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

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.july08.22.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 10/34-39/:”‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Titels For English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2022
Security Council members urge swift formation of govt. in Lebanon
EU ambassadors express strong support for UNIFIL's mission in south Lebanon
President Aoun deliberates security issues with Caretaker Minister Sleem, discusses sports matters with MP Abi Ramia, receives Al-Adha congratulatory...
Corona - MoPH: 1593 new coronavirus infections, two deaths
Relief and Humanitarian Aid Organization at Dar Al-Fatwa provides Eid clothes in Beirut
European Ambassadors visit the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
Report: US pressed Lebanon to criticize Hezbollah drone launching
Israel 'expects major progress' in negotiations with Lebanon
Hezbollah official hits out at Mikati, Bou Habib
Israel claims having intercepted another Hezbollah drone last week
Israeli drone kills Hezbollah collaborator in Syria's Hadar
France charges 3 with attempting to bribe Lebanese judges
Scary to be queer': Lebanon cracks down on LGBTQ rights
Disappointment: a statement issued by the Guardians of the Cedar Party - the Lebanese National Movement/Etienne Saqr_Abu Arz/07 July/2022
Any parliament elected under occupation is de facto illegal and not representative of its people and real patriots./Jean-Marie Kassab//July 07/2022
Lebanon decides to formally negotiate with Syria on refugee repatriation
Don’t Look Down: The Struggle Over Lebanon’s Airspace/Assaf Orion/The Washington Institute/July 07/2022

Titles For Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2022
Russia's war in Ukraine to overshadow G20 talks in Bali
Putin says Russia just starting in Ukraine, peace talks will get harder with time
Putin to Ukraine: Russia has barely started its action
UK warship seizes advanced Iranian missiles bound for Yemen
PRESS RELEASES/Treasury Targets Iranian Oil and Petrochemical Trade Network
Israel, Turkey sign aviation deal in first such since 1951
Resistance and trust issues as US, Israel push for defence pact with Arab states
What does Patrick Brown's disqualification mean for the Conservative leadership race?
Johnson resigns, remains UK prime minister for now

Titles For LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 07-08/2022
NATO Family Picture in Madrid: This Will Not Be Erdoğan's Last Blackmail/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/July 07/2022
Shaping the future of the world Either we do it or our enemies do it/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/July 07/ 2022
Mystery Cargo/Senior Iranian and Venezuelan officials are traveling around the world on a cargo plane. Argentina detained them. But what are they up to?/Emanuele Ottolenghi/ The Dispatch/July 07/ 2022
War Has Consequences: 20-Year Scars of The Second Intifada/Shany Mor/State of Tel Aviv/July 07/ 2022
Turkish-Israeli relations warming but are not problem-free/Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/July 07/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2022
Security Council members urge swift formation of govt. in Lebanon
Naharnet /07 July/2022
The members of the U.N. Security Council announced Thursday that they “took note of the appointment of Najib Mikati as the new designated Prime Minister on 23 June, as well as the presentation by the latter of his government line-up to the President of the Republic of Lebanon on 29 June.” “Over a month after legislative elections in Lebanon, the members of the Security Council call for expediting the formation of a government to implement necessary reforms. Given the intensity of the compounding crises in Lebanon, it is the responsibility and duty of all political actors to work together to prioritize the national interest and to rise to the challenges facing the Lebanese people,” they said in a statement. The members of the Security Council also encouraged measures to promote youth participation and to enhance women’s “full, equal and meaningful political participation and representation, including in the new government, as well as their economic empowerment.” They also emphasized the “vital importance of adhering to the constitutional calendar so that the presidential election takes place on time.” Recalling the need for “urgent implementation of previously outlined tangible reforms that would enable the quick conclusion of an agreement with the IMF to respond to the demands of the Lebanese population,” the members stressed the role of the Lebanese institutions, including the newly elected Parliament and the new Government, in the “implementation of the reforms necessary to tackle the unprecedented crisis, root out corruption, and deliver more responsive governance.”They also underlined the importance of delivering those reforms in order to “ensure effective international support,” while underscoring that “the stability of Lebanon is a shared priority.”

EU ambassadors express strong support for UNIFIL's mission in south Lebanon
Naharnet/07 July/2022
A fifteen-member delegation of Ambassadors and senior officials from the European Union (EU) visited UNIFIL’s headquarters and area of operations on Thursday, including a briefing at the Blue Line. UNIFIL’s Head of Mission and Force Commander, Major General Aroldo Lázaro, received the delegation in Naqoura and thanked the EU bloc for its support. “The EU member states have supported UNIFIL and this has been essential in helping us with mandate implementation,” he said. “EU troops make up a third of the mission’s more than 10,000 troops on land and at sea. Their work – and their sacrifices – have directly contributed to maintaining the unprecedented sixteen years of security and stability along the Blue Line.”The delegation, led by EU Ambassador to Lebanon Ralph Tarraf, included representatives of Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain. Major General Lázaro briefed the delegation on UNIFIL’s work, together with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), in maintaining security and stability throughout the mission’s area of operations, including the sensitive Blue Line area. He praised the EU for its support to local communities in south Lebanon, and to the LAF. “EU member states have also shown a deep commitment to the capability development of the Lebanese Armed Forces, who are UNIFIL’s strategic partners,” he said. “Your vision and financial support for the Lebanese Model Regiment headquarters assists the army in deploying more troops in the south. This will strengthen the government’s ability to exercise its authority throughout Lebanese territory, something that has been an important element of UNIFIL’s mandate since Resolution 1701.”Ambassador Tarraf, for his part, noted UNIFIL’s mandate has been critical in maintaining the cessation of hostilities and recognized the mission’s “key role in reducing tensions between Lebanon and Israel.”
“Through its liaison and coordination mechanisms, UNIFIL provides an important platform for indirect contacts between Israel and Lebanon and plays a crucial role in de-escalation, conflict management and confidence building,” he said. “The European Union and its Member States fully support UNIFIL in playing this role.”The EU contributes significantly to implementing UNIFIL’s mandate in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolution 1701. Sixteen of the EU’s 27 member states contribute troops to UNIFIL. Peacekeepers from EU countries also support local communities with donations and development projects, which have become increasingly important in the context of the ongoing economic crisis. They have also made major investments to train and build capacities of the Lebanese Army and Navy. A statement issued by the EU Delegation to Lebanon said the EU Ambassadors recalled “the necessity for all parties to ensure that UNIFIL personnel are safe and secure and their freedom of movement is fully respected and unimpeded, so that it can fully implement its mandate.”They also called on the Lebanese authorities to “investigate all attacks against UNIFIL and its personnel and bring to justice the perpetrators of those incidents.” During their visit, the EU Ambassadors also reaffirmed their commitment to “the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Lebanon, and stressed the importance of Lebanon advancing the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701 with the support of UNIFIL.”

President Aoun deliberates security issues with Caretaker Minister Sleem, discusses sports matters with MP Abi Ramia, receives Al-Adha congratulatory...
NNA/07 July/2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Thursday met Caretaker National Defense Minister, Maurice Sleem, and discussed with him security affairs and files related to the military institution.
Issues related to the needs and conditions of the Army, and ways to alleviate the difficulties they face due to the current crisis, were also addressed.
President Aoun informed Minister Sleem that everything necessary should be done in order to alleviate the suffering of soldiers, especially as they are doing their full duty, in order to preserving stability and security.
MP Abi Ramia:
President Aoun received the Chairman of the Parliamentary Youth and Sports Committee, MP Simon Abi Ramia, accompanied by Mr. Jihad Salameh.
The discussion dealt with sports affairs, the general sporting reality, and the achievements of Lebanese players of different age groups in various sports.
MP Abi Ramia and Mr. Salama also briefed the President on the suffering experienced by a number of sports players who face great difficulties in obtaining passports to enable them to participate in sport tournaments and competitions outside Lebanon, and suggested the possibility of allocating a General Security special office to facilitate obtaining passports for sports federations and clubs to enable traveling..
For his side, President Aoun expressed interest in this file and pursued all methods which allow players to remove this obstacle to secure Lebanese representation in foreign sports forums.
Al-Adha Congratulatory Cables:
The President received Adha feast congratulatory telegrams from a number of leaders and heads of Arab countries.
King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein of Jordan sent a congratulatory message to President Aoun.
Text: “I would like to benefit of the occasion of celebrations of the Arab and Islamic nations on the occasion of the blessed Eid Al-Adha, to send your Excellency my dear brother, in my name and on behalf of the people and government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, my heartfelt congratulations and best blessings on this occasion. I ask the Lord Almighty to bless you on this occasion and that you enjoy good health and happiness, and for your brotherly people to be blessed with more progress and prosperity. I hope that this feast will restore goodness and blessings for Arab and Islamic nations”. Kuwaiti Prince, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, also wrote the following cable: “I am pleased to extend to you my sincere congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the blessed Eid Al-Adha, asking God Almighty to bless your brotherly homeland and the Arab and Islamic nations with goodness and blessings.I also ask God to grant your Excellency good health and wellness, and to bring about further progress, development and growth for the Lebanese Republic and its brotherly people”.Kuwaiti Crown Prince, Sheikh Mishaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah also sent a congratulatory cable on the occasion. -- Presidency Press Office

Corona - MoPH: 1593 new coronavirus infections, two deaths
NNA/07 July/2022
Lebanon has recorded 1593 new coronavirus cases and two deaths in the last 24 hours, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Thursday.

Relief and Humanitarian Aid Organization at Dar Al-Fatwa provides Eid clothes in Beirut
NNA/07 July/2022
On the occasion of the blessed Eid Al-Adha and in light of the difficult economic conditions that Lebanese families are going through, especially in Beirut Governorate, the Relief Organization at Dar Al-Fatwa, under the guidance of the Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Dr. Abdel Latif Derian, and the supervision of the Mayor’s Council Chairman, Hajj Mohammad Sinno, provided 7,500 pieces of new clothes to 500 poor Lebanese families in Beirut.

European Ambassadors visit the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
NNA/07 July/2022
Ambassadors of Member States of the European Union visited today the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Present were the Ambassadors and Representatives of: the European Union, Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. The EU Ambassadors were welcomed at UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura by the Force Commander Major General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz. After a mission briefing, they visited a UNIFIL position along the Blue Line, as well as a project in Naqoura, which aims to supply local residents and farmers with underground water resources. The Ambassador of the European Union, Ralph Tarraf, said: "Our joint visit here is a testament to the European Union and its Member States’ commitment to the work of UNIFIL and the Lebanese authorities in ensuring continued peace, security and stability in South Lebanon.” Ambassador Tarraf further stated that UNIFIL’s mandate has been critical in maintaining the cessation of hostilities, preserving stability along the Blue Line, and supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces. In this context, he acknowledged the significant efforts and contributions made by several European Union Member States to support UNIFIL. The EU Ambassadors recalled the necessity for all parties to ensure that UNIFIL personnel are safe and secure and their freedom of movement is fully respected and unimpeded, so that it can fully implement its mandate. They called on the Lebanese authorities to investigate all attacks against UNIFIL and its personnel and bring to justice the perpetrators of those incidents. During their visit, the EU Ambassadors reaffirmed their commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Lebanon, and stressed the importance of Lebanon advancing the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701 with the support of UNIFIL.

Report: US pressed Lebanon to criticize Hezbollah drone launching
Naharnet/07 July/2022
Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday that the three drones that Hezbollah launched toward the disputed Karish gas field on Saturday were Iranian. “Hezbollah used unmanned aerial vehicles made in Iran," Gantz said as he accused Hezbollah of carrying out missions for Iran. Israel's army had earlier said it had intercepted a drone last week, three days before it shot down the three drones. Hezbollah said it launched three unarmed drones on a reconnaissance mission and that "the message has been sent" to Israel, while Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati criticized the move, saying it was an unnecessarily risky action. Meanwhile, sources briefed the American Axios news website that "the Biden administration has pressed the Lebanese government to criticize Hezbollah for sending the drones and to commit to resolving the maritime border dispute with Israel only through negotiations."

Israel 'expects major progress' in negotiations with Lebanon
Naharnet/07 July/2022
Israel expects “major progress” in the negotiations over sea border demarcation with Lebanon, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation quoted a senior source as saying. President Michel Aoun had said overnight that the negotiations “will be finalized soon” and that “the solution will satisfy everyoneز Israel and Lebanon resumed indirect negotiations on their maritime border in 2020 but the U.S.-backed talks stalled after Lebanon demanded that the U.N. maps be modified. Israel and Lebanon remain technically at war but agreed to indirect talks aimed at delineating their maritime border to allow both sides to boost gas exploration. The reports about progress come despite high tensions in recent days linked to Hezbollah’s sending of drones towards the Karish offshore gas field.

Hezbollah official hits out at Mikati, Bou Habib
Naharnet/07 July/2022
Senior Hezbollah official Sayyed Hashem Saffieddine on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib without naming them, in connection with their criticism of Hezbollah's sending of three drones on Saturday towards the Karish gas field.
"What we witnessed in Lebanon days ago, in the files of the confrontation with the enemy and obtaining our rights and resources, and the files of running the country and bread, flour, medicine and crises, clearly indicates that a lot of politicians in Lebanon are hypocrites and are deceiving the people," Saffieddine, who is the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, said. "He who wants to work in public affairs must be a real man who shoulders responsibility," the Hezbollah official added. "Our problem lies in the presence of a class or a group in Lebanon whose choices are always narrow, because they fear the Americans and some Gulf countries," Safieddine added. "And then someone -- who is either scared or doesn't know how to act or has his ears and head in the U.S. embassy -- decides to warn, threaten and limit us to certain stances, but countries cannot be built with such stances, but rather through action, bravery and sacrifices," the Hezbollah official went on to say, apparently referring to the Mikati-Bou Habib statement. He also charged that "America wants Lebanon to be a decayed and weak country in order to achieve the Israeli objectives regarding gas and other issues."

Israel claims having intercepted another Hezbollah drone last week
Naharnet /07 July/2022
The Israeli army has claimed that it had detected and shot down another Hezbollah drone last week. “The army detected last Wednesday a drone heading towards Israel’s economic waters from the Lebanese side," Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said Wednesday evening in a tweet.
He added that the Israeli forces had shot down the drone inside the Lebanese waters before it reached the Lebanese-Israeli borders. On Saturday, the Israeli army said it had intercepted three drones launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon. The drones were headed towards the offshore Karish gas field. Hezbollah said the drones were unarmed and were sent towards the disputed Karish field "for reconnaissance missions." "The mission was accomplished and the message has been sent," Hezbollah added, without mentioning any Israeli interception, while Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati criticized the move, saying it was an unnecessarily risky action.

Israeli drone kills Hezbollah collaborator in Syria's Hadar
Naharnet/07 July/2022
An Israeli drone has killed a man who hails from the Syrian town of Hadar in Quneitra's northern countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "The targeted person worked for Hezbollah in the field of surveillance and monitoring in the town of Hadar, which borders Syria's occupied Golan," the Observatory said. "He was targeted by the drone as he was present near his home in the west of the town of Hadar," it added, noting that the strike took place on Wednesday evening. Israeli drones had previously dropped leaflets across Quneitra that warned regime troops and residents against cooperating with Hezbollah, the Observatory said.

France charges 3 with attempting to bribe Lebanese judges
Naharnet/07 July/2022
The French judiciary has charged three French citizens with attempting to bribe Lebanese judges in one of the files related to the probe into Libya's financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign. The French judiciary suspects that the three tried to collect money and pay it to Lebanese mediators with the aim of delivering the sums to judicial officials in Lebanon. According to French judges, the ultimate objective was to "hold meetings with Mommar Gadhafi's son Hannibal Gadhafi and then to release him from jail and imprison (French-Lebanese mediator) Ziad Takieddine."

Scary to be queer': Lebanon cracks down on LGBTQ rights
Agence France Presse/07 July/2022
Lebanon's LGBTQ community, long among the most vocal and visible in the Middle East, has been targeted by a crackdown that has seen queer activists harassed and Pride gatherings cancelled. It has heaped pressure on a community that already lost many of its safe spaces in the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion and been depleted by an exodus driven by Lebanon's severe economic crisis. An icy chill went through the crisis-tested community when the interior ministry in a June 24 letter instructed security forces to clamp down on events "promoting sexual perversion". "It feels very intimidating and quite scary to be a queer person in Lebanon right now," said Tarek Zeidan, head of the Beirut-based Helem association, considered the preeminent Arab group defending LGBTQ rights. "We are afraid these signals are only the beginning of further attempts to restrict the individual, civil and political rights of LGBTQ people."
Lebanon has never been a safe haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. But the community has long been visible and outspoken, defying arbitrary crackdowns on its bars, nightclubs and community centers. Annual efforts to host LGBTQ gatherings have regularly been banned, or cancelled over threats. But the state's latest directive -- condemned by human rights groups as unlawful -- deepens the multilayered crisis that members say now threatens the very survival of the community. The ministry argued that LGBTQ events violate customs, traditions and "principles of religion" in Lebanon, where political power is split along faith lines between Shiite and Sunni Muslim, Christian, Druze and other groups.
Death threats -
Lebanon's LGBTQ community in 2018 scored a success when a court ruled that same-sex conduct is not unlawful, but since then it has seen more setbacks than victories. The Beirut port blast heavily impacted an inner-city district with many gay-friendly spaces, also destroying the Helem offices which have only recently reopened. LGBTQ people have also featured disproportionately in Lebanon's snowballing population exodus that is generating an epidemic of queer isolation. The minority "has suffered greatly over the past three years and is already made hyper-vulnerable by the socioeconomic discrimination it has been facing," said Zeidan, 38. But the latest decision, he said, "is really exacerbating that feeling of anxiety and that feeling of fear living in Lebanon". The state move triggered an avalanche of homophobic slurs and threats from politicians, religious authorities and radical activists, as security forces banned even private workshops and movie screenings. Anti-queer protesters demanded the criminalization of the LGBTQ status, and conferences discussed "risks and treatments" for homosexuality. Rasha Younes of Human Rights Watch called it "definitely the most general ban we have seen in recent years", adding that it lacked any legal framework and set "a dangerous precedent". Activists now report receiving phone calls from state security officers "inviting them for a chat over coffee and making it clear that they are monitoring their social media accounts", Younes said.Last week, LGBTQ activists planned a sit-in protest outside the interior ministry, but they called it off after receiving death threats.
'Abuse of power'
The ministry's decision came after a Christian group calling itself the "Soldiers of God" live-streamed a video of its members tearing apart a Beirut billboard featuring blooming flowers in the colors of a rainbow flag. Marked #LoveAlwaysBlooms, the billboard had been created by Beirut Pride, a collaborative platform that was founded in 2017 to advocate for the decriminalization of the LGBTQ status. Hadi Damien, its 33-year-old initiator, said the billboard had been their first major offline project since October 2019. The angry backlash is not new, he said, sitting in a Beirut café, but he argued that it is all the more intense at a time Lebanon is gripped by a broader crisis and has seen the near-total collapse of the state. "When institutions are weakened, we go to a very primitive way of governing people," he said. "It means abuse of power is rampant, it means that any person can pretend to be law enforcement and crack down on a venue." Damien argued that the state's latest move amounts to a "pure diversion" from Lebanon's grinding malaise and "is nothing but performative politics"."When so much is going on, you need to show that you are doing something. So you always hit the people who seem like the easiest target."

Disappointment: a statement issued by the Guardians of the Cedar Party - the Lebanese National Movement
Etienne Saqr_Abu Arz/07 July/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/109938/%d8%a7%d8%aa%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%b5%d9%82%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%b2-%d8%ae%d9%8a%d8%a8%d8%a9-%d8%a3%d9%85%d9%84-etienne-saqr_abu-arz-disappointment/
Now that the battle for the parliamentary elections is over, and the horns of the drummers and the pipers have fallen silent, and after "the drunk has gone and the idea has come"...
The Lebanese citizen stands bewildered and asks: What are the gains that these elections have achieved for him and the country??? The answer is shocking.
1- A number of candidates called for change won, but the people's joy did not last long, as it was found that most of them do not depend on change in any way, and they cannot be relied upon for anything after they fell at the beginning of the road and at the first two exams for them.
2- As for the so-called sovereign parties that filled the world with rosy promises and antagonistic slogans, they have received two fatal slaps so far at the hands of the ruling system:
The first, when the latter succeeded in re-electing one of its most prominent symbols as Speaker of Parliament for the seventh time in a row, along with his deputy, the Aounist belonging to the Syrian, and the passion.
The second, when she also succeeded in nominating her candidate to head the future government, and overthrowing the candidate affiliated with the two changes and the sovereigns.
On both occasions, the sovereign parties took a neutral stance as if the matter did not concern them, or as if the password came to do its work, or rather its magic.
Thus, these elections, which were rushed by the changers and the sovereigns, came against what the citizen desires regarding the ropes of air, as it resulted in consolidating the grip of the ruling system on all aspects of the state, starting with the three presidencies and ending with the last site of the state, and then giving the Iranian occupation the legitimacy of existence through Its municipal agent is known as "Hezbollah", and here lies the greatest calamity and the greatest danger.
The unfortunate question that arises is, did this unfortunate and unfortunate citizen need a new disappointment to add to his many previous disappointments???
O dear citizen, our advice to you is that you should no longer trust the politicians in Lebanon, but only yourself, and that you should rely only on God, your mind and your weight... (and your understanding is enough)
Labbek Lebanon

Any parliament elected under occupation is de facto illegal and not representative of its people and real patriots.
Jean-Marie Kassab//July 07/2022
This is the case of the lately elected parliament. Maybe a small number of its member are genuine Lebanese, but their electoral victory is only part of the fake and theatrical pseudo democracy we live in. To let off steam and falsely display liberties .
Let us not fool ourselves : Even if the sovereigners had the majority , the Iranians would have never allowed any real change or any step towards the liberation of the country.
In other words, and based on the number of 65 votes that brought back Berry and his accomplices , this parliament will most probably elect Jibrane Bassil as president. This is the drama we the Lebanese are bound to go through , like a curse from an angry god.
Something has to be done. Something should be done.
Be part of it before it is too late.

Lebanon decides to formally negotiate with Syria on refugee repatriation
Arab News/July 07/2022
BEIRUT: Lebanon has decided to formally negotiate refugee repatriation with Syria, a minister in the caretaker government said on Thursday.
The Minister of Displaced Affairs Issam Sharaf El-Din said he would visit Damascus after the Eid Al-Adha holiday, making him the first Lebanese minister to visit the Syrian capital in an official capacity since 2011.
Sharaf El-Din will discuss the plan to repatriate Syrian refugees in stages and “secure the executive mechanisms” for their return.
He confirmed he had an official mandate from President Michel Aoun and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati for the Syrian refugee issue.
BACKGROUND
International organizations were trying to obstruct this issue by threatening to not help refugees if they returned to their country, said Minister of Displaced Affairs Issam Sharaf El-Din.
According to Sharaf El-Din, the plan stipulated “the repatriation of 15,000 refugees per month” because Lebanon believed the war in Syria had ended and the country was safe. “Lebanon will not accept the non-return of Syrian refugees to their country.”
Lebanon, which is already in crisis, says Syrian refugees are a heavy burden on basic services and infrastructure.
According to Lebanese protesters, the refugees shared “our bread, which has turned into a rare commodity, and people are scrambling to get it in the past days.”
Lebanese ministers have previously visited Damascus and met Syrian officials, despite the suspension of Syria's Arab League membership, but they have been keen to stress the visits were personal.
The Syrian minister of energy visited Lebanon more than once in the context of signing a contract for the passage of Egyptian gas and Jordanian electricity to Lebanon through Syria.
On Thursday, Sharaf El-Din confirmed that Lebanon dealt with the Syrian state in particular because it was the second party directly concerned with the refugee issue regardless of the UNHCR’s opinion.
He also said the Syrian state was very cooperative in the matter.
Those who wanted to return but had judicial rulings against them or any specific legal circumstances would have their cases dealt with or deported to third countries, he added.
International organizations were trying to obstruct this issue by threatening to not help refugees if they returned to their country, said Sharaf El-Din.
The UNHCR estimates there are fewer than 1 million refugees in Lebanon, while Lebanon estimates their number to be 1.5 million.
The door to repatriation was opened two years ago by submitting the names of refugees who wished to return to their villages and cities to Syrian authorities.
Those wishing to return had to obtain the approval of Syrian authorities. But the process later stopped as many refugees did not get approval because authorities wanted to secure an adequate infrastructure for living.
A source in the Lebanese government told Arab News: “The process is continuing on two fronts. Minister Sharaf El-Din takes charge of the side related to the Syrian authorities and holds an official cover from the Lebanese side, and Prime Minister Mikati takes over the side related to international institutions.
“So far, Lebanon has not received any answer from the UNHCR. There are thorny issues, including those related to Syrian dissidents, and these issues must be dealt with calmly to reach the implementation stage.”
MP Razi Al-Hajj, from the Lebanese Forces party, criticized the “populism and contradictory agendas” in addressing the issue of Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
He told a press conference on Thursday: “Why, until now, are there no unified figures in the executive authority institutions about the number of refugees? What about the classification of these refugees between displaced people and workers? And why has this legal classification been ignored until now?
“The current Lebanese government and the governments that preceded it ignored signing a cooperation protocol with the UNHCR. If they fear that this protocol will turn Lebanon into a country of asylum, a basic cooperation protocol can define rights, duties, and repatriation policy for refugees.
“A proposal to establish temporary border shelters inside Syria, under the auspices of the United Nations, was rejected in the past. Was the rejection intended to maintain easy smuggling and open borders for Hezbollah as well?"
He asked why the government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had not requested the International Support Group for Lebanon to put the issue of repatriation of Syrian refugees on the agenda of UN Security Council sessions, and why it had not requested that Lebanon be an observer member of the Geneva process, given its “inability to tolerate” these burdens.
He said Lebanon had submitted a belated request to be an observer member of the Astana process, which ended in “catastrophic failure.”

Don’t Look Down: The Struggle Over Lebanon’s Airspace
Assaf Orion/The Washington Institute/July 07/2022
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/dont-look-down-struggle-over-lebanons-airspace
To avoid past mistakes and counter the most potent threat on its borders, Israel requires an accurate intelligence picture in Lebanon, but Iran and Hezbollah risk destabilizing the situation by chipping away at the IDF’s air superiority.
Although Iran’s military expansion in the Middle East is usually discussed in terms of proxy militias gaining ground and expanding their rocket and missile arsenals, Tehran and its partners are increasingly contesting the region’s skies as well. In particular, two troubling trends are on the rise: unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes against states that Iran considers rivals, and the proliferation of air defense systems to Iranian partners. In Yemen, for example, Houthi forces have not only conducted UAV attacks against targets inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but also fired on coalition drones with surface-to-air missiles. To drive home the latter threat, Iran’s “Military Achievements Media” published an infographic on July 1 illustrating the variety of air defense systems deployed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, releasing the information in Farsi, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, and English (see below).
Open imageiconInfographic showing Iranian air defense systems.
Yet the most dangerous risk of air escalation lies in Lebanon. On June 29, Israel downed a Hezbollah drone headed to its economic zone. On July 2, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intercepted three Hezbollah drones launched from Lebanon and reportedly headed in the direction of the Karish offshore natural gas platform. Earlier that day, an Israeli airstrike reportedly targeted Iranian air defense systems deployed in northwest Syria near the border with Lebanon. These and other developments point to a sobering fact: operational conditions in the country’s skies have changed to the IDF’s disadvantage, hampering some of its intelligence efforts while heightening the potential for wider conflict with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah Contesting Israel’s Freedom of Action
In an interview conducted April 5, the outgoing chief of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, stated that the country’s freedom of action in Lebanon’s skies had been impaired. This setback did not occur overnight. As early as 2009, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah warned that obtaining air defense systems would tip the balance in a conflict given Israel’s heavy reliance on air supremacy. He also declared that Hezbollah had the right to acquire such systems to protect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
In response to such efforts, Israel has reportedly struck air defense systems destined for transfer to Hezbollah throughout Syria’s civil war next door, including Russian-made SA-8 and SA-17 batteries as well as Iranian systems deployed to Syria. After a drone strike hit Hezbollah targets in Beirut in August 2019, Nasrallah vowed to shoot Israeli UAVs out of Lebanon’s skies.
Airspace tensions went up another notch last year. On February 3, 2021, Hezbollah launched surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli UAV but failed to hit it. Soon afterward, the IAF held an exercise (“Rose of the Galilee”) whose opening scenario reportedly began with a Hezbollah antiaircraft missile hitting an Israeli fighter jet. Involving up to 85 percent of all IAF personnel, the exercise simulated a massive Israeli response striking 3,000 targets in Lebanon within twenty-four hours, including air superiority missions against Hezbollah air defense targets in Beirut and the south. Leaving little to the imagination, the IDF announced that this was what the enemy should expect in response to any attack on a fighter jet.
Nasrallah was seemingly undeterred, however. During a February 2022 interview, he stated that in the previous two years, Hezbollah had operated air defense systems that greatly reduced Israel’s activity in Lebanon’s skies and impaired its reconnaissance against the “resistance.” He also bragged that the group had begun manufacturing drones of its own. According to him, two key consequences resulted from this supposed restriction of Israeli activity: the IDF could no longer do anything to stop Hezbollah’s production of precision missiles, and Israel now had to run human agents inside Lebanon to compensate for the loss of UAV reconnaissance. Whereas Israel used to fly over the Beqa Valley and south Lebanon on a daily basis, he claimed, the Beqa had not seen a UAV in months, while the south had witnessed a decrease in activity and a change in flight routes.
General Norkin admitted in his April interview that some elements of intelligence collection were indeed affected. He also noted that Israel had enhanced other elements by using alternative methods, adding that “this is part of our work plan for 2022.” It remains to be seen whether he meant developing intelligence alternatives or reclaiming air superiority.
What Do the Numbers Say?
Although neither Hezbollah nor Israel has provided data documenting these trends, UN reports shed more light on the matter. Since the end of the 2006 war, the UN secretary-general has submitted special reports on Lebanon to the Security Council around March, July, and November of each year. Initially, these documents described Israel’s air activity in general terms only. Since the November 2017 report, however, they have included quantitative descriptions of airspace violations and flight hours. Taken together, the reports do in fact illustrate a dramatic drop in Israel’s air activity over Lebanon.
Typically, summer months offer the best visibility conditions for such air reconnaissance, so aerial activity tends to peak during this season (see table). Summer 2020 was particularly active—with the border on high alert following Hezbollah’s threat to avenge a member killed by an IDF strike in Syria that July, Israel’s summer flight hours over Lebanon wound up totaling 7,750, almost triple the seasonal average for the preceding three years.
Open imageiconTable showing decrease in Israeli airspace violations over Lebanon, 2017-2021.
Yet these figures began to plummet in 2021, with 413 flight hours that spring—just 32% of the seasonal average for 2017-2020 (1,273 hours). An even more dramatic drop occurred that summer, with 378 flight hours—just 13% of the 2017-2019 seasonal average (2,846) and a mere 5% of the summer 2020 high mark mentioned above. In sum, UN reports indicate that Israel decreased its air activity over Lebanon by 70-90% in 2021 compared to previous years, with the biggest cut reported in the busiest season for air reconnaissance.
The UN is of course justified in thoroughly documenting Israel’s overflights, since these activities violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. (Notwithstanding the fact that these flights are conducted to reconnoiter Hezbollah’s own military activities, which violate not only Lebanese sovereignty, but also several Security Council resolutions. But that subject merits its own analyses.) Unfortunately, however, the UN has been inconsistent in how it characterizes the trends it documents—for instance, it emphasized the “significant increase” in Israeli violations between June and October 2020, but failed to comment at all about their dramatic drop in 2021.
Open imageiconChart showing UN data on Israeli flight hours and airspace violations over Lebanon.
More important, the changing airspace situation has added another fuse to the strategic powder keg along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria. In 2018, Israel struck a Hezbollah patrol in the Syrian-controlled portion of the Golan Heights, and the group retaliated from Lebanon, killing two IDF soldiers. In 2019, the IDF struck a team deployed by Iran’s IRGC-Qods Force as it was trying to launch drones from Syria, and some of the operatives turned out to be Lebanese. As Iran and its proxy continue to increase their threats against Israel, additional Hezbollah fatalities in Syria are only a matter of time. For its part, Hezbollah has vowed to keep retaliating for such losses from Lebanon, as seen when it attempted several attacks and exchanged fire with Israeli forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line in summer 2020.
Another wrinkle emerged in August 2021, when Palestinian armed groups inside Lebanon launched rockets against Israel. According to Israeli assessments, such launches would not happen without Hezbollah’s consent, if not direction, and the IDF spokesperson emphasized that the Lebanese state is responsible for whatever attacks are launched from in its territory. Israel responded to the barrage with a rare airstrike in Lebanon (the first since 2014) and more than a hundred artillery shells. Hezbollah then answered with a twenty-rocket salvo into Israel. Palestinian groups launched another rocket from Lebanon this April.
Additionally, Hezbollah UAVs have often been observed flying along the border this year—one such drone was downed in mid-February, and another triggered air raid sirens and unsuccessful launches by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. In short, the border that so many officials have characterized as “calm” is actually sparking with incidents, and while the situation was hitherto managed well enough to avoid escalation, the changing airspace conditions could upset that fragile balance.
From this perspective, the threats to Israel’s air superiority have substantial destabilizing potential. Between its withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and the war against Hezbollah in 2006, Israel spent too little effort following the group’s military buildup, bitterly awakening to the consequences of this failure in battle. Since that war, Israel has acknowledged Hezbollah as the top military threat on its borders and made an exceptional effort to stay well informed about the group’s capabilities, as IAF overflights show. During the month-long “Chariots of Fire” drill conducted this May, the IDF exercised a massive precision strike and wide maneuver against these capabilities, confirming that its response to Hezbollah escalation will be a wide-scale, intelligence-driven air and land campaign.
To keep this capability ready to use, Israel needs to continue its collection efforts and update its intelligence picture well into the future. Developing collection alternatives to air reconnaissance is one option, but Israel likely still faces a dilemma: either accept gradual degradation of its intelligence picture over time or expose its air reconnaissance missions to Hezbollah’s air defenses. In Syria, Israel has shown a willingness to destroy defense systems that threaten its aircraft, but in Lebanon it has acted differently so far. The IDF and Hezbollah have long been walking the tightrope between deterrence and escalation, prudently managing to avoid the latter. Yet with Hezbollah raising the bar against a vital tool of Israel’s national security, the stakes are becoming even higher.
*Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion (Res.) is the Rueven International Fellow at The Washington Institute and former head of the Strategic Division in the IDF General Staff’s Planning Directorate.
*Assaf Orion
Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general and defense strategist whose broad research scope ranges from relations with China to Israel’s regional political-military strategy and policy, is the Liz and Mony Rueven International Fellow with The Washington Institute.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2022
Russia's war in Ukraine to overshadow G20 talks in Bali
Associated Press/07 July/2022
Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations are gathering in Indonesia's resort island of Bali for talks bound to be dominated by the conflict in Ukraine despite an agenda focused on global cooperation and food and energy security. The one-day gathering will take place on Friday on the mostly Hindu "island of the gods" in the majority Muslim archipelago nation. Underscoring the backdrop of tensions hanging over the meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russia's top diplomat Sergey Lavrov stopped in various Asian capitals on their way to Bali, drumming up support and fortifying their ties in the region ahead of the talks. The United States and its allies have sought to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin in as many ways as possible, including by threatening a boycott of the G-20's Bali summit in November unless Putin is removed from the forum. So as this year's president of the G-20, Indonesia has been forced into playing a more constructive role on the world stage rather than acting just as an "event organizer." The country has sought to remain neutral in dealing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and President Joko Widodo has been guarded in his comments. Widodo was the first Asian leader to visit the warring countries. Ukraine is not a member of G-20, but Widodo has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the November summit along with Putin, hoping to appease all sides and limit any distractions from the forum's agenda.
Zelenskyy has said he won't attend if the war is continuing then and has opted to follow the discussions by video link. Widodo reportedly told Italian Prime Minister Marion Draghi, on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Germany, that Putin also will not be coming. Moscow has said a decision has not yet been made. That apparent compromise may be put to the test when the G-20 foreign ministers gather in Bali's heavily-guarded Nusa Dua tourist haven to lay the groundwork for the 17th summit of the West's economic powerhouses. Strains between Washington and Beijing are also apparent: On Wednesday, China launched a scathing attack on the U.S. and NATO, just days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Chinese foreign minister are due to meet in Bali. Washington "observes international rules only as it sees fit," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing. He said the "so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the U.S. self-interest."A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition he not be further identified, said it would be important to focus on the G-20 agenda in Bali, but that it "clearly cannot be business as usual."What is more important than a unanimous statement about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is what countries in the G-20 actually do to address the problems the world is facing now, he said.
A key aim of the talks will be to seek ways to improve food security at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine has choked global markets, pushing prices of meat, dairy products, cereals, sugar and vegetable oils sharply higher.
"These visits are not only important for Indonesians but also for other developing countries in order to prevent the people of developing and low-income countries from falling into extreme poverty and hunger," Widodo told reporters in Jakarta before his departure to Germany on June 26.
Russia and Ukraine account for a third of the world's wheat exports and Ukraine alone grows enough of the grain to feed 400 million people. But Moscow's blockade means Kyiv can only move 2 million tons a month, 60% less than usual. Millions of tons of Ukrainian grain are sitting in silos waiting to be shipped through safe corridors in the Black Sea. Ukraine also is one of the world's largest exporters of corn and sunflower oil, but Russia's invasion halted most of that flow. Such disruptions threaten food supplies for many developing countries, especially in Africa. The crisis is having inflationary ripple effects in Indonesia, including a shortage of flour that is compelling local companies to raise the politically-sensitive price of instant noodles, a hugely popular Indonesian staple. Russia has pledged to increase its wheat exports to Indonesia. Last year, those amounted to only 2,955 tons compared with the 3 million tones imported from Ukraine. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has told reporters it's important to achieve a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine and food and fertilizer exports from Russia to end shortages and reduce prices. Rising costs of cooking oil prompted Indonesia, beset by student protests over skyrocketing food prices, to temporarily ban exports of palm oil products. Exports of crude palm oil, used in a wide variety of foods, cosmetics and other products, resumed a month later. Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia are the world's largest exporters of palm oil, accounting for 85% of global production. Foreign ministers headed to Bali on Thursday come from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and the European Union. Blinken is scheduled to meet with Wang, Beijing's top envoy, on Saturday. The meeting will be the latest high-level contact between U.S. and Chinese officials as Washington has questioned China's stance after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The two sides could also discuss a possible lifting of U.S. tariffs on imports from China by President Joe Biden's administration as it strives to counter inflation. While in Bali, Lavrov is due to hold meetings with his counterparts from other countries, including China, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil on the sidelines of the G-20 foreign ministers. He also plans consultations with invited leaders of international organizations, according to Russia's embassy in Jakarta. Members of the G-20 account for about 80% of the world's economic output, two-thirds of the world's population and about three-quarters of global trade.

Putin says Russia just starting in Ukraine, peace talks will get harder with time
Mark Trevelyan/Reuters/July 7, 2022
LONDON (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had barely got started in Ukraine and dared the West to try to defeat it on the battlefield, while insisting that Moscow was still open to the idea of peace talks. In a hawkish speech to parliamentary leaders more than four months into the war, Putin said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on. "Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try," he said. "We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this."Russia accuses the West of waging a proxy war against it by hammering its economy with sanctions and stepping up the supply of advanced weapons to Ukraine. But while boasting that Russia was just getting into its stride, Putin also referred to the possibility of negotiations. "Everyone should know that, by and large, we haven't started anything yet in earnest," he added. "At the same time, we don't reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us."It was the first reference to diplomacy in many weeks after repeated statements from Moscow that negotiations with Kyiv had totally broken down.
Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian forces have captured large swathes of the country, including completing the seizure of the eastern region of Luhansk last Sunday. But their progress has been far slower than many analysts predicted, and they were beaten back in initial attempts to take the capital, Kyiv, and second city, Kharkiv. Prospects for compromise appear remote as Ukraine, emboldened by Western support and the heavy losses it has inflicted on its opponent in terms of both men and equipment, has spoken of driving Russia out of all the territory it has seized. Ukraine's chief negotiator, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter this week that its conditions to resume talks would include: "Ceasefire. Z-troops withdrawal. Returning of kidnapped citizens. Extradition of war criminals. Reparations mechanism. Ukraine's sovereign rights recognition."Putin said it was obvious that Western sanctions were creating difficulties, "but not at all what the initiators of the economic blitzkrieg against Russia were counting on." Parliamentary leaders responded to Putin's comments and one, Sergei Mironov of the A Just Russia party, encouraged him to set up a special agency to facilitate the integration of occupied Ukrainian territories into Russia - an idea that Putin promised to discuss.

Putin to Ukraine: Russia has barely started its action
AP/July 7, 2022
With Russia's military action in Ukraine in its fifth month, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned Kyiv that it should quickly accept Moscow's terms or brace for the worst, adding ominously that Russia has barely started its action. Speaking at a meeting with leaders of the Kremlin-controlled parliament, Putin accused Western allies of fueling the hostilities, charging that "the West wants to fight us until the last Ukrainian.” “It's a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it looks like it's heading in that direction,” he added. “Everybody should know that largely speaking, we haven’t even yet started anything in earnest,” Putin said in a menacing note. He declared that Russia remains ready to sit down for talks to end the fighting, adding that “those who refuse to do so should know that the longer it lasts the more difficult it will be for them to make a deal with us.”“We are hearing that they want to defeat us on the battlefield,” Putin said. “Let them try.”Earlier in the conflict, the Kremlin demanded that Kyiv acknowledge Russian sovereignty over the Crimea peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and recognize the independence of Moscow-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. Moscow also said it expected Ukraine to bow to the existing situation on the ground, a reference to other land gains it has made since the Russian troops rolled into Ukraine on Feb. 24. After failing to capture Kyiv and other big cities in Ukraine's northeast early in the campaign, the Russian military shifted its focus to Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of Donbas where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops since 2014. Earlier this week, the Russian military claimed control of the Luhansk province, one of the two regions that make up Donbas, and is preparing to press its offensive into the second one, the Donetsk region.
In the early stages of the conflict, Russia won control of the southern Kherson region and part of neighboring Zaporizhzhia. Moscow is expected to try to eventually cut Ukraine off from its Black Sea coast all the way to the Romanian border. If that succeeded, it would deal a crushing blow to the Ukrainian economy and also create a corridor to Moldova’s separatist region of Transnistria that hosts a Russian military base. Putin reaffirmed his long-held claim that the West using the conflict in Ukraine to try to isolate and weaken Russia.“They simply don't need such a country as Russia,” Putin said. “This is why they have used terrorism, separatism and internal destructive forces in our country.”He charged that Western sanctions against Russia have failed to achieve their goal of “sowing division and strife in our society and demoralizing our people.”“The course of history is unstoppable, and attempts by the collective West to enforce its version of the global order are doomed to fail,” Putin said.

UK warship seizes advanced Iranian missiles bound for Yemen
Associated Press/07 July/2022
A British Royal Navy vessel seized a sophisticated shipment of Iranian missiles in the Gulf of Oman earlier this year, officials said Thursday, pointing to the interdiction as proof of Tehran's support for Yemen's Houthi rebels in the embattled country. The British government statement was striking in that it provided some of the strongest findings to date that Tehran is arming the Houthis against the Saudi-led military coalition with advanced weapons smuggled through the Persian Gulf. The U.K. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates described the seizure of surface-to-air-missiles and engines for land attack cruise missiles as "the first time a British naval warship has interdicted a vessel carrying such sophisticated weapons from Iran." "The U.K. will continue to work in support of an enduring peace in Yemen and is committed to international maritime security so that commercial shipping can transit safely without threat of disruption," said James Heappey, Minister for the Armed Forces. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. The announcement signals an escalation as Western officials have in the past shied away from public statements that definitively blame Iran for arming Yemen's Houthis with military contraband. The route of the smuggled shipments through the Arabian Sea or Gulf of Aden, however, has strongly suggested their destination.
Despite a United Nations Security Council arms embargo on Yemen, Iran has long been suspected of transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis since the disastrous war began in 2015. Iran denies arming the Houthis, independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced components back to Iran. Citing a forensic analysis last month, the British navy linked the batch of rocket engines seized earlier this year to an Iranian-made cruise missile with a 1,000-kilometer range that it said the rebels have used against Saudi Arabia. The Houthis also used the cruise missile to attack an oil facility in Abu Dhabi in January of this year, the British navy said, an assault that killed three people and threatened the key U.S. ally's reputation as a haven of stability. The U.S. military launched interceptor missiles during the attack, signaling a widening of Yemen's war. The HMS Montrose's helicopter had been scanning for illicit goods in the Gulf of Oman on January 28 and February 25 when it spotted small vessels speeding away from the Iranian coast with "suspicious cargo on deck." A team of Royal Marines then halted and searched the boats, confiscating the weapons in international waters south of Iran. A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer supported the British warship's February operation. Fifth Fleet Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said the seizure reflected the Navy's "strong commitment to regional security and stability."The Houthis seized Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence joined the war on the side of Yemen's exiled government in March 2015. Years of fighting have ground into a bloody stalemate and pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine. A tenuous truce that began around the holy Muslim month of Ramadan appears to be holding, although both sides have accused each other of violations.

PRESS RELEASES/Treasury Targets Iranian Oil and Petrochemical Trade Network
U.S. Department of the Treasury/July 6, 2022/
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0851
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned an international network of individuals and entities that has used a web of Gulf-based front companies to facilitate the delivery and sale of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products from Iranian companies to East Asia.
“While the United States is committed to achieving an agreement with Iran that seeks a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we will continue to use all our authorities to enforce sanctions on the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.
Today’s action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13846 and follows OFAC’s June 16, 2022 designations of an international sanctions evasion network supporting Iranian petrochemical sales. Concurrently with Treasury’s designations, the Department of State imposed sanctions on five entities based in Iran, Vietnam, and Singapore and two vessels pursuant to E.O. 13846 in connection with significant transactions for the sale and transport of petroleum products from Iran, on or after November 5, 2018.
IRANIAN OIL SANCTIONS EVADERS
Iran-based Jam Petrochemical Company (JPC) has exported hundreds of thousands of metric tons of petrochemical products, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to companies throughout East Asia. Many of these products were sold to Iran-based Iran Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC) for onward shipment to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). JPC has aided PCC in facilitating the use of front bank accounts and companies in order to obfuscate the shipment and sale of Iranian origin petrochemicals. By these means, in mid to late 2021, JPC sold hundreds of thousands of metric tons of petrochemicals worth millions of dollars to PCC with the intent to deliver the goods to the PRC and the Philippines.
PCC was identified pursuant to E.O. 13599 on November 5, 2018, as being wholly owned by the Government of Iran.
Jam Petrochemical Company is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13846 for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Iran Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC).
Edgar Commercial Solutions FZE has purchased and exported hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petrochemical products from numerous sanctioned Iranian companies, including Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Company (PGPICC) and Arya Sasol Polymer Company, for onward shipment to the PRC. Edgar Commercial Solutions FZE used Hong Kong-based front company Lustro Industry Limited to disguise its role in the bulk purchase of petrochemical products from PGPICC and JPC. Through Lustro Industry Limited, Edgar Commercial Solutions FZE has remitted millions of dollars to Oligei International Trading Co. Limited, a PGPICC front company, for the purchase of petrochemical products from PGPICC.
PGPICC was designated pursuant to E.O. 13382 on July 7, 2019, for being owned or controlled by Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Company (PGPIC). PGPIC was itself designated pursuant to E.O. 13382 that same day for having provided financial support to Khatam al-Anbiya, the engineering conglomerate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Edgar Commercial Solutions FZE, Lustro Industry Limited, and Oligei International Trading Co., Limited are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13846 for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, PGPICC.
Treasury-designated Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Triliance) has used its UAE-based front company Ali Almutawa Petroleum and Petrochemical Trading L.L.C (Ali Almutawa) to send and receive tens of millions of dollars’ worth of payments related to the sale and purchase of Iranian petroleum products, including gasoline and naphtha.
One of Ali Almutawa’s customers is UAE-based Petrokick LLC, which has purchased tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum products from the company. Petrokick LLC has also purchased millions of dollars’ worth of oil products from Behran Oil for onward shipment to the UAE. Petrokick LLC has sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil products shipped to the UAE.
Triliance was designated pursuant to E.O. 13846 on January 23, 2020, for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
Behran Oil was designated pursuant to E.O. 13876 for being owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, Bonyad Mostazafan, a business empire owned by the Supreme Leader and designated pursuant to E.O. 13876.
Ali Almutawa Petroleum and Petrochemical Trading L.L.C is being designated for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Triliance. Petrokick LLC is being designated for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Behran Oil.
CRUDE OIL AND PETROCHEMICAL EXPORTERS
Since 2019, UAE-based Iranian nationals Morteza Rajabieslami (Rajabieslami) and Mahdieh Sanchuli (Sanchuli) have partnered to export Iranian crude oil and petrochemical products on behalf of Switzerland-based Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), the marketing arm of NIOC, through companies and vessels under their control. Rajabieslami owns an extensive network of companies engaged in refining, energy trading, shipping, and bunkering, which have facilitated the shipment of thousands of metric tons of fuel oil worth millions of dollars from Iran. These companies have been involved in contracts valued in the tens of millions of dollars related to the sale of petroleum products from NICO.
Sanchuli, an experienced petroleum sales facilitator who has served as a representative of UAE-based companies Petrogat FZE and Emerald Global FZE, has purchased from NICO shipments of crude oil worth tens of millions of dollars. Sanchuli has paid NICO tens of millions of dollars on behalf of Petrogat FZE to facilitate multiple shipments of oil from Iran to East Asia for the benefit of NICO.
NICO was identified pursuant to E.O. 13599 on November 26, 2008, for being owned or controlled by the Government of Iran.
Morteza Rajabieslami, Mahdieh Sanchuli, Petrogat FZE, and Emerald Global FZE are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13846 for, on or after November 5, 2018, having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, NICO.
SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of these targets that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons.
In addition, persons that engage in certain transactions with the individuals and entities designated today may themselves be exposed to sanctions or subject to an enforcement action. Furthermore, unless an exception applies, any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction for any of the individuals or entities designated today could be subject to U.S. sanctions.
The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from its ability to designate and add persons to the list of Special Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDN List”), but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC’s Frequently Asked Question 897. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list.
For identifying information on the individuals and entities designated today.

Israel, Turkey sign aviation deal in first such since 1951
The Arab Weekly/July 07/2020
Israel and Turkey will expand bilateral airline traffic under a new aviation deal to be signed on Thursday, their first such since 1951, said Israel’s transportation ministry. “The agreement is expected to result in the resumption of flights by Israeli companies to a variety of destinations in Turkey, alongside flights by Turkish companies to Israel,” it said in a statement. Turkey continues to be one of the most popular destinations for Israeli tourists despite security threats. Last month, the foreign ministry issued a travel warning calling on Israeli citizens to avoid travel to Istanbul, following reports of an Iranian plot to carry out an attack against Israeli and Jewish targets. The Israeli travel warning was later downgraded following the arrest of multiple Iranian operatives by the Turkish authorities. In recent months, both Turkey and Israel have made moves to improve relations. Earlier this week, Israel said it would reopen its economic and trade office in Turkey, as the countries work to restore diplomatic ties that have been strained for more than a decade. Both governments had expelled ambassadors in 2018 and have often traded barbs over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though they are now looking to restore representation to ambassador level. Israel also cut back its economic representation in 2019. Despite the years of acrimony, the countries have maintained trade and Turkey remains one of Israel's most important partners. Bilateral trade was up 30% in 2021, reaching $7.7 billion. "The reopening of the economic attaché reflects Israel's commitment to deepening economic ties with Turkey," said Economy Minister Orna Barbivai. "We intend to soon promote a joint economic conference between the countries, after more than a decade."

Resistance and trust issues as US, Israel push for defence pact with Arab states
The Arab Weekly/July 07/2020
The United States and Israel are seeking to lay the groundwork for a security alliance with Arab states that would connect air defence systems in order to combat Iranian drone and missile attacks in the Middle East, four sources familiar with the plan said.
The idea, which would use Israeli technology, could gain momentum during President Joe Biden’s stops in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Saudi Arabia on a July 13-16 trip, said two of the sources who were briefed on the plans.
As regional tensions have grown over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and parts of Iraq have come under UAV or missile strikes claimed by or blamed on Iranian-backed militias.
Discussions are still at an early stage and have already met resistance from several Arab countries who refuse to do business with Israel, the four sources said.
But Israel’s defence minister Benny Gantz last month said an emerging US-sponsored air defence alliance was “operative”‌ and could be boosted by Biden’s visit. The apparatus has already foiled attempted Iranian attacks, he added.
Speaking to media on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official said partner countries were synchronising their respective air defence systems through remote electronic communication, rather than using the same physical facilities.
Israel in recent years has offered defence cooperation to US-aligned Arab states which share its concerns about Iran, although the US assessment is that Gantz appeared to have overstated how far such security cooperation has advanced.
For their part, Gulf Arabs have been publicly reticent on the idea.
One person in Washington familiar with the matter said that while Biden will discuss wider regional security coordination, including with close ally Israel, at a Saudi-led Gulf Arab summit next week, no announcement of a formal pact is expected. The plan would be to build a network of radars, detectors and interceptors between Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, with the help of Israeli technology and US military bases, three of the sources said.
Isolating Iran
That would allow those countries, especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to detect aerial threats before they cross their borders. Israeli officials introduced the idea of a regional defence system at a US Central Command meeting attended by military officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Egypt in Sharm El Sheikh in March, one of the sources said. “The proposal is for a joint detection system, where each country that signs up notifies the others of a detected attack,” added one of the sources, who declined to be identified. A senior Israeli official in Washington previewing Biden’s trip described the efforts to form an alliance as “a goal that is set.”“There’s a long way to go and the US is supportive of that.”‌Washington hopes more cooperation would help further integrate Israel in the region and isolate arch-enemy Iran. The regional defence plan coincides with months of deadlock in talks on reviving a 2015 deal that limits Iran’s nuclear activities. Washington says Iran’s uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons, has made alarming progress. Iran denies seeking atomic weapons. Israel’s worries about the outcome of the nuclear negotiations and its threats to take unilateral military action against Iran, carry weight in Western capitals. Iran, armed with one of the region’s biggest missile systems, has said joint military activities of Israel and some Arab countries in the Gulf are done “out of desperation.”
US push and Arab caution
But the US push for anti-Iran cooperation also faces resistance from some Arab states such as Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. “There are different views in different capitals,”‌ a senior Biden administration official said on condition of anonymity.
“We are not trying to create some top-down structure. We are trying to build upon the relationships that exist, some of them above-board, some of them below the surface,”‌ the official said. Iraq is a prime example of the difficulties of signing up some Arab countries to an alliance. Iran has wide sway in the country through Shia militias and politicians and would certainly block any attempts to join a security pact. In May, Iraq’s parliament approved a law that will ban normalising relations with Israel, at a time when several Arab countries have established formal ties. Iraq has never recognised the state of Israel since its establishment in 1948 and Iraqi citizens and companies cannot visit Israel. However, the new law goes further, specifically criminalising any attempts to normalise relations with Israel. A senior Iraqi security adviser said no official plan has been presented to Baghdad to enter a pact that includes Israel and opposes Iran, so the alliance is out of the question. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also treading carefully, to preserve nascent relations with Tehran, said the sources.
Trust issues
The UAE government said it is not party to any regional military alliance against any specific country and is not aware of any formal talks. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.
Washington hopes more regional security cooperation could pave the way for more normalisation deals with Israel, which established ties with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020. Israel’s top prize would be Saudi Arabia, which says normalising its own ties to Israel would need the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. US officials say Israeli-Saudi normalisation is far off. Saudi and Israeli cooperation might also help mend US-Saudi relations, strained by the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Yemen’s war and high oil prices. In an ideal world for Israel, an alliance would lead to missile defence sales to the Gulf, including its Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems which could work with the US Patriot missile batteries long used by Gulf states, experts say.
Jeremy Binnie, Middle East defence specialist at Janes, said Gulf coast radars would give Israel additional early warning of attack, probably making it the main beneficiary of any alliance. In Israel, Biden will visit Palmachim air base to inspect defence systems including Arrow, David’s Sling, Iron Dome and a laser interception weapon, Israel’s defence ministry said. Yasmine Farouk at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the idea of integrated missile defence goes back years and successive US administrations had tried to overcome mistrust between Gulf states in sharing intelligence.
She said increasing threats from Iran and its Yemeni Houthi allies might now take priority over “trust issues” among Gulf Arab states. “But it is a work in progress,” she added.

What does Patrick Brown's disqualification mean for the Conservative leadership race?
CBC/Thu, July 7, 2022 at 4:00 a.m.
Strategists say Patrick Brown's disqualification from the Conservative leadership race gives a leg-up to Pierre Poilievre — but Jean Charest may still have a chance. The Conservative Party has ejected Brown from the race, citing allegations that he broke financing rules. Brown denies those allegations and his campaign says it's appealing the decision. If the disqualification stands, Poilievre will have a clear shot at the Conservative leadership, said Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke. "I think his odds of winning have gone from 98 per cent to 100," Teneycke, a partner at Rubicon Strategy, told host Vassy Kapelos on CBC's Power & Politics. Teneycke pointed to the Poilievre campaign's claim that it has signed up more than 300,000 of the 675,000 members the party says will be eligible to vote. The party says the preliminary members list it released to the campaigns last week indicates roughly 675,000 members are now eligible to vote for the next Conservative leader. "It kind of puts the race very heavily in [Poilievre's] favour in terms of the odds," Teneycke said. Conservative strategist Shakir Chambers, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategies, said that while Brown's disqualification gives Poilievre an easier path to victory, Charest could prevail if he courts Brown's supporters. Brown has said he has recruited 150,000 new members to the party. Chambers said those votes could put Charest over the top. "It does create a path for [Charest] to boost his camp, boost his memberships. And if he can get to the second, third ballot, he has a much better chance of winning," he said. But Éric Grenier, author and publisher at The Writ, said that scenario likely will depend on how many of Brown's supporters still vote. "Not all of those people are just going to go home and not vote because their candidate was disqualified. A lot of them will still end up voting," Grenier told Kapelos. "Some of them will go to Jean Charest, but in all likelihood the 150,000 people that Patrick Brown signed up are going to vote in smaller numbers than the people who are signed up by other campaigns."
If a significant number of Brown's supporters tune out, that could give another advantage to Poilievre, Grenier said.
Polievre, Charest both claiming paths to victory
Both Poilievre and Charest are claiming they have paths to victory based on the preliminary membership list and that Brown's disqualification doesn't change their calculations. The party's Leadership Election Organizing Committee [LEOC] did not break down the membership numbers by region or indicate how many members each campaign has signed up. But the Poilievre and Charest campaigns say they have signed up enough members in enough ridings to win. The rules of the Conservative leadership race award 100 points to each of Canada's 338 ridings. Those points are distributed to the candidates based on their share of the votes in each riding. A candidate must win the majority of points to secure the leadership. Poilievre and his campaign have said they've signed up more than 300,000 members. But in a message to supporters obtained by CBC, Charest's campaign says 450,000 party members are located in fewer than 100 ridings. "Following a detailed review of the preliminary membership list, we are confident we have very strong vote efficiency to secure the points we need to win the leadership race," the message says. The Charest campaign also claims the former Quebec premier has secured 80 per cent of the points across the 78 ridings in his home province. Poilievre's campaign rejects the idea that their candidate's support is concentrated in a modest number of ridings. The Conservative MP's team says it has signed up at least 100 members in every riding across the country.
Poilievre's campaign sent CBC a regional breakdown of his support — it claims he has over 25,000 votes in Quebec, 118,000 in Ontario and 71,000 in Alberta. Those numbers do not include those who may have been removed from the preliminary list by the organizing committee, but the party says only about 6,500 names have been taken off the list for not following party or Elections Canada rules. "If Mr. Charest is so confident, we call on him to release his numbers as we have and spell out his path to victory," Poilievre's press secretary and campaign spokesperson Anthony Koch said in a text message.
Campaigns can use preliminary list to shop for votes. The fact that a campaign signed up a certain number of members doesn't guarantee those members will still vote in the fall — and those who do can still vote for another candidate.
By releasing the preliminary list, the party is now permitting all campaigns to phone or email party members in the hope of convincing them to switch sides. Ontario MP and leadership candidate Scott Aitchison's campaign team said he plans to launch a tour this summer to win over supporters.
"[Aitchison] will continue to work to build a Conservative Party that can deliver the results and good government that Justin Trudeau is incapable or unwilling to provide," a statement from his campaign said. The campaign for former Ontario MPP Roman Baber said it's "optimistic" about the makeup of the membership."There is no question that our message of democracy had a material effect on all campaigns and the race as a whole," Baber's campaign said in a media statement. Ontario MP Leslyn Lewis's campaign also says she has a path to victory, although it didn't release its own membership numbers.
"We absolutely believe that there continues to be a path to victory for Leslyn in this race, and we will continue to work towards that goal," Lewis's campaign manager Steve Outhouse said in a media statement.

Johnson resigns, remains UK prime minister for now
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned Thursday, acknowledging that it was “clearly the will” of his party that he should go. He stepped down immediately as leader of his Conservative Party but plans to remain as prime minister while the leadership contest is held. He said he has appointed a new Cabinet following a multitude of resignations, but many are calling for him to go now. It is a humiliating defeat for Johnson, who succeeded in leading Britain out of the European Union and was credited with rolling out one of the world’s most successful mass vaccination campaigns to combat COVID-19. The announcement came after the latest ethics scandal around Johnson's leadership led some 50 senior lawmakers to quit the government and left him unable to govern. Speaking outside No. 10 Downing St., Johnson said he was “immensely proud of the achievements of this government," from Brexit to steering the country through the pandemic, and leading the West in standing up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But he acknowledged that “in politics, no one is remotely indispensable.”
Johnson had clung to power for two days, defiantly telling lawmakers on Wednesday that he had a “colossal mandate” from voters and intended to get on with the business of government. But he was forced to concede defeat Thursday morning after two more members of his Cabinet quit and one of his closest allies, Treasury Chief Nadhim Zahawi, publicly told him to resign for the good of the country. The internal election to pick a new leader of the Conservative Party, who will also be the next prime minister, is likely to take place over the summer.
Zahawi, who was promoted earlier this week as Johnson tried to shore up his Cabinet, said he and a group of colleagues had privately expressed their concerns to the prime minister on Wednesday and he decided to go public after Johnson ignored the advice to resign. “I am heartbroken that he hasn’t listened and that he is now undermining the incredible achievements of this government,” Zahawi said in a letter posted on Twitter. “But the country deserves a government that is not only stable, but which acts with integrity.”Thursday morning’s resignations meant that 50 Cabinet secretaries, ministers and lower-level officials had quit the government over two days, often castigating the prime minister for his lack of integrity. With more than 20 positions unfilled, the crisis had stalled the business of some parliamentary committees because there were no ministers available to speak on the government’s behalf. Johnson led Britain through Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, and won a large election victory in 2019. But the perpetually rumpled leader known for greeting critics with bombast and bluster was also dogged by criticism that he was willing to bend, and sometimes break, the rules to achieve his goals. Johnson, 58, managed to remain in power for almost three years, despite allegations that he was too close to party donors, that he protected supporters from bullying and corruption allegations, and that he misled Parliament about government office parties that broke pandemic lockdown rules.
Recent disclosures that Johnson knew about sexual misconduct allegations against a Conservative lawmaker before he promoted him to a senior position in government proved to be one scandal too many. The crisis began when Chris Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip amid allegations that he had groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations leveled against Pincher. Johnson tried to deflect criticism with shifting explanations about what he knew and when he knew it, but that just highlighted concerns that the prime minister couldn’t be trusted. Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Treasury chief Rishi Sunak resigned within minutes of each other Tuesday night, triggering a wave of departures among their Cabinet colleagues and lower level officials. Javid captured the mood of many lawmakers when he said Johnson’s actions threatened to undermine the integrity of the Conservative Party and the British government. “At some point we have to conclude that enough is enough,” he said Wednesday in the House of Commons. “I believe that point is now.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 07-08/2022
NATO Family Picture in Madrid: This Will Not Be Erdoğan's Last Blackmail
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/July 07/2022
"I don't know what Turkey's trying to extract from them, but at the end of the day that's what this is about. And maybe if we get in the game, they'll want to extract from us too, which I will be vehemently opposed to. We don't need for any extraction to take place or any concessions to take place to have two great democracies join NATO." — US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ), June 22, 2022.
Talking to Erdoğan in the language he understands best, in early June, the U.S. State Department and the European Commission expressed their support to Greece and its sovereignty over its islands of the eastern Aegean Sea, and called on Turkey to stop airspace violations and overflights, threats and provocative rhetoric.That means, in Erdoğan's language, further economic sanctions on Turkey. And further sanctions will mean Erdoğan's chances for re-election will get even slimmer amid a punishing economic crisis.
Erdoğan controls 90% of the media in Turkey. That is a big asset in politics.
So, the whole choreography, from the beginning, was aimed at a domestic audience who would feel triumphant from Erdoğan's victory over the infidels.
The "Nordics in NATO" issue is not entirely over. Full accession will require approval from all 30 NATO parliaments. This, and other future issues, will always give Erdoğan new leverage to blackmail the West's strongest institution.
Pictured: Leaders of NATO member states pose for the "family photo" during the NATO Summit on June 29, 2022 in Madrid, Spain.
It was another happy time in Madrid, of half-baked, Kodak-moment pleasantries when the leaders of 30 NATO member states posed for the cameras with broad family smiles. They were on display for Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for having removed his veto against the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. How did that happen? The stick.
On June 23, Turkey's top defense procurement official, Ismail Demir, said that Turkey must be cautious when it comes to delivering more weapons to Ukraine amid the war with Russia. The statement was a clear sign that Ankara did not want to annoy Moscow with the sale to Ukraine of the Turkish-made TB-2 armed drones which, in the early days of the war, were instrumental, but later became easy targets for Russian air defenses.
Here, however, is the choreography:
On May 17, Erdoğan said that Turkey would veto Sweden and Finland's bids for NATO membership, and accused them of hosting Kurdish separatists.
On May 24, Erdoğan's ultra-nationalist coalition partner, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, announced that Turkey might consider leaving NATO if the conditions on the issue of Finland and Sweden's NATO bid do not meet Ankara's security concerns.
Then Turkey was accused of buying grain from Russia that it had stolen from Ukraine. Turkish officials said it was hard to determine the grain's origin.
Fast forward to June 25, a few days before the NATO Summit in Madrid. Erdoğan told NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a telephone call that Finland and Sweden had to take sincere and tangible steps over harboring Kurdish militants within their borders. Erdoğan also asked for the removal of any arms embargo by the Nordic states on Turkey.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C.: Lawmakers in both parties were signaling that Erdoğan should not expect them to sweeten the pot as he seeks concessions in return for dropping his objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, including the sale of F-16 Block 70 fighter jets to Turkey. According to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ), speaking at a June 22 hearing on NATO enlargement:
"I don't know what Turkey's trying to extract from them, but at the end of the day that's what this is about. And maybe if we get in the game, they'll want to extract from us too, which I will be vehemently opposed to. We don't need for any extraction to take place or any concessions to take place to have two great democracies join NATO."
That made sense.
Talking to Erdoğan in the language he understands best, in early June, the U.S. State Department and the European Commission expressed their support to Greece and its sovereignty over its islands of the eastern Aegean Sea, and called on Turkey to stop airspace violations and overflights, threats and provocative rhetoric.
"The [European] Commission will continue to urge Turkey to put an end to all threats and actions that undermine good neighborly relations and to respect the sovereignty of all EU Member States over their territorial waters and national airspace," the Commission concluded.
That means, in Erdoğan's language, further economic sanctions on Turkey. And further sanctions will mean Erdoğan's chances for re-election will get even slimmer amid a punishing economic crisis. How to make masses who starve forget their misery? First question to ask: Who are the masses? In Turkey, average schooling is 6½ years. This is a militaristic nation with strong conservative, Muslim, nationalistic sentiments. The nativist-populist base is the largest at the ballot box.
Erdoğan controls 90% of the media in Turkey. That is a big asset in politics. What mattered for Erdoğan from the beginning of the Nordic-NATO drama was to get an opportunity to present his carpet trading as a huge Turkish/Islamist victory over the "Western infidels." His plan worked well. And the praise he wanted came in flying colors.
U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Erdoğan for dropping opposition to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO, with his administration also signalling support for Turkey's plan to buy F-16 Block 70 warplanes. "I want to particularly thank you for what you did putting together the situation with regard to Finland and Sweden," Biden told Erdoğan at a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.
A senior U.S. official expressed strong backing for Turkey's wish to upgrade its air force with new F-16 fighter planes and improvements to its existing older fleet. "The US Department of Defense fully supports Turkey's modernization plans," Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told reporters.
Erdoğan's domestic audience has always been his priority. His plan worked there as well. Pro-government Turkish media lauded the deal as a triumph for Erdoğan; they said he had wrested concrete gains from the West in the country's fight against terrorism. "Turkey got what it wanted," was the headline of mass-circulation daily Hürriyet.
"President Erdoğan's Madrid Victory," said a Sabah newspaper headline, above a photo of him standing next to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the center of a group photograph after the accord was signed. "Erdoğan's decisiveness and leadership vision won acceptance for all of Turkey's arguments in the fight against terrorism," the paper said.
"Two strongholds of terrorism fall in Europe," said the Yeni Akit newspaper. "Sweden and Finland accepted Turkey's demands". "Turkey got what it wanted at the table," said the newspaper Milliyet, adding that Kurdish militant suspects would be extradited to Turkey.
So, the whole choreography, from the beginning, was aimed at a domestic audience who would feel triumphant from Erdoğan's victory over the infidels. Kemal Kirişçi, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote:
"Erdoğan's [initial] intransigence is widely attributed to domestic political considerations, including a desperate need to divert attention from the dire state of Turkey's economy as well as boosting his sagging poll ratings by playing to rampant nationalist and anti-Western feelings. As plausible as these explanations are, underlying them is also Erdoğan's own discomfort with Turkey's longstanding Western vocation [political journey into Western civilisation], symbolized by its membership in NATO as well as in the Council of Europe. He is instrumentalizing the issue of Sweden and Finland's membership to weaken this vocation, if not break it, to eliminate remaining institutional checks on his one-man rule."
The "Nordics in NATO" issue is not entirely over. Full accession will require approval from all 30 NATO parliaments. This, and other future issues, will always give Erdoğan new leverage to blackmail the West's strongest institution.
*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 not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Shaping the future of the world Either we do it or our enemies do it
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/July 07/ 2022
Altruism is a virtue. But altruism is not a serious basis for foreign policy. So, if you support Ukraine’s resistance to Russian conquest only because it’s a David-vs.-Goliath struggle you’re a good person. But you’re not thinking seriously about foreign policy.
To think seriously about foreign policy, you need to ask: What is in the American national interest?
To answer, imagine the world Americans and other free people can shape, and contrast that with the world the Americans’ enemies want to shape. Consider not only yourself but also your children and grandchildren. And remember: This is a binary choice.
On that basis, would the failure of Vladimir Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine be in the American national interest?
Absolutely.
A smattering of history helps inform this debate. For centuries, empires subjugated smaller and weaker nations. Sometimes empires aligned. Sometimes they clashed.
World War I brought the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Russian Empire fell, too, but was soon reconstituted as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
World War II led to the collapse not only of the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, and the Italian Empire, but also, within a few years, of the British, French, and other European empires.
America, the most powerful post-war nation, embarked upon a noble experiment: We would establish a community of nations, optimistically named the United Nations. Members would embrace “fundamental human rights.” They would agree to settle conflicts through diplomacy rather than armed conflict. They would pledge to abide by international laws. They would impose consequences on those who undermined this “rules-based order.” For several decades, this arrangement was reasonably successful, one reason the Soviet-American competition known as the Cold War did not become overheated.
Then, in 1991, the hammer-and-sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin. Nine years later, a resentful and revanchist Vladimir Putin came to power. Ten years later, President Clinton brought the People’s Republic of China into the World Trade Organization, based on the bipartisan belief that if a country becomes wealthy, its rulers will become moderate – stakeholders in the rules-based order. Early on, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro saw that this was a delusion. In their aptly named 1997 book, “The Coming Conflict with China,” they quoted Chinese Gen. Mi Zhenyu saying of the U.S., “for a relatively long time it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. … We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.”
Today, China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, is subverting the U.N. and other international organizations, persecuting China’s ethnic and religious minorities, bullying China’s neighbors, and threatening Taiwan.
In February, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Xi formalized an alliance with Mr. Putin. In March, Mr. Putin said: “The struggle we are waging is a struggle for our sovereignty.” What does he think limits Russia’s sovereignty? The rules-based order.
Last month, Mr. Putin observed that Peter the Great, the 18th century Russian czar, had not been bound by foreigners’ rules. “You might think he was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands,” Mr. Putin said, referring to the 21-year-long Great Northern War Peter launched to expand Russia’s territory. “But he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!”Mr. Putin added that while “not one European country” recognized Russia’s claim to that territory at the time – including the swampy delta on which Peter would build St. Petersburg – all do now. “It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen,” Mr. Putin concluded, referring to the war he is waging against Ukraine.
Why should Americans care?
For one, because if Mr. Putin swallows Ukraine, he is likely to attack other former Russian/Soviet possessions, including several of America’s NATO allies whose independence we have pledged to defend. Isolationists on both the left and the right will say (or just imply): “NATO was a mistake! Withdraw from it! Let Putin have Europe! Let Xi have Asia! Let Iran’s ruling ayatollahs and the other jihadis have the Middle East! Why should we worry about quarrels in faraway lands between peoples of whom we know nothing? The answer: Because if we do not, it will mean the end of what we have called – not without justification – the Free World. The United States will become an isolated island in a vast ocean dominated by despotic empires expanding through the threat and/or application of brute force. Our freedom and prosperity will diminish – slowly if we’re lucky, quickly if we’re not. Our children and our grandchildren will not thank us for this inheritance. The less-bad alternative is to recommit to the goals we fought for in World War II and the Cold War: defeating totalitarian imperialists or at least frustrating their grand ambitions.
That means continuing to help Ukrainians defend themselves by sending them the matériel they should have received after the 2014 Russian invasion and prior to this year’s invasion. Had we done that, Mr. Putin might have been deterred. It’s also essential to help Taiwan become a “porcupine” – difficult for Xi to ingest as he did Hong Kong in violation of international law and with virtual impunity. We need to strengthen our military and our defense alliances. We must insist that our partners bear much more of the burden than they are currently. American leadership is indispensable – one hopes they recognize that. But America cannot serve indefinitely as our friends’ Praetorian Guard. One hopes they recognize that, too. In summary: Standing up to tyrants is very much in the American national interest. If we do so successfully, other nations will benefit. But that’s not altruism. Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. Follow him on Twitter @CliffordDMay. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Mystery Cargo/Senior Iranian and Venezuelan officials are traveling around the world on a cargo plane. Argentina detained them. But what are they up to?
Emanuele Ottolenghi/ The Dispatch/July 07/ 2022
On May 10, Paraguayan prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was murdered on a Colombian beach by hired assassins. As a high-profile member of the Office of Public Prosecution, he led Paraguay’s antinarcotics, corruption, organized crime, and terrorism finance investigations, prosecuting the most powerful criminal networks in his country. That included Hezbollah networks, which made him a target for the terror group as well as the powerful crime syndicates he sought to dismantle.
Three day later, a Boeing 747 cargo plane registered with Venezuelan airline Emtrasur made its way from Caracas to Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay, in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. There was no cargo on board, but the 18-member crew of seven Iranians and 11 Venezuelans included Gholamreza Ghasemi, a board member, shareholder, and manager of the U.S. sanctioned Iranian airline Fars Air Qeshm, the former chairman of Iran Naft Air (later renamed Karun Airlines) and, reportedly, a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Ghasemi is a regime stalwart, not just a seasoned pilot, and since 2017, his airline, Fars Air Qeshm has been ferrying weapons and other military equipment to Damascus on behalf of the IRGC’s Quds Force. That a senior member of the IRGC in charge of such a sensitive logistical operation would be suddenly tasked to fly an empty cargo across the world is odd. What was he doing in Ciudad Del Este?
Before we answer that question, some background on Iran’s involvement in Latin America is helpful. Exporting the Islamic revolution has been a key goal of the Iranian regime ever since it toppled the shah in 1979. Latin America became an early target because Iran’s clerical leadership viewed the region as a fertile ground for the spread of anti-American ideology. During the past four decades, Iran has patiently pursued the goal of spreading its message across the Western Hemisphere and leveraged the resulting support in pursuit of its political goals.
To expand its influence, Iran has developed a dual track based on soft and hard power. Its soft power approach relies on a missionary network built on mosques, cultural centers, educational institutions, media outlets, and publishing houses, which it has sustained with both itinerant and resident clerics either from Iran or trained in Iran. This network has run in parallel with official diplomatic relations managed through embassies and other bilateral contacts, including intelligence and military cooperation. It has thrived both in countries whose governments, like the Maduro regime in Venezuela, are allies of Iran, and in places like Colombia where the government is closely aligned with the United States. But it is thanks to Venezuela in particular, that Iran has achieved staying power. The two countries, on the strength of a shared antagonism against the United States and the Western, liberal, rule-based international order, have deepened their cooperation over the past two decades, with their goals of turning Washington’s regional allies into adversaries at the forefront of their efforts. These efforts have included an air bridge between the two countries—outwardly, an innocuous air link for passengers and cargo to travel, but in fact a way to evade sanctions and to ferry intelligence officials, senior regime members, weapons and illicitly mined gold. These flights rarely if ever have a commercial logic. They are instrumentalities of the state to advance the two regimes’ goals of gaining influence in the region at the expense of the U.S. and its allies.
Cargo planes carry significant loads of merchandise, travel constantly, and usually remain on the ground just enough to refuel, offload and load merchandise. Crews are small—typically two to four members—and stops are short. According to Paraguayan officials’ statements to the media, the plane was initially authorized to stay on the ground for eight hours—ample time to inspect the plane and its cargo, load the aircraft, refuel, and leave. Instead, the crew spent three nights in Ciudad Del Este—a money laundering center used by nearly every crime syndicate on earth—and then left for Aruba, on May 16, with a miserly cargo of Paraguayan-manufactured cigarettes worth $750,000—likely less than the flight cost. Did Ghasemi just come to Paraguay to grab a smoke?
And why stay so long? Did they meet anyone? Was it a coincidence that an Iranian official visited the TBA—whence likely came the order to kill Pecci—only days after his murder? Or was there a connection? Although the members of the hit team were Colombians and one Venezuelan, the assassination order and payment likely came from Paraguay. Hezbollah, whose TBA financiers Pecci had investigated, jailed, and extradited, are among the suspects. Paraguayan authorities knew in advance the composition of the crew. They should have taken basic precautions, including surveillance and intel gathering. Yet nothing happened. No one followed the crew to watch their movements and document their meetings.
Among the multiple plausible explanations for this flight, the most compelling one, so far, is that the Iranian-Venezuela cargo joint venture is, in fact, a cover for important regime figures to move across the globe and spend time on the ground at each destination, while posing as crew members. This is historically consistent with the air traffic between the two countries. Yet, in the past, messages, payments, instructions, and operations involved lower-level emissaries, operatives, and relied more heavily on networks already on the ground. The Emtrasur cargo flights are an escalation, if proven to be a cover. They also coincide with an uptick in Iranian activity in Latin America and deepening cooperation with Venezuela and other likeminded, anti-American regimes such as Cuba and Nicaragua. The Biden administration needs to watch this case closely, step up its cooperation with regional allies, and help them understand, as well as disrupt, this joint venture. It is something the United States should care about. Yet so far, there appears to have been little interest from the administration.
The seizure.
Had it not been for Paraguay, we may still have no clue about what a senior Iranian was up to in the TBA so soon after Pecci was murdered. But events took an unexpected twist three weeks later, when the same plane landed in Buenos Aires, got grounded, and became engulfed in a controversy that is part drama, part mystery, and part political tango. We still do not know what a large crew of Venezuelans and Iranians is doing flying a Boeing 747 around the world. We can guess from available evidence that it is not a benign commercial enterprise. Just as the Ciudad Del Este flight coincided with a high-profile murder, its subsequent travel to Argentina coincided with revelations that Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy, was plotting to assassinate an Argentinian Lebanese columnist and outspoken critic of Iran. Casual coincidence again or causal correlation?
On June 6, Emtrasur’s cargo flew from Mexico to Buenos Aires, and, after a brief diversion to Cordoba because of bad weather conditions, it landed. It is still there, grounded and under investigation, in what has quickly become an international scandal engulfing Argentina and Paraguay and turbocharging their rambunctious domestic politics, in addition to straining their relations with Venezuela and Iran. Initially, it seemed there was little that Argentina would or could do to investigate the plane. The current government is hardly enthusiastic about a diplomatic crisis with Iran and Venezuela, as it views both countries as neither adversaries or enemies. But some agencies inside the system thought otherwise. Argentina, after all, has a checkered history with Iran. Twice, in 1992 and 1994, Iranian terror plots brought death and destruction into the heart of Buenos Aires. Years of cover-ups and government interference have hampered the course of justice, but everyone knows that Iran is behind the death of more than 200 Argentinians and that the murderers found logistical support, financing, sanctuary, and an escape route in the TBA. The still-unresolved 2015 murder of Argentinian prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who had documented the Iranian connection to the 1994 attack and was about to expose government complicity in the cover-up, added fuel to the fire. Those who wished Nisman away are now back in power. But not all of Argentina’s bureaucracy finds it normal that a joint venture between Iran’s IRGC and elements of Venezuela’s military and intelligence service can come and go as it pleases, no questions asked.
To these agencies, the appearance of a large Iranian-Venezuelan crew disembarking the plane—this time, it was 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians—triggered enough alarm bells to launch an initial investigation. Much like the flight to Paraguay, this was hardly a lucrative trip, but initial inspections conducted on June 7 did not raise red flags. The plane’s cargo just contained Volkswagen auto parts brought for a local VW plant.
Unsure whether the plane was Venezuelan or Iranian, local jet fuel providers feared U.S. sanctions and refused to resupply it. Without enough fuel to return to Caracas, on June 8, the aircraft headed to Uruguay for a refueling stopover, but as soon as it reached cruising altitude, Uruguayan authorities closed their airspace. With the plane back in Buenos Aires, those within the system who nurtured suspicions now had their chance. And for the last three weeks, the aircraft has been grounded in Buenos Aires, unable to leave.
Authorities have seized the crew’s passports, preventing them from leaving the country. They have searched the aircraft and seized its black box. They have raided their hotel and confiscated electronic devices in search of evidence. Opposition politicians have taken legal action. The media has been focusing on this case non-stop. And a judicial investigation is underway. The plane and its crew are going nowhere fast. Paraguay anti-corruption minister Rene Fernandez said Tuesday that the crew possibly met with organized crime contacts during their visit in Ciudad Del Este. Iran and Venezuela have denounced the plane’s seizure, sought, so far unsuccessfully, to rescue the crew, and accused two Paraguayan ministers of regurgitating “Zionist propaganda” after Paraguay, belatedly, began investigating the May plane visit to Ciudad Del Este. Local press and politicians in both Argentina and Paraguay have meanwhile launched an elaborate tango routine to trivialize the event, blame their adversaries for trivializing it, or claiming credit for disrupting a terrorist operation.
Meanwhile, no one has definitive answers. What was a senior IRGC official doing posing as a cargo aircraft captain up and down Latin America? Who are the other crew members? Were they there to plan a terror attack? Connect with local networks? Gather intelligence? Bring resources to allies? Meet friendly politicians? Finance covert activities? Procure illicit technology?
The aircraft and the crew.
The aircraft, until recently owned by Iran’s sanctioned airline, Mahan Air, was transferred to Conviasa’s subsidiary, Emtrasur, in November 2021. Media reports about that aircraft transfer indicated that it would be operated by an Iranian crew from Mahan Air. After the plane was grounded, Mahan Air washed its hands of the situation, claiming the Venezuelan operator, Emtrasur, now owned the plane. But an Argentinian aviation expert promptly published evidence that Mahan had leased, not sold the aircraft, to Emtrasur.
The B747 was transferred to Minsk, Belarus, on January 24, 2022, painted over and then handed to Conviasa. Since then, it mostly traveled between Iran and Venezuela (with technical stopovers in Belgrade), although it ventured as far as Hong Kong and Myanmar, Karachi, and Moscow, and flew to Cuba and Nicaragua a few times. Many of these destinations coincide with recent routes also covered by Fars Air Qeshm and many of these flights appear to be political, rather than commercial in nature.
Given the above, is this a Venezuelan aircraft operated by Iranian pilots, or is it an Iranian aircraft with a Venezuelan paint job? There are good reasons for asking. From the spring of 2020 until late last year, all cargo flights between Tehran and Caracas were operated by Mahan Air first, then Fars Air Qeshm, and then by Venezuela’s Conviasa. Fars Air Qeshm seemed to oversee the cargo operation. Yet two things happened. First, Fars Air Qeshm discontinued its flights after multiple technical stopovers at different locations were apparently made impossible by diplomatic interference. And second, since February, Fars Air Qeshm’s only operating Boeing 747 (it has two, but one is undergoing maintenance) has been flying the Tehran-Moscow route, alongside new destinations such as New Delhi and Macau, with increasing frequency. It is possible that the transfer of an old Boeing to Emtrasur (last operated by Mahan Air in October 2019 for domestic flights) was designed to overcome these two operational obstacles while creating plausible deniability for the aircraft and its crew.
If the plane is any clue, the crew is an even bigger giveaway that official denials of any wrongdoing by its operator, Emtrasur, are hollow.
We already mentioned the aircraft’s captain, Gholamreza Ghasemi. To send a company senior executive around the world to deliver cargo is a bit like having Jeff Bezos drive Amazon Prime delivery trucks. It makes no sense. And Ghasemi is not the only crew member to raise eyebrows.
The crew in Ciudad Del Este included at least three more pilots—two from Mahan Air and a Venezuelan formerly employed with Avior airlines, a private carrier implicated in a fraud scheme. The Venezuelan and four others on the flight are members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian armed forces, including Cornelio Antonio Trujillo Candor, who participated in the failed 1992 Hugo Chavez-led coup against the then-democratic government of Venezuela. The CFO of Emtrasur, Mario José Arraga Urdaneta, was also on board.
Another Venezuelan on board is José Gregorio Garcia Contreras. Official Venezuelan employment records, obtained through the open-source commercial platform Sayari Analytics, show Garcia Contreras as an employee of Conviasa. But Venezuelan immigration records for Garcia Contreras and passenger lists from three Conviasa flights between Caracas and Tehran, all from October 2020—which the author obtained from an Argentinian confidential source—suggest Garcia Contreras is no ordinary flight attendant.
In June 2020, Garcia Contreras began flying long haul trips, mostly between Venezuela and Iran or Venezuela and Russia. He was on a Tehran-bound flight on October 2, 2020, for example, alongside the aforementioned Trujillo Candor, an Iranian pilot from Mahan Air who around the same time was reportedly piloting Conviasa flights in Latin America, and, most importantly, IRGC’s Quds Forces official, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, who from 2006 to 2010 was Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad and since October 2021 is Iran’s special representative to Afghanistan. The plane, despite its size, carried only 27 passengers.
Records from two more flights obtained by the author show Garcia Contreras flying back to Venezuela on October 5, alongside Trujillo Candor, then Syria’s ambassador to Venezuela, Wael Deirki, and 26 other passengers. Garcia Contreras flew home from Tehran, again, on October 31, with another Mahan Air pilot on board, who also was reportedly flying Conviasa aircraft in Latin America, on a flight carrying a total of 24 passengers.
These are small numbers for a long-haul, intercontinental commercial flight that can easily carry more than 200 people. And the individuals identified on these flights are senior regime officials or pilots of an airline Iran has used for two decades to carry out covert operations and illicit procurement. If Garcia Contreras and his colleagues are crew members, they appear, like their Iranian counterparts, to be entrusted with special flights, not ordinary commercial passenger and cargo ones.
Argentinian opposition is now claiming the crew is part of a secret operation, agreed between the Maduro regime in Venezuela and Argentina’s vice-President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, to establish a covert cyber intelligence cell, run by Venezuelan military cyber defense officers (likely with Iranian support) to spy on the opposition and run disinformation campaigns. Time will tell whether this is true. What is beyond doubt is this: The crew is a cover. The cargo is a pretext. The mission is what needs to be uncovered.
Conclusion: What’s next and what should Washington do.
Throughout the entire cargo plane ordeal, one player has been missing: Washington. To be sure, the U.S. ambassador to Argentina expressed the embassy’s concern about the plane in the only public statement made on the affair. Little else has transpired.
There is much more that the Biden administration can do. Multiple electronic devices seized by the Argentinians that are now being forensically examined could contain precious information about the nature of the operation Iran and Venezuela are currently running. The provision of technical support and translators could speed up the investigation and shed more light on the affair.
The senior officials who were on board the grounded aircraft may hold invaluable information—and the U.S. should use this crisis as an opportunity to try to interview them, not just obtain the content of their electronic devices, to learn more about Iran-Venezuela ongoing cooperation and logistical operations.
Public statements warning companies—Conviasa, Fars Air Qeshm and Mahan Air are all under U.S. sanctions—would strengthen the resolve of both authorities and private entities not to do any further business with Emtrasur, which, as a subsidiary of Conviasa, is automatically under U.S. sanctions. Such steps would ensure the grounded aircraft never leaves Buenos Aires—a heavy blow to an operation that presently relies on one aircraft only.
The U.S. could of course take matters one step further and seek forfeiture of the aircraft, much like it has done in recent months for vessels carrying Iranian oil. With numerous civil lawsuits and judgments in the U.S. seeking damages for victims of terror from Iran, the plane could easily be seized and sold.
As we write, the aircraft tango continues with many questions but no definitive answers so far.
It’s one to watch though. An Iranian cargo flying a Venezuelan flag and operated by a senior IRGC official formerly in charge of weapons’ logistics in Syria is sitting on the runway in Buenos Aires. What could go wrong?
*Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institution based in Washington D.C. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi.

War Has Consequences: 20-Year Scars of The Second Intifada
Shany Mor/State of Tel Aviv/July 07/ 2022
For most Jews, Passover means a festive meal, a Seder (or two) with family and close friends, eating matzah and retelling the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery into freedom. For many Israeli Jews, however, reflections on the holiday this year turned to memories considerably more recent, and less hopeful. It was twenty years ago, on the first night of Passover 2002, that the most infamous suicide bombing in Israel took place. That night, and the weeks that followed, marked a dramatic turning point in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The reverberations of that time still dictate the contours of the conflict today. The months leading up to Passover 2002 were the bloodiest Israelis had experienced on the home front since the 1948 war.A quirk in the domestic political situation also gave the government a lot of breathing room to pursue its strategic patience. The right-wing Ariel Sharon had been directly elected as PM in a stunning landslide in 2001 (63-37%), but without a new parliament being elected. It was the only such election held in Israel’s history under an electoral law that has since been cancelled.
This is not just a question of psychology, though it is that too. The dramatic events of those weeks left lessons to be learned for both sides, and as with all such dramas, some lessons have been overlearned. Beyond that, however, there was an irreversible change in the positions of the sides. Options for a political settlement that might still have existed before Passover 2002 and the aftermath permanently disappeared into a new reality. And rather different options that were not considered beforehand, both for a negotiated settlement and a modus vivendi in the absence of diplomacy, suddenly became conceivable.
This year, too, the Passover holiday coincided with yet another of the periodic escalations of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The attacks themselves, as well as the whole vocabulary of the conflict, show just how deep the scars of Passover 2002 are. The different course of events thus far in 2022 is instructive too, in its own way, in demonstrating just how much was and was not learned from the traumas of twenty years back.
I. THE GLOOM BEFORE THE STORM: THE SECOND INTIFADA
The months leading up to Passover 2002 were the bloodiest Israelis had experienced on the home front since the 1948 war. In March 2002 alone, more than 100 Israelis were killed in suicide bombings; hundreds more were injured.
Sitting at a café, riding a bus, walking through an outdoor market — everyday tasks became imbued with a feeling of danger. You made bargains with yourself about what times you would go out, where might be the safest place to sit, or whether the day after an attack was the best time or the worst time to face the danger again. Everyone came to know the sound of explosions, and if not explosions, then at least sirens. One or two could just be a heart attack or car accident. Three or more meant you grabbed your phone and started calling your friends, your parents, anyone with whom you might have had an unresolved argument earlier in the week. Are you ok? I think something happened. Hardcore ideologues and cranks had simple solutions, but for most people there was an overwhelming feeling of desolation and gloom. Nothing, it seemed, could be done.
The consensus that a military offensive would be folly was not just the ramblings of mushy leftists and peaceniks. It was by and large the consensus of nearly all the experts in Israel and abroad. Any operation, it was argued, would result in hundreds of casualties to Israeli forces. It would not have the support of the United States or other major powers. It would leave in its wake hundreds if not thousands of civilian casualties. And, most importantly, it simply would not work. Every dead terrorist would spawn three new ones, increasing the sense of grievance and rage that was supposedly fueling the violence to begin with.
A quirk in the domestic political situation also gave the government a lot of breathing room to pursue its strategic patience. The right-wing Ariel Sharon had been directly elected as PM in a stunning landslide in 2001 (63-37%), but without a new parliament being elected. It was the only such election held in Israel’s history under an electoral law that has since been cancelled. We know today, with hindsight, that many of these premises turned out to be false. But it is worth recalling that the arguments made were robust and accepted as being largely true back then. If Israel had embarked on a major military offensive in response to the wave of suicide bombings it had been dealing with throughout 2001, it is very likely that hundreds of soldiers would have been killed, that the U.S. would have opposed the operation, and that its success would have been limited.
But in those months of relentless suicide bombings, the IDF was making preparations. Beginning in October 2001, there were several small incursions into Area A of the West Bank, the parts that under the Oslo Accords were supposed to be under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority. Military tactics were honed and operational lessons were learned. On the diplomatic front conditions were also evolving. The 9/11 attacks made any association with terrorism a liability. In the initial months after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration reached out to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in order to shore up its credibility in the Arab world as it was embarking on its “war on terror.”
But then in January 2002, Israeli forces intercepted the Karine A, a ship laden with Iranian weapons en route to Gaza (then still under the control of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority). The Bush Administration was outraged, and Arafat’s lies to the President in a one-on-one call about the shipment only made matters worse for him. Arafat, who over the previous decade had grown accustomed to the status of an accepted world leader, would never again have an open line to the White House.
Thus, as a new wave of suicide bombings began in February 2022 – a month after the Karine A incident – Israeli leaders re-assessed their opportunity to respond militarily. The public could not withstand the relentless attacks on civilians, the IDF was readier than it had been before, and the Americans were more favorably disposed to Israeli action. A quirk in the domestic political situation also gave the government a lot of breathing room to pursue its strategic patience. The right-wing Ariel Sharon had been directly elected as PM in a stunning landslide in 2001 (63-37%), but without a new parliament being elected. It was the only such election held in Israel’s history under an electoral law that has since been cancelled. Sharon came into office and inherited the Parliament that had swept in with the more left-wing Ehud Barak’s victory in 1999. The only way for Sharon to form a government was to keep Labor on board and have a broad-based national unity government, with leading dove Shimon Peres as his Foreign Minister. The lack of an effective opposition gave the government breathing room in a crisis that otherwise may have led to rash action.
II. THE TIPPING POINT
By the time of the Passover Massacre, it seemed there was little left that could shock the Israeli public. A year earlier 21 young Israelis, mostly teenage girls, were murdered outside a nightclub in Tel Aviv in a suicide bombing. Such attacks had become commonplace and were launched in pizzerias, on buses, throughout city centers. And as Passover approached at the end of March 2002, the pace had picked up to nearly one every two days. And yet something about that night’s deadly attack felt different. Perhaps it was the death toll, at 30, higher than in any other such attack. Perhaps it was that a third of the victims were Holocaust survivors. Perhaps it was the holiday itself that imbued it with such gravity — Jews gathering as Jews with families to celebrate deliverance from bondage into freedom. Whatever it was, a limit had been breached, and it was obvious to all that the response would be qualitatively different than anything which preceded it. That weekend, 20,000 reservists received emergency call-up orders. In a country normally wracked with infighting, there was a brief, determined, grim agreement about the necessity of a large military offensive.
The Israeli response was not, however, supported by an international consensus. Protests against Israel erupted in all the major western capitals though, notably, there were few if any protests against the Palestinian suicide bombings.
The US was nearly alone then in defending Israel’s right to self-defense. European condemnations were swift and occasionally severe. The European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution calling for sanctions against Israel.
International media coverage of the operation was overwhelmingly negative and certain that the operation could never achieve its goals of ending the wave of terrorism targeting Israeli civilians. Major global NGOs, mobilized only a few months before at the UN’s infamous Durban Conference to dedicate their work to fighting Israeli “apartheid” and “war crimes,” issued reports employing language never used for even the worst human rights violators. The two standard tropes that accompany discussion of any Israeli military operation — Israel is harming a holy site! Israel has committed an atrocity! — were both rolled out this time. There was never a moral or professional reckoning among the media outlets and NGOs about the fabricated reports of massacres. And the pattern of reporting which relies on a demonic archetype of Israelis, scheming, plotting, killing, covering up, was repeated again in Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon four years later, again in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza three years after that, and again ever since.
News reporting focused on three major events, none of which related to attacks on Israelis. The first was the IDF’s breach of Arafat’s Mukataa compound in Ramallah. Western “peace activists” later broke through to serve as human shields in the compound. In the entirety of the Second Intifada, it bears noting, no peace activists ever came to serve as human shields on Israeli buses. The second was at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where dozens of wanted terrorists had taken refuge, secure in the knowledge that Israel wouldn’t harm such a holy Christian site. The IDF surrounded the Church and left only after five weeks when an agreement was reached that saw most of the wanted men deported. Tellingly, this was reported at the time as an “Israeli siege” of a Christian holy site, leading to some rather explicitly antisemitic imagery in the European press.
The third locus of combat that caught the world’s attention was, of course, the Jenin refugee camp, site of a pitched battle between the IDF and assorted Palestinian militant factions. It was the site of one of the only tactical successes Palestinian forces had against the IDF, when booby-trapped houses exploded on an invading force and killed thirteen Israeli soldiers. It was soon after that rumors that the IDF had conducted a “massacre” in Jenin began. For more than two weeks, the news of the “massacre” dominated foreign press coverage, especially in Britain. “Firsthand” accounts spoke of entire families wiped out, of the stench of bodies buried under rubble, and of active efforts by the Israelis to cover it up. After more than a fortnight of hysteria, it became clear that there was no massacre at all. All the dead in the battle were accounted for. There were 23 Israeli soldiers and 52 Palestinians, the bulk of whom were combatants.
There was never a moral or professional reckoning among the media outlets and NGOs about the fabricated reports of massacres. And the pattern of reporting which relies on a demonic archetype of Israelis, scheming, plotting, killing, covering up, was repeated again in Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon four years later, again in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza three years after that, and again ever since.
III. FOR ISRAELIS, A BITTER DISILLUSIONMENT
The 1993 Oslo Accords were pitched to Israelis with a double promise. They would improve the security of Israel, battered by decades of terrorism. And if that first promise remained unfulfilled – even after Israel recognized the PLO and carried out the staged withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and West Bank as called for in the Agreements – then the whole world would see who the bad guys really were and stand by Israel. Neither promise was realized and each disappointment left deep scars on the Israeli psyche.
The scars of the first broken promise are the most visible and measurable. Almost immediately after the Accords were signed, the number of attacks against Israeli civilians went up rather than down. Then came the suicide bombings. There was a brief lull in the years 1998 and 1999, but by 2000, with the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Israelis experienced violent attacks with an unprecedented intensity and frequency. The effect on public opinion was stark. On the one hand, an enormous skepticism emerged about peace with the Palestinians. On the other, there was a growing wariness about the utility of the occupation.
This is what opened the way for a right-wing leader like Ariel Sharon to eventually undertake a large military offensive as well as a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (and four settlements in the northern West Bank) in 2005.
The scars of the second broken promise aren’t as visible, but they run much deeper and, if anything, weigh even more heavily on Israeli thinking. Israelis still obsessively pay attention to global public opinion, but the broad center of Israeli politics no longer is moved by expectations of global support.
It was a sobering experience. There has, in the last twenty years, emerged among the Israeli Left a healthy cynicism about the motivations of much of what passes for “criticism of Israel,” as well as about how much that “criticism” can be an argument for or against any policy.
The two disappointments together may have eviscerated the old pro-Oslo Left electorally, but they have also rendered the policy debate in Israel altogether more mature. Israel will take the steps it needs to protect its security and long-term viability, but not because of a fantasy of pacific intentions from its enemies or the accusations of its critics, but because it will be the strategically and morally right thing to do. In later years, slowly, gradually, without any announcement or fanfare, the Intifada receded into memory, and life returned to a kind of normalcy. Security checks at restaurants and event halls became cursory and then disappeared altogether, as did fences around sidewalk cafes. But the lessons of the two broken promises would not be forgotten. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Israelis experienced violent attacks with an unprecedented intensity and frequency. The effect on public opinion was stark. On the one hand, an enormous skepticism emerged about peace with the Palestinians. On the other, there was a growing wariness about the utility of the occupation.
IV. FOR PALESTINIANS, A DELAYED RECKONING
The Palestinians, too, took some time to understand the meaning of the events of that spring. By that point, the Intifada was already well into its second year, and it was clear even then that it was a costly affair. It was also clear that statehood, which could have been achieved in final status talks in 2000, had been put off indefinitely. It would take a few years for the Palestinians to understand the magnitude of their defeat. By the end of 2002, the IDF was operating freely throughout the West Bank, including in Area A. A massive fence was soon under construction, making access to Israel more difficult and reversing decades of economic integration between Israelis and West Bank Palestinians. By the end of 2004, Arafat was dead (from illness) and most of the leaders of various militant groups were either dead (by assassination) or in prison. The rejection of statehood and descent into suicidal violence had yielded absolutely nothing positive for the Palestinian cause. Oslo had brought them the first ever Palestinian Arab self-rule and government. Palestinian passports were issued as were Palestinian postage stamps. An international airport was built and operated in the Gaza Strip. An armed force, referred to technically as a “police” force, was established under Palestinian control. Diplomatic legations opened in both Ramallah and Gaza City (a small number of these even called themselves “consulates” and “embassies”). Elections were held in the West Bank and Gaza, and even East Jerusalem Palestinians were allowed to participate, despite East Jerusalem not being in the territory allotted to the Palestinian Authority. International investment and development aid were showered on the Palestinians at a per capita rate unseen anywhere else in the world. These were not just the symbolic trappings of statehood. They led, in fact, to final status talks at which statehood was offered in exchange for a full peace with Israel — and rejected.
V. WAR HAS CONSEQUENCES
History does not spread evenly across a surface. It has periods of plodding stability and bursts of irrevocable change. The bleak reality of Palestinian politics is mostly the outcome of three very different Arab-Israeli wars which broke out in 1947, 1967 and 2000.
The first was a year-long total war between two national communities, fought village by village and town by town, whose belligerents included militias, guerrillas and eventually standing armies. The second, in 1967, was a rapid war between modern, conventional armies across three fronts fought, for the most part, distant from civilian populations. And the third, beginning in 2000, was a long struggle between assorted militias and civilians as well as the armed forces of a state-in-the-making and an occupying army. Each one of these wars was preceded by bellicose rhetoric from the Arab side and almost unbridled enthusiasm for a fight, with few if any dissenting voices. Each ended in a catastrophic defeat and with the memory of the pre-war ecstasy completely effaced, replaced with a feeling of victimhood and a genuine memory of having come under unprovoked attack. And here we are, twenty years after the third catastrophe. It is gutting to realize that in 2000 there were no significant dissenting voices to the Palestinians’ decision to refuse peace with Israel and instead launch a violent campaign of suicidal terrorism, where suicide was not just a means, but something of a metaphor for the whole endeavor. It’s depressing to realize that even now, two decades after the climax of that campaign, there is still no significant voice – not even an unpopular voice of dissent – to articulate why, or even that, it was a mistake. And it is maddening that in the broader community of pro-Palestinian activism in the West, this view is simply non-existent. Quite the opposite: The idea that the final defeat of Israel is near if we just wish for it hard enough has never had more purchase on the pro-Palestinian intellectual discourse. With each glossy new report accusing Israel of being an inherently criminal enterprise; with each gushing proclamation of the “new” idea of a possible one-state solution (which is neither a solution, nor new, nor possible), the path to liberation grows longer and more treacherous. Shany Mor is an Adjunct Fellow at FDD, a Fellow at the Institute for Liberty & Responsibility at Reichman University and a former Director for Foreign Policy on Israel’s National Security Council. Follow him on Twitter at @ShMMor. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Turkish-Israeli relations warming but are not problem-free
Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/July 07/2022
Turkish-Israeli relations today seem to be driven by the well-known Turkish proverb that says, “an old friend can never be a foe.” Ankara and Tel Aviv have recently been trying to turn a new page after more than a decade of tensions in their bilateral relations. The main driving forces behind this new era in relations appear to be economic and security interests. However, it is no secret that Turkey’s relations with Israel are not entirely problem-free. In particular, both sides’ relations with other actors in the region might act as a limiting force in their detente.
On Tuesday, Israel announced that its economic office, located in Istanbul, would resume its operations on Aug. 1, three years after closing due to a diplomatic fallout between the countries. Tel Aviv underlined that its reopening reflected the country’s commitment to deepening economic ties with Turkey. This development is expected to affect about 1,540 Israeli companies, helping to strengthen their business operations in the Turkish market.
It is worth noting that, despite the years of hostility, Turkey and Israel maintained their trade ties and Turkey remained one of Israel’s most important partners. Turkey was the fourth most important trading partner for Israel in 2021 and ranked fifth for its exports. According to the Israeli Foreign Trade Administration, mutual trade in goods and services between Israel and Turkey amounted to $7.7 billion last year, an increase of about 30 percent compared to 2020. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the two sides hoped trade would reach $10 billion this year.
A free trade agreement was signed between Israel and Turkey in 1996, the same year they also inked a military training and cooperation agreement. As a result of the free trade agreement, four joint economic forums between the two countries have already taken place, the most recent being held in 2009. In light of the recent climate of rapprochement, the fifth session is due to be held in the autumn of 2022.
Another development this week was the announcement of a plan to expand bilateral airline traffic under a new aviation deal. “The agreement is expected to result in the resumption of flights by Israeli companies to a variety of destinations in Turkey, alongside flights by Turkish companies to Israel,” according to a statement issued by Israel’s Transportation Ministry.
The challenges include any potential flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rising tensions between Turkey and Greece.
Needless to say, tourism is central to the two countries’ economic ties. Turkey continues to be one of the most popular destinations for Israeli tourists despite security threats. Just last month, Israel issued a travel warning calling on its citizens to avoid traveling to Istanbul, following reports of an Iranian plot to carry out an attack against Israeli and Jewish targets. This warning was later downgraded following the arrest of multiple Iranian operatives by the Turkish authorities. The arrests were the result of weeks of close cooperation between the security services on both sides.
Iran and its proxies in Syria and Lebanon, particularly Hezbollah, remain a crucial concern for Israel. Turkey is well aware of this and considers Israel to be a significant partner in limiting Iranian influence in the Levant. Both the Turkish and Israeli leaderships like the idea of Syria being sandwiched between their two countries. Thus, Iranian uneasiness over the growing Turkish-Israeli cooperation could be clearly read from Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s remarks at the start of his visit to Syria on Saturday. He condemned Israel’s latest airstrike on Syria and criticized recent threats from Turkey that it would launch another operation into the north of the country.
Although Turkey’s foreign minister and his Israeli counterpart’s recent reciprocal visits paved the way for improving diplomatic, security and economic relations, Ankara and Tel Aviv still face challenges in their relationship. These include any potential flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rising tensions between Turkey and Greece. Athens has, in recent years, fostered its relations with Israel.
According to a report this week by the Kathimerini newspaper, Greek forces have started to install Israeli-made military devices that can allegedly cloud the vision of Turkish drones. The report says Greece is “in the final step” of forming a so-called umbrella against Turkish drones and that this umbrella consists of the Israeli-made “Drone Dome” system. There were several earlier stories in the Greek media that said Greece was in negotiations with Israeli manufacturer Rafael for the purchase of such a system.
Tel Aviv attaches importance to its relations with Greece due to its interest in fostering relations with NATO, as well as to maintain a balance in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Turkey, which has the second-largest army within the Euro-Atlantic alliance and has advanced aerial defense technology, is an actor here that is hard to ignore. Any developments in Israel-NATO relations are not only linked to large geopolitical developments and NATO reforms, but they are also greatly affected by Israel’s warming ties with Turkey.
It is worth noting that the deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations, especially after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident in 2010, was also reflected in NATO, with Ankara vetoing Israel’s continued participation in its activities. Therefore, against this background, Israel should be cautious of treading a fine line in its relations with both Turkey and Greece, especially at times of crises between the two neighbors.
• Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkey’s relations with the Middle East. Twitter: @SinemCngz