LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 24/17

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/newselias/english.may24.17.htm

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Bible Quotations For Today
Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 11/32-44/:"When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go."

By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God
Letter to the Philippians 04/01-07/:"Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 23-24/17
Our Thoughts & Prayers Goes to the Victims Of The Manchester Terrorist Attack/Elias Bejjani/May 23/17
Lebanon: No to refugees, yes to investment in Syria/Diana Moukalled/ArabNews/May 23/17
Will Trump’s Visit Change the Region/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17
From Riyadh … A Middle East without ‘Constructive Chaos/Salman Al-dossary/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17
Iranians Re-Elect a Fake Reformer in a Fake Election/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/May 23/17
Trump’s Middle East Trip and Iran: How to Bring Peace/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Huffingtonpost/May 23/17
Tehran’s ‘Iranophobia’ claim against US slammed/Siraj Wahab/ArabNews/May 23/17
On Iran, Trump, allies face three choices/Amir Taheri/ArabNews/May 23/17
Islamic State group claims deadly Manchester concert bombing/Jill Lawless And Gregory Katz, The Associated Press/May 23/17
France: No-Go Zones Now in Heart of Big Cities/Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/May 23/17
Europe's Leaders: Shielding Themselves from Reality/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/May 23/17
The two-state tango is over/Moshe Dann/Ynetnews/May 23/17

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on May 23-24/17
Our Thoughts & Prayers Goes to the Victims Of The Manchester Terrorist Attack
Lebanon: No to refugees, yes to investment in Syria
Aoun Hints at Elections Under 1960 Law to Avoid Vacuum
Hariri Calls Shorter, Condemns Manchester Deadly Attack
Syrian Ambassador: Lebanon Must Look for Solutions for Displaced Syrians
Mustaqbal Urges Hizbullah to Take 'Brave Decision' of Withdrawing from Syria
Bassil Says FPM Blocked Extension, Won't Accept 'Bad' Electoral Law
Rahi, Othman tackle ISF relevant affairs
Berri calls Shorter, deplores Manchester terror attack
Riachy announces bill to amend Publications Law
Jaber Says US Renders 'Invalid' Draft 'Sanctions' Against Lebanon
Kanaan says will work for just solution to servicemen pensions
Army chief meets U.S. delegation, Syrian Ambassador
US delegation visits army engineering regiment in Warwar
Sarraf, Kenaan tackle overall situation
Ibrahim meets Spanish delegation over Syrians' displacement issue
Syrian Arrested for 'Communicating with IS'
Ethiopian Maid Critically Wounds Pregnant Woman, Kills Unborn Child

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 23-24/17
Manchester police name bomber, hunt for accomplices
Trump Arrives in Rome for Pope Talks
Trump Asks Netanyahu for ‘Fundamental Change’ towards Peace
Trump Meets Abbas in Bethlehem, Intends to ‘Do Everything he Can’ to Reach Peace
In Bethlehem, Abbas and Trump speak of Mideast peace prospects
US State of Department: Riyadh Summits Stand Against Iran’s Malign Influence
Iran Plans to Secure Corridor towards Mediterranean
Gulf-US Cooperation to Counter Terrorism Financing
Jordan ‘Reached the Limit’ of Capacity to Cope with Refugee Inflow
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Receives Leaders of Delegations
Qatar Invites Abadi to Visit, Opens New Page with Iraq
Saudi Cabinet Underlines Strategic Importance of Riyadh Summits
Trial Opens against Suspected Coup Instigators in Turkey

Latest Lebanese Related News published on May 23-24/17
Our Thoughts & Prayers Goes to the Victims Of The Manchester Terrorist Attack
صلاتنا لراحة نفوس ضحايا الإنفجار الإرهابي في مانشستر_بريطانيا
Elias Bejjani/May 23/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=55573
Our thoughts & prayers goes to all the children, their parents, families and friends who were directly or indirectly affected by the Manchester (England) terrorist explosion that occurred few hours ago.
The terrorist explosion targeted an arena in Manchester where a concert attended by teenagers was held.
Initial reports stated that at least nineteen teenagers and women were killed and more than fifty injured.
May Almighty God bless the souls of the victims and shower on their families and friends all gifts of tolerance, courage, consolation, patience and faith. Meanwhile we wish quick and safe recovery to all the injured.
In reality and actuality there are no words that could help the victim's families cope with the great loss of their beloved innocent children and beloved one who happened to be in an arena attending a concert.
The terrorist or terrorists who committed this horrible, savage and bloody act of terrorism, as well as those who trained, financed and radicalized them being individuals, heads of organizations or officials in states are not human beings by any means and must be arrested and put on trial and face justice and pay for their crimes.
If they were human beings they would not have criminally murdered innocent children.
We loudly and strongly condemn this evil act of terrorism, and call on all world legitimate authorities to continue, strengthen and expend the global war on jihad terrorists and terrorism of all kinds and ideologies in a bid to eradicate them all once and for ever..

Lebanon: No to refugees, yes to investment in Syria
Diana Moukalled/ArabNews/May 23/17
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1103411
The Lebanese government is continuing its policy of warnings and intimidation about the repercussions of Syrian refugees on Lebanon by announcing figures about the extent of the economic and social ramifications. The refugee burden has increased the country’s economic hardship, but this does not justify many individuals in power and in the media escalating racist rhetoric. Officially, most of the apprehension over refugees comes in the context of seeking international assistance for Lebanon as a host country that bears a burden beyond its capabilities. Even if this contains some truth, it does not justify exaggerating the cost of the Syrian presence in Lebanon, especially as this affects the relationship between the refugee community and the host community, and fuels a potential explosion that could be catastrophic to Lebanese and Syrians alike. Lebanon is adopting a two-sided stance. It is being rejectionist about refugees out of fear that their presence will become permanent, yet it is seeking international assistance to enable it to host refugees, while unofficially working to be a center for post-war reconstruction in Syria.
Speculation about the future of the Syrian tragedy necessitates Lebanon adopting a clear message that first recognizes the role the state is supposed to play in absorbing these refugees, then asks for assistance to achieve this. Lebanon’s losses over the past six years have been caused by the Syrian crisis in general, not by the refugee crisis in particular, yet there are those in Lebanon who insist on conflating the two.
Beirut must deal realistically and honestly with the issue of Syrian refugees, in a manner that does not exacerbate Lebanese crises, conflicts or racism. The American University in Beirut (AUB) prepared a study of the positives economic aspects of the refugee crisis, which was confirmed by UN figures. For example, in 2016 Syrian refugees paid about $378 million in housing rent, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). More than 12,000 temporary jobs were created in Lebanon to deal with the crisis. Of the new businesses established around Syrian refugee camps, 84 percent were Lebanese. It does not seem that the war in Syria will end in the near future, yet Lebanon has begun trying to strengthen its position as a center for post-war reconstruction. Due to its strategic location between the Mediterranean and Syria’s most damaged cities such as Homs and Damascus, Lebanon could become one of the most important avenues for reconstruction efforts. According to the World Bank, reconstructing Syria will cost more than $200 billion. This figure has prompted Lebanese businessmen and economists to hope that this will revive the Lebanese economy, which has been stagnant in recent years. For Lebanon to play a role in post-war reconstruction, it must deal realistically and honestly with the issue of Syrian refugees, in a manner that does not exacerbate Lebanese crises, conflicts or racism.
• Diana Moukalled is a veteran journalist with extensive experience in both traditional and new media. She is also a columnist and freelance documentary producer. She can be reached on Twitter @dianamoukalled.

Aoun Hints at Elections Under 1960 Law to Avoid Vacuum
Naharnet/May 23/17/President Michel Aoun hinted on Tuesday that he would call for staging the parliamentary elections under the 1960 law to avoid vacuum at the legislative authority. “I don't want the 1960 law, but if we fail to reach a solution am I allowed to leave the Republic in vacuum?” Aoun asked addressing a Press Club delegation at the Presidential Palace. The President remarked that leaving the 1960 law to rule the upcoming polls is not what he wishes “but I will not leave the country to vacuum if a new law electoral is not devised.” About the possibility of extension of the parliament's term, Aoun said Lebanon would be overstepping the constitution if the term is extended, “Articles of the constitution must be respected,” he said.“According to the constitution, the people will be invited for the elections within 90 days based on the law in force if the parliament's term ends without a new law at hand,” concluded Aoun.

Hariri Calls Shorter, Condemns Manchester Deadly Attack
Naharnet/May 23/17/Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned the terrorist attack that took place at dawn today in the northern English city of Manchester. “We strongly condemn the terrorist attack that left tens dead and many innocent civilians wounded in Manchester,” he told the British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter in a telephone conversation. The PM expressed “solidarity with Britain and its people in the face of this criminal attack," stressing “Lebanon stands in the front line to combat terrorism.”Twenty-two people, including children, were killed and dozens injured when a man detonated a bomb at a pop concert by US star Ariana Grande in the northern English city of Manchester. The attack was described as Britain's deadliest terror attack in 12 years.

Syrian Ambassador: Lebanon Must Look for Solutions for Displaced Syrians
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/May 23/17/Syria's ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali said he acknowledges the burden on Lebanon as the result of displaced Syrians fleeing the war ravaging their country, but he questioned the “lack of Lebanese government initiatives to find solutions,” the National News Agency reported on Tuesday. Ali admitted that Lebanon is bearing “the burden of displaced Syrians,” but he wondered about the reasons keeping the Lebanese “government from taking initiatives to find solutions” for the crisis, he said. The ambassador spoke during a lecture at the Center for Palestinian Studies titled The Syrian Crisis, Areas of Reducing Tension - Motives and Challenges. Whether there is cooperation between the Lebanese and Syrian governments in that regard, he said: “The Lebanese state is a sister country, we have minimal coordination. The answer to this question is with the Lebanese government, because our enemy is one, Israel and terrorism.”He reiterated that there is coordination with the Lebanese state "even if there are some mistakes from the Syrians, we call for more coordination between the institutions of the two countries for the interest of both peoples, and families deployed on the common border."The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said more than six million Syrians have fled their country since its devastating war broke out in 2011. Of those, Lebanon is hosting more than 1.5 million Syrians, roughly a quarter of its current population of four million.The influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has stretched the country's economic resources. In the education system, classrooms were overcrowded with the number of students more than doubling in six years to accommodate Syrian pupils. Lebanon, whose infrastructure was devastated during a 15-year war that ended in 1990, is struggling with endemic corruption and a public debt that represents 140 percent of its GDP.

Mustaqbal Urges Hizbullah to Take 'Brave Decision' of Withdrawing from Syria
Naharnet/May 23/17/Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Tuesday reiterated its call for Hizbullah to withdraw its fighters from war-torn Syria. “Amid the developments and threats that are surrounding and lashing the region and Lebanon, the bloc renews its honest request and asks Hizbullah to take the initiative of putting Lebanon's national interest ahead of anything else through conducting a comprehensive review of its intervention in Syria,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting. Hizbullah should “take the brave decision of withdrawing from Syria and returning to Lebanon,” Mustaqbal added, calling on the party to “abide by the state's conditions, approach and Constitution in a manner that leads to strengthening coexistence.”

Bassil Says FPM Blocked Extension, Won't Accept 'Bad' Electoral Law
Naharnet/May 23/17/Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil boasted Tuesday that the FPM has “managed to prevent” another extension of parliament's term and another return to the 1960 electoral law, while stressing that his movement will not accept a “bad” electoral law. “What has been achieved until now is preventing extension, which would have posed a great threat to Lebanon, and our political will is what blocked extension,” said Bassil after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabieh.“The 1960 law was also blocked through the president's decision to refrain from signing the decree calling for elections, and those accusing us of seeking the 1960 law can refer to that,” Bassil added. “We will also seek to prevent vacuum, which is the third threat that is awaiting us, and the first way to prevent it is through the approval of a new electoral law. In order to prevent vacuum, we are obliged to go to a vote and no one can prevent us from voting in constitutional institutions,” the FPM chief went on to say. He warned that “the entire political situation” would change after June 20 should the FPM be “prevented from passing a new electoral law.”“Those who try to impose that would bear the responsibility for vacuum and what it might bring,” Bassil cautioned. “If they try to prevent us from voting in the constitutional institutions, we would resort to a popular vote,” the FPM chief added. “There are parties seeking to prolong the political situation that has been running since 1990 through the 1960 law or extension, and no one can impose an electoral law on us,” Bassil said, stressing that his movement will not accept a “bad” law.

Rahi, Othman tackle ISF relevant affairs
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rahi met on Tuesday with Internal Security Forces (ISF) chief Emad Othman, who came in the company of Gendarmerie Commander Brigadier General Joseph Helou. The visit was an occasion to brief Patriarch Rahi on the work of the ISF's institution. Rahi applauded "the efforts of the Internal Security Forces in fighting terrorism, clamping down and arresting criminals, as well as combating all sorts of crimes."The Patriarch also wished Major General Othman all success in his new mission at the helm of the ISF institution.

Berri calls Shorter, deplores Manchester terror attack
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Speaker of the House, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday called British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hugo Shorter, deploring the terror attack that occurred at dawn in the English city of Manchester. Speaker Berri offered condolences to the British Ambassador on the fallen victims, and wished the wounded speedy recovery. On the other hand, Berri received at his Ein Tineh residence Head of the Union Party, former Minister Abdel Rahim Murad, with talks between the pair majorly touching on the long simmering election law. Berri later met with a delegation of army officers of the Strategic Studies and Researches Center.

Riachy announces bill to amend Publications Law
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Information Minister, Melhem Riachy, on Tuesday announced a major legal achievement aiming at revamping the Lebanese Press Syndicate by means of drafting a bill to amend the Publications Law in a bid to remodel the syndicate to enable it to catch up with today's media evolution. Riachy's announcement came at a press conference he held earlier on Tuesday at the Ministry of Information's public hall, in presence of Information Ministry General Director, Dr. Hassan Falha, NNA Director, Laure Sleiman, and other Ministry officials. "I am proud that we are launching today, in cooperation and solidarity with the Editors Syndicate, a Syndicate with a new and different image that is compatible with that of the years of 2020, 2030 and even 2050 (...) all for the sake of the future of the Lebanese media," Riachy said in his delivered word. "The Syndicate of Editors goes way back in Lebanon's history and it has left its prints on the Lebanese public opinion, not mention manufactured freedom in this country. It is what we label as the Editors' Syndicate, but it will be a syndicate for all the media professionals without any exception," Riachy added, pledging to refer the project law to the Council of Minister's general Secretariat for approval, to be later forwarded to the House of Parliament.In turn, Editor's Syndicate Head, Elias Aoun, said:"This project, which was prepared by a joint committee comprising of the Ministry of Information and the Editors Syndicate, is an important step towards strengthening the press corps in Lebanon."Also, Aoun expressed hope that this step would be followed by plans to enhance the role of journalists and ensure their lives and future.

Jaber Says US Renders 'Invalid' Draft 'Sanctions' Against Lebanon
Naharnet/May 23/17/The Lebanese parliamentary delegation in Washington assured that new US financial sanctions against Lebanon will not be imposed, pointing out that reports about the matter were inaccurate “leaks,” al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday.“Everyone is talking as if there are new US sanctions against Lebanon, which is a big fallacy because it has not happened yet," a member of the delegation MP Yassin Jaber told the daily. The MP clarified saying: “A committee in the US Congress was putting draft ideas that were leaked out and caused agitation in Lebanon. During our meeting with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives we were told to forget about the leaked draft, and that it caused damage to those who prepared and leaked it. It became invalid they said.”Yassin added: “Some lawmakers in Congress tend to prepare a bill that introduces some amendments to the Penal Code issued in 2015. “We have demanded that Lebanon's interest be taken into consideration as it faces the challenges of fighting terrorism and the displaced Syrians. Lebanon faces a complicated financial and economic situation and can no more tolerate any further pressure. There is a penal code already in effect, therefore there is no need for a new law that creates confusion,” stated Jaber. The MP assured that US officials have listened attentively to what the Lebanese delegation had to state, “we hope what we said will help in easing enthusiasm for imposing a new law.”
In light of concerns that the US administration might impose new financial sanctions against Lebanon, the parliamentary delegation began a visit to Washington last week to ward off the threat. The delegation is comprised of MPs Jaber and Mohammed Qabbani, media adviser to the Speaker Ali Hamdan and Lebanon's ambassador to Washington Antoine Shedid. The delegation held talks with congressmen, senators, deputies and figures of the US administration. In April, media reports said the United States House of Representatives was mulling a bill to impose tough new financial sanctions against Hizbullah and figures or institutions doing business with the party.

Kanaan says will work for just solution to servicemen pensions
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Head of the Finance and Budget House committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, on Tuesday respectively visited Minister of National Defense Yaacoub Sarraf, and army chief General Joseph Aoun. Talks reportedly touched on the salary scale issue and the rights of retired servicemen. "Upon the instructions of President Michel Aoun, and in coordination with the Minister of Defense, I will follow up on the [retired] servicemen pensions' issue with all the concerned sides, in order to reach a just and acceptable solution," Kanaan told reporters in Yarze. A follow-up meeting is expected to be held at the Parliament in the coming days, comprising Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Minister Sarraf, and the army chief.

Army chief meets U.S. delegation, Syrian Ambassador
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Lebanese Army chief, General Joseph Aoun, on Tuesday met with Deputy Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Admiral Scott Jerabek, heading a delegation, in presence of U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard and U.S. Defense Attaché Colonel Ulises V. Calvo. Talks reportedly touched on the means to activate cooperation on the level of security and fighting terrorism. General Aoun later met with MP Ibrahim Kanaan, accompanied by army veterans' league and a panel of retired officers. The army chief later welcomed Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, with whom he discussed the current general situation.

US delegation visits army engineering regiment in Warwar
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - Deputy Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Admiral Scott Jerabek visited on Tuesday in the company of US Ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard, the army's Engineering Regiment in Warwar. The US delegation was greeted by Regiment Commander and senior officers. The delegation listened to a briefing on the regiment's tasks and technical and vocational capabilities, and had a firsthand look at the equipment donated by the US Army to the Lebanese Army.

Sarraf, Kenaan tackle overall situation
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - National defense Minister, Yaacoub Riad al-Sarraf, met on Tuesday with head of Finance House Committee, MP Ibrahim Kenaan, with talks between the pair reportedly touching on the general situation on the local arena. On the other hand, Minister Sarraf met with Customs Director General Badri Daher, who briefed him on the current situation of the Customs' apparatus.

Ibrahim meets Spanish delegation over Syrians' displacement issue
Tue 23 May 2017/NNA - General Security chief, Abbas Ibrahim, on Tuesday met with a Spanish delegation from the Immigration Department and the interior political affairs committee in Spain.Conferees discussed the measures undertaken by the General Security agency in order to organize the entrance to Lebanon of Syrian refugees.

Syrian Arrested for 'Communicating with IS'
Naharnet/May 23/17/Lebanese authorities on Tuesday arrested a Syrian man on suspicion of “communicating with the terrorist Islamic State group,” state-run National News Agency reported. The suspect was arrested by State Security's Nabatiyeh department, the agency added.

Ethiopian Maid Critically Wounds Pregnant Woman, Kills Unborn Child
Naharnet/May 23/17/An Ethiopian domestic worker on Tuesday stabbed her pregnant 27-year-old employer Isaaf Khashfeh in the Chouf town of Barja, leaving her critically wounded and killing her unborn child. The maid dealt Isaaf several stabs before stabbing herself and trying to jump off the balcony, the National News Agency said. At that moment town residents rushed to the house to find the pregnant employer soaked in her own blood, reports said. They eventually captured the wounded maid and handed her over to security forces as Isaaf was rushed to the Sibline Hospital in critical condition. Reports said the maid had sent an SMS to a relative in Ethiopia informing them of her intentions.

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 23-24/17
Manchester police name bomber, hunt for accomplices
AP/Ynetnews/May 23/17
Investigators hunt for possible accomplices of the suicide bomber who attacked an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and sparking a stampede of young concertgoers; ISIS claims responsibility.
Investigators hunted Tuesday for possible accomplices of the suicide bomber who attacked an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and sparking a stampede of young concertgoers, some still wearing the American pop star's trademark kitten ears and holding pink balloons.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the Monday night carnage, but a top American intelligence official said the claim could not be verified. British police raided two sites in the northern English city, setting off a controlled explosion in one, and arrested a 23-year-old man in a third location there.
British Prime Minister Theresa May and police said the bomber died in the attack on Manchester Arena—something that went unmentioned in ISIS's claim, which also had discrepancies with the events described by British officials.
Manchester police chief Ian Hopkins identified the bombing suspect as 22-year-old Salman Abedi. British election rolls listed Abedi as living at a modest red brick semi-detached house in a mixed suburb of Manchester where police performed a controlled explosion Tuesday afternoon.
Neighbor Natalie Daley said she was frightened by a loud bang, then police yelling "get in your houses—get away from the windows!"
"When it's like two seconds from your house, when you walk past it every day, you do live in fear," Daley said.
Manchester, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northwest of London, is one of Britain's largest cities and Manchester Arena is one of the world's largest indoor concert venues.
The attack was the deadliest in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters on subway trains and a bus in July 2005. Campaigning for Britain's June 8 national election was suspended.
Teenage screams filled the arena just after the explosion Monday night, and members of the audience tumbled over guardrails and each other to escape.
The attack sparked a nightlong search for loved-ones—parents for the children they had accompanied or had been waiting to pick up, and friends for each other after groups were scattered by the blast. Twitter and Facebook lit up with heartbreaking appeals for the missing.
An 8-year-old girl was among the dead—the youngest known victim—and her mother and sister were among 59 people wounded in what May called "a callous terrorist attack." The wounded included 12 children under age 16, hospital officials said.
"We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but as an opportunity for carnage," May said.
The top US intelligence official, Dan Coats, said the American government had not verified whether or how ISIS was responsible.
Some concert-goers said security was haphazard before the show, with some people being searched and others allowed inside unhindered. The bombing took place at the end of the concert, when the audience was streaming toward the city's main train station.
Witnesses said the blast scattered bolts and other bits of metal, apparently intended to maximize injuries and deaths.
"There was this massive bang. And then everyone just went really quiet. And that's when the screaming started," said 25-year-old Ryan Molloy. "As we came outside to Victoria Station, there were just people all over the floor covered in blood. My partner was helping to try to stem the blood from this one person ... they were pouring blood from their leg. It was just awful."As police shut down public transport, Manchester residents opened their hearts. Taxis offered to give stranded people free rides home while some residents opened their homes to provide lodging. Twitter users circulated the MissinginManchester hashtag to help people looking for family and friends.
Grande, who was not injured in the blast, tweeted: "broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don't have words."
Hayley Lunt had taken her 10-year-old daughter Abigail to her first concert. She said the explosions rang out as soon as Grande left the stage.
"We just ran as fast as we could to get away," Lunt said. "What should have been a superb evening is now just horrible."
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II marked a moment of silence Tuesday afternoon to honor the victims. Accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, her son Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the queen stood at the top of the steps leading down from Buckingham Palace as the national anthem played.
The first confirmed victim was student Georgina Callander, whose death was reported by her former school. The Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy in Croston, northwest of Manchester, posted a photo of Georgina on its website, smiling and looking smart in her school uniform. It described her as "a lovely young student who was very popular with her peers and the staff."
Saffie Roussos, aged 8, was the youngest victim identified so far. The head teacher of the Tarleton Community Primary School in Lancashire described her as "simply a beautiful little girl in every aspect of the word. She was loved by everyone and her warmth and kindness will be remembered fondly. Saffie was quiet and unassuming with a creative flair."
ISIS's claim of responsibility echoed others the group has made for attacks in the West but with vague details that left open the possibility it was an opportunistic attempt at propaganda.
US President Donald Trump, in Bethlehem, said the attack preyed upon children and described those responsible as "evil losers."
"This wicked ideology must be obliterated. And I mean completely obliterated," he added.
Grande's Dangerous Woman tour is her third one and supports her album. After Manchester, Grande was due to perform in London on Thursday and Friday, and later at venues in Europe, including Belgium, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and France, with concerts in Latin America and Asia to follow.
Grande's tour has not been canceled or postponed despite reports online, said a person close to the situation, who was not allowed to publicly talk about the topic and so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The person said that Grande and her team are more focused on the victims at the moment.
Pop concerts have been a terrorism target before. Most of the 130 dead in the November 2015 attacks in Paris were at the Bataclan concert hall.
Manchester itself has seen attacks before, but not this deadly. The city was hit by a huge Irish Republican Army bomb in 1996 that leveled a swath of the city center. More than 200 people were injured, although no one was killed.

Trump Arrives in Rome for Pope Talks
Naharnet/Agence France Presse/May 23/17/Donald Trump on Tuesday arrived in Rome for a high-profile meeting with Pope Francis in what was his first official trip to Europe since becoming U.S. President. Trump, on a tour that has already taken him to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories, touched down in the Italian capital aboard Air Force One just before 1630 GMT, an AFP staffer traveling with the presidential team said. The under-fire billionaire is due at the Vatican on Wednesday morning for a meeting with the pope, with whom he has clashed on numerous issues ranging from the plight of migrants to unbridled capitalism and climate change. They also disagree on issues like the death penalty and the arms trade but do have common ground to explore on the issues of abortion and the persecution of Christians. After the papal audience, also to be attended by Trump's wife Melania and daughter Ivanka, the Trump couple are to be given a tour of the Sixtine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica. The president will then meet Italy's president and prime minister at the presidential palace, the Quirinale, while Melania visits a children's hospital and Ivanka discusses migrant issues with members of the St Egidio religious community. The Trump team is due to fly to Brussels on Wednesday afternoon for meetings with EU and NATO officials before returning to Italy late Thursday for the G7 summit in Sicily on Friday and Saturday.

Trump Vows to Do All to Reach Mideast Peace while Meeting Abbas
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to do "everything I can" to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians as he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank. "I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and I intend to do everything I can to help them achieve that goal," Trump said in comments after holding talks with Abbas in Bethlehem. Trump is currently visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of his first foreign trip since taking office. He held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. Trump made a highly symbolic visit Monday to the Western Wall in Jerusalem where he met Netanyahu. On Tuesday, he arrived in Bethlehem by motorcade, crossing a checkpoint at Israel's controversial separation wall, and was greeted by Abbas and other dignitaries outside the city's presidential palace. Abbas reiterated his call for a two-state solution to the conflict, including an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. "We are ready to open dialogue with our Israeli neighbors to build confidence and create a real opportunity for peace," he said.
Separation wall
Security was tight for Trump's journey to Bethlehem, a 20-minute drive from Jerusalem but located across Israel's separation wall. The wall is part of a project begun in 2002 during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, that is to extend some 700 kilometers (450 miles) once completed. It is a stark symbol for Palestinians of Israel's 50-year occupation of the West Bank, and in Bethlehem the wall has been covered with graffiti and street art. Bethlehem also holds deep significance as the site where Christians believe Jesus was born and welcomes thousands of pilgrims each year for Christmas. A banner hung in the city said "the city of peace welcomes the man of peace" along with photos of Abbas and Trump. Their talks came with hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails on hunger strike since April 17, which Abbas referred to in his remarks after meeting Trump. On Monday, Palestinians also held a general strike in support of the prisoners. Clashes broke out near a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah involving several hundred stone-throwing youths and Israeli soldiers who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas, leaving at least one wounded. On Monday night in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave run by Abbas' rivals Hamas, the Islamist movement organized a demonstration to denounce its labeling as a "terrorist" group by many Western governments, including the United States.Trump and Abbas met earlier this month at the White House.Trump initially sparked deep concern among Palestinians when he backed away from the long U.S. commitment to a two-state solution to the conflict. Meeting Netanyahu in Washington in February, he said he would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting Israeli right-wingers who want to see most of the West Bank annexed.
Disputed Jerusalem
During his election campaign, Trump also advocated breaking with decades of precedent and moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, alarming Palestinians. He has since said the move was still being looked at.At the same time, he urged Israel to hold back on settlement building in the West Bank, a longstanding concern of Palestinians and much of the world. The most high-profile moment of Trump's stay in Jerusalem was his visit to the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism. He became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site in the Israeli-annexed east of the city. He was not accompanied by any Israeli leaders during the visit. Allowing them to do so could have led to accusations that Washington was implicitly recognizing Israel's unilateral claim of sovereignty over the site, which would break with years of U.S. and international precedent. The status of Jerusalem is ultra-sensitive and has been among the most difficult issues in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, stalled since April 2014. Israel occupied the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, in the Six-Day War of 1967. It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognized by the international community and claims the entire city as its capital. The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. After Israel and the Palestinian territories, Trump will head to the Vatican, and to Brussels and Italy for NATO and G7 meetings.

Trump Asks Netanyahu for ‘Fundamental Change’ towards Peace
Nazir Majli//Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Tel Aviv – US President Donald Trump, who visited Israel on Monday and met with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, said there is a “rare opportunity” to bring security to the region, defeat terror and create harmony and peace. While at a dinner banquet with the Israeli prime minister, Trump asked him to produce a “fundamental” change in moving towards the peace operation. Trump would later sit down with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Tuesday. On Monday, the US President spoke about a partnership to counter Iran and said that Washington would not allow Tehran to develop its nuclear weapons. Before meeting with Netanyahu, Trump participated in a bilateral meeting with President Reuven Rivlin, visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Western Wall. According to diplomatic sources, Trump tackled in Israel four main issues: the Iranian file, bilateral relations, combating terrorism and the Palestinian file.During his visit on Monday, Trump said: “We are willing to work together. I believe that a new level of partnership is possible and will happen — one that will bring greater safety to this region, greater security to the United States, and greater prosperity to the world.”The US President also said the battle against Iran needs an immense regional alliance. Trump added there was opportunities for cooperation across the Middle East, “that includes advancing prosperity, defeating the evils of terrorism and facing the threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region and causing so much violence and suffering.” He said that leaders of the Arab and Muslim world voiced concerns about ISIS, about Iran’s rising ambitions and about the menace of extremism that has spread through too many parts of the Muslim world. “I’m encouraged that they pledge cooperation to confront terrorism and the hateful ideology that drives it so hard,” Trump said. Trump arrived in Israel on Monday after a weekend trip to Saudi Arabia where he met Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz. He signed a number of agreements with Saudi leaders and attended the Arab-Islamic-US summit that vowed to confront Iran’s expansionist agenda in the region.

Trump Meets Abbas in Bethlehem, Intends to ‘Do Everything he Can’ to Reach Peace
Asharq Al-Awsat English/May 23/17
US President Donald Trump reiterated on Tuesday his commitment to achieving peace between Palestinians and Israelis, believing that both sides share his sentiment. After an hour of talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Trump said: “I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians and I intend to do everything I can to help them achieve that goal.”He offered no concrete proposals on how to get there. “President Abbas assures me he is ready to work towards that goal in good faith, and Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has promised the same. I look forward to working with these leaders towards a lasting peace,” remarked Trump. He added that he “truly hopeful that America can help Israel and the Palestinians forge peace and bringing new hope the region and its people.”“If Israelis and the Palestinians can make peace, it will begin a process of peace all throughout the Middle East. That would be an amazing accomplishment,” said the US president. Standing alongside Trump, Abbas, 82 and in the 12th year of his original five-year term, said he was determined to deliver an agreement for all Palestinians, although he did not provide any substance on how such an objective could be achieved. “I would like to reiterate our commitment to cooperate with you in order to make peace and forge an historic peace deal with the Israelis,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. The Palestinian president stressed that the conflict with Israel is not of a religious nature, saying: “Our main problem is with the occupation and settlements.”Abbas called on Israel to accept the demands for better conditions by hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians who have been on a hunger strike for 37 days. “And we would like to reassert our willingness to continue to work with you as partners in fighting terrorism in our region and in the world.” While Trump has spoken frequently in the months since he took office about his desire to achieve what he has dubbed the “ultimate deal”, he has not fleshed out any strategy his administration might have towards achieving it. He also faces difficulties at home, where he is struggling to contain a scandal after firing James Comey as FBI director two weeks ago.
He has appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser on brokering an agreement, while Jason Greenblatt, formerly a lawyer in Trump’s real estate group, has taken the day-to-day role of liaising with officials and leaders in the region on the nitty-gritty contours of any solution.
The last talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, led by former US secretary of state John Kerry, broke down in April 2014 after around a year of largely fruitless discussion. While both Netanyahu and Abbas have made positive noises about their readiness to negotiate, both also face domestic constraints on their freedom to maneuver and strike a deal. Netanyahu must deal with opposition from rightist elements within his coalition who oppose any steps towards a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict. Abbas’s Fatah party is at sharp odds with the Islamist group Hamas, which is in power in Gaza, leaving no unified Palestinian position on peace. During meetings with Netanyahu on Monday, Trump focused attention on the threat from Iran but also talked about the opportunities for peace in the region and how Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations were shifting their stance, potentially opening a window towards a regional agreement.One of the long-standing regional proposals is a Saudi peace initiative that was first put forward in 2002 and has been re-endorsed several times since. In effect, it would offer Israel recognition by the Arab world and the “normalization” of relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from the territory Israel has occupied since the June 1967 Middle East war, including East Jerusalem. It also urges a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee problem.

In Bethlehem, Abbas and Trump speak of Mideast peace prospects
Adam Rasgon/Jerusalem Post/May 23/17
“I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians," says US president.
Speaking alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he wants to achieve a conflict-ending deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I am committed to trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Trump told a press conference at the PA headquarters in Bethlehem, without mentioning the possibility of Palestinian statehood. “I intend to do everything I can to help [Abbas and Netanyahu] achieve that goal.”
Before Trump departed for his first foreign trip, H.R. McMaster, the US national security adviser, said the American president will express support for Palestinian “self-determination.”Trump added that he believes an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal “will begin a process of peace all throughout the Middle East.”
Abbas, who met with Trump before addressing the press, stated that the Palestinian leadership backs the two-state solution in accordance with international law. “We reaffirm to you our position of accepting the two-state solution along 1967 borders,” Abbas said. “The State of Palestine and its capital east Jerusalem should live side by side with Israel in safety, security, and good neighborliness.” Trump, who only visited the PA headquarters during his trip to Bethlehem, emphasized that making peace requires no tolerance for violence. “Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded, and even rewarded,” Trump remarked. “We must be resolute in condemning such acts in a single, unified voice.” It is not clear if Trump was making a reference to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s funding of special payments to families of Palestinian prisoners or “martyrs,” many of who were involved in attacks against Israelis. Abbas did not address the issue of the payments in the press conference, but discussed the ongoing mass hunger-strike in Israeli prisons. “I call on the Israeli government to respond affirmatively to these humane and legitimate demands,” Abbas said, alluding to the hunger strikers’ demands, which include ending solitary confinement, increased visitation rights, and improved amenities. The Israel Prison Service has said that its treatment of prisoners meets international standards.Many Palestinians protesting in front of the Nativity Church on Monday called on Abbas to raise the Palestinian hunger-strikers’ demands with Trump. “The prisoners’ demands must be resolved before any discussion of reviving the broader political process can happen,” Fatah Secretary-General in Bethlehem Mohammed Masri remarked. Turning his focus to the Palestinian economy, the American president said that he looks forward to working with Abbas to “unlock the [it’s] potential.”Trump’s Middle East peace envoy Jason Greenblatt has discussed ways to develop the Palestinian economy in almost of all of his meeting with Israeli and Palestinian officials. Abbas and Trump also condemned a suicide bombing that took place in the United Kingdom on Monday, which left 22 dead. Following his visit to Bethlehem, Trump returned to Jerusalem to visit Yad Vashem before departing for Ben-Gurion Airport.

US State of Department: Riyadh Summits Stand Against Iran’s Malign Influence
Nayef Al-Rasheed/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Riyadh – The outcomes of the Riyadh summits lie in the interest of both Saudi Arabia and the United States and enhance the Gulf’s capabilities in facing Iran’s interferences through increasing their military potentials, according to a US State Department official.
US State Department Spokesperson Nathaniel Tek stated that US-Saudi cooperation is at the highest level, adding that both countries are coordinating fully in countering terrorism and extremism. Tek pointed out that the cooperation between the US and the Gulf will deter Iran’s “malicious” actions in the region. The spokesperson told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that outcomes of the Riyadh summits will form the needed front to put an end to Iran’s interventions in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. He reiterated that President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia as his first abroad visit sends a clear message to both countries’ enemies and a positive one to the friendly countries. He stated that the US doesn’t abandon its friends and will exert all possible efforts to support to the Gulf in order to establish security and peace in the region. “It is not strange that US President Trump chose Saudi Arabia as his first visit. Washington regards Riyadh as the center of the Islamic world. President Trump regards all other religions with respect and appreciation just as he mentioned in his speech,” Tek explained. When asked whether Trump’s visit will promote the positive image of the region inside of the US, Tek said that the US government views Saudi Arabia as the backbone of stability in the Middle East. He added Washington wants to ensure stability in the region, especially in the Kingdom. The US official confirmed that both Riyadh and Washington are coordinating to stand against all challenges that might face both countries whether economically, security or politically. Earlier, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington is fully intended to support Riyadh “in particular in the face of malign Iranian influence and Iranian-related threats which exist on Saudi Arabia’s borders”.

Iran Plans to Secure Corridor towards Mediterranean
Caroline Akoum/ Asharq Al-Awsat/May 23/17/Beirut, London – Syria’s High Negotiations Committee (HNC) admitted on Monday that Iran has increased its “infiltration” in Syria to protect a land corridor towards the Mediterranean Sea, at a time when the Syrian regime sent Palestinian militias to Deir Ezzor. Last week in Geneva, the HNC handed UN envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura a document, seen by Asharq Al-Awsat, saying that regime forces “had issued a paper on April 6, approved by head of the regime, concerning the creation of groups that should join the Iranian forces to fight along the Assad forces.” The document said these forces will be known by the name of “regiments for local defense in the provinces” and would increase the Iranian infiltration in Syria. The document added: “We can now say that the Iranian presence in Syria has strategic objectives to expand Tehran’s powers in the Middle East and to secure supply lines for its arm (Hezbollah) in Lebanon, and therefore assure a permanent access point to the Mediterranean Sea.” On Sunday, reports said Iranian militias affiliated with the Syrian regime had continued to infiltrate the desert towards where the borders where Jordan, Syria and Iraq meet, to get closer to the US-linked al-Tanf military camp. Meanwhile, reports on Monday said that groups from the Quds Brigade, also known as Liwa al-Quds, were preparing to move from Aleppo towards Deir Ezzor and Palmyra. Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman told Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday: “Just a few days ago, groups from the Quds Brigade located in Aleppo, have started moving to participate in the Palmyra desert battles and the military operation, through which regime forces aim to advance towards the administrative borders of Deir Ezzor.”

Gulf-US Cooperation to Counter Terrorism Financing
Abdul Hadi Habtoor/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Riyadh – A center established by the GCC and the United States to combat terrorism financing would target three main goals, including exchanging information on terrorist financial networks, coordinating joint counter-terrorism measures and providing support to the region’s countries for building capacities in fighting terrorism financing. The United States and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) signed on Sunday a memorandum to create a center to combat the financing of terrorism, on the sidelines of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh.
The center’s objectives include identifying, tracking and sharing information about terrorist financing networks, according to a statement from the US Treasury Department. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said: “This new Terrorist Financing Targeting Center will enhance existing tools and cooperation with partners in the Gulf to forcefully address evolving threats.”“The Treasury will offer the vast expertise of our Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence to this creative new effort,” he added. According to the memorandum, the center will be established by the Saudi interior ministry and the US Treasury department and will focus on the means to cut funding for terrorist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hezbollah, among other groups. The center will benefit from experiences and expertise of participants to target terrorist financing networks and will seek to identify regional partners and build countries’ capacities to counter the financing of terrorism. The US described the establishment of the center as a bold and historic effort to expand and promote cooperation on fighting terrorism and encourage countries to take further steps in this regard, based on the principle of mutual interests. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed the MoU at King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in the presence of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, US President Trump and the leaders and heads of delegations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for Arab Countries.

Jordan ‘Reached the Limit’ of Capacity to Cope with Refugee Inflow
Asharq Al-AwsatAsharq Al-Awsat/May 23/17/Amman – Jordan’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury said on Monday that his country has hit the limit of its ability to host Syrian refugees. “Jordan has reached the limit of its capacity to cope with the burden of hosting Syrian refugees,” Fakhoury said in a statement following a meeting with visiting US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Fakhoury discussed with Haley on Monday bilateral cooperation and challenges facing Jordan in the light of crises in the region. The two officials highlighted the “distinguished” relationship between Jordan and the US at all levels. The Jordanian minister underlined “continuous” US support to Jordan, which reflected on the Kingdom’s development process and ability to turn “challenges into opportunities”. On the refugee issue, Fakhoury called on the international community to increase its assistance and grants to Jordan to meet its priorities outlined in the 2017-2019 Response Plan, according to a governmental statement. Haley, for her part, expressed the United States’ appreciation for the “pivotal” role assumed by Jordan, under the leadership of King Abdullah II, as well as the political and economic reforms that “have made the Kingdom a role model in the region.”She also highlighted her country’s understanding of the burdens the Kingdom is enduring in light of the huge influx of Syrian refugees and its effects on the national economy, according to the statement. On Sunday, Haley visited Jordan’s Zaatari camp which hosts some 80,000 refugees displaced by the conflict in neighboring Syria. The UN refugee agency says it has registered more than 680,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. Amman says it hosts some 1.3 million Syrians at a cost of some $6.6 billion (5.9 billion euros) since the war broke out in 2011.

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Receives Leaders of Delegations
Asharq Al-Awsat/May 23/17/Riyadh – Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense held a series of meetings with leaders and heads of delegations that participated in Sunday’s Arab-Islamic-US Summit in Riyadh. He received President Idriss Deby Itno of the Republic of Chad where the two officials reviewed bilateral relations in various areas and a number of issues of common interest. The meeting was attended Advisor at the Royal Court Ahmed al-Khatib, Advisor at the Royal Court, General Supervisor of the Office of Minister of Defense Fahd bin Mohammed al-Issa, Chadian Foreign Minister Hissein Brahim Taha, Chadian Minister of Defense Bichara Issa Djadallah and a number of officials. Prince Mohammed also met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, where they reviewed aspects of relations between the two countries and latest developments in the region. He also met with the Minister of Defense of the Nigeria Mansur Mohammed Dan-Ali and addressed bilateral relations, especially in the defense field. The Deputy Crown Prince received the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. During the meeting, they tackled fraternal relations and a number of issues of common interest. The meeting was attended by Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz and UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In other news, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed patronized the graduation ceremony of the 92nd batch of the cadets of King Faisal Air. Upon arrival to the venue, the Deputy Crown Prince was received by a number of senior military officials. The commander of the college stressed that the graduates have completed their education and training and are fully prepared. He also stated that among the graduates, nine were from three Arab countries: Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait. Cadet Marzouk al-Anzi delivered the graduates’ speech during which he expressed their joy in graduating and expressed their gratitude for Deputy Crown Prince for patronizing the ceremony. The graduates then recited their pledge, and then the Deputy Crown awarded outstanding cadets of the 92nd batch with their awards. At the conclusion of the ceremony, a photo call took place with the Deputy Crown Prince and the cadets. The Prince also patronized the graduation ceremony of a new batch of students from the College of Command and Staff of the Armed Forces. A speech ceremony was held on the occasion which was attended by a number of princes and officials.

Qatar Invites Abadi to Visit, Opens New Page with Iraq
Mirza Al-Khuwaylidi//Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Doha- Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has sent a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi inviting him to visit Doha. The letter was delivered by Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani during a meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad on Monday. The foreign minister conveyed greetings of the Emir to the Iraqi prime minister. For his part, Abadi entrusted the foreign minister to convey his greetings to the Emir, wishing him good health and happiness and wishing the Qatari people progress, development, and prosperity. Abadi expressed gratitude and appreciation for the kind invitation and promised to accept it in the coming period. The two sides also discussed relations between the brotherly countries and means of enhancing them in various fields. They stressed willingness to remove all what would disturb relations between them and to look forward to the future, not to think of the past and to open a new page. The Iraqi PM also expressed appreciation for Qatar’s decision to reopen its embassy in Baghdad soon. For his part, the Qatari foreign minister said that his visit to Baghdad “reflects close and well-established brotherly Qatari-Iraqi relations.”He expressed Qatar’s gratitude to Abadi for the efforts exerted by the Iraqi government in the final stages of releasing the Qatari nationals and their associates and securing their release until they reached Baghdad airport and returned safely to Qatar. Qatari FM reiterated Qatar’s support for Iraq in all its actions to maintain territorial and people unity in Iraq, to achieve full control over the country, and to eliminate terrorist groups and armed militias.

Saudi Cabinet Underlines Strategic Importance of Riyadh Summits
Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Riyadh – Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz said that talks and meetings held during the visit of US President Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia have “embodied the great concern and determination of all participating countries to confront different challenges and strengthen the foundations of peace, security and stability”. King Salman chaired the Cabinet session at Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh on Monday. At the outset of the session, the King expressed his thanks and appreciation to the US president and leaders of Arab and Islamic countries, who took part in the 17th consultative meeting of leaders of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for Arab States, Gulf-American Summit and Arab-Islamic-American Summit hosted by the Kingdom on Sunday. The Saudi monarch underlined the importance of the “historic agreement” signed between the GCC and the US to fight terrorism financing by establishing a center for combating such acts in Riyadh. The King noted that the agreement was the result of joint efforts to combat terrorism. He also lauded the announcement of the establishment of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, which is aimed at spreading the principles of moderation and strengthening families and societies against extremist ideologies. King Salman added that discussions with Trump touched on historical relations between the two countries and means to promote cooperation in the different fields. He added that latest developments in the Middle East and the world were reviewed, as well as efforts to establish stability and security in the region. Highlighting the importance of the joint strategic vision, which was announced at the end of the two-day meetings, the King said that Saudi and US officials have exchanged a number of trade agreements and investment opportunities that exceeded the value of $280 billion. King Salman stressed that the meetings with Trump, in addition to discussions between senior officials of the two countries and the economic forums held on the sidelines of the visit were considered a turning point in relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States. In a statement following the session, Minister of Culture and Information Awwad bin Saleh Alawwad said that the Cabinet highlighted the valuable contents of the speech delivered by King Salman at the Arab-Islamic-American Summit. The Cabinet pointed to the King’s emphasis on the common responsibility of Arab and Islamic states to be united in the fight against the forces of extremism in compliance with the teachings of the Islamic religion and the values of peace, tolerance, and moderation.

Trial Opens against Suspected Coup Instigators in Turkey
Saeed Abdelrazek/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17/Ankara – A trial opened on Monday in the Turkish capital Ankara for 221 suspects accused of instigating the failed coup on July 15, 2016. US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen is at the top of the list of these suspects and is being tried in absentia. Gulen is accused for orchestrating the failed coup. He has been residing in the US since 1999 and is being tried in absentia along with 11 other suspects, who are charged with fleeing the country on the night of the coup. Akin Ozturk, a former Turkish Air Force commander, is also among the suspects. As the suspects appeared in court, government supporters called for the death penalty to be reinstated. Up to 1,500 police officers were deployed to secure the trial. More than 240 people, many of them civilians, were killed in the failed July 2016 coup when a group of soldiers, tanks, warplanes and helicopters, bombed the parliament and attempted to overthrow the government. Those on trial included core suspects behind the coup who raided the state broadcaster and forced the presenter to read out an announcement saying the army had taken over and Turkey was being run by a committee they called “Peace at Home”. They face charges of seeking to topple the constitutional system, belonging to a terror group and attempting to occupy the parliament. In a related development, Amnesty International released a report on Monday criticizing the Turkish government’s arbitrary dismissals, saying they have had devastating effects on the employees and their families. Meanwhile, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for announcing that the state of emergency will remain in place “until peace is fully provided.”“At first you said you were introducing the state of emergency for just one month. It’s been 10 months now. Democracy is bleeding,” CHP Deputy Group Chair Özgür Özel said.

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 23-24/17
Will Trump’s Visit Change the Region?
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17
All the consecutive events indicate a new phase looms ahead for the region. The signs are many, including US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, his important speech before the Islamic summit and the announcement of series of measures to confront Iran. In his speech, Trump equated Hezbollah with al-Qaeda, initiated military cooperation with the coalition in Yemen to deal with Houthi insurgents, and instated the role of US military troops in Syria. During his meeting with the King of Bahrain in Saudi Arabia, Trump conveyed that the US altered its policy and and will no longer pressure the Bahraini government concerning the opposition. Iran is the common factor in all those causes and all of these are an indication of important changes and their effect will be clear to us within the coming few months. What really happened? Saudi diplomacy became active in Washington and what we are witnessing today is the result of that movement.
Saudi Arabia and the US agreed to cooperate against two threats: terrorism as an international organization and the Iranian expansion in other countries. The Saudi King’s speech during the Araba-Islamic-US Summit focused on those two issues. The US adopted those positions quickly and unexpectedly. Trump appointed in his government prominent political and military officials who are experts in the region as they understand it well since they’ve worked in it and are aware of the actual facts. This explains the US’ swift shift and condemnation against Iran for the chaos in Syria and Yemen.
After Trump’s arrival in Riyadh, Tehran announced Hasan Rouhani as its president for a second term. It seemed like a reconciliation message from the regime. The coming days will prove whether the Iranian government adopted some positive steps and tangible measures or things would remain as they were.
Iran is in big trouble because of its fast actions against it in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. If Tehran tried to escalate its activity, more sanctions will be imposed.
An example is Iran’s trouble is its purchase of 80 US Boeing airplanes for $16 billion. In case sanctions were imposed, which will most likely include spare parts and maintenance, Tehran will be unable to use those airplanes. Rouhani may be the only good figure in that regime. But the Revolutionary Guard is an evil machine and partner in murdering about half a million Syrian. They are accomplices in assassinations in Lebanon and responsible for marginalizing the central authority in Iraq by supporting militias that are against it. The Revolutionary Guard also supported, trained, and armed Houthi troops that staged a coup against the Yemeni government.
All of that is part of Tehran’s project to besiege Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries and dominate the region. Instability in the Middle East threatens the whole world’s interests and causes chaos, as it has been the case over the past six years. The US wants Iran to realize that the world will not tolerate chaos and will not remain silent over anything that threatens its interests. Are we happy that President Trump changed his country’s policy and is supporting the camp of moderate Muslim and Arab countries? Surely, this is an important and crucial development. But, we mustn’t forget that for thirty years we were facing a radical Iranian regime, spearhead of terrorism as described by King Salman bin Abdulaziz in his speech before the Arab-Islamic-US Summit. We previously fought this regime without the US, especially during the final chaotic years. Without Washington, we confronted Iran in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Now, the US can participate in pressuring the Ayatollah regime in Tehran in hopes it will reconsider continuing with its adventures and chaos which would be costly. President Rouhani is faced with a new situation that requires a lot of thinking. He should devise a reconciliation plan that ends his country’s interferences. It is about time Ayatollah Khomeini’s project announced in 1979 is over. It is about time his promise to export Iran’s revolution to the region be terminated and we move into a new regional phase.

From Riyadh … A Middle East without ‘Constructive Chaos’
Salman Al-dossary/Asharq Al Awsat/May 23/17
In June 2006, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched her great project at the time: “The New Middle East” instead of the “Great Middle East.” She was openly promoting this concept that was aimed at creating a state of instability and chaos to remap the region. This would later unleash the forces of “constructive chaos”, as they were called. These forces would spread violence and instability in all corners of the Middle East, which is indeed what happened or at least a large part of it did through the “Arab Spring”. The repercussions of this disastrous project did not emerge in the region alone, but in the world, which realized that it was harmful and lethal chaos, not a “constructive” one at all as much as it brought about terrorism and instability.
Perhaps the magic equation that was used for that alleged “constructive chaos” was pressuring regional countries to introduce change from abroad according to ideas that do not fit the radically different peoples in the region. This was later firmly proven to be ineffective as balances were changed and unprecedented fragmentation hit the region. The repercussions and remains of this disastrous project are still present. This is why Riyadh’s Arab-Islamic-US summit was a good opportunity to bury it for good. Saudi Arabia, led by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz managed to rearrange regional cards primarily on the basis of country interests and stability and secondarily on bolstering historic alliances. This was demonstrated through reviving the strategic alliance with the United States and convincing it that its interests do not differ much from those of the countries of the Middle East.
Perhaps altering the official American mentality about its interests and limits of its meddling in the affairs of the region will be marked as a victory in its favor. US President Donald Trump had clearly indicated this in Riyadh by stressing that his country does not want to dictate to the people how to lead their lives or what to believe it. He called on the Muslim leaders to take measures themselves to confront the extremists.
The radical change from the previous US administration was clear when Trump declared that “we are not here to lecture. We are not here to dictate to others how to live their lives or act or practice their religion. We are here to propose this partnership on the basis of interests and common values in order to reach a better future for us all.”
This new basis that was declared by Trump in Riyadh was crowned with the formation of the “Middle East Strategic Alliance in the city of Riyadh” to contribute in achieving peace and security in the region and the world. The alliance will be a joint platform to bolster the desired stability in the Middle East that has long been absent from it. The summit, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, succeeded in setting the framework of the new Middle East project, which is built on interests and restoring stability without the need to impose foreign agendas.
The announcement of the establishment of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology was then made seeing as regional stability cannot be achieved without confronting terrorist ideology that leads to terrorism, which is the top common enemy of the world. This center aims at spreading moderate values and fortifying families and societies. It is based on confronting extremism through the most advanced intellectual, media and digital means. Its promotion campaign was broadcast on all traditional and electronic media.
These are the same platforms that helped spread extremism without any real restrictions. The greatest significance in the establishment of this center is that it is the first time that all world countries have seriously come together to stand united in the fight against the danger of extremism. Consequently, after today, the idea of linking Islam to fundamentalism is no longer viable. This link was at some occasions made out of ignorance and at others out of selfish intent. Now that regional countries, led by Saudi Arabia, will combat extremism militarily and ideologically, there is no longer a future justification to continue with this great lie. The map of the region’s stability will in the future be described in terms of “pre-Riyadh summit” and “post-Riyadh summit.” The peoples of the region will remember a king called Salman bin Abdulaziz who buried for good the “constructive chaos” project and replaced it with a real one that is based on “committing to development as a strategic goal to confront extremism and terrorism and provide a dignified life.”

Iranians Re-Elect a Fake Reformer in a Fake Election
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/May 23/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=55583
Rouhani was the lesser of two evils, but Westerners vastly overestimate what an Iranian president can do. In the days before President Hassan Rouhani’s re-election victory in Iran this weekend, a video of one of his old speeches circulated on social media. Speaking at Iran’s parliament, Rouhani says dissidents against the new regime should be publicly hanged during Friday prayers as a message.
Rouhani was a younger man in this speech, in his early 40s. The revolution was also young. And many Iranian leaders of that era have taken the journey from revolution to reform. The reason Rouhani’s speech though is so relevant to Iran today is because, in public at least, the president of Iran has changed his tune. During his campaign, he told voters that he would be a “lawyer” defending their rights. He criticized his main rival, Ebrahim Raisi, for his role in ordering the executions of political dissidents. He promised gender equality and a freer press.
All of that sounds pretty good. And for those in the west looking for an Iranian version of Mikhail Gorbachev, it makes a nice talking point. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe Rouhani will deliver, or even try to deliver, on any of these promises.
There are a few reasons for this. To start, Rouhani delivered the same line back in 2013 when he first won the presidency. We now know that human rights in Iran have further eroded during his tenure. A lot of this has been documented by the Center for Human Rights in Iran. The organization noted in October that Rouhani supported a law that would essentially place all Iranian media under government control. The center also documented a wave of arrests of journalists in November 2015, following Iran’s agreement to the nuclear bargain with the US and five other world powers. In the run-up to Friday’s vote, 29 members of the European Parliament wrote an open letter urging Iran to end its arrests, intimidation and harassment of journalists in the election season.
Sadegh Zibakalam, an activist and professor of political science at Tehran University, summed this up well in November: “Rouhani did not have the power to free political prisoners or end the house arrests, but he didn’t even pretend that he wanted to do something.”
In fairness to Rouhani, much of this is beyond his control. As anyone who pays attention to Iran knows, the real power in the country resides with the unelected supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the security services, which operate more like rival mafias these days, controlling many of Iran’s industries and businesses. This means in practice that Rouhani can inveigh against crackdowns and house arrests of the democratic opposition (which he mainly does during elections), but ultimately it’s not his call.
Rouhani also doesn’t have much of a say on Iran’s foreign policy. Despite the completion of the nuclear deal and a US president desperate to restore diplomatic ties, Iran escalated its predations in the Middle East in the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency. Iranian officers were helping to direct the ground campaign against Aleppo, Syria, this fall, when rebels finally lost control of a city the dictator had starved.
Obama administration alumni will say that Rouhani’s election in 2013 was an important precondition for getting a nuclear deal. This, too, overstates the importance of Iran’s president. It’s true that secret negotiations picked up after Rouhani won in 2013. But there would be no nuclear deal without the blessing of the supreme leader. What’s more, at the time the Obama administration said they were able to get the Iranians to negotiate because the US led an international effort to impose crippling sanctions on the state’s banking system and oil industry.
All of this should inform how we in the West understand what just happened in Iran. It’s true that turnout for the vote was high. It’s also true that genuine reformers and dissidents urged their followers to vote for Rouhani. But this masks a deeper point: Iranian elections have the legitimacy of votes for a high school’s student government association. Many students may vote from a narrow set of options, but the students they elect must yield to those who wield real power, the teachers and the school’s administrators.
And yet reading the Western press, you’d think Iran was like any other free country. Rouhani won in a “landslide,” many headlines blared. It is widely interpreted as a rebuke of hardliners. I look forward to a BBC analysis of Rouhani’s get-out-the-vote effort in Isfahan.
Western journalists and analysts are hardly alone. Obama, too, suffered from the delusion that Iranian politics were contested between reformers and hardliners. In his 2015 message to Iranians for the Nowruz holiday, Obama said, “My message to you, the people of Iran, is that together we have to speak up for the future that we seek.”
Iranians did speak up for their future in 2009. That was during another election. The hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was challenged by the Green Movement that campaigned on expanding rights for the people and ending confrontation with the West. But Ahmadinejad stole that election, and the state arrested thousands of citizens who had the temerity to take their grievances to the street. The leaders of that movement remain under house arrest, despite Rouhani’s promise in 2013 to free them.
And this gets to why it’s so dangerous for free nations pretend that there is real political competition in Iran. If you accept that premise, it leads to fuzzy policies aimed at strengthening reformers and moderates, while chalking up Iran’s arrests of dual nationals or its provocations of US ships to the infighting of Iran’s hardliners.
It’s understandable that Iranians forced to live under the thumb of the mullahs voted for the least-worst option. But Westerners should never lose sight of a better Iran, where politicians can actually deliver on popular promises to free dissidents and support equal rights for women. Congratulating Iran for its fake elections only legitimizes a system where real elections are not possible.

Trump’s Middle East Trip and Iran: How to Bring Peace?
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Huffingtonpost/May 23/17
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-middle-east-trip-and-iran-how-to-bring-peace_us_5923cbe1e4b0b28a33f62f24?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004
Donald Trump embarked on his first trip overseas as President on May 19th. Destination, Saudi Arabia, of all places. After all the controversy about campaign rhetoric regarding Islam and his executive orders on travelers from Middle Eastern countries, his choice of what he called “the heart of the Muslim World’ as his first stop on his first trip came as quite a surprise to many.Even more unexpected were the “yes” responses by more than 50 Muslim heads of state to attend the Arab Islamic American Summit on May 21st.
The timing, place and reception of the American president’s remarks at the Summit really should have come as no surprise. They reflect the shared goal of western and Muslim nations of “a coalition of nations who share the aim of stamping out extremism.” And in that context, in comments long overdue for their clarity and lucidity, the American president called out the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism: Iran.
In his words, “no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three—safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment… From Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region. For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror.”
It was a statement of policy long awaited in the Arab world and beyond. For too long, groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda have hoarded the headlines with their vicious massacres, bloody videos, and offensive rhetoric. They were allowed to define the narrative as “Islam versus the infidels,” to the dismay and outrage of Muslims worldwide, instead of calling it what it is: terrorism, plain and simple.
This is not about Islam versus the West, or Arabs versus Persians, or Sunnis versus Shiites. It is about the civilized peoples of the world – of all faiths and cultures - joining together to defeat a barbaric, violent extremism that spreads destruction and chaos in the region, and brutalizes civilian populations, most of whom are in fact Muslim. To do so, they must recognize that the heart of the leviathan beats in Tehran. That fact has been well known to the peoples of the Middle East for almost four decades. As Trump stated, Iran is “a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room.”
His words struck a chord among the Muslim leaders gathered in Riyadh, and again struck a chord at Trump’s next stop, Israel. And they struck a chord among the Iranian people, “the Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims.”
While the Iranian people did not have voice at the summit, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance coalition, whose main component, the Mujahedin-e Khalq(MEK), espouses a modern and tolerant Shia Islam, welcomed the vision of peace, prosperity and alliance against extremism propagated at the Riyadh Summit, and called on the international community to confront the Iranian government’s export of terrorism and fundamentalism, its ballistic missile program, its interference in the internal affairs of other countries, as well as its destructive regional and international role. Iran’s velayat-e faqih theocracy, with all its factions, sees only one hope for its survival: dogged pursuit of the fundamental policies of export of terrorism abroad and harsh suppression within Iran. Its reckless drive to extend its influence throughout the region provides Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with the extremist reinforcements, funds and weapons he needs to massacre Syrian civilians, drive millions from their homes, and turn city after city into wastelands. None of those resources is turned on ISIS.
In Yemen, Houthi rebels armed and financed by Iran spread death and destruction. In Iraq, militia led by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps incite sectarian strife, and thwart efforts by Iraq’s central government to unite the nation in a campaign to isolate and drive out ISIS. To confront this threat to the region and the world, the international community must cut off the flow of funds and forces from Tehran. In a nutshell, as Mrs. Rajavi emphasized, “The ultimate solution to the crisis engulfing the whole region is the overthrow of the velayat-e faqih regime.” The 100,000 Iranian expats and their supporters from around the world who are expected to attend an international convention in Paris on July 1, will echo that message. When Iran’s people have freed Iran from Islamic extremism, replacing the mullahs’ rule with freedom and popular sovereignty, in doing so they will bring the goal of stamping out extremism in the Middle East region that much closer. It is time to enable them realize that task.

Tehran’s ‘Iranophobia’ claim against US slammed
Siraj Wahab/ArabNews/May 23/17
JEDDAH: Iran’s statement on Monday accusing the US of “Iranophobia” came in for a sharp rebuke from experts who described Tehran as a state sponsor of terrorism. Referring to US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said: “Once again, by his repetitive and baseless claims about Iran, the American president... tried to encourage the countries of the region to purchase more arms by spreading Iranophobia.”That accusation was instantly shot down by former US diplomat and political analyst Ali Khedery. “It’s not Iranophobia, it’s strategic clarity from Trump and our regional allies,” Khedery told Arab News, adding that Iran has plenty of blood on its hands. “Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran has killed and wounded thousands of our American soldiers and civilians,” Khedery said. “It started with the US Embassy Tehran hostage crisis, during which our diplomats were held for 444 days. Then Iran participated in the bombing of our embassy in Beirut in 1982, then the Marine barracks in 1983. Iran had a role in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the terrorist attack against Jewish targets in Argentina in the late 1990s.”
Iran had had dealings with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for decades, Khedery said, adding: “Iran has also maintained ties with the Taliban, and has facilitated various terrorist activities in Afghanistan that have resulted in the killing and wounding of our soldiers and Afghan civilians. They’ve done the same in Iraq since 2003, killing and wounding thousands of our soldiers, primarily through their Shiite militias. They also participated in the killing and wounding of thousands of Iraqi civilians.”Iran, Hezbollah and Russia have been Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chief backers “as he committed a modern-day holocaust, killing some half a million Syrians, wounding a million more and displacing some 11 million,” Khedery said. He expressed relief that “an American president has come along who recognized this fact and is finally willing to do something about it.”
Oubai Shahbandar, a Syrian-American analyst and fellow at the New America Foundation’s International Security Program, said Tehran seems to go to great lengths to complain when the US and the Arab Coalition take it to task “for its very real and dangerous malign activity.” It is incumbent upon Iran’s recently re-elected President Hassan Rouhani to show he can rein in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Shiite militant forces they arm and fund to destabilize the region, Shahbandar added.“This isn’t Iranophobia, it’s common sense,” he told Arab News. “It’s how normal states that seek normal relations with their neighbors are supposed to act. When ‘Death to America’ and a drive to spread extremism throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds are purged from Iran’s government policy and rhetoric, then and only then can it realistically hope to mend ties with America and Arab allies. Sadly, the Iranian regime to this day does a great disservice to its people by showing no signs that it’s willing or capable of moving past the extremist fervor of its 1979 revolutionary ethos.”
Harvard scholar and Iranian affairs expert Majid Rafizadeh called it Iranian double standard to accuse the US or other nations of Iranophobia. “Militarily, strategically, ideologically and geopolitically, some of the core pillars of Iran’s political establishment — for almost four decades since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979 — have been anti-Americanism, damaging US national interests, inciting hatred toward the US, chanting ‘Death to America’ and ‘The Great Satan,’ and scuttling the foreign policy objectives of the US and its allies,” Rafizadeh told Arab News.
“This revolutionary value… is the raison d’etre of the political establishment, particularly the top gilded circle of Iranian leaders. Whatever any nation attempts to do, whatever policy any government pursues, and whatever any US administration tries to do in order to moderate Iran, rationalize it or make peace, one can’t change this underlying ideological and revolutionary pillar,” he added.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1103576/middle-east

On Iran, Trump, allies face three choices
Amir Taheri/ArabNews/May 23/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=55585
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1102556#.WSQrsz08vM4.twitter
What to do about Iran? The question has been posed by every US administration since 1979, when a group of “students” seized the American Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. In the four decades that followed, the Islamic Republic cast itself as the principal enemy of the US, especially after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In that period, Tehran held dozens more Americans hostage in Iran or in Lebanon, where it acted via its local agents. Since 1979, not a day has passed without Iran holding some American hostages. According to Gen. David Petraeus, the man who commanded US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran was also behind the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in low-intensity wars in those countries.
While targeting the US directly, revolutionary Iran has also tried to destabilize or overthrow regimes allied with America in the so-called Greater Middle East, an arc of crisis spanning from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Despite many ups and downs and brief moments of tension being eased, the question of what to do about Iran has not lost its urgency or intensity. So it is no surprise that the new administration of President Donald Trump should also be grappling with the question. Despite Herculean efforts, successive US administrations, from Jimmy Carter’s to Barack Obama’s, failed to find an effective answer to the question. One reason was they did not understand the nature of the new Iranian political landscape. They did not realize that post-1979 Iran was divided into two realities: Iran as a nation-state, and Iran as the vehicle for promoting and exporting the Khomeinist ideology. The US, like the rest of the world, dealt with those who claimed to represent Iran as a nation-state, smiling and often courteous men speaking English or French and generally behaving as normal public servants in any system.
It took some Western politicians many years to realize that the smiling and courteous men with whom they dealt were merely talented actors playing the roles of president, foreign minister or ambassador, and that Iran’s real decision-makers were elsewhere, hidden behind a wall of mystery.
Because of that misunderstanding, Western governments, including that of the US, did not realize that regardless of concessions given to Iran as a nation-state, they could not quench its enmity as a vehicle for revolutionary ideology. Carter wrote flattering letters to the late Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini and established high-level contacts with the new regime, with promises of economic and military aid. President Ronald Reagan even broke US law to smuggle weapons to Iran via Israel to help the mullahs fight Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
President Bill Clinton twice apologized to the mullahs for all the real or imagined ills the West had done to Iran. He also lifted a raft of sanctions imposed by Carter after the seizure of the embassy in Tehran. Even President George W. Bush did his best, including by publishing a statement begging the mullahs to open a dialogue in the hope of “bringing Iran into the global tent.” In Iraq, he helped Iran’s surrogates, Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and Nouri Al-Maliki, to secure the premiership at the expense of Washington’s established Iraqi allies. When it came to Obama, the world witnessed a determined effort by the US to go an extra mile to persuade Iran to change aspects of its behavior. Today the common consensus is that all those efforts failed, so the Trump administration must tackle the issue of Iran from a background of decades of failure. When it comes to dealing with Iran, the Trump administration has several advantages over its predecessors. One advantage is that this administration includes several figures with intimate knowledge of Iran going back decades. Vice President Mike Pence began specializing in Iranian issues from his early days as a congressman. Defense Secretary James Mattis, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, accumulated good knowledge of Iranian politics from the front seat, so to speak.
The new head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, was for years the key man in the US House of Representatives on matters pertaining to Iran. The new National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster belongs to a small group of senior US commanders who have observed and studied Iran for more than two decades.
Equally important is the new administration’s decision to dislodge entrenched Obama holdovers still hopeful to transform Iran from foe to friend. The new administration has spent the past few months trying to shape a coherent approach to the Iran problem, avoiding any hasty move.
This is why Trump decided to renew the lifting of some sanctions on Iran by a further three months. This was also the reason to postpone a congressional move to declare the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization.
The new US administration must tackle the issue of Iran from a background of decades of failure. When it comes to dealing with Tehran, President Trump has several advantages over his predecessors.
The Trump administration realizes that barring a full-scale war, which is excluded at present, Washington alone cannot crack the Iranian nut. Previous administrations always sought an exclusive deal with Iran, keeping America’s European and Middle Eastern allies on the sidelines. But Trump is looking for a broad alliance with both European and Middle Eastern allies, and has even hinted that given certain conditions, it could also be extended to Russia.
That approach prevents Iran from playing a game it has indulged in for decades, inciting the Europeans against the US and dividing Middle East powers, including Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members.
Washington’s new analysis is that Iran is a threat to world order, and should thus be a cause of concern for everyone including Russia, Turkey, the EU, the Arab League and Israel. But what is not yet clear is the new administration’s ultimate aim regarding Iran. The crucial question of whether we seek a change of behavior or regime-change is not yet answered.
Some elements close to the administration, often inspired by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hope for a change of behavior that would allow Iran to be woven into a new pattern of regional security and cooperation modelled on the Helsinki Accords of the 1970s, or even the Westphalian treaties of two centuries ago. But a firm rejection of that strategy has already come from an unexpected quarter: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In a speech to the military at Imam Hussein University last week, Khamenei said he would not allow the slightest change in his regime’s behavior because that could ultimately lead to regime change. “Our aim is to change the world,” he said. “We cannot allow the world to change us.” Senior IRGC strategist Dr. Hassan Abbasi, the “Kissinger of Islam,” has gone even further, insisting that the Khomeinist revolution’s ultimate aim is to turn the US into an Islamic republic. According to Tehran’s narrative, with few exceptions all governments in the world today are illegitimate and must be overthrown by revolution.
The immediate focus is on countries where Muslims form a majority of the population. Exporting revolution to those countries is the responsibility of the Secretariat of Islamic Awakening, created by Khamenei and headed by former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati. The Foreign Ministry, headed by Mohammed Javad Zarif, is strictly kept out of issues concerning Muslim-majority nations. That Iran suffers from a split personality is instantly evident to a keen observer. Iran has a supreme leader and a president. It has a formal Council of Ministers and an informal Leader’s Advisory Board. It has a Parliament, but any or all of its legislation can be abrogated by fatwas (religious edicts) issued by the supreme leader. Iran has a traditional army, navy and air force, but also a parallel army, navy and air force run by the IRGC.
It has ordinary police alongside the Basij, the police of the revolution. There are two parallel systems of justice: One run by government courts controlled by the justice minister, and another in Islamic tribunals headed by clerical judges. There are two parallel security systems that can even arrest each other’s members and operatives: One run by the Ministry of Security and Information, the other by the IRGC.
The official government has embassies and ambassadors in 177 countries. Alongside them, the supreme leader has his own embassies and envoys. In Iran, the duality of power is daily highlighted by the presence along every provincial governor or city mayor of a cleric representing the supreme leader and charged with the task of keeping the revolution alive.
Iran also has two economies. The official one is vaguely organized along plans and budgets set by the formal government, and accounts for around half of gross domestic product (GDP). The other half is in the black market controlled by the military and security services, various foundations headed by mullahs, and factious charities in which individuals claim they are share-holders along with one of the imams.
The IRGC controls 25 jetties in major ports from which it can import or export whatever it likes with no supervision by the formal government. Some foundations, including that of Imam Reza in Mashhad, are major cartels with turnovers of tens of billions of dollars. No one knows how they operate, and they pay no taxes. In every case, the excuse is that the revolution, representing one of the two Irans, must enjoy primacy in every walk of life over Iran as a nation-state. Needless to say, the interests of these two Irans do not always coincide. In the past four decades, every time there was a major clash between them, the side of the revolution won. Both Khomeini and Khamenei have made clear that if necessary, they are prepared to sacrifice Iran to their version of Islam.
This means exerting pressure on Iran as a nation-state will not necessarily force Iran as a revolution to change behavior or policy. Right now, Iran cannot function as a normal nation-state, to the point that it is not allowed even to use global banking systems to pay its employees or agents abroad. Last year, its new ambassador to London, Hamid Baeedi-Nezhad, complained that he has to pay his staff with cash brought in suitcases.
So far, successive US administrations and most other governments have tried to deal with official Iran and help it restore its position by re-becoming a normal nation-state. Such efforts have failed partly because Iran as a revolution has always regarded them as maneuvers aimed at altering the revolutionary nature of Iranian politics. As long as such duality continues, Iran cannot change its behavior or alter major aspects of its domestic and foreign policies. Those representing Iran as a nation-state, for example the president and his ministers, may even sincerely wish to change behavior. But they will not be able to because both presidents Mohammed Khatami and Hassan Rouhani have admitted they lack real power.
So the options Trump and his allies face are limited. They could decide to basically ignore Iran, letting it stew in its juice until it is blown apart by its own internal contradictions. Or they could seek a direct deal with those who wield real power in Iran. That means ignoring the official Iran and communicating with Khamenei and the military-security-business networks operating around him. That was the option chosen by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who flew to Tehran, spent hours talking to Khamenei and totally ignored Rouhani and his government. The result was the “strategic alliance” that Khamenei announced with Russia, undoing years of efforts by pro-Obama figures around Rouhani to restore ties with the US.
A direct deal with Iran as a revolution may calm some of its fear of being overthrown by foreign plotters. It may then be persuaded to tone down some of its aggressive behavior in the region. But it will not prevent it from fomenting instability and sponsoring terrorism; it will not turn that foe into a friend.
The outside world would have to learn to live with the Islamic Republic, warts and all, and treat it like a sickness that makes life difficult but is not lethal. Such a policy should be accompanied by active containment, making sure the mullahs know that every move they make would have consequences.
The third option is regime change aimed at helping Iran absorb its revolutionary experience and re-become a nation-state. None of the successive US administrations have even remotely considered that option, though some did toy with the idea. This option is more difficult to put into effect, but if successful, more efficient in removing what is the single most important source of instability in the Middle East. As a revolution trying to make the rest of the world like itself, Iran will always remain a threat to everybody. As a nation-state that has absolutely no tangible cause for conflict with anybody, Iran could be a leading force in building a new architecture of peace and stability in this war-struck part of the world.
• Amir Taheri was executive editor in chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He worked at, or wrote for innumerable publications and published 11 books.
• Published in agreement with Asharq Al-Awsat

Islamic State group claims deadly Manchester concert bombing
By: Jill Lawless And Gregory Katz, The Associated Press/May 23/17
http://www.brandonsun.com/world/breaking-news/apparent-suicide-bomber-at-ariana-grande-concert-kills-22-423792783.html?thx=y
MANCHESTER, England - The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Tuesday for the suicide attack at an Ariana Grande show that left 22 people dead as young concertgoers fled, some still wearing the American pop star's trademark kitten ears and holding pink balloons.
Teenage screams filled the Manchester Arena just after the explosion Monday night, and members of the audience tumbled over guardrails and each other to escape. Fifty-nine people were injured in what British Prime Minister Theresa May called "a callous terrorist attack."
"We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but as an opportunity for carnage," she said. Campaigning for Britain's June 8 election was suspended.
Greater Manchester Police said the bomber was killed in the attack. They announced Tuesday that they had arrested a 23-year-old man in the south of the city, in connection with the bombing.
The attack sparked a nightlong search for loved-ones — parents for the children they had accompanied or had been waiting to pick up, and friends for each other after groups were scattered by the blast. Twitter and Facebook were filled with appeals for the missing.
Some concert-goers said security was haphazard before the show, with some people being searched and others allowed inside unhindered. The bombing took place at the end of the concert when the audience was streaming toward the exits of the Manchester Arena, one of the largest indoor concert venues in the world.
Witnesses said they saw bolts and other bits of metal, indicating the bomb may have contained shrapnel intended to maximize injury and death.
"There was this massive bang. And then everyone just went really quiet. And that's when the screaming started," said 25-year-old Ryan Molloy. "As we came outside to Victoria Station there were just people all over the floor covered in blood. My partner was helping to try to stem the blood from this one person ... They were pouring blood from their leg. It was just awful."
Public transport shut down, and taxis offered to give stranded people free rides home, while residents opened their homes to provide lodging.
Grande, who was not injured, tweeted hours later: "broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don't have words."
May said authorities believe they have identified the attacker, but did not release the name. She said authorities were trying to determine if he had an accomplice.
Hayley Lunt was staying at a hotel nearby and had taken her 10-year-old daughter Abigail to her first concert at Manchester Arena on Monday evening.
She said the explosions rang out as soon as Grande left the stage. "It was almost like they waited for her to go."
"We just ran as fast as we could to get away from that area," Lunt said. "What should have been a superb evening is now just horrible."
Police cars, bomb-disposal units and 60 ambulances raced to the scene as the scale of the carnage became clear. More than 400 officers were deployed.
"A huge bomb-like bang went off that hugely panicked everyone and we were all trying to flee the arena," said 22-year-old concertgoer Majid Khan. "It was one bang and essentially everyone from the other side of the arena where the bang was heard from suddenly came running towards us as they were trying to exit."
Home Secretary Amber Rudd decried "a barbaric attack, deliberately targeting some of the most vulnerable in our society — young people and children out at a pop concert."
The local ambulance service said 59 people were taken to hospitals.
The city's regional government and its mayor, Andy Burnham, were among scores of Twitter users who circulated the MissinginManchester hashtag, used by people looking for family members and friends.
The first confirmed victim was Georgina Callander, whose death was reported by her former school. Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy in Croston, northwest of Manchester, posted a photo of Georgina on its website, smiling and looking smart in her school uniform. It described her as "a lovely young student who was very popular with her peers and the staff."
U.S. President Donald Trump, in Bethlehem, said the attack preyed upon children and described those responsible as "evil losers."
"This wicked ideology must be obliterated. And I mean completely obliterated," he added.
Islamic State's claim of responsibility echoed others the group has made for attacks in the West, on an established communications channel but with vague details that leave room for an opportunistic attempt at propaganda.
The attack was the deadliest in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters on subway trains and a bus in July 2005.
The Dangerous Woman tour is the third concert tour by 23-year-old Grande and supports her album of the same name.
After Manchester, Grande was due to perform in London on Thursday and Friday, and later at venues in Europe, including Belgium, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and France, with concerts in Latin America and Asia to follow.
Pop concerts and nightclubs have been a terrorism target before. Most of the 130 dead in the November 2015 attacks in Paris were at the Bataclan concert hall, which gunman struck during a performance by Eagles of Death Metal.
In Turkey, 39 people died when a gunman attacked New Year's revelers at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul.
Manchester, 160 miles (260 kilometres) northwest of London, was hit by a huge Irish Republican Army bomb in 1996 that levelled a swath of the city centre. More than 200 people were injured, though no one was killed.
**Katz reported from London. AP writer Leanne Italie in New York; AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Lori Hinnant and John Leiceister in Paris contributed.

France: No-Go Zones Now in Heart of Big Cities
Yves Mamou/Gatestone Institute/May 23/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10404/france-no-go-zones
"There are several hundred square meters of pavement abandoned to men alone; women are no longer considered entitled to be there. Cafés, bars and restaurants are prohibited to them, as are the sidewalks, the subway station and the public squares." – Le Parisien.
"For more than a year, the Chapelle-Pajol district (10th-18th arrondissements) has completely changed its face: groups of dozens of lone men, street vendors, aliens, migrants and smugglers harass women and hold the streets." – Le Parisien.
In the heart of Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Grenoble, Avignon, districts here and there have been "privatized" by a mix of drug traffickers, Salafist zealots and Islamic youth gangs. The main victims are women. They are – Muslim and non-Muslim -- sexually harassed; some are sexually assaulted. The politicians, as usual, are fully informed of the situation imposed upon women.
In January, 2015, a week after the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the American television channel Fox News created a scandal in France by claiming that Islamic "no-go zones" were established in the heart of Paris. For the French media, the existence of no-go zones -- where non-Muslims are unwelcome and Islamic law, sharia, holds sway -- in the heart of the capital was pure nonsense and horrifying "fake news." Paris's mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said she planned to sue Fox News and that the "honor of Paris" was at stake.
By May 2017, however, the tone had changed. The French daily, Le Parisien, disclosed that, in fact, no-go zones are in the heart of the capital. It seems that the district of Chapelle-Pajol, in the east of Paris, has become very much a no-go zone. Hundreds of Muslim migrants and drug dealers crowd the streets, and harass women for wearing what many of these migrants apparently regard as immodest clothing:
"Women in this part of eastern Paris complain that they cannot move about without being subjected to comments and insults from men.
"There are several hundred square meters of pavement abandoned to men alone; women are no longer considered entitled to be there. Cafés, bars and restaurants are prohibited to them, as are the sidewalks, the subway station and the public squares. For more than a year, the Chapelle-Pajol district (10th-18th arrondissements) has completely changed its face: groups of dozens of lone men, street vendors, aliens, migrants and smugglers harass women and hold the streets."
Natalie, a 50-year-old resident of the area said: "The atmosphere is agonizing, to the point of having to modify our routes and our clothing. Some [women] even gave up going out."
Aurélie, 38, who has lived in the area for 15 years, said that the café-bar below her apartment had been a pleasant place, but has turned into an exclusively male establishment. "I have to listen to a lot of remarks when I pass by, especially since they drink a lot," she said. A local 80-year-old woman is reported to have totally stopped leaving her apartment after being sexually assaulted one day as she was returning home. Another woman is said to suffer a flood of insults simply by standing at her window.
Mayor Hidalgo is not talking about suing the media for defaming the honor of Paris anymore. She even said that this security issue has been "identified for several weeks", and proposed launching an "exploratory process" to combat discrimination against women and a "local delinquency treatment group". It was slightly hollow, Orwellian "newspeak," and aroused mockery and indignation on social networks.
Mentioning no-go zones in France was, until recently, taboo. It was regarded as "racist" or "Islamophobic" -- most of the time both -- to talk about that. In May 2016, Patrick Kanner, France's Minister for Urban Areas, harassed by journalists, finally acknowledged the truth : "There are today, we know, a hundred neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities with what has happened in Molenbeek." He was referring to the infamous neighborhood in Brussels, under Salafist control, which has become the epicenter of jihad in Europe.
What is new, is that no-go zones are no longer relegated to the suburbs, where migrants and Muslims have usually been concentrated.
No-go zones, through mass migration, have been emerging in the heart of Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Grenoble, Avignon -- districts "privatized" here and there by a mix of drug traffickers, Salafist zealots and Islamic youth gangs. The main victims are women. They are -- both Muslim and non-Muslim -- sexually harassed; some are sexually assaulted.
Politicians, as usual, are fully informed of the situation imposed upon women. A 2014 report from the High Commissioner on Equality revealed that in the so-called "sensitive urban areas," nearly one in ten women has suffered physical or sexual violence.
Another report handed to the government, in September 2016, by the organization "France Médiation" revealed significant details, albeit written in chastened terms:
Public areas are "occupied" exclusively by men who "park" there, and women are merely authorized to pass through them...
It's not unique to this city: in the past 10 years, women have been seen public spaces desert them.
"You have to stay away, not provoke. I always go out with my children so there is no problem."
In some places, male groups "monopolize" public spaces and sometimes block the access to the entrances of buildings
Women are obliged to avoid the elevator in order to flee glances and remarks that are sometimes unpleasant. They have go up the stairs -- dirty, unlit and several stories high.
Cafés are occupied exclusively by men; women do not dare to enter them; they even avoid passing by.
The newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, ostensibly avoided security questions during the election campaign. No doubt, security questions will overtake him sooner than he thinks.
Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.
© 2017 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.

Europe's Leaders: Shielding Themselves from Reality
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/May 23/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10389/europe-migration-policies
Shielding heads of state from seeing the consequences of the policies that they themselves have forced on the entire European continent represents a staggering new level of hypocrisy.
Why do the citizens of Europe need to 'broaden their horizons,' while the people in power protect themselves from the reality they themselves imposed on everyone else? This attitude, far from democratic, borders on the atmosphere prevalent in Europe during the bygone days of Europe's absolute monarchs.
While it is true that "everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle," the answer to that problem is not fatalistically to sit back and wait for the migrant influx. The answer is, based on a new starting-date, to change Europe's outdated and unsustainable welfare policies, which stem from a pre-globalization era, and in this way actively work to make it less attractive for millions of migrants to venture to the European continent in the first place.
When the G7 heads of state arrive in Taormina, Sicily, for the G7 meeting on May 26, they will find themselves in an embellished, picture-postcard version of European reality. Italy, the host of the G7 meeting, has announced that it will close all harbors on the island to ships that arrive with migrants ( mainly from Libya) for the duration of the two-day meeting. The reason for the closure of the Italian island to migrants is to protect the G7 meeting from potential terrorist attacks. According to Italian reports, "the Department of Public Safety believes that the boats with illegal immigrants could be hiding an Islamist threat".
G7 meetings are, of course, always subject to a host of high-level security measures. However, shielding heads of state from seeing the consequences of the policies that they themselves have forced on the entire European continent represents a staggering new level of hypocrisy. Literally altering reality in order to present a whitewashed picture of the influx of migrants into Europe, which happens largely through Italy, is a Potemkin measure, regardless of terror risks. Heads of state, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Italy seeks to protect from a terrorist risk, seem not to care particularly about the very real terrorist risks that European citizens are forced to live with daily thanks to the migrant policies of these heads of state.
In 2015, when asked how Europe could be protected against Islamization, Merkel, who does not move without her own personal security team consisting of 15-20 armed bodyguards, carelessly said: "Fear is not a good adviser. It is better that we should have the courage once again to deal more strongly with our own Christian roots." In December 2016, she told members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who were asking how to reassure the public about the problem of integrating migrants, "This could also broaden your horizons."
Why do the citizens of Europe need to 'broaden their horizons,' while the people in power, who forced them to do that, protect themselves from the reality they themselves imposed on everyone else? This attitude, far from democratic, borders on the atmosphere prevalent in Europe during the bygone days of Europe's absolute monarchs.
Being confronted with the results of their policies by seeing the migrants as they arrive in Sicily could be helpful in bringing these heads of state back to reality in Europe.
Migrants, who crossed from Libya, disembark the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) 'Phoenix' vessel on May 20, 2017 in Trapani (Sicily), Italy.
According to the UNHCR, there were 362,753 Mediterranean migrant arrivals in Europe in 2016 - compared to more than a million people who arrived in Europe in the record year 2015, when Merkel invited asylum seekers to come to Germany.
Out of these migrants, the majority, 181,436, crossed the Mediterranean into Italy in 2016 and another 173,450 crossed the Mediterranean into Greece. According to the UNHCR, 55,374 migrants have already arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean, between January 1, 2017 and May 19, 2017. The majority (almost 46,000) have arrived in Italy, but some also arrived in Spain (3,200) and Greece (6,100). The most common nationalities of these migrants are Nigeria (17%), Bangladesh (10.7%), Guinea (9.7%), Cote d'Ivoire (9.1%), Gambia (6.6%), Syria (6.1%), Senegal (5.9%), Morocco (5.6%) and a total of 10% from "unspecified" countries. Most of these arrivals, evidently, are not refugees, but economic migrants.
Nevertheless, as Soeren Kern writes, Europe is unrelenting in pursuing its old, dysfunctional policies. On May 2, 2017, Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU Commissioner in charge of Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, urged the EU:
"take the last concrete steps to gradually return, as we have repeatedly said many times before, to a normal functioning of the Schengen Area. This is our goal, and it remains unchanged. A fully functioning area, free from internal border controls".
What he seems to be saying, in other words, is that the EU would like to see a return to the complete border chaos that reigned in Europe in 2015, until several EU nations reinstated pre-Schengen border controls. Avramopoulos "notably recommended" that Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway phase out "the temporary controls in place at some of their internal Schengen borders over the following six months". These are the countries that experienced the most chaos from migrants eager to reach those wealthy countries' borders, after Angela Merkel invited asylum seekers in.
It seems inconceivable to European politicians, evidently, that the answer to the large wave of migrants seeking a better economic future for themselves on the European continent (eight to ten million migrants could be on the way), might be countered by something other than open arms and a continuation of the old welfare policies.
While it is true, as said by German Development Minister Gerd Müller, that "In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle," the answer to that problem is not fatalistically to sit back and wait for the migrant influx. The answer is, based on a new starting-date, to change Europe's outdated and unsustainable welfare policies, which stem from a pre-globalization era, and in this way actively work to make it less attractive for millions of migrants to venture to the European continent in the first place.
In addition, European leaders appear not to care that their continuing migration policies and welfare systems support an entire industry of human traffickers, who prey on the desire of hopeful migrants to reach Europe; the traffickers are making billions.
According to the [Europol] report, migrant smuggling in 2015 earned crime bosses up to £4.9billion (€5.7billion), with profits dropping to around £1.7billion (€2billion) last year as the number of people entering the EU illegally fell to around 510,000.
Europol said: "Migrant smuggling has emerged as one of the most profitable and widespread criminal activities for organised crime in the EU.
"The migrant smuggling business is now a large, profitable and sophisticated criminal market, comparable to the European drug markets."
European politicians are indirectly responsible for the existence of this industry.
Italy may think that it is protecting G7 leaders such as Angela Merkel from potential terrorist attacks during the G7 meeting in Taormina by closing Sicilian harbors to migrants. But by shielding from reality politicians who are already solidly detached from it, they are exposing the European citizenry -- whom those politicians are supposed to protect -- to even greater risks.
*Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The two-state tango is over
Moshe Dann/Ynetnews/May 23/17
Op-ed: The more Israel clings to plans for a Palestinian state that include most of Judea and Samaria, the more it undermines its legitimate claims and weakens its diplomatic position. Israel has done everything that it can to promote a second Arab Palestinian state, except self-destruct. It signed the Oslo Accords and withdrew from much of Judea and Samaria, all of the major Arab population centers, and all of the Gaza Strip, removing 9,000 Jewish citizens from their homes. It promotes and funds the Palestinian Authority, despite official PA incitement against Israel and Jews, support for terrorism, and collaboration with Hamas. It was not enough, not even to convince Palestinians to continue negotiations, or stop incitement. And, as PA leaders have made clear, it will never be enough until Israel agrees to all of its conditions. Despite this reality, the international community and even some Israeli politicians insist on “the two-state solution,” as if the dangers posed by a Palestinian state do not exist.
Israel is dancing alone. “Our strategy is ‘bottom up,’ assisting Palestinians to build new towns, neighborhoods and infrastructure,” Israeli officials offer. “What’s good for them is good for us.”
At least until the music stops.
Although some thought that a peaceful settlement was possible when Israel signed the Oslo accords and agreed to Palestinian self-rule, those illusions were shattered by Arab violence and terrorism. After 24 years of failed efforts and delusional policies, and now regional chaos, the Israeli government must consider more realistic alternatives that serve its national interests. Arguing for recognized and defensible borders is important, but begs the larger question: To whom does Judea and Samaria belong? Insisting that Israel remain in these territories primarily for security reasons forfeits the inherent rights of the nation-state of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
Arab proposals for a “one-state” solution that eliminates Israel is an effective Palestinian strategy. By advocating a more extreme position, the “two-state” option seems more reasonable and acceptable. Both, however, have the same objective: Israel’s demise.
Israeli leaders, on the other hand, propose no alternative to a “two-state solution.” At best, they insist on keeping three large settlement blocs and Jerusalem as a united city and retaining control of the Jordan Valley. Not only is this unacceptable to Arab and Palestinian leaders, it is also wildly unrealistic. No Israeli government would consider further withdrawals from Area C in Judea and Samaria. Moreover, core issues, such as eastern Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Palestinian “right of return” remain for Arabs “non-negotiable.“
Israel can promote a “solution” that sustains and is consistent with its own vital interests—sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, not only for strategic reasons, but because it is historically, legally and demographically part of the State of Israel.
The more Israel clings to plans for a Palestinian state that include most of Judea and Samaria, the more it undermines its legitimate claims and weakens its diplomatic position. An assertion of sovereignty, at least in Area C, in which 450,000 Jews live, along with an estimated 40,000 Arabs, would insure Israel’s vital strategic interests. Arabs living in areas under Israeli control could choose from a variety of options: Apply for Israeli citizenship, or residency; maintain their citizenship in Jordan and/or the Palestinian Authority; or resettle with compensation. Arab refugees and their descendants living under UNRWA’s sponsorship should be offered full citizenship in the countries where they reside. A Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, as late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin insisted, is not an option. Dancing alone may not be as satisfying as it is with someone else, and it can be a liberating experience; but dancing with someone who wants to trip you makes no sense.
*Moshe Dann is a PhD historian, writer and journalist.