English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 27/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 03/12-15/:”If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 26-27/2022
Hezbollah’s Liberation & Resistance Day Is A Big Lie/Elias Bejjani/May 25/2021
Aoun vows continued 'anti-corruption fight' as long as he's in office
UN Security Council says elections key to enabling Lebanese people to exercise civil, political rights
Berri sets Tuesday session for election of speaker and deputy
Lebanese currency hits new record low
Lebanon's doctors, hospitals go on two-day strike
Hizbullah slams Al-Arabiya 'lies' linking group to drugs trade
ISF busts Lebanese-Syrian migrant smuggling ring
Lebanon's Opposition Tests its Unity in Electing the Deputy Speaker
President Aoun tells UN Under-Secretary-General there will be no retreat from fight against corruption
Corona - Health Ministry: 108 new Corona cases, one death
Chtaura road reopens to traffic, Dahr el-Baidar road cut off in both directions
Siniora broaches current situation with Egyptian Ambassador
Mouawad discusses means of cooperation with Italian Ambassador
Dabboussi discusses means to bolster economic relations with Austrian Ambassador
Information Minister during “Tele Liban” TV program: Not to disrupt speakership election deadline to avoid impact on...
Mufti Derian welcomes UNIFIL Commander, Rifi
Lebanese pound trades at record low of 35,000 to the dollar
Owners of bakeries across Lebanon stage sit-in in front of Ministry of Economy
Either Berri or the void/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/May 26/2022
Hezbollah's Nasrallah is struggling to stay relevant - analysis/Seth J. Frantzman/ The Jerusalem Post/ MAY 26, 2022
Lebanon’s election sees political vote buying and intimidation/Clement Gibon, Al Arabiya English/26 May ,2022
In Lebanon, a Nascent Reform Movement Faces Tough Road
Security Council Calls for Swift Formation of New Government in Lebanon
Lebanese Play? The Aristocrats!…The country’s recent election was a masterpiece of counterfactual Kabuki theater—and there wasn’t a dry Western eye in the house/Tony Badran/The Tablet/May 26/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 26-27/2022
Inspirational Thought of the Day: What Life Is All About
Israel reportedly tells US it was behind killing of Iranian colonel
Greece to Send Iranian Oil from Seized Ship to US
Israel’s Military Figures Endorse US Stance to Reach Nuclear Deal with Iran
U.S. seizes Iranian oil cargo near Greek island - sources
Iran says one dead in defense research unit 'accident'
Engineer Dies in ‘Accident’ at Iran's Sensitive Military Parchin Site
Blinken: US to leverage Russia-Ukraine bloc against China
Moscow pours cold water on Italian peace plan for Ukraine
Russia Discusses Reopening its Embassy with Libyan Authorities
Will Syria Witness a ‘Triple Front’ Military Escalation?
Tunisian president decrees July 25 referendum on 'new republic'
No Saudi, Iranian foreign ministers meeting in foreseeable future: Saudi official
Canada provides funding to International Criminal Court to strengthen accountability for conflict-related sexual violence

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 26-27/2022
‘Shameful’: European Parliament Rejects Discussion on Christian Persecution/Raymond Ibrahim/May 25/2022
Turkey’s wooing of Israel may lead to Hamas ouster/Enia Krivine/The Jerusalem Post/May 26/2022
NATO’s problem child...Turkey threatens to blackball Sweden and Finland/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/May 25/2022
How The Biden Administration Is Getting Erdoğan's Moves All Wrong/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/May 26, 2022
Biden Or Putin? Who is Responsible for the War in Ukraine?/Nabil Amr/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
Major Challenges Ahead as Violence Returns to Afghanistan/Charles Lister/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
New Balances and Red Lines in Syria/Rober

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 26-27/2022
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.

Aoun vows continued 'anti-corruption fight' as long as he's in office
Naharnet/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
President Michel Aoun on Thursday pledged that he will continue to “fight corruption and oversee the completion of the forensic audit into the financial accounts of the central bank and the other official administrations and institutions.”He added that his objective is to “identify the real reasons that led to the deterioration of the financial and economic situations in the country.”Aoun voiced his remarks in a meeting with a delegation led by U.N. Under Secretary-General and UNDP Associate Administrator Usha Rao-Monari. The President added that “the U.N. support in this regard and other fields would have a positive impact,” stressing that “there will be no backing down from these measures, no matter how much the known-source pressures intensify.”Aoun also hoped the new parliament will be able to “contribute to the reform process that has started,” adding that “its continuation would achieve the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese.”

UN Security Council says elections key to enabling Lebanese people to exercise civil, political rights
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022 
The members of the United Nations Security Council welcomed the holding of legislative elections in Lebanon as scheduled on 15 May 2022, despite challenging circumstances. These elections were key to enabling the Lebanese people to exercise their civil and political rights. The members of the Security Council commended the technical support provided by the United Nations, the European Union, the International Organisation of La Francophonie, the Arab League and other international and local observers throughout the election process and in close coordination with the government of Lebanon. They took note of the findings and recommendations made by observer missions. The members of the Security Council called for the swift formation of a new inclusive government and the urgent implementation of previously outlined tangible reforms, including the swift adoption of an appropriate budget for 2022 that would enable the quick conclusion of an agreement with the IMF, to respond to the demands of the Lebanese population. They stressed the role of the Lebanese institutions, including the newly elected Parliament in the implementation of the reforms necessary to tackle the unprecedented crisis. They also underlined the importance of delivering those reforms in order to ensure effective international support. Moreover, they encouraged measures to enhance women’s full, equal and meaningful political participation and representation, including in the new government.
The members of the Security Council stressed once again the need for a swift conclusion of an independent, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation into the explosions which struck Beirut on 4 August 2020, which is essential to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Lebanese people for accountability and justice. The members of the Security Council reaffirmed their strong support for the stability, security, territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon, consistent with Security Council resolutions 1701 (2006), 1680 (2006), 1559 (2004), and 2591 (2021), as well as other relevant Security Council resolutions and statements of the President of the Security Council on the situation in Lebanon. The members of the Security Council called upon all Lebanese parties to implement a tangible policy of disassociation from any external conflicts, as an important priority, as spelled out in previous declarations, in particular the 2012 Baabda Declaration.—UNIC

Berri sets Tuesday session for election of speaker and deputy
Naharne/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday scheduled a Tuesday parliamentary session for the election of a new speaker, deputy speaker and the members of the Parliament Bureau, the National News Agency said. The session will be held at 11am at parliament’s building in Beirut’s Nejmeh Square, NNA added. Berri, 84, has held the position for the past 30 years and is running again for a seventh term. He is running uncontested seeing as all 27 Shiite seats in parliament have been won by his Amal Movement and its ally Hizbullah. October 17 independents and the country’s main Christian parties have said they will not vote for Berri, risking his re-election with a much slimmer than usual majority. The Free Patriotic Movement has hinted that it will not vote for Berri and it remains unclear whether it will allow some of its MPs to vote for the incumbent speaker. Berri has however won the backing of the Progressive Socialist Party and some independents in recent days. As for the deputy speaker post, three main candidates are competing – Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces, Elias Bou Saab of the FPM and Melhem Khalaf of the October 17 bloc. MP Sajih Atiyeh of Akkar and MP Ghassan Skaff of West Bekaa have also been described as potential candidates.

Lebanese currency hits new record low
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
The Lebanese pound hit a new low against the U.S. dollar on the black market Thursday after a sharp drop that coincided with May 15 parliamentary elections. According to websites monitoring the exchange rate, the pound crashed below the symbolic threshold of 35,000 to the greenback in the afternoon, a historic low for the national currency. At around 5:00 pm, the dollar was selling for LBP 36,000. For decades, the Lebanese pound was pegged to the dollar at 1,500, meaning that it has lost around 95 percent of its value in two years. A financial crisis widely blamed on government corruption and mismanagement has caused the worst economic crisis in Lebanon's history. The cost of a full tank of petrol now far exceeds the minimum monthly wage, mains electricity comes on barely two hours a day and unaffordable school fees are driving increased student dropouts. Four out of five Lebanese are now considered poor by the World Bank. The country desperately needs an international rescue package but the required reforms have not been forthcoming. The exchange rate, which is unofficial but applies to most transactions, had recently stabilized at around 26,000 to the dollar but took a tumble after the latest legislative polls. The results brought in a handful of independents who support the spirit of a 2019 protest movement which called for the wholesale ouster of Lebanon's corrupt and hereditary ruling class.But they also yielded a more scattered assembly that observers predict could remain stuck in a political deadlock that will further delay any meaningful economic recovery program.

Lebanon's doctors, hospitals go on two-day strike
Associated Press/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Dozens of doctors, nurses and medical personnel rallied Thursday outside the Central Bank in Beirut after declaring a two-day general strike to protest rapidly deteriorating economic conditions. The strike was declared by two medical professionals' unions -- The Syndicates of Doctors in Beirut and the North and the Syndicate of Private Hospital Owners -- which say they could no longer put up with Central Bank policies that have allowed banks to impose random capital controls and other restrictions. During the strike, which ends Friday, only emergency cases and dialysis patients would be admitted to hospitals, the unions said. Lebanon's medical sector, which up until few years ago was among the best in the Middle East, is on the brink of collapse, barely surviving the country's unprecedented economic and financial meltdown. The crisis that started in October 2019 has seen the local currency lose more than 90% of its value to the dollar, wiping out salaries and savings. The hardship has led to the emigration of thousands of doctors and nurses and the closure of a large number of pharmacies, as well as severe shortages in medicines and medical equipment. A number of hospitals have been warning they will have to close because they can no longer pay for their expenses or pay their employees' salaries. "Hospitals will close because there is no way they can continue. We have to pay cash when we have no access to cash," said Suleiman Haroun, head of the private hospitals' union, who joined the protest in Beirut along with a few hundred other colleagues. He blamed Central Bank policies for destroying the sector. Meanwhile, the Lebanese pound continued to hit new lows against the dollar, which was selling at around 35,600 pounds on the black market Wednesday. The Lebanese currency was pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar for 22 years until the crisis erupted in late 2019.

Hizbullah slams Al-Arabiya 'lies' linking group to drugs trade
Naharnet/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Hizbullah’s media relations department has lashed out at the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite television for “fabricating lies and false accusations” that link the Iran-backed group to the “manufacturing and sale of narcotics.”“This is aimed at insulting Hizbullah and tarnishing the image of resistance movements in the eyes of the public opinion,” the department said in a statement. “All of this is in the service of the Israeli enemy and the humiliating schemes of normalizing ties with it, and to deviate attention from the damning facts about the involvement of top Saudi princes and officials in the trade of drugs and captagon pills,” the department added. Al-Arabiya has reported that one of several drug smugglers recently killed by Jordanian forces on Syria’s border was “closely linked” to Hizbullah. It also said that “Hizbullah-linked groups” and the Syrian army’s Fourth Division led by Maher al-Assad had recently “intensified drugs transportation operations from Lebanon to areas in Daraa and Sweida with the aim of smuggling them into Jordan and other Arab countries.”

ISF busts Lebanese-Syrian migrant smuggling ring
Naharnet/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
The Internal Security Forces on Thursday announced foiling an attempt to smuggle a large number of people by sea to Italy. It said the bid was thwarted after the ISF obtained information that a ring of individuals was equipping and renovating a boat in the Dbaye area. The ISF accordingly managed to arrest the ring’s members – three Syrians and two Lebanese – in the Sin el-Fil and Dbaye areas, an ISF statement said. The boat was also seized in the Dbaye area, the statement added, noting that the five detainees have confessed to all the charges.

Lebanon's Opposition Tests its Unity in Electing the Deputy Speaker
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Lebanon's opposition blocs and figures are set to face several challenges, beginning with the election of the parliament speaker and his deputy, followed by naming a prime minister, forming a government, and electing a president. It will "test" the unity and coordination among its members to prove whether they can confront Hezbollah and its allies. The Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah refuse to recognize that the parliamentary majority now belongs to the opposition. The opposition will first face the challenge of electing the deputy speaker, given that Nabih Berri is the only candidate for the parliament's chairmanship and will most likely win, albeit by a small majority. The deputy speaker's election was directly or indirectly discussed between the Lebanese Forces (LF), the Progressive Socialist Party, the Kataeb, and other "reformists."Several candidates affiliated with some parties are being proposed for the position, including former Deputy Prime Minister Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces, former Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab of the Free Patriotic Movement, and the former head of the Bar Association, Melhem Khalaf, of the reformists. The parties denied supporting any candidate, despite unanimously agreeing that any figure assuming this position must have specific criteria. Other nominees include MP Ghassan Skaf, who is close to the Progressive Socialist Party, and MP Sagih Attieh, who met with Berri and announced that he was ready to assume the position.
Kataeb MP Elias Hankash noted that the opposition forces must unify their position. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Kataeb did not and will not vote for Berri as Speaker. However, regarding the election of his deputy, the party is doing its best to agree with other forces and representatives on one candidate, said Hankash.He indicated that the party has been meeting with other "reformist" lawmakers, reiterating the importance of showing a united front in other matters as well, such as the government and the presidential elections. Kataeb's politburo warned against compromises and bargains that had prevailed before the elections at the country's expense and its people. "We reiterate that we would not … vote to any parliament speaker, deputy, prime minister, or president who covers Hezbollah's weapons and defends it under any pretext," it pointed out.The party also warned against any obstruction and procrastination, saying that the Lebanese have expressed their opinions and everyone must comply with that. LF head of communication and media Charles Jabbour asserted that different parties are exerting all efforts to agree on a single candidate for the deputy speaker’s post acceptable by all opposition forces. Jabbour told Asharq Al-Awsat that this would set the foundation for the upcoming stage to agree on the designated prime minister and determine the cabinet that differs from its predecessors. He asserted that the LF is not concerned with a particular figure but rather clear criteria that must be present in the candidate, which the party's leader previously determined. LF chief Samir Geagea has announced that his party had set certain criteria for the speaker of parliament that do not apply to Berri, adding that his bloc would not vote for him. Geagea called on the newly elected lawmakers to chart a new political path by selecting a speaker who would work to "preserve" the state's sovereignty. "All strategic decision-making should return to the Lebanese state... and security and military matters should be handled exclusively by the Lebanese army," he said. He pointed out that the same thing applies to the deputy speaker, who must agree to the same commitments.

President Aoun tells UN Under-Secretary-General there will be no retreat from fight against corruption
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Assistant Director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Mrs. Usha Rao-Munari, today at Baabda Palace.
The President told Rao Munari that he will continue to work in the remainder of his presidential term to combat the fight against corruption and the completion of forensic audit into Central Bank accounts and other official departments and institutions to determine the real causes that led to the deterioration of the financial and economic conditions. Moreover, President Aoun considered that UN support in this field and others has a positive impact, especially since the international organization focuses on adopting transparency and achieving reforms, governance and other basic issues that Lebanon has committed to.
The President also asserted that there will be no retreat from measures, no matter how intense the pressures which are well-known. On the other hand, President Aoun praised the existing partnership between Lebanon and the UN, describing it as “Essential to help Lebanon re-establish itself, especially after a series of unprecedented crises which Lebanon was exposed to, which had huge economic, financial and social repercussions”. In addition, President Aoun pointed out that “Lebanon is working to heal its wounds and needs the support of the international community”, indicating that the projects implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) are of great importance in terms of sustainable development, especially the digital transformation project approved by the government, which is considered one of the most advanced projects to improve management and automation.
Finally, the President expressed his hope that the new parliament will be able to keep pace with the reform process that has begun and complete it in the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese. For her part, Mrs. Rao Munari had conveyed the greetings of UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and his congratulations on the achievement of the parliamentary elections, which give additional opportunities for Lebanon to enjoy stability and reform. Mrs. Rao Munari emphasized the importance of the existing partnership between the United Nations and Lebanon in most fields, and pointed out that the UN will remain committed to supporting the Lebanese government to achieve sustainable development and the required development reforms. Mrs. Rao Munari also revealed that the budget allocated by the United Nations Development Program to Lebanon for this year amounts to 75 million US Dollars in order to implement the reform program, combat corruption, support host communities, as well as assist in the parliamentary elections. The delegation accompanying Mrs. Rao Munari included: UNDP Regional Director in the Arab States, Dr. Khalida Bouzar, UNDP Resident Representative in Lebanon, Ms Melanie Hauenstein, her assistant, Mohammed Saleh, and member of the Executive Board, Derek Pieper. On the Lebanese side, former Minister Salim Jreissati, and advisers Mr. Rafic Chelala, Osama Khashab and Raymond Tarabay attended the meeting.—Presidency Press Office

Corona - Health Ministry: 108 new Corona cases, one death
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
In its daily report on the COVID-19 developments, the Ministry of Public Health announced on Thursday the registration of 108 new infections with the Coronavirus, which raised the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 1098899.
The report added that one death was recorded during the past 24 hours.

Chtaura road reopens to traffic, Dahr el-Baidar road cut off in both directions
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
The Chtaura road reopened to traffic after protesters blocked earlier in protest against the deteriorating living conditions, NNA Correspondent reported on Thursday. On the other hand, protesters blocked the Dahr el-Baydar road in both directions in protest against the dire living conditions and the rise in the US dollar exchange rate.

Siniora broaches current situation with Egyptian Ambassador
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Former Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, on Thursday received at his Bliss Office Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Dr. Yasser Alawi, with whom he discussed the current situation, as well as Egyptian-Lebanese bilateral relations.

Mouawad discusses means of cooperation with Italian Ambassador
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
“Independence Movement” Head, MP Michel Mouawad, on Thursday received at his Zgharta residence, Italian Ambassador to Lebanon, Nicoletta Bombardiere, in presence of MP Adib Abdel Massih. Discussions reportedly touched on the most recent political, socio-economic developments in Lebanon in the wake of the parliamentary elections. According to a statement by Mouawad's bureau, the two sides discussed means of cooperation between Lebanon and Italy at the level of reforms and development. Mouawad also hailed Italy's significant role in helping Lebanon restore its sovereignty and implement international resolutions.

Dabboussi discusses means to bolster economic relations with Austrian Ambassador
NN/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
President of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture of Tripoli and North Lebanon, Toufic Dabboussi, on Thursday welcomed at the Chamber, Austrian Ambassador to Lebanon, Rene Emery René Paul Amry, accompanied by the Embassy’s Commercial and Economic Advisers, in presence of Chamber’s officials. Discussions during the visit reportedly focused on ways to develop Lebanese-Austrian economic relations, as well as on the various investment projects launched by the Tripoli Chamber that fall within the framework of sustainable development.

Information Minister during “Tele Liban” TV program: Not to disrupt speakership election deadline to avoid impact on...
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Minister of Information, Ziad Al-Makary, announced in an interview with the political talk show program, “With Walid Abboud” on Tele Liban, his support for Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, for the Lebanese presidency, praising his dialogue capabilities above other potential presidential candidates. “I consider the interlocutor president to be more important than the strong president,” Minister Makary maintained. The Minister also pointed out that "Christians’ peace lies in their openness to others, not in their isolation."In response to a question, Makary said: "There is no Maronite who does not dream of the presidency." Regarding the deadlines for the Speakership and premiership presidency, Al-Makari advised the new MPs who are entering Parliament for the first time and the so-called forces “March 14” not to disrupt the process of electing the Speaker of Parliament.
Makary indicated: "The disruption in the speakership election process will impact the presidency of the government and the republic, and this is harmful to the country." Minister Makary announced that the "Marada" Movement advocates the re-election of House Speaker Nabih Berri for a new term.
Regarding premiership presidency, he hoped that Premier Najib Mikati will be chosen to head the future government, saying: "Mikati has succeeded in managing the past stage, and I hope that the government will be swiftly formed, because the continuity of institutions is the sole way to preserve the country."

Mufti Derian welcomes UNIFIL Commander, Rifi
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Grand Mufti of the Republic, Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, on Thursday welcomed at his Dar Al-Fatwa residence "UNIFIL" Commander, Aroldo Lazaro, who paid him a protocol visit after assuming his duties in Lebanon. The pair discussed the current situation in Lebanon and the region.
Derian later received MP Ashraf Rifi, who affirmed to the Grand Mufti his intention to work alongside official institutions, activate their role, and prevent their disruption. “We’ve also affirmed to His Eminence our rejection against sectarianism and our intention to confront any attempt to isolate Lebanon with all the capabilities available to us,” Rifi said.
“Respect for the democratic parliamentary system in Lebanon begins with activating the role of constitutional institutions, as well as with accountability, legislation, and the formation of an effective Lebanese government,” Rifi added. Moreover, he expressed utter rejection against the existence of illegal weapons. “We affirm that we stand by the official military and security institutions,” he added. “We also affirmed to His Eminence that we are against proposing civil marriage in all its forms because it violates religion and the constitution,“ Rifi said.

Lebanese pound trades at record low of 35,000 to the dollar
Reuters, Beirut/26 May ,2022
Lebanon's pound traded at a record low of more than 35,000 to the dollar on Thursday, according to currency exchange platforms and traders, as divisions within a newly-elected parliament fuel concerns political paralysis will worsen the country's financial crisis.
The legislature elected on May 15 has yet to hold its first session with major blocs divided over who to elect as speaker of parliament. The country clinched a provisional agreement with the International Monetary Fund in April but several measures prerequisite to the release of funds, including amendments to banking secrecy regulations and a capital controls bill, have yet to be adopted by parliament. The pound has lost more than 95 percent of its value since 2019, when it was valued at 1,500 just before the country tumbled into an economic meltdown. Lebanon's three-year financial crisis has pushed three-quarters of the population into poverty and food prices have gone up more than 11-fold, with new price hikes seen in supermarkets this week. After decades of pegging the currency, the central bank now offers multiple rates, including a flexible exchange rate that was trading around 25,000 this week.
The gap between market exchange rates and the central bank's rate has widened significantly since the May 15 elections.

Owners of bakeries across Lebanon stage sit-in in front of Ministry of Economy
NNA/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Owners of bakeries across Lebanon on Thursday staged a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Economy to demand that wheat be secured for mills, and the price of bread bundles be set in proportion to the USD market exchange rate. The Secretary of Bakeries Owners’ Syndicate in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, Nasser Srour, said: "We suffer a big problem because it involves bread. The political class has closed most of the country's institutions and has no problem with us closing either." Moreover, Srour couldn’t help but wonder why the state hasn’t signed disbursing wheat credits after a period of two months. “We hope that the Minister of Finance will sign the credits so that people will not be humiliated,” he added.

Either Berri or the void
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/May 26/2022
Lebanon is hostage to a system that allows Hezbollah to monopolise Shia representation in parliament.
It is still early, indeed very early, to assess the results of the Lebanese elections, their pros and cons.
At the forefront of the negative dimensions of the ballot is the current electoral law, which allows Hezbollah to control 27 Shia deputies out of the 27 in parliament.
It is currently not possible to nominate any Shia figure for the position of speaker of parliament, (which is Shia preserve) with the exception of President Nabih Berri, who has been in this position for thirty years. The opponents of Berri, who is the candidate of "Hezbollah", do not see a way out of this. Either the deputies accept him as speaker, or the parliament remains without one. That also means the presidential office could remain vacant, as it has become impossible for a Maronite to accede to that office if he is not nominated by “Hezbollah” and imposed by this pro-Iranian party on the Lebanese people and the world.
There is fear the result of the. elections could lead to a void. Questions persist about the effective role the independent MPs could play as representatives of the popular revolution that began on October 17, 2019.For all practical purposes, it is feared that Lebanon will fall into a vacuum at all levels: a vacuum at the level of the speaker of the house of representatives, then that of the presidency of the republic and of the government. It will be impossible to avoid the vacuum if Berri is not re-elected speaker of parliament, with all the baggage he brings with him.
Nabih Berri may be is a political figure with long experience, but he represents the continuation of the existing system, a system of weapons shielding corruption. The weapons (wielded by “Hezbollah”) are more important than the elections and their results.
If it is still too early to assess the election results, it is easy to judge the era of Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, Gebran Bassil. During this era, electricity became a thing of the past, the port of Beirut was blown up, education and bread disappeared and the banking sector collapsed. What this era has in fact achieved was the destruction of Lebanese institutions and jeopardising of the livelihoods of the Lebanese people, so that they are left with no choice but to emigrate.
Michel Aoun is a loyal follower of a school that preaches Iranian control of Lebanon. That same school is infused with racism, ignorance and hatred for success. It is a school that believes that Christians in Lebanon can secure their rights only thanks to the weapons of a Shia sectarian militia called “Hezbollah,” even if this militia is nothing but a brigade in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. This militia will drag Lebanon into other disasters after it was able, thanks to Michel Aoun and Gibran Bassil, to isolate the country from the Arab world.
The Aounist Movement is carrying out a clear plan aimed at destroying Lebanon under the slogan of reform and change and that of restoration of the rights of Christians.
Every day it becomes clearer that evicting the Lebanese from their country is the favourite occupation of Michel Aoun, who, while at Baabda Palace in 1988, 1989 and 1990, achieved, as head of then-interim government tasked with electing a new president, something unprecedented for any Lebanese official. At the time, Aoun fought two wars in order to be president. In his first war, he targeted Muslims in what he called “the war of liberation”. In the second, he targeted Christians in what he called the “war of cancellation.” Using brigades in the Lebanese army that remained loyal to him, Aoun attacked Syrian positions in Lebanon. He killed Lebanese citizens, not Syrian soldiers. After that, he went to war against the “Lebanese Forces,” so that the (late) Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would be pleased with him and allow him to become president.
What Lebanon is going through today, where poverty is soaring at an alarming rate, is considered a continuation of Michel Aoun's achievements. The process of isolating Lebanon from the Arab world was nothing but a small detail in a bigger game that could eventually lead to the total destruction of the country. Lebanon is losing the foundations on which it rests while it is about to reach the end of Aoun’s era on the last day of next October, that is, after five months and a few days from now.
Where have the elections taken Lebanon and the Lebanese? The question will come up again and again when the members of parliament discover that they have only one choice, which is to reelect Nabih Berri as speaker of parliament. "Hezbollah" will succeed once again in imposing its will on the Lebanese, who will have no choice but to submit to the diktat of this armed party which makes war and peace decisions for the country.
The path to change in Lebanon seems long. There is no evidence that the process of collapse can stop in a country where no one wants to be held accountable or is able to hold others accountable. It was important to see the electoral defeat of iconic figures affiliated with the Syrian regime, such as Asaad Hardan and Talal Arslan. But what can a country do when the MPs have no choice but to reelect Nabih Berri to the position of speaker of parliament, given the absence of any other Shia candidate? Moreover, Hezbollah, which monopolises Shia representation in parliament, wields a potent pressure card: it is either Nabih Berri or no one ... It is either Nabih Berri or the void.

Hezbollah's Nasrallah is struggling to stay relevant - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/ The Jerusalem Post/ MAY 26, 2022
Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah's latest speech was short and brought nothing new to the table, illustrating the movement's dying relevance.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who is 61 years old, is struggling to stay relevant. In a speech this week, he once again reminded the few people who tuned in that in May of 2000, Israel left southern Lebanon. For Hezbollah, this is considered a “victory” that set the stage for Hezbollah launching a war on Israel in 2006 and its attempt to control Lebanon after it assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. The Nasrallah speech was full of the usual bluster about how great Hezbollah’s “martyrs and fighters” are and how Israel’s withdrawal was Lebanon’s greatest success. If this was its great success, then there isn’t much to show for it because Lebanon is struggling financially and the country’s voters are no longer backing Hezbollah. Nasrallah, however, needs to stay relevant. He knows that young people no longer identify with him or his aging movement.
How can Nasrallah stay relevant?
In his relatively short speech, Nasrallah claimed that Israel’s withdrawal in 2000 ended its dream of “greater Israel” and that Palestinians now have “hope again for liberation of their land.”
He then warned Israel not to tamper with al-Aqsa mosque. Shouting about the “danger” to al-Aqsa is one of the key grifts of Nasrallah and his friends: using imaginary religious threats to encourage extremism and populism.
How did Iranian media cover the speech?
Iranian media didn’t seem to take the speech seriously, but a bit of it was published.
“Any action against al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in the region will lead to a big explosion in the region and will have unpleasant results,” the Hezbollah leader said.
Overall, the speech was to be expected as part of the usual cycle of speeches that Nasrallah gives several times a year.
Why this is different
The brevity of the speech and the fact Hezbollah and its allies performed badly in the recent elections, illustrates how the terrorist group will have to struggle to stay relevant in the coming years.

Lebanon’s election sees political vote buying and intimidation
Clement Gibon, Al Arabiya English/26 May ,2022
As the Lebanese population went to the polls on May 15, several observers noted a significant number of violations of the electoral law, potentially affecting the accuracy and respect of the legislative elections. On his way to his polling station in Yarin, a village in southern Lebanon, Hussein Hamoud, a 35-year-old social media manager, noticed hundreds of cars queued and waiting for gasoline. This situation is reminiscent of the fuel shortages that the country experienced last summer, but which can be explained by another reason on the Election Day.
“All these people are waiting to fill their tanks with the political parties’ coupons in exchange for their vote. Here, nobody hides from vote-buying, which is a recurrent practice in Lebanon during elections time,” said Hamoud.
Vote-buying for cash or food
With the economic crisis that has gripped the country for over two years, a large part of the population has become impoverished and more dependent on traditional political parties. In one of its latest press releases, the World Bank accused the country’s political elite of deliberately orchestrating the economic depression by taking over the state and living off its economic rents.
For Aly Sleem, director of the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), an organization that monitored the Lebanese election, the establishment and, to a lesser extent, emerging political groups have taken advantage of the economic crisis. With the collapse of public institutions, political groups offer services to the population in exchange for their electoral support. Unlike in 2018, when vote-buying was using cash, the traditional political parties now provide medicines, food, and other necessities.
According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), people who suffered in Lebanon doubled from 42 per cent in 2019 to 82 per cent today, making the population even more vulnerable. In the largest city of Sour, where yellow and green flags affiliated with the two Shiite parties Hezbollah and Amal dominate the streets, Hamoud saw the impoverishment of the population and the buying of votes with essential resources linked to it.
“The fact that people struggle daily to survive helps the traditional political parties in their election campaign. The night before the elections, we could see the political parties distributing food boxes, trying to convince the inhabitants to vote for them. On the day of the elections, they distributed money to citizens in front of polling stations. It ranged from a few dozen dollars to several hundred, depending on the economic status of the people.”
Although detrimental to the democratic process, this practice is, however, legalized by the Lebanese electoral law. Article 62 states that candidates or institutions owned or managed by candidates or parties can provide gifts and donations with consistent identical amounts and quantities on a regular and consistent basis for at least three years before the campaign period are free to continue to do so.
People involved in the elections distinguish between the Lebanese electoral law that does not allow equal opportunities for all candidates and the international standards of free and fair elections. In several cases, some traditional political parties disregard the election law by breaking the secrecy of the vote.
“Some of the polling workers would even go with the candidate to vote, pretexting that they could not read or that some people were too old to understand what to do,” Hamoud claimed, adding that he had directly witnessed this while waiting to cast his vote.
When traditional political parties feel threatened by the potential outcome of the election, they can go further and change ballot boxes and replace votes with fakes that skew the result in their favor. It’s claimed that Hezbollah delegates were placing ballots in envelopes at a polling station in the Hermel sub-district of Bekaa III after the closure of polling stations.
A system of political intimidation
In addition to increased clientelism and a vigorous crackdown on electoral law, hate speech campaigns and misinformation also marked the electoral process. Ayman Mhanna, director of the freedom of democracy organization Samir Kassir Foundation, tracked the use of electoral armies by traditional parties such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces, and the Free Patriotic Movement to influence the elections in their favor.
“Supporters of these political parties use astroturfing to flood social networks with content that makes voters believe they hold the majority opinion. Several studies have shown that this represents a major manipulation of public opinion as no one likes to be on the losing side,” he claimed.
“I am not surprised by the undemocratic practices of the traditional political parties that have had the same leaders for the past thirty years and are undemocratic by definition. We cannot expect any other behavior from them," he added.
On Election Day, the members of the various monitoring missions have suffered from a culture of intimidation. With the emergence of an opposition challenging the status quo in the wake of the October 2019 mass protests, online hate campaigns turned into intimidation and reportedly physical violence against candidates who claim to be independent.
Hamoud recalls the assaults that broke out in the town of Sarafand when supporters affiliated with the political party Amal, according to witnesses there, beat up candidates who wanted to announce the electoral list "Together for Change."
"Our observers in the southern district, as well as in Baalbek-Hermel, and Saida, were harassed by the traditional political parties. Some were even beaten or slapped and had to leave the polling stations," Hamoud told Al Arabiya. "Our inability to monitor certain regions and the fact that voters were sometimes under significant pressure lead us to raise questions about the accuracy and respect of the process."Similarly, five of the association's observers were not allowed to monitor the second round of counting inside the primary registration committee stations of Haret Hreik, Mazboud, and Beirut.
In addition to vote-buying practices and increased intimidation and threatening speeches, the official Lebanese Election Supervisory Commission also monitored at least 324 cases of breaches of electoral silence during voting. In its latest statement, it noted that "On Sunday, May 15, there was a very large number of violations of electoral silence by all the media, candidates, lists and political parties.”
Hope for positive changes
Despite all the severe violations of the election law (estimated by LADE to be as many as 3,600), there were signs of change. For example, Mhanna noted a broader representation of candidates appearing on national television stations, including LBCI, MTV, and Al Jadeed. Most TV appearances were paid for, which favored better-funded candidates. Significantly, the quality of debates had improved, with pundits taking a much more in-depth look at political issues while ensuring the integrity of the information. Despite these improvements, the media still fell short of international standards for fair and equal access to all candidates and parties. In Beirut, Hamoud carefully analyzes the election results after voting in his village. "I'm quite happy with the results because I'm starting to see a glimpse of change in the country. People who have been members of parliament for the last few decades have not been elected for the first time." "Independent candidates managed to get elected in many places that were strongholds of the traditional political parties, even though they were violating the electoral law. I can't imagine what the result would have been if the electoral law had been respected."

In Lebanon, a Nascent Reform Movement Faces Tough Road
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Ramy Finge spent two years braving tear gas and rubber bullets, sometimes trying to scale the cement walls surrounding Lebanon’s parliament during anti-government protests.
Soon he'll be able to walk in through the front door. The dentist from the northern city of Tripoli is among 13 independent newcomers who won seats in parliament in May 15 elections, building on the protest movement seeking to break the long domination by traditional parties.
The unexpectedly strong showing by civil society activists restored some hope among despairing Lebanese that change in their ailing country is possible. But the nascent reform movement is fragmented, and faces enormous challenges in fighting an entrenched ruling clique. Many worry the incoming parliament will exacerbate polarization and paralysis at a time when the country is dealing with one of the worst economic meltdowns in history. It is hobbled by divisions between the old guard and newcomers, as well as between supporters and opponents of Hezbollah. In the run-up to the elections, candidates drawn from the protest movement that formed in October 2019 ran on competing lists.
Broadly, they share the view that the decades-old grip on power by civil war-era warlords and sectarian-based political dynasties is the root cause behind rampant corruption, mismanagement, lack of services and lack of accountability that have driven the country into ruin.
But in the details, they are divided on almost everything, from their approach to reforming the economy and restructuring the collapsed banking sector, to their views on Hezbollah’s weapons and whether disarming the Iranian-backed group should be prioritized.
Still, it is no small accomplishment that they were able to break through despite an electoral law tailored for a ruling class with enormous power at its disposal. The elections were a setback for the Hezbollah-led coalition, which lost its majority in the 128-seat parliament, though it remains the largest bloc.“This is the first achievement by the Thawra (Arabic for revolution) because we were able to get in,” Finge, 57, told The Associated Press at his modest home in Lebanon’s impoverished city of Tripoli this week. “And from inside we will work with all our strength and courage to … dismantle this corrupt ruling class, which is destined to fall no matter how long it takes,” he said. Like his colleagues from the protest movement, Finge was subjected to all kinds of pressure and intimidation in the past two years. He proudly recalled the exuberant protests in Tripoli and Beirut that filled the squares starting in late 2019, when police would fire volleys of tear gas and pellets at demonstrators who often tried to scale the giant security barriers around parliament.
In February 2021, he was summoned by security and questioned about a makeshift kitchen he had set up in Tripoli distributing food to protesters and the needy. He called it Matbakh al Thawra, or the Revolution Kitchen. The independents who won seats are a motley group of doctors, professors, professionals and activists from across Lebanon and from a variety of religious sects. Among them is Firas Hamdan, a 35-year-old lawyer and activist who was hit in the chest by a rubber bullet fired by parliament police during a protest. Elias Jaradeh, an eye surgeon, won a seat held for 30 years by a pro-Syrian politician. Najat Aoun, a chemistry professor and environmental activist, was one of four women independents who won, bringing the number of women in parliament from six to eight. The newcomers say they plan to form a unified bloc to strengthen their influence in parliament, but that won’t be easy considering what they are up against. Their mere presence in parliament is a decent start, but the challenge now is to organize and implement a program, Bilal Saab, senior fellow and founding director of the defense and security program at the Middle East Institute, wrote in an analysis. “This obviously will be very difficult given the still considerable power of Hezbollah and its allies, and the next presidential race in October will show the immediate impact of these parliamentary elections," he wrote. The first test will be at parliament’s first meeting, expected in the coming days, when lawmakers must elect a speaker. The 84-year-old incumbent, Nabih Berri, has held the position for the past 30 years and is running again for a seventh term, so far uncontested. The powerful head of Amal is seen by many as the godfather of Lebanon’s corrupt sectarian-based and elite-dominated political system. Independents and some of the Christian parties in parliament have said they will not vote for him, risking his re-election with a much slimmer than usual majority from mainly Shiite parties. Some have speculated Berri may refrain from calling for the inaugural session, which according to the constitution must be held before June 6, if he is not assured of the desired number of votes he will get.
“For us, it’s clear that we will not elect any symbol of the ruling class, including Speaker Berri,” one of the new independents, 46-year-old architect Ibrahim Mneimneh, told AP. He acknowledged, however, that they have yet to develop a clear alternative course of action.
A bigger test will be formation of a cabinet that can win parliament’s confidence on key issues such as an economic recovery plan, finalizing a bailout deal with the IMF, resuming the stalled investigation into the 2020 blast at Beirut port, and how to deal with the longtime Central Bank governor. The top banker is being investigated locally and in several European countries on charges of money laundering and embezzlement. Backed by the ruling class, he remains in his position despite a financial meltdown. Finally, the new parliament will have to elect a new president when President Michel Aoun’s six-year term ends on October 31, with no clear successor. Analysts fear inability to agree on these milestones will lead to a protracted paralysis with disastrous economic and social consequences. David Hale, former US under-secretary of state for political affairs and a former ambassador to Lebanon, had a bleak view in a commentary for the Wilson Center headlined “Lebanon’s Election Offers no Salvation.”“It is hard to insert a la carte independents into a system favoring fixed price menus, especially if independents don’t form coalitions of their own, as they failed to do,” he wrote. Mneimneh said the traditional parties have many powerful tools through which they can pressure and obstruct.” The independents’ strongest tool is to try to rally the street, he said. “I think this is the most difficult thing today because there is no equal balance between us and them.”

Security Council Calls for Swift Formation of New Government in Lebanon
New York - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
The 15 members of the UN Security Council called on Wednesday for the quick formation of a new inclusive government in Lebanon and the urgent implementation of previously outlined tangible reforms, including the swift adoption of an appropriate budget for 2022. The swift formation of a new cabinet “would enable the quick conclusion of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to respond to the demands of the Lebanese population,” according to the text of the statement, which was drafted by France. The members also stressed the role of the Lebanese institutions, including the newly elected Parliament, in the implementation of the reforms necessary to tackle the unprecedented crisis. They underlined the importance of delivering those reforms in order to ensure effective international support. Moreover, they encouraged measures to enhance women’s full, equal and meaningful political participation and representation, including in the new government. Council members stressed once again the need for a swift conclusion of an independent, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation into the explosion that struck Beirut on August 4, 2020, which is essential to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Lebanese people for accountability and justice. One day after the Lebanese parliamentary elections were held on May 15, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Lebanon to form an “inclusive government” to tackle the country's economic crisis. The UN chief said he looked forward to the swift formation of an inclusive government that can finalize the agreement with the IMF and accelerate the implementation of reforms necessary to set Lebanon on the path to recovery. Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies have lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament, a major blow to the armed group that reflects anger with Lebanon's ruling elite. The new Lebanese Parliament should now elect a parliamentary speaker. Hezbollah’s ally, Speaker Nabih Berri has held the position since 1992.

طوني بدران/موقع ذي تابلت: مسرحية لبنانية؟ الأرستقراطيين! … الانتخابات النيابية اللبنانية الأخيرة كانت تحفة فنية مسرحية استخفت بكل ما هو واقع، كما أنه لم تكن هناك مراقبة غربية
Lebanese Play? The Aristocrats!…The country’s recent election was a masterpiece of counterfactual Kabuki theater—and there wasn’t a dry Western eye in the house
Tony Badran/The Tablet/May 26/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108935/108935/
لبنان قاعة مرايا. النشطاء والمحللون ومسؤولو الحكومة الأمريكية يستخدمون في لبنان مفردات من مثل “مؤسسات الدولة” و “الانتخابات” و “عملية الإصلاح” وما إلى ذلك ، ولكن كل ما يفعلونه هو تشويه عقول اللبنانيين للبقاء على أرض الواقع وتجاهل الأرستقراطيين
Lebanon is a hall of mirrors. Activists, analysts, and U.S. government officials use words like “state institutions,” “elections,” “reform process,” and so on, but all they do is warp one’s brain. To remain grounded in reality, ignore the Aristocrats.
One of the most characteristic beliefs of Washington elites these days is that the true “meaning” of any particular event is always derived from large-scale “narratives” about headline topics like democracy, race, women’s rights, climate change, or criminal justice, which the particular case is supposed to illustrate. When the “narrative” contradicts the facts, it is the facts that are naturally expected to give way. What importance can a few stray facts possibly have next to the majesty and importance of a narrative that promises to end racism and war and save the planet?
To argue about whether yesterday’s hurricane was or was not an unusual weather event caused by burning carbon fuels in first-world countries is therefore to miss the point entirely: Facts don’t matter when confronted by the fierce urgency of a narrative beloved by the decent people who make policy in Washington. In this way, stories and parables that advance the priorities of policymaking elites become insulated from normal standards of proof. Instead, every piece of available evidence is selected to fit a predetermined pattern, which becomes reality in the minds of the narrative believers—who from the outside appear to behave suspiciously like members of a cult. What matters is that the narrative continue its progress through congressional committees that might appropriate funds that can be used to bribe local actors into shows of phony compliance that over time—who knows?—might even someday become real, too. Think of how true the narrative will be then!
In this way, even the most idiotic narrative, founded on the most absurd theories, can be gifted with a retrospective gloss of reality, as long as you don’t look hard at the facts. That is, until the entire house of cards collapses, as it did recently in Afghanistan.
Nowhere on the planet today is the gap between narrative and reality wider, and therefore under more constant pressure from elites in a wide range of countries, than in Lebanon, where the substitution of “narratives” for unpleasant realities may soon become the single largest component of the country’s GDP. Take the recent Lebanese elections, for example. The official results of the May 15 parliamentary elections had not yet been announced when English-language media reports declared the outcome to be a “major blow” to Hezbollah, the group that dominates that country.
Why? Because the fact-proof narrative in which there is a “country” called Lebanon that is separate from the control of Hezbollah naturally requires that result—and for the result to mean something. The election, the storyline went, showed that gains by reformist civil society and independent candidates reflected popular Lebanese discontent with the traditional political class. These anti-Hezbollah forces handed a stinging defeat both to Hezbollah and to the established parties, whom the people held responsible for the financial collapse in 2019. And in so doing these new representatives of the people manifestly weakened the terror group by stripping it of the majority it had held in parliament, which—in the narrative, at least—is a real institution through which power is distributed and exercised.
إنها قصة جميلة بالتأكيد. حتى أنها توجد منطقيًا داخليًا، لسوء الحظ ، هو ليس حقيقيًا. في الواقع ، لبنان مكانًا غير ساراً للعيش فيه – فقط اسأل أي لبناني غير منشغل بالضغط على الأمريكيين أو السعوديين أو الفرنسيين أو أي قوى خارجية أخرى للحصول على المال لتأخير انهيار “واقعهم” الخيالي لمدة شهر آخر أو ثانيًا: لبنان “مقاطعة” تديرها إيران وتوفر قاعدة عمليات متقدمة للحرس الثوري الإسلامي في طهران ، الذي يوجه حزب الله. هذا هو الواقع.
It’s a nice story, to be sure. It even makes internal logical sense. Unfortunately, it’s not real. In reality, which can be an unpleasant place to live—just ask any Lebanese who is not busy lobbying the Americans, the Saudis, the French, or other outside powers for cash to delay the collapse of their fictional “reality” for another month or two—Lebanon is an Iranian-run satrapy which provides a forward operating base for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran, which directs Hezbollah. That’s reality.
But it’s not just that all these words and categories like “parliament” and “elections” and “political parties” are meaningless in the Lebanese context—even on its own terms, the story is untrue. There was no such election result, either before or after the votes were counted—an action that in real-world terms was itself all but meaningless. What we’re dealing with here is messaging by Lebanese politicians and operatives in Beirut and Washington, D.C., which deliberately framed the supposed meaning of the outcome of this process for an international target audience that has invested in “the narrative” and might be persuaded to invest even more.
In quintessential Lebanese fashion, the purpose of messaging is to con the outside world, namely the United States and Saudi Arabia, into deepening their involvement and increasing their investment in Lebanon, on the basis of a narrative that allows everyone to avoid dealing with the local unpleasantness, which meanwhile only continues getting worse. The logic underlying this ploy is also characteristically Lebanese: If fate makes you bystanders of a tragedy in which you and your children and your neighbors are bound to be consumed, maybe you can alleviate your suffering for a moment or two by selling tickets to the play. The title of the play? “The Aristocrats Say That Hezbollah is Doomed!”
Lebanon’s latest round of bizarre counterfactual Kabuki theater started well before the election. After Lebanon collapsed financially in late 2019, there were popular protests that briefly expressed anger at the political class, which is composed of figures that have been around since the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. Civil society groups also mushroomed and put forward equally numerous platforms for how best to address the deadly rot that is consuming the country.
The protests would soon fizzle out. But Lebanese political players saw an opportunity to channel some of the discontent to their parochial advantage and against their sectarian rivals. Similarly, Lebanon analysts and activists in D.C. found in the protests and civil society activism fodder for their theories and policy analysis. Some Lebanese figures even made the rounds in D.C. to request funding for their NGOs. Hezbollah’s popular support has been shaken, they maintained, and the elections were a major opportunity to expose this weakness, and to deny the group the ability to hold sway over the country.
Of course, both Lebanese political players active in Washington—like the Lebanese Forces, the Maronite Christian party—and the Beirut-D.C. analyst crowd know that Hezbollah’s dominant military power is completely unaffected by folkloric performances like Lebanon’s parliamentary elections. As such, in order to sell their pitch about “weakening” Hezbollah, they resorted to a sleight of hand, inventing new yardsticks with which we could supposedly measure Hezbollah’s strength.
The scam, which the Lebanese political players and analysts could market in D.C. and try to sell to the Saudis—hey, you never know!—went something like this: The Lebanese didn’t have to take any direct action against Hezbollah itself. Rather, the true gauge of whether you’ve weakened Hezbollah is the electoral performance of its allies. More than anything else, supposedly the most meaningful indicator of Hezbollah’s actual strength was the performance of another Maronite Christian party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)—the party of the Lebanese president and his son-in-law and heir, former minister Gebran Bassil, which happens to be the Lebanese Forces’ old rival in parochial Maronite politics.
For months, Lebanese political operatives and Beirut-D.C. analysts confidently asserted that Bassil—whom the U.S. sanctioned in 2020 for his role in official corruption—and the FPM were in free fall. Their day was over. Partisans of Lebanese sovereignty would soon have their chance to celebrate. A great victory would be won. Institutions would be strengthened. The money faucets could be turned on.
Why? Well, the argument went, the FPM’s impending colossal electoral defeat, which was all but guaranteed by the narrative, meant that Hezbollah would lose its “Christian cover”—a category without any actual meaning, and which the Lebanese operatives and analysts simply invented. Apparently, without “Christian cover,” Hezbollah wouldn’t be able to retain its vast arsenal—or something like that. And once Bassil loses his seat in parliament, Hezbollah wouldn’t be able to install him as the next president, after his father-in-law’s term ends in the fall. That, too, was sold as a catastrophic defeat for Hezbollah, because, we’re supposed to believe, the Lebanese presidency is a very powerful office, and without Bassil Hezbollah would be in a very tight jam indeed.
This kind of childish nonsense formed the core of the sustained messaging that set the stage for the tale that emerged after the election. Hence, the most salient talking point on election day, which was disseminated even before all the votes were counted, was the supposed defeat of Bassil and the FPM, who no longer could claim to be the largest representative of Lebanon’s Christians. A major blow had been struck against Hezbollah!
Only, not so much. In the final tally, while the FPM did lose some seats, it was nowhere near collapse, as the Beirut-D.C. chattering crowd had maintained. Rather, it ended basically in a tie with their Lebanese Forces rivals, who added a few seats. Bassil kept his seat as well. And when you factor in the seats won by the FPM’s ally, the pro-Iran Armenian Tashnag party, their coalition ends up with the larger Christian bloc. Add to that other Hezbollah-aligned Christians who won seats, and what happens to the Lebanese operatives’ mantra about Hezbollah’s “Christian cover,” whatever that meant to begin with? Hezbollah in fact had plenty of it. Which would matter, except for the fact that it’s all gibberish.
But what about those brave civil society candidates and independents, who provided evidence of the Lebanese people voting for change and of their rejection of Hezbollah and the traditional political class? While it’s true that a handful of pro-Assad fixtures have lost their seats to newcomers, that’s only the surface of the matter. The true story is far from the prevailing spin.
First, it should be noted that none of these new faces are Shia. In fact, for all the pre-election talk of Hezbollah’s supposed waning support among the Shia, the party and its Amal ally swept all 27 seats allotted to the sect in Lebanon’s confessional quota system. The new crop are all from the other sects, spread over the various electoral districts.
One breakthrough case in a south Lebanon district, which received a lot of airplay for its supposed importance as proof of the cracks in Hezbollah’s support base, involved a civil society candidate unseating the Syrian Social Nationalist Party representative for the Greek Orthodox seat. The incoming MP, Elias Jarade, has a family background with the Lebanese Communist party and its militia, which has a long history in south Lebanon, including in Jarade’s hometown. For instance, his brother had fought with the militia against Israel in the south. The Communist party reportedly mobilized to give Jarade enough votes to carry him through. Immediately after his win, Jarade went on Hezbollah TV and expressed his support for the Hezbollah line about the liberation of Lebanese occupied land, and echoed the group’s maximalist position on Lebanese maritime boundaries with Israel. A “major blow” to Hezbollah, indeed.
What results like this reveal is that the terms “civil society” or “independent” are by no means synonymous with “anti-Hezbollah.” If anything, most of the MP’s under these categories have either a supportive or somewhat qualified position on Hezbollah’s “resistance,” to say nothing about the maritime dispute with Israel. Nor are the terms “civil society” and “independent” interchangeable, much as the post-election storyline and the various graphics produced to explain the makeup of the new parliament have conflated them. Many of the figures dubbed “independent” are simply members of the traditional political class, or figures backed by a member of that class. Similarly, the ability of some of the civil society candidates to win their seats actually was not the result of a popular vote for change against the traditional class. In some cases it was merely a result of interelite machination: maneuvers and deals between traditional leaders to secure their parochial interests.
Take for instance the civil society gains in the Shouf mountains that ousted two pro-Assad Druze figures. The Shouf and Aley districts are critical grounds for Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt and for the continuity of his political household. The elder Jumblatt is in the middle of transferring the mantle of leadership to his son Taymour. Securing the family’s position against Druze rivals is of paramount importance for Jumblatt. By directing voters to bump the vote threshold of the two newcomers, who lack any serious popular constituency and are not far from Taymour Jumblatt’s circles, the Druze chieftain would allow them to benefit from an odd feature of this election’s convoluted sectarian law and break through at the expense of his Druze rivals in the mountain. Such a deal would have been done with the Shia parties, namely with the speaker of parliament and head of Amal, Nabih Berri. After the election, one of the ousted Druze rivals of Jumblatt spoke of “betrayal”—a reference to the Shia parties not directing enough votes to push him over the threshold. Berri is now set to return as speaker for the seventh consecutive term, which is another “major blow” to Hezbollah, no doubt.
The latter example is relevant to another salient talking point of the post-election narrative. Namely, that Hezbollah and its allies have lost the majority they held in parliament—the most tangible proof of their “weakening.” The obvious problem with this propaganda line is that in two previous back-to-back elections (2005 and 2009), Hezbollah and its allies had also failed to win the majority. The impact that had on the group’s ability to dominate the country, prosecute multiple conflicts across the region, vastly build up its arsenal, and expand its strategic depth in Syria, was precisely zero.
But even on its own terms, the whole argument about the parliamentary majority is silly. Hezbollah and its allies have the largest coalition, just shy of the 65-seat simple majority—which works just fine for the party.
On the other side there is, well, nothing. There is not even an opposing coalition. The “opposition” establishment parties (parties like the Lebanese Forces, the Phalanges, the remains of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, etc.) mistrust each other and all have their own individual ambitions and agendas, none more so than Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces, who harbors delusions of becoming the next president. The “independents” and the “civil society” crowd are just as fractious and incoherent. Jumblatt, meanwhile, has his own agenda, and he’ll cooperate with Berri and Hezbollah whenever it suits him.
Sooner or later, Hezbollah will likely be able to draw enough of those “independent” MPs. But even if not, it can call for a national unity government, which it will be able to guide in line with its priorities. Herding cats is what Hezbollah has done successfully for years. It’s just that some of the old cats have now been replaced with a new litter.
Whatever Israel decides to do, its decision needs to be clear of any illusion about the nature of the problem it faces in Lebanon.
The bottom line here, it bears repeating, is that Lebanon’s political circus and the categories hawked by the Lebanese operatives are meaningless. Their only function is to sucker outsiders into believing they’re real and meaningful in order to sell tickets to Lebanon’s imagination land.
For its part, the United States, which is already deeply involved in Lebanon, is also playing a cynical game, similar to that of the Lebanese. When Hezbollah held the majority in parliament and ran the government, Washington was hardly dissuaded from dealing with and supporting that government. American policymakers simply invented a convenient fiction, distinguishing between “the Lebanese state” and Hezbollah, and using that phony distinction as a fig leaf. France, meanwhile, deals with Hezbollah directly, on the understanding that the group holds the keys to the place, where France has invested money and prestige.
Both France and the United States have spent the last two years exerting pressure on Saudi Arabia to reengage and renew sustained funding of Lebanon. Although the recently returned Saudi ambassador to Lebanon has been active, and has put some backing behind Geagea and others, there is no horizon here. A comment the other day by the Saudi foreign minister suggests that, the ambassador’s visibility notwithstanding, the Kingdom’s leadership is well aware of this reality and is keeping Lebanon at arm’s length. Riyadh’s limited engagement is best explained as alliance maintenance to keep the French happy without going overboard.
Israel, on the other hand, cannot afford to treat any part of the Lebanese circus as though it were reality. Notwithstanding editorials and columns by Israeli pundits about the importance of the Lebanese election, or the signs of hope it might presage, Jerusalem is forced to face the fact that its interest in Lebanon is Hezbollah’s military arsenal and the threat it poses to Israel’s security. While American and French officials, not to mention D.C. think tankers, are sure to deafen Israeli officials with their tales about how the “smart” play to “weaken” or “constrain” Hezbollah is to “strengthen state institutions” and “play the long game” by supporting “political opposition groups and civil society,” Israel can’t lose sight of the fact that none of these things are real.
Israel’s problem in Lebanon, meanwhile, is entirely real—and it’s a military, not a political, problem. For most of the past decade, Israel has gone out of its way to avoid action in Lebanon. Instead, it has focused its energy on targeting Iranian and Hezbollah assets in Syria, and to prevent the establishment of an additional active front against it in the south of that country. For all its success and appeal—both in terms of actively downgrading enemy capabilities and extending the period of quiet with the northern front—the policy, known as “the war between wars,” has some dangerous flaws.
First, Hezbollah’s capabilities continue to grow in Lebanon, especially the local development of precision guidance capability for their missiles, which are said to be produced at the rate of a few a day and are now estimated to be in the hundreds. Second, this growth in military capability is playing against the strategic backdrop of U.S. policy with Iran. The Biden administration is pulling out all the stops to ink a deal with Iran in June. Once signed, the deal will remove sanctions on the terror-sponsoring state and finance its regional project and military assets.
Israel is putting out signals that it is weighing military options. For now, with Russia preoccupied with Ukraine, Israel is intensifying its strikes in Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah assets. But at some point, maybe sooner rather than later, it will face a moment of decision as to whether it will take action inside Lebanon. Whatever Israel decides to do, its decision needs to be clear of any illusion about the nature of the problem it faces in Lebanon—and of any self-delusion that entering the world of imaginary things so dear to American policymakers is a viable alternative for how to address the real and growing threats to Israel’s security.
Lebanon is a hall of mirrors. Activists, analysts, and U.S. government officials use words like “state institutions,” “elections,” “reform process,” and so on, but all they do is warp one’s brain. To remain grounded in reality, ignore the Aristocrats.
*Tony Badran is Tablet magazine’s Levant analyst and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/name-lebanese-play-artistocrats

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 26-27/2022
Inspirational Thought of the Day: What Life Is All About
Unknown author/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Life isn't about keeping score. It's not about how many friends you have. Or how many people call you. Or how accepted or unaccepted you are. Not about if you have plans this weekend. Or if you're alone. It isn't about who you're dating, who you use to date, how many people you've dated, or if you haven't been with anyone at all. It isn't about who you have kissed. It's not about sex. It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have. Or what kind of car you drive. Or where you're sent to school. It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark. It's not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everyone else thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy/girl likes you. Or what clubs you're in, or how good you are at "your" sport. It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will "accept the written you". But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It's about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It's about keeping or betraying trust. It's about friendship, used as sanctity, or as a weapon. It's about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It's about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.
It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention. It's about jealousy, fear, pain, ignorance, and revenge. It's about carrying inner hate or love, letting it grow and spreading it. But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way that could never occurred alone. Only you choose the way these hearts are affected and those choices are what life is all about.

Israel reportedly tells US it was behind killing of Iranian colonel
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Israel has told the United States it was responsible for the killing of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards colonel last week, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Colonel Sayyad Khodai was shot dead on Sunday by a gunman on the back of a motorcycle as he sat in a car outside his home in Tehran. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has vowed to avenge the killing, and the Revolutionary Guards blamed it on "elements of global arrogance" -- a reference to the United States and its allies, including Israel. On Wednesday, the Times reported that "according to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has informed American officials that it was behind the killing." The source, who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity, said Israel told US officials the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the Quds Force -- the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's ideological army. Iran's state broadcaster has described Khodai as a member of the Quds Force. It had previously reported that the colonel was "known" in Syria, where Iran has backed the government during an 11-year civil war and where it acknowledges deploying "military advisers."Thousands attended Khodai's funeral on Tuesday in central Tehran. Funeral prayers were led by the capital's top imam, and Khodai's coffin was draped in the Iranian flag. Posters hailed him as a "martyr."Khodai's killing came with negotiations between Iran and world powers to restore a frayed 2015 nuclear deal stalled since March. One of the main sticking points is Tehran's demand to remove the Guards from a US terrorism list -- a request rejected by Washington.

Greece to Send Iranian Oil from Seized Ship to US
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Greece will send Iranian oil from a seized Russian-flagged tanker to the United States at the request of the US judiciary, Greek port police said Wednesday, a decision that angered Tehran. Last month the Greek authorities seized the Pegas, which was said to have been heading to the Marmara terminal in Turkey. The ship was moored at Karystos anchorage with its crew, said to be Russians, on board. The Greek coastguard said the vessel was renamed "Lana". The authorities seized the ship in accordance with EU sanctions introduced after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. According to information at the time, the tanker was carrying 115,000 tons of Iranian oil. "Following a request from the US justice system, the oil is to be transferred to the United States at the expense of that country," a spokeswoman for the Greek port police told AFP on Wednesday. Tehran strongly protested the decision, calling it "international robbery," the Iranian maritime authority said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not waive its legal rights and expects the Greek government to adhere to its international obligations in the field of seafaring and shipping", the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran added, in a statement posted on its website. Iran's foreign affairs ministry late Tuesday called on the Greek government, via the International Maritime Organization, to release the tanker and its crew, adding that "Americans unloaded the cargo of the ship." Athens did not respond immediately to the Iranian protests and provided no further details about the oil or how it would be transferred to the United States.

Israel’s Military Figures Endorse US Stance to Reach Nuclear Deal with Iran
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Leaders of the military and security institutions in Israel disagree with Prime Minister Naftali Bennet government’s hardline opposition to the Iranian nuclear deal, political sources in Tel Aviv revealed on Wednesday. They support the US policy towards Iran, led by President Joe Biden, generals in the Pentagon, the army and intelligence services, and prefer reaching an agreement with Tehran instead of the failure of the ongoing negotiations in Vienna. The sources said these Israeli figures cannot engage in public discussions with the government, so they don’t express their stances and continue to prepare for direct military confrontations with Tehran and conduct drills to launch raids on Iranian nuclear facilities. But in order to influence the government’s stance, they push veteran retired generals to speak on their behalf to the media as experts. In this context, Israel’s former military intelligence chief endorsed a return to the Iran nuclear deal this week, asserting that such a move would be in Israel’s interests at the current time. “At any point in time, things should be examined according to the data available. Therefore, the reality of here and now, reaching a deal is the right thing,” Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman said in an interview with Israel Hayom, published on Wednesday. Hayman affirmed that Tehran has exceeded the amount of fissile material sufficient to produce the first bomb. “This means that the situation that would have happened once the nuclear deal elapsed (in 2030) wouldn't have been as bad as the current situation, as Iran has stockpiled so much enriched material and its abilities have advanced beyond what the deal had allowed it to pursue,” he warned. He affirmed that an agreement between Western powers and Iran will buy Israel time. “It would diminish and reset the amount of enriched material that Iran has, set it back and it would buy us (Israel) a very long time because enrichment takes a long time.” Israel could put this time to good use, he stressed, noting that it can issue threats, improve military capabilities, form international coalitions, or put in place infrastructure for the post-deal period.
Hayman, who headed the Israeli military's Intelligence Directorate until late last year, is now the director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Ofer Shelah, the former senior member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, also published a similar position on Ynet news website on Wednesday. He stressed that the government is making a grave mistake in opposing the nuclear deal, since it would affect its ties with the US administration and harm its own interests. He said Israel’s arrogance, narrow-mindedness, and addiction to using force will not cripple Iran’s nuclear plans, but rather convince Tehran that nuclear arms are something they must attain for protection. History has taught us that those who set their minds to attaining a nuclear weapon, do so, Shelah wrote. He pointed out that Iran is giving the impression that it has yet to make a final decision on whether it actually wants that. “Instead of concentrating all resources on trying to prevent it from reaching such a decision we're merely applying more and more force,” he lamented.

U.S. seizes Iranian oil cargo near Greek island - sources
Reuters/May 26/2022
The United States has confiscated Iranian oil held on a Russian-operated ship near Greece and will send the cargo to the United States aboard another vessel, three sources familiar with the matter said.
It was unclear whether the cargo was impounded because it was Iranian oil or due to the sanctions on the tanker over its Russian nexus. Iran and Russia are facing separate U.S. sanctions.
The Iranian-flagged ship, the Pegas, was among five vessels designated by Washington on Feb. 22 - two days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine - for sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank viewed as critical to Russia's defence sector.
The vessel's Russian owner Transmorflot was subsequently designated on May 8. The tanker, renamed Lana on March 1 and flying the Iranian flag since May 1, has remained near Greek waters since then. It was previously Russian-flagged. A source at Greece's shipping ministry said on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice had "informed Greece that the cargo on the vessel is Iranian oil".
"The cargo has been transferred to another ship that was hired by the U.S.," the source added, without providing further details. The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on what it described as a Russian-backed oil smuggling and money laundering network for Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, even as Washington tries to revive a nuclear deal with Iran. U.S. and Russian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The confiscation was confirmed by a separate Western source familiar with the matter, who said the cargo was transferred onto the Liberia-flagged tanker Ice Energy, which is operated by Greek shipping company Dynacom. A source at Dynacom confirmed that a "transfer of the oil was underway from the vessel to Dynacom's Ice Energy, which will then sail to the United States". Iran's IRNA state news agency reported on Wednesday that its foreign ministry summoned the charge d'affaires of Greece's embassy in Tehran following the seizure of the cargo of a ship which was "under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Greek waters and he was informed of the strong objections" of Iran's government. Greek government officials could not confirm the information.
IRNA quoted Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization as saying the tanker had sought refuge along Greece’s coast after experiencing technical problems and poor weather, adding that the seizure of its cargo was "a clear example of piracy". The Ice Energy on Thursday reported its position as anchored close to the southern Greek island of Evia, ship tracking data on Eikon showed.
In 2020, Washington confiscated four cargoes of Iranian fuel aboard foreign ships that were bound for Venezuela and transferred them with the help of undisclosed foreign partners onto two other ships which then sailed to the United States.
Those seizures took place after a U.S. district court issued an order for the shipments' cargoes in a civil forfeiture case. Greek authorities last month impounded the Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, near the island of Evia's coast. They said the ship was impounded as part of EU sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. However, the vessel was later released due to confusion about sanctions on its owners. U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic, said the Pegas had loaded around 700,000 barrels of crude oil from Iran's Sirri Island on Aug. 19, 2021. Prior to this load, the Pegas transported over 3 million barrels of Iranian oil in 2021, with over 2.6 million of those barrels ending up in China, according to UANI analysis. President Joe Biden's administration has been engaged in indirect talks to restart a 2015 Iran nuclear deal former President Donald Trump abandoned, under which world powers lifted international financial sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. While talks had appeared close to resurrecting the deal in March, they stalled over last-minute Russian demands and whether Washington might drop the Revolutionary Guards from its terrorism list. Washington's Iran envoy said on Wednesday the chances of reviving the nuclear deal were shaky at best, and Washington was ready to tighten sanctions on Iran.
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in London and Lefteris Papadimas and Renee Mazeltou in Athens; Additional reporting by Dubai bureau; Editing by Jason Neely, David Evans and Howard Goller)

Iran says one dead in defense research unit 'accident'
Agence France Presse/May, 26/2022
Iran said Thursday an engineer was killed in an "accident" at a defense research unit in an area near Tehran that hosts a military complex previously scrutinized by the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The Wednesday evening incident came days after a colonel in the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of Iran's military, was shot dead near his home in east Tehran. Iran's arch foe Israel told the United States it was behind the operation, The New York Times reported. Iranian officials had blamed agents of the U.S. and its allies for the "assassination", the most high profile inside Iran since 2020.
Iran's defense ministry said it was investigating the "accident" at the research unit in the Parchin area, southeast of the capital Tehran. "On Wednesday evening, in an accident that took place in one of the research units of the defense ministry in the Parchin area, engineer Ehsan Ghad Beigi was martyred and one of his colleagues injured," the ministry said in a short statement. "Investigations into the cause of this accident are underway."State media had earlier reported that one person was killed and another injured in an "industrial accident" in Parchin. The Parchin complex is alleged to have hosted past testing of conventional explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear warhead, something Iran has repeatedly denied. The site came under renewed scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2015 when Tehran reached a landmark deal with major powers under which it agreed to curb its nuclear activities under U.N. supervision in return for the lifting of international sanctions. Iran had previously denied the IAEA access to Parchin, insisting it was a military site unrelated to any nuclear activities, but the agency's then chief, the late Yukiya Amano, paid a visit.
In June 2020, a gas tank explosion in a "public area" near the complex shook the capital, 30 kilometers (20 miles) away, but caused no casualties, the defense ministry said at the time.
Israel 'behind' Guards hit -
Iran's nuclear program has been the target of a campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks and assassinations of key scientists that it has blamed on Israel. Israeli leaders have repeatedly refused to rule out military action to prevent Iran developing an atomic bomb. Iran has consistently denied any ambition to develop a nuclear weapon, insisting its activities are entirely peaceful. On Sunday, assailants on motorcycles killed Guards colonel Sayyad Khodai with five bullets as he sat in his car outside his home. The Guards described Khodai as a "defender of the sanctuary," a term used for anyone who works on behalf of the Islamic republic in Syria or Iraq. Iran maintains significant political influence in both countries and has backed President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria's grinding civil war. President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Monday that Iran will avenge Khodai's killing.
Iran blamed "elements linked to the global arrogance" -- the Islamic republic's term for the United States and its allies, including Israel. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Israel had told the U.S. it was responsible for the killing. The paper reported that "according to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has informed American officials that it was behind the killing".The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel told U.S. officials the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the Quds Force -- the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards. It was the most high-profile killing inside Iran since the November 2020 murder of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. It came as talks between Iran and major powers on restoring the troubled 2015 nuclear deal remain stalled. One of the main sticking points is Tehran's demand for the Guards to be removed from a U.S. terrorism blacklist -- a request rejected by Washington.

Engineer Dies in ‘Accident’ at Iran's Sensitive Military Parchin Site
Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
An engineer died and another employee was injured after an unexplained accident on Wednesday in a research center at the Parchin military site affiliated with Iran's Defense Ministry, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Thursday. Fars news said investigations into the cause of the accident were under way. The Defense Ministry identified the engineer who died as Ehsun Ghadbeigi. Situated 60km southeast of Tehran, Parchin is a sensitive military site housing several industrial and research units, where Western security services believe Iran carried out tests related to nuclear bomb detonations more than a decade ago. In 2015, Tehran allowed the UN nuclear watchdog to take environmental samples at the military site to make an assessment of "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program. Iran’s missile and space programs have suffered a series of mysterious explosions in recent years. A giant unexplained blast struck in the area of Parchin in June 2020, rattling the capital and sending a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran.

Blinken: US to leverage Russia-Ukraine bloc against China
Matthew Lee, The Associated Press/May 26/2022
Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the Biden administration is aiming to lead the international bloc opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into a broader coalition to counter what it sees as a more serious, long-term threat to global order from China. In a speech outlining the administration’s China policy to be delivered on Thursday, Blinken will lay out a three-pillar approach to competing with Beijing in a race to define the 21st century’s economic and military balance, according to excerpts of the address released by the State Department. While the U.S. sees Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine as the most acute and immediate threat to international stability, Blinken will say the administration believes China poses a greater danger.
“Even as President Putin’s war continues, we will remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order – and that is the one posed by the People’s Republic of China,” Blinken will say. “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order — and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it," he will say. “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years.”Thus, Blinken will lay out principles for the administration to marshal its resources, friends and allies to push back on increasing Chinese assertiveness around the world. However, he will also acknowledge that the U.S. has limited ability to directly influence China's intentions and ambitions and will instead focus on shaping the strategic environment around China.
“We can’t rely on Beijing to change its trajectory,” Blinken will say in the speech, to be delivered at George Washington University. “So we will shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open and inclusive international system.”
The speech follows President Joe Biden’s just-concluded visits to South Korea and Japan, where China loomed large in discussions. Biden raised eyebrows during that trip when he said that the United States would act militarily to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of an invasion by China, which regards the island as a renegade province. The administration scrambled to insist that Biden was not changing American policy and officials said that Blinken will restate that the U.S. has not changed its position. Blinken will say that Washington still holds to its “One China” policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows for unofficial links with and arms sales to Taipei, according to officials familiar with the speech. Those officials said Blinken will make the case that the global response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine serves as a template for dealing with China's efforts to mold a new and unpredictable world order to replace the rules and institutions that have guided relations between states since the end of World War II. China, Blinken will say, has benefited greatly from that international order but is now trying to subvert it under the leadership of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.
“Rather than using its power to reinforce and revitalize the laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that enabled its success, so other countries can benefit from them, too, Beijing is undermining it,” Blinken will say. “Under President Xi, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad.”
Investment in domestic U.S. infrastructure and technology along with stepping up diplomatic outreach to potentially vulnerable countries are other elements of the policy are key to the U.S. approach, Blinken will say. In the latest manifestation of China’s push to expand its reach that has drawn concern from the U.S. and other democracies, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday began an eight-nation tour of Pacific islands during which Beijing hopes to strike a sweeping agreement that covers everything from security to fisheries.
Wang opened his tour in the Solomon Islands, which last month signed a security cooperation pact with China that some fear could lead to a Chinese military presence there. The agreement was finalized shortly after the Biden administration announced it would open a U.S. embassy in the Solomons as part of its efforts to engage in the greater Indo-Pacific region.
The Biden administration has largely kept in place confrontational policies toward China adopted by its predecessor in response to Chinese actions in its western Xinjiang region, Hong Kong, Tibet and the South China Sea.
And, while the administration sees areas for working with Beijing, such as combatting climate change, it will not trade cooperation for compromising on its principles regarding human rights and rule of law, Blinken will say.
*Matthew Lee, The Associated Press

Moscow pours cold water on Italian peace plan for Ukraine
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday dismissed a plan for peace in Ukraine proposed by Italy. Lavrov said was he familiar with its contents only through the media as a copy had not been received by Moscow. However, his deputy Andrei Rudenko said Monday that the ministry received Italy's proposal and was studying it. Lavrov said in an interview with Russia's RT that the plan envisages annexed Crimea and regions controlled by pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine "will be part of Ukraine with broad autonomy." "Serious politicians who want to achieve results and not promote themselves in front of their electorate, don't propose things like that" he said in an apparent reference to Italy's Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. Di Maio last week proposed to the United Nations a four-point peace plan to end fighting in Ukraine, where Russia has been carrying out a military campaign since February 24.

Russia Discusses Reopening its Embassy with Libyan Authorities
Cairo - Jamal Jawhar/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
A Russian delegation has discussed with Libyan officials arrangements for reopening the Russian embassy in Tripoli. The Libyan Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for Consular Affairs, Murad Ahmeima, received a delegation from the Russian Foreign Ministry headed by Director of the Planning Department Haidar Aghanid. The Russian delegation included the Charge d'Affaires of the embassy in Libya, Djashmed Poltayev, and the mission’s second secretary, Sergei Khabarov. The meeting focused on the necessary security arrangements for reopening the mission after it had suspended its work in 2013. The Undersecretary welcomed the Russian delegation and praised their keenness to provide the necessary support to implement the plan to reopen the embassy. Aghanid stressed the importance of the embassy's presence in Tripoli to support and develop historical relations between the two countries and provide services to citizens wishing to visit Russia. He said the Russian government was willing to support the bonds of friendship between the two peoples.

Will Syria Witness a ‘Triple Front’ Military Escalation?
London - Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Three indicators point to the possibility of a military escalation on more than one front in Syria. Stability along the contact lines in the three Syrian areas of influence - which has been prevailing for more than two years - is threatened by new rounds of fire. This threat does not come from local forces, but rather from abroad, specifically from countries neighboring Syria. The Russian war in Ukraine has already produced new equations in Syria. The belief that Moscow would be militarily preoccupied with its field and political battles at home and abroad triggered a regional race to “fill the Russian vacuum” in three directions.
The first front is between Israel and Iran, as Tehran intensified its military, political, and economic efforts towards the areas controlled by the Syrian government, signed agreements and provided a financial credit line to Damascus. It has also deployed its militias and organizations in locations from which Russian elements have withdrawn or may withdraw. Moreover, Tehran set its eyes on the Syrian factions that were supported by the Hmeimim base, after the decline in funding and monthly salaries. It also escalated its campaigns to provide weapons to the Syrian factions and Hezbollah, through traditional and new supply lines, whether by land or air. This situation has triggered a new round of the “hidden war” between Tel Aviv and Tehran in Syria. Russia tried to assume a balanced role between the belligerents, and brandished the S-300 missile system against Israeli fighters, which had carried out raids in Syria on April 13.
However, the balance that Moscow has so far managed to maintain between Tehran and Tel Aviv is today under threat of getting out of control, especially if the race rages and the impression of “Russian drowning in the Ukrainian swamp” increases.
The second direction is between Turkey and the Kurds. The Iranian-Israeli “hidden war” is not new, as is the case with the repeated Turkish efforts to “dismember” any Kurdish entity south of the border and northern Syria. At the end of 2016, Ankara abandoned eastern Aleppo in exchange for the establishment of the “Euphrates Shield” area to sever the link between the Kurds east and west of the Euphrates River.
At the beginning of 2018, with a green light from Russia, it launched Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, to prevent the Kurds’ access to the Mediterranean. At the end of 2019, it cut off the links of the Kurdish entity in east of the Euphrates, by establishing the “Peace Spring” region, with the consent of President Donald Trump. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly sought to establish a “safe zone”, 30 km deep along Turkey’s borders, as well as to link the three Turkish enclaves in northern Syria. But he did not get US or Russian support. At times, his views were met with threats from Washington or Moscow.
Today, something has changed. The Ukrainian war strengthened the Turkish role. Ankara is a Russian need to break its western isolation from the Turkish gate, and a necessity for NATO to accept the membership of Sweden and Finland. Accordingly, Erdogan put the “safe zone” on the table of negotiations and direct and indirect bargains, and rallied his army and loyal Syrian factions.
In the event that a new Turkish military operation is launched, whether east of the Euphrates or north of Aleppo, the military lines will change in eastern Syria, and may open the discussions on the fate of the Idlib truce. Any military action also poses political challenges between Ankara and Washington before the NATO summit next month. The third front is between Jordan and Iranian militias. There is no doubt that Amman was among the most excited about normalization with Damascus, on all political, military, security and economic levels. Jordan is convinced of the new reality that Russia is a neighbor and the regime is here to stay. It was hoping that normalization would ease drug and smuggling campaigns across the border. Jordan was also betting on Russian expansion at the expense of the Iranian incursion. But recent weeks have seen a change in the equation. This reality is confirmed by Jordanian officials, who see a Russian military retreat in southern Syria and on the borders of Jordan, and an overt attempt for Iranian advancement. We have heard in recent days Jordanian officials referring to a “possible escalation” on the northern border, and statements about thwarting drug smuggling attempts and implementing new “rules of engagement” that include the use of immediate fire against smugglers. The Jordanian army spokesman, Mustafa Al-Hiyari, told an official channel: “We are facing a war on these borders. A drug war. Iranian organizations, these organizations are more dangerous because they conspire with foreign agendas and target Jordanian national security.”The Jordanian army had previously launched raids against drug networks inside Syrian territory, but had not publicized them to avoid an escalation with Damascus. However, the recent statements point to a new phase of Jordanian involvement in the conflict, and a possible role that the US base might play in al-Tanf, within the triangle of the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border.

Tunisian president decrees July 25 referendum on 'new republic'
Agence France Presse/Thursday, 26 May, 2022
Tunisia will hold a constitutional referendum for a "new republic" on July 25, President Kais Saied has announced, in defiance of critics who warn he wants to establish an autocracy. The vote will come exactly a year after Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament, moves his rivals called a coup, but which he argues were necessary to resolve a crippling political deadlock. Saied has since held a widely boycotted public consultation on a new constitution. He has also appointed a body to suggest how responses from the consultation may be fed into the replacement for the constitution adopted after Tunisia's 2011 revolution, the birthplace of the Arab Spring. The draft is to be ready by June 30. Late Wednesday, Tunisia's official journal set the date for a vote on the question: "Do you support the new draft constitution for the Tunisian republic?"Saied had in December laid out a roadmap for the July plebiscite and parliamentary elections later in the year, after he dissolved the previous legislature dominated by his arch-enemy, Islamist-inspired Ennahdha. The former law professor has long called for a presidential system to replace the hybrid structure outlined in a 2014 constitution, which allowed for repeated conflicts between the executive and legislative branches. He has also called for a "national dialogue" but excluded political parties from the process. The powerful UGTT trade union confederation has said it will not take part, as the dialogue excludes key political actors and aims to "impose faits accomplis by force."Many Tunisians, tired of a deepening economic crisis, have welcomed Saied's moves against an unpopular political system they say delivered little.But rights groups, political parties and foreign governments have warned of a slide back to dictatorship, a decade after the revolt that overthrew strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

No Saudi, Iranian foreign ministers meeting in foreseeable future: Saudi official
Reuters/ 27 May ,2022
No meeting between Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers has been scheduled in the foreseeable future, an official from the Saudi foreign ministry said on Thursday, adding that some progress has been made in talks with Teheran but “it's not enough”.Iran foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on earlier on Thursday that he may meet his Saudi counterpart soon in a third country. “Iran must build confidence for future cooperation, and there are several issues that can be discussed with Teheran if it has the desire to de-escalate tensions in the region,” the official told Reuters.

Canada provides funding to International Criminal Court to strengthen accountability for conflict-related sexual violence
May 26, 2022 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that Canada will be providing additional funding to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to strengthen accountability for conflict-related sexual violence.
Canada recognizes that justice requires resources. That is why, through the Canadian Police Arrangement, Canada has authorized additional deployments of specialized police investigators and civilian law enforcement experts to the ICC from 3 to 10 officers. A voluntary financial contribution of $1 million to the Trust Fund will complement Canada’s support to the ICC and will allow the ICC to redirect much-needed resources to support the investigation of reported atrocities committed by the Russian forces in Ukraine. These new Canadian funds will be used to support both witnesses and survivors, as well as to develop expertise on gender-based crimes and crimes committed against children.
Quotes
“Those who commit sexual violence in conflict situations must be held to account. Canada condemns in the strongest terms the use of conflict-related sexual violence, and we will continue to work with partners, such as the ICC, to end impunity for these heinous crimes.”
- Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Quick facts
To respect the independence and impartiality of the ICC and its proceedings, resources will be allocated to specific investigations determined by the prosecutor of the ICC.
The Trust Fund supports the use of new advanced technological tools and equipment in the collection, analysis and language-processing of evidence, the provision of enhanced psychosocial and protection support to witnesses and the enhancement of dedicated and specialized capacity with respect to investigations into crimes of sexual and gender-based violence and crimes against children.
Canada is making a voluntary contribution of $1 million to complement its deployment of up to 10 Canadian specialized police investigators and civilian law enforcement experts.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 26-27/2022
‘Shameful’: European Parliament Rejects Discussion on Christian Persecution
Raymond Ibrahim/May 25/2022
Once again, a large governmental body has exposed itself as morally bankrupt if not wholly bereft of legitimacy. On May 18, 2022, the European Parliament, one of the European Union’s legislative bodies, rejected a proposal to discuss the elephant in the room: the rampant persecution of Christians around the world. The proposal came in response to the May 12 stoning and burning to death of Deborah Samuel Jacob (Yakuba), a Christian student in Nigeria murdered by Muslims for thanking Jesus on her performance in a test, and, therefore, precipitating an allegation that she had somehow “blasphemed” against Muhammad. Her murderers also made a video laughing at and mocking her burning corpse. Using that tragic incident as a catalyst, Jean-Paul Garraud, a French Member of the European Parliament (MEP), proposed a debate on the persecution of Christians and Christianophobia.
With a vote of 244 against, 231 in favor, and 19 abstentions, the proposal was rejected. Considering that the European Union claims to champion human rights and religious freedom, several of those MEPs who voted for the proposal could be heard booing and shouting “shame on you!” across the plenary floor (video here). Those MEP groups that voted against the proposal included the vast majority of the European United Left, the Greens, the Social Democrats, and the Renew Europe group—in a word, and to use American parlance, the “Left.”
Responding to their hypocrisy and double standards, Jean-Paul Garraud, the MEP who submitted the proposal, lamented that the European Commission “does not want to designate a coordinator for the fight against Christianophobia, when a coordinator of this type was created for anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”Other MEPs were outraged at what they described as “shameful” and “disgraceful” behavior from the Left. Margarita de la Pisa Carrión, of the Spanish political party Vox, and an MEP since 2019, tweeted: “What a shame! The European Parliament does not want to take a stand on the murder of the young Nigerian for being a Christian. They do not want to condemn the persecution that Christians are suffering. This is inexcusable! [Spanish original].”
Similarly, Peter van Dalen, a Dutch MEP, tweeted, “It is an extremely deep disgrace that a majority of the European Parliament refused to debate the murder, by stoning, of the Nigerian Christian student Yakubu, who was falsely accused of blasphemy.”
“Europe should know Deborah Samuel Yakubu’s name,” observed Jean-Paul Van De Walle, of ADF International (Alliance Defending Freedom), in Brussels. “This opportunity to speak out against a brutal and unjust murder of an innocent teenage girl—based on a false accusation of ‘blasphemy,’ no less—has been unforgivably lost. Nobody should be persecuted because of their faith, but it seems that EU has turned a blind eye.”
The irony of all this is that the gruesome murder of Deborah, which some are presenting as an anomaly, is just the tip of the iceberg of the Muslim persecution of Christians. A few weeks before her killing, a Muslim man slaughtered a Christian priest in broad daylight in Egypt. A few days later, another Muslim man killed another Christian in Egypt; afterwards, and just like the murderers of Deborah, he made a video boasting about his actions, adding that he did it out of “loyalty to Allah.”
The list goes on and on. What the Christian woman, Deborah, suffered—being accused and killed for “blasphemy”—is very common throughout the ultra-thin-skinned Muslim world. It seems to be a weekly occurrence in Pakistan, where not a few Christians, including several mentally disabled, have been imprisoned, killed and/or burned alive on the charge.
In short, Christians all around the world are being savagely persecuted, notoriously so in Muslim nations. According to one large study published in early 2022, “over 360 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith—a rise of 20 million from last year.” Nearly 5,898 Christians were murdered due to their religious identity, and 5,110 churches and other Christian buildings (monasteries, schools, etc.) were attacked and profaned. On average, then, every single day around the world, more than 16 Christians were murdered for their faith, and 14 churches were destroyed or desecrated.
Equally telling is that 39 of the 50 worst nations ranked by this study are Muslim majority or have sizeable Muslim populations.
As for Nigeria, where Deborah Samuel was murdered, according to several international observers, a “pure genocide” against Christians is being waged. Since an Islamic insurgency earnestly began in July 2009—first at the hands of Boko Haram, a professional Islamic terrorist group, and later by the Fulani, Muslim herdsmen also radicalized and motivated by jihadist ideology—over 60,000 Christians have either been butchered or abducted during raids, never to return and believed to be dead by their loved ones. About 20,000 churches and Christian schools have also been torched and destroyed by “Allahu akbar” screaming terrorists during that same timeframe.
So what has been the international community’s response to this unmitigated jihad on Christians all around the world—including, increasingly, in Europe, where several churches are desecrated daily? As recently shown by the European Parliament, not only are large governmental bodies turning a blind eye to it; they are employing their vast resources to present the persecutors as victims and the victims as persecutors, as underscored by the United Nations’ recent “Combat Islamophobia” initiative.
While claiming to champion human rights, Leftists—and virtually all 244 MEPs who voted against the aforementioned proposal are Leftists—habitually refuse to acknowledge much less address one of the most urgent human rights crises of our times: Muslim persecution of Christians; and they do so—if we may be brutally frank for a moment—for the simple and increasingly obvious reason that they hate Christianity.
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Turkey’s wooing of Israel may lead to Hamas ouster
Enia Krivine/The Jerusalem Post/May 26/2022
As Ankara mends fences with pro-Western Arab governments and Israel, Hamas could become collateral damage and may be expelled from Turkey.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, visited Israel this week, a sign that Israel and Turkey may be on a path to reconciliation, after a decade of antagonism. However, Jerusalem has made it clear to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the expulsion of Hamas leaders from Turkish soil is a prerequisite for closer ties. It remains unclear if Ankara has finally kicked out the Gaza-based terrorist organization. What is clear is that if Hamas loses its Turkish sanctuary, its options for a new one are limited.
For the past ten years, Saleh al Arouri has been operating a Hamas headquarters in Istanbul. Arouri is a United States-designated and sanctioned terrorist with a $5 million (NIS 16.8 m.) bounty on his head. He has the blood of tens of Israelis on his hands and languished in an Israeli jail for more than a decade until Israel released and exiled him in the context of a 2011 prisoner exchange. In 2014, Arouri claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, an event that sparked a 50-day war between Israel and Gaza. Jerusalem is likely adamant that Arouri must go if Ankara wants better relations.
Israeli and Lebanese news outlets have reported that Turkey is giving Hamas leadership the boot. However, the reports are based on statements made by unnamed sources, and nothing is confirmed. While Turkish officials have denied carrying out deportations, it is possible Ankara simply refused reentry to Hamas leaders after trips abroad, thereby complying with Israel’s conditions while maintaining plausible deniability.
Why would Erdogan reverse himself this way after a decade of harboring Hamas leadership and cheerleading the Muslim Brotherhood? The short answer is Turkish elections in 2023. Turkey’s flailing economy and spiraling inflation have resulted in an unprecedented lack of popularity for the Turkish president.
If Erdogan’s recent charm offensive can warm relations with the Jewish state, it could help Turkey’s bottom line. Israel has proposed a pipeline that will connect Europe to the vast natural gas resources in Israeli waters, and Erdogan wants a piece of the action. However, after years of Erdogan spouting pro-Islamist, antisemitic and anti-Israel vitriol, it remains to be seen how far he is willing to go to avail himself of these economic opportunities. In the past, Turkey enjoyed prosperity without Erdogan having to compromise his Islamist agenda.
At the beginning of the last decade, things seemed to be going Erdogan’s way. Sunni Islamists – above all the Muslim Brotherhood – appeared to be on the rise politically, riding the tide of the Arab Spring. This boded well for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots and promotes the Muslim Brotherhood abroad. Erdogan went all-in, applauding the fall of Arab dictatorships and the rise of Muslim Brotherhood influence.
Erdogan’s change of direction
ERDOGAN’S ENTHUSIASM and support for the Muslim Brotherhood put him at loggerheads with Sunni Arab leaders that consider it an existential threat. Unfortunately for Erdogan, the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies proved to have little staying power in regional governments, leaving Ankara increasingly isolated. Erdogan’s isolation is a political liability, so a diplomatic recalibration is in full swing, and reconciliation with Israel and its Abraham Accord partners are high on Erdogan’s agenda.
Hamas may become collateral damage, as Ankara mends fences with pro-Western Arab governments and Israel. If Hamas is expelled from Turkey, it would not be the first time Hamas has been shown the door. Jordan kicked Hamas out in 1999. Saudi Arabia did the same in the early 2000s, when Riyadh cracked down on jihadist organizations, after a spate of domestic terrorism. During the Syrian civil war, Hamas sided with the anti-regime forces and quickly found itself in hot water, which led to the shuttering of its Damascus headquarters, in 2012. In 2013, a military coup brought down the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo and Hamas became persona non grata in Egypt.
As more Middle Eastern countries outlaw and suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s options have dwindled. The likely candidates for new host countries are Qatar, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon or Iran. Malaysia could also be a possibility.
Qatar has been a patron of Hamas since the group left Syria and hosts the head of the Hamas politburo, Khaled Meshal. Meshal lives like royalty in Doha and is estimated to have a net worth in the billions of dollars. Over the past ten years, Doha has injected tens of millions of dollars into Gaza, sometimes arriving in suitcases full of cash.
If Ankara really does give Hamas the boot, the US will have an important role to play in pressing regional partners not to tolerate Hamas on their soil. The Biden administration recently upgraded Qatar to the status of major non-NATO ally. That accolade is indefensible, given Qatar’s long-standing patronage of Hamas. The administration should also act now to convince Malaysia that harboring Hamas would make it a pariah. Hamas could still retreat to Hezbollah-held Lebanon or Iranian territory but would expose Arouri and his ilk for what they really are: a servant of Tehran’s interests with very few friends left in the world.
*Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the FDD National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on Twitter at @EKrivine. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

NATO’s problem child...Turkey threatens to blackball Sweden and Finland
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/May 25/2022
Turkey is a long way from the North Atlantic, yet it is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It joined in 1952, just three years after NATO’s founding. Greece was admitted at the same time. Both countries were targets of Soviet expansionism, an ambition that President Truman was determined to contain.
“It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures,” he told a joint session of Congress.
This was the essence of what became known as the Truman Doctrine. Adopted on a bipartisan basis – with Sen. Arthur Vandenberg playing the most significant role on the Republican side – it expressed core American values and interests. Seventy years later, can you think of a more accurate one-sentence description of the policy under which Americans are now helping Ukrainians defend themselves against Russian aggression?
Turkey has always been a unique NATO ally. It straddles Europe and the Middle East. It was a Muslim-majority state that separated mosque and state. It has been economically dynamic despite not having oil. And it seemed to be democratizing.
Since 2003, however, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been the nation’s strongman – first as prime minister, then as president, gaining enhanced powers in 2017. He now occupies a 1,150-room palace fit for an Ottoman sultan.
A decade or so ago, he was said to be only “mildly” Islamist. Over time, however, he has lent support, in one way or another, to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, al-Qaeda affiliate groups, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even the Islamic State.
Charges that Turkey has become “a permissive jurisdiction for illicit and terror finance” cannot be ignored, especially with Turkey’s second largest state-owned bank, Halkbank, accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of laundering more than $20 billion for Tehran between 2012-2015.
Mr. Erdogan has become a problem child in other ways as well. He jails journalists who offend him – only China’s rulers have jailed more. In 2017, he decided to purchase the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia. This forced the United States to evict Turkey from the F-35 fighter program. The last thing the Pentagon wants is to give Russian technical experts the opportunity to rehearse identifying, tracking, and targeting the F-35 – information Moscow could then share with Beijing, its strategic partner. Sweden and Finland have now applied to join NATO – their response to Vladimir Putin’s brutal and imperialist war. NATO members are welcoming them – except for Mr. Erdogan. He is threatening to blackball the Nordic democracies.
He can do that because new members must receive the unanimous consent of all 30 existing members. “Neither of these countries has a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organizations,” Mr. Erdogan tut-tutted. “How can we trust them?” He was referring to various Kurdish groups.
Let me state my position clearly: Violence against civilians for political purposes is both immoral and criminal. But, as noted above, Mr. Erdogan has not upheld that principle unwaveringly.
Saying that terrorism is the wrong way to pursue the Kurdish cause is not the same as saying that the Kurdish cause is wrong. Numbering about 30 million, the Kurds are an ancient people of the Middle East who, unlike other ancient peoples of the Middle East – e.g., Turks, Arabs, Jews – have no state of their own. They do enjoy significant autonomy in northern Iraq, a positive result of the toppling of Saddam Hussein whose persecution of the Kurds included the genocidal Anfal campaign of 1988.
However, Kurds are denied autonomy – a more modest aspiration than independence – on their ancestral lands in Turkey, as well as on their ancestral lands in Iran.
On their ancestral lands in Syria, they are fighting for whatever self-determination they can get. As leaders of the American-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), they also are combatting the battered but not yet beaten Islamic State.
Sweden has welcomed as many as 100,000 Kurdish immigrants. Many have become citizens, and a small number have won election to parliament. Are some sympathetic toward Kurdish groups that engage in terrorism? I think that’s likely.
The Kurdish minority in Finland is much smaller and less influential. Mr. Erdogan has demanded the extradition of six alleged terrorists from that country.
More broadly, he wants both countries to take a harder line toward the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is based in the mountainous regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, and has been designated by the U.S. and the European Union as a terrorist organization, and the YPG (the People’s Protection Units) which is a leading faction within the SDF in the northern and eastern Syrian territories that Turkish forces seek to control. The YPG has been designated a terrorist organization only by Turkey and Qatar.
Mr. Erdogan has other grievances – some defensible, some not.
How does this story end? The Turkey experts I rely on believe Mr. Erdogan is savvy enough to recognize that, in the long term, he doesn’t benefit by being the spoiler who blocked an opportunity to strengthen NATO and prevent Mr. Putin from achieving one of his war aims.
If that’s right, he’ll bargain hard, win some concessions, and declare victory, thus demonstrating to his domestic audiences how he stands up to the arrogant Europeans and Americans. And then he’ll welcome Sweden and Finland to the club.
Still, this contretemps serves as a reminder that Turkey, which has NATO’s largest military after America’s, has become its least reliable member, and that, within this pro-democratic alliance, it has an increasingly authoritarian president-for-life. A bridge between Europe and the Middle East, Turkey has not become. That’s a disappointment of historic proportions.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. Follow him on Twitter @CliffordDMay. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

How The Biden Administration Is Getting Erdoğan's Moves All Wrong
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/May 26, 2022
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when every sane country is staying away from wiring even a few cents to Russia, NATO "ally" Turkey is still talking about buying a second S-400 system.
The result? The U.S. is further appeasing [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan.
Erdoğan has long been playing the old oriental carpet-selling game: pitting potential buyers against each other to get the best price -- Turkey is hoping to be sold to the highest bidder.
The West's appeasement will just further embolden Erdoğan to keep blackmailing it: If you do not sell me F-35s or F-16s, I will buy fighter jets from Russia. Erdoğan then turns to Putin: I am your man in NATO. If you do not want me to be a real NATO ally, you must give me something. Erdoğan's double-play has to be stopped. For that, is needed a determined Western bloc who will remind him that he will not get what he wants from his (theoretical) allies in the West by blackmailing them.
The West's appeasement will, unfortunately, only embolden Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and push him further into the Russian orbit, both politically as a covert ally and militarily as a client of critical weapons systems. Pictured: Erdoğan holds a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 22, 2019 in Sochi, Russia. (Image source: kremlin.ru)
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has revived an old, outdated, near-defunct concept: a Western habit of overrating Turkey's "geo-political importance." Totally blind to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's anti-Western policy calculus, the Biden administration is pushing Turkey's Islamist strongman into further stealth hostility toward the civilized parts of the world.
"For better or for worse, Turkey is a NATO ally and will remain so. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global politics are rapidly evolving in an unpredictable direction. The U.S. has, therefore, an interest in Turkey maintaining a robust air force," wrote Henri J. Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University. Ironically, Turkish court indictments mention Barkey, a former member of the U.S. state department's policy planning staff, as the key CIA operative behind the failed coup against Erdoğan's government in July 2016. Barkey, in Turkey, is a wanted man.
The West can clearly see Turkey's "unhelpful" behavior -- as it sees that of many countries -- but shrugs it off.
Turkey, in response to the military operation in Ukraine, abstained from voting on suspending Russia's membership in the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, the West shrugged it off.
As Western governments targeted Roman Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions to isolate Putin and his allies, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that "Russian oligarchs are welcome in Turkey."
Russia keeps using Turkish airspace as freely as if it had never invaded Ukraine.
More recently, Erdoğan's government said that it will not back Washington's plans to create special NATO deployment forces in the Black Sea region to contain Russia. The idea was proposed last year by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, involving the Black Sea's littoral countries that are NATO members: Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. "Turkey seeks to use diplomatic avenues outside the Montreux Convention and persuasion to keep NATO allies away from the Black Sea," news reports quoted Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar as saying.
More recently, Turkey's leading defense procurement official, Undersecretary of Defense Ismail Demir, said that the purchase of a second batch of the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missiles was on the agenda:
"Turkey has been thinking and moving [for the second batch] and is adamant that it will buy the second system, no matter what America says, Turkey continues to apply the same decision that was made at the beginning [of the process to buy Russia's] S-400s."
In 2019, Turkey announced that it would become the first NATO ally to deploy a Russian-made air and anti-missile defense system, against NATO rules, which require all members to use the same weapons systems. Turkey paid $2.5 billion for the S-400s. The move cost Turkey suspension of its membership in the U.S.-led, multinational, F-35 fighter jet program.
Turkey has also been targeted by the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). With that $2.5 billion already in Russian coffers, Turkey, fearing further U.S. sanctions, has been unable to unpack and deploy the S-400s. This dust-up with the U.S. took place before Russia invaded Ukraine. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when every sane country is staying away from wiring even a few cents to Russia, NATO "ally" Turkey is still talking about buying a second S-400 system.
The result? The U.S. is further appeasing Erdoğan.
In January, U.S. President Joe Biden surprised EastMed pipeline partners Israel, Greece and Cyprus by abruptly withdrawing U.S. support for the pipeline, thereby preventing a diversified energy supply to Europe, and further assuring even greater oil revenues for Russia and its war machine. The White House claimed that the $7 billion project was antithetical to its "climate goals."
Turkey, from the beginning, was completely outside the EastMed project. Turkey is claiming part of the natural gas in the East Mediterranean fields, but not as an equal partner. Regarding the EU and EastMed: Europe's new push for diversification from Russia's energy has revived talks about EastMed. However, the European Commission is still insisting on knowing more about the EastMed pipeline's commercial viability before giving its final blessing.
In April, State Department Under-Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland was in Ankara to ink a vague new strategic concept with Turkey. Observers say the concept can provide the framework under which positive changes in bilateral relations can be advanced. "If it works, this is a win for both Congress and the White House," Barkey wrote in The Arab Weekly that "if the US refused to sell fighter jets, he [Erdoğan] would simply procure them from Russia instead."
Also in April, in an about-face, a senior U.S. State Department official said in congressional correspondence that the [potential] sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Turkey would "serve U.S. interests and bolster NATO unity."
"The Administration believes that there are nonetheless compelling long-term NATO alliance unity and capability interests and U.S. national security, economic and commercial interests supported by appropriate U.S. defense trade ties with Turkey," Naz Durakoğlu, the State Department's top official for legislative affairs, wrote to Congressman Frank Pallone, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Most recently, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that foreign military sales to key Washington partners such as Turkey and India should be sped up and bureaucratic hurdles removed.
Asked during a congressional testimony what the Biden administration can do "to cut through the red tape to help our work with our allies such as Turkey and India," Blinken told the House Appropriations Committee:
"I think that we can and should do better in sales, particularly in the rapidity with which we're able to do things, review things. I think that's on us in the executive branch. It's also on Congress."
The West's appeasement will, unfortunately, only embolden Erdoğan and push him further into the Russian orbit, both politically as a covert ally and militarily as a client of critical weapons systems. Erdoğan has long been playing the old oriental carpet-selling game: pitting potential buyers against each other to get the best price -- Turkey is hoping to be sold to the highest bidder.
The West's appeasement will just further embolden Erdoğan to keep blackmailing it: If you do not sell me F-35s or F-16s, I will buy fighter jets from Russia. Erdoğan then turns to Putin: I am your man in NATO. If you do not want me to be a real NATO ally, you must give me something. Erdoğan's double-play has to be stopped. For that, is needed a determined Western bloc who will remind him that he will not get what he wants from his (theoretical) allies in the West by blackmailing them.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Biden Or Putin? Who is Responsible for the War in Ukraine?
Nabil Amr/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
In debate halls, salons, forums, and even decision-making centers, several questions are being posed without a decisive answer emerging. Who is responsible for this war? Who is perpetuating it, and who can help the world overcome it?
Is it Putin who launched a military invasion starting with the north of Ukraine, justifying his actions with what some saw as legitimate grievances and others believed were insufficient cause for war? Or is it Biden, who had not hidden his direct and strong role in this war, starting with his statements warning about it before it began and on to the present, as the US continues to provide everything the Ukrainians need to drain the Russians, even if that means destroying Ukraine and destabilizing Europe?
Putin is responsible for his retaliation to the US, a conclusion shared by almost all analysts, regardless of their affiliations and biases. Many, if not all of them, believe that the Russian President has been lured into a trap after having miscalculated the Ukrainian and global reactions to his decision. He is thus faced with a long war and modest accomplishments on the ground. If President Putin and his team got the wrong impression because of the reaction to the invasion of Crimea, the crucial issue they disregarded is that the world was very different then.
The Russians find themselves in a possession in which it is difficult to either progress and achieve decisive results on the ground or to recalibrate the aims that had been set at the beginning. The former option is extremely dangerous for the country, and the latter would constitute a defeat that Putin would be held accountable for. On the opposite corner, US President Joe Biden set the stage for a bloody and destructive spectacle draining the entire globe, behaving as if the war in Ukraine and the lavish funds allocated to the torn and devastated country were necessary for retrieving US influence- which is declining everywhere. He believed that this was part and parcel of managing all the hot and cold wars on the hapless European continent to maintain its loyalty to the US, regardless of the costs of the whims and conquests of Washington.
I wish the matter had ended here. Instead, we see Biden militarize the world in an unprecedented manner. An “Asian NATO,” for example, is not the stuff of paranoid delusions, as the Taiwan question has been turned into a global conflict against China. Taiwan is China’s nagging itch, the Asian Ukraine, so to speak! It would not be an overstatement to say that Biden, who presented himself as rational and nimble during the elections, has stunned the world; his pledges on the campaign trail were not disregarded once he reached the White House.
When the contest was at its height, and the Democrats were carefully monitoring their opponent, Trump, looking through every move he made, they even promised to do everything, domestically and abroad, the other way around.
On the trail, candidate Joe Biden scored high. He called for a reasonable balance with Europe, which had been deeply unsettled by his rival Trump, showed relative moderation regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict after Trump’s Deal of the Century, and he was keen on restoring domestic stability at home after the brutal contest between Democrats and Republicans, which culminated in an armed incursion on Congress.
The positive image Biden and his Democratic Party presented during the electoral campaign were disregarded less than two years into his term. It began with the submarine crisis with France, though this was part of comprehensive relations with Europe. He then dragged Europe by the hand and forced it to join the war that the US is managing in Ukraine through remote control. He then took the fight to China’s borders, dragging Japan, as it had done to Europe, into a battle it did not want and simply saw no interest in waging. Nonetheless, it has no choice but to join the American game simply.
Where will the Russian snowball in Ukraine end up? And where will Biden’s policy of militarizing countries lead us? And till when will the careful Chinese player grab all these contradictions by hand as the significant investments remain in the US and the West, and the historical conflict remains on the shores of China and Taiwan? These three players control the fate of all nations. They are moving away from the sorts of concessions we have become used to using and approaching a hot war. This time, it could end being fought directly rather than through proxies.

Major Challenges Ahead as Violence Returns to Afghanistan
Charles Lister/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
In a recent investigative report, the US Defense Department’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) concluded that “the single most important factor” behind the Taliban’s swift takeover in August 2021 was “the US decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan.” Days later, the UK Foreign Affairs Committee issued a report labeling the withdrawal from Afghanistan a “disaster,” a “betrayal,” and the result of “systemic failures” to plan ahead and prevent a Taliban victory.
These reports have given renewed attention and context to those paying attention to the deteriorating situation inside Afghanistan, nine months after the Taliban’s assumption of power. With the war in Ukraine and damaging knock-on effects hitting the global economy and food market, attention has drifted away from Afghanistan’s worsening humanitarian crisis.
Since the Taliban’s takeover, millions of Afghans have become unemployed and half the population – roughly 20 million people – are living with acute hunger, according to the United Nations. Many government employees have not been paid for months, and desperate middle class families are trying to sell their children to aid workers in an attempt to secure money or food. Without a concerted international surge in aid provision, this humanitarian crisis looks set only to worsen in the coming months, placing Afghanistan on the precipice of a catastrophe.
It remains a basic fact that humanitarian suffering and crippling poverty is the number one driver of instability, violence and extremism – and in a country like Afghanistan, today’s prevailing realities should be of deep concern. With Spring in bloom, the Taliban’s government is facing intense security challenges from all directions in a clear sign that the “stability” claimed by some over the winter was premature.
In recent weeks, Ahmed Massoud’s National Resistance Front launched a determined offensive against the Taliban in its historical Panjshir stronghold. While the Taliban appear to have quelled much of the NRF’s attack, they served to underline the extent to which the Taliban remains far from unchallenged by domestic rivals. Meanwhile, rumors continue to swirl that some of Afghanistan’s most notorious warlords, particularly Abdul Rashid Dostum, may have spent the winter prepping resistance forces of their own to challenge the Taliban at an opportune time.
Of much more significance to the Taliban and prospects for further destabilizing of Afghanistan is the recent escalation of attacks by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province. Since April, ISKP has launched a brutal campaign of attacks targeting Shiite Hazara community, the Taliban itself, and Afghanistan’s critical infrastructure, particularly the electricity grid. In northern and eastern Afghanistan, as well as in the capital Kabul, ISKP’s determination to spark sectarian conflict, undermine Taliban rule and worsen humanitarian suffering has been on clear display – and for now at least, the Taliban appears to have no meaningful response.
What we have witnessed from ISKP in recent weeks is unfortunately likely to be just the start of a gradually escalating campaign. To make matters worse, the Taliban’s only response to ISKP until now has been to launch a brutal crackdown against conservative Salafist communities it accuses of harboring ISKP operatives. But for now, that appears only to catalyzed a surge in localized ISKP recruitment.
Beyond domestic security implications, another element of recent instability in Afghanistan has come in the form of cross-border attacks by groups based on Afghan soil. Since April, two attacks have targeted Tajikistan, at least has struck Uzbekistan and nearly a dozen have hit targets in Pakistan. Clashes have also erupted along the Iranian border. So far, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran have only deployed troop reinforcements to areas along the border, but Pakistan has hit back, launching several deadly waves of airstrikes inside Afghanistan that have killed dozens of civilians.
Instability inside Afghanistan is a source of significant concern, but the prospect of that then becoming regionally destabilizing should be of acute worry. One of the most sensitive clauses of the US deal with the Taliban was for the Taliban to guarantee that Afghanistan would not become a launching pad for attacks abroad. That we have witnessed cross-border attacks into three countries within nine months of the Taliban taking power is a damning indictment of Taliban capabilities and intent and a very bad sign of things to come.
Even without the war in Ukraine, it is unlikely that the US and Europe would be heavily engaged in resolving these troubling issues. Even from a counterterrorism perspective, the US emphasis on utilizing “over the horizon” capabilities to monitor, detect and neutralize threats appears to have been little more than a slogan. The US SIGAR report mentioned above made clear that the US military was “limited” in its ability to do anything, and the new commander of US Central Command, Lieutenant General Michael Kurilla, told Congress in February that conducting over the horizon in Afghanistan was “extremely difficult.”
It is therefore unavoidable that the onus of responsibility for stabilizing (at best) or containing (at least) Afghanistan is likely to fall upon countries of the immediate region. The challenges ahead will be significant.

New Balances and Red Lines in Syria
Robert Ford/Asharq Al-Awsat/May, 26/2022
The riskiest time in a low-level conflict is when the balance of power changes and new red lines must be determined. In Syria now, as Russia reduces its forces, Iranian Revolution Guard forces are increasing their presence and Israel perceives a gradually increasing Iranian threat from both its nuclear program and missile program in Syria. I do not mean that total war is likely to begin in Syria next week or next month. It is possible, however, that any of these countries could unintentionally cross a red line and trigger an escalation that none of the countries actually want.
First, we should not exaggerate about the Russian withdrawal in Syria. It is not big, and Russia, will keep its naval base in Tartus and its air base in Hmeimim. On the ground in Syria, however, there are local reports of Iranian Revolution Guards units and their militia allies taking control of Russian checkpoints and small bases, especially in eastern and northern Syria.
Iran has bigger financial resources to spend on military deployments in Syria. The Central Bank of Iran recently reported that revenues from oil exports in the first half of the Persian year were 18.6 billion dollars, up from 8.5 billion in the first half of last year. Despite its domestic economic problems and protests, Tehran can mobilize more military forces to send to Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Tehran earlier this month indicates that Iran’s presence and influence in Syria will grow.
The Americans will certainly perceive the growing Iranian military presence in eastern Syria as a threat; in the past year some small American bases came under attack from Iranian drones. We can expect some exchanges of fire between militias loyal to Iran in eastern Syria and the American military forces. These battles will be limited, however. The Americans don’t want a big fight in Syria; they have not yet identified a strategic interest in Syria that justifies a major war there.
By contrast, Israel has identified a strategic national interest connected to the Iran military presence: the continuing Iranian program to deploy guided missiles in Syria could inflict serious damage on Israeli targets and therefore, the Israeli air force continues to bomb Iranian targets regularly. Moscow in the past essentially gave a green light for these Israeli air attacks, although there were angry messages after a Syrian air defense missile shot down a Russian military transport airplane in 2018 in the middle of an Israeli air attack and 15 Russian soldiers died.
The Russians sent their S-300 air defense missiles to Syria after that incident, but the Israelis and Russians restored their coordination and Israeli strikes have continued.
If new Iranian deployments in Syria trigger intensified Israeli air attacks there are two possible risks: first, so far, the Iranians have not responded to the Israelis. Perhaps their patience has no limits and they have no red line with respect to losses among their forces in Syria.
If they have a red line, the Israelis haven’t found it yet, and an Iranian retaliation will be a surprise. An Iranian decision to retaliate will reflect political competition in Tehran; those domestic Iranian politics are complicating an agreement between Iran and international powers about its nuclear program.
If Iran retaliates, Israel will escalate quickly. Israel will be less interested in Iranian politics and more determined to reestablish deterrence and therefore, it will hit hard. Where the escalation between Israel and Iran would end is not clear.
In addition, for the first time the Russians fired an S-300 missile at Israeli warplanes during their May 13 strike at Masyaf. These missiles are under direct Russian control and although the system didn’t use its radar fully, and therefore didn’t present a big threat to the Israeli warplane, this incident was a Russian message, perhaps because Masyaf is only about 70 kilometers from the Russian airbase at Hmeimim. Had the Russians used their radar and truly threatened the Israeli warplane, they would cross an Israeli red line. Israeli strikes against Russian targets in turn are a Russian red line. Thus, the May 13 Israeli strike came near a Russian red line but the Russian response was careful.
In the weeks ahead, therefore, as more Iranian deployments in Syria provoke intensified Israeli air strikes, several escalation scenarios are possible in Syria.
On the positive side, Russia is unhappy with some Israeli actions with respect to Ukraine, but Moscow does not want a big war in the Middle East now, especially in view of Turkish bans on Russian military overflights that complicate Russian logistics in Syria.
As balances in Syria evolve and red lines are redrawn, the challenge for the states is not to trip over one by mistake.