English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 05/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.november05.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
Parable of the landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower/"The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone
Saint Matthew 21/33-46/:"‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect my son."But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance."So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes"? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet."

Question: “What is the Lord’s prayer and should we pray it?”
Questions.org?/November 04/2022
Answer: The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer the Lord Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Matthew 6:9-13 says, “This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'“ Many people misunderstand the Lord’s Prayer to be a prayer we are supposed to recite word for word. Some people treat the Lord’s Prayer as a magic formula, as if the words themselves have some specific power or influence with God. The Bible teaches the opposite. God is far more interested in our hearts when we pray than He is in our words. “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Matthew 6:6-7). In prayer, we are to pour out our hearts to God (Philippians 4:6-7), not simply recite memorized words to God.
The Lord’s Prayer should be understood as an example, a pattern, of how to pray. It gives us the “ingredients” that should go into prayer. Here is how it breaks down. “Our Father in heaven” is teaching us whom to address our prayers to—the Father. “Hallowed be your name” is telling us to worship God, and to praise Him for who He is. The phrase “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is a reminder to us that we are to pray for God’s plan in our lives and the world, not our own plan. We are to pray for God’s will to be done, not for our desires. We are encouraged to ask God for the things we need in “give us today our daily bread.” “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” reminds us to confess our sins to God and to turn from them, and also to forgive others as God has forgiven us. The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” is a plea for help in achieving victory over sin and a request for protection from the attacks of the devil. So, again, the Lord’s Prayer is not a prayer we are to mindlessly recite back to God. It is only an example of how we should be praying. Is there anything wrong with memorizing the Lord’s Prayer? Of course not! Is there anything wrong with praying the Lord’s Prayer back to God? Not if your heart is in it and you truly mean the words you say. Remember, in prayer, God is far more interested in our communicating with Him and speaking from our hearts than He is in the specific words we use. Philippians 4:6-7 declares, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 04-05/2022
What About The Fate Of Those Who lack faith and worship money?/Elias Bejjani/November 03/2022
Aoun snubs state budget, delays new exchange rate
Mikati chairs cholera control meeting at the Grand Serail
Fistfight and gunshots in MTV premises
Wheelchair-bound depositor who stormed Credit Libanais admitted to hospital
Cholera surges across Lebanon, Mideast
Army says manages to resolve clash outside MTV

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 04-05/2022
Pope calls for global unity ahead of grand imam meeting in Bahrain
Pre-Islamic Christian monastery discovered in UAE/The find marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as far as 1,400 years ago.
US Sanctions Oil Smuggling Network Supporting Iran's Quds Force
Blinken, Baerbok Affirm Support for Iranian Protesters
NATO Chief: Iran Plans to Supply Russia with Arms Unacceptable
Iran Celebrates 1979 US Embassy Seizure amid Anti-government Protests
Memorials of Killed Protesters Restore Momentum to Iran Demonstrations
Iran seeking nuclear help from Russia in exchange for weapons -CNN
Putin endorses evacuation of parts of Ukraine's Kherson region
Biden's goal to 'free Iran' met with derision from Raisi, Amirabdollahian
Russian military takes deadly measures against deserters in Ukraine war - UK intel
Israel's Netanyahu launches talks on forming government
G7 ministers rally support for Ukraine, suspicion of China

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 04-05/2022
Bibi Wins!..Israel’s political iron man inherits a hatful of tsuris/Liel Leibovitz and Tony Badran/The Tablet/November 04/2022
Why is the Left so Afraid of Twitter?/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/November 04/2022
Inside Saudi Arabia: A Trip Report/Robert Satloff, David Schenker/Washington Insitute/November 04/2022
Important Roles Await Brazil Under Leadership of Lula da Silva/Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy/Asharq Al Awsat/November 04/2022
Iran: Old Recipes From the Devil’s Kitchen/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/November 04/2022
The midterm map says America will turn right/John C. Hulsman/Arab News/November 04, 2022
Iran’s malign meddling is only going to get worse/Luke Coffey/Arab News/November 04/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 04-05/2022
What About The Fate Of Those Who lack faith and worship money?
Elias Bejjani/November 03/2022
وماذا عن مصير الذين ضعف إيمانهم ويعبدون ثروات الأرض الترابية
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/43601/elias-bejjani-who-are-you-are-you-yourself/
Many people do not recognize consciously who they really are, and willingly and viciously hide behind fake faces, or let us say they put on deceiving masks.
Why? because they hate themselves, and mostly burdened with devastating inferiority complexes.
These chameleon like-people do not trust or respect themselves, have no sense of gratitude what so ever, lack faith in God and worship money.
Most of them were initially poor but suddenly became rich.
Instead of investing their riches that are graces from God in helping others and making them happy, especially those of their family members, they alienate themselves from every thing that is related to human feelings, and forget what is actual love, and that love is Almighty God.
They fall into temptation, live in castles of hatred, ruminate on grudges and contemplate revenge.
Not only that, but they start to venomously and destructively envy any one who is happy, respected and descent, but Evilly they use their riches and influence to inflict pain and misery on others.
They become mere sadists and enjoy pain of others, especially pain and suffering of those who are their family members that refuse to succumb and become evil like them
When we look around where ever we are it is very easy to identify many people who are of this evil nature.
The Question is, how they end?
They end paying for all their destructive and vicious acts, if not on this earth, definitely on the Day Of Judgment.
May Almighty God safeguard us from such evil people.
NB: The Above Piece was initially published on August 02/2016. It is republished today with minor changes

Aoun snubs state budget, delays new exchange rate
Associated Press/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Lebanon is unable to put its new exchange rate into effect after its outgoing president declared the state budget unconstitutional and refused to sign off on it, officials said. The Finance Ministry in late September announced that Lebanon would change its pegged exchange rate to the dollar from 1,500 pounds to 15,000 starting Nov. 1, which they called a "necessary corrective action." Parliament passed the cash-strapped country's 2022 national budget in September, which included the amended rate. However, it took at least another week of bureaucracy before reaching President Michel Aoun's office. Passing the 2022 state budget and unifying Lebanon's several exchange rates are some of the prerequisite reforms needed to reach an International Monetary Fund-approved recovery plan to make the country viable again. The government has adopted several exchange rates for different services outside of the official rate, most recently for phone and internet bills, while an opaque parallel - or black - market rate has been the dominant exchange rate, resulting in further chaos in the country's economy. The Lebanese pound was pegged at just over 1,500 pounds to the dollar in 1997 to encourage investor confidence and to stall hyperinflation after its 15-year civil war. The economy has since struggled following years of political paralysis and turmoil. By late 2019, the country started to spiral into what the World Bank says is one of the worst economic crises in over a century. Three-quarters of the population have plunged into poverty and the Lebanese pound lost around 90% of its value against the dollar on the black market. Aoun's six-year term ended on Oct. 31. His refusal to sign off on the budget means it will automatically pass and go into effect later this month. Government and economic advisors familiar with the matter say Aoun's inaction was intentional.
An advisor familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Aoun did not approve several elements of the state budget that went through the government and parliament. Speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, the advisor added that the final accounts from last year were not completed to close the books under the country's constitution. They said Aoun did not want to sign off legislation that he deemed unconstitutional. Spokespeople from the Finance Ministry and central bank told the AP that they did not modify their decrees that put forth the new currency peg, but they cannot go into effect unless the budget does as well. Another advisor added that Aoun did not see the budget law as meeting The International Monetary Fund's expectations, but didn't want Lebanon to be without a budget. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, they added that the delay would allow budget to pass but without the president's endorsement. Lebanon's deeply-divided parliament since late September has failed on several occasions to vote in a successor. Lebanon is also without a full-fledged government, with Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government functioning in a limited caretaker capacity.

Mikati chairs cholera control meeting at the Grand Serail
Agence France Presse/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati held Friday at the Grand Serail a meeting on cholera control with the ambassadors of donor countries and international organizations. The caretaker ministers of health, interior and energy, the ambassadors of donor countries to Lebanon and representatives of the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Program, and UNICEF attended the meeting. The meeting discussed the required measures to limit the spread and how donor and friendly countries can help Lebanon to implement these measures, caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said. Lebanon's first cholera outbreak in decades began earlier this month after the virulent disease spread from neighboring Syria. Since last month, Lebanon has reported 2,421 cases and 18 deaths. About a quarter of these cases are children under the age of five. The Vibrio cholerae bacteria has been found in drinking-water, sewer systems, and irrigation water. The country hosts more than a million Syrian refugees. Most cases of cholera have been detected in refugee camps, Lebanon's Health Ministry says. U.N. aid agencies started providing clean water for the camps, disinfecting walls and doors and holding information sessions. They're also donating fuel to the Lebanese government so that authorities can pump water again. 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".
France has also donated more than 13,000 vaccine doses, and Lebanon will successively receive more donations, Abiad said.

Fistfight and gunshots in MTV premises
Naharnet/Friday, 4 November, 2022
A heated argument has escalated into a large fistfight in the studio of the popular political talk show Sar el Waqt hosted by journalist Marcel Ghanem. Ghanem was forced to interrupt the broadcast on Thursday night, while the fight continued outside the studio, at the premises of the MTV building in Naccache.
The MTV security guards reportedly fired into the air and the army intervened and stopped the clash. Several got injured during the fight. Students from the Free Patriotic Movement who were participating in the show were "attacked" by some members of the audience, the FPM said in a statement.
"The MTV security members dragged them out of the studio, beat them and fired gunshots," the statement added. MTV said it will no longer receive FPM supporters in Sar el Waqt studio but that FPM leaders and MPs are welcome to participate in the show as guests. "What happened is unacceptable," Sar el Waqt team said. Many politicians and journalists supported MTV and condemned the "attack on the channel."

Wheelchair-bound depositor who stormed Credit Libanais admitted to hospital
Naharnet/Friday, 4 November, 2022
A depositor who was arrested after having stormed a bank in Hazmieh was admitted to hospital Friday as his health condition deteriorated in custody. Wheelchair-bound Ibrahim Baydoun was taken to al-Hayat Hospital as he required intensive care treatment, al-Jadeed TV said. Along with Ali al-Saheli, Catherine al-Ali and prominent lawyer and activist Rami Ollaik, Baydoun stormed Wednesday the Credit Libanais bank in Hazmieh and the four were taken to the Justice Palace in Baabda for interrogation. Baydoun and Saheli had managed to obtain $55,000 from the bank but al-Jadeed TV reported that the money was eventually seized by security forces at the request of Attorney General Ghassan Khoury. Meanwhile, Ollaik has been been on a hunger strike for two days to protest his arrest.

Cholera surges across Lebanon, Mideast
Associated Press/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Shadia Ahmed panicked as rainwater flooded her shack one night, drenching her seven children. The next morning, the kids were seized by vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms. After an aid group administered tests for cholera in Ahmed's Syrian refugee encampment in the northern Lebanese town of Bhanine, her youngest, 4-year-old Assil, tested positive. Cholera has swept across Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq as the countries struggle with devastated infrastructure, turmoil and housing large populations of people who have been displaced by conflict. Lebanon last month reported the first cholera case in nearly 30 years.
The bacterial infection has surged globally across dozens of countries this year, with outbreaks in Haiti and across the Horn of Africa as well as the Mideast. The outbreaks of hundreds of thousands of cases driven by conflict, poverty, and climate change are a major setback for global efforts to eradicate the disease.
"Cholera thrives in poverty and conflict but is now turbocharged by climate change," said Inas Hamam, a regional spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. "Regional and global health security is in jeopardy." Anti-cholera efforts focus on vaccination, clean water and sanitation. Last month, WHO announced the temporary suspension of a two-dose vaccination strategy because production couldn't meet surging demand. Officials are now administering single doses so that more people can benefit from the vaccine in the short term.A cholera infection is caused by consuming food or water infected with the Vibrio cholerae bacterium. While most cases are mild to moderate, cholera can cause death if it's not treated correctly. "I would spend the whole night taking her to the bathroom, giving her medication, washing and sterilizing her," Ahmed, 33, said of Assil, her child who got cholera. "I couldn't sleep, and was up all night just looking at her. I feared the worst." Assil and her siblings eventually got better; she was the only confirmed cholera case in the family.Across the border in Syria, officials and U.N. agencies announced last month that a cholera outbreak was sweeping the entire country. The outbreak in Syria is due to people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River and using contaminated water to irrigate crops, according to the U.N. and the Syrian Health Ministry.
In the government-held areas of Syria and in the country's northeast, held by U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces, there have since been roughly 17,000 cases of cholera and 29 deaths.In the rebel-held Idlib province of Syria, most of the 4 million residents are displaced from the conflict. They depend on international aid and live in tent camps. Over half of Idlib does not have regular access to water. Many families use polluted water from wells are that close to sewage. There have been 3,104 cholera cases and five deaths in Idlib province. Dr. Abdullah Hemeidi of the Syrian American Medical Society anticipates a surge this winter. "The health care system in the area is weak," Hemeidi said. "Medical organizations and local councils are trying to sanitize water and they are holding workshops to limit the spread." In the Salaheddine camp in the opposition-held countryside northwest of Aleppo, children play near sewage. Community workers hold awareness sessions for residents. "We're worried it will spread in our camp," resident Jamil Latfo said. Iraq has struggled with cholera outbreaks for years. In Lebanon, the disease was rare for decades. Three years ago, Lebanon fell into an economic crisis. Most Lebanese now rely on water trucked in by private suppliers, and private generators for electricity. Utilities can't buy fuel and pump water into households.Since last month, Lebanon has reported 2,421 cases and 18 deaths. About a quarter of these cases are children under the age of five. The Vibrio cholerae bacteria has been found in drinking-water, sewer systems, and irrigation water.
The country hosts more than a million Syrian refugees. Most cases of cholera have been detected in refugee camps, Lebanon's Health Ministry says. In Bhanine, Ahmed and her children are tucked between apartment buildings, along with dozens of other Syrian refugees. The families live in weak wooden shacks with tarp walls and ceilings. They share three toilets and three sinks. Like most households in Lebanon, camp residents buy water trucked in by private suppliers. The state does not test the water for safety. "The water was contaminated but we had no choice but to use it," resident Ali Hamadi said. "There was no drinking water, let alone water to clean, wash the dishes, wash our clothes or for the shower."U.N. aid agencies started providing clean water for the camp, while disinfecting walls and doors and holding information sessions. They're also donating fuel to the Lebanese government so that authorities can pump water again. "The support we offer cannot replace the service lines and the national electricity grid, which is basically not functioning most of the time," said Ettie Higgins, deputy representative for Lebanon of the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF. WHO has been working with Iraqi health authorities to help bolster their cholera response, visiting water-treatment plants and testing laboratories in Baghdad last month. UNICEF said it urgently needs $40.5 million to continue its work in Lebanon and Syria for the next three months."These camps are fertile ground for the outbreak of an illness," said Hemeidi, of the Syrian American Medical Society. "We won't be able to properly respond to it unless there is an intervention with medical equipment and aid."

Berri calls for joint parliamentary session on Monday
NNA/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Speaker of the House, Nabih Berri, on Friday summoned parliamentary committees to a joint session at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, November 7, 2022, in order to study draft laws and proposals.

Army says manages to resolve clash outside MTV
NNA/Friday, 4 November, 2022
The Lebanese Army on Friday said via its Twitter account that its forces intervened to resolve a clash that erupted last night between FPM supporters and the audience of local channel MTV's "Sar al-Waet”, managing to bring things back under control after gunshots were fired next to the channel’s premises and several were injured.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 04-05/2022
Pope calls for global unity ahead of grand imam meeting in Bahrain
Agence France Presse/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Pope Francis warned Friday the world is on the edge of a "delicate precipice" buffeted by "winds of war", during a trip aimed at bridging the gap between faiths. The 85-year-old Argentine decried the "opposing blocs" of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. His comments came during a speech to religious leaders at the Bahrain Forum for Dialogue in the tiny Gulf state. "We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall," he told an audience including Bahrain's king and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque, a centre of Sunni learning.
Francis was to later meet with Tayeb.
"A few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs," he added.  "We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs." The pope's visit comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Ahead of the pope's speech, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been "a few small signs" of progress in negotiations with Moscow. "All peace initiatives are good. What's important is that we carry them out together and that they're not exploited for other goals," he said.
Alleged abuses
The pope, who is using a wheelchair and a walking stick due to chronic knee problems, was to later meet members of the Muslim Council of Elders. The pontiff's second visit to the Gulf, birthplace of Islam, comes three years after he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates. Leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, Francis has placed inter-faith dialogue at the heart of his papacy, visiting other Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. He began his first visit to Bahrain on Thursday by hitting out at the death penalty and urging respect for human rights and better conditions for workers. Rights groups had previously urged the pontiff to speak out about alleged abuses and step in to help death-row prisoners in the Sunni-led monarchy, which is home to a significant Shiite population. In the opening speech of his visit, at the Sakhir Royal Palace, he said it was vital that "fundamental human rights are not violated but promoted". "I think in the first place of the right to life, of the need to guarantee that right always, including for those being punished, whose lives should not be taken," he said. Bahrain has executed six people since 2017, when it carried out its first execution in seven years. Some of the condemned were convicted following a 2011 uprising put down with military support from neighboring Saudi Arabia. A government spokesman rejected allegations of rights violations, saying Bahrain "does not tolerate discrimination" or prosecute anyone for their religious or political beliefs. Speaking less than three weeks from the World Cup in neighboring Qatar, which has faced fierce scrutiny over its treatment of migrant laborers, the pope also demanded "safe and dignified" working conditions for all. "Much labor is in fact dehumanizing," he said. "This does not only entail a grave risk of social instability, but constitutes a threat to human dignity."

Pre-Islamic Christian monastery discovered in UAE/The find marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as far as 1,400 years ago.
The Arab Weekly/SINIYAH ISLAND, United Arab Emirates/November 04/2022
تحت رمال الإمارات.. الكشف عن دير مسيحي عمره نحو 1400 عام
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113185/pre-islamic-christian-monastery-discovered-in-uae-%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%aa-%d8%b1%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%83%d8%b4%d9%81-%d8%b9%d9%86-%d8%af/
An ancient Christian monastery, possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula, has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday. The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Arabian Gulf. It marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as far as 1,400 years ago, long before its desert expanses gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a unified nation home to the high-rise towers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The two monasteries became lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew more prevalent in the region.
Today, Christians remain a minority across the wider Middle East, though Pope Francis was arriving in nearby Bahrain on Thursday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders.
For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped investigate the newly-discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.” “The fact that something similar was happening here a 1,000 years ago is really remarkable and this is a story that deserves to be told,” he explained to The Associated Press. The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 50 kilometres northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Arabian Gulf. The island, whose name means “blinking lights” likely due to the effect of the white-hot sun overhead, has a series of sandbars coming off of it like crooked fingers. On one, to the island's northeast, archaeologists discovered the monastery.
Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery's foundation date between 534 and 656. Islam's Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. Viewed from above, the monastery on Siniyah Island's floor plan suggests early Christian worshippers prayed within a single-aisle church at the monastery. Rooms within appear to hold a baptismal font, as well as an oven for baking bread or wafers for communion rites. A nave also likely held an altar and an installation for communion wine.
Next to the monastery sits a second building with four rooms, probably around a courtyard, possibly the home of an abbot or even a bishop in the early church.
On Thursday, the site saw a visit from Noura bint Mohammed al-Kaabi, the country's culture and youth minister, as well as Sheikh Majid bin Saud Al Mualla, the chairman of the Umm al-Quwain's tourism and archaeology department and a son of the emirate's ruler.
The island remains part of the ruling family's holdings, protecting the land for years to allow the historical sites to be found as much of the UAE has rapidly developed. The UAE's culture ministry has in part sponsored the dig, which continues at the site. Just hundreds of metres away from the church, sits a collection of buildings that archaeologists believe belongs to a pre-Islamic village.
Elsewhere on the island, piles of tossed-aside clams from pearl hunting make for massive, industrial-sized hills. Nearby also sits a village that the British blew up in 1820 before the region became part of what was known as the Trucial States, the precursor of the UAE. That village's destruction brought about the creation of the modern-day settlement of Umm al-Quwain on the mainland. Historians say early churches and monasteries spread along the Arabian Gulf to the coasts of present-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologist have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the first Christian monastery in the UAE, on Sir Bani Yas Island, today a nature preserve and site of luxury hotels off the coast of Abu Dhabi, near the Saudi border. It similarly dates back to the same period as the new find in Umm al-Quwain.
However, evidence of early life along the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain dates as far back as the Neolithic period, suggesting continuous human occupation in the area for at least 10,000 years, Power said.
Today, the area near the marshland is more known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for a $675 million real estate development. Power said that development spurred the archaeological work that discovered the monastery. That site and others will be fenced off and protected, he said, though it remains unclear what other secrets of the past remain hidden just under a thin layer of sand on the island. “It’s a really fascinating discovery because in some ways it’s hidden history. It’s not something that’s widely known,” Power said.

US Sanctions Oil Smuggling Network Supporting Iran's Quds Force
Washington - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 November, 2022 -
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on an international oil smuggling network it accused of supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran's Quds Force, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Tehran. In a statement, the US Treasury Department said it designated members of the network that facilitated oil trades and generated revenue for Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Quds Force, an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that operates abroad, both of which are under US sanctions. The moves come as Washington has piled pressure on Tehran as efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal have stalled and ties between Iran and the West are increasingly strained as Iranians keep up anti-government protests despite an increasingly deadly state crackdown. The Treasury statement said the network designated on Thursday included key individuals, front companies and vessels it accused of being involved in blending oil to conceal the Iranian origins of the shipments and exporting it around the world in support of the Quds Force and Hezbollah. Brian Nelson, the Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in the statement that “market participants should be vigilant of Hezbollah and the IRGC-QF’s attempts to generate revenue from oil smuggling to enable their terrorist activities around the world.” The move targeted a Gulf-based network that the Treasury said as of mid-2022 were blending and exporting Iranian oil. Washington said the network used storage units in the Port of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and blended products of Indian origin with Iranian oil to obfuscate the origin. The Treasury added that the companies modified or created counterfeit certificates of origin and quality for the oil, which was then transferred for sale abroad. As of late 2021, some oil sales were planned to Asia buyers, it added.

Blinken, Baerbok Affirm Support for Iranian Protesters
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 November, 2022
The US and German foreign ministers on Thursday strongly expressed their support for the protests in Iran, stressing that the issue would play a bigger role at the two-day G7 meeting in the western German city of Münster on Friday. “This is really a moment saying we bring up a human rights issue, we bring up an issue of democracy and freedom at this G7 meeting to coordinate the different bilateral actions we are doing, because we are running out of time,” said Annalena Baerbok during talks with Anthony Blinken.The two ministers attended the US-German Futures Forum entitled “The Future of Democracy in a Digital World,” ahead of the G7 foreign ministers meeting. The German FM then criticized the Iranian government for the violent security crackdown on the protest movement. She said that for weeks one has been experiencing “the brutal violence with which the Iranian regime is treating its own citizens. How it beats its youth, its society, while its people are dying.” Baerbok then commented on Germany’s statement on Thursday urging its citizens to leave Iran or risk arbitrary arrest and long prison terms there, warning that dual nationals were particularly at risk. “The German move comes in response to the tight security situation,” she stressed, according to Germany’s news agency. Baerbok also said: “It’s not only women but the diversity of the Iran society that is saying: enough, and we want to live in freedom like every-many other countries.” For his part, Blinken said that with regard to technology, “one of the things that we’re trying to do together is to make sure that Iranians have the ability to communicate with each other and with the outside world.”He added: “Technology is at the heart of that, making sure that there are no barriers to the extent we have anything to say about it to that technology getting to people who need it and want to use it.” Germany hosts and leads the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Münster on Thursday and Friday. The G7 includes Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the US, and Britain. Shortly before the start of the G7 meeting, dozens of people gathered in the German city to show support for the Iranians, according to AFP.

NATO Chief: Iran Plans to Supply Russia with Arms Unacceptable
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Iran's plans to supply Russia with weapons including drones and ballistic missiles in its war against Ukraine are "unacceptable", NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. Kyiv and its Western allies accuse Iran of supplying drones to Russia, AFP said. "We see Iran offering drones and considering ballistic missile deliveries to Russia," Stoltenberg told a news conference in Istanbul. "This is unacceptable. No country should provide support to Moscow in this illegal war."Kyiv has said around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population of Ukraine, and Moscow has ordered around 2,000. Tehran has rejected the allegation. Stoltenberg added Russian President Vladimir Putin was failing in Ukraine, but "responding with more brutality". "In recent weeks, we have seen dozens of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine. Including on critical infrastructure," he added. Russia is "cruelly and deliberately depriving Ukrainian civilians of heating, water and electricity at the outset of winter", Stoltenberg said.

Iran Celebrates 1979 US Embassy Seizure amid Anti-government Protests
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 November, 2022
Iran held state-sponsored annual rallies on Friday marking the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran, as the clerical establishment that has ruled since then struggles to suppress nationwide protests calling for its downfall.
Radical students cemented Iran's revolution by storming the embassy soon after the fall of the US-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days. The two countries have been enemies ever since and, as Iranian authorities on Friday urged security forces to swiftly stamp out the anti-government protests, which have spread to all layers of society, new bilateral tensions surfaced. Iran's president and foreign minister criticized Joe Biden, a day after the US president vowed to "free Iran". Images broadcast on state television showed anti-American demonstrations attended by tens of thousands of people across the country on the "National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance", while songs called for "Death to America" and schoolchildren carried banners in support of the embassy seizure. Friday's pro-establishment demonstrations offered a stark contrast to the wave of protests sweeping the country since a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody on Sept. 16 after being arrested for being inappropriately dressed. While past demonstrations have focused on issues such as election results and economic hardships, the current protesters, who include minority Sunnis and Kurds, are determined to secure a new political order. On Friday, the widely followed 1500 Tasvir activist Twitter account reported protests in the cities of Zahedan, Khash and Saravan in Sistan-Baluchistan, a province where most of Iran's Sunni Baluch minority live. The impoverished area is close to the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan that has been a hotbed of unrest. The semi-official news agency Tasnim said an unspecified number of people were injured in clashes in which protesters attacked a government building in Khash and torched several vehicles and security forces opened fire. Tasnim carried a video purporting to show a burned bank and damaged storefronts in Khash after the unrest, with dark smoke billowing from a building. A 1500 Tasvir video that Reuters could not verify showed protesters there throwing stones at security forces while gunshots were heard. State news agency IRNA said several policemen were injured in the clashes.
Fear factor
The protests present one of the biggest challenges to the authority of the leadership enshrined by the revolution, with many young Iranians overcoming the fear that has stifled dissent ever since. Iran, trying to strike a nuclear deal with world powers and get relief from sanctions that have increased hardships for many Iranians, has blamed the United States and other foreign enemies for the unrest, saying they want to destabilize the country. Biden said on Thursday the demonstrators would soon succeed in freeing themselves. "Don't worry, we're gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon," Biden said during a campaign speech in California. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Friday Biden had been expressing solidarity with the protesters. President Ebrahim Raisi described the protesters as "deceived traitors", adding: "I am telling Biden that Iran was freed 43 years ago." Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian accused Biden of hypocrisy. "The White House has increasingly promoted violence and terror in the recent riots in Iran, while at the same time it is trying to reach a nuclear agreement," he said in a tweet. Raisi's deputy, Mohammad Hosseini, called on security forces to "work swiftly to end the riots". Women, who have been burning their veils, and university students are playing a prominent role in the demonstrations, which call for the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but they have attracted support from a broad cross-section of society. The activist HRANA news agency said on Friday that 300 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Thursday including 47 minors, as well as 37 members of the security forces. More than 14,000 people have been arrested in demonstrations in 134 cities and towns, and at 132 universities, it said.

Memorials of Killed Protesters Restore Momentum to Iran Demonstrations
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 November, 2022 -
Skirmishes between protesters and security forces renewed in Iran against the backdrop of a second phase of demonstrations shaking the country since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in police custody. On the eve of the end of the seventh week of unrest, Chehellom memorials for the victims of the protests expanded nationwide. In Shiite Islam, the fortieth day after a person’s funeral is known as Arbaeen or Chehellom and holds religious significance. Videos showed thousands walking along roads to reach the grave in Karaj of Hadis Najafi, who has become a symbol of the anti-government unrest in Iran. An account with more than 400,000 followers on Twitter posted a video recording showing a helicopter flying over demonstrators in Karaj. According to video footage shared on social media, protesters resumed cutting off roads in Iranian cities like Karaj and Isfahan. Videos showed shots ringing out as plumes of smoke engulfed the sky. As authorities attempted to crack down on the unrest, demonstrators threw rocks at security forces. This comes as the latest show of defiance against a warning issued by Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Hossein Salami.
Last week, Salami had told protesters that Saturday will be their last day of taking to the streets, in a sign that security forces will intensify their crackdown on unrest sweeping the country. According to human rights organizations, the crackdown of security forces on protests resulted in killing at least 300, including 45 minors, injuring hundreds, and thousands of arrests. Arrests of lawyers in the southern city of Shiraz rose to eight. According to Human Rights Watch, in addition to mass arrests of protesters, intelligence agencies have arrested 130 human rights defenders, 38 women rights defenders, 36 political activists, 19 lawyers, and 38 journalists, the majority of whom remained in detention.

Iran seeking nuclear help from Russia in exchange for weapons -CNN
CNN/November 04/2022
Weapons trade between Russia and Iran has expanded significantly in the last several months, worrying members of the global community.
According to US intelligence officials, Iran is angling for Russia's help in fortifying its nuclear program in return for supplying weapons for the war with Ukraine, CNN reported on Friday. Iran has been attempting to acquire additional nuclear materials from Russia, as well as get help with nuclear fuel fabrication, sources told CNN. The fuel, powering Iran's nuclear reactors, may bring the Islamic Republic significantly closer to creating a nuclear weapon. However, CNN's sources did highlight that the nuclear proliferation risk is highly dependent on which reactor the fuel goes to. Also, Russia has not stated any intentions to provide the requested aid. Zelensky's predictions In an Oct. 24 interview with Haaretz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touched on the exchange of weapons between the two nations, saying: "How did this alliance of theirs become possible? I will tell you. ...In eight months of full-scale war, Russia has used almost 4,500 missiles against us. And their stock of missiles is dwindling. This is why Russia went looking for affordable weapons in other countries to continue terror. It found them in Iran." Zelensky continued, saying "I have a question for you – how does Russia pay Iran for this, in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear program."
Concerns for Israel
Weapons trade between Russia and Iran has expanded significantly in the last several months, worrying members of the global community who may be future targets of such an alliance - specifically, Israel. Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Dmitryo Kuleba about Iran's role in the war between Russia and Ukraine on Oct. 20, and “emphasized the deep concern and the military ties between Iran and Russia,” according to the Prime Minister's office. In an earlier interview with the independent Russian-language news channel RTVI, Lapid said, “The relations between Iran and Russia are a serious problem not only for Israel but for Ukraine, Europe and the rest of the world. The fact that Russia is using Iranian UAVs to kill Ukrainian civilians is unacceptable.”
*Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.

Putin endorses evacuation of parts of Ukraine's Kherson region
Reuters/November 04/2022
Ukrainian forces have been advancing in recent weeks in the only Russian-held pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro, a strategically vital foothold which Moscow reinforced with thousands of troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed the evacuation of civilians from parts of Ukraine's southern Kherson region on Friday, the latest sign of Russia's retreat in one of the most hotly contested areas in Ukraine. "Now, of course, those who live in Kherson should be removed from the zone of the most dangerous actions, because the civilian population should not suffer," Putin told pro-Kremlin activists as he marked Russia's Day of National Unity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Moscow has already been ferrying people out of an area it controls in Kherson on the west bank of the Dinpro River, and this week announced that the evacuation zone would also include a 15 km buffer area on the east bank. But the comments appear to be the first time Putin has endorsed the evacuations personally.Russia says it has been taking residents to safety from the path of a Ukrainian advance. Kyiv says the measures have included forced deportations of civilians out of Russian-occupied territory, a war crime, which Russia denies. Kherson is one of four Ukrainian provinces Putin claimed to have annexed at the end of September. Ukrainian forces have been advancing in recent weeks in the only Russian-held pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro, a strategically vital foothold which Moscow had reinforced with thousands of troops. On Thursday, Vladimir Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed occupation administration in Kherson, said Russia was likely to withdraw its troops from the west bank of the river. In later remarks, Stremousov was more equivocal, saying he hoped there would be no retreat but "we have to take some very difficult decisions."Kyiv has been wary, saying the signs of a Russian pullout could be deception to lure its troops into a trap. A day after Stremousov's remarks, there was silence from higher-ups in Moscow about the prospect of a military retreat. Speculation has swirled over whether Russia was pulling out, since photos circulated on the internet on Thursday showing the main administrative building in Kherson city with Russia's flag no longer flying atop it.
Loss of Kherson will be severe blow to Russian war effort
The regional capital, which is located on the west bank at the mouth of the Dnipro, is the only big city Russia has captured intact since its invasion in February. Its loss for Russian forces would be one of the severest blows of the war. The surrounding province controls land access to Russian-occupied Crimea, and securing it was one of the few successes of an otherwise disastrous Russian campaign. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said he "certainly" believed Ukrainian forces could retake the Russian-held area on the west bank, in perhaps his most optimistic comments on the counter-offensive to date. "Most importantly, the Ukrainians believe they have the capability to do that. We have seen them engage in a very methodical but effective effort to take back their sovereign territory." A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some Russian military commanders had already moved across the river to the east, effectively abandoning the troops under their command on the opposite bank. "We would assess that in Kherson, it's likely that most echelons of command have withdrawn now across the river to the east, leaving pretty demoralized and often in some cases leaderless troops to face off Ukrainians on the other side," the official said.

Biden's goal to 'free Iran' met with derision from Raisi, Amirabdollahian
Reuters/November 04/2022
Biden did not expand on his remarks or specify what additional actions he would take during the remarks at MiraCosta College near San Diego. US President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed to "free" Iran and said that demonstrators working against the country's government would soon succeed in freeing themselves. "Don't worry, we're gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon," Biden said during a wide-ranging campaign speech in California, as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside holding banners supporting Iranian protesters. Biden did not expand on his remarks or specify what additional actions he would take during the remarks at MiraCosta College near San Diego. The White House's National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Seven weeks of demonstrations in Iran were ignited by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran's morality police.The protests triggered by Amini's death on Sept. 16 have shown the defiance of many young Iranians in challenging the clerical leadership, overcoming fear that has stifled dissent in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The United States on Wednesday said it will try to remove Iran from the 45-member UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) over the government's denial of women's rights and brutal crackdown on protests. Iran is just starting a four-year term on the commission, which meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. President Raisi, Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian respond Iran's hardline president on Friday said that Iran had been freed by the 1979 Islamic revolution, responding to a vow by US President Joe Biden to "free Iran.""I am telling Biden that Iran was freed 43 years ago," President Ebrahim Raisi said in a live televised speech. Responding to US President Joe Biden's vow to "free Iran," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Friday: "Mr. Biden, stop your hypocritical behavior.""The White House has increasingly promoted violence and terror in the recent riots in Iran, while at the same time it is trying to reach a nuclear agreement," Amirabdollahian said in a tweet.

Russian military takes deadly measures against deserters in Ukraine war - UK intel
Jerusalem Post/November 04/2022
Russian generals likely wanted their commanders to use weapons against deserters, stated the British Defence Ministry, including possibly authorizing shooting to kill such defaulters after a warning. Due to low morale and reluctance to fight in Ukraine, Russian forces have probably started deploying “barrier troops” or “blocking units” which threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to compel offensives and have been used in previous conflicts by Russian forces, according to a Friday morning intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defence. Russian generals likely wanted their commanders to use weapons against deserters, stated the British Defence Ministry, including possibly authorizing shooting to kill deserters after giving a warning. Friday's intelligence update also posited that Russian generals likely wanted to maintain defensive positions in Ukraine to the death. The tactic of shooting deserters likely attests to the low quality, low morale and indiscipline of Russian forces, according to the update. President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization of the Russian military reserves on Sept. 21, 2022, which he then declared complete on Oct. 28. Immediately following the mobilization announcement, tens of thousands of Russians fled — or attempted to flee — the country to escape the draft. More than half of Russians were fearful or anxious about Putin's mobilization, according to a poll released by the independent Levada Center on Sept. 29, 2022, just over one week after the announcement.
Ill-equipped and poorly trained
Western and Ukrainian intelligence sources reported throughout September and October that Russian newly-mobilized Russian reservist troops were ill-equipped and poorly trained for combat.In mid-October, the Russian news site Mediazona reported that "the officers of the military commissariats in Moscow came to charity centers that provide shelter and food to the needy and homeless, as well as hostels where migrant workers live, and forced them to enlist in the Russian army." This was most likely in an effort to reach the mobilization quota of 300,000 new troops.
However, new troops forced to serve in the military, whether they are poor, migrant workers or everyday Russian citizens, reportedly lack food, uniforms, money and places to sleep, according to a statement published by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in early October.

Israel's Netanyahu launches talks on forming government
Agence France Presse/November 04/2022
Veteran hawk Benjamin Netanyahu launched negotiations Friday with his ultra-Orthodox and far-right allies on forming what could be the most right-wing government in Israel's history, raising concerns at home and abroad. Netanyahu's Likud party won 32 seats in Israel's 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, according to the latest official results of the election released on Thursday night. That combined with 18 for two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and 14 for the rising extreme-right alliance called Religious Zionism gave the right-wing bloc supporting Netanyahu 64 seats. The centrist bloc of outgoing caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats, marking a definitive win for Netanyahu and an end to Israel's unprecedented era of political deadlock, which forced five elections in less than four years. That will likely mean prominent roles for the co-leaders of far-right Religious Zionism, which doubled its representation at Tuesday's election. "Where are they headed?" said the headline of the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper with pictures of Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extreme-right figure who looks set to be a major player in the new administration. "It's going to be an unprecedented government," columnist Sima Kadmon wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily. "Most of the important portfolios will be in the hands of fanatics... everybody knows that if only a fraction of what the new government promised to do is carried out, this is going to be a different country with a different system of government," she added.
- Ministries for far-right -
The election result came amid the backdrop of soaring violence between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel army said its fighter jets early Friday targeted a rocket manufacturing site in the blockaded Gaza Strip, in response to several rockets fired towards Israel. On Thursday four Palestinians, including an assailant, were killed by Israeli forces in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced "deep concern" about the violence and called for de-escalation. Ben-Gvir, a firebrand known for anti-Arab rhetoric and incendiary calls for Israel to annex the entire West Bank, has said he wants to be public security minister in the new government, a post that would put him in charge of the police. In recent days, Ben-Gvir has called repeatedly for the security services to use more force in countering Palestinian unrest. "It's time we go back to being masters of our country," Ben-Gvir said on election night. Since clinching his comeback after roughly 14 months in opposition, the 73-year-old Netanyahu has already instructed Yariv Levin, a close ally, to begin talks with Religious Zionism over portfolios.
Religious Zionism's Bezalel Smotrich has publicly said he wants to be defence minister. On the ultra-Orthodox wing of the alliance, Shas party head Aryeh Deri, invigorated by winning 11 seats, is also expected to play a major role in the government, with his eyes on either the interior or finance ministries.
'International legitimacy'
Netanyahu was aware that propelling right-wing figures into key positions could "damage" relations abroad, said Shlomo Fischer of the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. "Bibi does not want Ben Gvir and Deri to lead the dance," he told AFP. "He is very careful. He does not want to lose his international legitimacy... I think he could try to widen his coalition to minimize their influence." News of Netanyahu's dramatic return was greeted by right-wing and nationalist leaders around the world: Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban were among the first to offer their congratulations. Yet other tradition allies of Israel were more cautious. While declining to speculate on the government make-up, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington hoped "that all Israeli government officials will continue to share the values of an open, democratic society including tolerance and respect for all in civil society, particularly for minority groups." Britain called on "all Israeli parties to refrain from inflammatory language and demonstrate tolerance and respect for minority groups," in a statement, just hours after rejecting suggestions by previous UK prime minister Liz Truss that its embassy in Israel could be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

G7 ministers rally support for Ukraine, suspicion of China
Associated Press/November 04/2022
Top diplomats from the world's major industrialized democracies on Friday rallied support for Ukraine in its resistance to Russia's invasion and coalesced around suspicion of China's increasing assertiveness amid a panoply of global crises. Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations, wrapping up two days of talks in the historic western German city of Muenster, were set to release a statement asserting common positions on Ukraine, Russia, China and recent developments in Iran and North Korea, officials said. A year after warning Russia about the consequences of invading Ukraine, the G-7 ministers were expected to endorse further punishments for the Kremlin and additional backing for Kyiv and countries affected by food and energy shortages that the war has exacerbated, the officials said. "It is incredibly important that we retain our strategic endurance, the willingness to stick with this until this is done, both to support the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against aggression but also to lift the pressure off those countries around the world, those people around the world who are already experiencing food insecurity and are pushed even closer to famine," British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.
Along with the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States comprise the G-7. The ministers will also call out Iran for allegedly supplying weapons to Russia and a brutal crackdown on antigovernment protesters. Their statement will further condemn the recent escalation of tensions in Asia caused by North Korean military activity. "As a collective G-7, our work is to ensure that we maintain peace, bring back peace also to the region, and we are there to protect these international norms," Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.
One senior U.S. official said the group of advanced economies had demonstrated "remarkable" unity on virtually all major issues despite often competing domestic interests and priorities, particularly in regards to China's growing economic clout and global ambitions even as the leader of G-7 host Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits Beijing.
In a side meeting between Cleverly, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their French and German counterparts, the State Department said the four had agreed on the need for "consistent support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's brutal war of aggression" and had also discussed a common approach to "Iran's military support of Russia and its violent crackdown and suppression of the Iranian people." However, it remains unclear how much influence the G-7 actually wields. Its warnings to Russian President Vladimir Putin last December to stay out of Ukraine went unheeded. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has sided with Moscow and is forging ahead with plans to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force, if necessary. In the meantime, Iran has ignored calls to return to a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, started to supply weapons to assist Russia in the Ukraine war, and launched a major crackdown on domestic dissent. Similarly, North Korea has shunned appeals to return to nuclear negotiations and stepped up missile launches, raising tensions and fears of an open conflict. In Germany, many have noted the historic significance of the venue where the G-7 ministers were meeting: the room where the Treaty of Westphalia ending Europe's bloody 30 Years War was signed in 1648. Blinken referred to the 374-year-old document at a Thursday event with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. He said Russia's actions in Ukraine were an attack on the concepts of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that many believe the centuries-old treaty established. "These are the very principles that are being challenged today by Russia," Blinken said. "If we let that be challenged with impunity, then the foundations of the international order will start to erode and eventually crumble, and none of us can afford to let that happen."On China, the G-7 was expected to further harmonize joint policies related to Chinese investment in their countries and to caution Beijing against antagonistic moves against Taiwan. Scholz is visiting Beijing this week, becoming the first European and G-7 leader to make the trip since the war in Ukraine began. Chinese investment in a major port project in Germany has raised concerns in Washington and other capitals that China might gain a controlling interest in critical infrastructure in the heart of an allied country. The visit has drawn criticism over China's tacit support for Russia, and for coming after Xi cemented his authoritarian rule at a Communist Party congress last month. But it reflects the importance of Germany's trade ties with China, the world's second-largest economy.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 04-05/2022
تحليل مهم وموثق من موقع التابليت، للكاتبين طوني بدران وليل يبوفيتز، يتناول بالعمق معاني وتأثيرات فوز نتنياهو المعروف ببي بالإنتخابات الإسرائيلية، وكيفية تفاعلاته السلبية والإيجابية على لبنان وسوريا وإيران وعلى سياسات بايدن والعرب مواجهة نظام الملالي الإرهابي واذرعته وفي مقدمها حزب الله
Bibi Wins!
Israel’s political iron man inherits a hatful of tsuris
Liel Leibovitz and Tony Badran/The Tablet/November 04/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113179/113179/
What to make of Bibi Netanyahu’s decisive electoral victory?
We’ll leave the squawking about the end of democracy and the brink of war to the same bien-pensants who sang the exact same tune last time around, only to grow considerably quieter when Bibi, backed by President Donald Trump, managed to usher in a large-scale Israeli-Arab peace initiative that had, for decades, eluded our self-appointed intellectual and moral betters.
For now, it seems to us, two questions need addressing, one domestic and relatively trivial and the other regional and deeply significant.
The silly one first: What kind of coalition will Bibi build?
The votes are still being counted as we write, so it remains to be seen precisely how many building blocks Bibi has at his disposal. He may yet reveal himself to be an even more skilled operator than even his bitterest foes believe, seducing poor Benny Gantz into a center-right coalition and sidelining the Betzalel Smotrich-Itamar Ben-Gvir coalition he’d midwifed. This will put him with upwards of 70 seats in the Knesset, which he can make even stronger—numerically and symbolically—by welcoming in the conservative Muslim Ra’am party. Or he can opt for a narrower hard right coalition with Smotrich, et al.
It hardly matters, mainly because his political opponents have proven themselves to be catastrophically inept, making basic tactical errors that everyone could see coming and no one found fit to avoid. Yair Lapid, hailed by many in Israel and stateside as a graceful politician, campaigned hard for his own party, which left him with 24 seats—his strongest showing ever—and absolutely no one left to play with, his own successful efforts having singlehandedly decimated his entire delicate political coalition. To his left, Meretz and Labor, awash with big egos and petty grievances, shunned a joint run earlier this year; now, one is likely out of the Knesset for the first time ever and the other will be fortunate to retain five seats. Avigdor Lieberman, too, whose personal grievances launched this electoral tsunami five cycles and nearly four years ago, is on the verge of political extinction, proving that saying much and doing nothing makes for a very limited political shelf life.
Any way you spin it, the outcome is clear: Bibi remains the only adult in the room, and whatever political decision he makes right now is still likely to give him the breathing room he needs to form a relatively stable coalition. Mazal tov. Now, on to the important stuff.
Outside of the airless world of punditry, elections are not about the mere manifestation of political power; they’re about real-world consequences, and, for Israel, no consequences could be more meaningful than the regional and geopolitical ones that determine its security and well-being. Upon his return to office, then, Bibi’s first task would be to look soberly at all that had happened since he left it last June.
He’s not likely to like what he sees.
Sharing his former boss’s commitment to regional realignment that rewards the Iranians, President Joseph Biden has aggressively championed policies furthering that disastrous end. Under the Biden administration, the realignment agenda has been dubbed “regional integration”—namely, forcing U.S. allies to prop up Iranian so-called “equities” on their borders.
“A more secure and integrated Middle East,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia this summer, “benefits Americans in many ways … A region that’s coming together through diplomacy and cooperation—rather than coming apart through conflict—is less likely to give rise to violent extremism that threatens our homeland or new wars that could place new burdens on U.S. military forces and their families.”
What kind of diplomacy did the president have in mind? The answer, as Bibi knows full well, is twofold: First, robustly revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran deal, which remains the administration’s foreign policy crown jewel even as Iranian mullahs are murdering Iranian women for refusing to wear the hijab and as Iranian drones, deployed by Putin’s soldiers, are murdering civilians in Ukraine. Second, a laser focus on Lebanon—significant only because it is an Iranian holding—which has forced Israel to sign the disastrous maritime border deal with Lebanon, a deal that benefits no one but Hezbollah, Tehran’s terrorist proxy.
That last point is likely to be particularly hard for Bibi to swallow. Not even Naftali Bennett, his onetime aide turned successor, agreed to sign the deal. It took Lapid, a stunningly inept statesman, to be cajoled by the White House into giving away a lot for nothing. Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, knows that, too, which is why he took the bold step of sending his drones to attack an Israeli gas rig on July 1 this year. It was, not coincidentally, also the very day Lapid began his tenure as prime minister.
How might Bibi disentangle himself from this mess? The answer could be relatively simple: Sidle up to the Saudis.
Riyadh, too, understands very well that Biden’s policies, like Obama’s, are explicitly pro-Iranian, which is why its relationship with Washington had cooled to an unprecedented degree. This is why the Saudis supported, however implicitly, the Abraham Accords, which they understood, correctly, to be an anti-Iranian effort to align the interests of regional countries opposed to the murderous mullahs and their regime. It was no coincidence that the White House advertised its “regional integration” agenda on the eve of Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia. The message couldn’t have been clearer: The administration’s objective is not to further advance Israeli-Saudi alignment in the context of the anti-Iran framework of the Abraham Accords. Rather, it was to force Jerusalem and Riyadh to “integrate” Iranian holdings.
It makes perfect sense, then, for the Saudis and the Israelis to deepen their cooperation now that the Biden administration is cracking down on the former and about to do the same on the latter. And if they needed any further incentive to distance themselves from Biden and his explicitly harmful policies, the Saudis and the Israelis are likely counting on a Republican surge in next week’s midterms, as well as on Biden’s shockingly low poll numbers. It’s a great time for both to make this the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
That, however, would require some dancing, both from within and without. At home, Bibi will need to make sure that his coalition understands his priorities full well. This may prove challenging if Gantz chooses to become a partner; despite arguing the opposite for most of his career, he eventually lent his support to the disastrous deal with Lebanon, another in a line of long political miscalculations. If he now becomes Bibi’s minister of defense, he’ll have some ‘splaining to do, and a tough time disentangling himself from the assurances he’d given Washington.
More meaningfully, the Saudis themselves will need to adjust their attitude to their Arab Peace Initiative. The Saudi attachment to the API is understandable. It has been a signature initiative, which underscores the Saudi position of leadership in the Arab world. However, the world has changed dramatically since 2001. The API, for example, requires that Israel returns to the so-called 1967 borders, which, among other things, would mean giving up the Golan Heights. This is not only out of the question for Israel, but also not at all in the Saudi interest, as the Iranian satrapy of Syria isn’t exactly a staunch ally of the House of Saud. Also, the API’s key promise—it’s raison d’etre, really—was promising to normalize the Israeli-Arab relationship across the board and the region; the Abraham Accords already achieved that in large part, and did so only because of Saudi tacit approval. So while the API and the Abraham Accords aren’t exactly aligned policy frameworks, Israel and Saudi Arabia have enough threats, challenges, and opportunities in common to compel them to forge an alliance in defiance of Washington’s embrace of the Islamic Republic.
It’s an alliance that may not seem so promising to folks stateside. Americans like to talk about “peace in the Middle East” as both a salvic rite and an achievable goal that gives people warm feelings that they variously connect to the Old and/or New Testament and/or to secular ideas of human progress. Residents of the Middle East, historically at the mercy of greater powers and of the sharp swords of their neighbors, think in terms of allies and enemies. For Americans, what matters about the Abraham Accords is the promise of the title: The uniting of the children of Abraham. What matters most in the Middle East is the promise of a hard security architecture to protect against Iranian militias, drones, and missiles. That’s why the Abraham Accords and the Lebanese maritime deal, as a manifestation of the “regional integration” framework, while both ostensibly promising some kind of “peace,” are in fact radically opposing concepts that are at war with each other. The Abraham Accords means Israel, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia uniting against Iran and its proxies under a U.S. security umbrella; the purpose of the Lebanon maritime deal, according to its American authors, is to “integrate” Iran and its allies into the region under the same U.S. security umbrella.
See the difference? In the Abraham Accords, Israel’s alliance with the Gulf States to counter Iran is backed by America. In Lebanon, the U.S. is aligned with Iran through its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, to which Israel is required to gift a potentially valuable gas field that it formerly controlled. In the first case, Israel and the Gulf wins, backed by America. In the second case, Iran and Hezbollah win, with American backing, under the fig leaf of a fictional entity called Lebanon.
It’s this exact security-minded worldview that may yet give the API a new lease on life under Bibi’s new government. Like the Abraham Accords, the API has to be reinvented as having less to do with a vision of a regionwide peace in which mankind will beat its swords into plowshares than with regional alliances and hard security structures. In that context, the API remains critically important, as an Israeli—and American—acknowledgement of Saudi primacy within the Arab world. The API will therefore remain the starting point for Saudi-Israeli relations even if all the things it supposedly requires are shunted off to the sidelines. The details are all negotiable; the acknowledgement of Saudi primacy is not. In that sense, the transformation of the API into a bilateral Saudi-Israeli agreement is less of a reach than the words on paper make it seem—the main opponent of such an agreement being not Israelis or Saudis but the Biden administration, which sees Iran as primary.
It’s not likely that an Israeli-Saudi alliance, inspired as it may be, would be able to curb all of the Biden administration’s worst instincts. But it could certainly send a very strong and united message to the White House that its attempt to force Riyadh and Jerusalem into its pro-Iran “integration” scheme will fail, and that security interests, not media affirmations, will guide both Jerusalem and Riyadh moving forward. That is a complicated task requiring real vision and capabilities. Thankfully, the best man for the job is now back at the helm.
*Liel Leibovitz is editor at large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One.
*Tony Badran is Tablet magazine’s Levant analyst and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/bibi-wins

Why is the Left so Afraid of Twitter?
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/November 04/2022
We have nothing to fear from the demoralizing of some if others are left free to demonstrate their errors, and especially the law stands ready to punish the first criminal act produced by false reasoning. These are safer correctives than the conscience of a judge." — Thomas Jefferson, 1801.
Jefferson's distrust of "the conscience of a judge" would probably be even greater if the censors were the CEOs of companies that rely on advertisers for their profits.
[C]ensorship requires censors, and once censors are given the ability to pick and choose what the public will hear, this slippery slope moves us away from freedom and toward repression.
The issue is whether in an open society we must endure these pains in order to avoid being in even great pains of selective censorship.
The Framers of the First Amendment chose to endure the pain of too much speech over the dangers of speech controlled by the government. But Twitter is not the government. Neither is Facebook or YouTube. They are giant media companies that dominate and control the flow of speech throughout the world. And the dangers of putting control of those flows in the hands of invisible elitist censors threatens to undercut our most important freedom.
The first casualty of divisive extremism is nuance. And it is nuance that is sorely needed with regard to this issue of internet censorship.... Let nuanced proposals be offered and discussed.
And most important, let free speech not become weaponized as a partisan issue.
A campaign is underway by left-wing organizations and politicians to demand that Twitter continue its practice of censoring hate speech and other "objectionable" postings. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are giant media companies that dominate and control the flow of speech throughout the world. And the dangers of putting control of those flows in the hands of invisible elitist censors threatens to undercut our most important freedom. Pictured: Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, on October 28, 2022 . (Photo by Constanza Hevia/AFP via Getty Images)
A campaign is currently underway by left-wing organizations and politicians to demand that Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, continue its practice of censoring hate speech and other "objectionable" postings.
A letter sent to Twitter's top 20 advertisers, signed by 40 activist organizations, including the NAACP, the Center for American Progress, GLAAD and the Global Project Against Hate and extremism, contained the following veiled threat:
"We, the undersigned organizations call on you to notify Musk and publicly commit that you will cease all advertising on Twitter globally if he follows through on his plans to undermine brand safety and community standards, including gutting content moderation."
This means that Musk must not roll back what Twitter has on the books now, and commit to enforcing the existing rules. In other words, Twitter advertisers have been asked to boycott Twitter unless it continues to censor.
Decades ago, during the height of McCarthyism, it was the hard right that demanded censorship, while the left insisted that the marketplace of ideas should be left open to all forms of speech.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1801:
"[W]e have nothing to fear from the demoralizing of some if others are left free to demonstrate their errors, and especially the law stands ready to punish the first criminal act produced by false reasoning. These are safer correctives than the conscience of a judge."
Jefferson's distrust of "the conscience of a judge" would probably be even greater if the censors were the CEOs of companies that rely on advertisers for their profits.
At a time of growing division, hostility and violence, it is understandable to look to censorship as the easy solution to a difficult problem. But censorship requires censors, and once censors are given the ability to pick and choose what the public will hear, this slippery slope moves us away from freedom and toward repression.
I certainly do not like the kind of anti-Semitic hate speech that is pervasive on many of today's internet platforms and I am the recipient of these emails and tweets on an almost daily basis. Free speech is not free. The old expression that "sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" is false. Names hurt me, my family and others. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether in an open society we must endure these pains in order to avoid being in even great pains of selective censorship.
The Framers of the First Amendment chose to endure the pain of too much speech over the dangers of speech controlled by the government. But Twitter is not the government. Neither is Facebook or YouTube. They are giant media companies that dominate and control the flow of speech throughout the world. And the dangers of putting control of those flows in the hands of invisible elitist censors threatens to undercut our most important freedom.
This is the most important free speech issue that will be faced during the remainder of the 21st century: whether to tolerate untrammeled and sometimes even dangerous freedom of speech or to demand private censorship of the kind that the government could not impose.
Some have proposed that we treat giant social media companies like "common carriers," such as railroads and telegraph companies. But under the First Amendment, placing controls over public speech is different from regulating travel and even personal telegraph communications.
One manifestation of the divisiveness of our nation is that complex issues of this kind are rarely debated dispassionately and intelligently. Instead, people are forced to choose sides: are you for Musk or against him? Are you for controls on internet speech or against it? The first casualty of divisive extremism is nuance. And it is nuance that is sorely needed with regard to this issue of internet censorship. Let nuanced proposals be offered and discussed. Let us not rush to judgment about so important and complex issues. And most important, let free speech not become weaponized as a partisan issue.
*Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of The Price of Principle: Why Integrity Is Worth The Consequences. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.
© 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.

Inside Saudi Arabia: A Trip Report
Robert Satloff, David Schenker/Washington Insitute/November 04/2022
After leading an extensive group visit throughout the kingdom, Washington Institute scholars offer insights from their encounters with leaders in government, religion, business, and culture.
On November 3, The Washington Institute held a virtual Policy Forum with Executive Director Robert Satloff and Taube Senior Fellow David Schenker, who recently led a thirty-person delegation of Institute trustees and staff on a weeklong visit to Saudi Arabia. The following is a summary of Dr. Satloff’s insights; Mr. Schenker’s remarks and the Q&A session will be summarized separately.
Itinerary
The Washington Institute delegation visited five cities in seven days—Riyadh, Abha, Dammam, al-Ula, and Jeddah—traveling throughout the kingdom to see different topography and geography, observe various aspects of Saudi society and culture, and assess the status of political, economic, and sociocultural reform. In addition to political meetings, the group spent an evening with artists at a contemporary gallery; visited King Saud University’s artificial intelligence center and met with a mixed group of male and female students; visited the small and medium enterprise promotion center and met with high-tech start-up entrepreneurs; visited Aramco headquarters to meet its corporate leadership and see its operations; traveled to the Nabatean monuments of al-Ula, a major target of tourism investment; visited the Riyadh “giga-project” of Dariyah, a massive UNESCO site where Saudis are rewriting their national origin story; and spent an enjoyable evening in the Boulevard zone of the Riyadh Season festival, where thousands of Saudis were playing, eating, and listening to music.
In the course of their trip, the delegation met with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and an array of other officials: the defense minister, foreign minister, minister of state for foreign affairs, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, chief of the Joint Forces Command, the Human Rights Commission, and various U.S. and British diplomats. None of these officials will be cited individually, and none of the observations below should be ascribed to any particular one of them.
Key Themes
Five words sum up my main thematic observations:
Grievance. Senior leaders acknowledged serious errors such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but complained that the kingdom gets blamed “ten times” more than other countries that commit similar or more extensive abuses, especially America’s adversaries. They also bitterly noted what they believe was U.S. indifference to Saudi security concerns, specifically citing the withdrawal of Patriot air defense systems, the decision to remove Yemen’s Houthi movement from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, and the suspended delivery of weapons systems for which Riyadh had already paid.
Ambition. Saudi Arabia’s national security strategy is based on growth, and the leadership’s ambition in this regard is impressive. Senior leaders expressed great pride at having the fastest-growing G20 economy (at a rate of 7.5-8 percent), increasing its GDP to more than $1 trillion while maintaining an enviable inflation rate of just 2.5 percent. And the kingdom’s future is characterized by massive projects involving trillions of dollars in investments. There is wide recognition that this would not be possible without the talents of Saudi women—female workforce participation has grown dramatically, more than doubling from the mid-teens to above 30 percent in less than a decade.
Identity. One of the most striking aspects of our trip was seeing the emergence of a strong, self-assured Saudi nationalism in which Islam is just one of many attributes, not a determinative or particularly central one. Saudis made a point of showing us examples of this nationalism: the Dariyah project in Riyadh, which tells the story of the first Saudi state 300 years ago without referencing the religious hierarchy; the Aramco headquarters compound, which is designed to project competence and professionalism; and al-Ula, which celebrates the achievements of a pre-Islamic culture in the Arabian Peninsula.
Energy. This word has a dual meaning for Saudis today: energy in terms of oil, which Riyadh is betting will remain the key ingredient of global growth for many decades even with a major push on renewables; and energy in terms of the human drive to create, innovate, and grow, which we saw in numerous settings, from universities to tech start-ups.
Uncertainty. Despite this impressive progress, several questions remain. One concerns the “losers” in the current reforms—that is, the morality police and conservative religious leaders who have been stripped of power and authority, along with others from the older generation for whom change is disruptive and threatening. Where does this minority stand on the kingdom’s evolving future? Why are they being so quiet, and what might trigger them to vocally oppose the ongoing transformation? A second question concerns the oddly dissonant aspect of human rights. In contrast to Riyadh’s polished, well-crafted approach to many other issues, official discussion of human rights remains tone-deaf. How can the kingdom be cutting-edge in so many areas of reform yet so backward in this area?
Observations on Foreign Policy
U.S. relations. We are clearly facing a moment of great tension in U.S.-Saudi relations—a moment that some characterize as “the worst since the 1973 war.” My view is that the two governments will work through their current disagreement over oil production, and that the level of recrimination will likely dip over the next two months. However, I fear that the relationship’s foundation is weakening. The fact that the empowered poles of the American political spectrum—the progressive left and the “America First” right—will increasingly be in a position to clash directly with a more assertive, nationalistic, and audacious Saudi Arabia is a recipe for fracturing the bilateral partnership. Both governments say they need and want each other as partners, but both are simultaneously taking measures that signal they are prioritizing self-interest, not cooperation. This cycle has the potential to feed on itself in a highly destructive way.
Iran. Broadly speaking, Saudi leaders say that economic growth is the heart of their strategy to defeat their main adversary in Tehran. According to this view, a strong, vibrant, self-assured Saudi economic powerhouse will leave the Islamic Republic in the dust. But fear of Iranian ambitions and capabilities is real. The kingdom is convinced that Tehran is on a mission to gain nuclear weapons capability within the next two years, and senior officials believe that if the regime succeeds, it will not hesitate to use the bomb, either directly—against Israel—or indirectly as a lever to bully the region. Saudi leaders say they have yet to hear a realistic and detailed Plan B to prevent this given that the diplomatic Plan A (reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is, in their view, no longer operative. They also warn that if Iran gets a bomb, Washington should expect Saudi foreign policy to shift in order to accommodate Tehran and safeguard the kingdom’s security—hardly surprising when one considers that this scenario would mean the emphatic nonproliferation promises of successive U.S. presidents had been hollow.
Yemen. However one characterizes the Yemen war, Saudi Arabia clearly wants out of the conflict today. But it is not at all clear that the Houthis and their Iranian backers will go along with this. Indeed, at this moment of U.S.-Saudi tension, Tehran is presumably keen on testing how Washington will respond if the Houthis or Iran-backed militias in Iraq start launching rockets or drones into the kingdom again. This is a very real and urgent concern.
Israel. Five years ago, when a similar Washington Institute delegation visited Riyadh, we heard senior leadership characterize Israel as a “potential ally.” Now we see evidence of creeping normalization all around, with businesspeople, bankers, and athletes beginning to visit the kingdom in their professional capacities.
Yet one would be mistaken to conclude that full normalization is right around the corner. This is not due to lack of progress on the Palestinian issue, but rather to the fact that normalization—while certainly beneficial to the Saudis—is less important to them than it was to the states that signed onto the Abraham Accords. For one thing, the kingdom will be grappling with other major political, social, and economic reforms and has to carefully consider the manner and order in which they are implemented. Two such reforms on the agenda are lifting the ban on alcohol consumption (which will most likely begin with restricted tourist zones where drinking is permitted) and allowing organized non-Muslim prayer (likely a consequence of Riyadh’s requirement that major corporations move their regional headquarters to the kingdom in order to do business with the government). A society can only take so much reform at any one time, and normalization with Israel would compete with these items.
Still, we heard some remarkable talk about this issue, including a proposal from a very senior Saudi official that normalization could occur more rapidly if the United States were willing to take three major steps toward the kingdom:
A congressionally endorsed affirmation of the U.S.-Saudi alliance
A commitment to follow through on weapons supplies as though Saudi Arabia were a NATO-like country (the fact that it is not on the lengthy list of “major non-NATO allies” must rankle Riyadh)
An agreement that allows the Saudis to exploit their extensive uranium reserves for a restricted civil nuclear program
How much of this proposal was an opening gambit for actual talks on these issues is not clear. What is clear is that the Saudis have thought out the mechanics of what they want from Washington in exchange for normalization, similar to what other countries have sought for their own outreach to Israel. That alone suggests Riyadh is well down this path.
Bottom Line
A visitor cannot but be impressed by the pace, scope, and content of Saudi Arabia’s ongoing transformation. Americans may take many of these changes for granted (such as lifting the ban on public music), but they are revolutionary in the Saudi context. The paradox is that the kingdom has a lot more room for freedom, but not for dissent. Since the former naturally produces the latter, figuring out that conundrum will be one of Riyadh’s main challenges in the years ahead.
As the Saudis grapple with this challenge, America has a huge stake in their success—not the success of any one person, but success in completing a radical transformation. This would be the best insulation against Islamist extremism, which formerly competed with oil as Saudi Arabia’s prime export. It is also crucial to ensuring that the eventual post-oil landing is a soft one, which this part of the world will sorely need in order to avoid truly convulsive, even violent change. In my view, this is an under-recognized strategic imperative.
*The Policy Forum series is made possible through the generosity of the Florence and Robert Kaufman Family.

Important Roles Await Brazil Under Leadership of Lula da Silva
Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy/Asharq Al Awsat/November 04/2022
The Brazilian elections have just concluded. Former President Lula has accomplished a dramatic comeback by winning the elections for the Brazilian presidency. Elections that received the most international attention of all Brazilian elections since the restoration of democracy in 1985.
This is because they not only have a bearing on the future of the democratic system in Brazil and possibly the developing world but also because it took place at a time when developing countries lack effective leadership that can guide them during the political and economic instability of the present international system. With the war in Ukraine and the confrontation between Russia and the West and the possibility that this would morph into a new Cold War or as some are predicting a Third World War pitting Russia and China against the West, many developing countries are yearning for the revival of non-alignment or at least some form of neutrality.
In a previous article last May in this newspaper, I lamented about the difficulty of reviving the Non-Aligned Movement in its original form. However, I expressed the hope that a new arrangement comprised of at least some major developing countries is possible.
Brazil was never a member of NAM. But it largely observed and in fact in many instances took even more progressive positions than the movement, especially on the issue of disarmament.
On the other hand, Brazil remains one of the most active and effective members of the Group of 77 which is primarily concerned with economic matters.
Moreover, it is a member of two of the most important international economic blocs the G20 and BRICS.
During President Bolsonaro, Brazil chose to de-emphasize its traditional leadership role amongst developing countries and opted to align itself with the US on many issues, this was particularly true on the issue of the environment during the Trump administration when the dangers of environmental degradation were downplayed. A total reversal of its traditional position.
Now with the election of former President Lula, there is an expectation that Brazil may provide the required impetus to create the kind of leadership the developing world needs to manage the transition to a new world order that corresponds better to the interests of the developing countries.
Given the narrow margin the Lula won by, there is understandable skepticism about the possibility that Brazil will be able to build on the role it traditionally played in championing the cause of developing countries. During the period when Lula was president, Brazil further enhanced its profile as a leader of developing countries. Much of that stature was due to President-elect Lula being supported by first-class diplomatic corps. Lula was so effective that President Obama called him “probably the most popular politician in the world“.
But the Brazil of today is not the Brazil of 2003-2011. Then it was the sixth-largest economy.
Today Brazil is the twelfth largest economy. Since mid- 2014, it has been suffering from the worst economic crisis since the restoration of democratic rule thirty years ago.
But more importantly, it is a polarized country as the elections have demonstrated. Split virtually in the middle between left and right. Lula will have to deal with a right-wing majority not only in parliament but also amongst the governors including the three most important states: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais which account among themselves more than 40% of the total GDP of the country.
Lula will therefore face an uphill battle in seeing his domestic agenda through. In his past administration, he proved to be a pragmatist. He was able to implement the central plank of his agenda by lifting some twenty million Brazilians from poverty, while at the same time he was able to maintain a constructive relationship with the business community. This of course required skillful political maneuvering, but it was also helped by a booming economy, fuelled by high commodity prices.
The situation now is different. Lula no longer possesses ample resources to recreate the old formula. But he is a pragmatist and should be able to get the best deal for his constituents and at the same time maintain a constructive relationship with the business community which accounts for the overwhelming majority of economic activity.
However, when it comes to foreign policy matters it may be different. Like many continental countries such as the US and Russia, the majority of the Brazilian population pays scant attention to the outside world. This affords the Brazilian President and his government ample leeway in pursuing an active foreign policy. While Brazilian diplomacy favored economic and trade agendas under Presidents Sarney, Collor, and Cardozo ( 1985 - 2002), the rationale was that issues of trade and development, particularly easing trade barriers for developing countries, de-politicization of foreign aid and transfer of technology, were the were fundamental to extricate Brazil from the economic crisis it was facing.
Under Presidents Lula and Rousseff, Brazil widened its agenda to include peace and security, environment, and human rights.
It is therefore expected that Brazil under Lula will resume a leadership role on the entire gamut of international affairs.
On economic matters, it will be aided by the fact that it is a member of the G20 and BRICS. It also enjoys excellent relations with not only the US and Europe but also Russia and China. In fact, China is now Brazil’s most important trade partner accounting for 32.41% of its total foreign trade (compared to 10.34% for the US). Brazil is also one of the largest recipients of direct foreign investments from the EU. It also maintains very close relations with many African and Asian countries, particularly India, Indonesia, and South Korea.
On political matters, Brazil is in a unique position to take a balanced and constructive position.
Brazil could afford to adopt a neutral position on most international political matters because it does not have real enemies. Although it shares frontiers with nine countries, it has not fought a war since the Paraguayan War ( 1864-1870 ). Also its large size and relatively long distance from Europe, Asia, and Africa, where most of the conflicts took place, together with the flexibility afforded by the lack of ideological orientation of the regime - military or civilian- afforded it the luxury of being able to take a balanced position. It was therefore content to adhere to a position of strict adherence to the principles and purposes of the UN Charter. Today with the possibility of a new Cold war casting its shadow, the world desperately needs an active core of developing countries that enjoy balanced relations with the main protagonists that are competing to shape the international system.
Also given the rising rhetoric about the possible use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a renewed effort on arms control and disarmament is badly needed. Serious deliberations and negotiations on disarmament issues have been neglected for too long. Brazil, under President Lula, can contribute to the much-needed leadership in this regard.
No serious reform of the international system is possible without the reform of the UN, in particular the Security Council as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Brazil elected 11 times as a non-permanent member of the Security Council- more than any other non-permanent member - has the necessary experience and practical knowledge to make an important contribution towards this end.
Likewise, a reform of the Bretton Woods institution, the World Bank, is necessary for establishing a more democratic international economic system. Brazil can use its economic clout and the excellent relations it enjoys with the countries that have the largest economies to achieve this objective.
Developing countries are in desperate need of leadership.
The challenge is how to articulate a vision around which developing countries- with their diverse and sometimes contradictory interests - can coalesce, and transform that into a framework for practical action that can help developing countries effectively navigate the treacherous waters caused by the rivalry between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other.
Clearly, Brazil, under the leadership of Lula can make a substantive contribution in this regard.

Iran: Old Recipes From the Devil’s Kitchen
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/November 04/2022
The kitchen is the same, as is the chef. The ingredients are also the same. But when the witches’ brew is served in the restaurant, Chez Ayatollah, would-be clients reject it in disgust. This is the image that comes to mind as the Islamic Republic in Iran struggles to crush the latest popular revolt.
Since its inception 43 years ago the Khomeinist regime has used the same recipe with the same ingredients to save its skin: kill a few hundred, arrest a few thousand, bribe the military and security forces, browbeat celebrities, ban foreign journalists, unleash militia hounds, blame “Zionist and CIA agents”, and invent “secessionist” armed gangs and ISIS attackers coming to dismember Iran and kill innocent Shiites.
The recipe has been used against the current uprising, so far, without extinguishing the fire of anger raised by a large segment of Iranian people, notably the youth.
By the time of this writing, we had the names of 385 protesters killed, including 40 women and 32 children, and 7 security men. A further 12,500 people have been arrested according to statistics presented to the International Committee of the Red Cross. An attack on a “holy shrine” in Shiraz has been presented as an ISIS operation against Shiite worshippers, and turning the city of Zahedan into a war zone has been narrated as a riposte against terrorists invading Iran from Pakistan.
None of that, however, has bridged the credibility gap from which the Islamic Republic suffers.
“People just don’t believe what our authorities say,” complains former Islamic Majlis member Masud Pezeshkian.
Because it is clear that the old recipe doesn’t work, most of the regime’s clerical, military, business, and propaganda heavyweights have either remained silent or equivocated in commenting about the protests. This time they are not marching to the usual drum calls while an increasingly clueless “Supreme Guide” plays solitary mandolin while the city burns.
So, what to do?
This is the question that many are beginning to pose within the ruling clique.
One idea, never spelled out in direct terms, is to move away from the ayatollah’s one-man rule towards “collective leadership”.
A triumvirate, consisting of the President of the Islamic Republic, the Speaker of the ersatz parliament, and the head of the Islamic Judiciary, has held highly publicized meetings, something normally supposed to happen once in a blue moon.
Also, for the first time, people are beginning to at least hint at possible constitutional changes to merge the positions of the Supreme Guide with that of the President or have three or five mullahs form a “high council of guidance”.
Some groups, inside or on the fringes of the establishment, are calling on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to seize power and open “a new chapter in the revolution”. Desperately seeking a Bonaparte is also seducing some in the exiled opposition.
There are other recipes, however.
One is to bring the two leaders of the now defunct “Green Movement” of 2009 out of house arrest and offer the discredited “New York Boys” led by former President Hassan Rouhani a side chair close to the high table in the hope of uniting the fragmented Khomeinist constituency. The “New York Boys” might also clinch a deal with the US while the Biden administration is still, more or less, in charge in Washington.
Some in the establishment are promoting the Leninist tactic of “one step back, two steps forward” which means offering concessions now and imposing tighter control later. Thus the deeply disliked Morality Police has been taken off the streets, ostensibly for a “shortage of manpower”.
And more and more women are allowed to go about without the mandatory hijab even in the heart of Tehran.
Increasing the salaries of the army, the Islamic Revolutionary Gard, and various security forces by 20 percent is part of the same package while smaller raises in pensions are designed to mobilize the older people believed to still hold fond memories of the revolution.
Another idea is to call for a constitutional reform referendum to divert energies from the uprising in full assurance that referendums provide a safe way for dictators to re-impose their authority and help merchants of illusions to sell unicorns.
However, the challenge that the regime faces may be much bigger than its foes hope for and its friends fear.
Living in another time zone that bears no relation to reality, the Khomeinist regime is deeply anachronistic. It boasts about conquering the world for the Khomienist version of Islam while not a single nation has bought or is likely to buy that bundle. As even the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah cuts new and larger pockets to be filled with a share of gold from oil and gas joint ventures with the “Zionist enemy”, the Supreme Guide’s prophecy that Israel will evaporate reminds one of snake oil merchants.
While it lives in another time, the Khomeinist regime also thinks it lives on another planet.
It doesn’t realize that Iran is located in the middle of the deepest political fault line in the world, surrounded by enemies, false friends, and contemptuous neighbors. The Supreme Guide boasts of his imaginary triple alliance with China and Russia to “end American domination”. But the fact is that neither China nor Russia is prepared to put a penny into the Khomeinist begging bowl.
The Khomienist system is equally challenged by a widening generational gap.
Iran has a predominantly young population that wants to live in here and now not in a distant past of fake purity or an imaginary future of martyrdom and paradise. It wants to be happy; to have fun, to create, to work, to travel across the globe in short, to enjoy a normal life. Yet the Supreme Guide repeats that he shall never allow Iran to “become a normal country.”
Wise leaders make an ally of historic and generational changes to the benefit not only of their people but also of themselves. Unwise leaders turn change into an enemy of themselves and their people, making both losers.
Even if it weathers the current storm, the Khomeinist system is on life-support and borrowed time.
Even in new versions, the old recipe from the devil’s kitchen won’t whet the Iranian people’s appetite.

The midterm map says America will turn right
John C. Hulsman/Arab News/November 04, 2022
The pioneering 20th-century Kenyan aviator Beryl Markham put it well in explaining the intellectual usefulness of maps: “A map says to you, ‘Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not ... I am the earth in the palm of your hand’.” And for all the fog obscuring the outcome of the 2022 US midterm elections, we have a clear map to guide us to the outcome if we simply decide to use it.
There is a lot we can already glean. First, historically, the party out of power two years after a new president is sworn in almost always does well, as “buyers’ remorse” sets in regarding the new administration. The simple fact is that there have been only four midterm elections out of 38 since 1870 in which the party holding the White House either gained seats in the House of Representatives or had a net loss of five seats or fewer — the very limited number that would cost the Democrats their current majority. This historical navigation point alone means the House is likely to shift to Republican control.
Second, the phrase most associated with the legendary former Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill — “All politics is local” — has been proved almost entirely wrong over the past generation; in fact, it’s national, not local. The single biggest determinant of House outcomes is the sitting president’s approval ratings. Again, as we have said before, a president with an overall approval rating above 60 percent can dictate to Congress his wishes; one with an approval rating below 40 percent is trying to squash rumors that he is dead.
According to RealClearPolitics’ most recent polling, the hapless Joe Biden is limping along at 43 percent, a number that does not augur well for Democratic hopes in the House. Adding these two navigation points together on our intellectual map, look for the Democrats to lose between 25 and 35 seats in the House, and for the Republicans to take control.
Third, while House races have become nationalized over the past generation, Senate races remain stubbornly idiosyncratic, with outcomes instead based on both the specific character of the candidates and the nature of the state itself. With a third of all Senate seats up for election in 2022, the Democrats also have the luck of the draw this time around. They are not defending any Senate seats in states carried by Donald Trump in 2020. Further, the Republicans must defend 20 seats, limiting their chances to make large gains, while this cycle the Democrats are defending only 14 seats. For these highly specific reasons, Democratic losses in the Senate will be fewer than in the House.
The hapless Joe Biden is limping along at 43 percent, a number that does not augur well for Democratic hopes in the House
However, fourth, the primary issues the campaign has been fought on — the intellectual terrain of the political contest — have greatly favored the Republicans. November’s latest CNN poll finds the economy the overwhelming issue for most voters, with a majority 51 percent saying it is the most important policy area affecting them. Abortion — after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs Wade and returned decision-making on this contentious social issue to the states — comes a distant second at just 15 percent.
A September NBC poll confirms our navigational data point, listing the top four issues as the Economy, the cost of living, abortion, and crime. Republicans have a decisive 23-point advantage over Democrats in terms of handling crime and 19 percent on the economy.
Voters overwhelmingly blame the Biden administration for the worst surge of inflation in over 40 years, after it ruinously spent trillions of dollars on social programs even as the economy quickly returned to pre-pandemic levels. Too much money chasing too few goods has been the largest factor leading to the price spike, in which adjustable mortgage rates topped 7 percent and the price of staples such as beef and gas skyrocketed. Grocery prices overall have increased by an uncomfortable 13 percent since Biden’s inauguration.
The economy, the cost-of-living crisis and the surge in inflation are voters’ greatest concerns, and the White House is who they blame. RealClearPolitics June polling shows a dominant 64 percent of those surveyed disapprove of how the president is handling the economy. This is simply killing Democratic chances to retain the 50-50 Senate.
Fifth, we know the states to watch on election night. Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are all narrowly trending Republican; buck that trend in any of these and the Democrats have a real chance to hold the upper chamber. However, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Pennsylvania have all been narrowly trending Democratic. A loss in any of these and it is going to be a long night for Joe Biden’s party. Control of the Senate may once again come down to Georgia, as it did in 2020. There, if any candidate fails to obtain 50 percent of the vote, there will be a run-off in a month’s time to determine the seat, and quite possibly the Senate majority.
Given our intellectual map, however, the midterm outcome is surprisingly clear. My firm’s final prediction is for the Republican Party to take the House by 25-35 seats, and the Senate more narrowly by a one to three seat margin. The GOP is going to be back.
• John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also a senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via johnhulsman.substack.com.

Iran’s malign meddling is only going to get worse
Luke Coffey/Arab News/November 04/2022
Day after day major protests continue to rock cities across Iran. Even though the regime in Tehran has its hands full dealing with these daily demonstrations, it has not stopped exporting instability and terrorism around the region. If anything, Iran has stepped up its nefarious activities abroad since the nationwide protests started almost 50 days ago. A quick glance at the past week alone offers three examples.
First, it was reported last week that Saudi officials had told their American counterparts that Iran was planning to launch an air attack against targets in Saudi Arabia and in northern Iraq, including US military bases in the region. Of course, Iranian drone and missile attacks are nothing new. In fact, there have been numerous attacks, both by Iran and their proxies, across the region against targets in Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So an attack targeting Saudi Arabia, northern Iraq, and US troops would be straight out of the Iranian playbook.
However, what makes this latest threat different is that Iranian officials have been stepping up their rhetoric toward Saudi Arabia — including direct threats to the Kingdom. Tehran has blamed Saudi Arabia, the US, and Israel for the protests across Iran. In particular, Tehran has been outspoken about a Farsi-language satellite news channel based in London called Iran International, which is thought to be the most watched independent news channel in Iran. Many in Tehran believe that the news channel receives funding from neighboring Arab countries — although this has never been confirmed. The impact of Iran International is taken so seriously that the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, threatened Saudi Arabia by saying during a military exercise: “This is our last warning, because you are interfering in our internal affairs through these media.”
Second, the government of Azerbaijan said last week that it had broken up an Iranian-trained terrorist cell. This is a major escalation considering that relations between Baku and Tehran have been tense in recent months. According to the official announcement from the Azerbaijani government, 19 of its citizens were recruited by “Iranian special services” and brought to Syria and Iran to receive training. The long-term goal was for these trained fighters to create instability inside Azerbaijan.
This comes at a difficult time in Iranian-Azerbaijani relations. In recent weeks, Iran conducted confrontational military exercises along its northern border with Azerbaijan. In response, Azerbaijan held its own military exercise with its special forces near the border with Iran. Iran has long been suspicious of Azerbaijan’s close relationship with Israel. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has concerns about the cozy relationship between Iran and Armenia. There has also been a notable change in rhetoric coming from both Tehran and Baku. Statements and criticism that would have normally been reserved for private channels are now being made public.
Finally, Iran’s export of instability extends beyond the Middle East and into eastern Europe. In recent weeks, hundreds of Iranian built Shahed-136 “suicide drones” have been used to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Although Ukrainians have been successful at shooting down many of them, the drones that were able to hit their targets have done significant damage. Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv is experiencing rolling blackouts. At one point last week it was estimated that 40 percent of Ukrainians were without electricity.
Not only is Iran preparing to send hundreds of more drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, but there are plans for Tehran to top up Moscow’s stockpiles with the Fateh-110 missile, a short-range ballistic missile with a range of 300 kilometers. It has been used extensively by Iran and its proxies throughout the Middle East. Iranian-supplied missiles such as the Fateh-110 won’t be a game changer in Ukraine, but they will make life much harder and more dangerous for Ukrainians as winter approaches.
So what is motivating Iran to pursue these aggressive policies in the region and beyond? In simple terms the answer is easy: Tehran’s provocations in the Middle East are a way for the regime to divert attention from its troubles at home. Meanwhile, the proliferation of Iranian drones and missiles in the Middle East and Ukraine kills two birds with one stone for Iran. On the one hand, it will thinly stretch US and regional air defense systems. It could even force policymakers to choose between prioritizing an increase in air defense in eastern Europe or prioritizing it the Middle East. On the other hand, cash-starved Iran benefits from Russia’s purchase of these weapons at a time when Tehran is facing economic problems at home.
While the protests across Iran are not yet existential to the regime, it is also true they are not close to being over. As the situation becomes more difficult at home for the regime, expect even more malign activity elsewhere.
Today Iran is affecting stability in the Gulf and Ukraine. Who knows where it will be tomorrow? It is time for the US and its partners to start responding decisively to the growing Iranian threat, which is only going to get worse before it gets better.
• Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey