English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 11/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today

The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
Matthew 15:29-39 /Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 10-11/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
Ministry of Health: 3581 new infections, 46 deaths

Blinken pledges continued US support for Lebanese army, universities, refugee camps
STL Pre-Trial Judge Schedules New Status Conference in Ayyash Case
Army Says Began Reopening Roads after 'Accidents, Violations'
Ibrahim's Initiative May Resolve Govt. Formation Crisis
Hariri Back in Beirut, Lavrov Supports Formation of 'Mission-Driven' Govt.
Army holds on to neutrality as chaos spreads across Lebanon
Burning tires: Lebanon’s protesters send dark, angry message
Lebanon celebrates “National Protected Reserves Day” amid stifling crises
Israeli Defense Minister Surreptitiously Reveals Hezbollah Locations in Lebanon/Joe Truzman/FDD/March 10/2021
His Eminence Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai’s speech at The popular rally in Bkerki—Saturday, February 27, 2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 10-11/2021

Pope Francis thanks Iraqis for visit, saying they deserve peace
Ex-Mossad chief: Return to US, Iran nuclear deal will happen regardless
U.S. State Dept blacklists two Iranian officials over human rights violations
Putin, Erdogan Launch New Phase of Turkish Nuclear Power Plant
Biden Promotes Rights in First Iran Sanctions
Libya Lawmakers Approve Interim Govt. in Key Step towards Elections
Netanyahu Says Israel Seeking to Repatriate Spy's Remains from Syria
Abdullah bin Zayed: US Caesar Act complicates the situation in Syria
Controversial Canadian-Israeli lobbyist signs contract with Myanmar
Israel’s Netanyahu to visit UAE for first official trip
‘MBS ready to meet Netanyahu in Abu Dhabi,’ Emirati source says

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 10-11/2021

140 lawmakers call for Biden administration to take 'comprehensive' approach to Iran/Rebecca Kheel/The Hill/March 10/2021
The Middle East’s religious minorities are facing extinction. The world must act./Sharon Nazarian and Aykan Erdemir/The Washington Post/March 10/2021
Addressing Iran’s Weaponization Work Will Fortify the Nuclear Deal/Jay Solomon/The National Interest/March 10/2021
Switzerland: Voters Approve 'Burqa Ban'/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 10/2021
China Ramps up Pressure on Taiwan/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/March 10/2021
Sommes nous dans l’irrémédiable?/Charles Elias Chartouni/March 10/2021
Desecrated and Defecated on: Churches in Europe under Islam/Raymond Ibrahim/March 10/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 10-11/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/

Ministry of Health: 3581 new infections, 46 deaths
NNA/March 10/2021 
The Ministry of Public Health announced 3581 new coronavirus infection cases, which brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 405391. 46 deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours.

Blinken pledges continued US support for Lebanese army, universities, refugee camps
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/0 March ,2021
The United States will maintain its support for the Lebanese army under the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. Testifying in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Blinken cited a 2009 trip to Lebanon with then-Vice President Joe Biden “where we, in effect, delivered some very needed security assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces to underscore that commitment.”Asked if he intended to continue support for the Lebanese army as well as universities in the country, Blinken quickly said: “Yes.”The top US diplomat was also questioned about plans to continue support for the refugee camps “that dominate” Lebanon. “Yes, absolutely. The burden that these countries are undertaking is extraordinary,” Blinken said. It is estimated that Lebanon is currently hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees. Approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees are living in Lebanon as well. Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, warned earlier this week that a “social explosion” was imminent. Aoun rebuked the political elite for failing to prevent the unprecedented economic and financial crisis in the country, as well as yearly cuts to the army’s budget.
Security sources told Al Arabiya English that there was a significant increase in the number of soldiers requesting to be furloughed in the next few months, while more senior commanders were demanding early retirement. And as the morale of the army - seen as one of the key pillars of Lebanon’s stability over the years and a key US ally in the fight against terrorism - declines, there are concerns over the security situation in Lebanon. The Lebanese army was one of the first in the region to defeat and expel ISIS from its border successfully. However, sleeper cells remain a threat.

STL Pre-Trial Judge Schedules New Status Conference in Ayyash Case
Naharnet/March 10/2021
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) Pre-Trial Judge, Daniel Fransen, will hold a sixth Status Conference on 24 March 2021 in the Ayyash Case, which relates to the 2004-2005 bomb attacks on George Hawi, Marwan Hamadeh and Elias Murr. Salim Ayyash, a Hizbullah suspect, has been indicted in the case. “The hearing aims at reviewing the status of the case and ensuring the expeditious preparation for trial, through an exchange between the Prosecution, Defense and Legal Representatives of the Victims,” the STL said in a statement. In a scheduling order issued Wednesday, the Pre-Trial Judge stated that the hearing will begin at 10:00 AM (C.E.T.) The Status Conference will be public but the Judge might decide to go into private session during the course of the hearing if confidential matters need to be discussed. The Status Conference will take place in the STL courtroom, with remote participation via video-conference.The hearing will be streamed on the STL website with a 30-minute delay in Arabic, English, and French. Five Status Conferences have taken place so far in the Pre-Trial proceedings of the Ayyash Case; the first one took place on 22 July 2020, and the last one 3 February 2021.
 

Army Says Began Reopening Roads after 'Accidents, Violations'
Naharnet/March 10/2021
Army units started reopening blocked roads Wednesday morning following “the tragic accidents that happened and the violations and out of keenness on citizens’ safety,” the army announced on Twitter. The army did not elaborate on the nature of the “accidents and violations” but two people were killed when their car crashed into a truck that was being used to block a road in the North. Social media reports also said that a soldier was killed in a traffic accident related to roadblocks. The army later reopened the Jal el-Dib, Zouk, Ghazir and Jbeil highways, as troops deployed heavily on the entrances of these regions, TV networks said. The National News Agency also said that the army reopened the al-Beddawi international highway in both directions, where a bulldozer removed a sand barrier from the middle of the road under the army’s supervision. The state-affiliated Traffic Management Center meanwhile said that the highway linking Beirut to the South was reopened in the Jiye and Naameh areas. NNA also said that the Palma highway in Tripoli was reopened. Protesters meanwhile blocked the main road in the Beirut southern suburb of Hay al-Sillom and the road under the Khalde bridge that leads to Bchamoun and Aramoun. Lebanese protesters have been setting up roadblocks for more than a week now to vent anger over political inaction in the face of deepening poverty. The country has been mired in an unprecedented economic crisis, which has brought surging unemployment and spiraling prices while the currency has plunged to a new low to the dollar on the black market. The new wave of protests erupted on March 2, when the national currency hit a record low, trading in the black market at 11,000 pounds to the dollar. Some protesters have called for a revival of the nationwide street movement of late 2019 that demanded the removal of Lebanon's entire political class, widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. More than half of the population is living below the poverty line, and prices have soared as the Lebanese pound has lost more than 80 percent of its value. With foreign currency reserves dwindling fast, the authorities have warned they will soon have to lift subsidies on fuel and mostly imported food. President Michel Aoun has accused demonstrators blocking roads of "sabotage", but also called for authorities to prevent "the manipulation of food prices." Despite growing anger on the streets, there had been no serious clashes between security forces and demonstrators during the latest wave of protests, in contrast to previous rallies. Officials have meanwhile warned of chaos and some have argued the protests were manipulated by political groups to ignite violence or extract concessions from rivals.
 

Ibrahim's Initiative May Resolve Govt. Formation Crisis
Naharnet/March 10/2021
General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has held a “positive” meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and “there is hope that the government might be formed soon,” Bkirki spokesman Walid Ghayyad said. “Pressure must be focused in all directions at the moment” in order to form the new government, Ghayyad added, according to several newspapers. The media reports added that the sought breakthrough “still needs an extra effort” and that Speaker Nabih Berri “is not distant from Ibrahim’s efforts.” Privately-owned Central News Agency meanwhile reported that Ibrahim’s initiative calls for forming “a mission-driven government consisted of 18 specialist, nonpolitical ministers in which parties are not represented.” “President Michel Aoun and his camp would be given five ministers in addition to one minister for Armenians but without getting a one-third-plus-one veto power,” the agency said. “In return, the justice and interior portfolios would be given to PM-designate Saad Hariri, who has to choose the two ministers from three nonpolitical, nonpartisan and non-provocative candidates proposed by Aoun,” the agency added. “Aoun has agreed to the proposal, but Hariri has demanded the approval of Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on it without setting a condition that the FPM MPs should agree to granting the government their votes of confidence,” the agency said. Informed sources meanwhile told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper that the main obstacle is still revolving around the interior portfolio in terms of who gets to name and who gets to pick the candidate. The sources added that a Aoun-Hariri meeting in the coming days cannot be ruled out.

Hariri Back in Beirut, Lavrov Supports Formation of 'Mission-Driven' Govt.
Naharnet/March 10/2021
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri returned Tuesday evening to Beirut after a visit to the United Arab Emirates during which he met with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. The Russian Foreign Ministry meanwhile announced in a statement that “views on how to put an end to the tense situation in Lebanon were thoroughly discussed, with emphasis on the importance of rapidly ending the social and economic crisis by forming a capable mission-driven government of technocrats.”The statement added that the meeting also focused on the support of the main political parties in the country for this mission. “Discussions also tackled some regional problems, including the intensification of the efforts of the international community to find a solution to the Syrian crisis based on UNSCR 2245, especially the return of Syrian refugees to their country,” the statement said. Also, new ideas were discussed to “consolidate the Russian-Lebanese friendship and develop trade, investment and social exchange,” while focusing on “Russia’s assistance to Lebanon in combating the coronavirus pandemic.”

Army holds on to neutrality as chaos spreads across Lebanon
The Arab Weekly/March 10/2021
Discontent is brewing in the ranks of Lebanon’s security forces over a currency crash wiping out most of the value of their salaries as unrest and crime surge.
BEIRUT – Chaos spread again across Lebanon on Tuesday amid deteriorating economic and living conditions. Commenting on the unrest, Lebanese political sources expressed their concern over the violence and their fear that the situation could spin completely out of control in the absence of a new government that can implement urgent reforms to reassure the public. Lebanese protesters set up new roadblocks on Tuesday to vent anger over political inaction in the face of deepening poverty, but security forces managed to reopen some to traffic.The country has been mired in economic crisis, which has brought surging unemployment and spiralling prices while the currency has plunged to a new low to the dollar on the black market. Yet the deeply divided political class has failed to agree on a new cabinet since a massive explosion in Beirut port last August that killed more than 200 people and led to the government’s resignation. Roadblocks have become a near daily occurrence in the Eastern Mediterranean country and lasted all day Monday, including in and out of Beirut.Demonstrators on Tuesday again cut off some roads in the northern city of Tripoli and the eastern Bekaa Valley region, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Highways leading to central Beirut were also closed, though most later reopened. Others blinked open and closed throughout the morning. Some protesters have called for a revival of the nationwide street movement of late 2019 that demanded the removal of Lebanon’s entire political class, widely seen as incompetent and corrupt. Political sources revealed to The Arab Weekly that the situation in the country is now taking a dangerous turn, with President Michel Aoun ignoring protesters’ demands.
The sources added that Aoun’s son-in-law Gebran Bassil moved to the Republican Palace with his team from the Free Patriotic Movement to perform the duties of the president, describing Bassil as the de facto president of the republic. The sources also noted that the president held a meeting in an attempt to contain the deteriorating situation. However, they ruled out Aoun’s ability to take any practical measures in the absence of a new government that has the required powers to resolve the country’s multiple security and economic crises. The same sources said that Lebanon is going through the most dangerous phase in its modern history, and that France has sent warnings to senior Lebanese officials cautioning that the country “faces the danger of extinction.” The sources highlighted the position of Armed Forces Commander General Joseph Aoun, who insisted on keeping the army neutral. On Monday, Lebanon’s president told the army and security forces to clear roadblocks after a week of protests over a collapsing economy and paralysed government, but the army chief warned that troops should not get sucked into the political deadlock.
Discontent among armed forces
The Lebanese army commander held a separate meeting with the military commanders on Monday in which he affirmed the right to demonstrate peacefully, but without harming public property.Discontent is brewing in the ranks of Lebanon’s security forces over a currency crash wiping out most of the value of their salaries as unrest and crime surge. nIn unusually outspoken comments, Aoun said his warnings that the pressure on soldiers’ earnings and morale could lead to an “implosion” had fallen on deaf ears. Lebanon’s pound has crashed 85% since late 2019 in a financial meltdown that poses the biggest threat to stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. “Soldiers are going hungry like the people,” he said on Monday, berating politicians without naming names.“Do they want the army or not? Do you want the army to stay on its feet or not? … They don’t care.”A Lebanese politician said the army commander informed senior Lebanese officials that he could not move in certain Lebanese regions, especially in Christian areas, nor could he mobilise forces in areas controlled by Hezbollah. The basic monthly salary of a soldier or policeman, which used to amount to around $800, is worth under $120 today. Budget cuts pushed the military to cut meat from its meals last year. In what was seen as a sign of the times, the French embassy donated food parcels last month to the Lebanese army, which has long been backed by Western nations.
Some officials caution that security forces will struggle to contain unrest.
More than half the population is now poor, with wages slashed across the board, prices soaring and no state rescue plan in sight. That was even before the currency hit a record low last week after months of political paralysis. The military, its commander and the caretaker interior minister have denied recent local media reports that economic hardship spurred a rise in forces abandoning duty. Still, three security sources said a buildup of pressure on lower-ranking servicemen has fuelled concerns of desertions. One member of the security forces, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he wanted to leave after many years because it had become hard to pay rent. He said he knew three others who had deserted, which is punishable by law, and worried commanders would reject his request for a discharge. “If nothing works, I’ll have to resort to fleeing,” he said, adding he used to be able to buy his children whatever they wanted but now could barely afford a few groceries. A second security source said army desertions were still within the usual pre-crisis figures, though there were plans to boost aid to avoid a rise. “We’re feeling the choke but we’re enduring.”He said a sense of national duty and bleak job prospects across Lebanon helped keep forces from wavering, but warned they should not “be pushed too far.”
Fear of crime
With Lebanon on edge, unrest is expected to grow. Protesters have burned tyres and shut main roads since the Lebanese pound hit its new low. While the president urged forces to stop the roadblocks on Monday, Aoun warned in a separate meeting against pulling the army into political wrangles.
The economy’s collapse has brought a shift in robberies with more people trying to steal food, baby formula or medicine, one security source said. There has also been also an uptick in gunmen holding up drivers at night to take cars, he said. In 2020, murders jumped 91% from 2019, according to research firm Information International, based on police data. Robberies shot up 57% and car thefts hit a nine-year high. A police spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Road safety charity YASA said about 10,000 manhole covers had disappeared in Beirut, as thieves sell the cast iron for $100 each, more than Lebanon’s monthly minimum wage. Fears of muggings have pushed many to take precautions like avoiding ATMs at night. Eight people, including a designer and an engineer, said this had pushed them to buy a pistol. “If I had the money, I would have bought a licensed gun for the place,” said shop owner Khodr Osman. “There’s no safety today. The state is in disarray.”

Burning tires: Lebanon’s protesters send dark, angry message
Sarah El Deeb/AP/March 10/2021
It’s an expression of anger but also of helplessness: Anti-government protesters in Lebanon are burning tires to block key roads, releasing dense palls of smoke that rise above the capital of Beirut and other parts of the country.
The tactic has become the hallmark of a new flare-up of demonstrations against an intransigent political class that appears to do little as Lebanon slides toward political and economic abyss. The country is mired in the worst economic crisis in its modern history, and the situation has been exacerbated by pandemic restrictions and an overwhelmed health care sector.“The fire releases our anger. It quiets our hearts,” said Mounir Hujairi, a 23-year-old protester from Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, who juggles his time between low-paying day jobs and protests. The tire soot and smoke blacken the faces of protesters in anti-virus masks at makeshift roadblocks that cut off traffic around Beirut and between cities. The persistence of the protesters and the daily burning of tires underscore how intractable the country’s problems have become. Anti-government rallies first began gripping Lebanon in late 2019. Since then, the local currency has collapsed, after being pegged to the dollar for nearly 30 years. Salaries have remained the same as inflation skyrocketed. People lost their jobs and poverty affected nearly 50% of the population. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s sectarian-based political system is stuck. Politicians have refused to compromise on forming a government or on making difficult financial decisions for fear of losing their clout or support base. Exhausted, scared and restricted by the coronavirus, Lebanese have watched as members of the ruling elite blame each other for the crisis.
Last week, the currency hit a record low, trading on the black market at 11,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar, down from the official 1,500 pounds for $1 — sparking a new wave of protests.
“The solution will only come through the streets,” said Hujairi, who has taken part in protests since October 2019. “Of course, those whose streets — or the streets of their political parties — are blocked will be angered.” The roadblocks are a desperate way to reclaim the anger felt nationwide in 2019, when the government was forced to resign, sparking a brief period of euphoria and hope that change may be possible. The national mood is now more fearful. Officials have warned of chaos and some have argued the protests were manipulated by political groups to ignite violence or extract concessions from rivals.
Many fear the social tension has reached levels not seen since before the civil war broke out in April 1975. For the next 15 years of conflict, burning tires became common — a cheap way to set up roadblocks between warring factions. Tire fires are hard to put out and can go on for hours, drawing attention and keeping rivals away.The tactic has been used in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Sudan.
Palestinians burned tires during protests against Israeli occupation, starting in their first uprising that erupted in 1987. Three decades later, during protests against an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade of the Gaza Strip, young men formed “tire crews” that drove around the small coastal territory in motorcycle rickshaws to collect tires for burning. The dark black smoke served to obscure the identities of those throwing stones at Israeli forces. Open tire fires, which were used in some countries to power kilns, have been outlawed in most of the world because of their high emission of pollutants.
Sahar Mandour, a Lebanon researcher with Amnesty International, said the practice of burning tires as a form of protest picked up in many countries in the 1980s. But it has since fallen out of favor because of the environmental impact. “The world moved on. ... But Lebanon didn’t,” she said. “We have the same parties and the same leaders, so the tools are the same.” Hujairi claims he and his friends burn between 100 and 150 tires a day. He said they collect used and punctured tires from refuse piles, dismissing claims that political parties hand them out. “A little black smoke won’t hurt,” Hujairi said, in response to criticism. “There is no way for us to reach the houses of politicians.” On Wednesday, Lebanese troops deployed to prevent protesters from setting up roadblocks, two days after the president, Michel Aoun, called for action to prevent them.
 

Lebanon celebrates “National Protected Reserves Day” amid stifling crises
NNA/March 10/2021

 For the second year in a row, Lebanon celebrates the “National Protected Reserves Day” amid stifling health, economic, financial, and living crises that prevent people from enjoying this distinctive environmental day, which highlights the importance of the country's national wealth and the pressing need to protect its reserves and natural resources.
Lebanon annually celebrates this important day on March 10 by organizing a variety of activities, including nature walks, bird and animal watching, and preparing environmental awareness programs for schools. Visitors are usually welcomed with optimal authentic Lebanese hospitality and accommodation in the guest houses located in the villages of the reserves.
Lebanon's 18 natural reserves encompass rich biological diversity with around 370 different kinds of birds and 2000 types of plants and wild flowers, many of which are unique to Lebanon. The nature reserves are also home to thirty species of mammals, including the wolf, hyena, wildcat, porcupine and squirrel.
Marking this National Day, Lebanon's Ministry of Environment has declared that the country's natural reserves have increased in number during the year 2020 from "15 to 18 reserves" after the House Parliament has passed a bill placing three new reserves under the official protection of the Lebanese law.
Here's a brief description of the three new reserves:
- Mount Hermon Nature Reserve (Jabal Al-Sheikh) in Rashaya district: The 1,260-hectare reserve is not only a landmark of biodiversity, but also a haven of great historical, symbolic, and religious value. According to the Bible, it is the place of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Due to its historical value, Mount Hermon became a magnet over the years for religious believers, tourists, environmentalists, and nature enthusiasts. This site also constitutes one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the region, and it is rich in perennial wild trees and medicinal plants that exceed one hundred species. It is also home to the endemic animal species in Lebanon such as wolves, hyenas, and wild cats that are endangered at the national level. This site is a crossing point for migratory birds, especially for eagles, some of which are threatened with extinction at the global level.
- Abbasieh Beach Nature Reserve in Tyre district: It is an extension of the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve, and it shimmers with a golden sandy beach that is characterized by many ecological characteristics, natural resources, and distinctive biological diversity. On this beach, there are soft sand dunes that provide a favorable environment for many types of plants and animals. This beach is also characterized by dense and varied vegetation, which provides a habitat for many birds, insects, and reptiles. The most important characteristic of Abbasieh beach is that it is a habitat for sea turtles, which are threatened with global extinction.
- Nmairiyeh Nature Reserve in Nabatieh district: It is a site that enjoys a Mediterranean forest character, especially in terms of trees, such as oaks, pines, castor beans, and hawthorn, in addition to the presence of wild plants, wild animals, and various birds.
A closer look at Lebanon's fifteen other nature reserves gives a clearer image as to why these places are a natural wealth worth preserving and visiting:
- Ehden Forest natural reserve: Located on the north-western slopes of Mount Lebanon, it is engulfed by mist and relatively high precipitation. A multitude of rare and endemic plants flourish in it. Stands of cedars are bordered by a mixed forest of juniper, fir, and the country's last protected community of wild apple trees. It is home to the endangered Eastern imperial eagle, Bonelli's eagle, Gray wolf, and the wildcat.
- Nakheel (Palm) Islands Nature Reserve: Consists of three flat uninhabited rocky islands of eroded limestone and the surrounding sea area, located 5.5 kilometres offshore and northwest of the northern city of Tripoli. The islands are a haven for endangered loggerhead turtles, rare monk seals and a resting and nesting grounds for migratory birds. It is rich in medicinal plants and its coastal waters have a wealth of fish and other marine creatures. Swimming is allowed in parts of the island during the summer season.
- Tannourine Cedars Forest Nature Reserve: One of the largest and densest cedar forests in Lebanon, with 90% of its trees being Cedar trees. The stunning mountainous landscape, with cedars seemingly defying gravity and growing on extremely vertical slopes, is impressive. Visitors can explore rock-cut or naturally occurring grottos on their hike, as well as rare flowers, such as Lavender.
- Bentael Nature Reserve: One of the earliest natural reserves in Lebanon, it is located on the hill slopes of north-eastern Jbeil (Byblos). It is known for its Pine trees. The reserve is situated along the path of migration of birds such as eagles and hawks as well as other birds of prey, making it a site of interest for bird watchers.
- Yammouneh Nature Reserve: Located on the eastern slope where Makmil and Mounaiterah mountains meet, it is rich in water. It has 84 springs and 4 ever-running rivers as well as two seasonal rivers. The reserve is also a historic site, encompassing Phoenician, Roman and Arab ruins (from a Romano-Byzantine temple which included a statue of Aphrodite that was later transported to Baalbek). It also includes the remains of a large fortress which used to be the summer retreat of Emperor Adriano. The Emperor ordered his army to engrave in stone "I, Emperor Adriano, announce Yammouneh region a reserve and forbid the cutting of its Juniper trees." Yammouneh is rich in greenery and trees that make up 30% of its land mass.
- Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve: One of the largest natural reserves in Lebanon. It extends from Daher el Baydar in the north to Neeha Mountain in the south. Its oak trees cover its north-eastern and south-eastern slopes. The reserve is most famous for its three magnificent cedar forests: Barouk, Maaser el Shouf and Ain Zhalta. Its mass comprises a third of what remains of the cedar forests of Lebanon. Some of the trees are estimated at two thousand years old. This reserve is home for medium sized mammals such as the wolf, and the Lebanese jungle cat. It is also known for a variety of birds and wild plants.The reserve is a favourite destination among hikers, nature walkers and bird watchers.
- Tyre Coast Nature Reserve: Located in south Lebanon, the reserve has some of the country's best sandy beaches. It is characterized by its ecological, marine and coastal ecosystem. In addition, it is an important nesting site for migratory birds and the endangered sea turtles.
The natural reserve contains fresh water estuaries and springs that outflow to the sea thus creating a fresh/ marine water interface. Both visitors and scientists recognize it as one of the most beautiful and scenic beaches in Lebanon, with the widest biodiversity.
- Shnaneer Nature Reserve: Established in 2010, it is surrounded by the towns of Ghazeer, Mehrab, and Jounieh. The reserve is rich in Oak and Pine trees.
- Houjeir Valley Nature Reserve: Established in 2010, it stretches from Litani River below the city of Nabatiyeh until the town of Aytroun in Bint Jbeil district. The reserve is also known for its Oak tree forests.
- Nature Reserves of Ramiyah, Kafra, Beit Leef, Dibil (Bint Jbeil District), and JAJ Cedars Forest Reserve (Byblos District).
These reserves remain a vivid evidence of Lebanon's natural wealth that protects its terrestrial and marine ecosystems from degradation; they are also considered one of the unique and distinctive Mediterranean systems that prevent the loss of trees, plants, birds, animals and fish, and preserve biological diversity, especially rare and endangered plants and animals.
 

Israeli Defense Minister Surreptitiously Reveals Hezbollah Locations in Lebanon
Joe Truzman/FDD/March 10/2021
During a recent interview on Fox News, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz conspicuously revealed some of Hezbollah military sites inside Lebanon as a message to the militant group. Israeli officials revealing declassified material about Hezbollah to the public isn’t unprecedented, however, the manner in which it was revealed last week was somewhat peculiar. In the interview, Gantz was asked about a range of topics including how many missiles Hezbollah had in its possession. Gantz replied ‘hundreds of thousands,’ and proceeded to show the interviewer a map of Lebanon that was digitally blurred by the Israeli Military Censor from the viewer. Gantz remarked the map showed the locations of Hezbollah ground forces, missiles, headquarters and launching sites. Additionally, Gantz elaborated by saying ‘everything is aimed at civilian targets and everything is being conducted from civilian infrastructure.’ Initially, the digital blurring seemed to cover the entire map, but when Gantz handed it over to the interviewer, a small portion of northern Lebanon was not blurred. This was not an oversight by the Israeli Military Censor. By analyzing frames of the interview, the unblurred image of the map shows northern Lebanon marked by black dots that are presumably locations of Hezbollah sites in northern Lebanon. The disclosure of sensitive locations was done to convey a message to Hezbollah that Israel was aware of the locations of its military infrastructure. As FDD’s Long War Journal has extensively reported in recent months, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in an exchange of warnings of conflict if either side were to breach the status quo. [See FDD’s Long War Journal, Analysis: Hezbollah renews threats in publication, fails to make an impression.]The disclosure of sensitive intelligence about Hezbollah military sites embedded within the civilian population of Lebanon is part of a strategy by Israel to publicize Hezbollah’s military efforts so if conflict were to break out, Israel would be justified in protecting itself from attacks if they emanated from populated locations. In contrast, Hezbollah has responded by reciprocating warnings that IDF bases near civilian infrastructure are considered legitimate targets in a future conflict.bIt is unlikely the Israeli Military Censor blundered by allowing sensitive military intelligence to be made public thus allowing some of the map to be shown — albeit briefly — knowing that Hezbollah monitors news about Israel and would notice the unblurred image in the interview.
*Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

His Eminence Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai’s speech at The popular rally in Bkerki—Saturday, February 27, 2021
Long live Lebanon, united, independent, neutrally active, free, strong and prosperous. Lebanon is communion and charity.
1. You have come, men and women of all agers, from all across the nation despite the dangers of the Corona virus pandemic to support the proposal of active neutrality and the international conference on Lebanon. In a word, you have come demanding to save Lebanon. Together, yes together, we will save Lebanon. Thank you for your love, thank you to all those who organized the rally, and thank you to all those who committed time, talent and treasure. Greetings to all those who join us from across the globe. May God protect you from this pandemic and heal those who have been afflicted by it. Let us now overserve a minute of silence for the lives that perished due to this epidemic and the victims of the Beirut seaport explosion.
2. You have come to support the demand to declare Lebanon’s positive and active neutrality.
No two people disagree that the abandonment of the policy of active neutrality by either the State or political factions is the main reason for all the turmoil and wars that have decimated our nation. Historical experiences, both of yesteryears and today, have shown that when some are drawn to regional or international alliances, the nation gets divided, the constitution gets suspended, governance gets disrupted, the Lebanese national accord is set back, and wars break out. The essence of an independent Lebanon is neutrality. In this regard, the very foundation of greater Lebanon was to create a neutral entity in the Levant whose role was and still is to form a link between the region’s peoples and their civilizations and a bridge between East and West. The choice of the policy of neutrality is to preserve Lebanon in its current political system, which is essentially based on common citizenship, not on religious affiliation, and distinguished by its cultural and religious pluralism, openness to the international community, and non-alliance. We renew with you the call to endorse Lebanon’s neutrality in order to give it a viable and legitimate constitutional character as it has been declared in various statements: in the document establishing the state of Lebanon, in the speeches of the presidents of the republic, in the statement of the Independence Cabinet of Ministers, the statements of all successive governments, and the Baabda Declaration on June 11, 2012.
3. You have come to support the demand for an international conference on Lebanon
With you, we did not call for an International Conference on Lebanon until it became evident that all other possible initiatives have reached a dead end, which made it impossible for us to agree on the destiny of our country. Even politicians, involved in the decision making process, were not able to sit at the table for dialogue. Consequently, it has become known to us that all attempts at reconciliation have been rejected—a situation that led to chaos, the fall of the State, and seizure of power. For to keep things as they are has certainly produced an impoverished population and the collapse of the State, and that is what we do not accept. We are facing a coup d’état, affecting every aspect of public life; a coup against our society and the cultural specificity of our country in the Levant. The first coup is against the National Accord Charter, which was approved by the Taif Conference in 1989 held with international and Arab sponsorship. But its spirit has not yet been fully implemented. The Constitution was amended on its basis, and, to be sure, loopholes appeared that deeply affected the function of the State until it was paralyzed. If our politicians were able to hold a responsibly dialogue to solidify the National Accord and address the gaps in the Constitution, we would never have called for an internal conference sponsored by the United Nations to help us solve these issues that have paralyzed our political system.
4. What do we want?
We want the international conference to affirm the sovereignty of Lebanon, which is constantly under threat, and to recognize its international borders.
We want the international conference to renew support for the Lebanese democratic system that expresses its adherence to freedom, justice and equality.
We want the international conference to declare Lebanon’s neutrality so that it will no longer fall prey to conflicts, wars, and divisions, and to strengthen the balance of power to the exclusion of sectarian interests that always cause internal destabilization.
We want the international conference to exert every possible effort to implement international resolutions concerning Lebanon, which have been shelved or partially implemented. The implementation of these resolutions would safeguard Lebanon’s sovereignty, and allow the Lebanese State to extend its legitimate authority over all its territory without any partnership or competition.
We want the international conference to provide support to the Lebanese army to be the sole defender of the nation; an army capable of absorbing the military capabilities of the Lebanese people through a legitimate defense system responsible of war and peace decisions.
We want the international conference to put an end to an emerging plan to resettle the Palestinians refugees in Lebanon and to safely return displaced Syrians to their homes.
We do not want the international conference to send armies and to establish military installations in our country.
We do not want to harm Lebanon’s existence, as it cannot be subject for reconsideration, and its borders cannot be modified. For the partnership that exists between Christian and Muslims is untouchable, and its democracy cannot be reversed. Lebanon’s indispensable role cannot be compromised, and its identity cannot be forged. Any development of the system, and this is the year of progress, should not be at the expense of what we have agreed upon since the establishment of the State of Lebanon. Development does not mean revocation, but improvement. Development does not mean abolishing Constitutional Charters, but rather clarifying what is ambiguous in them, so as to integrate constitutional powers. Development does not mean erasing the past, but rather solidifying historical constants. We have the right to live a decent life in our homeland.
We were born to live in the pastures of permanent peace, not on the battlefields of permanent wars. Nations’ problems have become solvable through dialogue, negotiations and peaceful relations. The destiny of humankind is to create friendship, not enmity. And to abide in love, not bitterness and resentment. Lebanon’s message is to be an example of peaceful human relations. No matter the circumstances and the times, no one will succeed in undermining Lebanon and its message.
Lebanon is the message that Saint Pope John Paul II spoke about during his historic visit to Lebanon, which is again reinforced in two successive letters by His Holiness Pope Francis, who attaches special importance to the role that Lebanon plays in the world. His Holiness Pope Francis continues to admonish the nations of the earth to support Lebanon and to exert every effort to save its unique place in the world. We greet His holiness and we thank him for his love for Lebanon.
Dear Beloved;
5. All that we are proposing today, in terms of declaring Lebanon’s active neutrality and the convocation of special international conference, is to renew our resolve for a free, sovereign, independent and stable existence. All we are proposing is to revive the scattered, crippled and confiscated Lebanese state. We have liberated the land, let us now liberate the State. Let us free it from everything that hinders her authority and its function. The greatness of all liberation and resistance movements in the world is that they feed into the State and its legitimacy. The greatness of the state is to serve its people. We wonder how far removed we are from this greatness? The State is the supreme entity, and because it is so, a State that respects its institutions, does not tolerate ambiguity, duplication, and vulnerability. There are no two states or states on the land, and there are no two armies in one country. There can never be two states in the same country and there can never be two separate and competing armed forces in the same country. Furthermore, there can never be two or more peoples in one country. Any tampering with these constants threatens the unity of the nation.
6. In this Patriarchal edifice, we offer projects of solutions, not projects of problems. The solutions are for all Lebanon and every citizen. The real solution is a solution for all the people, not just for any sectarian group at the expense of others. We the Lebanese are called to approach ideas in a positive spirit away from negativity, especially when they spring forth from this Patriarchal edifice, because here we only think positively, and we only think nationally, and we only think about all Lebanese. The Lebanese are all our beloved. In this edifice, Christian and Muslim leaders commissioned Patriarch Elias Howeik to lead the Lebanese delegation to the peace conference in Versailles in 1919 to speak in the name of all the Lebanese and to demand the creation of the State of greater Lebanon. In this edifice, Lebanese Christian and Islamic statesmen held a conference on December 25, 1941 under the tuteledge of Patriarch Antoun Arida, demanding Lebanon’s full and viable independence guaranteed by the international community.
Dear Beloved;
The Lebanese blood flowing in your veins is what led you today spontaneously, despite all dangers, to this particular Patriarchal edifice. We will not disappoint your hopes.
7. You are the ones here and those out there overseas, share these moments with us on TV stations. You are the source of our confidence in the future. You are the future of Lebanon and Lebanon of the future. Lebanon is for all or can never be, and everyone is for Lebanon or they can never be. Your coming today from everywhere renews hope and expels frustration. Your coming confirms that no right dies, for which there is a claimant, a citizen, a fighter, a revolutionary and a people.
8. I fully understand your cry and your anger, and I understand your uprising and your revolution. Do not be silent about the plurality of loyalties; do not be silent about corruption; do not remain silent about the embezzlement of your money; do not remain silent about uncontrolled borderers; do not remain silent about the violation of our airspace; do not be silent about the failures of the political class; do not remain silent about the wrong choices and alignment; do not be silent about the chaotic investigations of the crimes of the seaport explosion; do not be silent about the politicization of the judiciary; do not remain silent about illegal weapons, which are not under the legitimate authority of the State; do not remain silent on the imprisonment of the innocent and the release of the guilty; do not be silent about the Palestinian resettlement and the integration of the displaced Syrians; do not remain silent about the confiscation of the national decision; do not remain silent about the coup against the state and the regime; do not be silent about not forming a government; do not remain silent about the failure to implement reforms; and do not be silent about the forgetfulness of the martyrs. Our martyrs are the relics of our spiritual and national existence. Woe to those who forget their martyrs and barter for them.
9. Lebanon is a community of people, not separate individuals, and you, you are the people of Lebanon. You are Lebanon with all that it represents: the message, values, spirit and religious and cultural pluralism. The Patriarch does not differentiate between one Lebanese and another, because solidarity is the basis of our unity, and our unity in one Lebanon is our historical project.
Beloved, coming from different regions and different sects and parties, we are united by one color that is Lebanon to which we belong on the basis of common citizenship, not religion. This is Lebanon, the civil state that separates religion and state. Let us preserve it. Lebanon is our pride in what it represents as a precious jewel, a cultural, civilizational and humanitarian bridge between East and West on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
Long Live Lebanon.
#maronites #maronite_patriarchate #bkerki #patriarch_rai #communion_charity
#lebanon #active_neutrality
#البطريركية_المارونية #البطريرك_الراعي #شركة_ومحبة #حياد_لبنان #لبنان_الكبير #الراعي #بكركي

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 10-11/2021

Pope Francis thanks Iraqis for visit, saying they deserve peace
NNA/AP/March 10/2021
Pope Francis thanked the people of Iraq on Wednesday for allowing him to make his historic trip to the country, saying Iraqis deserve to live in peace. In his weekly audience, the 84-year-old pope reflected on the packed three-day program that saw him travel throughout Iraq last weekend, offering encouragement to persecuted Christians and extending a hand to Shiite Muslims. "After this visit, my soul is filled with gratitude -- gratitude to God and to all those who made it possible," he said, citing political and religious leaders. These include top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, "with whom I had an unforgettable meeting."He said he heard first-hand of "wounds still open" from the destruction wrought on Iraq’s Christian communities, which have been decimated after decades of conflict. "And at the same time, I saw around me the joy of welcoming Christ’s message," he said. "The Iraqi people have the right to live in peace. They have the right to rediscover the dignity that belongs to them." He condemned the "monster" of war, adding: "I ask myself, who sells arms to terrorists? Today, who sells them to terrorists? They are waging wars in other places as well, in Africa, and it’s a question that I want an answer to." But he noted that Iraqis "are trying hard to rebuild. The Muslims are inviting the Christians to return and together they are restoring churches and mosques. Fraternity is there."
 

Ex-Mossad chief: Return to US, Iran nuclear deal will happen regardless
Jerusalem Post/March 10/2021
"Returning to the old deal, I am concerned that we are non-stop galloping toward it...this will be a disaster if it happens...if I estimate who could thwart this, it would be the Iranians." Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said on Wednesday that the US and Iran will likely return to a nuclear deal regardless of the current Israeli government's opposition. Speaking at a joint Commanders for Israel's Security and Ha'aretz conference, when asked if there would be a deal, Pardo said, "it is very hard to know for sure. I assume yes and the question is when, and how many variations will it undergo until we get there."
The former Mossad director also said that "I assume Israel will act like it should... [according to] its size... it can get to cooperative levels with" the US, but added that Jerusalem should not play games with the larger powers, given that it "has capabilities, but [they are] the capabilities of a small state – and at the end... it needs to recognize its place."Without mentioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, but clearly referring to him, he warned that if Israeli leaders yell at the world that they will act on their own against everyone, then Israel will not get anywhere in terms of influencing developments.
Former Netanyahu national security council chief Jacob Nagel took issue with Pardo's statements, saying that regarding "returning to the old deal, I am concerned that we are non-stop galloping toward it... this will be a disaster if it happens. "if I estimate who could thwart this, it would be the Iranians. If I estimate who is pushing to make this happen with all of their energy, it would be some Israelis –not those in official positions – and obviously the new US government," he said. "If there is a deal, it will be the last" and will lead to great harm, Nagel said. Staking out a middle, more analytical path, former Mossad Iran desk chief Sima Shine said, "I think both sides are interested in getting to an agreement. Since they are interested, it seems they will get there. But there are quite a few obstacles along the road... but in the end, they both want to get a deal."Shine also confirmed the likelihood of an interim partial deal of "less for less" – partial reduction of US sanctions for partial reduction of Iranian nuclear violations. But she said that despite any possible interim deal, the end point would be full removal of sanctions for a full return to nuclear limitations.

U.S. State Dept blacklists two Iranian officials over human rights violations
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/March 10/2021
The U.S. State Department on Tuesday blacklisted two Iranian government interrogators, accusing them of torture and other human rights violations, in what appeared to be the first such action against Tehran under the Biden administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement accused the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) interrogators of gross violations of human rights, including “torture and/or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” of political prisoners and people detained in 2019 and 2020 protests in Iran. The Biden administration chose to take the action despite its efforts to coax Iran into negotiations over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018, dramatically increasing tensions with Tehran. “We will continue to consider all appropriate tools to impose costs on those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in Iran,” Blinken said. The move bars Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari, as well as their immediate family members, from entering the United States. State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a news briefing that the United States can both pursue its interests in barring Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon while also making clear that there will be consequences for violations of human rights. Biden’s administration has said it is ready to talk to Iran about both nations resuming compliance with the nuclear deal, but the parties cannot agree who should make the first move. Iran says the United States must lift sanctions, while Washington says Tehran must first return to compliance with the deal, which Iran has been progressively breaching since 2019. Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Humeyra Pamuk and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Chris Reese and Sonya Hepinstall
 

Putin, Erdogan Launch New Phase of Turkish Nuclear Power Plant
Agence France Presse/March 10/2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Wednesday to improve cooperation as they launched the construction of a new reactor at Turkey's first nuclear power plant. The two leaders each pressed a button on their office desks in Moscow and Ankara in a video link ceremony unveiling the third phase of Akkuyu station's construction project. Russia's Rosatom state nuclear energy firm began building the first of four planned reactors on Turkey's south coast in 2018. Erdogan hopes to put the plant online by the time Turkey celebrates its centenary as a post-Ottoman republic in 2023. Putin said he expected the project to "improve the Russian-Turkish partnership in all its facets, helping strengthen friendship and mutual understanding between our countries' peoples". Erdogan echoed similar thoughts. "The close dialogue that we established with my esteemed friend (Putin) is playing a key role not only in bilateral relations but also in preserving regional peace and stability," Erdogan said. Putin and Erdogan have enjoyed a complex relationship while leading their countries for most of the past 20 years. They found themselves on opposite sides of the war in Syria but are now working closely together on a peace plan that could bring an end to a decade of strife. Their ties plunged to a nadir when Turkish forces shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November 2015. But they recovered quickly and Putin attended the launch of the Akkuyu plant's construction in April 2018. Russian news reports estimate the cost of the entire project at around $20 billion (17 billion euros). Turkey is heavily reliant on oil and natural gas imports -- including from Russia. Erdogan said he expected the plant to supply 10 percent of Turkey's electricity needs when completed.

Biden Promotes Rights in First Iran Sanctions
Agence France Presse/March 10/2021
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration overnight imposed its first new sanctions on Iran, targeting two interrogators for alleged abuse of prisoners. Unlike the sweeping punishment of Iran's economy by former president Donald Trump's administration, the sanctions were narrowly targeted at two rank-and-file officers, who along with their immediate families will be banned from visiting the United States. Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari, who belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the powerful unit branded a terrorist group by the Trump administration, engaged in torture or other inhumane treatment of political prisoners during 2019-2020 protests, the State Department said. "We will continue to consider all appropriate tools to impose costs on those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in Iran," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Blinken said that the United States will "demand the Iranian government treat its people with respect and dignity." The move comes as Iran seeks a lifting of sanctions imposed by Trump, including an effort to block all its oil exports, before returning to full compliance with a 2015 denuclearization accord trashed by the former US president's administration. Biden supports a return to diplomacy with Iran but has also insisted that he will make human rights a priority -- including with US allies such as Saudi Arabia. Blinken on Tuesday also urged Iran to give more information on the 14th anniversary of the disappearance of Bob Levinson, a former FBI agent.
"We call on the Iranian government to provide credible answers to what happened to Bob Levinson and to immediately and safely release all US citizens who are unjustly held captive in Iran," Blinken said. Levinson, who would turn 73 on Wednesday, vanished in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish and was said to have been investigating cigarette smuggling, although a later report said he had gone on a rogue CIA mission. The Trump administration said in December that it had concluded Levinson was likely dead and said Iran was responsible. At least four other Americans are believed to be detained or prohibited from leaving Iran including Baquer Namazi, a 84-year-old former UNICEF official, and his businessman son.

Libya Lawmakers Approve Interim Govt. in Key Step towards Elections
Agence France Presse/March 10/2021
Libya's parliament on Wednesday approved a unity government to lead the war-ravaged North African nation to December elections, a key step towards ending a decade of chaos. Oil-rich Libya descended into conflict after dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, resulting in multiple forces vying for power. "This will be the government of all Libyans," interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah said, in a brief but emotional speech after the vote. "Libya is one and united," he added. After two days of intense debate in the central city of Sirte, parliament approved Dbeibah's cabinet, with 121 of the 132 lawmakers present voting in support, the parliament spokesman said on live television. "Thank you for your trust," Dbeibah told lawmakers. "Thank you for putting the nation's interest above all else."The United Nations mission praised leaders for the "patriotic efforts that led to this landmark moment in the history of Libya." But the challenges ahead are daunting. The interim government must now tackle the many grievances of Libyans, from a dire economic crisis and soaring unemployment to crippling inflation and wretched public services. "Libya has now a genuine opportunity to move forward towards unity, stability, prosperity, reconciliation and to restore fully its sovereignty," the U.N. said.
'Historic'
Libya has been split between the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord, based in the capital Tripoli and backed by Turkey, and an administration in the east supported by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, with the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia.
But a U.N.-supervised process aims to unite the country after a ceasefire last October, and the new government has to bring the rival administrations together. Fayez al-Sarraj, outgoing head of the GNA, said he was "fully ready to hand over" power, while influential parliament speaker Aguila Saleh called it "a historic day".The government's endorsement was welcomed by the United States and the European Union, who also both called the vote "historic", as well as Britain, neighboring Egypt and France. The U.S. Ambassador Richard Norland said it "set the stage for elections" and offered his congratulations.
"The new unity government can count on the full support of the international community," EU Ambassador to Libya Jose Sabadell said. "Reconciliation, improving basic services and preparing elections will be central challenges."Lawmakers met in Sirte, a Mediterranean port city which lies halfway between Tripoli, where the western government is based, and the east, where parliament has sat in recent years. Libyan media said the government would be sworn in on Monday in Benghazi in the east, Libya's second city and cradle of the 2011 revolution.
Foreign forces remain
Dbeibah, 61, a billionaire businessman from the western city of Misrata, was selected in February alongside an interim three-member presidency council to head the new unity administration. The process has been marred by allegations of vote-buying, but Dbeibah defended the composition of his government. "My first objective was to choose people with whom I would be able to work, no matter where they come from," Dbeibah said, during the debate in parliament. Dbeibah's government includes two deputy prime ministers, 26 ministers and six ministers of state, with the key foreign affairs and justice portfolios handed to women, a first in Libya. Another key task facing the new administration is ensuring the departure of an estimated 20,000 mercenaries and foreign fighters. Dbeibah told lawmakers they were "a stab in our back". The premier said Tuesday he would contact the UN and the countries where the mercenaries come from to demand they withdraw. A January 23 deadline for their withdrawal passed without any sign of them pulling them out. Some have literally dug in. In January, satellite images broadcast by CNN showed a trench running tens of kilometers (miles) dug by "Russian mercenaries" near the frontline city of Sirte. An advance team of a U.N. observer mission arrived in Libya last week tasked with monitoring the ceasefire and verifying the departure of the thousands of foreign fighters.
 

Netanyahu Says Israel Seeking to Repatriate Spy's Remains from Syria
Agence France Presse/March 10/2021
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he was working to repatriate the remains of Eli Cohen, an Israeli agent executed in 1965 after working deep undercover in Syria. Cohen, whose story was the subject of a 2019 Netflix series "The Spy" starring Sacha Baron Cohen, was tried and hanged for espionage by Syria after he had infiltrated the top levels of the Damascus regime. "I can tell you that with respect to Eli Cohen, we do not stop looking," Netanyahu, who is in the midst of a re-election campaign ahead of polls later this month, told Army Radio.
The comment comes after the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that Russian forces had been searching the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus for the remains of Cohen and two Israeli soldiers. Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP that Russian forces have taken "samples from... remains that were exhumed (from Yarmuk) to conduct DNA tests and verify the identity of the corpses."Russian forces are deployed in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad in the country's civil war. Syria and Israel are bitter foes with no diplomatic relations, but Russia has acted as intermediary between the two, including during a low-level prisoner exchange last month. Tel Aviv-based i24News reported Tuesday that Netanyahu had indicated Russia was acting on Israel's behalf in the Cohen case. Netanyahu disputed that report, telling army radio: "I did not say and I am not telling you that we are doing it through Russia, but we do not give up." A Palestinian journalist and activist in Damascus, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity over security concerns, said the cemetery in Yarmuk camp is "heavily guarded." But "some residents have sighted Russian soldiers entering the cemetery and surrounding areas," the journalist said. The information Cohen obtained was seen as playing a key role in Israel's conquest of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. Syria has not responded over the years to Israeli requests to repatriate Cohen's remains on humanitarian grounds. Pleas sent in 2004 by then Israeli president Moshe Katsav were passed to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad by French, German and United Nations envoys. In 2018, Israel's Mossad spy agency said that it had brought home Cohen's wristwatch in a "special operation."The watch had been held in Syria since Cohen's execution on 18 May, 1965, Mossad said.

Abdullah bin Zayed: US Caesar Act complicates the situation in Syria
The Arab Weekly/March 10/2021
ABU DHABI --The UAE said that the US Caesar Act, which imposes sanctions on those dealing with Syria, further complicates the situation and impedes Syria’s return to the Arab fold. The UAE’s position was viewed as tantamount to a call on the new US administration to reconsider this law.
In a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Abu Dhabi, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan pushed for “joint action with Syria,” saying that the American economic pressure campaign “as it is today makes the matter difficult.” He added that while efforts were required by both the Syrians and the Arab League bloc, the “bigger challenge today facing coordination and working with Syria is the Caesar Act.”“To keep the Caesar Act as it is today makes this path very difficult, not only for us as a nation, but also for the private sector,” he said
The Caesar Act, which came into effect in June 2020, imposes severe penalties on the Syrian regime, and on external parties (governments or private companies) that deal with it. Washington has so far imposed sanctions on 58 people and entities linked to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, including companies in the oil sector.
Sheikh Abdullah said these sanctions are an issue that “should be part of dialogue we address clearly with our friends in the United States.”He further pushed for the reinstatement of war-torn Syria in the 22-member Arab League and noted the government and private sector “could play a role” in returning Syria “to normal” after years of ruinous war. Analysts see Sheikh Abdullah’s statements as reflecting a desire by the UAE to see the United States reassess its position on Syria so to help facilitate a solution to the ten-year crisis. They point out that the continuation of the crisis does not only affect Syria, but also the region as a whole, especially from the security perspective. They believe the situation in Syria provides extremist groups with fertile ground to radicalise, recruit and train new militants. They say that the ongoing crisis has opened the door to diverse external interference in Syria, with each foreign party believing that its presence is warranted as long as a permanent solution has not been reached. Putting an end to the Caesar Act, they believe, would give further impetus to the Arab role in extricating Syria from its crisis and fostering a political transition based on the consecration of Syria’s territorial integrity and working for a Syrian-Syrian solution without external interference or imposed agendas. An Emirati source, who declined to be named, said, “What is happening now in Syria is similar to the Iraqi scenario of the 1990s.”“The war is coming to a halt, but economic sanctions are killing the people but are not destabilising the system. We all know the price that Iraq and the whole region have paid in terms of security and stability,” he added. A Syrian political analyst, who preferred to remain anonymous, indicated that the UAE’s initiative calling for an end to the Caesar Act “shows the pertinence of Arab proposals in dealing with regional issues. But what is most important about it is that it engages the United States openly and conveys to it the Arab perspective on the Syrian issue.”
The Syrian analyst added that the same approach can relay to the new US administration the Arabs’ views about disputes and their settlement options as well as their positions on various other issues, including Yemen and the relationship with Iran. The Emirati foreign minister said, “We discussed with the Russian side the implications of extremism and violence,” adding that “relations with Russia have witnessed a remarkable development in many aspects, and our relations with Russia aim to create a better future for all.”After the meeting, he pointed out that his country believes in the importance of “strengthening relations of cooperation with all countries of the world, as relations with Russia will continue to develop in all fields.”Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed during the same press conference that his country supports a political settlement in Syria, Libya and Yemen. “In these cases, Russia and the UAE promote a peaceful political settlement based on the UN Charter and relevant UN resolutions. We advocate an inclusive dialogue for overcoming all crises, ” he said. He also welcomed “the normalisation of Israel’s relations with several Arab states, including the UAE” while emphasising “the understanding that a fair settlement of the Palestinian problem must not be relegated to the background. ”Lavrov expressed Russia’s support for a simultaneous return of the United States and Iran to the 2015 nuclear accord. He said, ” We are convinced that we should now focus on restoring the JCPOA in full and not overburden it with other considerations and concerns however important they might be.”He added, “To resolve this immediate task, we believe we should work out the concurrent steps that the Iranians and the United States will need to take. If we keep discussing who should be the first to resume compliance, we will never arrive at anything.”On Tuesday evening, Lavrov met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The two sides discussed a number of regional and international issues and developments of common interest and efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.
On the sidelines of his visit to the UAE, the Russian minister met with Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Tuesday. They discussed developments in Lebanon and the region. The meeting was attended by the Russian president’s envoy to the Middle East and North Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov. A Lebanese political source said that the meeting between Lavrov and Hariri offered an expression of support to the prime minister-designate to expedite his cabinet formation efforts. The source told The Arab Weekly that Moscow gives importance to the messages it receives from Hariri.

Controversial Canadian-Israeli lobbyist signs contract with Myanmar
The Arab Weekly/March 10/2021
LONDON/ TUNIS--An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist with an intelligence background recruited to represent the Myanmar junta internationally is set to pocket a $2 million fee, according to documents filed to the US Justice Department seen Wednesday by AFP. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi early last month, triggering daily protests around the country to demand the return of democracy. Close to 2,000 people have been arrested and the death toll has climbed to more than 60, as security forces attempt to quash the resistance.
Israeli-Canadian lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe and his Montreal-based firm Dickens and Madson signed a contract with the Myanmar military regime on March 4, more than a month after the putsch. The firm claimed it will lobby the United States, Russia and Middle East nations other countries as well as the United Nations and African Union and other international organisations on behalf of the Myanmar republic, a copy of the agreement says. “The agreement between the parties is for the payment of fees and expenses in the amount of $2,000,000.00 US to be paid by the foreign principal to the Registrant when legally permissible by controlling jurisdictions,” the document, published on the US Justice Department website, says. Part of the firm’s remit is “to assist in explaining the real situation in the country,” while lobbying to get international sanctions lifted. Myanmar’s generals have shown no sign of heeding calls for restraint amid escalating violence despite mounting international pressure, including targeted sanctions by Western powers.Ben-Menashe, who describes himself as a former Israeli intelligence officer, has been involved in controversy in the past. He was arrested in the late 1980s on US allegations that he sold military aircraft to Iran. The case went to trial, but he was acquitted. In the early 2000s, he was a key figure in a treason case brought against a Zimbabwean opposition leader, while in 2019 his firm signed a $1 million deal to lobby for a jailed Tunisian presidential hopeful. The publication in 2019 by US authorities of a $1 million international lobbying contract to promote a jailed frontrunner in Tunisia’s presidential election has triggered an uproar in the North African country. The US Justice Department published a copy of the deal with Canada-based Dickens and Madson to lobby for the then imprisoned media mogul Nabil Karoui “in the United States, the Russian Federation, the United Nation… in order to attaining the Presidency of the Republic of Tunisia,” according to AFP. The one-year contract far exceeded Tunisia’s limits on campaign spending. The document was inked three months after Karoui formalised his candidacy and just days before he was arrested on August 23 on charges of tax evasion and money laundering. The Karoui campaign denied any links to Ben-Menashe. It showed the company was paid an initial sum of $250,000, with the remaining $750,000 expected by mid-October. Karoui came in second in the first round of elections with 15.6%, behind independent law professor Kais Saied, who won by a landslide. Karoui’s party, Qalb Tounes, won 38 seats in the country’s 217 parliament.
Karoui is now in jail again in the same corruption case awaiting release on a 10 million dinar ($3.7 million) bail. His party vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
 

Israel’s Netanyahu to visit UAE for first official trip
Arab News/March 10, 2021
LONDON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will pay his first visit to the UAE on Thursday to further cement ties, Al Arabiya TV and Israeli media reported.
There was no immediate confirmation of the trip from the Israeli prime minister’s office or the UAE. According to the Israeli reports, Netanyahu will meet with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, at the Abu Dhabi International Airport. The UAE and Bahrain signed a US-brokered deal, known as the Abraham Accords, to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in September. Morocco and Sudan followed with similar agreements with the Jewish state. The most detailed of the accords was with the UAE. The nations agreed to approve bilateral deals on 15 areas of mutual interest, including finance, trade, aviation, energy, telecommunications, health, agriculture and water. Netanyahu’s visit Thursday comes after both countries have exchanged ambassadors and set up embassies. It was not immediately clear if Netanyahu, on what Israeli media said would be a one-day visit, would also go to Bahrain, as he had planned to do during his previously scheduled one-day trip to the Gulf in February, which he postponed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Emirati and Israeli governments on Wednesday began formal discussions to establish a quarantine-free travel corridor between the two countries, for travelers who have received the COVID-19 vaccines. The deal “aims to facilitate travel for commercial, tourism and official purposes,” the UAE state news agency WAM reported. Meetings are currently taking place between the UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, and his counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi, to negotiate the terms of the agreement. They aim to finalize and implement the agreement by April. A joint statement said the two sides affirmed that the travel corridor would “increase the level of bilateral exchange in the wake of the historic Abraham Accords for peace, and generate additional opportunities to strengthen economic and social relations between the two peoples.” The UAE and Israel’s national inoculation campaigns are among the fastest in the world with regards to vaccine rollout. The travel corridor is being established in recognition of both governments’ successful efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and that eliminating the virus requires effective, widespread and coordinated inoculation campaigns between different countries, WAM said.“The UAE and Israeli leadership reaffirmed that strengthening global health security is a collective responsibility, and stressed the importance of multilateral efforts and international cooperation to achieve fair and sustainable recovery from this pandemic,” the statement added. (With AP, AFP and Reuters)

‘MBS ready to meet Netanyahu in Abu Dhabi,’ Emirati source says
Lahav Harkov/The Jerusalem/March 10/2021
Prime minister to make first visit to UAE since peace agreement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may meet in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, a well-placed Emirati source said on Wednesday. “MBS is ready to meet Bibi,” the source said, confirming that talks are ongoing in the three countries to arrange the meeting. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, but ties between the countries have been warming, especially in cooperation against their shared adversary Iran. Netanyahu and MBS, as the Saudi crown prince is known, met in November of last year in the Saudi town of Neom, though neither has officially confirmed it. Asked about meeting with MBS on Tuesday, Netanyahu quipped: “What is it like to ask questions you know you won’t get an answer to?”Netanyahu plans to fly to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, for the first time since its normalization agreement with Israel last year.
The prime minister is expected to meet with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, seven months after Israel and the UAE announced the Abraham Accords of peace and normalization. The trip is set to take place less than two weeks before the March 23 election, despite reports that officials in the UAE were hesitant to host Netanyahu at a date that would be viewed as political. The source in Abu Dhabi confirmed that the election was a consideration, but the UAE’s leadership decided to welcome Netanyahu regardless of the date.
The prime minister is expected to take a private plane to Abu Dhabi and conduct meetings at the airport. The plan is for a quick jaunt to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, for several hours. Netanyahu would leave Thursday morning and arrive back in Jerusalem in time for a 6 p.m. meeting with the prime ministers of Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Three of Netanyahu’s planned visits to the UAE were canceled in the past, twice due to COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, as well as political developments, and once because of scheduling issues in Abu Dhabi. He had originally planned a trip of several days, with stops in Dubai and Bahrain as well. Speaking of a planned visit to the UAE, Netanyahu said last month: “It has great security, national and international importance.”The UAE announced on Wednesday that it is in “formal discussions to establish a quarantine-free travel corridor” with Israel. The UAE would recognize Israeli vaccination certificates for COVID-19, and vice versa. The countries’ foreign ministries hope to implement the agreement in April, the UAE Foreign Ministry stated. Israel and the UAE are the countries with the world’s fastest COVID-19 vaccination campaigns.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 10-11/2021

140 lawmakers call for Biden administration to take 'comprehensive' approach to Iran
Rebecca Kheel/The Hill/March 10/2021
A bipartisan group of 140 House lawmakers is urging the Biden administration to take a “comprehensive” approach to threats posed by Iran beyond just reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.
“As the Biden administration considers negotiations with Iran, we write to express our bipartisan and shared view that we must seek an agreement or set of agreements with Iran that are comprehensive in nature to address the full range of threats that Iran poses to the region,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“As Democrats and Republicans from across the political spectrum, we are united in preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon and addressing the wide range of illicit Iranian behavior,” they added.
The letter, which was organized by Reps. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), is signed by 70 Democrats and 70 Republicans.
It comes as the Biden administration has expressed a willingness to talk with Iran about rejoining the nuclear pact between Tehran and several world powers that was negotiated by the Obama administration.
Former President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions. Since then, Iran has breached the deal’s limits on stockpiling and enriching uranium.
President Biden has said he would rejoin the deal if Iran comes back into compliance, but Iran is demanding sanctions relief before it returns to compliance.
Tuesday’s bipartisan letter comes after one from 150 Democrats in December urging Biden to “swiftly” re-enter the Iran nuclear deal and one from 120 Republicans in February warning Biden not to rejoin the nuclear deal without significant changes.
Some of the same lawmakers signed both Tuesday’s bipartisan letter and one of the partisan letters.
Tuesday’s letter acknowledged that differences of opinion continue to exist about “what the parameters of a final deal should entail and the process by which it is reached,” but it said there is a “bipartisan consensus” on several issues.
“Three core tenets - their nuclear program, their ballistic missile program, and their funding of terrorism - must be addressed from the outset,” the lawmakers wrote.
Overnight Defense: Pentagon chief to press for Manchin's support on...
Blinken calls on Iran to answer for Levinson
While the Biden administration has expressed concern about other Iranian activities, including support for proxy forces in the region and its ballistic missile program, it has argued the nuclear program is the top threat that should be addressed first.
Once the existing nuclear deal is secured, Biden has said he would seek a "longer and stronger" deal that further tightens nuclear constraints and addresses Iran’s other concerning behavior.
“There is consensus within Congress that allowing one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism to obtain nuclear weapons is an unacceptable risk,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “We recognize that there is not a singular diplomatic path forward on these objectives and we look forward to working with you as partners to achieve lasting peace in the region.”

The Middle East’s religious minorities are facing extinction. The world must act.
Sharon Nazarian and Aykan Erdemir/The Washington Post/March 10/2021

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/96857/96857/

Pope Francis began his first-ever papal trip to Iraq on Friday, marking a watershed moment in relations between the Catholic Church and the Middle East. Yet for all the optimism of the Pope’s message, his visit also serves to remind us that Christianity and other minority faiths of the region are facing dark times.
The Middle East is the cradle of the three Abrahamic faiths that have more than 4 billion adherents around the globe. The region remains home to some of the world’s most ancient languages, cultures and heritage sites.
Yet oppressive governments and violent extremist movements have been busy erasing the Middle East’s diverse religious communities. Today, Syria and Yemen have lost almost all of their Jews, while Turkey has done the same with its Chaldean Christians, ethnic Syriacs who follow the Catholic rite. Iraq’s Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking community that adheres to a long-persecuted ancient monotheistic faith narrowly escaped destruction during the Islamic State’s genocidal campaign. Iraq’s Mandaeans, followers of another indigenous Middle Eastern faith, also fear extinction.
The U.S. government should take a stand to defend diversity and pluralism in the Middle East and beyond, in concert with its transatlantic allies and other partners. Security assurances to protect embattled communities from future genocidal campaigns, substantial development aid for rebuilding them and support for inclusive institutions can all play a role.
Mideast religious minorities face a particularly potent threat from the insidious collaboration between authoritarian states and violent extremist groups, as proxy wars have come to replace conventional warfare between nation-states. The growing footprint of non-state actors has exacerbated the danger to religious minorities.
The Islamic State, for example, recruited foreign fighters from all corners of the globe as it targeted the Yazidi community with its genocidal campaign of mass executions, rape and enslavement. As the Economist recently noted, many Yazidis who escaped the immediate threat when the Islamic State was defeated militarily are still fighting for their survival.
Although Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad presents himself as the protector of minorities, especially Christians, he has executed and tortured critics regardless of their religion. The Assad regime’s indiscriminate massacre of its own citizens with barrel bombs and chemical weapons not only received financial support from Moscow and Tehran, but also utilized Russian private military contractors and Iran’s militias recruited all the way from Lebanon to Afghanistan.
In northern Syria, according to a report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Turkey’s proxies committed war crimes targeting Kurds and Yazidis, including hostage-taking, torture, rape and pillaging, in addition to violating international humanitarian law by looting and destroying cultural property.
The Bahai faith remains horrifically targeted in Iran, where its adherents face a continued dehumanizing assault from the authorities. The Islamic republic’s systematic persecution of the Bahai community also extends beyond its own borders. In Yemen, Tehran’s Houthi proxies have subjected the last few Bahais there to arbitrary imprisonment and torture.
Since Turkey’s failed coup attempt in 2016, the country’s increasingly authoritarian government intensified its scapegoating of Christians, Jews and Alevis (a Muslim minority). The revisionist historical dramas on Turkish state television have become the new means through which antisemitic, anti-Christian and anti-Western conspiracies are distributed in multiple languages around the world. Social media platforms compound the problem by amplifying hateful messages from state-funded media and the propaganda outlets of violent extremist groups.
Since the Iranian revolution, the Islamic republic has not only decimated the country’s Jewish community, taking its numbers from 100,000 to below 9,000, but also threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the “global political map.” Last year Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif went so far as to invoke the Nazi phrase “the final solution,” echoing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s vow to uproot and destroy the “cancerous tumor” of Israel. A new Anti-Defamation League study of Iranian textbooks found that the Islamic republic teaches antisemitism and incites schoolchildren against the Jewish people as well as the United States.
No scientific study, media report or opinion poll can give a more accurate account of the state of the Middle East’s minorities than demographic trends. As vulnerable minorities vote with their feet, we continue to witness a mass exodus of ancient communities. A 2019 report commissioned by the British foreign secretary warned that Iraq’s Christian population fell from 1.5 million before 2003 to possibly less than 120,000. Turkey’s Greek Orthodox, Jewish and Syriac Christian citizens are more likely to live in diasporas rather than in their original homes. Coptic Christians still number around 10 million in Egypt, but according to the Hudson Institute’s Samuel Tadros, the Coptic church is blossoming “outside Egypt’s borders.”
U.S. leadership and cooperation with transatlantic allies are imperative to reversing these alarming trends. As the Biden administration emphasizes making human rights central to U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East’s endangered religious minorities should be one of its priorities.
*Sharon Nazarian is the Anti-Defamation League’s senior vice president for international affairs. Aykan Erdemir is senior director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament. Follow Aykan on Twitter @aykan_erdemir. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
 

Addressing Iran’s Weaponization Work Will Fortify the Nuclear Deal
Jay Solomon/The National Interest/March 10/2021
Allowing Iran to dissemble and whitewash its nuclear sites would set a terrible precedent for other nations who might be tempted to pursue a covert nuclear weapons program.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog and Iran are again on a collision course, as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeks answers from Tehran on three sites in the country where undeclared nuclear weapons research is suspected to have occurred in recent decades. Soil samples taken recently by the IAEA at the sites have shown traces of man-made uranium, an indication that illicit atomic weapons research occurred at these locations.
This standoff presents both a challenge and an opportunity for President Joe Biden as he seeks to revive, strengthen, and expand the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that the Obama administration negotiated with Iran in 2015. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the deal nearly three years ago and ushered in a policy of “maximum pressure,” which used economic sanctions and military strikes to try and isolate Tehran.
Iran over the past two years has steadfastly refused to cooperate fully with the IAEA to address the weaponization issue. The agency says Tehran has razed buildings and removed equipment in an effort to sanitize suspect sites. The IAEA’s director-general, Rafael Grossi, said Monday in Vienna that, “After 18 months, Iran has not provided the necessary, full and technically credible explanation for the presence of these particles.”
Tehran’s position, and refusal to provide a full accounting of its nuclear materials and equipment, has the potential to escalate into a full-blown crisis for the UN Security Council. Tehran informed the IAEA last month that it will curb even more the ability of its inspectors to visit suspect sites and facilities. And European powers—Germany, France, and the UK—mulled formally censuring Iran for non-compliance at the agency’s Board of Governors meeting this month.
But the Biden administration shouldn’t succumb to Tehran’s threats, nor should it pressure Grossi to paper over Iran’s deceit, which goes to the heart of whether the regime can be trusted with advanced nuclear capabilities. Instead, Washington should double down and demand answers in order to build a stronger foundation for a new JCPOA that it can sell to a skeptical Mideast region.
At the heart of the nuclear deal is a formula that seeks to keep Tehran a year away from producing a single atomic bomb. The uncertainty about the state of Iran’s weapons capabilities, as well as the IAEA’s growing questions about undeclared nuclear materials and equipment, makes the ability of the United States to accurately certify this one-year “breakout” time nearly impossible.
Iran’s regional rivals, particularly Saudi Arabia and Turkey, meanwhile, are also warning that they’ll seek to match any nuclear capabilities Iran possesses. The IAEA’s inability to state conclusively that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes could only spur these countries to try and acquire sensitive nuclear technologies.
The issue of Iran’s past weaponization work was supposed to be resolved in 2015 as part of the completion of the JCPOA negotiations. The United States and other world powers mandated the IAEA to write a final report on the military dimensions of Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran was called on to provide the agency with access to documents, scientists, and military sites believed to be related to covert weaponization work.
The IAEA concluded its report by stating it found no credible evidence of an active Iranian nuclear weapons program after 2009. But the agency’s staff acknowledged that Iranian officials largely stonewalled them. Iran denied the IAEA interviews with top nuclear scientists and claimed incriminating documents were forgeries. The IAEA actually found traces of man-made uranium in soil samples taken from the Parchin military base. But Iran said the materials came from conventional weapons, an answer the agency again said wasn’t credible.
The JCPOA went ahead anyways in 2015. The Obama administration claimed they already knew everything about Iran’s covert weapons work and that they didn’t expect Tehran to admit to its past sins. But the shortcomings of the IAEA’s investigation became clear in 2018 after Israel raided an Iranian government warehouse near Tehran. The operation unearthed 300 tons of secret documents that showed Iran’s weapons program was far larger and more advanced than U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies understood six years ago.
The files and CDs in the nuclear archive document a crash Iranian program in the early 2000s, called the AMAD Plan, to build five atomic bombs and place some of them on long-range missiles. Outside pressure on Tehran, including from the 2003 U.S. invasion of neighboring Iraq, caused Iran to shelve the aggressive plan. But some of the nuclear research is believed to have continued, and the IAEA has found uranium traces at some of the sites pinpointed in the captured documents. The archive also indicated Iran produced components used in staging nuclear detonations.
President Biden’s diplomats, many of whom served in the Obama administration, could be tempted to again gloss over the weaponization issue as they pursue a new nuclear deal with Iran. They could resurrect the argument that preventing a future Iranian bomb trumps the need to address a weaponization program that reached its heights twenty years ago.
But this strategy is no longer feasible. At its core, the IAEA’s mission is to account for all nuclear materials and equipment possessed by member stakes. Allowing Iran to dissemble and whitewash its nuclear sites would set a terrible precedent for other nations who might be tempted to pursue a covert nuclear weapons program. A gaggle of Iran’s neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, all have expressed their desire in recent years to develop the ability to enrich uranium—a technology that inherently has military applications.
Also, the failure to reckon with the truth about Iran’s weaponization history will cripple efforts to improve the JCPOA. The initial deal allowed Iran to eventually have an industrial-scale enrichment program and stockpiles of nuclear materials. Not knowing the true state of Iran’s capabilities, and the location of all its nuclear fuel and equipment, would lead many in the Mideast to assume Tehran is just a turn-of-the-screw away from having an atomic bomb. They’ll act accordingly.
**Jay Solomon is an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a senior director at APCO Worldwide. He is the author of The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter @jaysolomon.

Switzerland: Voters Approve 'Burqa Ban'
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 10/2021
The referenda reflect the determination of a majority of Swiss voters to preserve Swiss traditions and values in the face of runaway multiculturalism and the encroachment of political Islam.
Switzerland now joins Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden, all of which currently have full or partial bans on religious and non-religious face coverings.
"In Switzerland our tradition is that you show your face. That is a sign of our basic freedoms." — Walter Wobmann, member of the Swiss People's Party, the biggest political party in Switzerland.
"Some Muslims also understood that the niqab is a clear symbol of radical Islam." — Jean-Luc Addor, member of the Swiss People's Party.
"Saying yes to the ban on veiling is saying no to a totalitarian ideology that has no place in a democracy." — Saïda Keller-Messahli, founder and president of the Forum for a Progressive Islam.
"The full veil, which turns the woman into a faceless being without an identity, is a symbol of misogynistic political Islam. It is the most visible symbol of an overall fascist ideology, which includes gender apartheid, but also anti-Semitism and gay hatred...." — Gisela Widmer, Swiss author and playwright.
Swiss voters have narrowly approved a proposal to ban face coverings in public spaces. The measure comes just over a decade after citizens voted to ban the construction of minarets, the tower-like structures on mosques that are often used to call Muslims to prayer.
The referenda reflect the determination of a majority of Swiss voters to preserve Swiss traditions and values in the face of runaway multiculturalism and the encroachment of political Islam.
Switzerland now joins Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Sweden, all of which currently have full or partial bans on religious and non-religious face coverings.
The binding referendum, approved on March 7 by 51.2% of voters, is popularly known as the "burqa initiative," although the proposal does not specifically mention burqas or niqabs, the face-coving garments worn by some Muslim women. The ban encompasses most face coverings, including the bandanas and masks sometimes used by violent street protesters, and applies to all public spaces, including parks, restaurants, shops, and public transport.
The measure allows for some exceptions: health (anti-Covid masks); weather (scarves), safety (motorcycle helmets) and local customs (carnival costumes). Face coverings may also be worn inside houses of worship.
In line with the Swiss system of direct democracy, the country's constitution will now be amended to incorporate the ban. The government has two years to draw up the necessary legislation.
The initiative was sponsored by the so-called Egerking Committee, a political group linked to the conservative Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP), the biggest political party in Switzerland.
Referendum committee chairman and SVP member Walter Wobmann described Muslim face coverings as "a symbol for this extreme, political Islam which has become increasingly prominent in Europe and which has no place in Switzerland." He added: "In Switzerland our tradition is that you show your face. That is a sign of our basic freedoms."
Fellow SVP member Jean-Luc Addor attributed the success in the referendum to the party's ability to promote its ideas outside of its core electorate, including among feminists and progressive Muslims. "Some Muslims also understood that the niqab is a clear symbol of radical Islam," he said.
Elham Manea, a Yemeni-Swiss political scientist who has long warned of the dangers of Sharia law, told Swiss Radio that the niqab is clearly a "symbol of a religious fundamentalist ideology." She added: "In a free society, women must be respected, and their rights and dignity protected."
Mohamed Hamdaoui, an Algerian-Swiss counselor in the canton of Bern, described the outcome of the vote as "a great relief." He said that the vote was "an opportunity to put a stop to Islamism" and not "the Muslims who obviously have their rightful place in this country."
Saïda Keller-Messahli, founder and president of the Forum for a Progressive Islam, agreed that the approval of the referendum was a positive development. A native of Tunisia who for years has warned of the dangers of an Islamist subculture in Switzerland, said that "saying yes to the ban on veiling is saying no to a totalitarian ideology that has no place in a democracy."
Swiss feminists are divided on the issue, with some saying that burqas and niqabs are oppressive, and others arguing that women should be free to choose what they want to wear.
Swiss writer and playwright Gisela Widmer criticized some feminist groups for opposing the ban:
"The full veil, which turns the woman into a faceless being without an identity, is a symbol of misogynistic political Islam. It is the most visible symbol of an overall fascist ideology, which includes gender apartheid, but also anti-Semitism and gay hatred....
"[Some feminists say that] the fact that the initiative comes from the SVP is a mockery. Correct! Because the initiative should not come from the SVP, but from committed feminist circles. Even more unforgivable than this failure on the part of the left is that they are now also fighting the 'Burqa Initiative.' A little less naivety and a little more international women's solidarity would suit the SP [Socialist Party] women. If we approve the 'Burqa Initiative,' we cannot change the reality of women in the Sharia states, but we can set an example and say that we are very serious about a woman's right to self-determination."
Maya Graf, a co-president of the feminist group Alliance F, countered:
"Feminists stand up for the rights and freedoms of women. This also includes the free choice of clothing."
Emrah Erken, a lawyer and member of the Forum for Progressive Islam, tweeted:
"Sharia and feminism are opposites. You cannot wear the hijab and claim that you are a feminist. Such a claim is simply not true."
The Swiss government opposed the measure. Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter argued that full-face coverings are a "marginal phenomenon" (Randphänomen) and that a ban could harm tourism because, according to the government, most Muslim women who cover their faces in Switzerland are visitors from wealthy Persian Gulf states.
The Swiss tourism sector also opposed the proposal. "The burqa ban would damage our image as an open and tolerant tourist destination," said Nicole Brändle Schlegel of HotellerieSuisse, a coalition of hoteliers and tourism groups from Bern.
The Director of the Swiss Tourism Association, Barbara Gisi, added: "We want to show the countries from which many fully veiled tourists come to Switzerland that we are still a hospitable country." She said she hopes that the Swiss government will launch an "explanatory and charm offensive" in the relevant countries.
The Federation of Islamic Umbrella Organizations in Switzerland (Föderation islamischer Dachorganisationen Schweiz, FIDS) stated:
"We are very disappointed with the result of the vote. The disappointment is mixed with great indignation. It would have been expected that the Swiss people would not allow symbolic politics to be carried out on the backs of some Muslim women. This symbolic policy is directed against Muslims.... Anchoring dress codes in the constitution is not a struggle for freedom of women, but a retreat into the past."
Ferah Ulucay, general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims in Switzerland (Islamischer Zentralrat der Schweiz, IZRS) said that approval of the referendum was "a dark day for Switzerland" because it "succeeded in anchoring the prevailing Islamophobia in the constitution." She vowed to challenge to the ban in court and to pay the fines for women who are prosecuted for violating it.
The referendum was approved by majorities in 20 out of Switzerland's 26 cantons; it was rejected in six cantons, including those that include the country's three biggest cities, Basel, Geneva and Zurich, and the capital, Bern.
Two Swiss cantons — Ticino and St. Gallen — already have local bans on face coverings. Face coverings at protests and sports events are currently banned in 15 of 26 cantons.
Minaret Ban: A Decade On, Mixed Results
The Egerking Committee was also the driving force behind the 2009 referendum on banning the construction of minarets. The ban was aimed at slowing the growth of political Islam in Switzerland by curbing the influence of Turkey and other Muslim countries in the affairs of Swiss Muslims.
A decade later, the referendum's impact has been mixed. No new minarets have been built in Switzerland since the ban entered into effect, but the foreign influence on Swiss Islamic communities appears to be greater than ever.
The minaret referendum, held on November 29, 2009, was approved by 57.5% of Swiss voters and resulted in an amendment to Article 72 of the Swiss Constitution, which now states: "The construction of minarets is prohibited."
The SVP argued that minarets are "beacons of jihad" and a "symbol of a religious-political claim to power and dominance which threatens — in the name of alleged freedom of religion — the constitutional rights of others."
The SVP backed its claim by citing a remark by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who once implied that the construction of mosques and minarets is part of a strategy to Islamize Europe. Reciting a poem by the Turkish nationalist writer Ziya Gökalp (1876-1924), Erdoğan said: "The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our soldiers."
The minaret controversy was sparked in September 2005, when the Turkish cultural association in Wangen bei Olten, a small town in northern Switzerland, applied for a permit to erect a minaret on the roof of the local mosque. The project to build the minaret, opposed by a majority of local residents, was rejected by the town's building and planning commission in September 2006.
The Turkish cultural association — possibly with encouragement from the Turkish government — subsequently filed an appeal; it claimed that the local building authorities were motivated by religious bias. The case eventually made its way to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland (Bundesgericht), which in July 2007 ruled that construction of the minaret could proceed. The six-meter (20-foot) tower was erected in January 2009. This chain of events led to the formation of the Egerking Committee and prompted campaigners to gather the 100,000 signatures needed to launch the popular initiative against minarets.
Since then, the influence of Islam in Switzerland has steadily increased. The Muslim population of Switzerland has grown by more than 30% during the past decade and now exceeds half a million people, or approximately six percent of the total population, according to the Pew Research Center. If current migration trends continue, the Muslim population of Switzerland is set to more than double by 2050, to more than one million, according to Pew forecasts; with a high migration scenario, it is set to triple to more than 1.5 million.
The number of mosques in Switzerland has also increased since the 2009 referendum. The country is now home to at least 240 mosques, according to the University of Luzern. Some of the larger mosques are believed to be financed by foreign governments, including those of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf Arab states:
June 2020. Saïda Keller-Messahli, one of the most prominent Islam experts in Switzerland, revealed that an Albanian-Islamic mega-mosque being built in Reinach, a small town in northern canton of Aargau, was being financed by Turkey and Kuwait. She said that dozens of Albanian mosques were springing up across Switzerland and being used by Turkey and other Muslim countries to spread an "arch-conservative Islam."
January 2020. A Swiss-Muslim board of directors assumed management of the Geneva Mosque, the largest mosque in Switzerland, after Swiss and French authorities determined that four imams employed there were Islamic extremists. The mosque was built by Saudi Arabia and financed by the Muslim World League. Henceforth, the mosque is to be financed by exclusively by Muslims from Switzerland.
November 2019. Research by the Swiss Center for Islam and Society (Schweizerischen Zentrum für Islam und Gesellschaft, SZIG) at the University of Fribourg found that 130 foreign imams are active in Switzerland. Almost all are Sunni Muslims, and nearly half are of Turkish origin. The Albanian-speaking community — mainly from Kosovo and northern Macedonia — are catered to by 40 imams, 30 of whom work full-time. There are also 13 imams of Bosnian origin, and 15 to 20 from the Arab world.
April 2019. French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, in their book "Qatar Papers," reported that between 2011 and 2014, Qatar Charity, an NGO funded by the Qatari royal family, provided more than 4 million Swiss Francs ($4 million) to finance five Islamic megaprojects in Switzerland. The projects include the 22-million-franc Museum of Islamic Civilizations in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Neuchâtel canton), the Lausanne Islamic Cultural Center (Vaud canton) and the Islamic Center of Biel (Bern canton).
After the scope of Qatari involvement in Swiss Muslim affairs became public, Qatar reportedly stopped funding Islamic projects in Switzerland. Mohamed Karmous, founder of the Swiss Muslim Cultural Institute, the organization through which the Qatari funds were apparently being channeled, said that such financing had ended.
September 2018. Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) reported that the Islamic Community of Zurich (Stiftung Islamische Gemeinschaft Zürich, SIGZ) was receiving 200,000 Swiss Francs ($200,000) annually from the United Arab Emirates. The mosque is owned by Abu Dhabi, which also chooses the mosque's imam.
SRF also reported that the Turkish government is paying the salaries of 35 full-time imams in Switzerland. The imams are coordinated by the Turkish Embassy in Bern and the Zurich-based Turkish-Islamic Foundation for Switzerland (Türkisch-Islamischen Stiftung für die Schweiz, TISS), which is controlled by the Turkish government's Directorate for Religious Affairs, known in Turkish as Diyanet.
May 2018. The lower house of the Swiss parliament narrowly rejected (96 to 90 and seven abstentions) a motion to outlaw the direct or indirect financing of mosques, Islamic prayer rooms and other Islamic centers in Switzerland by states that are alleged to support terrorist groups or violate human rights. The Federal Council, the seven-member executive council that constitutes the federal government of Switzerland, argued that such a ban would place all Muslims in the country under a general suspicion and that Muslim communities "must be able to exercise their right to freedom of religion and association under the same conditions as the other religious communities."
Foreign imams in Switzerland have also been under increased scrutiny:
December 4, 2019. The public prosecutor in Bern opened a criminal investigation into a 66-year-old Libyan imam, Abu Ramadan, for allegedly committing welfare fraud. He was sued by the municipality of Nidau after receiving more than 590,000 Swiss Francs ($590,000) in social welfare assistance between 2003 and 2017. He is accused of concealing income worth tens of thousands of francs that would have led to a lower allocation of welfare benefits.
October 15, 2019. The Federal Supreme Court upheld a decision by a court in St. Gallen to not renew the residence permit of an imam from Kosovo who was found guilty of physically and sexually abusing his wife and prohibiting her from venturing out of the home without his consent. The court judged that the imam had not assimilated Switzerland's social and legal values and did not respect them.
October 8, 2019. The Office of the Attorney General of Lucerne launched an investigation into a 38-year-old Iraqi imam at the Dar Assalam mosque in Kriens. He is alleged to have advised his followers to beat disobedient wives. The investigation was launched after the newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported that the man allegedly suggested disciplining women with physical violence if non-violent methods fail. He also reportedly called for respect for Sharia law. The investigation was later dropped due to a lack of evidence.
In the wake of the incident, the Dar Assalam organization, which represents the Islamic community in central Switzerland, recommended that all sermons and prayers be recorded and stored for 12 months.
*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.

China Ramps up Pressure on Taiwan
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/March 10/2021
One of the "necessary means" that China employs against Taiwan is forcing the Taiwanese air force to be on constant alert... It is part of a strategy known as "gray-zone warfare" that aims to intimidate and ultimately exhaust Taiwan's resolve to resist the Chinese takeover. Tensions in the region are now considered to be at their highest since the mid-1990s.
More recently, China has expanded its operations against Taiwan from the air to the sea. The new law authorizes China's coast guard to use "all necessary means" to stop or prevent threats from foreign vessels, including the use of fire weapons.
"I think the time has come to be clear: Replace strategic ambiguity with strategic clarity that the United States will come to the aid of Taiwan if China was to forcefully invade Taiwan or otherwise change the status quo across the [Taiwan] Strait." — Senator Tom Cotton, Defense News, February 18, 2021.
"China must be, will be reunified" with Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced in January 2019. The goal of reunification is a basic tenet of China's policy regarding Taiwan. It forms a central part of Xi's nationalist doctrine, according to which, reunification is "a must for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in the new era".
"We are willing to create broad space for peaceful reunification, but will leave no room for any form of separatist activities", he added. "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means."
One of the "necessary means" that China employs against Taiwan is forcing the Taiwanese air force to be on constant alert. Chinese jets made a record 380 incursions into the Taiwanese air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in 2020 -- the highest number of incursions since 1996 -- thereby forcing the Taiwanese air force constantly to scramble military aircraft to head off the Chinese incursions. It is part of a strategy known as "gray-zone warfare" that aims to intimidate and ultimately exhaust Taiwan's resolve to resist the Chinese takeover. Tensions in the region are now considered to be at their highest since the mid-1990s.
The attempt to intimidate and pressure Taiwan into submission without resorting to actual war continued into the first month of 2021. Chinese air force planes, including bombers and fighters were spotted in the ADIZ no less than 27 times. The number of aircraft involved has also surged, with 28 making incursions on January 23-24 alone.
"Taiwan independence means war. The PLA's recent military activities in the Taiwan Strait were a solemn response to interference from external forces and provocations from 'Taiwan independence' forces," said Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense. He added that they were "necessary actions amid the current security situation across the Strait to safeguard national sovereignty and security."
More recently, China has expanded its operations against Taiwan from the air to the sea. Using sand dredging ships -- which dredge up sand from the ocean bed for construction projects in China -- around the Taiwan-governed Matsu islands, China supplies itself with construction material, while forcing the Taiwanese coast guard to go on constant round-the-clock patrols to expel the ships. The purpose seems, once again, to exhaust Taiwanese capabilities and break their resolve. One Taiwanese security official said it "is part of their psychological warfare against Taiwan, similar to what they are doing in Taiwan's southwestern airspace."
According to Reuters:
"Last year, Taiwan expelled nearly 4,000 Chinese sand-dredgers and sand-transporting vessels from waters under its control, most of them in the area close to the median line, according to Taiwan's coast guard. That's a 560% jump over the 600 Chinese vessels that were repelled in all of 2019".
Reuters adds:
"Taiwanese officials and Matsu residents say the dredging forays have had other corrosive impacts -- disrupting the local economy, damaging undersea communication cables and intimidating residents and tourists to the islands. Local officials also fear that the dredging is destroying marine life nearby."
China's "gray-zone warfare" against Taiwan includes diplomatic isolation, which China's seeks to bring about by putting pressure on countries to refrain from establishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Most recently, this tactic resulted in the cancellation of an agreement with Guyana about the establishment of a "Taiwan office" in the South American country that Taiwan had signed with Guyana on January 11. On February 4, Taiwan announced that it was opening the office in Guyana, but facing pressure from Beijing, Guyana cancelled the agreement. "The government of Guyana wishes to clarify that it continues to adhere to the one China policy and its diplomatic relations remain intact with the People's Republic of China," noted a press release from Guyana. "The government has not established any diplomatic ties or relations with Taiwan and as a result of the miscommunication of the agreement signed, this agreement has since been terminated."
"There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory," declared Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin in response to Guyana's cancellation.
"China firmly opposes any official exchanges in any form between Taiwan and a country having diplomatic relations with China... Facts have once again proved that the one-China principle is a widely recognized norm for international relations and universal consensus of the international community."
China's new China Coast Guard (CCG) Law, effective February 1, is expected to raise tensions even higher in the South and East China seas. The new law authorizes China's coast guard to use "all necessary means" to stop or prevent threats from foreign vessels, including the use of fire weapons.
Michael Shoebridge, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), writes:
"We've got used to stories of Chinese fishing fleets and Chinese militia vessels intimidating other nations' vessels and even bumping into them to get their way... We've also got used to the Chinese coastguard shadowing Chinese fishing fleets, ready to intervene if they come into contact with other nations' vessels.
"What's different now, though, is that with this new law Xi has told his coastguard to be wolf warriors at sea—and to use force, including lethal force, to assert Chinese interests. The Chinese coastguard has been building some novel ships that let it apply force not just with the weapons on board, but with the ships themselves. Coastguard vessels like the 10,000-ton Haixun aren't just bigger than many naval ships operating in the South and East China Seas, but they also have strengthened hulls that are designed for deliberately hitting other vessels—'shouldering' is the naval term of art."
Taiwan's unofficial ambassador in the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim, said that regarding Chinas actions, following the coast guard law, the world should be on "high alert".
The question, however, is what happens if or when China shifts from "gray-zone" warfare to actual warfare. For four decades, changing US administrations have been following a doctrine of strategic ambiguity on the question of whether the US will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, meaning that the US has refrained from answering the question of whether it will assist in Taiwan's defense. The doctrine is consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, according to which the president and Congress shall determine an appropriate response by the United States in the event of threats to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan, and any danger to the United States interests arising from such threats.
More voices are arguing, however, that strategic ambiguity does not suffice in the face of China's ramped up pressure on Taiwan and that the doctrine must be replaced with "strategic clarity".
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in September:
"The policy known as strategic ambiguity has... run its course. Ambiguity is unlikely to deter an increasingly assertive China with growing military capabilities.
"The time has come for the United States to introduce a policy of strategic clarity: one that makes explicit that the United States would respond to any Chinese use of force against Taiwan. Washington can make this change in a manner that is consistent with its one-China policy and that minimizes the risk to U.S.-Chinese relations. Indeed, such a change should strengthen U.S.-Chinese relations in the long term by improving deterrence and reducing the chances of war in the Taiwan Strait, the likeliest site for a clash between the United States and China."
"I think the time has come to be clear: Replace strategic ambiguity with strategic clarity that the United States will come to the aid of Taiwan if China was to forcefully invade Taiwan or otherwise change the status quo across the [Taiwan] Strait," said Senator Tom Cotton, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently.
The US recently reaffirmed its support for Taiwan in a number of areas. "The United States notes with concern the pattern of ongoing PRC attempts to intimidate its neighbors, including Taiwan", the US State Department wrote in a press release in January 23, as Taiwan was experiencing a large amount of incursions into its ADIZ.
"We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan's democratically elected representatives... Our commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during his confirmation hearing that the US would uphold its commitment to ensure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself. He also said that he would like to see Taiwan play a greater role around the world and that he was in favor of greater engagement with Taiwan. The administration is keeping up the previous administration's upgrading of relations between the two countries and invited Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's unofficial ambassador to the United States, to the presidential inauguration, the first time that has happened since 1979.
As China continues to increase its aggressive behavior both in and out of the region, "strategic ambiguity" may end up looking like an open invitation for China to move in.
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at 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.

Sommes nous dans l’irrémédiable?
Charles Elias Chartouni/March 10/2021
شارل الياس شرتوني: هل نحن أمام اللاعودة
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/96862/charles-elias-chartouni-sommes-nous-dans-lirremediable%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d9%87%d9%84-%d9%86%d8%ad%d9%86-%d8%a3/

L’état d’effondrement est abyssal et systématique et pourtant les oligarchies en place sont loin d’être alertées par les entropies généralisées qui ont atteint l’ensemble des secteurs (financier, économique, social, sanitaire, éducatif, environnemental, humanitaire et logistique). Face à cette situation qui a été délibérément montée par les oligarchies régnantes tout au long des trois dernières décennies, il est inconcevable de s’abriter derrière des faux-fuyants et des dénis pour dissimuler une réalité qui échappe désormais à tout contrôle. Il est impératif de se rendre compte d’un ensemble de faits incontournables: la réalité des fractures transversales, la volonté délibérée de blocage amplement attestée par la mouvance du fascisme chiite, l’impossibilité de mener à bien un travail de réformes en l’absence d’un consensus minimal entre les divers acteurs, et la mise en œuvre d’un statut de neutralité qui mettrait le pays à l’abri des politiques de puissance régionale et internationale. La situation de blocage politique qui rend aléatoire la formation d’un cabinet ministériel est non seulement intentionnelle, mais elle s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une politique de sabordage qui vise les institutions démocratiques, les consensus normatifs qui les encadrent, et la légitimité nationale du pays.
En faisant fi de la gravité des enjeux et de la dégradation dramatique des conditions de vie des libanais au profit des luttes d’influence sans rebords, la politique du pire entretenue par les fascismes chiites, semble accommoder les intérêts politique et financier des oligarchies en lice, et permettre aux politiques de déstabilisation régionale d’étendre leur espace opérationnel, moyennant des complicités internes aux étayages multiples. Cette situation pave la voie à des scénarios délétères, de dysfonctionnements systémiques multiples, d’ensauvagement généralisé, de guerres civiles à trajectoires croisées, et de chaos institutionnalisé. Il semble invraisemblable de finir avec cet état de désagrégation avancé en l’absence d’un mécanisme d’arbitrage international qui permette de mettre au point des stratégies de transition à géométrie multiple, de faire respecter les résolutions internationales 1559, 1680 et 1701, de rendre possible la désintrication des enjeux politiques (intérieur-extérieur), la formalisation statutaire de la neutralité, et l’agencement d’une stratégie d’assainissement des finances publiques à modulations multiples ( audits financiers intersectoriel et ministériel, pénalisation de la criminalité financière moyennant des recours judiciaires domestique et international, restructuration du système bancaire en rapport avec les normes de Bâle (1,2,3), la réorganisation de la Banque Centrale, les réformes structurelles de l’économie, de l’éducation, et des configurations professionnelles...).
Il est impossible d’envisager cette politique de désintrication, à moins de mettre fin à l’extraterritorialité politique et juridique du Hezbollah et des camps palestiniens, de prévenir les dynamiques d’hybridation des conflits et d’expansion des vides stratégiques, d’alignement aux pôles régionaux et de leurs dynamiques conflictuelles afférentes, et de prendre part aux négociations internationales qui visent la stabilisation des géopolitiques régionales en éclat. La situation de blocage met en relief une volonté de sabotage délibérée et une stratégie de subversion qui avancent à coups de verrouillages multiples qui se manifestent à tous les niveaux de la vie publique. Moyennant l’état actuel des choses nous nous acheminons vers des scénarios de pourrissement généralisé et de guerres emboîtées, et il est manifeste que les fascismes chiites et les oligarchies aux complicités électives ne semblent pas préoccupés par les évolutions qui peuvent en découler. Il est impératif à tous les libanais qui s’estiment menacés par ces développements de préempter les processus en cours et opter pour une stratégie de décrochage qui s’organise au croisement des coalitions internes, des médiations internationales et des alliances extérieures qui mettraient fin aux politiques discrétionnaires d’une subversion en acte. À défaut de cela, nul n’est tenu à l’impossible.

Desecrated and Defecated on: Churches in Europe under Islam
Raymond Ibrahim/March 10/2021
“Cross” made of excrement at church of Nimes, France.
A few days after Muslim migrants firebombed an 800-year-old Swedish church twice over the course of four days—once on Jan. 20, 2021 and another on Jan. 24—a Feb 4 report came out saying that 829 “hate crimes” against churches in Sweden have been reported between just 2012-2018, or about 138 attacks on average every year.
Thus the churches of Sweden join those of other Western European nations that have taken in sizeable Muslim migrants. In France, for example, two churches are vandalized every day. According to a 2019 PI-News report, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018. This represents a 17 percent increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered—meaning such attacks are only going from bad to worse.
They are also getting increasingly vile. As one example, vandals used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes in 2019; consecrated bread was also found thrown outside among garbage. One week later, vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur; they mangled the arms of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner and burned altar materials.
Similar reports are coming from Germany. After reporting how four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched over the course of four weeks in 2019, PI-News, a German news site, explained: “In this country, there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on summit crosses, on holy figures on the way, on churches and recently also on cemeteries.”
Although mainstream media regularly claim that the vandals—who are seldom caught to verify their identities—are “mentally ill” or part of “right wing extremist” groups, as the recent Swedish report states, PI-News offers a hint: “Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles lit, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.’”
Similarly, another German language report from late 2017 noted that in the Alps and in Bavaria alone, some 200 churches have been attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”
Another telling indicator is that those European regions with large Muslim migrant populations often see a concomitant rise in attacks on churches and Christian symbols. Before Christmas, 2016, in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, where more than a million Muslim migrants reside, some 50 public statues of Jesus and other Christian figures were beheaded and crucifixes broken.
In 2015, following the arrival of another million Muslim migrants to Dülmen, a local newspaper said “not a day goes by” without attacks on Christian statues.
France, where one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations resides—and where churches are attacked every single day—is also indicative that where Muslim numbers grow, so do attacks on churches. A January 2017 study revealed that “Islamist extremist attacks on Christians” in France rose by 38 percent, going from 273 attacks in 2015 to 376 in 2016; the majority occurred during Christmas season and “many of the attacks took place in churches and other places of worship.”
As a typical example, in 2014 a Muslim man committed “major acts of vandalism” inside a historic Catholic church in Thonon-les-Bains. According to the report with pictures (since removed) he “overturned and broke two altars, the candelabras and lecterns, destroyed statues, tore down a tabernacle, twisted a massive bronze cross, smashed in a sacristy door and even broke some stained-glass windows.” He also “trampled on” the Eucharist.
For examples of Muslims being caught red handed desecrating churches in other European nations, see here, here, here, here, and here.
Should there still be any doubt concerning the true identity of those most responsible for vandalizing churches throughout Europe, one need only turn to the treatment of churches in the Muslim world itself, or even in areas that have very large Muslim populations.
Thus, Muslims in Kenya torched five separate churches between Jan. 20 and Jan. 24—the very same days Muslims twice firebombed an 800-year-old church in Sweden. “A majority of the church members were afraid to attend services [in or near the ruins] in the aftermath of the burning of the churches, fearing that the arsonists might follow them right into their homes, risking the lives of their families,” a local source said.
As occurred when vandals in France used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in 2019, so these Kenyan arsonists also “committed the heinous acts of scooping human feces onto the buildings,” the source added.
The fact is, the vile desecration of churches (including with human excrement) has for centuries been a Muslim trademark—a sort of “Islam was here.” As copiously documented in Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, during their invasions of Christian nations, Muslims ritually desecrated hundreds of thousands of churches (Caliph Hakim b’amr Allah alone reportedly destroyed 30,000 churches during the early eleventh century). Think what ISIS did but on an exponential level—and not for a handful of years but for over a millennium in dozens of nations spread out over three continents. Most recently, according to a Feb. 17, 2021 report, the ninth church to be torched in Muslim-majority Sudan recently occurred. Before it was set aflame, local Muslims shed light as to why they attack churches: “In every city or village where Muslims live, they should not allow anything that belongs to infidels such as church buildings to be there,” one Muslim wrote on social media; another insisted that, wherever Muslims allow the existence of a church, that place becomes “disgraced.” In short, and in the words of the Rev. Kuwa Shamal, of the Sudanese Church of Christ, “They targeted the church because they do not want to see any sign of the cross in the area.”
As seen from what is happening to churches throughout Western Europe, at least some Muslim migrants share this sentiment, despite being minorities in and guests of the West.