English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 01/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.november01.22.htm
News Bulletin Achieves
Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew
05/01-12/:”When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat
down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them,
saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ‘Blessed are
the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ‘Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ‘Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see
God. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and
utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the
prophets who were before you.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on November 01.2022
Aoun: Consensus among Lebanese political forces over new president
currently “out of reach”
Parliament to convene Thursday over Aoun's letter
Bassil-Rahi presidency dialogue in 'advanced stage'
Mikati says boycotting ministers can ask to be relieved of their duties
FPM says still possible to form govt.; Hezbollah won't boycott caretaker cabinet
Does Bassil intend to run for presidency?
Report: Presidential vacuum won't be lengthy
Vacuum and paralysis: Lebanon's political crisis deepens
Geagea says Hezbollah 'hostage' to Bassil
Berri meets Caretaker National Education Minister, Educational Center for
Research and Development delegation, tackles developments with Deputy PM...
Patriarch Rahi broaches developments with Iranian Ambassador, meets MP Neemat
Frem
Depositor storms Byblos Bank in Hamra
Culture Minister inaugurates “Francophone headquarters in the Middle East”
WHO warns cholera is spreading 'rapidly' across Lebanon
MSF Bar-Elias hospital adapted to care for cholera patients
IMF says Mideast, North Africa economies resilient in 2022
Aoun’s Change & Reform: Back to the Future/Joseph Hitti/October 31/2022
US strong-arms allies into recognizing Iranian “equities”/Tony Badran/Al
Arabiya/October31/2022
Aoun Was Here/Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/October, 31/2022
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on November 01.2022
Treasury Sanctions Iranian Foundation Behind Bounty on Salman Rushdie
Canada sanctions Iranian police force, university as regime cracks down on
protests
Putin hosts Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders for peace talks
Russia recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan commandos, vets say
Barrage of Russian strikes hits key Ukrainian infrastructure
Russian recruits armed with outdated weapons; 80% of Kyiv without water after
Russian barrage: Ukraine updates
Biden snapped at Zelenskyy in a June phone call when he asked for more aid,
report says, in a fleeting moment of conflict between the two leaders
In Israel, tiny swing could determine outcome of tight race
Israel's Haredi voters drift hard right in leadership vacuum
Weary Israelis' hopes, fears one eve of latest election
Report: Syrian army burned corpses to hide victims' identities
Algeria hosts first Arab summit since Israel normalization deals
Saudi, UAE back OPEC cuts as US envoy warns of 'uncertainty'
UK intel says Russia is rushing reserve troops into battle with 'barely usable'
rifles, creating a new kind of headache for Putin's generals
Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil's president
Titles For The
Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on November 01.2022
Palestinians: Why Are Attacks on Christians Being Ignored?/Khaled Abu
Toameh/Gatestone Institute/October 31/2022
Maximum Support for the Iranian People: A New Strategy/Saeed
Ghasseminejad/Richard Goldberg/FDD/Tzvi/Kahn/Behnam Ben Taleblu/October 31/2022
Think the Energy Crisis Is Bad? Wait Until Next Winter/Suriya
Jayanti/TimeTime/October 31, 2022
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on November 01.2022
Aoun: Consensus among Lebanese political forces over new president
currently “out of reach”
NNA/October 31, 2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Monday reiterated that
signing a decree accepting the cabinet’s resignation in no way contradicted with
the Lebanese constitution. However, he noted that a caretaker government “cannot
perform the tasks required of it in light of the presidential vacuum.”“Electing
a new president of the republic requires consensus among the Lebanese political
forces,” Aoun added, deeming this matter “out of reach for the time being.”The
President then held all those who stood in the way of reforms and financial
audits fully responsible for the tenure’s inability to achieve reforms.
Furthermore, he reiterated his firm belief that "Israel, which used to taking
from Arabs without giving, has found itself in another position through the
demarcation agreement with Lebanon, which was able to take from it what it
considers its right, without the need for war.” In this context, Aoun deemed the
extraction of oil and gas “the fastest route to the country’s advancement."The
Lebanese President further stressed that Kuwait was a source of rapprochement
and consensus among Arab countries and that its historical ties with Lebanon
could not be erased.President Aoun's words came during an interview with
journalist, Daoud Rammal, before the President of the Republic left Baabda
Palace. This interview was published today in the Kuwaiti "Al-Anbaa". newspaper.
Parliament to convene Thursday over Aoun's letter
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called Monday for Parliament to convene on
Thursday to discuss a letter sent to parliament by outgoing President Michel
Aoun after he signed a decree "accepting the resignation" of the caretaker
cabinet. "The government is considered resigned
according to Article 69 of the constitution," Berri told Asharq al-Awsat
newspaper, in remarks published Monday. Aoun's letter says that Mikati was
"uninterested" in forming a new cabinet to deal with Lebanon's myriad problems
and called on him to resign. Berri reiterated his intention to launch a dialogue
to find a successor to Aoun. He stressed the importance of electing a new
president, saying that "vacuum is unacceptable."On Sunday, Free Patriotic chief
Jebran Bassil had said in a tweet, that there is an intention not to form a new
government and to seize the powers of the president. He said that Berri by not
calling for a session on Monday to take the necessary steps after Aoun's letter
confirmed the intention to "impose an unconstitutional authority that lacks
conformity to the national pact." While it's not the first time that Lebanon's
parliament has failed to appoint a successor by the end of the president's term,
this will be the first time that there will be both no president and a caretaker
cabinet with limited powers. Although the constitution "doesn't say explicitly
that the caretaker government can act if there is no president, logically,
constitutionally, one should accept that because the state and institutions
should continue to function according to the principle of the continuity of
public services," constitutional expert Wissam Lahham said.
Bassil-Rahi presidency dialogue in 'advanced stage'
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
The dialogue between Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil and Maronite
Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi regarding the presidential election file is in an
advanced stage, a media report said on Monday. Bassil is “giving the ultimate
priority to reaching an understanding with the patriarch before any other
political party and the two sides might be on the verge of discussing names,”
al-Joumhouria newspaper reported. “Everything that the patriarch talked about
yesterday about the president’s characteristics was mentioned in the paper
prepared by the FPM, as if he was reading from it,” the daily added, quoting
unnamed sources.
Mikati says boycotting ministers can ask to be
relieved of their duties
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
The five ministers who intend to boycott the caretaker cabinet “can ask to be
relieved of their duties,” caretaker PM Najib Mikati has said, amid controversy
over the legitimacy of his cabinet in the event of presidential vacuum.
“We would either replace them or acting ministers can take charge of
their ministries,” Mikati added, in remarks to al-Jadeed TV, while ruling out
that the five ministers would choose to boycott cabinet. “If there a benefit
from holding a cabinet meeting it will be held,” Mikati said. Mikati also added
that caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayyad and caretaker Foreign Minister
Abdallah Bou Habib will accompany him Monday to Algeria to take part in the Arab
Summit. “I don’t intend to clash with anyone or to flex muscles. Our objective
is to serve people and facilitate the work of public institutions,” Mikati
added, noting that President Michel Aoun did not want him to form the government
from the very beginning. “I’m not seeking to take anyone’s place,” he stressed.
He also confirmed that he will not convene cabinet unless there is a state of
utmost necessity.
FPM says still possible to form govt.; Hezbollah
won't boycott caretaker cabinet
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
The country is “headed for disaster amid presidential and governmental vacuum”
and “there is still a chance to form a government in the final moments” of
President Michel Aoun’s term, Free Patriotic Movement sources told al-Akhbar
newspaper in remarks published Monday. Aoun’s six-year tenure will expire at
midnight and parliament has failed four times to elect a successor. Al-Akhbar
added that “there are strenuous efforts to push for the formation of a
government whose decrees would be signed by Aoun” and “emphasis that vacuum
should not leave any repercussions on the ground.”
Informed sources meanwhile told the daily that Hezbollah “does not want to
boycott the caretaker cabinet, but at the same time is insisting that the
cabinet and its premier should not take provocative or unilateral decisions that
would disregard a main party like the FPM.”Hezbollah has also agreed with
Speaker Nabih Berri that caretaker PM Najib Mikati should not convene the
caretaker cabinet “except for extraordinary and emergency cases and after
winning the approval of all parties represented in the government,” the sources
added.
Does Bassil intend to run for presidency?
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil will announce his presidential
nomination on Tuesday and will declare “rebellion” against caretaker PM Najib
Mikati and the boycott of Speaker Nabih Berri’s dialogue, senior FPM official
Naji Hayek said overnight. Sources following up on Bassil’s political movements
meanwhile told Nidaa al-Watan newspaper that he intends to take steps to
“pressure” and “embarrass” Hezbollah by telling it, “Either I am your
presidential candidate or no one will be.” In recent
days, President Michel Aoun had told Reuters that the U.S. sanctions do not
prevent Bassil from running for president. "Once he's elected (as president),
the sanctions will go away," Aoun said, without elaborating. The sources said
Aoun’s remarks are “a message address to Hezbollah to push it to endorse
Bassil’s nomination, as a price that Hezbollah should pay in return for Bassil
being under U.S. sanctions due to his alliance with it.”
Report: Presidential vacuum won't be lengthy
Naharnet /October 31, 2022
All indications suggest that the presidential vacuum “will not be lengthy” amid
“strenuous French-Saudi efforts to reach a candidate on which most parliamentary
blocs would agree,” opposition sources said. “The main forces also want a
presidential election that would restore regularity in the country to accompany
the phase of demarcation and gas extraction,” the sources told al-Joumhouria
newspaper in remarks published Monday. “The evidence is that the sovereign
opposition that endorsed MP Michel Mouawad’s nomination is open to
consultations, and Hezbollah has also not committed itself to a certain
candidate, contrary to the previous period, in order to leave all options on the
table,” the sources added.
Vacuum and paralysis: Lebanon's political crisis
deepens
Agence France Presse/Associated Press
Before bowing out, President Michel Aoun delivered a final broadside against
caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. "This morning,
I sent a letter to parliament and signed a decree that considers the government
resigned," he told supporters before leaving the palace in the hills above
Beirut.
Experts say the move will likely not impact the work of Mikati's government,
which has remained in a caretaker role since legislative elections in the
spring. But it was part of ongoing political
arm-wrestling between Aoun and Mikati, who is also in charge of forming a new
government.
Aoun told parliament in a letter that Mikati was "uninterested" in forming a new
cabinet to deal with Lebanon's myriad problems and called on him to resign.
Many fear that an extended power vacuum could further delay attempts to
finalize a deal with the International Monetary Fund that would provide Lebanon
with some $3 billion in assistance, widely seen as a key step to help the
country climb out of a three-year financial crisis that has left three quarters
of the population in poverty. While it's not the first
time that Lebanon's parliament has failed to appoint a successor by the end of
the president's term, this will be the first time that there will be both no
president and a caretaker cabinet with limited powers.
Lebanon's constitution allows the cabinet in regular circumstances to run the
government, but is unclear whether that applies to a caretaker government.
Constitutional expert Wissam Lahham said that "what Aoun is doing is
unprecedented" since Lebanon adopted its constitution in 1926. Under Lebanese
law, a government that has resigned continues in a caretaker role until a new
one is formed, Lahham said, describing Aoun's decree as "meaningless".
The president's powers fall to the Council of Ministers if he leaves
office without a successor. A cabinet in a caretaker role cannot, however, take
important decisions that might impact the country's fate, Lahham said.
Lahham told The Associated Press that in his view, the governance issues
the country will face are political rather than legal. Although the constitution
"doesn't say explicitly that the caretaker government can act if there is no
president, logically, constitutionally, one should accept that because the state
and institutions should continue to function according to the principle of the
continuity of public services," he said. Lawmaker
Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces, the FPM's Christian rivals, said that
Aoun had dealt an additional blow to the country's paralyzed state institutions
by signing the decree. "The government will now
operate only within the narrowest of caretaker scopes," Hasbani said, while
parliament can no longer meet to legislate, only to vote on a new president.
"We are faced with a vacuum at the executive level and paralysis of the
legislative body." Talks between Lebanon's government and the IMF that began in
May 2020 and reached a staff-level agreement in April have made very little
progress. The Lebanese government has implemented few of the IMF's demands from
the agreement, which are mandatory before finalizing a bailout program. Among
them are restructuring Lebanon's ailing financial sector, implementing fiscal
reforms, restructuring external public debt and putting in place strong
anti-corruption and anti-money laundering measures.
"The prospects of an IMF deal were already dim before the upcoming power vacuum
and departure of Aoun," said Nasser Saidi, an economist and former Minister of
Economy. "There is no political will or appetite for undertaking
reforms.""Aoun's departure is simply another nail in the coffin," he said. "It
does not change the fundamentals of a dysfunctional failed state and totally
ineffective polity."
Geagea says Hezbollah 'hostage' to Bassil
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea has re-accused Hezbollah and its allies of
obstructing the election of a new president. Geagea
said that if the opposition MPs were unified, they could have elected a new
president. "The other camp can obstruct a session or two but eventually it
cannot continue to obstruct the sessions," Geagea said, adding that the LF had
named MP Michel Mouawad because the majority of the opposition MPs wanted him,
although he had run against the LF in the parliamentary elections. Geagea went
on to suggest Army chief Joseph Aoun as a presidential candidate. "It is
possible to elect Gen. Aoun, as all countries lean toward electing their army
chief when the presidential election is obstructed," Geagea said. Geagea
considered that Hezbollah is being held hostage by Free Patriotic chief Jebran
Bassil in the presidential elections and in other matters. "If Bassil insists on
the energy ministerial portfolio, Hezbollah would accept," Geagea said. Geagea
said that Hezbollah's arms alone are not enough to gain political strength. He
added that contrary to what people believe, Hezbollah is not politically strong.
"It needs its allies, in order to rule the country."
Berri meets Caretaker National Education Minister,
Educational Center for Research and Development delegation, tackles developments
with Deputy PM...
NNA/October 31, 2022
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Monday received at the Second Presidency in Ain
al-Tineh, Caretaker Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Abbas
Al-Halabi, at the head of a delegation representing the Educational Center for
Research and Development. Caretaker Minister al-Halabi and his accompanying
delegation handed Speaker Berri a copy of the national framework for
pre-university public education curricula. On the other hand, Speaker Berri met
with Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Saade Chami, with whom he discussed
the current general situation, the latest political developments, and the path
of dialogue with the International Monetary Fund.
Patriarch Rahi broaches developments with Iranian
Ambassador, meets MP Neemat Frem
NNA/October 31, 2022
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rahi, on Monday received in Bkerki,
Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, with whom he discussed the current
general situation and the latest developments.
Patriarch Rahi also met with MP Neemat Frem, over the current general situation.
MP Frem underlined the need to elect a president of the republic as soon
as possible. Among Bkerke’s itinerant visitors for
today had been former Head of the Constitutional Council Judge Issam Sleiman.
Depositor storms Byblos Bank in Hamra
NNA/October 31, 2022
A depositor stormed today the Hamra branch of Byblos Bank demanding his savings,
but security forces soon interfered and resolved the issue, our correspondent
reported on Monday.
Culture Minister inaugurates “Francophone
headquarters in the Middle East”
NNA/October 31, 2022
Caretaker Minister of Culture, Judge Mohammad Wissam Al-Mortada, on Monday
affirmed that Lebanon remained “the guardian of the monuments of ancient
civilizations that resided in it.” “Lebanon is open to intellectual exchange
with all the cultures of the world; it is the sun around which the planets of
culture revolve,” the Culture Minister added. “Lebanon and the Francophone are a
meeting place for people to exchange information, transfer knowledge, and share
cultures,” Mortada said during the inauguration ceremony of the Francophone
headquarters in the Middle East, in the presence of Caretaker Ministers of
Information and Education, Ziad Makari and Abbas Al-Halabi, former MPs and
ministers, and a number of ambassadors representing member states of the
Francophone Organization.
WHO warns cholera is spreading 'rapidly' across
Lebanon
Agence France Presse/October 31, 2022
A deadly cholera outbreak is spreading "rapidly" across Lebanon, exacerbated by
a prolonged economic crisis and crumbling infrastructure, the World Health
Organization (WHO) warned Monday. Lebanon's first
cholera outbreak in decades began earlier this month after the virulent disease
spread from neighboring Syria. "The situation in
Lebanon is fragile as the country already struggles to fight other crises,
compounded by prolonged political and economic deterioration," said Abdinasir
Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon. Since
October 5, more than 1,400 suspected cases have been reported in Lebanon,
including 381 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, the WHO said in a statement.
While the outbreak was initially confined to the impoverished north, it
has "rapidly spread" across Lebanon, it added. The WHO
said it has helped the cash-strapped country secure 600,000 vaccine doses, and
efforts to secure more are "ongoing given the rapid spread of the outbreak".
Cholera is generally contracted from contaminated food or water, and
causes diarrhea and vomiting. It can also spread in residential areas that lack
proper sewerage networks or mains drinking water. The outbreak in Lebanon comes
on the heels of a recent wave in Syria, where more than a decade of war has
damaged nearly two-thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations
and one-third of water towers, according to the United Nations. The Euphrates
River, which has been contaminated by sewage, is believed to be the source of
Syria's first major cholera outbreak since 2009. The
cholera strain identified in Lebanon is "similar to the one circulating in
Syria," the WHO said. Lebanese authorities have said
most cases were among Syrian refugees. Lebanon hosts more than one million
Syrian refugees, many of them already poverty-stricken before Lebanon's economic
collapse began three years ago. "The vulnerability of
people in Lebanon is being exacerbated by prolonged economic conditions and
limited access to clean water and proper sanitation across the country," the WHO
said. Frequent and prolonged power cuts across Lebanon
have interrupted the work of water pumping stations and sewerage networks.
Cholera can kill within hours if left untreated, according to the WHO, but many
of those infected will have no or mild symptoms. Worldwide, the disease affects
between 1.3 million and four million people each year, killing between 21,000
and 143,000 people.
MSF Bar-Elias hospital adapted to care for cholera patients
Naharnet/October 31, 2022
As part of its "continuous and ongoing efforts to fight the cholera outbreak in
Lebanon," Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has adapted its hospital in Bar Elias,
in the Bekaa valley, to receive and treat cholera patients with an initial
capacity of 20 beds, which can be expanded according to the needs, a statement
said. With the adaptations done, the hospital will continue to function for
urgent surgical procedures. Since the declaration of
the outbreak in Lebanon on the 6th of October, MSF has increased its efforts in
various regions of the country, including Tripoli, Akkar, Bekaa and Beirut, to
support the communities and the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health in the
curbing of the cholera spread. MSF teams are
simultaneously carrying out needs assessment for supporting the setting up of
other cholera treatment facilities in the most affected areas. The teams are
also sharing their expertise in the management of cholera outbreaks with other
local and international actors in the country through trainings and sharing of
experiences according to the international protocols. This is due to MSF’s
longstanding 50 years of experience in emergency settings throughout the world,
and years of experience with cholera prevention and treatment.
This cholera outbreak is happening at a time when Lebanon is faced with an
economic crisis with dire consequences on the medical response, the proper
maintenance of the waste management and water networks, as well as its impact on
people’s access to safe and clean water. "Local and international actors in
Lebanon are needed at this time to put forth and prioritize the necessary
measures for ensuring safe access to clean drinking water, and safe water and
sanitation supplies for everyone,” says Julien Raickman, MSF Head of Mission in
Lebanon. In addition to the hospitalization capacities in Bar Elias, other MSF
clinics in Akkar, Northern Bekaa, and South Beirut are getting equipped with
oral rehydration points, “and we are also supporting designated health care
facilities to manage patients seeking medical attention for acute watery
diarrhea,” adds Reickman. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the international
medical organization is also mobilizing its teams to raise awareness on cholera
among the different communities.
IMF says Mideast, North Africa economies resilient
in 2022
Associated Press/October 31, 2022
The economies of Middle Eastern and North African countries were resilient this
year, but double-digit inflation is expected to slow growth in 2023, the
International Monetary Fund said Monday. The IMF forecast GDP growth at 5% in
2022 for countries in the region. For oil-exporting nations, growth was
projected at 5.2%, mainly due to high oil prices and robust GDP growth in other
countries, which offset the impact of high food prices. But the rate of growth
is expected to slow in 2023, due in part to inflation driven by high food and
commodity prices, the report said. And the outlook remained so dire for
politically unstable Lebanon and war-scarred Syria that the IMF reported no
economic projections for either. Higher energy prices
sustained oil-producing nations, such as Saudi Arabia, where economic growth is
expected to hit 7.6% this year. Oil exporters are also benefitting from trade
diversions caused by the war in Ukraine, as some European countries look to
replace their oil purchases from Russia. As a whole,
the IMF expects that in the next five years, the level of additional inflows and
financial reserves to Mideast oil-exporting countries will exceed $1 trillion.
The extra financial inflows are critical to Gulf Arab countries as they
try to diversify their economies away from dependence on oil and as the world
seeks greener technologies to power industry. Growth in the region next year is
projected at 3.6% due to worsening global conditions such as the consequences of
the war in Ukraine for commodity prices and the slowing global economy. For oil
exporters, growth will likely slow to 3.5% as oil prices weaken, global demand
slows and OPEC production reduces. "We expect the outlook for next year to be
less variable than this year, growth will go down for both oil-exporting
countries and oil-importing countries," Jihad Azour, director of the IMF's
Middle East and Central Asia department, told The Associated Press.
Inflation, meanwhile, is expected to remain in the double digits in the
region in 2023, for the third consecutive year. For Sudan, the situation is
particularly dire. Consumer price inflation has surpassed the double digits and
is forecast to hit 154.9% this year. In 2021, the figure hit a whopping 359%,
skyrocketing since the country's 2019 ouster of autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
"Inflation surprised on the upside, this is the third year where you have
double-digit inflation especially for the oil-importing countries … We expect
still that inflation will remain high next year driven by high food and
commodity prices," Azour said. The IMF has warned that
high food and fertilizer prices can create severe food security challenges for
low-income countries, which could lead to social unrest.
Food prices are still above their 2021 average and expected to increase
by more than 14% year-on-year in 2022, according to the report. And although
wheat prices are lower than their prewar levels, due to the agreement between
Russia and Ukraine to resume Black Sea grain exports, they remain about 80%
higher than their average in 2019. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has impacted
exports like sunflower oil, barley, and wheat worldwide. However, Russia
announced on Sunday it would immediately halt participation in the U.N.-brokered
deal, prompting President Joe Biden to warn that global hunger could increase.
Russia's move came after it alleged that Ukraine staged a drone attack on
Saturday against Russia's Black Sea Fleet ships off the coast of occupied
Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own
weapons. Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer,
most of which comes from Russia and Ukraine. Its economy has been hard-hit by
the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Last week the IMF reached a
preliminary agreement with Egypt that paves the way for the economically
troubled Arab nation to access a $3 billion loan. The
IMF says one of the most pressing priorities now is to mitigate the
cost-of-living crisis. To do so, Azour says the IMF must control inflation,
shift social spending away from "an untargeted system that is now mainly driven
by the subsidy on food and on energy to something that is more targeted," and
create more jobs — especially for middle-income people.
جوزيف حتي/تغيير وإصلاح عون: العودة إلى المستقبل
Aoun’s Change & Reform: Back to the Future
Joseph Hitti/October 31/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113087/joseph-hitti-aouns-change-reform-back-to-the-future-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%b2%d9%8a%d9%81-%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d8%ba%d9%8a%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%88%d8%a5%d8%b5%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%ad-%d8%b9%d9%88%d9%86/
When Michel Aoun was the rebel against the corrupt political establishment,
those with progressive ideas stood firmly behind him. He was from the lower
Christian middle class of Lebanon, and not from the traditional feudal families.
He came into politics because of his army background.
We once asked Michel Aoun over a conference call from the United States to Paris
what were his political plans after the end of the Syrian occupation. Did he
have a program? Does he have an outlook on what to do with a failed political
system? At the time, our fight was exclusively against the Syrian occupation and
its proxies in the Lebanese political establishment. We wanted Aoun to return
from exile and “do something” for the future. Aoun’s response was that he wasn’t
going to do politics after the end of the Syrian occupation; he was going to be
more of a statesman, a leader above the fray of petty politics; Now that
“liberation” (ta7reer, تحرير) was over, he was going to lead the Lebanese into
“self-emancipation” (ta7arror, تحرّر).
In all his writings, interviews, and conversations during his exile, Aoun
displayed a progressive forward-looking outlook that was couched in
international law and the norms of international relations between countries. He
often referred to United Nations charters and conventions. He was addressing
himself exclusively to the West – France, the United States, etc.). He never
used China or the Soviet Union or Iran as his references for how things should
be in Lebanon. He was a harsh critic of the Syrian regime’s abject human rights
record and poked the conscience of Western powers on how they acquiesced to
placing Lebanon under the tutelage of the tyrannical Syrian regime. He made
comments expressing his sympathy for Israeli citizens being killed by
Palestinian suicide bombers. He referred to Etienne Sacre, aka Abu Arz, as “one
of us”, when Abu Arz had engaged directly with the Israelis and fled to Israel
after Hezbollah took over the south from the Israeli occupation. Check Aoun’s
2002 interview with the MTV television station [
https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2022/07/aouns-legacy-unprincipled-greed-for_11.html
]. He rejected Hezbollah’s denial of the right of Israel to exist. He lobbied
Zionist members of the US congress against the Syrian occupation and sponsored
the 2003 Syria Accountability Act in the US Congress.
Then in comes Gebran Bassil circa the fall of 2005. I met him at a hotel in
Washington DC when he accompanied Michel Aoun for the first time on a trip to
the US during which Aoun stopped in Washington and Boston. After umpteen
rejections despite invitations from Congress, Aoun was finally given a visa by
the US State Department immediately after September 11, 2001, and that was in
October 2001 when Aoun made his first trip to the US. But it was only in the
fall of 2005 that Bassil walked in with Aoun to the Washington DC hotel room
where we were waiting. Bassil gave us the impression of being a bazaar merchant
with a braggart yet sneaky disposition. For us Lebanese Americans who had
learned to play by our host country’s rules, Bassil did not inspire trust. He
struck us as a traditional Lebanese wheeling-dealing political wannabe whose
discourse was vindictive and angry and unlikely to make US political
stakeholders sympathetic to his cause. Bassil was not like Aoun. He was more
like typical Lebanese politicians: mercurial, uncommitted, argumentative, and
rejecting dialogue. To those of us Lebanese Americans who had placed their every
hope in Aoun’s forward-looking, almost pacifist, approach, we cringed at
Bassil’s sudden eruption into the Aoun circle. And that is when things began to
change.
By November 2005 when Aoun came to DC and Boston – after the February 2005
assassination of Rafik Hariri and the eviction of the Syrian occupation forces –
we began hearing complaints from Aoun’s domestic circles about our standard
criticism of the Syrian regime and Hezbollah in our communications with the US
media. Then the bomb dropped with the announcement of the February 2006
Memorandum of Understanding between Aoun’s Tayyar (Free Patriotic Movement, FPM)
and Hezbollah, a seismic shock at what was counter to everything we had stood
for during more than 15 years. The Aoun movement began splintering: On one hand,
those who endorsed the new love affair with their erstwhile enemy began
proffering the idiotic argument that fundamentalist Shiites were better than
fundamentalist Sunnis, or the more realistic argument that because the Americans
had contributed to Lebanon’s miseries, we ought therefore to turn against them.
On the other hand, there were those who couldn’t fathom such a switch because it
undermined everything we had stood for for decades. We tried to rationalize it
as a tactical, not a strategic move, and initially we went along cautiously but
unconvinced.
By early summer in June 2006, things came to a head. We started receiving
threats from Beirut, specifically from the Expatriate Committee of the FPM. We
were ordered to stop criticizing Syria and Hezbollah. In retrospect, we now
realize these were Bassil’s orders. We countered that, as American citizens, we
couldn’t even be members of foreign political parties, and morally we couldn’t
be part of an alliance with a terrorist organization that was second to Al-Qaeda
in the numbers of Americans it killed. We argued for more freedom of action, for
coordination rather than obedience, for a smarter way of doing things than
frontal confrontation… But Bassil’s FPM was no longer Aoun’s FPM. Between
February and June 2006, many of the early Aoun supporters had announced their
divorce from the FPM. Within a couple of weeks, Aoun’s former enemy and new
ally, Hezbollah, triggered the devastating July 2006 war with Israel.
Over the next few years, Aoun’s political discourse and conduct evolved into the
complete opposite of everything he had said and done during his tenure as the
head of the transitional government (1988-1990) and during his exile
(1991-2005): An apologetic rapprochement with Syria and Iran, an advocate of
Hezbollah’s so-called resistance, acute enmity towards the United States, Israel
and Saudi Arabia, etc. What was bad became good and vice-versa. For example, the
occupation by Israel of the Shebaa Farms, which Aoun had labeled as a lie prior
to 2005, became an accepted fact justifying Hezbollah’s continued “resistance”
even after the 2000 Israeli withdrawal from the border strip. The patriotic
heroes of the border strip who had fought to maintain a Lebanese legitimacy over
the south became vile traitors dealing with the “enemy”.
Domestically, it became clear that Aoun and Bassil’s plans for the FPM were less
about reforming the Lebanese political system than about seeking revenge against
the Sunnis who had waged the 1975-1990 war against the Lebanese State using the
Palestinian guerillas as their militia. The Sunnis had allied themselves with
the Syrian regime to kick Michel Aoun out of Baabda, and thus emerged as the
grand victors through the Taef Agreement. The Sunni Prime Minister now held the
constitutional authority that the Christian President, now a figurehead,
formerly had. The ascendancy of the Sunnis was exemplified by the rise of Rafik
Hariri who became “Mr. Lebanon”, a larger-than-life politician with money and
the backing of Saudi Arabia and the West.
The objective of the “Change and Reform” parliamentary bloc of Bassil and Aoun
was not what many had hoped. Many enlightened Lebanese believed it was time to
lead Lebanon into the future with new ideas, establish new secular foundations
on which to improve the decaying political system. Whereas the Aoun movement was
initially all about secularizing the political system and pushing religion to
the background, Aoun and Bassil became “defenders” of Christian rights. Whereas
Aoun had many times stated that there are no “minority rights”, only universal
“human rights”, he now advocated protecting Middle East Christians against the
radical “Daeshi” Sunni Muslim assault, as if his subservience to the diktats of
the radical Hezbollah Shiite Muslim assault was non-existent. What initially
appeared to be mere tactical moves became an avowed Dhimmi enslavement to any
fanatic Muslim that could help against the other fanatic Muslim in order to make
gains for a fanatic Christian fringe. By this time, we came to terms with the
fact that the objective of Aoun, led on a leash by Bassil, was to take Lebanon
back to the 1970s and 1980s, avenge his humiliating defeat, and restore some
useless pathetic powers that the Christians had lost. In other words, “Change
and Reform Backwards”, an oxymoronic idiocy typical of the primitive mindset of
Lebanese mountain peasants, Christian and Muslim alike, and not much different
from Aoun’s own Christian enemy brothers like the Phalangists or the Lebanese
Forces.
The abysmally “creative” tactic of the Aoun-Bassil tandem in the face of the
chronic obstructions by the Sunnis of all Maronite administrations since
independence was to return the favor as is, regardless of its potential
disastrous consequences. Their sole focus became to obstruct all Sunni Prime
Ministers’ administrations, using the same sponsors that the Sunnis had use
against Aoun: Syria and Hezbollah. As we see today, the Aoun-Bassil marching
order is obstructing the election of a new president in 2016, and now again in
2022, obstructing the formation of a new government, obstructing the
investigation into the Beirut harbor explosion, obstructing the appointment of
new judges, turning a blind eye to Syria’s smuggling rape across the border,
etc., all of it without any sublime objective. Bassil is all about blind revenge
and has no serious proposal to put on the table to evolve the sclerotic
political system.
In conclusion, it may well be that Aoun and Bassil deliberately want to
dismantle the entire structure of the Lebanese State in order to rebuild it from
scratch. A lofty goal perhaps, but if true, why not say out loud what their
ulterior objective is? Is it separation from the Muslims in the form of
partition or a federal system? Aoun and Bassil believe one of two things: Either
the present system is fine and all they want is to restore the preeminence of
the Maronite Christians, which is only tenable if you include a military defeat
of the Muslims; or they want to overhaul the system but have yet to make any
concrete proposal. The primeval lord in Bkerki naively thinks that the system is
fine as long as we declare its neutrality, as if the Muslims will accept
neutrality (there is not one neutral Muslim country around the globe), and if
the Muslims do accept neutrality, what guarantees are there that they won’t
recant later? The real question is how can the Christians of Lebanon continue to
believe as sustainable the fact that 35% of the population (i.e. the Christians)
are entitled to 50% of all posts in the administration, in addition to the posts
of President, Central Bank Governor, Army Chief, and Chief Judge on the High
Judicial Council among others, when they know that the Muslims had already
rejected a 50-50 division when the Christians were still 50% of the population?
With Aoun on his way out, both politically and biologically, we are left to
wonder if Bassil has any idea what to do after Aoun is gone. Bassil has surfed
very easily on his father-in-law’s coattails; Aoun insisted several times on
appointing Bassil to a ministerial post in the government when the latter had
repeatedly lost in the elections, contradicting Aoun’s own pounding his fist on
the table at the 2002-2003 founding of the FPM in Paris and yelling at all
present that “only those who prove themselves in elections can become party
cadres or ministers”. It’s a sorry sight to see that what promised to be a
game-changer in Lebanese politics, especially among the Christian community, has
turned out to be yet another political family farm like all the others, with
cronyism, leader worship, promiscuity with violence, corruption, and all the
rest of this archaic feudal system in which Lebanon claims to couch its
pseudo-democracy.
طوني بدران/العربية: في الإتفاق اللبناني-الإسرائيلي لترسيم الحدود البحرية، حلفاء
الولايات المتحدة الأقوياء اعترفوا بدور وحصص إيران
US strong-arms allies into recognizing Iranian “equities”
Tony Badran/Al Arabiya/October31/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113081/tony-badran-al-arabiya-us-strong-arms-allies-into-recognizing-iranian-equities-%d8%b7%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a7/
On October 26, Amos Hochstein headed back to Lebanon for the “signing ceremony”
for the maritime boundary deal Team Biden succeeded in imposing on Israel.
Reflecting the farcical nature of what was bizarrely advertised in some quarters
as a “normalization” deal between Israel and an Iranian vassal, the “ceremony”
consisted of the two sides separately signing and depositing the agreement with
the US representative.
Although the Lapid government had hyped a “joint” signing ceremony as something
“very important,” the ridiculousness of the non-spectacle is fitting. The
“government of Lebanon” and its “sovereign leadership” that supposedly concluded
the agreement with Israel have the same relation to reality as the high council
of elves and wizards from Lord of the Rings does to political power in
Northumbria. Instead, they’re fictional characters that can serve certain very
limited public functions while dressed up in appropriate costumes. For instance,
it behooved the Israeli lame duck government to say that it had signed a deal
with “the government of Lebanon,” and that this process actually “weakened”
Hezbollah.
In reality, the Lapid government was as much a prop as its Lebanese counterpart
on a stage on which the two principal actors were in fact the United States and
Iran, as represented by Hezbollah. It’s been clear for months that Washington
has been negotiating with the terror group through trusted Hezbollah cutouts
like Abbas Ibrahim, head of the Directorate of General Security. The Biden
administration’s framing of the deal therefore emphatically identifies it as an
extension of its broader Iran policy, whose effect is to strengthen Hezbollah
through its Iranian patron.
On the day the agreement was announced, two senior administration officials
briefed reporters on it on a background call. Before discussing the deal itself,
a White House official began by explaining how it is to be understood by
situating it within the administration’s vision for the region: “a more stable,
prosperous, integrated region.”
“Regional integration” is the administration’s key technical term of the moment.
It describes an aspect of former president Barack Obama’s Realignment doctrine,
which posits that US allies need to stabilize and prop up— “integrate”—Iran and
its so-called regional equities, and cease any measures that might weaken the
Iranian order.
Hence, when the White House official proceeded to provide examples of the
“integrated” region the administration envisions, all three involved Iranian
holdings: Iraq, Yemen, and finally, Lebanon, where the maritime deal was said to
“manifest” the hoped-for integration. The US role is to maneuver America’s
allies so as to ensure that these existing Iranian spheres become more stable,
prosperous, and integrated—under the thumb of Iran, of course.
How does the Lebanon gas deal advance the administration’s regional vision? The
administration has emphasized a set of key talking points for the agreement, and
more importantly, for how it defines the regional posture of the United States.
With this agreement, the administration is communicating to the Iranians that it
will situate the United States in-between Israel and the Hezbollah-run Iranian
equity, in order to fairly and equally safeguard the supposed interests of the
ally and the Iranian terrorist pseudo-state.
“This agreement is not a win-lose agreement. The parties are not getting more
than the other, because they get different things,” one of the senior officials
(let’s just call him Amos Hochstein) said on the call. This bit of paternalist
wordplay can’t help but raise a smile from even the most jaded consumers of
diplomacy-speak. Forcing Israel to concede to 100 percent of Hezbollah’s demands
shouldn’t be viewed as a “win” for the latter—far from it. In return, Israel was
getting a “different thing.” What that thing is, the administration has made a
point of advertising, is “security.” The Iranian satrapy, meanwhile, gets
“economic prosperity.”
Of course, this is a fake distinction, as even the administration’s sales pitch
makes clear. The administration advertised its “integration” agreement as
providing both prosperity as well as security to the Hezbollah pseudo-state.
“This agreement, we are confident, will provide the kind of security that both
countries need,” the same senior official said in the background briefing. In
fact, the administration linked Israel’s security to that of its enemy to the
north and to its prosperity. “Having a prosperous Israel side-by-side a
prosperous Lebanon is the best security guarantee for both countries,” explained
the senior official.
A corollary talking point described a supposed “balance of deterrence”
established by the deal that would operate through the ludicrous proposition of
“a rig for a rig,” whereby the offshore platforms of both countries would be
held hostage by the other side. According to this formula, Israel, if attacked
by Hezbollah, could always blow up a platform owned and operated by the French
oil company Total—thereby violating its own contractual agreements with the
French company and bringing France into the conflict on Hezbollah’s side. How
this would deter rather than encourage Hezbollah to interfere with Israel’s oil
rigs is unclear.
Although the Obama D.C. echo chamber hailed this equation as a testament to the
administration’s commitment to Israel’s security, mutual deterrence between
Israel and Hezbollah is a net loss for Jerusalem. It means either that Israel is
deterred, or that the United States seeks to impose a framework that constrains
Israel from targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Or both. The administration’s
euphemistic language covers an ugly underlying arrangement that the
administration desires to govern relations with Lebanon.
The drivers of a potential conflict between Israel and Hezbollah are multiple,
growing, and entirely unrelated to the maritime issue, which has played no
discernable prior role in the strategic calculations of either side, or even in
propaganda efforts. Hezbollah’s arms build-up, acquisition of more advanced
weapons systems, and development of precision-guided munitions, continue apace,
all against the backdrop of Team Biden’s dogged pursuit of reviving Obama’s deal
with Iran—country-wide riots in Iran notwithstanding.
Hezbollah, having won this round with the threat of force, will have no problem
raking in its chips while continuing its build-up. The administration’s
“incentives” can only facilitate that growth. The notion that foreign investment
deters Hezbollah is a fallacy. If it constrains anyone, it’s Israel. The more
invested the United States and France are in Lebanon, the more complicated
Israel’s freedom of action becomes, as Washington and Paris will lean on
Jerusalem to dissuade it from taking any action against Hezbollah in Lebanon,
even if it were dictated by national security imperatives.
What the administration is communicating, with the foreign investments and
increased entanglements, as well as with the insertion of the United States as a
guarantor between Israel and Hezbollah, is that moving forward, it is putting
multiple checks in place on Israeli action in Lebanon. In other words, Lebanon
is to be “integrated” into the region as Hezbollah’s base.
The Obama administration had started this policy during the Syrian war. It was
best exemplified by the ongoing policy of underwriting the Lebanese Armed Forces
(LAF) under the pretext of maintaining Lebanon’s stability. That is, the Obama
administration subsidized and armed the LAF to perform the function of
protecting Hezbollah’s rear as the latter prosecuted its war in Syria out of
Lebanon. With the maritime deal, the administration has signaled to the Iranians
not only that the United States recognizes their regional “equities,” but also
that it intends to force American allies into doing the same.
*Tony Badran is Tablet magazine’s Levant analyst and a research fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay. FDD is a
Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy.
Aoun Was Here
Ghassan Charbel/ Asharq Al-Awsat/October, 31/2022
I know the harshness of the title “former president”. I know that Michel Aoun
adores the palace. He would rather leave it in a vacuum than see it occupied by
a successor. He had for decades believed that the palace was stolen from him.
I had hoped that his farewell would have respected the pain of the Lebanese
people, the position of the presidency and the experience of being a president.
A few months ago, I was delusional in believing that Aoun would declare early on
his support for the election of a president through consensus, abandoning his
demands, that of his movement and son-in-law, who addresses the Lebanese people
as though he invented Lebanon and allowed them to live in it. Aoun did not. I
was also delusional in believing that the president would depart the palace by
offering an apology because calamity struck during his term and he failed in
easing the bare minimum of their suffering.
His farewell address was interesting and unfortunate. It was also beneficial to
those following up on Lebanese developments.
For example, we were unaware that salvation had arrived in the form of the
demarcation of the maritime border with Israel. Oh my. We were unaware that Aoun
had lived in the presidential palace for six years, but never assumed the
presidency. Rather, he had lived in the palace as an opposition figure disguised
as a president. We were unaware that the head of the Higher Judicial Council,
honorable Judge Suheil Abboud is a dangerous criminal who is responsible for
impeding the probe in the Beirut port explosion and the assassination of the
capital. Luckily, he did not accuse Abboud of deliberately planting the ammonium
nitrate to the port. Oh my.
We had hoped for your success, for the sake of the country and people. We had
hoped that your term as president would have made up for the mistakes and sins
you and others had committed in the past. That did not happen.
You have no right to offer justifications, analyses and observations on your
final day at the presidential palace. Do you recall how General Charles De
Gaulle left the palace? Do you recall how Fuad Chehab did? Why do you speak as
though you were never at the palace or part of the war?
I address you with full respect for your position, age and supporters. But you
have no right to appear before us on the final day to deride the corrupt ruling
system. Why did you allow the same system to carry you to the palace, you, who
sought all possible channels to reach it?
I don’t want to open old wounds and bring up past unrest, but you simply have no
right to wash your hands clean of the developments that took place during your
term. For example, why didn’t you threaten to resign when the Central Bank
governor was not put to trial when he should have?
From your palace window, you observed the rapid collapse of a country that had
expected the opposite from you.
A little over three decades ago, I, along with Asharq Al-Awsat, visited the
presidential palace in Baabda. At the time, it was held by General Michel Aoun.
The palace carried the wounds of two wars waged by the general: One against the
Lebanese Forces and the other against what he described as the “Syrian
occupation.”The general was dressed in his army fatigues and decisive in his
manner. I left the palace with a sense of alarm, not because the man refused to
acknowledge the balance of power, but because he appeared to support the view of
“either the palace or the grave.”
Michel Aoun is a player that does not lack the skill in stirring the feelings of
his supporters and stoking their fears. He did not choose the grave at the
palace. He put on the guise of the victim and headed to the French embassy and
from there, exile.
I visited him at his exile in France. It was no secret that he wanted to return
to Lebanon, like a De Gaulle figure, as if such a fate is viable to any officer
dreaming in the darkness of the barracks.
His ability to draw wrong conclusions only spurred me to know more about him,
follow up on and ask about him.
It is inappropriate to raise the victory sign amid the rubble of a dying
country.
I say dying and I mean it. A hungry country that is languishing in the abyss. A
country that has lost its youth, role and meaning. Lost its port, capital,
universities, hospitals and tourism.
A country that has been forgotten by the region and world and only slightly
remembered when the need for gas arose. Perhaps even because Israel will become
a main source of gas to Europe that is grappling with the war on Ukraine.
It is inappropriate to raise the victory sign by the president and his rivals.
Raising such a sign is disdain to people who had boarded “death boats”, escaping
land sharks to fall victim to the sea. It is disdain to people scavenging in
garbage bins in search of scraps of food for their children. It is disdain for
weeping women as they bid farewell to their children who have resorted to
immigration.
It is disdain to the martyrs, the dead and the living. The blood of the martyrs
- all martyrs - has been shed in vain. How can martyrs be victorious if their
country is dead?
It would be wrong to portray Aoun as solely responsible for the calamity. It is
also wrong to shift some blame from him. One must remember that Aoun has been a
leader for decades. He may have lost two wars, but his popularity never waned.
In his exile, he spoke of his yearning for the presidential palace until he
finally made it. Now is not the time to discuss the accuracy of what the
skeptics are saying. They say he was awarded the palace for his role in breaking
up the March 14 movement, his stance on assassinations, his leaning towards the
alliance of minorities and his acceptance of coexistence between the “semi-state
and state of arms”.Aoun does not show mercy to his rivals and neither do they.
Some believe that Aoun assumed the presidency, but never practiced his duties.
He sat as a leader, not as a president, at the palace. His problem is that he
could not shed the image of the leader and assume that of a president.
Aoun at the palace was a leader to his followers, not a president of the
republic.We have spent our lives chasing after “saviors”. Moammar al-Gaddafi,
Jaafar Nimeiry, Ali Abdullah Saleh and others. Now, comes the conclusion of the
tale of the Lebanese “savior” who cost his country dearly. It is a thorny and
sad tale. The man did not save his image nor his country. He rode the palace on
an empty horse and now leaves the palace on that same horse.
Who knows, maybe one night a military officer may sneak into the presidential
palace to write a painful statement on its wall: “Aoun was here.” It was a sad
farewell address. A new magnificent chapter in the world of delusions.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on November 01.2022
Treasury Sanctions Iranian Foundation
Behind Bounty on Salman Rushdie
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Washington, D.C./October 28, 2022
– The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
took action today against the 15 Khordad Foundation, an Iran-based foundation
that has issued a multi-million-dollar bounty for the killing of prominent
Indian-born, British-American author Salman Rushdie. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini’s order pronouncing a death sentence on Rushdie in February 1989, 15
Khordad Foundation has committed millions of dollars to anyone willing to carry
out this heinous act. Since putting its bounty on Rushdie, the 15 Khordad
Foundation, which is affiliated with the Supreme Leader, has raised the reward
for targeting the author.
“The United States will not waver in its determination to stand up to threats
posed by Iranian authorities against the universal rights of freedom of
expression, freedom of religion or belief, and freedom of the press,” said Under
Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E.
Nelson. “This act of violence, which has been praised by the Iranian regime, is
appalling. We all hope for Salman Rushdie’s speedy recovery following the attack
on his life.”
OFAC is designating 15 Khordad Foundation pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as
amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial,
material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support
of, an act of terrorism.
15 KHORDAD FOUNDATION
The 15 Khordad Foundation is a so-called charitable foundation subordinate to
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Since 1989, the 15 Khordad Foundation, inspired by
Ayatollah Khomeini’s order calling for Rushdie’s execution, has proudly placed a
bounty on the author’s life.
The call for Rushdie’s assassination, issued by Ayatollah Khomeini and
financially backed by the 15 Khordad Foundation and other Iranian entities, has
led to the death and injury of several people associated with Rushdie’s novel
The Satanic Verses, including other writers, translators, and publishers. In
1991, the translator of The Satanic Verses into Japanese was assassinated in his
office. Even people with no connection to the novel have been maimed or killed.
In 1993, at least 37 people were killed when a mob burned down a hotel in Turkey
that was hosting a writer who had translated Rushdie’s work.
The 15 Khordad Foundation maintains a multi-million-dollar bounty on Rushdie. As
recently as 2012, the 15 Khordad Foundation increased its bounty on the author,
bringing the total sum from $2.7 million to $3.3 million. The 15 Khordad
Foundation’s leadership has publicly advertised their offer, claiming the entire
sum would be given immediately to anyone who assassinated Rushdie.
SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the
entity named above, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly,
50 percent or more by it, individually, or with other blocked persons, that are
in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, must be
blocked and reported to OFAC. Unless authorized by a general or specific license
issued by OFAC or otherwise exempt. OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all
transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States (including transactions
transiting the United States) that involve any property or interests in property
of designated or otherwise blocked persons.
Furthermore, engaging in certain transactions with the entity designated today
entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended. Pursuant
to this authority, OFAC can prohibit or impose strict conditions on the opening
or maintaining in the United States of a correspondent account or a
payable-through account of a foreign financial institution that knowingly
conducted or facilitated any significant transaction on behalf of a Specially
Designated Global Terrorist.
The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from its ability to
designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to
remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of
sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior.
For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list,
including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC’s Frequently Asked Question 897.
For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an
OFAC sanctions list, please click here.
For identifying information on the entity sanctioned today.
Canada sanctions Iranian police force, university as regime cracks down on
protests
The Canadian Press/October 31, 2022
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada is adding Iran's national
police force and an Iranian international university to its sanctions list.
The addition of Iran's Law Enforcement Forces and Al-Mustafa
International University today comes as Tehran continues to crack down on weeks
of dissent.
In a statement, Joly accused the police force of participating in the lethal
suppression and arbitrary detention of Iranian protesters.
She also accused the Iranian regime of using the university, which has
branches in several countries, to spread its ideology abroad and recruit foreign
fighters.
Canada is also adding four individuals, including the police commander of
Tehran, to its sanctions list, which now includes 93 people and 179 entities.
Iranian authorities say they will hold public trials for 1,000 people
over the protests that have convulsed the country for weeks.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2022.
Putin hosts Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders for peace
talks
MOSCOW (AP)/October 31, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on
Monday to try to broker a settlement to a longstanding conflict between the two
ex-Soviet neighbors. In an initial meeting with
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Russian leader’s Black Sea
residence in Sochi, Putin said the goals would be to ensure peace and stability,
and unblock transportation infrastructure to help Armenia's economic and social
development. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked
in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but
has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a
separatist war there ended in 1994. “We see the
approaches of our colleagues to what is happening on the Armenian-Azerbaijani
border and around Karabakh," Putin said Monday. "This conflict has been going on
for a decade, so we still need to end it.”
Putin’s talks with Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev concern
implementation of a 2020 peace deal that Russia brokered. During a six-week war
in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent
territories that Armenian forces held for decades. More than 6,700 people died
in the fighting. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as
peacekeepers. Pashinyan said Monday that he would
press for Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops from the Russian peacekeeping zone
in Nagorno-Karabakh, and seek freedom for Armenian prisoners of war. An
extension of the Russian peacekeeping mandate was also under discussion, Russian
state news agencies reported. A new round of
hostilities erupted in September, when more than 200 troops were killed on both
sides. Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame for triggering the fighting.
Russia is Armenia’s top ally and sponsor. In a delicate balancing act, it
maintains a military base in Armenia but also has developed warm ties with
Azerbaijan. In an apparent reflection of tensions with
Armenia's leadership, Putin noted last Thursday that the Kremlin had advised
Pashinyan’s government before the 2020 hostilities to agree to a compromise in
which Armenian forces would give up Azerbaijani lands outside Nagorno-Karabakh
that they seized in the early 1990s. Putin lamented that "the Armenian
leadership has taken a different path.”During the 2020 fighting, Azerbaijan
reclaimed not only those territories but significant chunks of Nagorno-Karabakh
proper.
Russia recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan commandos, vets
say
Associated Press/October 31, 2022
Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then
fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited
by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told
The Associated Press. They said the Russians want to attract thousands of the
former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion” with offers of steady,
$1,500-a-month payments and promises of safe havens for themselves and their
families so they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death
at the hands of the Taliban. “They don’t want to go fight — but they have no
choice,” said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen
or so commandos in Iran with whom he has texted fear deportation most. “They ask
me, ‘Give me a solution? What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the
Taliban will kill us.’”Arghandiwal said the recruiting is led by the Russian
mercenary force Wagner Group. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last
Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being
helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and
speaks the language.
The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from U.S. soldiers who fought
with Afghan special forces that the Taliban was intent on killing them and that
they might join with U.S. enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their
former ally.
A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger that the
Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets — could end
up giving up information about U.S. tactics to the Islamic State group, Iran or
Russia — or fight for them.
“We didn’t get these individuals out as we promised, and now it’s coming home to
roost,” said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan,
adding that the Afghan commandos are highly skilled, fierce fighters. “I don’t
want to see them in any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the
Ukrainians.”Mulroy was skeptical, however, that Russians would be able to
persuade many Afghan commandos to join because most he knew were driven by the
desire to make democracy work in their country rather than being guns for hire.
AP was investigating the Afghan recruiting when details of the effort were first
reported by Foreign Policy magazine last week based on unnamed Afghan military
and security sources. The recruitment comes as Russian forces reel from
Ukrainian military advances and Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues a
sputtering mobilization effort, which has prompted nearly 200,000 Russian men to
flee the country to escape service.
Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman
for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently acknowledged being the founder of the Wagner
Group, dismissed the idea of an ongoing effort to recruit former Afghan soldiers
as “crazy nonsense.”
The U.S. Defense Department also didn’t reply to a request for comment, but a
senior official suggested the recruiting is not surprising given that Wagner has
been trying to sign up soldiers in several other countries.
It’s unclear how many Afghan special forces members who fled to Iran have been
courted by the Russians, but one told the AP he is communicating through the
WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who are considering offers.
He said many like him fear deportation and are angry at the U.S. for abandoning
them.
“We thought they might create a special program for us, but no one even thought
about us,” said the former commando, who requested anonymity because he fears
for himself and his family. “They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.”
The commando said his offer included Russian visas for himself as well as his
three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan. Others have been offered
extensions of their visas in Iran. He said he is waiting to see what others in
the WhatsApp groups decide but thinks many will take the deal.
U.S. veterans who fought with Afghan special forces have described to the AP
nearly a dozen cases, none confirmed independently, of the Taliban going house
to house looking for commandos still in the country, torturing or killing them,
or doing the same to family members if they are nowhere to be found.
Human Rights Watch has said more than 100 former Afghan soldiers, intelligence
officers and police were killed or forcibly “disappeared” just three months
after the Taliban took over despite promises of amnesty. The United Nations in a
report in mid-October documented 160 extrajudicial killings and 178 arrests of
former government and military officials.
The brother of an Afghan commando in Iran who has accepted the Russian offer
said Taliban threats make it difficult to refuse. He said his brother had to
hide for three months after the fall of Kabul, shuttling between relatives’
houses while the Taliban searched his home. “My brother had no other choice
other than accepting the offer,” said the commando’s brother, Murad, who would
only give his first name because of fear the Taliban might track him down. “This
was not an easy decision for him.”
Former Afghan army chief Alizai said much of the Russian recruiting effort is
focused on Tehran and Mashhad, a city near the Afghan border where many have
fled. None of the generals who spoke to the AP, including a third, Abdul Jabar
Wafa, said their contacts in Iran know how many have taken up the offer.
“You get military training in Russia for two months, and then you go to the
battle lines,” read one text message a former Afghan soldier in Iran sent to
Arghandiwal. “A number of personnel have gone, but they have lost contact with
their families and friends altogether. The exact statistics are unclear.”
An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the Americans
during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were airlifted
out when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan. Since many of the Afghan
commandos did not work directly for the U.S. military, they were not eligible
for special U.S. visas. “They were the ones who fought to the really last
minute. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never
negotiated,” Alizai said. “Leaving them behind is the biggest mistake.”
*Condon reported from New York. AP writers Rahim Faiez in Islamabad and Tara
Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
Barrage of Russian strikes hits key Ukrainian
infrastructure
Associated Press/October 31, 2022.
A massive barrage of Russian strikes on Monday morning hit critical
infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities in apparent retaliation for
what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack on its Black Sea Fleet over the
weekend. Loud explosions were heard across the
Ukrainian capital in the early morning as residents prepared to go to work. Some
of them received text messages from the emergency services about the threat of a
missile attack, and air raid sirens wailed for three straight hours.
Large areas of the city were cut off from power and water supplies as a
result, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Local authorities were working to
restore a damaged energy facility that supplies power to 350,000 apartments in
the capital, he said. In Kharkiv, two strikes hit
critical infrastructure facilities, according to the authorities, and the subway
ceased operating. Officials also warned about possible power outages in the city
of Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes there.
Critical infrastructure objects were also hit in the Cherkasy region southeast
of Kyiv, and explosions were reported in other regions of Ukraine. In the
Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine, the energy facility was hit, according to
local authorities. In Vinnytsia, a missile that was shot down landed on civilian
buildings, resulting in damage but no casualties, according to regional governor
Serhii Borzov. Some parts of Ukrainian railways were
also cut off from power, the Ukrainian Railways reported.
The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack
against Russia's Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons,
but Moscow still announced halting its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal to
allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.
Commenting on Monday's attacks, the head of Ukraine's presidential office Andriy
Yermak said that Russian forces "continue to fight with civilian facilities.""We
will persevere, and generations of Russians will pay a high price for their
disgrace," Yermak said. It's the second time this
month that Russia unleashed a massive barrage of strikes on Ukrainian
infrastructure. On Oct. 10, a similar attack rocked the war-torn country
following an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland
Russia — an incident Moscow blamed on Kyiv. Deputy
head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said urgent power shutdowns
were being carried out after "Russian terrorists once again launched a massive
strike on energy facilities in a number of Ukrainian regions."
Russian recruits armed with outdated weapons; 80% of
Kyiv without water after Russian barrage: Ukraine updates
John Bacon/US Today/October 31, 2022
Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine's infrastructure during Monday rush
hour for the third time this month, sending commuters scrambling for cover and
crippling basic services for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on social media that 80% of the battered
capital was without water and that strikes on energy facilities left 350,000
apartments without power. Missile and drone
infrastructure strikes were also reported in Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernivtsi,
Zaporizhzhia and several other regions. The government will introduce emergency
electricity cutoffs across Ukraine, according to Deputy Head of the President’s
Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko. The strikes came after
Moscow claimed its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea was attacked over the weekend.
Ukraine Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia would rather "fight
civilians" than fight on the battlefield.
"Don’t justify these attacks by calling them a ‘response," he said. "Russia does
this because it still has the missiles and the will to kill Ukrainians."Kyiv
residents queue to collect water in plastic containers and bottles at one of the
parks in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on October 31, 2022.
Thousands of Russian recruits are reporting to front with weapons that "are
likely in barely useable condition" and require a different ammunition from what
Russian regular army troops are using, the British Defense Ministry said in its
latest war assessment. Photos indicate the rifles are AKMs, which date back to
1959. The integration of reservists with contract soldiers and combat veterans
in Ukraine will mean Russia will have to push two types of small arms ammunition
to front line positions, the ministry noted. "This will likely further
complicate Russia’s already strained logistics systems," the assessment said.
A dozen grain-laden ships sailed from Ukrainian ports on Monday despite a
Russian threat to reimpose a blockade that threatened hunger across the world,
Ukraine's Ministry of Infrastructure said. One vessel carried Ukrainian wheat to
Ethiopia where a severe drought is affecting millions of people. Ukraine and
Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food
to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where many are already
struggling with severe shortages. It's not immediately
clear who would take the risk of sailing from Ukraine without Russia's
protection after Moscow alleged a Ukrainian drone attack against its Black Sea
fleet. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said implementing the grain deal is
“hardly feasible” in a situation when it is impossible for Russia to guarantee
safety of navigation.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Biden snapped at Zelenskyy in a June phone call when he
asked for more aid, report says, in a fleeting moment of conflict between the
two leaders
Sophia Ankel/Business Insider/October 31, 2022
President Joe Biden snapped at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a June phone
call when the Ukrainian leader asked for more aid, NBC News reported. The new
details show there was a tense moment in the two leaders' relationship, even
though Biden then publicly expressed unwavering support for Ukraine and he has
only increased US assistance since. The two leaders had the tense phone
conversation on June 15, almost four months after Russia first launched its
invasion of Ukraine. Communications between the two have been frequent since the
invasion began. Biden was telling Zelenskyy about a $1
billion military aid package that he had just been approved when the Ukrainian
leader started listing all the additional help he needed, the four people
familiar with the call told NBC. This prompted Biden
to raise his voice and tell Zelenskyy that he should show more gratitude, NBC
reported. A source familiar with the conversation told
NBC that the exchange wasn't heated or angry, but Biden was direct with
Zelenskyy. Biden said publicly after that call that "together with our allies
and partners, will not waver in our commitment to the Ukrainian people as they
fight for their freedom." And Biden has only increased
his support for Ukraine since the call, as he announced multiple military
packages for the country and condemned Russia's actions there.
Administration officials told NBC that the two leaders' relationship has
only improved since the call. Biden said later in June
that the US would back Ukraine "as long as it takes," and has made multiple
similar comments since. The US Congress has approved
around $60 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, made
up of many smaller packages, since Russia invaded. The US is ranked seventh out
of the world's countries by for the amount of money it has given to Ukraine
since Russia invaded relative to its GDP, according to the Kiel Institute for
the World Economy. Lawmakers from both sides have been
supportive of the aid sent to Ukraine. However, some Republicans have started
argued against sending large sums of money to the country.
In Israel, tiny swing could determine outcome of tight
race
Associated Press/October 31, 2022.
Israeli voters appear to be hopelessly deadlocked as the country heads to
elections once again on Tuesday, with opinion polls saying the race is too close
to forecast. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who governed for 12 years before he was ousted last year, is asking voters to
give him another chance, even as he stands trial on corruption charges. The
current prime minister, Yair Lapid, has billed himself as a voice of decency and
unity. He hopes his brief term as head of a caretaker government has shown
voters that someone besides Netanyahu can lead the country.
In Israel's fragmented political system, neither Netanyahu's hard-line Likud
party nor Lapid's centrist Yesh Atid is expected to capture enough seats in
parliament to form a new government. Instead, each hopes to secure the required
61-seat majority in the Knesset, or parliament, with the support of smaller
political allies. If neither succeeds, Israel could soon be facing another
election, after already holding five votes in under four years.
Here is a look at the factors that could swing the outcome:
TURNOUT: Both Lapid and Netanyahu need strong turnout from their bases.
Netanyahu, who appeals to poorer, religious and small-town voters with hawkish
views toward the Palestinians, has spent the summer touring Israel and
delivering campaign speeches to adoring crowds in a small, bulletproof truck
known as the "Bibi-bus." Lapid, popular with secular, urban voters, has built up
a formidable army of volunteers and party activists across the country.
But the real key to the election could lie with Israel's Palestinian
citizens, who make up about 20% of the population.
Arab voters, whose communities have long suffered from poverty, neglect and
discrimination, have little enthusiasm for either candidate and turnout is
expected to be low. But those who do vote tend to favor Lapid and his allies. If
Arab voters turn out in modest numbers, that could give a lift to Lapid. But if
they stay home, as opinion polls forecast, their absence could push Netanyahu to
victory.
ON THE THRESHOLD: Any party that wins more than 3.25% of the vote makes it into
parliament, with seats divided up by how many votes they capture. Over 10
parties could be elected. Small parties that squeak
past this threshold can find themselves in a powerful position to form the next
coalition. For those who fall short, their votes are wasted.
Two venerable parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc — Labor and Meretz — are
hovering near the threshold in opinion polls. A failure by either of them to do
so would be devastating for Lapid. On the other side,
"Jewish Home," a hard-line nationalist party loyal to Netanyahu, is also
struggling. Polls indicate the party will not make it into parliament. But if it
does, the Netanyahu bloc almost certainly will win.
POTENTIAL POWER BROKERS. The far right "Religious Zionism" party has been
the story of this campaign. Led by openly anti-Arab and homophobic politicians,
the party has burst out of the extremist fringes of Israeli politics and is
poised to emerge as one of the largest factions in parliament. It is a strong
ally of Netanyahu, and its leaders will expect a generous payout if they propel
him to victory. In return, they have indicated they will try to erase the
charges against him.
On the other side, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who leads a small, center-right
party, could be critical for a Lapid victory. If Gantz can siphon votes away
from Netanyahu, he could prevent the former prime minister from his hoped-for
majority. Gantz also has good relations with Netanyahu's religious allies and
could potentially bring them over to Lapid's side. That could make him a
powerful player in coalition negotiations — and even position him to be a future
prime minister.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. During Lapid's brief four-month term, Israel has fought a
three-day battle against Gaza militants, stepped up arrest raids in the occupied
West Bank and reached a diplomatic agreement with Lebanon over a maritime border
between the enemy countries. An unexpected bout of violence or surprising
diplomatic breakthrough could all potentially sway voters at the last moment.
Israel's Haredi voters drift hard right in
leadership vacuum
Associated Press/October 31, 2022.
One of Israel's most extremist politicians, known for his inflammatory anti-Arab
speeches and stunts, is attracting new supporters from a previously untapped
demographic — young ultra-Orthodox Jews, one of the fastest-growing segments of
the country's population.
Itamar Ben-Gvir's sharp rise in popularity in the last three years has
transformed him from a fringe provocateur to a central player in Tuesday's
parliament election. Polls indicate his Religious Zionism party could emerge as
the third-largest and help return former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
power.
His appeal is a reflection of the ongoing right-ward shift of the Israeli
electorate over the years, with Ben-Gvir and his party also attracting voters
who previously supported other right-wing parties. This shift is particularly
noticeable among Israel's 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews who make up 13% of the
population. The community, known in Hebrew as Haredim, is growing at a breakneck
rate, with an average birth rate more than twice the national average. Children
make up half of their population, and young adults between 18-35 another
quarter.
Ben-Gvir's appeal among young Haredim reflects a shift in the political
preferences of a community that cleaves to a strict adherence to religious
tradition. For decades, the ultra-Orthodox largely voted for two Haredi
political parties — United Torah Judaism and Shas. Those parties promoted the
community's interests in exchange for supporting coalition governments with a
range of ideological flavors — though the Haredim had a preference for
center-right factions that tended to be more culturally conservative.
But several prominent rabbis who served as spiritual leaders for these parties
have died in recent years. Analysts say younger and middle-aged Haredim are
growing disillusioned with the old guard. "The majority of relatively younger
ultra-Orthodox — under the age of 50 — have turned right-wing, and sometimes
staunchly right-wing, something that in the past didn't exist," said Moshe
Hellinger, a political scientist at Israel's Bar Ilan University. The Haredi
political leadership lacks a strong, charismatic leader "and this vacuum allows
(voters) to go in different directions," Hellinger said.
Into that void steps Ben-Gvir.
Voting records from predominantly Haredi communities indicate that since
Ben-Gvir entered politics in 2019, support for him in those areas has increased
over Israel's four successive elections — though he still lagged behind the
established ultra-Orthodox parties.
Ben Gvir's campaign declined requests by The Associated Press to interview him
or officials managing outreach to the ultra-Orthodox community. Several factors
appear to be driving his growing popularity in the community. Some Haredim
prefer the Religious Zionism party's mix of Orthodox Jewish and ultra-
nationalist messaging to that of Netanyahu's Likud party which, while hard-line,
remains predominantly secular. Recent years have also seen an uptick in attacks
by Palestinian assailants targeting ultra-Orthodox Jews, as part of the wider
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In March, shortly after a Palestinian gunman
opened fire on the streets of Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv,
killing five Israelis, Ben Gvir arrived on the scene and delivered statements to
TV cameras surrounded by a throng of young Haredi men shouting racist screeds.
The scene repeated itself in May, after a Palestinian killed three Israelis in
the central town of Elad. At a recent campaign rally
in Elad, Ben-Gvir whipped up a gender-segregated crowd, calling for the death
penalty for convicted Palestinian militants. The audience, many of them young
men in white button-down shirts and black skullcaps, responded with cheers and
whistles, then chants of, "Death to Arabs" and "Death to terrorists."
David Cohen, a resident of Beit Shemesh, a heavily ultra-Orthodox city west of
Jerusalem, said he would vote for Ben-Gvir, comparing him to former U.S.
President Donald Trump and describing him as a straight-talking man of action.
"He seems to be the only one that will really accomplish anything," Cohen said
of Ben-Gvir. "He's a guy that says what he means and means what he says."
Ben-Gvir first entered parliament in 2021, after his Jewish Power party merged
with the Religious Zionism party. Jewish Power, which failed to cross the
electoral threshold in the 2019 and 2020 elections, is the successor to the
outlawed Kach party of the late ultra-nationalist politician Meir Kahane.
Ahead of Tuesday's vote, the Religious Zionism party has surged in the polls.
It's forecast to win twice as many seats as in the previous election and could
make the difference between Netanyahu returning to power or remaining in the
opposition.
It will be the fifth election in under four years, largely fought over whether
Netanyahu is fit to rule while facing corruption charges.
Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of offenses that include inciting racism and
supporting a terrorist organization, went on to make a legal career out of
defending Jewish extremists charged with violent offenses.
He lives in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron, the
West Bank's largest Palestinian city. Until recently, he displayed a photo in
his home of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 29 Palestinians and
wounded over 100 in a shooting attack as they knelt in prayer at Hebron's Tomb
of the Patriarchs in 1993.
On Saturday, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at Israelis in Kiryat Arba,
killing a 50-year-old man and wounding several others. While a hawkish booster
of Israeli security forces — advocating immunity from prosecution for soldiers
and the death sentence for Palestinians convicted of attacks on Jews — Ben-Gvir
did not serve in the military; he was issued an exemption because of his
extremist ideology. In the run-up to the election, Ben Gvir told public
broadcaster Kan that he advocated dismantling the Palestinian self-rule
government and annexing the West Bank, while simultaneously denying its roughly
2.5 million Palestinian residents the right to vote for Israel's Knesset.
"There's no such thing as Palestine, this is ours, this is our land," he
said. Political scientist Shira Efron, who heads the Israel Policy Forum think
tank, said she believes the rise of Ben-Gvir is a result of what she described
as systematic incitement, mostly by Netanyahu and his Likud party, against
Israel's large Arab minority. Ben-Gvir is "shrewd, charismatic and expresses
what many Jewish Israelis sadly think but until now didn't feel comfortable
saying out loud," she said.
Weary Israelis' hopes, fears one eve of latest
election
Agence France Presse/October 31, 2022.
Ahead of Israel's November 1 general election, the fifth in four years, AFP
spoke to voters about their views on the polls, the main issues and the
country's perpetual political crisis. Bar owner:
'Future stability'
The owner of a west Jerusalem bar, Leon Shvartz, 43, doubts the vote will end
Israel's political crisis: "There's no chance this will be the last round of
elections.""Many people I know are simply desperate, and the despair comes from
not seeing a horizon, not seeing any future stability," he said as he got to
work dressed in a black t-shirt. "The best scenario for me would be... that
those who are elected are people who simply go to work, not worrying about their
(parliamentary) seats," he added. "The worst-case scenario -- which is also what
I feel about where we're going -- is the continuation of political instability,"
he said, predicting it would lead to social and economic instability.
Jewish settler: 'Fighting terror'
An avid supporter of extreme-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, Yakir Abelow is a
settler living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
For him, voter apathy is a consequence of most political leaders failing to
focus on the important issues. "Making a proud Jewish state" and "fighting
terror" are high on the agenda for the 22-year-old, who spends his time studying
his religion. "Hopefully this next government will really do what's necessary to
make those important values" a priority, he said. "The worst case scenario for
us is that the people who are sitting in the Knesset (parliament) are people who
don't understand what's important for us as a nation, that give in to our
enemies."
- Office worker: 'Our security' -
Rachel Cohen, a secretary who joined right-wing opposition leader Benjamin
Netanyahu at a campaign rally in Migdal Haemek, northern Israel, was certain he
will reclaim the premiership. "He cares about the country," she said of the
veteran Likud party leader. Despite being an ardent Netanyahu fan, Cohen
divulged she would potentially be happy with someone else taking power who
shares her values. "It has to be someone who is good to us, who cares about us
and our security."
Arab-Israeli: 'Not voting'
In the southern Negev desert region, Arab-Israeli teacher and café owner Rami
Abu Sharem, 29, has decided to stay away from the polling booth. "We voted all
the other times but this time we are not going to vote," he said of his family,
in the village of Hura. "We think it's better to keep our votes to ourselves
than to give them to a party who's not going to fulfil any of its promises," he
added. Once united, Israel's Arab-led parties split ahead of this election and
are running on three separate slates. In his café,
Rami lamented the lack of state funding for the Arab community. "There is zero
investment in education in the Arab sector and particularly in the Bedouin
community," to which he belongs, he said.
Report: Syrian army burned corpses to hide victims'
identities
Agence France Presse/October 31, 2022.
A rights group accused Syrian government forces Monday of burning bodies inside
pits in an effort to make the corpses unidentifiable -- the latest in a slew of
accusations of crimes by Damascus. "This may reflect a broader practice of the
Syrian government to destroy evidence of their crimes and deny the families of
their victims their right to know the fates of their loved ones or receive their
remains," the Washington-based Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability said
in a report. Since the start of Syria's civil in 2011
that began with the regime's brutal repression of mostly peaceful protesters,
Syrian authorities have been accused of torturing detainees to death, of rape,
sexual assaults and extrajudicial executions. The NGO analyzed videos dating
back to 2012 and 2013 that showed bodies burnt and transferred into mass graves
in the southern province of Daraa, and crosschecked them with satellite imagery
monitoring the trucks transporting the bodies. Four videos show armed men
transporting at least 15 bodies. They documented their identities, dumped them
in a pit, then poured gasoline and set them on fire.
In one of the video clips, an officer is seen photographing the faces of the
dead before another one poured gasoline on the face and hands, before kicking a
body into a pit and setting it on fire. "This process
is repeated for every single body in the exact same order, indicating the
systematic nature of the practice and suggesting that this may not be the only
time this group of officials has carried out such an operation," the NGO said.
The NGO believes that the 15 bodies belong to civilians and army defectors shot
dead by regime forces during a house raid in Daraa in December 2012. The Centre
obtained the video clips from an activist who said that he received them from an
opposition group who ambushed and killed the soldiers who burned the bodies.
Reports published in The Guardian and New Lines Magazine emerged in April,
revealing that regime forces allegedly killed dozens of people in the Damascus
suburb of Al-Tadamon in 2013. The Guardian report included footage of a Syrian
soldier appearing to order blindfolded civilians with their hands tied to run.
As soon as they bolted, soldiers appeared to riddle their bodies with bullets
and they fell into a pit. Forty-one men were killed and their bodies later set
on fire.
Algeria hosts first Arab summit since Israel
normalization deals
Agence France Presse/October 31, 2022.
Arab leaders are to meet in the Algerian capital on Tuesday for their first
summit since a string of normalization deals with Israel that have divided the
region. The 22-member Arab League held its last summit in 2019, prior to both
the coronavirus pandemic and the UAE's historic U.S.-backed deal establishing
diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. The agreement, only Israel's third such
deal with an Arab state, was followed by similar accords with Bahrain, Sudan and
Morocco, deepening the kingdom's decades-old rivalry with its neighbor Algeria.
The host of the November 1-2 summit, a steadfast supporter of the Palestinians,
mediated a reconciliation deal in October between rival Palestinian factions
Fatah and Hamas. While few believe the deal will last, it was seen as a public
relations coup for Algeria, which has been seeking an enhanced regional and
international role, on the back of its growing status as a sought-after gas
exporter. But Algeria has been unnerved by Morocco's security and defense
cooperation with Israel, adding to decades of mistrust fueled by a dispute over
the Western Sahara.The status of Western Sahara –– a former Spanish colony
considered a "non-self-governing territory" by the United Nations –– has pitted
Morocco against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front since the 1970s. In August
2021, Algiers cut diplomatic ties with Rabat alleging "hostile
acts".Participants in the summit, with conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen also
on the agenda, face the challenge of navigating the wording of a final
statement, which has to be passed unanimously. "The summit should send a message
of support to the Palestinians, guaranteeing that they will not be sacrificed
for the Abraham Accords," said Geneva-based expert Hasni Abidi, referring to the
Arab normalization deals with Israel mediated by the administration of former
U.S. president Donald Trump.
Algeria has heralded this week's meeting as an event reunifying the Arab world,
but several key figures, notably Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, reported
to have an ear infection, and Morocco's King Mohammed VI will be absent.
The leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will also stay away,
according to Arab media. "The Arab states which have normalized with Israel are
not enthusiastic about the idea of a coming together to condemn their position,"
said Abidi.
- Palestinians at 'front and center' -
Algerian President "Abdelmadjid Tebboune's move to put the Palestinian issue
front and center haven't reassured them", he said. Another source of controversy
has been Algeria's efforts to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime
back into the Arab League, a decade after its membership was suspended amid a
brutal crackdown on 2011 Arab Spring-inspired protests.
Abidi said inviting Syria to the summit would have been "highly risky".
"Algeria realized the consequences of such a presence on the summit. Together
with Damascus, it has given up on its initiative," he said. Pierre Boussel of
France's Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) said Syria's return to the
League is backed by Russia, an ally of both Algiers and Damascus, which is
staying away from the Algiers summit. But, he said, "Russia has decided not to
try to force this through in a way that would have affected its relations with
Arab countries already badly scalded by the economic impact of the Ukrainian
conflict". Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called
Friday for an "integrated Arab vision" to tackle the region's pressing food
security challenges. Boussel said the "shockwave" of the Ukraine war, which has
disrupted key grain imports for the region from the Black Sea, was being felt in
Algiers."Given the scarcity of cereals, soaring inflation and concerns about new
energy routes, the Arab League needs to show it is capable of cohesion and
inter-state solidarity, which it has lacked since the beginning of the crisis,"
he said.
Saudi, UAE back OPEC cuts as US envoy warns of
'uncertainty'
Associated Press/October 31, 2022.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates defended on Monday a decision by OPEC
and its allies to cut oil production, even as an American envoy warned of
"economic uncertainty" ahead for the world. While cordial, the comments at the
Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference showed the stark
divide between the United States and Gulf Arab countries it supports militarily
in the wider Middle East. Already, American politicians have threatened arms
deals with the kingdom and described it as siding with Russian President
Vladimir Putin amid his war on Ukraine. Saudi Arabia's energy minister, Prince
Abdulaziz bin Salman, hinted at that in brief remarks to the event.
"We don't owe it to anybody but us," the prince said to applause, noting that
upcoming U.N. climate change summits will be held in Egypt and the United Arab
Emirates. "It was done for us, by us, for our future, and we need to commit
ourselves to that."Emirati Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei echoed that
defense. While saying that OPEC and its allies are "only a phone call away if
the requirements are there" to raise production, he offered no suggestion such a
boost would be on its way anytime soon. "I can assure you that we in the United
Arab Emirates, as well as our fellow colleagues in OPEC+ are keen on supplying
the world with the requirement it needs," al-Mazrouei said. "But at the same
time, we're not the only producers in the world." OPEC
and a loose confederation of other countries led by Russia agreed in early
October to cut its production by 2 million barrels of oil a day, beginning in
November.
OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, has insisted its decision came from concerns about
the global economy. Analysts in the U.S. and Europe warn a recession looms in
the West from inflation and subsequent interest rate hikes, as well as food and
oil supplies being affected by Russia's war on Ukraine.
"The global economy is on the knife's edge," insisted Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the
managing director of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.
American politicians, meanwhile, have reacted angrily to a decision
likely to keep gasoline prices elevated. An average gallon of regular gasoline
in the U.S. now costs $3.76 — down from a record $5 a gallon in June but still
high enough to bite into consumers' wallets. Benchmark Brent crude oil sat at
$95 a barrel Monday. "I think at the end of the day, we are facing an economic
uncertainty globally," said Amos Hochstein, the U.S. envoy for energy affairs.
"Energy prices have to be priced in a way that allow for economic growth. And if
they are not ... they will rise too high and accelerate an economic downturn,
which ultimately is the one thing that will be terrible for energy demand
itself." Hochstein declined to speak to The Associated Press after appearing on
stage at the Abu Dhabi event. President Joe Biden, who
traveled to Saudi Arabia in July and fist-bumped Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman before a meeting, recently warned the kingdom that "there's going to be
some consequences for what they've done." Saudi Arabia
lashed back, publicly claiming the Biden administration sought a one-month delay
in the OPEC cuts that could helped reduce the risk of a spike in gas prices
ahead of the U.S. midterm elections Nov. 8. The
back-and-forth between Riyadh and Washington shows how tense relations remain
between the two countries since the 2018 gruesome killing of Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi security forces. American intelligence
agencies believe the slaying came at Prince Mohammed's order.
The Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank, said Monday that it
appeared "trust and mutual respect between the United States and Saudi Arabia
appear to have reached a nadir" amid the dispute. "The U.S.-Saudi relationship
could fundamentally shift to an almost purely transactional one, characterized
by 'strategic drift,' as Riyadh continues to act against its own self-interest,
a move borne of spite, not strategy," the center said.
"If Saudi Arabia again votes to cut production, it will lead to a further rift
with the United States and will signal Riyadh's growing drift closer to Moscow,"
it added.
UK intel says Russia is rushing reserve
troops into battle with 'barely usable' rifles, creating a new kind of headache
for Putin's generals
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/October 31, 2022.
Russian reservist troops sent to fight in Ukraine have arrived at the front
lines with "barely usable" rifles, Britain's defense ministry said Monday, a
move likely to produce new logistical strains for Moscow's military leadership.
Thousands of newly mobilized reservists have been deployed to the battlefield
over the last few weeks, Britain's defense ministry shared in an intelligence
update. Facing mounting setbacks in his war efforts, Russian President Vladimir
Putin announced the partial military mobilization of hundreds of thousands of
his country's reservists in September.British intelligence said in many cases
these reservists have arrived in Ukraine "poorly equipped," and Russian officers
grew concerned because some individuals were even sent without weapons. Citing
open source imagery, however, Britain's defense ministry said that mobilized
reservists who did show up with rifles were often issued with AKM assault
rifles. Designed by former Soviet general Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1959, this
weapon was built to replace the AK-47 — which was introduced shortly after the
end of World War II — and was later replaced by the AK-74 during the 1970s.
Britain's defense ministry said many of the AKM rifles given to Russian
reservists are "likely in barely usable condition following poor storage."
These weapons also differ from newer rifles assigned to Putin's regular
combat units, like the AK-12 or AK-74M, in that they use different types of
ammunition. AKMs use 7.62mm ammunition, whereas the AK-12 and AK-74M use 5.45mm
ammunition. "The integration of reservists with
contract soldiers and combat veterans in Ukraine will mean Russian logisticians
will have to push two types of small arms ammunition to front line positions,
rather than one," Britain's defense ministry said, adding that it will "likely
further complicate Russia's already strained logistics systems."Logistical and
supply headaches — as well as Russia's faltering performance in Ukraine — have
increasingly sowed tension throughout Moscow's military leadership. In
September, Putin even fired one general for these issues.
Relying on old and outdated equipment is also not a new aspect of Putin's
unprovoked war in Ukraine. Beyond the newly mobilized reservists, Russian forces
— like conscripts — have had to use decades-old rifles that exited production
long ago. In losing their more modern equipment, Russian troops have even been
forced to pull obsolete heavy weapons — like Soviet-era tanks — from storage.
Monday's intelligence update came as Russian forces fired a barrage of missiles
at Ukraine's critical infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said, triggering water
and electricity shortages. The country's defense ministry shared that it managed
to successfully down dozens of missiles.
Lula defeats Bolsonaro to again become Brazil's
president
MAURICIO SAVERESE and DIANE JEANTET SAO PAULO (AP)/October 31/ 2022
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has done it again: Twenty years after first winning
the Brazilian presidency, the leftist defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro Sunday
in an extremely tight election that marks an about-face for the country after
four years of far-right politics. With 99.9% of the
votes tallied in the runoff vote, da Silva had 50.9% and Bolsonaro 49.1%, and
the election authority said da Silva’s victory was a mathematical certainty. At
about 10 p.m. local time, three hours after the results were in, the lights went
out in the presidential palace and Bolsonaro had not conceded nor reacted in any
way. Before the vote, Bolsonaro's campaign had made
repeated — unproven — claims of possible electoral manipulation, raising fears
that he would not accept defeat and would challenge the results if he lost.
The high-stakes election was a stunning reversal for da Silva, 77, whose
imprisonment for corruption sidelined him from the 2018 election that brought
Bolsonaro, a defender of conservative social values, to power.
“Today the only winner is the Brazilian people," da Silva said in a
speech at a hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. “This isn’t a victory of mine or the
Workers’ Party, nor the parties that supported me in campaign. It’s the victory
of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests
and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious.”Da Silva is promising to
govern beyond his party. He wants to bring in centrists and even some leaning to
the right who voted for him for the first time, and to restore the country’s
more prosperous past. Yet he faces headwinds in a politically polarized society
where economic growth is forecast to slow and inflation remains high.
This was the country’s tightest election since its return to democracy in
1985, and the first time that a sitting president failed to win reelection. Just
over 2 million votes separated the two candidates; the previous closest race, in
2014, was decided by a margin of roughly 3.5 million votes.
The highly polarized election in Latin America's biggest economy extended
a wave of recent leftist victories in the region, including Chile, Colombia and
Argentina.
Da Silva’s inauguration is scheduled to take place on Jan. 1. He last served as
president from 2003-2010.
Thomas Traumann, an independent political analyst, compared the results to
Biden’s 2020 victory, saying da Silva is inheriting an extremely divided nation.
“The huge challenge that Lula has will be to pacify the country,” he said.
“People are not only polarized on political matters, but also have different
values, identity and opinions. What’s more, they don’t care what the other
side’s values, identities and opinions are.”Congratulations for da Silva — and
Brazil — began to pour in from around Latin America and across the world Sunday
evening, including from U.S. President Joe Biden, who highlighted the country’s
“free, fair, and credible elections.” The European Union also congratulated da
Silva in a statement, commending the electoral authority for its effectiveness
and transparency throughout the campaign. Bolsonaro
had been leading throughout the first half of the count and, as soon as da Silva
overtook him, cars in the streets of downtown Sao Paulo began honking their
horns. People in the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema neighborhood could be
heard shouting, “It turned!” Da Silva’s headquarters
in downtown Sao Paulo hotel only erupted once the final result was announced,
underscoring the tension that was a hallmark of this race.
“Four years waiting for this,” said Gabriela Souto, one of the few
supporters allowed in due to heavy security. Outside
Bolsonaro’s home in Rio, ground-zero for his support base, a woman atop a truck
delivered a prayer over a speaker, then sang excitedly, trying to generate some
energy as the tally grew for da Silva. But supporters decked out in the green
and yellow of the flag barely responded. Many perked up when the national anthem
played, singing along loudly with hands over their hearts.
For months, it appeared that da Silva was headed for easy victory as he kindled
nostalgia for his presidency, when Brazil’s economy was booming and welfare
helped tens of millions join the middle class. But
while da Silva topped the Oct. 2 first-round elections with 48% of the vote,
Bolsonaro was a strong second at 43%, showing opinion polls significantly had
underestimated his popularity. Bolsonaro’s
administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic
institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. But he has built a
devoted base by defending conservative values and presenting himself as
protection from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and
produce economic turmoil. And he shored up support in an election year with vast
government spending. “We did not face an opponent, a
candidate. We faced the machine of the Brazilian state put at his service so we
could not win the election," da Silva told the crowd in Sao Paulo.
Da Silva built an extensive social welfare program during his tenure that
helped lift tens of millions into the middle class. The man universally known as
Lula also presided over an economic boom, leaving office with an approval rating
above 80%, prompting then U.S. President Barack Obama to call him “the most
popular politician on Earth.”But he is also remembered for his administration’s
involvement in vast corruption revealed by sprawling investigations. Da Silva’s
arrest in 2018 kept him out of that year’s race against Bolsonaro, a fringe
lawmaker at the time who was an outspoken fan of former U.S. President Donald
Trump. Da Silva was jailed for for 580 days for
corruption and money laundering. His convictions were later annulled by Brazil’s
top court, which ruled the presiding judge had been biased and colluded with
prosecutors. That enabled da Silva to run for the nation’s highest office for
the sixth time. Da Silva has pledged to boost spending
on the poor, reestablish relationships with foreign governments and take bold
action to eliminate illegal clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest.
“We will once again monitor and do surveillance in the Amazon. We will
fight every illegal activity," da Silva said in his acceptance speech. "At the
same time we will promote sustainable development of the communities of the
Amazon.”
The president-elect has pledged to install a ministry for Brazil’s original
peoples, which will be run by an Indigenous person.
But as da Silva tries to achieve these and other goals, he will be confronted by
strong opposition from conservative lawmakers likely to take their cues from
Bolsonaro. Carlos Melo, a political science professor
at Insper University in Sao Paulo, compared the likely political climate to that
experienced by former President Dilma Rousseff, da Silva’s hand-picked successor
after his second term. “Lula’s victory means Brazil is
trying to overcome years of turbulence since the reelection of President Dilma
Rousseff in 2014. That election never ended; the opposition asked for a recount,
she governed under pressure and was impeached two years later,” said Melo. “The
divide became huge and then made Bolsonaro.”Unemployment this year has fallen to
its lowest level since 2015 and, although overall inflation has slowed during
the campaign, food prices are increasing at a double-digit rate. Bolsonaro’s
welfare payments helped many Brazilians get by, but da Silva has been presenting
himself as the candidate more willing to sustain aid going forward and raise the
minimum wage. In April, he tapped center-right Geraldo
Alckmin, a former rival, to be his running mate. It was another key part of an
effort to create a broad, pro-democracy front to not just unseat Bolsonaro, but
to make it easier to govern.“If Lula manages to talk to voters who didn’t vote
for him, which Bolsonaro never tried, and seeks negotiated solutions to the
economic, social and political crisis we have, and links with other nations that
were lost, then he could reconnect Brazil to a time in which people could
disagree and still get some things done,” Melo said.
*Carla Bridi contributed to this report from Brasilia.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on November 01.2022
خالد أبو طعمة /معهد جيتستون: الفلسطينيون: لماذا يتم تجاهل الاعتداءات على
المسيحيين؟
Palestinians: Why Are Attacks on Christians Being Ignored?
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/October 31/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113078/khaled-abu-toameh-gatestone-institute-palestinians-why-are-attacks-on-christians-being-ignored%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af-%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%b7%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%a9-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87/
“Did you see ever a Christian attacked a Mosk [sic] in Christian majority towns
in Middle East? Off course No. This shows difference of culture, faith, respect
& recognition we hold” — Shadi Khalloul, prominent Christian rights advocate,
Twitter, October 29, 2022.
As in previous instances, the Palestinian Authority has failed to take real
measures to punish those who attack Christians or Christian holy sites in the
Bethlehem area.
The attacks by Muslims on Christians are often ignored by the international
community and media, who seem to speak out only when they can find a way to
blame Israel.
Another disturbing situation is that the leaders of the Christian community in
the West Bank are reluctant to hold the Palestinian Authority and their Muslim
neighbors responsible for the attacks. They are afraid of retribution and prefer
to toe the official line of holding Israel solely responsible for the misery of
the Christian minority.
Sadly, it is safe to assume that the plight of the Palestinian Christians will
only intensify in light of the silence of the international community and the
all-too-justified fear of retaliation burdening their own leaders.
A series of violent incidents in Bethlehem and the nearby towns of Beit Jala and
Beit Sahour have left Christians worried about their safety and future under the
Palestinian Authority. Last week, dozens of Muslim men attacked the Forefathers
Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour, throwing rocks and injuring several Christians.
Pictured: Beit Sahour. (Image source: Iseidgeo/Wikimedia Commons)
A series of violent incidents in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, and the
nearby towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, have left Christians worried about
their safety and future under the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Many Christians living in these communities are complaining that the Palestinian
Authority is not doing enough to punish those who attack churches and
Christian-owned businesses. The perpetrators are Muslims who make up the
majority of the population in the Bethlehem area.
Earlier this year, Palestinian Evangelical Pastor Johnny Shahwan was arrested by
the PA security forces on charges of “promoting normalization” with Israel.
The arrest came after Shahwan, founder and chair of the board of Beit Al-Liqa
(House of Encounter) in Beit Jala, appeared in a photo alongside Rabbi Yehuda
Glick, a former member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
Beit Al-Liqa is a Christian community and training center. The center, accused
of hosting the rabbi together with a group of German tourists, was ordered
closed for one week by the Palestinian Authority.
After the photo of the pastor and rabbi appeared on social media, unidentified
gunmen fired shots at the center. No one was hurt and no damage was reported.
According to some reports, the pastor was held in Palestinian custody for more
than a month to protect him from Palestinians who threatened his life.
In another incident earlier this year, a large group of masked Muslim men
carrying sticks and iron bars attacked Christian brothers Daoud and Daher Nassar
while they were working on their land. Bshara Nassar, the son of one of Daher,
commented:
“I am particularly devastated that this [attack] was done by a group of
Palestinian masked men from the nearby village of Nahalin. This for sure doesn’t
reflect or represent who the Palestinian people are, and we are not sure of
their motives or who is behind them. But it’s really hard to see our fellow
Palestinian brothers attacking the family. The family demands justice and that
people responsible are accountable for their actions.”
In early October, gunmen fired shots at the Bethlehem Hotel for displaying
Jewish symbols in one of its meeting rooms. The gunmen accused the
Christian-owned hotel of “promoting normalization with Israel” because of the
cardboard cutouts of a Star of David and Menorah which were placed in the room.
The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism ordered the closure of the hall and said
that it has launched an investigation into claims that the hotel was preparing
to host a Jewish celebration.
The terrified manager of the hotel, Elias al-Arja, denied the claims. He told
the Palestinian radio station Mawwal that a group of tourists from the
Philippines was preparing to hold a Christian religious conference in the
meeting room. “We don’t allow Jews to come here,” al-Arja said. “We never hold
parties for Jewish holidays.”
The ruling Fatah faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas, issued a statement in which it condemned the attempt to hold a “Zionist
party” in the hotel, dubbing it a “stab to Bethlehem and a betrayal of the
traditions and values of the Holy Land.”
The most recent attack on Christians took place in late October, when dozens of
Muslim men targeted the Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour. During the
attack, the assailants threw rocks at the church, injuring several Christians.
The residents of the Christian town called on the Palestinian Authority to
arrest all those who attacked the church. They said the attack on the church was
an assault on the entire town. After the incident, the church bells rang for
help, and some videos circulating on social media showed the attackers hurling
stones at the building.
Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna denounced the attack as “shocking” and
“horrific.” He added:
“The attack on the church is a criminal act par excellence. The church is not a
place for settling accounts and expressing hatred by those who have lost their
humanity and patriotic sense.”
Shadi Khalloul, a prominent Christian rights advocate, said in response to the
attack:
“Muslim Arab tribe of Atamra attacked the Christian Church at Bet Sahour near
Bethlehem yesterday night. Did you see ever a Christian attacked a Mosk [sic] in
Christian majority towns in Middle East? Off course No. This shows difference of
culture, faith, respect & recognition we hold”
The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land also condemned the attack
on the church. “A group of men attacked the church in Beit Sahour following a
brawl among some young men,” the group said.
“We condemn this attack and demand that the Palestinian Authority bring the
attackers to justice as soon as possible. On the other hand, we commend all
those, from different faiths and families, who arrived at the site and did their
best to protect the church. We hope that no similar incidents will take place in
the future and urge all to keep places of worship away from any dispute.”
As in previous instances, the Palestinian Authority has failed to take real
measures to punish those who attack Christians or Christian holy sites in the
Bethlehem area. In April 2002, several gunmen stormed the Church of Nativity in
Bethlehem. Three monks who were held hostage by the gunmen managed to flee the
church via a side gate. They told Israeli army officers that the gunmen had
stolen gold and other property, including crucifixes and prayer books.
Such incidents are the main reason that many Christians no longer feel safe in
the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The number
of Christians has dropped significantly over the past few decades: from 18% of
the population in 1948 to just 2% of the population of the West Bank, Gaza and
Israel. In Bethlehem, it has dropped from 80% to 12%. Many have moved to the US,
Canada and Europe.
The attacks by Muslims on Christians are often ignored by the international
community and media, who seem to speak out only when they can find a way to
blame Israel.
Another disturbing situation is that the leaders of the Christian community in
the West Bank are reluctant to hold the Palestinian Authority and their Muslim
neighbors responsible for the attacks. They are afraid of retribution and prefer
to toe the official line of holding Israel solely responsible for the misery of
the Christian minority.
Sadly, it is safe to assume that the plight of the Palestinian Christians will
only intensify in light of the silence of the international community and the
all-too-justified fear of retaliation burdening their own leaders.
*Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19066/palestinians-attacks-christians
Maximum Support for the Iranian People: A New Strategy
Saeed Ghasseminejad/Richard Goldberg/FDD/Tzvi Kahn/Behnam Ben
Taleblu/October 31/2022
Introduction
U.S. policy since the 2009 election-related uprising in Iran has gradually
incorporated a variety of human rights related sanctions and designations to
name, shame, penalize, and deter Iranian officials and institutions that commit
human rights abuses.* Yet U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran has
prioritized Tehran’s nuclear program and, to a considerably lesser extent, its
ballistic missile program and material support for international terrorism, but
not human rights. The ongoing street protests in Iran, as well as the evolving
pattern of anti-regime protests in Iran since 2017, illustrate the need for
developing — in addition to a “maximum pressure” strategy on the regime that
incorporates all tools of American power — a transnational strategy of “maximum
support” for the Iranian people. This memorandum provides recommendations for
implementing such a strategy, which should be a centerpiece of U.S. policy.
Any such policy shift must take a critical fact into account: Any further
negotiations over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would likely have a detrimental
effect on any U.S. and allied efforts to support anti-regime protestors. Tehran
would assess that international pressure, however robust amid demonstrations,
would ultimately fade. A financial windfall of an estimated $1 trillion by 2030
under a renewed agreement would enable the regime to withstand both internal and
external pressure. To fully support the protest movement, the White House should
make clear that all offers of sanctions relief for the regime are off the table.
Keeping the door open to a nuclear deal undermines the protesters and
strengthens the regime.
U.S. bilateral and multilateral policies underpinning a “maximum support”
strategy to Iranian protestors should include communications support and
political and financial backing while also increased sanctioning of regime
officials and working towards their political isolation in international
organizations. This memorandum examines these categories while acknowledging
that the president may consider additional active measures.
COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT
The United States has long worked to combat censorship in Iran. In September,
the Biden administration issued General License (GL) D-2, which authorized
“technology companies to offer the Iranian people more options of secure,
outside platforms and services,” as the Treasury Department put it in a press
release. The administration should take the following additional actions to
utilize information as an effective instrument against Tehran:
Provide Information to Protestors on Movement of Iranian Security Services. The
Biden administration likely possesses intelligence through signals and imagery
that it should share with Iranian protestors to warn them about the movement of
all security services involved in repression and to inform them about Tehran’s
weaknesses and strengths. The administration should also borrow from its Russia
playbook with respect to the rapid declassification and dissemination of
information on regime plans, potential false flag operations, disinformation
operations, and other activities that put Tehran in the position of reacting to
U.S. information dissemination efforts rather than driving the narrative.
Use Cyber Capabilities in Support of Protestors. The U.S. and many of its
international partners have significant cyber capabilities that they should use
to help protesters. Targets should include Tehran’s command and control systems,
its security forces, or its massive bureaucracy, whose information and
communications are likely stored in and move through clouds and internet and
intranet networks. From abroad, the administration should help protestors in
efforts to move from street-power to strike-power by using its cyber capacity to
disrupt the normal operation of key industries. Disruption in key industries
such as oil, gas, petrochemical, and financial sectors can facilitate a general
labor strike across the country.
Support Labor Strikes. Labor strikes are currently ongoing in various sectors of
Iran’s economy, from educational institutions to strategic sectors, such as oil
and gas. Disrupting the operation of strategic sectors could give a much-needed
boost to laborers to begin or continue striking and put time on the side of
strikers. Oil strikes (coupled with market supply and domestic production
issues) multiplied street power in the 1978-1979 protests that took down the
Pahlavi monarchy in Iran. Washington should support labor strikes by using its
cyber capacities to disrupt the normal operation of these strategic sectors.
Publicly Support the Iranian People. President Biden and other high-ranking
officials should vigorously embrace traditional and social media to amplify and
sustain their support for the Iranian people and remind demonstrators that the
administration stands with them. The more U.S. officials mention the names of
the victims of the regime’s repression, the more the Iranian people will know
that America has not forgotten their plight.
Enable Censorship Circumvention. The administration should support efforts to
provide the Iranian people access to uncensored internet via satellite,
consistent with Treasury’s efforts to broaden the application of general
licenses for such purposes. As Iranians increasingly rely on the internet,
social media applications, and mobile communications to organize as well as
share information about the regime’s atrocities with the outside world, Tehran
has improved its domestic cyber capabilities to censor websites and applications
and to throttle or black out the internet. With a reported 80 percent of
Iranians already using virtual-private networks (VPNs) and anti-filtering
technologies prior to the start of these protests, measures to ensure
connectivity are now critical.
Reports that a limited number of Starlink terminals are already in Iran and
operational are welcome news. The capacity for satellite internet to help
Iranians regain internet access as the regime tightens its repression in
cyberspace and doubles down on a national intranet. To ramp up the production of
Starlink terminals, Washington should establish an Iran Free Internet Fund (or a
similarly named entity) under public-private auspices to offer Starlink
financial support for an Iran-specific acquisition program. Such an operation
would be a game-changer in ending the regime’s monopoly over the internet in
Iran. The United States should link this project to a maximum pressure strategy
in which Washington enforces its sanctions, especially oil sanctions,
confiscates shipment of illicit materials, sells them in the market, and uses
the revenue to fund the Iran Free Internet Fund.
Streamline an Interagency Process. The administration should create an
interagency team to ensure that Iranians get access to the necessary hardware,
be it through smuggling or other means, so that technologies like Starlink can
become operational. In the meantime, the team should help identify and contest
the regime’s disinformation and hacking efforts that aim to mislead Iranians
about the current operational status of Starlink and comparable efforts.
SANCTIONS AND ECONOMIC MEASURES
The United States has imposed sanctions on Iran for human rights violations
since the passage of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and
Divestment Act of 2010. The administration should utilize sanctions and other
economic measures bilaterally and in cooperation with U.S. allies and partners
as effective instruments to pressure Tehran.
Sanction Members of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and Those
Who Provide It Material Support. The United States designated the IRIB as a
human rights abuser in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal
Year 2013, which required the president to impose sanctions on the IRIB and
include it in the Treasury Department’s list of specially designated nationals
and blocked persons. “The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has contributed
to the infringement of individuals’ human rights by broadcasting forced
televised confession and show trials,” Section 1248 of the law states. President
Barack Obama sanctioned the IRIB pursuant to Executive Order 13628 in February
2013 for restricting or denying the free flow of information to or from the
Iranian people.
The United States should now designate the current IRIB director general, Peyman
Jebelli, and every current IRIB official, producer, news director, and anchor.
Treasury should also review whether banks and corporate entities are providing
the IRIB with material support and designate them accordingly. In 2018, the
Treasury Department established a precedent when it sanctioned Ayandeh Bank
under Executive Order 13846 for its role in “having materially assisted,
sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or
goods or services to or in support of, IRIB.”
Expand human rights sanctions. The Biden administration should significantly
expand the use of human rights sanctions against the regime in Iran. The
administration should initiate a designations campaign that follows its recent
designation of Iran’s morality police and select military commanders who have
presided over the Islamic Republic’s latest crackdown. Aimed at naming, shaming,
and penalizing the Iranian people’s oppressors, these sanctions should target
the Law Enforcement Force (LEF), the Basij paramilitary, and IRGC commanders at
regional and local levels. Designations should also explore the applicability of
sanctions against governors, governors-general, and a host of political and
judicial officials supportive of the crackdown at the regional and national
levels. Policymakers can determine this culpability through open sources.
Sanction Senior Iranian Leadership. Washington should strengthen sanctions on
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Ebrahim Raisi, both
of whom are currently on the Treasury Department’s blacklist but not for
human-rights related offenses. For example, the administration should amend
Executive Order 13876 — which currently targets those in the supreme leader’s
office or those appointed by the supreme leader to a political position in Iran
— to integrate human rights sanctions into the order’s sanctions regime. It
should also broaden the applicability of human rights sanctions and apply
sectoral sanctions to defense and intelligence sectors of the Iranian economy
based on Iran’s record of human rights abuse. Washington should extend these
sanctions to other pillars of the regime where there may be a financial or
institutional nexus of support for Iran’s apparatus of repression.
Deny Visas for Regime-Connected Individuals in the United States. The Biden
administration should use existing State Department authorities under a 2019
appropriations act to prevent the entry into the United States of Iranian gross
human rights violators and their families. Washington should first apply this
penalty to individuals on the Treasury Department’s blacklist in cases where an
evidentiary basis for human rights penalties may exist. It should then be
broadened against new targets. After that, the administration commence a
dialogue with international partners to persuade them to consider a visa ban
against the same persons and their families. The net result would be a widening
web or “no-go zone” for Iranian human rights violators and their families.
Expand Multilateral Efforts. The administration should share targeting
information about human rights abusers with its international partners that
possess or are developing autonomous sanctions authorities. The designation and
accountability campaign should then be “multilateralized” against the IRGC, the
LEF, regime officials, sanctions busters, censors, and others aiding the Islamic
Republic’s repression machine. Canada’s recent sanctions against Iran’s morality
police, as well as those by the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom, are good
examples of this, but the use of sanctions must expand to include all American
partners with human rights sanctions regimes and autonomous sanctions
capabilities.
Conversely, where there are instances of entities subject to EU penalties that
are yet to be targeted using State Department and Treasury Department
authorities, the administration should rapidly move to bridge the transatlantic
gap. The administration should also share information with foreign law
enforcement agencies and investigative judges that may be pursuing charges
against Iranian officials for human rights abuses.
Establish a Support Fund. The administration should create a fund to support the
Iranian protest movement using penalties and past asset forfeiture actions
related to Iran, akin to what was done for Poland’s Solidary Movement during the
Cold War. This fund should support the efforts of Iranian laborers to engage in
strikes to break the regime’s will. It should also provide financial support to
families of political prisoners and those who have lost breadwinners in current
or past protests.
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Finally, the administration should move to isolate the Islamic Republic
politically by pushing for its removal from, or censure in, international
organizations, while also pressuring allies to sever or downgrade their
bilateral diplomatic relations.
Pressure Iran Diplomatically. European nations have recalled their ambassadors
from Tehran a handful of times over the past four decades. The recent string of
demarches and statements by American allies against the Islamic Republic is
therefore welcome, but more can be done, such as the recent statement of joint
condemnation featuring female foreign ministers from 12 states. The Biden
administration should further instruct all U.S. delegations to walk out of any
international meeting where an Iranian representative is speaking. In light of
the brutal killing of Mahsa Amini, as well as many other brave young female
protestors, such as the 23-year-old social media influencer Hadis Najafi and the
16-year-old Nika Shahkarami, the United States should pressure relevant
countries to remove Iran from the 45-member Commission on the Status of Women at
the United Nations while at the same time consider bringing rights violations
resolutions to the attention of other UN bodies such as the Human Rights Council
or the General Assembly.
Condemn Iran within International Organizations. The United States should
pressure the International Telecommunications Union to issue condemnations of
Iran for its violations of international telecommunications laws. America should
encourage European broadcasting authorities — such as the Conseil Supérieur de
l’Audiovisuel in France and the Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority — to
direct audiovisual regulators to revoke the IRIB’s licenses to operate. OfCom,
the United Kingdom’s audiovisual regulator, revoked Press TV’s license in 2012
for its broadcasts of forced confessions.
Snap Back Sanctions at the UN. At any time, any original participant in the
JCPOA can send a letter to the UN Security Council alleging that Iran is in
significant non-performance of its commitment under the deal, triggering a
30-day clock until all prior UN Security Council resolutions return to force.
The United Kingdom, France, and Germany began this course of action in January
2020, but never completed the process for snapping back sanctions at the UN
Security Council. The Trump administration attempted a unilateral snapback at
the UN Security Council in August 2020, citing U.S. rights under UN Security
Council Resolution 2231, but other members of the Council opposed the move. The
Biden administration withdrew the U.S. snapback notification in early 2021.
Washington should now restore it.
Conclusion
With anti-regime protests across Iran moving past the 40th day point, Washington
desperately needs a strategy to better stand with the Iranian people who
continue demonstrating, as well as to bring coherence toward its overall Iran
policy. The above vectors of support to the people and punitive measures against
the regime can begin to do precisely that.
*This memorandum builds on and borrows from a recent FDD op-ed: Behnam Ben
Taleblu and Saeed Ghasseminejad, “How Biden Can Stand With the Iranian People,”
The National Interest, October 5, 2022.
(https://nationalinterest.org/blog/middle-east-watch/how-biden-can-stand-iranian-people-205189)
Think the Energy Crisis Is Bad? Wait Until Next Winter
Suriya Jayanti/TimeTime/October 31, 2022
For policymakers grappling with global energy shortages and households
scrambling to pay record high utility bills, some unwelcome news: This year’s
energy crisis is going to look mild once next year’s kicks in. It is winter
2023-2024 that is going to be the real crisis. Any current energy planning that
fails to account for next year and beyond is jumping out of the frying pan and
into the fire—where this winter is a problem, 2023’s may be a catastrophe.
The immediate problem is simple: There is not enough fuel, and therefore not
enough electricity, so prices have skyrocketed for both. To a large extent, this
is a result of decreased Russian exports of oil, natural gas, and coal, which
have been hit by western sanctions and other policy efforts to curb Russian
revenues funding atrocities in Ukraine. Most Russian fuel supplies are still
reaching international markets, however, because countries like China and India
are happy to buy discounted product from a not-quite-fully marginalized Kremlin.
But Russian exports are down, too, approximately 18% in August compared to
February. Notwithstanding a current drop in natural gas prices now that European
storages are mostly full, prices have been so high as a consequence of tighter
supplies that Russian President Vladimir Putin is enjoying record energy
revenues—over €200 billion since the start of the war on February 24. In turn,
markets are tight globally and countries are competing for limited supplies in
what has become a zero-sum energy game.
This year’s energy shortage is not just a Russia problem, however. Other factors
keeping energy supply below demand are the unexpected surge in economic and
industrial activity as countries awoke from COVID-19, refining capacity
shortfalls caused by myriad fires, labor strikes, and other maintenance
activities, and overall inflation that puts upward pressure on prices
independent of supply constraints. The knock-on effect—high prices and lower
than normal generation—on electricity are because most power plants burn oil,
coal, and natural gas. Utilities can neither raise prices on consumers without
regulatory approval nor buy fuel imports with unchecked debt under existing laws
that prevent risky behavior by critical service providers. Many power plants
around the world are struggling to continue generating electricity.
Meanwhile there are not nearly enough nuclear, wind, solar, and other non-fossil
fuel alternatives, and hydroelectric plants worldwide are suffering due to
climate change droughts. The end result is current or forecast brown and
blackouts across the developing world, in parts of Europe, and maybe in the
U.S., too, according to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Developing countries are the worst off because they have less ability to absorb
higher energy costs.
This is the situation we are in now, which winter will exacerbate, but it is
going to be a walk in the park compared to next year. To start with, this year
is not as bad as it could be. Although this year’s winter will prove
uncomfortable and expensive, Europe is nonetheless in a surprisingly good
position. Bloc-wide, natural gas storages are now well over 90% of the annual
target, which is actually at least 15% higher than their levels a year ago. This
is not enough to heat and power the continent through a cold winter, or even a
normal winter at current consumption levels. But barring any unforeseen
calamities, current natural gas reserves are probably enough for one winter if
the E.U. succeeds in implementing both its voluntary and mandatory cumulative
15% electricity usage reduction policies.
Of course, a warm winter and a 15% consumption reduction is a best case
scenario, and it is far from certain it will play out. During a cold snap in
September and October, Poles were burning trash to stay warm. Europeans are
hoarding firewood, and blackouts are already occurring in some countries. And,
unfortunately, warm weather now coupled with energy subsidies are likely to
disincentivize conservation of existing energy resources. Alexey Miller, CEO of
Russia’s Gazprom, thus estimated in mid-October that European countries could be
short about one-third, 800 million cubic meters (mcm) of natural gas per day
during a cold spell this winter even with gas storages full now.
He’s not wrong. An unusually cold week in Europe in September functioned
something of a stress test for whether energy use was being successfully
reduced. It was a failure. Amid a massive effort to lower consumption, German
consumers instead used 14.5% more gas than in previous years. So much for belt
tightening.
What is certain is that if Europeans, and the rest of us, could see ahead to
2023 and beyond they would be doing everything in their power to save energy
reserves now in preparation. The fundamental problem faced this year—a fuel and
thus power shortage causing insanely high prices—will not go away by next year.
It will instead expand into an energy crisis that makes this year’s look
manageable.
First, there is a high probability that China will finally come out of COVID-19
slumber. It will rock and roil energy markets when it does. China’s ongoing
lockdowns resulted in a sharp decline in fossil fuel and power consumption, a
9.14% drop for oil and 5.8% for natural gas in April 2022 over 2021. In fact,
Chinese consumption has dropped so much that it was recently arbitraging energy,
buying U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) on preexisting fixed long-term contracts
and selling it for a huge profit at current spot market prices to Europe. This
August, China, the world’s biggest consumer of energy, imported a full two
million barrels of crude oil a day fewer than expected. For comparison, Russia
exports an average of 10 million barrels per day, meaning that when China wakes
up from COVID-19 it will rise with a voracious energy appetite equal to 20% of
Russia’s exports. This will put tremendous additional pressure on energy markets
already straining under current demand.
Second, Putin is not about to turn the energy taps back on for Europe. If he is
still in power next year, the Russian President will demonstrate his famous
ability to hold a grudge by doing whatever he can to continue punishing Europe
for backing Ukraine. He would not have sabotaged Nord Stream 1 and 2, his own
gas pipelines to Germany, if he were considering starting to again send fuel to
Europe. Putin is instead playing a long game, waiting for the energy crisis to
cause enough inflation to bring about enough popular unrest to topple western
governments opposed to Russian imperialism. He would also not be damaging
Russia’s oil and gas industry if energy relief for the West were in his plans.
The physics of natural gas and oil wells are such, to differing degrees, that
they are not like a light switch that can be flicked on and off. The sanctions
coupled with the loss of western expertise and reduced export volumes mean
Russia will have trouble quickly getting its petroleum industry back up and
running at scale after the war, if ever.
If Putin is not in power next year, then possibly new Russian leadership so
deftly takes the helm of the Russian economy and its petroleum industry that
sanctions are lifted and oil and natural gas again flow westward freely, but
probably not. Far more likely to flourish in the power vacuum Putin would leave
in a situation of political and economic instability. So, either way, Russia is
probably not going to be the world’s energy bank in 2023, and likely not for
years after.
This means that when Europe emerges from this winter in April 2023 it will have
exhausted its fuel reserves and will have a much harder time finding ways to
replenish them. Over 40% of Europe’s stored gas for this winter came from
Russia, despite sanctions and conflict. In 2023 and beyond, Europe will try
to—will have to—source its energy imports from elsewhere, which will put it in
direct competition with other countries and result in a bidding war for
resources. This will, in turn, drive prices up even higher. Although natural gas
prices have dropped precipitously for now, down 70% as Europe has stopped buying
now that its storages are relatively full and Autumn has been mostly warm, they
will spike again in 2023 as soon as demand rises.
The simple reality is that there aren’t adequate supplies anywhere in the short
to medium term—6 months to 2 years. U.S. LNG cannot save the world. This year’s
12% increase in U.S. LNG exports is a rate of growth that cannot be sustained.
Existing U.S. production is already mostly maxed out for now and there is
inadequate infrastructure—not enough pipeline capacity to move gas to LNG
terminals, and no new LNG terminals planned for another two years. The next one
expected to come online is Exxon’s Golden Pass LNG facility, a joint project
with QatarEnergy, hoped for in 2024.
Even were there more production and export capacity in the U.S., global import
capacity is limited to the fewer than 50 LNG terminals in existence. In Europe,
for one, LNG terminals have had spare capacity to import less than 70 billion
tons, whereas the continent imported about 170 bcm of pipeline gas, the
equivalent of 118 billion tons of LNG, per year from Russia before the invasion
of Ukraine. Europe is looking to rent floating LNG terminals to alleviate this
bottleneck, but the cost is massive and other issues persist. And, a dirty
secret is that much of the LNG that has rescued Europe this winter is in fact
Russian, a sanctions loophole that is almost certainly going to be closed.
Russian LNG imports into Europe are up 42%, but won’t be next year. Moreover,
LNG is now shockingly expensive, too. LNG tanker charter prices were recently
$400,000 per day and were expected to hit $1 million.
Yes, Germany and other countries are now building new infrastructure, but none
of it will be ready next year. Building new pipelines takes 1.5-4 years and LNG
terminals need 2-5 years. It will take another 3-5 years, at a minimum, for the
LNG markets to balance supply and demand. Meanwhile, few reasonable investors
will pour billions into infrastructure projects with a 10-30 year breakeven
timeline for fuels the world is trying to phase out in 8 years because of
climate change. New fossil fuel projects may be redundant before they are even
completed. In the meantime, in 2023 there will not be enough U.S. or Qatari
liquified natural gas (LNG), nor Azerbaijani gas, nor Kenyan, nor Australian,
nor any other to compensate for the total loss of Russian imports.
Protester hold a sign that reads "People over profits" as people march to demand
a continued shift to renewable energy sources and reduction in fossil fuel
dependence despite the current energy crisis on October 22, 2022 in Berlin,
Germany.<span class="copyright">Maja Hitij-Getty Images</span>
Protester hold a sign that reads "People over profits" as people march to demand
a continued shift to renewable energy sources and reduction in fossil fuel
dependence despite the current energy crisis on October 22, 2022 in Berlin,
Germany.Maja Hitij-Getty Images
Nor can renewables yet save the day. Wind and solar farms can be built
relatively quickly and cheaply, but they cannot be used to power heating at a
large scale because most households are not equipped with electric heaters or
heat pumps. Replacing an entire country’s heating systems will take longer than
a year. In any case, there are supply chain bottlenecks for solar panels and
wind turbines, mostly because of China’s lockdwon policies, so this is not a
viable option in the short term anyway. Nuclear power is also not a solution for
the 2-5 year range because nuclear plants take 5-10 years to license and build.
Biofuels and geothermal heating are promising technologies, but suffer from the
same shortcomings—either they take too long to build or are not sufficiently
scalable and thus unable to solve the immediate problem. While the energy crisis
is proving an excellent stimulus for innovation, none of the new technologies it
brings forth will be ready by 2023, or 2024, or probably even 2025.
Taken together, Europe is likely to be short by as much as 20% of its needed
fuel in 2023. The bulk of what it can secure will come at a price so high that
recession-hit governments will have trouble buying it while simultaneously
paying their populations’ energy bills. Without the ability to bring new energy
sources online in a hurry, the single tool governments have at their immediate
disposal is cutting consumption. This is the equivalent of zipping up the tent
in a hurricane, but it is what’s available. As the German experience in
September shows, however, getting people to use less gas and electricity is
very, very difficult. A mild winter in Europe this year will also make people
less likely to conserve for 2023.
Of course, it’s not the rich countries of North America and northern Europe that
will suffer the most through the energy crisis, whether this year or next. This
energy crisis is global. Already poorer countries are facing blackouts,
protests, and worse because European and Asian demand has driven fuel prices
higher than developing countries can afford. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ecuador, and
Haiti are just a few of the cash strapped countries rocked by energy inflation,
fuels shortages, and the violent protests they triggered. Continued food
insecurity due to lack of fertilizer and fuels will worsen, too, and unrest with
them. And as scarce energy resources pit countries against each other, it is the
those that were already behind that will lose on the market. These trends will
accelerate when the real energy crisis hits in 2023 and 2024.
For fuel-rich countries, like the U.S., the consequences of the energy crisis
escalating through 2023 will be mixed. On one hand, there is a lot of money to
be made. The 2022 energy crisis has brought record profits to petroleum
companies, which will continue as long as fuel shortages do. The large increase
in U.S. LNG exports has meant massive profits for private U.S. petroleum
companies, such as Exxon. The same is true for Norway. Norwegian gas imports
into the E.U. are up 8% compared to last year, making it the E.U.’s top supplier
since Russia mostly cut off gas exports. Equinor, the state-owned petroleum
company, is expecting $82 billion more in 2022 and 2023 in energy revenues, up
from $27 billion in 2021. Even embattled Venezuela could cash in—the White House
was considering relaxing sanctions on Caracas to allow Chevron to bring more
Venezuelan crude oil into play. China’s LNG arbitrage made for good money, too.
On the other hand, the macroeconomic and political fallout from the energy
crisis will be felt everywhere, even in net energy exporting countries. Record
energy prices have almost certainly pushed European and other countries into
recession, which will necessarily reverberate in the U.S., Canada, OPEC
countries, and elsewhere. Even in Norway, inflation has tripled, up from a
20-year average of 1.84% to almost 7% in September 2022. Economies are simply
too interlinked for problems on one continent not to affect everywhere else.