English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 29/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.august29.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
King Herod, Herodias's Daughter & The Beheading Of John The Baptist
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 06/14-29/:"King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, ‘John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.’But others said, ‘It is Elijah.’ And others said, ‘It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.’But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, ‘Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.’ And he solemnly swore to her, ‘Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.’She went out and said to her mother, ‘What should I ask for?’ She replied, ‘The head of John the baptizer.’Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, ‘I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 28-29/2022
Baabda slams 'bastards' who are 'attributing statements to president'
Majority of Presidential Terms in Lebanon End in Conflicts, Wars or Vacuum
Audi: Let's implement our democratic system without equivocation or selectivity, after which we will address impurities
Mikati on General Security's Day: We are all confident in the role of its leadership
Deputy Sleiman to Iranian Ambassador: Your actions are witness to your quest for division
Nasrallah meets with Hamas Deputy Head, political bureau delegation
Army: Intelligence responds to shooting in Brital, wounding wanted suspects
MoPH: 600 new coronavirus infections, two deaths
Completion of first phase of silos fire cooling plan, second phase to begin tomorrow
Ministry of Culture calls on the Lebanese to vote massively for the “Mayyas” Group
Israeli enemy forces shoot over the heads of young men close to Al-Abbad site
Hawat says no efforts will be spared to build a new state, calls for electing a president who brings together all the Lebanese, affirms Lebanon's...
Education and Culture - Al-Murtada from the border town of Ramieh: Lebanon is a country of diversity & coexistence, in contrast to Israel which thrives on racism
Al-Makari: It is wonderful to witness an interest in culture in a time of drought & collapse
Deputy Secretary-General of "United Nations Lebanon" warns of illegal immigration risks
MP Franjieh meets with VP of Lebanese Expatriate Community in Cotonou
Partial modification of MEA flights' schedule for September 2022
The Many Meanings of 1982: Failure, Fundamentalism and Lies
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 28/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 28-29/2022
Iran deal draft reportedly includes 4 phases, would take full effect after 165 days
War Monitor: Israeli Strike Targeted Missile Depot in Syria
Syria asked Iran not to attack Israel from its territory - report
Israeli strike destroyed over 1,000 Iran-made missiles in Syria - SOHR
Lapid pushing for call with Biden amid Iran nuclear deal concerns
Mossad 'likely' behind Salman Rushdie stabbing, claims Denver professor
Libya Capital Remains Tense a Day after Clashes Kill over 30
Jordan Army Thwarts Drugs Smuggling Operation from Syria
Sadrist Movement Calls for Establishment of New Iraq without Militias, Sectarianism
Two US Navy warships transit through Taiwan Strait

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 28-29/2022
Europe's Twilight: Christianity Declines, Islam Rises/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/August 28, 2022
An End to the Delusions About Biden, Iran and Israel?/Jonathan S. Tobin/Israel Today/August 28/2022
It’s Time to Bomb Iran/Ruthie Blum/Israel Today/August 28/2022
Did Iran copy Israeli missiles for its drone production?/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
US must counter Iran’s influence in Syria/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 28/2022
Why the fight against drugs is so important/Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/August 28/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 28-29/2022
Baabda slams 'bastards' who are 'attributing statements to president'
Naharnet/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
The Presidency's press office has issued a strong-worded statement denying "everything that has been said by politicians and in the media about President Michel Aoun's staying in Baabda after the end of his term."Slamming the accusations as "mere fabrications," the Presidency said they are "part of the ongoing scheme to target the Presidency's position and the president in person.""Some politicians and journalists have reached the extent of stirring sectarian sentiments through making suspicious calls for political and religious authorities and asking them "not to remain silent over the dangerous manipulation with the constitution and the Taef Accord, in addition to other provocative expressions," the Presidency lamented. It added that these parties are seeking to "stir sedition to serve their know goals and to pay bills to the sides that stand behind them inside and outside Lebanon, which are using them to undermine stability and further weaken the state's national unity and security." Playing on the words of an "old saying," the Preisdency added: "The bastards are those who accuse the president of saying things he did not say and blame him for actions he did not do."

Majority of Presidential Terms in Lebanon End in Conflicts, Wars or Vacuum
Beirut - Paula Astih/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
Lebanon only twice witnessed a smooth transition of power from one president to a successor in its 79 years of independence.
Out of 12 presidents who had come to power since 1943, only twice was the transition a smooth process, underlining the extent of the complexities that have plagued the country for decades.
Presidential terms often end in conflict, vacuum or wars.
Two months before the end of President Michel Aoun’s term, vacuum appears to be the likely scenario in store. The last time vacuum took place was in 2014 after the term of Aoun’s predecessor, Michel Suleiman, ended without political rivals agreeing to a successor. It took them over two years to agree on Aoun’s election as head of state. The constitution stipulates that a quorum of 86 lawmakers is needed to elect a president at parliament. Of those numbers, 65 votes are needed for a candidate to be elected president. At the current parliament, it is a hard ask for the rival parties to secure 65 votes for any candidate without them reaching a political settlement ahead of the elections. Former minister, Professor Ibrahim Najjar told Asharq Al-Awsat that the weeks and months preceding the end of a term of a president are usually marked by “ugly practices” that spark the drive to form a new majority to replace the former one in what is seen as rotation of power. The end of presidential terms in Lebanon have often witnessed controversies, such as foreigners being naturalized for hefty sums, the division of spoils, and preparations for family relatives to assume the political mantle. In other words, Lebanon is a democratic state only on paper, not in practice, he added. Furthermore, Najjar noted that ends of presidential terms in Lebanon, since the signing of the 1989 Taif Accord, have all been different. The post-Taif period was marked by Syria’s hegemony over Lebanon. It witnessed the extension of the terms of presidents Emile Lahoud and Elias Hrawi. After the Syrian troop withdrawal in 2005, Hezbollah became the dominant player. The Iran-backed party sought to impose Aoun as president. The period witnessed a string of political assassinations, the government headquarters in downtown Beirut were besieged by pro-Syria and Hezbollah loyalists and the parliament was suspended. The pressure culminated in the 2008 signing of the Doha agreement that led to Michel Suleiman’s election as president instead of Aoun. Slighted, Aoun contested Suleiman’s every move throughout his term until he was elected his successor. His election was also an arduous task, however. Suleiman left the presidential palace at the end of his term in 2014, but sharp political divisions hindered an agreement over his successor, leaving Lebanon in vacuum. Aoun’s allies exerted their pressure by forcing officials to choose between heading to the “edge of hell” or the “edge of chaos”.
Revolts, vacuum and war
Since 1943 and up until the Taif, Lebanon witnessed the election of eight presidents: Beshara al-Khoury, Camille Chamoun, Fuad Chehab, Charles Helou, Suleiman Franjieh, Elias Sarkis, Bashir Gemayel and Amin Gemayel. Post-Taif, Lebanon witnessed five presidents: Rene Mouawad, Elias Hrawi, Emile Lahoud, Michel Suleiman and Michel Aoun. Political analyst George Ghanem noted that the majority of ends of terms never witnessed a smooth transition of power. Pre-Taif, the only smooth transition happened between Chehab and Helou, he said. Post-Taif, the only smooth transition happened between Hrawi and Lahoud during the time of Syria’s political and security hegemony over Lebanon, he added. Lebanon has grown accustomed for ends of presidential terms to be times of peaceful or bloody revolts, constitutional vacuum, tensions, tumult and wars, he explained. Khoury was toppled in 1952 in a peaceful coup against the constitution. It was a period of unrest and a general strike that led to Chamoun’s election, noted Ghanem. Chamoun, himself, was ousted in a bloody coup during which Lebanon was divided along sharp sectarian and regional lines: One camp supported Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser and the other was pro-American and West. The coup started in 1958 and only ended with Chehab assuming power, said Ghanem. Helou’s term ended with problems with Palestinian freedom fighters. Franjieh’s term ended with the civil war, which erupted on April 13, 1975. Sarkis’ term ended in 1982 with Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Bashir Gemayel was his successor and he was killed days after his election in 1982. He was succeeded by his brother Amin. Amin’s term ended without the election of a successor. Aoun, then army commander, formed a military government that was boycotted by Muslim politicians, leading to a constitutional-legal dispute over its legitimacy, said Ghanem. Another government, headed by Salim al-Hoss, was in place and it was seen as a representative of Muslims. Amin viewed it as illegal and unconstitutional because its actual prime minister was Rashid Karameh, who was assassinated. That rendered the cabinet a caretaker one and Hoss was only named as its acting head.
Post-Taif
Mouawad was Lebanon’s first president to be elected post-Taif. He was elected in November 1989, following a vacuum that began with the end of Amin’s term. Mouawad was assassinated 18 days into his tenure. He was succeeded by Hrawi. Crisis erupted at the end of his term, which was extended for three years in 1995 through a controversial constitutional amendment that Syria is seen to have largely played a role in. In 1998, Lahoud was elected Hrawi’s successor in a smooth process when Syria’s hegemony over Lebanon was almost at its peak. His term was supposed to end in 2004, but it was controversially extended with Syria’s blessing. Lahoud’s term ended in 2007 a year after the 2006 July war between Israel and Hezbollah. Lebanon at the time was sharply divided between the anti-Syria March 14 and pro-Syria March 8 camps. March 14, along with their western and Arab allies, had been boycotting Lahoud over the extension of his term and his stances that favored Syria. The period also witnessed a sharp divide between the March 14 and 8 camps over then Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government. Lahoud and his allies, notably Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement, viewed it as unconstitutional after its Shiite ministers had resigned. Lahoud’s term ended on November 24, 2007. He issued a statement implying that he was handing power over to then army commander Michel Suleiman, who never acknowledged it, said Ghanem. Siniora’s government consequently carried on operating by issuing decrees that ultimately were not implemented due to the tensions, which peaked on May 7, 2008 when Hezbollah and its allies seized control of west Beirut and some regions of Mount Lebanon after bloody clashes that left Lebanon on the brink of war. Arab countries, led by Qatar, soon mediated a settlement that led to Suleiman’s election as president on May 25, 2008, as part of the Doha agreement. Ghanem remarked that Suleiman’s term effectively ended in 2011 with the collapse of the Doha agreement, eruption of the so-called Arab Spring revolts and the American withdrawal from Iraq. The last three years of his term were marked with bombings and security tensions in Lebanon, which was on the verge of yet another civil war, he noted. Suleiman’s term ended in 2014 with no successor due to sharp political disputes.
Over 2 years of presidential vacuum
A proposal was made to extend his term to avert the vacuum, but Aoun, who had been eyeing the presidency for years and had opposed Suleiman’s presidency, rejected the suggestion because he knew his Hezbollah allies would not go with it. From 2014 and until 2016, Lebanon witnessed 45 calls for the election of a president. Quorum was only met when a political agreement was reached to elect Aoun, which took place in October 2016, two years and six months after Suleiman left office. Observers believe that Lebanon is headed to a similar vacuum when Aoun’s term ends on October 31.
Ghanem said the situation in the country is different from what it was like in 2014. Politically, the number of candidates then was limited by a few known figures. Now, no clear frontrunner, major or serious candidates have emerged. The political forces are fragmented, he noted. The March 14 camp is no more, Iran is incapable of imposing its candidate the way Syria used to, and no candidate has the ability to garner enough votes to secure a win. Moreover, Lebanon does not have an acting government, only a caretaker one and debate is raging over its constitutionality. Ghanem expects vacuum to prevail and for quorum to remain unmet at the presidential elections sessions to prevent a candidate from any of the rival camps to be elected.

Audi: Let's implement our democratic system without equivocation or selectivity, after which we will address impurities
NNA/August 28/2022
Greek-Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of Beirut, Elias Audi, presided this morning over Sunday Mass at Saint George's Cathedral in Beirut. In his homily, the Prelate called for the unequivocal application of the Lebanese democratic system, before addressing the existing problems and challenges.
"The citizen is tired of controversies, tensions and continuous escalation...of racist promises, instability and political, economic and judicial tremors, and yearns for a peaceful life under a stable state, a stable system, and rulers who work for the public interest and the common good, with integrity and sincerity," Audi emphasized. He added: "Instead of slandering our system and our laws, let us first apply the laws before enacting others; let us respect the judiciary and refrain from interfering with its rulings; let us respect the constitutional deadlines and entitlements; and let each one adhere to one's limits and perform one's duties...In short, let us apply our democratic system and its provisions without equivocation or selectivity, and then study and treat the flaws."

Mikati on General Security's Day: We are all confident in the role of its leadership
NNA/August 28/2022
Prime Minister Najib Mikati tweeted on the occasion of the General Security's 77th anniversary, saying: "All appreciation to the General Security on its seventy-seventh anniversary, and we are all confident in the role of its leadership and the presence of its officers and elements in the process of protecting Lebanon and preserving its security and the safety of its people...Happy Anniversary!"

Deputy Sleiman to Iranian Ambassador: Your actions are witness to your quest for division
NNA/August 28/2022
MP Mohammad Sleiman commented via Twitter on the words of the new Iranian ambassador, Mojtaba Amani, about the Mufti of the Republic, considering that he has "once again fallen into the trap of his actions in dividing the Lebanese, which has appeared today in public."He added: "This compels us to respond to your words by underlining that Dar Al-Fatwa and its Mufti are greater than being divided or being home to a certain group of Muslims and Lebanese...We remind you of its national history and its men who rejected division and extremism of a faction, deserving its name as 'Dar Al-Fatwa' in the Lebanese Republic, and Mufti of the entire Republic...Your apology is useless in rectifying your words as long as your actions bear witness to your efforts to divide peoples into sects and confessions to sow discord among the sons of the one nation."

Nasrallah meets with Hamas Deputy Head, political bureau delegation
NNA/August 28/2022
Hezbollah Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, met Sunday with the Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri, accompanied by a delegation representing the Movement's leadership.
According to a statement issued by Hezbollah Party, "the latest political and field developments in Palestine, Lebanon and the region, especially the recent confrontations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, were reviewed and assessed, and the regional situation was discussed in light of recent developments."

Army: Intelligence responds to shooting in Brital, wounding wanted suspects
NNA/August 28/2022
Lebanese Amy Command said today on its Twitter page: "A patrol of the Intelligence Directorate came under fire while chasing wanted men in the town of Brital. Its members responded in kind, which led to injuries among the shooters, one of whom is in critical condition, without any injuries among the patrol unit members."

MoPH: 600 new coronavirus infections, two deaths
NNA/August 28/2022
Lebanon has recorded 600 new coronavirus cases and two deaths in the last 24 hours, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Sunday.

Completion of first phase of silos fire cooling plan, second phase to begin tomorrow
NNA/August 28/2022
The first phase of the Beirut Port silos fire cooling plan, which was set by the Beirut Fire Brigade, ends this Sunday as firefighters managed to reduce temperatures on site to below 50 degrees, after it was initially around 450 degrees.
The second phase will begin on Monday, in joint action with the contractor responsible for clearing the site of the rubble.

Ministry of Culture calls on the Lebanese to vote massively for the “Mayyas” Group
NNA/August 28/2022
In an issued statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Culture called on the Lebanese at home and across the world to support the "Mayyas" group by voting heavily for it upcoming September 6th, after the distinguished artistic group reached the semi-final stage on the "America's Got Talent" Program following its impressive feedback from the jury and its winning the "Golden Buzzer".In this connection, Caretaker Culture Minister Mohammad Wissam Al-Mortada, said on Twitter: "The Mayyas Group represent diversity and harmony in their national, cultural and artistic dimensions. Our hearts are with them, Lebanon is united behind them, and the voices of the Lebanese here and in the Diaspora must be theirs, extensively!"

Israeli enemy forces shoot over the heads of young men close to Al-Abbad site
NNA/August 28/2022
Marjayoun - The Israeli enemy forces fired (about 5 shots) in the air towards the Lebanese territory from the Al-Abbad site opposite the town of Houla - Marjayoun district, over the heads of some young men who were close to the aforementioned site, NNA correspondent reported this evening.

Hawat says no efforts will be spared to build a new state, calls for electing a president who brings together all the Lebanese, affirms Lebanon's...
NNA/August 28/2022
MP Ziad Al-Hawat emphasized, Sunday, that a basic and pivotal entitlement to build a strong state awaits us, adding, “I promise the fallen martyrs that we will spare no effort to build a new state and elect a president of the republic who resembles the martyrs, unites all the Lebanese, affirms Lebanon’s neutrality and sovereignty, and rebuilds institutions under the judiciary and the law.”Hawat’s words came during his participation in the Mass service in tribute to the fallen martyrs of the Lebanese resistance held this morning by the Lebanese Forces’ Qartaba branch in the "Monastery of Mar Sarkis and Bacchus” in the town of Qartaba. He considered that the martyrs of the Lebanese resistance sacrificed their lives “so that Lebanon remains a sovereign, free and independent country,” and so that “the national flag remains hoisted in the mountain peaks of the Lebanese villages and towns,” and so that “we remain steadfast in our land.”
The MP concluded by stressing that “we have a great duty to meet with all those who resemble the fallen martyrs, to work as one heart and hand, and to stay away from petty matters, trivialities and selfishness, in order to build a homeland in which we can stay with our children.”

Education and Culture - Al-Murtada from the border town of Ramieh: Lebanon is a country of diversity & coexistence, in contrast to Israel which thrives on racism
NNA/August 28/2022
Caretaker Minister of Culture, Judge Mohammad Wissam Al-Murtada, considered that "what we are experiencing is a natural result of the siege that Lebanon is being subjected to, as a current chapter of the ongoing war against it, since the usurping entity was established.”“Lebanon is a country of diversity and coexistence, in contrast to Israel which lives on racism and intolerance,” he said, adding that “as Lebanon becomes stronger, Israel fails.”“It is true that this siege aims mainly at undermining the strength of the resistance and its powerful military, political and security position, by forcing the people to rise-up against it...Yet, this is not the only reason. Lebanon, by nature of its composition, is the opposite image of the racist Israeli entity, which is based on crimes of all kinds,” the Minister maintained. Al-Murtada's words came during his patronage of a graduation ceremony for students in the border town of Ramieh earlier today.

Al-Makari: It is wonderful to witness an interest in culture in a time of drought & collapse
NNA/August 28/2022
Caretaker Minister of Information Ziad Al-Makari tweeted today: "The cultural activities in Zgharta Zawiya are continuous, and I was pleased to participate in the opening of the Ehden-Zgharta Public Library. It is wonderful to witness interest in culture in a time of drought and collapse...Thanks to the Rotary Club as well as to everyone who contributes to the development of the cultural movement in Zgharta."

Deputy Secretary-General of "United Nations Lebanon" warns of illegal immigration risks
NNA/August 28/2022
Abdel-Samad, held today a brunch at his Ammatour residence in the Shouf region, in which he gathered a group of elite figures in the presence of representatives of AILA WASHINGTON, and lawyers from Jordan and the UAE, with whom a partnership agreement in the field of investment and immigration was signed.In his delivered word during the event, Abdel-Samad welcomed his guests and presented them with an outline of meetings and international agreements and partnerships that help in strengthening Lebanon's role in major global institutions, linking the internal Lebanese reality to the world. In his capacity as a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Abdel-Samad spoke of the 2022 Annual Global Migration Forum and Webcast, where he warned of "the dangers of illegal immigration organized by human traffickers for material purposes," and called for "adopting legal immigration as the correct path."

MP Franjieh meets with VP of Lebanese Expatriate Community in Cotonou
NNA/August 28/2022
MP Tony Sleiman Franjieh received today at his Ehden office, the Vice President of the Lebanese Community residing in Cotonou (Benin), Mahmoud Ghazi Kodeih, who conveyed the greetings of the community and briefed him on its conditions, work sectors, cooperation and the extent of its members’ close connection with their mother country, Lebanon, that is suffering from many crises and challenges. Kodeih stressed that "the Lebanese community in Cotonou and in all of Africa will not abandon Lebanon, no matter the difficulties."
In turn, MP Franjieh wished the community and its new administrative body all success and progress to the benefit of Lebanon, its people and its diaspora, expressing his sincere greetings to the community.

Partial modification of MEA flights' schedule for September 2022
NNA/August 28/2022
The Middle East Airlines Company announced today that it has modified part of its flight schedule for September 28, 29 and 30, 2022, for operational reasons beyond its control. The modified flight departure times, the previous departure dates and the revised departure dates will be displayed according to a published schedule, while the remaining flights will be maintained.

The Many Meanings of 1982: Failure, Fundamentalism and Lies
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 28/2022
The year 1982 is being recalled often in Lebanon today because it is the 40th anniversary of many things. That year, the clash of sentiments and ideas that were born with the emergence of the country itself was crowned. But it was also the year that launched a new race to part ways and stirred hatred of the other that has not ended or waned. Many celebrated some of the incidents witnessed in 1982 while others abhorred them. Many others celebrated the incidents that the former abhorred and abhorred incidents that the former celebrated. One side’s festival was another’s funeral, and vice versa.
Some saw an opportunity in the expulsion of the armed Palestinian resistance from Lebanon that year, while others decried the fact that they had been rid of this resistance and saw that their hopes and aspirations had been expelled with it. Some bet on resisting the Israeli invasion after they themselves had been resisting the Palestinian resistance. Some were optimistic about Bashir Gemayel’s election as the country’s president, leaving it to others to celebrate his assassination a few days later. Some considered history to have been founded with the foundation of Hezbollah, and some considered this party’s foundation to have arrested history and that it will remain arrested until that party is defeated. The suffering witnessed that year turned it into a year of blood and tears; at the same time, more sweets had been distributed in celebration than any other. Since then, fleeting moments of tranquility have not been enough to inspire hope for a sustainable calm upon which a robust peace could be built: these moments resemble pains that abate in the day only to resurface in the night.
This, then, is the Lebanese way of life. This is how life goes.
Many things were revealed by the experiences that led to 1982 and those that ensued from the events of that year. However, one thing we know for certain is that failure or suspending the pursuit of meaning is its first headline. The Lebanese, after armed clashes that went on from 1969 to 1973 and many concoctions about reconciling the “state and revolution,” failed to agree on the matters that had to be agreed upon if their lives were to continue: a united strategy that ends the presence of an armed force that parallels that of the state and ensures the country’s Muslims a fairer share of power and the Palestinian civilians living there a decent life. Israel arrived and did half the job, leaving us divided around it as we had previously been divided about the Palestinian resistance. These two divisions found their monumental embodiments in the Two Years War and the War of the Mountain.
We became divided again when one segment of the Lebanese resisted Israel and another segment feared this resistance. The grip of the Syrian army and security apparatuses on Lebanon’s neck prevented this last division from openly exploding. Syria’s grip over the country was also a matter we were divided over, just as we would later become divided over the assassination of Rafik Hariri and politicians, journalists, and security officials and over Hezbollah’s aggravating role in Lebanese public life. Meanwhile, fanaticism and subjugation were the second headline. Almost no one wanted to contain their victory when it seemed to them that they had been winning.
The general Christian position, with the support of some of the Shiite traditionalists, was to opt not to meet Moussa al-Sadr’s modest demands for reform, and so the latter threw himself into the laps of Fatah and Damascus. The Muslims generally took the position of not openly stating their desire to disassociate from the Palestinian forces and have the state monopolize access to arms, though the interests of the Muslims themselves could only be guaranteed by such a monopoly. The majority of Christians, after the Israeli invasion, would accept only Bashir Gemayel as president of the republic. Having politicians like Camile Chamoun and Pierre Gemayel in office was no longer enough. The majority of Shiites, after the Iranian revolution, would accept nothing less than to carry arms, whether national territory was occupied or not; nor did they accept anything less than a fully-fledged state with its own arsenal, culture, and way of life, that parallels the Lebanese state and Lebanese society and controls them. As for the third headline, always the most important, it is the lies blended with ideology. With the Palestinian revolution before 1975, the lie had many names “national,” “socialist,” and “anti-imperialist.” Between 1975 and 1982, the Palestinian resistance was revealed as the “Army of the Muslims.’’As such, it found that the Christian city of Jounieh was a pitstop on the road to Palestine. In the same context, the Lebanese army was split, and what was called the Lebanese “Arab’’ Army was established.
In this sense, 1982 saw a major shift as the “nationalist socialist anti-imperialist” lie ended and the liars became more truthful in their lying: the Shiite resistance was an “Islamic” resistance, after the Christian resistance - which was never in the anti-imperialist camp in the first place - had been “Lebanese” resistance.
It has been 40 years of not agreeing to anything in principle and of collective willingness to do everything possible to humiliate and oppress the other, as well as falsifying the facts with the available deceptive terms… Hezbollah, from this angle, is the biggest and most bitter fruit that grew out of these perpetual tragedies that have come with an obvious fact: we won’t agree. The principle of “they see what we don’t and we see what they don’t” becomes an absolute principle with this party. We look at a wall facing the two of us, and each one of us sees a totally different color to that which the other sees.
Neither through the Taif Agreement, nor the Doha Agreement, nor the National Pact that preceded them or the 2019 revolution that succeeded them did we straighten things out. With that, we insist that things will be straightened out. Why this insistence? Really, why?

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 28-29/2022
Iran deal draft reportedly includes 4 phases, would take full effect after 165 days
Times Of Israel/August 28/2022
As Lapid and Netanyahu trade barbs over Iran approach, Haaretz cites draft proposal that would see a uranium enrichment freeze, sanctions relief and a prisoner release deal
A draft proposal from the final stages of negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal envisions the Iranians halting all uranium enrichment, but holding on to the material they already have, and a final US return to the pact less than six months after it is signed, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
The newspaper published what it said was a draft of the proposal submitted by the European Union to the Iranians last month as a final offer. Iran responded with its own comments and the US later provided its own input after reviewing the Iranian response. The EU has coordinated talks in Vienna on reviving the nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which has unraveled since the US pulled out in 2018.
According to the unsourced report, the EU draft proposed last month included four incremental steps in the halting of Iran’s nuclear activity and in the lifting of Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic, with the fourth and final step taking effect 165 days after the deal is signed.
The purpose of the gradual steps is to consolidate trust between the parties, according to the report.
Before any deal is signed, the sides will reportedly finalize a deal that will see Western prisoners freed by Tehran in exchange for Iranian assets being unfrozen by Western nations and initial sanctions relief.
The first step, taking effect on the day of the signing, would see Iran freeze its uranium enrichment, although it will be allowed to hold on to the enriched uranium it will have stockpiled before that date.
The report said the second step would take 30 days and will see the administration of US President Joe Biden bring the deal to Congress for approval. The third step, 60 days after congressional approval, would see Washington notify the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its decision to rejoin the pact.
The fourth and final step — after an additional 60 days — would see the US formally return to the deal, with the sides removing more sanctions and halting their violations of the JCPOA, according to the report.
An official with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters last week that under the emerging deal, Iran would not be allowed to possess uranium at 20% and 60% enrichment levels and it would be forced to switch off its advanced centrifuges, preventing it from amassing the material required to build a bomb.
A day before it gave its remarks to the EU, Washington said that Iran had agreed to ease key demands that had held up an agreement.
According to an anonymous US official, Iran’s draft does not include Tehran’s long-held demand that the US lift the terrorism designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and that the International Atomic Energy Agency close its investigation into unexplained traces of uranium at three undeclared sites.
Israel has piled pressure on Western countries to halt talks on reviving the agreement, warning against the consequences of returning to the accord. Mossad chief David Barnea will travel to Washington next week as part of the efforts to shape the deal.
A senior Israeli official told reporters Sunday that Israel wants “a minimum amount” of funds to be released to Iran through lifted sanctions, but did not specify if there’s a figure Israel could accept. Lapid last week claimed that the deal would enable $100 billion a year to flow into Iran’s coffers, money that he said could be directed to its terror financing.
The push toward finally signing a deal in Vienna also ignited a harsh exchange on Sunday between Prime Minister Yair Lapid and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Under Netanyahu, Israel fought the original 2015 agreement in the court of public opinion and in a particularly contentious direct address by Netanyahu to the US Congress, coordinated without White House involvement.
Lapid told reporters on Sunday that “we must not get to the situation we were in 2015. To this day, we are paying for the damage caused by Netanyahu’s speech in Congress, following which the US administration ended its dialogue with us and did not allow Israel to make amendments to the agreement.”
Netanyahu hit back in a statement proclaiming that “in the past year, Lapid and [Defense Minister Benny] Gantz completely abandoned the public struggle against the Iran nuclear deal.”
“For 12 years, we fought this deal with determination and even caused the US to withdraw from it. But in their only year in power, Lapid and Gantz let their guard down and enabled the US and Iran to reach a nuclear deal that endangers our future,” Netanyahu said.
He accused Lapid of failing to publicly challenge these efforts in Congress, in the UN or in foreign media, and of only “waking up” too late, after major progress was made in the talks.
In response, Lapid stated that “the damage [Netanyahu] caused during his tenure to the two issues most important to Israel — the struggle against Iran’s nuclear program and the relations with the United States — is severe and deep and we are still fixing it.”
Lapid said he has summoned Netanyahu for a security briefing on Monday, “so that he will at least have some idea what he’s talking about.” The pair are slated to meet in the afternoon at the Prime Minister’s Office.
For most of his tenure as opposition chief, Netanyahu has refused to personally take part in the periodical briefings.
Then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about Iran during a joint meeting of the United States Congress in the House chamber at the US Capitol on March 3, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP)
The National Unity party, an alliance of parties opposed to Netanyahu led by Gantz, also weighed in, tweeting that “history will judge Netanyahu who pushed for a [US] exit from the deal without creating an alternative.”
The party noted that Gantz met last week for the sixth time in the past year with the US national security adviser in order to deal with “Netanyahu’s legacy.”
Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett — who is currently abroad on vacation – moved the debate into private channels, attempting to avoid the relationship fallout that occurred between Israel and the Obama administration.
The 2015 agreement between Iran and six world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the US — gave the Islamic Republic sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
The JCPOA was designed to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon — something the country has denied it is pursuing.
After the US withdrew and imposed sanctions on Iran the latter dropped many of its own commitments, ramping up its program and enriching uranium to levels and stockpiles that exceed the JCPOA limits and raising concerns that it is approaching the threshold of producing a nuclear weapon.

War Monitor: Israeli Strike Targeted Missile Depot in Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
Satellite imagery showed widespread destruction at a giant military facility in western Syria targeted in a recent Israeli airstrike, and the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Sunday the strike targeted a depot housing hundreds of middle-range missiles for Iran-backed fighters. Syrian state media reported after the Thursday night attack near the cities of Tartus and Hama that two people were wounded and fires were sparked in nearby forests. It added that the missiles were fired from over the Mediterranean and most of them were shot down. Syrian opposition activists at the time said the strike targeted an arms depot and a scientific research center near the central town of Masyaf, a government stronghold. Masyaf is almost half way between the coastal city of Tartus and the central city of Hama. The Times of Israel on Sunday published images taken by Planet Labs PBC and provided by Aurora Intel, a network that provides news and updates based on open-source intelligence.
Aurora Intel tweeted that initial analysis of satellite imagery showed that some buildings and areas sustained heavy damage from the reported airstrikes. It added that areas around the Scientific Studies and Research Center sustained “heavy fire damage due to the secondary explosions.”
The imagery showed that part of the green areas surrounding the facility had been burned. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based opposition war monitor known as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the Israelis struck several positions but the main target hit was a giant arms depot housing about 1,000 precision-guided middle-range missiles. He said the explosions at the facility lasted for more than five hours after the strike. Abdurrahman added that an underground facility to develop missiles in the area under the supervision of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was not affected by the strikes, probably because it was dug deep in the mountains. He said the strike left one Syrian army captain dead and 14 other Syrians wounded. “The explosions were among the largest since Israel began carrying out airstrikes in Syria,” he said. There was no official comment from Israel’s military. Israel has made hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria over the past decade of its civil war, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations. It has, however, acknowledged that it targets bases of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s allies, including Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and other Iran-backed militias. Israeli military officials have said in the past that the strikes are against Iranian entrenchment in Syria. Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the top US Air Force officer in the Middle East, said he was “certainly aware” of reports that Israel targeted an arms depot in Syria in recent days but stressed there was “no connection” between that attack and the US airstrikes that hit Iran-linked targets in Syria last week. He said that the recent actions that the US military took “are entirely disconnected from any other actors, whether the Israelis or anyone else.”On the tit-for-tat attacks that raised tensions between the US and Iran-backed militias in Syria last week, Grynkewich said he hoped “things have de-escalated and now we’ve reached a point where deterrence is once again established.”

Syria asked Iran not to attack Israel from its territory - report
Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
The Iran-led axis decided to strike US bases in response to Israeli airstrikes in order to avoid a war, according to a Times report citing a source in Damascus. Syrian officials have asked Iran and its proxies not to conduct attacks against Israel from its territory, leading the Iran-led axis to retaliate against Israeli strikes by hitting American bases instead, The New York Times reported on Friday citing a source in Damascus. The request came during a virtual meeting between Iran and Iran-backed parties from Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. The meeting was reported by Gheis Ghoreishi, an analyst close to the Iranian government, and confirmed to the Times by a person in Damascus. The source in Damascus stated that the Syrians did not want an attack against Israel to be launched from their territory as that would risk an all-out war in the already destabilized country. Because of the request, the Iran-led "axis of resistance" targeted US bases in Syria in hopes that this would push America to pressure Israel to halt its strikes. Senior US officials told the Times that drone attacks carried out on August 15 against the al-Tanf base in Syria, which hosts US troops, was more sophisticated than previous attacks and may have been an Iranian attempt to respond to a previous Israeli airstrike.The day before the drone strike, at least three Syrian soldiers were killed in alleged Israeli airstrikes targeting sites near Tartus on the coast of Syria and near Damascus, according to Syrian state news agency SANA. US strikes target Iranians in Syria in response to drone attack
Last week, the US conducted airstrikes against the IRGC and Iran-backed militias in the Deir Ezzor region of eastern Syria in response to the August 15 attacks. Iran-backed militias responded with rocket fire, with the US responding to the rocket fire with further airstrikes.
"It's our assessment that these groups are testing and attempting to see how we might respond," said Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder after the US airstrikes last week. "I think, based on the strikes that we have taken, we've sent a very loud and clear message and a proportional message, that any threat against our forces who are operating in Syria, or anywhere, will not be tolerated."Iran decided to strike US bases in response to Israeli airstrikes. During the virtual meeting held by Iran and its proxies, military experts concluded that although the US military is stronger than Iran's proxies in Syria and would likely respond, the Biden administration was trying to defuse tensions in the region and would not start a new war. Based on that conclusion, the meeting participants decided to strike US bases in Syria in response to every Israeli strike. Last year, the Times reported that Iran-backed militias had targeted al-Tanf in response to Israeli strikes in Syria. On Thursday, alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted sites near Masyaf, according to SANA. A number of fires were sparked by the strikes, with blazes and secondary explosions reported for hours after the strikes. Initial reports indicated that at least one of the targets was the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center.

Israeli strike destroyed over 1,000 Iran-made missiles in Syria - SOHR
Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
A targeted warehouse, located within the SSRC, reportedly stored thousands of missiles assembled under the supervision of IRGC "expert officers." An airstrike Thursday on the Syrian city of Masyaf attributed to Israel hit a missile warehouse containing more than 1,000 Iranian-made missiles, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Saturday. The warehouse, in the city’s Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) complex, stored thousands of medium-range, surface-to-surface missiles assembled under the supervision of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “expert officers,” the report said.Syrian air-defense systems were activated in northwestern Syria on Thursday, with Syria’s state news agency SANA reporting that local forces were “confronting hostile targets” above Masyaf. Later, the agency said the airstrike was an Israeli attack.
Civilians injured, Masyaf area ablaze following alleged Israeli strike
According to SOHR’s report, 14 Syrian civilians sustained injuries with varying levels of severity during the Masyaf airstrike, in addition to casualties reported among officials of Iranian-backed militias guarding the SSRC. In addition, several fires broke out in areas surrounding Masyaf due to shrapnel from the explosions of the warehouse, with nearby civilian houses and property suffering material damage, the report said. According to Syrian reports, secondary explosions continued for hours after the strikes, along with the blazes caused by them. Local residents were reportedly instructed to shelter until the fires were brought under control. The SSRC has allegedly been targeted by Israeli airstrikes multiple times, including in a rare daytime strike on April 9.

Lapid pushing for call with Biden amid Iran nuclear deal concerns
Lahav Harkov/Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
Defense Minister Benny Gantz called to upgrade Israel's military capabilities to face Iran, even if nuclear deal is reached. Prime Minister Yair Lapid has requested a meeting with US President Joe Biden during his visit to the US for the UN General Assembly next month, amid deep concern in Jerusalem over an impending nuclear deal between Washington and Tehran. Lapid hopes to meet with Biden on September 20, the day that the US president is set to address the General Assembly, Channel 11 reported. The meeting would be a day or two before Lapid’s speech is likely to take place.
Meanwhile, Lapid has yet to be able to speak to Biden on the phone, despite recent advances in Iran talks, according to multiple sources. At first, the White House cited Biden’s summer vacation, but the president returned to Washington on Wednesday. The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on a possible Biden-Lapid call or meeting.
Defense preparations
Defense Minister Benny Gantz called to upgrade military capabilities to face Iran, regardless of whether a nuclear deal is signed, in a meeting with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan over the weekend. Gantz “emphasized the importance of maintaining and advancing operation capabilities for both defensive and offensive purposes in [the] face of Iran’s nuclear program as well as its regional aggression,” the Defense Ministry stated. “This is regardless of the discussion surrounding the agreement,” the ministry added. Biden has said that the US would attack Iran as “a last resort,” which some in Jerusalem have viewed as stopping short of a credible military threat that would deter the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear weapon. Gantz’s meeting with Sullivan came days after Washington submitted its response to Iran’s demands following a draft of the nuclear deal that was meant to be final, according to the talks’ coordinator, the EU. Lapid said that the US “accepted a large part of what we wanted them to put into the draft,” likely referring to Washington declining to provide additional guarantees to Iran about future sanctions and about closing International Atomic Energy Agency investigations into undeclared nuclear sites. However, Mossad chief David Barnea expressed concern in briefings to Lapid and other officials that the US is “rushing into an accord that is based on lies” and that the deal suits American and Iranian interests but is “very bad for Israel.” Gantz briefed think tank directors in Washington on Friday, warning that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that world powers have sought to revive would need a serious overhaul in order to prevent Tehran from attaining a nuclear weapon. “Iran has gained knowledge, infrastructure and capabilities – much of which is irreversible,” he said. “This will enable Iran to further expand its nuclear program during the period of an agreement that would have fewer restrictions. Iran would be able to acquire a nuclear weapon when said agreement would end in 2031.”"Iran has gained knowledge, infrastructure and capabilities – much of which is irreversible."
Why is Iran's nuclear situation a concern?
In recent years, Iran produced thousands of advanced centrifuges, and if, as the latest version of the deal stipulates, they would be stored and not destroyed, they will be readily available for enrichment once the agreement comes to an end – or if Tehran chooses to withdraw from it.
Gantz also pointed to the new advanced cascade at the Fordow site, where Iran is capable of enriching to 90% immediately, should it choose to do so. The defense minister also emphasized that Iran has obstructed IAEA investigations. “The common goal of Israel and the US is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the way to do so is to roll [the nuclear program of] Iran back and to deter it,” he said. “Israel will continue to take action to ensure its security regardless of any developments and to prevent Iran from achieving regional hegemony.”French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that the Iran deal, “if it’s concluded in the terms presented today, is useful and is better than no agreement.”Still, Macron admitted that the deal does not address Tehran’s “ballistic missile program, regional influence and multiple [acts of] destabilization.”“We have been very careful to ensure that the balance of a serious accord has been met,” Macron told reporters during a visit to Algeria. “The ball is now in Iran’s court.”"We have been very careful to ensure the balance of a serious accord has been met."He said Paris would back the IAEA to ensure outstanding issues were not impacted by political pressure.
*Reuters contributed to this report.

Mossad 'likely' behind Salman Rushdie stabbing, claims Denver professor
Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, said Rushdie's attacker may have been convinced to commit the attack by a Mossad agent. The stabbing of novelist Salman Rushdie last week may have been orchestrated by the Mossad, suggested Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver, in a Saturday interview with Negar Mortazavi, host of the Iran Podcast.
Questioning the timing of the attack, Hashemi highlighted what he believed to be two possible explanations.
Did Iran try to assassinate Salman Rushdie?
Hashemi said that one possibility is that Iran wanted to take vengeance on the United States for the 2020 assassination of IRGC general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at Baghdad Airport. "So one possible explanation," he said, "could be that after the assassination of Iran's top general in January 2020, Qassem Soleimani, Iran was looking to retaliate. And the Department of Justice, a few days before the attack on Salman Rushdie, announced that the Iranian [Islamic] Revolutionary Guard Corps were seeking to assassinate Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. So this could be one possible explanation. They couldn't go after Pompeo and Bolton, in other words, the IRGC couldn't go after those high-value targets so they chose a soft target such as Salman Rushdie. Perhaps, possibly, we don't know."
Was Israel's Mossad behind the stabbing of Salman Rushdie?
Another possibility, Hashemi said, adding that he believes this is more likely, is that Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar, had been convinced to commit the attack by a Mossad agent masquerading as an IRGC operative or supporter. "That so-called person online claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran could've been a Mossad operative." Nader Hashemi, Director, Center for Middle East Studies, University of Denver "The other possibility, which I actually think is much more likely, is that this young kid Hadi Matar was in communication with someone online who claimed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member or supporter and lured him into attacking Salman Rushdie and that so-called person online claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran could've been a Mossad operative."
Why would the Mossad attack Rushdie?
Hashemi went on to suggest that Israel's motive for carrying out a false flag operation would be to galvanize opposition to the ongoing efforts of world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement. "Israel has taken a very strong position against reviving the Iran nuclear agreement," he said. "We were in very sensitive negotiations, like an agreement was imminent, and then the attack on Salman Rushdie takes place. I think that's one possible interpretation and scenario that could explain the timing of this at this moment during these sensitive political discussions related to Iran's nuclear program."

Libya Capital Remains Tense a Day after Clashes Kill over 30
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
Militias patrolled nearly deserted streets in Libya’s capital Sunday, a day after clashes killed over 30 people, and ended Tripoli’s monthslong stretch of relative calm. The dead included at least 17 civilians, local authorities said. The fighting broke out early Saturday and pitted militias loyal to the Tripoli-based government against other armed groups allied with a rival administration that has for months sought to be seated in the capital. Residents fear the fighting that capped a monthslong political deadlock could explode into a wider war and a return to the peaks of Libya's long-running conflict.
Libya has plunged into chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi in 2011. The oil-rich county has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah's refusal to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathi Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli. Saturday's fighting centered in the densely populated city center and involved heavy artillery. Hundreds were trapped and hospitals, government and residential buildings were damaged. Burned vehicles were seen littered in the clashes area. The Health Ministry said at least 32 people were killed and 159 wounded in the clashes. Among those killed was Mustafa Baraka, a comedian known for his social media videos mocking militias and corruption. He was shot reportedly while live-streaming on social media. It was not clear whether he was targeted. The Associated Press spoke to dozens of residents and witnesses. They recounted horrific scenes of people, including women and children, trapped in their homes, government buildings and hospitals. They also spoke of at least three motionless bodies that remained for hours in the street before an ambulance was able to reach the area. They asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal from the militias. “We see death before our eyes and in the eyes of our children,” said a woman who was trapped along with many families in a residential apartment. “The world should protect those innocent children like they did at the time of Gaddafi.” Militias allied with Tripoli-based Dbeibah were seen roaming the streets in the capital early Sunday. Their rivals were stationed at their positions on the outskirts of the city, according to local media. Much of the city has suffered nightly power outages. Several businesses were closed Sunday and the state-run National Oil Corp. ordered its employees to work remotely on Sunday. Residents were still weary of potential violence and most stayed in their homes Sunday. Many rushed to supermarkets when the clashes subsided late Saturday to stock up on food and other necessities. Others were seen inspecting their damaged business, homes and vehicles. “It could be triggered in a flash. They (the militias) are uncontrolled," said a Tripoli school teacher who only gave a partial name, Abu Salim. “Our demand is very simple: a normal life.”Dbeibah’s government claimed the fighting began when a member of a rival militia fired at a patrol of another militia in Tripoli's Zawiya Street. It said the shots came amid a mobilization of Bashagha-allied groups around the capital. The claim couldn’t be independently verified. Militia clashes are not uncommon in Tripoli. Last month, at least 13 people were killed in militia fighting. In May, Bashagha attempted to install his government in Tripoli, triggering clashes that ended with his withdrawal from the city.

Jordan Army Thwarts Drugs Smuggling Operation from Syria
Amman - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
The Jordanian army announced on Saturday that its forces busted an operation to smuggle drugs across the border from Syria. They seized over 600,000 Captagon pills and 578 palm-sized sheets of hashish. A source at the command headquarters said that troops applied the rules of engagement, which led to the injury of one of the smugglers and the others retreated inside Syrian territory, reported the state news agency Petra. A vehicle loaded with large quantities of drugs, including the palm-sized sheets of hashish, 6447,000 Captagon pills, 1,876 Lyrica narcotic capsules, as well as devices and equipment set for smuggling were seized, the source said, adding that the contraband was referred to the competent authorities. The source reiterated that Jordanian armed forces will deal with all force to prevent any infiltration or smuggling attempt, protect the border and stand firmly against those who try to tamper with Jordan's national security. In February, Jordan declared that drug trafficking from Syria into the kingdom was becoming "organized" with smugglers stepping up operations and using sophisticated equipment including drones. Since the beginning of this year, Jordan's army has killed 30 smugglers and foiled attempts to smuggle into the kingdom from Syria 16 million Captagon pills -- more than they seized in the whole of 2021 -- the military said. On January 27, the army said it killed 27 traffickers in a clash as they tried to enter the kingdom from Syria. Some 160 groups of traffickers are operating in southern Syrian, near the border with Jordan, according to a Jordanian official. Large amounts of illegal drugs have been seized since the beginning of the year. This included 17,348 packs of hashish and more than 16 million Captagon pills -- compared to 15.5 million pills for all of 2021 and 1.4 million pills in 2020.
Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant manufactured mostly in Lebanon, although probably also in Iraq and Syria, and is popular across the region.

Sadrist Movement Calls for Establishment of New Iraq without Militias, Sectarianism
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
A spokesman for the Sadrist movement called on Sunday for the establishment of a new Iraq, devoid of militias, illegal possession of weapons, violence, fighting, sectarianism and warring parties.“No to sectarian quotas,” said Saleh Mohammed al-Iraqi, a close associate to Sadrist leader Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. He urged the establishment of a state of law “where brotherhood prevails, minorities are dignified, the judiciary is honest, balanced ties are forged with the outside, peace can reign, the army can protect, the government can serve, and religions and creeds are respected.”Iraqi had on Saturday called for holding new parliamentary elections in the country without the participation of all parties and politicians that have been part of the political scene since the 2003 American occupation. Sadr won the largest share of seats in the October elections but failed to form a majority government, leading to what has become one of the worst political crises in Iraq in recent years. His bloc later resigned from parliament and his supporters last month stormed the parliament building in Baghdad. His supporters have been holding a sit-in at parliament ever since.

Two US Navy warships transit through Taiwan Strait
Agence France Presse/Sunday, 28 August, 2022
Two United States warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, the American navy said, the first such transit since China staged unprecedented military drills around the island. In a statement, the U.S. Navy said the transit "demonstrates the United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific."
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait soared to their highest level in years this month after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei. Beijing reacted furiously, staging days of air and sea exercises around Taiwan. Taipei condemned the drills and missile tests as preparation for an invasion. Taiwan lives under constant threat of an invasion by China, which claims the self-ruled, democratic island as part of its territory to be seized one day -- by force if necessary. Washington diplomatically recognizes Beijing over Taipei, but maintains de facto relations with Taiwan and supports the island's right to decide its own future.
The US Seventh Fleet said the pair of Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers -- the USS Antietam and the USS Chancellorsville -- conducted the "routine" transit on Sunday "through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.""These ships transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State," a statement said. "The United States military flies, sails, and operates anywhere international law allows." The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) said the US had "openly hyped up" the ships' passage through the Strait. "The PLA Eastern Theatre Command is following and warning the US vessels throughout their entire journey, and is aware of all movements," spokesman Senior Colonel Shi Yi said. "Troops in the (eastern) theatre remain on high alert and are prepared at all times to foil any provocations."Taiwan's defense ministry confirmed a pair of warships sailed from north to south through the channel. "During their southward journey through the Taiwan Strait, the military is fully monitoring relevant movements in our surrounding sea and airspace, and the situation is normal."
'Freedom of navigation' -
The Seventh Fleet is based in Japan and is a core part of Washington's navy presence in the Pacific. The US and Western allies have increased "freedom of navigation" crossings by naval vessels of both the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea to reinforce the concept that those seas are international waterways, sparking anger from Beijing. Washington has said its position on Taiwan remains unchanged and has accused China of threatening peace in the Taiwan Strait and using the visit by Pelosi as a pretext for military exercises. China's drills included firing multiple ballistic missiles into waters off Taiwan -- some of the world's busiest shipping routes -- which was the first time Beijing has taken such a step since the mid-1990s. Taiwan staged its own drills, simulating a defense against invasion and displaying its most advanced fighter jet in a rare nighttime demonstration. Under President Xi Jinping, China's tone on Taiwan has grown more aggressive, with increased military activity and more combative messaging in recent years.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 28-29/2022
Europe's Twilight: Christianity Declines, Islam Rises
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/August 28, 2022
Comparing only the weekly frequency of Friday prayers in the mosque and Sunday Mass in the church, the future is clear: 65% of practicing Catholics [in France] are over 50 years old. By contrast, 73% of practicing Muslims are under the age of 50.
In an essay on L'Incorrect Frédéric Saint Clair, political scientist and analyst, explains that "the milestone of 10,000 mosques, at the current rate, will be reached around 2100". Will we have 10,000 full mosques and 10,000 practically empty churches?
"[A] mosque is erected every fortnight in France, while a Christian building is being destroyed at the same rate." — Edouard de Lamaze, president of the Observatory of Religious Heritage in Paris; Catholic News Agency, May 4, 2021.
"During my first trips to the Middle East, in the early 1980s, I did not see veiled women and gradually the veil spread everywhere. It is the sign of the re-Islamization of Muslim societies and, in this sense, it takes on a political and geopolitical dimension. It is part of a conquest strategy. France is in a state of self-dhimmitude.... a legal and political status applicable to non-Muslim citizens in a state governed by Islam according to a prescription of the Koran (9:29). [Dhimmis] do not enjoy equal citizenship with the 'true believers,' who are Muslims." — Annie Laurent, essayist and scholar author of several books on Islam, Boulevard Voltaire, May 19, 2022.
"...France, due to a colonial complex and a sense of guilt, anticipates a legal and political situation that is not (yet) imposed on it but which could be a day in which Islam it will be a majority and therefore able to govern our country.... [T]he situation is really worrying. Before it becomes dramatic, it is urgent to put an end to the concessions we are multiplying to Islamism by hiding behind our values. Because by doing so we erase our own civilization". — Annie Laurent, Boulevard Voltaire, May 19, 2022.
Christianity in Germany "seems stable, but in reality it is on the verge of collapse. Pastors and bishops, but also many actively involved lay people, see landscapes in bloom where in reality there is nothing but the desert ". — Markus Günther, essayist, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 29, 2014.
"Muslims, the winners of demographic change," headlined Die Welt. "US researchers predict that for the first time in history there will be more Muslims than Christians. Societies change. Even Germany's".
In Trier, Germany, where Karl Marx was born, the diocese announced an unprecedented cut in the number of parishes which, in the next few years, will be reduced from 900 to 35.
L'Echo, the main Belgian economic newspaper, says: "Brussels was at the forefront of secularization before confronting an active Muslim minority. The first religion in Brussels today is Islam".... Belgian anthropologist Olivier Servais confirmed a Muslim presence in Brussels at 33.5 percent, predicting a majority in 2030.
"A civilization is everything that gathers around a religion," said André Malraux. And when one religion declines, another takes its place. Comparing only the weekly frequency of Friday prayers in the mosque and Sunday Mass in the church, the future is clear: 65% of practicing Catholics in France are over 50 years old. By contrast, 73% of practicing Muslims are under the age of 50. Pictured: Fire consumes Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, on April 15, 2019.
French writer André Malraux said it: "A civilization is everything that gathers around a religion". And when one religion declines, another takes its place.
Sarcelles, Saint-Denis, Mulhouse, Nantes, Chambéry, Strasbourg, La Rochelle... The impressive images of stadiums full of Muslim faithful, who arrived from all over France for the feast of Eid Al Kabir, seventy days after the end of Ramadan. In Saint-Denis, the city where the kings of France rest; in Nantes, the city of the Dukes of Brittany; in Strasbourg, the city of the cathedral and seat of the European Parliament, in Mulhouse, in the heart of Alsace.
"In forty years, France has become the Western European nation where the population of Muslim origin is the most important," wrote Vatican Radio. "It is not difficult to hypothesize that we are now close to Islam overtaking Catholicism." What if the overtaking has already taken place?
"France is no longer a Catholic country", writes Frederic Lenoir, editor of the magazine Le Monde des Religions. Le Figaro wondered if Islam can already be considered "the first religion in France." We are in the country where up to 5,000 churches are at risk of demolition by 2030, Le Figaro noted last month. Five thousand churches are at risk of disappearing within eight years, in a country lacking the political, religious and cultural will to keep alive a millennial heritage that represents France's deepest soul. Perhaps the imam of the Grand Mosque of Paris understood what was evolving when he suggested using abandoned churches as mosques.
German writer Martin Mosebach observed that the "the loss of religion destabilizes a country". When a society no longer knows how to give itself a reason to exist, others find one and the void left by Christianity is soon filled. Even an atheist like Richard Dawkins acknowledged that "the sound of the [church] bells is better than the song of the [mosque] muezzin".
Islam is taking over Europe's post-Christian ruins. It is estimated that today in France, for each practicing Muslim, there are three practicing Catholics. But if you dig deeper into this analysis, that relationship is about to be reversed. Comparing only the weekly frequency of Friday prayers in the mosque and Sunday Mass in the church, the future is clear: 65% of practicing Catholics are over 50 years old. By contrast, 73% of practicing Muslims are under the age of 50.
Hakim El Karoui, President Emmanuel Macron's advisor on Islam and a researcher at the Montaigne Institute, states that Islam is now the most practiced religion in France. "There are more practicing Muslims, between 2.5 and 3 million, than practicing Catholics, 1.65 million".
The same applies to the construction of new religious sites. Today, in France, there are 2,400 mosques, compared to 1,500 in 2003: "This is the most visible sign of the rapid growth of Islam in France," notes the weekly Valeurs Actuelles.
In an essay on L'Incorrect Frédéric Saint Clair, political scientist and analyst, explains that "the milestone of 10,000 mosques, at the current rate, will be reached around 2100". Will we have 10,000 full mosques and 10,000 practically empty churches?
Not only has the Catholic Church built merely 20 new churches in France in the past decade, according to research conducted by La Croix. Edouard de Lamaze, president of the Observatory of Religious Heritage in Paris, the most important organization that monitors the state of places of worship in the country, revealed:
"Although Catholic monuments are still ahead, one mosque is erected every 15 days in France, while one Christian building is destroyed at the same pace... It creates a tipping point on the territory that should be taken into account."
Annie Laurent, essayist and scholar author of several books on Islam, and whom Pope Benedict XVI wanted as an expert for the synod on the Middle East, recently said in an interview published in Boulevard Voltaire:
"Despite the repeated assurances of firmness of the state towards Islamism and its rejection of every separatism, the opposite is happening: the advance of Muslim culture in different forms. A progress that seems to find no more limits and obstacles. There is the cowardice of public authorities who give in to electoral calculations or clients, and also the complacency of a part of our elites whose militancy is steeped in progressive ideology...
"During my first trips to the Middle East, in the early 1980s, I did not see veiled women and gradually the veil spread everywhere. It is the sign of the re-Islamization of Muslim societies and, in this sense, it takes on a political and geopolitical dimension. It is part of a conquest strategy...
"France is in a state of self-dhimmitude. What is dhimmitude? It is a legal and political status applicable to non-Muslim citizens in a state governed by Islam according to a prescription of the Koran (9:29). [Dhimmis] do not enjoy equal citizenship with the 'true believers,' who are Muslims. The dhimmi can maintain his religious identity but must undergo a series of discriminatory measures that can affect all aspects of life, public, social and private. Not all Muslim states apply all of these provisions today, but they are in force in some countries. However that may be, the principle remains as it is based on a 'divine' order.
"Muslims translate 'dhimmitude' with protection, which tends to reassure us, but the most appropriate translation is 'protection-submission': in exchange for the freedoms of worship or other freedoms more or less granted to them, they may be subject to special provisions, including Sharia, with the aim of making them aware of their inferiority.
"If I speak of self-dhimmitude, it is to express the idea that France, due to a colonial complex and a sense of guilt, anticipates a legal and political situation that is not (yet) imposed on it but which could be a day in which Islam it will be a majority and therefore able to govern our country. It should also be noted that Islam lives off the weakness of the societies in which it settles".
How far will we go? "I don't know, but the situation is really worrying," concludes Laurent.
"Before it becomes dramatic, it is urgent to put an end to the concessions we are multiplying to Islamism by hiding behind our values. Because by doing so we erase our own civilization".
Just two months ago, we had seen the same scenes for the end of Ramadan. Six thousand of the faithful celebrated at the Delaune Stadium in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. "Allahu Akbar" resounded from the loudspeakers placed in the four corners of the stadium. The same scenes could be seen in dozens of other stadiums throughout France, and in small and medium-sized cities: in Garges; in Montpellier (10,000 of the faithful in prayer); in Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, a town of 30,000 inhabitants, 5,000 gathered in prayer at the stadium. The celebration also took place in Gennevilliers.
You can see the same advance of de-Christianization and the growth of Islam, with different intensities, everywhere in Europe.
In a dramatic article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, essayist Markus Günther explains that Christianity in Germany "seems stable, but in reality it is on the verge of collapse. Pastors and bishops, but also many actively involved lay people, see landscapes in bloom where in reality there is nothing but the desert".
"We are turning our backs on our culture" writes Volkert Resing in the latest issue of the magazine Cicero, speaking of the end of Christianity in Germany.
"In 2021, an average of 390 children were baptized every day in Germany. Ten years ago there were 800 baptisms a day. Last year, 359,338 people left the Catholic Church and 280,000 people left the Protestant Church. In both cases it is a new record. Last year 21.6 million people belonged to the Catholic Church and 19.7 million were Protestants. The number of Christians in Germany who are members of one of the two largest churches fell below the 50 percent mark for the first time. The fall of the Christian West? And who cares".
"For the first time in centuries," according to the German magazine Stern, "most of the people in Germany are no longer in the two great churches. A projection assumes that in 2060 only 30 percent will be Catholic or Protestant". For that date, all Christian denominations will have lost half of their current members. And if in 1950 one in two Catholics participated in Sunday services, notes the largest German weekly Die Zeit, today only one in ten people who say they are Christians participate in religious services.
"The importance of Islam in Germany will increase and that of Christianity will decrease, explains Detlef Pollack, professor of sociology of religion at Münster University and the country's foremost expert on religious trends, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
"In 2022, for the first time, less than half of the Germans will belong to one of the great churches. There is a liquefaction. Muslim communities in Germany are undoubtedly vital compared to most Christian communities. By contrast Islam is a highly dynamic religion that aims at visibility".
For some time now, German public schools have been offering classes on Islam.
A Dresdner Bank study in 2007 predicted that "half of the churches in the country will close" and another that half of all Christians in the country will disappear. Within thirty years, according to the Pew Forum, there will be 17 million Muslims in Germany, compared to 22 million Christians between Catholics and Protestants, many of whom are only nominal (already today one-third of all Catholics are thinking of leaving the church) . The Muslim faithful settled in Germany will equal the total number of Catholics and Protestants.
This is a trend across the West. "Muslims, the winners of demographic change," headlined Die Welt. "US researchers predict that for the first time in history there will be more Muslims than Christians. Societies change. Even Germany's".
Between 1996 and 2016, Germany lost more than 3,000 parishes, down from 13,329 to 10,280. In Trier, Germany, where Karl Marx was born, the diocese announced an unprecedented cut in the number of parishes which, in the next few years, will be reduced from 900 to 35. Compared to their Christian counterparts, Islamic places of worship are growing; in the last 40 years, they went from non-existent to between 2,600 and 2,700. We realize how our world has changed only at the end of an epochal transformation.
Practically every day in the German press there are articles like this in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
"Generations of believers got married in the Kreuzkirche in the Lamboy area of ​​Hanau, they had their children baptized and there they mourned the dead. But the days when the rows of chairs were occupied even during the classic Sunday functions are long gone. The upcoming sale is a bitter new experience for Hanau. The culprit is the continuing decline in membership. This is due to demographic change and the numerous Muslim residents no longer provide a basis for a Christian community".
538 abandoned churches and 49 newly built: this is the sad balance of Catholic churches in Germany in the last 20 years.
In Bonn, 270 churches will be abandoned, some of which can already be purchased on the diocesan online service.
"The Ruhr diocese wants to keep only 84 churches and 160 will have to be used for a new purpose... Mainz and Hildesheim want to halve their churches. Aachen has started a process of reducing buildings by 30 percent. The archdiocese of Berlin has also decided to reduce the number of churches by a quarter".
From the diocese of Münster this month:
"87 churches have been deconsecrated. In various locations, churches are used as retirement and nursing homes for the elderly. Two churches in Marl alone are used as urn burial places. Apartments are being built in the St. Mariä Himmelfahrt church in Greven. Similar projects already exist, for instance, in Dülmen, Gescher and Herten-Bertlich. The former church of Sant'Elisabetta now serves as a sports hall".
In the entire archdiocese of Munich, the hometown of former Pope Benedict XVI, there are today just 37 seminarians in the various stages of formation compared to about 1.7 million Catholics. By comparison, the American diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska currently has 49 seminarians for about 100,000 Catholics.
You can see the same disintegration happening in Spain. "Spain is the third country with the greatest abandonment of Christianity in Europe," reported Spain's major newspaper, El Pais. Cardinal Juan José Omella, archbishop of Barcelona, ​​has sent to all parishes a message announcing the suppression of 160 parishes in Barcelona, so that each can make its own contribution before the plan is implemented. A headline in El Mundo reads: "Barcelona closes parishes due to the loss of faithful... The archbishopric will leave only 48 of the 208".
In 2015, there were 1,334 mosques in Spain -- 21% of the total number of all places of worship in the country. During a six months period in 2018, 46 new mosques were built, bringing the number to 1,632 mosques for that year. Mosque numbers are growing at a rate of 20 percent each year. In 2004, there were 139 mosques in Catalonia and in 2020 there were 284, or 104% more, according to the Catalonia Department of Justice.
In Andalusia the number of mosques in one decade increased from 27 to 201; in Valencia, from 15 to 201 and in Madrid, from 40 to 116. Demography is the engine of cultural change. "By 2030," according to El Pais, "the Muslim population in Spain will increase by 82 percent".
The same situation exists in Austria. According to Die Welt:
"In Austria, the Catholic faith is in decline, Islam is on the rise. There will be far fewer Catholics in the future, while the number of Muslims and non-denominational people will increase significantly, experts predict. In 2046, one in five Austrians will profess Islam. In Vienna, Islam will be the strongest religion: in 30 years, one in three Viennese will be Muslim. The percentage of Catholics will be only 42 percent in the country, dropping to 22 percent in Vienna". In 1971, Catholics represented 78.6% of the population of Vienna; in 2001, just over half; in 2011, 41.3% and in thirty years Catholics will be only one third of the total."
If the churches are empty, 3,000 people gather for Friday prayers in Floridsdorf, the first mosque in Vienna. The mosque was officially erected in 1979 in the presence of the then President Rudolf Kirchschläger, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and Cardinal Franz König. Today the muezzin can call to prayer three times a day.
Christianity is no longer the first religion; Islam has taken its place. This shift should be grounds for discussion, not to say of concern -- certainly not of cheerful indifference.
L'Echo, the main Belgian economic newspaper, says: "Brussels was at the forefront of secularization before confronting an active Muslim minority. The first religion in Brussels today is Islam".
The monthly Causeur reminds us that Le Vif-L'Express (the main French-language newspaper) published a provocative front page entitled "Muslim Brussels in 2030". Belgian anthropologist Olivier Servais confirmed a Muslim presence in Brussels at 33.5 percent, predicting a majority in 2030.
In Saint-Chamond, a French town of 35,000, the town hall recently ordered the disposal of the main church of the city, Notre-Dame, built in the 19th century. Closed for worship since 2004, deprived of the crosses that proudly towered over its spiers, this church, in view of its transformation into a cultural project, has just been condemned to deconsecration. Meanwhile, last week, near what remains of Notre-Dame, the muezzin called over the loudspeakers for the Muslim faithful to come to prayers.
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
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An End to the Delusions About Biden, Iran and Israel?
Jonathan S. Tobin/Israel Today/August 28/2022
Lapid’s claim about influencing Washington notwithstanding, the failure of Jerusalem’s impotent and belated nuclear-deal protests should be a wake-up call.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid arrives to a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on July 31, 2022.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid arrives to a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on July 31, 2022. Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/POOL
(JNS) Like any gambler who is willing to seize on any glimmer of hope that irresponsible betting will be rewarded with an unexpected reversal of fortune, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid was sounding hopeful this week. The Israeli government that he now leads spent the last year wagering the Jewish state’s security on the idea that better relations with the Biden administration and a decision to downplay differences would influence Washington to finally show some spine and stop appeasing Iran. So, it was hardly unexpected that Lapid would seize on the news that the United States had “hardened” its response to the latest Iranian counter-offer in the talks about renewing the 2015 nuclear deal.
The “good news” consisted of a report claiming that Lapid had been told by Washington that it would not give in to Iranian demands that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cease investigating Tehran’s nuclear program or take the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) off the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Shorn of context, that might be an encouraging development. But with the international media publishing multiple stories based on leaks from the administration about an agreement between the two sides being imminent, the notion that any victory on these two points, whether temporary or not, vindicates the decision Lapid’s tactics is risible.
Even taken in isolation, these points don’t mean that much.
As bad as giving in on that point would be, the IRGC issue is largely symbolic. If a new deal is reached, Iran’s terrorist arm will be immeasurably strengthened and enriched along with the rest of the regime, regardless of whether they’re on a US list of terror groups. It’s also true that even if Iran doesn’t get Biden to agree to drop the involvement of the IAEA altogether, that means nothing. As the Iranians have demonstrated ever since former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign-policy achievement was put into force in 2015, they have no compunctions about repeatedly violating it, especially with regard to flouting the components requiring compliance with IAEA regulations.
More to the point, if these provisions and other points of equal importance are the only obstacles standing between an agreement, then Lapid knows his hopes of persuading the administration not to sign a new deal are negligible. As Lapid has recently reiterated, Israel’s position is that the United States and its partners in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are making a huge mistake. Mossad chief David Barnea has been adamant in insisting that the plan is a “strategic disaster” for Israel and based on “lies.”
Far from stopping the Iranian quest for a nuclear weapon, like the 2015 JCPOA, a new deal would more or less guarantee that they will soon have one. As Barnea said, it “gives Iran license to amass the required nuclear material for a bomb” in a few years, after which the restrictions on its program will expire at the end of the decade. At the same time, the lifting of sanctions will allow the Iranians to expand their oil sales and also give them billions in currently frozen money. That will make the despotic theocracy stronger at home and better able to repress dissent. It will also allow them to increase funding to their terrorist proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the Houthis in Yemen, making the Middle East immeasurably more dangerous for Sunni Arab nations as well as Israel.
That’s why the decision Lapid made in conjunction with his erstwhile coalition partner, former Prime Minister Naphtali Bennett, to cozy up to Biden is also a disaster. The fact that Biden wouldn’t even take a phone call from Lapid in which he might have argued his case on the issue this week had to sting. Being told the president was “on vacation” and would speak to him another time—when an existential question like a nuclear Iran is on the table—is not exactly the response he expected when he heralded the shift from high octane advocacy on the issue that was favored by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to quiet behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
It’s true that few thought that 19 months into the Biden presidency, the United States would still be seeking a new accord with Iran. The widespread assumption, especially on the part of Biden and the Democrats, was that having taken former Secretary of State John Kerry’s advice to not negotiate with the Trump administration after it withdrew from the deal, Tehran would be eager to quickly sign up for more American appeasement. Instead, its leaders have returned to the same hard-nosed negotiating tactics that won them so many devastating concessions from Obama. The result has been more concessions and, contrary to Biden’s promises, another deal that will ignore Iranian terrorism, illegal missile-building and, like its predecessor, has an expiration date.
While Biden’s apologists blame Iran’s progress towards a bomb on former President Donald Trump for his decision to pull out from the deal, that is misleading. While we don’t know for sure what would have happened had Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign continued into 2021, it had a chance of success in forcing the Iranians to negotiate a better agreement. It was Biden’s election that doomed that strategy and nothing else.
But at this point, the dilemma facing the Israelis is not whether or not to blame Trump or—as some on the Israeli left also falsely claim—that it is somehow Netanyahu’s fault for not attacking Iran earlier or for opposing Obama’s effort.
Rather, Jerusalem must now confront two crucial issues. One is how to cope with the impending reality of a newly empowered and enriched Iran. The second is whether to risk angering Biden by taking actions, either military or further covert operations, to forestall the Iranian threat at a time when the United States will be trying to pretend that it has solved the nuclear problem.
Once a new nuclear deal is in place the assumption that Israel can act with impunity to attack or sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities is magical thinking. The notion that, as Barnea and other Israeli officials continue to claim, Jerusalem will retain its freedom of action to do what it thinks is in its best interests, as well as that of its new Arab allies who are also afraid of Iran, is just not true.
It remains to be seen who will lead Israel after the Knesset election in November. Whether it is Netanyahu or Lapid (who is unlikely to win a majority but could hang on if the election results in another stalemate), the idea of openly flouting America’s wishes at a time when Washington will, however falsely, claim the nuclear peril is averted, isn’t something either man would do except as a last resort.
That means that in spite of the obvious dangers this presents in terms of eventual nuclear peril and an immediate increase in the threat level from terrorism, Biden thinks that he can force Israel to live with an Iran that is a threshold nuclear state. He will do this by offering carrots in terms of aid and empty assurances about taking action if Iran were to break out to a nuclear weapon.
Israel will have to wait until 2025—and the return of Trump or some other Republican to the White House—at the earliest to have an American president who will understand that unless the deal is scrapped and replaced with something stronger, the West will be standing by feebly accepting Iran getting a weapon once its restrictions expire. Having such an American partner in confronting Iran is a long way off, and even then, not a certainty. Until then, Israel’s government must learn from its mistakes.
By failing to raise the alarm about Iran in the vain hope of influencing Biden to stand up to Iran, Israel has undermined efforts to mobilize opposition to appeasement in the United States. Lapid and Bennett took for granted the ability of Israel’s friends in Congress to pressure Biden against this folly or simply discounted any possibility that the administration could be stopped.
That was a mistake.
Whoever runs Israel’s government in the coming year will need to drop the “nice guy” routine with Biden and return to a tougher approach that can encourage the Jewish state’s many friends to speak up. For all of the trappings and benefits of this great friendship even under Biden, a US-Israel relationship that is predicated on Jerusalem keeping quiet about American policies that are abetting an existential threat is no alliance at all. While the Jewish left has acted as if standing up for Israel’s interests will damage the alliance, what we’ve learned in the last year is that not speaking up can do even more harm to it.
*Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

It’s Time to Bomb Iran
Ruthie Blum/Israel Today/August 28/2022
Once the new nuclear deal is signed, Israel’s legitimacy to act militarily against Iran will disintegrate, says former Israeli Navy commander.
(JNS) With the United States and its P5+1 partners on the last stretch of their frenzied race to sign a new version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, a number of retired Israel Defense Forces generals and current think-tank experts have been taking the opportunity to insist that “a bad deal is better than no deal.”
Take Israel Ziv, for instance. A panelist on Saturday afternoon of Channel 12’s “Meet the Press,” the former head of the IDF Operations Directorate argued that the absence of a deal, or violation of it by any of the parties, will not prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold in any case.
He then proceeded, peculiarly, to downplay the significance of the multi-billions of dollars that an agreement would grant Tehran for the development of its nuclear capabilities, while at the same time stressing that the money would be spent on terrorism. Indeed.
Nevertheless, he added, a deal would buy “crucial time” for Israel. Whatever that means. Though all other participants in the discussion—with the exception of former Israeli Navy commander Vice Adm. (ret.) Eliezer Marom—conceded that a deal is just around the corner, and that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, they clung to two absurd claims.
One was that former US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 was a mistake, because it enabled Tehran to hone its nukes unmonitored. You know, as though the mullahs were allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to uranium-enrichment sites.
The other was that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s staunch stance against the deal, and famous address to a joint session of Congress in 2015, did nothing but anger outgoing US President Barack Obama and cause him to abstain from, rather than veto, a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel.
The purpose of this distortion, other than to kill two birds (Trump and Netanyahu) with one stone, is to defend the interim “anybody but Bibi” government’s policy of kowtowing to the administration of US President Joe Biden. Prime Minister Yair Lapid, like his immediate predecessor and “alternate,” Naftali Bennett, had set out to illustrate that once Netanyahu was no longer at the helm, Israel would enjoy full bipartisan support in America.
To this fruitless end, Bennett vowed last year to Biden that Jerusalem would make no military or other moves without first informing Washington. Lapid, of course, took up that torch and ran with it.
The trouble is that it’s not a reciprocal arrangement. Perhaps this explains why Lapid has had trouble reaching Biden by phone of late. The latter leader clearly isn’t interested in being coached, yet again, about the safeguards that have to be included in the deal to make it palatable to Israel.
Meanwhile, Lapid has been trying to perform some kind of pointless balancing act. On the one hand, he announced on Wednesday that “[if] a [nuclear] deal is signed, it does not obligate Israel.”During a briefing with foreign correspondents at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, he said:
“The Iranians are making demands again; the negotiators are ready to make concessions, again. This is not the first time this has happened. The countries of the West draw a red line, the Iranians ignore it and the red line moves.”
He was referring to Tehran’s response to what the European Union dubbed last week as the “final draft” of the agreement, telling Iran to “take it or leave it.”
However, as he pointed out:
“The Iranians, as always, did not say, ‘No.’ They said, ‘Yes, but,’ and then they sent a draft of their own, with more changes and demands.”
After listing a number of reasons that the imminent agreement is a “bad one,” he concluded:
“We will act to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state. We are not prepared to live with a nuclear threat above our heads from an extremist, violent Islamist regime. This will not happen, because we will not let it happen.”
On the other hand, he was taken aback, and even peeved, by similar comments made on Thursday by Mossad chief David Barnea. Apparently, Barnea’s wording and tone weren’t to his liking, as they may have been construed by the White House as too critical.
Yet all Barnea did was call the deal a “strategic disaster” for Israel and state that the United States “is rushing into an accord that is ultimately based on lies.” Nothing inaccurate there. But Lapid is worried about offending Biden—and even more averse to sounding anything like Bibi.
It is thus that he made sure to tell the foreign press:
“We have an open dialogue with the American administration on all matters of disagreement. I appreciate their willingness to listen and work together. The United States is and will remain our closest ally, and President Biden is one of the best friends Israel has ever known.”
With friends like these, Lapid would do well to shut out voices such as Ziv’s and heed Marom, who rejected the “buying time” excuse. Once a deal is signed, he said, Israel’s legitimacy to act will disintegrate, so the window is quickly closing.
Asked if he meant that Israel should actually launch an attack on Iran, he was unequivocal.
“Yes,” he said, as his fellow panelists removed their heads from the sand just long enough to shake them in disgust. No wonder Iran and its proxies in the Palestinian Authority are attempting to block a Netanyahu victory in the upcoming Knesset elections.
*Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’”

Did Iran copy Israeli missiles for its drone production? - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 28/2022
A Ukrainian report claiming that Iran copied Israel's Spike anti-missile tank and put it on a drone has been circulating in Iran - exactly how Iran wants. Iran’s latest drone capabilities, documented in photos from a recent Iranian drone exercise, were captured by Iran’s Fars News and a Ukrainian website named Defense Express. The Ukrainian report alleges that Iran has copied Israel’s Spike anti-tank missile and installed it on a drone. And this isn’t new. Iran has increased the capabilities of its drones in recent years. Some of the claims Iran makes about its drones’ capabilities cannot be substantiated and it is not always clear how well the machines really perform. On the other hand, it is clear that Iranian drones are being increasingly used in the region by militant and terrorist groups and that Iran is exporting drones to Africa, South America and Central Asia. Recent reports even pointed to possible Iranian drone technology transfers to Russia. The Ukrainian report specifies the Iranian Mohajer-6 drone, how it has been equipped with “anti-tank missiles and guided aerial bombs,” and discusses what kinds of threats Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can now muster.
Why is a Ukrainian site reporting on Iranian drones?
The Ukrainian interest in this issue could be purely a military analysis since the website is interested in defense issues, but there may be more here as well. Ukraine has used armed drones to try to slow the advance of the Russian military throughout the six-month war. Ukraine has used American and Turkish drones, as well as locally developed drones. Ukraine has an interest in knowing whether Iranian drones might be exported to Russia. The Mohajer line of drones is an export model, so Iran’s ability to install missiles on it is an important development that would capture Ukrainian attention. “It is currently unknown whether the Russian Federation will buy these UAVs; however, the other day, high-quality photos of weapons under the wings of this and other UAVs ‘lit up’ on the Internet, which gives reason to talk about them,” read the report. It added that photos from the recent Iranian drone exhibition drill show an “Almas anti-tank guided missile under the wing of an Israeli Mohajer-6 drone. The Iranian ATGM with this guided missile was introduced in July 2021. In fact, Almas is a copy of the Israeli Spike, the missile received a hi-tech homing head and a warhead, the declared range of this missile is up to 8,000 meters.”
What other drones were at this drill?
The drill also showcased a drone called Kaman-12 which Iran claims can fly at a speed of 200 kph (125 mph) and remain airborne for 10 hours with a range of some 2,000 km (1,245 miles). Iran also showcased its Qaem bomb, a weapon that it claims is laser-guided and has infrared homing. Images showed the operators watching a screen with the bomb heading toward a target. The reports say these were Qaem 5 and Qaem 9 bombs. “The stated range of hitting the targets of these aerial bombs is 15-20 km. depending on the altitude of the UAV flight,” the report says. “The stated range of hitting the targets of these aerial bombs is 15-20 km depending on the altitude of the UAV flight.”
Ukrainian media outlet Defense Express
What about the Iranian report?
Iran's Fars News reported on the Ukrainian report – practically word-for-word – with the headline, “What weapons do Iranian drones carry?” This is sort of an ironic question for Iranian media to ask since it is the Iranian government and state media, such as IRNA, which have been publishing Iranian propaganda photos of the drones and their alleged capabilities. Iranian media is trying to launder foreign reports to legitimate their own government claims. The idea here is to point to the foreign report as “confirming” the capabilities, even though no one can substantiate the capabilities independently. Iran does export the Mohajer line of drones to places like Venezuela and Ethiopia, yet it is unclear how well the drones perform. Overall, the Iranian goal here is to show that their drones have the same kinds of capabilities as American, Israeli, Turkish or other armed drones. Putting anti-tank missiles and long-range bombs on the drones would seem to give Iran a new capability, but it is unclear how much evidence there is that these drones actually work, that they can really fly the long distances Iran claims, and that they can deploy missiles and bombs. There are many issues involved in using drones at a long range and launching missiles and bombs from them. It requires an operator to be in the loop during the drone’s flight, which necessitates having ways to communicate with the drones. It is unclear if Iran can do this when its drones are so far away from the country, or from Iranian operatives in places like Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Yemen. Iran, in the past, has programmed drones to fly via waypoints and then kamikaze into the target. Last year, Iran also used drones to target the bridge of a moving ship in the Gulf of Oman, showcasing its increased capabilities to command and control the drones during the attack.
Many Iranian drone models are copies of foreign drones or build on the successes of foreign drones. For instance, Iranian drone models often appear to try to copy other drones, such as the US Predator or Reaper, or the Israeli Heron, Eitan and Hermes drones. The times Iranian drones have been more successful can be credited to Iran making them as cheap and expendable as kamikaze drones. It has sent the technology for these more simple drones to Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and even Gaza. Iran’s success with the Mohajer 6 and other larger drones, and putting missiles on them, is still a major hurdle for Tehran, especially if it wants to export them in the future. Iran has learned from Turkey’s success exporting the Bayraktar that it needs a consistent platform that can be armed. For that reason, it wants its capabilities to be publicized in foreign reports.

US must counter Iran’s influence in Syria
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 28/2022
The Iranian regime has turned Syria into a proxy battleground as tensions between the US and Tehran increase in that theater. It is one of the major policies of Iran to turn other countries in the region into proxy battlegrounds in order to advance its political interests and hegemonic ambitions.
The US military last week carried out airstrikes in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province that targeted “infrastructure facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” according to a statement by Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for US Central Command. The order came directly from President Joe Biden, who “gave the direction for these strikes pursuant to his Article II authority to protect and defend US personnel by disrupting or deterring attacks by Iran-backed groups.”
Earlier this month, a drone attack hit a compound run by American troops and US-backed Syrian opposition fighters in the eastern part of Syria, near the borders with Jordan and Iraq. Maj. Gen. John Brennan, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve, pointed out that such attacks “put the lives of innocent Syrian civilians at risk and undermine the significant efforts by our Partner Forces to maintain the lasting defeat of (Daesh).”
Syria is a core pillar of the Iranian regime’s strategy in the Middle East. Some Iranian leaders even think of Syria as being part of Iran. For example, Mehdi Taeb, a confidant of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, once famously said that Syria is Iran’s “35th province… if we lose Syria, we won’t be able to hold Tehran.”The Iranian regime appears to have penetrated every Syrian governmental organization, including its security and military infrastructures. Iran’s IRGC and its elite Quds Force, which carries out operations beyond Iran’s borders, are the key players. The regime also relies on its paramilitary groups and Shiite militia proxies.
While Iran’s hard-liners favor interventionist policies, there are no significant differences between Iranian political factions when it comes to the regime’s Syria policy, which is most likely directed by Khamenei personally, as well as by the senior cadre of the IRGC and the Quds Force. To more effectively infiltrate and control Syria, the Iranian regime has been building and opening schools and attempting to convert some Sunni mosques into Shiite ones in order to alter the country’s demographics in its favor.
The Iranian regime also uses Syria as a proxy battleground to score points against Israel. By exploiting instability in Syria, the IRGC and Quds Force enjoy a military presence close to the border of Israel. The IRGC has also established permanent military bases in Syria and has significant control over some of the country’s airports. From the Iranian leaders’ perspective, this helps tip the regional balance of power in their favor.
The Iranian regime has also gone further and set up factories that are involved in manufacturing advanced ballistic missiles and other weapons inside Syria. These include precision-guided missiles with the technology to strike specific targets. Iran’s foreign-based weapons factories give it an advantageous military capability for waging wars or striking other nations through third countries, such as Syria.
One of the most effective ways to reduce the Iranian regime’s influence in Syria is to cut the flow of funds to the government, the IRGC and Quds Force. The proposed nuclear deal will, instead, increase Tehran’s revenues. For example, in 2013 and 2014, the theocratic establishment was in a difficult situation financially due to the UN Security Council’s four rounds of sanctions. The pressure on Tehran was reflected in speeches by Khamenei, who anxiously called on Assad to control the situation in Syria. Unfortunately, the 2015 nuclear deal changed things. Billions of dollars poured into Iran’s treasury, providing significant relief. Financial and military support for Assad increased and Tehran later publicly acknowledged having forces on the ground in Syria.
The Iranian regime appears to have penetrated every Syrian governmental organization, including its security and military infrastructures.
The new nuclear deal will not moderate the regional policy of the Iranian regime. Instead, the hard-liners — primarily the supreme leader and the leaders of the IRGC — will act to strengthen their monopoly over the political and economic systems. And the major beneficiaries of Iran’s improving economic status are going to be the gilded circle of Khamenei, the IRGC, the Quds Force, the Ministry of Intelligence, the Basij military force and Iran’s allies, including Bashar Assad in Syria and Tehran’s proxies across the region. In other words, the nuclear deal will mean that the Iranian regime will have more funds to invest in its military and its proxy groups and to further interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs.
The US administration needs to implement a comprehensive policy, including cutting the flow of funds to the IRGC, in order to effectively counter Iran’s destabilizing policy in Syria.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Why the fight against drugs is so important
Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/August 28/2022
US President Joe Biden’s April announcement of his inaugural National Drug Control Strategy, which outlines a whole-of-government approach aimed at beating the overdose epidemic, is receiving praise from public health and safety leaders and congressional, state and local officials across the country.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines any mental illness as having a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder other than a developmental or substance use disorder. Any mental illness covers anybody who has a mild mental illness, moderate mental illness or severe mental illness. US Democratic Rep. French Hill last month praised the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s approval of a draft resolution on developing a strategy to disrupt and dismantle drug production and trafficking networks linked to the Syrian regime. Hill said in a July 29 press release that drugs “not only cripple local populations, they also serve to fuel hostilities and finance the Assad regime and Iran-backed groups in the region.”
The most popular opioid among teenagers is meth because it is very cheap and accessible. If you have watched “Breaking Bad,” you can clearly see how drug dealers do business and that young people take these drugs regardless of the possibility of overdose or death.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 percent of people in America have a cognitive disability, even when adjusted for age. The percentage of people with mental disabilities ranges from 8.9 in some states to 19.6.
The Syrian regime, led by the family and friends of Bashar Assad, is a major manufacturer and exporter of Captagon, as well as a leader of trade in the drug with businessmen with close ties to Hezbollah. An investigation published last year by a local Syrian news organization on the spread of drugs in the south of the country stated that the amount of drugs that entered Jordan across the border with Syria in 2020 was estimated at 40 tons of hashish and more than 83 million Captagon pills.
After the Jordanian authorities reopened the country’s borders with Syria, the flow of drugs dramatically increased. This is precisely how Biden opened America’s borders to illegal migrants, welcoming the good, the bad and the ugly. The drugs cartels have been living “la vida loca” as business is booming, and they have back orders on human trafficking.
The most popular opioid among teenagers is meth because it is very cheap and accessible. The Middle East and drugs have similar stories in Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq. And you can imagine how the militants and terrorists in these countries operate to fund their activities. Hezbollah depends on its drug harvests for both use and sale. Drugs enter Iraq from more than one source, but the most abused type is Iranian meth due to its low price and substantial impact on the user. Drug abuse in Iraq is not limited to a particular city or a geographical area, but includes all regions, from Kurdistan in the north to the country’s south. Some towns have even become manufacturers of narcotics. I watched several of the videos made by terrorists before they carried out their evil attacks in Iraq and other places and noted that these young men must have been on some sort of drugs. No one in their right mind would be willing to kill themselves in order to hurt innocent people.
*Dalia Al-Aqidi is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy. Twitter: @DaliaAlAqidi