English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 18/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.may18.22.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
If any want to become my followers, let them
deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me
Matthew 16,21-28: “From that time on, Jesus began
to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering
at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on
the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him,
saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’But he turned and
said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you
are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’Then Jesus told
his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and
take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will
lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will
it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will
they give in return for their life? ‘For the Son of Man is to come with his
angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has
been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste
death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’””
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May
17-18/2022
Final results: Interior Ministry announces all 128 MPs
Hizbullah supportes burn "revolution fist" in DT Beirut
Hizbullah weapons: Will polls make radical changes
Berri urges dialogue on new and non-sectarian electoral law
Bassil hits out at LF for losing Bsharri seat
Hizbullah loses parliamentary majority, Oct. 17 secures 16 seats
Wronecka looks forward to 'active role' of new parliament, swift formation of
govt.
British embassy urges new MPs to form 'inclusive and reformist govt.'
Hizbullah MP warns rivals against becoming 'shields for Israel'
Lebanon elections point to a shift, but more turmoil ahead
Aoun in hospital for medical checkups
Israel says Hizbullah drone infiltrated its airspace
Lebanese Pound declines to 29,500 after elections
UN Chief Calls for 'Inclusive Government' after Lebanon Vote
MPs Charged over Beirut Blast Re-Elected, Troubling Families of Victims
Hezbollah, Allies Lose Majority in Lebanese Parliament, Final Results Show
Will New Faces at Lebanese Parliament Form Opposition Bloc?
Lebanese movement for change should heed warnings from history/Nadim Shehadi/Arab
News/May 17/2022
What Hezbollah’s Parliamentary Loss Means for Lebanon/Hanin Ghaddar/ The
Washington Institute/May 17, 2022
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 17-18/2022
Iran Awaits US Response to Nuclear Talks ‘Solutions’ Submitted to Mora
Tehran Criticizes Washington's Support for Peaceful Assembly of Iranians
Schools, Offices Close in Tehran as Sandstorm Hits Iran
Iran State TV Air Footage of French Couple Accused of Spying
Israel Says Iran Working on Advanced Centrifuges at New Underground Sites
Ukraine Working to Pull Last Fighters from Mariupol Mill
Jian Omar: European Decision Facilitated German Embrace of the Ukrainians
Berlin... Ukrainian Suitcases, Syrian Sorrows, and a Russian Thread
Russia’s Lavrov Says Finland, Sweden Joining NATO Makes ‘No Big Difference’
Kremlin Critic Navalny Appeals against Nine-year Jail Sentence
Gantz in Washington Wednesday to Defend ‘Settlements,’ Israeli Measures in West
Bank
EU Allocates 25 Mln Euros in Humanitarian Aid to Palestinians
After Syria strike, Gantz vows to stem Iranian transfer of ‘advanced
capabilities’
Massacre video reopens wounds for missing Syrians' families
U.S. State Department Set to Delist Mujahideen Shura Council of Jerusalem
Canada/Minister Joly concludes trip to Germany and Belgium
Canada/Statement on International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and
Biphobia
Titles For The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 17-18/2022
Biden’s Unwise Attempts to Save the Iran Deal/Con Coughlin/Gatestone
Institute/May 17/2022
President Biden’s Missed Opportunities at U.S.-ASEAN Summit/Craig
Singleton/Policy Brief/May 17/2022
Biden administration can’t overlook the Balkans when sanctioning Russia/Ivana
Stradner and Matthew Zweig/The Hill/May 17/2022
Israel's Collaboration With Qatar – Morally Disgraceful And Strategically
Damaging/Y. Carmon*/MEMRI/May 17/2022
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 17-18/2022
Final results: Interior Ministry announces
all 128 MPs
Agencies/May 17/2022
Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi announced on Tuesday the final results of
the parliamentary elections.
Below are the names of the 128 MPS as announced by the minister:
- Beirut I: Ghassan Hasbani, Nadim al-Jmayyel, Nicolas Sahnawi, Paula Yaakoubian,
Hagop Terzian, Jihad Bakradouni, Jean Talouzian, Synthia Zarazir
- Beirut II: Amin Sherri, Ibrahim Mnaymneh, Fouad Makhzoumi, Adnan Traboulsi,
Waddah Sadek, Melhem Khalaf, Imad al-Hout, Faisal al-Sayegh, Edgard Traboulsi,
Mohammad Khaweja, Nabil Badr
- Jbeil/Keserwan (Mount Lebanon I): Ziad Hawwat, Raed Berro, Nada al-Bustani,
Neemat Frem, Shawki al-Daccache, Farid al-Khazen, Salim al-Sayegh and Simon Abi
Ramia in the Keserwan-Jbeil district
- Metn (Mount Lebanon II): Elias Bou Saab, Ibrahim Kanaan, Melhem Riachi, Michel
al-Murr, Hagob Pakradounian, Sami Jmayyel, Elias Hankash, Razi al-Hajj
- Baabda (Mount Lebanon III): Ali Ammar, Pierre Bou Assi, Alain Aoun, Camille
Chamoun, Fadi Alameh and Hadi Abu al-Hoson
- Shouf (Mount Lebanon IV): Marc Daou, Akram Shehayyeb, Nazih Matta, Raji al-Saed,
Taymour Jumblat, Georges Adwan, Marwan Hmade, Najat Aoun Saliba, Cezar Abi
Khalil, Bilal Abdallah, Halima Kaakour, Ghassan Atallah, Farid al-Boustani
- Zahle (Bekaa I): Michel Daher, Georges Okais, Elias Estephan, Bilal al-Hshaymi,
Salim Aoun, Rami Abu Hamdan and Georges Boujikian
- West Bekaa/Rashaya (Bekaa II): Qabalan Qabalan, Wael Abu Faour, Hassan Mrad,
Yassine Yassine, Charbel Maroun and Ghassan Skaff
- Baalbek/Hermel (Bekaa III): Antoine Habshi, Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, Ghazi
Zoaiter, Ihab Hamadeh, Ali al-Mokdad, Ibrahim al-Moussawi, Jamil al-Sayyed,
Samer al-Toum, Yanal Mohammed Solh and Melhem Mohammed al-Hujeiri
- Sidon-Jezzine (South I): Abdul Rahman al-Bizri, Osama Saad, Saeed al-Asmar,
Charbel Masaad and Ghada Ayyoub
- Tyre/Zahrani (South II): Nabih Berri, Hussein Jishi, Ali Khreis, Enaya
Ezzeddine, Ali Osseiran and Michel Moussa
- Marjeyoun-Bint Jbeil - Hasbaya (South III): Hassan Fadlallah, Mohammad Raed,
Ali Fayyad, Habi Kobaisi, Ali Hassan Khalil, Elias Jradi, Ayyoub Hmayyed, Qassem
Hashem, Firas Hamdan, Ashraf Beydoun, Nasser Jaber
- North I: Walid Baarini, Mohammad Suleiman, Ahmad Rostom, Sajii Atiyya,
Mohammad Yehya, Assaad Dargham, Jimmy Jabbour
- North II: Ahmad al-Kheir, Abel Aziz al-Samad, Jihad al-Samad, Ashraf Rifi,
Taha Naji, Ihab Matar, Abdel Karim Kabbara, Rami Fanj, Elias al-Khoury, Firas
al-Salloum, Jamil Abboud
- North III: Sethrida Geagea, William Tawk, Michel Mouawwad, Tony Franjieh,
Ghayyath Yazbek, Jebran Bassil, Adib Abel Massih, Georges Atallah, michel el-Douaihi
Hizbullah supportes burn "revolution fist" in DT
Beirut
Agence France Presse/May 17/2022
After roaming cities chanting "Shiites, Shiites," a group of youths on scooters
descended on Martyrs Square overnight and burned down the "revolution fist". It
was interpreted by independents as a gesture of spite by Hizbullah, after the
election of Elias Jradeh and Firas Hamdan in the South III district for seats
that Hizbullah and its allies had not lost in three decades. The ministry of
interior had announced the final results on Monday night. The first breakthrough
had already been confirmed by early results but the second was a surprise to
both parties. The two Oct. 17 candidates and new MPs defeated Asaad Hardan of
the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party and chairman of al-Mawared bank Marwan
Kheireddine. The "revolution fist" had become a visual symbol of the secular
protests that swept Lebanon in October 2019 and had raised hopes of democratic
change. The movement lost momentum as Lebanon's ruling cartel of sectarian
political barons bided their time and one of the sharpest economic downturns of
our time muffled popular discontent. The parliamentary elections were a first
major test for those in the protest camp who chose to enter the political fray.
17 candidates who backed the 2019 protests won seats. At least twelve of them
will sit in parliament for the first time.Another major satisfaction for those
described in Lebanon as the "thawra" (revolution, in Arabic) candidates, was the
defeat of several reviled MPs loyal to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Hizbullah and Amal retained all 27 parliament seats reserved for Shiite
lawmakers but other allies lost ground.
Hizbullah weapons: Will polls make radical changes
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/May 17/2022
The main issue that would polarize the new parliament elected on Sunday is
Hizbullah's right to keep an arsenal that is described as equivalent to or
better than the state's. Some see it as a historical right and the best defense
for the small Mediterranean country while others consider Hizbullah's weapons to
be the root of all of Lebanon's ills. “They forgot the political system,
economic system, corruption, the war in Syria and its effects on Lebanon and
they forgot the American sanctions,” Hibullah's MP Hussein Haj Hassan said. Sami
Nader, an analyst with the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said that
Hizbullah had suffered symbolic losses but was skeptical the polls could yield
radical changes. "Hizbullah and the Iranian axis took a blow but will this pave
way for change in Lebanon? I have doubts," he told AFP. The formation of a
government, the election of parliament's speaker and the presidential election
could all be very contentious and lead to protracted political crises. Speaker
Nabih Berri has held his job since 1992. President Michel Aoun, the world's
third oldest head of state, had long planned for his son-in-law Jebran Bassil to
take over but the Lebanese Forces' surge in the polls could disrupt that
scenario.
Disarming Hizbullah has dominated political campaigns among almost all of the
group’s opponents, while Hizbullah supporters consider the group defended
Lebanon against Israel and against attacks by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked
militants over the years. “Personally, I am not optimistic about these
elections, and I do not think that the U.S. administration should bet on these
elections,” said former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs David Schenker last week, in a webinar for the Washington Institute.
Hizbullah was fighting Israeli forces occupying parts of south Lebanon, before
Israel's withdrawal in 2020.
Berri urges dialogue on new and non-sectarian
electoral law
Naharnet /May 17/2022
Parliament Speaker and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri on Tuesday called on all
forces that competed in the parliamentary elections to "respect the choices of
the people" who voted. “Some claim a link to the principles of independence and
sovereignty, while in their performance, behavior and political rhetoric are
deeply immersed in slavery and subordination to the interests of foreign
forces,” Berri decried. Calling on all parties to “put aside the tense and
provocative political and electoral rhetoric,” Berri said all “hot heads” must
cool down and everyone must become convinced that it is the destiny of the
Lebanese to “live together as the sons of the same country.”“No one and no sect
wants to eliminate another sect,” he stressed. He accordingly called on all
political forces and parliamentary blocs to engage in “serious dialogue, in
partnership with all honest and serious civil society forces, to bury this
(electoral) law that harms partnership and represents a magic spell for
deepening the distribution of quotas and sectarianism.”“It’s about time for a
non-sectarian law” and for “lowering voting age to 18 years, introducing a
women’s quota and establishing a senate in which sects would be fairly
represented,” the Speaker added.
Bassil hits out at LF for losing Bsharri seat
Naharnet /May 17/2022
Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil has hit out at the Lebanese Forces after
they lost a seat in Bsharri, the stronghold of the LF and Samir Geagea's
hometown. The LF lost the expected seat to William Tawk, a Marada-allied
candidate, after having said they won at least 20 seats, which makes them the
largest Christian bloc in the new Parliament at the expense of the FPM. As the
ministry of interior announced the final results, the LF secured a total of 19
seats, an increase of 4 seats from the previous vote, while the FPM won 18 with
a drop of two seats from the previous vote. The FPM's bloc may however grow to
21 seats if it allies with the 3 MPs of the Tashnag party. Bassil who had
maintained his seat in his hometown, Batroun, said in a tweet that he "stands
tall" and "holds his head high" in Batroun and all over Lebanon, while the LF
are "stumbling" in Bsharri.
Hizbullah loses parliamentary majority, Oct. 17
secures 16 seats
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/May 17/2022
Lebanon's Hizbullah and its allies lost their parliamentary majority, official
results showed Tuesday, while independents achieved a surprise breakthrough.
Full results announced by the interior ministry two days after the election
revealed that no bloc will control the 128-seat assembly, a deadlock observers
fear could usher in a tense period of political jostling. The polls, the first
since Lebanon was ravaged by its worst ever economic crisis and a cataclysmic
explosion at Beirut port in 2020, were seen as a prerequisite for a crucial IMF
bailout. The Hizbollah-led coalition won 61 seats in the 128-member legislature,
a drop of 10 members since the last vote was held four years ago. They fell
short of the 65 needed to retain a majority following Sunday's polls. The loss
was largely due to setbacks suffered by the group’s political partners, and was
not expected to weaken the group’s domination of Lebanese politics. All 13
Hizbullah candidates who ran got elected. Their strongest opponents in
parliament will be led by the Christian Lebanese Forces party of former warlord
Samir Geagea, that raked in several new seats on the back of a virulent anti-Hizbullah
campaign. New reformist faces who entered the legislative race on the values of
a 2019 anti-establishment uprising made a stronger showing that many had
predicted. 17 candidates who backed the 2019 protest movement won seats. At
least twelve of them will sit in parliament for the first time.Together with
independents and other non-aligned MPs who have sometimes supported the
now-defunct protest movement's demands, they could find themselves in a
kingmaking position.They could obtain the support of MP Osama Saad, who
supported the protests, and new MP Abdul Rahman al-Bizri. That was a major
achievement considering they went into the vote fragmented and facing
intimidation and threats by entrenched mainstream parties. Their showing sends a
strong message to ruling class politicians who have held on to their seats
despite an economic meltdown that has impoverished the country and triggered the
biggest wave of emigration since the 1975-90 civil war. One of the most notable
victories notched up by independents was the election in the third South
district of Elias Jradeh and Firas Hamdan for seats that Hizbullah and its
allies had not lost in three decades. Another major satisfaction for those
described in Lebanon as the "thawra" (revolution, in Arabic) candidates, was the
defeat of several reviled MPs loyal to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Wronecka looks forward to 'active role' of new
parliament, swift formation of govt.
Naharnet/May 17/2022
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka on Tuesday
congratulated Lebanon on the conduct of parliamentary elections on May 15, which
she said “enabled the Lebanese people to exercise their democratic right to
select their representatives and make their voices heard.”
“I was pleased to see that the Lebanese authorities delivered parliamentary
elections within the constitutional timeline. It was important for the Lebanese
people to have a say in choosing the political leadership they believe can
tackle the country’s challenges. The elections were a vital expression of
Lebanon’s citizen engagement, which should serve to strengthen the country’s
institutions,” the Special Coordinator said.
Wronecka welcomed the role played by European Union, other international and
local observers in the elections process and noted the preliminary statement of
the EU Election Observation Mission Lebanon. Underlining that the elections are
not an end but rather a starting point, the Special Coordinator urged Lebanon’s
political leaders to put the country’s interests first and “engage
constructively to ensure there will be no vacuum nor paralysis in much-needed
institutional decision-making, in particular through the swift formation of a
reform-oriented government.”
To this end, the Special Coordinator noted “the important role of the new
Parliament in working with the government to prioritize the implementation of
reforms and Lebanon’s recovery, including through a final agreement with the
International Monetary Fund.”
“Adoption of the necessary legislation will also be critical for expediting the
reform process,” she added. The Special Coordinator also stressed that Lebanon’s
rescue and recovery process would remain incomplete in the absence of women’s
full participation and representation. “I note that eight women have been
elected to the new Parliament. I hope this can be built upon to improve women’s
representation in all future national decision-making,” the Special Coordinator
said. She also underlined the need for youth participation and involvement.
Noting the “long-standing partnership and cooperation” between the U.N. and
Lebanon, the Special Coordinator expressed the U.N.’s readiness to continue
supporting Lebanon through the recently adopted U.N. Sustainable Development
Cooperation Framework and the implementation of relevant U.N. resolutions,
particularly Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006). The Special Coordinator
also reiterated the U.N.’s support for “Lebanon’s security, stability,
prosperity, political independence and territorial integrity.”
British embassy urges new MPs to form 'inclusive and
reformist govt.'
Naharnet/May 17/2022
Following the completion of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, the British
Embassy in Beirut called on the new parliament to “proceed urgently to form an
inclusive new government that is empowered to take forward the essential reform
agenda,” including finalizing the agreement with the International Monetary Fund
to “get Lebanon on the path to recovery.”“The British Embassy in Beirut
congratulates Lebanon for holding parliamentary elections on time and welcomes
the participation of many Lebanese people in the democratic process despite
challenging circumstances. We commend the security institutions for maintaining
security and order on elections day. We also applaud polling station staff for
their contribution to the electoral process and the Lebanese diplomats who
arranged out of country voting, including in the UK,” the embassy said in a
statement.
Welcoming the increase in the number of female candidates elected, the embassy
said “the UK is a proud advocate of the importance of increased participation of
women in political life,” including through its collaboration with U.N. Women to
build capacity for female candidates.
However, the embassy said the UK shares concerns raised by the European Union’s
Elections Observation Mission’s finding that “vote buying and clientelism
overshadowed elections.”“We are especially concerned by reports of intimidation,
lack of access for voters with disabilities and problems with the lack of
secrecy of the vote. These represent clear violations of international standards
and fundamental principles of democracy. It is disappointing that the Lebanese
authorities have not implemented any of the recommendations made by the EU
Elections Observation Mission in 2018,” the embassy added. Politically, the
embassy underlined that “it is now time for action.”“Lebanon’s new Members of
Parliament must put aside their differences to work together in the interests of
the Lebanese people. We urge the new parliament to proceed urgently to form an
inclusive new government that is empowered to take forward the essential reform
agenda, including finalizing the agreement with the International Monetary Fund
to get Lebanon on the path to recovery,” the embassy said. “The UK stands ready
to support this process and the people of Lebanon who deserve a brighter
future,” it added.
Hizbullah MP warns rivals against becoming 'shields
for Israel'
Agence France Presse/May 17/2022
Hizbullah MP Mohammad Raad has warned rivals against becoming "shields for the
Israelis", as Lebanon awaits election results."We accept you as opponents in
parliament, but we will not accept you as shields for the Israelis," said Raad,
according to Hizbullah's al-Manar TV channel.
In mid-2006, a 34-day war pitted Israel -- whose troops had withdrawn from
southern Lebanon in 2000 -- against Hizbullah.Raad headed the outgoing
parliamentary bloc led by Hizbullah and was re-elected Sunday in the first polls
since the country's economy was dragged to the brink of collapse and a mass
anti-government protest movement sparked hope for change in 2019. His comment
raised fears of unrest as the country awaits results Tuesday, which will show
whether Hizbullah and its allies can keep an actionable majority in parliament.
"Don't become the fuel for civil war," Raad told opponents. Lebanon suffered a
15-year-old civil war that ended in 1990 with most belligerents turning into
political parties that have ruled the country for the past 30 years.
Independents from the country's nascent protest movement and members of
Hizbullah's arch-rival, the Lebanese Forces (LF), are expected to make major
gains in Sunday's polls. Samir Geagea's LF, which has strong ties with Saudi
Arabia, should emerge as the largest Christian party, at the expense of
President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), which is allied with
Hizbullah. Hizbullah has so far retained all its seats. Hizbullah supporters
last year accused LF gunmen of killing seven of their supporters during a
protest in Beirut. The Christian group denied the charges. Hizbullah is the only
group that has kept its weapons arsenal after the country's civil war ended.
Lebanon elections point to a shift, but more turmoil
ahead
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/May 17/2022
The final results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, expected on Tuesday, will
show whether Hizbullah and its allies can keep an actionable majority in
Parliament.
Counting was ongoing and official results were only available for 99 of the 128
seats up for grabs a little before midnight (2100 GMT), fuelling opposition
fears of foul play in some of the closest races.
- 'Complaints' -
The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections said its members were
threatened and attacked by several groups, mostly in areas controlled by
Hizbullah and Amal. Several candidates lodged complaints claiming irregularities
and forgery. Scuffles and cases of voter intimidation were reported, although
Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi insisted Monday when announcing partial
results that their number was "very low". Tension was high in some
constituencies where opposition candidates who looked to be squeezing into
parliament suspected traditional parties of attempting to cook the results.
- Polarized parliament -
The preliminary results point to a shift, but more turmoil lies ahead. They
portend a sharply polarized parliament divided between pro and anti-Hizbullah
lawmakers who will find it difficult to work together to form a new government
and pass the laws needed to enact reforms and begin the country's financial
recovery. With two main blocs — Hizbullah and the Lebanese Forces — opposed to
each other, analysts said the results could be more paralysis. “Going forward,
unless these two groups can reach a modus vivendi on governance, Lebanon will be
stuck in a political deadlock with long-term disastrous economic consequences,”
said Randa Slim, senior fellow with the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
Hizbullah MP Mohammed Raad warned opponents Monday against becoming "shields for
the Israelis", raising fears of unrest as the group's rivals appeared to make
gains.
"We accept you as opponents in parliament, but we will not accept you as shields
for the Israelis," Raad said in televised remarks.
- 'New start' -
New opposition candidates also made advances, pushing forward the agenda of a
cross-sectarian protest movement that erupted in late 2019 against the ruling
elite. “Personally, I am not optimistic about these elections, and I do not
think that the U.S. administration should bet on these elections,” said former
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker last
week. "There is a broken system in Lebanon, and elections with such electoral
laws will clearly not fix it,” he said in a webinar for the Washington
Institute. In comments that reverberated in Lebanon, he described candidates
running against Hizbullah and its allies as “incredibly divided, brimming with
narcissistic and individualistic leaders" more interested in personal gain than
getting together and overthrowing a corrupt elite.”However, independents and
newcomers scooped up at least 16 seats. That was a major achievement considering
they went into the vote fragmented and facing intimidation and threats by
entrenched mainstream parties. Their showing sends a strong message to ruling
class politicians who have held on to their seats despite an economic meltdown
that has impoverished the country and triggered the biggest wave of emigration
since the 1975-90 civil war. Analyst Ziad Majed said that the economic context
could play in favor of reformists who will for the first time be pushing from
within parliament, not just as outsiders. "This will create political and
popular pressure for reformists and forces of change to cooperate," he said. The
outcome of the vote could have an impact on a presidential election due later
this year.
Aoun in hospital for medical checkups
Naharnet/May 17/2022
President Michel Aoun underwent medical checkups including x-rays this morning
at the Hotel Dieu hospital in Beirut, the Presidency said on Tuesday. “He will
be discharged in the next few hours once the checkups are completed,” the
Presidency added. Prime Minister Najib Miqati meanwhile called the President to
inquire about his health, the National News Agency said.
Israel says Hizbullah drone infiltrated its airspace
Naharnet/May 17/2022
The Israeli army on Tuesday said it “detected” a Hizbullah drone that crossed
from Lebanon into Israel. “The drone remained under the monitoring of
surveillance units throughout the incident,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay
Adraee said in a tweet in Arabic.The Israeli army “will continue to work to
prevent any breach of the sovereignty of the State of Israel,” Adraee added. The
incident comes amid a major Israeli military drill and two days after Lebanon’s
parliamentary elections.
Lebanese Pound declines to 29,500 after elections
Naharnet/May 17/2022
As Lebanon awaits the final results of its parliamentary elections, enormous
difficulties lie ahead. The value of the Lebanese pound dropped on Tuesday,
reaching 29,500 to the U.S. dollar. The Lebanese currency was pegged at 1,500
pounds to the dollar for 22 years until decades of corruption and mismanagement
led to the country’s worst economic crisis in its modern history starting in
October 2019. Informed political sources had expressed concern that the Lebanese
currency could witness a new freefall after the May 15 parliamentary elections.
“The central bank is still intervening so that any surge does not affect the
choices of voters in the parliamentary elections," sources had told al-Joumhouria
newspaper last week. Now, the new parliament voted in on Sunday will have to
tackle a dire economic crisis and overdue reforms required for international
assistance. Setting up a legal framework to reform and restructure the banking
sector will be among the new parliament's major tests, given the shared
interests between Lebanon's political and financial elite, said Sami Nader,
director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.
UN Chief Calls for 'Inclusive Government' after Lebanon
Vote
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Lebanon to form an "inclusive
government" to tackle the country's economic crisis, after elections held over
the weekend, his office said Monday.Guterres "looks forward to the swift
formation of an inclusive government that can finalize the agreement with the
International Monetary Fund and accelerate the implementation of reforms
necessary to set Lebanon on the path to recovery," his office said in a
statement. The UN chief also called on the country's new parliament "to urgently
adopt all legislation necessary to stabilize the economy and improve
governance."He stressed the need for Lebanon’s "political leaders to work
jointly with the best interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese people in
mind."Lebanon's largest parliamentary bloc, led by the powerful pro-Iranian
Hezbollah armed movement, appeared to have suffered a setback against the
opposition and independents, according to partial results released on Monday,
AFP said. Turnout was particularly low in Sunni-dominated areas mostly inhabited
by Sunnis -- one of the main communities in the country governed by a political
system based on communal power-sharing.
MPs Charged over Beirut Blast Re-Elected, Troubling
Families of Victims
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Two Lebanese lawmakers charged in connection with the 2020 Beirut port blast
have been re-elected in the first poll since the catastrophe, leaving some
families of victims fearing further delays in a stalled investigation into the
explosion. Many in Lebanon blame the disaster, which killed more than 215
people, on safety failings by senior political and security officials.
Accountability for the blast emerged as a main rallying issue for opposition
candidates and voters. Interior Ministry results show Ali Hassan Khalil and
Ghazi Zeaiter, both running with the Hezbollah-backed Shiite Amal Movement, won
seats in Baalbek-Hermel and south Lebanon respectively. Khalil and Zeaiter were
charged in December 2020 but deny any wrongdoing and have declined to attend
interrogation hearings, citing immunity afforded to them by their parliamentary
seats. The investigations are secret so the exact charges against them have not
been made public.Rima Zahed, whose brother Amin died in the blast and who sits
on a committee representing victims, described their victory as a "farce".
Another committee member, Kayan Tleis, whose 39-year-old brother Mohammad died
in the explosion, told Reuters: "We are troubled and provoked and don't want
anybody to be above the law."An arrest warrant was issued for Khalil but was not
implemented by security forces, who cited parliamentary immunity. Lawsuits filed
by suspects including the two MPS against the judge investigating the blast have
stalled the probe for months. Still, victims' relatives said they were
encouraged by wins by newcomer opposition candidates in Beirut, who took five of
19 seats across the capital's two electoral districts. "We have more people in
parliament who can work for us... They are people who will help our cause,"
Tleis said. "I hope we will not have to wait long for justice." Newcomers who
won include the former head of the Beirut Bar Association, Melhem Khalaf, who
was backed by the families of some blast victims. "He is our voice," said Zahed,
who was celebrating Khalaf's victory at his home on Monday night.
Hezbollah, Allies Lose Majority in Lebanese Parliament,
Final Results Show
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies have lost their majority in Lebanon's
parliament in a general election, a Reuters tally of final results showed on
Tuesday, a major blow to the armed group that reflects anger with Lebanon's
ruling elite. The Shiite party and factions that support its possession of arms
won around 62 of parliament's 128 seats in Sunday's election, a reversal of the
2018 result when they secured a majority of 71. In the first election since
Lebanon's economic collapse and the Beirut port explosion of 2020, reform-minded
political newcomers won about a dozen seats, making an unexpectedly strong
breakthrough into a system long dominated by the same groups. Hezbollah
opponents including the Christian Lebanese Forces gained ground. It won around
19 seats, up from 15 in 2018, while the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM) kept 18 seats, according to officials from both parties. The results leave
parliament split into several camps, none of which have a majority, raising the
prospect of political paralysis and tensions that could delay reforms needed to
steer the country out of its devastating economic crisis."Fragmentation has
increased in the parliament, and this makes the process of legislation and
forming majorities difficult," FPM leader Gebran Bassil said in a Tuesday news
conference, calling on newcomers to work together with his party. While the 2018
election pulled Lebanon closer into the orbit of Iran, these results could
navigate again towards its Arab fold. The final results on Tuesday included a
record of eight women lawmakers, nearly half of them newcomers. Unexpected
upsets included the dislodging by two new MPs of Hezbollah allies Talal Arslan,
heir to one of Lebanon's oldest Druze political dynasties, and deputy speaker of
parliament Elie Ferzli. Faisal Karami, scion of another Lebanese political
dynasty, also lost his seat in the country's second city Tripoli.
'Crack in the wall'
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called in a statement late on
Monday for the swift formation of an inclusive government to stabilize the
economy. Sami Atallah, director of The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think
tank, said that was unlikely. He said groups within the "polarized parliament"
would lock horns when electing a parliamentary speaker, naming the next prime
minister and voting on a president later this year. And while Hezbollah and the
allied Amal Movement maintained their control of the 27 Shiite-allocated seats,
they lost two seats in their traditional stronghold of south Lebanon. Atallah
said that could push them to take a hardline stance: "They don't want to have a
crack in the wall."Overnight, large crowds carrying Hezbollah flags gathered in
downtown Beirut, chanting in support of the party, according to footage posted
on social media. Reuters could not independently verify the videos. By the
morning, a giant cardboard fist in downtown Beirut that was first erected when
protests against the ruling establishment erupted three years ago appeared to
have been torn down and burned, according to a Reuters witness. The 2019
demonstrations reflected anger at a political class seen as corrupt and
inefficient. Since then, Lebanon has plunged into an economic crisis that the
World Bank has described as one of the worst since the Industrial Revolution.
The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value, reaching 30,000
pounds to the US dollar on Tuesday, roughly a 10% loss since Sunday's election.
But Lebanon's central bank said on Tuesday it would continue to allow commercial
banks to purchase dollars on its Sayrafa platform rate "without amendment," an
operation that has helped stabilize the exchange rate since it began in January.
The economic decline has pushed nearly three-quarters of Lebanon's population
under the poverty line, which election observers had warned could open the door
to more vote-buying. In a preliminary statement on Tuesday, the European Union
Election Observation Mission said the poll had been "overshadowed by widespread
practices of vote-buying, clientelism and corruption".
Will New Faces at Lebanese Parliament Form Opposition
Bloc?
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
The results of the parliamentary elections in Lebanon have sprung several
surprises, most notably among "revolution" groups that have reaped at least 10
seats, defying predictions and the odds given that they had waged the electoral
battle on numerous lists instead of a united one.
These groups emerged in wake of the October 2019 popular uprising against the
country's ruling elite that has been in power for decades and is largely blamed
by the people for Lebanon's current devastating economic crisis. Sunday's
elections also led to surprises among the ranks of traditional opposition
figures and parties, who may share some visions of the revolution, but are
unlikely ally themselves with them. Some members of the revolution groups refuse
to align with traditional parties and politicians because they perceive them as
part of the problem in Lebanon and because they differ with them over their view
of Hezbollah and demands for the party to lay down its arms. As official results
were announced, the opposition revolution groups managed to achieve
breakthroughs in the districts of Beirut, the Chouf, South, North and Bekaa.
Winners among the traditional opposition groups and politicians included the
Kataeb party, Michel Mouawwad, former minister Ashraf Rifi, MP Oussama Saad, who
was allied with Dr. Abdulrahman al-Bizri in the Sidon-Jezzine district, and
others. The challenge lying ahead for these oppositions figures is working
together inside parliament to reach change they waged the electoral battle in
the first place for. Ibrahim Mneimneh, one of the winners of the revolution
groups in the Beirut II district, and Bizri, a winner in Sidon-Jezzine, told
Asharq Al-Awsat that the results of the elections were expected. Mneimneh said
he predicted that the revolution would win around ten seats in parliament.
"Our first mission after the announcement of the final results should be the
formation of a united parliamentary bloc that represents all forces of change,"
he urged. He added that some of these forces agree with the traditional
opposition parties over some issues, but they are unlikely to come together in a
united bloc. This stage in Lebanon will be marked with consolidating the change
in the country that has indeed started as revealed by the elections, he
continued. For his part, Bizri, who is the son of former MP and minister Nazih
Bizri, said it did not come as a surprise for the revolution groups to win seats
in parliament. Rather, the surprise would have been if traditional political
class, which has piled catastrophes on Lebanon, had won, he stated. "We have
chosen the confrontation, and in spite of the negatives of the proportional
electoral law, the people expressed their views and proved that the elites have
lost their clout," he added. "Parliament will have a different role to play. The
opposition against the political class will be clear and it will play a
different role and shoulder many responsibilities after they were entrusted by
the people," he went on to say. "The people are banking on us to create change,"
stressed Bizri. On whether the opposition will form a united bloc, he replied
that the desire for cooperation is there and so are the common factors between
the various groups. The first step should be creating a united voice against the
political system. "We must then distinguish ourselves from it by reaching a
cooperation mechanism that aligns with the views of the Lebanese people and
their desire for reform."
Lebanese movement for change should heed warnings from
history
Nadim Shehadi/Arab News/May 17/2022
Everybody wants change in Lebanon, the key question is what exactly this will
entail. Today, the demand for change is led by Lebanese millennials, a
post-civil war generation that has no memory of Lebanon’s golden days. Their
debate tends to emphasize the flaws in Lebanon’s principles of communal power
sharing and its liberal laissez-faire economy, which they blame for turning the
country into a failed state. Yet, in doing so they are rewriting history in a
narrative that could favor authoritarian models of rule.
If we were to go about this scientifically, we would have to conduct a
laboratory experiment under controlled conditions in order to find out which
system is better. Such as building an iron wall separating two halves of a
continent and observing on which side people were desperate to escape to the
other and which side initiated the bringing down of that wall.
In fact, such an experiment did happen in the Middle East over two decades in
the last century. After the defeat of 1948, various forms of secular nationalism
dominated in Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Iraq. These regimes overthrew
what were seen as failed post-colonial liberal governments dominated by
Ottoman-era elites and notables.
Lebanon, meanwhile, skipped the nationalist models that dominated the 20th
century. Since 1926, the Lebanese constitution has enshrined sectarian
power-sharing measures, which are based on the legacy and values of its Ottoman
past. Lebanon maintains an archaic Levantine system that views its population as
a composition of different religious groups. By contrast, its regional neighbors
adopted a modern, secular and homogeneous view of citizenry.
In the words of historian Philip Mansel, the old Ottoman cities like Smyrna,
Alexandria and Beirut were “simultaneously windows on the West, generators of
revolt against it, and targets for its battleships.” They were cultural beacons
in the Levant: Port cities where making deals mattered more than ideals and
where foreign consuls had more say and people approached them for protection.
Across the region, the zeal of nationalism clashed with the customs of Levantine
society. Nationalism’s ideals of homogeneity and cohesiveness gradually
triumphed over the region’s natural diversity. By contrast, Beirut remained as
the last outpost of Levantine cosmopolitanism, where multiple identities
coexisted and religious cultures were allowed a certain autonomy.
Where did the people choose to move to? Beirut. Subsequently, Lebanon flourished
and became the cultural and financial center of the region. The cream of
intellectuals and merchant classes from societies like those of Adana, Haifa,
Alexandria, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad moved to Beirut, each bringing
rich traditions and global business networks. It became a service economy
because it had the human capital to provide the services. The standard of living
in the capital and the country’s gross domestic product per capita exceeded
those of the lower-income European states like Greece, Spain and Ireland. In
fact, Alexandria in its heyday also attracted people from Greece and Italy
because the standard of living was higher and jobs were better paid.
That model was disputed during the Lebanese civil war. Yet, when it looked like
progressive nationalist secular forces were winning, people voted with their
feet and migrated out of the country. Many came back while Rafik Hariri was
trying to restore that old diverse culture.
Meanwhile, the secular nationalist states became authoritarian and failed. The
defeat of 1967 gave rise to more radical forces and the systems crumbled with
the Arab Spring. But it is difficult to move away from authoritarianism once it
has been established. Today, the trend is to engage with authoritarian regimes,
such as Syria’s Bashar Assad, and for them to be propped up with the idea of
maintaining stability.
The UAE is the closest successor to the Levantine cosmopolitan model, with more
or less all of its advantages and faults. Again, we see the same phenomenon of
talent, businesses and creativity in the region moving to the UAE and the other
Gulf states. The Gulf model attracts people from all over the world and it is
not just because of the oil. States like Iran, Venezuela and Iraq also have oil
but people do not emigrate there because of the types of regimes and governance.
On the contrary, people are moving out. The wars that caused their failures were
also driven by nationalism and homogenizing ideologies, as well as authoritarian
regimes.
Such experiments in the laboratory of history are not perfect and are full of
flawed assumptions. There is the obvious lesson that cities that are at
intersections of caravan routes and have more diversity and freedom of movement
will always prosper over the closed societies of fortresses and garrisons. But
open and free cities that prosper also have to protect themselves from the greed
of the garrisons who want to capture them and the corruption of their rulers.
The homogeneous identity created by secular nationalism ultimately became
intolerant of diversity and rejected it.
Another paradox from Ottoman times is that intellectuals in cosmopolitan cities
tended to favor the secular nationalists. The Committee of Union and Progress
was a product of the rich cosmopolitan atmosphere of Ottoman Salonica; it
ultimately led to its demise and the demise of other such cities when the Young
Turks and later Kemalist nationalists homogenized these societies. The poets and
intellectuals of Alexandria, like Constantine Cavafy and Henri Curiel, also
favored the nationalists and viewed their homogenizing ideas as promoting
equality. But the homogeneous identity created by secular nationalism ultimately
became intolerant of diversity and rejected it.
Lebanese demands for change tend to totally discredit the Levantine model, with
its service economy that made the country prosperous in the past. They only see
its flaws. Some blame the freedom it provided and the weak state for the
dominance of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hezbollah. They also
tend to favor a homogenizing, strong secular state with a “productive” economy,
perhaps some sort of Syria-envy, and disregard its flaws.
The forces of change in Lebanon need to examine the past more closely before
going down a path from which return is difficult. There are already discussions
of handing power over to the army “temporarily,” ignoring that previous
instances of such a move have proven to be difficult to reverse.
*Nadim Shehadi is a Lebanese economist. Twitter: @Confusezeus
حنين غدار/معهد واشنطن: ماذا تعني خسارة حزب
الله النيابية للبنان
What Hezbollah’s Parliamentary Loss Means for Lebanon
Hanin Ghaddar/ The Washington Institute/May 17, 2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108705/108705/
The voting results provide even more hope for
change than meets the eye, though the winners will need international help to
prevent Hezbollah from obstructing the next steps.
On May 15, Hezbollah suffered a major defeat in Lebanon’s parliamentary
election, losing not only its majority control of the legislature but also all
of its non-Shia-Muslim allies. Despite low turnout, threats of violence,
financial difficulties, and growing national despair, the people voted for
change, choosing reforms over Hezbollah and its ever-growing military arsenal.
From a distance, one might conclude that the major political parties managed to
maintain substantial parliamentary blocs. Yet a closer look at the details
reveals that a number of significant changes will mark Lebanon’s new political
scene.
First, Hezbollah lost the Christian cover that has enabled it to manipulate
various levers of power and flout the constitution, including the arms that make
it the country’s most potent military force. Previously, the Hezbollah-allied
Free Patriotic Movement, headed by Gebran Bassil, enjoyed the majority of
Christian representation in parliament, but Samir Geagea’s “Lebanese Forces”
party will now claim that mantle, winning more than twenty seats compared to
thirteen for the FPM. Bassil’s loss will also affect his ambitions to win this
fall’s presidential election.
Second, Druze areas in the Chouf and Aley districts witnessed real breakthroughs
by the opposition, with three seats going to independents—Mark Daou, Najat Aoun
Saliba, and Halime Kaakour. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt maintained his
representation as well. Even more notable were the losses by Wiam Wahab and
Talal Arslan, two key allies of Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
In fact, Assad lost traditional allies all across Lebanon, such as Assaad Hardan,
Elie Ferzli, and Faisal Karami.
Third, in Beirut’s western second district, Sunni voters defied former prime
minister Saad Hariri’s calls to boycott the election, and many of their votes
went to new independent candidates, including big wins for Ibrahim Mneimneh and
Melhem Khalaf. Hezbollah had its eye on this district, where it worked hard to
boost its own Sunni candidates and hoped that low overall turnout among this
community would help compensate for its expected loss of Christian allies.
Ultimately, the group aimed to cultivate a significant Sunni bloc via wins in
Beirut, Tripoli, West Beqa, and Saida-Jezzine. Yet its plan to penetrate the
Sunni street failed, and the majority of its Sunni candidates lost. As for
Hariri, his exit from the country’s political scene is now finalized.
Fourth, the south brought the biggest surprise. For the first time ever,
Hezbollah’s joint list with allied party Amal lost seats to two outside
candidates, Elias Jradeh and Firas Hamdan. This setback came despite the many
violations committed by Hezbollah-Amal representatives inside and outside the
voting stations.
So what does all this mean? Hezbollah lost nearly everywhere in Lebanon, and
although it managed to force the preservation of its twenty-seven-member Shia
bloc in parliament, its support appears to be slipping even among this core
constituency. Compared to the 2018 election, all Shia districts witnessed lower
turnout, indicating that a considerable silent majority is dissatisfied with the
group politically.
Moreover, the new independent members of parliament generally do not abide by
sectarian identities or political affiliations. This is a big break from the
opposition’s former “March 14” coalition, which was larger but definitely more
sectarian. In addition to new civil society representatives, a combination of
winning factions—Samy Gemayel’s Kataeb Party, traditional independent
candidates, the new anti-Hezbollah Sunni bloc, and the Lebanese Forces with
their largest bloc yet—could have a real chance to take Lebanon in a new
direction. The formation of the next government, the outcome of the presidential
election, and, most imminently, the selection of the next speaker of parliament
will go a long way toward determining the horizons of this potential change.
Current speaker Nabih Berri, the head of Amal, can no longer guarantee holding
that post for an eighth time—at least not unless he is willing to compromise
with Jumblatt and Geagea. The challenge remains agreeing on another Shia
candidate (as the constitution mandates for this post) when all of the Shia
members are members of Hezbollah or Amal. After their election victories were
announced, Geagea, Gemayel, and Tripoli Sunni politician Ashraf Rifi publicly
promised their constituencies that they would not repeat the previous mistake of
allowing Berri to remain speaker. If all opposition forces decide to reject
Berri and take the daring step of agreeing on a single nominee, the parliament
might finally see a new speaker—a development that would greatly affect Amal’s
internal politics, popular support, and relationship with Hezbollah.
The new majority, although fragmented, shares many of the same views regarding
reforms and Hezbollah’s arms. If they manage to coordinate, they could even
spark a new discussion on national defense strategy, focusing on Hezbollah’s
arsenal while also addressing the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the
appointment of key security and financial officials, and, most important, what
kind of leader they want to emerge from the presidential election.
The main obstacle to such momentum will be a humiliated and anxious Hezbollah.
Having lost this round, the group will no doubt use all of its tools to
influence the next steps, including threats of violence. Yet its old formula of
bullets vs. ballots—which worked after the 2005 and 2009 elections—might not be
as successful this time around, simply because the group’s political allies can
no longer provide cover.
Hezbollah could also play another game at which it has long excelled: delaying
key processes by blocking decisions and creating vacuums in government
institutions. It has used such deadlocks to affect government formation and
presidential elections many times before. This time, it might try to link those
two events in order to force a compromise that guarantees its preferred
presidential candidate a win. Unfortunately, this scenario could obstruct
reforms and political change, ensuring that the promising electoral outcome is
not properly reflected in state institutions. More international pressure is
therefore needed immediately to prevent an institutional vacuum and discourage
any compromises that threaten to cripple the movement toward change.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of
its recent study Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon's Shia Community.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on May 17-18/2022
Iran Awaits US Response to Nuclear Talks ‘Solutions’ Submitted to Mora
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said diplomatic efforts to
revive the nuclear agreement have “taken steps forward” when compared to the
stalemate before Enrique Mora, the European Union’s nuclear talks coordinator,
visited Tehran last week. Mora had held two days of discussions with Iran’s
chief negotiator Ali Bagheri in Tehran last week, leading the EU to say talks
had been unblocked. Nevertheless, Khatibzadeh said on Monday that Iran awaited
the US response to “solutions” discussed with the EU envoy for breaking a
deadlock in talks aimed at restoring the 2015 deal. The negotiations, aimed at
bringing the US back into the deal and Iran to full compliance with it, had
stalled for about two months. “Serious and result-oriented negotiations with
special initiatives from Iran were held,” Khatibzadeh told reporters. “If the US
gives its response to some of the solutions that were proposed, we can be in the
position that all sides return to Vienna,” where the talks are held, he added
during his weekly press briefing. “If the US announces its political decision
today, which we have not yet received, we can say that an important step has
been taken in the progress of the negotiations,” Khatibzadeh also noted.
Iran has been engaged in direct negotiations with France, Germany, Britain,
Russia, and China to revive the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA). The US has participated indirectly. The agreement gave
Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to prevent
Tehran from developing an atomic bomb. Broad outlines of a deal were agreed in
March, but the agreement stumbled over Russian and Iranian last-minute demands.
Khatibzadeh pointed out that Mora’s visit came after a phone call between the EU
Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein
Amir-Abdollahian, reported the state-run Mehr news agency.
Tehran Criticizes Washington's Support for Peaceful Assembly of Iranians
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Protests against deteriorating living conditions continued in several Iranian
provinces, while Tehran protested the support of the US State Department's
spokesman for the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in Iran.
US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a tweet on Sunday: “We
support their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression online and
offline -- without fear of violence and reprisal”. “Brave Iranian protestors are
standing up for their rights.”Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed
Khatibzadeh described the position of his US counterpart as “exaggerated
enthusiasm.”He accused Washington of fearing the Iranian economy getting
fortified. Nour News, the news platform of the Supreme National Security
Council, protested Price's statement, describing it as “interference in Iran's
internal affairs.”In a statement, it added that the US position “comes at a time
when some citizens have expressed their concerns in the past few days without
any problems.”Waves of protests hit the provinces of Lorestan, Chaharmahal and
Bakhtiari and Fars in the south and west of the country. This comes two weeks
after demonstrations erupted in the southwestern province of Ahwas.
Demonstrators are rallying against the rise in flour prices, which raised the
price of bread tenfold, according to Iranian websites. Footage widely
circulating on social media showed police firing tear gas to disperse protesters
at the Tehran (Sadeghiyeh) Metro Station, one of the largest metro stations in
west Tehran. Earlier footage showed the police using tear gas also in the city
of Shahr-e Kord, the capital city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province in the
southwest of Iran. On Monday, civil transport workers in Tehran joined the
protests, chanting slogans calling for the dismissal of Tehran's mayor. Protests
had spread to about ten out of 31 Iranian provinces last week, after the
government announced a price hike for four food commodities: oil, dairy,
chicken, and eggs. Authorities cut off the Internet in some provinces that
witnessed protests. The Iranian government began implementing its plan to stop
the support allocated to the dollar for the purchase of food commodities. Last
week, President Ebrahim Raisi tried to calm an angry public by vowing to speed
up reform of the state aid payment system. Last Thursday, the commander-in-chief
of the Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami described what is happening in
the country as “economic surgery” and gave tacit orders to the Basij forces to
“help the people.”
Schools, Offices Close in Tehran as Sandstorm Hits Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Schools and government offices closed in the Iranian capital on Tuesday and
elsewhere in the country after yet another sandstorm blanketed Tehran, state TV
reported. The report said the air quality was very poor and that the pollution
from the dust was high. It was the third severe sandstorm in Iran since
mid-April. Last week, authorities also shuttered schools in Tehran and other
provinces because of a similar sandstorm but Tuesday marks the first time
government offices closed in Tehran due to a sandstorm. Tehran is among the most
polluted cities in the world. The country’s west, along the border with Iraq,
has seen frequent closures of schools and offices due to sandstorms. On Monday,
airports in western Iran saw dozens of flights canceled or delayed. In
neighboring Iraq, sandstorms - at least eight since April - have landed
thousands in hospitals with severe respiratory problems and killed at least one
person. In Syria, at least three people died along the border with Iraq because
of the storm. Experts blame poor government policies, desertification and low
water levels as well as climate change for the frequency and intensity of recent
sandstorms.
Iran State TV Air Footage of French Couple Accused
of Spying
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Iran's state television on Tuesday showed what it described as details of the
arrest of two French citizens earlier this month, saying they were spies who had
sought to stir up unrest. Iran's intelligence ministry had said on May 11 it had
arrested two Europeans for allegedly fomenting "insecurity" in Iran, but had not
revealed their nationalities. France has condemned their detention as baseless
and demanded their immediate release, in an incident likely to complicate ties
between the countries as wider talks on reviving a nuclear deal stall. On
Tuesday, state television named the two as Cecile Kohler, 37, and her partner
Jacques Paris, 69, adding that "the two spies intended to foment unrest in Iran
by organizing trade union protests". Iran's judiciary has yet to comment on the
matter. In Paris, there was no immediate response from the French Foreign
Ministry to a request for comment on Iranian television's assertions.
In recent months, Iranian teachers across the country have staged protested
demanding better wages and working conditions, according to Iranian state media.
Dozens of them have been arrested. "They traveled to Iran as tourists ... But
they took part in anti-government protests and met members of the so-called
Teachers' Association," it said, showing Kohler and Paris apparently talking in
a meeting with what it said were protesting Iranian teachers. The TV footage
showed what it said was their arrival at Tehran's International Imam Khomeini
Airport on April 28 with Turkish Airlines from Turkey, as well as their arrest
on their way to the airport on May 7. Christophe Lalande, federal secretary of
France's FNEC FP-FO education union, told Reuters on May 12 he suspected that
one of his staffers and her husband were missing on a holiday in Iran. Two other
French nationals are held in Iran on national security charges their lawyers say
are politically motivated. Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract
concessions from other countries through such arrests. Iran has repeatedly
dismissed the charge. Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their
citizens, who they say are political prisoners. The two French citizens were
arrested a week after a Swedish national was also detained in Iran. The
detentions come at a sensitive time, as the United States and parties to Iran's
2015 nuclear deal struggle to restore the pact that was abandoned in 2018 by
then-US President Donald Trump.
Israel Says Iran Working on Advanced Centrifuges at
New Underground Sites
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Iran is working on advanced uranium centrifuges at new underground sites being
built near its Natanz nuclear plant, Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday,
giving figures that appeared to go beyond those published by a UN watchdog.
Centrifuges are used to purify uranium for civilian projects or, at higher
levels, to make bomb fuel. Iranian progress in the field is being watched by
world powers trying to resurrect a nuclear deal with Tehran, which denies having
military designs. "Iran is making an effort to complete the manufacturing and
installation of 1,000 additional advanced IR6 centrifuges in its nuclear
facilities, including new facilities being built at underground sites abutting
Natanz," Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a speech at Reichman University
near Tel Aviv. A March 3 report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
said Iran had installed or planned to install a total of three IR6 cascades,
amounting to around 660 machines. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said last month that
Iran had set up a new underground Natanz workshop for making centrifuge parts,
an apparent precaution against attacks. In his remarks, Gantz alluded to
Israel's long-standing threat to take military action if it deems diplomacy is
at a dead end to deny its arch-enemy the means to make nuclear weapons. "The
cost of such a future war, which we hope will not happen, can be prevented or
reduced" with tougher negotiations by world powers, he said. Ram Ben-Barak, head
of parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, confirmed Israeli media
reports on Tuesday that Israel's air force, as part of a scheduled one-month
military exercise, would be simulating an attack on Iran. "This exercise was
planned long ago," Ben-Barak told Reshet Bet Radio. "We are preparing for the
worst and hoping for the best."
Ukraine Working to Pull Last Fighters from Mariupol Mill
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters defending the last holdout in Mariupol were
evacuated to areas controlled by Russian-backed separatists and officials worked
Tuesday to get the rest out, signaling the beginning of the end of a siege that
became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Russia called the operation a mass surrender. The Ukrainians avoided using that
word - but said the garrison had completed its mission. More than 260 fighters -
some severely wounded - were pulled from a steel plant on Monday that is the
last redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the city and transported to two towns
controlled by separatists, officials on both sides said. Other fighters - their
precise numbers unknown - remain inside the Azovstal steelworks that sprawl over
11 square kilometers (4 square miles) in a city otherwise controlled by Russian
forces. The complete capture of the plant would mark a significant milestone. It
would give Russia its biggest victory of the war yet and could help free up
forces for offensive action elsewhere in the industrial heartland of eastern
Ukraine that is now Russia's focus after a series of setbacks. "Ukraine needs
Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle," Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy said in announcing that the evacuation had begun from the relentlessly
bombarded mill and its warren of tunnels and bunkers. "There are heavily wounded
among them. They are receiving medical help," he said. "The work continues to
bring the guys home and it requires delicacy and time."
Ukraine Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 264 fighters were evacuated
from the plant, including 53 "heavily wounded" brought to a medical facility.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov gave slightly different
numbers: 265 evacuees, 51 of them seriously wounded. The discrepancy couldn’t
immediately be explained. After nightfall Monday, several buses pulled away from
the steel mill accompanied by Russian military vehicles. Russian Defense
Ministry video of some evacuees did not show any that were armed. The video
shows troops patting down and searching the fighters. Some were on stretchers as
they were loaded onto the buses.
Oleksandr Danylyuk, a Ukrainian former national security chief and finance
minister, told the BBC that because Ukrainian forces were unable to liberate the
plant, the negotiated evacuation to Russian-controlled territory had been "the
only hope" for Azovstal’s defenders. Those remaining in the plant are still
"able to defend it. But I think it’s important to understand that their main
mission is completed and now their lives need to be saved," he said. A full
negotiated withdrawal could save lives on the Russian side, too, sparing
Russian-backed troops from what almost certainly would be a bloody and difficult
battle to wrest the labyrinth-like plant from Ukrainian control. Danylyuk added
that those evacuated should be swapped for Russian prisoners - but Vyacheslav
Volodin, speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, said that there
are "war criminals” among the plant defenders and they should not be exchanged
but tried. Maliar heaped praise on the fighters who survived in the plant for
nearly three months and said it been impossible to liberate them "by military
means.""Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, we have gained critically important
time to form reserves, to regroup forces and to receive aid from our partners,"
she said. "Mariupol’s defenders have fully accomplished all missions assigned by
the commanders."
Russia has been plagued by setbacks in the war, most glaringly in its failure
early on to take the capital of Kyiv. Much of the fighting has shifted to the
Donbas region in the east but also has turned into a slog, with fighting
village-by-village.
Strikes have also occasionally rocked other areas of the country. The western
city of Lviv was rocked by loud explosions early Tuesday. Witnesses counted at
least eight blasts accompanied by distant booms. The sky west of the city, which
was under an overnight curfew, was lit up by an orange glow. Howitzers from the
US and other countries have helped Kyiv hold off or gain ground against Russia,
a senior US defense official said. The official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss the US military assessment, said Ukraine has pushed Russian
forces in the east to within 1 to 4 kilometers (a half-mile to 2.5 miles) of
Russia’s border but could not confirm if it was all the way to the frontier. In
another setback for Moscow, Sweden's decided to seek NATO membership following a
similar decision by neighboring Finland. That is a historic shift for the
countries, which have been nonaligned for generations. On Tuesday, Swedish
Foreign Minister Ann Linde signed the formal request to join the alliance, which
will now be sent to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Stoltenberg has
said the membership process for both could be quick - but President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan of Turkey, a NATO member, has cast doubt on the process. He has objected
to allowing Sweden and Finland to join NATO, saying they failed to take a
"clear" stance against Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers
terrorists, and imposed military sanctions on Turkey. All 30 current NATO
members must agree to let the Nordic neighbors join. Russian President Vladimir
Putin said Moscow "does not have a problem" with Sweden or Finland as they apply
for NATO membership, but that "the expansion of military infrastructure onto
this territory will of course give rise to our reaction in response."Putin
launched the invasion on Feb. 24 in what he said was an effort to check NATO’s
expansion but has seen that strategy backfire.
Jian Omar: European Decision Facilitated German
Embrace of the Ukrainians
Berlin - Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
As part of a report on Syrian and Ukrainian refugees arriving in Berlin, Asharq
Al-Awsat spoke to Jian Omar, of Syrian origin, who won the general elections in
Germany in September with the Green party. The young Syrian Kurd, born in
Qamishli in 1985, came to Germany as a student. In 2012, he became a refugee,
after the Syrian embassy refused to renew his passport because of his political
activism against the regime in Damascus.He has been in Berlin for more than ten
years, and today he is a member of its parliament, and the spokesman for the
Green party on issues of immigration, asylum and naturalization. Omar said that
German society was very receptive to Ukrainian emigration. He noted that in the
early days of the war, he had seen a number of Germans offering the refugees
accommodation in their homes while waiting to find a permanent residence. He
also stressed that some German families carried aid to receive those fleeing the
Russian war. According to the parliamentarian, the European Union’s decision to
receive Ukrainians, according to the criteria of mass immigration from war
countries, allowed the granting of residency to refugees, in addition to other
facilitations.
In this regard, he noted that the European decision was taken unanimously, while
some countries, including Poland and Hungary, opposed this mechanism when it was
raised to address the influx of Syrian refugees in 2015. Omar told Asharq Al-Awsat
that while some social media cited criticism over a preference for European
refugees over those coming from the Middle East, he noted that Syrian and
Ukrainian activists organized joint demonstrations against the war and Russia’s
engagement in Syria and Ukraine. He pointed to the Europeans’ concern about the
return of war to their continent, and to the divisions in public opinion about
the extent to which they can go to arm Ukraine without directly engaging in the
conflict.
Berlin... Ukrainian Suitcases, Syrian Sorrows, and a
Russian Thread
Berlin - Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday,
17 May, 2022
A convoy of refugees and a line of bags. How difficult it is for you not to have
anything left of your country but a suitcase. This sight breaks my heart. As if
the bag was a coffin carrying the soul of the homeland, the smell of its soil
and ashes of memories. Asharq Al-Awsat visited the central train station in
Berlin, the German bosom, where refugees meet refugees…On the Ukrainian trip,
there are no death boats. Trains are a means of escape. The evacuees have fled
the Russian missiles and bombs, but they don’t know how long the absence will be
and what the days of exile will hide. Most of the Ukrainian refugees prefer to
stay in Berlin. But this is not possible because German authorities prefer to
scatter them into different regions to ensure the availability of services and
facilities. Nothing but a suitcase In a nearby hall, while waiting to go to the
shelters, the arrivals spread out at tables and have food and drinks. They have
nothing but a suitcase…Sophie, 21, came from the city of Kherson on the Black
Sea in southern Ukraine. At first, she did not believe that the war would break
out and prolong. Now she says that she doubts the possibility of an imminent
return, “because living under Russian occupation is impossible.”She recounted
how the bombs “did not target only military centers, but rained down in every
direction, making life hell.”No water, no electricity, and many fires broke out
in the buildings. Food ran out and the streets became deserted. Larina, Sophie’s
companion at Kherson University and on the asylum trip, says that a return to
Ukraine is inevitable, noting that the Ukrainians will not surrender, and are
preparing themselves for a broad resistance to force the Russians to leave. She
seems to be holding on to a thread of hope, when she asserts that Ukrainian
soldiers “are fighting bravely, but they do not have enough weapons.”
Tears, prayers and escape
Irina Kovalenko came to Berlin with her daughter, mother and aunt. She was in
Kyiv at the start of the war. She thought that the nightmare would end soon. She
moved to a village outside the capital to wait for the war to stop. She spent
eight days “crying, praying, screaming and fleeing to places she thought were
safe.” “We were terrified when we watched the destroyed buildings, burned houses
and empty streets amid the sound of missiles and raids,” Irina told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Irina wipes her tears. She lost her “home and tranquility, and the beautiful and
rich country.” She wants a school for her daughter and an education in
Ukrainian. It scares her that the future is uncertain. She talks about the
“horrors perpetrated by the Russian army” and says that she will not return
until after its withdrawal.
Sonnenallee
I left the Ukrainian refugees with their aches and suitcases, and decided to
visit, with my colleague Raghida Bahnam, the Sonnenallee (Sun Street), which has
been dominated in recent years by a Syrian character. Sweets, falafel, shawarma,
halal meat, molokhia, clothing stores and vegetable stands…The Syrians go to
this neighborhood for shopping. Ehab Sahari came from Idlib in a “sort of
asylum.” He says: “The shop was Turkish, and it became ours, me and my brother.”
He continued: “I sympathize with the Ukrainians; we have tasted the bitterness
of losing one’s country and seeing it destroyed. When we said that Russian air
force destroyed our country, no one wanted to listen.”Ehab said that some
Syrians have found a stable job, while many are still waiting. The kids born
here don’t speak Arabic at all.
“We escaped the war; what’s important is that war don’t follow us here because
of Ukraine,” he remarked. He continued: “Prices increased because of war in
Ukraine. The demand for flour, oil and sugar surged”“I sympathize with the
Ukrainians; we have tasted the bitterness of losing your country and seeing it
destroyed. When we said that Russian air force devastated our country, no one
wanted to hear. My cousins were killed by the Russian raids, which also targeted
schools and hospitals. Responsibility for what happened to Syria lies with Iran,
Russia and Hezbollah.
“I am not thinking of returning, especially since I am from Idlib. The current
regime is just a front for Russia and Iran. I hope the Ukrainians won’t have the
same fate as ours.”
Ehab said he is grateful to the country that hosted them.“They gave us what we
could not get in our country.”On the way back to the hotel, I saw young men
sitting next to a Ukrainian flag. He does not want his name or photo published.
The reason is simple. He is returning to his country after finding a safe place
for his mother and sister. His father refused to leave. He said that he would
not accept to abandon his land and would rather die there. He is returning to
participate in a resistance that is expected to be fierce and costly. He
believes that the world is responsible for what happened to Ukraine because it
did not act decisively when Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in
2014. He describes the Russian president as “the Stalin of this century,” who is
“extremely dangerous” for his country, its neighbors, and the world. He talks
about “painful blows” that the Ukrainian army has dealt the Russian army. Night
fell on Berlin, which is preoccupied not only with receiving refugees, but also
with the new European landscape. Fear returned to the continent. Terrorism is no
longer the problem. The source of fear is Russia, on which Germany relies for
its gas imports.
As I entered my room, I heard the sounds of Arab melodies throughout the hotel.
I went out and saw a bride in a white dress, surrounded by her groom and
relatives. It’s a Syrian wedding, meters from the Brandenburg Gate…In the first
years of their arrival in the country of asylum, refugees struggle to preserve
their heritage. Tradition becomes the last bridge that connects them to their
homeland. But time changes everything. Tomorrow their children will go to
school, learn another language and live a different way of life. This applies to
the Syrians, and will later be true for the Ukrainians…
Russia’s Lavrov Says Finland, Sweden Joining NATO
Makes ‘No Big Difference’
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Finland and Sweden
joining NATO would probably make "not much difference" as the two countries had
long participated in the alliance's military drills. "Finland and Sweden, as
well as other neutral countries, have been participating in NATO military
exercises for many years," Lavrov said. "NATO takes their territory into account
when planning military advances to the East. So in this sense there is probably
not much difference. Let's see how their territory is used in practice in the
North Atlantic alliance."Sweden on Tuesday signed a formal request to join NATO,
a day after the country announced it would seek membership in the 30-member
military alliance. In neighboring Finland, lawmakers are expected later in the
day to formally endorse Finnish leaders’ decision also to join. The moves by the
two Nordic countries, ending Sweden’s more than 200 years of military
nonalignment and Finland’s nonalignment after World War II, have provoked the
ire of the Kremlin. While most NATO members are keen to welcome the two
countries as quickly as possible, Turkey has potentially complicated their
accession by saying it cannot allow them to become members because of their
perceived inaction against exiled Kurdish militants. Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan on Monday doubled down on comments last week indicating that the
two Nordic countries' path to NATO would be anything but smooth. All 30 current
NATO countries must agree to open the door to new members. He accused the two
Nordic countries of refusing to extradite "terrorists" wanted by his country. In
Stockholm, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde signed the formal request to join
the Alliance, which she said would be sent to NATO Secretary-General Jens
Stoltenberg. "It feels like we have taken a decision that is the best for
Sweden," she said while signing the document. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto
arrived in Sweden for an official visit and was welcomed by Sweden’s King Carl
XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, who had invited him. Niinisto is scheduled to
address Sweden's Parliament in a speech expected to focus on NATO, and meet
Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. On Twitter, Niinisto said that "the timing
is excellent, a strong and stable Nordic region is our common cause."
Kremlin Critic Navalny Appeals against Nine-year
Jail Sentence
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was due on Tuesday to appeal a nine-year
prison sentence he was handed in March on charges that he and his allies say are
politically motivated. His hearing comes as Russian authorities seek to silence
remaining government critics and Moscow pushes on with its military campaign in
neighboring Ukraine, with thousands killed and some 10 million displaced, AFP
said. A vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny in late March
had his jail time extended to nine years after he was found guilty of
embezzlement and contempt of court. He is already serving two-and-a-half years
in a prison some 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow for violating parole
on old fraud charges. On Tuesday, he will appeal the extension of his jail term,
joining the hearing at a Moscow court via video link from his prison colony. If
his new sentence comes into force, the 45-year-old opposition politician will be
transferred to a strict-regime penal colony, which will place him in much
harsher conditions. The new sentence will replace the old one -- that he was
handed in February last year -- meaning Navalny will remain behind bars for
another eight years.
Declared 'extremist' -
As part of the new charges, investigators accused Navalny of stealing for
personal use several million dollars' worth of donations that were given to his
political organizations. Navalny rose to prominence as an anti-corruption
blogger and, before his imprisonment, mobilized anti-government protests across
Russia. In 2018, he campaigned as a presidential candidate but was eventually
barred from running in the election that saw Putin secure a fourth term in
power. In his absence, Navalny's team continues publishing investigations into
the wealth of Russia's elites that have garnered millions of views on YouTube.
In 2020, Navalny narrowly survived a poisoning attack with Novichok, a
Soviet-designed military-grade nerve agent. Despite accusations from Navalny,
the Kremlin denied any involvement. He was arrested on his return from
rehabilitation in Germany last year, sparking widespread condemnation abroad, as
well as sanctions from Western capitals. After his arrest, Navalny's political
organizations across the country were declared "extremist" and shut down, while
key aides have fled Russia. Navalny's key allies have since fled the country,
several of them are wanted by Russian authorities on criminal charges. Russia
has recently ramped up pressure on independent media and non-governmental
organizations, declaring many "foreign agents", while others have stopped
operating for fear of prosecution. In an effort to further control the
information available to its domestic audience, authorities have blocked access
to the popular social networks Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and taken legal
action against tech giant Meta, accusing it of spreading "calls to kill"
Russians.
Gantz in Washington Wednesday to Defend
‘Settlements,’ Israeli Measures in West Bank
Tel Aviv - Nazir Magli/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced he will travel Wednesday to the
United States, where he expects to meet with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in
Washington to tackle issues of interest for both countries.Although his office
did not give details of the nature of the meeting, a source in his ministry said
Gantz will try to defend the Israeli government’s decision to build about 4,000
new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The source said that
Washington had strongly criticized the settlement decision, as well as the
recent Israeli operations in the West Bank and Jerusalem, particularly the
assassination of Palestinian-US journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the brutal
assault on her funeral processions. Gantz will carry with him the results of the
investigation conducted by an Israeli officer into the assassination. Earlier
this month, the Israeli Defense Minister had arranged to attend two Jewish
events held in the US by his ministry, the World Zionist Organization and the
Jewish Agency, to raise funds for the Israeli army. However, the assassination
of Abu Akleh pushed Gantz to ask to meet US officials. Last week, US Secretary
of State Anthony Blinken called for an "immediate and credible investigation"
into the circumstances of the killing of Abu Akleh. Blinken announced that he
spoke to Shireen's brother and expressed deep condolences for her loss, and deep
respect for the work that she did as a journalist for many years. US President
Joe Biden has accepted an invitation to visit Israel in June and show support
for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett against the two men’s opponent,
Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite the announcement, the Biden administration had
appealed several times to the Bennett government in recent weeks, warning
against approving new settlement projects. The US envoy to Israel, Thomas Naides,
said he and other Biden administration officials have made it clear to Israeli
officials several times in the last two weeks that the administration is opposed
to the construction of new settlements and asked Israeli authorities not to move
ahead with it. Few days following Naides’ comments, the Israeli Civil
Administration, a military body, said the Higher Planning Committee met last
Thursday to give green light to the building of 3,988 new settler units.
Political sources in Tel Aviv expressed their fear of an angry US reaction to
the Committee’s decision that would push the Biden administration to cancel or
postpone the president’s visit to Israel. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post
newspaper said that Bennett decided to take rightward steps to strengthen his
Yamina party and prevent further defections from it. It said Bennett will visit
Elkana in Samaria on Tuesday, his first public visit to a West Bank settlement
since becoming prime minister 11 months ago.
EU Allocates 25 Mln Euros in Humanitarian Aid to Palestinians
Ramallah, London - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
The EU announced on Monday it was allocating 25 million euros in humanitarian
aid to meet the basic needs of vulnerable Palestinians in the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza. The EU funding will focus on providing healthcare
assistance, including mental care for trauma, to those affected by the continued
violence, the ramifications of the blockade on Gaza and the impact of the
Covid-19 pandemic, the bloc announced in a statement. The aid will also focus on
improving access to schooling of Palestinian boys and girls to uphold their
right to education, it added. According to the statement, over 2 million
Palestinian women, children and men in the Occupied Territories and Gaza Strip
are in need of humanitarian assistance. The fragile economic situation and the
unprecedented financial crisis in the West Bank and Gaza, have also resulted in
high unemployment rates, limited trade and restricted access to resources.
“The situation is further worsened by the impact of Russia's aggression against
Ukraine, resulting in increased food and fuel prices,” the statement said.
Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, said the EU continues to
stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and that the newly announced EU
humanitarian aid will support Palestinians families' access to basic services
and assistance, which is now even more urgent due to the rising food prices and
food shortages as a global consequence of the Russian war on Ukraine.
“Furthermore, we insist on the full respect for international humanitarian law
and condemn the continued evictions of civilians and demolitions of their homes,
schools and basic infrastructure. This needs to stop,” Lenarcic stressed.
According to the bloc, some 1.79 million in Palestine suffer from food
insecurity of which 1.1 million people are severely food insecure. Last week,
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called on the EU to accelerate the
provision of financial support to Palestine and exert pressure on Israel to
release withheld funds and stop all forms of financial deductions from
Palestinian tax revenues.
After Syria strike, Gantz vows to stem Iranian transfer of ‘advanced
capabilities’
Emanuel Fabian/The Times Of Israel/ May 17/2022
Defense minister hints at recent raid attributed to Israel that ‘completely
destroyed’ facility in Masyaf, says IDF preparing against Hezbollah and Hamas in
Lebanon
Days after a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria, Defense Minister Benny Gantz
on Monday vowed to prevent Iran from transferring “advanced capabilities” to
other entities in the region.
“The State of Israel will continue to act against any enemy that threatens it,
and prevent the transfer of advanced capabilities from Iran that endanger the
citizens of Israel and harm the stability of the entire region,” Gantz said
during a visit to the military’s Northern Command. Israel has long accused Iran
of transferring advanced munitions to the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, via
Syria. At the same time, Syria has also improved its air defense capabilities,
in part due to upgraded Iranian-made components, according to military
officials. Gantz said Israel was continuing to push ahead with defensive
measures in the north. The Defense Ministry in recent months has started
construction of hundreds of bomb shelters for Israeli citizens in northern towns
who currently do not have access to functioning ones. On Monday, the Israel
Defense Forces continued its monthlong “Chariots of Fire” exercise, including a
military drill within the northern city of Haifa. Gantz said the exercises were
aimed at “preparing for various scenarios against our enemies in the various
theaters, and against Hezbollah and Hamas, which also operates from Lebanon.” It
was the first time an Israeli official has confirmed the Gaza-based Hamas terror
group has established a base of operations in Lebanon. Israel has repeatedly
blamed “Palestinian factions” for rocket attacks from its northern neighbor that
were not claimed by the powerful Hezbollah terror group. “The combination of
training, operational activity, and strengthening civil resilience makes up our
complete paradigm of protecting the north and the entire State of Israel,” he
added. Friday’s airstrikes in the northwestern Masyaf region of Syria
“completely destroyed” a structure leading to an underground facility, according
to a satellite imaging service. According to media reports, six Syrian soldiers
were killed in the raid, all crewmembers of an air defense system. The Masyaf
area is thought to be used as a base for Iranian forces and pro-Iranian militias
and has been repeatedly targeted in recent years in attacks attributed to
Israel. Israel has carried out hundreds of sorties over Syria in the last
decade, mostly to stymie attempts by Iranian forces to transfer weapons or
establish a foothold.
Israeli strikes have continued in Syrian airspace, which is largely controlled
by Russia, even as ties with Moscow have deteriorated in recent weeks. Israel
has found itself at odds with Russia as it has increasingly supported Ukraine,
while seeking to maintain freedom of movement in Syria’s skies.
Massacre video reopens wounds for missing Syrians' families
Associated Press/Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
For years, the Siyam family clung to hope they would one day be reunited with
their son Wassim, who they believed was being held in a Syrian government prison
after he went missing at a checkpoint nearly a decade ago.That hope evaporated
the moment they saw him in a newly leaked video: He was among dozens of
blindfolded, bound men who, one by one, were shot and thrown into a trench by
Syrian security agents. "It shocked us to our core," Siham Siyam said of the
gruesome video, which was taken in 2013 and emerged late last month."They killed
him in cold blood ... No mother can accept to see her child being harmed this
way," Siham told The Associated Press from Germany, where she now lives with her
family. The video has set off a wave of grief and fear rippling through the
families of the tens of thousands of Syrians who disappeared during their
country's long-running civil war. After the video went online, thousands rushed
to painstakingly scan through the footage online for traces of vanished
relatives. Even as similar atrocities take place in Ukraine, the Syrian war's
years-old massacres and disappearances have gone unpunished and largely
uninvestigated. Families of the missing who spoke to the AP describe an endless
torture inflicted on them daily, not knowing their loved ones' fate. The video
was allegedly smuggled out of Syria by a pro-government militiaman who gave it
to a pair of University of Amsterdam researchers, apparently in hopes it would
help him get asylum outside Syria. The researchers worked to verify it and
identify the location and some of the perpetrators. The British newspaper The
Guardian first reported on the video in late April, and a fuller version of the
video has since circulated widely online. "Even if the families' loved ones do
not appear in the video, the horrible images will be forever etched into their
mind, and they will wonder if they faced the same fate," Mohammad Al Abdallah,
the Executive Director of the Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability
Centre, told the AP.He called Syria's network of prisons the "Black Box," with
no information about who is held inside and who has been killed.
Learning the truth brings a new kind of torment.
Siham and her husband vow to watch the video every day, to see their son's last
moments alive and to bid him farewell. The video was stamped with the date April
16, 2013, two days after Wassim, a father of two who would now be 39,
disappeared at a checkpoint near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk on the
outskirts of Damascus.The 6 minute and 43 second clip shows members of Syria's
notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 with a line of around 40 prisoners in
an abandoned building in Tadamon, a suburb of Damascus near Yarmouk. For much of
the war, the district was a front line between government forces and opposition
fighters. The prisoners are blindfolded, with their arms tied behind their
backs. One after another, the Branch 227 gunmen stand them at the edge of a
trench filled with old tires, then push or kick the men in, shooting them as
they fall.
In a cruel game, the agents tell some — including Wassim — that they are going
to pass through a sniper's alley and that they should run. The men tumble onto
the bodies of those who went before. As bodies pile up in the trench, some still
move, and the gunmen shoot into them.
Then the gunmen set the bodies on fire, presumably to erase all traces of the
massacre.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, 102,207 people remain missing,
more than 11 years since Syria's conflict began.
The group says the one most responsible for forced disappearances is the Syrian
government with 86,792 people missing, an unknown number of whom vanished into
the murky labyrinth of prisons. The Islamic State group was responsible for
8,648 disappearances, and armed opposition groups for 2,567. The rest were held
by the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and al-Qaida-linked
militants. One man who spoke to the AP said 25 of his relatives were taken from
their homes in Tadamon by Branch 227 agents in July 2013. "We are sure they were
killed the same way (as those in the video) because they were taken by the same
people who appeared in the video," said the man, who asked that his name not be
made public. He said residents know of multiple pits in Tadamon where people
were killed and later burned. Security agents who appear in the video were
neighbors of the missing families and had known each other for over 30 years, he
said. Among his missing relatives are children and a sister who went to check on
her family two days after they were taken from their home. She never returned.
His family's tragedy didn't end there. A few months later, a brother who wasn't
present the day his family disappeared was taken from a checkpoint. Years later,
a photo of his tortured body appeared in a large file of photos and documents
smuggled out by a dissident known as Caesar. In a May 9 open letter, 17 human
rights and civil society organizations urged the U.N. Security Council to launch
an investigation into the killings to bring to justice the perpetrators of the
massacre and those who gave them orders. They also denounced international
inaction over Syria, saying it has allowed Assad and his allies to continue to
commit crimes against the Syrian people with impunity.
Families of the disappeared described to the AP the years of anguish and
fruitless searching, punctuated by waves of false hope.
One man, Maher, said he still hopes his brother, missing since 2013, is alive
and will one day be released. It's a new blow every time a prisoner release is
announced, and his brother is not among them. "One tries to adapt throughout the
years, but the wound reopens with every report that comes out," he said,
speaking on condition that he be identified only by his first name.
His brother vanished while bringing home food aid from the U.N. agency that
helps Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. Maher said hundreds of people were
arrested while going to collect food boxes, so many that they became known as
"death boxes."
Hoping to avoid arrest, people would send the elderly to collect the boxes, he
said. His brother went four times; on the fifth, he was detained.If confirmation
emerges that he is dead, "the wound would be cut wide open, and the real misery
would start then," Maher said.
A racket of war profiteers preys on families, extorting large sums of money from
them with false promises of an eventual release of missing relatives. Days after
the video showing the killings came to light, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
issued an amnesty for hundreds of prisoners. Families flocked to a Damascus
square, holding up pictures of missing relatives and pleading for information,
according to videos on pro-government media outlets. Among them, profiteers
circulated, telling families they could get their loved ones' names on the
release list in return for 50 million Syrian pounds — nearly $13,000 — Al
Abdullah said. "These are all lies," he said. Still, some families pay,
desperate for any information. "How can I say no when my father's life is on
hold? ... How can I say no, even if I know they're lying?" Wafa Mustafa told the
AP from Berlin.
The walls of her room are covered with pictures of her father, missing since he
was taken from his home in 2013. "It's crazy how after 11 years, and after we
have left the country, the regime can still control us and control our mental
and physical health," Wafa said. "They control our existence."
U.S. State Department Set to Delist Mujahideen Shura
Council of Jerusalem
Joe Truzman/FDD's Long War Journal/May 17/2022
The U.S. State Department is expected to remove the Gaza-based Mujahideen Shura
Council of Jerusalem (MSC) and several other groups from its Foreign Terrorist
Organizations (FTOs) list, according to an Associated Press report.
The groups are believed to be inactive and unlikely to pose further threats to
warrant their continued listing as FTOs.
“Based on a review of the Administrative Record assembled in this matter and in
consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I
determine that the circumstances that were the basis for the designation… have
changed in such a manner to warrant revocation of the designation,” the AP
reported, citing a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The groups named in the AP report are the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo,
the Spanish separatist organization Basque Homeland and Liberty, a Jewish ultra
nationalist group called Kahane Chai, the Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement
Gama’a al-Islamiyya, and the MSC.
In the context of the MSC, the Salafi-jihadist organization was established in
2012 in an effort to resurrect the Islamic caliphate and wage violent jihad
against Israel.
The State Department designated the organization in 2014 due to numerous rocket
attacks against Israel, a cross-border attack targeting an Israeli construction
site that killed one civilian and the group’s declaration of support to the
Islamic State.
As noted in the State Department’s FTO listing, MSC is responsible for several
attacks against Israel, notably in 2012 when two of its members detonated an IED
and attacked vehicles carrying construction workers at the security fence Israel
was constructing at the Egyptian border.
In a video released by the MSC after the attack, the organization proclaimed its
establishment and responsibility for the cross-border raid.
“We announce the formation of the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Jerusalem
as the foundation of a blessed Jihadi operation, with a clear path and features
to be a brick in the global project of bringing back the [Islamic] caliphate,”
according to a translation made by al-Arabiya News.
The second half of the video is dedicated to the two militants who perpetrated
the attack named Khalid Salah Abdul Hadi Jadullah (a.k.a. Abu Salah al Masri)
and a Saudi named Adi Saleh Abdullah al Fudhayli al Hadhli (a.k.a Abu Hudhayfa
al Hudhali). [See: FDD’s Long War Journal: Al Qaeda-linked group claims
responsibility for attack in Israel.]
The MSC have been operationally inactive for years and the U.S. State
Department’s decision to remove them from the list of FTOs is unlikely to change
the landscape of jihadist activity against Israel emanating from Gaza.
*Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.
Canada/Minister Joly concludes trip to Germany and
Belgium
May 16, 2022 - Berlin, Germany - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today concluded a
productive trip to Germany where she participated in multilateral and bilateral
discussions at the G7 and NATO foreign ministers’ meetings.
At the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Wangels, Germany, Minister Joly
reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to a coordinated approach on the most pressing
issues facing the international community today. Ministers discussed the growing
food and energy security crises, which are a threat to vulnerable populations
around the world and to global peace and stability and are a direct result of
the Russian regime’s reckless actions in Ukraine. They pledged to continue
working together to support Ukraine and its courageous people in response to
Russia’s unprovoked and unjustifiable invasion of their country. Minister Joly
and her counterparts also agreed to continue working closely together on the
fight against climate change, a sustainable and fair recovery from the COVID-19
pandemic and peace and security issues in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
In Berlin, NATO foreign ministers gathered to discuss shared priorities,
including the impact of President Putin’s war, the gravest threat to global
security in decades. They also reviewed NATO’s evolving security and defence
priorities and identified strategies to adapt to them successfully in
preparation for the NATO Leaders’ Summit that will be held in Madrid this June.
Given Finland’s and Sweden’s aspirations to join the Alliance, NATO foreign
ministers met with them to underscore NATO’s “open door” policy.
Minister Joly met with a number of her counterparts on the margins of her
meetings in Germany. She highlighted Canada’s unshakeable resolve to uphold the
international rules-based order alongside its likeminded allies and partners.
The Minister also reiterated Canada’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine and to
NATO’s collective defence.
Minister Joly visited Brussels, Belgium, on May 16, to participate in the Joint
Ministerial Committee Meeting under the Canada-EU Strategic Partnership
Agreement with Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the member states of the European
Union. While in Brussels, she also attended a meeting of the European Union
Foreign Affairs Committee, alongside Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister,
where she highlighted the strong relationship between Canada and the EU, our
close cooperation to support Ukraine and its people, and our collective
determination to build a safer and more secure world.
Quotes
“President Putin’s war of choice is an unprecedented threat to world security
and yet, it will fail. Putin sought to divide our Allies but we are more united
than ever. In discussions with my G7, NATO, and EU counterparts, I reiterated
Canada’s commitment to work together to hold Putin’s regime to account, adapt to
global challenges and to protect the values we hold dear.”
- Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Quick facts
Since the beginning of 2022, Canada has committed $245 million in humanitarian
assistance to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and
neighbouring countries. Of this, $170 million has been allocated to United
Nations organizations, the Red Cross Movement and to non-governmental
organizations.
Since Russia’s illegal occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea in 2014,
Canada has imposed sanctions on more than 1,400 individuals and entities. Many
of these sanctions have been undertaken in coordination with Canada’s allies and
partners. Canada’s latest sanctions impose asset freezes and prohibitions on
listed individuals and entities.
Canada/Statement on International Day Against
Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia
May 17, 2022 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable Harjit
S. Sajjan, Minister of International Development and Minister responsible for
the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada, and the Honourable Mary Ng,
Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic
Development, today issued the following statement:
“Everyone has the right to feel safe in being their true self and expressing
their gender and sexuality freely. The International Day Against Homophobia,
Transphobia and Biphobia gives us an opportunity to reaffirm the equality of
LGBTQ2I persons and also strengthen alliances and partnerships. Through
education and dialogue, the world has seen progress in recent years. Several
countries have taken concrete steps to address stereotypes and prejudices and
end discrimination and violence aimed at LGBTQ2I communities.
“Despite progress made, LGBTQ2I persons are still often victims of
discrimination and hate crimes based on their sexual orientation, gender
identity or expression, or sexual characteristics. They are murdered, arrested
and subjected to violence, including from so-called “conversion therapies,” a
discredited practice that attempts to change the sexual orientation, gender
identity or expression of LGBTQ2I individuals. Humanitarian crises, such as
those resulting from COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, also exacerbate
challenges faced by LGBTQ2I communities and threaten the livelihoods, health and
safety of their members.
“Canada is a global leader in promoting and protecting the human rights of
LGBTQ2I persons. For example, earlier this year, Canada joined a dozen countries
that have banned “conversion therapies,” and we recently became the first
country to provide census data on transgender and non-binary people. This data
will allow governments, service providers, employers and all Canadians to have a
better understanding of the needs and realities of this segment of our
population.
“LGBTQ2I entrepreneurs are also an important element of Canada’s global Export
Diversification Strategy, and Canada negotiates progressive free trade
agreements that promote inclusive growth that benefits everyone.
“May 17 is a day on which we unite to help end discrimination and violence
against LGBTQ2I persons and remember that all people—without exception—are born
free and equal in dignity and rights.”
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 17-18/2022
كون كوغلين/معهد جاتستون: محاولات بايدن غير الحكيمة لإنقاذ
صفقة إيران
Biden’s Unwise Attempts to Save the Iran Deal
Con Coughlin/Gatestone Institute/May 17/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108715/108715/
Mr Biden’s hopes of pressing ahead with the nuclear talks suffered a significant
setback the other week when a bipartisan super-majority of US Senators voted to
endorse a Republican-led measure insisting that any future agreement with Tehran
must address Iran’s support for terrorism in the region, and that Washington
should not lift sanctions against the IRGC. Tehran is unlikely to concede to
either measure.
Iran’s refusal to clarify the true extent of its undeclared nuclear activities
is entirely consistent with the uncooperative stance it has adopted in its
dealing with the IAEA over many years.
In an indication of how desperate the Europeans are to revive the deal, Mr
Borrell said the EU was giving serious consideration to the ludicrous
proposition whereby the terrorist designation against the IRGC was lifted, but
kept in place on other parts of the organisation, which has several arms across
the security apparatus and a sprawling business empire.
The EU initiative is not dissimilar to other hare-brained options being
considered by the Biden White House, with analysts recommending that one
compromise option for the US is to lift the terrorist designation against the
IRGC while keeping it on the Quds Force, the unit responsible for the IRGC’s
foreign operations and which arms and backs militant groups throughout the
Middle East.
The lengths to which some naive politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are
prepared to go to revive the nuclear deal is nothing less than shameful,
especially at a time when the world is struggling to deal with another
tyrannical regime following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Hopefully, the more Iran refuses to cooperate with international bodies such as
the IAEA, the more it will become clear that any hopes of securing a new deal
with Tehran would not only upend the region but the president’s legacy as well.
The lengths to which some naive politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are
prepared to go to revive the Iran nuclear deal is nothing less than shameful…
Hopefully, the more Iran refuses to cooperate with international bodies such as
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the more it will become clear
that any hopes of securing a new deal with Tehran would not only upend the
region but President Biden’s legacy as well.
The utter futility of the Biden administration’s obsession with reviving the
Iran nuclear deal has been laid bare by the latest damning assessment by the
head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
US President Joe Biden has indicated to Tehran that he is willing to rejoin the
deal so long as Iran agrees to fall back into compliance with the terms of the
original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by the former
Obama administration in 2015.
That would require Iran to accept the limits imposed on its stockpiles of
nuclear material by the JCPOA instead of continuing with its efforts to produce
weapons-grade material. According to the latest assessment by the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.-sponsored body responsible for monitoring
the ayatollahs’ nuclear activities, Tehran continues to defy Washington by
converting some of its uranium stockpiles to near weapons-grade, thereby greatly
enhancing the regime’s ability to produce nuclear warheads.
Despite Tehran’s continued defiance, the Biden administration remains committed
to reviving the deal, and is even reported to be exploring ways to meet Iran’s
outrageous demand that Washington removes its long-standing designation of
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity from the
State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
Mr Biden’s hopes of pressing ahead with the nuclear talks suffered a significant
setback the other week when a bipartisan super-majority of US Senators voted to
endorse a Republican-led measure insisting that any future agreement with Tehran
must address Iran’s support for terrorism in the region, and that Washington
should not lift sanctions against the IRGC. Tehran is unlikely to concede to
either measure.
Moreover, bipartisan opposition to a revived deal is likely to increase further
following this week’s stark warning by the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog who
said he was “extremely concerned” about what he described as Iran’s lack of
cooperation regarding unexplained traces of uranium in the country.
As part of the IAEA’s efforts to revive the deal, Rafael Grossi, the
organization’s director general, has been trying to persuade Iran to explain the
existence of traces of uranium found at several undeclared sites in Iran.
Mr Grossi has reported that, instead of responding to the IAEA’s request for
further information, Iran “has not been forthcoming” with details of its
undeclared activities.
In a briefing to the European Parliament earlier this week, Mr Grossi explained
that in the last few months IAEA inspectors “were able to identify traces of
enriched uranium, in places that had never been declared by Iran as places where
any activity was taking place”.
“The situation does not look very good,” he said. “Iran, for the time being, has
not been forthcoming in the kind of information we need from them… we are
extremely concerned about this.”
Iran’s refusal to clarify the true extent of its undeclared nuclear activities
is entirely consistent with the uncooperative stance it has adopted in its
dealing with the IAEA over many years.
Mr Grossi’s stark warning, therefore, that Tehran is still up to its old tricks
so far as UN inspectors are concerned, is likely to harden opposition in
Congress to any attempt by the Biden administration to press ahead with a new
deal regardless.
His stern words should also serve as a wake-up call to European leaders who
remain committed to reviving the deal, irrespective of Iran’s non-cooperation.
In an interview with London’s Financial Times earlier this week, EU foreign
policy chief Josep Borrell said he was seeking a “middle way” to end the
impasse.
In an indication of how desperate the Europeans are to revive the deal, Mr
Borrell said the EU was giving serious consideration to the ludicrous
proposition whereby the terrorist designation against the IRGC was lifted, but
kept in place on other parts of the organisation, which has several arms across
the security apparatus and a sprawling business empire.
The EU initiative is not dissimilar to other hare-brained options being
considered by the Biden White House, with analysts recommending that one
compromise option for the US is to lift the terrorist designation against the
IRGC while keeping it on the Quds Force, the unit responsible for the IRGC’s
foreign operations and which arms and backs militant groups throughout the
Middle East.
The lengths to which some naive politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are
prepared to go to revive the nuclear deal is nothing less than shameful,
especially at a time when the world is struggling to deal with another
tyrannical regime following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Hopefully, the more Iran refuses to cooperate with international bodies such as
the IAEA, the more it will become clear that any hopes of securing a new deal
with Tehran would not only upend the region but the president’s legacy as well.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a
Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 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.
President Biden’s Missed Opportunities at U.S.-ASEAN
Summit
Craig Singleton/Policy Brief/May 17/2022
President Joe Biden hosted an in-person summit last week with leaders from the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a bloc of 10 countries with a
total annual GDP of approximately $3 trillion. While the Biden administration
billed the summit as an opportunity to signal its renewed commitment to the
region, the White House gathering resulted in few tangible outcomes and received
scant media coverage, likely compounding regional concerns that Washington has
no clear agenda for the Indo-Pacific.
Overall, Biden has held few substantive engagements with ASEAN leaders, although
he did attend last October’s virtual heads-of-state summit, an event that former
President Donald Trump skipped during all four years of his administration.
Apart from that one engagement, Biden has not held a single bilateral telephone
call with any ASEAN leader since assuming office. Moreover, Biden decided
against conducting any one-on-one exchanges with ASEAN leaders on the margins of
last week’s White House gathering.
The ASEAN summit’s agenda focused primarily on COVID-19 recovery efforts and
global health security, climate change, promoting gender equality and women’s
empowerment, and deepening people-to-people ties. There was little emphasis on
security matters, such as China’s unlawful claims to sovereignty over most of
the South China Sea. Moreover, summit attendees largely avoided discussing the
deteriorating situation in Myanmar, including whether to boost support for
Myanmar’s National Unity Government, a group formed in exile by elected
officials ousted during the 2021 military coup.
On the economic front, White House officials rebuffed appeals by ASEAN leaders
for enhanced U.S. market access. This snub is consistent with Biden’s moratorium
on any new trade deals, even those that could potentially help ASEAN countries
reduce their dependence on China. During the lead-up to the summit, the White
House also declined to unveil any substantive details regarding its Indo-Pacific
Economic Framework (IPEF), which will reportedly focus on a series of
unenforceable agreements involving “fair and resilient trade,” supply chain
resilience, decarbonization, and anti-corruption policies. IPEF is unlikely,
however, to meaningfully improve U.S. market access for ASEAN countries or their
companies.
At the summit’s conclusion, the White House announced plans to provide ASEAN
countries with $150 million in infrastructure, security, and pandemic-related
assistance. Of that, Washington committed $40 million to reducing the carbon
footprint associated with the region’s power supply. ASEAN countries will also
receive funds to develop digital economies and legal frameworks for artificial
intelligence. Regrettably, Washington’s meager contributions pale in comparison
to the $1.5 billion in development assistance that China pledged to ASEAN
countries last fall.
Moving forward, Biden’s disinterest in conducting regular leader-to-leader
exchanges with his ASEAN counterparts, as well as the White House’s refusal to
consider a more robust regional trade agenda, will severely hamper the
administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. Regarding the IPEF, the White House has
thus far not outlined what incentives it intends to offer ASEAN countries to
secure their participation. The administration’s reliance on executive orders
rather than legislation or formal trade treaties to enact IPEF-related deals
also raises questions about what deals, if any, will outlast Biden’s time in
office. The adjudication process for resolving IPEF-related disputes also
appears unclear.
While Biden neglected ASEAN diplomacy even before the invasion of Ukraine, the
war is likely to hinder any nascent efforts to shift American policymaker
attention and resources to the Indo-Pacific. That concern, one felt widely in
the region, was recently voiced by Ong Keng Yong, former secretary-general of
ASEAN and Singapore’s current ambassador-at-large, who noted that “[s]ince the
end of the Second World War, it is obvious that Europe comes first to the U.S.
before any other region of the world.” Beijing will be keen to take advantage of
Washington’s policy void to expand its economic, political, and security-related
commitments throughout the region, with an eye towards further eroding
Washington’s influence.
*Craig Singleton, a national security expert and former U.S. diplomat, is a
senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he
contributes to FDD’s China Program. For more analysis from Craig and the China
Program, please subscribe HERE. Follow Craig on Twitter @CraigMSingleton. Follow
FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research
institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Biden administration can’t overlook the Balkans when
sanctioning Russia
Ivana Stradner and Matthew Zweig/The Hill/May 17/2022
As Western economic sanctions tank Russia’s economy, the Kremlin and its
supporters are scouring the globe for jurisdictions to use to evade sanctions.
Moscow appears to have set its sights on the Western Balkans, long plagued by
corruption and malign Russian influence. Washington and its Western allies must
work to combat Russia’s illicit financial networks and broader malign influence
in the Western Balkans while expanding our own economic ties to the region.
Exploiting corruption in the Western Balkans is central to the Kremlin’s efforts
to cultivate influence in the region. This problem began decades ago. As the
former Yugoslav states liberalized their economies after the 1990s, festering
corruption exposed openings for Russian manipulation. Under Vladimir Putin,
Moscow has used the corrupt actors who benefited from this kleptocracy to
exploit economic, ethnic, and religious fissures in Balkan societies, in order
to use that instability to challenge the United States and our allies. Western
disengagement has compounded the problem, allowing Russia and China to fill the
void through corruption and “debt-trap” investments in critical areas such as
energy and security.
This inattention may ultimately weaken the impact of Western sanctions against
Russia. Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Russian influence is
particularly strong, have refused to sanction Russia. Serbian media reported in
early April that nearly 300 Russian persons, including many in the IT sector,
had opened companies in Serbia since Moscow invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, likely
reflecting an attempt to dodge Western sanctions by re-registering Russian firms
in Serbia. And although Albania, Montenegro, and others have developed Russia
sanctions regimes in line with EU sanctions, they may be unable or unwilling to
enforce them if Moscow can prevail upon their leadership through either
political pressure or corruption.
For a Biden administration that’s declared fighting corruption and Russian
sanctions evasion to be top priorities, this should be a call to action. While
the Kremlin has a head start, the West can wield a combination of economic
incentives and pressure to undercut Russia’s efforts in the Western Balkans.
Washington and its European allies should leverage existing regional
institutions to strengthen their political and economic influence. In concert,
the Western allies should use sanctions to expose and disrupt Russian illicit
financial schemes and discourage regional actors from working with Russia.
The newly minted Open Balkan initiative represents the West’s best opportunity
to build and effectively utilize economic leverage in the region. Established by
Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia in 2021, the project aims to promote ties
between the three countries by ultimately creating a single market for goods,
services and capital.
The Open Balkan initiative could enable the West to exploit its greatest
advantage over Russia in the Western Balkans: economic clout. Europe’s economic
ties to the region dwarf Russia’s, which are concentrated mostly in the energy
sector. While Russia dominates Serbia’s energy industry, Russia is only Serbia’s
fifth-largest trading partner, lagging behind Germany, Italy, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and Romania. Russian trade with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
North Macedonia, Croatia, and Montenegro is similarly limited. By spurring
Western investment in the region, using the Open Balkan initiative as an
instrument for incentivizing regional players to embrace anti-corruption,
anti-money laundering and other rule of law measures, Washington and its allies
could work to limit Russia’s influence.
While the Open Balkan initiative’s underlying concept is sound, the West must
ensure this prospective asset does not turn into a long-term liability by
perversely facilitating Russian and other illicit finance.
Unless properly policed, a single market in the Western Balkans could create
opportunities for Russian sanctions-evasion networks and transnational criminal
organizations to move Russian capital into and through regional economies. For
these reasons, trade liberalization initiatives such as Open Balkan require
strong institutions that can track and thwart illicit financial schemes
involving Russia or other malign actors.
Western governments should pair the promise of economic opportunity with
sustained pressure to strengthen the rule of law and defenses against illicit
finance. Washington and its allies should also encourage Western companies to
invest in the Western Balkans — but on the conditions that regional governments
and their private-sector counterparties comply both with international
anti-corruption and anti-money laundering standards and with Western sanctions
against Russia.
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Population stabilization, not growth, is the key to America’s future
Along with these economic carrots, Washington and its allies should wield the
stick. The West should threaten and, if necessary, impose sanctions against
regional actors who continue to facilitate Russian illicit finance or other
malign Russian activity in violation of U.S. sanctions against Moscow. Executive
Order 14033, signed by President Biden in June 2021, offers an additional tool
for the administration to do so, authorizing sanctions against persons who are
involved in corruption or undermine security or democracy in the Western
Balkans.
As Russia’s invasion in Ukraine continues, more Western sanctions are likely to
follow. Russia’s cultural and political influence and economic presence in the
Western Balkans offers the Kremlin a chance to establish one or more
jurisdictions for sanctions evasion in the middle of Europe. Through a
combination of carrots and sticks, the United States and its allies can foil
Russia’s plans.
*Ivana Stradner is an advisor to the Foundations of Defense of Democracies (@FDD)
and Matthew Zweig is a senior fellow at the FDD. FDD is a nonpartisan research
institute focused on national security and foreign policy. Follow the authors on
Twitter @ivanastradner and @MatthewZweig1.
Israel's Collaboration With Qatar – Morally Disgraceful
And Strategically Damaging
Y. Carmon*/MEMRI/May 17/2022
Qatar is a great supporter of major extremist Islamic organizations and
ceaselessly acts against Israel on the regional and international levels.
Enlisting its help to achieve a temporary calm in Gaza is a self-inflicted
strategic blow, as well as a moral disgrace.
For decades, Qatar has extended economic and political support, whether direct
or indirect, to all the major extremist Islamist organizations: the Muslim
Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, and even organizations affiliated with the Islamic State
(ISIS). Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi, a prominent
Islamic jurisprudent known for his antisemitic and extremist views and for
justifying the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust, has for years
operated in Qatar and enjoyed its sponsorship. Qatar has also harbored other
jihadi leaders, and its educational system is rife with incitement to jihad and
martyrdom. Its media, entirely state-sponsored, frequently spreads antisemitism
and Holocaust denial.
In 1996, the U.S. government informed the Qatari emir personally that its agents
had arrived in the country to arrest Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM), a terrorist
involved in the planning and execution of serious attacks in Asia who had found
safe haven as an employee of the Doha municipal water department. Within hours,
KSM disappeared, only to resurface five years later as the mastermind of the
9/11 attacks. Had Qatar not harbored him and facilitated his escape, 9/11 might
not have happened. Qatar has also long supported the Taliban, and last year it
helped it overthrow the democratically elected Afghan government and violently
take over the country. Today, it makes every effort to legitimize the Taliban
regime and secure international aid for it.
The Al-Jazeera TV channel, which is owned and operated by the Qatari regime, has
since its inception functioned as a mouthpiece for jihadi terrorist
organizations, and constantly broadcasts anti-Israel incitement. The claim that
Qatar has helped to maintain calm between the Palestinians and Israel is
ludicrous, and reflects profound ignorance. Amid the recent violent clashes at
the Al-Aqsa compound, Al-Jazeera, the most-watched channel in the Palestinian
territories, claimed that Israel intends to hold "Talmudic prayers" and make
animal sacrifices in Al-Aqsa mosque itself, which naturally intensified the
violence.
Israelis will especially remember how Al-Jazeera celebrated – live on-air – the
release from prison of the terrorist Samir Quntar – who in 1979 murdered
four-year-old Einat Haran by smashing her head on a rock at Nahariya beach in
front of her father and then killed him as well. The party featured fulsome
praise for Quntar, in addition to a large cake, an orchestra, and fireworks.
Qatar has perpetuated Hamas's rule in Gaza with financial support in the
hundreds of millions of dollars; according to a May 1, 2022 report in Israel's
Haaretz daily, this support has totaled $5 billion over the last decade. The
Israeli government allows the delivery of these funds, ostensibly to be handed
over to the Gazans, not to Hamas itself. This attempt to buy temporary quiet
with "other people's money" enables Hamas to build up its military capabilities,
including tunnels, rockets, drones, and units comprising thousands of fighters.
This quiet would better have been achieved by Israeli investment, in the form of
aid for the people of Gaza, instead of by funding and arming Hamas. Such
investment can be carried out via international organizations with no commitment
to Hamas, via the tens of thousands of Gazans who work in Israel, and via major
commercial and economic players who operate in cooperation with the Israeli
economy. It is true that it will not be easy to change direction, after years of
Qatar funding Hamas with Israeli consent. But it is nonetheless possible,
particularly since Israel now has the support of the United Arab Emirates, a
peace partner and an ally, which is capable of effecting the main change in Gaza
on the political and economic levels. The UAE is just as capable as Qatar of
investing heavily in Gaza In fact, The UAE has for years been bewildered as
Israeli governments have, one after another, preferred the enemy, Qatar, to the
friend, the UEA. Egypt too is capable of providing extensive logistical and
administrative support to facilitate this change; it would love to see an end to
Hamas's rule in Gaza, since Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the
bitter enemy of the Egyptian regime.
The current Israeli government should end this policy of indirectly supporting
Hamas via Qatar – a policy deeply detrimental to Israel's long-term security
interests. This is especially true in light of the fact that Qatar is the
strongest opponent of the Abraham Accords, regionally and internationally.
Moreover, over the past year it has strengthened its ties with the Iranian
regime in all areas. Although Israeli Prime Minster Bennett himself said, at the
height of the unrest at Al-Aqsa, that Al-Jazeera – that is, the Qatari regime –
"lies constantly," his spokesmen's contradictory statements to media are aimed
at paving the way for a continuation of this policy, with the inability to see
the security and political damage that it is causing.
Israeli collaboration with Qatar, for any purpose whatsoever, is, beyond all its
strategic and political considerations, also a moral disgrace, and the
responsibility for this lies solely with the Israeli government.
*Yigal Carmon is the President of MEMRI and a former counterterrorism advisor to
Israeli prime ministers.
A version of this article was published in Hebrew in the Israeli daily Haaretz,
on May 10, 2022.