English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For December 31/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 01/01-18/:”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.We have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 30-31/2021
Aoun Hits Back at Those Accusing Him of Seeking Partition
IMF Negotiations to ‘Deepen’ as Delegation Visits Lebanon in January
Iran State TV Says Tehran Launches Rocket into Space
Saudi King Urges Lebanon to Stop Hizbullah 'Hegemony'
Judge Aoun Says Salameh’s Lawsuits Going Round in Circles
Lebanon Seizes Captagon Shipment in Fake Oranges
Lebanon Records 3,150 Covid Infections as Cases Surge Across the World
Hezbollah deploys air defense systems in Syria’s Qalamoun mountains/Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
Lebanon Seizes Captagon Pills in Shipment to the Gulf
Satellite Images Show Smoldering Wreckage at Syria Port
Lebanese cling to slender hopes of a better 2022/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/December 29, 2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 30-31/2021
Israeli Army Prepares List of Iran Targets
Iran State TV Says Tehran Launches Rocket Into Space
US Navy Seizes Heroin Aboard Vessel Likely Coming from Iran
Iran Federation Defends Footballer Over 'Israel Flag' Jersey
Iran launches 'three research cargos' into space
'The US is very pleased' with Gantz-Abbas meeting
Gantz-Abbas meeting makes good common sense - editorial
Netanyahu: Iran is racing ahead while Bennett remains silent
Palestinians expect little from Gantz meeting with 'unpopular' Abbas
US Delays Opening Consulate in Jerusalem, Compensates Palestinians
King Salman Hopes Iran Would Change its Negative Behavior in the Region
Sudan’s security forces kill 4 at anti-coup rally, raid Al Arabiya offices
Putin Says 'Effective Dialogue' with U.S. Possible

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 30-31/2021
Iran reads what Israeli officials say, and claims it is winning/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
Social Media NOT Censoring Muslim Hate Speech and Incitement to Murder/Raymond Ibrahim/December 30, 2021
American Traitors: Academics Working for China/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/December 30, 2021
Iran threatens nuclear explosion in Israel’s Dimona facility/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
In Gaza, what was continues to be - analysis/Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
With US retreat, new year brings opportunities for Gulf countries/Jonathan Gornall/The Arab Weekly/December 30/2021
Sadr or no Sadr, Iran is not going anywhere/Ibrahim al-Zobeidi/The Arab Weekly/December 30/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 30-31/2021
Aoun Hits Back at Those Accusing Him of Seeking Partition
Naharnet/December 30/2021
The Presidency on Thursday snapped back at those who criticized President Michel Aoun over the administrative and financial decentralization remarks in his latest speech. “Politicians and journalists have deliberately taken out of context parts of President Michel Aoun’s address to the nation, interpreting them in a manner that contradicts with reality, for objectives that are no longer concealed from anyone,” the Presidency said in a statement. It also “clarified” some points to “those who went too far in their imaginations, whether deliberately or due to misinterpretation.”“President Aoun reminds those keen on Lebanon’s unity and claiming to be against its partitioning that he was the one who launched his famous slogan, ‘Lebanon is too big to be swallowed and too small to be partitioned,’ during an official visit to Washington in 1978,” the Presidency added. “As for those who deliberately or inadvertently misunderstood the idea of broad administrative and financial decentralization in the President’s message, the Presidency would like to stress that administrative and financial decentralization go together, according to the Document of National Accord (Taef Accord),” the Presidency said. It also stressed that “public services at the local level do not violate the central state’s system of public finance, security and foreign policy.”In his televised address on Monday, the President had said that the solution for Lebanon’s crises “requires transiting to a civil state and a new system based on broad administrative and financial decentralization.”“The coming elections must be a referendum on this,” he added.

IMF Negotiations to ‘Deepen’ as Delegation Visits Lebanon in January
Naharnet/December 30/2021
Deputy Prime Minister Saade Shami, who is leading Lebanon's IMF negotiation team, said Thursday that the negotiations with the IMF will become deeper in January. “We are preparing a variety of files for the negotiations,” Shami said, after meeting with President Michel Aoun. “I hope an agreement will be reached as soon as possible,” he added, An IMF delegation will visit Beirut in January, to review the progress the government has made, and may return in early February to finalize a deal. Negotiations with the IMF opened in May 2020, stalled after two months amid arguments over the size of financial losses, then resumed in September this year after the formation of a new government headed by Prime Minister Najib Miqati. Lebanese officials have agreed that financial sector losses amount to around $69 billion, according to Shami. The central bank has adopted multiple exchange rates to try to combat the devaluation of the Lebanese pound on the black market. A unification of the different rates "would not be possible" without an IMF deal and political consensus, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh said this month, adding that $12-15 billion was needed to kick start recovery.

Iran State TV Says Tehran Launches Rocket into Space
Associated Press/December 30/2021
Iran said Thursday it launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three devices into space, though it's unclear if any of the objects entered orbit around the Earth. The state TV report, as well as others by semiofficial news agencies, did not say when the launch was conducted nor what devices the carrier brought with it. However, the launch comes amid ongoing negotiations in Vienna over Iran's tattered nuclear deal. Previous launches have drawn rebukes from the United States. Ahmad Hosseini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, identified the rocket use as a Simorgh, or "Phoenix," rocket. He said the three devices were sent up 470 kilometers (290 miles). Hosseini was quoted as saying the "performance of the space center and the performance of the satellite carrier was done properly."However, no one immediately said if the objects launched reached orbit. Iran has suffered a series of setbacks in its space program in recent launches. Iranian state media recently offered a list of upcoming planned satellite launches for the Islamic Republic's civilian space program. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that successfully put a satellite into orbit last year. Conducting a launch amid the Vienna talks fits the hard-line posture struck by Tehran's negotiators, who already described six previous rounds of diplomacy as a "draft," exasperating Western nations. Germany's new foreign minister has gone as far as to warn that "time is running out for us at this point."Satellite images seen by The Associated Press suggested a launch was imminent earlier this month.

Saudi King Urges Lebanon to Stop Hizbullah 'Hegemony'
Naharne/December 30/2021
Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdul Aziz urged Lebanon on Thursday to stop “the hegemony of terrorist Hizbullah over the state.”King Salman said in a speech before the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia (Shura Council) that “KSA stands by the Lebanese people.”“KSA urges all Lebanese leaders to prioritize the interests of their people and to work on achieving what the Lebanese aspire to in terms of security, stability and prosperity,” the king said.

Judge Aoun Says Salameh’s Lawsuits Going Round in Circles
Naharnet/December 30/2021
Mount Lebanon's prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun said Thursday in a statement that Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is not only prosecuted abroad, but also in Lebanon. According to Aoun, there are two lawsuits against Salameh.
The governor’s first offense is “interfering in currency speculation along with a bank,” Aoun said. The second is allowing the transfer abroad of $5 billion in cash. The judge said that the source of 4 out of the 5 billion is unknown.
“Without Salameh’s intervention, these crimes would not have happened,” Aoun claimed. She added that “if the Court of Cassation decides to grant him an edict, that would be another issue.”Aoun pointed out that “there are evidences and numbers from Switzerland that can’t be disregarded” in a lawsuit pending before the Public Prosecution. She questioned why this lawsuit is going round in circles, “although allegation is based on suspicion.”“Is there no suspicion despite all these facts?” the judge asked. “Let someone read the Swiss request for judicial assistance!"

Lebanon Seizes Captagon Shipment in Fake Oranges
Agence France Presse/December 30/2021
A shipment of fake oranges hid millions of Captagon pills intercepted by Lebanese authorities, the interior minister said, in the latest regional seizure of the stimulant drug. Customs officers seized "nearly nine million Captagon tablets" at Beirut's port, Bassam Mawlawi said at a press conference, noting that the cargo was heading for a Gulf country. Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant manufactured mostly in Lebanon and Syria. Much of it is bound for illegal recreational use in Saudi Arabia. A customs officer confirmed to AFP that this cargo was en route to Kuwait. The Captagon tablets were placed in small bags hidden in fake oranges among a real fruit shipment. An investigation has been opened to determine its source. Lebanon -- which is suffering political paralysis and economic crisis -- has boosted efforts to thwart Captagon trafficking through its ports following criticism from Gulf countries over lack of cooperation.
This was the second regional seizure in a week of Captagon hidden in fruit. On December 23, Dubai police said they arrested four men "of Arab nationality" for trying to smuggle millions of dollars worth of Captagon into the United Arab Emirates. The more than one million pills were concealed in plastic lemons among a shipment of real lemons. Saudi Arabia announced in April the suspension of fruit and vegetable imports from Lebanon after the seizure of more than five million Captagon pills hidden in fruit.Captagon is a brand name for the amphetamine-type stimulant fenethylline. According to a European Union-funded report by the Center for Operational Analysis and Research, "Captagon exports from Syria reached a market value of at least $3.46 billion" in 2020. In November the Syrian army said it seized half a tonne of Captagon concealed in a spaghetti shipment before it could be smuggled out of the country.

Lebanon Records 3,150 Covid Infections as Cases Surge Across the World
Agence France Presse/December 30/2021
Lebanon has recorded 3,150 new Covid-19 infections, its highest daily tally since vaccines rolled out earlier this year. Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said he will personally oversee the precautionary measures on New Year's Eve.
Mawlawi stressed that "all security forces units will be deployed at hotels, halls and restaurants" to make sure they are adhering to the measures. Capacity will be limited to 50% and strict measures will be taken until January 9, Mawlawi said. All hotels and restaurants, in which New Year's celebrations will take place, will have to adhere to the regulations "under penalty of perjury, closure of the place and eviction of the guests."
Crisis-hit Lebanon's ailing health system is less prepared to handle a resurgence of the virus than during previous waves. When cases spiked in late 2020, the influx of critical patients had brought Lebanon's hospitals to breaking point.
A worsening depreciation of the local currency and the mass emigration of health workers has only made the situation worse. Studies suggest Omicron, now the dominant strain in some countries, carries a reduced risk of being admitted to hospital, but the World Health Organization still urged caution. Highly transmissible Omicron threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems, the WHO said Wednesday as cases surged across the world in the past week to levels never seen before. They were the highest figures since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020, underscoring the blistering pace of Omicron transmission, with tens of millions of people facing a second consecutive year of restrictions dampening New Year's Eve celebrations. "I am highly concerned that Omicron, being more transmissible, circulating at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.

Hezbollah deploys air defense systems in Syria’s Qalamoun mountains
Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
While the IDF’s aerial superiority has worsened, the military believes that it still has the ability to carry out operations over Lebanon and Syria.
Hezbollah is reportedly deploying air defense systems in Syria, where it would be able to defend against Israeli airstrikes there as well as in Lebanon.
According to the Alma Research Center, the group is deploying the systems to the Qalmoun Mountains region northwest of Damascus, which borders Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, home to Hezbollah’s logistical and operational rear base.
The group is believed to have the SA8 low-altitude, short-range tactical surface-to-air missile system, SA17, and SA22 man-portable air defense missile systems in its arsenal in order to defend against Israeli airstrikes.
Hezbollah has fired on Israeli platforms using its air defenses, most recently in February of last year, when an Israeli drone was fired on by antiaircraft fire during routine operations over Lebanese territory. It was not hit and continued on its mission. In October 2019 an SA8 surface-to-air missile was fired at an Israeli drone but also missed its mark. The report comes as military officials warned that the Israel Air Force’s freedom of operation in Lebanese skies has been compromised over the past year after air defense systems were deployed in the area. In addition to deploying the batteries to Syria, Maj. (ret.) Tal Beeri, head of the research department at the Alma Center, told The Jerusalem Post that Hezbollah has also deployed SA8 batteries in south Lebanon. According to Beeri, these systems can “theoretically” pose a threat to Israeli jets operating over Lebanon.
In addition to its independent air-defense system, Beeri said, it is possible that Hezbollah operatives have trained on Iran’s Bavar-373. The Iranian system is based on Russia’s SA-300 air-defense system that can supposedly simultaneously engage up to six targets up to 250 km. away with 12 missiles.
Iran says the system can target jet bombers and fighters, stealth aircraft and drones, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles.“It is possible that Hezbollah has trained on it, and, in all probability, we estimate that there have been attempts to transfer it to the group,” Beeri said. In October, Israel’s defense establishment said that it had identified growing Iranian efforts to improve its air defenses in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and other locations, in an attempt to disrupt Israel’s “war between the wars” campaign and bring down an Israeli aircraft.
The Iranian systems have helped Syria improve its capabilities, shorten its response time to attacks and destroy more munitions fired by the Jewish state.
While the IDF’s aerial superiority has worsened, the military believes that it still has the ability to carry out operations over Lebanon and Syria despite the threat posed by Iranian and Hezbollah air-defense systems.
Tensions with both Lebanon and Syria remain high, with 31 rockets being fired from Lebanon (by both Palestinian operatives and Hezbollah) and two long-range rockets fired from Syria over the past year. In response, the IDF fired munitions from fighter planes and some 200 artillery shells.
Hezbollah has also violated Israeli airspace, sending 74 drones into Israel over the past year, down from 94 drones in 2020.

Lebanon Seizes Captagon Pills in Shipment to the Gulf
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Lebanese authorities on Wednesday intercepted nine million pills of captagon inside a shipment of fake oranges, foiling an attempt to smuggle them to the Gulf.Customs officers seized "nearly nine million Captagon tablets" at Beirut's port, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said at a press conference, noting that the cargo was heading for the Gulf. "We want to send a message to the Arab world about our seriousness and our work to thwart evil from harming our Arab brothers," Mawlawi said as he inspected the shipment at Beirut port.

Satellite Images Show Smoldering Wreckage at Syria Port
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Satellite images taken this week over the Syrian port of Latakia show the smoldering wreckage after a reported Israeli missile strike, hours after firefighters contained a massive blaze. The raid launched from the Mediterranean Sea Tuesday was among the biggest launched by Israel into Syria, igniting a fire in the container terminal that raged for hours and caused significant material damage in the vicinity. It damaged a nearby hospital and offices, and also shattered windows of residential buildings and cars parked in the area near the port. The explosion could be heard miles away. It was the second such attack on the facility this month. The Latakia seaport handles most of the imports to Syria, a country ravaged by a decade-old civil war and Western-imposed sanctions. Another attack took place Dec. 7, when Syrian media reported Israeli warplanes hit the container terminal, also igniting a major fire. Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press from Planet Labs PBC Thursday showed heavy smog over the container terminal on Wednesday, likely from the struck container still smoking. The images suggest it was a high precision strike that appeared to hit one container. A Syrian military official said the Israeli missiles were fired from the sea, west of Latakia, hitting the terminal and igniting fires. Maj. Mohannad Jafaar, head of the Latakia fire department, said 12 fire trucks worked for hours to contain the blaze. He said the containers that were hit held spare auto parts and oil but there were no casualties.
The Israeli military, which rarely comments on individual attacks or discusses details of such operations, declined to comment on the reported strike. Israel says it targets bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has fighters in Syria. It says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the militias.

Lebanese cling to slender hopes of a better 2022
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/December 29, 2021
Another year is ending in Lebanon with little sign of a breakthrough. The council of ministers cannot meet because of a block by Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement.
All the indications are that the situation will go downhill from here. Elections due in May are unlikely to bring any drastic change. The only hope comes from presidential elections due later in 2022, but in the meantime the Lebanese will have to endure a difficult year.
During the holiday season the US dollar exchange stabilized at 26,000 to 27,000 Lebanese pounds. However, the rate was steady because many expatriates returned during the Christmas break to spend time with their families, bringing hard currency with them.
This small bout of economic activity is likely to dissipate in the new year, and the exchange rate against the dollar is likely to continue to increase.
No one really knows how much Lebanon has in its central bank reserves. The governor has been evasive on the issue, and with no hard currency reserves, the pound is likely to continue to fall.
According to economist and financial expert Samir Nasr: “Without a comprehensive plan that includes fiscal reforms, bank restructuring, administrative measures, social support mechanisms and a boost for the private sector along with public investments, there are no positive prospects. Partial measures and incomplete reforms don’t work and do not build confidence. If the government agrees to an IMF program, this will be a good sign.”
However, there is no agreement among the political class in order to start negotiations with the IMF.
During his visit to Lebanon, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said politicians had no right to remain divided and paralyze the country. The Hezbollah alliance with President Michel Aoun, making it the de facto force ruling the country, is in a precarious state. Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, has a toxic relationship with Aoun.
While the political class holds on to power, they cannot even agree among themselves, resulting in a stalemate that is likely to continue. Since they control the “state,” they control any services that can be provided to the Lebanese people. This means each sectarian leader can control those of their own denomination — even more so now, with people in dire need.
The international community could always introduce sanctions, but the political class is unlikely to flinch. Gebran Bassil, the president’s son-in-law, seems unperturbed by the curbs and is still hopeful of becoming president in 2022.
The US administration and the international community are keen to provide humanitarian aid and prevent a total collapse, but this is not a solution. Elections due in May are unlikely to uproot the current political class, which has decades of experience and a strong electoral machine.
However, the vote may change the parliamentary arithmetic and take power from Hezbollah, as the Christian electorate moves toward Aoun’s rival, the Lebanese Forces party led by Samir Geagea. This will weaken Hezbollah, which will lose its Christian “cover” and parliamentary majority.
Aoun’s speech on Monday in which he promised to “turn the table” brought nothing new. It was a hopeless and failed attempt to recover some of the popularity he lost because of his alliance with Hezbollah. Although the president criticized those “blocking “the government, he did not dare mention Hezbollah.
Despite the grim outlook for Lebanon, activists have a glimmer of hope. Hayat Arslan, a seasoned political activist, told me there were three pillars on which the Lebanese could base their optimism: High voter registration by expatriates (who are not subject to the same pressures as Lebanese at home), the resilience of the judiciary, and the reliability of the army.
On voter registration, the constitutional council has so far refused the request by the Free Patriotic Movement to restrict voting by expats, which could be significant in six seats. A total of 225,000 expats are registered, of whom 27,000 are in the district represented by Gebran Bassil — Hezbollah’s main ally. Those votes will make a difference, and definitely have the power to change the parliamentary majority.
Also, the head of the judiciary has resisted pressure to fire judge Tarek Bitar from his role in charge of the investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Meanwhile the armed forces have proved to be a coherent, cohesive, professional and patriotic institution. This was seen in the violent clashes in the Tayouneh neighborhood of Beirut in October when the army stepped in against Hezbollah militants.
Despite the breakthrough that civil society may score in May, there is little hope of a change in the system. However, there is a chance for change toward the end of 2022. If enough pressure is exerted on the political class, coupled with a change in the parliament, the next presidential elections may bring in a personality committed to reforms, and with enough courage to confront the political class and deny them their privileges. This might be the start of a long process leading to a reformed Lebanon.
With the Lebanese facing worsening poverty, there is little hope for change in the near future. However, it is increasingly clear to the Lebanese and the international community that the current political system is the source of all the country’s ailments and that unless this changes there will be no resurrection for the country.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 30-31/2021
Israeli Army Prepares List of Iran Targets
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Military sources in Tel Aviv revealed that the Israeli army has presented the government with several scenarios for striking targets in Iran, but emphasized that it would be difficult to determine the outcome of such strikes or assess how it would affect Tehran's nuclear program. According to a report published by Haaretz on Wednesday, the military says it is preparing for a possible attack on Iran, acquiring advanced weapons, conducting air force training exercises and collecting new strike targets for the Military Intelligence. “The Israeli army was given an additional budget of 9 billion shekels ($2.9 billion) for this purpose,” the newspaper wrote. Military officials said the army will be ready to strike Iran as soon as the government gives its approval. The military is also preparing for the consequences of striking Iran, including a round of fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army’s assessment revealed that Iran has increased and improved its air defense array over the past years and has managed to significantly increase its arsenal of long-range missiles, Haaretz said. “Due to this development, the Israeli military signed several contracts over the past year worth billions of shekels in order to expand and strengthen Israel's air defense,” it added. This came while Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi announced that the army’s ability to maneuver has improved considerably.

Iran State TV Says Tehran Launches Rocket Into Space
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Iran said Thursday it launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three devices into space, though it's unclear if any of the objects entered orbit around the Earth. The state TV report, as well as others by semiofficial news agencies, did not say when the launch was conducted nor what devices the carrier brought with it. However, the launch comes amid ongoing negotiations in Vienna over Iran's tattered nuclear deal. Previous launches have drawn rebukes from the United States. Ahmad Hosseini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, identified the rocket use as a Simorgh, or “Phoenix,” rocket. He said the three devices were sent up 470 kilometers (290 miles). The Associated Press quoted Hosseini as saying the “performance of the space center and the performance of the satellite carrier was done properly.” However, no one immediately said if the objects launched reached orbit. Iran has suffered a series of setbacks in its space program in recent launches. Iranian state media recently offered a list of upcoming planned satellite launches for the Islamic Republic’s civilian space program. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that successfully put a satellite into orbit last year. Conducting a launch amid the Vienna talks fits the hard-line posture struck by Tehran’s negotiators, who already described six previous rounds of diplomacy as a “draft,” exasperating Western nations. Germany’s new foreign minister has gone as far as to warn that “time is running out for us at this point.” Satellite images seen by The AP suggested a launch was imminent earlier this month.

US Navy Seizes Heroin Aboard Vessel Likely Coming from Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
United States navy vessels seized 385 kilograms of heroin in the Arabian Sea worth some $4 million, in a major bust by the international maritime operation in the region, officials said Thursday. The USS Tempest and USS Typhoon seized the drugs hidden aboard a stateless fishing vessel plying Mideast waters, the international task force said in a statement. The seizure took place on Monday. The Navy said the fishing vessel likely came from Iran. All nine crew members identified themselves as Iranian nationals, according to Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for the US Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet. As the task force ramps up regional patrols, it has confiscated illegal drugs worth over $193 million during operations at sea this year — more than the amount of drugs seized in the last four years combined, its statement said.

Iran Federation Defends Footballer Over 'Israel Flag' Jersey
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Iran's football federation threw its weight behind former national team captain Mehdi Mahdavikia Wednesday after he faced criticism for wearing a jersey bearing an Israeli flag during a friendly game. "He is one of the greats of Iranian football" and "a symbol of pride for the Islamic Republic of Iran", secretary-general Hassan Kamranifar said in a statement on the federation's website. Ultraconservative lawmakers had lambasted the veteran player after he wore a jersey featuring the flags of all FIFA member countries, including Israel, during a friendly match in Qatar on December 17. Mahdavikia "must apologize to the Iranian people for his act and must stand trial because he has betrayed the Iranian nation", MP Bijan Nobaveh-Vatan said, according to Fars news agency. Kamranifar said Mahdavikia had handled the situation with "vigilance".The federation had spoken with him and examined the case "despite prejudice and sometimes unfair attacks", Kamranifar added.

Iran launches 'three research cargos' into space
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
Iranian media says Iran successfully launched the Simorgh space-launch vehicle (SLV) to an altitude of 470 km. with cargos on board, releasing footage of a rocket being launched as evidence.
Updated: DECEMBER 30, 2021 12:46 Iranian media on Thursday said the country has launched “three research payloads” into space with its Simorgh satellite-carrying rocket. The announcement comes from Iran’s Ministry of Defense. Initial details say that Iran had successfully launched the Simorgh space-launch vehicle (SLV) to an altitude of 470 km. and that it had the cargo on board. More details of this must be confirmed and examined to determine the implications of the launch. According to early reports, the launch to an altitude of 470 km. did not likely put the payload into orbit because they would have needed to reach a higher altitude. It is unclear what became of the payloads – whether they crashed into the ocean. Iranian media released footage showing a rocket being launched as evidence of its claim to have conducted the launch. The video was shot during the day, apparently this morning.
Tasnim News in Iran reported that the launch shows the “indigenous space capability and the ability to launch small satellites.” It also shows “the development of launchers with higher capabilities, the design and development of Imam Khomeini space center and the satellite on Simorgh were included in the country's space industry program.” According to Iranian statements, “in this launch, the performance of the components of the space base and the performance of the satellite's stages were performed correctly, and finally, the intended research goals of this launch were achieved."
For the first time, three “research” cargoes were launched. The report indicated that data from the launch will enable other operational launches. Iran has an impressive program of ballistic missiles and is trying to play a large role in space. In January 2020, its Defense Ministry space group had made claimed about new satellite carriers. Spokesperson Ahmad Hosseini bragged at the time that Iran was now the seventh country to develop space technology of this kind. Tasnim said then that, “referring to the upcoming launch of the homegrown ‘Zafar’ satellite, it has 25-meter precision and the precision of the next version of Zafar will be 16 meters.” He also mentioned the Sarir and Soroush satellite carriers, adding that “the country is seeking to build solid-fuel satellite carriers in the near future.” Other reports on December 12 noted that there was new activity at Iran’s spaceport known as the Khomeini National Space Center, showing the Simorgh satellite-carrying rocket in position. There was an attempted launch in June as well using this rocket, which failed. There was another failure in February 2020 involving the Zafar satellite. There was another failure in August 2019, after which former US President Donald Trump tweeted a photo of the launch site. Iran put a spy satellite into orbit, the country claimed, in April 2020. A New Lines Institute report on December 28 said that Iran’s military space program was picking up speed. Iran’s new president Ebrahim Raisi wants to put new emphasis on the space program, according to reports at War on the Rocks published on December 27. The prediction at that time, a few days ago, was that new launches would occur. Now it appears one has taken place.

'The US is very pleased' with Gantz-Abbas meeting
Omri Nahmias/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
Defense Minister Benny Gantz promised a NIS 100 million loan and legal status for 9,500 Palestinians during the rare meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
WASHINGTON - State Department Spokesperson Ned Price tweeted on Wednesday that the US is “very pleased” with the meeting of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at Gantz’s home. “We hope confidence-building measures discussed will accelerate momentum to further advance freedom, security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike in 2022."Gantz promised a NIS 100 million loan and legal status for 9,500 Palestinians during the rare meeting. “Only those who are responsible for sending soldiers into battle know how deeply the obligation to prevent it runs,” Gantz tweeted after the late Tuesday parley in his Rosh Ha’ayin home. “This is how I have always acted, and this is how I will continue to act,” he said. “We discussed the implementation of economic and civilian measures and emphasized the importance of deepening security coordination and preventing terror and violence for the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians,” Gantz said. The Rosh Ha’ayin meeting took place amid an escalation of violence in the West Bank and concern about renewed Gaza violence. On Wednesday, Palestinians in Gaza shot and lightly wounded a 33-year old military contractor who was doing maintenance work on the security barrier along the Gaza border. The IDF targeted a number of Hamas posts in Gaza in response.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

Gantz-Abbas meeting makes good common sense - editorial
Editorial/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
Israel has an interest in propping up the PA, as flawed and corrupt as it is, because security cooperation with the PA is important in keeping a lid on the violence in the West Bank. Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s meeting in his Rosh Ha’ayin home Tuesday evening with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas neither heralds peace lurking around the corner nor portends a massive Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. What it does do is make good common sense.
Abbas is no lover of Zion. His history of Holocaust denial is despicable. His paying hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families is unconscionable, and his libel of Israel is contemptible. Yet he and the PA he heads are still better from an Israeli perspective than the Hamas alternative.
And make no mistake. If the PA goes down, those likely to come in its stead are not going to be benevolent actors. Just look at what happened in Gaza. Israel has an interest in propping up the PA, as flawed and corrupt as it is, because security cooperation with the PA is important in keeping a lid on the violence in the West Bank, and because there must be an address if and when the time does come for serious diplomatic discussions. That address can only be the PA; it can’t and won’t be Hamas.You cannot prop up those with whom you don’t interact, so dialogue is important and necessary.
As President Isaac Herzog rightly said, “I certainly think this dialogue is positive, and I think the very fact of the meeting is important and correct, especially during a challenging security period in Judea and Samaria. The security cooperation is an essential part in the war on terror.”
Certainly, with tension on the rise in Judea and Samaria, as Hamas wants to fan the flames as a way of challenging not only Israel but also Abbas, a meeting at the highest level to discuss ways to tamp down the tension is smart. Gantz, as the defense minister with overall administrative responsibility over the territories, is a logical person to host these meetings.
Immediately following the meeting, Israel announced several confidence-building measures toward the Palestinians. These include the approval of NIS 100 million in tax payments Israel collects for the PA, legalizing the status of 9,500 undocumented Palestinians and foreigners in the West Bank and Gaza, and 1,100 business passes to senior businesspeople. These moves are welcome, but Israel should make clear that this is a two-way street; that if it takes steps to build Palestinian confidence, the Palestinians need to reciprocate by taking steps to build Israeli confidence as well.
The most obvious step would be to stop paying stipends to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails. But since that is not going to happen anytime soon, there are other steps that the Palestinians could take to signal to Israelis that they, too, want to put relations on a better footing.
One such step would be to stop slandering Israel from every international stage. If Israelis would hear Abbas and other senior PA officials speak about a desire for reconciliation without demonizing the Jewish state, that would go far toward building Israeli confidence.
While Gantz is certainly a logical choice to be meeting with Abbas, he is by no means the most logical choice. That would be Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But Bennett has said he will not be meeting the Palestinian leader.
We get it: Bennett is against a two-state solution. He thinks it is both unrealistic and a terrible mistake, and doesn’t want to do anything to promote it. But Bennett also understands that he just can’t wish the Palestinian issue away. Rather, he has endorsed a policy of “shrinking the conflict,” saying he wants to improve the economic situation for the Palestinians, make their lives easier, and improve economic conditions in the West Bank. To do even that, however, he should be meeting with Abbas. Neither Bennett nor Israel gains anything by boycotting the PA president. On the contrary, it makes Israel appear as the recalcitrant party in this conflict, which is an inaccurate reflection of reality. Even if Israel believes peace is but a distant mirage, it – and its leader – must strive to be seen in the eyes of the world as the party trying to make that mirage real.

Netanyahu: Iran is racing ahead while Bennett remains silent
Israel National News/December 30/2021
According to Israeli intelligence, Iran is 6-8 weeks away from breakout capacity. A spokesman from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Ramzan Sharif, has issued threats against Israel, saying that, “The process toward the downfall of the Zionist regime has reached the most important stage in the last 70 years.” The Tasnim news agency, which is associated with the Iranian regime, quoted the general as also saying that, “Global arrogance and the Zionists were so overcome by the axis of resistance that they assassinated the senior Iranian commander, Kassam Soleimani.
“The despair felt by the Zionists and the enemies of the Islamic people stems from the blood of the holy martyrs and the opposition of the people. We are close to capturing the final peaks and we must not pay attention to what the enemy says,” he added.
Responding to the statements, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Iran is racing forward while Bennett remains silent and buckles before it. The Bennett government is dangerous for Israel.”
According to Israeli intelligence estimates (as reported on Kan 11), Iran is now closer than ever to obtaining enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb – between six weeks and two months away from reaching that stage.
Four months ago, in August, Israel estimated that Iran would need another eight to ten weeks to reach such a stage, but a senior Israeli official told Kan News that Iran had made “a conscious decision not to advance that far.”
Last Saturday, the head of the Iranian Atomic Organization, Muhammad Aslami, said that Iran was capable of producing nuclear fuel on its own, and that it would soon commence the process at the Bushehr site. Aslami added that if the Vienna nuclear talks broke down and U.S. sanctions were not removed, Iran still did not intend to progress beyond enrichment of uranium to 70 percent. “Iran is already capable of producing its own nuclear fuel using its own resources,” he said. “We have been holding talks with the Russians and I hope that within the framework of our cooperation, based on the plans and contracts we have signed, we will be able to begin producing fuel and using it at the Bushehr plant.”

Palestinians expect little from Gantz meeting with 'unpopular' Abbas
The Arab Weekly/December 30/2021
Accusations of inconsistency and lack of vision continued to dog Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after his Wednesday meeting with Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz, despite attempts by presidential aides to portray the encounter at Gantz's Rosh HaAyin home in central Israel, as having put the Palestinian issue back on the agenda. Analysts point out that less than a month ago Abbas, during visits to Algeria and Tunisia, was pledging that he would not put up with occupation, offering a narrative of "resistance", instead. Palestinian political analysts saw further irony in Abbas's Gantz talks in that just a few weeks ago he was in Algiers hinting at his solidarity with the government there against normalisation moves by Morocco, which had included a recent visit by Benny Gantz to Rabat. They add that, all along, even during his visit to Maghreb countries and despite his statements about the “rejection of the occupation, the attacks, the killings, the demolition and abuse and the continuation of the siege of the Gaza Strip”, Abbas was only trying to draw Israeli attention to him and to signal his desire to return to bilateral meetings without any conditions. Regardless of the agenda of his Gantz meeting, they add, Abbas wanted to show Palestinians that the Naftali Bennett's government was willing to put him back in the spotlight unlike the administrations of Benyamin Netanyahu, which had marginalised him, taking advantage of Abbas's frosty relations with the Donald Trump White House.
In August, Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that there was no peace process ongoing with the Palestinians, "and there won't be one". Nonetheless, Palestinian affairs experts expect Abbas to try to use this limited Israeli overture to shore up his declining influence within the Palestinian Authority (PA), especially the Fatah, the PA's main faction, much of which has been lost much to the rising reformist movement. While the Palestinian Authority tried to suggest that the meeting addressed substantial issues and that it was “the last chance before the explosion,” a Gantz office statement said that the meeting discussed “strengthening security coordination and preventing terrorism,” which means that, contrary to what Abbas and his aides suggested, the discussion was not aimed at breaking any political ground. Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh tweeted that "Abbas met Benny Gantz, where the meeting dealt with the importance of creating a political horizon that leads to a political solution in accordance with international resolutions". The pair also discussed "the tense conditions on the ground due to the practices of settlers and the meeting dealt with many security, economic and humanitarian issues," he said.
But the statement from the Israeli Defence Minister’s office gave no indication of any discussion of political issues. It said Gantz told Abbas that he intended to "continue to promote actions to strengthen confidence in the economic and civil fields, as agreed during their last meeting," adding, "The two men discussed security and civil matters."
Counter to Sheikh's remarks, Ayman Youssef, a lecturer at the Arab American University in Jenin, said that all indications “confirm that opening a political horizon is not on the short term agenda of the Israeli government,” and that most of the topics currently being raised with the Palestinian side “are related to humanitarian and economic aspects and this will definitely be at the expense of the political issue.”The Palestinians, analysts say, are not expecting much from Abbas's dialogue with Israel because of the difficult internal and external situation that the "very unpopular" Palestinian president is facing.
The majority of Palestinians want Abbas to step down and to open the door for elections where a more decisive and better negotiating figure can be chosen among Fatah heads. More credible leaders, from within the Fatah movement, have been sidelined because of their rejection of Abbas's policies and his clinging to power despite the sinking of his popularity among Palestinians. According to an opinion poll conducted by the independent Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, nearly 80% of Palestinians want President Mahmoud Abbas to resign. About 83% see corruption as rife in PA institutions; 61% see also corruption in Gaza Strip institutions controlled by Hamas. Political analyst Diana Butto believes that Gantz and Abbas "are trying to think of ways in which to manage the conflict, instead of resolving it. They are attempting to gain time and nothing more."
The Israeli government asserts that such meetings are not intended to revive the peace process but are only aimed at discussing ways to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians. This was illustrated by the measures which Israel's defence ministry announced after the Abbas meeting.
It said Gantz approved "confidence-building measures" including the transfer of tax payments to the Palestinian Authority, the authorisation of hundreds of permits for Palestinian merchants and VIPs and approving residency status for thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel collects hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxes on behalf of the PA as part of the interim peace agreements signed in the 1990s.

US Delays Opening Consulate in Jerusalem, Compensates Palestinians
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Under Israeli pressure, the US administration has decided to delay the reopening of its consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem for almost two more years, political sources in Tel Aviv revealed Wednesday. Prime Minister Naftali Bennet convinced Washington that opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is using the issue to portray the government as weak and unable to stand up to the (President Joe) Biden administration. Israeli officials believe the Biden administration understands the complexity of the situation and agreed to the request and will refrain from pressing it until Foreign Minister Yair Lapid assumes the premier’s post. If Bennett’s government succeeds during this period, Netanyahu’s reign in politics will most probably end by convicting him on corruption charges, paving the way for Lapid’s government to be stable. But in return, the administration figured that implementing several Palestinian requests, which do not require approval by Israel or the Congress, would compensate for its decision, the sources added. These include increasing financial support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and accelerating the reopening of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) official headquarters in Washington.
It also perhaps considers upgrading the headquarters to a diplomatic mission with the status of a state representative and granting diplomatic immunity to Palestinians who work in it to ensure that Jewish parties do not file lawsuits against them under the pretext of practicing terrorism.
The administration is also considering compensating the Palestinians by issuing new statements that support their public support for the two-state solution and US resolutions in that regard. According to the sources, Washington is currently waiting to reach understandings with the PA and Israel to find an acceptable settlement on the issue of paying salaries to the families of Palestinian martyrs and prisoners in Israeli jails. If it finds a solution, it will raise the financial support by more than 50%, sources noted. The Biden administration hopes to repair relations with the Palestinians after a sharp deterioration under former president Donald Trump, who closed the PLO’s Washington office in 2018 and cut millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza Strip

King Salman Hopes Iran Would Change its Negative Behavior in the Region
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 30 December, 2021
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz hoped on Wednesday that Iran would change its negative behavior in the region and choose dialogue and cooperation. In address to the Kingdom's advisory Shura Council, the king said: "We follow with concern the Iranian government’s policy which is destabilizing regional security and stability, including building and backing sectarian armed militias and propagating its military power in other countries.”"(We follow with concern) its lack of cooperation with the international community regarding its nuclear program and its development of ballistic missiles," he added.
"The Kingdom also stands by the brotherly Lebanese people, and urges all Lebanese leaders to prioritize the interests of their people ... and stop Hezbollah’s terrorist hegemony over the structures of the state," King Salman said. King Salman reaffirmed Saudi Arabia's initiative "to end the conflict in Yemen and support global and international efforts to reach a political solution, in accordance with the three references: The Gulf initiative and its implementation mechanism, the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference, and UN Security Council Resolution No. 2216.”
On Afghanistan, he said Saudi Arabia is "closely following the developments" as he stressed the "importance of the stability and security of Afghanistan instead of being a haven for terrorist organizations." "The Kingdom also urges intensifying regional and international efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering of the brotherly Afghan people. In this regard, the Kingdom called for a special meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Ministerial Council in December 2021, to provide relief to the brotherly people of Afghanistan,” he said.
The king also took the occasion to commend Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he credited for the various visionary projects being undertaken as part of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 program. He mentioned the start of the second phase of Vision 2030, the goal of which is to create a diversified economy. King Salman also said the OPEC+ production agreement was "essential" to oil market stability and stressed the need for producers to comply with the pact. The king said market stability and balance are a pillar of Saudi energy policy and efforts to maintain spare capacity had proven important to safeguarding energy supply security. "The Kingdom ... confirms its keenness for the continuation of the OPEC+ agreement due to its essential role in oil market stability and also stresses the importance of compliance by all participating countries with the agreement," he said.

Sudan’s security forces kill 4 at anti-coup rally, raid Al Arabiya offices
The Associated Press/30 December ,2021
Sudanese security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition at protesters rallying Thursday in the country’s capital and elsewhere against the October military coup. At least four protesters were killed, a Sudanese medical group said.
The Sudan Doctors Committee tweeted that the fatalities took place in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman and that many demonstrators were wounded. The protests were the latest in near-daily demonstrations across Sudan — despite tightened security measures and closures of bridges and roads — over the Oct. 25 military takeover that upended the country’s fragile transition to democracy. During the day, thousands marched in Khartoum, beating drums and waving Sudanese flags. They chanted “Revolution! The military belong in the barracks!” Demonstrators also hurled stones at security forces and armored police vehicles from where tear gas was fired. Similar protests took place in other parts of the country, including the provinces of Kassala and West Darfur, and the coastal city of Port Sudan. The medical group called on doctors to rush to hospitals in Omdurman to attend to the casualties, saying many were “in critical condition.”The committee is part of the Sudanese Professionals Association, which spearheaded the mass uprising that led to the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The association said that state-allied militias were intercepting ambulances and medics to prevent them from reaching the wounded. Thursday’s protests were preceded by a disruption of the mobile internet, according to advocacy group NetBlocs, a usual tactic employed by the generals since the coup. “Our position is clear; we are opposed to any negotiations, partnership or compromise” with the military, said Shahinaz Gamal, a protester. “We came out today to bring down this (ruling military) council and to have a civilian democratic government afterwards.”Despite the internet disruption, activists posted a few videos showing masked protesters under clouds of gas. Also, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya and its Al Hadath news channel reported that Sudanese security forces raided their bureaus in Khartoum and confiscated their equipment during the protests on Thursday. They also said that two of their correspondents along with their camera crew were beaten up by Sudanese forces. Thursday’s casualties bring to at least 52 the death toll in protests triggered by the coup, according to a tally by the physicians committee. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, a former UN official seen as the civilian face of Sudan’s transitional government, was reinstated last month amid international pressure in a deal that calls for an independent technocratic Cabinet under military oversight led by him. That deal, however, was rejected by the pro-democracy movement, which insists that power be handed over to a fully civilian government tasked with leading the transition.

Putin Says 'Effective Dialogue' with U.S. Possible
Associated Press/December 30/2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. counterpart Joe Biden on Thursday he is "convinced" that "effective dialogue" between Moscow and Washington is possible, hours ahead of telephone talks as tensions rise over Ukraine. Putin and Biden will hold their second telephone call in less than a month at 2030 GMT in the latest effort to defuse tensions surrounding Moscow's military build-up on the border with Ukraine. "I am convinced that ... we can move forward and establish an effective Russian-American dialogue based on mutual respect and consideration of each other's national interests," Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement carrying his holiday messages to world leaders. A senior U.S. administration official told reporters that Biden will say "we are prepared for diplomacy and for a diplomatic path forward." "But we are also prepared to respond if Russia advances with a further invasion of Ukraine," Biden will tell Putin, the official said, adding that "we continue to be gravely concerned" by Russian forces near the Ukrainian border. The phone call comes ahead of talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva on January 10. Washington has led the charge in raising the alarm over Russian troop movements near ex-Soviet Ukraine and accusing Moscow of plotting a winter invasion of its neighbour. Moscow has denied the charge and said it expects the West to agree to sweeping security demands it presented earlier this month. They said NATO must not admit new members and the United States cannot establish new military bases in former Soviet republics.

The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 30-31/2021
Iran reads what Israeli officials say, and claims it is winning
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
When Iran wants a fact to be true, they wait to see if Israelis are also saying the same thing.
Updated: DECEMBER 30, 2021 04:29Iranian regime media is a constant consumer of Israeli media. Despite their claims of wanting to destroy Israel and complaining about the “Zionist” regime, they need Israeli media to confirm their own claims of vast operational abilities. Iran recently tested missiles and drones in a military drill and it tends to eagerly await Israeli coverage of the tests so it can then launder the reports to make it appear Iran has achieved, what it claimed to have achieved. In a sense Iran’s media, and by extension, its leadership and IRGC analysts, use Israeli media and Israeli officials as their “fact-checkers.” When they want a fact to be true, they wait to see if Israelis are also saying the same thing.
In recent months Iran has tended to think that it may be closer to achieving its stated goals. This isn’t just about bragging that it can destroy Israel. Iran routinely makes these kinds of comments. Iran has warned Israel of a “crushing response” to Israeli actions in November 2020. In May 2021 the head of the IRGC claimed Israel could be destroyed in one operation. This coincided with the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. The recent missile tests were reportedly a “warning” to Israel.
Iran’s Tasnim media reported today that an official gave a speech in Iran in which he said that Tehran’s enemies now see the “power and capability of the Islamic Republic” and that these enemies “understand and considers in their calculations and knows that the system of the Islamic Republic is a powerful system.” He went on to say that “the country's armed forces have become more powerful than ever…Iran's missile capability is at the first level of the world's missiles and we are very powerful on land, sea and air.”
Fars News noted that Israeli officials have also said that “there is currently no deterrent against Iran.” Iran based this on reading a recent New Yorker article called “the looming threat of a nuclear crisis.” In that article, Zohar Palti is quoted. Palti is Director of the Policy and Political-Military Bureau in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. He recently informed Minister of Defense Benny Gantz that he would end his tenure in the first half of 2022 following a five-year term. He is also a former head of the Intelligence Department of Mossad. A biography published by Israel’s Ministry of Defense noted “in 2014 Mr. Palti established the Intelligence Directorate of the Mossad, in times of turmoil in the Arab world and the Syrian civil war. In this capacity, Mr. Palti led the efforts to counter Iran’s nuclear program as well as counterterrorism operations.” Iran’s Fars News noted Palti’s quotes in the New Yorker article. “We don’t want to reach a point where we will have to ask ourselves how Iran was allowed to enrich to ninety percent,” Palti was quoted in the New Yorker piece. “The problem with Iran's nuclear program is that, for the time being, there is no diplomatic mechanism to make them stop,” said Zohar Palti.
Iran’s media interprets this as an Israeli official saying that there is no deterrent against Iran. Fars News notes that “Iran is no longer afraid.” Iran’s media then says that “Western countries, led by the United States and the Zionist regime, have in recent years accused Iran of pursuing military goals in its nuclear program. Iran has strongly denied these allegations.” Iran’s report says that Israel’s former Prime Minister sought to derail the Iran deal of 2015 and that “[former US President Donald] Trump and Netanyahu hoped that maximum pressure could persuade Iran to come to the negotiating table to discuss a new agreement….This policy failed.”
Fars news says that “in recent days, a number of former Zionist officials have admitted that Netanyahu's decision to encourage Donald Trump…and his other policies against Iran were wrong.” The report goes on to claim that “the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh had not stopped the progress of Tehran's nuclear program.” Iran is laundering what it says are Israeli accounts to affirm its own progress. It quotes Israeli media as quoting an anonymous source who said “the current situation is the most advanced situation that Iran's nuclear program has reached."
The report goes on to use foreign sources to argue that there were “gross failures” in Israel’s confrontation with Iran and that this has even led to an “accelerated” nuclear program. Iran uses enrichment as a bargaining chip in Vienna negotiations. Israel has made miscalculations about Iran and the Iranian media says “Naftali Bennett was now following the same path.”
“The Zionist military official, who specializes in Iranian affairs, then told the Times of Israel that the best and only way to overcome what he called the Iranian threat now was for Washington to reach a major compromise and make the Vienna talks a success.” Iran’s media then quotes the New York Times and Thomas Friedman and former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. This quote ostensibly relates to comments Ya’alon made back in November about how although the Iran deal was a mistake, leaving it led Iran towards greater enrichment. A search online for where these same sources appear leads to an article at Responsible Statecraft published on December 3. Apparently, Fars News merely read and quoted from this piece and republished part of it. This is clear because the Fars News piece also quotes Danny Cintrinowicz, a former head of Israeli Military Intelligence’s research and analysis branch. It seems they took this from a Responsible Statecraft piece on December 7.
Now Fars News says that “the Zionist regime's army on Wednesday acknowledged the prominent military power of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” This claim is based on a piece from Sputnik, the report says. The claim asserts that Israel sees difficulty in “estimating the consequences of military action against Iran, in which case ‘there will be an avoidance of attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip’ against the [Israel] regime.” Iran thus affirms its own claims about its long-range missile arsenal which “can easily hit any target in Israel.” The report then notes “the Israeli army's continuation of this report states that the high missile power of Iran has forced the regime to increase the costs related to air defense systems.” Thus having affirmed its own bragging of its power, Iran’s media rests its case: “There is currently no deterrent against Iran.”
What to make of all this? There is always a circular relationship between Israeli and Iranian media. Iranian media boasts of new capabilities and these reports end up in Israeli media and then Iranian media reports on these reports, laundering them to show how the “Zionist regime” is afraid of Iran. In fact, the reports that Iran pushes could be entirely fictitious, they might be bragging of some new long-range drone and wait for the report to be picked up abroad, so they can then say the region fears Iran’s “new long-range drone,” even if no such drone exists or it never achieved that range.
That could be seen as just Iranian media clickbait. But a more reasonable explanation is that these reports are prepared at Fars and Tasnim in order to be fed into the feedback loop of Iran’s IRGC and top leadership which is linked to the IRGC. This doesn’t mean that Iran is merely playing mind games with its claims or that it needs to invent these reports to get them affirmed abroad. However, it is likely that Iran wants to report on these foreign reports of Israel’s concerns to show the leadership that Iran’s paucity of actions is actually achieving great success for relatively little investment. In short: More bang for the buck. Iran is under sanctions and is short on cash. While its drones have been used against US forces at Tanf recently, and a drone attacked a commercial tanker in July, Iran is also suffering setbacks.
Iran wants to believe that Israel is concerned about deterrence because it wants to believe its relatively small actions abroad, amounting to pinpricks, are achieving its goal. While Iran has impressive abilities, it isn’t actually using them. Reports in 2018 and 2019 that Iran had moved ballistic missiles to Iraq, for instance, hasn’t resulted in those missiles showing up again. Iran also built a base called Imam Ali near the Syrian border town of Albukamal. First reported in September 2019, the base was said to have grown in November and December 2019, and new buildings were added in May 2020. Well, what became of that base? We haven’t heard much since then. So Iran’s project in the region, from sending a Hezbollah “killer drone” toward the Golan in 2019, to sending drones to T-4 base in February and then the 3rd Khordad air defense system to T-4 in April 2018, has largely resulted in Iranian frustration. The systems have been destroyed or left unused. Now Iran is facing pressure to its shipments to Latakia. According to reports, two airstrikes hit Latakia in December 2021.
While Israeli media may say that Iran faces “no deterrence” to its nuclear program, Iran also isn’t responding to what Syrian regime media say are recent Israeli airstrikes. That means Hezbollah, Iran and its proxies have not appeared to respond recently. This is despite tough talk warning of a “crushing” response on December 20. There is no doubt Iran likes to put out threats via its media but it also tries to affirm that its threatening message got through by reporting what Israeli officials are saying or twisting their words around a bit to make it seem that Iran is accomplishing something. The interplay between Iran’s regime, Iranian regime media close to the IRGC, and Israeli media and messaging is important. For some in the Iranian regime, the appearance of accomplishing something against Israel and feeling they have struck a psychological blow may be more important than the movement of ballistic missiles or the establishment of bases in places like Albukamal.

Social Media NOT Censoring Muslim Hate Speech and Incitement to Murder
Raymond Ibrahim/December 30, 2021  
Despite Facebook’s zeal at censoring so-called “hate speech” and “offensive content,” violent, radical, and murderous content from Muslim terror groups is allowed to appear on and make use of the social media giant’s platform. According to a recent report,
Facebook allowed photos of beheadings and violent hate speech from ISIS and the Taliban to be tagged as “insightful” and “engaging”…
Extremists have turned to the social media platform as a weapon “to promote their hate-filled agenda and rally supporters” on hundreds of groups…
These groups have sprouted up across the platform over the last 18 months and vary in size from a few hundred to tens of thousands of members, the review found.
One pro-Taliban group created in spring this year and had grown to 107,000 members before it was deleted, the review, published by Politico, claims.
Overall, extremist content is “routinely getting through the net,” despite claims from Meta – the company that owns Facebook – that it’s cracking down on extremists.
There were reportedly “scores of groups” allowed to operate on Facebook that were supportive of either Islamic State or the Taliban, according to a new report.
This matter is significantly worse when one looks at Facebook in Arabic and other Muslim languages. In the last few years, I’ve seen countless Arabic-language content on Facebook and other social media giants that amounts to nothing less than terroristic incitement. Usually, these posts remain on the social media platforms for years—until, of course, I or others draw attention to them in English-language articles, at which point they are conveniently removed. In other words, as long as only Muslims see—and are radicalized by—these posts full of hatred and incitement for violence against non-Muslims, social media leave them up; once Western “infidels” get wind of these posts, which further stand to make Islam look bad, social media take them down.
Indeed, only recently I translated an immensely profane and hate-filled Arabic tirade from a New York-based Muslim man against two Christian men from Egypt—a rant that culminates with him loudly threatening decapitation to anyone who “hurts the reputation of Muhammad.” This video, which currently has nearly 100,000 views, is, apparently because it’s only in Arabic, (currently) still up on YouTube.
Meanwhile, social media, especially Facebook, are notoriously quick to censor content that exposes the jihadists. This it calls “hate speech.” As discussed in more detail here, Facebook earlier banned—and continues shadow banning—me, for posts that report on Muslims persecuting Christians—which Facebook characterized as “going against our Community Standards.”
Similarly, YouTube earlier censored my Prager U video on that exact topic; it also once temporarily banned me for uploading and sharing a video of Islamic State members destroying crosses and desecrating churches in Syria and Iraq—even though that video was not “graphic” (it depicted buildings and crosses, inanimate objects) and had for weeks been going viral on Arabic media.
Incidentally and rather ironically, while “competing Sunni and Shia militia reportedly trolled each other by posting pornographic images” on social media—and, according to the new report, got away with it—for some Los Angeles Wi-Fi networks, it’s my site, which is devoted to the Islamic question, that is banned as “pornography.”Such is the true extent of the problem posed by the social media giants: not only do they, as many already know, censor those who expose Islamic hate and violence; they also allow Islamic hate and violence to proliferate and radicalize Muslims.

American Traitors: Academics Working for China
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/December 30, 2021
China's regime has bought America's academic community and turned it against America.
"This case is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what needs to be done by the U.S. government to penetrate and prosecute China's co-option of America's academia." — Kerry Gershaneck, the author of Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China's Plan to "Win Without Fighting" and a professor in Taiwan, to Gatestone, December 2021.
"Scientists around the world, identified as leaders in areas of advanced research that are strategic priorities, are targeted by a well-funded sophisticated engagement that plays on their vanity, naiveté, and greed." — Charles Burton, former professor at Brock University and now a leading expert on China's infiltration of Canada, to Gatestone.
I am told there are "thousands" of professors on Beijing's payroll in California universities.
Xi is serious about attracting talents like Lieber. In his September speech, Xi said he would "exhaust all means" to recruit foreigners.
In China's official war on America — People's Daily in May 2019 declared a "people's war" on the United States — Americans working for Beijing, whatever their intention, are essentially traitors. Lieber, a traitor, has inflicted incalculable damage on America.
China's regime has bought America's academic community and turned it against America. Charles Lieber (pictured), "one of the country's top research chemists," was recently found guilty of six felony crimes related to his participation in communist China's Thousand Talents Program.
It took a federal jury in Boston less than three hours to return guilty verdicts on all six felony counts against Charles Lieber, the former chair of Harvard University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Lieber, "one of the country's top research chemists" according to the New York Times, lied to the FBI about his participation in Beijing's Thousand Talents Program, did not pay income tax on money from Chinese sources, and failed to report his Chinese bank account to the Internal Revenue Service.
The case against the Harvard academic was airtight. Nonetheless, members of America's academic elite are up in arms that the Department of Justice prosecuted Lieber, and many are campaigning against law enforcement efforts.
China's regime has bought America's academic community and turned it against America.
"The conviction of Lieber is very good news," Kerry Gershaneck, the author of Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China's Plan to "Win Without Fighting" and a professor in Taiwan, tells Gatestone. "This case is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what needs to be done by the U.S. government to penetrate and prosecute China's co-option of America's academia."
Justice did not go after Lieber for espionage or intellectual property theft. Instead, it hit him with relatively minor charges in order to obtain convictions. Yet make no mistake: Lieber's activities were deeply injurious to the United States. The Harvard professor recruited American talent to work in China. In 2011, Lieber had agreed to become a "strategic scientist" at the Wuhan University of Technology and consequently a part of the Thousand Talents Program, an effort to attract foreign specialists for Beijing.
"While working on the Communist Party's payroll, Lieber was in a perfect position to spot and assess potential vulnerable students and faculty for China to recruit," says Gershaneck.
For his efforts, Beijing rewarded Lieber handsomely: $50,000 a month, among other payments.
As Charles Burton, once a professor at Brock University and now a leading expert on China's infiltration of Canada, tells Gatestone, "Scientists around the world, identified as leaders in areas of advanced research that are strategic priorities, are targeted by a well-funded sophisticated engagement that plays on their vanity, naiveté, and greed."
China apparently appealed not only to Lieber's greed but also to his vanity. Before conviction, the now disgraced scientist told the FBI that he collaborated with China to increase his prospects of gaining Chinese support for winning a Nobel Prize.
Unfortunately, China's allies in America blame the Justice Department's China Initiative, established in 2018, for Lieber's conviction. They accuse this law-enforcement effort of "racial profiling," "selective prosecution," and "prosecutorial overreach."
"The reason people like Lieber lie is because they are afraid," said Peter Zeidenberg, a Washington, D.C. lawyer representing researchers investigated for China ties, to the New York Times. "It's really sad. They are afraid to answer truthfully, 'Are you a member of the talent program?' I'm sure during the Red Scare, people said they were not a member of the Communist Party."
A more likely explanation for Lieber lying to federal authorities is that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that he was aware he was taking money to harm the United States. China's Communist Party has been engaged in decades of taking, by guile, theft, and other means, scientific knowledge, know-how, and other valuable intellectual property. Lieber knew he was part of those Chinese efforts.
China's theft of intellectual property alone injures the U.S. to the tune of perhaps $500 billion a year, according to John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence. Lieber's efforts facilitated the loss of valuable technology on top of this staggering sum.
"For more than 70 years, the Chinese Communist Party has invested extraordinary effort into infiltrating and co-opting America's academia," Gershaneck says. "Academic infiltration and subversion are vital elements of the Communist Party's political warfare against the U.S., and to this end its United Front and intelligence organizations aggressively target America's universities, individual scholars, think tanks, and even K-12 teachers and students."
The effort has been successful. I am told there are "thousands" of professors on Beijing's payroll in California universities.
China is about to put even more effort into taking over foreign institutions of higher education. "Chinese ruler Xi Jinping in a major speech in September stressed that it is a regime priority to attract foreign professionals to transfer state-of-the-art scientific know-how to China, saying this is crucial to China's technological self-reliance and national rejuvenation," says Burton, the Canadian academic now at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Xi is serious about attracting talents like Lieber. In his September speech, Xi said he would "exhaust all means" to recruit foreigners. China, Xi said, is "more eager than any period in its history" for professional talent.
He delivered his words at a two-day conference on luring foreign talent, the third nationwide meeting on developing technology.
The Chinese dictator in September established a two-decade timetable to become the world's science and technology leader. He talked about the struggle on the world's "main economic battlefield."
China's regime believes that the competition for talent is a war. In that war, China's military has access to all technology in nominally civilian Chinese institutions and companies, and the Chinese military is planning to use this tech to develop the means to kill Americans by the hundreds of millions.
In China's official war on America — People's Daily in May 2019 declared a "people's war" on the United States — Americans working for Beijing, whatever their intention, are essentially traitors. Lieber, a traitor, has inflicted incalculable damage on America.
Lieber will likely receive a prison sentence shorter than six months.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
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Iran threatens nuclear explosion in Israel’s Dimona facility
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
The IRGC threatened to attack the Dimona nuclear facility, as well as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, in a series of tweets.
A Twitter account run by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Friday threatened to blow up the city of Dimona in the Negev desert, where a nuclear facility is located.
The IRGC account, with its 12,100 followers, posted a video showing multiple explosions in a desert. “Then on the day, we [God] will deal you the fiercest blow. We will surely inflict punishment, “ the IRGC wrote in Arabic, citing a quote from the Koran, adding the hashtag “Dimona.” The video is post-dated to Friday. The account provides a link to the IRGC’s Telegram account, with its 376,084 subscribers. Both the IRGC Twitter account and Telegram account show the IRGC logo—an arm raised while clutching a rifle.
The IRGC Arabic account only follows the Farsi language Twitter account of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as a backup account for IRGC Arabic. A December 13 tweet from the IRGC account reads: "In the event of foolishness on the part of the Zionist regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran is no longer ready to destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa, but to liberate holy Quds. If the security of the holy land of Iran is compromised, no one will taste the moment of security, whether those who are at 1,000 km or at 10,000 km.“Quds is the Arabic name for the capital of Israel, Jerusalem.
Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled the Islamic Republic due to repression and who closely tracks Iranian regime social media activity told The Jerusalem Post that “An army is supposed to protect and defend the people and the soil of its country but I dont see any sign of my country in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, no name of Iran or the Iranian people is even mentioned in it. "The Persian term Sepah-e Pasdaran has a great value and has its root in ancient Persian but the IRGC ruined it. Why should the IRGC publish its statements mostly in Arabic while the official language of Iran is Persian and most of the people in Iran speak and everyone understands Persian? Because it’s talking to its proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Hashd al Shabi and the other entities under its commands not the Iranian people.
"The IRGC’s priority is the complete destruction of Israel and to follow Khomeini’s Ideology instead of defending its own people," she said.
In 2019, the US designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. The US State Department—under both Democrat and Republican administrations—has classified the Iranian regime as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism. The IRGC is estimated to have murdered over 600 US military personnel in the Middle East. The London-based Iran International news channel tweeted on Friday: "The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency says the Revolutionary Guards have simulated missile strikes against Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 'Great Prophet 17' military exercises."
The Post reported last week that an Arabic language Twitter account of the Islamic Republic of Iran published an image on December 17 that showed the planned burned elimination of the Jewish state in 2022.
The picture shows Israel composed of nails and matches and a book of matches next to words in Hebrew and English declaring: “Just try and you will see.”
The book of matches, which is situated next to Israel in the image, says “Ballistic matchstick” and shows an Iranian regime flag on it. The apparent message is that the clerical regime is prepared to detonate the matches to destroy Israel in 2022.
In late November, the spokesman for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces, Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, urged the total elimination of the Jewish state during an interview with an Iranian regime-controlled media outlet.
"We will not back off from the annihilation of Israel, even one millimeter. We want to destroy Zionism in the world,” Shekarchi told the Iranian Students News Agency.
On December 15 the Tehran Times wrote on its front page “One wrong move,” with military targets listed within Israel.

In Gaza, what was continues to be - analysis
Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/December 30/2021
It may be quiet along the Gaza border, but unless Israel truly commits to its new harsher policy, the next round of violence is only around the corner.
The sniper who shot the Israeli civilian along the Gaza Strip on Wednesday knew that he was risking dragging the Hamas-run enclave into another round of conflict if he missed his shot.
Israel’s military and defense establishment has promised, after all – and continues to repeat – that “what was no longer is.”
The 33-year-old man, an employee of a Defense Ministry contractor doing maintenance work near Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Israel’s recently completed border fence, was lightly injured in his foot by shrapnel.
In response, Israeli tanks fired artillery shells towards a Hamas post near Gaza City, wounding several farmers. The IDF also closed roads next to the border fence out of concern of additional attacks and ordered farmers to stay away from land near the border.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, believed to have been deliberate. It was a tense evening and night in Israel’s South. Would Israeli jets carry out airstrikes? Israel has carried out airstrikes in response to incendiary balloons launched from Gaza, so why not after a sniper attack that targeted an Israeli civilian?
Remember, “what was no longer is.” But the night was quiet, there were no airstrikes and no rockets launched in return. On Thursday morning, farmers were once again allowed to work along the fence. It was as if nothing had happened.
So, it seems more like “what was continues to be.”The IDF says that the intensity and targets of the strikes have increased since the May conflict. But for all of its talk, Israelis in the South remain concerned about what can happen along the border and whether they will be targeted next and need to run for shelter.
The incident comes during a relatively quiet time and amid intense efforts to reach a stable, long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas mediated by Cairo.
The IDF claims that it’s been the longest and most significant period of operational quiet in relation to the four most recent operations in the Strip.
In the six months following the operation, only five long-range rockets were fired from the Hamas-run coastal enclave towards Israel. In comparison, 22 rockets were fired following Protective Edge in 2014, some 196 following Cast Lead in 2009, and 76 were fired following Pillar of Defense in 2012.
But Hamas officials continue to hold large-scale military drills, fire rockets toward the sea in an attempt to improve their rocket arsenal, and verbally threaten Israel.
On Wednesday, senior officials from the group met with Hezbollah officials in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and vowed that they are preparing for a military confrontation with the Jewish state.
The sniper who hit the Israeli civilian did not do so because he woke up in the morning and felt like shooting an Israeli. That’s not how things work along the Gaza border. An order is given, either by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and an operative is sent to carry it out.
It was a deliberate attack, a test to see how Jerusalem would respond, and a warning from the terror groups. They wanted a clear message sent to Israel, that the next time it would be deadly.
It may be quiet along the Gaza border, but unless Israel truly commits to its new harsher policy, the next round of violence is only around the corner.

With US retreat, new year brings opportunities for Gulf countries
Jonathan Gornall/The Arab Weekly/December 30/2021
Fifty years ago this week, the inhabitants of the six small emirates on the western shore of the Gulf faced the new year with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Their region had for more than 150 years comprised what the British referred to somewhat dismissively as the Trucial States.
Over the previous year, however, life had changed dramatically, potentially for the better, but quite possibly for the worse. Post-colonial Britain, strapped for cash, had abandoned its commitments east of Suez and left the subjects of its former protectorates to sink or swim. Dubai, Sharjah, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah, Ajman and, shortly afterward, Ras Al Khaimah, joined forces with Abu Dhabi to form the United Arab Emirates.
It was a precarious start. Days before the UAE flag flew for the first time over Union House in Dubai on December 2, 1971, Iran, waiting until the British garrisons had shipped out, seized the Arabian islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, now part of the new federation.
Those were nerve-wracking days. Abu Musa is barely 60 kilometres from the UAE coastline and after decades of being protected by British military might, the newborn nation found itself with little more standing between it and Iranian aggression than the Trucial Oman Scouts, the paramilitary police force founded and officered by Britain and now “gifted” to the new federation.
In the Gulf on New Year’s Eve 1971, no-one could say for certain exactly what the year 1972 would bring. Fifty years later, the UAE and the other Gulf states find themselves in a curiously similar situation as they contemplate the arrival of 2022 and the withdrawal from the region of another global power grown weary of expending blood and treasure east of Suez.
Even before the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021, the incoming US administration had made no secret of its intention to “do less, not more” in the Middle East. The precipitous and ultimately chaotic withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan in August brought home to many exactly what that might look like.
But, in the same way, that the withdrawal of Britain 50 years ago freed the emirates of the UAE to think and act for themselves, opening the door to an era of unparalleled economic and social development, the scaling back of American interests and influence presents political opportunities for a region more than well equipped to take advantage of them.
There can be no doubt that the presence of the US military, rather like that of the British half a century earlier, has been a welcome comfort blanket to the UAE and other Gulf states justifiably concerned, as their predecessors were 50 years ago, about the looming threat of Iran. But blankets can be stifling. After all, freed of Britain’s protection, the UAE thrived beyond expectations, certainly those of the British government of the time, which quietly doubted that its former protectorates would make a go of things.
And now, freed of the weight of American influence and the politically expedient need to follow Washington’s lead as the US pursued its interests in the region, what might the Gulf states achieve on their own account?
A great deal, if the diplomatic developments over the past year are any indication. On December 6, the UAE’s top security adviser visited Tehran for talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
It is worth noting that this was not diplomacy entered into from a position of weakness. The UAE armed forces have become one of the best-trained and well-armed military machines in the Arab world. Just three days before the meeting the UAE had signed a $19 billion deal to buy 80 Rafale jets from France. And the UAE-Iran rapprochement was no outlier. The visit followed a reported four rounds of talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Baghdad. In August, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran were all represented at a summit organised jointly by Iraq and France and at which the US was conspicuous by its absence.
On December 13, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a historic first official visit by an Israeli prime minister to the UAE.
The Abraham Accords may have been initiated by an American government, but it is clear that the UAE and Israel, signing a flurry of trade deals, plan to make the most of them. What all this means for the wider region depends in part on the ongoing efforts in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia is party to the talks, despite their concern that any deal should seek also to end Iran’s disruptive support of armed militias throughout the region. But what is clear is that the Saudis and the Emiratis, backed by the wider GCC, are determined to engage with Tehran diplomatically, on their own terms and in the wider interests of the region.
As in 1971, in the Gulf on New Year’s Eve 2021, no-one can say for certain exactly what the new year will bring. What is clear, however, is that the UAE has never been better placed to map its own destiny and that it is equipped and resolved to do so.
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Sadr or no Sadr, Iran is not going anywhere
Ibrahim al-Zobeidi/The Arab Weekly/December 30/2021
Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr meets with Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Hadi al-Ameri leader of the Badr Organisation, and Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Hikma Movement, and former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in Baghdad, Dece
There is no doubt that it was an Iranian decision that caused Hadi al-Ameri, Qais Khazali, Nuri al-Maliki and the rest of the Coordination Framework to change their mind overnight, making a shift towards peace and becoming democratic citizens who readily accept the verdicts of Federal Supreme Court.
They acted as if they were not the ones who put the security of the country and its citizens at risk even though they continued, from the announcement of the election results and until the day the Federal Court ratified them 78 days later, busy rioting, threatening the judiciary, the government and the election victors, while sending drones to assassinate their prime minister and the commander-in-chief of their armed forces because he organised the elections.
Here, Iraqi citizens have the right to wonder if this means that Iran, which ordered its whole crew of supporters in Iraq to bend before the storm, has really changed. They have the right to ask if Tehran has suddenly become just and sane and that it now believes that its occupation of Iraq has come to an end. Does this mean that Iran will now return to the way it was, before the years of invasion and occupation, to become a peaceful and respectful neighbour, which takes into account the sovereignty and independence of the Iraqi national state and the dignity of its people? Hardly.
Not a single Iraqi is ignorant of the nature of the Iranian regime, which, over the course of 18 years, has accustomed Iraqis to its aggressive behaviour and its contempt for all international and humanitarian rules, norms and laws.
But in the currently delicate circumstances that it faces, including its preoccupation with the lifting of international sanctions and making sure of the successful outcome of the nuclear negotiations, Iran has been compelled to deal with the issues calmly and in a cool-headed manner.
Tehran does not want its proxies, with their stubbornness and aggressive behaviour, which the Quds Force commander in charge of the Iraqi file, Ismail Qaani, once described as “futile,” to spark a war that it does not want.
American and Iraqi optimists have been deceived into believing that the Federal Supreme Court's response to the Coordination Framework's lawsuit is the beginning of the end of Iranian influence in Iraq. The reality of the matter is that Iran will not leave Iraq under any circumstances.
It is most likely that it will resort to a soft power kind of war with the Sadrist movement and its supporters, especially since it knows that the government of the national majority which Muqtada al-Sadr wants to form will not materialise. At best, we will witness the formation of an improved version of the previous “quota system” governments.
Based on this, the Sunni blocs and Kurdish parties in the new parliament, will not morph into entities affiliated with the Sadrist movement and be opposed to Iranian tutelage and its vassal parties and militias.
Accordingly, any decisions that the Sadrist movement wants to have adopted in the parliament, especially if they relate to removing the weapons from the militias, reconstructing the Popular Mobilisation Forces and prosecuting corrupt senior officials, will not see the light of day. They will be mired by Iran and its supporters and allies in endless delays, quarrels and objections. From there, the expected next journey of failure will begin, with Muqtada al Sadr bearing the consequences.
In order for Sadr to avoid having to return to the old agreement formulas with (his brothers) the members of the Shia household, he must gain the loyalty of the winning Sunni blocs and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, clearly and definitively. These are two major obstacles that will hinder his progress and may bring him back to square one, once again.
If he allies himself with one of the two Sunni coalitions, the coalition of Muhammad al-Halbousi and the coalition of Khamis al-Khanjar, he would be contradicting himself over the quota system and foreign allegiances. This is more so since these two politicians are visiting an Arab country where they are seeking to resolve their dispute over the parliamentary speaker’s position. This is reserved for a Sunni according to the quota system which Sadr has promised not to apply again. As for the alliance with the Kurdish component, he must agree to Massoud Barzani's exorbitant demands.
The first of these is to keep the presidency of the republic within the quota system and then consider it, this time, an entitlement for Barzani and his Kurdish Democratic Party and not his rival the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
And not only that, but that Sadr must bring his parliamentary bloc to approve the appointment of Hoshyar Zebari as president of the republic, to succeed Dr Barham Salih.And this would be a big embarrassment since Sadr knows, better than anyone, that Hoshyar Zebari began his career cheating. He was admitted to the University of Jordan in 1976 as an Ahwazi (Arab), which he is not. Then, he was dismissed from the post of minister of finance by a decision of the parliament in 2016 on charges of corruption and abuse of power. How can Sadr agree to Zebari replacing President Saleh, who has undeniably demonstrated pure patriotism, integrity and competence? So, in the final analysis, the situation will remain as it is, and the militias, quotas, embezzlement, unemployment, and occupation are not going to go away.