English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 08/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
You cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves
Matthew 23/13-15: “‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves".

Titels For English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 07-08/2022
Sunday Thought of the Day: What Life Is All About
Shameful' delay in cabinet formation causing Lebanon's decay, top Christian cleric says
Rahi presides over Mass service in Diman
Rahi: Shameful Delay in Cabinet Formation Causing Lebanon's Decay
Lebanon condemns Israeli attack on Gaza Strip: Foreign ministry statement
Makary, Nassar convey letter from President Aoun to Emir of Qatar
MoPH: 1865 new Corona cases, 2 deaths
Israel agrees to Egypt-brokered Gaza truce: Egyptian source
Lebanon tops list of world’s 'angriest' countries
The Lebanese After Being Expelled to/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 07/2022
Sayyed Nasrallah: ‘Israel’ Can No Longer Tolerate Missile Attacks on Settlements
Who is May Rihani

Titles For LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 07-08/2022
Who are Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant group targeted by Israel?
Israel, Palestinians set for truce from Sunday night
Gaza emerges once again as deadly arena for Iran’s conflict with Israel
UN Security Council will meet to discuss Israeli attack on Gaza: Palestine’s UN Ambassador
Syria more than doubles petrol prices
Shift in war's front seen as grain leaves Ukraine; plant hit
Ukraine envoy to Israel expresses support over Gaza operation

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 07-08/2022
Where is Hannan Hashemi?’ Disappearance of student part of the ongoing persecution of Baha’i in Iran/Sandra Lynn Hutchison/The Toronto Star/August 07/2022
Gaza: The Usual Suspects Condemn Israel/Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/August 07/2022
Putin’s Ukraine War Has Three Lessons for Global Food Supplies/Amanda Little/Bloomberg/August 07/2022
Iran and Political Hallucination/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/August 07/2022
Democracy’ in the Biden-Pelosi Dictionary and America’s Deals with ‘Autocracy’/Raghida Dergham/The National/August 07/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 07-08/2022
Sunday Thought of the Day: What Life Is All About
Author Unknown/posted by Eblan Farris
Life isn't about keeping score. It's not about how many friends you have. Or how many people call you. Or how accepted or unaccepted you are. Not about if you have plans this weekend. Or if you're alone. It isn't about who you're dating, who you use to date, how many people you've dated, or if you haven't been with anyone at all. It isn't about who you have kissed. It's not about sex. It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have. Or what kind of car you drive. Or where you're sent to school. It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark. It's not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everyone else thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy/girl likes you. Or what clubs you're in, or how good you are at "your" sport. It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will "accept the written you". But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It's about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It's about keeping or betraying trust. It's about friendship, used as sanctity, or as a weapon. It's about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It's about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.
It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention. It's about jealousy, fear, pain, ignorance, and revenge. It's about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow and spreading it. But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way that could never occurred alone. Only you choose the way these hearts are affected and those choices are what life is all about.

Shameful' delay in cabinet formation causing Lebanon's decay, top Christian cleric says
Reuters/August 07/2022
Lebanon's top Christian cleric said on Sunday it is "shameful" that politicians have yet to form a new cabinet nearly three months after elections, blaming their chronic feuding for the country's "decay". Many Lebanese see the long-entrenched governing elite as hamstrung by corruption and dysfunction, and blame it for pushing Lebanon into a financial and economic meltdown that has left eight in 10 people poor. In his weekly sermon, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Boutros al-Rai drew an unfavourable comparison between Lebanon's progress in securing a maritime boundary deal with longtime foe Israel and the paralysis in domestic politics. "Isn't the split in political power in Lebanon, and of the parties... the basis of the (country's) political, economy, financial and social decay?" he added. Rai wields significant influence in Lebanon, where the political system is based on power-sharing among various Muslim and Christian sects, with the presidency reserved for a Maronite Catholic. In calling out politicians over the crisis, Rai appeared to be trying to break the deadlock. The Maronite Patriarch said "ugly campaigns in the media" appeared aimed at delaying government formation and the election of a new president later on this year. Rai was alluding to an escalating dispute between President Michel Aoun and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was re-nominated as premier after parliamentary elections in May and has been struggling to form a new cabinet. Mikati presented a speedy draft cabinet line-up to Aoun in June and has stuck to it, although Aoun has suggested a different make-up. Last week, Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement issued a wave of statements, accusing Mikati of delaying cabinet formation and even of accumulating wealth through corruption. Mikati's office responded by saying Aoun's party was out of touch with reality in Lebanon.

Rahi presides over Mass service in Diman
NNA/August 07/2022
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Rai pointed out that "we are witnessing with pain and anger the outbreak of ugly media campaigns, between different political references and forces, at a time when the country needs calm and cooperation."
He explained, during Sunday mass service at the summer patriarchal edifice in Diman, that "these campaigns will create a tense atmosphere that will negatively affect the psyche of steadfast citizens despite the difficulties, stability, economy, money, reforms and constitutional entitlements: the formation of a new government and the election of a new president of the republic within the constitutional deadline." Patriarch Rahi stressed that "if the intentions were sound and sincere, it would have been possible to address any political dispute through moral dialogue, wisdom and a constructive spirit away from criminalization and personal abuse, but what we see is that the goal of these campaigns is to fold the government formation project and circumvent the holding of presidential elections." He stressed that "the Lebanese of good will and the international and Arab community are determined to confront these destructive attempts, and to secure the election of a new President of the Republic capable of facing challenges." Rahi pointed out that "while we are aware of all the difficulties surrounding the process of forming a new government, these difficulties should be a catalyst for the president-designate to renew his efforts to form a government, and put everyone before their national responsibilities.""It is shameful for the political authority to make efforts to reach an agreement with Israel on the maritime borders, and in return refrain from forming a government," the patriarch added. "Has it become easier for the state to agree with Israel, than to agree on a government among the Lebanese?," the prelate asked.

Rahi: Shameful Delay in Cabinet Formation Causing Lebanon's Decay
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 7 August, 2022
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said on Sunday it is "shameful" that Lebanese politicians have yet to form a new cabinet nearly three months after elections, blaming their chronic feuding for the country's "decay". In his weekly sermon, Rahi drew an unfavorable comparison between Lebanon's progress in securing a maritime boundary deal with Israel and the paralysis in domestic politics. "Isn't it shameful that authorities make efforts to reach an agreement with Israel on maritime borders but refrain from forming a government? Has it become easier for them to agree with Israel than to agree on a government among the Lebanese?" he said. "Isn't the split in political power in Lebanon, and of the parties... the basis of the (country's) political, economic, financial and social decay?" he added. The Maronite Patriarch said "ugly campaigns in the media" appeared aimed at delaying government formation and the election of a new president later on this year. Rahi was alluding to an escalating dispute between President Michel Aoun and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was re-nominated as premier after parliamentary elections in May and has been struggling to form a new cabinet. Mikati presented a speedy draft cabinet line-up to Aoun in June and has stuck to it, although Aoun has suggested a different make-up. Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Mikati have been engaged in a war of words. The FPM accuses Mikati with delaying cabinet formation and even of accumulating wealth through corruption. But Mikati's office says Aoun's party is out of touch with reality in Lebanon.

Lebanon condemns Israeli attack on Gaza Strip: Foreign ministry statement
NNA/August 07/2022
Lebanon condemned and denounced the Israeli attack carried out in the Gaza Strip, a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. "The storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by the occupation police and settlers constitutes a serious violation of international law, a major provocation to all Muslims, and strikes stability and resolutions of international legitimacy, and threatens international peace and security," the statement said. The statement reiterated the call to "stop these repeated violations, which coincide with the unjustified aggression on the Gaza Strip."

Makary, Nassar convey letter from President Aoun to Emir of Qatar
NNA/August 07/2022
Caretaker Information Ministers Ziad al-Makari and Tourism Walid Nassar arrived this evening, Sunday, in the Qatari capital, Doha, carrying a message from President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. The two ministers are scheduled to return to Beirut on Monday.

MoPH: 1865 new Corona cases, 2 deaths
NNA/August 07/2022
The Ministry of Public Health announced, on Sunday, the registration of 1865 new corona virus infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 1,186,920. It added that two deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Israel agrees to Egypt-brokered Gaza truce: Egyptian source
AFP/August 07/2022
Israel has agreed to a truce in Gaza, an Egyptian security source said Sunday. “The Israeli side has accepted,” the source said, adding that Cairo was waiting for the Palestinian response, as part of Egyptian mediation efforts three days into renewed conflict in the Gaza Strip. --- AFP

Lebanon tops list of world’s 'angriest' countries
Ahmed Maher/The National/Aug 07/2022
Lebanon has become the angriest nation in the world, according to a global survey, reflecting the mood of despair, frustration and sadness that has enveloped the Arab country in recent years. The Global Emotions report by the US analytics and advisory company Gallup asked people in 140 countries a series of questions about their emotions, from the end of 2021 through to mid-2022. As well as being the angriest nation, Lebanon also ranked high for the number of people expressing worry and sadness while scoring low on smiling and being well-rested.
In response to the question, “Think about how you felt yesterday. Were you angry?", 49 per cent of respondents in Lebanon said "yes", the highest rate recorded by the survey. This was followed by Turkey, at 48 per cent and Armenia, with 46 per cent.
Iraq, where 46 per cent of people answered "yes", was next, followed by Afghanistan, at 41 per cent. Over the past two years in Lebanon, people have been trying to adapt to hyperinflation, economic collapse and the trauma of the Beirut blast, which killed more than 200 people. This year, Lebanon has been the country most affected — more than Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Turkey and Iran — by the food inflation crisis driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and years of economic malaise and endemic corruption, said the latest report by the World Bank. Many young people have joined long queues for visas outside western countries' embassies, or accepted job offers in other Arab countries in search of better futures. The country of nearly seven million people is currently in political deadlock, with no agreement among its rival political parties on forming a Cabinet that can win the endorsement of the outgoing president and the hung parliament. Lebanon’s political structure is sectarian and frequently influenced by foreign and regional powers. The Gallup survey also asked about other feelings, including whether respondents felt stressed, sad, well-rested or happy.
A worried country
The Lebanese have further ranked at the top or high on the list of countries whose people experienced more negative feelings. They are the second saddest and most stressed after Afghanistan. Lebanon is also a worried country, ranking third after Afghanistan and Brazil in the survey’s anxiety category.
The poll, however, does not explain what is behind such negative feelings. All in all, the survey found that people worldwide felt more worried, stressed and sad than at any time in the past 16 years. They also had fewer positive experiences than they did in 2020. As for the well-rested countries, Lebanon ranked at the bottom of the list, below Afghanistan and Ukraine, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Mongolia secured the top three places. Gallup’s emotions research adds to the World Happiness Report, an annual benchmark index from the United Nations.
Finland has been named as the happiest country in the world for the fifth year running, followed by three of its Nordic sister countries, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, according to the World Happiness Report, a publication from the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The UN index of happiness is mainly based on gross domestic product (GDP) per person, the fight against corruption and life expectancy.

The Lebanese After Being Expelled to…
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 07/2022
Last Thursday, the day of the second anniversary of the Beirut port blast, was the day that it became conclusively certain that the Lebanese have been expelled to nature and that they must manage their affairs there, not in a state of laws or through socialization.
The scale of the protests in solidarity with the victims and in condemnation of the disaster spoke to this clearly.
This does not mean that solidarity and condemnation were scarce or tame. It means that hope in imposing change is scarce. The despondency has become patent.
The clique running the country has pressed forward with their actions to expel the population from politics to nature, that is, evicting them from where public issues are discussed, decisions are taken, and public opinion matters to a place where “the strong are so by their strength,” (al-qawi bi quwatihi), as the popular saying goes. This means, among many other things, the perpetuation of the conception of the calamity at port as an action no one had taken. It was blind nature that did it, and it should be conceived as a natural event, that is, a non-political event. Its chronological proximity to the advent of the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to consolidating this notion.
Natural events do not leave traces except for that of removing traces; they only erase. They take it upon themselves, with total impartiality and no goal or purpose, to wipe out everything standing. The timing of the collapse of four of the port’s silos, the day of the second anniversary of the blast, spoke volumes. It wanted to tell us: this is also a neutral act with no goal or purpose.
No one is held accountable or punished after a natural event. It is because of a will that we cannot perceive and have no control over that the local judiciary, represented by Judge Tarek Bitar, has its hands tied and is being hit with one lawsuit and accusation after the other. The international judiciary, in turn, is forbidden from playing a role under the pretext that we have a local judiciary.
Moreover, the fact that the October revolution erupted before, not after, the blast probably contributed to entrenching the conviction that “things will never be better than they have been.” The blast is thus an event to which no response can emerge because, like acts of nature, no one is responsible. No one brought the Ammonium Nitrate, nor did anyone send it to us. It came out of nowhere and chose to settle among us. The Ammonium just came, as do the storms that come from faraway places every now and then.
Here, we are speaking as though we were discussing the weather we cannot control or earthquakes and floods that occur whether we like it or not.
However, even when, by some miracle, some of the truth comes out and we get a clearer understanding of who was responsible, as in the case for the bombing that targeted Rafik Hariri and his companions, justice remains far-fetched. This is because real, genuine justice lies in the natural act itself: some obscure wisdom is behind the assassination of Hariri or the port blast!
Nature, by definition, repels justice to the same extent that justice repels nature. In nature, might is right; the jungle is a natural environment after all.
As we are pushed to nature, what remains of the meanings and bonds that socialization prides itself in and politics expresses are dismantled: the country is being stripped of everything domestic created by people and their ties to one another. Residents are separated from their properties seized at the banks. The state is separated from its judiciary. Change is separated from what needs to be changed. Children are separated from their education. As for inter-communal relations, they can be summed up by saying that as one community weeps over the tragedy at the port and its victims, another takes in the breeze of what it calls its victories over Israel. Memory and erasing memory? That is a cliche that has become dull and boring because each of us remembers different things, placing our recollections against those of others.
The crime of the port blast is among the most horrific acts perpetrated by this regime that produces victims and then elevates the reasons they were turned into victims to the realm of natural divinity. There are two major junctures in the course taken by this culture that kills politics with the weapon of nature: the first took the form of glorifying the sectarian configuration of Lebanese politics, which was not presented as a necessity imposed by a moment in history that can be removed by another, but was transformed into an ingenious romantic solution for the suffering that ensues from it, a message and model to be adopted by other nations. However, as soon as the credibility of this formula subsided, another far more sinister one emerged. The latter formula has an immeasurably greater capacity to give rise to evil: it is the ‘resistance’ for which dying is easy and that must not be questioned or revised because it is the most divine and most inevitable of natural acts.
What good would protesting do, in this case, against a natural act that no one had perpetrated? While many refrain from extolling it, they extol its consequences, voting for the candidates that should be questioned about the blast and for the resistance protecting the regime behind the blast.
To the jungle, march. That is the order of the day in Lebanon.

Sayyed Nasrallah: ‘Israel’ Can No Longer Tolerate Missile Attacks on Settlements
Al-Manar English Website/August 8, 2022
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed that the Israeli enemy was very clear on Sunday that it wanted to reach a ceasefire because it could not take any more missiles from Gaza. Addressing Hezbollah’s central Ashura ceremony in Beirut’s Dahiyeh, Sayyed Nasrallah greeted the courageous Palestinian response to the Israeli crime of assassinating Islamic Jihad senior military commander Tayseer Jabari. Sayyed Nasrallah also hailed the brave mujahidin who confronted the Israeli aggression on Gaza, underling the steadfastness of the Palestinian civilians in the blockaded Strip.
Sayyed nAsrallah considered that this battle confirms again that the Resistance movements in Palestine, Lebanon, or any other country can confront the Israeli military power and maintain the balance of deterrence in face of the enemy. “If you advance in the battle against this monstrous enemy, it backs off; however, if you retreat, it attacks you.”Finally, Sayyed Nasrallah greeted the souls of Gaza martyrs, asking Holy God to grant the injured a speedy recovery. Palestine’s Islamic Jihad Movement issued late Sunday a statement to welcome the Egyptian mediation aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. On Friday, August 5, the Zionist enemy assassinated the Islamic Jihad senior military commander, Tayseer Jabari, and a number of his brethren in Gaza. The Israeli warplanes also started raiding the residential areas in the blockaded Strip, claiming around 43 martyrs and 311 injuries. In response, the Islamic Jihad Resistance Movements in cooperation with other resistance factions, fired around 1000 missiles at the occupied territories in Gaza vicinity as well as the central cities, including Al-Quds and Tel Aviv.

Who is May Rihani
4201 Cathedral Ave. N.W. # 815 E. Washington, D.C. 20016. Tel: 301-310-4896
Summary of Qualifications
May A. Rihani has for the past 35 years served as Senior Vice President for FHI360, the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and Creative Associates International. She also served as Vice President at TransCentury. In these organizations, Ms. Rihani was responsible for ensuring the planning and implementation of educational projects as well as the integration of gender perspectives in these programs. She designed, planned, and managed numerous cross-cutting education projects in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Due to her global experience in gender, Ms. Rihani was elected as the Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, (UNGEI), from 2008 to 2010.
Ms. Rihani’s extensive work in education includes research, policy assessments, innovative program designs, training, systems analysis, and management of country programs. She presented lessons learned, best practices, and strategies on girls’ education at a large number of international conferences and symposia that addressed education for all. Ms. Rihani is also an international leading voice on the relationship between girls’ education and health nutrition, reproductive health, and economic productivity. In addition, Ms. Rihani implemented innovative strategies that recognize the intersection of environment, gender, and education.
Ms. Rihani’s in-depth knowledge in education and gender equity has attracted the attention of many donor organizations that have sought her ideas and analytical skills to support their missions. In a few years, she succeeded in expanding the donor base of AED’s Center on Gender Equity to include not just traditional donors -- such as USAID and the World Bank -- but also the Asia Development Bank, the Netherlands AID, the British international development agency (DFID), UNICEF, UNFPA, GE Foundation, Johnson and Johnson Foundation, Kenora Foundation, Exxon Mobil, and others. These donors invited her input on projects that ranged between $500 million and $50 thousand in size.
May Rihani is also an author and a professor. She published 11 books: 8 in English and 3 in Arabic. She taught a course about International Education: The Educational Theories of Paulo Frere at the American University in Washington, D.C.; and a course on Gender Roles in Africa and the Middle East at the Honors College of Maryland University. In addition, May Rihani, was appointed as the Director of the endowed Chair of Gibran Kahlil Gibran for Values and Peace at Maryland University in 2016. She served in this position till December 2020.
Professional Affiliations
• Member of the Board of Directors, and Director of the Washington Bureau of the World Lebanese Cultural Union, (WLCU), 2021 to present
• Member of the Steering Committee of the Lebanese American Coordinating Committee (LACC): 2021 to present
• Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Inclusion of the Arabic Language and Arabic Culture in the World Languages and Literature Department at the California State University, Sacramento, 2020 to present
• Member of the Board of the International Foundation for Women’s Empowerment: 2020 to present
• Member of the Executive Committee of the Moawad Foundation USA, 2021 to present
• Member of the Board of Mothers to Mothers, Cape Town, South Africa, 2013 to 2016
• Advisory Board member 10 x10 Educate Girls – Change the World: 2009 to 2012
• Co-Chair, United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI): 2008 to 2010
• Chair of the Task Force, “In Honor of Lebanon”: 2007 to 2015
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut (AUB) 2004 to 2006
• Chair of the Board of the American University Alumni of North America (AANA): 2004 to 2006
• Steering Committee member: Arab American Institute, Gibran Humanitarian Award: 2005 to 2010
• Member of the Board of the Ameen Rihani Organization: 2002 till present
• Co-Founder, and Co-Chair Platform International: 1986 to Present
• Advisory Board member of the Harvard/MIT Women in Development Group: 1979-1980
Highlights of Ms. Rihani’s Professional Experience
Country Experience
In the Middle East: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen,
In Africa: Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Togo, and South Africa
In Asia: Afghanistan, Malaysia, Nepal, and Pakistan
Languages
Arabic (Native), English (Fluent), French (Fluent)
Professional Experience
2011- March 2012 Senior Vice President, FHI360, Washington, DC
Responsible for re-positioning the Center for Gender Equity (CGE) into a cross cutting gender center that serves FHI 360 as a technical resource on gender. The technical areas that will be mainstreamed into FHI360’s education, health, economic productivity, and civil society program areas include: girls’ education, economic empowerment for women, engagement of women in civil society, and women’s leadership.
1998 – 2011 Academy for Educational Development, (AED), Senior Vice President & Director Global Learning Group, Washington, DC
Co-leads the Global Learning Group, the largest Group at the Academy for Educational Development and is a member of the Senior Management of AED. The Global Learning Group implements educational reform projects in approximately 40 countries.
Responsible for innovative initiatives to ensure equity and to increase the participation of underserved populations in education as well as in other social development programs.
Implements innovative work related to the importance of women role models and gender equity in leadership.
Oversees the implementation and the quality of several educational programs with a focus on gender equity. These programs include:
USAID’s Ambassadors’ Girls’ Scholarships program in 15 African countries;
USAID’s Morocco’s Advancing Literacy and Employment for the Future (ALEF) Program;
USAID’s Yemen Educational Reform Program;
MEPI’s leadership program for students at the secondary level;
The World Bank’s studies on Girls’ Secondary Education in Yemen;
The Government of Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Planning project for Tatweer;
The Qatar Supreme Educational Council project for a number of schools as part of the Education for a New Era;
JICA’s Teacher Training Program in Afghanistan;
UNICEF evaluation indicators study for the MENA region;
Exxon Mobil Schools of Excellence in Nigeria;
Johnson and Johnson Four Pillars Education program in Tanzania;
The GE Foundation Girls’ Education program in Kenya;
The Kenora Foundation Girls’ Education programs in Guinea and Tanzania;
AED’s three Mentoring Guides on: Life Skills, HIV and AIDS, and Transition to the Workforce; and
Works closely with the other AED centers to ensure the integration of the gender perspectives in environmental, health, and civil society programs.
2001 - 2011 Director for Center for Gender Equity
Designed and implemented a teachers ToT (training of trainers) workshop in Jordan for the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Water to integrate gender perspectives and environmental information into the curriculum of the primary and secondary schools. In particular, the focus was on water conservation and prevention of waste.
Designed and delivered training for representatives of six Asian countries on how to integrate gender strategies regarding girls’ education in their yearly program planning.
Designed and delivered training concerning women’s leadership. This training was centered around the gender roles of women and men and how by decreasing the inequities and valuing women’s leadership, civil society will benefit.
1988 - 1998 Creative Associates International, Inc. (CAII), Washington DC
• Senior Vice-President (1991-1998) and head of Education and Training Division (ETD) with contracts valued at $54 million.
Designed, developed, marketed, implemented, and managed a broad range of projects in education planning, women in development, human resources, and economic productivity. Long-term projects and programs have been undertaken in Benin, Egypt, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda, and Yemen. Provided planning, program design, and management training expertise both at CAII and on international development projects.
• Project Director, Institutionalizing Small Innovative Schools Project, Egypt (1997-1998)
Designed and managed this multi-million innovative project and provided corporate technical direction for the activities of the project. ISIS will establish 1,000 schools in rural Egypt by involving communities, non-governmental organizations, and local leaders in the support of primary schools in rural remote villages in three Egyptian governorates. Worked closely with long-term advisers based in Egypt to ensure that the objectives of increasing girls' and boys' access and retention in schools are achieved.
• Project Director, Morocco Education for Girls (1997-1998)
Designed and managed this five-year project to develop a new model for rural schools in Morocco. The model is based on the integration of three components: school reform, community involvement, and educational system strengthening. Worked closely with the ministry of education, long-term advisors, researchers, and regional and local education officers to develop, test, and implement the model. Monitored progress and evaluates results.
• Project Director, Malawi Policy, Planning, and Curriculum (1996-1998)
Provided corporate technical and managerial direction for CAII's policy, planning, and curriculum development effort to assist primary educational reform in Malawi. Communicated regularly with Chief of Party to monitor project planning, activities, and progress towards intended results. Brainstormed solutions where appropriate. Maintained contact with USAID technical and financial representatives as appropriate.
• Project Director, Equity in the Classroom (1994)
Designed a training program for eight countries on Equity in the Classroom. The program was funded by USAID and implemented in the eight countries over a period of four years.
• Project Director, Malawi Social Mobilization Campaign (1993 – 1997)
Provided oversight, technical direction, and quality control for CAII's multi-year effort to develop a campaign to mobilize parents, local leaders, and communities in Malawi to keep girls in primary school. Co-designed and co-delivered a two weeks gender sensitive teacher training workshop to Ministry teacher-trainers in Malawi. Designed the project based on a series of studies on education in Malawi, and guided and approved campaign concept development. Communicated regularly with Chief of Party and senior staff to monitor project activities and to troubleshoot any potential issues or problems. Also maintained contact with USAID technical representative.
• Project Monitor, Children’s Learning and Equity Foundations CLEF Benin (1993 – 1997)
Provided managerial oversight for two USAID Children's Learning and Equity Foundation (CLEF) projects designed to provide long- and short-term technical assistance to the primary education reform effort in Benin. Worked closely with the Ministry of Education in Cotonou to plan specific technical assistance needed in support of the fifteen educational action plans. Monitored closely the progress of the two projects to ensure quality and results.
1977 – 1984 Vice-President and Director, TransCentury, Women in Development Secretariat, Washington, DC
Designed and managed an informal education/small business project for women in Morocco. The project aimed at training women in literacy as well as income-generating skills in order to integrate women better in the economies of their communities and to benefit further their families and their communities.
Assessed the success of United Nations projects at integrating women in the educational systems and meeting the objectives of the countries’ 5-year national plans. Funded by the UNDP, the project was implemented with close coordination with the ministries of Planning and Education in Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, and Kuwait.
Co-designed and co-implemented a Leadership Training program for the Federation of Tunisian Women.
Evaluated the impact of WID projects in the areas of small business, education, health, and agriculture; also produced a directory of WID projects with a focus on lessons learned. Created a data center, whereby information and documentation on women relating to the education, health, and population sectors were collected, studied, and analyzed. This data center served as a baseline for all the women in development activities in the organization.
Education
Courses on Executive Leadership at Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2008-2009
M.A. coursework, International Relations, American University of Beirut, 1971
B.A., Political Science, American University of Beirut, 1968
Publications in English
• Rihani, May (edited) Reshaping Landscapes of Arab Thought: Legacies of Kahlil Gibran, Ameen Rihani, and Mikhail Naimy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. 2019
• Rihani, May. A New Narrative of Peace, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. 2017
• Rihani, May. Cultures Without Borders: From Beirut to Washington, D.C. Authors House, Bloomington, IN, 2014
• Rihani, May, et al. Girls’ Success: Mentoring Guide for Life Skills. Washington, DC: AED, 2009.
• Rihani, May. Keeping the Promise: Five Benefits of Girls’ Secondary Education. Washington, DC: AED, 2006.
• Rihani, May. Learning for the 21st Century: Strategies for Female Education in the Middle East and North Africa. New York: UNICEF MENARO, 1993. Translated by UNICEF into Arabic, French, and Farsi.
• Rihani, May and Al-Haq, Khadiga. Strategies to Promote Girls’ Education, Policies and Programs that Work. New York: UNICEF, 1992.
• Rihani May. Development as if Women Mattered, Washington DC, Overseas Development Council, 1978
Publications in Arabic
• Rihani, May: “Yaloufou Khasra Al Ard”: title in English, “Encircling the Waist of the Earth”, poetry collection, Dar Al Rihani, 1993
• Rihani, May: “Ismi Siwaya”: title in English, “My Name is the Other”, essays, Dar Al Rihani, 1974
• Rihani, May: “Hafrun Ala Al Ayam”: title in English, “Engraving on Time,” essays, Dar Al Rihani, 1969
Awards
• Jossour: Forum des Femmes Maroccaines: Femmes Partenaires du Progres: Jordan, August 2019
• The Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, (ADC), Women’s Empowerment Forum Leadership Award, Washington, D.C. 2015
• The Juliet Hollister, Temple of Understanding Award, New York, October 2012
• Leadership Award: Center for Women’s Leadership in International Development, Creative Associates International Inc., March 2012
• Legacy Award: Academy for Educational Development, June 2011
• Al Waref Poetry Award: Al Waref Institute, Washington, D.C. January 2010
• Commitment to Gender Equity Award: Academy for Educational Development, September 2008
• The Khalil Gibran International Award: University of Maryland, April 2008
• Said Akl Award (Beirut, Lebanon): June 2004
• Special Program Achievement Award: Academy for Educational Development, December 2001
• Technical Achievement Award: Academy for Educational Development, December 2000
• Capital Area Peacemaker Award: School of International Service, American University, March 1998

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 07-08/2022
Who are Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant group targeted by Israel?
The National/Aug 07, 2022
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the militant group the Israeli military is targeting in its latest bombardment of the Gaza Strip, is an Iran-backed organisation with a long history of attacks on Israel. Founded in 1981 by three Palestinian students who were studying in Egypt, the group shares Iran's goal of the destruction of Israel. The founders — Fathi Shaqaqi, Abdul Aziz Odeh and Bashir Moussa — returned to Palestine after being expelled from Egypt following the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Shaqaqi had been arrested earlier by Egyptian authorities after writing a book in praise of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After organising in the Israeli-occupied territories and elsewhere in the early 1980s, the group is believed to have carried out its first successful attack, the killing of an Israeli military police captain, in August 1987. This was a few months before the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The following year, Israel expelled Shaqaqi and Odeh to Lebanon. While there, Shaqaqi developed ties with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
Designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and EU among others, Islamic Jihad is regarded as a sister organisation to Hamas, the Islamists who have controlled Gaza since 2007. Both were born out of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that was established in Egypt in the last century, and are supported by Iran.
Islamic Jihad formed its armed wing, known as the Al Quds Brigade, in 1992. Working in co-ordination the military wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, it carried out a string of suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the 1990s in an attempt to derail the Oslo peace accords. The group also claimed responsibility for many suicide bombings during the second Palestinian intifada from 2000 to 2005. Among the deadliest attacks carried out by Islamic Jihad were the double suicide bombing of a military bus stop at Beit Lid near Netanya on January 22, 1995, which killed 19 and injured 69; the suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv shopping mall on March 4, 1996, which killed 20 and injured 75; the car bombing of a bus near Afula on June 5, 2002, which killed 17 people and injured 38; and the August 19, 2003 suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem which killed 21 people and injured more than 100. Shaqaqi was assassinated by Israeli agents in Malta in 1995. Its current leader Ziad Al Nakhalah, was appointed after Israel assassinated his predecessor Baha Abu Al Ata in 2019. Although primarily based in Gaza, Islamic Jihad also has a strong presence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, particularly in the northern city of Jenin. Many of the group's senior leaders have been based in Damascus. Israel insists the group's ties with Iran have deepened. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that Al Nakhalah was in Iran when he authorised "pre-emptive" strikes against the group on Friday, citing the threat of attacks.
"The head of Islamic Jihad is in Tehran as we speak," Mr Lapid said, just hours after Israeli jets killed Tayseer Al Jabari, one of the group's senior military leaders in Gaza. Maj Gen Hossein Salami, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told Al Nakhalah on Saturday during a meeting in Tehran: "We are with you on this path until the end."The Israeli military claim Islamic Jihad has a rocket arsenal comparable in size to that of Hamas, which was able to field an estimated 7,000 rockets during last year's war in Gaza. Analysts say the group's rockets have a shorter range however.
Although Islamic Jihad regularly operates in co-ordination with Hamas, notably during the 11-day war with Israel last May, the continuing conflict further highlights its independence. Hamas has not fired rockets at Israel since the exchange of fire began on Friday. In 2019, Hamas sat out fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad that was triggered by the assassination Al Ata. And whereas Hamas leaders have made statements softening their commitment to the destruction of Israel, the smaller organisation has made no such move and rejects any compromise.

Israel, Palestinians set for truce from Sunday night
AFP/August 07, 2022
GAZA: Islamic Jihad militants on Sunday agreed terms of an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel, intended to end three days of intense conflict that has left at least 43 Palestinians dead. The deal raises hopes of an imminent cessation of the worst fighting in Gaza since an 11-day war last year devastated the impoverished Palestinian coastal territory. “A short while ago the wording of the Egyptian truce agreement was reached,” senior Islamic Jihad member Mohammad Al-Hindi said in a statement. Since Friday, Israel has carried out heavy aerial and artillery bombardment of Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza, with the militants firing hundreds of rockets in retaliation. Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday evening raised the death toll to 43 including 15 children, with more than 300 people wounded in the Palestinian enclave, which is run by the Islamist group Hamas. Two Israelis have been injured by shrapnel over the same period, medics reported. Islamic Jihad’s Hindi said the deal “contains Egypt’s commitment to work toward the release of two prisoners, (Bassem) Al-Saadi and (Khalil) Awawdeh.” Saadi, a senior figure in Islamic Jihad’s political wing, was recently arrested in the occupied West Bank, while militant Awawdeh is also in Israeli detention. Earlier in the day, an Egyptian security source said that Israel “has accepted” a cease-fire. Buildings in Gaza have been reduced to rubble, while Israelis have been forced to shelter from a barrage of rockets. Nour Abu Sultan, who lives west of Gaza, said earlier Sunday that she was “awaiting the declaration of the cease-fire on tenterhooks.”
“We haven’t slept for days (due to) heat and shelling and rockets, the sound of aircrafts hovering above us... is terrifying,” the 29-year-old said. Dalia Harel, a resident in the Israeli town of Sderot close to the Gaza border, said she was “disappointed” at news of a truce despite her five children being “traumatized.” “We’re tired of having a military operation every year,” she said. “We need our military and political leaders to get it over with once and for all... we’re not for war, but we can’t go on like this.” An AFP photographer saw two rockets being intercepted in the center of Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv on Sunday evening. Two Islamic Jihad rockets earlier in the day had targeted Jerusalem, but they were shot down by the Israeli army. Islamic Jihad is aligned with Hamas but often acts independently. Hamas has fought four wars with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007, including the conflict last May. The Israeli army has said the entire “senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralized.” Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director general of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said medics were treating wounded people in a “very bad condition,” warning of dire shortages of drugs and fuel to run power generators. “Every minute we receive injured people,” he said earlier Sunday. Israel said it had “irrefutable” evidence that a stray rocket fired by Islamic Jihad was responsible for the deaths of several children in Gaza’s northern Jabalia area on Saturday. An AFP photographer saw six dead bodies at the hospital there, including three minors. “We came running to the place and found body parts lying on the ground... they were torn-apart children,” said Muhammad Abu Sadaa, describing the devastation in Jabalia. The army said it had struck 139 Islamic Jihad positions, with the militants firing over 600 rockets and mortars, but with more than 100 of those projectiles falling short inside Gaza. Amid the high tensions, Jews in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem marked the Tisha Be’av fasting day Sunday at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known in Judaism as the Temple Mount. Some Palestinians shouted “God is greatest” in response, and an AFP photographer was briefly detained by Israeli police, but commemorations passed without major incident. Israel has said it was necessary to launch a “pre-emptive” operation Friday against Islamic Jihad, which it said was planning an imminent attack. The army has killed senior leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, including Taysir Al-Jabari in Gaza City and Khaled Mansour in Rafah in the south. In southern and central Israel, civilians were forced into air raid shelters. Two people were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and 13 others lightly hurt while running for safety, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

Gaza emerges once again as deadly arena for Iran’s conflict with Israel
The Arab Weekly/August 07/202
Recent statements by the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards showed that Gaza has once again become an arena for settling Israeli-Iranian scores, while Palestinian civilians are paying a heavy price for the undeclared confrontation.
Political analysts told The Arab Weekly on Sunday that Israel and Iran are pushing ahead with escalation in Gaza, which is an extension of the confrontation in Syria and the Israeli operations that have been targeting nuclear sites or leading to the assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists and officials.
The analysts noted that the Islamic Jihad movement is the closest Palestinian faction to Iran, and that since its emergence In 1980s, it was influenced by the Khomeini revolution and does not hide its connection to of the Iranian-backed “resistance.”
An Israeli airstrike killed a senior commander in the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, authorities said Sunday, its second leader to be slain amid an escalating cross-border conflict.
The killing late Saturday of Khaled Mansour, who led the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad’s operations in the southern Gaza Strip, came a day after another Israeli strike killed the militant’s commander in the north.
Already, the fighting has killed at least 29 Palestinians and seen hundreds of rockets fired toward Israel in the worst violence between Israel and Palestinian militants since the end of an 11-day war in 2021.
The Iran connection
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that the Palestinians are “not alone” in their fight against Israel.
“Today, all the anti-Zionist jihadi capabilities are on the scene in a united formation working to liberate Jerusalem and uphold the rights of the Palestinian people,” Major General Hossein Salami said in a statement on the Guards’ Sepah News website.
“We are with you on this path until the end, and let Palestine and the Palestinians know that they are not alone,” he told the visiting leader of Islamic Jihad, Ziad al-Nakhala, during a meeting in Tehran.
Salami stressed that the Palestinian response showed “a new chapter” has begun and that Israel “will pay another heavy price for the recent crime.”
“The Palestinian resistance is stronger today than in the past,” he said, adding that the militant groups have found “the ability to manage major wars.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s “brutal attack” on Gaza.
President Ebrahim Raisi said Israel has “once again showed its occupying and aggressive nature to the world,” according to a statement from his office.
Nakhala has met Raisi and other officials during his visit.
Israel has accused Iran of smuggling weapons to Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. In March last year, it said it had intercepted two Iranian drones laden with weapons for Gaza. Islamic Jihad is the smaller of the two main Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip, and is vastly outnumbered by the ruling Hamas group. But it enjoys direct financial and military backing from Iran, and has become the driving force in engaging in rocket attacks and other confrontations with Israel.
Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, is often limited in its ability to act because it bears responsibility for running day-to-day affairs of the impoverished territory. Islamic Jihad has no such duties and has emerged as the more militant faction, occasionally even undermining Hamas’ authority.
The group was founded in 1981 with the aim of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and all of what is now Israel. It is designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department, European Union and other governments. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Israel’s archenemy Iran supplies Islamic Jihad with training, expertise and money, but most of the group’s weapons are locally produced. In recent years, it has developed an arsenal equal to that of Hamas, with longer-range rockets capable of striking central Israel’s Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Air raid sirens went off in the suburbs just south of Tel Aviv on Friday, although no rockets appear to have hit the area.
Although its base is Gaza, Islamic Jihad also has leadership in Beirut and Damascus, where it maintains close ties with Iranian officials.
Killing of second top Islamic Jihad commander
Tensions could escalate as Jews mark a holy day that will see ultranationalist Israeli lawmakers visit a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Such visits can be a frequent flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad confirmed Sunday that the airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed Mansour and two fellow militants. The militants said the strike also killed civilians as it flattened several homes.
The Israeli government also said its forces killed Mansour in the strike, which it described as a joint operation between its military and intelligence agencies approved by the country’s political leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said the army would continue to strike targets in the Gaza Strip “in a pinpoint and responsible way in order to reduce to a minimum the harm to noncombatants.” Lapid, a caretaker premier until Israeli elections in November, called the strike “an extraordinary achievement.”
“The operation will continue as long as necessary,” Lapid said in a statement.
On Sunday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said 29 people had been killed in the fighting so far in the coastal strip, including six children and four women. It said at least 253 people had been wounded.
Israel estimates its airstrikes have killed about 15 militants. Meanwhile, the Israeli army said militants in Gaza had fired some 580 rockets toward Israel. The army said its air defenses had intercepted many of them, with two of those shot down being fired toward Jerusalem.
Militants from Islamic Jihad continued firing rockets toward Israel and the Israeli military continued airstrikes on Gaza, though the intensity of the exchange appeared to decrease early Sunday. Air raid sirens sounded in the Jerusalem area for the first time Sunday since last year’s war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Jews marked Tisha B’av, a somber day of fasting that marks the destruction of the biblical temples and brings thousands to Jerusalem for prayer. By early morning, Israeli police said several hundred Jews had already ascended the Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary.
Police described the situation as calm as Jews held prayers at the Western Wall, which is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray.
In Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, Israeli security forces said they detained some 19 people on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic Jihad during overnight raids. Israeli forces said their troops suffered no injuries in the raids, which saw them use “riot dispersal methods” as Palestinians threw rocks and improvised bombs, as well as shot at their forces.
The fighting began with Israel’s killing of a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a wave of strikes Friday that Israel said were meant to prevent an imminent attack.
Hamas appeared to remain on the sidelines of the conflict for now, keeping its response limited. Israel and Hamas fought a war barely a year ago, one of four major conflicts and several smaller battles over the last 15 years that exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.
The Israeli military said an errant rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed civilians, including children, late Saturday in the town of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The military said it investigated the incident and concluded “without a doubt” that it was caused by a misfire on the part of Islamic Jihad. There was no official Palestinian comment on the incident.
A Palestinian medical worker who spoke on condition of anonymity as they had not been granted permission to speak to journalists said the blast killed at least six people, including three children.
Israeli airstrikes Saturday killed a 75-year-old woman and wounded six others as they were preparing to go to a wedding. Airstrikes have also destroyed several houses in the Gaza Strip, some of them belonging to Islamic Jihad members.
The lone power plant in Gaza ground to a halt at noon Saturday due to a lack of fuel. Israel has kept its crossing points into Gaza closed since Tuesday. With the new disruption, Gazans can use only four hours of electricity a day, increasing their reliance on private generators and deepening the territory’s chronic power crisis amid peak summer heat.

UN Security Council will meet to discuss Israeli attack on Gaza: Palestine’s UN Ambassador
Arab News/August 07, 2022
NEW YORK: Palestine’s UN ambassador has said that the UN Security Council will hold a meeting on Monday to discuss the Israeli brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, the Palestine News and Info Agency (WAFA) reported. Ambassador Riyad Mansour emphasized that the Security Council is responsible for maintaining international peace and security, as well as responding to the imperatives of condemning and halting Israeli aggression and providing international protection for the Palestinian people. UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings issued a statement on Saturday expressing her deep concern about the situation, which has killed at least 31 Palestinians and injured more than 253. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is already dire and can only worsen with this most recent escalation” she said. “The continued operation of basic service facilities such as hospitals, schools, warehouses, and designated shelters for internally displaced persons is essential and now at risk,” she cautioned. An electricity company spokesman said that Gaza’s sole power plant shut down on Saturday after running out of fuel five days after Israel closed its goods crossing with the Palestinian enclave, AFP reported. Hastings added that the movement and access of humanitarian personnel, critical medical cases and essential goods, such as food and fuel, into Gaza must not be hampered in order to meet humanitarian needs. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also scheduled to deliver an important speech before the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept. 23, WAFA reported.

Syria more than doubles petrol prices
Agence France Presse/August 07/2022
Syria's internal commerce ministry has announced a petrol price hike of around 130 percent in the war-torn country facing fuel shortages and extended power cuts. The cost of a liter of subsidized fuel will rise to 2,500 Syrian pounds, from 1,100 previously, a rise of 127 percent, the ministry said in a statement quoted by the official SANA news agency late Saturday. The cost of non-subsidised petrol will rise from 3,500 to 4,000 Syrian pounds, the ministry added. The increases represent the third time this year that authorities have increased the price of fuel, as the Syrian pound continues to depreciate. Syria's currency is trading at around 4,250 to the dollar on the black market, compared to an official rate of 2,814. "This measure will hit everyone," said Raed al-Saadi, a warehouse worker. "Our salary is now only enough to get us to the workplace, and not even enough to get us home again." "Life has become very difficult and I don't where this situation will lead us," the 48-year-old added. Since the outbreak of war in 2011, Syria's oil and gas sector has suffered losses amounting to tens of billions of dollars. The economy has been hit hard by both the long-running war and sanctions imposed against Damascus. A U.N. commission in March called for a review of sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad's regime because of concerns that the measures were hitting ordinary people too hard. The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global jihadists. It has killed around 500,000 people and displaced around half of the country's pre-war population.

Shift in war's front seen as grain leaves Ukraine; plant hit
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/August 7, 2022
— Six more ships carrying agricultural cargo held up by the war in Ukraine received authorization Sunday to leave the country’s Black Sea coast as analysts warned that Russia was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Ukraine and Russia also accused each other of shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The loaded vessels were cleared to depart from Chornomorsk and Odesa, according to the Joint Coordination Center, which oversees an international deal intended to get some 20 million tons of grain out of Ukraine to feed millions going hungry in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations signed the agreements last month to create a 111-nautical-mile sea corridor that would allow cargo ships to travel safely out of ports that Russia’s military had blockaded and through waters that Ukraine’s military had mined. Implementation of the deal, which is in effect for four months, has proceeded slowly since the first ship embarked on Aug. 1.
Four of the carriers cleared Sunday to leave Ukraine were transporting more than 219,000 tons of corn. The fifth was carrying more than 6,600 tons of sunflower oil and the sixth 11,000 tons of soya, the Joint Coordination Center said.
Three other cargo ships that left Friday passed their inspections and received clearance Sunday to pass through Turkey’s Bosporus Strait on the way to their final destinations, the Center said. However, the vessel that left Ukraine last Monday with great fanfare as the first under the grain exports deal had its scheduled arrival in Lebanon delayed Sunday, according to a Lebanese Cabinet minister and the Ukraine Embassy. The cause of the delay was not immediately clear.
Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of a grain export deal, citing suspicions that Moscow would try to exploit shipping activity to mass troops offshore or send long-range missiles from the Black Sea, as it has done multiple times during the war.
The agreements call for ships to leave Ukraine under military escort and to undergo inspections to make sure they carry only grain, fertilizer or food and not any other commodities. Inbound cargo vessels are checked to ensure they are not carrying weapons. In a weekend analysis, Britain's Defense Ministry said the Russian invasion that started Feb. 24 “is about to enter a new phase” in which the fighting would shift to a roughly 350-kilometer (217-mile) front line extending from near the city of Zaporizhzhia to Russian-occupied Kherson.
That area includes the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station which came under fire late Saturday. Each side accused the other of the attack. Ukraine’s nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, said Russian shelling damaged three radiation monitors around the storage facility for spent nuclear fuels and that one worker was injured. Russian news agencies, citing the separatist-run administration of the plant, said Ukrainian forces fired those shells.
Russian forces have occupied the power station for months. Russian soldiers there took shelter in bunkers before Saturday’s attack, according to Energoatom.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently warned that the way the plant was being run and the fighting going on around it posed grave health and environmental threats. For the last four months of the war, Russia has concentrated on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled some territory as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have made gradual headway in the region while launching missile and rocket attacks to curtail the movements of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere.
The Russians “are continuing to accumulate large quantities of military equipment” in a town across the Dnieper River from Russian-held Kherson, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Citing local Ukrainian officials, it said the preparations appeared designed to defend logistics routes to the city and establish defensive positions on the river’s left bank. Kherson came under Russian control early in the war and Ukrainian officials have vowed to retake it. It is just 227 kilometers (141 miles) from Odesa, home to Ukraine’s biggest port, so the conflict escalating there could have repercussions for the international grain deal. The city of Mykolaiv, a shipbuilding center that Russian forces bombard daily, is even closer to Odesa. The Mykolaiv region’s governor, Vitaliy Kim, said an industrial facility on the regional capital’s outskirts came under fire early Sunday.
Over the past day, five civilians were killed by Russian and separatist firing on cities in the Donetsk region, the part of Donbas still under Ukrainian control, the regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, reported.
He and Ukrainian government officials have repeatedly urged civilians to evacuate.

Ukraine envoy to Israel expresses support over Gaza operation
Yevhen Korniichuk writes on Twitter that after his own country was attacked by neighboring Russia, he now feels sympathy with Israelis caught under fire; Russian Foreign Ministry claims violence result of Israeli attack, calls for 'all parties' to show restraint
Itamar Eichner|/Ynetnews/August 07/2022
Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniichuk on Sunday expressed his solidarity with Israel in its military campaign against the Islamic Jihad in Gaza. "As a Ukrainian, while our country is under brutal attack from a close neighbor - I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public," the Ukrainian ambassador wrote on his Twitter account.  "Terror and malicious attacks towards citizens have become daily matter for Israelis and Ukrainians," he added. "We have to put an end to it. We pray for peace and hope the escalation ends soon."  Korniichuk had in the past voiced his criticism of Israel's position on the invasion of his country by the Russian military. After Kyiv appealed to Israel to supply it with the Iron Dome missile defense system, Korniichuk said it was a defensive tool necessary in order to protect civilians who were under fire. Back then, Korniichuk said in an interview to Ukraine media that Kyiv was considering pausing visa exemptions for Israelis entering the country, in response to what he called "unneeded" limitations Israel placed on Ukrainian citizens, and claiming Israel was neglecting Ukrainian refugees.  While Ukraine putting aside its denunciations and was publicly standing behind Israel, Russia was hinting at a pending condemnation. “We are observing with profound worry how events are evolving,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday, adding that Moscow was calling “on all the parties involved to show maximum restraint.” “The new escalation was caused by Israeli army firing into the Gaza Strip on August 5, to which Palestinian groups responded by carrying out massive and indiscriminate bombardments on Israeli territory,” Zakharova said.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 07-08/2022
Where is Hannan Hashemi?’ Disappearance of student part of the ongoing persecution of Baha’i in Iran
Sandra Lynn Hutchison/The Toronto Star/August 07/2022
Since Hannan was arrested, there has been no news. We do not know where she has been taken, or even the nature of the charges.
Over the decades, I’ve grown accustomed to twentysomethings dropping out in the middle or even at the end of the English courses I teach. Sometimes they tell me why, but more often than not, they simply vanish into their dorm rooms or quietly make their way home to their parents. I’m used to students dropping out at the last minute, but never — not in all the years I have been teaching — have I had a student who didn’t finish a course because she had been arrested.
For me, Hannan Hashemi is a first, even among the students enrolled in the classes I teach through the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), an unofficial online university that offers courses to students barred from attending public universities in the Islamic Republic of Iran because they are members of the Baha’i faith, a religion whose central teaching is the unity of all religions and peoples.
Founded in 1987, the BIHE is tangible evidence of the stance the Baha’i community of Iran has consistently taken in response to its ongoing persecution by the Islamic Republic of Iran: namely, “constructive resilience,” which simply means that the Baha’i community looks for ways to carry on in the face of impossible odds. To find constructive ways to live in and also contribute to the progress of a country whose government is committed to destroying it — by razing homes, confiscating businesses, banning meetings for worship or administration, and by arresting and imprisoning its citizens.
Which brings me back to my question: where is Hannan Hashemi? Since she was arrested, there has been no news. We do not know where she has been taken, or even the nature of the charges. Hannan, the young woman with long curly brown hair and glasses, who was one of the best writers in my class. Hannan, the student who wrote about her surprise and joy on seeing her newborn sister for the first time: “She was smaller than I thought. Her head was the size of an orange and she was staring at me gently with her black eyes.”
Hannan, the student who wrote in such vivid detail about her uncle’s house that I felt I had been transported there: “In one of the old and crowded neighbourhoods of Shiraz, my uncle had a big old house with magnificent oriental architecture. At its entrance was a wide garden with three enormous orange trees. To the right lay a small trapezoidal blue pond and to the left hung a rusty yellow swing surrounded by jasmine bushes.”
Hannan, the one who, when asked what she wanted to study in future, answered: “In Iran, Baha’is can’t plan for the future.”
After Hannan was arrested, I reread the essays she had written for my class, looking for a clue. How could this have happened to her? I wanted to know. And sure enough, I did find a clue. In an essay entitled “The Blue Prayer Book,” Hannan had written about the time the police ransacked her parents’ home and arrested her father. After the police left, eight-year-old Hannan had managed to find her beloved blue prayer book beneath papers that had been scattered across the floor. She took it as a sign, a good one, that her father would return, and, sure enough, he did — emaciated, his head shaved, and bearing the marks of torture.
Yes, Hannan had seen all this before. It had happened to her father; now it was happening to her. Still, could any experience have prepared Hannan for her arrest?
Hannan, I want you to know: wherever you are, I am thinking of you. I am waiting for you to write your final essay for my course. And I ask those who are detaining you to try, just try, to see you as I do: as a fresh-faced young woman with curly brown hair and glasses; someone who wants peace between all religions and races; someone who deserves the chance to have a future.

Gaza: The Usual Suspects Condemn Israel
Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/August 07/2022
Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was "committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat".
Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was "deeply concerned" by "the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza."
Israel has not claimed its operation in Gaza — codenamed Breaking Dawn — is to deter. The government has made it clear that the strikes were to prevent an imminent threat to the Israeli population. It had hard intelligence that PIJ, led by Jabari, was planning attacks across the border from Gaza. Protecting its people from violent external attack is not only permitted under international law, it is the duty of every government. If deterrence of such attacks were possible, Israel would have taken action to deter.
PIJ is an Iranian proxy, directed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Its leader, Ziad Nakhaleh, has been in Tehran for the last few days, meeting with his IRGC paymasters and other government officials including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
As PIJ and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Just as Israel's casus belli for attacking PIJ targets was lawful, it has taken the utmost care to ensure its continued strikes are also lawful, only attacking targets that are proportionate and necessary to the military objectives and giving warnings where civilian casualties could occur.
We can expect non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch to pile on. Amnesty International, however, might be slightly more circumspect as they are at present gyrating from the widespread international reproach that greeted their just-published report condemning Ukraine's defensive actions, in which they again showed the total incomprehension of war and the laws of war that they often demonstrate in their denunciations of Israel.
Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF's confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit, as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.
As Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Pictured: Local residents and Hamas police officers assess the damage from a missile strike by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that hit the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on August 7, 2022.
A week ago US President Joe Biden ordered the elimination of Al Qaida boss Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. A few days later Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid ordered the elimination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander Tayseer al-Jabari in Gaza. These were two of a kind: mass killers whose sole purpose was to inflict pain, death and destruction on ordinary decent people to bring about their vision of Islamic conquest.
Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was "committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat".
Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was "deeply concerned" by "the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza."
Of course he was. No matter that the strike against Jabari and his attack team prevented the deaths of innocent civilians; that is nothing to an organisation that is institutionally biased against Israel. Witness Miloon Kathari, one of the commissioners in the latest UN Human Rights Council kangaroo court investigating Israel, who only a few days ago was forced to make what UN Watch chief Hillel Neuer called a non-apology apology over his antisemitic remarks last month. The commission chairwoman, Navi Pillay, who also has a long track record of anti-Israel bias, previously said Kathari's remarks were "deliberately misrepresented".
There will be no UN investigation into Zawahari's killing but there will be into Jabari's. This time, though, there will be no need for another Human Rights Council witch-hunt; it will simply be folded into Pillay's permanent commission that has no end and starts with the re-creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Wennesland's "deep concern" was aggravated by comments from Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the "Occupied Palestinian Territories", who managed in one tweet both to condemn Israel and contort its actions into a darkly malign parody of reality — so far, so UN. Conjured from nowhere, she claimed that Israel's actions were to "deter Islamic Jihad's possible retaliation for its leader's arrest", going on to describe the strikes as "flagrant aggression" in breach of international law.
This is pure fiction. Israel has not claimed its operation in Gaza — codenamed Breaking Dawn — is to deter. The government has made it clear that the strikes were to prevent an imminent threat to the Israeli population. It had hard intelligence that PIJ, led by Jabari, was planning attacks across the border from Gaza. Protecting its people from violent external attack is not only permitted under international law, it is the duty of every government. If deterrence of such attacks were possible, Israel would have taken action to deter.
Jabari's illegal attacks were to be in retaliation for the IDF arrest of Bassam Al-Saadi in Jenin last week. Saadi is the leader of PIJ in Judea and Samaria, and since May last year he has been consolidating his terrorist bases there, bringing together an assortment of other terror gangs including Hamas, Fatah-linked Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
This left PIJ's city strongholds, mainly in the north, largely ungovernable by the Palestinian Authority, with their Kalashnikovs calling the shots and PA security forces afraid to enter. The deteriorating situation contributed much to the wave of terrorist attacks against Israelis that included 19 dead in March and April this year. The IDF and Shin Bet launched Operation Breakwater in Judea and Samaria a few months ago, intensifying counter-terrorism action against this developing threat, and Saadi's arrest was part of that effort.
PIJ is an Iranian proxy, directed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Its leader, Ziad Nakhaleh, has been in Tehran for the last few days, meeting with his IRGC paymasters and other government officials including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. While terrorist chief Nakhaleh has been openly rubbing shoulders with the elite of Tehran, Raisi's chief nuclear negotiator has been whirled around Vienna in a Mercedes in a desperate attempt by the EU to salvage a deal that will pave the path to a nuclear-armed Iranian terror state.
As PIJ and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Just as Israel's casus belli for attacking PIJ targets was lawful, it has taken the utmost care to ensure its continued strikes are also lawful, only attacking targets that are proportionate and necessary to the military objectives and giving warnings where civilian casualties could occur. Despite such precautions, the IDF have said that some casualties have been inflicted among uninvolved civilians. Although tragic, this is often unavoidable when targeting terrorists that use their own people as human shields and, providing the laws of armed conflict are observed, is not illegal, despite the inevitable accusations of the uninformed and the malevolent.
PIJ has said it will fight on without ceasefire or negotiations. However much its military capability is written down and its terrorists killed by the IDF, it will have to put up a fight for long enough to satisfy its sponsors in Tehran. But PIJ lacks the capability for a sustained campaign along the lines of the May 2021 war and so far, Hamas has not joined the murderous foray.
Israel has been careful to avoid attacking Hamas targets in an attempt to limit the scope and duration of the conflict, and the terror group seems unwilling to be drawn in, despite Nakhaleh's plaintive plea from Tehran that "Fighters of the Palestinian resistance have to stand together to confront this aggression". Hamas is not yet ready for another clash with Israel, with the territory that it governs still reeling from the last round and an unwillingness to antagonise Egypt. Despite some words of solidarity, Hamas's leaders will not be disappointed to see their PIJ rivals degraded by Israel. Despite that, events and pressures in the coming hours and days could compel them to unleash their own arsenal.
However long this campaign lasts, be ready for the usual suspects to join the UN in their rancour, fabrication and condemnation. We can expect non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch to pile on. Amnesty International, however, might be slightly more circumspect as they are at present gyrating from the widespread international reproach that greeted their just-published report condemning Ukraine's defensive actions, in which they again showed the total incomprehension of war and the laws of war that they often demonstrate in their denunciations of Israel.
Both the UK and the US have expressed support for Israel's actions, although the Biden administration could not help drawing a false moral equivalence between Israel and PIJ in its call for calm "on all sides". Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, also apparently immune to any concept of distinction between a democratic country lawfully defending its people and an internationally-proscribed terrorist entity breaking every law in the book, has also called for "maximum restraint on all sides". As though in unison, Borrell's words were echoed by Russia — unrelenting in its violent aggression against Ukraine — demanding that "all the parties involved show maximum restraint".
The media's inveterate Israel-opposers such as the BBC, CNN and New York Times have already printed deliberately slanted headlines painting Israel as the aggressor. Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF's confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit, as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.
If they were not in recess we would be seeing the usual Israel apartheid garbage burgeoning on campus; but the rabble-rousers will surely grasp the not-so-painful nettle once school is back in.
All of this pandering to terrorists, especially from the UN, leads to more terrorism, more running to bomb shelters, more missile strikes that risk civilian death, and more deprivation for Gaza civilians, as condemnations and false equivalences encourage Iran and groups like PIJ and Hamas. It also feeds the growing antisemitism in the West, as hatred of Israel increasingly cloaks the publicly less fashionable hatred of Jews.
*Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs. He is a Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Putin’s Ukraine War Has Three Lessons for Global Food Supplies
Amanda Little/Bloomberg/August 07/2022
When 26,500 tons of corn sailed out of the port of Odesa this week — the first agricultural export from Ukraine since Russia’s invasion — many food security experts breathed a sigh of relief. The news, combined with the falling cost of wheat after global prices had nearly doubled, has investors and policy makers wondering whether the threat of global food shortages is abating.
Not exactly. It’s too soon for unreserved optimism because many of the problems that fueled food inflation even before the Ukraine invasion persist: Energy and agrochemicals prices remain high, making it costly to operate mechanized farms and move food through the supply chain. Scorching weather and drought are decimating farm yields from Waterloo, Canada, to Bangalore and Bordeaux, and climate disruptions are expected to get more varied and extreme.
It’s not too soon, though, to appreciate what we’ve learned over the past five months from one of the most significant food-supply disruptions the world has experienced in decades. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced global food producers, distributors and relief programs to quickly adapt to overcome the shortages – and they did so, on the whole, with great agility. That response has provided a deeper understanding of how food growers, investors and policy makers can meet the problems ahead.
Here are three key lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war about how to secure the future of a global food business:
Farmers are resilient.
When grain supplies from Russia and Ukraine – which together produce a quarter of the world’s wheat – were suddenly curtailed, farmers in major producing countries sprang into action. Tight supply and rising wheat prices encouraged farmers of other annual crops like soy and corn to pivot to wheat — and plant it they did, from the American Midwest and Brazil to Australia and Japan, restoring war-strained reserves.
We also learned the value of maintaining vast stores of grain from previous harvests, which were tapped in nearly every major producing country to fill the immediate void left by Russia and Ukraine. These reserves must now be fully replenished, and in the meantime, we can acknowledge and appreciate the effectiveness of a double-whammy strategy of maintaining robust reserves while planting new acreage.
The supply of perishable fruits and vegetables is far less resilient.
The past six months have underscored the differences between the commodities market, which can rely on stockpiled product, and fresh-food markets. High-nutrient, perishable crops including fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy are more vulnerable to climate pressures, require more specific conditions for growing and production, and are harder to produce and distribute spontaneously when supply disruptions hit. Long-term storage facilities for fresh foods are incredibly energy- and resource-intensive.
Ukraine’s disruptions remind us how important it will be for every wealthy nation to expand local and regional supplies of fresh fruits and vegetables. In some regions this may have to include networks of high-efficiency greenhouses and vertical farms that can grow these nutritious foods year-round in facilities protected from environmental hazards. Encouraging new efforts for cell-cultured meat — grown in laboratories — should be key a part of that plan. These investments will be costly near term but increasingly prudent as the agriculture industry adapts to the realities of climate change.
Those who have the least will suffer the most, and we owe them support.
Famine is on the rise globally, alongside geopolitical and environmental stresses, and disruptions in food production anywhere hits the food-insecure countries the hardest. Three hundred million people lack reliable food supplies and 45 million are on the edge of famine.
Wealthy nations must resolve to save a greater portion of their grain stockpiles for the most vulnerable populations, while allocating more funds for international food aid. In recent months, these funds have been in such short supply that the Biden administration chose to spend all of its US Agency for International Development funding on famine-stricken regions. USAID Director Samantha Power just committed another $1.2 billion to famine relief, but that money will be depleted quickly.
No matter how nimble farmers are in wealthy nations, severe famine will continue to spread and deepen in the coming years from both human conflict and climate change. Food security must become a part of all major international trade and economic agreements among Group of 10 industrialized nations. The focus of this collaborative effort should go beyond emergency aid to include substantial investment in a paradigm shift toward sustainable agriculture.
The damage and destruction caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has yielded important insights into the future of agriculture in a world of increasing environmental and geopolitical instability. Absorbing these lessons and acting on them will give us a chance to better prepare for the inevitable disruptions ahead.

Iran and Political Hallucination
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/August 07/2022
As Israel strikes Gaza, targeting Islamic Jihad with arrests and assassinations, the head of Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, said that Hezbollah was capable of wiping Israel off the map when the time is right.
Speaking on Friday evening in the city of Sari in northern Iran, he said that “security in the Zionist entity is declining, and Hezbollah is planning to deal it its final blow at the time is right;” adding that “Hezbollah, in eradicating this artificial entity, will achieve the aspirations of Imam Khomeini in wiping it off the map and the earth.” He also reaffirmed Iran’s support for Hezbollah.
The question we must direct at the Quds Force Commander and all the factions aligned with the lying axis of resistance is: when will it be the “right time” to wipe Israel off “the map and the earth?”
This question is especially pertinent given because the Quds Force Commander made these statements while Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib says that the border demarcation negotiations with Israel have reached an advanced stage.
Speaking to the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria, Bou Habib explained that “we have made significant progress during the negotiations, and we are in advanced stages on several fronts, including technical stages of the talks. These negotiations will be made between US mediator Amos Hochstein’s team and the Lebanese team of experts.”
The pressing question thus becomes, when will it be the “right time” to wipe Israel “off the map and the earth” as the Quds Force Commander has promised? Why not now, in response to the Israeli strikes on Gaza targeting Islamic Jihad?
Even worse, on Saturday, Iranian television broadcasters quoted IRGC Commander Hossein Salami as saying: “The Israelis will pay a heavy price for their latest crimes.” He made the statements during a meeting with Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ziad al-Nakhala, who is in Iran!
And so, the least we can say about these recent Iranian statements regarding Israel is that they are political hallucinations and attempts to promote an illusion to followers who have chosen to ignore reason and avoid comparing words with actions.
The war in Gaza is neither the first nor the last. However, with every eruption of war, Iran reaffirms that it is exploiting Gaza, just like it is exploiting Lebanon, to strengthen its hand at the negotiating table with the West. We all know that Iran has not and will not fire a bullet at Israel, neither to defend Lebanon nor Gaza. History is witness to when, during the 2006 Lebanon War, Hassan Nasrallah went on screen to call on those who love Lebanon to stop the war. Lebanon today is not suffering from war to the extent that it is suffering from Iranian occupation enforced by Hezbollah, which has now come to threaten the collapse of the state. For this reason, we are faced with Iranian political hallucinations that have only left destruction and scorched earth behind them in the region over the past four decades. That is true for Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, to say nothing about the scale of the calamity in Iraq.
This state of affairs will not change, and the hallucinations will not end until Iran pays a real price for all of its crimes in our region.

Democracy’ in the Biden-Pelosi Dictionary and America’s Deals with ‘Autocracy’
Raghida Dergham/The National/August 07/2022
One of the key reasons behind the visit by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to Taiwan, and before that to Ukraine, is her determination to expand the contours of her legacy to include major US foreign policy points especially vis-à-vis Russia and China. However, it is not this personal aspect that motivated Ms Pelosi to make these visits, but her loyalty to the Democratic Party and her determination to prop up President Joe Biden by any means necessary. We may thus soon see Ms Pelosi land in Tehran to pave the way for a grand deal between her country and Iran. But in that case, the speaker would have to avoid boasting of US ‘democracy standing up to autocracy’. Indeed, a deal with Tehran is a deal with ultimate autocracy, with the absolute rule of a supreme leader presiding over the Iranian regime.
Challenging the autocracy of Russia and China was not the only incentive for Ms Pelosi’s visits, especially the precedent she set in Taiwan that has angered China and stoked concerns of military escalation, from drills to serious confrontations. No doubt, US strategic interests and the interests of the Democratic Party were key considerations for Ms Pelosi but was the visit to Taiwan really meant to pre-empt any Chinese measures to invade Taiwan or provoke China to fall into a trap?
Neither strategic pre-emption nor planned provocation appears to have been in the calculations of the Democratic Party, which practically sanctioned Ms Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Rather, the visit had the flavor of political and strategic manoeuvring but there are always fears of miscalculations, and herein lies the danger in the aftermath of the visit.
So far, the visit appears to have served the agendas of both President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping – who had spoken by phone for nearly two hours on 28 July, less than a week before Ms Pelosi’s visit. Perhaps the manic fixation by more than a million people on Ms Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan had helped cause the stir in the financial markets, but the fundamental misreading of the situation may have been the main reason for this. Indeed, from the outset, there have been no indications of a strategic US decision to begin a standoff with China, and logic suggests the visit would not have taken place had there not been a minimum level of understanding about it between the US and Chinese presidents.
To be sure, both presidents and their countries seem to have come to an understanding that it is inevitable to escalate verbally and publicly in the context of the strategic needs of the two sides. Both benefit domestically from the escalation, with Ms Pelosi’s visit allowing the two sides to reassert their traditional positions in an expedient political dress rehearsal. Thus, Ms Pelosi’s visit can be seen as a serious step in support of President Biden and the Democratic Party’s credibility on foreign policy issues, especially on China, without paying a high cost – at least right now, in the thinking of the Democratic Party mandarins. On the Chinese side, President Xi also benefited. Ms Pelosi’s visit enabled him to reassert China’s strict red lines on Taiwan, including its categorical rejection of the independence of the island as part of its One China Policy, yet without being dragged into a serious military confrontation that President Xi wants to avoid despite pressures from the highest echelons of power in China. These Chinese leaders are pushing for a confrontation with the United States, and see Ms Pelosi’s visit as a provocation requiring a response beyond military exercises. But President Xi is resisting these pressures, because the economic situation in China means it can ill afford any adventure.
This doesn’t mean accidents or missteps are not possible. The issue is now bigger than two president and a speaker, and herein lies the adventurism with this historic visit: In the Chinese autocratic system, it is not just the president who makes decisions, but the ruling party.
So far, coexistence between democracies and autocracies is still some steps ahead of their ideological struggle. The West’s battle with Russia is not about this confrontation between the two systems, despite claims by Ms Pelosi and others to the contrary: It is a battle between the NATO military alliance and Russia. The autocracy of President Putin is not the cause of the Ukraine war, it is his invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine in response to what he deems a threat to Russian national interests embodied in the Ukrainian intention to join NATO one day.
Likewise with the supposed ideological battle with China, the United States is actually more worried by China’s ascendancy to become a rival that threatens US global dominance. Successive US administrations have thus resolved to prevent China from becoming a superpower that can challenge the American-led unipolar world order. No doubt, the battle between the two doctrines, democracy and autocracy, has a huge influence, but it is not the basis of American-Chinese rivalry, contrary to what is claimed by the proponents of the idea that this is a battle to ensure democracy prevails over autocracy.
Iran is further example of this duplicity in the US position on autocracy: Despite being an ideological expansionist and autocratic regime that suppresses its own people, neither President Biden and his team nor Nancy Pelosi and her team would hesitate a moment before signing up to a nuclear deal with Iran without daring to challenge the regime on its regional record or ideology. They are desperate to strike a deal that would lift the sanctions on Iran, reverse the maximum pressure policy, and revive the JCPOA to teach former President Donald Trump a lesson and take revenge on him and his policies, including on Iran.
In the Iranian context, there is no room for Ms Pelosi to raise the banner of defense of democracy against autocracy. Rather, the Democratic administration is doing the opposite, empowering the autocratic regime in Iran. The Democratic Party has every right to say that cutting a deal with Tehran serves US interests, defuses the nuclear standoff, and avoids a military confrontation the American people do not want. However, the Democratic Party is dutybound to explain to the American people the dimensions of lifting the sanctions on Iran, in ways that would empower its regime and autocratic ideology, and the tripartite alliance being forged between China, Russia, and Iran in a troika of autocracy that seeks to snuff out democracy.
In other words, Ms Pelosi, the strong woman dedicated to her party and the speaker of the US House, is doing wrong by the American people represented by the House and Senate, by overlooking the Iranian component of the axis of autocracy menacing democracy, as her administration works to shower the regime in Iran with a windfall that will only entrench autocracy. True, the deal that the Vienna talks seem to be progressing towards could defuse the nuclear issue and avert a military confrontation with Iran to which Israel could drag the United States. However, the Democratic Party must address the implications of overlooking Iran’s domestic and regional policies. Otherwise, all benefits from the deal will be limited and temporary, again highlighting the duplicity in the values that the party claims to uphold and instead empowering the axis of autocracy.
The negotiations between the P5+1 countries and Iran seem to be caught between approaching a breakthrough and falling into the nets of failure. Iran has recently taken steps indicating it has backed away from the condition – now it says it was never a condition – of getting the IRGC delisted by the United States as a terrorist organization. This suggests Iran is looking for a formula to conclude a nuclear deal, to reap the funds it is in dire need of to promote its ideology, autocratic rule, and position in the troika with Russia and China following the lifting of sanctions. There are ways to overcome the knot of the IRGC, which is indispensable to the Iranian regime’s domestic and foreign policy, and this is where Iran’s political shrewdness comes into play, outsmarting the democracy of Western systems while benefiting from their capitalist features.
Perhaps the time has come for successive US administrations to stop claiming their wars were for the sake of democracy, as former President George W. Bush had done when he invaded Iraq on various pretexts, and as the Biden administration is doing with its ‘democratic wars’ while their deals carry hints of endorsing autocracy. Such duplicity will be costly to America, no matter the benefits to its military and oil industries.
A plea therefore to Washington: Stop taking us for fools.