English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 29/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.october29.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Letter to the Romans 08/28-39:”We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Question: “How do I hear from God?”
GotQuestions.org?/October 28/2022
Answer: Every Christian has probably wondered at one time or another, “How do I hear from God?” The question is natural because we want to know what God has in store for us, and we are eager to please our heavenly Father. The range of answers, however, has caused much confusion and controversy. We need to be biblical when we answer the question how can I hear from God? The Bible tells us how we hear from God: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1–2, ESV).Before the Incarnation of God the Son, God spoke through the prophets. We heard from God through men such as Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Malachi, and the other prophets. They relayed messages from God, and often their words were written down and preserved so we would always know His promises, His law, and His redemptive plans. There were times when God spoke directly to people. Abraham and Joshua, for example, conversed with God directly at times (Genesis 12:1; 17:1; Joshua 5:13–15). Others, such as Jacob, heard from God through dreams (Genesis 28:12–13). Ezekiel saw visions (Ezekiel 1:1). Saul began to hear from God and spoke for Him when “the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him” (1 Samuel 10:10). But, in most cases, people did not hear from God directly; rather, they were responsible to read God’s written Word or seek out God’s chosen mouthpiece. On at least two occasions, King Jehoshaphat asked to hear from a prophet of God (1 Kings 22:7; 2 Kings 3:11). Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, sought to hear from God through the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 8:7–8). Isaiah told the people of Judah they had a responsibility to “consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning” (Isaiah 8:20); that is, they were to read the written Word of God already delivered to them. With the birth of Jesus, things changed. John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. Through the ministry of Jesus, God spoke directly to us. Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, and the Olivet Discourse; and His pronouncements of being the Bread of Life, the True Vine, and the Good Shepherd are God’s direct revelation of who He is. Jesus’ words “are full of the Spirit and life” (John 6:63).
The writer to the Hebrews says, “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” The “last days” are the current dispensation—the church age. Jesus Christ was the pinnacle of God’s revelation; He is the Final Word to us. In the Bible Jesus’ words are recorded for us. When Jesus ascended back into heaven, He left behind hand-picked apostles who were given the special task of recording what Jesus had said and done. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these men were authorized by God to speak and record God’s words to His church so that all of the church can truly hear from God. We now hear from God through His written Word, which is the Bible.
So, basically, we hear from God by reading our Bibles and hearing it preached.
For many people who want to hear from God, hearing, “Read your Bible,” is not very satisfying. They desire a more “direct” and “personal” communication. There are many problems with such a desire, starting with the fact that neglecting or rejecting the Bible in order to seek a “new” word from God is spiritually dangerous. It is arrogant for someone to think that he is so special as to receive direct revelation from God, especially when God said in the first century that He has spoken through His Son, who is “appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:2). We can’t top Jesus. There are no modern-day apostles or prophets who function in the same manner as the biblical apostles and prophets. God does speak to people today, but the means He uses always include the Bible. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer and gives gifts to them as He chooses. Some are given gifts to teach, correct, admonish, and encourage other Christians. There is no new revelation being given (see Revelation 22:18), but God has gifted people in the church to be able to speak into the lives of other Christians. Exhortation and the offering of biblical advice are important within the community of believers.
A pastor’s instruction from God’s Word is one way we hear from God today. A friend’s advice, tied to Scripture, is another way we hear from God. A directive issued by a God-ordained authority figure is another way we hear from God.
We should never neglect praying and meditating on God’s Word. As we meditate on a passage of Scripture, and we pray for God’s direction and understanding, we hear from God. When we feed daily on the Bible, the Holy Spirit points us to truths that we know are from God because they come directly from His Word. What a privilege it is to have God’s Word readily available to us!
“I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word”
(Psalm 119:15–16)
What’s new on GotQuestions.org?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 28-29.2022
Israel bets on key Karish gas field to access European market
Lapid says Lebanon's leaders are 'barely on speaking terms'
Aoun opens fire at Berri, Mikati and Jumblat in farewell interview
Aoun says 'all of them' deserted him in corruption fight
Vacuum or Plan B: Mikati's govt. after Aoun's tenure
Lebanon, Cyprus start border demarcation talks in Baabda
Bassil says failure to form govt. is 'plot' by Mikati, Berri, foreign forces
Geagea suggests open-ended vote session instead of Berri's dialogue
Family appeals for release of Tunisian woman jailed in Saudi for Hezbollah retweet
Lebanese Political Analyst Yunis Awda: The Jews Are Spreading Depravity, Making People Ignorant, Destroying Society – Just Like Benjamin Franklin Warned They Would/MEMRI/October 28/2022
Hizbullah-Affiliated Lebanese Academic Sadek Al-Naboulsi On The Maritime Border Deal With Israel: Negotiations Are Part Of The War; Hizbullah Will Destroy The Agreement When The Balance Of Power Changes/
MEMRI/October 28/2022

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 28-29.2022
For all its brutality, the Iranian regime cannot stop the force of youth: UN expert
Defiant Iranians rally again in protests fuelled by 'brutal' crackdown
Iran’s elite technical university emerges as hub of protests
Children in Riot Gear, Soldiers in Ski Masks: What Images of Iran's Security Forces May Reveal About a Revolt/Karl Vick/Time/October 28, 2022
Israel: Wars, settlements, and conflicts
Five votes in four years: Israel's election addiction
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in West Bank
Iraqi parliament approves new Cabinet in long-awaited vote
Report: Australian women, children returning from Syria camp
Ukraine braces for more power cuts, as Russia hits call-up target
Iraq’s new government unlikely to solve crises
Barack Obama gets a midterm do-over to help boost Democrats

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 28-29.2022
From Lebanon to Turkey: Israel’s East Med policy in spotlight - analysis/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 28/2022
Turkey: A NATO Ally?/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/October 28, 2022
Fracturing Europe can learn much from the fate of Lebanon and must do so before it is too late/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/October 28/2022
We must not allow Iran to block tentative steps toward peace in the South Caucusus/Luke Coffey/Arab News/October 28/2022
How new UK leader can benefit from stronger Mideast links/Bashayer Al-Majed/Arab News/October 28/2022
Bahrain is a beacon of religious tolerance and coexistence/Rabbi Marc Schneier/Arab News/October 28/2022
Is Iran’s resilient protest movement doomed without a leader?/Alex Whiteman/Arab News/October 28/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 28-29.2022
Israel bets on key Karish gas field to access European market
Agence France Presse/October 28/2022
Israel and Lebanon on Thursday concluded a long-awaited deal to delimit their maritime borders, as Israel this week activated the key Karish gas field unlocked by the agreement. The offshore field is crucial to Israel's ambitions to tap into European markets, and on Wednesday London-listed firm Energean said it had already begun producing gas from Karish ahead of the signing of the U.S.-brokered deal. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid had hailed production from the field, saying it "bolsters Israel's energy security, enhances our stature as energy exporters". Gas produced from Karish will not only ensure supplies to Israel's domestic market, it will feed into those from the Tamar and Leviathan fields, both connected to liquefaction plants in Egypt that then supply global markets. As Europe turns to gas producers worldwide to diversify its sources following sanctions on Russia due to its Ukraine war, Israel has sought to position itself to fill the neighboring continent's growing energy needs. "We are going to be part of the effort to replace Russian gas in Europe," Lapid said last month during a visit to Germany, adding that the country aims to provide 10 percent of what Moscow was delivering before the invasion.
Replacing Russian gas
In 2021, Moscow supplied about 155 billion cubic metres of gas to the European Union. Israel already delivers gas to its neighbors Egypt and Jordan, and in June signed a deal to liquefy gas using Egyptian infrastructure with a view to delivering it to Europe via shipments. The Tamar and Leviathan offshore fields already produce about 23 billion cubic meters of gas annually. But with domestic consumption amounting to 13 billion cubic meters, and its deals with Egypt and Jordan already supplying 9.5 billion more, this has left little room for exports to Europe, energy specialist Gina Cohen told AFP. "To sell more gas to Europe, there must be stable production from the Karish field," which is expected to have a short-term capacity of 6.5 billion cubic meters annually, she continued. But to establish itself as a major gas player, Israel still needs to expand its pipelines to Egypt and increase production from Tamar and Leviathan. It also must seek alternatives to Egypt's finite liquefaction facilities, such as direct pipelines via Greece or Turkey, experts say.
Qana and Gaza
Thursday's deal establishes Israel's rights to exploit Karish, while Lebanon has been granted full rights to operate and explore the Qana or Sidon reservoir. Israel will however be entitled to 17 percent of the proceeds from the reservoir, parts of which fall in Israel's territorial waters, Lapid has said. A 2012 seismic study of a limited offshore area, by the British firm Spectrum, estimated recoverable gas reserves in Lebanon at 720 billion cubic meters. Lebanese officials have announced higher estimates, though there are still no proven gas reserves in the Qana reservoir. Earlier this month, Lebanon's caretaker premier Najib Mikati asked French energy giant TotalEnergies to kickstart gas exploration off its shores. TotalEnergies is part of a consortium of energy giants awarded a license to explore for gas in two of Lebanon's 10 blocks. But Lebanon still has a way to go before it has a viable plan to market its energy supplies abroad. In the meantime, the Palestinians as well have sought to bank on their own gas reserves, which would offer much-needed relief to the beleaguered economy in the territories. The Palestinian Authority has been in talks with Egypt and Israel to exploit Gaza's offshore fields, which are estimated to hold about 28 billion cubic meters.

Lapid says Lebanon's leaders are 'barely on speaking terms'
Naharnet/October 28/2022
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has reiterated that the U.S.-brokered sea border agreement with Lebanon is “historic,” describing Israeli opposition claims that he conceded far too much to Hezbollah and Lebanon as baseless. “Everybody – from the (security) cabinet, through the government to the Supreme Court – (approved it),” he said in an English-language interview with Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post. “This agreement was based on a lot of intelligence reports that couldn’t be exposed to the general public, and I will not do so even though it might be useful in terms of (electoral) campaigning. But I will say no one who has the facts is saying Hezbollah was behind this agreement. The fact that we have an agreement and the word ‘Israel’ is written in it 20 times is a huge blow (to Hezbollah). They were unhappy with it, but they don’t have a choice,” Lapid added. “Lebanon needed this desperately, and therefore they did something they hadn’t done in years, which is bending Hezbollah’s arm,” the Israeli PM went on to say. As for the timeline, Lapid said that it needed to be passed by the end of October because that is when Lebanese President Michel Aoun leaves office. “It is unclear who will replace him, and he and the other leaders of the country – the prime minister and parliament speaker – are barely on speaking terms,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Lapid as saying. “Since we felt this is the right thing to do for Israel security, the Israel economy, and Israeli policy, we were forced into the timetable. I knew that people were going to be suspicious about signing what I think is a historic agreement five days before the election, and therefore we let our justice system make the decision,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court rejection of petitions from right-wing organizations for an injunction against the deal.

Aoun opens fire at Berri, Mikati and Jumblat in farewell interview
Naharnet/October 28/2022
Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati swiftly hit back overnight at remarks by President Michel Aoun, accusing him of distorting facts. “I agree with His Excellency that the constitution is the guide and reference in all issues. But as for what His Excellency said about private matters and curtailed, distorted or untrue details, I will only say regretfully: sometimes our elderly’s memory fail them, so facts get mixed up with wishes and realities get mixed up with illusions,” Mikati said in a statement. In an interview on LBCI television, Aoun had said earlier in the night that Mikati “has no will to form the government.”“The manner in which the government is being formed, as if through hegemony, is something unacceptable, especially in terms of failing to respect the unity of standards,” Aoun said. “I told him during the last visit to Baabda, ‘We can form a government from now until the night comes,’ but he went and did not return. Maybe he went to make a yacht trip and this means that there will be no government,” the president added. “I’m about to sign the government’s resignation decree. I will give them a chance until the end of my term to form a government according to unified standards. It would be enough if Mikati calls on the phone and if (Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran) Bassil remains unconvinced, I would convince him,” Aoun said.Separately, the president said the southern front has become “stable” in the wake of the sea border deal with Israel. “It certainly won’t be a source of violence and there won’t be a war due to common interests, not due to accord with Israel,” Aoun added. Asked about Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat’s fears over “the loss and waste of oil extraction money,” Aoun said: “We only fear him and I won’t say more.”As for the dialogue that Speaker Nabih Berri intends to call for, the president said “Speaker Berri has the right to hold consultations with the parliamentary blocs, not to call for dialogue.”“Even if my term ends, he has no right to replace the president. In dialogue, all parties leave dismayed, that’s why consultation is better,” Aoun went on to say. As for the anti-corruption fight, Aoun said: “Hezbollah helped us silently. The Amal Movement and Hezbollah are conjoined twins and there will be blood if you separate them. Hezbollah did not meet us half way and this what we blame it for.”

Aoun says 'all of them' deserted him in corruption fight
Naharnet/October 28/2022
What President Michel Aoun regrets, he jokingly told reporters, is having never accepted any bribe from any country like other politicians did. Aoun said Friday, in a farewell meeting with journalists, that absolutely no one from the political leaders has helped him to fight corruption, using the Oct. 17 famous slogan "All of them means all of them." And once again Aoun quoted Imam Ali, saying that telling the truth and doing what is right has left him with no friends. During Aoun's term, Lebanon witnessed a refugee crisis, "an empty treasury," one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, the Covid pandemic, "and now Cholera."The "strong" President who will leave Baabda on Sunday, will leave the country in a double vacuum after having failed with Prime Minister-designate -- also caretaker PM -- Najib Mikati to form a government before the end of his term. Aoun accused Mikati of not following unified standards between the Free Patriotic Movement and all the other parties. "Mikati has no will to form a government," he said. "And we will face the non-unified standards." Aoun had previously announced that he would continue his political fight within his party, the FPM, upon leaving office and threatened to sign the caretaker government's resignation before leaving. "Accepting the resignation of the caretaker government is not unconstitutional," he told reporters.

Vacuum or Plan B: Mikati's govt. after Aoun's tenure
Naharnet/October 28/2022
Minister of Tourism Walid Nassar has been mediating between Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, in a desperate attempt to overcome the obstacles hindering the formation of a new government before President Michel Aoun's term ends, media reports said. A report, published Friday in al-Joumhouriah newspaper, said that Mikati has prepared all what is needed to "fortify" his caretaker government, once Aoun's term ends. A ministerial source told the daily that "Mikati will move to plan B." "He will get the powers of the President and will rule according to the constitution," the source said, adding that it will not be an easy task amid an unprecedented constitutional and political clash. Another local media, al-Akhbar, had quoted yesterday Mikati as saying that it is too late to form a government and that "it is no longer worth it."It said it had learned from sources that Mikati is confident, since the Christian parties, the Maronite Patriarch and the international community will consider him a constitutional Prime Minister.

Lebanon, Cyprus start border demarcation talks in Baabda
Naharnet/October 28/2022
A Cypriot delegation met Friday with President Michel Aoun over the maritime border demarcation between Lebanon and Cyprus, in the presence of Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab. After the maritime border deal with Israel, Lebanon reached out to Syria and Cyprus to start direct negotiations over their northern and western maritime borders. "Dealing with Cyprus is not like dealing with an enemy state," Bou Saab stated, after the meeting. "This speeds up the work," he added. Bou Saab said that from now on Minister of Public Works & Transport Ali Hamiyeh and Minister of Energy Walid Fayyad will follow up on the demarcation with Cyprus.Hamiyeh will meet, later today, with the Cypriot delegation to resume the talks. The Cypriot presidential envoy said he feels at home in Lebanon, lauding the friendly ties between the two countries. "There is no problem that cannot be resolved between Lebanon and Cyprus, and the demarcation issue is not that difficult," he said. Bou Saab stressed the two sides' keenness on finalizing the demarcation deal. He added that Lebanon is also awaiting an appointment from Syria, negating any disagreement between the two neighboring countries. "The call between President Aoun and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was very positive," Bou Saab said. "And time will prove that there will be cooperation between Syria and Lebanon."

Bassil says failure to form govt. is 'plot' by Mikati, Berri, foreign forces
Naharnet/October 28/2022
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil held talks Friday in Bkirki with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, after which he warned of a domestic-foreign “plot”. “The ultimate priority is for the election of the president, and unfortunately in a few days we will enter into presidential vacuum, which everyone is tackling as a de facto situation without exerting efforts for dialogue and understanding,” Bassil lamented, warning that keeping the caretaker cabinet amid an expected presidential void would be “adding vacuum on top of vacuum.”“I told Patriarch al-Rahi that there is a plot for Lebanon, which is refraining from forming a government -- with a clear will from PM-designate Najib Mikati and support from Speaker Nabih Berri, foreign forces and some leaders -- in order to reach governmental vacuum and seize control of the first post in the Lebanese republic, which is the presidency,” Bassil added.
“We cannot accept a government that lacks parliamentary and popular legitimacy,” the FPM chief warned, cautioning that “some officials are pushing the country to constitutional vacuum.”“Vacuum will lead us to a lot of problems,” Bassil warned. Noting that the FPM “will keep seeking agreements in the coming days,” Bassil said: “May God save us from what's being prepared.”“The National Pact is more important than anything,” he added, referring to a 1943 unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state.

Geagea suggests open-ended vote session instead of Berri's dialogue
Naharnet/October 28/2022
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday dismissed Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for dialogue over the country’s next president. “I was not very relieved when I heard about Speaker Berri's dialogue invitations,” Geagea said at a press conference that followed a meeting for the LF-led Strong Republic bloc. “We will meet Speaker Berri's call for dialogue but he must call for a presidential vote session as soon as possible, and the MPs and blocs would talk to each other there. It can be an open-ended session and it can take hours and days,” the LF leader suggested.
“The constitutions were created to be implemented,” Geagea said, slamming the MPs who are casting blank and annulled votes and those who are stripping sessions of quorum. He added: “I would have preferred if Speaker Berri had invited the MPs boycotting the presidential vote to dialogue.”“The other camp has no real intention for dialogue and consultations,” Geagea noted. “Nothing indicates that the other camp has a certain candidate,” he charged.

Family appeals for release of Tunisian woman jailed in Saudi for Hezbollah retweet
Agence France Presse/October 28/2022
The sister of a Tunisian woman jailed by Saudi Arabia for retweeting a post about Hezbollah on Friday urged Tunis authorities to intervene on her behalf. Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia considers the Shiite group, which is backed by its archfoe Iran, a "terrorist" group. Mahdia Marzouki, who worked as a midwife in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in 2020 after sharing a tweet about a pro-Hezbollah protest that had taken place in Tunis, her sibling Leila Marzouki told AFP. Earlier this year, Marzouki was sentenced by a Saudi court to 30 months in jail but in September she was given a 15-year sentence following a new trial on terror charges, she said. Marzouki is accused of "undermining the state and glorifying a terrorist group". "We call on the (Tunisian) authorities to intervene in order to scrap the verdict and secure the release of my sister," Leila Marzouki said. Tunisian human rights groups have denounced the verdicts against Marzouki and demanded her release. The verdict is "a grave violation of freedom of expression" and a "crime" against all Tunisians, the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH) said in a statement on Friday. LTDH also urged Tunisian authorities to press Riyadh to cancel the verdict and free Marzouki, echoing similar calls by the Tunisian Observatory of Human Rights. Human rights activists and Saudi dissidents have condemned what they describe as mounting repression of political expression in the kingdom, an absolute monarchy that does not allow protests or political opposition. In recent weeks, Saudi courts have sentenced several people to jail for tweeting and retweeting posts critical of the government. Among them were two Saudi women who have received decades-long sentences, and a U.S. citizen of Saudi origin.

Lebanese Political Analyst Yunis Awda: The Jews Are Spreading Depravity, Making People Ignorant, Destroying Society – Just Like Benjamin Franklin Warned They Would
MEMRI/October 28/2022
https://www.memri.org/tv/lebanese-political-analyst-awda-jews-spreading-depravity-epidemics-ben-franklin-predicted-this
Al-Masirah TV (Yemen)
Lebanese political analyst Yunis Awda said in an October 10, 2022 show on Al-Masirah TV (Houthis-Yemen) that the number one "diabolic endeavor" of the Jews is to spread of depravity. He invoked the infamous Benjamin Franklin myth, saying that Franklin warned Congress that if the Jews gain control of the media, medicine, and culture, they will use them to destroy American society, and he claimed that Benjamin Franklin's predictions have come true in recent years. He elaborated that the Jews have been spreading epidemics, making people stupid, and spreading depravity. It should be noted that the Franklin prophecy myth is, in fact, a piece of antisemitic Nazi propaganda published in 1935 in the Nazi "Handbook on the Jewish Question."
For more about the Benjamin Franklin myth, see MEMRI TV clips Nos. 8654 6930, 6432, 6223, 6180, 4664, 4213, 3359, 3108, 2521, 2277, 2260, 1905, 1747, 1629, 1588, 381, 323, 224, 89.Yunis Awda: "The number one diabolic endeavor is the spread of depravity. We can see that depravity has spread in recent times. Let me cite one of the leaders of American independence, Benjamin Franklin. He said this 200 years ago, in Congress. He said to the Americans: 'Beware of the Jews.
"Beware of the Jews. Beware lest they get hold of three things: media, medicine, and health...' – sorry, it was health, media and culture – '...because if they get hold of these things, they will destroy American society, by spreading depravity, by spreading epidemics, and by spreading ignorance among the people.'"
Interviewer: "I believe that this is what is happening worldwide."
Awda: "This is what Benjamin Franklin said. In the years that followed, this is indeed what happened. The systematic destruction of culture has begun in the U.S., which is the source of all the diseases today – depravity, ignorance, epidemics, and so on."

Hizbullah-Affiliated Lebanese Academic Sadek Al-Naboulsi On The Maritime Border Deal With Israel: Negotiations Are Part Of The War; Hizbullah Will Destroy The Agreement When The Balance Of Power Changes
MEMRI/October 28/2022
Al-Jadeed TV (Lebanon)
https://www.memri.org/tv/lebanon-hizbullah-academic-naboulsi-maritime-border-deal-with-israel-part-of-war-will-fall-apart
Hizbullah-affiliated Lebanese academic Sadek Al-Naboulsi said in an October 18, 2022 show on Al-Jadeed TV (Lebanon) that the recent maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon does not mean that the conflict between the two countries is over or that Israel is a legitimate entity. He explained that negotiations are just part of the war against Israel, and he said that as soon as the balance of power changes and Hizbullah gets the opportunity to "destroy" this agreement, it will do so. For more about Sadek Al-Naboulsi, see MEMRI TV Clips nos. 9765, 8793, 8053, 7834, and 7157.
Sadek Al-Naboulsi: "Hizbullah does not recognize the existence of the [Israeli] enemy altogether. No one should claim that the demarcation of the maritime border is the end of the conflict. On the contrary. It does not substantiate any [Israeli] legitimacy. What happened is dealing with reality. Nothing more and nothing less. This [border demarcation] divides economic interests. Does this mean that I admit that these waters or fields belong to the enemy? Absolutely not.
"Today there is something called Israel. Can you deny this? These are facts on the ground. Israel is out there and you have to deal with it. Addressing reality does not mean in any way relinquishing our principles or recognizing any legitimacy or rights of the enemy. In the [current] balance of power, we are weaker than the enemy and so far we have been unable to gain our rights on land and at sea. Therefore, by no means am I saying to the public that these are the demarcated borders and that we must simply accept reality. Negotiations are part of the war, part of the conflict. So the enemy had to invest a lot of effort to achieve what it did. Therefore, as soon as the balance of power changes, the agreement will fall apart and change. Hizbullah says: 'We don't accept all this demarcation of borders, but we deal with these things in a very realistic manner. As soon as the balance of power between the Israeli enemy and us changes, and we get a historic opportunity to destroy this agreement, we will destroy it."
Interviewer: "Wow..."
Al-Naboulsi: "Yes, why not?"
Interviewer: "This is Hizbullah's position? They said that we should applaud and be pleased..."
Al-Naboulsi: "What I am saying... This is the Israeli enemy..."
Interviewer: "Whenever Hizbullah is capable of destroying the agreement, it will do so?"
Al-Naboulsi: "We do not recognize the Israeli enemy."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 28-29.2022
For all its brutality, the Iranian regime cannot stop the force of youth: UN expert
Agencies/Arab News/October 28, 2022
President Ebrahim Raisi instigated a brutal crackdown on women over the country’s strict dress code, the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran told Arab News
Given the lack of accountability in the country for human rights violations by the state, Javaid Rehman urged the international community to take action
NEW YORK CITY: No matter how repressive the Iranian regime is or how brutal its response to dissent, it cannot halt the youth movement that is taking the entire country and its social fabric by storm in pursuit of justice and accountability.
That was the view of UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, as protests in the country over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini entered day 40. So far, he said, more than 250 protesters have been killed by security forces, including 27 children.
However, this is a “minimum figure” as the true number is probably much higher, he added. “There are far more, far greater number of casualties and deaths than what I have just said,” Rehman told Arab News on Thursday. The Iranian regime will not allow him to visit the country and carry out proper verification procedures, although he has been asking for access since he took up his post in 2018. The ongoing protests are only the latest chapter in a long history of public unrest that has rocked the Islamic Republic since 1999. The response to all such dissent has been the same — brutal crackdowns by the regime that leave many people dead or injured and thousands of political prisoners behind bars. Students took part in widespread and violent protests in July 1999, for example, and returned to the streets four years later demanding justice for those killed and injured during the earlier demonstrations.
The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in 2009 sparked further turmoil that continued well into 2010 and erupted again the following year and in 2012. More recently, an ongoing series of political movements, acts of civil disobedience, online activism and demonstrations took place between 2017 and 2021. But the current protests over the death on Sep. 16 of Amini, who had been arrested three days earlier for failing to follow strict rules on head coverings, appear to represent a seminal moment that many observers view as a point of no return for the regime in Tehran.
“How many times can you brutalize? How many times can you violate fundamental human rights, people’s fundamental dignity?” said Rehman. “In the current wave of protests, there is a real issue: What about women and girls of Iran? They have stood up. These are young people who are out on the streets. Women do not want to be oppressed and subjugated. They are young, bright, intelligent women. They see the world is changing, (they follow) social media.
“Iranian authorities, brutal as they are, repressive as they are, they cannot stop young people. They will not be able to stop this movement.” Giving the prevailing impunity with which the regime continues to act and the lack of accountability for crimes committed during previous protests, the failure of the international community to take action to address this only means there will be more such violations, said Rehman. “If we do not do anything now, if we just kept silent, then what would happen to all of these millions in Iran? They will continue to be subjugated, brutalized and there is a risk that they will lose hope,” he warned. Rehman, like all special rapporteurs, is an independent expert who is not a member of UN staff and does not get paid for his work. This week he presented his latest report to the General Assembly Third Committee, which meets in October each year and deals with issues related to human rights, humanitarian affairs and social matters. His report states that Mahsa Amini was the victim of “state brutality and state repression.” It denounces the brutal crackdown on the protesters who took to the streets following her death under the banner “Women, Life, Freedom.”It urges Iranian authorities to “immediately stop the use of lethal force in policing peaceful assemblies (and) hold an independent, impartial and prompt investigation in the death of Amini, make the findings of the investigation public and hold all perpetrators accountable.” This echoes similar calls from the UN and countries worldwide. Rehman said not only has the regime in Tehran ignored such calls but state authorities “clearly ordered security forces to repress the protesters.” Highlighting the “very serious systemic problems in the role of morality police” tasked with enforcing the strict “hijab law” dress code for women, he said this has been led by President Ebrahim Raisi, who on a number of occasions “has instigated the crackdown on women over (the dress code) and has given a license to this morality police to enforce (the law) more vigorously.” He added: “If we want integrity and dignity of women to be restored, that law must be abolished.”
Rehman dismissed the findings of an Iranian investigation into Amini’s death that denied there had been any misconduct or wrongdoing on the part of the state. Amini’s family has also rejected this conclusion and called for an investigation by a committee of independent doctors. Their request was denied. “Therefore, it is clear that the so-called investigations into the death of Jina Mahsa Amini have failed the minimum requirements of impartiality and independence,” said Rehman. He called on the international community to promptly establish an “independent investigative mechanism into all human rights violations in Iran leading up to, and since, the death of Jina Mahsa Amini.”Rehman said Amini is not “the first woman who had faced these brutal consequences, nor was she the last one,” as he highlighted the case of 16-year-old Nika Shahkarami, who died in similar circumstances. “There is evidence coming up, more and more evidence, that she was brutally killed by state security,” he said.

Defiant Iranians rally again in protests fuelled by 'brutal' crackdown
Associated Press/October 28/2022
Iranians took to the streets around the country for a second successive night to protest against the killings of youths in a widely documented crackdown on demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini's death. The clerical state has been gripped by six weeks of protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody after her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran's strict dress rules for women based on Islamic sharia law. Security forces have struggled to contain the women-led protests that have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979. "This is the year of blood, Seyed Ali will be toppled!" hundreds of protesters chanted in the west Tehran neighbourhood of Chitgar late Thursday, in an online video verified by AFP. The fresh rallies came as people gathered to mourn young demonstrators killed in the crackdown. Security forces on Thursday shot dead at least three protesters in Mahabad and another two in Baneh, both near Iran's western border with Iraq, said Hengaw, a Norway-based human rights group. Amnesty International said "unlawful killings" by Iran's security forces had claimed the lives of at least eight people in four provinces within 24 hours, in a statement late Thursday. The deadly gunfire came after mourners paying tribute to Ismail Mauludi, a 35-year-old protester killed on Wednesday night, left his funeral and made their way towards the governor's office, it said.
Governor's office burns
"Death to the dictator," protesters yelled, using a slogan aimed at Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the Mahabad governor's office burned, in an online video verified by AFP. Other verified footage showed clashes near the grave of 16-year-old Nika Shahkarami, outside the western city of Khorramabad, where dozens of people were marking the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period since she was killed by security forces. "I'll kill, I'll kill, whoever killed my sister," they could be heard chanting, in a video posted on Twitter by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activist News Agency. Dozens of men were seen hurling projectiles under fire as they drove back security forces in riot gear on a bridge near Shahkarami's tomb. The latest demonstrations came despite a crackdown that the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group says has already killed at least 141 protesters, including more than two dozen children. At least another 93 people were separately killed during protests that erupted in the southeastern city of Zahedan on September 30 over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander, IHR says. The protests were held in defiance of warnings from Khamenei and ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi, who appeared to try to link the Amini protests to a mass shooting at a Shiite Muslim shrine in the southern city of Shiraz after Wednesday evening prayers that state media said killed at least 15 worshippers. But the protests triggered by Amini's death on September 16 show no signs of dwindling, inflamed by public outrage over the crackdown that has claimed the lives of many other young women and girls.
'More killing would encourage protesters'
Analysts say the Iranian authorities have sought to quell the protests through various tactics, possibly in a bid to avoid fuelling yet more anger among the public. "I doubt that the security forces have ruled out conducting a larger-scale violent crackdown," said Henry Rome, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute. "For now they appear to be trying other techniques -- arrests and intimidation, calibrated internet shutdowns, killing some protesters, and fuelling uncertainty and an overall securitised environment," he told AFP. "They may be making the calculation that more killing would encourage, rather than deter, protesters -- if that judgement shifts, then the situation would likely become even more violent."Amnesty International called for urgent action to halt the bloodshed. "Failure to act decisively will only embolden the Iranian authorities to further crackdown against mourners and protesters set to gather in the coming days during commemorations marking 40 days since the first deaths of protesters," it said. The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran on Thursday decried the "brutality" of Iran's regime and called for an international mechanism to investigate scores of deaths. "In the absence of any domestic channels of accountability... the international community has a responsibility... to take action to address impunity for human rights violations in Iran," said Javaid Rehman. An official Iranian medical report issued on October 8 concluded Amini's death was caused by illness, due to "surgery for a brain tumour at the age of eight", and not police brutality. But lawyers acting for her family have rejected the findings and called for a re-examination of her death.

Iran’s elite technical university emerges as hub of protests
AP/October 28, 2022
Thousands of Sharif University alumni power Iran’s most sensitive industries, including nuclear energy and aerospace
Iran’s M.I.T. has emerged as an unexpected hub for protest, fueling Iran’s biggest antigovernment movement in over a decade
The aging brick campus of the Sharif University of Technology, Iran’s elite technical school, has long been a magnet for the nation’s brightest minds, with a record of elevating its students to the highest reaches of society. Thousands of Sharif University alumni power Iran’s most sensitive industries, including nuclear energy and aerospace. One of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s closest advisers has taught there for decades. But as demonstrations erupt across Iran — first sparked by the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police — the scientific powerhouse known as “Iran’s M.I.T.” has emerged as an unexpected hub for protest, fueling Iran’s biggest antigovernment movement in over a decade.“We’ve become politically active because there is nothing to lose,” said an electrical engineering major and activist in Sharif University’s student association who spoke on condition of anonymity. Like others who insisted their identities be shielded, he feared of reprisals. “The way things are now in Iran, you have to emigrate and leave your family and friends or stay and fight for your rights.”Across the country and despite a violent crackdown, Iranians have taken to the streets, venting their outrage over social repression, economic despair and global isolation — crises that have clipped the ambitions of Iran’s young and educated generation. Over the last few weeks, university campuses have become a hotbed of opposition after years of dormancy, as students take up the mantle of activism they haven’t held in years. “Students have come to the realization they will not achieve their rights in this framework,” said Mohammad Ali Kadivar, an Iran scholar at Boston College. “They are demanding the end of the Islamic Republic.”Protests have flared nearly every day for the past month at Sharif University — and escalated after security forces cracked down violently on Oct. 2, resulting in an hourslong standoff between students and police that prompted an international outcry and shocked the country. “Whether it’s true or not, people have this feeling that it’s safer to protest on campus,” said Moeen, a Sharif University alum who has observed the protests and spoke on condition that only his first name be used. “It’s easier than orchestrating something at a random square in Tehran. There are student syndicates. There’s leadership.” University campuses have been pivotal to Iran’s opposition movements before. After the US-backed 1953 coup, University of Tehran students revolted over then-Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to the capital. The shah’s security forces stormed the campus and shot three students dead. Sharif University, among other campuses, was wracked by protests two decades later, when Marxist and Islamist student groups lit the fuse of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which ushered in the clerical establishment that still rules Iran. Once in power, the young theocracy worked to ensure universities would no longer be breeding grounds for opposition: The clerics purged professors, arrested dissident students and set up their own powerful student associations. Political issues occasionally galvanized students despite the risks. Pro-reformist students protested at the University of Tehran in 1999, prompting a fearsome raid by security forces who fatally shot a student and flung others out of windows.
But broadly over the decades, Tehran’s campuses became subdued, students and experts said, particularly Sharif University — a competitive, high-tech hub considered less liberal and activist than others in the capital. Amid American sanctions and raging inflation, some students joked the university was essentially an airport, as the best and brightest students rushed to leave for Europe and the US after graduation. A turning point came in 2018, students said. Former President Donald Trump pulled the US out of Tehran’s landmark nuclear deal that year and reimposed harsh sanctions. Deepening global isolation and frustration over lagging political reforms convinced many students that nothing would come of engaging with the system. A year later, in the fall of 2019, a fuel price hike set off the deadliest nationwide unrest since the Islamic Revolution. The Sharif Islamic Association, a misnomer for the students’ largely secular representative body, jumped into action, organizing demonstrations on campus.
In 2020, the student group boycotted classes and held a protest vigil after the Iranian military’s downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane killed 176 people, including over a dozen Sharif University graduates. Later that year, authorities arrested two top students on widely disputed security charges, stoking outrage.
“We have no industry, we are in a bad economic situation, the environment is ruined,” said the student association activist, listing the reasons for protest. “But the biggest reason is freedom. We just want basic things that you have all over the world.”
When news spread of Amini’s death after her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict rules on women’s dress, students buzzed. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.
“Even my conservative friends said, ‘If we don’t take to the streets now, we never will’,” Moeen said.
Sharif University authorities denied the student association a protest permit, members said. Crowds demonstrated anyway, pumping their fists and chanting “Death to the dictator!” — a slogan that protesters have used around the country.
On Oct. 2, the protests devolved into violent mayhem, according to statements from the association. As hundreds of students chanted against Khamenei, plainclothes security forces raided campus. Professors formed a human shield so students could flee. But security forces beat the professors, ripped through their interlocked hands and chased protesters into the parking garage. They unleashed paintballs, tear gas and metal pellets on shrieking students. Several were wounded and some 40 were arrested, most of whom have now been released.
“It was brutal,” said one professor who witnessed the events. “For the sake of its own future, the government should care about these students. They’re the nerds. But it was clear it only cared about oppressing them.”
Tensions were further inflamed when the minister for higher education, Mohammad Ali Zolfigol, visited the campus and, instead of reassuring students, accused them of “lawlessness” and warned they’d be held responsible, according to a computer engineering student who attended the meeting and videos posted online. In an attempt to defuse the resentment, the university created a forum, billed as a safe space for students to voice their complaints. The university president, the US-sanctioned Rasool Jalili, who served on Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, presided over the program. Women boldly took the stage without the mandatory hijab, according to videos shared by members of the association. Students lashed out at the university for its failure to protect them. And there were consequences to speaking out. On Sunday, the university announced it would temporarily ban over two dozen students who contributed to the “unstable environment.” That prompted more demonstrations, as students raged against both university authorities and the ruling clerics. Most recently this week, female students streamed into the male-only section of the dining hall in protest over campus gender segregation as male students cheered them on. The university closed the cafeteria on Tuesday, hoping to end the demonstrations. Instead, the students moved their lunch to the campus yard, videos showed. A professor joined in solidarity. Young women and men picnicked side by side on the pavement, chanting: “Woman! Life! Freedom!”

Children in Riot Gear, Soldiers in Ski Masks: What Images of Iran's Security Forces May Reveal About a Revolt
Karl Vick/Time/October 28, 2022
There’s wide agreement that the protests shaking Iran—led by women and persisting across the nation for more than six weeks now—are different than those that have come before. But the forces the regime is sending to confront the protestors appear to be different, too. Perhaps tellingly. As Iranians circulate videos and photos of the confrontations, they point out what some describe as evidence of a state security apparatus showing signs of disquiet, if not disarray. That security apparatus remains brutally lethal, so far killing at least 230 people and injuring thousands. But it’s also grown motley. Along with plainclothes thugs who snatch women from public streets, it includes uniformed men hiding behind ski masks and small children in body armor. Images of children in riot gear popped up days after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Tehran’s “morality police” on Sept. 16. It was her death that set off spontaneous protests in at least 80 cities, immediately stretching thin the forces available to confront them. The kids—whom some Iranians commenting in social media describe as wards of the state—appeared to have been posted on urban streets to fill a gap, a dubious show of “presence” while adult police scramble from one protest outbreak to the next. Having lived through three mass protests in the last dozen years—in 2009, 2017-2018, and 2019—Iranians are only too familiar with how the state answers dissent. They can tell you that for decades the largest motorcycle a civilian could buy in Iran was 250cc. More powerful bikes were reserved for security forces, to overtake and intimidate. Iranians also know that tattoos—regarded by the Islamic Republic as decadent expressions of “Westoxification”—are forbidden for members of police, security, and military.
So when an image of a police officer with ink (on his lower arm, where it’s visible) was posted on Telegram on Oct. 12, it was understood as evidence the regime has abruptly relaxed its standards.
“They’re recruiting street children, teenagers, and criminal elements,” says Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. “They’re short, short on manpower.”
And the manpower available does not always show its face. Ordinarily, it’s protestors who take pains to hide their features—fully aware that Iran’s security services make use of facial recognition technology. The same surveillance technology was being used to identify women judged to be wearing their headscarves too loosely, in a stepped-up enforcement of “mandatory hijab” rules that Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi announced in August. Iranians’ national ID cards have carried biometric data since 2015. But now security forces are covering their faces in the streets. Uniformed men wearing ski masks have emerged in the stream of images that pour out of Iran during the few hours a day when the government allows the internet to operate. In one video, several militia wear ski masks as they rest outside a business. In recent days, witnesses in Iran’s sprawling capital report that a majority of forces on the street had covered their face in some way.
Their apprehension over being identified may provide a clue into the key question—how deeply the revolt is reaching into Iranian society. People inside the country speak of a tectonic shift in the population. Protests have broken out in districts of Tehran that traditionally produce the militia relied upon to put down protests—not generate them. Last week in Tehran, the protests reached a high-rise district that is home to military families, another ominous development for the regime. Ghaemi spoke of a colleague with relatives in Mashad, the second-largest city in Iran, who report that the family members of the regime militiamen known as basij are lying low, “turning off lights, not letting people go in and out. They’re really fearful that people are going to attack them.” Numerous basij headquarters have been set alight, and graffiti has appeared in Tehran singling out specific security forces members as “murderers.” Message platforms have circulated threats to men in civilian clothes who are believed to be security forces. One post included the alleged security official’s ID card, including phone number and national identification number.
The revolt shows no sign of flagging. In Amini’s majority-Kurdish hometown of Saqez on Wednesday, thousands defiantly marched to her grave to observe the 40th day since her death, a deeply significant milestone in Shi’a Islam. The process repeated the next day, for 16-year-old Nika Shakarami, killed after being arrested protesting Amini’s death. On Thursday, the funeral of another protester in the northwest city of Mahabad led to the burning of the governor’s office. As a woman sat facing a handful of riot police on a Tehran street, a video shot from a passing car picked up what she was shouting to them: “I’ll hit you so you’ll run like rats!”
There is also no shortage of signs that Iran has supplemented its security apparatus with lightly trained newcomers. When human rights lawyers gathered to protest outside the Iranian Bar Association on Oct. 12, they observed that the forces that dispersed them also attacked the police already cordoning the gathering. “The basic evaluation is that they’re really rookies,” Ghaemi says.
When Iranians manage to get online, they exchange evidence supporting that conclusion. Among the videos circulating is one of anti-riot forces jostling to watch an arrest in a swarm that assures mass casualties if they come under attack. In another, young people laugh and applaud as they record anti-riot police struggling to control their motorcycles. “Look, I told you!” one exclaims in Persian. “They don’t know how to drive at all.”
One photo shows an anti-riot officer approaching Tehran’s Baharestan Square with his uniformed authority undermined by his purple backpack. Augmented forces are not necessarily less dangerous. Untrained police—if they are police at all—may be more likely to use live fire out of panic, or worse. In 2009, when as many as a million Iranians peacefully took to the streets to protest a stolen election, the 45,000 basij militia on hand were judged insufficient to the task. At that point, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, looked to local jails. “We had identified and monitored 5,000 violent criminals and, at first, ordered all of them to stay at home when there was any protest,” General Hossein Hamedani told reporters. “But later I thought: why not employ these thugs? So I organized them in three regiments to engage with the protesters on our behalf. They proved me right … if we want to train Mujahids [holy warriors], we need these types of violent people who are not afraid of a few drops of blood.”
Embedded in the boast is the implication that, more than a dozen years ago, a significant portion of the uniformed forces could not be counted upon more than a dozen years ago. The same question drives the close attention to the recruits pressed into service to meet the #MahsaAmini revolt, which appears to have reached deeper into a society that’s grown poorer and more alienated from a regime less that’s grown only more oppressive. “It could mean that they’re worried their own trained forces will not follow orders,” Ghaemi says. “They need their most loyal to go to maximum violence. They need people who will shoot on orders.”
The human rights advocate says he worries that Khamenei—notorious for favoring an iron fist—will answer chants of “Death to the dictator” by ordering a massacre on the order of Tiananmen Square, where in 1989 China extinguished a pro-freedom movement by killing hundreds, if not thousands. Such fears rose this week, when an apparent terror attack killed 15 people at a shrine in the city of Shiraz on Wednesday. Though Islamic State claimed responsibility, the regime attempted to link the attack to riots. The Supreme Leader was alluding to Iran’s security forces on Thursday when he tweeted: “the responsible sectors will definitely prevail against the criminal conspiracies of the enemies, God willing.”
Indeed, by the brutal arithmetic of the ongoing protests, the death toll indicates a relative restraint by riot police, notes Ali Vaez, the Iran analyst for International Crisis Group. In their leaderless spontaneity, the revolt resembles the nation-wide protests that erupted four years ago after a fuel prices hike. Vaez notes that the current death toll of 230 was stretched across a month, “whereas in 2019 they killed north of 400 people in two days.” (Some estimates surpass 1,000.)
“They haven’t even deployed the IRGC yet,” he says.
Vaez says it may be the protests that are understaffed. While events like funerals can produce masses, many demonstrations unfold like what one Iranian described witnessing in Tehran this week—a few dozen young people block traffic and chant, then, when riot police arrive, duck into storefronts that, in revolts past, would have been shuttered by merchants worried about damage. By remaining open, are the merchants signaling solidarity with the protestors who move, “amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea,” as Mao described an insurgency? Vaez says that may be wishful thinking.
“You have young people in the street chanting, ‘The regime is too brutal. It will continue to be brutal until you join us.’ Which indicates there is reluctance for the great strata of Iranian society to join in,” he says. “The fact that the riot police is overstretched is less significant than the fact that the middle class is still reluctant to join the fight.”

Israel: Wars, settlements, and conflicts
Associated Press/October 28/2022
Israel, which holds parliamentary elections on November 1, has been in conflict with the Palestinians and some neighboring Arab states since it was founded in 1948. Established as a homeland for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, it has since emerged as the Middle East's military powerhouse. Here are some key facts about the country.
Wars
Israel is considered the leading military power in the Middle East and is widely believed to possess the region's sole, if undeclared, nuclear arsenal. It has fought a series of wars with its Arab neighbors, the first of which broke out on May 15, 1948, a day after Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the country's creation as the British mandate withdrew from Palestine. In the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai and the strategic Golan Heights from Syria.
Israel later annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan, moves denounced by most of the international community, and still occupies the West Bank. Its last major military operation was in 2021 in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, the blockaded Palestinian coastal territory from which Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005, and this August it also launched a three-day offensive on militants in the densely-populated enclave.
Settlements and intifadas
Israel's population has increased more than tenfold since 1948, reaching 9.6 million, according to official statistics. More than 475,000 Israeli settlers live uneasily alongside though mostly apart from 2.8 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The international community regards the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has faced two Palestinian uprisings or intifadas -- from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005. The first ended with the signing in Washington of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Jerusalem
Israel considers Jerusalem to be its "eternal and indivisible" capital, while the Palestinians want to make the east of the holy city the capital of their future state. More than 200,000 Israelis live in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem. Former US president Donald Trump broke with most of the international community in 2017 by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Regional ties, tensions
Egypt and Jordan were the first Arab countries to recognize and sign peace deals with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively. Washington, a staunch ally of Israel, engineered a major shift in Israel's fractious relations with other Arab countries during the Trump presidency.
It backed Israel's settlement policy and sponsored its normalization of ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco since mid-2020, to the Palestinians' ire. The United States also helped broker a new agreement with Israel's longtime foe Lebanon to demarcate their maritime border. Since the war in Syria began in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the territory of its Iran-allied neighbor to the north. Israel has been walking a diplomatic tightrope over the war in Ukraine in February, and has vowed not to send weapons to Kyiv after warnings from Russia.
Arab minority
Israel has no written constitution. In its place, it has developed a system of basic laws and rights. In 2018, parliament adopted a controversial law defining the country as the nation state of the Jewish people, provoking fears it will lead to blatant discrimination against Arab citizens. Arabs constitute around 20 percent of Israel's population and have long complained of discrimination by the state. Last year, an independent Arab party joined government for the first time, but the coalition collapsed within months. Global rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say Israel's treatment of its Arab minority and Palestinians amounts to apartheid, which Israeli denies.
'Startup nation'
Israel's hi-tech sector employs 10 percent of its workforce, according to official figures, giving the country the name "startup nation". Israeli tech companies have developed particular expertise in cyber defense and surveillance.

Five votes in four years: Israel's election addiction
Agence France Presse/October 28/2022
Israel goes to the polls Tuesday for the fifth time in under four years, with veteran right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu seeking to make a comeback as premier. The vote comes at a time talks to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict have long since stalled and as violence has flared again in the occupied West Bank. AFP takes a look at four years of political turmoil that started at a time when Netanyahu, after a decade as prime minister, was dogged by corruption allegations which he denies.
April 2019: Dead heat
In November 2018, Netanyahu's government is left hanging by a thread after his defense minister Avigdor Lieberman quits. Lieberman, who heads a small nationalist party that acts as linchpin in the ruling coalition, resigns in protest over a truce agreed to avert a full-blown conflict with the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A month later the Knesset, or parliament, is dissolved and early elections are called. Netanyahu, dogged by the graft allegations, seeks another term in the April 2019 vote. His right-wing Likud and the Blue and White alliance of centrist challenger Benny Gantz both bag 35 seats. Netanyahu, who has the backing of smaller right-wing parties, is asked to form a government but fails to muster a majority. In late May, parliament is again dissolved.
November 2019: Netanyahu charged
The second election in September 2019 is another tight race, with Gantz's alliance taking 33 seats against Likud's 32. Netanyahu proposes a unity government, but Gantz refuses. The two men take turns to try cobbling together a coalition but fail. In November, Netanyahu is charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust -- the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face criminal prosecution. Netanyahu denies all the charges, saying they are an attempt to remove him from power.
March 2020: Covid-19 polls
Lawmakers call a new election for March 2020. Third time round, Likud comes out top with 36 seats to 33 for Gantz's alliance. But it is Gantz, who has initial pledges of support from 61 lawmakers, who gets the first shot at forming a government. He fails. With Israel in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, Netanyahu and Gantz agree to form a unity government. Under the deal, Netanyahu will stay in office for 18 months before Gantz will then take over for the same period. Lawmakers endorse the deal in May, but the government falls in December after failing to get a budget through the Knesset. Parliament is dissolved again in December and new elections are called.
March 2021: Netanyahu out
Likud tops the poll again in the fourth vote in March 2021, followed this time by the centrist Yesh Atid party led by former television host Yair Lapid. Netanyahu again fails to form a government, whereupon the task falls to Lapid. Lapid stitches together a motley eight-party coalition, including an independent Arab party for the first time, united principally by their desire to topple Netanyahu. Under the accord, nationalist hardliner Naftali Bennett will serve as premier for two years and then hand over to Lapid, who will be foreign minister in the interim. After a record total of 15 years in power, Netanyahu is ousted.
April 2022: coalition collapses
The honeymoon of the "change" government is short-lived. In April 2022, the ideologically divided coalition loses its majority when the government whip, Bennett party member Idit Silman, joins the Netanyahu camp. In June, Bennett and Lapid concede that attempts to stabilize the coalition have failed. They dissolve parliament and call the fifth elections in less than four years.Lapid heads a caretaker government. Netanyahu eyes a comeback in the November 1 vote. Polls show he would need heavy backing from the rising extreme-right to form a government.

Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in West Bank
Associated Press/October 28/2022
Two Palestinians were killed Friday by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said. The ministry announced the death of Imad Abu Rashid, 47, who "was killed by the Israeli occupation, after being shot in the abdomen, chest and head". In a later statement, it announced the death of Ramzi Sami Zabara, 35, "from a critical wound by the occupation (Israeli) bullets in the heart, in Nablus". The Israeli army said in a statement it had received information "regarding a shooting attack from a moving vehicle" on a military target near Nablus. "Soldiers conducting routine activity in the area identified two suspicious vehicles and responded with live fire towards them, hits were identified," it added, without specifying whether any fatalities had occurred. Local sources told AFP that the two men, who hailed from Askar camp near Nablus, were members of the Palestinian Security Forces and were killed during an armed clash with the Israeli army at Huwara, south of Nablus. The incident is the latest in a deadly week in Nablus, where Israeli forces have conducted regular raids and imposed tight restrictions on movement. On Tuesday, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli operation in the city targeting a nascent militant group called "The Lions' Den". The group is a loose coalition of fighters that emerged in recent months, in parallel with a sharp rise in Israeli raids on the northern West Bank. This week, an army spokesperson told AFP the group had carried out "approximately 20 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces over the past month".

Iraqi parliament approves new Cabinet in long-awaited vote
Associated Press/October 28/2022
Iraq's parliament has given its vote of confidence to a new Cabinet, breaking a yearlong political stalemate. It's the first government since 2005 that doesn't include members from the bloc of a powerful Shiite cleric. A majority of the 253 lawmakers present voted to appoint 21 ministers, with two posts — the Construction and Housing Ministry and the Environment Ministry — remaining undecided. Despite those two unresolved appointments, the approved Cabinet lineup constitutes a quorum. The Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is the first since 2005 that does not include seats for the bloc of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Iraq held early elections more than a year ago in response to mass anti-government protests that began in October 2019 in Baghdad and across southern Iraq. Protesters called for the overhaul of the political system established after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Following the election, which gave a plurality to the alliance led by al-Sadr, political infighting delayed the forming of a government for more than a year. This was driven largely by a political rivalry between al-Sadr and Iran-backed former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Sadr's bloc withdrew from the parliament amid the stalemate. In July, following the nomination of Mohammed al-Sudani for prime minister by Iran-backed parties, followers of al-Sadr stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone and the Iraqi parliament. The following month, street fights between followers of al-Sadr and members of the rival Popular Mobilization Forces left at least 30 people dead and dozens more injured. Following the clashes, al-Sadr withdrew his followers from the parliament. After their withdrawal, al-Sadr's rivals in the Coordination Framework group led by al-Maliki were able to form an alliance with Kurdish and Sunnis parties on forming a government. On Oct. 13, Iraqi lawmakers elected former minister Abdul Latif Rashid president following a barrage of rocket attacks earlier in the day, in a first step toward naming a new government.
The lead-up to Thursday's vote was marked by anxiety about more potential violence, but the streets of the capital remained quiet. Independent lawmaker Raed al-Maliki said he anticipates that al-Sadr will wait to observe the public's reception of the new government before reacting. "I expect that street protests will begin if this government doesn't succeed," he said, noting that the new Cabinet will face "major challenges in terms of reforms, combating corruption, climate change and unemployment." Along with the Cabinet post appointments, parliament approved a program that includes amending the elections law within three months of the ministers being sworn in, with early elections to be held within a year after that. The document also calls for measures to fight corruption, speed up reconstruction of areas damaged by armed conflict and return the displaced to their homes. It also calls for the elimination of "uncontrolled weapons" held by non-state actors. Al-Sudani said ahead of the vote that the new government will combat "the epidemic of corruption that has affected all aspects of life ... and has been the cause of many economic problems, weakening the state's authority, increasing poverty, unemployment, and poor public services." He also promised the Cabinet will work to build the capabilities of local governments and to "find sustainable solutions to the outstanding issues with Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government through a true partnership based on rights and duties."Former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, speaking after the vote, defended his own government's record and urged all political blocs to "support every endeavor of the new government on the path of stability and growth and defending democracy and human rights."

Report: Australian women, children returning from Syria camp
Associated Press/October 28/2022
The first group of Australian women and children held in a Syrian camp since the Islamic State group fell in 2019 was bound for Sydney despite government opponents arguing they pose an unacceptable extremist threat, a media organization reported on Friday. The four women and 13 children had left the Roj detention camp in northeast Syria on Thursday and were taken to Iraq before boarding a flight to Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. They would be the only Australians involved in the Islamic State campaign in the Middle East to be officially repatriated apart from the eight offspring of two slain combatants. The fighters' children and grandchildren were returned by the previous Australian government in 2019. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not comment on the details of the ABC report. He also would not say what would happen once the group reached Australia or whether they would be monitored. "My government will always act to keep Australians safe and will always act on the advice of the national security agencies," Albanese told reporters. Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil also declined to comment. "Given the sensitive nature of the matters involved, it would be inappropriate to comment further," her office said in a statement. Australian officials had assessed the returning group as the most vulnerable among 60 Australian women and children held in Roj, the ABC said. Most of the children were born in Syria. Their return would likely be the first step in repatriating all Australians detained in Syria, the ABC reported. Senior lawmakers in the previous conservative government that was voted out of office in May elections after nine years in power say their administration did not repatriate more Australians from Syria because of the domestic risk they would pose if they had been radicalized. Opposition leader Peter Dutton said that view firmed after a confidential briefing from Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the nation's domestic spy agency known as ASIO. "I must say that I am more strongly of the view now that there is a very significant risk in bringing some of these people to our country that can't be mitigated, frankly. Not to the level we would require to keep Australians safe," Dutton said earlier this month. "We need to understand how it is with limited resources ASIO and the Australian Federal Police can provide the guarantees to keep the Australian public safe," Dutton added. Albanese said on Friday his government had acted on national security advice just as his predecessors had done when the eight children were repatriated. Australian allies in the Middle East conflict including the United States, Germany and France have already repatriated dozens of their citizens in similar circumstances in Syria. A British woman who repatriated with her child this month became the first adult to be allowed back into Britain from a Syrian camp since Islamic State fell.

Ukraine braces for more power cuts, as Russia hits call-up target
AFP/October 28, 2022
KYIV: Four million people across Ukraine have been hit by power cuts due to Russia’s bombing campaign, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, as officials in the capital Kyiv warned of “unprecedented” outages. Zelensky was speaking hours after Russia said it had completed its call-up of 300,000 reservists to fight there.
The United States meanwhile announced fresh military aid to Ukraine — in part because of Russia’s attacks on the country’s civilian infrastructure. In his evening address Friday, Zelensky stressed that the whole country was suffering the consequences of the Russian campaign. “About 4 million Ukrainians face restrictions now” from the rolling blackouts, he said. “We are doing everything so that the state has the opportunity to reduce such blackouts.”Russian forces have for weeks pummelled Ukraine with air strikes especially targeting energy infrastructure, destroying at least a third of the country’s power facilities ahead of winter. As a result, energy company DTEK, the operator for the Kyiv region, warned Friday that Russian strikes meant it would have to introduce “unprecedented” power cuts there to prevent a complete blackout. “More severe and longer blackouts will be implemented in the coming days,” it said. In Moscow meanwhile, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting that they had hit their call-up target of 300,000 soldiers. The mobilization, which led to some Russian men dashing for the borders to avoid the fighting, was announced on September 21 to help turn the tide after Moscow suffered a series of defeats in Ukraine. According to Shoigu, 82,000 recruits were already in Ukraine, 41,000 of them deployed to military units. After making major gains in Ukraine’s east and south, Kyiv’s forces are now closing in on the key southern city of Kherson. The announcement of the draft’s completion came as Moscow’s proxies said they had finished a pull-out of civilians from Kherson. The city, which had a population of around 288,000 people before the fighting, was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s troops in the early days of the February offensive.
Retaking it would mark a major milestone for Kyiv.
Since mid-October, the occupation authorities have urged Kherson residents to cross the Dnipro River, deeper into Moscow-controlled territory and closer to regions of southern Russia. A Russian-installed official in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, has said that at least 70,000 people had left their homes in the region in the space of a week. Kyiv has compared the operation to Soviet-era “deportations.” Kyiv’s army said Friday that the Russian command in Kherson was trying to “hide the real losses of servicemen” in order to “avoid panic.” In one indication of Russian losses, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said late on Thursday that 23 of his fighters had been killed in battles around Kherson this week with dozens more wounded. “At the beginning of this week, one of the Chechen units was shelled in the Kherson region,” Kadyrov said on Telegram. The Kremlin ally, who rarely reveals defeats, admitted that losses were “big on that day.” On Friday, Iranians living in Ukraine held a rally in central Kyiv against the alleged use of Iranian-made drones by Russian forces to carry out the strikes. “The country where we were born and the regime currently in power sends drones to kill us and our friends,” 34-year-old Iranian architect Maziar Mian told AFP. Iran has rejected these claims and Moscow has accused the West of using these accusations to put “pressure” on Tehran. Partly in response to the strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure, Washington announced another $275-million military aid package.
It includes ammunition for Himars precision rocket launchers, other ammunition and four satellite communications antennas, said Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh. “We’re seeing Ukrainian infrastructure and electrical grids being targeted by the Russians and these antennas provide an additional capability on the ground at a critical time when Ukraine’s infrastructure is being hit,” Singh said. Canada on Friday announced fresh sanctions against 35 individuals and six companies in Russia’s energy sector, as a well as a bond issue to support Ukraine. Those individuals named include National Hockey League player Alexander Frolov and chess grandmaster Anton Demchenko. Ukraine has repeatedly urged its allies in the West to extend its sanctions to high-profile personalities who have publicly backed Russia’s invasion. At the United Nations on Thursday, Adedeji Ebo, UN’s Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said he was aware of a Russian complaint alleging biological weapons program in Ukraine. So far, he said, “the United Nations is not aware of any such biological weapons program.”

Iraq’s new government unlikely to solve crises
AFP/October 28, 2022
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament has approved the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani after more than a year of political paralysis, but the war-ravaged country is far from reaching safe shores. Sudani now faces the gargantuan task of delivering on pledges to fight corruption and offer job opportunities to the country’s disaffected youth, all while grappling with an unpredictable political opponent. In a bid to dispel criticism over his pro-Iran political backers in parliament, he has also vowed not to “adopt the polarized politics” of the past that saw Iraq split among fiercely rival camps. But oil-rich Iraq has for years suffered rampant corruption preventing the adequate distribution of funds, and analysts predict no imminent end to the country’s protracted crises. Sudani and his 21-member cabinet gained the confidence of lawmakers Thursday, in a vote that came more than a year after the country’s last legislative election. The key step was welcomed by UN chief Antonio Guterres, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday. The legislature is dominated by the Coordination Framework, a bloc made up mainly of pro-Iran factions including the former paramilitary Hashed Al-Shaabi.
Also part of the Framework is former premier Nuri Al-Maliki, the longtime rival of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who has been involved in heated duels with the bloc all year.
Sadr, who has the ability to mobilize tens of thousands of his supporters with a single message, has already refused to join Sudani’s government. Under a power-sharing system adopted in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion, cabinet posts are shared between Iraq’s ethnic and confessional communities. As such, 12 ministers are Shiites hailing from the Coordination Framework, six are Sunnis, two are Kurds and one is a Christian, with two other ministries reserved for Kurds yet to be filled. The new government has come to power “via the same methods as previous governments, with the same blocs and the same parties” that have dominated politics since the 2003 toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein, political analyst Ali Baidar said. And these parties “view the country’s resources and capabilities as spoils that they can divide between themselves.”
But the new cabinet lacks the support of a crucial faction — that of Sadr.
Tensions between the Coordination Framework and Sadr came to a head in late August, when more then 30 of the cleric’s supporters were killed in clashes with Iran-backed factions and the army. Sadr has repeatedly demanded early elections, but the Framework sought to ensure that a government was in place before any polls were held. Sudani has promised to “modify the election law within three months and organize elections within a year,” in an apparent response to Sadr’s demands. Granting concessions to the Sadrists could guarantee a “relative stability,” according to Ihsan Al-Shammari, a political scientist at the University of Baghdad. In contrast, Lahib Higel of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, believes “the parties behind the current government are not interested in holding early elections” and that “a year is unrealistic.” But Shammari pointed to the possibility of an “extreme reaction” if the Sadrists feel “isolated” or that “there is a plan to undermine their political future.”Sudani has said he will urgently work on improvements and developments that “affect the lives of citizens.” Memories are fresh of the nationwide anti-government protests against endemic corruption that erupted in October 2019, and on Friday, hundreds gathered to demonstrate against the new government in the southern city of Nasiriyah. In terms of foreign policy, Sudani has reiterated vows not to “allow Iraq to be a base for attacks on other countries.”He has added that he would not engage past power struggles between rival camps, and instead pursue a policy of “friendship and cooperation with all.” Higel said she expects that Sudani “will make internal issues such as unemployment, water and electric scarcity his priority rather than focusing on foreign policy.”In an Iraq desperately in need of foreign investment, he “will try to seek a balance between the West and Iran,” despite his staunchly pro-Iran support base, the analyst said. But in a country often caught in the crosshairs of regional conflicts — having recently been the target of both Turkish and Iranian strikes — “balance” may not be enough, Shammari said.Iraq must “demand respect for its sovereignty and non-interference in its domestic affairs,” he said.

Barack Obama gets a midterm do-over to help boost Democrats
Associated Press/October 28/2022
Barack Obama is trying to do something he couldn't during two terms as president: help Democrats succeed in national midterm elections when they already hold the White House.
Of course, he's more popular than he was back then, and now it's President Joe Biden, Obama's former vice president, who faces the prospects of a November rebuke.
Obama begins a hopscotch across battleground states Friday in Georgia, and he will travel Saturday to Michigan and Wisconsin, followed by stops next week in Nevada and Pennsylvania.
The itinerary, which includes rallies with Democratic candidates for federal and state offices, comes as Biden and Democrats try to stave off a strong Republican push to upend Democrats' narrow majorities in the House and Senate and claim key governorships ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
With Biden's job approval ratings in the low 40s amid sustained inflation, he's an albatross for Democrats like Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. But party strategists see Obama as having extensive reach even in a time of hyperpartisanship and economic uncertainty.
"Obama occupies a rare place in our politics today," said David Axelrod, who helped shape Obama's campaigns from his days in the Illinois state Senate through two presidential elections. "He obviously has great appeal to Democrats. But he's also well-liked by independent voters."
Neither Biden nor former President Donald Trump can claim that, Axelrod and others noted, even as both men also ratchet up their campaigning ahead of the Nov. 8 elections.
"Barack Obama is the best messenger we've got in our party, and he's the most popular political figure in the country in either party," said Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat and prominent political commentator.
Obama left office in January 2017 with a 59% approval rating, and Gallup measured his post-presidential approval at 63% the following year, the last time the organization surveyed former presidents. That's considerably higher than his ratings in 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House in a midterm election that Obama called a "shellacking." In his second midterm election four years later, the GOP regained control of the Senate.
Swimming against those historical tides, Biden traveled Thursday to Syracuse, New York, for a rare appearance in a competitive congressional district. After months of Republican attacks over inflation, he offered a closing economic argument buoyed somewhat by news of 2.6% GDP growth in the third quarter after two previous quarters of retraction.
"Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy ... where everyone does well," Biden said.
Yet Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said Obama is better positioned to take that same argument to Americans who haven't decided whom to vote for or whether to vote at all.
"If it's just a straight-up referendum on Democrats and the economy, then we're screwed," Smith said, acknowledging that no incumbent party wants to run amid sustained inflation. "But you have to make the election a choice between the two parties, crystallize the differences."
Obama, she said, did that in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections "by winning over a lot of working-class white voters and others we don't always think about as part of the 'Obama coalition.'"
He couldn't replicate it in midterms, but he's not the president this time. Smith and Axelrod said that means Obama can more deftly position himself above the fray to defend Democratic accomplishments, from the specifics of the Inflation Reduction Act to the COVID-19 pandemic relief package that many Democrats have avoided touting because Republicans blame it for inflation. Smith said Obama can remind voters of years of Republican attacks on his 2010 health care law that now seems to be a permanent and generally accepted part of the U.S. health insurance market.
Beyond those policy arguments, Sellers noted that Obama, as the first Black president, "connects especially with Black and brown voters," a bond reflected in the opening days of his itinerary.
In Atlanta, he'll be on stage with Warnock, the first Black U.S. senator in Georgia history, and Stacey Abrams, who's vying to become the first Black female governor in American history. Warnock faces a stiff challenge from Republican nominee Herschel Walker, who is also Black. Abrams is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who narrowly defeated her four years ago.
In Michigan, Obama will campaign in Detroit with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is being challenged by Republican Tudor Dixon, and in Wisconsin he'll be in Milwaukee with Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who is trying to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson. Each city is where the state's Black population is most concentrated. Obama's Pennsylvania swing will include Philadelphia, another city where Democrats must get a strong turnout from Black voters to win competitive races for Senate and governor.
With the Senate now split 50-50 between the two major parties and Vice President Kamala Harris giving Democrats the deciding vote, any Senate contest could end up deciding which party controls the chamber for the next two years. Among the tightest Senate battlegrounds, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are three where Black turnout could be most critical to Democratic fortunes.
Plans have been in the works for Obama and Biden to campaign together in Pennsylvania, though neither the White House nor Obama's office has confirmed details.
A wider embrace for Obama is a turnabout from his two midterm elections. But it's at least partly a rite of passage for former presidents. "Most of them — maybe not President Trump, but most of them — are viewed more favorably after they leave office," Axelrod said. Notably, during Obama's presidency, former President Bill Clinton was the in-demand surrogate heavyweight, especially for moderates trying to survive Republican surges in 2010 and 2014. Clinton was a pivotal voice for Obama's reelection effort in 2012, with Obama dubbing him the "secretary of explaining stuff" after Clinton's sweeping endorsement address at the Democratic convention as Obama was locked in a tight contest with Republican Mitt Romney.
"Bill Clinton was the MVP for us in 2012," Axelrod said.
Now, Clinton is two decades removed from the White House, and the #MeToo movement has forced some people to reevaluate his history of sexual misconduct allegations.
"It's always been dicey to bring in national Democrats in a midterm, and it doesn't help when they bring a lot of baggage," Smith said of Clinton. Axelrod was more circumspect, saying simply, "It's a different time." But he said Obama and Clinton have a similar approach. "What Clinton and Obama share is a kind of unique ability to colloquialize complicated political arguments of the time, just talk in common-sense terms," Axelrod said. "They're storytellers. I think you'll see that again when he's out there."

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 28-29.2022
From Lebanon to Turkey: Israel’s East Med policy in spotlight - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/October 28/2022
Will Israel's current government's major diplomatic accomplishments have tangible results?
Israeli leaders score two diplomatic coupse this week: the signing of the maritime agreement with Lebanon and Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s trip to Turkey.
These two events mark important turning points in Israel’s relations. The maritime agreement should ostensibly reduce tensions in the North and enable Israel to extract energy resources, while Lebanon may open up exploration off the coast to companies and investors linked to other countries, including France and Qatar.
Gantz’s trip to Turkey is part of a year-long reconciliation project between Jerusalem and Ankara. It is not yet clear what the fruits of that shift in policy will be. Israel seeks to improve relations across Meditarranean
Turkey has become isolated after threatening most of its neighbors and many countries in the region. These include Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, the UAE, Iraq, Armenia and others. Ankara has also invaded Syria, attacked Kurds and prodded Azerbaijan to heighten tensions with Armenia. In addition, it has gotten involved in a grain deal amid the Russia-Ukraine war and offered to be an energy hub for Russia.
For Ankara, this is a good policy: muscular diplomacy in which the NATO-member country uses threats to achieve its goals. For instance, Turkey threatened to keep Finland and Sweden, two democracies, from joining the defense alliance. Meanwhile, its authoritarianism grows with attacks on media and free speech.
Turkey has also used threats against Israel to achieve its goals. Ankara’s leadership has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, emboldened extremists and detained tourists, while backing Hamas terrorists. Now, Ankara appears to be shifting course, wanting closer ties with the Jewish state. It’s not clear whether those ties are merely part of a short-term agenda to win favors in Washington, or whether Turkey will actually change its rhetoric.
FOR ISRAEL, the goal is to improve relations in the Middle East. The Abraham Accords have given the Jewish state a major shift in its relative position: from an isolated country to one that is a potential center of regional relationships. The next summit between Israel, Bahrain, Morocco, UAE, Egypt and Jordan is scheduled for January in Morocco.
Israeli government got major diplomatic accomplishments
Israel’s current government sought to improve ties through public meetings as well as through trips by Gantz, President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Yair Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett. In fact, the current leadership appears to have had more major public meetings with countries, from the Gulf to Morocco and Azerbaijan, in just a year, than the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu did in ten.
That is a major accomplishment; the question is whether it will have tangible results and whether Israel can juggle the concerns of different countries in the region.
These warming regional ties can be seen in the defense tech arena. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will display at the Bahrain International Air Show in November. IAI says it will showcase a variety of its “state-of-the-art aviation products, including civil aviation, radars and avionics, air defense systems, coast guard and drone guard systems. This is the first time that an Israeli company is participating in the event.”
WHEN IT comes to common threats, Israel’s main concern is Iran. Iran-Russia ties relating to drones could increase Russian support for Iranian defense technology sectors. It’s not clear how this may impact Iran’s and Russia’s role in Syria on Israel’s border.
It’s also not clear if the maritime deal will actually stop Hezbollah from escalating tensions. Hezbollah could use foreign investment off the coast to hide behind foreign companies exploring gas. Jerusalem would then be put in a difficult position of retaliating against Hezbollah and being seen as harming the foreign investment.
The maritime deal with Lebanon could be good for both countries, but it could also let Hezbollah off the hook and create a situation where Israel has to honor commitments to Lebanon while Beirut continues to let the terrorist group conduct illegal activities, like weapons stockpiles and using drones to threaten Israeli gas rigs.
Meanwhile, Turkey could also use better ties with Israel to try to harm Israeli ties with Greece and Cyprus. Jerusalem, Athens and Nicosia have achieved unprecedented partnerships in recent years. This resulted in defense cooperation and was also supposed to lead to the potential for an East Med pipeline.
A flight training center was announced last year between Israel and Greece; operations at the center began last week. At the time of its announcement, Gantz said that “this cooperation agreement rests on the excellence of Israel’s defense industry and the strong relations between the defense establishments of Greece and Israel… I am certain that [this program] will upgrade the capabilities and strengthen the economies of Israel and Greece and thus the partnership between our two countries will deepen on the defense, economic and political levels.”Turkey, meanwhile, wants to position itself as an energy hub. It’s not clear if Ankara will continue to create turmoil in the region. It has concluded new defense and maritime deals with Libya and has threatened Greece in the past year. Recently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected Turkish claims to sovereignty over Greek islands, saying it was not acceptable for a NATO member like Turkey to threaten another NATO member like Greece.
Turkey uses Israel for deals in Washington
ISRAEL DOESN’T want to be involved in large disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean, but in the past Turkey has tried to use relations with Jerusalem to secure deals in Washington, and Ankara has exploited its ties with Hamas to threaten peace in the region.
It’s entirely plausible that Turkey will not only increase threats against Greece but will try to use new ties with Israel to score concessions or silence from Jerusalem. It’s clear that the West, already backing Ukraine, can’t afford a crisis with Greece.
Ankara has also blackmailed NATO, threatening to prevent northern European countries from joining while it collaborates with Russia and threatens new military attacks in Syria. Turkey has been bombing US partners in Syria, the anti-ISIS Syrian Democratic Forces, using drones to assassinate anti-ISIS fighters. At the same time, Iran is concerned about Azerbaijan-Armenia tensions, which could lead to yet another crisis in the Caucasus.
For Turkey, the world of crisis has been good; it distracts from domestic economic problems as the ruling party heads towards elections, and enables Ankara to wring concessions from the West and others to maintain the peace. By positioning itself as an energy hub and a country that works with Russia and Ukraine, Turkey can play both sides. This is how it tends to achieve goals, by working both sides: being in NATO, but also attending the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) confab in Central Asia and working with authoritarian regimes like China, Russia and Iran.
For Israel, the goal is to have positive relations with more countries. Israel already has good ties with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, France and Azerbaijan; relations with Turkey are also important. However, as the conflict in Ukraine illustrates, Israel must always be careful not to become the center of attention, where it is then asked to increase involvement in a conflict, because Israel has enough threats on its borders and from Iran. With increasing pressure on Jerusalem to aid Kyiv militarily, there is much at stake.
In addition it appears the gas deal with Lebanon and ties with Turkey are partly driven by elections. Ankara had cold relations with Israel during the Netanyahu years and the former prime minister was always willing to slam Turkey for hosting Hamas or attacking Kurds. Netanyahu has also been critical of the Lebanon deal. A new government in Israel or chaos after the election could shift Turkey’s priorities – and Israel may find itself in a difficult position regarding both Lebanon and the Eastern Mediterranean if tensions in any of these areas flare up.

Turkey: A NATO Ally?
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/October 28, 2022
What do members, future members, dialogue partners and future dialogue partners of this exotic blend of nations [the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO] have in common?
With their growing democratic deficits and authoritarian-to-dictatorship regimes, they are at cold war with the world's democratic bloc of nations.
"I told Putin... Let us in so we'll break up with the EU. The Shanghai Five is better [than the EU]. It is much more powerful. [With membership] we'll have a chance to be together with the countries with which we share common values" — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, January 2013.
And finally, in September 2022, Erdoğan became the first head of a NATO state attending an SCO summit, in Uzbekistan.... Erdoğan went to the summit upon Putin's personal invitation.
This is the natural outcome of West's deaf ears and blind eyes. When Erdoğan first spoke of SCO membership for Turkey a decade ago, Western capitals reacted with shy laughter and a misdiagnosis: that Erdoğan was just bluffing to win quicker membership accession to the European Union.
Western bigwigs did not even get the message when in 2013 Erdoğan spoke of Eurasian dictatorships as "countries with which we have common values." He was just speaking what, to him, was the truth.
Funny, Erdoğan became the first NATO head of state attending an SCO summit while pressuring Congress for the delivery of U.S.-made F-16 Block 70 fighter aircraft for his air force. Behind closed doors in Washington, his envoys and back channels will be telling their U.S. audience that "Turkey's future is in the Western bloc, that the SCO talk is for Turkey's balancing act between its commitment to the West and its inevitable proximity with Russia."
Turks are living in a totally different economic realm than the recent past. Turkey's official annual inflation climbed to a fresh 24-year high of 80% in August -- though ENAG, an independent research organization, estimated the true annual inflation rate at 181% for the same period. Worse may be yet to come.
Meanwhile, Turkey's currency, the lira, has lost more than half of its value against the US dollar since 2021.
What do members, future members, dialogue partners and future dialogue partners of the exotic blend of nations that is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) have in common? With their growing democratic deficits and authoritarian-to-dictatorship regimes, they are at cold war with the world's democratic bloc of nations. Pictured: Leaders of member states, observers and partners of the SCO pose for a photo at the SCO Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 16, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Bobylyov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
The Shanghai Five group, which later became the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), was created on April 26, 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions, in Shanghai by the heads of states of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
Full members of Russian President Vladimir Putin's de facto answer to NATO, in addition to the Shanghai Five group, are Uzbekistan, Iran, India and Pakistan, with Belarus going through the accession process. Afghanistan and Mongolia are observer states. Sri Lanka, Turkey, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Nepal, Armenia, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are dialogue partners.
What do members, future members, dialogue partners and future dialogue partners of this exotic blend of nations have in common?
With their growing democratic deficits and authoritarian-to-dictatorship regimes, they are at cold war with the world's democratic bloc of nations.
A brief chronology:
"Let us [Turkey] in and we'll review our European Union (EU) membership bid" -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in July 2012 -- the same year Turkey became a dialogue partner of SCO.
"I told Putin... Let us in so we'll break up with the EU. The Shanghai Five is better [than the EU]. It is much more powerful. [With membership] we'll have a chance to be together with the countries with which we share common values" -- Erdoğan, in January 2013.
"Why should Turkey not be in the Five?" – Erdoğan, in March 2016.
And finally, in September 2022, Erdoğan became the first head of a NATO state attending an SCO summit, in Uzbekistan. "Our relations with these countries will be moved to a much different position with this step," Erdoğan said there. When asked if he meant membership of the SCO, he said, "Of course, that's the target." But it is also Putin's target, like putting another slow-fuse time bomb at NATO headquarters. Erdoğan went to the summit upon Putin's personal invitation.
This is the natural outcome of West's deaf ears and blind eyes. When Erdoğan first spoke of SCO membership for Turkey a decade ago, Western capitals reacted with shy laughter and a misdiagnosis: that Erdoğan was just bluffing to win quicker membership accession to the European Union.
Western bigwigs did not even get the message when in 2013 Erdoğan spoke of Eurasian dictatorships as "countries with which we have common values." He was just speaking what, to him, was the truth.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last month that he was "very irritated" by Turkey's attempts to join this Central Asian security-and-everything-else bloc dominated by Russia and China. Sorry, too late.
Funny, Erdoğan became the first NATO head of state attending an SCO summit while pressuring Congress for the delivery of U.S.-made F-16 Block 70 fighter aircraft for his air force. Behind closed doors in Washington, his envoys and back channels will be telling their U.S. audience that "Turkey's future is in the Western bloc, that the SCO talk is for Turkey's balancing act between its commitment to the West and its inevitable proximity with Russia."
Putin announced at the SCO summit on September 16:
"Our agreement on deliveries of Russian natural gas to Turkey should come into effect in the near future, with 25% of payment for these deliveries in Russian roubles."
After Western sanctions hit Russia, five Turkish banks joined the Russian Mir payment system (although two later withdrew), effectively crippling the sanctions imposed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. Some Turkish banks suspended their corporate lending after the Turkish government's latest raft of regulations raised their costs and forced many to cut their balance sheet risks.
All the same, Erdoğan's Eurasianism, his revisionist neo-Ottoman policies, and aggression against Greece and Cyprus may not work like the miracle tools he might have been hoping for in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023. He has recently threatened to invade Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. He has threatened to launch a new military incursion into Syria, where Turkish soldiers are already fighting U.S.-backed Kurdish groups. In the past, such tools always worked to lift up Turks' nationalist spirit and earned Erdoğan votes. But Turks are living in a totally different economic realm than the recent past.
Turkey's official annual inflation climbed to a fresh 24-year high of 80% in August -- though ENAG, an independent research organization, estimated the true annual inflation rate at 181% for the same period. Worse may be yet to come.
EPDK, the Turkish electricity regulator, and its natural gas distribution counterpart Botas, have just decided to increase electricity and gas prices by 20% for private individuals, and 50% for companies. This measure should further accelerate inflation in the country.
Among member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Turkey has seen the highest increase in energy prices in the last year. According to Euronews, Botas' natural gas wholesale price rose 1,330% for electricity generation, 997% for industrial use and 216% for residential use. Meanwhile, Turkey's currency, the lira, has lost more than half of its value against the US dollar since 2021.
According to the findings of the pollster Optimar, 76.6% of Turks say their top problem is inflation and unemployment. This is not a good omen for the leader of a country where the per capita income in the last decade fell from $13,000 to $8,000, and who is heading into a presidential election.
Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Fracturing Europe can learn much from the fate of Lebanon and must do so before it is too late
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/October 28/2022
Fracturing Europe can learn much from the fate of Lebanon and must do so before it is too late
Electricity and energy problems. A conflict that includes Iranian interference and the use of their drones. Political instability. Rising inflation. Insecurity. These are a few of the many things one might mention when discussing the crises in Lebanon.
Strangely enough, they might also now be used to describe the situation in Europe. The continent is in the midst of an energy crisis. Iran is involved in the war in Ukraine. There is political volatility all over the continent. And as a result of persistent inflation we have started to see social clashes.
It is as if Europe, while trying to help Lebanon emerge from its crisis, has caught “the Lebanon virus” and we are witnessing the Lebanization of Europe.
One could argue that the reasons for the continuous vicious circle in Lebanon that empowers outside influence is due to the country’s political structure: A confessional and centralized political system that pits one group against the other and always invites outside influence. This has resulted in the current Iranian occupation, in the form of Hezbollah. Before that it was the Syrian regime. We can be certain that unless some real, structural, political change takes place, this cycle will never end. Along the way, Lebanon has lost its identity and what made it different.
We can see that Europe, or the “old continent” as it is sometimes called, is facing a vision and belief crisis. Here, too, one could argue that it is the result of a political structure, in this case that of the EU.
In Lebanon, the interests of minorities collide on major political and international issues. In Europe, the national interests of member states collide when attempting to set a common European foreign policy. The EU, part of the reconstruction of Europe in the latter half of the 20th century after the horrors of two world wars, brought stability and peace to the continent — until now.
As Europe faces a war in Ukraine and an ongoing energy crisis, there are tensions within Germany and France and this is a dangerous state of affairs. The EU is a wonderful achievement. Yet, in a changing world, one needs to ask whether Europe can, and should, shift toward a single and unique foreign policy voice, instead of balancing both a regional policy with the national policies in each member country. This has resulted in a frustrating situation in which Europe has lost sight of the international challenges it is facing. It has also put an increased focus on the Franco-German alliance, a partnership that has been a pillar of the EU and achieved a lot. But every time the alliance of these two countries shakes, the whole of Europe shakes with it.
Now, as Europe faces a war in Ukraine and an ongoing energy crisis, there are tensions within Germany and France and this is a dangerous state of affairs.
In the current EU structure, every member nation evaluates the effect any collective foreign policy decision will have on their own country. This applies both to political and economic decisions. This has led — because of the layers of consensus that are needed, and the political representation both on national and EU levels — to a loss of long-term vision and strategy and an increase in transactional politics and deal-making. It is also fertile ground for playing the “blame game” and therefore for outside interference to flourish. No one could have imagined that Europe would be facing such challenges again — and the war in Ukraine is exacerbating everything.The political structure it operates under has also led to a big mistake for Europe, just as it did for Lebanon: It gave away the design of the political vision and strategy and handed it to technocrats. This stripped Europe of the symbol it had become, and what it represented, and made it look like little more than a bureaucratic enterprise in charge of, for example, determining what type of charger the next iPhone model must use. This makes the citizens of Europe forget that the united continent is a symbol of hope and the benefits of living together peacefully. The same applies to Lebanon, which was once more than a country, it was an example of modernity. Obviously the expertise provided by technocrats is needed but unfortunately this has been transformed into a way of making decisions without bearing the political responsibility for them. In Lebanon, many ministers have found that it is a way for them to extract themselves from their political responsibilities of working alongside Hezbollah. It is the definition of hypocrisy. How many times have we heard, “This minister is fine, he was in a technocratic government.” But everyone fails to hold them accountable for the dangerous political decisions they took along the way.The same applies in Europe; technocrats have not been held accountable for their decisions that, for example, led to the energy dependencies we are now living with. Europe faces a big challenge and needs to return to a strong political vision. This is why it is important for France and Germany to open a dialogue on what happens next, and engage with all EU member countries. Europe needs to state what it stands for now and what are its beliefs. It needs to remain anchored within the transatlantic alliance while maintaining its own voice and deciding its own future and fate. This is the best way for Europe to protect all of its citizens.This cannot happen within the existing framework of the EU and so all European countries are at a crossroads: A decision needs to be made about whether to mutualize the affairs and fate of all member states, or to be content with being a simple economic bloc. If European countries decide to move forward and speak as one, it means there should be only one foreign department for all and, in the future, a single military force. This clarity is needed urgently. The current crisis has revealed that Europe needs to shift toward a strong political voice to protect its own interests and avoid losing to its enemies, just as Lebanon did.
• Khaled Abou Zahr is CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.

We must not allow Iran to block tentative steps toward peace in the South Caucusus
Luke Coffey/Arab News/October 28/2022
During a parade in Baku in December 2020 marking Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Karabakh War, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recited an Azerbaijani poem that caught the attention of Iran. The poem, titled “Gulustan,” speaks of sadness resulting from the fact that the Aras River divides the ethnically Azerbaijani people in the Republic of Azerbaijan from those in Iran.
The line of the poem that particularly irked Tehran was: “They separated the Aras River and filled it with rocks and rods. I will not be separated from you. They have separated us forcibly.”
This line suggests to some that all ethnic Azerbaijanis will be reunited someday. Although the poem was written in 1959, it deals with an issue dating back to 1828. At that time, the Treaty of Turkmenchay between Imperial Russia and Persia, which ended the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), created a border between the powers along the Aras River. Today, Azerbaijanis are thought to be the second-largest ethnic group in Iran.
In recent years, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have remained cordial on the surface but tense behind the scenes. They have had maritime-border disputes in the Caspian Sea. Iran’s cozy relationship with Azerbaijan’s longtime adversary, Armenia, has always concerned Baku. Meanwhile, Iran is suspicious of the close bilateral relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel.
However, two recent issues have further complicated Azerbaijani-Iranian relations. Last week, Iran conducted an unprecedentedly large military exercise along its northern border with Azerbaijan. These military maneuvers were different from previous exercises for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they were accompanied by a slick messaging operation from Tehran. For example, Iranian state-run TV broadcast a music video, apparently produced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that included footage from the military exercise. The lyrics of the song that was used warned Israel not to “stray too far from your path, don’t dig your own grave with your own hands” while also cautioning Azerbaijan that “anyone who looks at Iran the wrong way must be destroyed.”
Secondly, and perhaps more consequentially, a major part of the training exercise included the rehearsal of a military assault across the Aras River. For civilians, crossing a river is a simple matter of walking or driving over a bridge. But as Russia has shown in Ukraine, constructing a temporary bridge under gunfire to support a military operation is no easy task. In fact, in the case of Russia’s attempts in Ukraine, it has often proved to be deadly.
Although for the most part the Aras River serves as the border between Azerbaijan and Iran, there are some small sections of the river that are entirely inside Iran. It was at one of those locations that the IRGC was filmed constructing a temporary pontoon bridge and rehearsing a military river crossing. It was clear to anyone watching the exercise that it was sending a message to Azerbaijan.
The international community should put pressure on Iran so it does not become a spoiler of peace in the region.
Another point of contention between Azerbaijan and Iran is over the establishment of the so-called Zangezur Corridor. As part of the November 2020 ceasefire agreement that ended the Second Karabakh War, Armenia pledged to “guarantee the security of transport connections” between Azerbaijan proper and its autonomous Nakhchivan region, an exclave nestled between Iran, Armenia and Turkey.
Almost two years later, a transport corridor connecting these two parts of Azerbaijan, via Armenia’s Syunik province, is no closer to reality. Tehran does not like the idea of the Zangezur Corridor for two reasons. Firstly, the effect of such a transport link would be felt beyond the region in a way that is not in Iran’s interest. It would ultimately connect Turkey to the heart of the Eurasian landmass in Central Asia. Tehran is very aware that this transport route would be another one with which Iran would have to compete.
Secondly, connecting Azerbaijan proper with its Nakhchivan exclave through the Zangezur Corridor would reduce Iran’s influence in the region. Currently, Azerbaijan relies on access to Iranian airspace and territory to supply Nakhchivan. In addition to these transit rights, Azerbaijan also relies on Iran to provide natural gas to Nakhchivan. If Iran was no longer needed for these purposes, Azerbaijan would be in a stronger position to challenge it in the region. Tehran does not like this. Over the summer, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted his concern about the establishment of the Zangezur Corridor.
In response, Iran has become more involved on the ground in the region. For example, Tehran announced last week it is opening a consulate in Kapan, a small city in Armenia close to where the Zangezur Corridor would be. Visits by high-level government delegations between Armenia and Iran are commonplace.
The heightened tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran come at an interesting time in regional geopolitics. Civil unrest has rocked the latter for more than 40 days during sustained protests against the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. Meanwhile, Armenia and Azerbaijan are probably closer to a lasting peace agreement than they have been in recent memory. This could lead to the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey and serve as a much-needed boost to the region’s economy.It is understandable that global policymakers are closely monitoring developments in Ukraine and keeping an eye on China and Taiwan — but they should not ignore what is happening in the South Caucasus. The international community should put pressure on Iran so it does not become a spoiler of peace in the region.
• Luke Coffey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey

How new UK leader can benefit from stronger Mideast links
Bashayer Al-Majed/Arab News/October 28/2022
It has been a tumultuous few weeks in the UK, with three prime ministers in two months, countless ministerial resignations and the loss of a beloved monarch. Amid rising inflation and interest rates, the effects of COVID-19 and Brexit are taking a toll on businesses, challenging their ability to stay afloat, while people tighten their belts and limit spending in the face of a cost-of-living crisis.
At the same time, a labor shortage has left firms struggling to find employees to fill empty posts, leading to a U-turn on immigration, as the country realizes it needs immigrant workers to maintain basic services.
Can Rishi Sunak, the new UK prime minister, bring some stability? His previous role as chancellor of the exchequer, as well as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs and hedge fund partner, appear to be giving the markets confidence, with the pound rising to 1.15 against the dollar, its highest level in over a month.
Surely, stability is the best route to regaining international investment? Sunak’s experience as finance minister — he introduced the furlough scheme to prevent severe unemployment and business collapse during the pandemic — and his steady assuredness seem just what the country needs. Someone who can lead, without buffoonery and risky chance-taking. It will not be an easy ride regardless of who is in charge. There is a large deficit to be made up and Sunak is opposed to the country borrowing more, which means the money has to come from the people or from outside investment; most likely both.
Does this mean Sunak will make an effort to build on UK-Middle East relations? With wealthy Russian oligarchs out of the picture, he needs to bring in economic interest from elsewhere. The US economic relationship with the Gulf is still on shaky ground after the Biden administration refused to continue maintenance of Saudi military aircraft in Yemen to defend against Iranian attacks, and the Kingdom steadfastly stuck with OPEC’s decision to cut oil production, despite Washington’s requests to increase their yield.
Indeed, OPEC announced the decision to cut production by a further 2 million barrels per day in order to stabilize price volatility. With the OECD’s oil stocks 8 percent below its five-year average and energy prices rising due to the invasion of Ukraine, Sunak’s ability to deal with Saudi Arabia and OPEC will be vital. With the UK’s economy having taken a beating, someone with a firm financial understanding is what is needed
Additionally, if Ukraine’s intelligence reports are true and Iran is supplying Russia with Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones and other military equipment, building a stronger relationship with the Kingdom and the Middle East seems a smart move. Back in August, Sunak said, in relation to Iran: “We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end.”
The JCPOA was signed in 2015, with Iran agreeing to reduce its stockpile of uranium and limit its nuclear facilities, but Sunak believes sanctions beyond nuclear should be introduced. UK support for further pressure on Iran would certainly be well received in Saudi Arabia.
Sunak has been criticized for taking a hard line on religious extremism, where it is linked to terrorism, but all nations would surely agree that terrorism is good for no one. The UK’s new leader had vowed to more strongly implement his government’s counter-extremism strategy, Prevent, aimed at preventing radicalization of vulnerable youngsters who may be targeted by terrorist organizations. Good in theory, and it does indeed claim to have prevented 100 radicalized children being sent to areas of conflict and supported over 2,000 other vulnerable individuals.
However, the strategy has received criticism from Muslim societies and human rights organizations for profiling and stigmatizing Muslims. It is likely that Sunak will support pressure on some Arab countries to tighten financial security in order to supress any chance of terrorist organizations laundering money.
It seems that Sunak, with his background in economics, will follow wherever there seems to be good financial sense. It will be interesting to see how this translates into the world of international politics and diplomacy. With all the global instability, food and fuel prices rising, and new global alliances potentially being formed, having a good political understanding could be key. But, for now, with the UK’s economy having taken a beating, someone with a firm financial understanding is what is needed; Britain will be hoping that Rishi Sunak can steer the country out of the storm and keep an even keel.
• Bashayer Al-Majed is a professor of law at Kuwait University and visiting fellow at Oxford. Twitter: @BashayerAlMajed

Bahrain is a beacon of religious tolerance and coexistence
Rabbi Marc Schneier/Arab News/October 28/2022
The eyes of the faithful around the world will focus on the small Arabian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain on Nov. 3-4 as it hosts a historic conference entitled the “Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence.”
Participants will include Pope Francis, making the second-ever trip to the Arabian Peninsula by a Catholic pontiff, and prominent leaders across the world’s major religions, such as Ahmed El-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo. (For the sake of transparency, I will be attending as well alongside several other representatives of global Judaism.)
Media focus will likely be on Bahrain as the symbol of the growing spirit of tolerance and deepening appreciation of religious pluralism that have enveloped the Middle East, including the country’s much larger neighbor, Saudi Arabia.
But such a narrative, while appealing, would miss the obvious to anyone familiar with Bahrain’s history and culture of acceptance. This country has been a beacon of multireligious coexistence for more than a century.
The presence of the pope naturally will shine a spotlight on the Catholic community of an estimated 50,000 people in Bahrain, and the broader Christian community of perhaps three times that number. Although modest by global standards, these mostly expatriate workers together represent about a 10th of the country’s total residents. Christians are part of Bahrain’s social fabric. Whereas they have suffered persecution and even genocide in other parts of the Middle East in recent history — most horrifically when Daesh controlled parts of Iraq and Syria — King Hamad and Bahrain’s government have gone out of their way to make sure the Christians in Bahrain feel not only welcomed, but also that they thrive as individuals and as a community. Christians are only part of Bahrain’s success story. The kingdom is home to many Hindus and Buddhists as well, who practice their religion without hindrance
Last year, Bahrain inaugurated the Our Lady of Arabia Cathedral complex, the largest church in the Gulf. It sits on 9,000 square meters of land gifted to the community by King Hamad.
Christians are only part of Bahrain’s success story. The kingdom is home to many Hindus and Buddhists as well, who practice their religion without hindrance, and are valued by their neighbors, colleagues and friends. Bahrain also is the country with the only indigenous Jewish community still in existence on the Arabian Peninsula. This community, while small, is almost 150 years old, has its own synagogue, and has contributed multiple parliamentarians, an ambassador and other successful members of national society. No one in Bahrain sees the Jews of their country as foreign, suspicious or even extraordinary. They are simply Bahrainis of Jewish faith.
There is something unmistakably remarkable about the environment of acceptance in Bahrain.
For several years now, I have served as King Hamad’s special adviser for interfaith affairs, collaborating with government leaders on groundbreaking initiatives to build Muslim-Jewish unity and cement ties of greater unity, both within Bahrain and in the outside world. I led the first-ever Jewish congregational mission to a Gulf country when I brought the members of the Hampton Synagogue in New York to Bahrain in 2018. I also was part of the Bahraini delegation at the Peace to Prosperity Summit held in Manama a year later. Next month, I will inaugurate the first Arab-Jewish art exhibition in the Gulf.
Through such efforts, large and small, Bahrain is cementing its identity as a place where all members of its society can contribute and succeed. Bahrain might not be the biggest country in its region or the one that grabs the most headlines, but in many ways it is a trailblazer and a reference point for nearby societies seeking that elusive balance between social unity and the embrace of all peoples and their unique faiths. It is impossible to imagine today’s blossoming of tolerance in neighboring countries, or even the pope’s first Gulf visit to the UAE in 2019, without the example set by Bahrain. As we watch history unfold with this next papal visit to the region, I hope that people far beyond the Gulf gain insights into the unique success story of Bahrain, and that their governments and leaders are inspired to emulate such a worthy national project and further carry the torch for a more peaceful, harmonious and resilient global society.
*Rabbi Marc Schneier is president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and a noted adviser to many Gulf states. He is recognized as one of the most influential Jewish figures in the Muslim world

Is Iran’s resilient protest movement doomed without a leader?
Alex Whiteman/Arab News/October 28/2022
LONDON: Forty days in and the protests that have rocked Iran since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the regime’s notorious morality police show no sign of abating, yet experts remain divided over whether the movement can achieve real change. Multiple waves of anti-government protest have rocked Iran over the past two decades, from the 1999 Salam newspaper disorders, in which seven students died, to the 2009 Green Movement, which ended after 72 protesters were killed by security forces. Later came the 2019 fuel and gas crisis, which brought 200,000 people to the streets and left at least 143 dead, according to human rights monitor Amnesty International.
However, the current demonstrations, which followed Amini’s death in police custody over an alleged infringement of the country’s strict hijab rules, represent something of a sea change, with the usual heavy-handed regime response failing to blunt their momentum.
“In 2009, the majority of the protesters were from the middle classes. In 2022, protesters are from the working classes and lower sections of the middle classes,” Yassamine Mather, editor of the UK academic journal Critique and expert in Iranian politics, told Arab News. “This means we are seeing in total larger numbers involved in the protests and the demonstrators are younger and braver than 2009. They don’t seem deterred by attacks from the security forces.
“This can only be compared with protests in 1979. All this coincides with unprecedented workers’ strikes and general unrest. It looks like repression, curtailing the Internet, arrests and killing of protesters has failed.”Indeed, at the time of writing, what is being termed the “Mahsa Amini Revolution” by anti-government groups has become the largest, deepest and bloodiest movement the regime has faced since taking power in the revolution of 1979.
Protests have taken place in more than 80 cities across the country, involving both men and women, and people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. The unrest has left more than 200 people dead, including school children.
The initial focus of the movement was on Iran’s strict clothing requirements for women, before swelling to include calls for greater civic freedoms, finally leading to a concerted demand for the outright removal of the clerical regime.
Sanam Vakil, deputy director of Chatham House and senior research fellow for the institute’s Middle East and North Africa program, told Arab News the latest protests are the “most significant” the regime has faced. “Despite government repression, the persistence of the protests and myriad groups coming out to express grievances — women, students, labor entities, ethnic groups, youth groups — reveals the breadth of dissatisfaction within Iran,” Vakil said.
“We have also yet to see these groups coalesce simultaneously, this decentralized approach is also a distinguishing quality.”
Both Vakil and Mather see the decentralized approach as a “blessing and a curse,” and have concerns that the absence of a central authority figure will prove even more problematic as the unrest continues. Iranian protesters gather around a burning motorcycle during a demonstration against an increase in gasoline prices in the central city of Isfahan, on November 16, 2019. (AFP/File Photo)
“Lack of coordination and organization can become a serious problem as protests escalate and repression increases,” said Mather. “The absence of an alternative (to the government) is an issue (and) I don’t believe in the idea that progressive leadership spontaneously emerges from within the ranks of demonstrators. This hasn’t happened so far.”
The benefit of having a figurehead at the helm of a movement is that they can provide a clear articulation of its aims on behalf of the wider population. By contrast, the current protests appear less like a revolution and more like a public outpouring of anger, which will ultimately fizzle out.
Dania Koleilat Khatib, co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, said that figureheads can strengthen social movements in several important ways.
“They can take you beyond the anger,” Khatib told Arab News. However, there is a tendency to “forget these things take time,” adding that successful anti-government movements usually take “at least two years.”
Agreeing that identifying a leader “takes time,” Vakil said the process has been further disrupted by how “effective” the Iranian regime has been in jailing, exiling and silencing any potential figureheads.
In some senses, the lack of a clearly identified leader can be a strength. In Mather’s view, the decentralized approach makes it much harder for protests to be curtailed by “reformist” leaders from within the system who may simply want to replace serving officials and ease some unpopular social rules, but ultimately intend to leave most of the regime and its policies untouched.
Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow at Chatham House, and former head of its Middle East and North Africa program, believes adopting a figurehead would be detrimental for the movement.
Iranian demonstrators shout slogans during a protest in August, 2009, against the swearing in of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. (AFP/File Photo)
“I emphatically think a figurehead would be a huge mistake that strengthens the regime,” Shehadi told Arab News. “It would be very easy to shoot anyone down, and this makes the regime stronger.
“I said the same thing in 2011 during several meetings with the international community as they were busy trying to form a credible Syrian opposition. It puts the onus on the opposition to prove viability, strength, legitimacy and leadership.
“Diffuse, generalized opposition that delegitimizes its rule is what will weaken the Iranian regime. It’s about keeping the focus on their inability to govern. Put an individual up against them and they lose, and the regime will be laughing.”
Arash Azizi, a historian at New York University and author of “The shadow commander: Soleimani, the US and Iran’s global ambitions,” agrees there is no need for a figurehead, but feels “organization and leadership” are necessary to contend with the “supercentralized” nature of a regime backed by strong security forces and about 15 percent of the population.
“The movement needs organization with touching points linking each other,” Azizi told Arab News. “This can emerge within Iran, as hard as it is, but it can also emerge from outside if the Iranian leadership overseas can cut their bickering and unite.
“These people have great access internally to Iran. A united opposition could be on TV every night, but they haven’t grasped this opportunity yet. I hope after six weeks they can see this as the issue.”
Shehadi of Chatham House said the lifespan of the protests was somewhat “intangible,” and as much in the hands of the regime as the protesters, noting that Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak lasted through 11 days of protests before stepping down, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi was killed, and Bashar Assad responded by “burning the country” and to this day remains in post.
This UGC image posted on Twitter reportedly on October 26, 2022 shows an unveiled woman standing on top of a vehicle as thousands make their way towards Aichi cemetery in Saqez, Mahsa Amini's home town in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan. (AFP)
Khatib of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building is more circumspect about Assad’s approach, arguing that he is “living on borrowed time,” but said the Iranian protesters’ capacity to tolerate increasing levels of brutality will be important.
Shehadi agrees, saying that protesters will have to be able to “bear many, many deaths,” and that the regime’s only limit for violence stemmed from the international community’s willingness to allow it to happen. “And we’ve seen with Syria that the international community can be very tolerant of this,” he said.
“It really does all depend on the protesters’ stamina,” said Khatib. “I cannot see them holding out because this regime has shown itself very willing to be incredibly brutal and if it can unite its different factions, I think the protests will fold, but then the regime will be living on borrowed time.”
Despite differences on how the protesters might achieve change, all the analysts Arab News spoke to agreed there appear to be cracks forming in the regime, with Khatib highlighting divergences between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Supreme National Security Council.
“I think we are likely to see a struggle between these centers of power, particularly with the pending succession of (Ayatollah) Khamenei, who has been pushing his son Mojtaba as his replacement, even though he is deeply disliked,” said Khatib.
For Azizi, although it is mere speculation that Khamenei is behind this push, there are indications that Mojtaba had been building support for himself within the IRGC. “But once Khamenei is gone, maybe the IRGC won’t need his son,” he added.
Azizi, Mather and Vakil also agree there are splits within the establishment on how to handle the protests, with hard-liners, seeing compromise as a weakness, determined to double down on the heavy-handed approach, even if it means destroying the country.
“Pragmatic reformists like (Ali) Larijani see compromise on social issues as a pathway to restore lost government legitimacy,” Vakil added. “But without consensus on how to handle these issues, political stagnation will follow, and the protests will prevail.”