English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 01/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
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15 آذار/2023

Bible Quotations For today
Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.
Saint John 11/55-57/12,01-11/:”Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, ‘What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?’Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him. Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’ When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 01/2023
UNIFIL Complains About ‘Lack of Clarity’ of Blue Line Border between Lebanon, Israel
EU Official Says Major Aid to Lebanon Depends on IMF Deal
US Sees Appeasing Impact of Saudi-Iran Agreement on Lebanon, Region
US Mideast envoy hopeful Saudi-Iran détente will help Lebanon, region
Berri awaiting local, int'l talks outcome to call for presidential vote session
Franjieh in Paris. He met Macron's advisor Durel
CMA CGM wins bid to manage the Lebanese postal service
Lebanon's path to reconciliation: Learning from apartheid and slavery
Lebanon struggles to keep up with AI and internet advancements
MP Moneimneh to LBCI: We will reject any settlement that comes at expense of Lebanese
EU official says major aid to Lebanon depends on IMF deal
EU stands in solidarity with the most vulnerable in Lebanon: Lenarčić
Syrian refugees crisis: A demographic and economic time bomb
ESDU at American University of Beirut launches initiative to empower stakeholders in water-energy-waste-food nexus
Gasoline price hikes, diesel and gas prices drop in Lebanon
Measuring poverty in Lebanon in the time of economic collapse
Paul Makdissi , Walid Marrouch and Myra Yazbeck

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 01/2023
Pope Francis ‘well enough to enjoy pizza’ after stay in hospital
Biden declines to comment on Trump indictment
Israeli Attack Kills Iranian Guards Officer in Syria, Iran Says
Iran vows revenge after adviser killed in Israeli strike in Syria
After being fired, Israel's defense minister caught in limbo
How the Biden-Netanyahu Relationship Turned Icy
China: Gulf of Oman Exercises Enhanced Navies' Ability
Top UN court rejects Iranian bid to free assets frozen by US
ICJ Rejects Iran's Bid to Release Assets Frozen by US
The First World War tactic helping Ukraine fight a modern conflict
Russia new foreign policy document calls West 'existential' threat
Belarus says ready to host 'strategic' Russian nuclear arms
In Germany, King Charles honors victims of WWII allied bombings
India Turns Optimistic on Forging G-20 Consensus on Russia’s War
Hungarian government official argues Sweden isn't nice enough to his country to get approval to join NATO
U.S. seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 01/2023
Canada must put Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on terrorist list under Criminal Code/
Toby Dershowitz/Tzvi Kahn/Kaitlyn Romaine/National Post/March 31/2023
Leadership Crisis in America/Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/March 31, 2023
Is the Region on the Cusp of a New Phase?/Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy/Former Egyptian Ambassador and Senior UN official./Asharq Al Awsat/March 31/2023
Israel’s relations with Arab world jeopardized by new government’s actions: Experts/Ray Hanania/Arab News/March 31, 2023
Inside Iran’s Regime (Part 2): The Clerical Crisis/Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/March 31/2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 01/2023
UNIFIL Complains About ‘Lack of Clarity’ of Blue Line Border between Lebanon, Israel
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
Major General Aroldo Lazaro, Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), urged on Thursday Lebanon and Israel to continue to coordinate their movement near the Blue Line with the international force. The Blue Line marks the border between the two neighbors. Chairing a regular tripartite meeting between senior Lebanese and Israeli officers at the southern border town of Ras al-Naqoura, Lazaro underscored the importance of coordination to ease tensions. He added that the “lack of clarity of the Blue Line” has added to tensions. The Blue Line was established in 2000 after Israel pulled its forces out of southern Lebanon. A project has been in place since 2007 to demarcate the border line. “The Blue Line marking project provides a guide in approximating the Blue Line trajectory. Clarity on the precise trajectory of the Blue Line is determined through the deployment of UNIFIL assets,” Lazaro said.Moreover, he noted that actions that stoke tensions, such as the pointing of weapons, firing of live ammunition, laser-pointing, and stone-throwing, have continued along the border areas in spite of his demand that they stop. He encouraged parties to make use of UNIFIL’s resources “to help avoid tensions like those seen recently.”Thursday’s discussions focused on the latest UN Secretary-General report, air and ground violations, and other issues within the scope of UNIFIL’s mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and subsequent resolutions. Since the end of the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel, regular tripartite meetings have been held under UNIFIL’s auspices as an “essential conflict-management and confidence-building mechanism,” the UN force said. “Today’s was the 159th such meeting. Through its liaison and coordination mechanisms, UNIFIL remains the only forum through which Lebanese and Israeli armies officially meet,” it added.

EU Official Says Major Aid to Lebanon Depends on IMF Deal
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
A European Union official visiting Lebanon said Friday that the international body will increase its humanitarian assistance to the crisis-struck country, but that more significant long-term aid depends on reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund. EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said at a press conference following his two-day visit that the EU will provide 60 million euros (more than $65 million) in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon in 2023, a 20% increase from last year. But he warned that such aid is "not a sustainable long-term solution" to the massive financial crisis that has left three-quarters of Lebanon’s population of 6 million in poverty. To get out of the crisis, he said, Lebanon needs to elect a president - which would resolve a presidential vacuum that has dragged on for five months - and to ink a deal with the IMF, which he said "would unlock substantial financial support also from the European Union that should help Lebanon recover from the collapse."Progress towards finalizing a $3 billion IMF bailout package for Lebanon has largely stalled. Since reaching a preliminary agreement with the IMF nearly a year ago, Lebanese officials have made limited progress on reforms required to clinch the deal, which include restructuring the country’s debts and its ailing banking system, reforming its barely functioning public electricity system and making governance reforms. IMF officials said continued inaction would leave the nation in a "never-ending crisis" in which it could spiral into hyperinflation. Lenarčič also responded to increasing angst over the presence of more than 1 million Syrian refugees in the tiny country and calls for their return. He acknowledged that the large refugee presence is a challenge but said that it "does not absolve" Lebanon and its leaders of their responsibility for providing basic services. "The current crisis in which Lebanon finds itself … was not created by the Syrian refugees," he said. Lenarčič added that, while refugees who want to return are free to do so, the EU’s position is that "the conditions are still not right in Syria for safe and voluntary return." At the same time, he said the EU is not ready to consider lifting sanctions or funding major reconstruction in Syria. While the US and EU have offered temporary sanctions released in the aftermath of the devastating February 6 earthquake, Lenarčič said major reconstruction funding is not on the table until there is "tangible progress toward a political resolution" to the uprising-turned-civil-war that has now entered its 13th year.

US Sees Appeasing Impact of Saudi-Iran Agreement on Lebanon, Region
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said that the Saudi-Iran agreement showed to have an “appeasing effect” on the situation in Lebanon and the region in general. In telephone remarks made to Asharq al-Awsat on Thursday, Leaf said that Lebanon’s officials lack a sense of “seriousness” to address the deteriorating situation in their country and to steer it out of the economic and political crises. She stressed that extending a helping hand to the Lebanese people during times of crises has always been a priority for the United States. On the election of a new head of state, Leaf emphasized the need to elect a new president and to form a government capable of implementing the required reforms. “We urge Lebanese leaders to garner a sense of urgency and seriousness which they lack, and to take the necessary decisive decisions to steer the nation out of its unprecedented crisis,” said Leaf. The US officials had earlier pointed to new sanctions on Lebanese parties hampering the election of a new president. Leaf, who took part in the five-way meeting in Paris on Lebanon, did not identify any candidates for the position of president, but she voiced alarm about the “worrying situation” in the crisis-hit nation, amid evident signs of a “big collapse” looming on the horizon.

US Mideast envoy hopeful Saudi-Iran détente will help Lebanon, region
Associated Press/March 31/2023
The Biden administration is hopeful that warming ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia will help deescalate conflicts and crises in Lebanon and across the Middle East, a senior U.S. diplomat Barbara Leaf said. Earlier this month, Riyadh and Tehran agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations after seven years of rupture — a move that stirred cautious optimism across the region. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had agreed to stop arming Tehran's allies in Yemen — the Shiite Houthi rebels who are fighting a Saudi-led coalition in the Arab world's most impoverished country — as part of the deal. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement could also help cash-strapped Lebanon, Leaf said, where both Riyadh and Tehran wield political and economic influence. The tiny Mediterranean country is in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement. Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, called on Lebanon to follow through on economic reforms it had agreed to with the International Monetary Fund over a year ago. “There is no escaping the fact Lebanon is sinking into a deeper and deeper economic crisis,” Leaf said. She spoke at a virtual news conference after visiting Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and Tunisia. Since securing the deal, Lebanese officials have made limited progress in fixing the ailing banking system and reforming the country's barely functioning public electricity system. Lebanon is also without an elected president.

Berri awaiting local, int'l talks outcome to call for presidential vote session
Naharnet/March 31/2023
Domestic, regional and international talks over the Lebanese file have intensified lately, Amal MP Qassem Hashem said. The MP added that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is awaiting the outcome of these contacts to act accordingly. Lebanon has been mired for three years in a spiraling economic crisis dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent global history, and has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term expired at the end of October. Politically rudderless, it has been run by a caretaker government with limited powers since May. Lawmakers have held 11 rounds of voting to name a successor to Aoun, but no candidate has garnered enough ballots. But with no single party or parliamentary bloc holding a majority, electing a new president can drag on for months of even years. Before Hezbollah-backed Aoun was finally elected in 2016, the group had adopted a similar boycotting tactic, contributing to more than two years of presidential vacancy.

Franjieh in Paris. He met Macron's advisor Durel
Naharnet/March 31/2023
Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh arrived in Paris and met with French presidential advisor for North Africa and the Middle East Patrick Durel on Friday, media reports said. A report published in al-Akhbar newspaper Friday supposed that France might be willing to inform Franjieh that it has failed to convince the United States or Saudi Arabia about electing him as a president within a comprehensive deal. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have told France that they refuse an initiative that they considered to be "sympathetic towards Hezbollah", diplomatic sources told the daily. But Franjieh has told his visitors, according to the daily, that France is still supporting him. The visit might aim to discuss the presidential file and the Saudi demands, the visitors said, adding that Moscow is also making an attempt to convince KSA with Franjieh.

CMA CGM wins bid to manage the Lebanese postal service
LBCI/March 31/2023
The consortium between Merit Invest SAL And Colis Privé France, owned by the CMA CGM group, was granted the contract to manage Lebanon's postal service. In a statement, the media office of Caretaker Minister of Telecommunications Johnny Corm announced the sale of the book of conditions to three companies, and after Merit Invest SAL And Colis Privé France, owned by the CMA CGM group, presented the necessary documents in accordance with the rules, the awarding committee met in the presence of an observer delegate from the Public Procurement Authority and closed the only offer based on the Public Procurement Law. It stated that after checking the administrative, technical, and financial documents, the statement affirmed that the state's share would be 15.50 percent for the first year, noting that the starting point for the auction was 10 percent and that the book of conditions conformed to all the directives required in the Court of Audit's report.

Lebanon's path to reconciliation: Learning from apartheid and slavery
LBCI/March 31/2023
The Lebanese Civil War may have come to an end militarily, but its wounds continue to fester in the hearts and minds of the people. The war, which claimed 150,000 lives and forcibly disappeared 17,000 individuals, leaves a lasting pain as long as the true perpetrators remain unidentified. Over the course of 35 years, Beirut was divided between East and West, while political parties were labeled as right-wing, left-wing, and nationalist. Each faction had its martyrs, symbols, and understanding of resistance, with every force defending its principles and beliefs. Multiple causes led to death, including abductions, killings, political assassinations, bombings, displacement, and fighting on all fronts, which some saw as senseless wars. Even those who represented legitimacy for some were seen as rebels by others. In the end, the bloody war phase came to a close, and some powers receded while others integrated into the state apparatus, including the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb Party, Marada Movement, Progressive Socialist Party, Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Communist Party, Amal Movement, Hezbollah, and the Free Patriotic Movement. These factions reached an understanding but failed to confront one another honestly, leaving behind a wounded populace as a result of their conflicts. The people will not heal unless the battling forces come together, openly discuss their differences, admit their mistakes, and take responsibility for their errors before the public. People do not forget, but they can forgive. Confronting the past is a duty, even if it comes late, and serves as the gateway to reconciliation. For proof, look at how South Africa addressed the aftermath of the brutal 42-year-long apartheid system. Upon Nelson Mandela's ascent to power, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established, which listened to the testimonies of human rights abuses victims and counter-testimonies with the goal of revealing the truth. The testimonies totaled over 2,000. Recently, in the United Kingdom, The Guardian newspaper apologized after historical facts revealed a connection between one of its founders and a cotton factory that employed slaves. If The Guardian can apologize more than a century later, then the warmakers in Lebanon must acknowledge their mistakes, apologize to one another and to the Lebanese people, even if it takes a hundred years. Otherwise, the Lebanese people will never experience true resurrection.

Lebanon struggles to keep up with AI and internet advancements
LBCI/March 31/2023
The world is abuzz with discussions of artificial intelligence (AI) and the impending advancements that could reshape our world. However, Lebanon seems to be lagging behind in this race to adapt to these anticipated changes.Before delving into the subject of AI, it is worth considering the state of internet connectivity in the country. This, of course, is assuming that the electricity crisis has been magically resolved. According to Speedtest, a website that evaluates global internet speeds monthly, Lebanon ranks 71st out of 137 countries for mobile internet speeds. Countries like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar lead the pack, taking the first and second positions in the world, respectively. The greater catastrophe, however, lies in the fixed broadband internet speeds delivered to offices, homes, and companies. Lebanon sits at the bottom of the list, ranking 167th out of 180 countries, only outpacing Sudan, Yemen, and Syria in the region. Regarding AI, Lebanon ranks 73rd out of 180 countries in the United Nations' AI Readiness Index, which evaluates government roles, knowledge sectors, and infrastructure. Unfortunately, Israel takes the top spot in the MENA region, followed by Gulf countries, Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia. It is disheartening to see that numerous studies and recommendations have been issued by either government ministries or the United Nations and its branches to develop various sectors and enact necessary legislation. Yet, whether it is artificial or natural intelligence, the political elite in Lebanon seem to be operating in a completely different space and time.

MP Moneimneh to LBCI: We will reject any settlement that comes at expense of Lebanese
LBCI/March 31/2023
MP Ibrahim Moneimneh revealed on Friday that "he is not optimistic in the short term," stressing that "there is no doubt that some positive movement is seen somewhere at the regional level, and is reflected in calming the local scene.|
He said in an interview on LBCI's "Naharkom Said" TV that "today all eyes are on the Saudi-Iranian agreement, and if there is dialogue, it is supposed to impact us positively." He considered that "they will reject any settlement that comes at the expense of the Lebanese."On another note, he stressed that electing a person like Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh is "a revival of the existing system."

EU official says major aid to Lebanon depends on IMF deal
Associated Press/March 31/2023
A European Union official visiting Lebanon said Friday that the international body will increase its humanitarian assistance to the crisis-struck country, but that more significant long-term aid depends on reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund. EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said at a press conference following his two-day visit that the EU will provide 60 million euros (more than $65 million) in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon in 2023, a 20% increase from last year. But he warned that such aid is "not a sustainable long-term solution" to the massive financial crisis that has left three-quarters of Lebanon's population of 6 million in poverty. To get out of the crisis, he said, Lebanon needs to elect a president -- which would resolve a presidential vacuum that has dragged on for five months - and to ink a deal with the IMF, which he said "would unlock substantial financial support also from the European Union that should help Lebanon recover from the collapse." Progress towards finalizing a $3 billion IMF bailout package for Lebanon has largely stalled. Since reaching a preliminary agreement with the IMF nearly a year ago, Lebanese officials have made limited progress on reforms required to clinch the deal, which include restructuring the country's debts and its ailing banking system, reforming its barely functioning public electricity system and making governance reforms. IMF officials said continued inaction would leave the nation in a "never-ending crisis" in which it could spiral into hyperinflation.
Lenarčič also responded to increasing angst over the presence of more than 1 million Syrian refugees in the tiny country and calls for their return. He acknowledged that the large refugee presence is a challenge but said that it "does not absolve" Lebanon and its leaders of their responsibility for providing basic services. "The current crisis in which Lebanon finds itself … was not created by the Syrian refugees," he said. Lenarčič added that, while refugees who want to return are free to do so, the EU's position is that "the conditions are still not right in Syria for safe and voluntary return." At the same time, he said the EU is not ready to consider lifting sanctions or funding major reconstruction in Syria. Oil-rich Gulf Arab countries that had previously cut ties with Damascus over the Syrian government's brutal crackdown on protesters and later on civilians during the war, have been stepping up efforts to normalize ties with President Bashar Assad's government in Damascus since last month's devastating earthquake. While the U.S. and EU have offered temporary sanctions released in the aftermath of the earthquake, Lenarčič said major reconstruction funding is not on the table until there is "tangible progress toward a political resolution" to the uprising-turned-civil-war that has now entered its 13th year.

EU stands in solidarity with the most vulnerable in Lebanon: Lenarčić
LBCI/March 31/2023
Concluding his visit to Lebanon, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič held a press conference at the EU Delegation in Beirut, where he underlined European Union's solidarity with the most vulnerable groups in the country, including Syrian refugees and Lebanese people, and expressed the Union's readiness to help establish future stability in Lebanon. His visit comes in light of the worsening Syrian refugee crisis and its adverse effects on all social and economic aspects. Lenarčić said that the political and economic crises had taken a "dramatic toll" on the Lebanese people, stating that the country is in a "unique" position worldwide by hosting the highest number of refugees per capita. Regarding EU's recent €60 million humanitarian aid for the country's most vulnerable communities, he said that this aid only provides a lifeline, stating that it is important to start addressing the roots of the many crises. the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management highlighted that complete governance and an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are prerequisites to pave the way for needed reforms and "for a better future of the Lebanese."

Syrian refugees crisis: A demographic and economic time bomb
LBCI/March 31/2023
The magnitude of the Syrian refugee crisis and its danger to Lebanese society is evident in the numbers that no one can deny. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, with a population of 4.87 million Lebanese, there are 2.43 million Syrian refugees, meaning that refugees comprise 45 percent of the Lebanese people. According to the numbers, if the situation continues, the percentage of refugees will likely increase by 25 percent after ten years. These numbers indicate a demographic change in the country, not to mention the economic pressure caused by this displacement in an already troubled nation.
Despite the demands of the Lebanese state to the international community to work on returning refugees to their home country, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continues to strive to improve their conditions in Lebanon. Sources confirmed to LBCI that the UNHCR requested the Ministry of Social Affairs to dollarize the amounts given to refugees in Lebanese lira to be $45 for the family and $20 for the individual. After the Ministry rejected the request, the organization submitted another proposal to increase the amount to 15 million Lebanese pounds. LBCI presented the number of refugees to the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, who confirmed the continued support for Syrian refugees until a safe environment in Syria encourages their return. Therefore, it seems that the international community does not care about the demand of the Lebanese state, which is preparing several proposals for the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, to be presented at the Brussels conference in June.

ESDU at American University of Beirut launches initiative to empower stakeholders in water-energy-waste-food nexus
NNA/March 31/2023
The Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) launched DAWWERA (Designing Alternatives for Water, Waste, and Energy in Rural Areas), an initiative that aims to empower stakeholders in the water-energy-waste-food nexus through integrating the circular economy approach that considers the linkages between these sectors, while capturing the social, economic, and environmental aspects. The launch event took place this March at AUB, and was attended by the Lebanese Minister of Environment Nasser Yassine, British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at AUB Ammar Olabi, and ESDU Executive Director Shady Hamadeh, along with other municipal representatives. Food security is becoming an increasingly alarming issue in Lebanon. It is entwined with other systems from which the water, waste, and energy sectors are overarching. Overlooking these interconnections when designing policies or strategies for intervention might lead to counteractive and unintended consequences. Therefore, adopting a holistic and integrated approach is crucial to capturing all social, economic, and environmental aspects.  “Through DAWWERA, the Environment and Sustainable Development Unit at AUB will work on enhancing and empowering small-scale food producers in the rural areas of Lebanon by integrating the circular economy into the food value chain and by using the water-waste-energy- food nexus approach,” said ESDU Executive Director Shady Hamadeh. He added that to do that, DAWWERA will employ an innovative method based on “systems thinking” to map out interconnections between the different sectors relevant to each intervention.
The activities and projects implemented under DAWWERA present sustainable and supportive interventions that aim at utilizing resources efficiently through the water-waste-energy-food nexus approach.  “There is a lot of funding for climate change projects and municipalities are the front liners in the environmental work,” commented Minister of Environment Nasser Yassine. British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell said, “We believe that the Lebanese civil society has an important role in accelerating climate actions by being agents of change, climate awareness activists, entrepreneurs, and innovators, and I think the DAWWERA initiative is one big example of these initiatives.”The Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU) at AUB is already mapping out civil society organizations, community-based organizations, and municipal actors that are engaged or willing to engage in such activities and has already established partnerships and collaborations under DAWWERA. In addition, a steering committee was established and is leading DAWWERA’s plan of action. This committee is composed of several key players in the water-waste-energy-food nexus, including Recycle Lebanon, Berytech, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Difaf, Development for People and Nature Association, the Waste Management Coalition, the Millennium Institute, and Sustain the World. As part of the DAWWERA pre-launch, four roundtable discussions took place to tackle each of the four previously mentioned sectors’ issues, solutions, and interlinkages. As a result, municipalities were found to be crucial implementing authorities. Consequently, ESDU Project Coordinator Christelle Bou Harb announced that ESDU, under the DAWWERA initiative, is launching the Waste-Water-Energy-Food (W2EF) municipal contest. The aim of this competition is to support municipalities who are promoting sustainable best practices using the nexus approach. Two applicants will be selected to win $4,000 each.

Gasoline price hikes, diesel and gas prices drop in Lebanon
NNA/March 31/2023
The gasoline price has witnessed an additional hike, while diesel and gas prices dropped in Lebanon on Friday; consequently, the new prices are as follows:
95 octanes: LBP 1954.000
98 octanes: LBP 2000.000
Diesel: LBP 1748.000
Gas: LBP 1247.000

Measuring poverty in Lebanon in the time of economic collapse
Paul Makdissi , Walid Marrouch and Myra Yazbeck
The Forum/March 31/2023
https://theforum.erf.org.eg/2023/03/28/measuring-poverty-in-lebanon-in-the-time-of-economic-collapse/
What has been the impact of Lebanon’s long-running economic crisis on the daily lives of citizens? This column documents a sharp increase in absolute poverty starting in 2019. Having at least three poor people out of every five residents of the country is a clear signal of the emergency of the situation.
In a nutshell
To understand the dynamics of poverty in the absence of regular household income and expenditure surveys, analysts must exploit and extend approaches that allow them to use alternative sources of data.
Analysis of this kind in Lebanon reveals a massive increase in the proportion of poor in 2022 compared with 2018: under the most optimistic scenario, at least three out of five people in the country now live in poverty.
There is an urgent need for substantial political and economic reforms, implying a complete overhaul of the financial and political institutions of the country.
According to the World Bank (2021), the Lebanese financial and economic crisis is likely to rank among the top three most severe global crises episodes since the mid-19th century. Although this economic depression started a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic, its direct effects have been immediate. Furthermore, the port explosion in Beirut on 4 August 2020 has exacerbated these effects.
Assessing how poverty rates have evolved in Lebanon is crucial in such a context. This column documents a sharp increase in Lebanon’s absolute poverty starting in 2019. This increase in poverty levels is observed despite a short-lived lull in 2018 arising from electoral spending, which artificially alleviated poverty.
Poverty analysis usually requires regular surveys of household consumption or income, which have been unavailable in Lebanon in recent times. In such a context, one should explore alternative approaches to produce the evidence essential for designing policies for economic recovery.
One option is to use models to ‘nowcast’ poverty. For example, Abu-Ismail and Hlásny (2020) used this approach to offer a first look at the evolution of poverty in the country. Their results suggest that the proportion of the population with earnings below the poverty line in 2020 is at least 27.3% under an optimistic scenario. But their analysis indicates that it could be as high as 55.3% under more realistic assumptions. Another option would be to follow the path suggested by Atamanov et al (2020) to find and use alternative sources of statistical data. In our work, we explore this latter path and complement Abu-Ismail and Hlásny’s (2020) work by proposing an additional tool for assessing the impacts of the economic depression on the daily lives of citizens in Lebanon. This column builds on our work on measuring poverty in Lebanon over the past couple of years using unconventional methods (see Makdissi et al, 2023). The approach is rooted in the widespread issue of data poverty in the Middle East and North Africa in general and the recent economic history of Lebanon in particular.
Use of non-traditional techniques to measure poverty
The Arab Barometer Survey is currently the only widely available data source that provides the necessary information to estimate poverty indices in the context of Lebanon. But it presents two critical challenges:
First, in the 2016 and 2018 waves, the income data are elicited as intervals.
Second, there is a non-negligible number of non-responses: 5.9% of the 1,500 observations in 2016, 3.0% of the 2,400 observations in 2018, and 15.1% of the 2,399 observations in 2021-22.
We exploit and expand existing data augmentation techniques to overcome the first challenge of constructing the continuous cumulative income distribution. In doing so, we exploit all the available interval information on income – that is, the information on income in the first two waves (in the third wave, the income variable is continuous).
To address the second issue arising from non-response in the survey, we estimate a lower bound and an upper bound for poverty measures and on the sets of admissible cumulative distribution functions of income. These sets of admissible cumulative distribution functions will cover all possible distributions under all possible assumptions on the mechanism underlying non-response to the income question in the survey.
Evidence on poverty
Given the Lebanese economic context and the lack of household income and expenditure surveys, we exploit and extend data augmentation tools to develop a better understanding of poverty dynamics and the situation preceding the economic collapse (that is, before the 2019 uprisings) to the present.
Figure 1 displays the incidence of poverty for 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. For 2020, we use the nowcasted values produced by Abu-Ismail and Hlásny (2020), and for the three remaining years, we use the values in Makdissi et al (2023). The y-axis represents the proportion of the poor.
The colour bar displays all potential values obtained under different assumptions. The blue bar displays the values that Abu-Ismail and Hlásny (2020) produced under different growth incidence assumptions in their nowcasting model. The green bars display all potential values that Makdissi et al (2023) get using alternative assumptions to explain missing values. Finally, the error bar gives the 95% confidence interval on the bounds of these sets of values.
Figure 1: Dynamics of poverty in Lebanon
Suppose one uses the upper-middle-income country poverty line to estimate the proportion of poor in Lebanon and assumes ‘missingness-at-random’ (the standard assumption in this body of research). In the figure, these values are represented by the darker bar within each of the boxes. In this case, the proportion of poor out of total population for 2016 is 18.2%; it falls to 10.0% in 2018, then increases to 55.3% in 2020, and to 71.0% in 2021-22.
Since there is a considerable proportion of non-responses in 2021-22, we account for these non-responses and estimate the bounds on the set of admissible poverty headcounts. The proportion of poor in 2016 is between 17.2% and 21.5%; it decreases to values between 9.8% and 11.4% in 2018 and then increases to values between 59.0% and 75.9% in 2021-22.
These figures suggest that the country-level Ponzi scheme, which was initiated in the run-up to the 2018 general elections, allowed for an artificial poverty reduction between 2016 and 2018. To assess the robustness of these results, we run stochastic dominance tests (see Makdissi et al, 2023) and conclude that this result is valid for any poverty index, poverty line, and assumption made on non-responses observed for the income question.
The stochastic dominance tests also indicate that the economic collapse, which started in 2019, increased poverty in 2021-22 to higher levels than in 2018 and 2016. This conclusion is valid for any poverty index and any poverty line the analyst may choose.
If one wants to account for the considerable increase in non-response to the income question in the 2021-22 wave (15.1% of non-responses), it is still possible to say that poverty is higher in 2021-22 than in 2018 and 2016. But one should restrict the poverty lines to any values of household income between 0 and 1,500,000 of 2018 LBP /month (that is, US$995 /month).
Policy implications
The policy implications of the results presented in this column cannot be more evident. Suppose one assumes that all 15.1% of non-responses to the income question in the 2021-22 survey wave all have an income level equal to the highest income in the data set; the proportion of poor in the country will still be 59%, even under this extremely favourable assumption. Using the standard missing-at-random assumption increases this proportion to 71%.
Having at least three poor people out of every five residents of Lebanon is a clear signal of the emergency of the situation. Immediate substantial political and economic reforms, implying a complete overhaul of the financial and political institutions of the country, are the only path toward economic recovery.
Further reading
Abu-Ismail, K, and V Hlásny (2020) ‘Wealth distribution and poverty impact of COVID-19 in Lebanon’, ESCWA Technical Paper 8.
Atamanov, A, SA Tandon, GC Lopez-Acevedo and MA Vergara Bahena (2020) ‘Measuring monetary poverty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: Data gaps and different options to address them’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series 9259.
Makdissi, P, W Marrouch and M Yazbeck (2023) ‘Monitoring poverty in a data deprived environment: The case of Lebanon’, Working Paper 2302, Department of Economics, University of Ottawa.
World Bank (2021) ‘Lebanon sinking (to the top 3)’, Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2021.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 01/2023
Pope Francis ‘well enough to enjoy pizza’ after stay in hospital
Our Foreign Staff/The Telegraph/March 31, 2023
Pope Francis was feeling well enough to share a pizza with hospital staff on Thursday night and is expected to be discharged on Saturday, according to the Vatican. That means he will now attend Palm Sunday’s celebrations although he is not expected to lead the Mass after what will have been a three night stay in hospital to treat bronchitis. The 86-year-old has responded well to antibiotics given to him at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, said Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office. On Friday morning, he had breakfast, read some newspapers and did some work in the private papal suite on the hospital’s 10th floor where he was admitted on Wednesday after complaining of breathing problems. He also gave out Easter eggs, rosaries and copies of a book about Jesus to children who are being treated in the cancer ward of the hospital. The visit lasted about half an hour before the Pope returned to the ward where he is recovering. The Gemelli hospital is the favoured choice of pontiffs, even once being dubbed “Vatican 3” by John Paul II, who was treated nine times at Gemelli and spent a total of 153 days there. “His Holiness’s return home to Santa Marta (his Vatican home) is expected tomorrow, in the wake of the results of the latest tests this morning,” Mr Bruni said. As a result, Pope Francis was expected to “be present” in St Peter’s Square for the celebration of Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week. His stay in hospital, just weeks after he marked 10 years as head of the worldwide Catholic Church, caused widespread concern and raised questions over the upcoming Easter services. The Argentine pontiff, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has suffered increasing health issues in recent years, and it was his second stay in hospital since 2021. He has repeatedly said that he would consider stepping down if his health failed him, following the example of his predecessor Benedict XVI – but said in February that for now, he had no plans to quit. A Jesuit who seems most happy being among his flock, Francis continues to travel internationally and keep a busy schedule. But he has been forced to use a wheelchair and walking stick in the past year because of knee pain, and admitted last summer that he has had to slow down. On Thursday, he used a Twitter post to say: Among them is Joe Biden, only the second Catholic president in US history, who wrote: In July 2021, Pope Francis was admitted to the same Rome hospital for a colon operation after suffering from a type of diverticulitis, an inflammation of pockets that develop in the lining of the intestine. He spent 10 days there on that occasion. In an interview in January, the Pope said the diverticulitis had returned. His predecessor Benedict XVI shocked the world in 2013 by becoming the first pope since the Middle Ages to resign, citing his declining physical and mental health. The German theologian died on December 31, aged 95. Francis has said he would follow suit if he was unable to do his job. But he has cautioned that papal resignations should not be the norm, and said in an interview in February that the idea was currently not “on my agenda”.

Biden declines to comment on Trump indictment
AFP/March 31, 2023
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden declined on Friday to comment on the indictment a day earlier of his predecessor Donald Trump, who became the first former US leader to face criminal charges.Biden, who was traveling to Mississippi for the day, deliberately did not answer several questions on the subject from journalists gathered to witness his departure from the White House. The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, confirmed that it had contacted Trump’s lawyers Thursday to “coordinate his surrender” — with the felony charges against him to be revealed at that point.
Trump, who is seen to be the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 election, slammed the indictment as “political persecution and election interference,” raging against prosecutors and his Democratic opponents. He also vowed that it would backfire on Biden — who is set to run again to stay in the White House. The impact of an indictment on Trump’s election chances is unpredictable, with critics and adversaries alike voicing concerns about the legal merits of the New York hush-money case. Detractors worry that if Trump were cleared, it could make it easier to dismiss as a “witch hunt” any future indictment in arguably more serious affairs — such as Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The Manhattan charges will also likely juice turnout among Trump’s base, boosting his chances in the party primary.

Israeli Attack Kills Iranian Guards Officer in Syria, Iran Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
An Israeli attack in Syria on Friday killed an officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Guards said, as the second strike near Damascus in two days pointed to an intensifying Israeli effort to counter Tehran's foothold in the country. There was no immediate statement from Israel, which usually declines to comment on reports of strikes in Syria. "The Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has announced the martyrdom of guardsman Milad Haydari, one of the IRGC's military advisers and officers", in the Israeli attack, the IRGC said in a statement reported by Iranian media. The Guards vowed to respond, saying the "criminal attack" on the outskirts of Damascus at dawn would not go "unanswered", the semi-official Iranian news outlet Tasnim reported. The air strike was the sixth attack by Israel in Syria this month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the war that began in 2011. Iran says its officers serve in an advisory role in Syria at the invitation of the Damascus government. Dozens of IRGC members including senior officers have been killed in Syria during the war. Citing a military source, Syrian state media reported that Israel had fired "sprays of missiles" just after midnight that hit "a site in the Damascus countryside," without specifying further. "Syrian air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down a number of them," the source said, saying the attack caused some material damage. There were no details about casualties. Iranian-backed groups, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Iraqi paramilitary groups have positions around the capital and in Syria's north, east and south. The new attack follows a strike overnight on Thursday that left two soldiers wounded, according to Syrian state media.
Intensifying Israeli strikes
A source with Syria's opposition factions said the strike on Thursday hit a car carrying pro-Iran personnel near a Syrian security building. Iran "strongly condemned the Thursday and Friday morning attacks of the aggressor Zionist regime on some centers in Damascus and its suburbs," foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in an online statement on Friday. Friday's overnight attack caps a month of particularly intense air strikes on Syria, with at least six in March alone, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory, a UK-based war monitor with sources in the country. On March 22, an Israeli strike near the northern city of Aleppo's airport put it briefly out of service. Regional intelligence sources said the attack hit an Iranian arms depot. Iran-backed groups then launched armed drones at a base hosting US forces in the northeast, killing one American contractor and wounding another, as well as several troops. The US responded with air strikes on installations in eastern Syria that it said were affiliated with the IRGC. The US said on Thursday six US troops suffered traumatic brain injuries during the tit-for-tat exchanges last week.

Iran vows revenge after adviser killed in Israeli strike in Syria
Associated Press/Friday, 31 March, 2023
Israeli airstrikes hit the suburbs of Syria's capital city early Friday for the second day in a row, killing an Iranian adviser, the state media of Syria and Iran reported. Loud explosions were heard over Damascus shortly after midnight Thursday, according to residents in the capital and the state news agency SANA. The airstrikes came after similar attacks early Thursday. SANA said Syrian air defenses confronted "hostile targets," adding that the strike caused material damage. SANA said some of the Israeli missiles were shot down by air defenses. Iran's state television reported Friday that Milad Heidari, an Iranian military adviser, was killed during what it called a "criminal strike" by Israel early Friday morning in Syria. Without giving Heidari's rank, the report called him a "guard of Islam." The outlet said he was a member of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and warned Israel will receive an answer for the crime.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strikes targeted an arms depot for government forces and Iran-backed groups just south of Damascus. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges specific operations. Israel says it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces. An Israeli airstrike last week targeting the airport in Aleppo put it out of commission for two days. Israel has also struck seaports in government-held areas of Syria, in an apparent attempt to prevent Iranian arms shipments to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Hezbollah.

After being fired, Israel's defense minister caught in limbo
JERUSALEM (AP)/March 31, 2023
Five days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to fire his defense minister set off a wave of spontaneous mass protests and a general strike that threatened to paralyze the country, forcing the Israeli leader to suspend his divisive plan to overhaul the judicial system. But Netanyahu never even sent Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant a formal termination letter, a spokesperson for Netanyahu said. As of Friday, Gallant — whose criticism of Netanyahu's planned judicial changes led to his dismissal — was still on the job. Gallant's aides said it was business-as-usual at the Defense Ministry. As local media this week crackled with reports of Netanyahu considering whether to replace Gallant with stalwarts of his right-wing Likud party, Gallant remained in limbo — and even so, the public face of his ministry. He greeted the Azerbaijani foreign minister, toured two military bases and attended Tuesday's security cabinet meeting this week. On Thursday, Gallant attended a celebration ahead of the Jewish Passover holiday with the director of the Shin Bet security service, his office said, releasing a photo of him smiling beside Director Ronen Bar. “We have a duty to calm the spirits in Israeli society and maintain an inclusive and unifying discourse," Gallant said at the holiday toast. The questions swirling around the fate of Israel's crucial Defense Ministry — which maintains Israel's 55-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and contends with threats from Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group and the Gaza Strip's militant Hamas rulers — reflects the tensions tearing at Netanyahu's right-wing coalition after one of the most dramatic weeks for Israel in decades. It's also a leadership test of Israel's longest-serving premier as he governs a deeply polarized country and faces charges of corruption. Netanyahu's decision to pause plans to weaken Israel's Supreme Court in the face of the country's biggest protest movement underscores the complex juggling act that the prime minister must perform in holding together his governing coalition, experts say.
On the one hand, Netanyahu must please his far-right and religiously conservative coalition partners — supporters of the judicial overhaul — who vaulted him to power even as he stands trial. But he also must weigh grave concerns over the plan from Israel's closet ally, the United States, as well as anger from more moderate politicians and, significantly, dissent from within Israel's military over fears the national crisis could threaten the country's security. A growing number of military reservists had declined to report for duty in protest of the measures, raising concerns that the crisis could harm Israel’s military capabilities. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment further on Gallant's unresolved situation. But the conflicting pressures have resulted in an impasse over Gallant's future and who serves as defense minister. “Netanyahu has extremists surrounding him and they want to see blood, they want to see Gallant removed," said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Those politicians include far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezazel Smotrich, who received outsized power in coalition deals that persuaded them to join the government.
But as the first senior Likud official to break ranks over the judicial overhaul, Gallant has proven himself to be “someone who is more concerned about the national interest than the personal interest of Netanyahu," Talshir added.
Officially firing and replacing him could trigger backlash not only from tens of thousands of Israeli protesters taking to the streets weekly and from Israel's already unnerved military officials, but also from the Biden administration, she said. The U.S., which gives Israel a more-than-$3 billion annual assistance package and diplomatic backing in international forums, has expressed misgivings about Netanyahu's efforts to change the Israeli judicial system. President Joe Biden's blunt criticism of the overhaul this week — even after Netanyahu's decision to halt it — led to a rare open dispute between the allies. “The Biden administration saw Gallant as someone dependable, someone they can work with,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The judicial plan would give the embattled Netanyahu and his allies the final say in appointing the nation’s judges. It would also give parliament, which is controlled by his allies, authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions and limit the court’s ability to review laws. Critics say the plan would irreparably weaken Israel’s system of checks and balances and lead the country toward autocracy. As Netanyahu met this week with potential alternatives to Gallant, such as Economy Minister Nir Barkat, Israeli media reported a flurry of proposals that would allow Gallant to stay on — including that he offer a public apology, or remain as defense minister but resign from parliament and forfeit his ability to vote against the overhaul.
But on Friday it appeared Gallant and Netanyahu had still not reached an agreement. “At the bottom of all this is the realization by (Netanyahu) and most of the Likud that firing Gallant was a huge mistake," said Yaari. “Netanyahu is trying to stay above water, but he cannot really swim.”،

How the Biden-Netanyahu Relationship Turned Icy
Brian Bennett/Time/March 31/2023
It was an unusually pointed exchange of comments between an American President and an Israeli prime minister. Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday afternoon that Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn’t be coming to the White House “in the near term” and that he hopes Netanyahu “walks away” from the divisive judiciary overhaul effort that had brought Israel to a standstill. Within hours, Netanyahu brushed Biden back. He took to Twitter with a retort that Israel is “a sovereign country” that makes “its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
It was the most visible sign of how the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu has turned markedly icy, a development that could have widespread implications for the role of both countries, particularly in the Middle East. It’s been three months since Netanyahu was named Prime Minister for the third time. He has yet to visit Washington since his swearing in in December, a rare absence for a newly elected Israeli leader. “Any Israeli Prime Minister wants to have an early visit to Washington to coordinate with the President,” says Daniel Shapiro, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and the US ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017, who noted that both leaders would want to work to get on the same page on a long list of pressing issues, including “the threat Iran poses and how to address it.”Netanyahu’s latest return to power has been overshadowed by the deal he had to make with Israel’s extreme-right parties to get there, including a promise to push for increasing executive control of the judicial branch. That move raised alarm bells throughout Israel that it would undermine the checks and balances among the country’s branches of government.
It also rattled Biden’s inner circle.
Biden has long considered himself a close friend of Israel, from his years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to his time as Vice President, when he was tapped to smooth over the tensions between President Obama and Netanyahu, who was in the midst of a previous stint as prime minister, over the U.S. effort to advance a nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu’s plan to weaken Israel’s Supreme Court sparked weeks of massive protests and debilitating work stoppages. On Monday, Netanyahu announced he was backing off the overhaul for now, yet signaled he still intended to move forward with the plan at a later date. That leaves Netanyahu’s bid to hold on to power on a collision course not only with much of the Israeli public, but also with Biden. The face-off threatens to strain US-Israel relations. “Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. And I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road,” Biden told reporters Wednesday afternoon under the wing of Air Force One, as the President finished up a visit to a semiconductor maker in North Carolina. The split comes at a critical time in the Middle East. Israel and the US have close security ties, sharing information on terrorist threats, as well as Iran’s destabilizing actions in the region and its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week that Iran could generate a nuclear weapon in several months, if it decided to produce the fissile material. US forces have recently exchanged strikes with militants in Syria affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. During a phone call on March 19, Biden told Netanyahu that democratic values are “a hallmark” of the US-Israel relationship, and that “democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances,” according to a White House description of the call. The two haven’t spoken since. One sign of the amount of work and coordination that’s still going on between the two governments is the number of senior Biden Administration officials who have visited the country in recent months. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Israel in January, weeks after Netanyahu took office, as did CIA director Bill Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Milley was in Israel in early March. Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s close advisor and Minister of Strategic Affairs, has also made multiple trips to Washington since the start of the year. But Netanyahu hasn’t visited the Oval Office since Donald Trump was President and there’s no plans at this point for him to do so. “Had it not been for some of Netanyahu’s policies, I suspect you would have had an early invitation for Netanyahu to visit the White House,” says Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department senior advisor for Arab-Israeli negotiations. “Joe Biden is in love with the idea of Israel. He is not in love with Benjamin Netanyahu.”It’s unclear if Netanyahu will change course on his efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary or if he intends to press forward, hoping his pause will deflate the energy behind the protests. Along with concerns that the overhaul would weaken the country’s democracy, the changes could also benefit Netanyahu personally. He is facing a corruption trial in Israel, and giving the executive branch more authority over the country’s judiciary would give him more power to seat judges that could rule on cases involving him. Netanyahu in recent years has tended to steer toward conflict, not away from it. In 2019, I interviewed him for a TIME cover story on the cusp of his becoming Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Sitting on couches inside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, Netanyahu admitted he had few hobbies, aside from smoking a cigar at the end of the day, and reading history books in his spare time. He noted he had recently read The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant and recommended it. The No. 1 lesson he took away from the book was that turning the other cheek may not be a winning strategy in the annals of time. “History does not favor Christ over Genghis Khan,” he told TIME.

China: Gulf of Oman Exercises Enhanced Navies' Ability
Beijing - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
A recent joint China-Iran-Russia navy exercise in Gulf of Oman enhanced the ability of the navies to conduct diversified maritime missions, China's defense ministry said on Thursday. The drills further deepened friendship and practical cooperation among the three countries, said Tan Kefei, a ministry spokesman. The three nations sent forces including 12 ships, special operations and diving units to participate in the drills from March 15 to 19, Tan said.

Top UN court rejects Iranian bid to free assets frozen by US
AP/March 31/2023
Iran's agent Tavakol Habibzadeh, center, and delegation members wait for judges to enter the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' top court, which issued its judgment in a dispute between Iran and the United States over frozen Iranian state bank accounts worth some $2 billion, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday,  Iran's agent Tavakol Habibzadeh, center, and delegation members wait for judges to enter the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' top court, which issued its judgment in a dispute between Iran and the United States over frozen Iranian state bank accounts worth some $2 billion, in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday,  The United Nations’ top court on Thursday rejected Tehran’s legal bid to free up some $2 billion in Iranian central bank assets frozen by U.S. authorities to be paid in compensation to victims of a 1983 bombing in Lebanon and other attacks linked to Iran. In a 10-5 majority ruling, the International Court of Justice said it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the Iranian claim linked to the central Markazi Bank. The world court’s vice-president, Kirill Gevorgian, said the majority “upholds the objection to jurisdiction raised by the United States of America relating to the claims of the Islamic Republic of Iran” related to the bank. In a complex, 67-page judgment, the world court also found that some other U.S. moves to seize assets of Iran and Iranians in the United States breached a 1955 treaty between the countries and said they should negotiate compensation. If they fail to reach a number, they will have to return to the Hague-based court for a ruling. But the largest part of the case focused on Bank Markazi, and its frozen assets of $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, that are held in a Citibank account in New York. The court said that it did not have jurisdiction based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity because the protections it offers do not extend to central banks. Both countries largely voiced satisfaction at Thursday’s decision. In Washington, Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that while the U.S. was disappointed with some aspects of the ruling it was pleased on the whole. “Broadly we believe that today’s decision is a major blow to Iran’s case,” Patel told journalists. An Iranian foreign ministry statement lauded the decision as “an indication of the strength and reliability of (Iran’s) demand,” the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday. It said Tehran would use “all diplomatic, legal and judiciary means” to pursue its demands. At hearings last year, Iran cast the asset freeze as an attempt to destabilize the Tehran government and a violation of international law. Iran took its claim to the world court in 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that money belonging to Iran’s central bank could be used as compensation for the 241 American troops who died in the 1983 bombing, which was believed to be linked to Tehran.

ICJ Rejects Iran's Bid to Release Assets Frozen by US
London - The Hague - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 31 March, 2023
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has rejected Iran's legal bid to release about $2 billion owned by the Markazi Bank frozen by the US. The Associated Press reported that the largest part of the case focused on Bank Markazi and its frozen assets of $1.75 billion in bonds and accumulated interest in a Citibank account in New York. The court said it did not have jurisdiction based on the 1955 Treaty of Amity because its protections do not extend to central banks. The highest UN judicial body, based in The Hague, said it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the Iranian claim linked to the Markazi Bank but considered that Washington "violated" the rights of Iranian individuals and companies and must compensate them, according to AFP. Reuters described the ruling as a "partial victory" for Iran, saying Washington had illegally allowed courts to freeze assets of some Iranian companies and ordered the United States to pay compensation but left the amount to be determined later. The case before the ICJ was initially brought by Iran against the US in 2016. Tehran alleged Washington breached a 1955 friendship treaty by allowing US courts to freeze the assets of Iranian companies.
The assets should be paid to victims of attacks blamed on Tehran, including the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut. Acting legal adviser Rich Visek of the US State Department said the court had "rejected the vast majority of Iran's case," saying it was a "major victory."
Visek stated: "This is a major victory for the United States and victims of Iran's state-sponsored terrorism."In response, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that the "verdict... shows once again the legitimacy" of Iran's positions "and the illegal behavior of the United States."The complex 67-page ruling comes amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, following exchanged attacks between Iranian-backed militants and US forces in Syria last week. Relations were strained after Russia's use of Iranian drones against Ukraine, and efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers stalled. Shortly after its 2018 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Washington announced it would formally end the 1955 treaty. The US Supreme Court ruled that money from Iran's central bank could be used as compensation for the 241 US troops who died in the 1983 bombing that targeted a military base, which was believed to be linked to Tehran. Iran denies responsibility for the terror attacks alleged by Washington.
The ICJ rulings are binding and not subject to appeal but have no enforcement powers. Countries can resort to the Security Council if another country does not comply with a resolution. The United States and Iran are among a handful of countries that have previously disregarded its decisions.
Earlier this month, New York District Judge Loretta Preska ordered Iran's central bank and a European intermediary to pay out $1.68 billion to family members of the troops killed in the 1983 car bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon. Victims and their families won a $2.65 billion judgment against Iran in federal court in 2007 over the attack. Six years later, they sought to seize bond proceeds allegedly owned by Bank Markazi and processed by Clearstream to satisfy the court judgment partially. Bank Markazi argued that the lawsuit was not permitted under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA), which generally protects foreign governments from liability in US courts. Preska said the 2019 law authorizes US courts to allow the seizure of assets outside the country to satisfy judgments against Iran in terrorism cases, "notwithstanding" other laws such as FSIA that would grant immunity. A Luxembourg court in 2021 ordered Clearstream not to move the funds until a court in that country recognizes the US ruling. Clearstream has appealed that decision. Information about frozen Iran assets abroad is conflicting. Some unofficial estimates put it between $100 billion and $120 billion. The former governor of the Markazi Bank of Iran, Valiollah Seif, said that after the nuclear deal was announced in 2015, the agreement would release $30 billion of Iran's frozen assets. Iran is currently demanding the release of the frozen funds in South Korean and Japanese banks that were being used to pay for oil imports and the export of goods, and the revenues from the sale of gas and electricity in Iraq.

The First World War tactic helping Ukraine fight a modern conflict
Mike Martin/The Telegraph/March 31, 2023
Every soldier carries an entrenching tool in their battle order. Unwieldy and inefficient, these lightweight folding spades seem designed to strip skin from your palms and the insides of your fingers. Using them is the definition of backbreaking labour. Yet they are almost revered amongst the infantry and kept clean, oiled and sharp, ready for use. This is because of one very simple truth about trenches: they are the lowest common denominator of warfare. When all of your technology is spent or neutered – and particularly when you are unable to move through, or around, the enemy firepower arranged against you – trench systems will proliferate. Soldiers will dig, because compacted earth is one of the best absorbers of high explosives there is. In a trench you will be completely protected from small arms and, depending on the design of the trench – and except for direct hits – substantially protected from artillery, mortars and air attack. In a well-built trench, you will live to fight another day. That must be the hope in eastern Ukraine, specifically Bakhmut, where trench warfare has made a reappearance, with artillery and rocket strikes being delivered by both sides over a heavily-mined battlefield. We’ve all seen the horrific reports on the television – of mud, blood, and guts; of soldiers calf deep in liquid mud; of dugouts full of wounded soldiers; of young men and women anxiously awaiting the whine of an incoming shell. On social media, one can also see fields of Russian corpses – the results of the latest human wave of mobiks crashing up against the Ukrainian trench systems. Any ground being taken in Bakhmut, which was visited recently by Zelensky in a morale-building tour, is measured in metres and thousands of casualties – much like it was in the First World War.
But the Russians too are rushing to build trench systems where they expect to defend in the coming months: adverts have appeared on Avito, a Russian version of eBay, seeking craftsmen to help build and fortify trenches in Crimea. The pay rate is 7,000 rubles (£72) a day which, for such risky work, tells you something about the state of Russia’s economy.
For the public, the reports of trench warfare in Ukraine are as surprising as they are distressing. Think back to the aerial wars in Iraq – the high altitude “shock and awe” bombing, that seemed to signal an end to boots on muddy ground. Surely in 2023 we should be fighting hi-tech, low casualty wars using drones and cyber warfare? How is it that we are still stuck in this old way of warfare? The answer lies in those military digs made notorious by poets like Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg, or in films like All Quiet on the Western Front or Journey’s End: the trenches of the First World War.
Coincident with the first widespread use of high explosive artillery in warfare, both sides were forced into opposing trench systems that stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea. The key word here is forced. Neither side wanted to end up stuck attacking or defending a trench system. But for the first three years of the war, neither side had the ability to manoeuvre around or through their enemies. The movement of the initial stages of the conflict settled into a stalemate from which neither side could escape until the very end of the war.
And trenches are as they seem in the films. Uncomfortable and wet. At least eight feet deep so one can move without stooping; a fire step, or series of boxes to stand on, so that the trench can be defended; laid out in zig zags, so that an explosion from a grenade is contained in a short section of trench; reinforced with stakes and planks so that they don’t collapse. And organised into a system, with front line trenches, communications trenches, secondary lines, and bunkers for storage or sleep. And fascinatingly, because they are the lowest common denominator of warfare, they have changed little in design over the past 100 years. Since the First World War, conflicts have tended to have periods of trench warfare, when both sides are unable, or unwilling to manoeuvre. For example, the different theatres of the Second World War had alternating periods of movement and attrition, dominated by opposing trench systems. Once one side was able to generate a manoeuvre force, the trenches disappeared.
The battle of Stalingrad is a case in point; both sides were locked in gruelling hand-to-hand, building-to-building, trench-to-trench combat before the Soviets were able to drive a force through another part of the line and encircled approximately 250,000 German soldiers in and around the city. This particular encirclement and subsequent surrender of German troops was one of the decisive points of the Second World War and it wouldn’t have occurred had the Soviets not been able to tie up the Germans with trench warfare before striking elsewhere.
The movement at the beginning of the Korean War settled down into trench warfare once neither side could get a movement advantage. They never regained momentum and the armistice line was drawn largely where the trenches were.
And in Vietnam, the Viet Cong built an extensive trench and tunnel system to protect themselves from the overwhelming American bombing, before going on to take Saigon and win the war.
All of these examples demonstrate to us a further simple truth about trenches: you can only win wars with movement, you cannot win by digging in, no matter how elaborate your trench system. Only manoeuvre is decisive, although periods of trench warfare play a key role enabling one side to tie up the other while they prepare an offensive to fall elsewhere.
Hence, the trenches of the Great War so often being described as a stalemate. Neither side had the ability to break through the other’s trench system, so both sides waged bloody – and pointless – offensives against each other. The culmination of the war came in 1918 with the arrival of American troops and allied tanks. Working in combination, they were able to circumvent, or punch through, the German defensive lines. The Germans were forced to sue for peace. So too in Ukraine, not just in Bakhmut but up and down the front lines stretching from Kherson in the south to Kremina in the north. At the moment, neither side has the ability to break through, or around, the opposing side’s trench systems.On the Russian side, there are a very large number of mobilised civilians, or mercenaries drawn from Russian prisons, neither of whom have the training, motivation, nor the equipment to break through Ukrainian lines. Russian mobile logistics, too, have been very poor since the start of the war. The Ukrainians, for their part, have a far smaller number of troops but of higher quality, and much higher morale. And so they are relatively evenly matched, and a stalemate ensues.
But 2023 in Ukraine might be like 1918 in France. Since the beginning of this year Western arms have been flowing into Ukraine in ever greater numbers. Specifically, tanks, armoured vehicles, and mobile artillery with greater range than hitherto. Drones to support them. And anti-aircraft missiles to protect them. Ammunition has been stockpiled. Contracts have been issued to provide the second-line logistics and repair; mechanics and drivers have been trained. Taken together, these capabilities will give Ukraine something like a divisional-sized manoeuvre force – in other words, a few hundred tanks and armoured infantry vehicles. Used carefully, this force could be enough to generate movement somewhere else in Ukraine’s battlefield. The most obvious place for that offensive is to the south of Zaporizhzhia toward the coast of the Sea of Azov. If successful, this offensive would split the Russian forces in two leaving one group in Crimea and the south, and the other group in the east. Critically, both groups wouldn’t be able to reinforce each other, giving Ukraine even more military options in the future. The most likely time for this offensive? After May, once the Western arms have arrived and the ground has dried out.
Looking at the worldwide political landscape – and specifically the 2024 US presidential elections with the possibility of isolationist, America First candidates – Ukraine knows they need to be successful in this offensive. Not just to make the sacrifice of Bakhmut worthwhile, but to enable them to bring the war to a close whilst they still enjoy overwhelming western support.
*Mike Martin is a senior war studies fellow at King’s College London, and author of How to Fight a War

Russia new foreign policy document calls West 'existential' threat
Agence France Presse/March 31, 2023
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that a new foreign policy strategy adopted by President Vladimir Putin identifies the West as posing an "existential" threat to Moscow. The announcement comes as Russia's relationship with Western countries has plunged over Russia's decision to deploy troops to Ukraine last year. "The existential nature of threats to the security and development of our country, driven by the actions of unfriendly states is recognized" in the policy, Lavrov said during a televised meeting of Russia's security council. "The United States of America is directly named as the main instigator and driver of anti-Russian sentiment," he added. "The West's policy of trying to weaken Russia in every possible way is characterized as a hybrid war of a new type," the foreign minister added. Putin said updates to Russia's strategy for engagement on the global stage were necessary due to "radical changes" in the world, announcing he had formally adopted the new 42-page document.

Belarus says ready to host 'strategic' Russian nuclear arms
Agence France Presse
Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko said Friday he was ready to host "strategic" Russian nuclear weapons after his ally President Vladimir Putin announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in the ex-Soviet country. "If need be, Putin and I will decide and introduce here, if necessary, strategic weapons," he said, referring to long-range missiles. "We will stop at nothing to defend our countries, our states and our people," Lukashenko said in a televised address to the nation.

In Germany, King Charles honors victims of WWII allied bombings
LBCI/March 31, 2023
King Charles laid a wreath in memory of the victims of the allied bombing in World War Two during a visit to Hamburg's St Nikolai memorial, the remains of a church in Germany's northern port city severely damaged by the air raids. The gesture comes on the last day of Charles' three-day tour of Germany, his first overseas state trip since ascending the British throne last year designed to strengthen bilateral and European ties. It comes shortly before the 80th anniversary of the allied bombing of Hamburg in July known as "Operation Gomorrah" that killed some 40,000 people and destroyed swathes of the city.
In response to Nazi air raids on civilian targets in Poland and later London, the Allies dropped about 1.9 million tonnes of bombs on Germany in an effort to cripple German industry. The allied raids killed some 500,000 people. Earlier, Charles also paid his respects at the memorial to the Kindertransporte, a rescue mission that allowed some 10,000 Jewish children to flee Nazi-occupied Europe in the late 1930, mostly to Britain. "Heeding the lessons of the past is our sacred responsibility, but it can only be fully discharged through a commitment to our shared future," Charles said in a bilingual address to the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday. "Together we must be vigilant against threats to our values and freedoms, and resolute in our determination to confront them."Later on Friday, Charles, who succeeded his mother Queen Elizabeth when she died in September, is set to learn more about the port of Hamburg's adoption of green technologies and to meet representatives of some of the firms involved. "Our countries are both accelerating the expansion of our hydrogen economies, the fuel which could transform our future," he told the Bundestag. "I am looking forward to seeing Hamburg’s plans to use hydrogen in its efforts to become a fully sustainable port."

India Turns Optimistic on Forging G-20 Consensus on Russia’s War
Sudhi Ranjan Sen/Bloomberg/March 31, 2023
India is turning more optimistic about achieving a consensus from Group of 20 nations on the language used to describe Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a person familiar with the matter. Representatives from various countries have stayed in the same room in recent meetings, marking a contrast with the regular walkouts during similar talks last year in Indonesia, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the meetings are private. That has raised hopes for some sort of a compromise similar to that achieved last November on the resort island of Bali, the person said, adding that any escalation of the war could upset this fragile balance. India, which is set to host the annual G-20 summit in September, is under pressure to show it can forge an agreement after two major meetings ended this year ended with Russia and China objecting to language around the war. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to use India’s G-20 presidency to “depoliticize” the supply chains of food and fertilizer made scarce by the war. India’s top G-20 negotiator, Amitabh Kant, said on Thursday that the group still isn’t close to reaching a settlement over the language in a joint statement at the leaders meeting in September. The body needs to also discuss pressing issues such as global debt and climate change as part of that, he said. “The Russia-Ukraine issue cannot hold many other issues back,” Kant told reporters in the picturesque beach town of Kumarakom in southern India, where the negotiators were meeting this week. Billboards leading to the venue read “Welcome sherpas, may the backwaters lead you forward.”Kant said he held a “very positive and optimistic” meeting with his Russian counterpart Svetlana Lukash on Thursday, saying they “discussed everything under the sun.”While the meetings this week were ostensibly focused on digital public infrastructure, the G-20 sherpas are using the discussions to address the war in Ukraine — the biggest sticking point for the group. Since Russia’s invasion began more than a year ago, India has emerged as one of the biggest swing nations, maintaining close ties with the US but abstaining from United Nations votes to condemn the war. It’s also held back from participating in US-led efforts to sanction Moscow and continues to snatch up cheap Russian oil. As G-20 host, India has struggled to use its relatively friendly ties with President Vladimir Putin to get member nations to reach an agreement. Meetings of the finance and foreign ministers both ended with a chairman’s statement from India — a reflection of a lack of consensus — as Moscow and Beijing opposed language on the war that all countries had agreed to just months earlier. While Indonesia also gave chairman’s statements in the run-up to the leaders meeting last year, it also had to contend with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other finance ministers and central bank governors walking out when Russian officials addressed a meeting.
--With assistance from Muneeza Naqvi.

Hungarian government official argues Sweden isn't nice enough to his country to get approval to join NATO
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/March 31/203
Hungary is one of two countries yet to approve Sweden's bid to join NATO.
A government spokesperson published a blog Wednesday detailing why there's still a delay. The official claimed Sweden undermines the two countries' relationship and has a "hostile" attitude.Sweden's pending admission to the NATO alliance is being held up by Hungary until a number of "grievances" are addressed, a government spokesperson said this week. Among them are complaints that Swedish officials routinely "bash" Budapest in the diplomatic space.
Zoltán Kovács, Hungary's secretary of state for international communication and relations, published a blog on Wednesday that details three reasons why he says the country's parliament is "right" to delay signing off on Sweden's bid to join the military alliance. Sweden — alongside neighboring Finland — requested to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine over a year ago, but it still needs Hungary's approval to do so. The central European country approved Finland's bid this week, but Sweden's is still being delayed. "With Finland's admission into NATO now secure, Sweden must face the music regarding its daunting attitude and former derogatory comments toward Hungary," Kovács wrote. "In the case of Sweden, there is an ample amount of grievances that need to be addressed before the country's admission is ratified." Kovács described several issues that Hungary takes with Sweden, including accusations that Sweden regularly "undermines" the relationship between the two countries through a "declared and open hostile attitude." "Swedish representatives have been repeatedly keen to bash Hungary through diplomatic means, using their political influence to harm Hungarian interests," Kovács said. He cited instances where Swedish politicians in recent years have been critical of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government, which has undergone democratic backsliding. Orbán has taken a hardline stance on Hungary's judicial system, academic institutions, press, and immigration, leading European Union lawmakers to vote last year to revoke the country's status as a democracy, instead calling it "a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy."Sweden's foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Kovács wrote that another reason for the hold up on Sweden's NATO bid is Stockholm's "crumbling throne of moral superiority" and a "lack of care and respect." He said relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years, which makes it harder for them to mend ties now. "Adding Ankara's woes and grievances to the mix does not leave much room to maneuver, at least not until the Swedes start changing their tune and help these lingering wounds heal," Kovács said in reference to Turkey, which has joined Hungary is delaying Sweden's bid to join NATO. Sweden and Finland — both of which have historically been militarily nonaligned — applied to join NATO in May 2022 and were invited to join the military alliance the following month. But parliaments in each of the 30 member countries need to approve a new member's bid since NATO requires unanimous consent to expand. These two Nordic countries would give NATO a meaningful boost to its military capabilities as the alliance faces an ongoing threat from Russia. Both Turkey and Hungary previously signaled that they would hold out on signing off on Sweden's request to join the NATO alliance, with the former accusing Stockholm of supporting militant groups that it considers to be terrorists. A former Hungarian ambassador to NATO and the US previously told Insider that he believes Hungary's timeline in approving Sweden's bid will follow in the footsteps of Turkey's ratification.

U.S. seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/Fri, March 31, 2023
The United States is seeking to keep more than 1 million rounds of ammunition the U.S. Navy seized in December as it was in transit from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to militants in Yemen, the Justice Department said on Friday. “The United States disrupted a major operation by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to smuggle weapons of war into the hands of a militant group in Yemen," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "The Justice Department is now seeking the forfeiture of those weapons, including over 1 million rounds of ammunition and thousands of proximity fuses for rocket-propelled grenades."U.S. naval forces on Dec. 1 intercepted a fishing trawler smuggling more than 50 tons of ammunition rounds, fuses and propellants for rockets in the Gulf of Oman along a maritime route from Iran to Yemen, the Navy said. They found more than 1 million rounds of 7.62mm ammunition; 25,000 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition; nearly 7,000 proximity fuses for rockets; and over 2,100 kilograms of propellant used to launch rocket propelled grenades, it said. The forfeiture action is part of a larger government investigation into an Iranian weapons-smuggling network that supports military action by the Houthi movement in Yemen and the Iranian regime’s campaign of terrorist activities throughout the region, the Justice Department said. The forfeiture complaint alleges a sophisticated scheme by the IRGC to clandestinely ship weapons to entities that pose grave threats to U.S. national security.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 01/2023
يجب على كندا أن تضع الحرس الثوري الإيراني على قائمة الإرهاب بموجب القانون الجنائي
توبي ديرشويتز/ تسفي كان/كايتلين رومين/ناشيونال بوست/ 1 آذار 2023
Canada must put Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on terrorist list under Criminal Code
Toby Dershowitz/Tzvi Kahn/Kaitlyn Romaine/National Post/March 31/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/117038/canada-must-put-irans-revolutionary-guard-on-terrorist-list-under-criminal-code-%d9%8a%d8%ac%d8%a8-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%89-%d9%83%d9%86%d8%af%d8%a7-%d8%a3%d9%86-%d8%aa%d8%b6%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d9%84/
“Excuses.” That’s how Hamed Esmaeilion, the former spokesperson for the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, recently described Ottawa’s rationales for refusing to sanction Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pursuant to Canada’s Criminal Code. He’s right. It’s long past time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to act.
Esmaeilion has a stake in the outcome. His wife and daughter died in 2020 when the IRGC shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752 shortly after takeoff from a Tehran airport, killing all 176 passengers on board, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents. A Canadian judge ruled in 2021 that the attack was “intentional” and an “act of terrorism.”
That’s par for the course for the IRGC. Founded in 1979 at the outset of the Islamic Revolution, the IRGC is a paramilitary force charged with preserving and advancing the regime’s radical Islamist values. The IRGC’s foreign operations arm, known as the Quds Force, trains, funds, and arms Iran’s terrorist proxies across the Middle East, including the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Syrian regime, and Yemen’s Houthis. It conducts terrorist attacks, takes hostages, and plots assassinations throughout the world.
The IRGC’s volunteer Basij militia and related IRGC intelligence agencies enforce Tehran’s harsh religious restrictions at home. These organizations have played a key role in violently suppressing nationwide protests. They enforce the regime’s mandatory headscarf laws, the primary trigger for the unrest that began in September.
In other words, the IRGC meets the basic definition of a terrorist organization: It deliberately deploys violence against civilians to achieve political and religious ends.
Ottawa seems to grasp that reality to some degree. In October, it designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization pursuant to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, thereby denying more than 10,000 IRGC officers and senior members access to Canadian territory. And since September, Canada has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iranian human rights abusers, including multiple IRGC leaders.
Yet Trudeau has stopped short of the most impactful step he could take: designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization pursuant to Canada’s Criminal Code, which would dramatically increase economic and political pressure on the group. What accounts for Ottawa’s reticence?
Trudeau hasn’t publicly explained his reasoning. But in November, Attorney General and Justice Minister David Lametti argued that since the 125,000-strong IRGC relies on mandatory conscription, a Criminal Code designation would punish innocent Iranians who lacked any choice but to serve. Yet Ottawa could resolve this concern.
Rather than applying a blanket criminalization of all conscripts, Ottawa could use a Criminal Code designation as the basis for requiring economic institutions and travel agencies to apply enhanced due diligence of draftees before engaging in transactions with them. In this respect, Ottawa could give special consideration to older IRGC members who served, through no choice of their own, in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and are unlikely to pose a threat today. If a former IRGC member feels unfairly targeted in a particular case, Canada could allow the conscript to appeal.
In this context, Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa, suggests Trudeau may oppose an IRGC designation because enforcing it would require a considerable amount of resources from Canada’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That’s true, but also beside the point. A potential inability to fully enforce the designation doesn’t mean that Ottawa should simply let a terrorist organization off the hook in its entirety.
Another possible reason for Trudeau’s inaction: He may believe that the IRGC’s status as a state actor precludes a Criminal Code designation under Canadian law. Yet there is a precedent for this sort of designation. As Andrew House, the chief of staff to former public safety minister Vic Toews, points out, the Taliban bears a Criminal Code designation even though it governs Afghanistan.
The downing of Flight PS752 was a watershed moment in Canadian-Iran relations that demands a forceful response. Designating the IRGC pursuant to the Criminal Code would be one more step towards long-overdue justice for Esmaeilion and Tehran’s many other victims, who continue — so far in vain — to demand Trudeau’s elementary recognition of reality. No more excuses.
*Toby Dershowitz is senior vice president for government relations and strategy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
*Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow and senior editor at FDD.
*Katie Romaine is a government relations associate at FDD. Follow the authors on Twitter @TobyDersh, @TzviKahn, and @Katie_Romaine. FDD is a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canada-must-put-irans-revolutionary-guard-on-terrorist-list-under-criminal-code

Leadership Crisis in America
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/March 31, 2023
These numbers should frighten everyone. It is hard to imagine how a country functions effectively if only 21% of its citizens believe they can trust their government to do the right thing most of the time. What does this mean and why are the numbers so low?
Many of the people present on January 6th did not accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and were protesting the outcome. They simply could not be convinced that Joe Biden won fair and square. Believing in free and fair elections is a bedrock principle of representative government; without it, the critical support needed to underpin our entire system is gone.
As I noted, however, in 2006 based on an intelligence report I demanded be declassified, there were WMDs found in Iraq. They were in varying states and conditions, and led to the injury of some members of our Armed Forces, but they did not point to the ongoing program Americans had been led to believe existed. The New York Times more recently validated this WMD finding, which had largely been swept under the rug for political expediency.
Among SVB's customers are many Chinese companies that are being fully covered while citizens impacted by the East Palestine train derailment have found out they do not qualify for traditional FEMA disaster assistance. It is hard to build trust in citizens when the government seemingly treats one group better than it treats others.
Americans have seen so many examples of outright government deceit. FBI and intelligence leaders fostered the notion that President-elect Trump was compromised by Russia. The "Russia hoax" persisted for more than two years as a cloud over the head of President Trump and incapacitated the country. Congressional leaders such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff promised the American people that he had direct evidence about Trump that warranted the president's impeachment. Later, it became clear that he did not, but that has not stopped him from continuing to push his fabrication as he mounts a Senate bid in California. Fifty-one intelligence professionals and leaders signed a letter implying that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation and not real. They were all wrong.
Investigations into the origins of the COVID pandemic, continuing attempts to set up some version of a Department of Misinformation and Disinformation – read: the government deciding for you what "truth" is, then punishing citizens who might disagree -- and the weaponization of the government against citizens ongoing in the House of Representatives may expose even more examples of the federal government bureaucracy being deceitful in its interactions with the American people.
On key policies [the federal government] has failed miserably, from 9/11 to the latest crisis rocking the banking industry. That is 20 years of epic, systemic government failures. Throw in deception by some of the highest-ranking government officials and bailouts of foreign interests while U.S. citizens are left hanging, and you get why barely a fifth of Americans have faith in their leaders.
America is in crisis. More and more Americans are increasingly distrustful of America's leadership. It is hard to imagine how a country functions effectively if only 21% of its citizens believe they can trust their government to do the right thing most of the time. What does this mean and why are the numbers so low? Pictured: US President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Johns Island, South Carolina on August 13, 2022. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
America is in crisis. More and more Americans are increasingly distrustful of America's leadership across the board. In one of the latest surveys, Pew Research found only 21% of respondents said they "just about always" or "most of the time" – 2% and 19% respectively -- trusted the government to do the right thing. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that number was 49%. These numbers should frighten everyone. It is hard to imagine how a country functions effectively if only 21% of its citizens believe they can trust their government to do the right thing most of the time. What does this mean and why are the numbers so low?
If the numbers are peeled back, there are more insights into how the American people perceive their government, according to a Partnership for Public Service survey. Fifty-five percent believe that the impact government has on the country is negative. Fifty-five percent of the people do not believe that the government helps people like them. Almost two thirds believe that government is not transparent and does not listen to the public. These numbers are so low, it is little wonder the number of people who trust the government has not gone above 30% in Pew's surveys since 2007.
The American people do trust business leaders more. A Harvard Business School survey suggests that 61% of the American people trust businesses (Of note, the trust for government in this poll was 52%). The Harvard researchers say for a group to be identified as trusted they must have a 60% favorable rating. Government and media both fail to reach this target, and both have fallen significantly in recent years while business has remained relatively stable.
The key point here is regardless of what poll you are looking at, America's institutions do not consistently meet thresholds that most individuals believe indicate a strong public support. This is highly problematic for our nation. Some would argue the events on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, are a clear indicator of this lack of trust in government. Many of the people present on January 6th did not accept the results of the 2020 presidential election and were protesting the outcome. There were clearly just too many irregularities (such as here, here and here) for them to believe that Joe Biden had won fair and square. Believing in free and fair elections is a bedrock principle of representative government; without it, the critical support needed to underpin our entire system is gone.
How is it that so many Americans have such negative views about our leadership and the direction of our nation? For 15 years I worked for a company, Herman Miller, recognized for its leadership principles. The company stressed the importance of servant leadership: leaders served those who worked for them. They also had a responsibility to customers, shareholders, vendors, and their community. It was a balanced approach with multiple constituencies. Integrity and honesty were fundamental to effective leadership. Finally, accountability and results were key parts of the leadership equation that were expected parts of doing your job. It is concerning that so many of these good, honest tenets have been lost across our society today -- especially in our government.
The dramatic decline in government support numbers can perhaps be traced to the response and aftermath of 9/11. While the "rally round the flag" effect led to an initial positive response to the government's actions, people soon began to focus on one basic fact: The government had failed in its most important function, which is to protect its citizens from attack. The war in Iraq that followed was based on an inaccurate intelligence assessment that Saddam Hussein had an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. This became a bitter partisan divide with some believing that the decision to go to war was based on incorrect information, while others believed that the Bush administration had lied to build support to invade Iraq.
As I noted, however, in 2006 based on an intelligence report I demanded be declassified, there were WMDs found in Iraq. They were in varying states and conditions, and led to the injury of some members of our Armed Forces, but they did not point to the ongoing program Americans had been led to believe existed. The New York Times more recently validated this WMD finding, which had largely been swept under the rug for political expediency.
We recently marked the 20-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq; since that time, our country has experienced the financial crisis of 2008, the Arab Spring and war with ISIS from 2011-2015. The aftermath of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya all had negative outcomes. The Biden administration's deadly and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 only contributed to the view that the federal government is failing in doing its job effectively.
Beyond government mismanagement of multiple U.S. war efforts, Americans have seen so many examples of outright government deceit. FBI and intelligence leaders fostered the notion that President-elect Trump was compromised by Russia. The "Russia hoax" persisted for more than two years as a cloud over the head of President Trump and incapacitated the country. Congressional leaders such as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff promised the American people that he had direct evidence about Trump that warranted the president's impeachment. Later, it became clear that he did not, but that has not stopped him from continuing to push his fabrication as he mounts a Senate bid in California. Fifty-one intelligence professionals and leaders signed a letter implying that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation and not real. They were all wrong.
Investigations into the origins of the COVID pandemic, continuing attempts to set up some version of a Department of Misinformation and Disinformation – read: the government deciding for you what "truth" is, then punishing citizens who might disagree -- and the weaponization of the government against citizens ongoing in the House of Representatives may expose even more examples of the federal government bureaucracy being deceitful in its interactions with the American people.
Another recent and galling example of government double dealing that has frustrated citizens is President Joe Biden's push to make taxpayers pay off other students' loans. It is clear that those students who took out loans are receiving better treatment from the government than those students who saved, worked hard, and paid their college tuition. Those who decided to enter the trades or decided not to attend college at all will receive no benefit from this latest example government largesse, apart from the dubious distinction of paying higher taxes to cover the loans of people who did have a higher education and presumably should be helping the very people bailing them out, not preying off them.
Finally, customers of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), primarily high-tech startups and their employees, will have all of their deposits insured by the government while customers at other regional banks might not. Among SVB's customers are many Chinese companies that are being fully covered while citizens impacted by the East Palestine train derailment have found out they do not qualify for traditional FEMA disaster assistance. It is hard to build trust in citizens when the government seemingly treats one group better than it treats others.
The federal government has clearly not demonstrated the characteristics of "servant leadership" that our nation so desperately needs. On key policies it has failed miserably, from 9/11 to the latest crisis rocking the banking industry. That is 20 years of epic, systemic government failures. Throw in deception by some of the highest-ranking government officials and bailouts of foreign interests while U.S. citizens are left hanging, and you get why barely a fifth of Americans have faith in their leaders. Incompetence, deception, and working against the interests of the American people leave little wonder as to why people have lost trust in our government.
*Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the second district of Michigan, served as Chairman and Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Is the Region on the Cusp of a New Phase?
Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy/Former Egyptian Ambassador and Senior UN official./Asharq Al Awsat/March 31/2023
The month of March appears to be a consequential month for the Arab world. Over the past decades a number of events with far-reaching consequences for the region have taken place during this month.
Amongst these events is the US invasion of Iraq. This month we commemorated the 20th anniversary of this tragic event. An event that not only brought untold misery to the people of Iraq but had far reaching implications for the Arab world as well as the international system at large.
While the month of March up until this year evoked tragic memories for the Arabs, March 2023 holds the promise of positive change.
Two important developments have taken place that could have the potential to break the cycle of wars and destruction as we will explain later in the article.
Many Iraqis were convinced that freedom and human dignity can only be attained with the overthrow of the ruling autocratic regime. For some the only way to achieve this objective was with the help of foreign military intervention.
The invasion of Iraq may have brought an end to a brutal dictatorship but in the process dismantled a proud nation without replacing it with a system that provides the freedom, security, the respect for human dignity and prosperity that the Iraqis aspired to achieve.
Many Iraqis are asking themselves the question: are we better off today than we were 2003?
Some 300,000 Iraqis lost their lives and according to former Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi since 2003, more than $600 billion has been siphoned off to away from the development of the country to enrich few individuals. Is it not ironic that Iraq an oil rich country lacks sufficient funds to finance its economic development and imports energy from Iran. Moreover, the tragedy is compounded by the fact that a functioning democratic system that delivers on the aspirations of the Iraqi people remains elusive.
So maybe it is time to contemplate the lessons learned from the bitter experience the Iraqi people have had to endure over the past 20 years.
First, while Iraqis had - and continue to have - legitimate grievances, it is obvious that seeking support from foreign quarters does not produce the desired results. Quite the contrary, outside intervention has unleashed a cycle of violence, terrorism, sectarian conflict and corruption.
This is not surprising given the historical precedents of foreign military interventions: US invasion of Cuba in 1898 and Haiti in 1915, and the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. All these interventions undermined the independence of these countries and shunted their political development. But more than anything else the people paid - and continue to this day - pay a heavy price.
Second, the US military intervention has weakened the nation state in Iraq. First by dismantling state institutions that - in spite of their deficiencies- were able to manage the diverse interests of the people in a manner that most Iraqis tolerated. Second, by introducing a constitution based on sectarianism. The result was that sectarianism came to dominate politics in Iraq, pitting Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds against one another. But also, and probably more dangerously, it cast its sinister shadow over the politics of other parts of the region.
Third, the excessive dependency on the diaspora to bring about the change has proved to be misplaced. Although the Iraqi diaspora were well-versed in democratic practices, most were detached from the prevailing realities in the country and therefore, have been unable to spearhead political change.
Fourth, the lack of an active Arab role has been a complicating factor. Without Arab support, Iraq has been unable to effectively deal with the interventions of the US, Iran and Türkiye.
In short, the lessons derived from the US invasion of Iraq can be summarized in positive political change can only come from within a country, that foreign military interventions have long-term catastrophic consequences, and the lack of an Arab role in the search for political settlements exacerbates conflicts and opens the door to even more foreign interventions in Arab affairs and thereby undermines Arab interests in the long-term.
Now fast forward to March 2023 where two events have taken place that have the potential to reserve the catastrophic consequences of the US invasion of Iraq and to reshape the future region.
Since the invasion of Iraq, the concept of the nation state in the Middle East has come under severe stress. Today we are witnessing a newly discovered attachment to the concept of the nation state by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is adopting a new narrative about the Saudi state that stretches into prehistory. The Kingdom similar to all nation states is a product of a combination of different factors: people, territory, layers of history and culture, as well as Islam as the foundational principle of the modern nation state. The commemoration of the Flag Day for the first time on March 11 stands testimony to this important development.
The second is the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This could have far-reaching consequences for not only the region, but also the relationship of the region with the outside world. But probably more importantly it could very well put an end to the sectarianism that has plagued the region for so long. This development in the Saudi attitude should be viewed within the context of Riyadh’s astute handling of its relations with the US, China and Russia, as well as managing both its oil policy and its international financial policy as we have seen lately with the crisis with Credit Suisse.
Although sectarianism has long been a feature of the Middle East, the governance systems over centuries and particularly since the advent of the nation state in the 20th century have been able to manage sectarianism. What we have witnessed lately is the transformation of the phenomenon into persistent armed conflicts not among countries, but more dangerously within countries.
Sectarianism took its new devastating form over the past 40 years. The 1979 Iranian revolution opened the door to the revival of the schism between Shiite and Sunni Islam and gave it a modern political form as witnessed in the Iran-Iraq war.
The US invasion of Iraq exploited this rivalry to create an Arab front against Iran, but more dangerously transplanted/ encouraged sectarian politics in a combustible local environment, pitting Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds against one another.
Now with the process of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran, hopefully a reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Islam will take place opening the door to achieving political solutions to the complex situations in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.
Could the Arab world be at the cusp of an important change? After a period of disarray, largely due to lack of leadership, excessive dependency on the outside powers, corrosive sectarianism, but now with the renewed attractiveness of the concept of the nation state and an awareness of the dangers of foreign interventions, could the Arab countries rediscover that their strength is in their cooperation?
Time will tell if the Arab countries are able to depend on themselves to help Iraq to overcome its problems, take the initiative in finding political solutions to the crisis in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, in articulating a common vision for a regional security architecture and shaping intra-Arab relations on tangible common economic and political interests, not on emotions and slogans.

Israel’s relations with Arab world jeopardized by new government’s actions: Experts
Ray Hanania/Arab News/March 31, 2023
CHICAGO: Israeli journalists, former diplomats and government ministers agreed on Thursday that escalating violence directed toward Palestinians under the rule of the new coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is undermining Israel’s relations with neighboring Arab countries, in particular those that have signed the Abraham Accords or might have considered doing so.
During a discussion hosted by the Middle East Institute, the panelists said the first three months of the far-right government have been “chaotic” and its policies are “racist” and “disconnected from reality.”
Since it came to power in December, the ruling coalition has overseen the violent suppression of Palestinian protests. Nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed as Israeli and settler raids targeting activists have been stepped up throughout the occupied West Bank. One of the most violent incidents was an assault on the Palestinian village of Huwara on Feb. 27, which an Israeli panelist described as a “pogrom,” a word used to describe an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group. Armed settlers, who claimed to be avenging an attack on Israelis by Palestinians the day before, led a violent, late-night rampage through the village in the northern West Bank, killing one Palestinian and injuring more than 100. The Israeli military, which has responded rapidly to increased tensions related to Palestinian assaults, did nothing to intervene.
“The fact is that this government, in its first three months, is totally dysfunctional and chaotic, and almost any step it takes does not come out of initiative but out of reaction to events,” said Barak Ravid, a veteran Middle East and diplomatic correspondent for Israeli media outlets.
“This is also a government that … is the most far-right government in Israel’s history, with racist and Jewish-supremacist elements in it, in key positions that have a lot of influence over foreign relations and national security, like Itamir Ben Gvir, the minister of national security, or Mr. (Bezalel) Smotrich, the minister of finance.”Ravid continued: “When Netanyahu came in, he said several things. Firstly, he said he is going have his hands on the wheel when it comes to national security and foreign policy. I think in the three months since this government was formed it is obvious to everybody that this is not the case. He is not running anything, everything is chaotic. “And secondly, he put forward a pretty ambitious foreign policy agenda, first stressing he will focus on Iran and on countering its nuclear program. And second, he said he will try to broaden the Abraham Accords and get a peace treaty with Saudi Arabia. In the last three months, he has done nothing, not on the first foreign policy goal and not on the second foreign policy goal.”
Ravid said the unrelated issue of the government’s proposed reforms of Israel’s judicial system, which have sparked widespread protests across Israel and international concern, has contributed the problems because it has “hijacked the government’s agenda.” The violence in the West Bank, the panelists agreed, has caused a spike in killings of Palestinians and Israelis, and put the brakes on any more potential normalization agreements, similar to the Abraham Accords deals with Morocco, Bahrain and the UAE, in particular dashing hopes that there might be one with Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu’s coalition “knows very well that they are harming relations with the Arab World but they don’t care,” said Nachman Shai, Israel’s former minister of diaspora affairs.
“Don’t tell me they don’t know, when they let Minister Ben Gvir on the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque) or other statements were made by coalition members and government ministers. They know very well that they are harming relations with the Arab world but they don’t care.” Shai described the “Huwara pogrom” as a “terrible event, a tragedy that disrupted our relationship with the United States, with the Jewish community, and with the world. And especially with our relations with the Arab World.”He said the new government’s policies have drawn anger from the administration of US President Joe Biden, who has been a strong advocate for Israeli security and democracy. Elie Podeh, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the biggest effect of the coalition’s actions has been to undermine any possibility of normalized relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which was “Netanyahu’s main target” for his foreign policy.
“Any tension, and certainly an intifada and anything significant that happens between Israel and the Palestinians, especially if Jerusalem is involved, is going to hamper and is going to hurt any developments between the Israelis and the Saudis,” Podeh said. “So, it is not on the horizon, at least the immediate horizon.”
Maya Sion Tzidkiyahu, director of Mitvim, the Israel-Europe Relations Program at the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, said the turmoil during the first 100 days of Netanyahu’s government has not only soured support for Israel among leaders of EU countries, but also the normalized relations with the UAE. She said the Netanyahu government has not recognized the damage it is causing to its efforts to improve relations with the Arab World. The moderator of the discussion was Nimrod Goren, a senior fellow of Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute.

Inside Iran’s Regime (Part 2): The Clerical Crisis
Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/March 31/2023
In a climate where many clerics are unhappy about their situation and some are losing faith in the Islamic Republic, the purported minutes of a recent regime meeting show how the problem may evolve as domestic unrest continues.
When a document claiming to be the minutes of a January 3 meeting between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was publicized last week, concerns about the clergy featured prominently in the text. In particular, those in attendance purportedly had much to say about how clerics have been reacting to Iran’s recent protests and the regime’s subsequent crackdown. (For a discussion of the document’s provenance and policy implications, see Part 1 of this PolicyWatch.)
For example, Mahmoud Mohammadi Shahroudi—former head of the Cleric’s Basij, the clerical branch of the IRGC-affiliated militia—was quoted as saying he had never before experienced the problems he was currently seeing, which included unprecedented numbers of clerics engaging in deep ideological confrontation with each other or “leaving the clergy’s sacred uniform” altogether (by his count, as many as 5,000 members of the Clerics’ Basij had left their units in recent months). Some seminary classes had turned into battlefields between students and teachers over the religious justification (or lack thereof) for the regime’s behavior toward protesters. And in many cases, he purportedly argued, seminarians were blaming the judiciary and harshly criticizing Khamenei himself. Shahroudi was then described as warning his audience that “the risk of losing faith in the regime and the Supreme Leader can threaten the regime entirely.”
Regarding the Clerics’ Basij, Shahroudi purportedly argued that the organization is facing “ideological, financial, and local problems.” For one, many clerics no longer felt safe due to the protests, which made it difficult for them to walk in public without being harassed by verbal or physical attacks. He was also said to have complained about clerics’ low income, which forced many of them to take outside jobs. Yet the most “essential problem,” he argued, was the ideological crisis among the clergy, which extended to questioning the Supreme Leader’s legitimacy. Other key officials cited in the document were said to express similar concerns about ideological problems within the clergy and military being exacerbated by the protests.
Clerics leaving the cloth is hardly a unique phenomenon in Iran’s modern history—many young seminarians have made that decision when faced with crises for which they find no satisfactory religious or rational justification, while others have been driven to leave by financial, social, or political motivations. What makes Shahroudi’s alleged remarks stand out is his contention that the problem has grown exponentially since nationwide protests erupted last year.
On the financial front, economic hardship has long been a problem for seminarians because their income is limited to a monthly salary, which can vary greatly depending on how (and how much) their senior religious authorities (marjas) distribute funds. The 1979 revolution drastically changed how the clergy brings in money—whereas they were previously limited to collecting religiously mandated contributions, the creation of the Islamic Republic enabled them to tap innumerable other resources in the state budget and private sector. Yet this newfound wealth has never been distributed equitably among individual clerics, and the religious establishment is generally not committed to ensuring they are treated justly, whether in economic or political terms. As a result, a great number of clerics—especially those who focus on studying in seminaries and have no administrative position in the clerical establishment or government—now find themselves in Iran’s lower classes. As for those individuals who entered the seminary out of financial expectations created by the clergy seizing political power, many now feel disillusioned about their future prospects and thus have little reason to remain clerics.
As for those who leave based on ideological reasons, what has changed is not so much the phenomenon of individual clerics objecting to the views of the establishment and stepping away, but rather the nature of the regime they are reacting against. In the past, hardline elements in the religious establishment tended to oppose any substantial reform, but this opposition was often based on religious factors—that is, their intolerance toward any unorthodox way of thinking or performing as a cleric.
In more recent decades, however, the evolving nature of the Islamic Republic under Khamenei has transformed the clergy’s traditional religious spirit (including its internal disagreements) into something more political, ideological, and totalitarian in nature. The clerical establishment has mutated from a simple, traditional institution into a vast, sophisticated bureaucracy, with all clerics placed under constant ideological surveillance and periodically punished if they overstep the red lines set by the Supreme Leader. In light of this system, and in the absence of any hope for reform, many young seminarians have been leaving the clergy after just a few years, and the number of new students entering seminaries has plunged to new lows.
The establishment has thus been split into two rough strata: those clerics who are direct economic and political beneficiaries of the Islamic Republic, and those who identify themselves as “traditional clergy” and avoid association with the government. The large number of clerics who hold political positions or benefit from state financial support represent the first group; grand ayatollahs such as Ali al-Sistani or Hossein Vahid Khorasani are among the second.
Most members of the “traditional clergy” are deeply concerned about the future of the Shia establishment due to its prevailing image as Iran’s ruling class. Although they do not endorse the regime’s political ideology, its doctrine of velayat-e faqih (which grants the Supreme Leader absolute authority), or its various policies and behaviors at home, they are still reluctant to clearly express different views or stand behind the victims of regime oppression and human rights violations. This relative passivity stems from two main reasons: (1) they do not feel immune to a potential government crackdown given how aggressively the regime has dealt with prominent religious critics in the past (e.g., the late Kazem Shariatmadari and Hossein Ali Montazeri, and (2) they are concerned about what would happen if the Islamic Republic morphs into some type of secular alternative (whether military or democratic), since clerics would stand to lose their historically special status in such a system and be treated like other citizens.
In other words, even as members of the “traditional clergy” criticize the regime for portraying religious figures as the nation’s ruling class and source of legitimacy, they are also unable to countenance a secular form of government in which religious institutions are no longer privileged. The practical consequences of this dilemma have become painfully clear since last fall: the traditional clergy are politically disabled, with no will or means to disassociate themselves from the government and side with the people’s democratic demands.
Going forward, Shahroudi’s alleged comments indicate imminent changes in the fabric of the clergy, especially unemployed seminarians who find themselves excluded from the regime’s benefits. Further securitization of the clerical establishment is also a possibility, which would close any remaining doors to reform and suppress critical voices who may offer provisional remedies for the growing crisis.
*Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.