English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 25/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.may25.22.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God
Letter to the Philippians 04/01-07/:"Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I
love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my
beloved. I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.
Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have
struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the
rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord
always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The
Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.And the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on May
24-25/2022
Hezbollah’s Liberation & Resistance Day Is A Big Lie/Elias Bejjani/May
25/2021
Lebanese should know the Truth and Nothing but the TRUTH ِall About The Israeli
Withdrwal From South Lebanon In Year 2000/Claude Hajjar./May 23/2022
Lebanon crippled by electricity, water outages/Najia Houssari/Arab News/May 24,
2022
Election of speaker of parliament to test new balance of power in Lebanon
Dollar exchange rate crosses LBP 34,000 on black market
Tensions build up between Miqati, Fayyad over energy files withdrawal
Saudi FM: Change and Hizbullah's issue are in the hands of the Lebanese
Nine Lebanese banks to withdraw from Cyprus
Report: At least 60 MPs will re-elect Berri and quorum is 'guaranteed'
Doctors, hospitals announce two-day strike starting Thursday
Sayyed after meeting Aoun: Presidency powers can't be ceded to caretaker govt.
Arslan reacts after Bukhari hails 'fall of betrayal and treason icons'
Young Lebanese voters shake grip of traditional parties
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on May
24-25/2022
18 students, 3 adults killed in Texas elementary school shooting, state
senator says/Dylan
Analysis: Subtle shift in US rhetoric suggests new Iran approach
Thousands attend funeral for slain Guard colonel in Iran
Ukraine's intelligence chief 'fully confirms' Putin has cancer
Spain can solve the problem of Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas, its
prime minister says
Israel says 5 Palestinians arrested in alleged attack plots
More hardship as new sandstorm engulfs parts of Middle East
UAE firm inks airport deal as Afghanistan eyes international flights
Abu Dhabi says 2 killed, 120 injured in gas cylinder blast
Turkey's Erdogan threatens new incursion into Syria
Reconstruction of Abu Akleh's killing points to Israeli fire
Titles For The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on May
24-25/2022
Protests in Iran Are Surging. The Biden
Administration Can Help./Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad /The
Dispatch/May 24/2022
Palestinians: A Vote to Destroy Israel/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./May 24,
2022
Good neighbourly relations with Iran are a chimera/Farouk Yousef/The Arab
Weekly/May 24/2022
The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published oon May
24-25/2022
Hezbollah’s Liberation & Resistance Day Is A
Big Lie
Elias Bejjani/May 25/2021
We call on the Lebanese government, the Lebanese Parliament and on all the free
and patriotic Lebanese politicians and leaders to cancel the May 25 National
Day, because it is not national at all, and also to stop calling Hezbollah a
resistance, put an end for its mini-state, cantons and weaponry, and secure a
dignified, honorable and safe return for all the Lebanese citizens who have been
taking refuge in Israel since May 2000.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/75168/elias-bejjani-hezbollahs-bogus-liberation-resistance-day-3/
Believe it or not, on May 25 each year since 2000 Lebanon has been celebrating
the so-called “Liberation & Resistance Day.” Sadly, this celebration
commemorates a bogus event, and a phony heroism that did not actually take
place. On May 22, 2000 the Israeli Army unilaterally and for solely Israeli
domestic reasons withdrew from the security zone of South Lebanon in accordance
with UN Resolution 425.
This miscalculated and hasty withdrawal was a fatal Israeli decision that has
inspired the Hamas terrorism acts and the on-going havoc in the Palestinian Gaza
strip. Since 2000 many Israeli officials and politicians from all parties openly
and harshly criticized Barak’s Government (Barak was PM at that time) hasty and
unwise decision through which Israel’ abandoned its ally the South Lebanon Army
(SLA) and gave Hezbollah all south Lebanon and the entire Lebanon on a plate of
sliver. The unilateral Israeli withdrawal created a security vacuum in south
Lebanon.
The Syrians who were occupying Lebanon at that time and fully controlling its
government, did not allow the Lebanese Army to deploy in the south and fill this
vacuum after the Israeli withdrawal. Instead Syria helped the Hezbollah militia
to militarily control the whole southern region, and even patrol the
Israeli-Lebanese border.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli army’s withdrawal was executed without
any military battles, or even minor skirmishes with Hezbollah, or the Lebanese
and Syrian armies. At the same numerous reports published in German and in other
western media facilities indicated with proves that Israel forged a secret deal
with Hezbollah and its masters, the Iranian Mullahs that mutually arranged all
details for the withdrawal.
The Syrian regime, in a bid to justify both its on going occupation of Lebanon
and the avoidance of disarming Hezbollah, came up with the “Shabaa Farms
occupation big lie” and declared Hezbollah a Liberator, alleging it had forced
Israel to withdrawal from South Lebanon. Syria, in the same camouflaging and
devious context, dictated to both its puppet Lebanese parliament and government
to declare May 25th a National Day under the tag of “Liberation & Resistance
Day”.
In reality Hezbollah did not force the Israeli withdrawal, and did not play any
role in the Liberation of the southern Lebanese region. In fact both Hezbollah
and Syria deliberately hindered and delayed the Israeli withdrawal for more than
14 years. Every time the Israelis called on the Lebanese government to engage in
a joint, serious effort under the United Nations umbrella to ensure a safe and
mutually organized withdrawal of its army from South Lebanon, the Lebanese
government refused to cooperate, did not agree to deploy its army in the south,
and accused the Israelis of plotting to divide and split the Syrian-Lebanese
joint track.
Since then, Hezbollah has been hijacking Lebanon and its people, refusing to
disarm and advocating for the annihilation of Israel. This Iranian mullahs’
terrorist army stationed in Lebanon, is viciously hiding behind labels of
resistance, liberation and religion. Hezbollah has recklessly jeopardized the
Lebanese peoples’ lives, safety, security and livelihood. It has been growing
bolder and bolder and mercilessly taking the Lebanese state and the Lebanese
people hostages through terrorism, force and organized crime.
Sadly, Hezbollah is systematically devouring Lebanon day after day, and piece by
piece, while at the same time marginalizing all its governmental institutions in
a bid to topple the Lebanese state and erect in its place a Shiite Muslim
regime, a replica of the Iranian Shiite mullahs’ fundamentalist republic.
Meanwhile the free world and Arabic countries are totally silent, indifferent,
and idly watching from far away the horrible crime unfolding without taking any
practical or tangible measures to put an end to this anti-Lebanese Syria-Iranian
scheme that is executed through their spearhead, the Hezbollah armed militia.
Who is to be blamed for Hezbollah’s current odd and bizarre status? Definitely
the Syrians who have occupied Lebanon for more than 28 years (1976-2005). During
their bloody and criminal occupation, Syria helped the Iranian Hezbollah militia
build a state within Lebanon and fully control the Lebanese Shiite community.
But also the majority of the Lebanese politicians, leaders, officials and
clergymen share the responsibility because they were subservient and acted in a
dire Dhimmitude, selfish and cowardly manner.
If these so-called Lebanese leaders had been courageous and patriotic and had
not appeased Hezbollah and turned a blind eye to all its vicious and human
rights atrocities, intimidation tactics, crimes and expansionism schemes, this
Iranian Shiite fundamentalist militia would not have been able to erect its own
mini-state in the southern suburb of Beirut, and its numerous mini-cantons in
the Bekaa Valley and the South; nor would Hezbollah have been able to build its
mighty military power, with 100 thousand militiamen, or stockpile thousand of
missiles and force the Iranian “Wilayat Al-Faqih” religious doctrine on the
Lebanese Shiite community and confiscate Lebanon’s decision making process and
freedoms.
Since Hezbollah’s emergence in 1982, these politicians have been serving their
own selfish interests and not the interests of the Lebanese people and the
nation. They went along with Hezbollah’s schemes, deluding themselves that its
militia and weaponry would remain in South Lebanon and would not turn against
them. This failure to serve the people of Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to make many
Lebanese and most of the Arab-Muslim countries through its terrorism propaganda
to blindly swallow its big lie of theatrical, faked resistance and Liberation.
Hezbollah would not have been able to refuse to disarm in 1991, like all the
other Lebanese militias in accordance to the “Taef Accord,” which called for the
disarmament of all militias. Hezbollah would not have become a state inside the
Lebanese state, and a world-wide terrorism Iranian-Syrian tool which turned
against them all after its war with Israel in year 2006 and after the UN troops
were deployed on the Lebanese – Israeli borders in accordance with the UN
Resolution 1701.
On May 7, 2008 Hezbollah invaded Sunni Western Beirut killing and injuring in
cold blood hundreds of its civilian citizens, and too attempted to take over by
force Mount Lebanon. Hezbollah’s General Secretary Sheik Hassan Nasrallah called
that day (May 7, 2008) a great and glorious victory for his resistance, and
keeps on threatening the Lebanese that a replicate of that day will take place
if they do not succumb and obey his Iranian orders.
Hezbollah is a deadly dragon that the Lebanese politicians have been allowing
him to feed on sacrifices from the southern Lebanese citizens, especially on
those who were living in the “Security Zone” and who fled to Israel in May 2000
after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon. This dragon who enjoyed
devouring his southern sacrifices has now turned on all the Lebanese and if they
do not stand for their rights and dignity, he will keep on devouring them all
one after the other.
We call on the Lebanese government, the Lebanese Parliament and on all the free
and patriotic Lebanese politicians and leaders to cancel the May 25 National
Day, because it is not national at all, and also to stop calling Hezbollah a
resistance, put an end for its mini-state, cantons and weaponry, and secure a
dignified, honorable and safe return for all the Lebanese citizens who have been
taking refuge in Israel since May 2000.
كلود حجار: هذه هي حقيقة وقائع انسحاب إسرائيل
من الجنوب عام ألفين
Lebanese should know the Truth and Nothing but the TRUTH ِall About The Israeli
Withdrwal From South Lebanon In Year 2000
Claude Hajjar, Founder of the Committee of Support for the Southerners in
Enforced Exile in Israel./May 23/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108857/%d9%83%d9%84%d9%88%d8%af-%d8%ad%d8%ac%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d9%87%d8%b0%d9%87-%d9%87%d9%8a-%d8%ad%d9%82%d9%8a%d9%82%d8%a9-%d9%88%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a6%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d9%86%d8%b3%d8%ad%d8%a7%d8%a8-%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1/
!!Lebanese should know how Our Heroes were left
behind…And this National Resistance-Liberation Fake Day should STOP!!!
In brief, this is how it happened:
On May 23rd, Israeli Defense Forces started withdrawing from the Security Zone
in Southern Lebanon which they occupied since 1982.
On May 25th, Under Death Threats, South Lebanese National Army with thousands of
Civilians were Forced to Exile and Flee to Israel.
On May 26th, Hezbollah, the Iranian Terrorist Organization and Drug Cartel,
Invaded “almost” an Empty South but then,… the rest of Lebanon until this day.
The Southerners in Enforced Exile are entitled, like any other citizen, to file
a Defamation Complaint against the Government who FALSELY accused them of
Treason when in fact they were officially assigned in the South by the Ministry
of Defense. This accusation was fabricated on Syrian-Palestinian coalition &
then Hezbollah-Iran’s demand to legally attack them, kill them and invade the
South. The car side bombs were Hezbollah’s favorites.
When the Israeli Government announced their withdrawal, Hezbollah-Iran
threatened the Southerners with Death, on live TV and later on, Invaded their
lands in the South.
These Southerners should be largely compensated, including the late Amer
Fakhoury.
But first, they should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor for all the
services they Heroically fulfilled at the risk of their Lives, above and beyond
the call of duty, specially when in real they were left behind by their own
coward / traitor government, from 1976 to May 2000
For now, and as a founder of the Committee, I would advise them to return to
their homeland only when Lebanon will be totally liberated, otherwise they will
face the same destiny, Missing or Torture/Death as Amer Fakhoury, Ramez Boulos
or Abu Samira,… and many others.
Justice should and will Prevail!!
GOD Bless them, GOD BLESS LEBANON
Lebanon crippled by electricity, water outages
Najia Houssari/Arab News/May 24, 2022
Crisis-hit country has exhausted its oil stocks, with a tanker arriving at the
end of the week
The Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Establishment has announced that it has been
“reluctantly forced” to subject the locations to “severe and harsh” water
rationing
BEIRUT: Lebanon has been plunged into darkness after oil stocks in the country’s
last functional power plant in Deir Ammar ran out on Tuesday morning.
Lebanon exhausted its oil stock, which it imports from Iraq, during the
parliamentary elections to ensure power was maintained during the electoral
process. The country has to wait for an oil tanker to arrive at the end of the
week, then wait some more until the oil is tested before it can be unloaded.
Elsewhere, the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Establishment has announced that
it has been “reluctantly forced” to subject the locations to “severe and harsh”
water rationing.
The shortage of diesel, the steady rise in prices and the extensive power cuts
are hindering pumping stations from providing water supply, the authorities
said, warning of further deterioration. The water establishment added that
should any pumping station go out of service, securing the needed funds to
repair it would be close to impossible.
The Lebanese have for many years provided alternatives to the basic state
services, including a mass market for power generators. However, hundreds of
thousands can no longer afford any of these alternatives.
On Tuesday, the local currency hit a new record low, trading at 34,100 Lebanese
pounds to the dollar on the black market.
Pharmacy owners staged a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Health on Tuesday to
demand “implementing the laws of delivering medicines to pharmacies and fighting
the phenomenon of smuggling drugs outside Lebanon, specifically to Syria.”
Dr. Joe Salloum, head of the Pharmacists’ Syndicate, said patients are being
subjected to several types of fraud. “Some cancer patients bought medicine that
turned out to be counterfeit, while the state and the ministry fails to draw up
a solid plan to provide necessary, quality medication.”
He added: “Leaving room for smuggled and counterfeit medicine amid chaos and
fraud threatens the lives of patients, if they can even afford to buy any
medicine.”
Salloum said the whole mess could have been avoided if the medication card had
been approved two years ago. “(It looks) as if there was a plan to destroy the
entire sector, including pharmacies, importing companies, and Lebanon’s medical
identity.”
Amid the chaos, Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government has entered into
caretaker mode after failing to approve an electricity plan.
The picture in the newly elected parliament remains blurred as MPs struggle to
find ground with the new reformist MP surge.
Mikati revealed that Energy Minister Walid Fayyad deliberately obstructed the
offers submitted by General Electric and Siemens in agreement with international
groups to supply Lebanon with electricity at a reasonable price.
Mikati said Fayyad withdrew the file from the Cabinet’s agenda 15 minutes before
the final session was held on May 21, claiming the offers needed “further
reviewing.”
Mikati insisted on pursuing the issue and asked Fayyad “to dare to name the
person who asked him to withdraw the file from the Cabinet’s agenda and why,” in
an indirect reference to Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement.
“The government had decided to negotiate with four international companies,
namely Ensaldo, Mitsubishi, General Electric and Siemens on the possibility of
providing Lebanon with generators needed to produce 24-hour electricity
permanently,” Mikati said, adding: “General Electric and Siemens, in agreement
with international groups, made offers to supply Lebanon with electricity before
next summer at a very reasonable price, even about the price of gas for energy
production, and we simply needed to draw up the terms of reference following the
applicable laws.”
A source close to Mikati said: “The cost of preparing the terms of reference was
agreed upon with the French side but without any warning. President Michel
Aoun’s political team decided to withdraw the file from the Cabinet’s agenda in
refusal to record achievement in securing electricity for a government in which
the FPM is not directly present.”
Aoun’s meeting on Tuesday with Anne Grillo, the French ambassador to Lebanon,
focused on the upcoming elections and the Lebanese-French cooperation in all
fields. Grillo conveyed French President Emmanuel Macron’s continued support for
Lebanon and its people.
During the Fifth Saudi-Lebanese Cultural Forum, held on Monday evening at the
residence of Walid Bukhari, the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, he spoke about
Mufti Sheikh Hassan Khaled, who was assassinated in an explosion targeting his
convoy on May 16, 1989.
“His assassination was a prelude to the assassination of all of Lebanon, which
is experiencing difficult circumstances, foremost of which is the targeting of
its Arab identity and its relationship with its Arab environment.”
Bukhari also mentioned the “martyrdom” of Lebanon and the Arab world regarding
the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
“We know Sheikh Khaled would be happy with the results of the honorable
elections and the downfall of all symbols of treachery, betrayal, death and
hate,” Bukhari said.
Speaking at the forum, Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian stressed
the comprehensive role that Sheikh Khaled played “so that the political quorum
and Beirut remain standing, lest the divisions of the war affect the relations
between Muslims and Christians, the sons of one nation.”
Election of speaker of parliament to test new balance of
power in Lebanon
The Arab Weekly/May 24/2022
Hezbollah and Amal are expected to try to hold on to Nabih Berri as speaker of
parliament for a seventh consecutive term.
Analysts in Beirut expect the forthcoming vote for parliamentary speaker to be
the first real test of the balance of power in Lebanon's new legislature, as
calls rise especially, among newcomers, for the removal of Nabih Berri as
speaker.
Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament
in the May 15 general election. The Lebanese Forces made strong progress winning
19 seats, ahead of Hezbollah’s main Christian allied party, the Free Patriotic
Movement, which holds 17 seats, a drop of three seats since the previous vote.
Despite the setback, Hezbollah and its main Shia ally, the Amal group of
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, retained the 27 seats allocated to the Shia
sect.
Eighty-four-year-old Berri, has held the speakership for six full and
uninterrupted sessions of parliament. He is considered among the main pillars of
the political class against which the Lebanese demanding change have revolted.
Political analysts say that many of the new MPs are looking for a change that
begins with the choice of a new speaker of parliament, but the task will not be
that easy. Berri is the only candidate nominated by the Shia duo represented by
Hezbollah and the Amal movement.
The analysts are however wary of the risk that the non-election of Berri may
spark a costly sectarian battle. It could also lead to the disruption of the
rest of the process, including the selection of the prime minister and the
formation of the new government.
But the choice of Berri for a seventh term in office will constitute a negative
message for those looking for change in Lebanon, who will not be willing to
accept the continuation of the status quo ante.
Berri on the other hand is unlikely to retract his candidacy and propose an
alternative contender for the speaker’s office as a way of ending the
controversy.
Hezbollah itself is expected to hold on to Berri as it considers his presence as
speaker a guarantee of its continued influence in the face of internal and
external pressures, which are expected to increase after the results of the
parliamentary vote.
Several winning factions in the elections, such as the Lebanese Forces (LF),
have already declared their intent not to vote for Berri.
The head of the LF, Samir Geagea, said on Sunday, "We are facing a major
showdown to get Lebanon out of its current predicament and the first step begins
with the elections of the speaker of parliament." He reaffirmed that his party
"will not vote" for Berri.
Observers believe that the very disparate nature of the legislators demanding
change could serve Hezbollah's quest for continued control of the levers of the
political process in the country.
Towards this end, Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement, are jockeying to
win over a number of independents to their side. Observers point out that
despite the announcement by some ten independents and the LF that they do not
intend to elect Berri to head the parliament, this number remains insufficient.
Even if there is a parliamentary majority against Berri, he and Hezbollah will
not yield to pressure, especially since they control all the seats of the Shia
community.
Dania Koleilat Al-Khatib, a researcher at the Issam Fares Institute at the
American University of Beirut, told "The Voice of America" website: "It is
possible that Berri will save face, by announcing his retirement and suggesting
one of his loyal men to be speaker of parliament."
But many believe that Berri and Hezbollah will not accept such a compromise,
because it will be perceived as a concession that may lead to other and more
painful retreats. The Shia duo is more likely instead to intensify its efforts
to secure support, albeit by a weak margin.
There is also speculation that parties allied with Hezbollah, such as the
Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), are pressuring Amal and Hezbollah to
name a deputy-speaker from the FPM ranks. FPM head Gebran Bassil, recently told
his supporters, "What prevents us from having other candidates to the position
of speaker of parliament? And whoever thinks of making us choose between the
positions of speaker and deputy-speaker is wrong and underestimates us.”
Although Bassil's statement angered the Amal movement, many believe that the
ongoing debate between the Free Patriotic Movement and Amal is mere manoeuvring
which the Shia duo will seek to contain. But the biggest challenge facing Berri
and Hezbollah comes from the opposition spectrum including the LF. It remains to
be seen to what extent these groupings will be willing to confront the existing
system and one of its icons, the speaker of parliament.
Parliament includes 128 deputies. Its seats are divided into 28 for
Sunnis, 28 for Shia, eight for Druze, 34 for Maronites, 14 for Orthodox, eight
for Catholics, five for Armenians, two seats for Alawites and one seat for
minorities within the Christian community.
Dollar exchange rate crosses LBP 34,000 on black market
Naharnet/May 24/2022
The dollar exchange rate crossed LBP 34,000 on the black market on Tuesday,
marking a new record high in the country’s history. The dollar was selling for
LBP 34,100 at 3:30 pm according to exchange rate apps. The exchange rate had
crossed LBP 33,000 for the first time in Lebanon’s history on January 11, 2022.
It later dropped significantly following measures by the central bank. Lebanon
is in the grip of a devastating economic crisis that has been described as one
of the worst in modern history. It imports most of its wheat and has faced
shortages over the past weeks as the war in Ukraine leads to increases in prices
of oil and food products around the world.
Tensions build up between Miqati, Fayyad over energy
files withdrawal
Naharnet/May 24/2022
Tensions have built up between caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati and
caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayyad over two electricity files that the
latter had asked to withdraw from a Cabinet session's agenda on Friday. Miqati
said in a statement Tuesday that Fayyad must be "experiencing a real crisis
within his ministry that makes him do something and its opposite."The caretaker
PM said he was surprised by a recent statement by Fayyad as he claimed that the
latter had called him and promised him to end the debate and to stop resorting
to the media. "Did the minister issue the statement himself and did he forget
what he had promised yesterday," Miqati asked, doubting if the minister is
managing the ministry's affairs himself. On Monday, Miqati had dared Fayyad to
say who asked him to withdraw the file and why. "He's trying to cover what he
did with confused statements that failed to convince the public opinion," Miqati
said. On Tuesday Fayyad responded that he took the decision on his own free will
without any dictations from anyone, daring Miqati to show the full proposal to
the public. "Let him sign it on his own responsibility," he said. Fayyad had
told al-Jadeed last week that the withdrawal of the files came after Miqati
accused him of taking too long to remove "Selaata" from the file. He said he
withdrew the consultancy agreement with French multinational electric utility
company EDF because he wanted better prices and better payment conditions.
Saudi FM: Change and Hizbullah's issue are in the
hands of the Lebanese
Naharnet/May 24/2022
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Tuesday noted that after
Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, the issue of “change” and “the issue of
Hizbullah” are “in the hands of the Lebanese.”“The Lebanese elections might be a
good step, but it is too early to say that,” the Minister said in Davos. “The
Lebanese must carry out reforms to restore the state’s rule,” Bin Farhan added.
“If the Lebanese conduct reforms, we will see what we can do,” he went on to
say. He also noted that “some progress has been made with Iran, but not in a
sufficient manner,” referring to his country’s ongoing rapprochement talks with
Tehran. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi for his part said that efforts
must be exerted to “prevent Lebanon from descending into chaos.”
Nine Lebanese banks to withdraw from Cyprus
Associated Press/May 24/2022
Nine Lebanese banks are shutting down their operations on the Mediterranean
island of Cyprus, a representative of the Cyprus Central Bank said on Tuesday.
The banks will close their branches on the island within a period of time that
will allow them to wind down operations in an orderly fashion, said the
representative, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity
because he's not allowed to discuss the matter publicly. He said the shuttering
of the branches won't adversely affect the east Mediterranean island's economy.
Total deposits and loans held by the branches on the island amount to less than
1% of the entire Cypriot banking system's deposits and loans, and the majority
of those belong to non-residents. The Cyprus Central Bank received no
explanation regarding the decision, but the closure may be a bid by Lebanese
authorities to pre-empt a potential capital flight amid the country's ongoing
economic chaos.The central bank reassured clients that all deposits below
100,000 euros were fully guaranteed.
Report: At least 60 MPs will re-elect Berri and
quorum is 'guaranteed'
Naharne/May 24/2022t
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will call next week for a session to elect a new
Speaker, sources have said. The sources told al-Liwaa newspaper, in remarks
published Tuesday, that the session will be on Tuesday or Thursday and that the
quorum is almost guaranteed.
The newspaper said a boycott is unlikely, and a minimum of 77 MPs will attend
the session, yet Berri is waiting to decide on a Deputy Speaker before calling
for the session. At least 60 MPs will vote for Berri, media reports said,
including Hizbullah, Amal, al-Marada, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Akkar
bloc and the Tashnag MPs. Sources close to Berri told al-Akhbar newspaper that
Berri will be re-elected for sure and that "there's no harm in re-electing him
without a majority."The daily added that a delegation from Amal will visit MP
Taymour Jumblat to discuss several files, including the Speaker election. As for
the Free Patriotic Movement's position, a clear announcement might be revealed
today as the bloc convenes for the first time since the parliamentary elections.
FPM chief Jebran Bassil had earlier hinted that his bloc might not vote for
Berri.
Doctors, hospitals announce two-day strike starting
Thursday
Naharnet/May 24/2022
Pharmacists protested on Tuesday in front of the Ministry of Health as they
urged authorities to issue a new pricelist for medicines. Pharmacists slammed
the smuggling of medicines that could be falsified. They said the citizens are
forced to purchase these smuggled medicines as they are missing in pharmacies.
Pharmacies will be closed on Tuesday until p.m. Meanwhile, the syndicates of
doctors in Beirut and in the North, along with private hospitals also announced
a general strike on Thursday and Friday, to protest "the Central Bank's policies
against public depositors, doctors, health sector workers and hospitals." Head
of the private hospitals syndicate Suleiman Haroun said that hospitals are not
allowed to receive the complete fees in-cash while they are obliged to secure
cash money to cover their expenses. "The Ministry of Health, the Social Security
and others pay their bills through bank transfers, that hospitals cannot benefit
from," Haroun said. "Around 3,000 doctors and 3,000 nurses have left the country
because of the banks unfair measures," said head of Doctors Syndicate Sharaf Bou
Sharaf. He added that the banks are not accepting check payments, imposing
unreasonable commissions and making the doctors' work difficult, pushing them to
emigrate. Doctors and hospitals on Thursday and Friday will only receive urgent
cases and kidney dialysis patients.
Sayyed after meeting Aoun: Presidency powers can't be ceded to caretaker govt.
Naharnet/May 24/2022
MP Jamil al-Sayyed held talks Tuesday at the Baabda Palace with President Michel
Aoun.
“The continuation of the caretaker government until the presidential elections
is a conspiracy against the people, the President and the presidential tenure,”
Sayyed said after the meeting. “The presidency’s powers cannot be ceded to a
caretaker government,” the lawmaker added.
Arslan reacts after Bukhari hails 'fall of betrayal
and treason icons'
Naharnet/May 24/2022
Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan on Tuesday decried “a black point
in the history of Saudi diplomacy,” in response to remarks by Saudi Ambassador
to Lebanon Walid Bukhari about the pro-Syria politicians who lost their seats in
the latest parliamentary elections.
“We have always been accustomed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a backer of
Lebanon and all Lebanese throughout history, and no matter how much
circumstances changed, it maintained its cordial rhetoric toward us,” Arslan
said in a statement. Bukhari had on Monday hosted at his residence a ceremony
commemorating slain Grand Mufti Sheikh Hassan Khaled, who assassinated in 1989.
“Mufti Hassan Khaled’s assassination was a prelude to the assassination of
entire Lebanon, which is living difficult days at all levels, topped by its Arab
identity and its relations with its Arab neighborhood,” Bukhari said. “I
announce to Mufti Hassan Khaled the good news of the honorable elections results
and the fall of all the icons of betrayal, treason, death and hatred,” the
ambassador added, apparently referring to Arslan, Wiam Wahhab, Asaad Hardan,
Elie Ferzli and Faisal Karami.
Young Lebanese voters shake grip of traditional parties
Agence France Presse/May 24/2022
Lebanese law student Charbel Chaaya spent the election campaign distributing
flyers in Beirut and trying to convince his parents to vote for independents to
shake the grip of established parties. The 21-year-old activist is one of many
young voters who went against their parents' political views, and helped propel
at least 13 independents to parliament last week for the first time in decades.
"My parents think I'm too idealistic, that this country will never change," he
said, adding that his father voted for a traditional Christian party, the
Lebanese Forces. "There is a generational gap," Chaaya said. "Our generation
knows that sectarian and traditional politics simply don't work anymore."Chaaya
is part of a new generation seeking a progressive approach to politics, blaming
established parties dating from Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war for an economic
meltdown that has pushed thousands to flee the country. This has widened a
generational gap between young people voting for change and an older generation
often attached to civil war-era parties. Hizbullah and its allies fell just
short of the 65 seats needed to control the 128-seat parliament, losing their
clear-cut majority. This time, the May 15 polls brought in a record number of
independents to parliament, totaling a small but significant tenth of the
assembly.
'Different language' -
Chaaya headed his university's secular club, one of dozens of political groups
bringing together young supporters of a mass protest movement that began in
October 2019. In his Chouf-Aley district, southeast of Beirut, voters ousted
Hizbullah ally Talal Arslan in favor of independent newcomer Mark Daou, a
university lecturer and advertising professional. A massive number of those
campaigning for his list were young people in their twenties, Daou said. "We
speak a different language than the traditional parties, that's why people like
us," said Daou. "We don't speak in sectarian terms."Lebanon shares power among
its 18 recognized religious communities, and politics are often treated as a
family business. This was a clear break from voting patterns in Lebanon, where
each community usually supports politicians from their own religious sect.
Polling expert Rabih Haber of Statistics Lebanon said that while voter data
could not be broken down by age, on social media young people seemed to express
far greater support for independent candidates than established parties.
Newly-elected independent MP Elias Jrade, a 54-year-old Harvard-educated
ophthalmologist, said most voters who came up to him were young people from
different political backgrounds. "All those who came to our tents and said they
voted for us were young men and women, from different regions, religions and
political backgrounds," Jrade said. He was one of two independent MPs who
snatched seats from allies of the powerful Hizbullah in its south Lebanon
strongholds. The independent MPs are mostly university professors and respected
professionals who entered politics after the 2019 mass protests.
'Space to have a conversation' -
Karl, a 30-year-old Beirut resident, went against his parents' wishes and voted
for an independent in the country's south, after growing disillusioned with the
Christian Free Patriotic Movement of President Michel Aoun. Karl, asking that
only his first name be used, said that there is a trend of younger people voting
for independents, despite their limited gains in the south. "At the same time
the older generation is also transmitting its own war trauma to their children,"
he said. On his way to vote in his hometown, Karl passed by the southern town of
Ghazieh, where he saw children chanting slogans and bearing flags for Hizbullah
and Amal. The scene was emblematic of the tight hold the two groups have in
south Lebanon, where independents are often threatened and intimidated,
according to observers and rights groups. Sami, 21, who also asked for his first
name to be used, said he had failed to dissuade his parents from voting for
Hizbullah and Amal. "I thought I had convinced my mother, but in the end there
is always something that pulls her back to her beliefs," he said, a common
complaint among young voters AFP spoke to. But Sami said he was cautiously
optimistic about the independents' modest victory in the south. "Our region was
monochrome, there was no space for debate on alternatives to these parties,"
Sami said. "This opened up, at least, some space to have a conversation."
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published
on May
24-25/2022
18 students, 3 adults killed in Texas elementary school shooting, state
senator says
Dylan Stableford/Yahoo NewsYahoo News/Tue, May 24,
2022
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-live-updates-204254215.html
At least 18 students and three adults were killed in a mass shooting at an
elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said
after he was briefed by state police. Other reports said one adult had died. The
18-year-old shooter was killed following the massacre, authorities said. The
shooting comes 10 days after 10 people were killed in a racist attack at a
Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store.
What we know so far:
• State senator Roland Gutierrez told CNN 18 children and at least one adult
were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde, a
predominantly Hispanic community located 90 minutes west of San Antonio.
• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that the shooter, an 18-year-old Uvalde resident,
was dead. Abbott said he had a handgun and possibly a rifle.
• Abbott also said the shooter reportedly shot his grandmother before entering
the school.
• The shooting comes 10 days after 10 people were killed at a grocery store in a
Black neighborhood of Buffalo, N.Y. It is the deadliest school shooting since
February 2018, when 17 people were killed in Parkland, Fla.
• President Biden is scheduled to address the nation at 8:15 p.m. ET.
In a live interview with CNN, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-Texas, said that he
was informed by officials that 18 children and three adults were killed in
Tuesday's shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Earlier, Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott said that preliminary reports indicated 14 children and one teacher had
been killed by an 18-year-old gunman. The suspect, Abbott said, is deceased.
Jill Biden: 'Stunned. Angry. Heartbroken'
First lady Jill Biden said in response to the mass shooting: "Lord, enough."
"Little children and their teacher," Biden, an educator herself, tweeted.
"Stunned. Angry. Heartbroken." Her tweet came less than an hour before President
Biden was set to speak on the shooting that left at least 14 students and one
teacher dead in Texas on Tuesday.
Texas attorney general says arming teachers 'best hope'
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is facing a challenge in Tuesday's
Republican primary from George P. Bush, told Fox News in the aftermath of the
shooting that passing gun laws wouldn't do anything to stop gun violence but
that arming school personnel might.
"We can't stop bad people from doing bad things, if they're going to violate
murder laws they're not going to follow gun laws, I've never understood that
argument," Paxton said. "But we can harden these schools, we can create points
of access that are difficult to get through. We can potentially arm and prepare
and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly because the
reality is we don't have the resources to have law enforcement at every school.
"It takes time for law enforcement, no matter how prepared, no matter how good
they are, to get there, so having the right training for some of these people at
the school is the best hope," he added. "Nothing is going to work perfectly, but
that, in my opinion, is the best answer to this problem."
Harris: 'Our hearts keep getting broken'
Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the school shooting in Texas during
remarks made on Tuesday evening at a previously scheduled event. "I would
normally say in a moment like this — we would all say, naturally, that our
hearts break," Harris said. "But our hearts keep getting broken.
"Enough is enough," she added. "As a nation, we have to have the courage to take
action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible
public policy to ensure something like this never happens again."
President Biden spoke to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the phone after the mass
shooting on Tuesday. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield
tweeted that Biden offered "any and all assistance" that the governor needs.
Pelosi: Words are 'hollow'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., released the following statement following
Tuesday's deadly mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas:
“Words are inadequate to describe the agony and outrage at the cold-blooded
massacre of little schoolchildren and a teacher at Robb Elementary School today.
This monstrous shooting stole the futures of precious children, who will never
experience the joys of graduating from school, chasing the career of their
dreams, falling in love, even starting a family of their own.
“The hearts of all Americans are broken as we pray for the families left forever
shattered and a community left forever scarred by the unspeakable grief of
losing a loved one. We also extend our sympathies to all those who have lost a
loved one to gun violence over time, as this horrible crime deepens their
suffering. “We are united in our deep gratitude for the heroes who put their
lives on the line to respond to this deadly mass shooting.
“Across the nation, Americans are filled with righteous fury in the wake of
multiple incomprehensible mass shootings in the span of just days. This a crisis
of existential proportions — for our children and for every American. For too
long, some in Congress have offered hollow words after these shootings while
opposing all efforts to save lives. It is time for all in Congress to heed the
will of the American people and join in enacting the House-passed bipartisan,
commonsense, life-saving legislation into law.”
Analysis: Subtle shift in US rhetoric suggests new Iran
approach
Reuters/24 May ,2022
A subtle shift in official US statements suggests Washington believes reviving
the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is better than the alternatives despite the advances
in Iran's nuclear program, diplomatic and other sources said. For months, the
Biden administration argued there would soon come a point where the
non-proliferation benefits of a revived deal - its ability to limit Iran's
headway toward a nuclear bomb - would be outweighed by the progress of Iran's
atomic program. “You can't revive a dead corpse,” Rob
Malley, the lead US negotiator, said on Oct. 25.
Under the agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and
struck by Iran and six major powers, Tehran limited its nuclear program to make
it harder for it to get a bomb in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.
Tehran has long said its program is for peaceful purposes. Then-US President
Donald Trump reneged on the accord in 2018 and reimposed harsh US sanctions,
prompting Iran to begin violating the nuclear limits a year later. US President
Joe Biden has tried to revive the pact through indirect talks in Vienna, so far
without success.
On Feb. 28, two weeks before the talks unraveled, State Department spokesman Ned
Price said: “We will need to have additional clarity in the coming days given
that we are at this decisive ... moment, knowing that Tehran's nuclear
advancements will soon render the non-proliferation benefits that the JCPOA
conveyed essentially meaningless.”Others have used various analogies to describe
the urgency, saying the runway was limited, the clock ticking and the window
closing.
US interests
However, Price and other US officials have since put less emphasis on time
running out and more on their only reviving the deal if it were in the US
national security interest. “We're going to test the proposition of a mutual
return to compliance with the JCPOA for as long as doing so remains in our
interests,” Price said on April 26. “As long as the non-proliferation benefits
that a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA brings is better than what we
have now, that will likely be an outcome that's in our interest.” The phrase
about reviving the deal only if it was in the US national interest has been used
before, including by Price on Jan. 4, but its renewed emphasis and the
diminished stress on time dwindling is a shift. “That's a profound rewriting of
the non-proliferation standard,” said one source familiar with the matter. “What
he is basically saying is that it's not (a question of) whether or not it is
providing us benefits equal to the previous JCPOA experience. It's just saying
that it's better than today. And 'better than today' is a looser standard.”
Dennis Ross, a former US diplomat who handled Iran policy for the Obama
White House for two years, concurred. “The formulation is now 'it's still in our
national security interest to have this' given the alternatives,” Ross said.
“This is an agreement where the breakout time will not be what it once was,
because of the advances in the program, but this is still better than the
alternatives available to us,” he said. “That's the essence of where they
are.”Breakout time is how long it would take Iran to acquire the fissile
material for one bomb if it decided to. The accord stretched this to about a
year but it is now down to weeks, US officials say. The State Department has not
provided a response addressing Reuters questions.
Options
Despite talk of “Plan B” options to address Iran's nuclear program if the deal
cannot be revived, there are few good ones. Ross said alternatives include
intensified economic pressure on Iran as well as US or Israeli military action
to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. None appeals to Washington, so it is still
trying to revive the deal. “Plan B is basically what plan A was,” Ross said.
Ross argued Washington now believes restoring some of the deal's limits,
such as its 3.67% cap on the purity to which Iran can enrich uranium and the a
202.8-kg limit on its enriched uranium stock, was better than the alternative.
According to a March 3 International Atomic Energy Agency report, Iran was
enriching uranium to 60% purity and its stock of enriched uranium stood at 3.2
tonnes. Talks broke down in March largely because of
Tehran's demand Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
from a US terrorism list and the US refusal to do so, arguing that this was
outside the scope of reviving the deal. The European
Union's foreign policy chief on May 13 said he believed EU envoy, Enrique Mora,
who coordinates the talks, made enough progress on a visit to Tehran that week
to restart discussions. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said
the visit was a chance to explore settling the remaining issues. “A good and
reliable agreement is within reach if the United States makes a political
decision and adheres to its commitments,” he said.
After Mora's visit a European diplomatic source said neither side had committed
to resume talks and finding a compromise on the IRGC remained improbable, if not
impossible. “The Americans were very vocal two months
ago saying time is running out and we have to get a deal,” said this source.
“But since March ... they don't seem to be in a hurry anymore.”
A Western diplomatic source said whether reviving the deal was worthwhile was
ultimately a political decision. “This is a political judgment,” this source
said. “The deal has already lost its core benefits, but you can always argue
that there are some things that make it more beneficial than nothing.”
Thousands attend funeral for slain Guard colonel in Iran
AP/May 24, 2022
TEHRAN, Iran: Thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Tehran on Tuesday
to pay their respects to a senior Revolutionary Guard member fatally shot by two
gunmen on a motorcycle earlier this week, punching the air with their fists and
chanting “Death to Israel.”
The killing on Sunday of Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei bore the hallmarks of
previous deadly shooting attacks in Iran blamed on Israel, such as those
targeting the country’s nuclear scientists. There has
been no claim of responsibility for the attack. Iranian officials have blamed
“global arrogance,” which is code for the United States and Israel, for
Khodaei’s killing. The funeral procession snaked
through the main Tehran cemetery as mourners shouted anti-US and anti-Israel
slogans. A prominent poster hailed Khodaei as a martyr along with Gen. Qassem
Soleimani, the top Iranian general killed in a US drone strike in 2020 in Iraq,
and featured tattered Israeli, American and British flags.
“Iran is a victim of terrorism,” the banner declared, overlaid with the
logos of the Mossad and Central Intelligence Agency.
Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami as well as Gen. Esmail Ghaani, leader of
Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force, attended the funeral.
Ghaani also offered condolences at Khodaei’s home on Monday night. Iran’s
nuclear negotiator visited the crime scene, underscoring the government’s shock.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed revenge. A street in Tehran has already
been named after the colonel.
The 50-year-old Khodaei remains a shadowy figure, and Iran has yet to offer
biographic detail beyond saying that he was a member of the elite Quds Force
that oversees operations abroad through Iran’s allied militias across the Middle
East. The Guard has described him as “defender of the shrine” — a reference to
Iranians who support militias fighting the extremist Daesh group in Syria and
Iraq. The manner of the slaying evoked previous targeted attacks by Israel in
Iran. In November 2020, a top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was
killed while traveling in a car outside Tehran. Women in black chadors wailed
and wept over Khodaei’s coffin, an ornate box covered with flowers and draped
with the Iranian flag and mourning symbols of the Shiite faith.
“We want revenge only,” Moghtaderi, one of the mourners, told The Associated
Press at the funeral. She gave only her last name. “Enemies must be aware that
we are loyal to the martyrs and their blood is so precious to us.”Iranian
security forces are still pursuing the assailants, who escaped, state media
reported. Authorities have yet to make any arrests over the killing.
The procession took place as a sandstorm blanketed Iran, shuttering
schools and government offices in the capital. Meanwhile in the country’s
central desert, a fighter jet crashed during a training exercise, killing two
pilots, state media reported. Reports did not identify the cause of the crash at
the Anarak training site near the central city of Isfahan. An investigation was
underway. Iran’s air force has an assortment of
US-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It also
has Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi planes.
Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to obtain spare parts and
maintain the aging aircraft. Crashes occasionally happen among its faltering
fleet. In February, a fighter jet plunged into a soccer pitch in the country’s
northwestern city of Tabriz, killing both pilots and a civilian.
Iran is believed to have modeled its F-7 fighter after China’s jet J-7
that is considered a copy of the Soviet-era MiG-21. Beijing built the aircraft
for export to countries including Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and North Korea. Iranian
pilots for years have used the F-7 for training, with some mishaps.
Four years ago, an F-7 similarly crashed near Isfahan during an aerial
exercise because of what was later described as a technical problem.
Ukraine's intelligence chief 'fully confirms' Putin has cancer
Kate Buck/Yahoo News UK/ May 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin has cancer but won't "die tomorrow", a Ukrainian intelligence
official has reportedly claimed. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main
Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, told
Ukrainian news outlet Pravda that the Russian president has "several illnesses".
He told the outlet: "Yes, we fully confirm this information, that Putin has
cancer. "He has several serious illnesses, one of which is cancer. "But it’s not
worth hoping that Putin will die tomorrow. He still has at least a few years
left. Whether we like it or not, that’s the truth."Putin's state of mind has
been repeatedly questioned in recent months following his order for his soldiers
to invade Ukraine. His health has also come under renewed scrutiny, with a
former MI6 operative Christopher Steele telling talk radio station LBC that
Putin has to take regular breaks from meetings to seek medical treatment. He
said: "Our understanding is that there's increasing disarray in the Kremlin and
chaos."There's no clear political leadership coming from Putin, who is
increasingly ill, and in military terms, the structures of command and so on are
not functioning as they should."He added: "What we do know is that he's
constantly accompanied around the place by a team of doctors."Government
meetings, of which many are televised, are having to be broken into sections due
to Putin's health, Steele claimed. "It's certainly having a very serious impact
on the governance of Russia at the moment." Last month, questions around Putin;s
health increased when a video from February showed him “shaking uncontrollably”
during a meeting with Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. That
followed a report by a Russian investigative journalism group that Putin had
been visited by a cancer surgeon dozens of times over a four-year period. Moscow
has not formally responded to rumours about Putin's health. However, in November
2020, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected widely reported claims that the
Russian President had Parkinson's disease and was poised to quit. “It’s absolute
nonsense,” Peskov said. “Everything is fine with the president.”It has been
three months since Russian troops attempted to take control, but in that time
Putin's troops have made limited gains - with Ukrainian authorities claiming
almost 30,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in that time. It was reported
earlier this week that Putin was able to survive an assassination attempt two
months ago. Budanov said there was an “unsuccessful” attempt against the Kremlin
leader’s life at the start of Russia’s brutal invasion of its neighbour. "This
is nonpublic information. Absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really took
place. … It was about two months ago.”Western officials are reportedly skeptical
of the assassination claim.
Spain can solve the problem of Europe's reliance on Russian
natural gas, its prime minister says
Pedro Sanchez/ Business Insider/Tue, May 24, 2022
Spain's prime minister spotlighted his country as the "answer" to the EU's
reliance on Russian gas. He noted Spain is home to
half 37% of the EU's capacity for turning LNG into natural gas.
Oil and natural gas prices have been flying as the EU considers an oil
embargo on Russian imports.
Spain has the answer to Europe's problem of finding an alternative to Russian
gas, its prime minister has said. The European Union believes it is facing a
coming supply shock, as President Vladimir Putin uses its reliance on Russian
supply to counter the bloc's economic sanctions over Ukraine.
"Spain and the Iberian peninsula — and I would say Southern Europe — we have a
chance to provide an answer to this energy dependence on Russian fossil energy,"
Sanchez told CNBC on Monday. Sanchez pointed out that his country has 37% of the
EU's total capacity for regasification — the process by which liquefied natural
gas is converted back to natural gas — and the Iberian peninsula concentrates
close to 50% of that LNG extract for the EU. "The only
problem that we have is the interconnections. That is why I think it was very
important that the commission made a clear statement that we need to increase
and to intensify the interconnections from the Iberian peninsula with the
European energy market," he said. The EU usually gets
40% of its natural gas needs fulfilled by Russia, which is the region's biggest
supplier, alongside Norway, Algeria and others, according to official figures.
The 27-member bloc has come under pressure to halt its imports of gas and oil
from Russia, to stop the flow of revenue to Moscow. But its dependence on gas
supplies make it difficult to turn off the spigot without risking economic harm.
Russia cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria in April, after the countries
refused to bow to President Vladimir Putin's decree that payments must be made
in rubles — a move the European Commission's chief has described as "an
instrument of blackmail". After that move, the
commission told EU member states to prepare for a supply shock and full
disruption of Russian gas supplies, Euractiv reported. Sanchez also noted that
Spain has a "very strong presence in renewables," which he believes are more
competitive than gas. "Renewable energy, hydrogen
energy efficiency, is not only a great ally for countries and economies to
tackle climate-change efforts, but also — in this very complex and very
uncertain geopolitical scenario — that will provide us means to increase our
resilience and autonomy," he said. Spain was recently
embroiled in a spat with Algeria after it re-exported gas to Morocco. The move
came as Algeria cut ties with Morocco last year after accusing the country of
hostile actions.
Oil and natural gas prices have skyrocketed in the wake of Russia's invasion of
Ukraine, as Western allies placed sanctions on Moscow. The EU is now looking to
come to agreement on an embargo on Russian oil imports, following similar bans
by the US and UK. Asked whether the embargo will come soon, Sanchez was
optimistic. "We are now negotiating the second batch of economic sanctions, but
I believe we will have that agreement soon," he said. "This is something that of
course is going to cost us, and is already doing so, because we are suffering
through this hike of gas and oil and electricity prices."
Israel says 5 Palestinians arrested in alleged attack plots
Associated Press/May 24/2022
Israeli authorities said Tuesday they have foiled a wide-ranging plot by
Palestinian militant Hamas group to shoot a member of parliament, kidnap
soldiers and bomb Jerusalem's light rail system during a surge of violence that
has left dozens dead in recent weeks. The police and Shin Bet security services
said in a statement that five Palestinian men from east Jerusalem had been
arrested for allegedly planning a shooting attack against far-right lawmaker
Itamar Ben-Gvir and other targets at a time of heightened tensions in the
flashpoint city. The suspects, authorities said, had planned the attacks last
month, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, to "destabilize" the area around
the Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Jews as the Temple Mount. Authorities said a drone
was found, intended to be armed and used in an attack on Jerusalem's light rail,
which sees daily crowds of commuters and tourists. They identified the plot
leaders as Hamas militants Rashid Rashak and Mansur Tzafadi, who "delivered many
fireworks, flags and Hamas videos" to east Jerusalem neighborhoods last month
during Ramadan. Security forces also seized a camera to be used to photograph
"abductees," cash and other equipment. The statement did not say how close they
came to carrying out the plot. There was no immediate comment from Hamas. The
arrests came at a time of heightened violence between Palestinian demonstrators
and Israeli police in east Jerusalem, much of it concentrated at a contested
holy site. Israel also has stepped up military activity in the occupied West
Bank in recent weeks in response to a series of deadly attacks inside Israel.
Next week, Israeli ultranationalists plan to march through the main Muslim
thoroughfare of the Old City. The march is meant to celebrate Israel's capture
of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel subsequently annexed the area
in a step that is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim east
Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. Also inflaming tensions is the death
of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh during a firefight in Jenin. A
reconstruction by The Associated Press lends support to assertions from both
Palestinian authorities and Abu Akleh's colleagues that the bullet that cut her
down came from an Israeli gun. Any conclusive answer is likely to prove elusive
due to the severe distrust between the two sides, each of which is in sole
possession of potentially crucial evidence.
More hardship as new sandstorm engulfs parts of
Middle East
Associated Press/May 24/2022
A sandstorm blanketed parts of the Middle East on Monday, including Iraq, Syria
and Iran, sending people to hospitals and disrupting flights in some places. It
was the latest in a series of unprecedented nearly back-to-back sandstorms this
year that have bewildered residents and raised alarm among experts and
officials, who blame climate change and poor governmental regulations. From
Riyadh to Tehran, bright orange skies and a thick veil of grit signaled yet
another stormy day Monday. Sandstorms are typical in late spring and summer,
spurred by seasonal winds. But this year they have occurred nearly every week in
Iraq since March. Iraqi authorities declared the day a national holiday, urging
government workers and residents to stay home in anticipation of the 10th storm
to hit the country in the last two months. The Health Ministry stockpiled
canisters of oxygen at facilities in hard-hit areas, according to a statement.
The storms have sent thousands to hospitals and resulted in at least one death
in Iraq and three in Syria's east. "Its a region-wide issue but each country has
a different degree of vulnerability and weakness," said Jaafar Jotheri, a
geoarchaeologist at the University of Al-Qadisiyah in Baghdad.
In Syria, medical departments were put on alert as the sandstorm hit the eastern
province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq, Syrian state TV said. Earlier this
month, a similar storm in the region left at least three people dead and
hundreds were hospitalized with breathing problems.
Dr. Bashar Shouaybi, head of the Health Ministry's office in Deir el-Zour, told
state TV that hospitals were prepared and ambulances were on standby. He said
they have acquired an additional 850 oxygen tanks and medicine needed to deal
with patients who have asthma.
Severe sandstorms have also blanketed parts of Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
this month. For the second time this month, Kuwait International Airport
suspended all flights Monday because of the dust. Video showed largely empty
streets with poor visibility.
Saudi Arabia's meteorological association reported that visibility would drop to
zero on the roads in Riyadh, the capital, this week. Officials warned drivers to
go slowly. Emergency rooms in the city were flooded with 1,285 patients this
month complaining they couldn't breathe properly.
Iran last week shut down schools and government offices in the capital of Tehran
over a sandstorm that swept the country. It hit hardest in the nation's
southwest desert region of Khuzestan, where over 800 people sought treatment for
breathing difficulties. Dozens of flights out of western Iran were canceled or
delayed. Blame over the dust storms and heavy air pollution has mounted, with a
prominent environmental expert telling local media that climate change, drought
and government mismanagement of water resources are responsible for the increase
in sandstorms. Iran has drained its wetlands for farming -- a common practice
known to produce dust in the region. Alireza Shariat, the head of an association
of Iranian water engineers, told Iran's semiofficial ILNA news agency last month
that he expected extensive dust storms to become an "annual springtime
phenomenon" in a way Iran has never seen before.
In Iraq, desertification exacerbated by record-low rainfall is adding to the
intensity of storms, said Jotheri, the geoarchaeologist. In a low-lying country
with plenty of desert regions, the impact is almost double, he said. "Because of
17 years of mismanagement of water and urbanization, Iraq lost more than two
thirds of its green cover," he said. "That is why Iraqis are complaining more
than their neighbors about the sandstorms in their areas."
UAE firm inks airport deal as Afghanistan eyes
international flights
Agence France Presse/May 24/2022
A United Arab Emirates company signed a contract with the Taliban authorities
Tuesday to provide ground handling services at Afghanistan's three airports,
officials said, as the country seeks to resume international transit. Capital
Kabul's only airport was trashed in August when tens of thousands of people
rushed to evacuate as the US-led forces withdrew. While some domestic and
international flights are still operating out of the facility, it needs
significant upgrades for major foreign airlines to restart full service. The
full operation of Kabul airport is crucial for reviving Afghanistan's shattered
economy. But no country has yet formally recognized the Taliban government, with
nations watching to see how the Islamists -– notorious for human rights abuses
during their 1996-2001 stint in power -– will rule. UAE firm GAAC, which was
previously operating in Afghanistan, signed a new 18-month contract covering
three airports: Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. "The current contract is only for
offering ground handling services," Hameedullah Akhundzada, Minister of
Transport and Civil Aviation said at a press conference. GAAC has provided these
services at Kabul airport since November 2020, and played a key role in
rehabilitating the facility in August. "We are not a new face here," Ibrahim
Morafi, regional director of GAAC, told AFP. "But GAAC signing the new contract
will give confidence to international airlines to resume flights to
Afghanistan," he said, without specifying when such flights -- including from
the UAE -- were expected to resume. A Qatar-Turkey consortium has been in talks
with the aviation ministry for months over operating airports at Kabul,
Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and Khost. But the talks snagged as the Taliban
insisted its fighters will guard the facilities. Qatar and Turkey want a say in
managing security, at least at Kabul airport, experts tracking the negotiations
say. On Tuesday, Afghan officials refused to comment on whether the consortium
was still open to operating the five airports. GAAC officials also declined to
comment on whether its new ground handling contract would be expanded into other
services. Currently, two Afghan airlines -- Kam Air and Ariana Afghan -- fly to
Dubai, Doha, Islamabad, and Tehran from Kabul airport. Iran's Mahan Air also
operates flights to Kabul.
Abu Dhabi says 2 killed, 120 injured in gas cylinder
blast
Associated Press/May 24/2022
A gas cylinder explosion in the capital of the United Arab Emirates has killed
two people and injured 120 others, police said, hours after authorities
downplayed the incident and warned the public not to share images of the
aftermath. The explosion struck a restaurant just after 1 p.m. in Abu Dhabi's
Khalidiya neighborhood, just a few blocks from the capital's beachfront
corniche. Initially, Abu Dhabi police vaguely referred to damage and injuries,
showing pictures of glass and debris littering the street. Six hours later in a
tweet, Abu Dhabi police offered the casualties — 64 people with "minor
injuries," 56 with "moderate injuries" and two people killed. "The injured were
transferred to the hospital to receive necessary health care, with material
damage to shops and facades of six buildings," the police said. They described
an investigation into the blast as ongoing. State-owned and state-linked media
in Abu Dhabi also initially downplayed the blast as only damaging the facades of
nearby shops in the neighborhood. Abu Dhabi police had warned the public against
sharing any footage of the blast's aftermath in the country with strict laws on
speech. Already, authorities have threatened criminal charges against those who
broadcast images of attacks on the country following a series of drone attacks
on the capital by Yemen's Houthi rebels. The National, an English-language,
state-linked newspaper in Abu Dhabi, described the explosion as striking an
unnamed restaurant after 1 p.m. Monday near the Shining Towers complex, a local
landmark. The UAE, a federation of seven desert sheikhdoms on the Arabian
Peninsula, does face seasonal fires brought on by the intense heat that bakes
this nation each summer. Temperatures hit 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees
Fahrenheit) on Monday. In February, authorities say a similar gas cylinder
explosion struck the capital at the height of concerns over the Houthi attacks.
Turkey's Erdogan threatens new incursion into Syria
Associated Press/May 24/2022
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to launch a new military
operation in Syria to secure Turkey's southern border. Speaking following a
Cabinet meeting, Erdogan said the aim of the operation would be resume Turkish
efforts to create a 30-kilometer (20 mile) safe zone along its border with
Syria. "We will soon take new steps regarding the incomplete portions of the
project we started on the 30-km deep safe zone we established along our southern
border," Erdogan said. Erdogan did not provide further details but said the
operation would begin after Turkey's military, intelligence and security forces
complete their preparations. Turkish forces have launched three major incursions
into northern Syria, taking control of areas along the border in a bid to secure
its frontier from threats from the Islamic State group and Kurdish militia
group, the People's Protection Units, or YPG. Turkey views the group as an
extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK which is listed as a
terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The PKK has
waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. Tens of thousands of people have
died in the conflict. Erdogan's comments come at a time when Turkey is objecting
to Sweden and Finland's membership in the NATO alliance, citing the two
countries alleged support for the PKK and other groups that Turkey views as
terrorists, as well as their decision to impose restrictions on military sales
to Turkey following Ankara's incursion into Syria in 2019.
Reconstruction of Abu Akleh's killing points to
Israeli fire
Associated Press/May 24/2022
Almost two weeks after the death of the veteran Palestinian-American reporter
for Al Jazeera, a reconstruction by The Associated Press lends support to
assertions from both Palestinian authorities and Abu Akleh's colleagues that the
bullet that cut her down came from an Israeli gun.
Any conclusive answer is likely to prove elusive because of the severe distrust
between the two sides, each of which is in sole possession of potentially
crucial evidence. Multiple videos and photos taken on the morning of May 11 show
an Israeli convoy parked just up a narrow road from Abu Akleh, with a clear line
of sight. They show the reporters and other bystanders in real time taking cover
from bullets fired from the direction of the convoy. The only confirmed presence
of Palestinian militants was on the other side of the convoy, some 300 meters
(yards) away, mostly separated from Abu Akleh by buildings and walls. Israel
says at least one militant was between the convoy and the journalists, but it
has not provided any evidence or indicated the shooter's location. Palestinian
witnesses say there were no militants in the area and no gunfire until the
barrage that struck Abu Akleh and wounded another reporter.
Those witnesses say they have no doubt that it was Israeli soldiers who killed
Abu Akleh, now celebrated as a martyr to both journalism and the Palestinian
cause. The Israeli military says she was killed in a complex shootout between
soldiers and militants, and that only a full investigation — including forensic
analysis of the bullet — could prove who fired the fatal shot. The Palestinians
have refused to hand over the bullet or cooperate with Israel in any way on the
investigation, but say they will share the results of their own probe with any
other party.
Abu Akleh's death has further heightened Mideast tensions amid a wave of
violence and raised new concerns over the safety of reporters covering Israel's
nearly 55-year military occupation of the West Bank, which the Palestinians want
as the main part of their future state.
AP reporters visited the location where Abu Akleh was killed on the edge of the
Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, as well as the scene of a nearby
battle with Israeli forces captured on a video shared by Israel. Interviews with
five Palestinian eyewitnesses corroborate an analysis by the Dutch-based
Bellingcat research group indicating Israeli forces were closer to Abu Akleh and
had a better line of sight. The group, which specializes in geolocating events
in war zones by analyzing photos and video shared online, pinpointed the
location of the convoy just up a narrow road from where Abu Akleh was killed.
THE ROAD AND THE CONVOY
Reporters who were with Abu Akleh say that when they arrived at the scene it was
quiet, with no clashes or militants in the immediate area. Ali Samoudi, an Al
Jazeera producer from Jenin, said he called people inside the camp to get an
idea of what was happening. Then they proceeded to a long, narrow road sloping
up from an open area to a cluster of concrete buildings where an Israeli army
convoy was parked some 200 meters away. Each reporter was wearing a helmet and a
blue vest labeled "PRESS" in large lettering. "We stepped out into the open so
they could see us," Samoudi told the AP. "They didn't indicate that we should
leave, so we went slowly, walking forward about 20 meters." Shatha Hanaysheh, a
local photographer, said they remained there for 5 to 10 minutes, talking and
even laughing in full view of the soldiers. A video that appears to capture the
first shots supports her account. Samoudi said the soldiers fired a warning
shot, causing him to duck and run backwards. The second shot hit him in the
back. Abu Akleh was shot in the head and appears to have died instantly,
Hanaysheh sheltered on the other side of a tree next to a wall. Tree bark on the
side facing the army appears to have been chipped away by gunfire or shrapnel.
"We saw that the gunfire came from the army," Hanaysheh said. "When Ali and
Shireen and I ran for cover, we ran away from them." Sharif Azer, a local
resident who was on his way to work, heard the gunfire and ran over to help. He
can be seen in another widely shared video climbing over the wall where
Hanaysheh was taking cover and helping her to escape. Several gunshots can be
heard after Abu Akleh was killed, as people take cover on either side of the
road. When Azer moves away from the tree, shots ring out and he backs up,
indicating they are coming from the army's position. He says he could see the
soldiers pointing their guns. "They fired on us more than once. Every time
someone approached, they fired at them," he said.
A POSSIBLE SCENARIO
The Israeli military's initial inquiry into the shooting said there were two
possibilities. In the first, it said Palestinian militants on the other side of
the convoy, to the south, were recklessly firing hundreds of rounds, one of
which could have struck Abu Akleh, who was some 300 meters away. Bullets fired
from an M16 can travel well over 1,000 meters. But the military hasn't provided
any visual evidence, aside from footage of Palestinian militants firing from
another location that did not have a line of sight toward Abu Akleh. The AP did
not uncover any evidence to support this first scenario. The second scenario, at
this point, appears more plausible. Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, an army spokesman,
says there was at least one Palestinian gunman on the road between the troops
and the journalists, "in the vicinity" of Abu Akleh. That militant allegedly
fired multiple times at one of the army vehicles, and a soldier inside it
returned fire with a rifle equipped with a telescopic scope. The army's probe
has zeroed in on that rifle, Shefler said, though it still believes a stray
Palestinian bullet could have killed her. The army says it cannot provide an
answer without comparing the bullet to the weapon. "Without the possibility of
examining the bullet, the doubt remains," Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the
army's chief prosecutor, said in a speech Monday. She said that because the
killing occurred in an active combat zone, there would be no decision on whether
to open a criminal investigation until the initial probe is complete. Videos
posted on social media that day contain sounds of heavy gunfire in other parts
of Jenin, including near a house surrounded by Israeli military vehicles
conducting an arrest raid about 1.5 kilometers (a mile) away from where Abu
Akleh was shot. All of the witnesses who spoke to the AP insisted there were no
militants in the area between the reporters and the army. The area is mostly
open, but a gunman could have potentially sheltered unseen in the brush-filled
cemetery on the road's eastern side or an open-air brick factory next to where
the journalists were located. No militants can be seen in any of the videos
showing the journalists' location. The Palestinian Health Ministry says there
were no other Palestinians killed or wounded that day in Jenin. Local media also
have no record of any other Palestinian casualties. Walid Omary, who oversees Al
Jazeera's coverage of the Palestinian territories, said he had seen no evidence
of any militants between the reporters and the army. "If there was a Palestinian
militant there, why not shoot the militant? They have snipers," he said. "It's
clear to us now that they targeted Shireen."
SEPARATE INVESTIGATIONS
Almost immediately after the shooting, Israel called for a joint investigation
with the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West
Bank, and asked it to hand over the bullet that killed Abu Akleh for ballistic
analysis. Israel invited Palestinian and American representatives to participate
in the investigation. The PA refused, saying Israel cannot be trusted to
investigate itself. Within hours of the shooting, both the PA and Al Jazeera
accused Israel of deliberately targeting Abu Akleh, but provided no specific
evidence for the claim, which Israel strongly denies. A spokesman for President
Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians are conducting a "pure, professional
investigation" and will share the results with international bodies. He declined
to provide details of the probe or address questions about trying to match the
bullet to the weapon. "We are sure that Israel is responsible for the killing,
and we have evidence, proof, and witnesses confirming that," Nabil Abu Rdeneh
told the AP. "We have no confidence in Israeli investigations because their goal
is to falsify the facts." Israeli investigations into shootings of Palestinians
often drag on for months or years before being quietly shelved, and rights
groups say soldiers are rarely held accountable. Israeli authorities initially
suggested the Palestinian fighters in the video they shared might have killed
Abu Akleh. They backtracked after B'Tselem, an Israeli rights group, circulated
another video showing it was virtually impossible for them to have shot her,
since the two locations were hundreds of meters apart and separated by buildings
and walls. B'Tselem is still conducting its own investigation. Palestinian
investigators are in possession of the bullet that killed Abu Akleh, which was
recovered from her head. Samoudi says the bullet that struck him shattered,
leaving some fragments inside his back. It's unclear if any other fragments have
been recovered. Lior Nadivi, a former crime scene investigator and firearms
examiner for the Israeli police, said the bullet that killed Abu Akleh would
potentially contain a trove of evidence. A deformation might indicate it
ricocheted. Markings would show the type of weapon, and a microscopic signature
could potentially be used to match the bullet to a specific firearm. He said
there was "no way" to tamper with a bullet without leaving obvious marks on it.
But Nadivi said it was also important to have a full picture of what happened.
"You need to position all the people who fired in the general direction of this
journalist and then try to analyze what happened to each bullet," he said.
"There is a lot of information that you need, and right now we've got
nothing."In the end, it could prove impossible to know exactly what happened;
neither side is likely to accept conclusions reached by the other. The United
States, Israel's closest ally, says it is "working to bridge cooperation between
the parties," but there's no indication of any progress. Last week, 57 House
Democrats called for an FBI investigation. Both Israel and the PA would have to
request U.S. assistance, and neither appears to have done so. Israel has invited
the U.S. to participate in an observer role. In theory, each side could submit
evidence to a third party for analysis. But neither side has expressed interest
in that kind of investigation, and each could accuse the other of tampering with
evidence if it didn't like the result. Samoudi visited the scene of the killing
in a wheelchair on Thursday, as supporters set up a makeshift memorial.
Hanaysheh came as well, but kept her distance from the tree where she was nearly
killed, saying she was still too traumatized to approach it.
She hasn't given up the work though. Two days after Abu Akleh was killed,
Israeli forces returned to Jenin to carry out another raid. Israel says it is
targeting militants after a series of attacks in recent weeks, many carried out
by assailants from in and around Jenin. Hanaysheh said even more journalists
than usual came out to cover it — and that she was among them. "Any journalist
anywhere knows that they can be killed, but if we don't do this work then no one
else will," she said. "We know the occupation doesn't want what happens here to
get out."
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on May
24-25/2022
Protests in Iran Are Surging. The
Biden Administration Can Help.
Behnam Ben Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad /The Dispatch/May 24/2022
U.S. policy can no longer afford to be limited to seeking a new nuclear deal.
Chants of “Death to the dictator!” are once again crescendoing in street
protests across Iran.
Early this May, the ultra-hardline government of President Ebrahim Raisi cut
subsidies for flour and wheat pursuant to a greenlight in March by the Iranian
parliament to slash select price controls. Days later, the government hiked
prices on other staples such as dairy, poultry, and cooking oil. The decision
sent prices soaring by a reported 300 percent and immediately sparked unrest, as
some in Iran had anticipated. Although the month of May saw various other
demonstrations—such as by teachers and bus drivers—the protests triggered by
food price spikes have begun to spread across the country, with a reported six
dead and a growing number arrested.
Despite attempts by Iranian leaders to downplay protests, more turbulence is
expected. As such, the quickly changing facts on the ground in Iran mean that
U.S. policy can no longer afford to be limited to the number and type of
centrifuges installed, nor Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Various
economic, social, and political forces have brought about these protests and are
slated to sustain future ones. Turning a blind eye to each driver and continuing
to see Iran policy through the sole prism of nuclear nonproliferation ensures
that Washington will perennially be caught off-guard by the next iteration of
protests, as well as their results.
At least six distinct factors, all likely to persist, are driving the current
round of protests. First, and perhaps the most proximate, is the effect that the
war in Ukraine has had on the back of pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions
and inflation rates, which led to a global food crisis. Iran’s minister of
agriculture, who is one of the few unsanctioned ministers in President Raisi’s
cabinet, drew attention to the war in Ukraine as the driver of the price spike,
while officials at the State Trading Company of Iran noted that much of Iran’s
subsidized wheat was being smuggled out of the country. Despite Tehran’s efforts
to be self-sufficient in the production of wheat, in the Iranian calendar year
1400 (March 2021 to March 2022), it imported more than 7 million tons of wheat.
Iran is also highly dependent on imports from both Russia and Ukraine for
cooking oil, with a reported 90 percent of Iranian cooking oil coming from
abroad.
Second, Iran continues to face a worsening multi-year drought in already
hard-hit areas. In fact, the current iteration of street protests began in the
country’s impoverished but oil-rich southwest, an area previously hurt by severe
drought because of abysmal water management by central authorities. Protests
over water that began in this region last summer swept large portions of the
country, culminating in broader anti-regime protests in the nation’s capital
last July. Combining drought with the havoc inflation is currently wreaking on
the purchasing power of the Iranian rial means that protests are not likely to
be contained to one region, as is already being witnessed.
Third, Iran suffers from long-term economic mismanagement and corruption that
have been exacerbated by the macroeconomic impact of the Trump administration’s
“maximum pressure” policy, which relied heavily on economic and financial
sanctions. Specifically, Iranians have had to deal with consistent two-digit
inflation and massive currency depreciation for the last five years. On January
1, 2017, one U.S dollar was worth approximately 39,300 rials at the free-market
exchange rate. On May 17, 2022, one U.S. dollar was worth 302,500 rials. In
other words, one U.S. dollar is 7.7 times more expensive (relative to the
free-market value of the Iranian rial) than it was five years ago.
Fourth, compounding this sense of a looming crisis is relative uncertainty over
the fate of the nuclear deal and the prospect of sanctions relief, two
unresolved matters that continue to inject huge risks and ambiguity into the
economy, as well as drive suboptimal fixes to economic issues like inflation.
The fact that the Islamic Republic remains the world’s foremost state sponsor of
terrorism and the challenge of conducting proper due-diligence in Iran
notwithstanding, an incomplete, short-lived, or increasingly politically tenuous
nuclear deal is unlikely to assuage sanctions violations concerns for foreign
firms, skewing the risk-reward ratio of doing business in or with Iran.
Similarly, on the Iranian side of the ledger, uncertainty makes planning—be it
for already marginalized private sector firms or large government-controlled
entities in Iran—very difficult for anything beyond the short-term.
The politics of the nuclear deal may even be informing the Raisi government’s
decision to press for subsidy cuts, as Raisi himself was a critic of the 2015
accord and has been looking to improve Iran’s economic situation in ways that go
beyond deal re-entry. Both Raisi and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
stressed earlier this year that the country’s economy should not be dependent on
the prospect of sanctions relief in a deal with the West. Should the regime
withstand the protests and make more economic cuts, its position at the
negotiating table could harden and embolden Tehran to look at other non-deal
options for its nuclear program.
Fifth, like more fuel to the fire, is the very presence of figures like Raisi—dubbed
the “butcher” of Tehran for his role in a 1988 death commission that oversaw the
execution of thousands of political prisoners—on the national stage. While he
won the Islamic Republic’s tightly managed attempt to further constrict
political space, Raisi’s “election” last summer was widely boycotted, marking
the lowest ever recorded electoral turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history,
which followed a similarly low turnout in parliamentary elections from February
2020. Domestically, the boycott can best be understood as the result of a troika
of forces: strong distaste for Raisi given his past, a public rebuke of the
regime that tried to use a scripted electoral contest to feign legitimacy
abroad, as well as a death-knell in the domestic reform movement and so-called
“moderate” wing of the political elite—whose continued calls for electoral
participation fell on the deaf ears of a populace frustrated with the entire
political system.
What support Raisi lacked from the street he sought to cement with the state for
his uncompromising social and political stances. Since his first and failed
presidential bid in 2017, analysts in Washington had posited that Raisi was
being groomed as a potential ultra-hardline successor to Khamenei, who recently
turned 83.
But as confidence begot overconfidence, in the face of these challenges the
Raisi government took to initiating a politically and economically tenuous
comprehensive subsidy reform endeavor, something his limited support base termed
“economic surgery.” The policy targets the officially subsidized dollar rate
that the Central Bank of Iran previously gave importers to buy basic goods and
sell below the market price nationally.
As a result of Raisi’s new policy, importers must instead buy their dollars and
sell their goods at a much higher rate in the NIMA market, a part of Iran’s
multi-tiered exchange rate system and the exchange platform for importers and
exporters. By way of example, the subsidized exchange rate for one U.S. dollar
is 42,000 rials, while the price of a U.S. dollar on NIMA is now more than
250,000 rials, representing an almost six-fold increase. Meanwhile, as we
mentioned above, the price of a single U.S. dollar in the black-market or
free-market economy is now higher than 300,000 rials. When Raisi began his
so-called economic surgery with the price of flour, bread prices surged and
render families hungry. While Iran’s supreme leader ran cover for the move, not
all of Iran’s principalists fell in line. For example, Raisi was castigated by
traditional conservative outlets that called for his resignation, noting that
“Bread, even during the Imposed [Iran-Iraq] War, did not become expensive.” With
subsidy reform set to increase inflationary pressures in an economy already
struggling, Raisi’s economic policy looks exactly like what would happen if a
butcher was asked to stand in for a surgeon.
The sixth and final reason to expect more turbulence is the most important:
attitudes and preferences of the Iranian people as reflected in changing
patterns of national protest. Specifically, those of the urban and rural
poor—which have formed the backbone of recent (2017—present) protests—and were
the first and hardest hit by Raisi’s economic policies and previous shocks. The
country’s deteriorating economic conditions have led to a significant increase
in the number of Iranians living below the poverty line. According to official
figures, currently 30 percent of the population lives below the absolute poverty
line. Regime insiders and experts estimate that 60 to 70 percent of Iranians are
below the relative poverty line. Coupled with a mountain of unfulfilled
promises, as more and more Iranians have fallen into poverty, they have less
hope in a solution to their plight coming from the regime and its factions, and
are more willing to protest the Islamic Republic in its entirety. This sentiment
is best expressed by a popular protest chant against regime elites of all
stripes that goes, “Reformists, principalists, the jig is up!”
By twist of fate, the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic had hoped this
class of more traditionally minded Iranians—dubbed the “oppressed” or Mostazafin
and who made the revolution possible—would sustain and defend the Islamic
Republic through bonds of faith and communal identity rather than concern over
their socio-economic situation. As Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, is reported to have said about the 1979 revolution, “People
did not make a revolution for the price of watermelon. … They did it for Islam.”
The ayatollah could not have been more wrong, and not just about economics.
When reviewing various iterations of national protest since 2017, a new pattern
of anti-regime uprisings emerges when compared to past protests such as those
seen 1999 and 2009. This shift is visible across a series of factors, including
protester geography and demography, slogans chanted, relative cohesion, and even
levels of state violence against citizens. The most important lesson for
Washington audiences to take away from these demonstrations is that the Iranian
population has continued to risk life and limb on the street for wholesale
change away from the Islamic Republic rather than settle for the promise of
incremental change through the ballot-box and preserve the Islamic Republic.
Given their lack of attachment to any political faction in the system, these
newer protests are leaderless and less cohesive. And while political in nature,
they are touched-off by seemingly non-political issues and events, be they
social, environmental, security, or increasingly, economic to demonstrate
popular dissatisfaction with the regime. Seldom has the Western or international
press been able to understand this. One rare exception was a recent headline
from ABC News on the current iteration of protests which read, “Bloody protests
in Iran are not just about food prices.”
But why exactly would a protest triggered by economic matters end up being
political in practice? As one Iranian dissenter speaking to France 24 recently
put it:
“There were lots of anti-Khamenei slogans simply because he’s the one
responsible for our situation. His politics over the past 30 years have brought
us here—useless uranium enrichment, interfering in internal affairs of
neighbouring countries, stupid enmity with Israel, the list is long … They are
imposing famine on us for their stupid opposition to the USA, while they all are
corrupt and living a luxurious life, buying luxury condos in Canada or Turkey.”
In the winter of 2017, for instance, Iranians poured out into the streets
protesting the high price of eggs. Protests continued into 2018, creating varied
and sporadic demonstrations against the regime even into the summer. In the
winter of 2019, Iranians again hit the streets to protest high gas prices.
Within days, each set of protests became a referendum on the legitimacy of the
Islamic Republic rather than merely the price of eggs or gas, an assessment
seemingly shared by the regime based on the ferocity of its response against
protesters at each juncture.
In 2017, Iranian authorities blocked various social media platforms to prevent
Iranians from communicating with one another and sharing their stories with the
outside world. In 2019, as protests metastasized across the nation, authorities
escalated by enacting a national internet blackout for nearly a week and killed
a reported 1,500 protesters, making the 2019 uprising the bloodiest since the
1979 Islamic Revolution.
Now with food prices triggering protests, distinctly political chants heard in
various iterations of national uprisings from 2017 to 2021 are being recycled by
the Iranian people, sharpening the divide that already exists between state and
society. Thus far, there have been temporary interruptions in internet services,
as reported by NetBlocks. But should protests continue, another blackout and
more direct violence against Iranian protesters is likely.
This brings us to the question of U.S. policy. For years, the U.S. has been
exceptionally cautious in its approach both to protests inside Iran as well as
to countering the Islamic Republic. This has especially been the case in the
nuclear era (2002—present). Perhaps most famously, Barack Obama’s administration
failed to offer support to the 2009 protests known as the Green Movement,
settling instead for belated and tepid rhetorical encouragement simply because
he sought engagement with the clerical regime to facilitate a nuclear deal that
ended up enriching the Iranian people’s oppressors. In 2009, protesters in
Tehran had even taken to chanting, “Obama, Obama, are you with us, or with
them?”
Prudence and caution are a must in foreign policy. But so too is a proper
understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of one’s adversary. While options
like aggressive containment or rollback can and should be applied to the Islamic
Republic drawing on lessons from the Reagan-era playbook against the Soviet
Union—and there has been no shortage of ink spilled on this issue in Washington
over the years—policymakers should make no mistake, the Islamic Republic is no
Soviet Union. Despite similar patterns of foreign aggression, domestic
repression, and a precarious internal climate compounded by a failing economy,
the Islamic Republic is smaller, weaker, and less globally integrated than the
Soviet Union. It also does not—at least not now—possess nuclear weapons. As much
as it wants to be an alternative to U.S. power and ideology on the world stage,
it simply is not. In this regard, settling for less and constantly pulling
punches against the Islamic Republic makes little strategic sense. That is
especially the case given that sustained anti-regime protests can create a
domestic vector for pressure against Tehran that can aid U.S. policy. And if
supported and stewarded wisely, could one day lead to a wholesale change in the
U.S.- Iran relationship.
For its part, the Trump administration took it upon itself to course correct
from the Obama years. This led to the breaking of several taboos related to the
embrace of unilateral economic sanctions and the busting of myths pertaining to
American support for popular protests, something Trump did early and often. But
beyond vociferous support, sanctions that could crater the economy, and
designations that would name and shame rights violators, the Trump
administration ran into implementation challenges related to its maximum
pressure policy. Namely, how best to provide maximum support for Iranian
protesters who were increasingly subject to arrest, torture, internet outages of
varied duration and scope, and of course, the use of cold-blooded and lethal
force.
At the height of protests in 2019, the authors warned that there would be more
waves of demonstrations and strikes in Iran. Washington couldn’t then, and still
cannot now, afford to be caught flat-footed in the fight against the Islamic
Republic and in support of the Iranian people. To that effect, we recommended
the development of a protest policy playbook of sorts, some of which, when
looking at U.S. policy in the open-source, appears to have been implemented by
the previous administration. One example are localized designations, meaning
targeted sanctions against security forces and their commanders engaged in, or
other officials supportive of, crackdowns against Iranian protestors active in
the same exact jurisdiction witnessing protests. This could be, and seemingly
was, complemented with sanctions against additional regime elites and security
organs for a pincer effect. Other elements from that playbook, such as
telecommunications support and satellite internet provision, still have not been
implemented and would stand to meaningfully alter the balance between the street
and the state in Iran.
While the Biden administration promised to put human rights at the center of its
foreign policy, its track record on holding human rights abusers to account and
standing with the Iranian people has been at best, lackluster. The current
crisis offers the administration an inflection point to ponder what went wrong,
an opportunity to act on the sole profession of support for the Iranian people
it offered amid the current crisis, and perhaps most importantly, time to align
means and ends on a broader Iran policy.
Here’s exactly how.
First, the administration should understand that its quest for a nuclear
agreement centered on the 2015 accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) is fundamentally at odds with its professed support for the
Iranian people. In a nutshell, sanctions relief to the Islamic
Republic—including to its terror-underwriting organs—that flows from this
nuclear deal would end-up lessening the political and economic burden on those
who would engage in or call for cracking down on Iranian demonstrators. Free
from the specter of foreign threats related to its nuclear program, the regime
would have more resources, manpower, and attention to spend on threats it
perceives internally in any post-deal scenario.
Moreover, Iran’s nuclear advances under the Biden administration make such an
agreement increasingly ineffectual as a tool of counterproliferation. But even
if no deal is achieved, Washington’s perceived eagerness for an accord has led
to the handicapping of other tools that could have been helpful to Iranians
protesting last summer as well as now. With more than a year of unenforced
sanctions, Iranian officials have generated enough illicit revenue to spend
where and how they please, and not on bread or subsidized wheat for their
people.
Citing a troika of Iranian nuclear advances, regional malign activities by
Iran-backed proxies, as well as repression of Iranian protesters by security
forces, the administration should announce a formal end to the current round of
nuclear negotiations in Vienna as well as a termination of its policy to
resurrect the JCPOA. Unless Washington frees itself from the current
self-defeating cycle of nuclear diplomacy, supporting Iranian protesters will
join a laundry list of items— a meaningful Syria policy, pressure against
Hezbollah narcotraffickers in Latin America, and sanctions on Iran-backed
terrorists in Yemen among them—that were all sacrificed on the altar of a
nuclear deal with Tehran.
Second, the administration should more aggressively embrace the bully pulpit
against the Islamic Republic in general, but specifically on the human rights
file by naming and shaming rights violators and memorializing protest
anniversaries. Even as the Trump administration prepared to restore some of the
toughest economic sanctions on Iran, it continued to vocally support Iranian
protesters. As Iranians took to the streets in 2018, they chanted for the first
time, “Our enemy is right here, they lie when they say it’s America.”
Accordingly, late and lukewarm responses from the State Department are likely to
have a demoralizing effect on protesters and perhaps even be interpreted by the
regime as a measure of American trepidation and thus pave the way for a greater
cycle of repression. A coherent, clear, and consistent message of support from
the highest levels, such as from the president, vice president, secretary of
state, national security adviser, or various press secretaries is likely to go a
long way. Complementing these messages, U.S. officials ought to consider virtual
meetings with prominent protestors or relatives of deceased protestors to put
the spotlight on their struggle. These messages and meetings should be shared on
U.S. government affiliated outlets and social media channels, which at present,
stand to have significant room for improvement. As Iranians were taking to the
streets earlier this May, the main U.S. government Persian-language Instagram
account was posting about spin classes. This is an own-goal and was rightly
chastised by Iranian—American organizations and activists.
A corollary to embracing the bully pulpit is stepping up the aforementioned
targeted designations campaign as per the protest policy playbook idea. Using
videos circulating on social media about protests in specific towns and
provinces, the U.S. government can collate protest data by town, province, and
region, and move to sanction any local law-enforcement, semi-official vigilante
group, Basij paramilitary, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
leadership structures in each region. The same can be applied to the judicial
and political apparatus in each province in the aftermath of a protest.
Third, Washington should embrace changes seen in its risk tolerance to use
non-kinetic tools like sanctions in the Russia context and transpose them to
Iran, where supporting the Iranian people also tugs at the same moral and
strategic nexus as supporting the Ukrainian people. In this regard, Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine triggered a series of asset forfeiture actions and sanctions
by Washington against Russian oligarchs and their families across a host of
jurisdictions. The point of such actions was presumably to increase the
costs—both figurative and literal—of being part of the Kremlin’s elite.
Washington should study the legal and political feasibility of using a
combination of exposures, asset freezes, visa prohibitions, and other
prohibitions against the interests of regime officials, security organs, and
business elite from the Islamic Republic to potentially include those of their
families who reside in Western countries. In addition to signaling another way
to hold regime elites accountable, it would send a clear message to autocrats
and kleptocrats alike that America will not be a safe haven for funds pilfered
from other nations.
Fourth, things that may not have seemed possible just a few years ago appear
quite possible today. As Washington moved to tighten sanctions on Iranian oil
throughout the Trump administration, the Islamic Republic looked for ways to
continue to illicitly export oil to generate revenue from buyers like China as
well as to support its few state partners like the Assad regime in Syria or the
Maduro regime in Venezuela. These actions meant Iranian tanker activities ran
afoul of U.S. sanctions and their extraterritorial reach, leading to tense but
also creative moments on the high seas that resulted in things like the
temporary seizure of a tanker by British Marines and authorities in Gibraltar in
2019.
While Washington has had a mixed record of success in enforcing sanctions
against Iranian oil tankers, the U.S. has been able to seize Iranian oil cargos
in violation of sanctions under both the Trump and Biden administrations as well
as sell this oil. In fact, families of victims of terrorism have previously
called upon the U.S. to seize and sell Iranian oil that is sold or transferred
in violation of U.S. sanctions in order to adjudicate outstanding terrorism
judgements against the Islamic Republic. But there is no reason why, should
normative, legal, and strategic concerns be sufficiently assuaged, that should
oil sanctions be vigorously enforced and more seizures and sales of illicitly
exported Iranian oil occur, Washington could not channel those proceeds towards
some form of freedom or strike fund that might be able to covertly support
Iranian laborers who go on strike, much like U.S. trade unions did with the
Solidarity movement in Poland during the Cold War.
Fifth and last, but certainly not least, as protesters continue to turn out
despite being met with force, it is imperative that the Iranian people have
internet access to both communicate and organize with one another domestically,
as well as to be able to share videos and stories of their struggles. In the
absence of independent political parties and a free press, Iranians have been
relegated to using internet-based platforms and social media through
anti-filtering applications to voice discontent. Keenly aware of this dynamic,
the Islamic Republic has allocated significant time, attention, and resources to
developing capabilities to surgically cut internet access at local levels while
reportedly working with China on creating a national intranet to fully cut off
the country from the outside world.
It is in this space where the most amount of creativity is needed, and not just
by the Biden administration, but by big-tech entrepreneurs willing to engage in
myriad public-private partnerships that amplify the full breadth of U.S.
government capabilities. One potential solution to bypass Iran’s internet
clampdown and support Iranian protestors is satellite internet service. Elon
Musk’s Starlink has developed a commercially viable alternative already being
used in Ukraine, which may be able to offer Iranians internet beyond the reach
of the regime’s censorship. While the application of this technology is not at a
one-to-one between Ukraine and Iran, its proven functionality means that
creative tech minds and those engaged in covert action on behalf of the U.S.
government should be talking to one another. Accordingly, the Biden
administration should task all relevant national security bodies with ways to
address this problem and facilitate conversations to plug the logistical, legal,
technical, security, and other pitfalls such an idea is likely to have while
playing into the creativity Iranians have shown in the past to get around other
bans imposed on them.
While one challenging and obvious hole in the above idea pertains to the flow of
hardware for satellite internet services, there is an instructive corollary:
satellite television in Iran. Despite years of Basij paramilitary, vigilante,
and law-enforcement force raids against people’s homes, the steady and available
stream of cheap satellite TV hardware and demand by the Iranian people for this
technology forced the regime to change its tactics. While smuggled hardware
related to satellite internet services is likely to be confiscated early on, the
satellite TV case demonstrates that continuity of effort is key in any contest
of wills and attempt to penetrate the regime’s firewalls, be they physical or
virtual.
More than a year into indirect nuclear talks with Iran , the Biden
administration is struggling to show something for its own continuity of effort
in looking at Iran as only a nuclear problem. Should Biden broaden the aperture
and take stock of the evolution in street protests and the problems that persist
inside Iran, he may find that it is still possible to align one’s head and one’s
heart on matters of foreign policy in the Middle East. Here’s to hoping that the
chants of Iranian protesters reach the president’s ears.
*Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies
(FDD), where Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser. Both contribute to FDD’s
Iran Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP), among other
projects. The views expressed are their own. Follow Saeed on Twitter @SGhasseminejad.
FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on
national security and foreign policy.
Palestinians: A Vote to Destroy Israel
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./May 24, 2022
These Palestinians are evidently fed up with the rampant corruption and bad
governance of the Palestinian Authority leadership. Moreover, these Palestinians
who no longer support Abbas are stating that they have no interest in any peace
process with Israel.
As the last poll showed, 70% of the Palestinians are opposed to an unconditional
return to peace negotiations with Israel. Another 58% expressed opposition to
the two-state solution.
The truth is that Abbas called off the elections [in 2021] because he was afraid
that Hamas would defeat his Fatah faction in the parliamentary election, as took
place in 2006.
The results of the Birzeit University elections prove that Abbas's fears were
not unfounded. Had he insisted on proceeding with the presidential and
parliamentary elections, it is most likely.... that Hamas would have taken
control of the Palestinian presidency and parliament.
Hamas, for its part, said that it sees the results of the university election as
a vote of confidence in its policy of pursuing deadly terrorist attacks against
Israel.
The students who voted in support of Hamas fully identify with the terrorist
group's covenant, which states that "Israel will exist and will continue to
exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
Palestinians have been radicalized by their leaders and media to a point where
they do not want to hear anything about a peace process with Israel. In fact,
they want to see Israel vanish from the map, as the results of the student
council elections and the polls clearly illustrate.
The results of the Birzeit University elections and the polls stand in sharp
contrast to the views expressed by the Biden administration concerning the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over the past year, Biden administration officials
have repeatedly stated their commitment to the "two-state solution" while
totally ignoring the widespread support among the Palestinians for the
elimination of Israel.
The Hamas victory at the university's student council should sound alarm bells
in the Biden administration, especially the State Department, regarding the true
intentions of the Palestinians – that their sole commitment is to have a state
that would replace Israel, not one that would exist peacefully alongside Israel.
That is why it is nonsensical to pressure Israel to make any territorial (or
non-territorial) concessions to the Palestinians, who are openly proclaiming
that they want to establish a Palestinian state on the ruins of Israel and the
bodies of dead Jews.
Hamas sees the results of its landslide victory in Birzeit University student
council elections as a vote of confidence in its policy of pursuing deadly
terrorist attacks against Israel. Pictured: Hamas supporters celebrate victory
at Birzeit University, near Ramallah, on May 19, 2022.
The Palestinians have once again shown that they have not given up the dream of
destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state funded by Iran and its
terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and
Hezbollah.
On May 18, Hamas, on the US list of Foreign Terrorist organizations, and which
does not believe in Israel's right to exist, scored a landslide victory in the
elections for Student Council at Birzeit University, one of the most important
Palestinian academic institutions in the West Bank.
The Hamas-affiliated Islamic Bloc won 28 of the 51 seats of the council; by
contrast, the list belonging to Fatah, the ruling Fatah faction headed by
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, got only 18 seats.
A third list belongs to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),
another Palestinian Foreign Terrorist Organization that does not believe in
Israel's right to exist, won five seats.
This means that the student council is now dominated by supporters of two
terrorist groups, both strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel and
whose members have been involved in hundreds of terror attacks against Israelis.
The Hamas list received 5068 votes, while the PFLP list won 888 votes. The Fatah
list got 3,379 votes.
Altogether, 9782 students cast their ballots in the elections out of 12,521
eligible voters, constituting a 78.1% turnout.
The results of the elections at Birzeit, which describes itself as "Palestine's
leading academic institution," did not come as a surprise to those who are
familiar with the growing anti-Israel sentiments among the Palestinians.
Public opinion polls published over the past year have demonstrated a dramatic
surge in Hamas's popularity among the Palestinian public. The polls have shown
that a majority of Palestinians support the "armed struggle" (a euphemism for
terror attacks) against Israel.
The most recent poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey
Research between March 16 and 20, indicated that a majority of Palestinians
think Hamas is more deserving to represent and lead the Palestinian people than
Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah. In addition, the results of the poll showed that most
Palestinians would vote for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
On the other hand, according to the poll, more than 70% of the Palestinians want
Abbas to resign.
Like the results of the student council elections, the polls show that a
majority of Palestinians have lost confidence in Abbas, the Palestinian
Authority leadership and the ruling Fatah faction.
These Palestinians are evidently fed up with the rampant corruption and bad
governance of the Palestinian Authority leadership. Moreover, these Palestinians
who no longer support Abbas are stating that they have no interest in any peace
process with Israel.
As the last poll showed, 70% of the Palestinians are opposed to an unconditional
return to peace negotiations with Israel. Another 58% expressed opposition to
the two-state solution.
Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand why Abbas decided to call off
the presidential and parliamentary elections that were supposed to take place in
May and July 2021.
Abbas claimed that he cancelled the elections because Israel did not allow the
Arab residents of Jerusalem to participate in the vote. Israel, it is worth
mentioning, never said that it would ban the Arabs from Jerusalem from casting
their votes. Any Arab who wanted to vote could have freely travelled to a nearby
voting center in the West Bank. Israel does not ban the Arab residents of
Jerusalem, who hold Israeli-issued ID cards, from entering the West Bank.
The truth is that Abbas called off the elections because he was afraid that
Hamas would defeat his Fatah faction in the parliamentary election, as took
place in 2006. Then, Hamas won a majority of the seats of the Palestinian
parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, triggering a power struggle
with Abbas's Fatah faction. The dispute reached its peak in July 2007, when
Hamas staged a bloody and violent coup, toppling and expelling the Palestinian
Authority from the Gaza Strip.
The results of the Birzeit University elections prove that Abbas's fears were
not unfounded. Had he insisted on proceeding with the presidential and
parliamentary elections, it is most likely that his Fatah faction would have
suffered yet another humiliating defeat. It is also highly likely that Hamas
would have taken control of the Palestinian Authority presidency and parliament.
Hamas, for its part, announced that it sees the results of the university
election as a vote of confidence in its policy of pursuing deadly terrorist
attacks against Israel. "This clear victory is another confirmation of the
popular rallying around the option of resistance," Hamas said in a statement
after the elections. When Hamas talks about the "resistance," it is referring to
terrorist attacks against Israel, including firing rockets at Israeli cities and
towns, shootings, stabbings and car-ramming "operations."
The students who voted in support of Hamas fully identify with the terrorist
group's covenant, which states that "Israel will exist and will continue to
exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
Article 11 of the covenant states:
"The Islamic resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an
Islamic Waqf consecrated for future generations until judgement Day. It, or any
part of it, should not be squandered; it or any part of it, should not be given
up. Neither a single Arab county nor all Arab countries, neither any king or
president, nor all kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of
them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possesses the right to do that."
The students who voted for the PFLP did so because they support the terrorist
group's platform, which calls for the "liberation of all the Palestinian lands"
through various methods and means, including the "armed struggle." The PFLP
states that it "practices all forms of political, ideological, economic,
peaceful and violent struggle, including the armed struggle, to liberate the
entire Palestinian lands." Like Hamas, the PFLP is also saying that its main
goal is to liberate all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Sea.
The growing popularity of Hamas, PFLP and other terrorist groups among the
Palestinians is the direct result of the massive incitement against Israel by
Palestinian political and religious leaders, as well as media outlets.
Palestinians have been radicalized by their leaders and media to a point where
they do not want to hear anything about a peace process with Israel. In fact,
they want to see Israel vanish from the map, as the results of the student
council elections and the polls clearly illustrate.
The results of the Birzeit University elections and the polls stand in sharp
contrast to the views expressed by the Biden administration concerning the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over the past year, Biden administration officials
have repeatedly stated their commitment to the "two-state solution," while
totally ignoring the widespread support among the Palestinians for the
elimination of Israel.
The Hamas victory at the university's student council should sound alarm bells
in the Biden administration, especially the State Department, regarding the true
intentions of the Palestinians. Their sole commitment is to have a state that
would replace Israel, not one that would exist peacefully alongside Israel. That
is why it is nonsensical to pressure Israel to make any territorial (or
non-territorial) concessions to the Palestinians, who are openly proclaiming
that they want to establish a Palestinian state on the ruins of Israel and the
bodies of dead Jews.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 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.
Good neighbourly relations with Iran are a chimera
Farouk Yousef/The Arab Weekly/May 24/2022
Iran will never be a member of the World Builders Club. The opposite is true.
Iran can destroy even more countries besides Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Iran has never had normal relations with its neighbours. Neither at the time of
the Shah nor at the time of the ayatollahs. It is driven by hatred of its
neighbours. This is a syndrome stemming from the legacies of the past. Those
legacies put Iran on the path of permanent misunderstandings. It showed Tehran’s
inability to abandon its aggressive propensities towards its neighbours, who
thankfully did not reciprocate in kind, keeping instead their doors always open
to Iran and seeking its friendship as the only wise course. Tehran has proven
through its policies that it was not acting as a friend, that could play a
constructive role in the region. It is not true that the Sunni-Shia religious
schism is the source of the Iranian strategy, which violates international laws
and norms as well as the rules of international relations.
This is not true because Iran harbours a deep desire to exercise tutelage over
independent and sovereign Arab states. This has propelled Iran into a permanent
state of conflict, without having to declare war, as happened in the eighties of
the last century. At that time, Iran insisted on continuing its war with Iraq
without setting a time limit for the conflict.
That war was the declared face of Iranian aggression, which is a spontaneous
form of behaviour, not triggered by any external catalysts. Iran does not need a
particular reason to interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbours. That
is simply because it is convinced that is the right thing to do.
This is something that the Arabs have tried to deal with patiently, wisely and
prudently, in the hope that Iran will somehow regain the sanity needed to run a
state that adheres to international law and respects the customs of good
neighbourliness.
That hope has proven to be nothing but a chimera.
Iran is not fit to be a respectable neighbour to anyone. If the countries
concerned with the nuclear agreement forced Iran to take part in a positive
dialogue, it would not mean that these states were able to forge a common
discourse with the Iranian regime.
Tehran offers no reason to be trusted and always follows a path of deception,
fraud and prevarication. Because of its ideological fossilisation, Iran belongs
to an era different from that of the world today. The Iranians will ratchet up
their unscrupulous adventures if the United States continues its complacency in
the face of Tehran’s aggressive regional policies. This could lead to an
irreparable power imbalance. The position of the major regional powers regarding
American complicity in Iran’s aggressive policies is clear. Is it fair or
reasonable to seek to appease Iran in order to convince it to sign the agreement
at the expense of the security and stability of the whole region.? There are
countries that could be wiped off the map just for the sake of an uncertain
agreement with an aggressive state that no one has any reason to trust.
Iran will never be a member of the World Builders Club. The opposite is true.
Iran can destroy even more countries besides Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. There is
no hope that Iran will change its policies. It simply cannot do that. It would
mean abandoning the principle of exporting the revolution. Change could only
happen if Iran felt that there was a force in the region that could confront it
and defeat it and thwart its projects. Iran will not tolerate such a defeat
which might indeed lead to the downfall of the regime as a result of the
deterioration of the living conditions of the Iranian people.
This is the only logic that Iran understands. Otherwise, it will remain the
mischievous neighbour that endeavours to keep the region in the throes of chaos.