English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 25/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the
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Bible Quotations For today
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke
12/33-40: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that
do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and
no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ‘Be
dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for
their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door
for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master
finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have
them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the
middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was
coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials
published on February 24-25/2022
The Boasting & Bragging Plague As Stated In The Bible/وباء التباهي
والتفاخرانجيلياً /Elias Bejjani/February 24/2022
Aoun Meets with Team from Firm Auditing BDL Accounts
Aoun Condemns Israeli Violations, Urges Implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701
Cabinet session convenes in Baabda on Friday to discuss electricity plan, urgent
matters
Mikati chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to study electricity plan,
follows up on implementation of “AMAN” program
Mikati follows up with Bou Habib on repercussions of Ukraine crisis on Lebanese
community
Cabinet session convenes in Baabda on Friday to discuss electricity plan, urgent
matters
Lebanese Foreign Ministry Condemns Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Ukrainians Rally outside Russian Embassy in Beirut
Lebanese Students in War-Hit Ukraine Plead to Return Home
STL Sets March 10 Session for Hariri Case Appeal Ruling
Nasrallah Says Hizbullah 'Never Been Stronger'
Abillama, Mahfoud Present to Judge Bitar New Info on the Beirut Port Blast
Lebanon to Get Spanish Funds for Railway Revival Plan
UNDP appoints Melanie Hauenstein of Germany as new Resident Representative in
Lebanon
World Bank Delegation Urges Lebanon to Adopt Electricity Plan ASAP
Osman meets UNHCR representative in Lebanon
EU to Deploy Mission to Observe Lebanon’s Legislative Elections
Lebanese Turn to Public Libraries to Check Out of Financial Crunch
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 24-25/2022
Click here to read all unfolding war details in Ukrain/Scores dead,
hundreds injured as Russia invades Ukraine
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2031026/world
Biden Meets with G7, Addresses U.S. on Response to Russia
U.S. Says Russia Intends to 'Decapitate' Ukraine Government
Republicans Hammer Biden over Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
Putin Says 'No Other Way' to Defend Russia Other than Invading Ukraine
Attacks across Ukraine as Dozens Killed in Russian Invasion
Israel Condemns Russian Invasion as Breach of World 'Order'
Russia-Ukraine Conflict Raises Big Risks for Global Economy
Gulf countries maintain difficult balancing act as Russia's military campaign in
Ukraine reverberates
3 Syrian Soldiers Killed in Israeli Strike Near Damascus
UK Foreign Minister 'Kicks' Russia Envoy Out of Meeting
Canada temporarily suspends operations at embassy and consulate in Ukraine while
consular services remain available
Iran Chief Negotiator Says ‘Certain Decisions’ Needed to Reach a Deal
Yemen's Houthis Seize Another U.S. Embassy Staffer
Titles For The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on February 24-25/2022
The Naqba dynamic: A sobering analysis of Arab-Jewish relations
The fundamental Arab goal is complete de-Zionization of Israel, meaning
canceling the Law of Return and the Jewish Nation-State Law.Op-ed/Dr. Mordechai
Nisan
Why Is Democratic Biden Rescuing Autocratic Erdoğan at the Expense of U.S.
Allies?/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/February 24/2022
History as Putin Sees it: Unity or Else/Hussam Itani/Asharq Al-Awsat
Soleimani U/A new academic center in Caracas named after the Iranian mass
murderer Soleimani is the latest node in Tehran’s soft power network in Latin
America/Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet
Biden's confused policies carry global consequences
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly
Why Khamenei keeps his silence about the nuclear deal/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News
Do not expect the destructive Iranian regime to change its ways/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab
News
on February 24-25/2022
The Boasting & Bragging Plague As Stated In The
Bible/وباء التباهي والتفاخرانجيلياً
Elias Bejjani/February 24/2022
We witness every day in our life certain disgusting evil conducts exhibited by
superficial and materialistic people through boasting and bragging, people who
are conceited and pompous.
Such conducts make those people look so stupid and so ignorant.
They isolate themselves and inspire frustration and anger among those who deal
with them, be family members or acquaintances.
As Christians are we are expected or allowed to brag and boast and act with
superiority?
Of course not, because the bible instructs us to be modest, humble meek and
loving.
Meanwhile God punishes the braggers and conceited as Isaiah states,
Below seven verses from the Holy Bible that condemns Bragging
Isaiah/10:15 Should an axe brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw
exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift
it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood.
Isaiah/10:16 Therefore the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will send among his fat ones
leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of
fire.
Isaiah/10:17 The light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a
flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day.
Isaiah/10:18 He will consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field,
both soul and body. It will be as when a standard bearer faints.
Isaiah/10:19 The remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few, so that a
child could write their number.
Isaiah/10:33-34: "Behold, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, will lop the boughs with
terror. The tall will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low.
Isaiah/10:34) He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon
will fall by the Mighty One..
Aoun Meets with Team from Firm Auditing BDL Accounts
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
President Michel Aoun on Thursday held a meeting with a delegation from New
York-based audit firm Alvarez & Marsal. The firm had launched an audit of the
accounts of Lebanon’s central bank in September 2020, but was forced to pull out
two months later because the central bank failed to hand over necessary data.
Aoun said in October that the company had resumed its work. The National News
Agency said the delegation explained to Aoun the phases it has completed in its
evaluation of the data it has received from the central bank. “The evaluation is
expected to be finished in the beginning of next week and the delegation
expressed hope that the data the company has received would be compatible with
the list of information it had asked for,” NNA added. The audit is part of
urgent reforms to unlock financial support to deal with an economic crisis
branded by the World Bank as one of the planet's worst since the mid-19th
century. Some observers have warned the audit is unlikely to yield the kind of
revelations that could hold Lebanon's ruling elite accountable for the alleged
corruption and mismanagement that caused the collapse. Experts had expressed
doubts that the terms of the contract and the limited time given to auditors
would allow for a credible investigation. In December 2021, parliament approved
a bill that suspends banking secrecy laws for one year to allow for the forensic
audit.
Aoun Condemns Israeli Violations, Urges Implementation
of U.N. Resolution 1701
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
President Michel Aoun stressed Thursday Lebanon's keenness on the implementation
of U.N. resolution 1701, during a farewell meeting with UNIFIL Force Commander
General Stefano Del Col. "Lebanon adheres to its rights and to its full
sovereignty by land, sea and air," Aoun said, urging the United Nations to
pressure Israel to stop its "repeated violations of Lebanon's sovereignty."Del
Col who has completed his mission in Lebanon, for his part, wished to return one
day as a tourist and to find clear and properly drawn borders between Lebanon
and Israel rather than a blue line.
Cabinet session convenes in Baabda on Friday to discuss
electricity plan, urgent matters
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
The Council of Ministers will hold a session at 3:00 pm on Friday at Baabda
Presidential Palace, headed by President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun,
to discuss the electricity plan and urgent matters that await appropriate
decisions.
Mikati chairs meeting of ministerial committee tasked to
study electricity plan, follows up on implementation of “AMAN” program
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Thursday chaired at the Grand Serail a meeting
by the ministerial committee tasked to study the electricity plan before
presenting it to the Council of Ministers.
Mikati had earlier met with Minister of Social Affairs, Hector Hajjar, who
briefed him on his ministry’s efforts to help implement “AMAN” program in
support of the poorest families in Lebanon. Hajjar briefed the PM on the stages
of work after the registration of families, the sorting and selection of names,
home visits, and payment dates. In response to a question about the timing of
payment dates, he said: "We’ve published a press release in which we indicated
that approximately 580,000 families were registered, and after electronic
sorting, 200 families were selected. Visits have begun a week ago, but this
process will take some time. Payments are expected to start during the month of
March for the first group, reaching 150,000 families.”
Mikati follows up with Bou Habib on repercussions of
Ukraine crisis on Lebanese community
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Thursday met with Minister of Foreign Affairs
and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib, who briefed him on the ministry's endeavors
in light of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and its repercussions on the Lebanese
nationals residing in Ukraine.
“We’ve formed a crisis cell consisting of employees and diplomats at the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Lebanon's ambassadors to Poland, Ukraine,
Romania, and Russia. We’ve also set an open phone line to follow up on
developments,” Bou Habib said.
“We have also created a phone application to enable the Lebanese residing in
Ukraine to enter it and register their names in order to communicate with the
Lebanese embassy about their residence or their return plans,” the MoFA added.
“Within this framework, I’ve met today with the ambassadors of Ukraine's
neighborhood, including the ambassadors of Poland and Romania, and they’ve
assured us that the land routes will be open before Lebanese nationals who wish
to leave Ukraine to Romania or Poland by land,” Bou Habib added. “We are also in
the process of issuing a statement to condemn the acts of war in the name of the
Lebanese state and to call for dialogue through United Nations’ channels,” he
concluded.
Cabinet session convenes in Baabda on Friday to discuss
electricity plan, urgent matters
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
The following is statement by UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti in which he
replies to media reports regarding a recent donation of hand sanitizer by UNIFIL
contingent: “We would like to clarify recent media reports regarding a recent
donation of hand sanitizer by a UNIFIL contingent.
The UNIFIL contingent made, in good faith, a donation of hand sanitizer to local
schools of Bint Jbeil. Although the content inside was indeed hand sanitizer, a
small quantity of this donation was mislabeled by the distributing company as
"insect repellant". They were later relabeled to display the correct contents
inside. Nonetheless, as a precautionary measure, the UNIFIL contingent concerned
has removed all the deliveries from its stock.”
Lebanese Foreign Ministry Condemns Russia's Invasion of
Ukraine
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned Russia’s military invasion
of Ukraine and called on Moscow to “immediately halt military operations.”“In
light of the military invasions that Lebanon’s modern history witnessed, which
inflicted heavy losses on it and its people… Lebanon condemns the invasion of
Ukrainian territory and call on Russia to immediately halt military operations,”
the Ministry said in a statement. Lebanon calls on Moscow to “withdraw its
forces and return to the approach of dialogue and negotiations, as the beast
means to resolve the current conflict, in a manner that would preserve the
sovereignty, security and concerns of both parties and that would contribute to
sparing the peoples of the two countries, the European continent and the world
the tragedies and pain of wars,” the statement added.
Ukrainians Rally outside Russian Embassy in Beirut
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Ukrainian expats in Lebanon on Thursday staged a sit-in outside the Russian
Embassy in Beirut to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which began at dawn.
“Stop Russian Aggression”, “No Putin No War” and “Putin is the Hitler of the
21st Century” read some of the English- and Arabic-language banners that were
carried by the protesters. “Putin stop the war!” they chanted. "We do not want
World War III to happen," said Suzan Jaramani, 27, a Ukrainian-Lebanese
university teacher. "We just want peace. So leave us be and Putin, take your
people and just go back to where you belong."
Lebanese security forces meanwhile took security measures in the area. Russian
President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday,
forcing residents to flee for their lives and leaving at least 40 Ukrainian
soldiers and 10 civilians dead. Russian air strikes hit military facilities
across the country and ground forces moved in from the north, south and east,
triggering condemnation from Western leaders and warnings of massive sanctions.
"I have decided to proceed with a special military operation," Putin said in a
television announcement in the early hours of Thursday. Shortly afterwards, the
first bombardments were heard in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and several other
cities."Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful
Ukrainian cities are under strikes," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba
tweeted.
Lebanese Students in War-Hit Ukraine Plead to Return
Home
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Lebanese students and citizens in Ukraine are urging the Lebanese embassy and
authorities to return them home due to the Russian invasion of the country that
started at dawn Thursday. A Lebanese student in Kyiv told al-Jadeed TV in a
phone interview that the Lebanese students in the city have gathered in “safe
houses.”“We are waiting for any news from the (Lebanese) embassy (in Kyiv) as to
where we can go and how to return to Lebanon, whether through the airport or any
nation or location,” the student said. “Until now we have not received any
information or phone call… They have published phone numbers on Facebook and
sometimes we try to call them,” the student added. The head of the Lebanese
expat community in Ukraine meanwhile said the Lebanese embassy there is
“unfortunately not answering” any phone calls. Later in the day, the Lebanese
Foreign Ministry said it held consultations with the Lebanese embassy in Kyiv
and that it urges all Lebanese citizens in Ukraine to observe utmost caution and
stay in safe places. It also said that Lebanese nationals wishing to leave
Ukraine should register their names on
https://mfa.gov.lb/Ukraineform as it added that it is “continuing its
political contacts with all relevant and friendly countries, including
neighboring nations, to secure safe corridors and facilitate the departure of
willing Lebanese citizens.”The Ministry added that it will later issue more
statements to clarify the procedures.
STL Sets March 10 Session for Hariri Case Appeal Ruling
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has issued a
scheduling order for the pronouncement of the Appeal Judgment in the Rafik
Hariri case. The ruling will be announced in a public session on March 10 at
14.00 CET, the STL said in a statement. The Trial Chamber had pronounced its
Judgment in the case on August 18 and unanimously found Hizbullah operative
Salim Ayyash “guilty beyond reasonable doubt of all counts charged against him
in the amended consolidated indictment.” The Trial Chamber further found
Hizbullah members Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan
Sabra not guilty of all counts charged against them.The Prosecution meanwhile
filed an appeal regarding the rulings against Merhi and Oneissi as the Defencs
Counsel for the two men each filed a Response Brief.
Nasrallah Says Hizbullah 'Never Been Stronger'
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that Hizbullah "has never been
as strong as it is today."Nasrallah stated, in an interview with al-Manar TV,
that "if Israel starts a war on Lebanon, then it will see all our strength.”The
Israeli military had failed last week to intercept a drone that crossed its
northern border. Hizbullah claimed responsibility and minutes later, two Israeli
warplanes overflew Beirut and its suburbs at a very low altitude in a mock raid.
"Israel is a temporary entity," Nasrallah said. "It will cease to exist," he
added. Nasrallah stressed that "if you remain silent and surrender your weapons,
you tell your opponent that you are crushed, humiliated and weak.""The enemy
will not pity you, it will humiliate you even more," Nasrallah added. "Let them
give us one example of peoples who resisted, surrendered their weapons, and kept
their dignity," Nasrallah said. Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib had headed
to Kuwait last month to deliver Lebanon's answers to a paper of demands that had
been delivered to Lebanon by the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister. Sheikh Ahmed
al-Nasser said it was "a Kuwaiti, Gulf, Arab and international message"
containing measures and ideas to build confidence again with Lebanon. The
measures included Lebanon's commitment to U.N. resolutions related to
Hizbullah's disarmament. Bou Habib made it clear, ahead of his departure to
Kuwait, that Lebanon will not disarm Hizbullah.
Abillama, Mahfoud Present to Judge Bitar New Info on the
Beirut Port Blast
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Lebanese Forces MP Eddy Abillama and Change Movement head Elie Mahfoud submitted
Thursday new information about the Beirut port explosion to Judge Tarek Bitar.
Abillama and Mahfoud presented, in a memo, new documents and information that
they said might help with the investigations.
"We insist on pursuing this file to the end, until justice is reached for the
martyrs, the wounded, and those who were displaced by the blast," Abillama said.
For his part, Mahfoud said that "in the face of the indifference of the
politicians towards the explosion and towards the families of the victims, we
will follow up on this file carefully."
Lebanon to Get Spanish Funds for Railway Revival Plan
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Lebanon's transport minister has said that Spain will finance a plan to revive
the railway network that has been out of service since the start of the
1975-1990 civil war. A deal for a "comprehensive master plan for the 407
kilometer-long railway" is expected next month, Public Works and Transport
Minister Ali Hamiyeh told AFP in an interview. "We should sign a deal with the
Spanish government within three weeks," Hamiyeh said, adding that the plan
should be completed six months after an agreement is clinched. Lebanon had a
railway network since the end of the 19th century which connected Beirut to the
Syrian capital Damascus. It was built during Ottoman rule and inaugurated in
1895, operating until the devastating civil war begun 47 years ago. Several
proposals to revamp the network -- and public transport in general -- were made
after the end of the war in 1975 but were shelved.
The network, like most of Lebanon's post-war infrastructure, fell into
disrepair, and illegal construction sprouted along the railway. With public
transport effectively non-existent, there are more than two million cars for six
million people in Lebanon. In 2018, the World Bank approved a $295 million
package to jumpstart the country's first modern public transport system. But
that too was put on hold as Lebanon has been struggling since 2019 with a major
financial crisis dubbed by the World Bank as one of the planet's worst in modern
times. Spain's government will pay a Spanish firm to draft a feasibility study,
a survey of current infrastructure and proposals to settle infringements on the
rail network, Hamiyeh said. The master plan, he said, could serve as a way to
attract potential investors for the rehabilitation of the railway. Lebanon's
cash-strapped public works ministry is trying to attract funds in foreign
currency by launching tenders for top facilities. They include the Beirut
International Airport and the Beirut port, where an explosion caused by a huge
stockpile of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in August 2020 killed more than 200
people and destroyed swathes of the capital. Next week, Hamiyeh is due to sign a
10-year contract with French shipping giant CMA CGM to run the container
terminal at Beirut port. The Lebanese government in partnership with the World
Bank is also working on drafting a roadmap for the reconstruction of the port
which should be ready by August, Hamiyeh said. "The master plan for the port
lays out a framework for optimal investment" before the start of reconstruction
which is estimated to cost $500-600 million, the minister told AFP.
UNDP appoints Melanie Hauenstein of Germany as new
Resident Representative in Lebanon
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Today, Ms. Melanie Hauenstein officially assumed her functions as the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) new Resident Representative in Lebanon,
succeeding Ms. Celine Moyroud of France, who completed her assignment on
February 14.
“I am keenly aware that I arrive at a time of daunting challenges for many
Lebanese. But the enormous capacities of the Lebanese people and the great
potential of this beautiful country give me hope that together we can work on
protecting livelihoods, strengthening institutions, investing in women and youth
and ensuring a sustainable recovery. I look forward to working on development
with Lebanon, for Lebanon”, Ms. Hauenstein said. Ms. Hauenstein brings over 17
years of experience in development and peacebuilding. In her latest assignment,
she served as a Regional Adviser in UNDP’s Regional Bureau Arab States in New
York, where she was responsible for overseeing and supporting UNDP’s country
programmes in Algeria, Djibouti, Libya, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, and
Yemen. Prior to this, Ms. Hauenstein served as Senior Stabilisation Adviser in
the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she
supported the first democratic elections and advised the Deputy Special
Representative of the Secretary-General and Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator –
a function she also fulfilled in a similar position she held in Sudan. She also
served as Deputy Head of Office and Team Leader for Stabilisation & Recovery in
Gao and as Regional Head of Office in Mopti in the UN peacekeeping mission in
Mali. At UN Headquarters in New York, she worked with UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis
Prevention and Recovery, and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs.
Ms. Hauenstein holds an MSc in Population and Development from the London School
of Economics and Political Science. She studied politics, sociology and
economics in Regensburg, Leipzig and Paris. She speaks English, French, German
and Spanish.
UNDP is working in Lebanon since 1986 as a development partner supporting
economic recovery, including working with municipalities to deliver basic
services to host communities, promoting clean energy and solid waste management,
strengthening governance and rule of law, providing support to elections and
working on empowering women and youth.
World Bank Delegation Urges Lebanon to Adopt Electricity
Plan ASAP
Naharnet/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Prime Minister Najib Miqati chaired Thursday a meeting with a delegation from
the World Bank headed by the World Bank Regional Director in the Middle East
Saroj Kumar Jha. "We want Lebanon to adopt an electricity plan as soon as
possible," the regional director said, stressing that "it is a prerequisite for
securing funds for the electricity sector from the World Bank." The conferees
discussed the technical assistance that the Bank can provide to Lebanon in the
financial and banking sectors and also in the infrastructure. Kumar Jha said,
after the meeting, that the World Bank delegation's mission is to see how the
Lebanese economy works, and to prepare a plan for financial recovery. "The
delegation also aims to develop other reforms in the electricity and water
sectors," Kumar Jha added.
Osman meets UNHCR representative in Lebanon
NNA/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Internal Security Forces Chief, Major General, Imad Osman, on Thursday met with
the representative of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon (UNHCR),
Ayaki Ito, and head of SHIELD, Samer Haidar, at the head of an accompanying
delegation.
The meeting discussed the best means to enhance cooperation and develop work
within a program aiming to provide assistance to inmates in Lebanese prisons.
EU to Deploy Mission to Observe Lebanon’s Legislative
Elections
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
The European Union announced on Wednesday plans to deploy an EU Election
Observation Mission to observe the Lebanese parliamentary elections scheduled on
15 May 2022. This came in response to an invitation from the Lebanese Ministry
of Interior and Municipalities, the EU Mission in Lebanon said in a statement
Thursday. In this regard, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs
and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell
appointed György Hölvényi, Member of the European Parliament, as Chief Observer
of the Mission. “The EU has been committed to assisting Lebanon’s electoral
process by providing significant financial, technical and political support for
their preparation,” Borell stressed. He said the holding of elections is first
and foremost a right and an expectation of the people of Lebanon, as well as a
sovereign responsibility that the Lebanese government must follow through. “A
constructive participation of all political forces in the upcoming elections
will be of key importance for the country and all the Lebanese people,” the EU
High-representative said. He also noted that the EU is a long-standing partner
of Lebanon in supporting peace and democracy, and the presence of an Election
Observation Mission is another example of this commitment. “I believe the work
of the EU mission will contribute to an inclusive and transparent election
process and to further reinforce the democratic path and reforms in Lebanon,” he
added.
For his part, Hölvényi said the EU has supported Lebanese Parliamentary
elections by sending election observation missions in 2005, 2009 and 2018. “This
will be the fourth time that the EU deploys an Election Observation Mission in
Lebanon and I am truly honored to have been entrusted with the responsibility of
leading this important mission,” he said. He voiced hopes that “the mission’s
work can help to foster confidence and further reinforce the democratic process
in the country with a view to a genuine and Lebanese-led reform process, and
that these elections will contribute to the security and stability of the
country.” The 2022 EU Election Observation Mission to Lebanon will be made of
different groups of observers, according to the EU statement. It said the Core
Team of election analysts, based in Beirut, will arrive at the end of March and
consist of 10 election experts covering the different aspects of the electoral
process. Mid-April 30 long-term observers will join the mission and will be
deployed in the regions to follow the political campaign. Thereafter, 40
short-term observers will join the mission around Election Day to observe the
polling, voting, and counting. Some of these will also cover the Out of Country
voting in several countries where there is a significant presence of the
Lebanese diaspora. Other short-term observers recruited within the EU diplomatic
community in Lebanon would also reinforce the mission on Election Day. The EU
Election Observation Mission will remain in the country until the completion of
the electoral process. In line with the EU methodology on election observation,
the mission will hold a press conference in Beirut 48 hours after Election Day
to issue its preliminary statement of findings. Once the entire electoral
process is concluded, the mission will publish a final report, which will
include a final assessment of the electoral process and a set of recommendations
for reforms to improve future elections.
Lebanese Turn to Public Libraries to Check Out of
Financial Crunch
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
In many countries, public libraries are considered a dying relic amid the shift
to digital, but in Lebanon they are getting a new lease of life as its economy
flatlines. Every Friday afternoon, Munira Khalifa takes her son Elia to a public
library in Beirut for a weekly storytelling event -- one of the last affordable
pleasures as a crashing local currency has rendered books something of a luxury.
"We had reached a point where we couldn't find anywhere to take Elia because of
the coronavirus pandemic and our difficult financial situation," Khalifa said.
She is just one of hundreds of parents who are hitting the shelves at three
public libraries in Beirut in the heat of the unprecedented financial crisis.
The libraries are managed by the Assabil non-governmental group, which was
founded in 1997 to promote free access to books and culture. At one of them in
the neighborhood of Bashoura, the mother and son were the first to arrive ahead
of a reading. The library offered them some relief, Khalifa said, adding: "It is
safe, comfortable and close to home.""Financially, it helps us cut on costs for
transportation and new books, which have become more expensive," she told AFP.
Throughout the reading, laughter abounded as a storyteller acted out a book
using puppets. Librarian Samar Choucair said the number of visitors at the
facility had increased in the past year, largely since people cannot afford to
buy new books. This is especially the case for children's books, which are
mostly produced abroad and tend to be more expensive, she said.
"We keep hearing from parents that this is the spot they choose to take their
children... in light of the economic crisis."
'Need to read'
Sluggish internet speeds and the absence of credit cards have also hindered the
take-up of digital books in Lebanon, where banks have locked people out of their
accounts. Lebanon is facing a financial crisis that the World Bank says is of a
scale usually associated with wars, with more than 80 percent of the population
living in poverty. The local currency has shed more than 90 percent of its value
against the dollar on the black market, causing skyrocketing inflation. As a
result, the cost of printing and buying books has soared, while the monthly
minimum wage remains unchanged at 675,000 pounds, the equivalent nowadays of
just $32.While this may have translated into more footfall at libraries, it has
eaten into booksellers' profits. Lana Halabi, who runs a family-owned bookshop
in Beirut's Tariq al-Jedideh neighborhood, said all new books were priced in
dollars and therefore hit by the fluctuating exchange rate.
"Book purchases are not a priority" for many Lebanese, the 33-year-old told AFP.
"This has reflected negatively on us and other publishing houses," she added,
pointing to a drop in orders at the Halabi bookshop. But in a public library in
Beirut's Geitaoui neighborhood, demand is on the rise, prompting management to
add 300 new covers to their collection in the past two months, said librarian
Josiane Badra. "Books have become very expensive and people can't afford them...
especially novels that are in great demand in the region, whether in French or
in Arabic," she said.
For literature student Aline Daou, the Geitaoui public library is an
indispensable lifeline. "As a literature student, I always need to read," the
21-year-old said. "I prefer to borrow novels from here," she added, explaining
that it helps her set aside money to buy books not carried by public libraries.
'Breathing room'
Ali Sabbagh of the Assabil organization said public libraries offered people
"breathing room", but they were beset by challenges. "We run these libraries in
partnership with the Beirut municipality which used to front around 80 percent
of operating costs in Lebanese pounds," he said. The currency devaluation,
according to Sabbagh, has meant the value of municipal funding has plummeted.
"We are trying as much as possible to reach out to donors that can provide us
with the necessary support to continue," Sabbagh told AFP. "Relying solely on
public funds during this time has become very difficult."International donors,
meanwhile, tend to focus on humanitarian projects as opposed to cultural spaces,
said Sabbagh. At the Geitaoui library, fine arts student Valentina Habis said
funding should not overlook culture. "In the midst of economic collapse, we need
cultural spaces... places that develop thought and culture, because culture is
the basis of society," she said.
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unfolding war details in Ukrain/Scores dead, hundreds injured as Russia invades
Ukraine
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2031026/world
Biden Meets with G7, Addresses U.S. on Response to Russia
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February,
2022
U.S. President Joe Biden met with G7 allies Thursday to hammer out a raft of new
sanctions against Russia after it invaded Ukraine, and was shortly to speak to
the American people on a crisis that he warns will cause "catastrophic loss of
life."After a virtual, closed-door meeting which lasted an hour and 10 minutes,
the group of rich Western democracies -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan and the United States -- said in a joint statement that Russia
posed "a serious threat to the rules-based international order." It said the
seven industrial powers were "ready to act" to minimize disruptions to world
energy markets as a result of Moscow's assault on Ukraine and with sanctions
already targeting a major pipeline from heavyweight energy producer Russia.
Before the G7 gathering, Biden first huddled with his National Security Council
in the Situation Room, the White House said. His speech to the nation was
scheduled for 12:30 pm (1730 GMT). For weeks, as Russia built up tens of
thousands of troops and heavy weapons on Ukraine's border, Biden has led NATO
and other European allies in trying to craft a package of what Washington says
are "unprecedented" sanctions as a deterrent. Now that the deterrent has failed,
the goal is to "hold Russia accountable," Biden said in his first comments late
Wednesday in Washington, after Russian missiles began to rain down. Biden said
US allies would "respond in a united and decisive way."Biden also held a phone
call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, saying afterwards that
he had promised to "provide support and assistance to Ukraine and the Ukrainian
people." A first round of Western sanctions was unleashed on Tuesday, after
Putin announced he would send troops as "peacekeepers" to two small areas
already controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. The U.S. government joined
European allies in imposing sanctions on two Russian banks, Moscow's sovereign
debt, several oligarchs and other measures. On Wednesday, as the Russian
invasion force became clearly primed to attack, Biden announced he was imposing
sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany --
one of Moscow's highest-profile geopolitical projects. Germany had earlier
announced it would block the pipeline from opening for deliveries. Now, US
officials are teeing up tougher new sanctions that could include targeting
bigger banks, more oligarchs close to Putin and, crucially, a ban on exports to
Russia of high-tech equipment and components. It was not clear how many of these
measures would be announced Thursday.
'Cut off' Russian economy -
Germany's vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, signaled Thursday there would be a
"strong sanctions package" that will "cut off the Russian economy from
industrial progress, will attack and freeze assets and financial holdings, and
will dramatically limit access to the European and American markets.""No Russian
financial institution is safe," State Department spokesman Ned Price said
Wednesday, hours before the invasion was launched. Some measures also risk
serious economic fallout for Western countries and could imperil the global
economy recovery after the Covid pandemic. Already stock markets are tumbling
and oil prices are soaring over $100 a barrel. Among the more controversial
sanctions would be directly targeting Putin, who is widely reported to have
amassed a vast, secret fortune during his two decades running Russia. Arguably
the highest stakes sanction would be cutting Moscow off from the SWIFT
international banking network. This would at least for some time disconnect
Russia from basic commerce, hugely disrupting the economy, but it would also
carry considerable potential aftershocks to the wider, U.S.-led financial
system. Zelensky, speaking as Russian troops broadened their attack on his
country, appealed directly for Moscow to be yanked from SWIFT.
U.S. Says Russia Intends to 'Decapitate' Ukraine Government
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February,
2022
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is aimed at capturing the capital Kyiv and removing
the country's leadership, with troops advancing on three fronts backed up by
aerial bombardment, a U.S. defense official said Thursday. The Russian military
opened its attack with around 100 missile launches in the first two hours,
mainly targeting military infrastructure facilities, as well as sorties by 75
heavy and medium bombers, the official said. The initial phase is focused on key
cities, and the Pentagon expects the Russians to move on Kyiv, according to the
official, speaking on grounds of anonymity. "They have every intention of
basically decapitating the government and installing their own means of
governance," the official said. The official said that Russian troops had
crossed the border on the ground but gave no estimate on numbers. "What we're
seeing are initial phases of a large scale invasion."
"We haven't seen a conventional move like this, nation state to nation state,
since World War II, certainly nothing on this size and scope and scale," the
official said. The invasion began on three axes aimed at seizing population
centers. The first involves troops entering from Russian-controlled Crimea
toward the city of Kherson in the south. The second is in incursion from Belarus
into north-central Ukraine, toward Kyiv. And the third is in the northeast, a
push from Russia near Belgorod aimed at the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. "The
heaviest fighting we've seen so far is in Kharkiv," the official said. The
opening phase included ground and sea-based launches of short and medium-range
ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles. Those, along
with bomb attacks by aircraft, focused on airfields, barracks, and ammunition
depots. So far however, the Russians have not entered western Ukraine, and there
have been "no indications" of an amphibious assault in the south from the Black
Sea, the official said. Nor have they targeted the Ukraine military's command
and control facilities, or public communications. "Public means of communication
and media are accessible and are still active," the official said. There were no
estimates of the damages to Ukraine's military. "We have seen indications that
they are resisting and fighting back," the official said. The Pentagon had no
confirmation of Ukraine claims of having downed several Russian aircraft.
Republicans Hammer Biden over Russia's Invasion of
Ukraine
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
As U.S. lawmakers raced Thursday to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, allies
of Donald Trump wasted no time in placing the blame squarely with President Joe
Biden, saying his administration had emboldened Moscow with a series of policy
blunders. Prominent political figures and commentators on the right dropped the
longstanding custom of joining Democrats to speak with one voice in times of
international crisis -- accusing the president of weakness and even rallying to
Russian leader Vladimir Putin's side. "Trump did the impossible and brought
peace to the Middle East. Biden did the impossible and brought war to Europe,"
said Arizona congressman Paul Gosar, one of Trump's most loyal backers, who has
been accused of ties with white nationalists. "Vladimir Putin saw how weak
President Biden has been as a world leader and took complete advantage of it.
This will be yet another crisis to add to his failing resume," added
Trump-endorsed Michigan representative Lisa McClain. As explosions rang out in
Kyiv late Wednesday, Trump himself appeared on Fox News to falsely blame the
invasion on the "rigged election" that ended his tenure, accusing Biden of
"probably sleeping right now."But the former president, who has been making
false accusations that the 2020 election was stolen from him since his defeat to
Biden, appeared to have a poor grasp of the developments. In a humiliating
gaffe, he seemed to believe American troops had landed in Ukraine to fight
Russians, and started berating the US military for not keeping the phantom
operation secret before he was corrected.
- 'Weak and incompetent' -
Trump -- who was impeached in 2019 after withholding military aid to Ukraine
while pressuring it to announce a bogus corruption investigation into the Biden
family -- had earlier said that Putin was "playing Biden like a drum," and
praised his "genius."Republicans in the House of Representatives attempted to
humiliate Biden on Tuesday by tweeting a picture of him walking away from the
podium after he announced sanctions against Russia. The photo caption read:
"This is what weakness on the world stage looks like."Other leading figures in
Trump's "America First" movement and key right-wing media voices have been
blaming the violence on Biden's chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal and accusing him
of prioritizing Ukraine's defense over tightening US border security. Fox News
prime-time host Tucker Carlson told viewers on Tuesday: "It may be worth asking
yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do
I hate Putin so much? "Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to
get me fired for disagreeing with him?"Even the establishment Republicans,
traditionally foreign policy hawks, sensed blood in the water ahead of
November's crucial midterm elections, when Biden's Democrats are expected to
suffer big defeats in Congress. Rick Scott, who runs the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, called Biden a "failure" and said the Russian incursion
was the result of America's enemies seeing a "weak and incompetent" US leader.
'Authoritarian bullying'
"Congress is no longer putting aside domestic rivalries in the interest of
providing a strong united front externally, and this is a very bad trend," top
Democratic pollster Carly Cooperman told AFP. "It makes us look weak, emboldens
Putin and hurts our democracy."The party's moderate voices have been more
circumspect. The top Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs, Armed Services
and Intelligence committees released a joint statement that refrained from
criticizing Biden. "Every drop of Ukrainian and Russian blood spilled in
this conflict is on Putin's hands, and his alone," said Michael McCaul, Mike
Rogers and Mike Turner. Former president George W. Bush focused on Putin's
"authoritarian bullying," calling Russia's attack "the gravest security crisis
on the European continent since World War II."Former Republican White House
nominee Mitt Romney reprised his 2012 presidential debate warning about Russia,
this time blaming Biden, Trump and Obama. "Putin's Ukraine invasion is the
first time in 80 years that a great power has moved to conquer a sovereign
nation. It is without justification, without provocation and without honor," the
Utah senator said.
Putin Says 'No Other Way' to Defend Russia Other than Invading Ukraine
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February,
2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow had no other choice
but to invade Ukraine to ensure Russia's security, speaking hours after his army
crossed his ex-Soviet neighbor's borders. "What was happening left us with no
choice," the Russian leader said during a televised meeting with business
representatives, adding that "we had no other way of proceeding."
Attacks across Ukraine as Dozens Killed in Russian
Invasion
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February,
2022
Invading Russian forces pressed deep into Ukraine as violence spiraled Thursday,
claiming dozens of lives and raising the prospect Moscow will march on Kyiv as
the West imposed punishing sanctions in response. In a day of intense fighting,
Russian missiles and shelling rained down on Ukrainian cities, forcing civilians
to seek shelter on metro systems, with others displaced by deadly airstrikes.
Across Ukraine, at least 68 people were killed, including both soldiers and
civilians, according to an AFP tally from Ukrainian official sources. Moscow's
forces seized a key strategic airbase near Kyiv as well as the scene of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a vast area still heavily contaminated with
radioactive material. Witnesses told AFP that Russian paratroopers wrested
control of the Gostomel airfield after swooping in with helicopters and jets
from the direction of Belarus. "The helicopters came in and then the battles
started. They were firing machine guns, grenade launchers," resident Sergiy
Storozhuk said. The airfield could now provide a strategic staging post for
Russian forces to ferry in troops who could then launch an assault on government
buildings and the presidency in Kyiv.
Western intelligence has said that Russia is seeking to mass "overwhelming
force" around the Ukrainian capital and that Moscow has established "complete
air superiority" over Ukraine. Elsewhere, Russian ground forces moved into
Ukraine from the north, south and east, forcing many Ukrainians to flee their
homes as the sound of bombing reverberated. Moscow's defense ministry said
its forces had "successfully completed" their objectives for the day, earlier
claiming to have destroyed over 70 Ukrainian military targets, including 11
airfields. Olena Kurilo was among 20 wounded after a blast sent shards of glass
from her windows in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv. "Never, under any
conditions will I submit to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. It is better to
die," the 52-year-old teacher said, her face swathed in bandages.
Fall of Chernobyl
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there was now a "new iron curtain"
between Russia and the rest of the world, like in the Cold War. U.S. President
Joe Biden announced export controls against Russia to cut off more than half of
the country's high-tech imports, alongside sanctions on Russian elites he called
"corrupt billionaires", and banks. He earlier said the G7 group of wealthy
nations had agreed to impose "devastating" economic sanctions. Biden once again
said additional U.S. forces were not heading to eastern Europe to fight in
Ukraine, but would defend "every inch" of NATO territory. Weeks of diplomacy
failed to deter Putin, who massed over 150,000 troops on Ukraine's borders in
what the West said was Europe's biggest military build-up since World War II.
Air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv at daybreak after the city's main airport was
hit in the first bombing of the city since World War II.
The city declared an overnight curfew but said underground stations would remain
open throughout to serve as bomb shelters.
Zelensky called the attack on Chernobyl "a declaration of war on all of Europe"
while 18 people were killed at a military base near the Black Sea port of Odessa
in the deadliest single strike reported by Kyiv. Ukraine also said a military
plane with 14 people on board crashed south of Kyiv and that officials were
determining how many people died, while a transport plane crashed in Russia
killing the crew.Ukrainian forces said they had killed "around 50 Russian
occupiers" while repulsing an attack on a town on the frontline with
Moscow-backed rebels, which could not immediately be confirmed by AFP.
'Significant economic risk'
In the Ukrainian village of Starognativka near the frontline where separatists
have faced off against Kyiv's forces, official Vladimir Vesyelkin said missiles
had rained down since the morning and power was out. "They are trying to wipe
the village off the face of the earth," he said. Ukraine said Russian tanks and
heavy armor crossed the border in several northern regions, in the east as well
as from the Kremlin-annexed peninsula of Crimea in the south. The fighting
spooked global financial markets, with stocks plunging and oil prices soaring
past $100. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said the unrest carried "significant
economic risk" for the world, but Putin insisted he did not seek to undermine
the global economic system. In a televized address, Putin justified the assault
as a defence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics in eastern
Ukraine. The Kremlin earlier said the leaders of the two separatist territories
had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv after Putin recognised their
independence on Monday. A conflict between the separatists and government forces
has dragged on since 2014, killing more than 14,000 people on both sides. NATO
said it had activated "defense plans" for allied countries but alliance chief
Jens Stoltenberg said there were no intentions to send NATO forces into Ukraine.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining NATO and
that U.S. troops pull out from Eastern Europe. In the Baltics, Lithuania
declared a national emergency and Latvia banned three Russian TV channels that
were broadcasting in the country, saying they posted a "threat to national
security."Demonstrators took to the streets of European capitals to condemn
Russia but a small anti-war protest in Moscow was quickly shut down by police
and monitors said over 1,400 people were detained across the country. The first
Ukraine refugees have begun to trickle into Hungary and Romania.
Israel Condemns Russian Invasion as Breach of World 'Order'
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February,
2022
Israel condemned Russia's attack on Ukraine Thursday as a "violation of the
international order" but underlined its close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv.
"The Russian attack on Ukraine is a serious violation of the international
order," Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, adding that Israel "condemns" the
assault. But Lapid also noted that "Israel has deep, long-lasting and good
relations with Russia and with Ukraine," and that "hundreds of thousands of
Jews" live in both countries. "Maintaining their security and safety is at the
top of our considerations," Lapid said. Israel has sought to maintain a
diplomatic balance through the deepening crisis. The United States is Israel's
key security ally and analysts say the Jewish state will face mounting pressure
to align with the West against Moscow. But Israel also has an important security
relationship with Russia, particularly given the presence of Russian forces in
neighboring Syria. Israeli officials have said they have coordinated closely
with Russia while conducting air strikes on what they describe as Iranian
targets inside Syria. Lapid said Israel stood ready "to provide humanitarian
assistance to the citizens of Ukraine." The Russian invasion has sparked fears
of an exodus of refugees.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict Raises Big Risks for Global
Economy
Associated Press/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Just what a vulnerable world economy didn't need — a conflict that accelerates
inflation, rattles markets and portends trouble for everyone from European
consumers to indebted Chinese developers and families in Africa that face
soaring food prices. Russia's attack on Ukraine and retaliatory sanctions from
the West may not portend another global recession. The two countries together
account for less than 2% of the world's gross domestic product. And many
regional economies remain in solid shape, having rebounded swiftly from the
pandemic recession. Yet the conflict threatens to inflict severe economic damage
on some countries and industries — damage that could mean hardships for millions
of people. Russia is the world's third-biggest producer of petroleum and is a
major exporter of natural gas. Ukraine's farms feed millions around the world.
And financial markets are in a precarious spot as central banks prepare to
reverse years of easy-money policies and raise interest rates to fight a
resurgence of inflation. Those higher rates will likely slow spending and raise
the risk of another downturn. "I wouldn't be misled by just calculating GDP
ratios ... especially at a time when commodity prices are already high,
inflation is already high,'' said Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the
Institute of International Finance, a trade group for banks. "It's a tricky
moment now, given where the global economy is.'' Russia's attack could slow
Europe's economic recovery by sending already elevated energy prices ever
higher. Europe, an energy importer, receives close to 40% of its natural gas
from Russia. A cutoff of that energy source could undercut the continent's
economy. High natural gas prices have already led to higher home utility bills
for both natural-gas heat and electricity generated from gas, crimping consumer
spending.
"Gas prices in Europe are already crushing households and consumers, especially
low-income households,'' said Adam Tooze, director of Columbia University's
European Institute, whose 2018 history of the last decade's financial crisis,
"Crashed,'' explored tensions over Ukraine.
Costly gas has forced production cutbacks at producers of fertilizer and some
other heavy industrial users. Annual inflation hit 5.1% in January in the 19
countries that use the euro, the highest rate since record-keeping began in
1997.
"Escalating tensions put two cornerstones of this year's expected growth
recovery — a rebound in consumer spending and a pickup in industrial activity —
at further risk," Oliver Rakau and Mateusz Urban at Oxford Economics said in a
research note.
Natural gas prices, which have tended to rise on crisis news, remain about four
times what they were at the start of 2021. Russia sold less gas than normal on
the short-term spot market, raising concerns that the Kremlin was using gas to
press for approval of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The pipeline has now been
frozen by sanctions imposed by Germany's government. A mild winter and extra
supplies of liquefied natural gas from the United States have helped ease some
of Europe's jitters about a potential loss of Russian gas. Analysts say Russia
has no interest in a complete gas cutoff, which would mean a sharp loss of
revenue. The threat to farms in eastern Ukraine and exports through Black Sea
ports could reduce wheat supplies at a time when global food prices are at their
highest level since 2011 and some countries are suffering from food shortages.
Ukraine is the world's fifth-largest wheat exporter, agricultural analyst Alex
Smith wrote last month in the journal Foreign Policy, and many of the countries
that rely on its wheat "already face food insecurity from ongoing political
instability or outright violence.'' Yemen, for instance, imports 22% of its
wheat consumption from Ukraine, Libya about 43%, Lebanon roughly half.
Rising energy and food prices will intensify the inflationary pressures that
policymakers and central banks are struggling to ease. In the estimation of
Capital Economics, a worst-case scenario of an escalating conflict and sanctions
could send oil prices up to as much as $140 a barrel — international Brent crude
had surged above $100 on Thursday after Russia attacked Ukraine — and force
natural gas prices up, too. That combination would add a sizable 2 percentage
points to annual inflation in the world's wealthy countries, Capital Economics
estimates. In the United States, the world's largest economy, consumer inflation
jumped 7.5% last month compared with 12 months earlier, the steepest annual
increase since 1982. With inflation running hot, central banks may have less
leeway — or inclination — to ride to the rescue with stimulus if the economy
sputters in the face of the military conflict in Ukraine.
"The current inflationary backdrop suggests that policymakers have less
flexibility than in the past to respond to a slowdown in real activity or a fall
in asset prices," said Jonathan Petersen at Capital Economics. Indeed, stocks
have tumbled in anticipation of higher rates and a potential downturn. Market
benchmarks in Europe and Asia fell by as much as 4% on Thursday, while Wall
Street futures retreated by an unusually wide daily margin of 2.5%. In the face
geopolitical worries, Michael Taylor, managing director at Moody's Investors
Service, warns that investors may flee to Treasurys and other super-safe
investments, thereby driving up the relative credit costs for riskier
businesses. "Chinese property developers would be particularly exposed to this
risk'' as they try to roll over large amounts of foreign debt this year, Taylor
said. Financial markets could grow even more chaotic if the United States
proceeds with what some call the "nuclear option": Cutting Russia out of the
SWIFT payment network, a messaging service that links thousands of banks and
allows them to transfer payments around the world. Such a move would isolate
Russia and bar the transfer of profits from energy production, which account for
more than 40% of the country's revenue. But shutting Russia out of international
finance could backfire, too, hurting U.S. and European companies that do
business with Russian companies. "There is a risk for global finance as much as
there is for Russia,'' said Ribakova of the Institute of International Finance.
Gulf countries maintain difficult balancing act as
Russia's military campaign in Ukraine reverberates
AP/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Russia’s move in Ukraine is reverberating in the Arab Gulf region. Top oil and
gas producers are struggling to maintain a difficult balancing act in front of
the Russian military escalation and its repercussions on the oil market and
beyond. World stock markets have already plunged and oil prices surged by nearly
$6 per barrel, Thursday after President Vladimir Putin launched Russian military
action in Ukraine. Market benchmarks tumbled in Europe and Asia and US futures
were sharply lower. Oil prices surged, with Brent breaching $100 a barrel for
the first time since 2014 on Thursday, on unease about possible disruption of
Russian supplies. The price of US benchmark crude briefly surpassed $98 per
barrel. The rouble sank 7.5% to more than 87 to the US dollar. Russian forces
fired missiles at several cities in Ukraine and landed troops on its coast on
Thursday, officials and media said, after President Vladimir Putin authorised
what he called a special military operation in the east. The UAE has signalled
that it is not interested in joining the Western showdown against Russia and
that it is keen on its relations with Moscow. This has reinforced the impression
that Abu Dhabi, as other Middle East capitals, sees the United States to be in
strategic retreat and can no longer expect the alignment of the region's
countries behind its position.The Emirates news agency WAM said UAE Foreign
Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed talked Wednesday with his Russian
counterpart, Sergey Lavrov and stressed during the phone call the strength of
friendly relations between his country and Russia and the keenness of the UAE to
strengthen bilateral cooperation with Moscow in all fields.
Although Saudi Arabia did not go so far as to announce a clear position on the
Ukrainian crisis, its failure to respond to US pressures to increase production
and reduce oil prices reflected its reluctance to go along with the US
administration's energy policies. Saudi Arabia has not shown any interest in
altering its position towards market demands and is still committed to the OPEC
+ agreement, which stipulates a gradual increase for each member of the
alliance, in agreement with the rest of the members. “OPEC+ so far has indicated
its intentions to stick to the deal,” said Amena Bakr, deputy bureau chief at
Energy Intelligence, referring to current production quotas for member
nations.“The group’s spare capacity is quickly eroding,” she said. Riyadh, which
has spurned US pressures to boost output, does not want to appear to be on the
side of the United States against Russia, an oil market ally. “Saudi Arabia sees
great value in keeping Russia as a partner in OPEC,” said Ben Cahill, senior
fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “If things get bad
and there’s pressure to punish Russia, I suspect they’ll emphasise that OPEC+ is
a technocratic organisation that’s focused on market fundamentals.”
The Saudi viewpoint is that despite everything else, there is no imbalance
between supply and demand in the oil market that would require raising crude oil
production and that the emergency crisis in Ukraine does not justify cancelling
the OPEC + agreement.Analysts say that the Gulf states have opened strong
economic and military channels of communication with China, Russia and other
countries, within a strategic vision based on a diversification of alliances.
They are hence likely to resist any pressures to also drag them into the
Russian-US confrontation over Ukraine or to take sides in the conflict.
While they prioritise their economic interests over the political and strategic
implications of the conflict, Gulf states will be careful not to give the
impression of siding with Russia. Karen Young, director of the Programme on
Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute in Washington, says that, even
if needed, the capacity to ramp up oil production and transport new supplies of
liquefied natural gas was “not so simple”. “Investment conditions for either are
not quick enough or at the ready to be a superhero in the advent of a collapse
of Russian oil and gas to Europe or globally,” Young added.
Russian gas accounts for about 40 percent of the European supplies, leaving the
latter highly exposed to supply disruptions resulting from the conflict. A
similar logic applies to the 2.3 million barrels of Russian crude that head west
each day through a network of pipelines. There were hopes in Europe and the
United States that Qatar, one of the world’s biggest LNG exporters, could
temporarily redirect exports destined for Asian markets. But that did not
materialise. Qatar has made clear it has little to no extra LNG output capacity
and there are limitations to how much supply can be diverted from existing
contracts, even accounting for willingness on the part of original buyers. At a
gas exporters’ summit in Doha overshadowed by the worsening crisis over Ukraine
this week, major suppliers, among them Russia, said they could not guarantee
prices nor supplies.
3 Syrian Soldiers Killed in Israeli Strike Near Damascus
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Three Syrian soldiers were killed Thursday in an Israeli airstrike near the
capital Damascus, according to Syria's state media. It was the fourth reported
time this month Israel has launched strikes inside Syria, keeping up a campaign
against pro-Iranian forces supporting the Damascus government in the more than
decade-old civil war. "The Israeli enemy carried out an air assault with several
missiles," state news agency SANA reported, adding three soldiers were killed.
According to AFP, it said Syrian air defenses intercepted most of the missiles
in the attack, which occurred at around 1:10 am (2310 GMT Wednesday). The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has an extensive network of sources
across the country, reported that explosions were heard in Damascus and its
suburbs "after the interception of Israeli missiles by the Syrian regime's
anti-aircraft defense".It follows strikes in recent days on a town near the
Golan Heights, a Syrian military post on February 17, and an assault against
anti-aircraft batteries at the start of the month.
UK Foreign Minister 'Kicks' Russia Envoy Out of Meeting
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss berated Moscow's ambassador over his
country's invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, calling Russia an international
pariah before kicking him out of the meeting, sources said. Truss had summoned
Andrei Kelin over what she said was Russia's "unprovoked and unjustified attack
on Ukraine," according to an official statement for her department. She told him
Moscow had "repeatedly lied about having no plans to invade Ukraine, and (that)
its unprovoked aggression had made it an international pariah." Western
sanctions would inflict pain on the Russian economy, she added, and Moscow
"should expect a long, protracted conflict that would inflict a huge human,
economic and political cost on the Russian government," the Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office statement said. Truss condemned Russia's
"outrageous attack on Ukraine as a clear breach of international law", during
what an FCDO source described as "a very grumpy meeting." The minister "kicked (Kelin)
out after he started spouting the Kremlin's incredulous propaganda lines," the
source added.
Canada temporarily suspends operations at embassy and
consulate in Ukraine while consular services remain available
February 24, 2022 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the
following statement:
“The situation in Ukraine has rapidly deteriorated and poses serious challenges.
As a result, we are temporarily suspending operations at both our embassy and
our consulate in Ukraine. Canadian personnel are now safely in Poland. “We will
resume operations at the embassy and consulate as soon as the security situation
in Ukraine allows us to ensure the adequate delivery of services. “Consular
services remain available to Canadians in Ukraine. Should there be a surge in
demand for consular assistance, we are prepared. Our staff in Ottawa and major
European cities are on standby to support as needed.
“The safety and security of all Canadians is our highest priority. Canadians
should continue to avoid all travel to Ukraine. We urge those currently in
Ukraine to shelter in place unless it is safe for them to leave the country.
“Canadians in need of consular assistance should contact Global Affairs Canada’s
24/7 Emergency Watch and Response Centre in Ottawa by: telephone at 1 613 996
8885 email at sos@international.gc.ca
SMS at 1 613 686 3658 “For the latest information on this situation, Canadians
should continue to check the Government of Canada’s Travel advice and advisories
– Ukraine and sign up with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service.”
Iran Chief Negotiator Says ‘Certain Decisions’ Needed to
Reach a Deal
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Western partners in the nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna have to "take certain
decisions" in order to reach an agreement, Iran's chief negotiator said on
Thursday on Twitter. "Being near the finish line is no guarantee to crossing it"
and sealing an accord, Ali Bagheri Kani said. "It requires extra caution, much
perseverance, additional creativity and balanced approach to take the last
step," he added. Reuters reported last week that a US-Iranian deal was taking
shape to revive the pact, abandoned in 2018 by then-US President Donald Trump,
who also reimposed extensive sanctions on Iran.
Diplomats said a vague mention of other issues in a draft text of the agreement
was a reference to the unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South
Korean banks, and the release of Western prisoners held in Iran. Iran on
Wednesday urged Western powers to be "realistic" in the talks and said Bagheri
Kani was returning to Tehran for consultations, suggesting a breakthrough in its
discussions is not imminent.
Yemen's Houthis Seize Another U.S. Embassy Staffer
Associated Press/Thursday, 24 February, 2022
Yemen's Houthi rebels have detained another official of the long-closed U.S.
Embassy there, bringing the number of local ex-U.S. Embassy staffers in the
rebel group's custody to at least 11, according to accounts from Yemeni
officials and others. The Houthis, an Iran-backed group that controls the
capital, Sanaa, and much of Yemen's north, took into custody a former press
officer from the U.S. Embassy last week, according to a rights lawyer in Sanaa,
Abdel-Majeed Sabra, and a family member of a detainee. The family member spoke
on condition of anonymity because of the fear of reprisals. Sabra said the
former embassy press officer was being held in the Houthi-run Security and
Intelligence Authority facility. It's not known whether Houthis have charged the
man or any other of the detainees from the U.S. Embassy staff, he said. Sabra
said the latest staffer was detained a month after the rebel group arrested his
former deputy at the embassy. Houthi rebels brought the latest embassy staffer
back to his home on Tuesday to search it, and took him away again. The State
Department said in an email to The Associated Press this week that the U.S.
government was "unceasing" in efforts to secure the release of the local embassy
staffers. Washington shut down its embassy in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula's
poorest nation, in 2015, as conflict fractured the country. Houthis had swept
down from their base in the north the year before at a time of mounting
political upheaval, seizing the capital and other territory. A military
coalition led by Saudi Arabia entered the war in 2015. Houthis, with increasing
support from Iran, have been able to hold off the Saudi-led military coalition.
U.N. and aid agencies call the overall situation in Yemen the world's worst
humanitarian crisis, with millions of Yemenis vulnerable to famine.
Houthis have rebuffed repeated attempts by the Biden administration to get them
into peace talks, and accuse the U.S. of supporting the coalition. Houthis
seized the headquarters of the U.S. Embassy last October. They detained dozens
of former staffers, many of whom were later released.
With the latest detention, at least 11 staffers from the closed embassy remain
in Houthi custody, however, according to a security official and a family member
of the detainees. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to speak publicly, and the family member for fear of reprisal.
U.N. agencies confirmed late last year that the Houthis also had arrested two of
their employees in Sanaa in early November. UNESCO and the U.N. human rights
office said no legal grounds were given for their detention. Both sides in the
war in the past have used detainees as leverage in negotiations, including
prisoner swaps. The new detention comes as the Biden administration is
considering redesignating the Houthis or individual Houthi leaders as
terrorists, a step that carries harsh U.S. government penalties for those doing
business with them. That's after Houthis stepped up cross-border attacks by
drone and missiles on the United Arab Emirates, in the wake of suffering heavy
territorial loses in fighting. The U.S. deepened sanctions Wednesday on what it
said was an illicit, Iran-aligned smuggling network helping to fund the Houthis,
but appeared to stop short of the terrorist designation.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pushing for the terrorist
designation. Some Americans and Yemenis argue it could deter Houthis in attacks
and help push them into peace talks. Humanitarian organizations and some
Democratic lawmakers say the financial penalties associated with the designation
would have minimal impact on isolated Houthi leaders but drive food suppliers
and shippers away from the country, risking famine for millions. Twelve
Democratic lawmakers wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday urging
against the terror designation.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published on
February 24-25/2022
مردخاي نيسان: ديناميكية النكبة: تحليل واقعي للعلاقات العربية اليهودية.
الهدف العربي الأساسي هو نزع الصهيونية بشكل كامل عن إسرائيل، وهذا يعني إلغاء
قانون العودة وقانون الدولة القومية اليهودية.
The Naqba dynamic: A sobering analysis of Arab-Jewish relations
The fundamental Arab goal is complete de-Zionization of Israel, meaning
canceling the Law of Return and the Jewish Nation-State Law.Op-ed
Dr. Mordechai Nisan/February 24/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/106552/dr-mordechai-nisan-the-naqba-dynamic-a-sobering-analysis-of-arab-jewish-relations-the-fundamental-arab-goal-is-complete-de-zionization-of-israel-meaning-canceling-the-law-of-return-and-the-jewish-n/
Dr. Mordechai Nisan speaks to Arutz Sheva /Israel National News
From the beginning in 1948, the idea that two peoples in Israel, one
Jewish and the other Arab, living in harmony, cooperation, and peace, was a
political non-starter. The 1937 British Peel Commission Partition Plan, like the
United Nations General Assembly Partition Plan in 1947, had acknowledged this
elemental predicament. When the Arabs rejected the proposal of a Jewish state of
whatever geographical dimensions, by considering all of Palestine their
exclusive homeland, they were rejecting with the same stroke of the sword both a
bi-national solution and a two-state solution.
Authentic reconciliation and co-existence in Israel after the 1948 war was not
in the political cards due to stark incompatibilities and clashes on the
religious, cultural, national, and ideological spectrums. Israel’s miniscule
size could not accommodate two rival-cum-enemy communities. Thus, Abd al-Qadar
al-Husseini, legendary Palestinian fighter in the Arab war against Zionism in
1948, framed the Jewish – Arab impasse as – “It’s Us or Them” (in Daniel
Rubinstein’s book by the same title).
The Jews were only slightly less determined to see the country empty of Arabs,
than the Arabs were yearning to see Palestine emptied of the Jews. When gaining
the edge in the fighting, the senior Zionist leadership, headed by David
Ben-Gurion, exploited and created opportunities to accelerate Arab flight across
the borders. Deliberating about the place of Arabs in the new Jewish state,
Zionist leaders identified the thorny awkwardness of the remaining Arabs who
they inferred should preferably emigrate abroad. Adel Manna records Israeli
statements in this vein in his book Nakba and Survival.
CATASTROPHE AND CONFIDENCE
The Nakba of 1948 signifies the Arab tragedy and loss of Palestine, human
suffering and refugee dispersion. These developments resulted from decisions and
actions propelling the collective dynamic toward an inevitable conclusion. The
violence-prone Arab society was flawed by leadership competition, an absence of
national unity, and political subservience to external Arab regimes. Elites fled
to Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan in late 1947, and an air of impending defeat –
facing the organized, mobilized, and motivated Zionists – debilitated Arab
forces for the battle that they irresponsibly initiated. There was no readiness
to call for caution and seek a resolution of the Jewish – Arab confrontation
through peaceful means. Delusion and pride precluded rational thinking and a
sober assessment of Palestinian Arab interests. This would not be the last time
for such recklessness.
Jewish rule did not threaten the communal integrity of the Arab population at
all. Israel acknowledged and promoted the Arabic language, respected Muslim (and
Christian) religious freedom, and acquiesced with an emerging Palestinian
national identity. The triumphant victors allowed the domestic enemy to benefit
from modern social services, acquire higher education, experience career
mobility, and wield political influence in Israel’s vibrant public life.
Yet Arab advances and demographic growth tenfold did not generate an attitude of
gratitude and good will, but rather an emboldened militancy that craved justice
for the Arab inhabitants who were, remarked two Arab Members of Knesset, Ahmad
Tibi and Yousef Jabareen in 2019, “the owners of this land.” The consensual and
mocking Arab narrative considers the Jews under the banner of Zionism as
immigrant foreigners who colonized and conquered Palestine, evicting its
peaceful inhabitants who in fact, more than not, fled in large numbers in panic
from the Jews.
PROGRESS AND LAWLESSNESS
The fundamental Arab goal is the complete de-Zionization of Israel. This would
mean canceling the Law of Return and the Jewish Nation-State Law. Hardly any
Arab concedes that Israel is a legitimate Jewish state; hardly any Arab offers a
positive or patriotic word on behalf of the Jewish state; and hardly any Arabs
(though some Bedouin) serve in the military to defend Israel. The Arab
population pays allegiance to its own local community, to the Palestinian Arab
people of which they are a part, to Islam and the Arab world (and some to Iran).
The Arabs’ political arsenal includes a cryptic rhetoric to undermine the
singular and predominant Jewish national ethos of Israel: calling for a state of
its citizens, a post-national secular egalitarian state, or a bi-national state.
These codes, all of which spell the end of the Jewish state, parallel labelling
Israel a racist, apartheid, exclusivist, and supremacist state. Former MK Azmi
Beshara popularized this terminology in the public discourse. Other Arab
politicians, like Minister Issawi Frej, have spurned such epithets.
These charges fly in the face of the facts on the ground. Arab judges,
parliamentarians, government ministers, doctors, hospital directors, scientists,
and professors, attest to Israel’s liberal policies. The talent and capability
of Arabs are publicly recognized and part of the fabric of Israeli society. For
all of their advances and achievements, the Arabs record an exceedingly
disproportionate high rate of crime and violence, assaults and harassment.
While Hamas missiles rained down on Israel in the Gaza War in May 2021, Arabs in
Lod and Ramla, Jaffa and Akko, ferociously attacked Jewish dwellings, burned
synagogues and cars, murdered a Jew and seriously injured another. Those
appalling days acquired a reference to other times and other places – “the
pogroms of May.” Typical of the Palestinian nationalist-jihadist insurrection of
recent years is the Islamic battle cry “Allahu Akbar.”
Arab rejection of the Jewish state’s authority and sovereignty exploded more
than once, in the beginning of 2022, in the Shimon Hatzadik/Sheikh Jarrah
Jerusalem neighborhood, where flimsy Arab housing claims challenging valid
Jewish rights were denied by the courts. The Palestinian Arabs burst into a wild
frenzy. While walking her young children to school, a Jewish woman was stabbed
one morning by a 13 year-old Arab girl, firebombs were hurled into a Jewish home
(miraculously the family was away for the Sabbath), and arson attacks damaged
Jewish-owned cars.
Across the broad canvas of Israel, government weakness in confronting the unruly
Bedouin in the south and Arab agricultural terrorism in the north goaded an
intensification of the wave of Palestinian Arab rebelliousness. Arab crime
carries a nationalistic political color. Police restraint, or their very absence
from the scene when Arab mobs attack, created in the mixed cities in particular
a stinging sense of insecurity and fear for the Jewish citizens.
Examples of Arab lawlessness are legion: smuggling weapons and drugs from Egypt,
Lebanon, and Jordan; building houses without legal authorization; terrifying
Jewish business-owners with mafia-style protection money extortions; car ramming
Jewish civilians and police officers; poisoning food in restaurants; rowdy
behavior in public places like swimming pools and public parks; and intimidating
Jewish female students at the Tzfat College.
Arab militancy and bullying stand in contrast with Israel’s policy of
affirmative action on behalf of Arabs to gain acceptance to universities and
colleges across the country. A generous preferential quota for undeserving Arab
students to enter medical programs has the unfortunate consequence of compelling
some Jewish candidates, now victims of discriminatory practices, to leave the
country and enroll in medical faculties abroad.
When the Jews call for peace and offer good will, this is in the cultural
vernacular of the Middle East an act of surrender. When Arabs sow chaos on the
roads and in the towns of Israel, this is not an expression of political dissent
but of civil disorder and insurrection.
MYTH of CO-EXISTENCE
Within the Green Line borders of pre-’67 Israel, the Palestinian campaign – led
by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah of the outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement –
includes vilification of the IDF army, desecration of the Temple Mount, and
solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah. The Arabs, oblivious of the upshot, push
the Nakba dynamic forward, with the 1948 precedent looming above the din of an
exacerbating confrontation.
The enduring religiously sanctified and ideologically sustained escalation of
domestic Arab opposition to Israel takes many forms. Youth grow up alienated
from the state, at variance with the police, loathsome toward soldiers. They
ritually visit former Arab village sites in Israel, or on whose premises a
Jewish settlement arose, conjuring up memories and engaging in political theatre
to restore the historical map as it was.
Member of Knesset Mansour Abbas, a cunning Muslim employing flattery and
flexibility, led his Ra’am Party to join the coalition headed by Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett in 2021. He confidently refers to his Palestinian Arab voting
constituency as “the Nakba survivors.” It is common among Arab politicians to
refer to Palestinian terrorists as martyrs for Palestine, and to apply the
terrorist label to Israel’s soldiers who defend the country and its citizens –
against Palestinian terrorists. In the same nationalist idiom Mahmoud Abbas, the
president of the Palestinian Authority, called upon his brethren in February
2022 to avenge the liquidation of three terrorists by the IDF in Shchem
(Nablus), and murder Israeli soldiers.
Not surprising that the overwhelming numbers of Arab voters cast their ballots
in Israel’s general elections for the two Arab parties, not the variety of
Jewish-manned or Jewish – Arab mixed lists. The myth of co-existence, while a
light of humanity in some shared environments and endeavors, dims in the charged
tension-filled reality dividing the two solitudes. On university campuses,
Jewish and Arab students conduct separate lives; and at controversial political
demonstrations the Arabs flaunt the Palestinian flag, the Jews the Israeli one.
Such is the infirmity of common citizenship in the Jewish state.
Yet, we have no grounds to be surprised, let alone astounded, by this state of
affairs. Anti-Zionist Arabs in a Jewish state are an ideological anomaly. To
assume their loyalty is incredulous. To condemn their allegiance to Palestinian
peoplehood, Islamic doctrine, and Arab nationalism, is insensitively partisan.
To demand they salute the blue-and-white flag of Israel is unwarranted. And to
expect Israel to trust the Arabs and welcome their presence in the state is
foolhardy and senseless.
THE SCRIPT AND THE PROGNOSIS
The Arabs are pushing Israel to the wall. There are an estimated 400,000 illegal
firearms in the possession of Arabs, in their towns and villages, fields and
homes. This is a mega threat lurking in the shadows. Arab weapons, we should
note, have been used fatally and not infrequently in family disputes, honor
killings, personal vendettas, and gang-wars. Intra-Arab homicides, numbering 126
in 2021, are a festering problem within the fractured Arab society.
Past scenarios signal the possibilities for a future massive Arab rebellion. A
Palestinian uprising/intifada in Jerusalem and Samaria in the aftermath of a
Temple Mount controversy deteriorated into the violent “events of October 2000”
in the Galilee. The 2021 “May pogroms” in Israeli cities mercilessly targeted
innocent Jewish neighbors, as Hamas rocket-fire aimed at Tel-Aviv. Presently, in
2022, the inter-communal friction and Arab violence in the Jerusalem Sheikh
Jarrah neighborhood could ignite a broader countrywide upheaval. Major-General
Yitzhak Turgeman stated in November 2021 that, in a war in the north with
Hezbollah or Syria, violent disturbances would make it difficult for army
transport convoys carrying troops to traverse the Wadi Ara route. At that
moment, Arab thugs and murderers will set the tone – not the Arab physicians and
teachers.
This political script for a flood of sedition exploding in the streets and
highways will expose the fraud of Jewish – Arab amity. Israelis and especially
the political class have stubbornly denied a simmering Arab thirst for revenge
against the Zionist interlopers and robbers of Palestine.
More than a hundred years ago, the Zionist author-pioneer Moshe Smilansky wrote
that if the Arab senses you have power, “he will submit to you and maintain his
hatred for you in his heart. If he feels you are weak – he’ll rule you.”
Muslims believe history is on their side. They arm themselves with faith and
patience, fury and fierceness, to overcome the disabilities of a problematic
present. According to the Koran (9:33), Muslims are born to rule and destined to
dominate the Jews. In contrast, Jews remain encumbered with the exilic weight of
insecurity and fragility as a fate to endure. At certain moments – like in 1948
and 1967 – they awaken to the danger and the opportunity, and grab the moment.
The Nakba dynamic is now working its way through the mist of peril.
Surrounded from without and menaced from within, Israel is on track to confront
the domestic enemy whose threat sends a message of urgency, if not panic.
Meanwhile, Israel moderates her response to provocative Arab nationalist and
criminal actions, often releasing from detention without charges or trials Arabs
who committed a variety of misdemeanors, hoping the present wave of Palestinian
disorder will pass. However, no responsible Israeli should ignore Winston
Churchill’s sobering lesson: appeasement leads to war.
Liberal optimists are intellectually, emotionally, and politically unprepared to
deal with rock-throwing Bedouin citizens who obstruct the road to Arad, or an
Arab rabble which assaults Jews in Beersheba, or Arab youth who stab Jews in the
Old City of Jerusalem, or smash Israeli vehicles and injure their occupants with
rocks and firebombs in Samaria. The politics of violence is not the liberals’
métier.
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD
Israeli Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, writing in the aftermath of
the Arab pogrom in 1929, described reality:
+”Among the people of Talpiot [in Jerusalem] were many [Jewish] optimists who
said the Arabs would never come into Talpiot; after all, many of them earned
their living there…On the way we met some Arabs, from their faces we could see
they had come to loot. [Someone] asked if he should kill them. Krishevsky said
NO! We all knew that if it had been the other way around they would have done
the opposite.”
In a scenario of an all-out violent struggle, the state of Israel will gain the
upper hand. Its security resources and experience, national will and moral
urgency, will outweigh any combination of Arab grievances, guns, and an impulse
to foment turmoil. When de-escalation fails, new rules will prevail. Israel may
then set a strategic goal to turn the corner in this lengthy and bitter
conflict, and not be limited to just riding out the storm as a transient
altercation. Were the Arabs cautious in assessing the balance of forces, they
would stop short of pushing the process to the end-point. When the aggressor
loses, as in the 1948 Nakba debacle, he has only himself to blame.
WHO WILL GO?
The PLO Covenant from 1964, in Article 6, recognizes the right of Jews to stay
in liberated Palestine on the condition that they resided there before 1917; the
rest – all of them! – must leave. Bear in mind that Palestinian refugee return
will be the complement to Jewish expulsion.
Ahmad Shuqayri, the first leader of the PLO, had coined the phrase of “throwing
the Jews into the sea” three days before the outbreak of the 1967 Six-Day War.
It did not happen.
Yasser Arafat, three years after the 1993 Oslo Accord, shared a forecast with
Arab diplomats in Stockholm: “There will be a migration of Arabs to the West
Bank and Jerusalem…We will make life unbearable for the Jews by psychological
warfare and population explosion; Jews will not want to live among us. We
Palestinians will take everything.”
This has not happened.
Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, expressed his people’s anguish
and wish in addressing the Israelis in 1988: “Take your names with you and go…go
where you wish. We have the future…leave our country. So go, it is time for you
to go. We have work to do in our land.”
An anticipated Jewish national disaster demands decisive action to frustrate an
evil design aimed at Israel’s existence; or it could be too late. After Jordan
expelled Palestinians in 1970, Lebanon in 1982, Kuwait in 1991, Libya in 1995,
and Syria in 2015, it becomes morally unobjectionable for Israel to be no less
forthright in responding to subversive and disruptive Palestinians in days of
crisis and breakdown.
It is time for the Palestinians to go.
*The Zohar (Parashat Lech Lecha) relates that the Ishmaelites [considered the
ancestors of the Arabs], descendants from Abraham, earned the right to rule the
Holy Land when it is empty of everything for a long time…Then they will block
the children of Israel from returning to their place – until the right of the
Ishmaelites expires.
The time arrived for the Jews to return home.
Dr. Mordechai Nisan is a retired lecturer in Middle East Studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. Among his books is The Conscience of Lebanon: A
Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz). His most recent books are Only
Israel West of the River: The Jewish State and the Palestinian Question, and The
Crack-Up of the Israeli Left (Mantua Books, 2019, available at Amazon.com.
Why Is Democratic Biden Rescuing Autocratic Erdoğan at
the Expense of U.S. Allies?
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/February 24/2022
In early January... in a bolder, less expected and potentially damaging
geostrategic move that angered all four of Turkey's Mediterranean rivals
(Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt), the Biden administration silently abandoned
an eastern Mediterranean pipeline project (EastMed) that would carry Israeli gas
through Cyprus to Europe.
"By undermining the project, the administration is undercutting three of our
strongest allies in the region: Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, as well as the
European Union's hopes for energy independence and economic prosperity." — Press
release published on the congressional website of U.S. House Representative Gus
Bilirakis, January 24, 2022.
"The Biden administration's actions in this matter are particularly
objectionable and hypocritical in light of its tacit approval of Russia's Nord
Stream pipeline, which will only deepen Europe's energy dependence on a volatile
adversary." — Rep. Gus Bilirakis, January 24, 2022,
A nosediving, cash-strapped economy, international isolation and plummeting
popularity have put Erdoğan back on the defensive. Is Biden actually trying to
destabilize this part of the world by provoking Erdoğan's assertive aspirations
just when they had been -- possibly temporarily -- buried?
In just over one year in office, U.S. President Joe Biden has swung from a
pledge to oust Turkey's Islamist autocrat, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to
occasionally appease him, first behind doors, and now publicly. Pictured: Biden
meets with Erdoğan during the G20 Summit on October 31, 2021, in Rome, Italy.
In just over one year in office, U.S. President Joe Biden has swung from a
pledge to oust Turkey's Islamist autocrat, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to
occasionally appease him, first behind doors, and now publicly.
Appearing to detest Erdoğan's suffocating regime, increasingly Islamist
governance and pro-Russian aspirations, Biden, a year before he became
president, had described Erdoğan as an autocrat and promised to empower Turkey's
opposition parties through democratic processes.
Biden, the fourth U.S. president to work with Erdoğan, avoided any contact with
the Turkish leader until April 23, 2021. Then, when Biden did address Turkey, he
had bad news: Biden would be the first U.S. president officially to recognize
the 1915-1919 mass-murders of Christian Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as a
genocide.
Then, however, Biden abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban, adding to the list of
his appeasement to bad fellows. Afghans are facing possibly the world's most
brutal army of radical Muslims now installed in Kabul, and armed with what Biden
said were "all the tools... and equipment of any modern military," which the
Taliban had captured from the disintegrated Afghan National Army.
In an unrelated move, but immensely helpful to Erdoğan, the U.S. prosecution of
a Turkish state-run bank, Halkbank, for allegedly helping Iran evade U.S.
sanctions, was delayed until a legal appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court was
concluded, the bank announced on January 17. That was music to Turkish ears.
U.S. prosecutors have charged Halkbank with fraud, money laundering, and
sanctions offenses, and accused the bank of helping Tehran transfer $20 billion
worth of restricted funds, including at least $1 billion laundered through the
U.S. financial system.
Aykan Erdemir, a senior program director for Turkey at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a former Turkish opposition member of
parliament, thinks that shelving the prosecution of Halkbank could mean that any
trial could be delayed until after Turkey's presidential and parliamentary
elections in June 2023.
"A lengthy court process would save the Turkish president and his inner circle
from potentially embarrassing revelations by delaying the jury trial until after
Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections," Erdemir wrote on January 19.
The court could impose multibillion-dollar in fines and sanctions on Halkbank,
an outcome that would embarrass Erdoğan especially at a time of economic crisis.
So it is possible that any U.S. prosecution of Halkbank could be shelved until
after the presidential elections in Turkey in 2023 as a generous favor to
Erdoğan. Halkbank should have been fined and sanctioned already.
Now what happens? Two pro-Hamas, pro-Muslim Brotherhood allies, Turkey and
Qatar, have reached an agreement on ensuring security at Kabul's main airport,
should they be awarded the mission amid ongoing talks with the Taliban
government. Apparently, although Turkey and its closest Gulf ally, Qatar, had
indeed agreed on a security framework for the airport mission, added talks
needed to continue on other aspects , such as financing.
In early January, however, in a bolder, less expected and potentially damaging
geostrategic move that angered all four of Turkey's Mediterranean rivals
(Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt), the Biden administration silently abandoned
an eastern Mediterranean pipeline project (EastMed) that would carry Israeli gas
through Cyprus to Europe.
In a non-paper (an unofficial diplomatic correspondence) submitted to Athens
explaining its reasons, the Biden administration described the project as a
"primary source of tension" and something "destabilizing" the region by putting
Turkey and regional countries at loggerheads. Greek public broadcaster ERT
claimed that the non-paper also listed three reasons to explain why the US no
longer supports the project: environmental concerns, lack of economic and
commercial viability, and creating tensions in the region.
U.S. House Representatives Gus Bilirakis and Nicole Malliotakis sent a "stern
letter" to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, objecting to the decision to
withdraw support for the EastMed pipeline. According to a press release
published on Bilirakis' congressional website:
"By undermining the project, the administration is undercutting three of our
strongest allies in the region: Israel, Greece, and Cyprus, as well as the
European Union's hopes for energy independence and economic prosperity."
"The Biden administration's actions in this matter are particularly
objectionable and hypocritical in light of its tacit approval of Russia's Nord
Stream pipeline, which will only deepen Europe's energy dependence on a volatile
adversary," said Bilirakis. "The administration must realize the significant
economic, environmental, and national security implications that are at stake in
this matter and reconsider its decision to withdraw support for this critical
project."
Malliotakis said:
"President Biden's decision to shut down America's Keystone XL Pipeline,
greenlight Putin's NordStream 2 pipeline, and now disavow the
Greek-Cypriot-Israeli EastMed Pipeline is a microcosm of this Administration's
failed energy and foreign policy agendas This President is asleep at the wheel,
and his decision-making could cause severe economic and national security
consequences for America and our allies."
Ironically, Biden's EastMed move confirmed a recent, assertive statement from
the Turkish Foreign Ministry: "No initiative (in eastern Mediterranean) without
Turkish partnership can succeed."
Biden's eastern Mediterranean policy calculus is encouraging Erdoğan to revive
his more aggressive neo-Ottoman policies, which had peaked in 2020 in the Aegean
and Mediterranean Seas, bringing traditional rivals Greece and Turkey to the
brink of conflict.
A nosediving, cash-strapped economy, international isolation and plummeting
popularity have put Erdoğan back on the defensive. Is Biden actually trying to
destabilize this part of the world by provoking Erdoğan's assertive aspirations
just when they had been -- possibly temporarily -- buried?
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the
country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is
taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
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History as Putin Sees it: Unity or Else
Hussam Itani/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 24/2022
In an article published in July, President Vladimir Putin invokes historical
arguments to refute the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state. During his speech
recognizing the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, he reiterated this position,
saying that Ukraine lacks the foundation of an independent entity in the first
place. He painted a bleak picture of its political and economic conditions.
Going far back in history to justify today’s actions and behavior is a game
that, despite the risks, remains a favorite among politicians who usually share
characteristics that render “the facts of history and geography” prioritized
over today’s realities. We see copious use of revisionist histories by the Baath
in its Iraqi and Syrian wings. Comparisons not wholly disconnected from reality
between Putin’s recent statements and Saddam Hussein’s insistence on “bringing
the offshoot back to its origin” on the eve of his invasion of Kuwait. Similar
views were expressed by the Syrian Baathists when they argued that Lebanon was
an “artificial entity” before the past decade’s events demonstrated just how
artificial many of the region’s entities are.
European and Asian nationalists of various colors and strikes were amateur
interpreters of history, explaining its course in line with their whims and
interests. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Japan did not shy away
from using the past to justify its invasion of Korea, recalling the Mongol
Empire’s two attempts to occupy Japan from the Korean coast but not Japan’s
invasion of Korea in the late sixteenth century.
A historian should go over what the Russian President said in his long article
and during his fiery speech on the evening of the twenty-first of February. The
roles played by figures like Alexander Nevsky and Bohdan Khmelnitsky, Hetman
rule in Ukraine, and the relationship between the Russian Church and Russian
“boyar” class one the on hand and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the other,
and even the degree to which the Mongol Yoke is responsibility for hindering the
Russian state’s development, are among the issues that should be put in the
contradictory contexts chosen in line with the interests of those scavenging
through ancient texts for justifications for their behavior.
There is nothing new here. History is just as much an arena of political
struggle as it is an objective and empirical academic field. Readers of modern
history ought to scrutinize Putin’s account of how the modern Ukrainian state
emerged after the 1917 revolution. He denied that the nascent state had any
popular representation, limited its founders to a few Ukrainian intellectuals
influenced by the West, and pointed to Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev’s
leadership of the Communist Party for thirty years, and the political structure
of Soviet Union, which Russia was the political, economic and human heart of, to
justify his argument on the shared fate of Russia and Ukraine that allowed these
two individuals of Ukrainian origin to reach the summit of power. As for the
Kolkhoz (collectivization of private agricultural land and turning it into state
farms) and the famine that hit Ukrainian during the early years of Stalin’s term
in the thirties, which came to be known as the Holodomor, the suffering from
these calamities was shared by Russians and Ukrainians. Meanwhile, emphasizing
the Russians’ responsibility and portraying these actions as attempts to commit
genocide against the Ukrainian people is nothing more than a Western effort to
divide the two peoples, or rather “a single people in two states” (another
Baathist slogan).
Everything that unites Ukrainians with Russians, then, is genuine and
commendable. Everything that divides the two peoples is a fabrication cooked up
under the influence of mercenaries and traitors. A simplistic and comforting
vision to those who reduce history, which is complex by its very nature- because
of the complexity of human behavior and the economic, social, and cultural
factors that shape it- to very clear cut conclusions like those Putin reached
during his televised address: deviating from the course of unity with Russia has
left the door wide open to thieves, oligarchs, and Russia’s enemies of Russia
controlling the fate of Russia Ukrainian people. Jaws could hit the floor in
bewilderment if we were to recall the identical assessment about how Putin and
his entourage manage the economy and politics in Russia.
This is to not minimize the gravity of the actions taken by the West when it
overwhelmed Russia in the 1990s. It exploited the chaos that followed the Soviet
Union’s collapse, maximizing its benefits. It ignored the most basic security
needs of a country of Russia’s size, insisting on adding former Soviet republics
such as the three Baltic states to NATO and building missile defense bases in
Poland and Romania under the pretext of countering Iranian missiles... All this
provided people like Putin- who write similar articles and give similar
speeches- the ammunition they need. Today, the West and Russia find themselves
stuck atop two tall trees, with neither side having access to a ladder that
would allow for a safe and quiet descent to the ground.
And so, are the story about the transition from paganism to Orthodox
Christianity or the story of how the Rurik Dynasty founded the Russian
principality and was behind the emergence of city-states in and around Novgorod-
to say nothing about the West’s foolishness two decades ago- valid arguments to
raise in denying today’s Ukrainians the right to an independent state and to
choose the destiny they believe will lead to prosperity and development? Does
accepting the Russian point of view not imply the right to pose the same
questions about Putin’s rule, its particularities, and virtues? At the end of
the day, the Russian president’s words are muffled by the roar of tanks heading
towards the Ukrainian border.
Soleimani U/A new academic center in Caracas named after
the Iranian mass murderer Soleimani is the latest node in Tehran’s soft power
network in Latin America
Emanuele Ottolenghi/The Tablet/February 24/2022
Qassem Soleimani Chair for Sociocultural and Geopolitical Studies in Latin
America and the Middle/Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caraca
A new academic center in Caracas named after the Iranian mass murderer is the
latest node in Tehran’s soft power network in Latin America
For decades, Iran has patiently sought to export its Islamic Revolution to Latin
America. Alongside Iranian embassies, one academic institution stands out as a
bastion of Iran’s influence operations in the region: Al Mustafa International
University, which has branches in over 50 countries, and which the U.S.
Department of the Treasury sanctioned in 2020 for its role in Iran’s propaganda
efforts, including the provision of material support for the training and
indoctrination of Shiite militias. With an $80 million annual budget, Al Mustafa
is one of Iran’s leading propaganda outlets. Its robust budget enables it to
spread Iran’s revolutionary message far beyond the walls of its campus.
The university’s latest achievement is the establishment of the Cátedra Libre
Qassem Soleimani, or the Qassem Soleimani Chair for Sociocultural and
Geopolitical Studies in Latin America and the Middle East, a center that was
inaugurated in November 2020 at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in
Caracas. The late Qassem Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force, the
elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Corps in charge of overseas
operations. As such, Soleimani was chiefly responsible, during his tenure, for
the establishment of regional, pro-Iran Shiite militias, multiple attacks on
U.S. troops in Iraq, and, more recently, Iran’s deployment in Syria to save the
Assad regime from collapsing. Soleimani bears responsibility for the murder of
hundreds of thousands of Syrians and the forcible displacement of millions of
refugees, leading to the ethnic cleansing of large swaths of Syria’s Sunni
areas.
Soleimani was assassinated in a targeted U.S. drone strike in January 2020 in
Baghdad, but the Biden administration now has different priorities. Its Iran
policy is laser-focused on the country’s nuclear program. Countering Iran’s
international propaganda, by contrast, has never been a high priority for this
or even previous administrations. The White House should reconsider.
As the scholars Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar wrote in February 2021,
“Al-Mustafa’s objective is to enrol [sic] and train non-Iranian students
interested in Iran’s revolutionary Shia Islamist ideology, or in becoming Shia
clerics, to disseminate and advance the ideological goals of Iran’s Islamic
Revolution.” Founded in 2007 in Iran’s holy city of Qom from the merger of
previous religious seminars that catered to foreign students, Al Mustafa carries
the torch of Iran’s Islamic Revolution through hundreds of blogs, online
materials, journals, and other publications, with classes in dozens of languages
that train tens of thousands of students, including foreign converts. The
university also maintains a global network of affiliated seminars and centers.
Many of its graduates have since returned home as ordained Shiite clerics,
assuming leadership of local Al Mustafa-affiliated and Iranian-funded cultural
centers and NGOs and serving as force multipliers for their alma mater.
What began in the early 1980s as a subtle effort to propagate revolutionary
Iran’s worldview through mosques and cultural centers is increasingly loud and
visible, thanks to Iran’s transnational alliances with hard-left movements and
regimes in Latin America, which help facilitate Al Mustafa’s proselytizing and
propaganda work. Thanks to the zeal of its acolytes and Iran’s funding, a vast
regional network is now in place. Revolutionary fellow travelers from communist
Cuba to the Castro-Chavista regimes in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have
given Iran greater access, freedom of action, and resources to consolidate its
outreach and leverage local anti-American sentiment to serve its own interests.
It’s no surprise that Iran’s foray into Latin American universities has scored
its biggest success in Venezuela. Caracas has been Tehran’s closest ally in the
region since the late Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian brand of anti-Americanism
seized power there in 1999. Relations flourished under Chavez’s tenure, and
especially when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Iran’s president from 2005 to 2013.
When sanctions were crushing Iran’s economy prior to the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal, Venezuela assisted Iranian efforts to
evade U.S. sanctions. More recently, as U.S. sanctions hit Venezuela’s top
leadership and energy and banking sectors, Iran came to the rescue, swapping
refined petroleum products for Venezuelan gold and launching an airlift to
assist Venezuela’s beleaguered refinery sector.
Iran and Venezuela have also cooperated in the realm of illicit drug
trafficking, with Venezuela serving both as a transit country for drug shipments
eastward, and as a way station for Hezbollah’s money laundering activities, as
evidenced in numerous court cases prosecuted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) under Project Cassandra, whose main targets were Hezbollah illicit finance
operations and their enablers.
For Iranian propaganda especially, the Venezuelan regime since 1999 has been a
godsend. HispanTV, the Iranian Spanish language news channel, and TeleSur,
Venezuela’s Bolivarian propaganda network, share resources, including
journalists. Iran has also established an Al Mustafa cultural center in
Venezuela, the Centro de Intercambio Cultural Iran Latino America, or CICIL
(recently shortened to CICL), where an Al Mustafa representative permanently
resides. Cooperation between Al Mustafa and Venezuela’s academic sector began
long before the establishment of the Cátedra Libre Soleimani, the culmination of
a two-decade-long joint venture to disseminate anti-American propaganda that
serves both regimes.
Al Mustafa-sponsored institutions are an echo chamber for Iran’s narrative of
resistance to so-called imperialists and oppressors, usually embodied by the
United States and Israel, which resonates more in parts of Latin America than a
specifically Islamic message would, winning support from old-fashioned
communists and nativist, indigenous separatists. Among these groups,
anti-Americanism is an easy sell.
Since Soleimani’s death in 2020, Iran has lionized him as an iconic hero of the
“Resistance,” depicting him for Latin American audiences as a latter-day Islamic
Che Guevara. This theme reverberates in Spanish-language, pro-Iran propaganda:
In a January 2022 blog post republished by TeleSur, Chilean author Pablo Jofre
Leal, a collaborator of Al Mustafa University’s Hispanic languages department,
Islam Oriente, and other Iranian proxies in Latin America, evoked Che’s words to
describe Soleimani: “The highest level which the human race can aspire to is to
be revolutionary.” Soleimani, he added, was “an authentic revolutionary.” The
mandate of the Soleimani Chair at the Cátedra is to explore themes that are part
of Soleimani’s “legacy” as “a hero and martyr in the anti-imperialist struggle.”
As co-director Ramon Medero explained in a video launching the Cátedra,
Soleimani is “a martyred hero who immediately became a symbol of justice and a
paradigm to be followed by all oppressed people of the world.”
A permanent presence on the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela campus not only
allows Al Mustafa a permanent foothold in regional academia; it also helps Al
Mustafa advertise and expand its Spanish-language platforms, facilitate travel
for its employees under the guise of academic exchanges, and distribute
revolutionary literature, which Al Mustafa publishes through Latin American
partners, often under the banner of Islam Oriente.
Nor is the new Cátedra the first of its kind. The Argentina-based Centro de
Estudios Árabes e Islámicos (Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, or CEIAP), for
example, is run by Al Mustafa graduates. Although there are no additional chairs
or academic centers sponsored by Al Mustafa in the region, there are numerous
cultural centers in addition to the aforementioned CICIL in Caracas: one in
Chile, one in Peru, one in Bolivia, at least two in Argentina, three in Brazil,
one in Colombia, one in Costa Rica, two in Ecuador, one in El Salvador, one in
Mexico, and one in Cuba. There are also the Al Mustafa-sponsored publishing
houses, foundations, media platforms, and academic journals that cater to those
attracted to Iranian revolutionary ideology, and even Shiite Islam.
The addition to this regional galaxy of academic centers, with their affiliated
scholars, will give new life to Iran’s efforts to expand its soft power
outreach. Academic partnerships established with local universities create
opportunities for Iranian-backed conferences, seminars, classes, lectures,
webinars, and publications. They also give access to captive audiences—students
who might not be drawn to Al Mustafa-operated mosques and cultural centers on
their own might be co-opted instead through classroom lectures and campus-based
political activism.
Iran has lionized Soleimani as an iconic hero of the ‘Resistance,’ depicting him
for Latin American audiences as a latter-day Islamic Che Guevara.
Washington has done little to counteract Al Mustafa’s and Iran’s influence
operations in Latin America, focusing instead on Iran’s hard power in the Middle
East. Part of that is understandable: During the Cold War, Washington sought to
deter Moscow’s aggressive expansionism mostly through nuclear and conventional
military deterrence. The establishment of Soviet cultural centers as proxies for
the spread of propaganda in the West and the Third World is not remembered as an
especially central element of the Cold War, especially as their influence could
never quite match the mass global appeal of American commercial culture. But
they did play an important role, and Soviet revolutionary ideology did catch
like wildfire over large parts of the globe, in part through the cultural and
psychological appeal of its propaganda.
Treating Iran-affiliated mosques and cultural centers in Latin America as
harmless venues for spiritual fulfillment dangerously underestimated the
ideological playing field. Washington should do more than periodically mention
the existence and activism of Iranian propaganda networks in Latin America,
which the U.S. Southern Command’s annual Posture Statement does for Congress.
The Biden administration has so far neglected to act on the Treasury
Department’s December 2020 designation of Al Mustafa. Doing so would allow
Washington to target its subsidiaries and seek to cut off their funding sources.
It should also identify Iranian agents acting under the cover of Al Mustafa
cultural centers and educational institutions and add them to the list of
designated individuals.
The U.S. government should also work with social media platforms to flag many of
Al Mustafa’s outlets that spread Iran’s propaganda, including on Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. In November 2020, U.S. law enforcement agencies
seized 27 internet domain addresses controlled by outlets affiliated with the
IRGC. The Department of Justice should expand this action and target Al
Mustafa’s platforms as well.
The U.S. Department of State should also work with regional allies in Latin
America to ensure that Al Mustafa’s traveling missionaries are denied entry into
their countries. Their activists should be on watchlists for visa applications
and should be denied entry into the United States.
More broadly, the United States needs to rethink its own counterinformation
strategy. It can’t just assume that because it won the Cold War, American ideas
of liberal, democratic capitalism have forever prevailed in its own hemisphere.
America’s own backyard still provides fertile soil for anti-American and
revolutionary ideologies, which it neglects at its peril. Washington will not
effectively counter Iranian soft power unless it takes it seriously, and
actively seeks to contain the regime’s efforts to spread its revolution abroad.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/soleimani-u
Biden's confused policies carry global consequences
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/February 24/2022
The Joe Biden White House can only be described as a confused administration
that is still seeking its place in the world. This administration has baffled
the rest of the world as several foreign powers, including Russia and Iran,
began to challenge it. China preferred fence-sitting as it waits for the right
hour to bare its claws. The current US administration faces several tests in
many places at once. Its first is in America itself. The US congressional
elections, which are only nine months away, will decide the future of the
administration and the direction of the current White House team. Congressional
elections could result in the Democrats losing their majority in both houses of
Congress. If the Biden administration suffers such a setback, it will become a
lame duck.
The US domestic situation seems to depend largely on the Biden’s achieving
internal and external successes during the next few months. There is the
economic front at home while there are the Ukraine and Iran fronts abroad.
Beyond that, the administration will have to demonstrate it is indeed capable of
confronting what it has called the “China peril.”
The domestic and foreign fronts are connected for the Biden White House which
has sent all the wrong signals at the wrong time. Consider the way it withdrew
from Afghanistan last summer.
After Washington’s chaotic exit from Kabul, it became inevitable that Russia and
its President Vladimir Putin would view the US administration in a different
light. Even before that, Iran discovered that it did not have to take the Biden
administration seriously, not least after Washington decided to remove the
Houthis from its terrorism list. The administration devoutly believed that this
move would usher in progress towards a political settlement in Yemen. Everything
that followed ran completely counter to US expectations and reflected the
administration's naiveté. The Houthis (Ansar Allah group), who are but an
Iranian proxy, resorted to greater violence without triggering a serious
response from the US. The administration was just happy that the Houthis' drone
and missile assault against the UAE did not affect the Vienna talks over Iran's
nuclear programme.
It was only natural that Putin should seize the opportunity to assert that
Russia should be treated as a partner in determining Europe's future and that
Ukraine should not be part of NATO. Putin in fact won the Ukraine war before he
even fought it.
The Russian president knows that the Biden administration ultimately needs to
look for compromises. Iran also knows this. It has exploited very well its
assets in the region, its sectarian militias, as a bargaining chip. It has used
them in Iraq, where it disrupted the political process by blocking the
recognition of the results of the last parliamentary elections. It has used them
in Syria, where it has pursued the path of demographic re-engineering. It has
used them in Lebanon, which, thanks to Hezbollah, it has turned into an Iranian
colony.
Does the Biden administration have the means to respond to the challenges it
currently faces? Nothing could be less certain. The present US administration
seems more than willing to accept that a new world has emerged. In order to
protect his domestic position, Biden will be ready for all kinds of bad
settlements with Russia and Iran and with China at a later date. The current
administration will not discover, until it is too late, that it knows nothing
about China, Russia, Iran, the Gulf nor indeed the Middle East in particular. In
essence, it does not know how to deal with its allies, who had once believed
that they could rely on the US if they were faced with any threat. Most
importantly, America under Biden is a continuation of the US under Barack Obama.
This administration does not know that distancing itself from the Trump
administration is not a coherent policy as much as it is an invitation to the
Russian, Chinese and Iranians to challenge America with a high degree of
contempt.
The US victory in the Cold War three decades ago, is entirely a thing of the
past. Now the US is under an administration with confused policies. These
shambolic principles reach the point of failing to realise that the “Islamic
Republic” is not a charitable organisation and that Putin is, after all, nothing
more than a KGB officer whose sole concern is to prove that the Soviet Union is
not dead but that it could spring back to life some day.
Above all, the US administration refuses to take into account the concerns of
its allies in the Middle East and their legitimate entitlement to answers as to
how they should respond to the Iranian expansionist project, with all the
challenges and risks this entails.
Why Khamenei keeps his silence about the nuclear deal
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 24, 2022
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei enjoys the final say on all of the country’s
most important foreign and domestic issues. Any key policy has to be approved by
him and his office in order to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. But
Khamenei has not made his stance clear with respect to the nuclear deal — he has
not even offered vague comments about this serious issue. He has kept his
position secret for several reasons.
First of all, Khamenei is attempting to evade accountability, allowing him to
blame other Iranian officials in case any agreement between the regime and other
world powers fails. He uses this strategy at home as well. For example, he
regularly blamesofficials for people’s economic problems. The term “officials”
is intentionally broad and ambiguous in order to avoid incriminating any of the
regime’s staff. In spite of the supreme leader’s many speeches blaming these
figures, Iran’s judiciary, whose leader is directly appointed by Khamenei, has
not followed up and brought anyone to justice.
Iran’s supreme leader used the same tactic in 2015, when he declined to state
that he approved of the nuclear deal agreed by former President Hassan Rouhani
and the P5+1 world powers. At the time, Rouhani and his team tried to send a
bill ratifying the nuclear agreement to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council
for approval, but Khamenei shrewdly directedit through parliament instead. If
the bill had gone through the Supreme National Security Council, then it would
have needed Khamenei’s public approval, which he did not want to give.
Secondly, the supreme leader does not publicly reveal his position on the
nuclear deal because he does not want to be blamed by the ordinary people when
they see that the financial benefits of the agreement do not trickle down to
them. Instead, the funds will be funneled to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, its elite branch the Quds Force, the Office of the Supreme Leader,
politicians and the regime’s proxy militia and terror groups across the Middle
East. This is particularly important when chantssuch as “Leave Syria alone,
think about us instead,” “Death to Hezbollah,” “Forget Gaza, forget Lebanon, I’d
give my life for Iran,” and “Death to Khamenei” have become popular in the
recurring protests across the nation.
Third, when Khamenei does not publicly approve an international deal, he gives
himself the option to pull out of the agreement whenever he wishes without being
blamed or held responsible for approving it in the first place. This happened
during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, when the regime suddenly decided to
violatethe 2004 Paris nuclear agreement and resume its uranium enrichment. This
is why the P5+1 should require that any deal with the Islamic Republic must be
officially signed and approved by the supreme leader.
Fourth, Khamenei does not want to damage his legacy of anti-Americanism by
publicly stating that he is in favor of a deal with the US.
Nevertheless, it is intriguing that, although he holds his cards close to his
chest when it comes to the nuclear deal, he is vocal about the Islamic
Republic’s ideological and revolutionary principles, such as spreading Shiism by
strengthening the “axis of resistance,” creating Shiite proxies in predominantly
Sunni countries and tipping the balance of power against Sunni countries. The
supreme leader has repeatedly insisted in public that he will not change Iran’s
regional policies of supporting Shiite proxies or interfering in the affairs of
Arab nations. He also pointedout in 2015: “Whether the (nuclear) deal is
approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region
and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon.”
Iran’s supreme leader is attempting to evade accountability, allowing him to
blame other officials in case any agreement fails.
Furthermore, Khamenei always goes public about Iran’s other revolutionary and
ideological principles, such as opposing the US and its allies. He has
previously said: “In the present time, we have no negotiations with America on
any other matter. There is no other matter. Everyone should know this. We do not
negotiate with the Americans on regional issues, different domestic issues and
international issues. Today, the only matter for negotiation is the nuclear
matter. This will become an experience for us…. But if we see that they continue
to behave in the same obstinate and deviant way, well, our previous experience
will naturally be strengthened.”
In summary, Khamenei shrewdly does not make his stance on the nuclear deal clear
in order to evade responsibility. World powers must require his explicit public
approval for any deal with the Islamic Republic to go ahead.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
Do not expect the destructive Iranian regime to change its
ways
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/February 24, 2022
There is no doubt that the world has changed since 2015, when the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, was signed.
The question is whether the Iranian regime knows that.
The regime is weaker now, not stronger, simply because it is not building but
destroying. And when you are done with destruction, all you can do is sit on the
ruins of your work.
Today, Iran sits atop the ruins of its actions. It is sits on the wreckage of
Syria, which it has destroyed for the sake of keeping the regime of President
Bashar Assad in power. It sits on the ruins of Lebanon, destroyed so that
Hezbollah can maintain its violent grip on the country. It sits on the
devastation in Iraq, where it has stirred up even intra-Shiite conflicts. It
sits on the demolition of Yemen, where it has destroyed the genuine tribal
fabric of the country.
This is what the fresh US dollars from the 2015 nuclear deal have done — only
destruction, no building. It is an astonishing track record of failure and
misery.
Then there is the terrible desolation of Iran itself. The regime has indeed
destroyed the future of its own country. Talented, educated and creative
Iranians have been dropped down an abyss of decrepitude, so that the regime can
continue to wreak havoc across its western border. It is an example of absolute
failure. Since the nuclear deal, it has become clear to all that the regime in
Tehran does not act as a show of resistance but only in support of hegemony and
to maintain its grip on power.
It is clear that while Iran has been busy destroying things, the region — and
the world — has changed and continues to do so. Strangely enough, it seems the
mullahs have not taken this into account. And so one thing is clear: No matter
how many billions of dollars they might get from a new nuclear deal with the
West, or the green light such a deal gives them, they will not be able to
achieve anything. They have reached peak destruction. They are built only to
bring misery and hence cannot benefit.
If a new deal is agreed, first of all the mullahs can expect a strong reaction
from their own people. No way will Iranians accept for a second time the
distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars to terrorist groups for no gain
while they are left with nothing. Yes, the regime will attempt to repress
protesters severely but this will be, once again, at the expense of its image as
a force for resistance. It will prove yet again that it is the oppressor who
acts with no moral compass.
Secondly, the Middle East has been transformed in the past few years. The lines
have shifted and pragmatism has become a more predominant approach, mainly to
compensate for the US disengagement from the region. This has translated into
the forging of new alliances and stronger, common visions that will not allow
for Iran to expand its destructive agenda, which it wraps up in phony slogans of
liberation.
In Iraq, even Shiites suffer more at the hands of the regime in Tehran and its
militias than from any other enemy. Hezbollah is more focused on oppressing the
Lebanese and Syrian peoples than anything else.
The true problem seems to be the opposite of what the Iranian regime claims. It
is addicted to its attempt to leverage US power to its own advantage, more than
to any other goal. Recent years have revealed this clearly.
Iran keeps looking for this recognition, like a bad child who wrecks everything
so that his busy father will start paying attention to him — and at the same
time the father encourages this bad behavior. In the meantime, the child’s
brothers and sisters have all graduated and are looking out for themselves. This
is the family picture of the Middle East on the eve of a possible new nuclear
deal.
There is, in reality, absolutely no reason for confrontation or for Iranian
regime to pursue such a strategy. A new nuclear deal could, and should, be the
reset the region needs; a reset that brings a new era for the Middle East. We
can, and should, build this region together and make it stronger.
The Iranian regime will continue to attempt to outsmart everyone but will only
sit atop its own destruction.
There is a unique opportunity for the region to pivot. This opportunity is in
the hands of the pillars of the Iranian regime. It would mean giving up on its
destructive activities but I have little hope that the rulers in Tehran will
change or amend their behavior. Quite the opposite; I expect them again to act
with more violence. Yet it will not play out the way they think it will.
A key question that we cannot ignore is how will recent events along the
Ukrainian border affect Iran? The relationship between Iran and Russia includes
elements of collaboration and competition. Iran benefits from, and needs,
Russia’s support in many of its actions. At the same time, it would happily
replace Russian gas with Iranian gas. There could therefore be a situation in
which Iran considers it might tactically be better to be more open to a
consensus on Ukraine to avoid choosing sides. It might also see it as a unique
opportunity for extracting a better deal. It is still early and the situation
remains volatile.
Despite all the unknowns and opportunities, one can expect the behavior of the
Iranian regime to remain fundamentally the same. It will not play the nice
neighbor or good sibling, no matter the outcomes. It will continue to attempt to
outsmart everyone but will only sit atop its own destruction.
But this time around, the Middle East family is well aware of this and ready for
it.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the
editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.