 25 years in the United States. In Nov. 2019, one month after Lebanon’s economy began to unravel, he launched Houmal Technology Park (HTP), in his hometown of Houmal, 15 km outside of Beirut, to expand his output. Global technology companies “select and choose to work with Lebanon knowing that Lebanon is a high-risk country, so we have to offer twice as much in terms of value proposition, in terms of innovation, time to market. We have to work harder,” he said. “We build a high value product that uniquely solves a problem in the industry, so they purchase it from us.” In the past two years, Lebanon has also been through a popular uprising against its political leaders, the global COVID-19 pandemic and a huge chemical blast in Beirut port that killed 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.
Its local currency has lost around 90 percent of its value against the dollar and the crisis has wiped out thousands of jobs and propelled more than half of the population into poverty. Daou employs 130 mostly-young men and women at MultiLane Lebanon, and plans to hire 25 more employees by year-end.
His goal is to hire more in the coming few years to fight the brain drain resulting from the financial crisis. “My reward is when a parent calls me or sends me a message saying thank you because my kids are now working, they were going to leave the country but now they are staying,” he said. Hundreds of engineers, academics, doctors, artists and others have packed their bags to seek opportunities abroad as the country hurtles faster towards complete collapse. “It’s an empowering experience... the company really gives a chance for the youth to stay in the country,” said Sana Aawar, one intern at MultiLane.
Her colleague Maria Tawil added they felt able to reach their dreams as young engineers wanting to prove themselves.

New Report Exposes Shadowy Network of Hizballah’s “Weapons Point Man”
Yaakov Lappin/IPT News/June 16, 2021
يعقوب لابين: تقرير جديد يكشف أنشطة شبكة رجل الأعمال اللبناني علي عبد النور شعلان الذي يؤمن شراء الأسلحة لحزب الله”
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99805/yaakov-lappin-ipt-news-new-report-exposes-shadowy-network-of-hizballahs-weapons-point-man-%d9%8a%d8%b9%d9%82%d9%88%d8%a8-%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%ac%d8%af/
كشف تقرير جديد صدر يوم أمس الثلاثاء عن مركز ألما للبحوث والتعليم ومقره إسرائيل أن رجل أعمال لبناني تربطه علاقات وثيقة بشبكة شراء الأسلحة التابعة لحزب الله قد أنشأ دروعًا تجارية جديدة لإخفاء نشاطه. يركز التقرير على المدعو علي عبد النور شعلان الملقب بالميسر. قال ضابط المخابرات السابق في الجيش الإسرائيلي الرائد (احتياط) طال بيري الذي يرأس قسم الأبحاث في ألما لمشروع التحقيق حول الإرهاب قال إن شعلان متعدد المهارات في شراء ونقل الأسلحة والمركبات الكيماوية. لقد كان شعلان يقوم بهده الأعمال لسنوات عديدة وهو يلعب أيضًا أدوارًا رئيسية أخرى تخدم حزب الله. وذكر التقرير أن شعلان هو رجل أعمال لبناني تتركز أعماله بشكل رئيسي في سوريا وله علاقات وثيقة مع شخصيات بارزة في حزب الله. بفضل خبرته الطويلة في الحصول على الأسلحة لكل من حزب الله ونظام الأسد لعب شعلان دورًا مركزيًا في برنامج اقتناء أسلحة حزب الله خلال الحرب الأهلية السورية حيث عمل بموجب التوجيهات التي قدمها فيلق القدس الإيراني في الخارج والذي ينسق نشاط تقوية وكلاء ايران ولذلك فهو يعتبر ميسرا رئيسيا لشبكات تهريب الأسلحة التابعة لحزب الله والرجل الرئيسي في التنظيم عندما يتعلق الأمر بشراء ونقل الأسلحة والمتفجرات.
A Lebanese businessman with reported close ties to Hizballah’s weapons procurement network has established new “business shields” to disguise his activity, a new report released on Tuesday by the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center watchdog finds. The report focuses on Ali Abd Al Nur Shalan (nicknamed Mouyas’ar).
“Shalan is multi-skilled in buying and transporting weapons and chemical compounds. He has been doing this for many years,” former IDF intelligence officer Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, who heads Alma’s research department, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Shalan also plays other key roles that serve Hizballah.
“Shalan is a Lebanese businessman whose business is carried out mainly in Syria, and has close ties to senior Hizballah figures,” the report said. Thanks to his longstanding experience in acquiring weapons for both Hizballah and the Assad regime, Shalan played a central role in Hizballah’s weapons acquisition program during the Syrian civil war, working under directives provided by the Iranian overseas Quds Force, which coordinates activity to strengthen Iranian proxies, Beeri said. “He is therefore considered a key facilitator for Hizballah’s weapons smuggling networks, and the organization’s main point man when it comes to purchasing and transporting weapons and explosives.”
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Shalan in 2015, describing him as “Hizballah’s point person” for obtaining weapons and ensuring they get to the terrorist group and to “Hizballah personnel in Syria.”
Shalan’s ability to disguise weapons production facilities in civilian factories, his trafficking network, and his ability to keep coming up with new ways to evade sanctions, appear to have made him a very important component of the Hizballah arms network.
“During our work, we discovered that in January 2021, he set up alternative business shields,” Beeri said. “We do not know of sanctions on these companies.”
Shalan’s company partnered with other businessmen and companies to establish two companies, Techno Cooper and Kopteck, that manufacture and trade in electrical cables.
The companies “were formed to continue to circumvent the sanctions,” Alma’s report said. “The ‘business activity’ of the radical Shi’ite axis led by Iran continues under the cover of business shields.”
“Radical Shi’ite axis elements like Ali Abd Al Nur Shalan, are constantly setting up business shields. When one business shield is exposed, a new business shield will be established in its place,” it added.
The report meticulously mapped out the network that created the two new companies. “Their co-founders were: As’ad Ma’ad, Mohammad Ayman al-Sadat, Imad al-Din Slough, Sherha al-Abras Leltajarah (company) and Hassan Abdul Rauf Mahfouz (the latter two – are partners in both companies, the rest are only partners in Techno Cooper). Sherha al-Abras Leltajarah is a large company with an immense reputation in the cable industry.”
Precision missile parts in Syria
According to Beeri, Shalan is also linked to a site in the Syrian town of Hassia, south of Homs, which produced precision guided missile components.
According to international media reports, the Homs area has repeatedly been struck by Israeli Air Force bombings, including a reported June 8 strike, presumably targeting attempts by Iran to entrench itself militarily in the area.
The same suspected missile production site at Hassia was bombed in November 2017. “From what we managed to collect, there has been very intensive Iranian activities there, in terms of precision guided missile production,” Beeri said. “There was a factory that created precise missile parts, embedded in a civilian copper and metal factory – which was owned by Shalan.”
“The factory’s code name was ‘Yasser Muhammad,'” said Beeri. “The factory illustrates the use of civilian shields to make weapons, and the use of business shield – all at the same time.”
“Circumstantial” link to Beirut blast
The Alma report has also linked Shalan’s activities to the devastating August 2020 Beirut port blast, when a storage facility housing ammonium nitrate exploded, killing at least 190 people, and causing widespread damage throughout the Lebanese capital.
In the months prior to the blast, international companies linked to the supply of ammonium nitrate began working with the Assad regime and Hizballah, said Beeri, sending ammonium nitrate to Beirut’s port, which later blew up.
“We found circumstantial indications that the ammonium nitrate was designated for the Assad regime, which was looking to circumvent U.S. and European Union oil and trade sanctions, banning the import of explosive material. One highly likely way that the Assad regime bypassed this was by using Hizballah’s procurement system via Shalan.”
“In order for the shipments to eventually reach the Syrian regime, the suppliers sent them to the port of Beirut addressed to Hizballah shell companies that consistently changed their identity,” the Alma report said. “After that, Hezbollah made sure to deliver, or rather smuggle, the shipments directly into Syria.”
Shalan was one of the suspects linked to the exposed network, the report said. “Shalan is a significant part of a complex network of Lebanese and Syrian businessmen working for the Assad regime and Hizballah, bypassing U.S. and European sanctions by setting up shell companies. We do not have concrete information on Shalan’s involvement in the ammonium nitrate issue in the port of Beirut. In our estimation, it is highly likely that Shalan, as a key figure in Hezbollah’s procurement and transport of weapons and components, was indeed involved in a very important procurement for the two allies, the Assad regime and Hizballah.”
A long history of supplying Hizballah
The Treasury Department’s sanction statement dates Shalan’s role helping Hizballah obtain weapons and equipment, and in shipping the materiel to Syria, back to 2009-10. “In 2010, Shalan was at the center of brokering a business deal involving Hizballah, Syrian officials, and companies in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine regarding the purchase and sale of weapons. Further in 2010, he acquired a number of tons of anhydride, used in the production of explosives and narcotics, for use by Hizballah. In November 2009, Shalan coordinated with Hizballah and Syrian officials on the purchase and delivery of thousands of rifles to Syria,” it stated.
The Treasury Department also identified companies that Shalan set up, such as Orient Star, and three of the business shields set up to enable his activities, and placed them under sanctions. “These are fronts for covering for illegal activity of the radical Shi’ite axis,” Beeri said, “of which Shalan is the emissary.”
According to Alma’s report, Shalan co-founded and owns 99 percent of Orient Star company, founded in 2016 – one year after Shalan was hit with American sanctions.
Orient Start’s headquarters is located on the outskirts of Damascus. The remaining 1 percent belongs to a man named Faras Nazar Sanduuk, who Alma describes as a founding partner in three other companies holding just a 1 percent stake in each.
Those three companies are under American sanctions and are controlled by Muhammad Qassem al-Bazal, a Lebanese national who is also under sanctions, and “a collaborator with Hizballah and Iran facilitating the importing of fuel,” the Alma report noted.
“According to our indications, it was Faras Sanduuk who rented out the property on the outskirts of Damascus, where Shalan’s company resides,” it added.
Ultimately, said Beeri, the Iranian Quds Forces “knows that when it says, ‘I need these weapons moved to this location,’ Shalan will enable this. He can set up the sites in a civilian area, give them code names, and implement the plan.”
IPT Senior Fellow Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He also conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks, and is the military correspondent for JNS. His book, The Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence.
*Copyright © 2021. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved.

Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/Germany’s Failed Hezbollah Ban/سورين كارين/معهد كايستون: فشل حظر حزب الله في ألمانيا…حظر الحزب الذي تم التباهي به لم يكن أكثر من مجرد حيلة دعائية هدفها إسكات منتقدي السياسة الخارجية للحكومة الألمانية الموالية لإيران.ا
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99801/soeren-kern-gatestone-institute-germanys-failed-hezbollah-ban-%d8%b3%d9%88%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%83%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86/
Germany’s Failed Hezbollah Ban
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/June 16/2021
سورين كارين/معهد كايستون: فشل حظر حزب الله في ألمانيا
In retrospect, Germany’s much-vaunted Hezbollah ban appears to have been little more than a publicity stunt aimed at silencing critics of the German government’s pro-Iran foreign policy.
بالنظر إلى الوراء ، يبدو أن حظر حزب الله الذي تم التبجح به في ألمانيا لم يكن أكثر من مجرد حيلة دعائية تهدف إلى إسكات منتقدي السياسة الخارجية للحكومة الألمانية الموالية لإيران.
Hezbollah has effectively evaded the ban by transferring many of its activities to charities and cultural centers controlled by Iran.
لقد تهرب حزب الله بشكل فعال من الحظر من خلال نقل العديد من أنشطته إلى الجمعيات الخيرية والمراكز الثقافية التي تسيطر عليها إيران.
Iran’s main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH).
قاعدة العمليات الإيرانية الرئيسية في ألمانيا هي مسجد الإمام علي الشيعي ومقره هامبورغ والمركز الإسلامي المرتبط بهامبورغ (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg، IZH).
“Like all pro-Iranian institutions, IZH is based on the model of the Islamic state of Allah and the ideas of the 1979 revolution with the aim of expanding and Islamizing the entire world. Western values, liberal ideas or the free democratic basic order are in contradiction to this. Due to the history and the animosity between Iran and Israel, the teachings of IZH have a strong anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli attitude.” — Annual Report for 2020, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hamburg branch.
“مثل جميع المؤسسات الموالية لإيران ، تستند IZH على نموذج دولة الله الإسلامية وأفكار ثورة 1979 الهادفة إلى التوسع في كل أرجاء العالم وأسلمته في حين أن هذه الأفكار والأهداف الإيرانية تتناقض كلياً مع القيم الغربية والأفكار الليبرالية والنظام الأساسي الديمقراطي الحر . وبسبب تاريخ العداء بين إيران وإسرائيل، فإن تعاليم IZH لها مواقف معادية للسامية ولإسرائيل”. (التقرير السنوي لعام 2020 ، وكالة المخابرات الداخلية الألمانية ، فرع هامبورغ.)
“Although it contains ‘democratic’ elements, this doctrine does not serve to establish the rule of the people, i.e., democracy, but rather to establish the rule of Allah, whose ‘guardians’ are Shiite Islamic scholars. Therefore, Hezbollah spreads an extremist Islamist ideology and represents a threat to the constitutional order.” — Annual Report for 2020, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, North Rhine-Westphalia branch.
وعلى الرغم من احتوائه على عناصر “ديمقراطية” ، إلا أن هذه العقيدة لا تعمل على ترسيخ حكم الشعب ، أي الديمقراطية ، وإنما ترسيخ حكم الله الذي “أولياءه” هم علماء المسلمين الشيعة ، لذلك ينشر حزب الله الفكر الإسلامي وه يمثل تهديدا للنظام الدستوري “. – (التقرير السنوي لعام 2020 ، وكالة المخابرات الداخلية الألمانية ، فرع شمال الراين – وستفاليا.)
“For Hezbollah, Germany represents a space for logistical and financial support services. Although its supporters in Germany are well networked internally, they are not very visible to the outside world because they are careful not to be openly connected with Hezbollah.” — Annual Report for 2020, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Rhineland Palatinate branch.
“بالنسبة لحزب الله تمثل ألمانيا موقعاً مهماً لخدمات الدعم اللوجستي والمالي. وعلى الرغم من أن أنصاره في ألمانيا مرتبطون جيدًا بالشبكات الداخلية، إلا أنهم ليسوا مرئيين جدًا للعالم الخارجي لأنهم حريصون على عدم الارتباط علنًا بحزب الله”. – (التقرير السنوي لعام 2020 ، وكالة المخابرات الداخلية الألمانية ، فرع راينلاند بالاتينات).
“One gets the impression that no one has really tried to completely shed light on and smash the structures of Hezbollah in Germany.” — German MP Benjamin Strasser.
“يتكون لدى المرء انطباع بأنه لم يحاول أحد بالفعل تسليط الضوء وبشكل كامل على هيكلية حزب الله في ألمانيا وتحطيمها”. – (النائب الألماني بنيامين شتراسر.)
The Hezbollah ban was in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who wanted to take a harder line against Iran and those who did not. As a result, the ban fell far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah and was apparently aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allowed Germany to claim that it had banned the group even if it had not.
كان حظر حزب الله في الواقع بمثابة حل وسط بين المشرعين الألمان الذين أرادوا اتخاذ موقف أكثر تشددًا ضد إيران وأولئك الذين لم يفعلوا ذلك. ونتيجة لذلك ، لم يرق الحظر إلى مستوى الحظر الكامل على حزب الله وكان يهدف على ما يبدو إلى تزويد الحكومة الألمانية بغطاء سياسي يسمح لألمانيا بالادعاء بأنها حظرت الجماعة حتى لو لم تفعل ذلك.
One year after Germany banned Hezbollah from operating on its soil, the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group’s presence in Germany is stronger than ever. Iran’s main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque (pictured) and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH). (Image source: Staro1/Wikimedia Commons)
بعد عام من حظر ألمانيا حزب الله من العمل على أراضيها، أصبح وجود هذه الجماعة الإرهابية الشيعية المدعومة من إيران ومقرها لبنان أقوى في ألمانيا من أي وقت مضى. أما قاعدة العمليات الإيرانية الرئيسية في ألمانيا فهي مسجد الإمام علي الشيعي ومقره هامبورغ (في الصورة) والمركز الإسلامي المرتبط بهامبورغ (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg، IZH). (مصدر الصورة: Staro1 / ويكيميديا كومنز)
One year after Germany banned Hezbollah from operating on its soil, the Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group’s presence in Germany is stronger than ever.
بعد عام من حظر ألمانيا حزب الله من العمل على أراضيها، أصبح وجود الجماعة الإرهابية الشيعية المدعومة من إيران ومقرها لبنان في ألمانيا أقوى من أي وقت مضى.
In the twelve months since the ban entered into effect, Hezbollah’s propaganda and fundraising activities in Germany have continued apace; the number of its followers in the country has increased; and the Hamburg mosque which serves as Iran’s main base of operations in Germany has gained in influence.
في الأشهر الاثني عشر ومنذ دخول الحظر حيز التنفيذ استمرت أنشطة حزب الله الدعائية وكذلك جمع الأموال في ألمانيا على قدم وساق. زاد عدد أتباعه في البلاد؛ واكتسب مسجد هامبورغ الذي يعد قاعدة العمليات الإيرانية الرئيسية في ألمانيا نفوذاً كبيراً ..
In retrospect, Germany’s much-vaunted Hezbollah ban appears to have been little more than a publicity stunt aimed at silencing critics of the German government’s pro-Iran foreign policy.
بالنظر إلى الوراء ، يبدو أن حظر حزب الله الذي تم التبجح به في ألمانيا لم يكن أكثر من مجرد حيلة دعائية تهدف إلى إسكات منتقدي السياسة الخارجية للحكومة الألمانية الموالية لإيران.
A recent annual report (Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020) by the Hamburg branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) revealed that despite the ban, which entered into effect on April 30, 2020, Hezbollah continues to operate at least 30 mosques and cultural associations in Germany.
The report added that the number of known Hezbollah followers in Germany had increased by 20% during the past year, jumping to 1,250 in 2020, up from 1,050 in 2019. The increase was attributed to improved intelligence gathering.
The report also said that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had ordered Hezbollah followers in Germany to obey German law in order to avoid drawing unwanted attention from German intelligence agencies. At the same time, Hezbollah has effectively evaded the ban by transferring many of its activities to charities and cultural centers controlled by Iran.
“Pro-Iranian institutions in Germany are assessed to be instruments of the Iranian government that represent their theocratic state doctrine,” said the report. “They represent a system of values that is incompatible with the liberal democratic basic order.”
Iran’s main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH). The report stated:
“The director position of IZH has traditionally been filled with a loyal supporter of Iranian state doctrine and Islamic revolutionary goals. He is regarded as the representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Europe and as the Iran’s religious representative to the Shiite community.
“IZH is headed by Dr. Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh…a well-trained representative of the current regime in Tehran. According to his own statements, he served as an officer with the Revolutionary Guards. Mofatteh’s family is firmly anchored in the state-religious elite of Iran. He himself held various management positions in state-controlled media outlets for many years.
“The IZH is one of the most important centers of its kind in Europe, which is used by Shiite Muslims of various nations as a central religious contact point — in addition to Iranians, above all by Afghans, Arabs, Lebanese, Pakistanis and Turks as well as German converts….
“The IZH aims to export the Islamic revolution by means of extensive public relations work. The content is formulated in a moderate way and rarely offers a target for intelligence observation. To the outside world, the IZH presents itself as a purely religious institution that does not permit any political activities. Public association or identification with the Iranian government is usually avoided. Nevertheless, the IZH’s understanding of the state and society is shaped by the primacy of religion over democracy and the rule of law.
“A number of Shiite Islamic centers and organizations exist in Germany. The IZH has established a nationwide network of contacts and exercises influence over Shiites of various nationalities as well as Shiite-Islamic mosques and associations, up to and including complete control. Through these organizations, the IZH provides financial support, among other things, for the dissemination of the Iranian ‘revolutionary idea’ in various areas of society such as religion, education and sport.”
“The IZH is represented in some Islamic umbrella organizations that currently are not being monitored by German intelligence. In Hamburg it has a leading position in the central Islamic organization Council of Islamic Communities in Hamburg (SCHURA), an amalgamation of numerous mosque-sponsoring associations. At the federal level, representatives of the IZH are active in the Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD) and in the Islamic Community of Shiite Congregations in Germany (IGS), at the European level in the Islamic-European Union of Shia Scholars and Theologians (IEUS). The IGS and IEUS are currently being monitored by German intelligence.”
A separate intelligence report (Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020) by the regional branch of the BfV in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein added:
“IZH is regarded as an important propaganda apparatus on the one hand, but also as an important interface between Iran and Germany and one of the centers of Iranian influence in Europe on the other. The head of the association is the representative of the revolutionary leader Khamenei in Europe and is accordingly appointed from Tehran.
“Like all pro-Iranian institutions, IZH is based on the model of the Islamic state of Allah and the ideas of the 1979 revolution with the aim of expanding and Islamizing the entire world. Western values, liberal ideas or the free democratic basic order are in contradiction to this. Due to the history and the animosity between Iran and Israel, the teachings of IZH have a strong anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli attitude.”
When asked why IZH was allowed to continue operating, a long-time observer of German politics told Gatestone Institute that German authorities were making a trade-off between banning the center and keeping it open so that German security agencies can keep tabs on Hezbollah’s activities in Germany.
Regional Intelligence Assessments on Hezbollah
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV), has branches in all of Germany’s 16 federal states. Following are select statements about Hezbollah from the new 2020 annual reports:
Bavaria: “The long-term goal of Hezbollah (Party of Allah) is the destruction of the State of Israel and the rule of Islam over Jerusalem. Hezbollah has been responsible for terrorist attacks in Israel for years. The group so far has not carried out any violent actions in Germany but uses our territory as a safe haven. Hezbollah activities endanger the foreign interests of Germany and are directed against the concept of international understanding.”
Bremen: “In Germany, the primary goal of Hezbollah is to promote the development of organizational structures. These include their own mosque associations, in which Hezbollah supporters organize themselves. The organization has around 1,250 supporters nationwide.”
North Rhine-Westphalia: “Hezbollah is being monitored due to its extremist aspirations. Its ideological basis is the doctrine of the ‘guardianship of the Islamic jurist’ (Welayat-e Faqih) established by Ayatollah Khomeini and implemented politically in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although it contains ‘democratic’ elements, this doctrine does not serve to establish the rule of the people, i.e., democracy, but rather to establish the rule of Allah, whose ‘guardians’ are Shiite Islamic scholars. Therefore, Hezbollah spreads an extremist Islamist ideology and represents a threat to the constitutional order.”
Rhineland-Palatinate: “For Hezbollah, Germany represents a space for logistical and financial support services. Although its supporters in Germany are well networked internally, they are not very visible to the outside world because they are careful not to be openly connected with Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah Ban Has Had No Effect
Hezbollah is also hiding its fundraising activities by using generic-sounding charities. On May 19, for instance, Germany’s Interior Ministry banned three charities — Deutsche Libanesische Familie (German-Lebanese Family), Menschen für Menschen (People for People) and Gib Frieden (Give Peace) — accused of collecting money for Hezbollah.
The entities were substitutes for a group called Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon (Orphans Project Lebanon) that was banned in Germany in 2014, after it had raised millions of euros for Hezbollah’s Shahid Foundation (Martyrs Foundation), which supports orphans of Hezbollah suicide bombers.
If the past is any guide, Hezbollah has almost certainly already found replacements for the banned entities. Nevertheless, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer sounded triumphant. “Our security authorities are wide awake,” he declared. “Those who support terrorism will not be safe in Germany. No matter what clothes their supporters appear in, they will not find a place of refuge in our country.”
Since then, however, the German government has openly admitted that the ban has not had any practical impact on Hezbollah’s activities in Germany. Responding to a parliamentary inquiry on May 31, the government said that German security authorities have not observed any emigration of Hezbollah sympathizers from Germany or a withdrawal of activists from mosque associations. The government added that Hezbollah supporters continue to maintain organizational and ideological cohesion:
“The federal government has no knowledge of any fundamental structural changes within or among the supporters of Hezbollah. As before, the supporters of Hezbollah in Germany maintain organizational and ideological cohesion in local mosque associations which are primarily financed by donations. They are therefore not networked in a uniform, nationwide structure, but are presumably looking for isolated regional meeting places, including mosque and cultural associations. These associations are not homogeneous Hezbollah associations, but contact points for Shiite Muslims, including sympathizers of Hezbollah.”
In a separate parliamentary inquiry on May 14, the government said that a considerable part of Hezbollah’s activities in Germany are being carried out “in the dark” and that German authorities were finding it “difficult” to ascertain criminal activities, a claim that has been emphatically disputed. It added:
“The individual association structures continue to exist even after the activity ban, as no organization bans have been issued in this respect. There was and is no superordinate umbrella organization of Hezbollah in Germany.”
The government also admitted that it has not confiscated any assets of Hezbollah in Germany. When asked why the Hamburg-based IZH has not been banned, the government refused to provide an answer. It also said that Hezbollah does not pose a threat to Jewish interests in Germany:
“The federal government has no reliable information about Hezbollah spying on Jewish, Israeli or American targets in Germany. According to current knowledge, the likelihood of attacks by Hezbollah in Germany is low, as this runs counter to the interests of the organization, for which Germany is more of a safe haven.”
“One gets the impression that no one has really tried to completely shed light on and smash the structures of Hezbollah in Germany,” said FDP MP Benjamin Strasser.
When a Ban Is Not Really a Ban
In April 2020, the German government, after years of equivocating and under sustained pressure from the Trump Administration, announced a ban on Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — in Germany. The ban — supported by the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, the two parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition, and also by the classical liberal Free Democrats — was hailed as “important,” “significant,” and “long overdue.”
The Hezbollah ban was, in fact, a compromise measure between German lawmakers who wanted to take a harder line against Iran and those who did not. As a result, the ban fell far short of a complete prohibition of Hezbollah and was apparently aimed at providing the German government with political cover that allowed Germany to claim that it had banned the group even if it had not.
On April 30, the German government’s Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger) reported that Hezbollah was subject to an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot), but not an organizational ban (Organisationsverbot) — an important legal distinction because the activity ban is weaker than an organizational ban.
The two-page document, which carefully avoided referring to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, prohibited the group’s logo from being displayed “in public, in meetings or in writings.” In addition, Hezbollah’s assets in Germany were to have been confiscated — which ultimately did not happen.
The ban did not call for Hezbollah mosques or cultural centers to be closed, nor did it require that members of the group be deported. The ban also did not prohibit Hezbollah operatives from travelling to Germany.
German lawmakers said that a complete ban of Hezbollah would be impossible because the group’s structures in Germany are “not currently ascertainable.”
The Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, stated:
“Hezbollah-related association structures, which could justify an organizational ban (vereinsrechtliches Organisationsverbot), are not ascertainable, despite efforts by the federal government since 2008. An organizational ban is therefore not an option due to the lack of a verifiable domestic organizational structure. However, we are free to pursue an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot) that we have also applied to other terrorist organizations that lack a demonstrable domestic organizational structure.”
The idea to ban Hezbollah in its entirety originated with Germany’s conservative party, Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), the third-largest party in the German parliament. The AfD was not pleased with the partial ban. The deputy chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Beatrix von Storch, explained:
“Six months ago, the AfD presented a resolution in the Bundestag to ban Hezbollah, a resolution which you vehemently rejected and which, since then, you have blocked in caucus. Now, six months later, you are collectively rushing through the door that we have politically opened. If this would happen with more AfD proposals, Germany would be in a much better place….
“Nevertheless, your resolution has two central weaknesses. The first weakness is that you are asking for only an activity ban (Betätigungsverbot). We want a specific organizational ban (Organisationsverbot). According to the Crime Fighting Law (Verbrechensbekämpfungsgesetz) of 1994, the activity ban is the weaker legal means when compared to an organizational ban. There is no reason in the world why you would fight a terrorist organization with the weaker means and not the stronger. You are making a loud bark, but you are not biting.
“The second fundamental weakness of your resolution is your justification for using the weaker means. You write, and I quote, ‘Hezbollah-related association structures, which could justify an organizational ban (vereinsrechtliches Organisationsverbot), are not ascertainable.’ That is objectively false, as confirmed by the 2017 and 2018 annual reports of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV). The 2018 report states, and I quote, ‘In Germany, Hezbollah followers maintain organizational and ideological cohesion, among other things, in local mosque associations, which are primarily financed by donations.’ Do you even read your own intelligence reports? In case it is too long for you to read, it is located on page 214. Just check it!
“If you do not want to touch Hezbollah’s mosque associations, then this resolution is pure symbolism politics (Symbolpolitik), and symbolism politics cannot continue. What is needed is the complete ban of Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s propaganda and terror financing in Germany must be stopped. The mosque associations that exist must be disbanded, and most importantly, Hezbollah supporters must be deported. This, by the way, is also demanded by the Bundestag’s Anti-Semitism Resolution, which expressly calls for the deportation of supporters of anti-Semitism. If this does not apply to supporters of Hezbollah, which wants to send Jews to the gas chambers, and wants to destroy Israel, then to whom could it apply?”
At the time, German security expert Stefan Schubert wrote that Germany’s partial ban on Hezbollah reflected a lack of political will to crack down on the group. He also predicted that the ban will likely have only a very small impact on Hezbollah’s activities in Germany:
“Today’s completely late action by the federal government is primarily a symbolic gesture. If the government were really serious about annihilating Hezbollah in Germany, it should have established a special commission and provided the security authorities with financial and human resources to identify and dismantle the group nationwide.”
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 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.
***Picture Enclosed/Iran’s main base of operation in Germany is the Hamburg-based Shiite Imam Ali Mosque (pictured) and the associated Islamic Centre of Hamburg (Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH). (Image source: Staro1/Wikimedia Commons)

Lebanon’s crisis threatens one of its few unifiers, the army
The Associated Press, Beirut/16 June ,2021
Since the civil war, through wars with Israel, militant bombings and domestic turmoil, Lebanese have considered their military as an anchor for stability, one of the only institutions standing above the country’s divisions. But the military is now threatened by Lebanon’s devastating financial collapse, one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years, according to the World Bank. The economic meltdown is putting unprecedented pressure on the US-backed army’s operational abilities, wiping out soldiers’ salaries and wrecking morale. The deterioration puts at risk one of the few forces unifying Lebanon at a time when sectarian tensions and crime are on the rise amid the population’s deepening poverty. “Such a decline could be harbinger of the kinds of instability not seen since the last time Lebanon’s political elites gutted or set adrift the Lebanese armed forces, namely in the five years leading up to the 1975-1990 civil war,” said Aram Nerguizian, senior adviser of the Program on Civil-Military Affairs in Arab States at the Carnegie Middle East Center. The military itself has raised the alarm, unusual for a force that is perhaps unique in the Middle East in that it largely remains outside politics. Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun warned in a speech to officers in March that soldiers were “suffering and hungry like the rest of the people.”
He also openly criticized the political leadership, which has been paralyzed by infighting and has done almost nothing to address the crisis. “What are you waiting for? What do you plan to do? We have warned more than once of the dangers of the situation,” he said — a startling comment since army officers are not allowed to make political statements.
A senior army official confirmed to The Associated Press that the economic situation has greatly affected morale. “There is no doubt that there is great resentment among the ranks of the military,” the official said. The official noted that “many duties are demanded of the military,” including maintaining internal stability. “The leadership is worried over developments in the security situation on the ground and the ability to deal with this issue,” the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Supporting the army is crucial to avoid Lebanon falling into chaos, he added.
France is convening a virtual fundraising conference Thursday seeking emergency aid, after army chief Aoun visited Paris last month pleading for assistance. France warned that Lebanon’s military “may no longer be able to fully implement their missions which are essential to the country’s stability.” The US, the army’s largest backer, has pledged to increase aid in 2021.
The military in part counterbalances Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia faction that boasts a powerful armed force as well as political dominance. Nerguizian warned that degradation of the military would allow Hezbollah to loom even larger -- an outcome few outside Lebanon, particularly in Washington, want to see materialize.
It could also open the door for countries like Russia, China, Iran or Syria to co-opt the force and find ways to influence it. After decades of corruption and mismanagement by the political elite, Lebanon’s economy began to disintegrate in October 2019. The once-thriving banking sector has collapsed, and the currency has lost around 90 percent of its value to the dollar on the black market. More than half the nation has been plunged into poverty. Equally hit are the 80,000 members of the military. Before the crisis, an enlisted soldier earned the equivalent of about $800 a month, but that has now dropped to less than $100 per month. Officers’ salaries are higher but have also dropped in value, now about $400 a month. The army has tightened spending. A year ago, it announced it would stop offering meat in meals given to soldiers on duty. It still offers free medical treatment, but those in the force say the quality and effectiveness has sharply deteriorated.
“Morale is below the ground,” said a 24-year-old soldier who quit the force in March after five years of service. He said that by the time he left, the 1.2 million Lebanese pounds salary he received was barely enough for food, cigarettes and transportation. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Mohammad Olayan, who retired two years ago after more than 27 years in the military, told The Associated Press that his end-of-service pay has been wiped out by the crash. Instead of a decent retirement, he now must take odd jobs to sustain his 12-year-old twin girls. “What incentive is there for young soldiers?” he asked. “I sacrificed so much for my country and look how I ended up because of this mafia,” he said, referring to politicians.
Nerguizian said that while overall cases of desertion remain relatively low, the force has seen increased instances of dereliction of duty, high AWOL rates and more moonlighting by personnel to augment salaries. The last three years have also seen some of the largest attrition rates, with personnel choosing to leave the military, he said. “More worryingly, the force is losing quality officers and noncommissioned officers - the gray matter and capabilities the force has spent more than a decade and a half developing,” Nerguizian added.
After Lebanon’s 15-year civil war broke out in 1975, the army split along sectarian lines. It reunited in the early 1990s under the command of Gen. Emile Lahoud, who later became the president.
Since then, it has become one of the most professional militaries in the Middle East. The US has given it more than $2 billion since 2007, hoping to build a bulwark against Hezbollah’s power — though the aid is far below the around $3 billion a year it gives to Israel’s military. The military is also one of the few state institutions that enjoy respect among the Lebanese public, in contrast to their politicians, so mired in infighting they haven’t been able to form a government since October. During anti-government demonstrations that swept the country in late 2019, videos of soldiers overcome by emotion as they confronted protesters were widely shared on social media. Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese army general who is currently a researcher in military affairs, said he did not believe the collapse scenario is now possible.
“This is not an army’s crisis but a country’s crisis. In the past there were major security problems that affected the army and led to its disintegration,” he said, referring to the civil war. “That is not the case today.”

A Military Lifeline/Interview With Aram Nerguzian Focuses on the conference to be held this week to discuss support for Lebanon’s armed forces.
Michael Youn/Carnegie/June 16, 2021
Aram Nerguizian is senior advisor of the Program on Civil-Military Relations in Arab States at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, where his work focuses on the Lebanese security sector, long-term force transformation in the Levant, and efforts to develop national security institutions in post-conflict and divided societies. In anticipation of a conference convened by France on June 17 to support the Lebanese armed forces, which has suffered at a time of unprecedented financial and economic crisis in Lebanon, Diwan interviewed Nerguizian to get his perspective on what is at play, and where the armed forces are today.
Michael Young: What are the main objectives of the conference this week to support the Lebanese armed forces?
Aram Nerguizian: Unlike past multilateral engagements (Rome I and II) to support the development and professionalization of the Lebanese armed forces (LAF), the focus of the conference—organized in coordination with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon—is centered on finding ways to bolster the cohesion, resilience, and stability of the LAF, and eventually of the Internal Security Forces as well, in the face of unprecedented fiscal and financial pressures on the Lebanese national defense budget.
This conference builds on high-level bilateral engagements between the LAF and the United States, namely the inaugural U.S.-Lebanon Defense Resourcing Conference in May 2021, as well as on meetings between the LAF and the United Kingdom in October 2020 and the LAF and France in May 2021, that were focused primarily on bolstering the cohesion and stability of the LAF.
The Paris conference is meant to prompt partner nations to think creatively about how to help the LAF through 2021, but also in ways that allow the command of the armed forces to focus on its missions—border security, counterterrorism, internal stability—as opposed to fighting a singular battle to maintain the LAF’s stability, with no real Lebanese government assistance.
MY: Can you describe the current pressures faced by the military?
AN: Lebanon’s continued decline in basic governance, the absence of any positive movement in terms of an economic course-correction, and the continued deterioration of the Lebanese pound have placed unprecedented stress on the LAF’s operational capabilities and severely curtailed the living and working conditions of personnel and their family networks and dependents.
According to LAF internal estimates, the devaluation of the pound over the 2019–2021 period has led to a 94.5 percent decrease in the budget for expenses tied to the procurement of essential equipment; an 88.6 percent decline in funding for operational maintenance; and an 87 percent reduction in the U.S. dollar equivalent value of personnel expenditures.
Lebanese defense spending on military personnel—which has been broadly stable between LL2,467 billion and LL2,501 billion over the 2018 to 2021 timeframe—is useful to illustrate the challenge. In 2019, the LAF spent the pound equivalent of $1.655 billion on personnel. The decline in the value of the pound in 2020 meant that wages and other benefits became the equivalent of $332.4 million, at an average rate of LL7,500 = $1.00. That decline has continued into 2021 with LAF personnel expenditures being worth $208.4 million based on preliminary assumptions of LL12,000 = $1.00.
While the overall cases of desertion remain relatively low, the LAF has seen increased instances of dereliction of duty, moonlighting by military personnel to augment a monthly salary that for many junior officers has gone from $2,000 to $200, and an increase in the number of incidents of personnel being absent without leave. Separately, the last three years have seen some of the largest attrition rates in the LAF in terms of personnel choosing to leave the force. Starting in 2019—and for the first time since 2007—the LAF saw more personnel leave the institution than join it. The LAF was reduced by 2,263 in 2019, 1,578 in 2020, and 580 as of the first quarter of 2021.
What matters is that the LAF is losing quality officers and noncommissioned officers, the gray matter and capabilities the institution has spent more than a decade and a half developing. If this continues and there are no means of retaining critical talent and capabilities, it signals the entropy and possible decline of what has become one of the Arab world’s most capable militaries. Such a decline could be a harbinger of the kinds of instability not seen since the last time Lebanon’s political elites gutted or set adrift the LAF, namely in the five years leading up to the 1975–1990 civil war.
MY: What kinds of aid should friendly nations be offering to the Lebanese military in terms of support?
AN: Some countries have easier procedures and laws governing the provision of direct financial support than others. Some countries, such as Egypt and Iraq, are better positioned to give in-kind aid in terms of food stocks, medical supplies, and fuel. Other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, have the resources, but would have to realign their interests back to support for the LAF, an idea that has been cast aside for more than five years.
There is little doubt that the actor that will make the most critical difference is the United States. The U.S. has bumped up Lebanon’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) account by $15 million to $120 million for FY2021. This will take significant pressure off the LAF’s now nonexistent acquisition and maintenance budgets. The U.S. is also poised to provide some $59 million Section 1226 funding to the LAF. Section 1226 is a Defense Department funding authority that has enabled the U.S. government to reimburse key partner states—especially Lebanon and Jordan—for border security and counterterrorism operations. Section 1226 is unique as it is currently the only mechanism through which the U.S. government can directly transfer funds to a partner nation. Funds under FMF and other programs are held in the U.S. and debited by the U.S. government to pay for systems, training, and spare parts for partners.
It stands to reason that if the LAF is doing its part as a recipient of Section 1226 funding—as it did in 2017 against the so-called Islamic State, which led to a $48 million reimbursement in 2018—then the U.S. government would have an easier time justifying the deployment of such funds to support the LAF. Things the LAF can do to help in that case would include counter-smuggling efforts along the border with Syria, sustaining the counter-Islamic State effort, continuing to use good judgement in the use of force in internal stability operations, and engaging in good faith in tripartite maritime demarcation talks with Israel and the United Nations.
Meanwhile, countries such as the United Kingdom and France have far more limited discretionary funding available to support the LAF. However, where they—along with the U.S. and Egypt—can play a critical role is in framing to other potential partners such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates the strategic significance of preventing the further degradation of the LAF—a degradation that only benefits actors such as the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which would loom even larger in Lebanese national security politics.
MY: What are the U.S. priorities tied to the LAF and is there a concern that if these are not addressed, the deteriorating conditions might open the door to Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah?
AN: For Washington, Lebanon is a unique case of a fragile state in which a national military has improved almost at an inverse rate to the central government. The main takeaways from a U.S. perspective are that the U.S. is actively working with the LAF (not the Lebanese government, there is a distinction) to think creatively about how to help bridge the budget crisis through to 2022; that the U.S. government continues to see critical value in the LAF as a stabilizing actor that itself needs to remain stable; and the reality that if Washington is not an active partner in trying to preserve the LAF’s cohesion and integrity, there is a real risk that internal sectarian actors could really start to damage and coopt the LAF, or worse that countries such as Iran, Russia, or Syria could do so.
In absolute terms, the LAF has, does, and will continue to see itself as a U.S. and NATO-centric military working constantly to increase its interoperability with the U.S. and NATO. The last thing it needs is any type of relation with, or aid from, countries such as Russia, China, Iran, or Syria that may threaten that upward trajectory. The LAF has also actively pushed back against the Free Patriotic Movement of Gebran Bassil and Hezbollah when it comes to these parties’ efforts to influence its internal decisionmaking. So far, those efforts have been successful, albeit costly to the LAF’s leadership.
MY: What do you see as potential “wild cards” in assisting the LAF?
AN: The first wild card is assisting the LAF in ways that do not create an LAF “gilded class” relative to the rest of the Lebanese population. Popular support for the institution comes from the perception that the LAF draws its ranks from salt-of-the-earth communities across Lebanon, and that it is sharing in the suffering of the population. This means that donors and partners will need to think of other ways in parallel to support the wider mix of Lebanese who are watching from the sidelines. Failing to do so will risk eroding the Lebanese public’s faith in the LAF, and any erosion of such faith ultimately makes the institution’s job of preserving Lebanese stability and territorial integrity that much more difficult.
Second, the LAF will face an unprecedented challenge in showing transparency and accountability when it comes to the support of key donors and partners. The LAF’s command may find itself receiving everything from in-kind aid to transfers of hard foreign currency. The armed forces believe that U.S. support under Section 1226 will prove especially critical in getting the force through to 2022. All the more reason for the command to be proactively public in showcasing what aid it is getting, and when it receives a major cash transfer explaining how it intends to responsibly allocate those funds.
Third, the LAF runs the risk of becoming even more dependent on foreign aid than it already is. Critically, plans to aid the LAF in 2021—as in the case of U.S. Section 1226 funds—are likely to be a one-time arrangement, and that kind of critical aid might not be around in future fiscal cycles. Ultimately, the LAF and the Lebanese will need to focus on the chronic defunding of the LAF’s acquisition and procurement budget, and the need to right-size current spending on personnel. This may lead to a larger debate about what kind of LAF Lebanon should be able to support in terms of scale and scope, but getting to sustainable Lebanese defense economics will be critical if the LAF’s current dependence on foreign aid is to be kept in check.
The fourth key challenge will be how the LAF manages and maintains its ties to its Western partners. There is growing concern among Western donors that the LAF’s command might lapse in appointing the right people in positions that will be critical to maintaining the institution’s positive momentum. There are also concerns with what the implications might be of appointing officers with sympathetic views of Hezbollah, Russia, China, or Iran. The timing here is key as the LAF recently received ammunition from Russia and some 100 light duty vehicles from China. Any potential drift would hurt the LAF’s ties to the United States, its most critical partner , and embolden Lebanon-skeptics in the U.S.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 16-17/2021
US, Russia to return ambassadors to their posts, Putin says after meeting Biden
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/16 June ,2021
Washington and Moscow agreed Wednesday to return their ambassadors to their posts after the US and Russia withdrew their envoys in recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. The agreement was reached during the long-awaited meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, held in Geneva. While White House officials previously said they expected the meetings would take close to four hours, the summit meetings finished earlier. The US and Russia also adopted a joint declaration that will look at ways to prevent a nuclear war, Russia's Interfax news agency reported after the meeting. During his press conference, Putin sidestepped questions about why his political opponents continue to be jailed, killed and silenced. As for cyberattacks on US companies and government institutions, Putin distanced himself and the Kremlin from any role. Instead, he accused the US-based hackers of being behind most of the world's cyberattacks. However, the Russian president did not provide any evidence or proof to back his claim. Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to Washington is expected to be back in the US by the end of June, according to Russia's deputy foreign minister. US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan left Moscow earlier this year after the Kremlin recommended he leave for consultations with Biden administration officials. The move came after Biden called Putin a killer, and both countries slapped one another with their own sanctions.

Russia’s Putin says satisfied with Biden explanation for calling him a ‘killer’
Reuters/16 June ,2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that US President Joe Biden had phoned him to explain why he had called him “a killer” in March and that the explanation he had offered had satisfied Putin. Putin was speaking at a news conference after a summit with Biden in Geneva. Biden in an ABC News interview broadcast in March said “I do” when asked if he believed Putin was a killer. That prompted Russia to recall its Washington ambassador for consultations, and the US ambassador to Moscow returned home for consultations later too. Biden and Putin agreed to return their ambassadors at Wednesday’s summit. “As regards those sharp declarations what can I say, we’re all familiar with them,” said Putin, referring to Biden’s ABC interview. “President Biden phoned me afterwards and we exchanged views on the subject. These explanations suited me,” said Putin. The Russian leader went on to list what he said he regarded as numerous human rights violations by US authorities and accused the US military of being responsible for the murder of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Who takes responsibility for that?,” said Putin. “Who is the murderer?”

Iran election: Khamenei says high turnout would reduce external pressures
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/16 June ,2021
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged Iranians on Wednesday to vote in the country’s presidential election on Friday, saying there is a direct correlation between voter turnout and external pressures on the Islamic Republic. “If people’s participation is reduced, the pressure from the enemy increases … if we want to reduce the pressures and sanctions, the people’s participation must increase and the popular support the regime enjoys must be shown to the enemy,” Khamenei said in a televised speech. Khamenei said all Iranians, regardless of their political preferences, should vote on Friday. He accused US and British media of working to discourage Iranians from voting and trying to undermine the election. Turnout is expected to be a record low amid growing public discontent. Three out of the seven candidates approved to run dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday: former vice president and only reformist in the vote Mohsen Mehralizadeh; conservative lawmaker Alireza Zakani; and former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, also a conservative. While Mehralizadeh did not publicly endorse any candidate, his withdrawal was seen as an effort aimed at boosting the chances of former Central Bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, who is considered a “moderate” compared with the other candidates. Some reformist groups have endorsed Hemmati. Zakani and Jalili, on the other hand, said they pulled out of the race in favor of judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, who is seen as the favorite to succeed the incumbent President Hassan Rouhani. Raisi, 60, is frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Khamenei, and an election win could increase his chances of becoming Iran’s next supreme leader. Raisi was appointed by Khamenei in 2019 as head of the judiciary, one of the most powerful positions within the Iranian establishment. The senior judge was one of the main perpetrators of Iran’s mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, rights groups say. Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions and Raisi himself has never publicly addressed the allegations against him. In 2019, the US sanctioned Raisi for human rights abuses, including the 1980s executions. The other two remaining candidates, besides Raisi and Hemmati, are former head of the Revolutionary Guards and current secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council Mohsen Rezaei and conservative lawmaker Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi.

GCC says Iran missile program should be addressed in nuclear talks
Reuters/16 June ,2021
Gulf Arab states said on Wednesday it would be dangerous to separate global powers’ nuclear deal with Iran from Tehran’s missile programme and “destabilising” behaviour, and reiterated a call that they be included in the dialogue. World powers and Iran entered a sixth round of talks in Vienna on Saturday to revive the 2015 nuclear pact which Saudi Arabia and its allies opposed for not tackling their concerns, and which the United States abandoned in 2018. Tehran has opposed any attempt to add other issues to the deal, under which it agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions. US President Joe Biden wants to restore the deal abandoned by his predecessor Donald Trump. Gulf Arab foreign ministers urged the powers to secure a deal with stronger restrictions and a longer duration, and to “link it with practical steps to build trust” in order to prevent an arms race and further conflict in the region. In a statement following a meeting in Riyadh, they said Gulf states should be involved in global negotiations with Tehran and were ready to “cooperate and deal seriously and effectively with the Iranian nuclear file ... on the basis of respect for sovereignty and good neighbourliness”.The statement stressed “the danger of separating implications of the nuclear deal” from Iran’s missiles programme and support for regional proxies, and urged Tehran to engage seriously with talks and avoid escalations.

Iran hardliners to retain hold on economy, foreign policy after election
Reuters/16 June ,2021
An expected win for a hardliner in Iran’s presidential election on Friday is unlikely to slow its bid to revive a nuclear deal and break free of sanctions, with ruling clerics aware their political fortunes rely on tackling worsening economic hardship. Victory for a security hawk such as Ebrahim Raisi would allow the new government to claim credit for any economic benefits arising from the revival of the 2015 nuclear accord, something the outgoing administration may agree in coming weeks. A revived pact would likely see a lifting of tough US curbs that have slashed vital oil exports, with fresh revenues starting to flow early in a new government’s term. At the same time, a deeply anti-Western government might be reluctant to dial back Iran’s regional rivalry with US-allied Gulf Arab states, unless ordered to do so by the country’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Raisi, a hardline judge, appears the favorite in the five-man race, thanks to support he enjoys from Khamenei. Raisi has voiced support for Iran’s nuclear talks with world powers. Will Iran change its stance in nuclear talks? Unlikely. Khamenei, not the president, has the last say on Iran’s nuclear and foreign policies. With economic misery palpable at home, Iran’s rulers cannot risk starting the talks from scratch after the election. Iran is negotiating with six major powers to revive a nuclear deal abandoned in 2018 by then US President Donald Trump, who argued it was too soft on Tehran. Under the deal Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions. Trump reimposed sanctions that have squeezed Tehran’s oil income and have shut it out of the international banking system. If and when a deal is reinstated, Iran expects to be freed from most US sanctions. Like Khamenei, Raisi has endorsed the talks, but the mid-ranking cleric says a “powerful government should implement it.” A restoration of ties with the United States, which Iran’s rulers have called the “Great Satan” since taking power in a 1979 revolution, remains out of the question.
Will a new president alter economic policy?
Whoever wins, breaking free of the toughest US sanctions will remain the top economic goal. For hardliners, even as they anticipate victory for one of their own on Friday, the economy remains their Achilles heel. From core supporters of the establishment to working-class Iranians and business elites, all are feeling the impact of galloping inflation and rising joblessness to varying degrees. Iran’s clerics fear a revival of street protests that have erupted across the country since 2017. Officials acknowledge the authorities are vulnerable to anger over worsening poverty. “Raisi’s main challenge will be the economy. Eruption of protests will be inevitable if he fails to heal the nation’s economic pain,” said a government official.
Candidates have promised to create jobs and end the fall in the value of the rial. But none have issued detailed plans. Prices of basic goods like bread and rice rise daily. Meat is too dear for many, costing the equivalent of $40 for a kilogram. The minimum monthly wage equates to about $215. Inflation is expected to rise to 39 percent this year from 36.5 percent last year, while unemployment will rise to 11.2 percent this year from 10.8 percent in 2020, the IMF has estimated. Will oil policy change? The goal will remain to free oil exports from sanctions.Sanctions have cost Iran billions of dollars in oil income and lost market share in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, largely to regional rival Saudi Arabia. Industry analysts say if sanctions are lifted Tehran could raise crude output from the current 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) to a pre-sanctions level of 3.8 million bpd within months.But the global transition to lower carbon fuels, combined with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on energy demand, makes Iran a less attractive market for many energy majors. While some European refiners have shown interest in buying Iranian crude when sanctions are lifted, not many Western oil firms have publicly expressed willingness to invest in Iran. Russian oil and gas producer Lukoil said earlier this month that it would be interested in returning to Iran if sanctions against the country are lifted.
Will Iran change its regional policy?
This is not clear, and in any case the top authority in foreign policy is Khamenei, not the president. Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors want an end to Tehran’s push for dominance in the region, where it competes with rival Saudi Arabia for influence from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Bahrain. “Regional policy is firmly under the control of Khamenei and the IRGC ... meaning there will likely be broad consistency (after the election),” said Eurasia Group analyst Henry Rome, referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Riyadh believes any revival of the 2015 accord should be a starting point for discussions to curb Iran’s missile program, one of the biggest in the Middle East. At the same time, Riyadh has held direct talks with Iran to try to contain tensions. “Iran might score a win if issues pressed by Riyadh and its allies, such as Tehran’s missile program and its proxies, are not included in the nuclear pact,” said Salah Nasrawi, an expert on Middle East politics.

Election of hardliner to tighten Khamenei’s grip on Iran
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
TEHRAN - Iranians elect a new president on Friday in a race dominated by hardline candidates close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with popular anger over economic hardship and curbs on freedoms set to keep many pro-reform Iranians at home. The front-runner in a carefully-vetted field is Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge seen by analysts and insiders as representing the security establishment at its most fearsome. But the authorities’ hopes for a high turnout and a boost to their legitimacy may be disappointed, as official polls suggest only about 40% of over 59 million eligible Iranians will vote. Critics of the government attribute that prospect to anger over an economy devastated by US sanctions and a lack of voter choice, after a hardline election body barred heavyweight moderate and conservative candidates from standing. The race to succeed President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist, will be between five hardliners who embrace Khamenei’s strongly anti-Western world view, including Raisi and former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and two low-key moderates. The limited choice of candidates reflects the political demise of Iran’s pragmatist politicians, weakened by Washington’s decision to quit a 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions in a move that stifled rapprochement with the West. “They have aligned sun, moon and the heavens to make one particular person the president,” said moderate candidate Mohsen Mehralizadeh in a televised election debate. While the establishment’s core supporters will vote, hundreds of dissidents, both at home and abroad, have called for a boycott, including opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, under house arrest since 2011. “I will stand with those who are tired of humiliating and engineered elections and who will not give in to behind-the-scenes, stealthy and secretive decisions,” Mousavi said in a statement, according to the opposition Kalameh website. Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karoubi ran for election in 2009. They became figureheads for pro-reform Iranians who staged mass protests after the vote was won by a hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a contest they believed was rigged.
Bleak record
If judiciary chief Raisi wins Friday’s vote, it could increase the mid-ranking Shi’ite cleric’s chances of eventually succeeding Khamenei, who himself served two terms as president before becoming supreme leader. Rights groups have criticised Raisi, who lost to Rouhani in the 2017 election, for his role as a judge in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Raisi was appointed as head of the judiciary in 2019 by Khamenei. However, Iranians do not rule out the unexpected. In the 2005 presidential vote, Ahmadinejad, a blacksmith’s son and former Revolutionary Guard, was not prominent when he defeated powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, largely seen beforehand as the frontrunner. “(Saeed) Jalili’s chances to surprise us should not be underestimated,” said Tehran-based analyst Saeed Leylaz. nAlthough publicly Khamenei has favoured no candidate, analysts said he would prefer a firm loyalist like Raisi or Jalili as president. The election is unlikely to bring major change to Iran’s foreign and nuclear policies, already set by Khamenei. But a hardline president could strengthen Khamenei’s hand at home. Iran’s devastated economy is also an important factor.
To win over voters preoccupied by bread-and-butter issues, candidates have promised to create millions of jobs, tackle inflation and hand cash to lower-income Iranians. However, they have yet to say how these promises would be funded. All candidates back talks between Iran and world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear deal and remove sanctions. But moderate candidate Abdolnaser Hemmati said hardliners sought tension with the West, while conglomerates they control rake in large sums by circumventing sanctions. “What will happen if the hardliners come to power? More sanctions with more world unanimity,” Hemmati, who served as central bank chief until May, said in a televised debate.

Palestinian Shot Dead by Israelis in West Bank after Alleged Attack
Agence France Presse/June 16/2021
A Palestinian woman was shot dead in the West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said, with the Israeli army saying she had tried to ram soldiers with a car. The Israeli army said "an assailant arrived in her car and attempted to ram into a number of IDF soldiers" near Hizma, south of Ramallah, before she "exited her vehicle with a knife drawn." "The soldiers responded with fire towards the assailant and neutralized her," it said. The Palestinian health ministry said the woman died of her wounds. "The Palestinian civil liaison informed the health ministry of the death of a woman shot by (Israeli forces) in Hizma," it said in a statement, citing the organization that coordinates with Israel on military and civilian issues concerning the occupied West Bank. Official Palestinian news website Wafa identified the woman as Mai Afana, 29, from the town of Abu Dis, which is east of Jerusalem. Her family rejected claims she had launched an attack. "According to the information we have, Mai took this road by mistake, and did not attempt to carry out an attack as claimed by the occupation (Israeli forces)," her uncle Hani Afana told AFP. "Mai had recently graduated from a Jordanian university, had a four-year-old daughter, and had no problems," he said, adding he wanted the circumstances of her death to be investigated. The incident came amid fresh tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel carried out air strikes early Wednesday targeting what it described as Hamas military compounds in the Gaza Strip after people in the Palestinian territory launched incendiary balloons at southern Israel. The balloons, which Israel said caused over 20 fires, were sent in the wake of a march by ultranationalist Israelis in Jerusalem's flashpoint Old City on Tuesday. It was the first flare-up in violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since a May 21 ceasefire ended 11 days of heavy fighting between the two sides. Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip between May 10 to 21 killed 260 Palestinians including some fighters, the Gaza authorities said. In Israel, 13 people were killed in the fighting, including a soldier, by rockets and missiles fired from Gaza, the police and army said.

Israel strikes Hamas sites over fire balloons, after ‘March of Flags’
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
GAZA/TEL AVIV – Israeli aircraft struck Hamas sites in Gaza on Wednesday after incendiary balloons were launched from the Palestinian enclave in the first such attacks since a fragile ceasefire ended 11 days of deadly fighting last month.
The violence poses an early test for the government of new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, whose patchwork coalition came to power on Sunday on a pledge to focus on socioeconomic issues and avoid sensitive policy choices towards the Palestinians.
An Egyptian-mediated truce that halted fighting between Israel and Gaza militants did not immediately appear to be threatened by the flare-up, with the overnight Israeli airstrikes giving way to calm by morning. Al Arabiya TV channel reported Wednesday that the Bennett government called on Egypt to help keep the situation under control. There were no reports of casualties on either side. The overnight violence follows a march in East Jerusalem on Tuesday by Jewish ultra-nationalists that had drawn threats of action by Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza. Israel’s military said its aircraft attacked Hamas armed compounds in Gaza City and the southern town of Khan Younis and was “ready for all scenarios, including renewed fighting in the face of continued terrorist acts emanating from Gaza”. The military said the strikes came in response to the launching of balloons laden with incendiary material, which the Israeli fire brigade reported caused 20 blazes in open fields in communities near the Gaza border. A Hamas spokesman, confirming the Israeli attacks, said Palestinians would continue to pursue their “brave resistance and defend their rights and sacred sites” in Jerusalem.
But analysts suggested Hamas refrained from firing rockets around the march and after the Israeli strikes to avoid an escalation in Gaza, which was devastated by May’s aerial bombardment. “It (the ceasefire) is very fragile. The current calm may give the Egyptians a chance to try and cement it,” said Talal Okal, an analyst in Gaza.Israel’s Army Radio reported that Israel had informed Egyptian mediators that direct Hamas involvement in the balloon launch would imperil long-term truce talks. Israeli officials did not immediately confirm the report.
Jerusalem flashpoint
Hours before the overnight strikes, thousands of Israeli far-right nationalists marched in a flag-waving procession through East Jerusalem on Tuesday, an event that reignited tensions with Palestinians and posed an early challenge to Israel’s new government. Last month, Israeli-Palestinian confrontations in contested Jerusalem helped trigger 11 days of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group. On Tuesday, Israeli police in riot gear and on horseback cordoned off areas leading to the walled Old City’s flashpoint Damascus Gate, clearing the area to Palestinians before the marchers arrived. Dancing and singing “the people of Israel live”, the crowd of mostly religious Jews, many carrying blue and white Israeli flags, filled the plaza in front of the gate, usually a popular social gathering spot for Palestinians. Israel, which occupied East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and later annexed it against UN resolutions, regards the entire city as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that would include the West Bank and Gaza. At least 27 Palestinians were injured in clashes in East Jerusalem with Israeli police firing stun grenades, the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service said. But the violence was not as extensive as many had feared. In an apparent effort to avoid friction with Palestinians during the march, a police-charted route kept participants from going through the Damascus Gate, the main entry to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and home to shrines sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The marchers took a more peripheral route instead to Judaism’s sacred Western Wall, singing nationalist songs that echoed in alleyways where Palestinian merchants had shuttered their shops. Yair Lapid, Bennett’s foreign minister and main partner in the governing coalition that ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister, condemned chants of “Death to the Arabs” from some of the marchers. “That’s not Judaism, and that’s not being Israeli, and it is certainly not what our flag symbolises,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. Tuesday’s march was originally scheduled for May 10 as part of “Jerusalem Day” festivities that celebrate Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. At the last minute, that march was diverted away from the Damascus Gate and the Muslim Quarter, but the move was not enough to dissuade Hamas from firing rockets towards Jerusalem.

Arab League calls for international role in Nile Dam dispute
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
CAIRO/DUBAI--Arab states are calling on the UN Security Council to discuss the dispute over Ethiopia’s plan to fill a giant dam it is building on the Blue Nile, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said after a foreign ministers’ meeting.
Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the huge dam. Egypt relies on the river for as much as 90% of its fresh water and sees the dam as a potentially existential threat. Sudan is concerned about the operation of its own Nile dams and water stations. The ministers, meeting in Qatar, agreed on “steps to be taken gradually” to support Egypt and Sudan in the dispute, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the subsequent news conference, without giving details. “There is a unified Arab position,” the Qatari minister added. “Water security is about survival for mankind and for the peoples of Sudan and Egypt.”The Arab states called on parties to negotiate seriously and refrain from any unilateral steps that would harm other countries, he added, in an apparent reference to Ethiopia’s plan to complete the second phase of filling the dam in the rainy season.
Sudan and Egypt had already agreed this month to work together to push Ethiopia to negotiate on an agreement on filling and operating the dam, after African Union-sponsored talks remained deadlocked. The two countries, which are downstream from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, called on the international community to intervene. Aboul Gheit described the water security of Egypt and Sudan as an integral part of Arab national security. Ethiopia previously has rejected calls from Egypt and Sudan to involve mediators outside the African Union. Sudan on Monday said it was open to a partial interim agreement on the multi-billion-dollar dam, with specific conditions. An agreement would spell out how the dam is operated and filled, based on international law and norms governing cross-border rivers. The dam is now 80% complete and is expected to reach full generating capacity in 2023, making it Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant and the world’s seventh-largest, according to reports in Ethiopia’s state media. The dispute now centres on how quickly Ethiopia should fill and replenish the reservoir and how much water it releases downstream in case of a multi-year drought.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first such gathering of Arab states that Qatar has hosted since Saudi Arabia and its allies imposed a boycott on Doha in mid-2017 over accusations that Qatar supported terrorism, a charge it denies. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt agreed in January to restore diplomatic, trade and travel ties with Doha.

Israel Hit by More 'Arson Balloons' after Striking Gaza
Agence France Presse/June 16/2021.
Palestinian militants again launched incendiary balloons from Gaza Wednesday, hours after Israeli strikes in response to earlier cross-border fire attacks, the first flare-up since hundreds were killed in last month's conflict. The air strikes on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza were the first under Israel's new government headed by Naftali Bennett, whose ideologically disparate coalition on Sunday ousted long-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A fire department spokesman told AFP that teams were tackling "four fires started by balloons launched Wednesday afternoon from the Gaza Strip", marking a second consecutive day of such fires. Tensions also rose again in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army said they shot a Palestinian woman, alleging she had attempted to ram soldiers with a car and then stab them. The renewed violence came a day after Jewish ultranationalist demonstrators poured into Jerusalem's flashpoint Old City, where scores of police clashed with Palestinians to clear a route for the procession. Tensions in east Jerusalem, culminating in Israeli police repeatedly clashing with Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, were the trigger for last month's 11-day conflict between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and Israel. The Israeli military said that in response to "arson balloons" sent into Israel on Tuesday, its "fighter jets struck military compounds belonging to the Hamas terror organization" early Wednesday. There was no indication of any casualties. Israel's military added that it was "prepared for any scenario, including a resumption of hostilities," in the event of further attacks from Gaza.
'Lessons learnt'
The violence is the first between Israel and Hamas since a ceasefire took effect on May 21, ending 11 days of heavy fighting that killed 260 Palestinians including some fighters, according to Gaza authorities. In Israel, 13 people were killed in last month's conflict, including a soldier, by rockets and missiles fired from Gaza, the police and army said. Bennett on Wednesday met army chief Aviv Kochavi, and the two discussed "the lessons to be learnt from the operation in the Gaza Strip" in May, according to a statement by the premier's office. In the West Bank on Wednesday, a Palestinian woman was shot after attempting to drive into Israeli soldiers in a car and attack them with a knife near Hizma, south of Ramallah, the military said. The Palestinian health ministry said the woman died of her wounds. Official Palestinian news website Wafa identified the woman as Mai Afana, 29, from the town of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem. But her uncle Hani Afana told AFP that the family rejected the claim that the young mother had tried to kill Israeli soldiers. She "took this road by mistake," and "did not attempt to carry out an attack," he said. The previous day saw more than a thousand Israelis bearing their national flag take to the streets of east Jerusalem in a delayed and controversial march by nationalist and far-right activists. Both the United Nations and the United States had called for restraint before the march, which Bennett's new government authorized.
'Provocation'
The so-called March of the Flags celebrates the anniversary of the city's "reunification" after Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed it, a move not recognized by most of the international community. With tensions high, Israeli police were deployed in numbers for the delayed march, blocking roads and firing stun grenades and foam-tipped bullets to disperse Palestinians from the route. Medics said 33 Palestinians were wounded. Police said two officers were injured and 17 people arrested. The march triggered protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and prompted rebukes and warnings from Israel's allies. Throngs of mostly young religious men sang, danced and waved flags at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, which was cleared of its usual Palestinian crowds. Some chanted "Death to Arabs" before others persuaded them to stop. The march came just two days after Netanyahu was ousted following 12 straight years in power, toppled by an ideologically divided coalition including, for the first time in Israel's history, an Arab party. Bennett is himself a Jewish nationalist, but Netanyahu's allies accused the new premier of treachery for allying with Arabs and the left. Yair Lapid, the centrist architect of the new government, tweeted that he believed the march had to be allowed, but that "it's inconceivable how you can hold an Israeli flag and shout, 'Death to Arabs' at the same time." Arab Israelis -- descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land when the state of Israel was created in 1948 -- make up around 20 percent of the Israeli population. Mansour Abbas, whose Islamic conservative party Raam is vital to the new coalition, called Tuesday's march a "provocation" that should have been canceled.

Biden Says 'Last Thing' Putin Wants is New Cold War
Agence France Presse/June 16/2021.
U.S. President Joe Biden voiced confidence Wednesday that his Russian counterpart did not want a new Cold War, and also said he had told him critical infrastructure must be "off limits" to cyber attacks. "I think that the last thing he wants now is a Cold War," Biden told reporters after his first summit with Vladimir Putin, adding that he during the talks had stressed that "certain critical infrastructure should be off limits to attack -- period -- by cyber or any other means."U.S., Russia to Return Ambassadors after 'Constructive' Biden-Putin Talks
Agence France Presse
A first summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart was "constructive," Vladimir Putin said Wednesday after the talks in Geneva ended. "The conversation was absolutely constructive", Putin told reporters, adding that the sides had agreed for their ambassadors to return in a small gesture of healing in their strained relations. The ambassadors "will return to their place of work. When exactly is a purely technical question," Putin told reporters after the summit, which lasted about three and a half hours. Diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington had all but broken down since Biden took office in January. After Biden likened Putin to a "killer", Russia in March took the rare step of recalling its ambassador Anatoly Antonov. The U.S. envoy, John Sullivan, likewise returned to Washington. Despite tensions, the summit at an elegant villa on the shore of Lake Geneva got off to a good start, with the two leaders shaking hands and striking cautiously positive notes. Biden, who was set to hold a separate press conference later, pressed Putin to replace the combustible US-Russian stand-off with a more "predictable" relationship between "two great powers" capable of agreeing to disagree. He stressed his desire to take US-Russian relations off their increasingly unstable trajectory, in which Washington accuses the Kremlin of everything from meddling in elections to cyberwarfare. "It's always better to meet face to face," he told Putin as they met in the villa's library, with a globe placed between them. "We are trying to determine where we have a mutual interest, where we can cooperate; and where we don't, establish a predictable and rational way in which we disagree -- two great powers," Biden said. Putin noted at the start of the meeting that "a lot of issues" need addressing "at the highest level" and that he hoped the meeting would be "productive". At his press conference after the summit, Putin signaled progress in a number of areas, including an agreement to "start consultations on cybersecurity".
Cold War, new problems -
Biden's apparent offer of a more understanding -- if not necessarily a friendly relationship -- went a long way toward what Putin is reportedly seeking: increased respect on the world stage. The reference to the United States and Russia as "two great powers" was sure to please the Kremlin leader, who has dominated his country for two decades, infuriating the West with invasions of Ukraine and Georgia, and often brutal crushing of political dissent. Expectations were low for anything more than a modest thaw in relations. Illustrating the frostiness, there was no shared meal during the talks, which were attended by the two countries' foreign ministers and later by an expanded group of officials. The choice of Geneva recalled the Cold War summit between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the Swiss city in 1985. The summit villa, encircled with barbed wire, was under intense security. Grey patrol boats cruised along the lake front and heavily-armed camouflaged troops stood guard at a nearby yacht marina. But in contrast with 1985, tensions are less about strategic nuclear weapons and competing ideologies than what the Biden administration sees as an increasingly rogue regime. From cyberattacks on American entities and meddling in the last two U.S. presidential elections, to human rights violations and aggression against Ukraine and other European countries, Washington's list of allegations against the Kremlin runs long. Putin came to the summit arguing that Moscow is simply challenging U.S. hegemony -- part of a bid to promote a so-called "multi-polar" world that has seen Russia draw close with the US's arguably even more powerful adversary China. In a pre-summit interview with NBC News, he scoffed at allegations that he had anything to do with cyberattacks or the near-fatal poisoning of one of his last remaining domestic opponents, Alexei Navalny.
'Worthy adversary'
Biden, ending an intensive first foreign trip as president, arrived in Geneva after summits with NATO and the European Union in Brussels, and a G7 summit in Britain. While in Brussels, he said he would detail his "red lines." "I'm not looking for conflict," he said, but "we will respond if Russia continues its harmful activities." However, Biden, who had previously characterized Putin as a "killer", upgraded the Russian leader to "worthy adversary."And for all the rhetoric, the White House and Kremlin both say they are open to doing business in a limited way. Officials point to the recent extension of the New START nuclear arms limitation treaty as an example of successful diplomacy. Unlike in 2018, when Biden's predecessor Donald Trump met Putin in Helsinki, there was to be no joint press conference at the end of the summit. The US side clearly wanted to avoid the optics of having Biden sharing that kind of platform with the Russian president. In 2018, Trump caused a stir by saying, as Putin stood beside him, that he believed the Kremlin leader over his own intelligence services when it came to accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election bringing Trump to power.

Sudan PM warns of risk of ‘chaos, civil war’ amid upheaval
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
KHARTOUM – Sudan’s prime minister warned on Tuesday of the risk of chaos and civil war fomented by loyalists of the previous regime as he sought to defend reforms meant to pull the country out of a deep economic crisis and stabilise a political transition. Abdalla Hamdok made the comments in a televised address days after young men carrying clubs and sticks blocked roads in the capital Khartoum following the removal of fuel subsidies. Hamdok’s government serves under a fragile military-civilian power-sharing deal struck after a popular uprising spurred the army to overthrow longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The transition is meant to last until the end of 2023, leading to elections. “The deterioration of the security situation is mainly linked to fragmentation between components of the revolution, which left a vacuum exploited by its enemies and elements of the former regime,” Hamdok said. He said that without reform of Sudan’s sprawling security sector, which expanded under Bashir as he fought multiple internal conflicts, Sudan will continue to face internal and external threats. “These fragmentations can lead us to a situation of chaos and control by gangs and criminal groups, just as it can lead to the spread of conflict among all civilian groups and might lead to civil war.” Though Sudan has won international praise for economic reforms since Bashir’s fall and has made progress towards debt relief, many Sudanese face food shortages or have struggled to make ends meet as prices have soared over the past year. Inflation hit 379% in May and electricity or water outages occur daily. While roadblocks have often been used in protests triggered by economic or political grievances since 2018, a Reuters witness saw more aggression around the barriers set up in recent days. The state government said police and prosecutors would deal with what it called the gangs involved in blocking the roads, but there appeared to be little police presence on the streets.

At his farewell briefing Griffiths paints bleak picture of Yemen mediation
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
ADEN – The UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, admitted in his last briefing to the Security Council that “the two parties to the conflict have not yet overcome their differences”. “I hope very, very much indeed … that the efforts undertaken by the sultanate of Oman, as well as others, but the sultanate of Oman in particular, following my visits to Sana’a and Riyadh, will bear fruit,” Griffiths told the 15-member council during his final report. At the same time, the Yemeni government’s Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Muammar al-Eryani, stressed in statements to The Arab Weekly, the need for real international pressure on the Houthi militias, which he said are impeding the search for a solution to the conflict. During his recent visit to Sana’a, Griffiths told the UN, the Houthis’ leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, had insisted there must first be an agreement on reopening Sana’a Airport and the key Hodeida port and only after that is done would the Houthis begin negotiations on a cease-fire, a first step toward reviving peace negotiations. The government, said Griffiths, insists that an agreement on the ports and airport and the start of a cease-fire must be taken as a package.
The UN envoy pointed out that the war has exacerbated divisions in southern Yemen and called for the continuation of “the partnership that was established between the Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council”. He said that “the only way out of the impasse is the commitment of political leaders to dialogue.”Griffiths continued: “With the focus on getting that cease-fire started, we have offered different solutions to bridge these positions. Unfortunately, as of now, none of these suggestions have been accepted.” Griffiths concluded his latest regional tour, which is likely to be his last, with a visit to Kuwait on Sunday, during which he met Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah and Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nasser Al-Sabah. He said discussed with them, “the situation in Yemen and the need to resume the political process.”While the outgoing UN envoy sought not to hold any party responsible for the impasse, the minister of information, culture and tourism in the Yemeni government said that international efforts should be directed towards exerting real pressure on the Houthis after the world became aware that they are the only party obstructing peace efforts in Yemen. This, said Eryani, was especially the case “After Saudi Arabia announced an initiative to end the crisis and a ceasefire, winning the respect and attention of the countries of the world.”
Talking to The Arab Weekly, Eryani indicated that the Yemeni government has made great concessions based on its sense of legal and moral responsibility, despite its awareness of the Houthi militias’ continued intransigence and dependence on Tehran’s decisions.
He added, “Even the positive messages sent by the coalition to support legitimacy in Yemen were met by the Iranian-backed Houthi militias by more explosive laden drones launched towards Saudi Arabia.”Yemeni political researcher Faris al-Bayl said Griffith’s briefing seemed “desperate and helpless, as if he was defending his record against any blame, after the long marathon he spent shuttling between the belligerents without achieving any significant results.”Talking to The Arab Weekly, Bayl added: “Perhaps his predecessor, Ould Cheikh, achieved more progress, but Griffith’s mistake was to torpedo previous efforts without building on them. He also reduced the whole Yemeni problem to the issue of the port of Hodeidah. There was also his lack of clarity in holding the obstructing party responsible or creating real pressure to change the equation. He was content with waiting for the Houthi militias to seriously accept the peace process, which did not happen, said Bayl. He pointed out that while Griffiths is leaving his post with limited results there have been substantial international efforts and more effective moves, made by the American envoy in just a matter of months, than Griffiths managed in his three and a half years in post. The next UN envoy is unlikely to find much to build on since Griffiths, will not bequeath his successors anything but disappointment and waiting for the impossible to happen, he added. Observers of Yemeni affairs rule out the possibility of the current envoy achieving any significant breakthrough in the Yemeni crisis, given the complexities of the issue and the fact that the envoy’s mission has reached its end without the Houthis being convinced of the cease-fire plan, despite unprecedented international support which the plan has received. There was also a regional and international diplomatic momentum illustrated by multiple visits made by Western diplomats to Riyadh and Muscat, as well as an Omani delegation’s visit to Sana’a, together with an exchange of visits between Omani and Saudi foreign ministers to Muscat and Riyadh with the aim of fleshing out a vision for peace in Yemen.

Training centre launched for German imams, sparks Turkish unhappiness
The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021
BERLIN, Germany - Germany has launched a state-backed training centre for imams to help reduce the number of Muslim preachers coming in from abroad, but the initiative has been shunned by Turkish groups loyal to the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government. Foreign financing of mosques and imams is suspected of links to radicalisation and alignment on the agendas of extremist organisations and those of foreign governments. The German authorities have in the past accused Turkish imams of spying on Turkish opposition activists on behalf of the Erdogan government. Turkish pro-regime Imams were clearly displeased with the German move. Around 40 aspiring religious leaders attended their first classes at the German College of Islam in the north-western city of Osnabrueck on Monday, with the official inauguration on Tuesday. The centre’s two-year imam training programme will be taught with the help of some 12,000 books imported from Egypt. Open to holders of a bachelor’s degree in Islamic theology or an equivalent diploma, it offers practical teaching in the recitation of verses from the Koran, preaching techniques, worship practices and politics. With between 5.3 and 5.6 million Muslims in Germany, around 6.4 to 6.7 percent of the population, the role of Islam in society occupies a prominent place in political discourse. The new training centre is being partly funded by the federal government, as well as local authorities in the state of Lower Saxony. Chancellor Angela Merkel first spoke in favour of training imams on German soil in 2018, telling parliament it “will make us more independent and is necessary for the future”. The German College of Islam is unique in two ways, according to chairman Esnaf Begic: all lessons are in German and it aims to “reflect the reality of the life of Muslims in Germany”.
‘German Muslims’
“We are German Muslims, we are an integral part of society and we now have the opportunity to become imams ‘made in Germany’”, said student Ender Cetin, who already works as a volunteer imam in a youth detention centre in Berlin. About half of the 2,000 to 2,500 imams in the country are provided by the Turkish-Islamic umbrella group DITIB, a branch of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Ankara that manages 986 mosque communities in Germany, according to a study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The rest come mainly from North Africa, Albania and the former Yugoslavia. These religious leaders tend to come to Germany for four or five years, some on tourist visas and know very little about the local culture and customs. “These imams don’t speak the language of the young people, who often don’t even understand Turkish very well,” said Cetin, himself born in Berlin to Turkish immigrants.
“It is important that they are in touch with the realities of a multicultural society where Christians, Jews, atheists and Muslims live side by side.”
Turkish activities
Many of the leaders are also officials of the Turkish state who “pursue a political agenda” in Germany, he said. The influence of Ankara has long been a thorny question in Germany’s Muslim community, especially since the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. In 2017, German police raided the homes of four imams, members of DITIB, suspected of spying on opponents or critics of the Turkish government. Turkish intelligence is said to use Imams and mosques to spy not only on possible members of the Fethullah Gulen network but also on Kurds and secular activists who oppose the current Muslim-Brotherhood affiliated government in Ankara. The training of imams with support from the German state is also controversial because it conflicts with the principle that religious communities alone are entitled to train their leaders. For this reason, both DITIB and Milli Gorus, Germany’s second-biggest Islamic organisation, chose not to participate in the creation of the German College of Islam, with DITIB launching its own training programme in Germany last year. Milli Gorus believes that the training of imams should be “free from external influences, especially political ones”, according to general secretary Bekir Altas. But college chairman Begic says the institution was created with “absolutely no influence from the state, which did not interfere in the development of the programmes”. As for job opportunities, imams remain poorly paid and dependent on donations from the faithful. But Begic insists: “We are not an employment agency.”

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 16-17/2021
Audio from AFF/Tehran’s Nuclear Secrets
June 15, 2021/Foreign Podicy
https://www.fdd.org/podcasts/2021/06/15/tehrans-nuclear-secrets/
Clifford D. May/Founder & President
David Albright/Institute for Science and International Security
Andrea Stricker/Research Fellow
About
David Albright is a physicist, a former nuclear inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency, an expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation, and the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security – also known as “the Good ISIS.”
His important new book, written with Sarah Burkhard: “Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons.”
It’s based on the secret archive of the nuclear weapons program of the Islamic Republic. Israeli spies located that archive in a warehouse in Tehran, and spirited much of it out of the country.
What David Albright reveals is alarming and should have a significant impact on the policies of the Biden administration vis-à-vis Iran’s rulers.
He joins host Cliff May and Andrea Stricker, who worked at the Good ISIS for 12 years, and is now a fellow at FDD where she conducts research on nuclear weapons proliferation and illicit procurement networks

Tunisia sheltering from the big bang
Oussama Romdhani/The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021.
As he finished his recent meeting with the World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi never reflected so clearly his sense of desperation as when he told his interlocutors in Geneva that Tunisia’s health system could not “withstand anymore” the impact of the pandemic. The problem is that the whole country today finds itself facing intertwined crises which it cannot “withstand anymore”, even though the country’s resilience can still surprise many.
The health crisis, as serious as it is, is just a drop in the bucket, in terms of Tunisia’s wider problems. The current unfortunate state of unpreparedness to face the pandemic was the result of a stark lack of vision as well as distraction by political instability and infighting. When other governments were ordering vaccines, Tunisia was busy reshuffling its cabinets, endlessly. It has had four ministers of health since last year. Even the current health minister is bravely working despite being in political-legal limbo having been technically removed from office a few months ago. Half the cabinet has not been sworn in since the last reshuffle, which the president did not approve.
The three main actors that constitute the political triangle at the helm of power, the president, the prime minister and the speaker of parliament, have each been flying solo, when not working at cross purposes.
In this climate, senior officials are predictably driven by a sense of expediency. Surrounded by uncertainties, their mind is set on passing the buck to the next government, if it comes. Blurred political vision has been the new normal during most of the last decade.
With the high turnover rate of cabinet members, dismissed government officials are not tempted to stay around and help. Many of the former members of the post-2011 governments quickly became suspects and suffered their share of demonisation. Most of them, except those with a thick skin, are scared off of politics as the ambient political culture is nowhere near civil nor appreciative of past public service rendered.
There have been calls for a national dialogue. But efforts aimed at making sure the main actors sit around the same table have been mired in the daily soap opera of fractious politics. With President Kais Saied’s announcement of his willingness to launch this dialogue, it remains to be seen if his initiative can overcome the many lingering impediments.
The process has from the start revealed something unsuspected about the collective political psyche: an aversion to arbitration and concessions. The new preference is for dancing on the edge. Mutual suspicion has become an enduring trait that takes precedence over the common good.
Focus has been quite egocentric. Even the risk of looming state failure has not been enough to trigger an interest in the bigger picture. Seemingly to prepare for the dialogue, the debate has been focused on the parties to be excluded not about the best guarantees for the dialogue’s success.
Despite the reputation for pragmatism earned by Tunisia throughout its history, reform does not come easy anymore. The pre-2011 period should have taught current decision makers that unwillingness or inability to introduce meaningful reforms eventually pave the way for radical change. Now that the stakes are even higher, procrastination comes more naturally than ever. Genuine reform is seen as too prohibitive.
Politicians, even the most reformist-minded among them, do not see reform as an actionable option today. Reforms, in the conventional economic lexicon, mean cutting state subsidies and curtailing social entitlements. With social precariousness, as demonstrated by the worsening poverty and unemployment indicators, it is very difficult for those in power to consider enforcing such measures, even when in dire need of the International Monetary Fund’s help. Recent events in Sudan must have offered ample warning about the type of street reactions they might have to expect.
Just trying to enhance efficiency is an uphill battle, considering the state of public service made worse by politics. The state-affiliated bureaucracy probably merits kudos for ensuring continued services despite the years of turbulence. But its key personnel are more driven by self-survival than by the overhaul of the outdated system.
Even in the dire circumstances of the pandemic, which have compounded the country’s political, economic and social crises, the bureaucracy finds more to lose by innovating than by playing strictly by the rule book. When in doubt, its propensity is to create even more rules and avoid taking any decision at all.
“The most harmful corruption is delays in decision-making, or no decision-making at all,” said recently Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail. He could have been very well speaking about Tunisia. The small North African nation could be worlds apart from Mesopotamia in terms of political history but bureaucratic lethargy is a clearly recognisable bridge.
For the sake of political stability, reforms might be also needed. But that is easier said than done. There is no consensus on what constitutional and legal amendments should be introduced. A yawning chasm of distrust separates not only the public from the political class but also separates members of the political class from each other. Divisiveness, which marks all stances by heads of all branches of government, has blocked progress on the establishment of the constitutional court, the swearing-in of the government and various other items. More inhibitive is the underlying divide over strategic expectations in the exercise of power. The current ruling impasse shows the flaws and limits of the constitutionally and legally-ordained system. But moving ahead with any fundamental changes in the constitutional distribution of power or even with smaller electoral reforms will not come easy.
There has been growing consensus, however, that the system is failing although no one is willing to take the blame for it. The political class, with some exceptions, has been thriving on a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse. Besides the vicious circle of lack of public trust, there is the hindrance of atrophied self-confidence. Nobody has been willing to take a bet that something good might come out of the whole fractious process.
Politicians and spin doctors see any setbacks big or small as vindication of their deeply engrained clairvoyance which has been fueling expectations of a Tunisian version of the Big Bang. Even the governor of the Central Bank is now predicting a ‘Latkha’, a colloquial Tunisian expression describing the crash landing of a massive object, such as that of a meteor falling to earth. Nobody knows what the ‘latkha’ would look like but most political actors believe they will know one when they see it. To shelter from the blow and the blame, Kais Saied is finally showing tangible signs of interest in convening a dialogue between political actors. But his concomitant revelation that an unnamed Tunisian political actor undertook contacts abroad to try to remove the president from office, even if it meant assassinating him, was not a reassuring thought. The struggle for hope continues with the ‘latkha’ lurking not far behind.

The Palestinian response to the Israeli stalemate
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/June 16/2021.
One can say much about the new Israeli government led by Naftali Bennett and about the fragility of its makeup. In fact, it is possible to ponder for a long time, without any benefit, about this government, whose components have no common denominator of any kind.
From this point of view, the new Israeli government, which won the confidence of the Knesset with sixty votes, while 59 opposed it and one deputy abstained, seems extremely fragile. It will have to search all the time for a reason to continue governing and avoiding its downfall. This is what motivated Benyamin Netanyahu to say that he expects to return soon to the position of prime minister, unless the Israeli judiciary convicts him in the corruption cases that continue to dog him. This government, whose 27 members (including nine women) and eight parties are united only by the desire to get rid of Netanyahu (“Bibi”), reflects the deep crisis inside Israel.
The best expression of this crisis remains the holding of parliamentary elections four times in two years without achieving a clear majority in the Knesset, with a minimal homogeneity among its components. The government that was formed is an unrecognisable hybrid entity. In theory, there is nothing in common between the right-wing Bennett, who was among the most prominent advocates of settlement and the centrist Yair Lapid, who is supposed to succeed him as prime minister within two years. In the new government, Lapid now occupies the position of foreign minister. How can there be a clear Israeli foreign policy in the absence of harmony between the prime minister and the foreign minister? There is no answer to this question at the present time. The only concern for Lapid and Bennett was to get rid of “Bibi”, who remained prime minister for 12 years, during which he was particularly adept at manipulating others.
The most dominant issue that will remain unchanged is the Israeli position on Iran, Tehran’s policies in the region and its nuclear programme. It will be easier however for the new government to reach some kind of understanding with the US administration regarding the attitude towards the “Islamic Republic” and its nuclear programme, its behaviour abroad and its missiles, especially since Netanyahu had taken a clear position against any US-Iranian agreement for a return to the 2015 deal.
This is the agreement to which Iran wants to go back on its own terms, especially the lifting of sanctions. The Israeli government will not be the one to decide on Iran. The military-security establishment will have the last word in this regard. This institution has had a long history of coordination with the relevant departments in the United States.
In addition, the US administration will not find great difficulty to reach an understanding with the new Israeli government as Benny Gantz will remain defence minister. Gantz, who was chief-of-staff of the Israeli army, has the ability to engage in a dialogue with the US administration. This is what he did already about two weeks ago, when he visited the US capital where he met a good number of senior security officials. Gantz was unable to reach an understanding with Netanyahu about how to deal with the US administration, especially when it seemed clear the US administration wanted to get rid of “Bibi” and prevent him from staying in power, since there was no hope of reaching an understanding with him. This happened before, when the United States under President Bush pressed for the removal of Yitzhak Shamir after the Madrid Conference in late 1991. Although the new Israeli government will be unable to take bold decisions regarding the peace process, given the support of a section of the far-right and the “United Arab List” led by Mansour Abbas, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a need to break the stalemate that is likely to affect Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. If there is an Israeli stalemate, should there also be a Palestinian stalemate?
The Israeli stalemate does not need to prevent the Palestinian side from adopting a flexible approach, regroup and put its house in order, especially in the West Bank. It is clear, in light of what happened in Cairo, where it seemed impossible to initiate a fruitful Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue between the National Authority and Hamas, that the militant Palestinian group has no choice at the present time but to remain captive to escalation and slogans. Hamas believes that it has retaken the Palestinian initiative as it revealed, through its rockets in Gaza, the frayed state of the National Authority. Why doesn’t the National Authority undertake a form of in-depth self-criticism and renew the blood in its veins by getting rid of the syndroms that splintered Fatah into three factions and deprived the Palestinians of their most able figures such as Dr Salam Fayyad and those who cooperated with him when he was prime minister, to name just a few.
The Israeli government is being formed at a time when the Palestinians have discovered that they are one people inside and outside. In the West Bank, Gaza and the territories of 1948 … and in the diaspora. The Palestinians had an opportunity to translate this unity into a positive action through the elections, which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) insisted on postponing. With or without elections, it is the Palestinians’ duty to move ahead, regardless of Hamas’ internal travail as it faces a multitude of conflicts. There is the Turkish Hamas, the Iranian Hamas, the Qatari Hamas and the Palestinian Hamas which will unavoidably win in the end. Like it or not, an understanding was reached in Israel, with US complicity, to exclude Benyamin Netanyahu. When will there be an internal understanding in the West Bank on renewing the youth of the Palestinian leadership and benefiting from the services of competent cadres? The Palestinians deserve a better leadership, especially since they are a dynamic people that possesses some of the best abilities in their fields. The time has come for a profound Palestinian change so no one can say that the Palestinian people have been unable to translate their national unity into political action.

Suspend Syria and Russia from the WHO
David Adesnik/The National Interest/June 16/2021
Earlier this year, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, another member of the UN family, made history by voting to strip the Bashar al-Assad regime of its voting rights and other privileges.
An artillery barrage tore into Al-Shifa hospital in northwest Syria on Saturday morning. The attack killed two healthcare providers, and the hospital is temporarily out of service. Yet this war crime is different from hundreds of others perpetrated by the Damascus regime and its sponsors in Moscow and Tehran, because it was just two weeks ago that the members of the World Health Organization elected Syria to a three-year term on the agency’s Executive Board, granting a leadership role in global health policy to a regime that has shown unmatched contempt for the WHO’s commitment to health care “as a fundamental right for every human being.” Russia won a seat on the Executive Board last year, despite detailed evidence that its pilots have made regular bombing runs against Syrian hospitals.
Western governments often respond with resignation when UN agencies select the worst of the worst human-rights violators to serve in leadership roles. After all, the UN system insists on equal treatment for all sovereign governments, regardless of how they treat their own population. However, the WHO constitution actually provides a mechanism for holding member states accountable. According to Article 7, “If a Member fails to meet its financial obligations to the Organization or in other exceptional circumstances, the Health Assembly may, on such conditions as it thinks proper, suspend the voting privileges and services to which a Member is entitled.”
The Healthy Assembly is the annual gathering in Geneva of representatives from all 194 member states. To date, it has never suspended one of its members. Yet earlier this year, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), another member of the UN family, made history by voting to strip the Bashar al-Assad regime of its voting rights and other privileges. Repeated OPCW investigations made clear that Assad continued to use chemical weapons and conceal his weapons program long after nominally complying with the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013.
The United States and France led the campaign that moved the OPCW to action. The U.S. effort was bipartisan, beginning under the Trump administration and continuing with equal force after Joe Biden took office. Moscow did its best to sow disinformation, including conspiracy theories that the OPCW fabricated the evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria. Nonetheless, eighty-seven members voted for suspension, with only fourteen opposed and thirty-four abstaining, more than the two-thirds necessary for the motion to pass.
This vote was the culmination of a multi-year diplomatic and fact-finding process. In light of probable Russian and Chinese obstruction, patience is always necessary. There is also an effort underway to hold Russia accountable for its use of chemical weapons, specifically the military-grade nerve agent Novichok, to poison Putin’s adversaries, such as anti-corruption activist and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Not surprisingly, OPCW member states are far more hesitant to antagonize a nuclear superpower and permanent member of the UN Security Council. Yet there is no Russian veto at the OPCW, so the campaign ought to continue until Moscow is held to account.
The situation at the WHO is more complicated since Washington’s natural priority there is to ensure a credible investigation of the coronavirus pandemic’s origins. So far, the agency’s work has fallen far short of that standard, yet the urgency has grown following Biden’s announcement that the U.S. intelligence community considers likely the possibility that the pandemic began at a Chinese virology lab, though it considers the scenario of direct animal-to-human transmission no less probable.
Spearheading a second major initiative at the WHO may tax the administration’s diplomatic resources. The White House should push first for the suspension of Damascus, since many more governments will be prepared to vote against a pariah. Once that precedent has been set, the focus should shift to Russia.
It is reasonable to ask why the United States should invest so much effort in uphill battles at international organizations. The answer is that they are becoming crucial battlegrounds in the new era of great-power competition. China especially, but also Russia, has been ahead of the curve in realizing that it can shape the rules of world politics by stacking the leadership of UN agencies with its preferred candidates.
Meanwhile, two schools of mistaken thought have limited Washington’s effectiveness in such forums. The first is the call to stop wasting time and money on engagement with agencies rigged to favor various dictatorships. The extent of Chinese influence at the WHO has shown why leaving the playing field to Beijing is a serious mistake.
On the other side, there is a belief that engagement is the key to reform. To be sure, reform is unlikely without engagement, yet, in practice, this approach has a tendency to degenerate into engagement for engagement’s sake. In a bid to demonstrate good faith, the practitioners of this approach shy away from calling out the flaws of UN agencies and pushing hard for reform.
When it comes to the WHO, Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified at his confirmation hearings that it is a “very imperfect organization in need of reform,” yet withdrawing from the organization, as former President Donald Trump wanted, would undermine such efforts. Yet the new administration has been tepid at best in efforts to challenge the WHO status quo.
The bipartisan path forward should proceed from the premise that engagement is essential precisely because the WHO and other multilateral organizations are strategic grounds in the struggle against U.S. adversaries. Biden’s interim national security strategy hints as much but shies away from saying it openly. The document warns of an “authoritarian agenda” for manipulating the UN system, then adds, “In a world of deepening rivalry, we will not cede this vital terrain.”
A push to suspend Syria and Russia from the WHO will require substantial effort, but the administration should not see it as a burden. Rather, it is part and parcel of a necessary campaign to shape the multilateral playing field by targeting the real opponents of reform.
*David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan national security research institute in Washington, DC. Follow him on Twitter @Adesnik.

Taliban takes control of 30 districts in past six weeks
Bill Roggio/ FDD's Long War Journal/June 16/2021
In the six weeks since the May 1 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban has seized control of 32 additional districts, their reach spanning half of the country’s 34 provinces. The Afghan government has been unable to regain control in any of the 32 districts.
FDD’s Long War Journal has closely tracked the security situation Afghanistan’s districts and updates the status of districts as their control changes on a daily basis. [See Mapping Taliban Contested and Controlled Districts in Afghanistan.]
A June 14 report by TOLONews confirmed LWJ‘s independent assessments of 30 of the 32 fallen districts over the past six weeks (two additional districts went under Taliban control since the article was published).
According to data tracked by LWJ, the Taliban has actually overrun overrun 37 district centers since May 1, however the Afghan military claims to have regained control of three of them (Khanabad and Aliabad in Kunduz, and Khash Rod in Nimruz) over the past several days. Bala Murghab, which fell in may, was retaken days later.
While the Taliban took control of the Washir district center in Helmand, LWJ currently assesses the district as contested, since the Afghan military maintains control of the large base known as Shoraback (formerly Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion).
Before May 1, the Taliban controlled 73 districts, according to LWJ‘s assessment. That number has risen to 106 today. The following districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, listed in alphabetic order by province. The districts are not confined to one or two geographical regions, but are spread out through all regions and 17 of the 34 provinces in the country:
Arghanjkhwah district in Badakhshan
Jawand and Bala Murghab districts in Badghis
Burka district in Baghlan
Zari district in Balkh
Pusht Rod and Lash o Joyan districts in Farah
Dawlat Abad and Qaysar districts in Faryab
Dih Yak, Jaghatu, Rashidan and Ab Band districts in Ghazni
Shahrak, Tolak and Saghar districts in Ghor
Oba district in Herat
Arghistan district in Kandahar
Dawlat Shah district in Laghman
Charkh district in Logar
Du Ab and Mandol districts in Nuristan
Gosfandi, Sayyad, and Sozma Qala districts in Sar-I-Pul
Chora, Gizab, and Khas Uruzgan districts in Uruzgan
Nirkh and Jalriz districts in Wardak
Shinkai and Arghandab districts in Zabul
Many of these districts have been contested for lengthy periods of time, with the Taliban recently laying siege to the district centers. However, one district – Saghar in Ghor – was under government control until it suddenly fell under the sway of the Taliban.
The Taliban appears to be using local tribal leaders and other influential figures to convince Afghan security personnel and government officials to either surrender or abandon these district centers. On June 12, TOLONews reported that the Ministry of Interior is arrresting “elders–or others–who act as mediators to negotiate between government forces and the Taliban– causing security force members to abandon their posts …”
On June 14, a Member of Parliament from Herat province said that “some districts were handed over to the Taliban in the west without resistance and their equipment was left for militants,” TOLONews reported.
The Taliban has taken advantage of the end of U.S. air support for Afghan forces, which kept the Taliban from taking provincial capitals, and is consolidating its control of remote districts. It is likely that the Taliban will launch the next phase of its offensive to take control of entire provinces, first in the south and east, while keeping up the pressure in the north and west, with the ultimate goal of taking control of Kabul. [See LWJ report, Predicting the coming Taliban offensive.]
The Taliban has actively established a program to convince security personnel to surrender and even join the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name of the Taliban’s shadow government. In a statement released on Voice of Jihad, the Taliban’s official website, the group says that large numbers of Afghan government officials and security personnel, and in some cases, entire districts, are defecting to the Taliban thanks to its efforts.
Over the past few days, we are witnessing large number of troopers that formerly worked for the invaders surrendering to the Mujahideen of Islamic Emirate in mass across the country. In some cases, batches of up to a hundred surrender to Mujahidin while bringing in all their military vehicles, weapons and ammunition, showcasing their absolute abhorrence for the Kabul administration with these actions.
And just as the Islamic Emirate has consistently published statements of amnesty and invitation to the opposition, it has practically shown that its arms of mercy and compassion are open to the troops and workers of the other side and holds no intention of seeking revenge, rather it gives precedence to saving their lives through the amalgamation process so that they may spend their lives in joy and assurance next to their own families and children.
Troop amalgamation – a sign of trust in the Emirate, Voice of Jihad, June 12, 2021
While the Taliban may be exaggerating the size of the defections, there likely is some truth in the statement given the dramatic fall of 32 districts over the past six weeks, and the Afghan government’s inability to retake hardly any of those districts.
*This article was updated to include Khas Uruzgan and Gosfandi, which fell to the Taliban shortly after publishing on June 14, 2021.
*Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Lebanese Journalist: Palestinian Authority's Weakness, Hamas' Extremism Will Cause Palestinians To Lose Gains In World Public Opinion
MEMRI/June 16, 2021
In his June 2, 2021 column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, titled "The Missing Link in Palestinian National Action," Lebanese journalist Hazem Saghiya questioned the Palestinians' ability to take advantage of the global sympathy they gained following the recent round of fighting with Israel. The problem, he explained, is that no element in the Palestinian arena is able to dialogue with the international community, for Fatah and the PA are too weak, while Hamas is too radical and does not share the world's values. Although it often tries speak in terms that the world likes to hear, Hamas is actually an extremist Islamic force that oppresses the Gazans and can spark a civil war at any moment, said Saghiya, and added that the Palestinians deserved a better leadership.
Hazem Saghiya (Source: Alarab.com)
The following are excerpts from Saghiya's article:[1]
"The immense accomplishment of the Palestinian cause – in the form of changes in world public opinion [regarding it] – is impressive and inspires optimism. Optimism not only regarding the Palestinian rights but regarding the fairness of the world we live in and its capacity for change. But this accomplishment requires there to be someone in the Palestinian arena who can capitalize on it, react to it, understand the aspect of fairness and anti-racism within it and build on it.
"Is there any such element in the Palestinian [arena]?
"Although Hamas leaders used to speak on the European and American media in terms 'that the West likes to hear,' on Sunday [May 30, 2021] Hamas held a rally in northern Gaza titled 'Honoring the Families of the Martyrs,' in which the speaker was Fathi Hammad, a member of Hamas' political bureau and its interior minister in 2009-2014. Hammad spoke in terms that 'we [Arabs] apparently like to hear.' He said that the [recent Gaza] war began predominantly a religious war, and that the only thing he had for the Zionists was the sword.[2] The word ['sword'] was accompanied by a slight but precise gesture of passing his finger across his throat… He stressed the treachery of the 'Jews' and then swallowed his tongue and started using the word 'Zionists.' The local news agencies omitted his reference to the Jews, but this man has a record of brutal antisemitism: In a 2019 speech he called to 'kill the Jews everywhere,' although he soon took back his words and Hamas renounced them as well.[3] The satellite channel Hammad founded, Al-Aqsa TV, is incapable of speaking even to Islamic [organizations] other than Hamas, such as the [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, not to mention speaking to global public opinion. His record as interior minister is replete with 'accomplishments'… Here are some of them:
"–There was an remarkable increase in violations and attacks against journalists in Gaza at the time.
"–In 2009, a ban on young women riding bicycles behind men and a ban on women dancing.
"–In 2010, women were forbidden to smoke hookahs in public, in order to 'end the steady rise in divorce cases.' Women were also forbidden to have their hair styled by a male hairdresser, on pain of imprisonment. Widespread protest thwarted [this] plan by Hamas, [but] there was [nevertheless] brutal pressure on hairdressers to refrain from [serving women], and… many women's hair and beauty salons were bombed. The same year, the security apparatuses shut down a hip hop party one night, on the pretext that its organizers had not obtained a license. After [Hamas] accused UNRWA of teaching schoolgirls 'physical fitness, dancing and licentiousness,' an UNRWA summer camp was attacked: [its] large plastic tents were torn and its storage units burned down. The head of UNRWA in Gaza called this 'an attack on children's happiness,' while human rights activists added that Hamas was 'increasing its efforts to impose strict Islamic norms in Gaza.' One of Gaza's recreational parks, Crazy Water Park, was closed for allowing [men and women] to swim together, and was later torched by 'anonymous' armed groups.
"–In 2013, UNRWA canceled its annual Gaza marathon after Hamas officially banned women from participating in it. The Arab Idol competition was branded contrary to Islamic moral norms and as 'a crime against our national cause.'
"–In late 2014, Fatah personally blamed Fathi Hammad of being behind the bombing of homes of its officials in Gaza.
"These incidents and others caused people to compare Hamas' rule in Gaza to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan, because it kept Gazans from enjoying themselves. Some suspected Hammad of having ties to ISIS in Sinai.
"Therefore, statements uttered on Western media [in language] that 'the West likes to hear' are not reliable, and cannot liberate the Gazans from a jailor [i.e., Hamas] who is no less cruel than any occupier, and who can spark a civil war at any moment, the likes of which [even] the occupier cannot spark. What is [true] is that Hammad and his ilk are not elements who can speak to world public opinion and who share [the world's] values. They are elements who attack the Palestinian public and who threaten its beautiful values and its women, academics, journalists and middle class – anyone who does not share their political opinion and anyone who yearns and longs for a measure of freedom.
"This is the large [problem] facing by Palestinian national action, which has caused every [achievement] to slip though its fingers. What makes the disaster worse is that Fatah and its [Palestinian] Authority have been completely powerless, and that their future recovery depends solely on external elements giving them a shot in the arm. That is, we are again faced with two sides: a governor [i.e., PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas] who loves talking [but is] slow and helpless, and a [Hamas] extremist who has nothing [to offer] his people but the whip, [extremist] ideology and a large prison. The more senior of the two [i.e., 'Abbas] congratulated Bashar Al-Assad on his 'reelection' as Syria's president, while the other thanked [Assad] for his support.
"This is the missing link, [the gap] between the global changes [regarding the Palestinian cause] and [Palestinian] performance that can respond to [these changes]. The big question is addressed to the [Palestinian] people, who deserve much more than their leaders and spokespersons can [give them]."
[1] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), June 2, 2021.
[2] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 8896 - Senior Hamas Official Fathi Hammad In Rally Honoring Hamas 'Martyrs': There Can Be No Peace With The Treacherous Jews; The Only Thing We Have For The Zionists Is The Sword – May 30, 2021.
[3] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 7345 - Hamas Political Bureau Member Fathi Hammad Calls on Palestinians All over the World to Slaughter Jews, Says: If Israel Doesn't Lift the Siege by Next Friday, We Will Kill the Jews with Explosive Belts and Knives – July 12, 2019.