Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 31-August 01/2023
Martyrdom of 350 Martyrs, Disciples of St Maron
Saint of the day site/31 July
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/120645/120645/
After St Maroun died, many were inspired by his teachings and his ascetic way of life. By the fifth century a monastery was built near where he lived known as Bet Maroun. The monastery became very significant in the region. Also in the fifth century a debate had emerged about the nature of Jesus. The debate centered on whether Jesus was divine, human or both and exactly what that meant. Some, like the Nestorians, argued that Jesus was separately divine and human and that the two natures were independent. Others such as the Jacobites taught that Jesus was only divine and his divinity absorbed his human nature. In 451, The Council of Chalcedon dealt with the debate once and for all, declaring that Christ was both divine and human, but one person. The Maronites upheld the proclamation of the Council of Chalcedon. The monks of Saint Maroun led the way preaching the true doctrine and opposing heresy. We learn of the martyrdom of the 350 Monks in a letter from the monks to Pope Hormisdas in the year 517. They described the suffering and attacks they are enduring, particularly from the Antiochian Patriarchs Severus and Peter who opposed the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon. They described that they were mocked for their support of the Council and were suffering afflictions. The described how the Emperor Anastasius had sent an army that had marched through the district of Apamea closing monasteries and expelling the monks. Some monks had been beaten and others had been thrown into prison. While on their way to St. Simon Stylite, the Maronites had been ambushed and 350 monks were killed, even though some of them had taken refuge at the altar. The monastery was burned. The letter was signed by Alexander, priest and archimandrite and over 200 other signatures followed, of other archimandrites, priests and deacons.
We pray that like the 350 Martyrs we are always obedient to the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

IDF Intelligence Warns of Growing Threat at Israel-Lebanon Border
FDD//July 31/2023
Latest Developments
Israeli intelligence personnel have issued increasingly dire warnings about security on Israel’s northern border, Israeli media reported on July 28. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has received multiple letters — including as recently as last week — from the Israeli military’s Intelligence Directorate warning him of high prospects for escalation with the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah. The letters warn that Hezbollah and Iran are monitoring internal unrest in Israel and view the Jewish state’s deterrence as being at a historic low point. The intelligence reports also claim that the reforms weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance, further harming deterrence. The warnings come as internal protests over the Israeli government’s judicial reforms have raised concern that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) lacks the readiness and capability to respond to various threats by Iran-backed groups.
Expert Analysis
“The status quo on Israel’s northern border has been relatively peaceful for years, but recent provocations by Hezbollah have disrupted this tranquility. Fueled by Israel’s political instability and a prolonged cycle of violence in the West Bank, Hezbollah and Iran perceive this as an opportune moment to advance their strategy of acting militarily against the Jewish state.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal
“Hezbollah rightly calculates that America’s posture in Lebanon constrains Israel and amplifies the group’s deterrence of the IDF. Therefore, the IDF intelligence’s reading that fraying U.S.-Israel ties weaken deterrence against Hezbollah misunderstands America’s posture. The United States is extending a de facto protective umbrella to Lebanon and opposes Israeli military action. Israel and the United States are not aligned in Lebanon.” — Tony Badran, FDD Research Fellow
Hezbollah’s Escalation
For years, the IDF has warned of Hezbollah’s growing military capabilities. Experts estimate that Hezbollah possesses 150,000 rockets and 500 precision-guided missiles aimed at Israel with the intention of overwhelming Israeli defense systems. However, the terrorist group has avoided armed conflict with Israel since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
That may change. On March 13, a Hezbollah operative crossed the border into Israel and planted a roadside bomb at Megiddo junction that injured an Arab-Israeli driver. Armed Hezbollah fighters erected a tent in Israeli territory on April 8, near the disputed Blue Line, and set up a second tent a week later. On July 6, Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile at Israel’s northern border, with parts of the projectile landing in Israeli territory. The IDF responded to the attack with artillery.
On July 12, three Hezbollah operatives received non-lethal injuries from IDF stun grenades after attempting to sabotage the security fence between Israel and Lebanon. On July 25, the IDF released a video of Hezbollah members patrolling the Lebanon-Israel border near the Israeli community of Dovev. The IDF did not specify the date the video was filmed, saying only that it happened “last week.”

UN reports 11 killed as clashes rock Lebanon Palestinian camp
AFP/July 31, 2023
SIDON: Three days of fighting in south Lebanon’s Ain Al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp have left at least 11 dead and dozens wounded, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday. Clashes broke out over the weekend between members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s secular Fatah movement and Islamist militants based in the camp, Lebanon’s largest located in the coastal city of Sidon. Renewed gunfire and shelling on Monday shook the camp, said an AFP correspondent in Sidon, sending frightened residents fleeing. “According to reports, 11 were killed and another 40 were injured, including one staff member” of UNRWA, said Dorothee Klaus, the UN agency’s director in Lebanon. She added in a statement that UNRWA has “temporarily suspended” operations in the camp due to the fighting. Palestinian factions said they had agreed on a truce on Sunday but it did not hold, with fighting continuing with automatic weapons and rocket fire. Officials said five Fatah members and one militant had been killed in the initial violence over the weekend. There was no immediate word on the identities of the other fatalities. “UNRWA urgently calls on all parties to immediately return to calm and take all measures necessary to protect civilians, including children,” Klaus said. The statement noted that “two UNRWA schools have sustained damaged” and more than 2,000 Ain Al-Helweh residents had been forced to flee. An AFP correspondent on Monday morning saw dozens of people, mostly women and children, leaving the camp carrying light luggage, while others took refuge in a nearby mosque. Shells also fell outside the camp, AFP journalists said, with a nearby hospital evacuating patients and shops in Sidon closing fearing further escalation. By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in the country — now bustling but impoverished urban districts — leaving the factions themselves to handle security. “We fled from the scene of the fighting, shells are raining in the streets,” a 75-year-old woman told AFP, requesting anonymity for security concerns.
She said armed factions were carrying weapons “to fight Israel, not to fight each other and become displaced.”Ain Al-Helweh, now home to more than 54,000 registered refugees, was created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war that coincided with Israel’s creation.
In recent years, they have been joined by thousands of Palestinians who had been living in Syria and fled the war there. Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon rarely confront Israel nowadays, but fighting between rival factions is common in Ain Al-Helweh. The latest violence began late Saturday, killing an Islamist and injuring six others, a Palestinian source inside the camp had told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The next day, a Fatah military leader and four of his colleagues were killed during a “heinous operation,” the group said. Tiny Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA. Most Palestinians, including more than 30,000 who fled the war in neighboring Syria after 2011, live in one of Lebanon’s 12 official camps, and face a variety of legal restrictions, including on employment.

What’s behind Palestinian violence in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp?
Al Monitor/July 31/2023
BEIRUT — Violent clashes that erupted over the weekend between rival Palestinian factions at a refugee camp in southern Lebanon are continuing on Monday, the official National News Agency (NNA) reported, with at least six people reported killed so far.
What happened?
The violence began on Saturday after a Fatah member shot at Islamist militant Mahmoud Khalil in Ain al-Hilweh camp in the southern city of Sidon, to avenge the death of his brother in March by Islamists, according to the local Al-Akhbar newspaper. Khalil survived the attack with injuries, but one of his companions was killed and three others injured. Khalil is a member of al-Shabab al-Muslim faction, according to Palestinian sources from inside the camp, and is wanted by Lebanese authorities.
In response to Khalil’s assassination attempt, armed militants attacked and fired at Fatah’s headquarters inside the camp. The next day, Fatah commander Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, who heads the Palestinian National Security Forces in the camp, and four of his aides were killed in an ambush.
The fighting quickly escalated as militants exchanged fire inside the camp’s narrow alleyways using heavy weapons, including assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and lobbed hand grenades.
Stray bullets hit buildings surrounding the camp in the city of Sidon, with residents fleeing their homes. The public Sidon General Hospital also evacuated its staff and patients for safety reasons. The NNA reported on Monday that a rocket-propelled grenade fell in the south of the city (outside the camp), causing material damage. Shops and schools in Sidon closed on Sunday after a Lebanese citizen was injured by a stray bullet, according to the NNA. The Lebanese army said on Sunday a shrapnel from a mortar shell fell on a military post erected around the camp, wounding one soldier. In a statement, the military warned that it will respond to any attack against its positions and members. The army, which is prohibited from entering the Palestinian camps under a 1969 accord, deployed its forces around the camp and sources said its reconnaissance planes were hovering over the area as the fighting intensified.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — which provides basic services to an estimated 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the Palestinian territories and in neighboring countries, said in a Sunday tweet that two of its schools inside the camp were damaged in the fighting. As a result, the UN agency suspended its operations in the camp. In another tweet, UNRWA Director in Lebanon Dorothy Klaus called on “all militant parties to ensure civilians’ safety & respect inviolability of UN premises.”
On Sunday night, the rival factions announced in a joint statement a cease-fire reached during a meeting mediated by the Lebanese Shiite Amal and Hezbollah, which hold much sway in southern Lebanon. But by Monday morning, fighting had returned to the streets of Ain al-Hilweh. And Palestinian civilians from the camp were still fleeing the violence toward the city. The notorious Ain al-Hilweh camp is the scene of regular violence between Fatah members and Islamist militants vying for influence and power. Tensions have further escalated after an influx of refugees from neighboring Syria. Several new factions opposing the Syrian regime and Hezbollah have emerged inside the camp, causing friction with the other Palestinian groups. The camp, the largest in Lebanon, is home to around 55,000 refugees according to the UN. The small Mediterranean country houses more than 489,292 Palestinian refugees, 45% of whom live in 12 camps established in the country following the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, according to UNRWA. The UN and rights organizations have repeatedly deplored the poor conditions inside these camps.
Under the Cairo Agreement signed between the PLO and a Lebanese delegation in 1969, Lebanon’s army has no jurisdiction inside Palestinian camps. Security inside the camp is handled by a joint committee representing all Palestinian factions. The accord has always been a source of criticism among the Lebanese, arguing that these conditions have led to the spread of heavy arms inside camps that have become a hotbed for radicalism and increased militancy. The escalating intra-Palestinian violence at the camp came as Palestinian political leaders were meeting in Egypt over the weekend to form a committee on intra-Palestinian reconciliation, in another attempt to end their 17-year rift between Fatah and Hamas. President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met for rare face-to-face talks in the coastal city of El Alamein along with representatives of most Palestinian political factions, AFP reported.

Clashes intensify in Ain al-Helweh as death toll climbs to 9
Agence France Presse/July 31/2023
Clashes continued Monday for the third day in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon between members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group and Islamist factions. The death toll from the fighting rose to nine, officials said. The clashes between members of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah movement and Islamists have forced dozens of frightened residents to flee their homes in the camp, which has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives. Limited skirmishes erupted again Sunday night, escalating into heavy clashes with gunfire and shelling on Monday, said the AFP correspondent in the southern city of Sidon, where the camp is located. "Things are supposed to go back to normal soon," an official involved in the ceasefire negotiations told AFP, asking for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official added that they were working on "preventing further escalation".Palestinian factions said they had reached a ceasefire on Sunday, but the truce did not hold. On Monday morning, Lebanon's official news agency NNA reported "increased clashes" using heavy weaponry, with exchanges of gunfire concentrated in the al-Tawarek neighbourhood -- a stronghold for Islamist extremists. Dozens of residents, mostly women and children, fled the camp carrying light luggage, while others took refuge in a nearby mosque, AFP's correspondent said. Fighting began overnight on Saturday, killing an Islamist and injuring six others, a Palestinian source inside the camp had told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The next day, a Fatah military leader and four of his colleagues were killed during a "heinous operation", the group said.
Shells also fell outside the walls of the camp over the past two days, AFP observed. A nearby hospital evacuated patients and shops in Sidon closed fearing further escalation. Fighting between rival groups is common in Ain al-Helweh, which is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the war in Syria. By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in the country, leaving the factions themselves to handle security. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas both issued statements Sunday decrying the violence. Lebanese lawmaker Osama Saad, who represents the Sidon area where the camp is located, told The Associated Press that officials are “making extraordinary efforts to find serious, effective, lasting and stable solutions to the situation inside the camp.”Saad said he and other Lebanese officials and security forces would meet with the Palestinian factions on Monday to push for a cease-fire.

Mikati condemns 'suspicious' clashes that killed 9 in Ain al-Helweh
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/July 31/2023
At least six people have been killed in Sunday's clashes in south Lebanon's restive Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp, said Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and a source at the camp. The fighting between Fatah and Islamists in the camp, which erupted overnight and subsided by the evening, killed a Fatah military leader and four of his colleagues, the secularist movement said. It broke out after an unknown gunman tried to kill Islamist militant Mahmoud Khalil, killing a companion of his instead. A Palestinian source inside the camp, speaking on condition of anonymity, said an "Islamist from the al-Shabab al-Muslim group" was killed and six others including the group's leader were wounded. Later, Islamist militants shot and killed the Fatah military leader and his escorts as they were walking through a parking lot, a Palestinian official said. Lebanon's official news agency NNA gave a "provisional toll" of six dead and more than 30 wounded at Ain al-Helweh, the largest of the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon located just southeast of the coastal city of Sidon. NNA reported that stray bullets also damaged homes outside the camp. Fatah in a statement confirmed the death of commander Ashraf al-Armouchi and four of his "comrades" during a "heinous operation". The statement denounced an "abominable and cowardly crime" aimed at undermining the "security and stability" of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. A Lebanese soldier was also wounded, hit by shrapnel from "a mortar shell that fell in one of the military posts", the army said on Twitter. His condition was reported as stable. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in a statement called the timing of the clashes "suspicious in the current regional and international context". Mikati criticised "repeated attempts to use Lebanon" as a battleground for the settling of outside scores "at the expense of Lebanon and the Lebanese". "We urge the Palestinian leadership to cooperate with the army to control the security situation and deliver to the Lebanese authorities those who compromise it," his statement added.
'Red line' -
A ceasefire was agreed from 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) during a meeting of Palestinian factions including Fatah, also attended by members of Amal and Hezbollah, a joint statement afterwards said. An AFP journalist reported that the sound of gunfire, which continued through Sunday afternoon, lessened in the evening. The Palestinian presidency in a statement denounced the "heinous massacre and terrorist assassination" of the Fatah members. "This crosses all red lines and undermines security in Lebanon," the statement said. Fighting between rival groups is common in Ain al-Helweh, which is home to more than 54,000 registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by thousands of Palestinians fleeing the conflict in Syria. By long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian refugee camps in the country, leaving the factions themselves to handle security. The camp has gained notoriety as a refuge for extremists and fugitives. More than 450,000 Palestinians in Lebanon are registered with UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Most live in one of the 12 official refugee camps, often in squalid conditions, and face a variety of legal restrictions, including on employment.

PM Mikati unveils draft law to borrow from BDL for public sector funding
LBC/July 31/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati informed the ministers that there is a draft law aiming to borrow in foreign currency from the Central Bank of Lebanon to finance the public sector, and it will be distributed to them and will be discussed soon.

Lebanon's monetary landscape: A new era under Wassim Mansouri
LBCI/July 31/2023
In a recent statement, Wassim Mansouri, the First Deputy Governor of Lebanon's Central Bank, mentioned three crucial points aimed at addressing the country's financial crisis and currency instability:
Reiteration of caution regarding state financing
Concerning the first pillar, Mansouri emphasized that the Central Bank's deputies, ever since they assumed their duties, have objected to the state financing policy and have sent letters to relevant authorities expressing their concerns in this regard.
Outlining a roadmap for the future
Regarding the second pillar, he presented a roadmap that enables the Central Bank of Lebanon to continue financing the state at the minimum level and for a specific period, depending upon a law that allows such financing.
Pursuing exchange rate unification
Addressing the third pillar, Mansouri underscored the importance of assisting the most vulnerable people and stressed the need for increased transparency in the Sayrafa exchange rate. He deemed the present moment appropriate for the exchange rate to be 'liberated.' As a result, Governor Riad Salameh's term has come to an end, and Mansouri has assumed primary responsibility for the country's monetary policies. So what are his authorities and powers?

LBCI Obtains Government's Draft Law Allowing Borrowing in Foreign Currency from the Central Bank
LBCI/July 31/2023
The government has prepared the urgent draft law that grants it permission to borrow a specified amount from the central bank for a set duration, subject to effective oversight of the government's relationship with the central bank. This aims to establish transparency regarding government expenditures and the repayment of borrowed funds, whether sourced from increased state revenues or interventions by the central bank in currency markets as per Articles 75 and 83 of the Monetary and Credit Law. The government's borrowing would be contingent upon the approval of reform laws, particularly capital controls, financial stability restoration, bank restructuring, and budget approval, and the proposal is to be submitted to the Parliament for approval. LBCI has obtained a draft of the government's proposed law, which aims to authorize the government to borrow in foreign currencies under the following conditions:
- The loan should be a one-time borrowing with the possibility of renewal for a single time.

The Story of Salameh- Part 5- The Downfall
LBCI/July 31/2023
Riad Salameh's attempts to buy time and attract financial transfers from abroad through financial engineering collided with several events.One of the most significant events was the political crisis in November 2017 following Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation announcement from Riyadh.
As a result of this event, withdrawals from the banks amounted to around $2.6 billion, according to banking experts. 2018 the economic situation was highly negative, with almost zero percent recorded growth. The public debt reached $85 billion, and the overall financial situation deteriorated significantly, especially after approving the salary scale in late 2017 and underestimating its cost. The balance of payments recorded a deficit of $4.3 billion. Lebanon tried to seek international assistance through the CEDRE or Paris IV conference. Still, it proved to be unsuccessful because, this time, the focus was on reforms before aid... but what reforms? The ruling authority's lack of transparency and corruption has become evident to everyone. Adding to that, the political instability, along with the US sanctions on the Jammal Trust Bank and the international credit rating downgrade for Lebanon.The signals of the crisis are clear; the Lebanese pound has been deteriorating against the dollar in the market despite all the attempts by the Central Bank to prevent it. Deposits are being dangerously withdrawn from the banking sector. Approximately 16 billion dollars were withdrawn from the banks in 2019. In September 2019, officials and party representatives met in Baabda to agree on implementing reforms. Still, instead of reforms, the government introduced a WhatsApp tax. The revolution ignited, and Lebanon plunged into one of the worst crises in the history of nations, according to the World Bank. It is the worst stage in the journey of Riad Salameh. The officials have done nothing to save the country for over three and a half years: no capital controls, no banking restructuring, no recovery plan, and no IMF bailout. The reserves of the Central Bank, which belong to depositors, were used for support, most of which went into smuggling and favoritism. At the same time, the dollar withdrawals continued through the Sayrafa platform to buy time. The era of the 1500 Lira has fallen, and with it, the stardom of Riad Salameh, whose relations have deteriorated both internally and externally.
Riad Salameh left his position after 30 years, but the system remains intact.

Salameh's term ends, Mansouri takes up post
Agence France Presse/July 31/2023
The central bank chief of crisis-torn Lebanon, Riad Salameh, who is wanted for alleged financial crimes in several European countries, handed over his post Monday with no designated successor in place. First vice-governor Wassim Mansouri, who will temporarily take over, warned that "we are at a crossroad" and urged politicians to implement reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund in return for a bail-out loan. In a press conference Monday, Mansouri said the vice-governors had been against Salameh's decision to lend the government from the central bank reserves.
"There is no choice, if we continue previous policy ... the funds in the Central Bank will eventually dry up," Mansouri said. "From now on, I will not sign on any expenditure for financing the government if it contravenes with my principles or the appropriate legal framework," the vice-governor added.
All four vice-governors earlier this month had threatened to resign but Mansouri announced Monday that he will take up the post. He said previous policies that permitted the Central Bank to spend large sums on money to prop up the Lebanese state is no longer feasible. He cited years of spending billions of dollars to subsidize fuel, medicine, and wheat and more to keep the value of the Lebanese pound stable. Instead, Mansouri proposed a six-month reform plan that included passing long awaited reforms such as capital controls, a bank restructuring law, and the 2023 state budget. "The country cannot continue without passing these laws," Mansouri explained. "We don't have time, and we paid a heavy price that we cannot pay anymore." The reforms Mansouri mentioned are among those the International Monetary Fund set as conditions on Lebanon in April 2022 for a bailout plan, though he did not mention the IMF. None have been passed. The small Mediterranean country has been torn for the past four years by an economic crisis that the World Bank has labelled one of the worst in modern history.
A new approach
"This is the country's last chance," Manssouri said. "We can either stick to the old policies, and we have seen the result... or adopt a new approach and stop funding the state completely." Reforms should be rolled out as part of a six-month "transitional plan", to be approved by parliament and the government, he said. Mansouri urged parliament and the government to cooperate in order to legalize spending during this transitional period through a law issued in parliament. "Parliament must pass a law allowing the central bank to lend the government on condition that government pay back the loans through a realistic plan," Mansouri said. The central bank will also phase out the Sayrafa platform and float the exchange rate. "Liberating and unifying the exchange rate means that the rate will be determined by the market forces of supply and demand without an interference from the central bank," Mansouri said.
Judicial investigations
As Salameh left his post, he remains subject of judicial investigations at home and abroad into allegations including embezzlement, money laundering, fraud and illicit enrichment, charges which he denies. He is wanted in France and Germany, and Interpol has issued a Red Notice for his arrest, but Lebanon does not extradite its nationals. Salameh is soon to be tried in Paris, a European diplomatic source told AFP. In March 2022, France, Germany and Luxembourg seized assets worth 120 million euros ($135 million) in a move linked to a probe into Salameh's wealth. In February, Lebanon also charged Salameh with embezzlement, money laundering and tax evasion as part of its own investigations. The domestic probe was opened following a request for assistance from Switzerland's public prosecutor, who is looking into more than $300 million in fund movements by Salameh and his brother.
Defending his legacy, Salameh days ago told a local broadcaster that he had been made a "scapegoat" for the crisis, and blamed the rest of Lebanon's political class for abandoning him "a long time ago". At the central bank headquarters, employees gathered to bid farewell to Salameh on Monday, to the sound of music and applause. "The central bank has stood firm," Salameh told cheering employees in a video shared by local media. "During the crisis, it was a pillar that allowed Lebanon to carry on."

Salameh ends 30-year tenure with acclaim and blame
Naharnet /July 31/2023
Lebanon's embattled central bank governor stepped down Monday under a cloud of investigation and blame as tearful employees took photos and a band played celebratory music with drums and trumpets."The central bank has stood firm," Salameh told cheering employees in a video shared by local media. "During the crisis, it was a pillar that allowed Lebanon to carry on." In that same building, his four vice governors, led by incoming interim governor Wassim Mansouri, quickly pivoted to urge fiscal reforms for the cash-strapped country. Seventy-three-year-old Riad Salameh kicked off his tenure as central bank governor in 1993, three years after Lebanon's bloody 15-year civil war came to an end. It was a time when reconstruction loans and aid was pouring into the country, and Salameh was widely celebrated at the time for his role in Lebanon's recovery. Now, he leaves his post a wanted man in Europe, accused by many in Lebanon of being a main culprit in the country's financial downfall since late 2019. It was a steep fall for a leader whose policies were once hailed for keeping the currency stable. Later, many financial experts saw him as setting up a house of cards that crumbled as the country's supply of dollars dried up on top of decades of rampant and corruption and mismanagement from Lebanon's ruling parties. The crisis has pulverized the Lebanese pound and wiped out the savings of many Lebanese, as the banks ran dry of hard currency. With the country's banks crippled and public sector in ruins, Lebanon for years has run on a cash-based economy and relied primarily on tourism and remittances from millions in the diaspora. France, Germany, and Luxembourg are investigating Salameh and his associates over myriad financial crimes, including illicit enrichment and the laundering of $330 million. Paris and Berlin issued Interpol notices to the central bank chief in May, though Lebanon does not hand over its citizens to foreign countries. Salameh has repeatedly denied the allegations and insisted that his wealth comes from his previous job as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch, inherited properties, and investments. He has criticized the probe and said it was part of a media and political campaign to scapegoat him. In his final interview as governor, Salameh said on Lebanese television that the responsibility for reforms lies with the government. "Everything I did for the past 30 years was to try to serve Lebanon and the Lebanese," he said. "Some -- the majority -- were grateful, even if they don't want to say so. And there are other people, well may God forgive them." Salameh's departure adds another gap to crisis-hit Lebanon's withering and paralyzed institutions. The tiny Mediterranean country has been without a president nine months, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity for a year. Lebanon has also been without a top spy chief to head its General Security Directorate since March. Lebanese officials in recent months were divided over whether Salameh should stay in his post or whether he should step down immediately in the remaining months of his tenure. Caretaker Economy Amin Salam wanted the latter, given that the central bank chief had a "legal question mark." "I cannot explain anyone holding on to a person while a nation is failing unless there is something wrong or hidden," Salam told The Associated Press.

Geagea says citizens not Hezbollah priority even if they 'starved to death'
Naharnet/July 31/2023
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea accused Monday Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement of dragging Lebanon into a growing crisis. "Hezbollah doesn't believe in a state or belong to it, yet it wants to lay hold of the state to drain it and use it to serve its project," Geagea said. He added that the suffering of the citizens is not Hezbollah's priority as its only priority is its battle "even if the last Lebanese died of starvation." Geagea said he will continue his peaceful and democratic struggle until the right president is elected. "During these dire conditions, acquiescence is no longer acceptable."

Finance parliamentary committee approves oil sovereign fund
Naharnet /July 31/2023
The Finance and Budget Parliamentary Committee on Monday approved a law for establishing a Lebanese oil and gas sovereign fund. Committee head MP Ibrahim Kanaan will hold a press conference Wednesday at 11am to discuss the law’s details. Kanaan had on July 17 announced that the fund would be independent and transparent. The law still has to be approved by parliament. Gas exploration in Lebanon’s waters is scheduled to kick off in mid-August.

Bukhari discusses Le Drian mission with the Jumblats
Naharnet /July 31/2023
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari has met for two and a half hours with ex-PSP leader Walid Jumblat and MP Taymour Jumblat. The discussions, which were held in the presence of MP Wael Abou Faour, tackled the latest Doha statement and the mission of French presidential envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian. According to al-Liwaa newspaper, it is not unlikely that Bukhari might continue his meetings with the opposition parties at a later stage, to “brief them on the outcome of the meetings of the five-nation committee that were recently held in Doha.”

Lebanon State Security calls for parents’ vigilance to protect youngsters from harassment
Arab News/July 31, 2023
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s General Directorate of State Security has called on parents to be more vigilant in protecting their children and adolescents from harassment and abuse. Schools and universities are also being urged to raise more awareness among children, young women and men on how to take precautions and protect themselves from harassers. “Rape and sexual harassment crimes have become high in percentage and are occurring in various regions of Lebanon, especially in areas with high population density,” George Harb, media adviser to the director general of State Security, told Arab News. The warning came as State Security detained a Lebanese citizen in his 60s “after verifying his involvement in molesting children.” He owns a commercial shop in Beirut. According to State Security, the detainee “lures children to his institution, and sometimes to his home, where he harasses them and offers them material and visual incentives.”The Division of Service and Information in State Security monitored the suspect, arrested him, and took him to the General Directorate, where he was confronted with the children he had assaulted in the presence of a representative from a child rights institution. Harb said that “the molester either threatened the children he assaulted that he would kill their fathers if they reported him, so they obeyed him out of fear, and sometimes he would lure children with money.”Harb told Arab News that the arrest was carried out in coordination with the Lebanese judiciary, which will refer the suspect for further investigations and punishment. The investigations conducted with the man were recorded, Harb said. The State Security’s message to parents also asked them to warn their sons and daughters to resist anyone who tried to touch them or invited them to secluded places, and to inform them of any incident. The message was issued based on strict directives from Director General Brig. Gen. Antoine Saliba. “The consequences of neglect are very negative on every child or teenager, who may be exposed to psychological harm and bear its consequences and suffering throughout their lives,” the message said.
The General Directorate also warned in a media statement that cases of harassment and rape in Lebanon had been increasing recently.
Harb said that the perpetrators and victims are mostly Lebanese. He said a 21-year-old offender was arrested recently at a sports club. He allegedly tried to assault a 13-year-old girl who was practicing sports in the club.
The teenager screamed when he tried to trap her to assault her, which foiled his attempt and led to his arrest, Harb said.
Harb expressed his astonishment that “parents could let a minor girl alone go to the sports club.”He also spoke about “children whom their parents allow to go down to the street without monitoring them.” Lina Taleb, a victim of sexual assalt, died recently as a result of severe bleeding. Her grandfather — on her mother’s side — was arrested on suspicion of incest, and her mother was arrested for covering up the crime. In a related development, physical violations against adult women in Lebanon have also been on the rise. In a recent survey, 61 percent of women expressed concerns abouut “not feeling safe while commuting and fearing harassment, rape and theft.” Moreover, 63 percent of these women complained about “the high cost of living, which forced 55 percent of them to change their daily activities and habits, such as work, study, visits, sports and others.”
Almost 90 percent of women walk for a duration ranging from 5 to 20 minutes to find public transportation. The statistics were reported in the study conducted by the Association of Women’s Action (Noqta) in cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Lebanon on “Women’s Transportation in Lebanon.”
It highlighted the challenges that women face during their commute on public transport and how it affected their professional and academic lives. Alia Awada, a feminist activist and executive director of Nqota, said that the study “documents the most significant challenges that hinder women’s freedom of movement in public spaces.”Awada noted that “21 percent of the women surveyed were subjected to some form of harassment while using public transportation.”Awada said that the study found that 63 percent of female students were affected by these challenges, either delaying their studies or forcing them to quit altogether. “Also, a significant number of women have been affected in their work due to transportation issues, which affects women’s economic abilities.”Awada emphasized the need to provide safe transportation for both male and female passengers. The economic crisis in Lebanon has made it difficult for young women and employees to buy their own cars for travel, forcing them to rely on public transport for their daily commute. Nqota is a feminist lab run by a group of women working in media and creative production. They seek to achieve behavioral change and impact social norms for the benefit of women, girls and marginalized groups.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 31-August 01/2023
Israel Sees Saudi Connection in Expanded Rail Network
FDD//July 31/2023
Latest Developments
Israel unveiled an ambitious expansion of its rail network on July 30, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying it could eventually enable train connections to Saudi Arabia. The $27 billion “One Israel Project” made public by Netanyahu and his transportation and finance ministers is among new initiatives designed primarily to upgrade domestic infrastructure. Netanyahu, in televised remarks to his Cabinet, said that in addition to ensuring that Israelis anywhere in the country would be able to reach its commercial and governmental centers in two hours or less, the expansion would provide a political benefit by “link[ing] Israel by train to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula in the future.”A similar project was launched in 2010, under a previous Netanyahu government and with an $8 billion budget. Scheduled to take 10 to 15 years to implement, it petered out. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gave a shorter timeline for the revamped initiative, saying that within 10 years there would be trains connecting Kiryat Shmona in the north to Eilat in the south. The trains would have top speeds of up to 155 miles per hour.
Expert Analysis
“The higher budgeting and tighter scheduling of this new rail expansion project appear to bode well. After the Abraham Accords, rail outreach to Saudi Arabia no longer seems far-fetched. After all, Israeli airliners are now overflying the kingdom several times a day. Freer and cheaper transport of people and goods would make for a more prosperous, cooperative, and stable Middle East.” — Mark Dubowitz, FDD CEO
“Riyadh should be encouraged to accommodate Israel on the rail initiative, which would offer a welcome alternative to the Suez Canal for imports and exports to the Mediterranean through Israeli seaports. Amman also stands to profit given that an Israeli-Saudi train would have to run through Jordan as well.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

Iran's oil shipments to China triple in 3 years despite sanctions
Al Monitor/July 31/2023
Iran’s oil exports to China have tripled in the past three years, a data analytics firm said on Monday, despite Western sanctions that are imposed on the country. Iran’s crude oil shipments to China amounted to an average of approximately 324,000 barrels per day in 2020, and rose to approximate averages of 584,000 and 770,000 bpd in 2021 and 2022, respectively. That figure has reached an average of around 1.1 million bpd from January through July of this year, according to the London-based Kpler. Press TV, Tasnim News Agency and other Iranian media also reported the figures. Why it matters: Iran is becoming increasing reliant on China amid its economic struggles and international isolation. Ties have significantly strengthened since the United States withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, according to a July report from the United States Institute of Peace. Iran’s oil exports fell significantly following the US withdrawal. In 2018, exports were 2.5 million bpd. In 2020, the figure fell to as low as 100,000 bpd, according to Reuters. In March, China brokered the agreement that resumed diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
US officials have also noted increasing Iranian oil shipments to China. In January, US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley said that is the “main destination” of “illicit” Iranian oil exports. US sanctions on Iran prohibit deals with the Islamic Republic’s energy industry. Though ties are strengthening, Iran and China have been close for some time. China has been Iran’s top trading partner for 10 straight years as of 2022, the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported in February. Know more: A group of Republicans in the US Senate are pushing for more sanctions over Iranian oil sales to China. The senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to this end earlier this month.

Top Israeli official says country won't block Saudi civil nuclear program
Al Monitor/July 31/2023
Israel's national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said Monday that Israel is not necessarily averse to an agreement that would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium for research purposes. "Egypt and the [United Arab] Emirates operate nuclear research centers, and these are not dangerous," he stated in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster KAN. Hanegbi addressed reports that Saudi Arabia is conditioning normalization with Israel on the United States helping it create a civil nuclear program, saying that Israel's consent was not needed. "Dozens of countries operate projects with civilian nuclear cores and with nuclear endeavors for energy. This is not something that endangers them nor their neighbors," Hanegbi explained. Recent reports in the United States and in Israel suggest Saudi Arabia is setting three main conditions for its agreement to a normalization deal. One is a defense treaty between Saudi Arabia and the United States, including a commitment by the Americans to defend Saudi Arabia in case of an Iranian attack and the sale of F-35 fighter jets and advanced missile-defense systems. The second is for Israel to make meaningful concessions toward the Palestinians beyond pledging not to annex West Bank territories. The third is for Washington to facilitate Riyadh's establishment of a civil nuclear program. Reports by the New York Times over the past week indicate that contacts are ongoing for a normalization agreement. Still, President Joe Biden warned over the weekend that such a deal would probably not be reached in the near future. It is unclear for the moment whether Hanegbi's statement signals a shift in Israel’s policy on nuclear activity in the region or if it's an encouraging signal to Washington about its talks with Riyadh over normalization. Last June, Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz voiced cautious opposition to the idea of Saudi Arabia developing a civilian nuclear program as part of any American-mediated normalization deal. "Naturally, Israel does not encourage such things. I don't think Israel should agree to such things, but there are contacts underway," Katz told Ynet TV. Institute for National Security Studies senior fellow Yoel Guzansky is a leading expert on Israel-Saudi relations and has been studying for several months the possibility of a Saudi nuclear program being part of a potential normalization deal. For him, the Saudi request is not something Israel should take lightly.
Guzansky told Al-Monitor, "Hanegbi was not accurate when he said that the Emirates already operates such a program. True, the United States and the Emirates signed an agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperations 14 years ago and the Emirates also signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But in order to receive the American green light for installing nuclear power plants, the Emirates agreed to forego the whole enrichment part," he said. "They agreed to forgo establishing an in-house nuclear fuel cycle. In other words, they have not developed nuclear technologies and are getting the enriched uranium ready made. Also, the Emirates are careful to keep the nuclear process transparent. All this guarantees that their nuclear program stays completely civil and that they don’t use nuclear technologies for military purposes," Guzansky added. For Guzansky, Saudi Arabia is a different story. "We know that the Saudis have already a nuclear program with a small research center. Also, interviewed on '60 Minutes' [in 2018], Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman clearly said his country would strive to obtain a nuclear bomb if Iran successfully develops its own nuclear weapon," he said. “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible," MBS said at the time. Guzansky added that offering Saudi Arabia the possibility of enriching uranium could erode the positions of those negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran. Other countries in the region, such as Turkey and Egypt, practically on Israel’s doorstep, could demand to be authorized to set up similar programs for uranium enrichment.

Turkey struggles to maintain Russia-Ukraine balance as grain crisis persists
Al Monitor/July 31/2023
Ukraine’s quest for new grain-shipping means bypassing Russia has put NATO member Turkey in a tight spot. Reluctant to confront Russia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is at pains to find a way to talk Moscow back into the grain corridor deal and avoid further escalation in the Black Sea.
A flurry of diplomacy has been under way since Russia’s exit last week from a UN- and Turkish-brokered deal that enabled Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports via the Turkish Straits for the past year. Having effectively withdrawn safety guarantees for cargo ships, Russia doubled down with an announcement that it would deem all Ukraine-bound ships potential carriers of military cargo. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially suggested that his country, the United Nations and Turkey could maintain the grain corridor without Russia. An aide to Zelenskyy said Ukraine was also pushing for a UN-mandated military patrol that would include Black Sea states such as Turkey and Bulgaria. But in comments on such suggestions on July 19, a UN spokesperson said that “no one can ask the Secretary-General to provide security guarantees” in a war zone. Zelenskyy discussed the grain corridor with Erdogan over the phone two days later, but few details have emerged from the call. Another suggestion is for cargo ships to sail through Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish territorial waters after loading grain from Ukraine. Nevertheless, finding ships willing to sail to Ukrainian ports and insurance for them remain a serious problem, given the Russian threat. According to Mykola Gorbachov, head of the Ukrainian Grain Association, Kyiv is planning to create a $500 million guarantee fund to protect ships. It will work “like a state insurance,” he said earlier this month. “For example, if Russia attacks, the state will cover all expenses.”
Reuters reports that many insurers have now suspended coverage of shipments from Ukraine. Additional war risk premiums, which are charged when entering the Black Sea area and need to be renewed every seven days, already cost thousands of dollars and could further increase, the agency noted.
Turkey insists on Russia
As the primary addressee of the alternative route proposal, Erdogan is unlikely to support any option without Russia. Though some of his recent moves have upset Russian President Vladmir Putin, Erdogan must stick to his balancing act in the Ukraine crisis. Turkey would not jeopardize its naval ships to assist vessels from Ukraine and is focused on reviving the grain corridor with Russian involvement, a Turkish official told Bloomberg. Similarly, Ukraine’s ambassador to Ankara said Turkey was interested in continuing the grain deal, stressing that it has leverage over Russia. Even if cargo ships stay in the territorial waters of littoral states, they could still be targeted by Russian military vessels, aircraft or missile systems deployed in Crete. The risk of mines in the Black Sea also remains. Stability in the Black Sea has long been a Turkish priority and any new arrangement could alienate Russia, so Erdogan will try all roads leading to the Kremlin. He has been the sole NATO leader to argue that most of Ukraine’s grain exports go to Europe rather than poor African countries and that Russia’s own exports of grain and fertilizers remain obstructed. Such rhetoric has helped him maintain his dialogue with Putin. Since the latest NATO summit in Vilnius, he has spoken several times of hosting Putin in August, but Moscow has yet to confirm such a visit. Russia has listed a number of conditions for returning to the deal, including the lifting of sanctions on its grain and fertilizer exports, allowing Russian agricultural lender Rosselkhozbank to reconnect to the SWIFT payment system, enabling deliveries of spare parts for agricultural machinery, removing obstacles regarding ship freight and insurance and unfreezing all Russian assets related to the agricultural sector. Finally, it says the corridor should recover its original purpose of helping poor countries.
According to UN data, out of 32 million tons of grain loaded from the Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhne, 14.3 million tons went to rich countries, including European Union members, while the poorest group of countries received only 822,000 tons. Africa’s share stood at 12%. Turkey was the third largest buyer after China and Spain.
Meanwhile, Russian grain accounts for 65% of Turkey’s grain imports, so Erdogan could ill afford to jeopardize it by acting as a guardian of Ukraine’s sales.  The relative calm in the Black Sea over the past year owed largely to the corridor deal. The day the agreement expired, Ukraine attacked the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia and Russia bombed the ports of Odessa and Chornomorsk. The deal had also halted Russia’s plans to take Odessa. Recalling those plans before Russia’s termination of the deal Russian news site Vzglyad speculated that Russia might be preparing for a decisive move.
Its report read, “If the plans of the Russian command are to advance along the Black Sea coast in a bid to liberate not only Nikolaev, but also Odessa, the resumption of military action at sea is inevitable. And the safe transport corridor of the grain deal would only be a hindrance to that.”
Other options for Ukraine
If the Black Sea route remains out of use, Ukraine’s options include the Danube River and land and rail transport via Eastern European countries. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU suspended tariffs on imports from Ukraine, but four EU members — Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — banned domestic sales of Ukrainian grain to protect local producers. Those four countries along with Romania have since allowed transit through their territories for exports to Western Europe and elsewhere. Following the suspension of the grain corridor, they said the restrictions would remain in place.
Standing out among the alternatives is Romania’s port of Constanta. Its capacity amounts to half of Ukraine’s grain exports. The port handled 8.6 million tons of Ukrainian grain in 2022. In the first six month of this year, it handled some 15.2 tons of grain, including 7.5 million from Ukraine. But once Romania begins to export its own produce in mid-August, the remaining capacity for Ukraine would considerably decrease.
Ukraine has been trying to expand the capacity of its Reni and Izmail ports on the Danube, targeting a volume of 4 million tons per month. According to Bloomberg, the volume of crops shipped along the river has risen from 1.4 million tons to 2 million tons per month in the past year — a sign that Ukraine can use the Danube for half of its annual grain exports. The river is used to transport grain directly to buyers or to hubs like Constanta, but a heat wave has been lowering the level of the river, meaning that barges cannot be loaded at full capacity. Other alternative routes are all costlier.
The grain corridor crisis is testing the red lines of the parties in a conflict that has stoked the rivalry for supremacy in the Black Sea. With the UN cautious to stay above the fray, Zelenskyy is trying to draw NATO in. Upon his request, NATO and Ukrainian officials are expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss Russia’s suspension of the grain deal. After a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg over the weekend, Zelenskyy tweeted that they had “identified … the future steps necessary for unblocking and sustainable operation of the Black Sea grain corridor.”
Earlier this year, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had said, “It’s time to turn the Black Sea into what the Baltic Sea has become — a sea of NATO,” and called on NATO to integrate Ukraine’s air and missile defenses with those of alliance members in the region.
Turkey, however, is averse to upsetting the balance with Russia in the Black Sea, the cornerstone of which is the 1936 Montreux Convention that sets the rules of commercial and military traffic through the Turkish Straits. Ankara has abided by the convention since the outbreak of the Ukraine war to claim a status of a fair player. Back in 1992, it had led efforts to create the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization between regional states, including Russia. Those dreaming of turning the Black Sea into “a NATO sea” got a boost when Romania and Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004. Yet Ankara made a strategic choice to not let US ships into the Black Sea during the Georgian-Russian war in 2008. NATO’s rapprochement with Ukraine and Georgia upped Russian sensitivity in the Black Sea. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, getting the upper hand in the rivalry in the Black Sea. NATO responded with a decision to boost its presence in the Black Sea in 2016. The strategic factor behind Turkey’s rejection of Crimea’s annexation is the upset Black Sea balance in favor of Russia, while the balancing of rivalry and interests has required it to not join the Western sanctions against Russia.

Dispute over Gulf gas field poses early challenge to Saudi-Iranian rapprochement
Associated Press/July 31/2023
An escalating dispute over a gas field in the Gulf poses an early challenge to a Chinese-brokered agreement to reconcile regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia and neighboring Kuwait jointly claim the offshore Al-Durra gas field. Iran says it has rights to the field, which it refers to as Arash. The two sides held talks in Iran in March but were unable to agree on a border demarcation. A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said the country would not tolerate any infringement on its rights, echoing remarks by the country's oil minister the previous day. "We have expressed our readiness to engage in dialogue with the Kuwaiti side," Kanaani told reporters Monday. "But if there is no interest in mutual utilization of this joint field, the Islamic Republic of Iran has naturally put the exploration and utilization of the resources on its agenda." Kuwait's oil minister told Sky News Arabia last week that his country would commence drilling and production without waiting for a deal. Saudi Arabia has sided with Kuwait, saying the two countries have exclusive ownership of the field, and has called on Iran to return to negotiations. Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have backed opposite sides in conflicts across the Middle East and accused each other of destabilizing the region, formally restored diplomatic relations in April following a seven-year freeze. They have since reopened embassies and welcomed senior officials on visits. But they continue to back opposite sides in Yemen's civil war, which is ongoing despite a 15-month cease-fire. Saudi Arabia is also in negotiations with the United States over potentially normalizing relations with Israel, which Iran's leaders have said should be wiped off the map. "Any step in the direction toward normalization of ties with this aggressive regime will only serve to give it more leeway to commit more atrocities against the Palestinian nation," Kanaani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said. It's unclear whether the dispute over the gas field, which goes back to the 1960s, will escalate beyond rhetoric. But tensions are already high in the Gulf, where the U.S. is building up military forces in response to what it says is Iran's unlawful seizure of oil tankers and harassment of commercial vessels. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agreed last year to jointly develop the gas field. Kuwait said at the time that they aimed to produce 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 84,000 barrels of liquefied gas per day. Iran denounced the agreement as illegal and said it should be included in any such plans.

Palestinian factions meet in Egypt seeking reconciliation as violence surges in West Bank
Associated Press/July 31/2023
Palestinian factions have met in Egypt to discuss reconciliation efforts as violence in the occupied West Bank surged between Israel and Palestinian militants. The main groups, Hamas and Fatah, have been split since 2007 and repeated reconciliation attempts having failed, so expectations for the one-day meeting were low. Participants at the closed-door meeting gave no indication of what was discussed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who initiated the session in the Egyptian city of el-Alamein on the Mediterranean Sea, said at its conclusion only that the meeting was a "first and significant step" in efforts to end the long-running division. It came amid soaring violence in the West Bank, where Abbas and his Fatah group are based and exert limited self-rule. Israel has been staging near-nightly raids in Palestinian areas of the territory in what it says is an attempt to stamp out militancy, especially in areas where Abbas' security forces have less of a foothold. Those raids have led to some of the worst fighting in nearly two decades in the West Bank. Palestinians also say the Israeli raids undermine their own security forces and weaken their leadership. The meeting in Egypt was chaired by Abbas, presenting the aging and longtime Palestinian leader with a chance to portray an image of control and statesmanship to both Palestinians and the international community at a time when he is deeply unpopular at home and his room for maneuver is constrained by the Israeli incursions. The meeting was attended by other Palestinian leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. Fatah and Hamas have been rivals since Hamas violently routed forces loyal to Abbas in Gaza in 2007, taking over the impoverished coastal enclave. Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on the territory. For Hamas, joining the meeting was an opportunity to show Gazans that it is making an effort to mend the rift, even if nothing changes as a result. Another key group playing a central role in the fighting with Israel, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, boycotted the gathering to protest the detentions by the Palestinian Authority of its members, said to the group's leader, Ziyad al-Nakhala. Egypt has for years acted as a mediator in trying to end the infighting between Palestinian factions. It also helped broker truces in multiple rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Israel's full high court to hear petitions against judiciary law in September that spurred protests
JERUSALEM (AP)/Mon, July 31, 2023
Israel's Supreme Court said Monday that a full panel of 15 justices would hear petitions in September against a contentious law that was passed last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and which has spurred mass protests. The law was one of a series of proposed changes to Israel's judiciary put forward by Netanyahu's government earlier this year that seek to curb the power of the Supreme Court. The judicial overhaul plan has been met with months of sustained mass protest against the legislation and drawn criticism from the White House. Critics of the overhaul say that the package of laws would concentrate power in the hands of the ruling coalition and erode the system of checks and balances between branches of government. Proponents say the measures are necessary to limit the power of unelected judges who they say are overly activist. Netanyahu and his allies passed a law last week that removes the high court's ability to annul government decisions considered “unreasonable.” The “reasonableness standard” was implemented by the Supreme Court earlier this year to thwart the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister after he had recently pleaded guilty to tax offenses.
The court said the hearing concerning the law striking down the “reasonableness standard” would take place on Sept. 12 with a full bench of 15 justices. The Supreme Court typically hears cases with smaller panels of justices, but appears to have opted for a full complement of judges because of the highly delicate nature of the matter. The Netanyahu administration's push to overhaul the judiciary has deeply divided an already highly polarized country and sparked the longest sustained protests in the country's history. Netanyahu and his allies took office in December after the country's fifth election in under four years, most of them referendums on the longtime leader's fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.

Thousands take to streets in Gaza in rare public display of discontent with Hamas
Associated Press/July 31/2023
Several thousand people briefly took to the streets across the Gaza Strip to protest chronic power outages and difficult living conditions, providing a rare public show of discontent with the territory's Hamas government. Hamas security forces quickly dispersed the gatherings. Marches took place in Gaza City, the southern town of Khan Younis and other locations, chanting "what a shame" and in one place burning Hamas flags, before police moved in and broke up the protests. Police destroyed mobile phones of people who were filming in Khan Younis, and witnesses said there were several arrests. Dozens of young supporters and opponents of Hamas briefly faced off, throwing stones at one another. The demonstrations were organized by a grassroots online movement called "alvirus alsakher," or "the mocking virus." It was not immediately known who is behind the movement. Hamas rules Gaza with an iron fist, barring most demonstrations and quickly stamping out public displays of dissent. The Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a crippling blockade on the territory. Israel says the closure is needed to prevent Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, from building up its military capabilities. The closure has devastated Gaza's economy, sent unemployment skyrocketing and led to frequent power outages. During the current heat wave, people have been receiving four to six hours of power a day due to heavy demand. "Where is the electricity and where is the gas?" the crowds shouted in Khan Younis. "What a shame. What a shame."Protesters also criticized Hamas for deducting a roughly $15 fee from monthly $100 stipends given to Gaza's poorest families by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.
There was no immediate comment from the Hamas authorities.

Shooting at police facility in Egypt's Sinai kills at least 4 officers
Associated Press/July 31/2023
A shooting at a heavily fortified security facility in the restive part of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has killed at least four police, including a senior officer, two security and health officials said. At least 21 other forces were wounded in the shooting at the National Security headquarters in el-Arish, the capital city of North Sinai province, they said. A list of casualties obtained by The Associated Press showed that some forces suffered from gunshots and others faced breathing difficulties from tear gas that was fired inside the facility. There were eight officers among the wounded, the list showed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media. The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately clear, and there was no immediate comment from the Interior Ministry, which oversees police forces. North Sinai is the scene of a yearslong battle against an insurgency led by Islamist militants who have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians. The pace of militant attacks in Sinai's main theater of operations and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched a massive operation in Sinai and parts of the Nile Delta as well as desert areas along the country's western border with Libya.

Suicide bomber kills at least 44 in northwest Pakistan
Associated Press/July 31/2023
A suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally in a former stronghold of militants in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 44 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack that a senior leader said was meant to weaken Pakistani Islamists.
The Bajur district near the Afghan border was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan's Taliban government — before the Pakistani army drove the militants out of the area. Supporters of hard-line Pakistani cleric and political party leader Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema Islam generally supports regional Islamists, were meeting in Bajur in a hall close to a market outside the district capital. Party officials said Rehman was not at the rally but organizers added tents because so many supporters showed up, and party volunteers with batons were helping control the crowd.
Officials were announcing the arrival of Abdul Rasheed, a leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, when the bomb went off in one of Pakistan's bloodiest attacks in recent years. Provincial police said in a statement that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosives vest close to the stage where several senior leaders of the party were sitting. It said initial investigations suggested the Islamic State group — which operates in Afghanistan and is an enemy of the Afghan Taliban — could be behind the attack, and officers were still investigating.
"There was dust and smoke around, and I was under some injured people from where I could hardly stand up, only to see chaos and some scattered limbs," said Adam Khan, 45, who was knocked to the ground by the blast around 4 p.m. and hit by splinters in his leg and both hands.
The Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the bombing was aimed at setting Islamists against each other. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that "such crimes cannot be justified in any way."The Afghan Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 emboldened the TTP. They unilaterally ended a cease-fire agreement with the Pakistani government in November, and have stepped up attacks across the country. The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where he was to participate in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
In recent months, China has helped Pakistan avoid a default on sovereign payments. However, some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere. Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, told The Associated Press that so far 44 people had been "martyred" and nearly 200 wounded in the bombing. The bombing was one of the four worst attacks in the northwest since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar. In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. n February, more than 100 people, mostly policemen, died in a bombing at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing Peshawar police headquarters. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Arif Alvi condemned the attack and asked officials to provide all possible assistance to the wounded and the bereaved families. Sharif later, in a phone call to Rehman, the head of the JUI, conveyed his condolences to him and assured him that those who orchestrated the attack would be punished. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad also condemned the attack. In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, it expressed its condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims killed in the attack..
Maulana Ziaullah, the local chief of Rehman's party, was among the dead. JUI leaders Rasheed and former lawmaker Maulana Jamaluddin were also on the stage but escaped unhurt. Rasheed, the regional chief of the party, said the attack was an attempt to remove JUI from the field before parliamentary elections in November, but he said such tactics would not work. The bombing drew nationwide condemnation, with the ruling and opposition parties extending condolences to the families of those who died in the attack. Rehman is considered to be a pro-Taliban cleric and his political party is part of the coalition government in Islamabad. Meetings are being organized across the country to mobilize supporters for the upcoming elections. "Many of our fellows lost their lives and many more wounded in this incident. I will ask the federal and provincial administrations to fully investigate this incident and provide due compensation and medical facilities to the affected ones," Rasheed said. Mohammad Wali, another attendant at the rally, said he was listening to a speaker address the crowd when the huge explosion temporarily deafened him. "I was near the water dispenser to fetch a glass of water when the bomb exploded, throwing me to the ground," he said. "We came to the meeting with enthusiasm but ended up at the hospital seeing crying, wounded people and sobbing relatives taking the bodies of their loved ones."

Kyiv signs agreement with Turkish company on repairing drones
LBCI/July 31/2023
Ukrainian defense ministry signed on Monday a deal with the Turkish company Baykar Makina to establish a service center dedicated to the repair and maintenance of drones within Ukraine, according to what the ministry stated.
The country is actively aiming to enhance the local production of drones to counter Russia that invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian missiles strike apartment building, killing at least 4 in Ukrainian leader's hometown
Associated Press/July 31/2023
Russian missiles slammed into an apartment complex and a university building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih Monday, killing four people and wounding scores of others as the blasts trapped residents beneath rubble, Ukraine's interior minister said. One of the two missiles destroyed a section of the apartment building between the fourth and ninth floors, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Video showed black smoke billowing from corner units and burned out or damaged cars on a tree-lined street. A 10-year-old girl was among those killed, officials said. Dnipro Gov. Serhii Lysak said 53 people were wounded in the morning attack, which also destroyed part of the four-story university building. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian artillery strike on partially occupied Donetsk province killed two people and wounded six in the regional capital, according to Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed leader of the illegally annexed province. A bus was also hit as Ukrainian forces shelled the city of Donetsk multiple times Monday, Pushilin said. Neither side's claims could be independently verified. A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive, deploying weaponry supplied by Kyiv's Western allies and aimed at driving Russian forces out of occupied areas, intensified last week. At the same time, Ukraine has sought to take the war deep into Russia, reportedly using drones to hit targets as far away as Moscow. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia and Moscow-annexed territory, especially Crimea, have become more frequent. The latest strike, on Sunday, damaged two office buildings a few miles (kilometers) from the Kremlin. Russia has tightened security in the aftermath of that attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, describing the assault as an "act of desperation." "The Kyiv regime is in a very, very difficult situation," Peskov said, "as the counteroffensive is not working out as planned." "It's obvious that the multibillion-dollar resources that have been transferred by NATO countries to the Kyiv regime are actually being spent inefficiently," Peskov said.
"This raises big questions in Western capitals and great discomfort among taxpayers in Western countries."
Another Ukrainian drone targeted a district police department early Monday in Russia's Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, but there were no casualties, the local governor said. In Kryvyi Rih, which is the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rescue crews searched Monday for people who were trapped in the wreckage of the two hit buildings. The Kremlin's forces have occasionally targeted the city since they invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Bombarding populated areas with missiles, artillery and drones has been a hallmark of Moscow's military strategy during the war, an approach that has continued during the Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in June. Russian officials insist they only take aim at legitimate military targets, but Ukraine and its supporters say mass civilian deaths during previous attacks provide evidence of war crimes. "In recent days, the enemy has been stubbornly attacking cities, city centers, shelling civilian objects and housing," Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media. "But this terror will not frighten us or break us."Russian shelling Monday also killed a 70-year-old woman in her home in a Kharkiv  province village near Izyum, as well as a civilian in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, local authorities said. In eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, one person was reported killed and seven people were injured after Russia shelled 12 cities and villages, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. Ukrainian officials didn't acknowledge Sunday's drone attacks in the Moscow region. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said: "Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process." Meanwhile, Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday his Wagner Group is not currently recruiting fighters. In an audio message published on a Telegram channel associated with the Wagner chief, Prigozhin said the company had suspended recruitment as there is currently "no shortage of personnel." Prigozhin previously agreed with Western estimates that he lost more than 20,000 men in the long battle for the Ukrainian city Bakhmut. Prigozhin last month led a short-lived mutiny against Moscow, demanding a leadership change in the Russian military. In an attempt to control him, Russian authorities insisted that Wagner fighters can only return to Ukraine if they join Russia's regular army.

Europe won't tolerate aggression: 'not in Ukraine, not in the Indo-Pacific'
Associated Press/July 31/2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Monday that Europe would not tolerate aggression in Ukraine or the Indo-Pacific, as she renewed in a speech the EU's recognition of a 2016 arbitration decision that invalidated China's expansive claims in the disputed South China Sea. Von der Leyen spoke in a joint news conference with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after holding talks in Manila that aimed to bolster trade, economic and security relations. The leaders announced the 27-nation bloc would resume negotiations with the Philippines for a free-trade agreement that stalled in 2017 under Marcos's predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. She underscored the need for security cooperation citing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which showed how authoritarian leaders "are willing to act on their threats."
"Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine shakes the foundation of the international order. It is in violation of the U.N. charter and the fundamental principles of international law, such as territorial integrity and sovereignty," she said. "This is why Europe supports Ukraine's brave fight against the aggressor because the illegal use of force cannot be tolerated, not in Ukraine, not in the Indo-Pacific," von der Leyen said. "Security in Europe and security in the Indo-Pacific is indivisible. Challenges to the rules-based order in our interconnected world affect all of us." "This is why we are concerned about the rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific," she said, adding that the EU backs a free and open Indo-Pacific "because an Indo-Pacific free of the threats of coercion is key to all our stability to our peace, and to the prosperity of our people." Her veiled rhetoric echoed that of U.S. leaders, who have raised alarms over China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Without naming China, von der Leyen renewed the EU's recognition of a decision by a U.N.-backed tribunal that invalidated China's territorial claims in virtually the entire waterway on historical grounds. China has rejected the arbitration decision as a sham and continues to defy it. The award "is legally binding" and provides the basis for a peaceful resolution of the disputes, she said. The EU is ready to boost cooperation with the Philippines to foster regional maritime security by sharing information, carrying out threat assessments and bolstering the Philippine coast guard, she said. China has warned the U.S. and its allies from meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute. It has turned seven disputed reefs into missile-protected island bases in the last decade, further alarming Western governments and rival claimants, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Von der Leyen's visit to the Philippines is a sign of improving ties after a stormy period between the EU and Duterte over human rights. It's the first such top-level visit in nearly six decades of relations with the Philippines. The visit came at a time when the EU is assessing whether to extend special trade incentives, including slashed tariffs for a wide variety of products, to the Philippines. The European Union trade incentives under the so-called Generalized Scheme of Preferences for the Philippines and seven other developing countries are anchored on their adherence to more than two dozen international conventions on human and labor rights, environmental protection and good governance. But the Philippines came under intense EU criticism during Duterte's six-year term, mainly because of the bloody anti-drugs crackdown he oversaw that left more than 6,000 mostly petty suspects dead. Marcos succeeded Duterte in June last year. The killings sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2018, but its prosecutor has proceeded to investigate the widespread deaths that occurred in the years when the country was still part of the court based in The Hague. Duterte then often lashed at the EU's criticisms of his brutal anti-drugs crackdown with profanity-laced outbursts.

Greek prime minister seeks improved relations with Turkey but says Ankara needs to drop aggression
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP)/Mon, July 31, 2023
Greece’s prime minister said Monday that his government wants to take full advantage of a developing positive political climate with neighboring Turkey in order to improve bilateral relations despite a string of decades-old disputes. But Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that doesn’t mean Turkey has “substantially changed” its stance on key differences between the two countries and needs to “decisively abandon its aggressive and unlawful conduct” against Greece’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Turkey and Greece remain at odds over maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean, a dispute that affects irregular migration into the European Union, mineral rights and the projection of military power. Mitsotakis said that he agreed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12 to initiate new “lines of communication” and to maintain “a period of calm.”High-level talks between the the two countries are expected to take place in the Greek city of Thessaloniki later this year. However, the Greek prime minister said that Erdogan’s outreach to the EU can't come at the expense of efforts to heal Cyprus’ nearly half-century ethnic division. Speaking after talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, Mitsotakis said that he told Erdogan that improved European-Turkish ties can’t exclude a Cyprus peace accord and that the issue can't be “left by the wayside.”Turkey and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots have insisted on a two-state solution since July 2017 when the most recent round of U.N.-facilitated peace talks collapsed. That position overturned a long-standing agreement sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council in numerous resolutions that any peace deal would aim for a reunified Cyprus as a federation made up of Greek and Turkish speaking zones. Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the island’s northern third, where more than 35,000 Turkish troops are stationed. On Friday, Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar repeated that peace talks could resume only if Greek Cypriots recognize the Turkish Cypriots’ “sovereign equality.” Christodoulides said Monday that any improvement in European-Turkish relations should be based on reciprocal action by Turkey, adding that the EU prioritizes a Cyprus peace deal in line with U.N. resolutions.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 31-August 01/2023
Israel-Saudi normalization may be well worth the price - editorial
Jerusalem Post Editorial/July 31/2023
If normalization with Saudi Arabia means putting the controversial judicial reform on the back burner due to political and diplomatic constraints, that may be a price well worth paying.
Although the details are murky, it appears as though the United States is pushing for an agreement with Saudi Arabia that includes normalization of relations with Israel. And while some of the reported conditions of the deal would challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his current cabinet, the deal itself would be an historic breakthrough in the Middle East and is well worth pursuing. US President Joe Biden hinted at progress on the deal on Friday, as reported by Reuters. “There’s a rapprochement, maybe, underway,” Biden said tersely, declining to elaborate. Biden addressed the issue during his visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia last year, and White House officials have reportedly been discussing a major upgrade in security ties with Riyadh, as well as significant Israeli concessions to the Palestinians aimed at keeping alive prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, there are signs on the ground of earnest efforts to strike a deal. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, accompanied by White House Middle East czar Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, Biden’s senior adviser for energy and infrastructure, traveled to Saudi Arabia last week to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other top Saudi officials and “discuss bilateral and regional matters, including initiatives to advance a common vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East region interconnected with the world,” the White House said.
The US is considering the Israeli-Saudi normalization deal
The New York Times reported that Biden had not yet made up his mind on an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal, but he had dispatched Sullivan to discuss the terms. The paper reported that during a previous visit by Sullivan in May, the Saudi Crown Prince had expressed willingness to reach a deal on normalization with Israel, prompting Biden to launch what the paper termed a “full-bore effort.”According to Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who is considered close to Biden, among the elements involved in a Saudi-Israeli deal are an official Israeli promise not to annex the West Bank; Israeli commitments not to establish any more settlements, expand the boundaries of existing ones, or legalize illegal outposts; and the transfer of some Palestinian-populated territory in Area C of the West Bank to Palestinian Authority control. According to Friedman, Riyadh is seeking a NATO-like mutual security treaty that would obligate the US to come to its defense if the kingdom is attacked; a civilian nuclear program monitored and backed by the US; and the ability to purchase more advanced weaponry from Washington such as missile defense systems that could be used by the Saudis to counter Iran’s missile arsenal.
In exchange, the US wants the Saudis to offer a large aid package to Palestinian institutions in the West Bank, significantly roll back their growing relationship with China, and help bring an end to the civil war in Yemen, according to Friedman, who stressed that such a deal could take months to negotiate and is still “a long shot, at best.” On the domestic Israeli front, Friedman speculated that Netanyahu could be forced to abandon the far-right members in his cabinet who would oppose these terms and instead align himself with centrist political forces in the opposition.  Netanyahu, for his part, has come out strongly in favor of normalization with Saudi Arabia, calling it one of the top priorities of his government. In an interview with Sky News in early June, for example, Netanyahu called a Saudi-Israeli deal “a quantum leap forward” that would change history.
Describing Saudi Arabia as the most influential country both in the Arab and Muslim worlds, Netanyahu said, “It would fashion, I think, the possibility of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. And I think that would also help us solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”Pursuing a deal with Saudi Arabia would allow the prime minister to focus on his stated policy agenda and his pledge to expand the Abraham Accords, rather than being bogged down by the debate over his government’s contentious judicial reform. While Israel’s decision makers would need to seriously weigh the implications of any potential concessions, if normalization with Saudi Arabia means putting the controversial judicial reform on the back burner due to political and diplomatic constraints, that may be a price well worth paying.

Why it would be better for Israel if Iran enriched to 90% now
Mark Dubowitz and Jacob Nagel/Israel Hayom/July 31/2023
No real technical variance exists between 90% and 60% enrichment; the difference in breakout time to a bomb's worth of weapons-grade enrichment is a matter of days or a few weeks. Israel is better off with an Iranian push to 90% without billions of dollars flowing to the regime and without the illusion that holding Tehran at 60% enrichment is meaningful.
With Israel consumed by an intense judicial reform debate, Iran is expanding its nuclear weapons program. The Biden administration continues to promote unofficial understandings with Tehran based on keeping Iranian enrichment at 60% in exchange for the release of billions of dollars. The goal: Kick the Iranian nuclear issue down the road until after the 2024 elections. The proper name for such understandings, which in many ways are far worse than the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, should be “false quiet for money”, and not “freeze for freeze”.
The idea behind these understandings is to freeze Iran’s nuclear progress in enriching uranium to 60%, which is very close to what is required technically for Tehran to reach 93%, or weapons-grade enrichment. This gives the mullahs, for the first time, a win-win situation: a de facto green light to 60% enrichment together with massive sanctions relief. Presenting it as understandings rather than an agreement is an attempt by the Biden administration to avoid review by Congress, where it will face fierce opposition.
Israel is better off with an Iranian push to 90% without billions of dollars flowing to the regime and without the illusion that holding Tehran at 60% enrichment is meaningful. No real technical variance exists between 90% and 60% enrichment; the difference in breakout time to a bomb’s worth of weapons-grade enrichment is a matter of days or a few weeks. The most dangerous technical threshold has already occurred when the Biden administration did not respond to Iran’s enrichment to 20%, which is about 70% of the effort necessary to reach weapons-grade uranium.
For ten months after the US killed Qassem Soleimani, the regime stopped its nuclear expansion. Then it went all out after Biden’s election and the end of maximum pressure. When the regime feels American steel, it backs down. When it feels American mush, it pushes forward.
It is still not clear where the Biden administration has set any red lines for action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Since President Biden won the election in November 2020 on a promise to abandon the maximum pressure campaign of his predecessor, Tehran massively expanded its nuclear program. Iranian nuclear scientists have used advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20%, 60% and briefly to almost 84%; produced uranium metal for use in developing nuclear weapons; and repeatedly stonewalled UN weapons inspectors.
After almost three years of a failed Iran policy of maximum concessions, perhaps the Biden administration finally has communicated to Tehran that they will act forcefully at 90%. But “forcefully” must mean more than the snapback of UN sanctions, and the enforcement of US sanctions, which should have occurred at prior levels of Iranian nuclear expansion. It must involve the credible threat that President Biden will use American military power to stop the development of Iranian nuclear weapons.
Even if Iran doesn’t believe that the Americans will use military force, Tehran is not likely to make the mistake of rushing to 90%. Instead, if past is prologue, Tehran will follow its decades-long strategy of forcing the West to accept increasing levels of nuclear weapons expansion. It will remain at the 60% line while building out its nuclear infrastructure and extracting maximum financial concessions. The most alarming is the work done at Natanz where Tehran is building out a hardened site that reportedly will go over 100 meters (328 ft.) underground and be ready in about two or three years to be used for future high levels of enrichment, protected from outside attack. According to the understandings, Tehran will continue the development and production of advanced centrifuges, ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and crucial capabilities related to nuclear weapons systems.
We are sleepwalking into the Iranian trap. With Iran remaining below the 90% line, and the Biden administration pursuing a false quiet at a high price, Tehran is left to pursue nuclear weapons on all fronts. Israel needs to fight this Iranian strategy while Congress must immediately review every step the Biden administration takes.
*Brig. Gen. (res.) Prof. Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a professor at the Technion. He served as national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the acting head of the National Security Council. Mark Dubowitz is the FDD’s chief executive and an expert on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions. In 2019, he was sanctioned by Iran. Twitter: @mdubowitz. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.

American Military Aid to Israel Serves Both Countries Well
Richard Goldberg/The Tablet/July 31/2023
This summer marks the 15th anniversary of one of the most remarkable and course-altering events in the history of the U.S-Israel relationship—an event that most people have never heard of.
A fourth-term Republican congressman from the northern suburbs of Chicago had a big idea—basing America’s advanced X-band missile defense radar in Israel and layering it on Israel’s own missile defense architecture. Just a few years earlier, then-Rep. Mark Kirk had successfully lobbied the Pentagon to provide Israel with a direct feed from U.S. satellites capable of detecting Iranian missile launches in real time—something Israel could not do on its own. But it wasn’t enough.
Just knowing of an incoming missile threat wasn’t the same as engaging that threat along its 11-minute flight path from Iran to Tel Aviv. Israel’s domestically produced Green Pine radar could engage a target with only a minute or two to spare, leaving one or two shots to decide between survival and second Holocaust. The American X-band, on the other hand, could track something as small as a baseball flying 2,900 miles away and enable the Arrow system to start engaging an Iranian missile about halfway into its flight.
I was a young, bright-eyed Hill staffer at the time, charged with designing the campaign to persuade both the U.S. and Israeli governments that putting one of America’s only spare X-band radars on a plane to Israel was in the mutual interest of both countries. Pentagon officials were opposed; they had already promised the radar to an Arab state. But when we explained to Vice President Dick Cheney how such a simple transfer could transform U.S.-Israel military cooperation and create a legacy for the Bush administration, he called Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who agreed to give the radar to Israel—if Israel ever asked for it.
Convincing the highest levels of the American government to deploy a $200 million radar to Israel proved much easier than winning the approval of the Israeli prime minister, defense minister and IDF chief of staff. At first you could chalk it up to disbelief that a relatively unknown rank-and-file member of the U.S. House could deliver on something of this magnitude. Then-Defense Attaché Benny Gantz looked across the table at us in Washington like we were lunatics.
But after weeks of intense diplomacy, two key hurdles emerged: the parochialism of Israel’s own defense industrial base and bigger-picture questions related to Israeli sovereignty and freedom of action. The first was easy to dismiss. The manufacturer of the Green Pine radar, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, argued a U.S. radar was unnecessary and would harm Israeli industry and jobs. But on the merits, Green Pine could not compete with the U.S. X-band, manufactured by Raytheon, and Israel would continue investing in its own radar research and development to ensure it had contingencies should the U.S. ever reclaim its asset.
The second concern was more existential. This deployment would be the first-ever full-time U.S. military footprint on Israeli territory. Israeli leaders argued over whether that would encroach on Israel’s sovereignty and, more importantly, its future freedom of action to act against military threats without U.S. approval. In the end, they came to a simple conclusion: Israel would take whatever action it deemed necessary, even if the U.S. disagreed, but in the meantime, if hosting a U.S. radar could mean the difference between the continuation or end of the Zionist experiment, Israel would accept the radar.
When then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak finally made the request, Secretary Gates said yes and quipped, “What took you so long to ask?” A Pentagon official still eyeing the radar for another country tried to interfere, prompting Vice President Cheney and Secretary Gates to order its immediate transfer—catching Israel by surprise and installing it on a random hilltop in the Negev Desert manned by a few dozen U.S. Army soldiers from European Command.
The details of U.S. military assistance to Israel are not always well understood, leading some supporters of Israel to mistakenly align with Israel’s detractors in advocating for an end to such aid.
Fifteen years later, the integration of the U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems has led to complex bilateral exercises to perfect the interoperability of our systems and train for a day we pray never comes. Technology- and intelligence-sharing has deepened. Israel’s freedom of action has not been curtailed, its defense industry has continued to flourish, and its security has been strengthened with the assistance of the U.S. taxpayer.
American military leaders know and love their Israeli counterparts for their shared values, pro-American spirit, ingenuity, and courage. The explosion in military-to-military cooperation has deepened the U.S. defense community’s understanding of Israel’s threats and requirements, making America’s foreign military financing—the technical term for U.S. aid provided for Israel’s military needs—more impactful than ever. Skeptics should watch the videos released from this year’s bilateral Juniper Oak exercise to better appreciate the breadth of this cooperation, which has continued to expand under every president, Republican or Democrat.
The details of U.S. military assistance to Israel are not always well understood, leading some supporters of Israel to mistakenly align with Israel’s detractors in advocating for an end to such aid. Their opposition sits atop multiple false assumptions that, upon examination, upend their entire case—that Israel doesn’t need the money, that Israel could go shopping for advanced military platforms someplace else (or manufacture domestically), and that Israel would somehow become more impervious to potential U.S. political pressure by refusing assistance.
Despite the accurate depiction of Israel as the “startup nation,” hub for high-tech innovation and home of a growing number of unicorns, the Jewish state remains a relatively small country of 9 million people. The 2024 budget recently enacted by the Knesset totals $143 billion with just under $18 billion set aside for the Ministry of Defense, though some international estimates put Israel’s annual military expenditures at more than $23 billion. Israel’s spending of more than 5% of its GDP on defense dwarfs America’s current 3.5% spending estimate. South Korea spends less than 3% of its GDP on defense while Japan spends just over 1%.
The impact of U.S. foreign assistance on Israel’s defense spending capacity cannot be understated. In accordance with a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel—a process conceived by the Clinton administration and continued under the Bush and Obama administrations to bring stability to budget planning in both countries—Congress is poised to approve $3.3 billion in military aid for Israel along with another $500 million in support for U.S.-Israel missile defense programs, stretching Israel’s defense budget by more than 20%. Because U.S. funds cannot be used for research and development, Israel is able to use its limited resources to continue developing technological innovations to solve its unique threats and challenges while using American funding to subsidize the purchase of military platforms the IDF absolutely needs to survive the 21st century: F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, F-15s, aerial refueling tankers, bunker busters, and more.
Modern military aircraft aren’t cheap. Israel this month approved a purchase of 25 new F-35s for $3 billion while it negotiates to buy 25 to 50 new F-15s for billions more. Last year Israel agreed to buy four KC-46A refueling aircraft for $927 million. The capabilities these platforms provide the Israeli Air Force in a multifront confrontation with Iran and its terror proxies are game-changing. An American subsidy for Israel’s purchases of platforms that Israel would otherwise still need to buy out of its own defense budget takes enormous pressure off Israel’s military planners without harming Israel’s domestic industry.
It’s a fair criticism to point out how America’s own bureaucracy and decaying defense-industrial base often create delivery timelines too far in the future to confront the threats of the present. In this department, Taipei has more grievances than Jerusalem. Congress must fix this national security crisis, not for Israel’s sake but for its own as U.S. military leaders warn China will soon outmatch the United States in the Indo-Pacific. Still, these delays are already factored into Israeli decision-making.
Israeli defense leaders have no interest in returning to the days of domestically produced fighter aircraft platforms like the Lavi or the Kfir. The American fighter jets long ago won the cost-benefit analysis inside the IDF headquarters. While Israel maintains its own line of production on a wide range of military platforms and systems for export to allies like India, those export markets do not produce strategically game-changing assets for import like the United States. For that, Israel’s only alternatives would be Russia and China—imports that would immediately end the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship as we know it, cutting Israel off from intelligence and technology it needs to survive. Even the most remote flirtations with China as a security partner would severely undermine American support for Israel on both sides of the political aisle.
Any notion that Israel would simply spend $3.8 billion more on its own defense in the absence of U.S. aid is not grounded in reality. Most of Israel’s budget, like America’s, consists of automatic spending programs. The coalition nature of Israeli governing throws most of the discretionary budget up for grabs for a wide range of domestic priorities. Israel’s new defense budget already reflects a large increase from prior years—driven by intense domestic industry lobbying efforts that included unfounded predictions of major job losses due to U.S. requirements to spend all foreign aid in America by 2028, albeit with a multiyear phase-in. The scare tactics worked. Israel’s defense budget will grow 8% in 2024 as compared to 2022. But that budget can only go so high—making the extra $3.8 billion from the United States critical given Israel’s growing security threats.
Taking away that $3.8 billion would not increase Israel’s freedom of action in the Middle East nor reduce the ability for a U.S. president to pressure the Israeli government in areas of policy disagreement. The United States is and will remain the superpower Israel relies on for much more than foreign aid. The tremendous danger to Israel for its enemies to sense daylight between Jerusalem and Washington is palpable both in the prime minister’s office and the IDF headquarters. If America wanted to curtail Israel’s freedom of action, it could do so with or without cutting a check for Israel’s security.
Yet even under a president hellbent on appeasing Iran, Israel today uses American-made aircraft to target Iranian forces in Syria at will, while conducting daring missions deep inside Iran. To the extent Israel restrains itself out of concern for the United States, it does so now and would do so in the future for reasons completely disconnected from U.S. foreign aid. Taking away $3.8 billion simply takes away $3.8 billion—and denies Israel a 20% increase in its defense spending capacity.
Attacking aid to Israel in response to the hostile actions of any White House toward Israel also forgets that Congress, not the White House, appropriates money under the U.S. Constitution—and Congress, despite a relatively small but growing number of far-left antagonists, would overwhelmingly approve $3.8 billion for Israel on an up-or-down vote. And likely would for years to come.
Just as it was a no-brainer to host the X-band radar in the Negev Desert, it’s a no-brainer for Israel to support continued defense aid from the United States. And it’s equally a no-brainer for the United States to support that aid.
Taking away that $3.8 billion would not increase Israel’s freedom of action in the Middle East nor reduce the ability for a U.S. president to pressure the Israeli government in areas of policy disagreement.
The Congressional Budget Office projects the United States will spend roughly $6.2 trillion in 2023, making the $3.3 billion it provides in foreign military financing to Israel something of a rounding error. When you add in the $500 million for missile defense cooperation with Israel and subtract all the automatic federal spending on programs like Medicare and Social Security, U.S. military assistance for the Jewish state comes to just 0.2% of America’s $1.7 trillion discretionary budget.
And as detractors of Israel fail to comprehend, the return on investment for the U.S. taxpayer on aid to Israel is worth much more than the upfront cost.
American military assistance is not provided in a vacuum. What may have been perceived as a political intervention in foreign policy by the U.S. Congress decades ago has evolved into the foundation of a complex bilateral security architecture that underlines an entire theater strategy for the American armed forces. For Washington, Israel is the front line of democracy in the one of the most dangerous and unstable parts of the world. From terrorists to their state sponsors, investing in Israel’s capability to degrade or destroy mutual threats pays a limitless dividend for the security of every American. Israel is an added layer of deterrence toward mutual adversaries, an irreplaceable feedback loop for intelligence, tactics, and technological innovation, and—from time to time—the special forces of global democracy.
In 1981, the Israeli Air Force prevented Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons when it bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor using eight American F-16s. In 2007, Israel used 10 modified American F-15s to stop Bashar Assad from getting the bomb as well. From Syria to Sudan, from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, from Gaza to Iraq, Israeli military operations have changed the course of history multiple times—preventing wider conflicts that would otherwise require American blood and treasure. And although Israel often acts unilaterally and clandestinely to protect operational security, even when such decisions will spur policy disagreements with the sitting U.S. administration, history teaches us the incalculable national security value of military assistance to Israel.
In just 18 months, the U.S. taxpayer has already committed more than $41 billion in security assistance to Ukraine with billions more spent on humanitarian relief. American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost trillions. Just as American policymakers are recognizing that providing the same kind of foreign military financing to Taiwan could prevent an untold cost of war with China down the road, Congress and the U.S. defense establishment instinctively understand the benefits of aid to Israel.
Unlike most purchasers of U.S. military platforms, Israel is in a constant state of war with terrorists on every border. Israeli employment of American arms acts as both a research laboratory for U.S. system developers and a demonstration for other export markets. The urgent threats Israel confronts also encourages Israeli innovation and a culture that puts a premium on going quickly from identifying a new military requirement to fielding a necessary combat capability.
Moving quickly is something the Pentagon is not known for when it comes to fielding new weapons. Considering the growing threat from China, Americans will pay a higher price in the future if this perennial Pentagon problem is not addressed. Addressing that shortcoming is one of the big ideas behind the November 2021 establishment of the U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group that identifies military requirements common to both countries and develops combined plans to research, develop, procure, and field weapons systems to both militaries as quickly and economically as possible. In working more closely together to field new weapons, as my colleague Bradley Bowman has argued, Israel can benefit from American economy of scale, and the U.S. can benefit from Israeli procurement agility. Both countries benefit from each other’s innovation.
As disagreements between the Biden administration and Netanyahu government boil over, the inclination by some supporters of Israel to search for policy solutions that free Israel from a perceived yolk of dangerous U.S. foreign policy is often well-intentioned, even if their solution is misguided. Jerusalem is indeed frustrated with a White House that treats the democratically elected leader of Israel with disdain while offering the world’s state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, billions of dollars in cash. Not to mention the unprecedented meddling by an American president in Israel’s domestic politics at a moment of great social upheaval.
But tension between a left-wing American president and a right-wing Israeli government is a phenomenon observed across three decades—from Clinton to Obama to Biden. And each time it’s been the Congress that steps into the breach, appropriating assistance to Israel and using the power of the purse to defeat hostile executive policies whenever possible.
It’s also understandable for supporters of Israel to grow frustrated with members of Congress who work against Israel’s security interests every day—stabbing Israel in the back by supporting sanctions relief for Iran, condoning Palestinian pay-for-slay and defending U.N.-sponsored antisemitism—only to get a kosher seal of approval from pro-Israel institutions so long as they vote “yes” on foreign aid to Israel. But cutting off that aid is not the appropriate response to that outrage since it would stab Israel through the heart, not just the back, and leave it even more vulnerable to Iran. The more thoughtful response would be to defend aid to Israel and then use the American political system to hold accountable at the ballot box those who endanger both America and Israel’s security.
The trend inside the Democratic Party should not be ignored. The threat that one day someone like AOC might be House speaker or someone like Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy or Bernie Sanders might be Senate majority leader has likely already prompted contingency planning in Jerusalem—not just for the risk posed to U.S. assistance but to the broader bilateral relationship. But right now, they’re not in charge of congressional appropriations—and the Democratic president, despite all his flawed Middle East policies that undermine Israel’s security and his constant meddling in Israel’s domestic politics, still pushes his party to support robust military aid to Israel.
There may yet come a day when the threats, requirements, and Israeli budget allow for a tapering of foreign assistance without harming our mutual national security interests. That day is not today. Iran is on the verge of enriching uranium to 90% weapons-grade, Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets and a growing arsenal of precision guided munitions in Lebanon, and Tehran’s proxies are trying to take over the West Bank. Cutting off American military aid to Israel would be a strategic disaster for both countries.
*Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, served as deputy chief of staff and national security advisor to former U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, director of countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the White House National Security Council, and a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer.

Palestinian 'Unity' To Destroy Israel
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/July 31, 2023
Recently, the [Hamas] movement claimed responsibility for a number of terror attacks targeting Jewish soldiers and civilians in the West Bank. Hamas, in addition, continues to call on Palestinians to step up terror attacks with the declared intention of liberating all of "Palestine," from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and replacing Israel with an Iranian-backed terror state.
The Biden administration and the European Union did not condemn Abbas for meeting with the leader of a movement designated by the Americans, Europeans and other countries as a terrorist organization.
The Biden Administration and the Europeans are also likely to continue providing financial aid to the Palestinians without asking Abbas about his repeated attempts to forge an alliance with the same Hamas terrorists who murder Jews and openly call for the elimination of Israel. The Biden Administration and the Europeans apparently have no problem with Abbas preferring to meet with the leader of a terrorist group, Hamas, than with the prime minister of Israel.
Needless to say, the term "comprehensive resistance" is a euphemism for terrorism. As it has proven over the past three decades, Hamas outright rejects non-violent "resistance." The only "resistance" Hamas endorses is one that includes suicide bombings and the indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israeli towns and cities, as well as drive-by shootings and stabbings. The only "resistance" Hamas endorses is one that results in the murder of as many Jews as possible.
One of Abbas's close associates, Azzam al-Ahmed, recently said that Abbas is hoping to form a unity government with Hamas. Such a move would mean that the US and European Union, the largest funders of the Palestinians, would also end up funding an Islamist movement which they have already classified as a terrorist organization. Once Hamas joins a Palestinian Authority-led government, it too would benefit from American and European taxpayer funds.
At the very least, the Biden Administration and the European Union ought to call out Abbas for seeking to forge an alliance with one of the most deadly Palestinian terrorist movements, Hamas.
The Biden administration and the European Union did not condemn Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his meeting last week with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, a movement designated by the Americans, Europeans and other countries as a terrorist organization.
Ismail Haniyeh is the leader of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement designated by the US and European Union as a terrorist organization because of its "armed resistance" against Israel. Haniyeh, who is currently based in Qatar, has always supported terror attacks against Israel and remains fully committed to Hamas's covenant, which states that the land of "Palestine" belongs only to Muslims and rejects any "initiatives or so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences." The Hamas covenant further states that "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad [holy war]."
Haniyeh and his movement continue to boast of terror attacks against Israeli Jews, including the cold-blooded murder of a Jewish woman and her two daughters. Recently, the movement claimed responsibility for a number of terror attacks targeting Jewish soldiers and civilians in the West Bank. Hamas, in addition, continues to call on Palestinians to step up terror attacks with the declared intention of liberating all of "Palestine," from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, and replacing Israel with an Iranian-backed terror state.
Because of his radical views and support of terrorism against Israel, Haniyeh has become so popular among Palestinians that public opinion polls show that if presidential elections were held today, he would win easily. Because of his anti-Israel rhetoric and activities, Haniyeh and his movement have been warmly embraced by Turkey and Qatar. Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders, including Khaled Mashaal and Saleh Arouri, feel more comfortable in these countries than they do in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Qatar and Turkey are considered the prime backers of the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.
On July 26, Haniyeh was invited to Turkey for a meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, who has close relations with the Biden Administration and the European Union. After the discussion, Abbas and Haniyeh were invited to the presidential palace in Ankara for an audience with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Biden administration and the European Union did not condemn Abbas for meeting with the leader of a movement designated by the Americans, Europeans and other countries as a terrorist organization. In fact, American and European officials are likely to continue to hold regular meetings with Abbas and senior PA officials despite the new harmonious relations between Abbas and Hamas. The Biden Administration and the Europeans are also likely to continue providing financial aid to the Palestinians without asking Abbas about his repeated attempts to forge an alliance with the same Hamas terrorists who murder Jews and openly call for the elimination of Israel. The Biden Administration and the Europeans apparently have no problem with Abbas preferring to meet with the leader of a terrorist group, Hamas, than with the prime minister of Israel.
Abbas and Haniyeh did not meet to discuss ways of reviving the stalled peace process between the Palestinians and Israel or to discuss ways of boosting the Palestinian economy and solving the problem of unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Instead, the two met to discuss ways of "unifying [Palestinian] national efforts" in the fight against Israel, according to senior Hamas official Hussam Badran. When Hamas refers to "efforts" against Israel, it is referring to shootings, stabbings, rockets and car-ramming attacks. As its covenant unambiguously states, Hamas believes that terrorism is the only way to achieve its goal of destroying the "Zionist entity."
Badran said that Haniyeh and the Hamas officials who met with Abbas in Turkey "affirmed during the meeting that comprehensive resistance is the most effective way to confront" Israel. Needless to say, the term "comprehensive resistance" is a euphemism for terrorism. As it has proven over the past three decades, Hamas outright rejects non-violent "resistance." The only "resistance" Hamas endorses is one that includes suicide bombings and the indiscriminate firing of rockets at Israeli towns and cities, as well as drive-by shootings and stabbings. The only "resistance" Hamas endorses is one that results in the murder of as many Jews as possible.
So, why did Abbas, who has repeatedly claimed that he supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, agree to meet with a terrorist leader who has dedicated his entire life to destroying Israel? Why did he agree to meet with a terrorist leader whose movement expelled him and the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007?
Abbas is either afraid that Hamas will kill him and topple his regime in the West Bank, or he identifies with the terror group and supports its Jihad against Israel. If the former is true, Abbas is a weak leader who cares only about his survival. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, Abbas has exposed his real intention: the elimination of Israel. By embracing the Hamas leader, Abbas is actually endorsing the Islamist movement's charter, which does not believe in Israel's right to exist. The only solution Abbas and Hamas want is one that would lead to the obliteration of Israel.
Abbas and his senior officials in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, have argued over the years that their repeated overtures of friendship toward Hamas are only aimed at achieving Palestinian "national unity" and ending the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. One of Abbas's close associates, Azzam al-Ahmed, recently said that Abbas is hoping to form a unity government with Hamas. Such a move would mean that the US and European Union, the largest funders of the Palestinians, would also end up funding an Islamist movement which they have already classified as a terrorist organization. Once Hamas joins a Palestinian Authority-led government, it too would benefit from American and European taxpayer funds.
The meeting between Abbas and Haniyeh was not the first of its kind. Last year, the two met in Algeria, where they also reportedly talked about the need to achieve "national unity" as a way of strengthening the fight against Israel. As is the situation today, when their friend Abbas met with the leader of the Palestinian terrorist movement, the Biden Administration and the European Union remained silent.
The Biden Administration is evidently more concerned about an Israeli law passed by a democratic vote in the Israeli parliament than by Abbas's ongoing efforts to appease Palestinian terrorists, whether by inviting them to join his government or by rewarding them financially through his pay-for-slay program. Rather than reviling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament, perhaps the Biden Administration might ask the Palestinians why they do not have their own parliament. The Biden Administration does not ask because it does not want to embarrass the Palestinians by showing that they do not have democracy and cannot even hold elections. Americans and Europeans seems always to avoid holding the Palestinians accountable for any wrongdoing.
Is the Biden Administration aware that the Palestinian parliament was dissolved by Abbas in 2018 and that the Palestinians have no freedom of expression under either the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank or Hamas in the Gaza Strip? Is the Biden Administration aware that while Netanyahu and his coalition were elected by a majority of the Israelis, Abbas has just entered the 18th year of his four-year term in office?
There is no love lost between the Biden Administration and Netanyahu, who has won six elections. This is the same Biden Administration that looks the other way as the Palestinian Authority president pursues his efforts to join forces with Hamas.
Similarly, the European Union, which never misses an opportunity to denounce Israel, seems unconcerned about Abbas meeting a terrorist leader and inviting him to join the Palestinian government. Yet, at a bare minimum, the Biden Administration and the European Union ought to urge Abbas to return to the negotiating table with Israel and cease his ongoing campaign to vilify Israel and demonize Jews. The negotiations will not achieve peace and harmony between Israel and the Palestinians, but they could ease tensions between the two sides and reduce the level of violence. At the very least, the Biden Administration and the European Union ought to call out Abbas for seeking to forge an alliance with one of the most deadly Palestinian terrorist movements, Hamas.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

An Unapologetic Defense of the Crusades
Raymond Ibrahim/July 31/2023
Titled, “An Unapologetic Defense of the Crusades,” the following review was written by Auguste Meyrat and published by The Federalist on June 2, 2023.
Fewer moments in history are as misunderstood and revised as the Crusades. This series of violent clashes between Christian and Muslim cultures spanning three continents and nearly a millennium has been characterized as a futile war of aggression. In the telling of most modern historians, belligerent, greedy, and racist Christians in Western Europe were periodically guided by a bloodthirsty theocrat in Rome to channel their savage energies toward embattling a rival faith in the delusional belief that this would guarantee their admittance into Heaven, if not an earthly kingdom to rule over. What resulted was hardly more than pointless slaughter on both sides.
Nearly all of this is false. The Crusades were wars of defense, with Christians attempting to drive out foreign Muslim invaders in lands that were formerly Christian. Far from being unenlightened savages, the Crusaders were a highly organized force that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in warfare, government, and religious practice. The great personal sacrifice of the Crusaders, along with moral arguments against the use of violence, disprove the idea that they did this for personal gain.
By contrast, the Muslim invaders greatly profited from their conquests. They essentially took ownership of the preexisting wealth from their opponents. They subjected people of these areas to mass enslavement, regular persecution, and crippling taxes — all of which were sanctioned by their holy books and scriptures. And nearly all their victories against opposing forces were attributable to superior numbers and the domestic dysfunction of their opponents rather than superior strategy, logistics, or technology.
Unfortunately, few historians will risk professional ruin by challenging the prevailing narrative of the academy and telling the true history of the Crusades. However, to his great credit, Raymond Ibrahim dismisses such concerns and offers riveting profiles of eight great heroes of the Crusades in his newest book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
As an Arabic linguist and expert in Islamic history and theology, he is able to tap into primary sources from both sides of the conflict to give a more objective, unbiased account of the Crusades. More importantly, he makes a point of prioritizing the reader and telling a story. In his introduction, he fully agrees with Carlyle’s thesis that history is “but the biography of great men.” Whereas most modern historians tend to attribute developments in the past to impersonal forces (what is known as “historicism”), Ibrahim recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of heroic individuals and the effect they have on the world. By doing this, he shows that these men were not only important for their time, but can still serve as models for people today.
The War for the Holy Land
Although Ibrahim organizes his chapters chronologically, his biographies work better as a framework for three different regional conflicts: the war for the Holy Land and Byzantium, the Reconquista of the Spanish peninsula, and the Balkan defense against the Ottoman Turks. As Ibrahim relates, each war had its own share of successes and failures for the West, but so much of this depended on the leadership and how unified the Christian kingdoms were. When the leaders were strong and unity existed, they would have longterm victories (as in Spain); when the leaders were strong, but unity didn’t exist, they would have only short-term victories (as in the Holy Land and Balkans).
The war for the Holy Land and Byzantium presents the best overall view of the Crusades. While the first Crusaders recaptured many of the kingdoms along the Eastern Mediterranean, Crusaders in the following centuries devoted most of their resources to securing those kingdoms and establishing outposts to facilitate supply lines. Finally, these kingdoms and outposts were eventually lost, as Western leaders lost interest in crusading.
[Warning: Spoilers ahead for anyone who plans on reading Defenders of the West.]
In the first group was Godfrey of Bullion, a noble who was “strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs and stalwart chest,” according to William of Tyre. Moreover, he was extremely religious, often praying and fasting before battles. Both qualities proved necessary as Godfrey encountered a completely different kind of enemy, one that had few qualms about murdering and torturing innocents and using terror tactics to intimidate their opponents. Despite this, Godfrey and the other Crusaders managed to retake Antioch and other fortresses as they marched toward Jerusalem.
At that point, they were exhausted, starving, and dying of thirst. Added to this was news of Muslim atrocities where Christian men were massacred and women and children were brutally ravished and sold into slavery. These tactics effectively prevented sympathizers from helping the Crusaders who were forced to depend on their feckless Byzantine allies and fragile supply lines stretching back many miles. Eventually, Godfrey ordered the construction of a siege tower and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. What resulted from the prolonged frustration and ongoing atrocities was the famously bloody massacre of everyone in the city: “the carnage was so horrific that, once the battle frenzy had subsided, ‘even the victors experienced sensations of horror and loathing.” Sadly, showing mercy just wasn’t a luxury for Crusaders if they hoped to be successful.
Nowhere was this lesson better demonstrated than in the two kings who tried to build on Godfrey’s first victories a century later, Richard the Lionheart of England and Louis IX of France. Displaying amazing toughness and intelligence, King Richard lived up to the moniker of Lionheart. In battle after battle, Richard recovered and reinforced the Crusader kingdoms along the coast and conquered Cyprus, which was then ruled by a Byzantine rebel, Isaac Comnenus.
Most of Richard’s success could be attributed to a realistic approach to warfare, understanding the dynamics of negotiation and leverage and outmaneuvering the famed (and exceptionally duplicitous) Saladin: “Richard … marched some twenty-six hundred Muslim captives outside in full view of Saladin and ordered their execution.” If actions like these weren’t taken, Richard would have quickly succumbed to enemy forces or retreated early like his old friend King Philip-Auguste of France.
In contrast to Richard’s accomplishments, King Louis IX (St. Louis) was a “tragic hero” of the Crusades, showing amazing promise and having the best intentions, only to experience continual setbacks during his campaign in North Africa. Unlike Richard, a giant of a man who commanded authority through example and shrewdness, Louis was more sickly and saintly. Although he enjoyed respect from his people and his peers, he struggled to hold them back at critical junctures of the fighting, which led to a number of ambushes inflicting heavy losses. There were also bouts of plague since the enemy poisoned wells and clogged the river with rotting corpses — he had the bad luck of fighting the Mamluk (“slavesoldier”) leader Baibars, an even more vicious and duplicitous ruler than Saladin.
Finally, Louis himself was taken captive, but he bravely endured taunts and torture before he was ransomed. In the end, Louis died of sickness in his second Crusade, and with him died the crusading movement. Meanwhile, Muslim invaders recaptured what was won by the Crusaders and inflicted egregious persecutions against the Christian population.
The Victors
In the profiles of El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz) and King Ferdinand III, Ibrahim is able to tell a happier story about the Reconquista. Considering the incredible odds they faced after being forced into a literal corner of the Iberian peninsula, each of the Spanish Crusaders deserves a chapter for their contributions. From about 712 to 1492 A.D., the tiny Christian kingdom of Asturia, which held only a few hundred Christian refugees, would spread to retake all of Spain and eject the occupying Moors.
As Ibrahim demonstrates in his biographies of El Cid (1043-1099) and King Ferdinand III (1200-1252), there were a few factors that led to this. One was the superior leadership and prowess of the Christian leaders, exhibited in both El Cid and King Ferdinand (also a saint) who cut through the hordes of Moorish armies and orchestrated extensive sieges of enemy fortresses.
The second factor was that the Christian kings were usually unified in their mission while the Moors were often disorganized, complacent, and therefore vulnerable. And third, the Spaniards came to understand the futility of allowing an enemy religion to live among its people. While El Cid and many others would allow Muslim residents to practice their faith, Ferdinand forced them to leave because “no matter how lenient a Christian ruler was with his Moorish subjects, and no matter how docile the latter appeared, whenever the opportunity arose, the Muslims immediately revolted.” This helped Ferdinand solidify the victories of previous Spanish Crusaders by reconquering most of Spain and neutralizing possible insurgencies.
Perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book concern the Balkan Crusaders who held off the Ottoman Turks from the late 14th century to the late 15th century. In what amounted to a thankless task that earned them infamy both from their contemporaries and later historians, these heroes faced even more impossible odds than the earlier Crusaders.
Ibrahim begins with Hungarian King John Hunyadi who bucks the trend of paying tribute to the Ottoman Turks and instead launches a guerrilla campaign against the gargantuan armies of Sultan Murad. He was one of the first leaders to show the weakness of the Turks, who never really had to defend their territory: “Both Christians and Muslims were especially impressed that, instead of taking a defensive position, Hunyadi was actually taking the offensive — crossing rivers and mountains to confront the Turks in their own domains.”
Despite Hunyadi’s success, few other kings or nobles followed his lead. Rather, the rulers in Western Europe were preoccupied with other, more self-interested affairs. Only the Italian city-state of Venice was involved — and they helped the Ottoman Turks nearly as much as they fought them. The other exceptions to this general indifference were the two men Ibrahim writes about in the following two chapters: George Kastrioti (whom the Turks called “Skanderbeg,” or “Lord Alexander — after Alexander the Great of Macedon”) and Vlad Dracula III (whom rival nobles smeared as a vampire).
Because both men were captives of the Turks for a number of years, both had personal reasons for liberating their kingdoms and a deep understanding of how the Turks operated. Like Hunyadi, Skanderbeg and Dracula turned their small numbers into a strength by picking apart large, poorly organized Turkish armies. While Skanderbeg’s previous training as a janissary (elite troops of the Turks) helped him to lead his forces efficiently and effectively, Dracula made infamous use of impalement (hence the name, Vlad the Impaler) and night raids. Both men were able to turn the tables on their foes and successfully stymie the Turkish advance into Europe….. Keep reading
Raymond Ibrahim’s book, ‘Defenders of the West,’ makes the case that the heroic actions of a few great crusaders saved the West from Muslim conquest.
Fewer moments in history are as misunderstood and revised as the Crusades. This series of violent clashes between Christian and Muslim cultures spanning three continents and nearly a millennium has been characterized as a futile war of aggression. In the telling of most modern historians, belligerent, greedy, and racist Christians in Western Europe were periodically guided by a bloodthirsty theocrat in Rome to channel their savage energies toward embattling a rival faith in the delusional belief that this would guarantee their admittance into Heaven, if not an earthly kingdom to rule over. What resulted was hardly more than pointless slaughter on both sides.
Nearly all of this is false. The Crusades were wars of defense, with Christians attempting to drive out foreign Muslim invaders in lands that were formerly Christian. Far from being unenlightened savages, the Crusaders were a highly organized force that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in warfare, government, and religious practice. The great personal sacrifice of the Crusaders, along with moral arguments against the use of violence, disprove the idea that they did this for personal gain.
By contrast, the Muslim invaders greatly profited from their conquests. They essentially took ownership of the preexisting wealth from their opponents. They subjected people of these areas to mass enslavement, regular persecution, and crippling taxes — all of which were sanctioned by their holy books and scriptures. And nearly all their victories against opposing forces were attributable to superior numbers and the domestic dysfunction of their opponents rather than superior strategy, logistics, or technology.
Unfortunately, few historians will risk professional ruin by challenging the prevailing narrative of the academy and telling the true history of the Crusades. However, to his great credit, Raymond Ibrahim dismisses such concerns and offers riveting profiles of eight great heroes of the Crusades in his newest book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
As an Arabic linguist and expert in Islamic history and theology, he is able to tap into primary sources from both sides of the conflict to give a more objective, unbiased account of the Crusades. More importantly, he makes a point of prioritizing the reader and telling a story. In his introduction, he fully agrees with Carlyle’s thesis that history is “but the biography of great men.” Whereas most modern historians tend to attribute developments in the past to impersonal forces (what is known as “historicism”), Ibrahim recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of heroic individuals and the effect they have on the world. By doing this, he shows that these men were not only important for their time, but can still serve as models for people today.
The War for the Holy Land
Although Ibrahim organizes his chapters chronologically, his biographies work better as a framework for three different regional conflicts: the war for the Holy Land and Byzantium, the Reconquista of the Spanish peninsula, and the Balkan defense against the Ottoman Turks. As Ibrahim relates, each war had its own share of successes and failures for the West, but so much of this depended on the leadership and how unified the Christian kingdoms were. When the leaders were strong and unity existed, they would have long-term victories (as in Spain); when the leaders were strong, but unity didn’t exist, they would have only short-term victories (as in the Holy Land and Balkans).
The war for the Holy Land and Byzantium presents the best overall view of the Crusades. While the first Crusaders recaptured many of the kingdoms along the Eastern Mediterranean, Crusaders in the following centuries devoted most of their resources to securing those kingdoms and establishing outposts to facilitate supply lines. Finally, these kingdoms and outposts were eventually lost, as Western leaders lost interest in crusading.
In the first group was Godfrey of Bullion, a noble who was “strong beyond compare, with solidly built limbs and stalwart chest,” according to William of Tyre. Moreover, he was extremely religious, often praying and fasting before battles. Both qualities proved necessary as Godfrey encountered a completely different kind of enemy, one that had few qualms about murdering and torturing innocents and using terror tactics to intimidate their opponents. Despite this, Godfrey and the other Crusaders managed to retake Antioch and other fortresses as they marched toward Jerusalem
At that point, they were exhausted, starving, and dying of thirst. Added to this was news of Muslim atrocities where Christian men were massacred and women and children were brutally ravished and sold into slavery. These tactics effectively prevented sympathizers from helping the Crusaders who were forced to depend on their feckless Byzantine allies and fragile supply lines stretching back many miles. Eventually, Godfrey ordered the construction of a siege tower and scaled the walls of Jerusalem. What resulted from the prolonged frustration and ongoing atrocities was the famously bloody massacre of everyone in the city: “the carnage was so horrific that, once the battle frenzy had subsided, ‘even the victors experienced sensations of horror and loathing.” Sadly, showing mercy just wasn’t a luxury for Crusaders if they hoped to be successful.
Nowhere was this lesson better demonstrated than in the two kings who tried to build on Godfrey’s first victories a century later, Richard the Lionheart of England and Louis IX of France. Displaying amazing toughness and intelligence, King Richard lived up to the moniker of Lionheart. In battle after battle, Richard recovered and reinforced the Crusader kingdoms along the coast and conquered Cyprus, which was then ruled by a Byzantine rebel, Isaac Comnenus.
Most of Richard’s success could be attributed to a realistic approach to warfare, understanding the dynamics of negotiation and leverage and outmaneuvering the famed (and exceptionally duplicitous) Saladin: “Richard … marched some twenty-six hundred Muslim captives outside in full view of Saladin and ordered their execution.” If actions like these weren’t taken, Richard would have quickly succumbed to enemy forces or retreated early like his old friend King Philip-Auguste of France.
In contrast to Richard’s accomplishments, King Louis IX (St. Louis) was a “tragic hero” of the Crusades, showing amazing promise and having the best intentions, only to experience continual setbacks during his campaign in North Africa. Unlike Richard, a giant of a man who commanded authority through example and shrewdness, Louis was more sickly and saintly. Although he enjoyed respect from his people and his peers, he struggled to hold them back at critical junctures of the fighting, which led to a number of ambushes inflicting heavy losses. There were also bouts of plague since the enemy poisoned wells and clogged the river with rotting corpses — he had the bad luck of fighting the Mamluk (“slave-soldier”) leader Baibars, an even more vicious and duplicitous ruler than Saladin.
Finally, Louis himself was taken captive, but he bravely endured taunts and torture before he was ransomed. In the end, Louis died of sickness in his second Crusade, and with him died the crusading movement. Meanwhile, Muslim invaders recaptured what was won by the Crusaders and inflicted egregious persecutions against the Christian population.
The Victors
In the profiles of El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz) and King Ferdinand III, Ibrahim is able to tell a happier story about the Reconquista. Considering the incredible odds they faced after being forced into a literal corner of the Iberian peninsula, each of the Spanish Crusaders deserves a chapter for their contributions. From about 712 to 1492 A.D., the tiny Christian kingdom of Asturia, which held only a few hundred Christian refugees, would spread to retake all of Spain and eject the occupying Moors.
As Ibrahim demonstrates in his biographies of El Cid (1043-1099) and King Ferdinand III (1200-1252), there were a few factors that led to this. One was the superior leadership and prowess of the Christian leaders, exhibited in both El Cid and King Ferdinand (also a saint) who cut through the hordes of Moorish armies and orchestrated extensive sieges of enemy fortresses.
The second factor was that the Christian kings were usually unified in their mission while the Moors were often disorganized, complacent, and therefore vulnerable. And third, the Spaniards came to understand the futility of allowing an enemy religion to live among its people. While El Cid and many others would allow Muslim residents to practice their faith, Ferdinand forced them to leave because “no matter how lenient a Christian ruler was with his Moorish subjects, and no matter how docile the latter appeared, whenever the opportunity arose, the Muslims immediately revolted.” This helped Ferdinand solidify the victories of previous Spanish Crusaders by reconquering most of Spain and neutralizing possible insurgencies.
Perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book concern the Balkan Crusaders who held off the Ottoman Turks from the late 14th century to the late 15th century. In what amounted to a thankless task that earned them infamy both from their contemporaries and later historians, these heroes faced even more impossible odds than the earlier Crusaders.
Ibrahim begins with Hungarian King John Hunyadi who bucks the trend of paying tribute to the Ottoman Turks and instead launches a guerrilla campaign against the gargantuan armies of Sultan Murad. He was one of the first leaders to show the weakness of the Turks, who never really had to defend their territory: “Both Christians and Muslims were especially impressed that, instead of taking a defensive position, Hunyadi was actually taking the offensive — crossing rivers and mountains to confront the Turks in their own domains.”
Despite Hunyadi’s success, few other kings or nobles followed his lead. Rather, the rulers in Western Europe were preoccupied with other, more self-interested affairs. Only the Italian city-state of Venice was involved — and they helped the Ottoman Turks nearly as much as they fought them. The other exceptions to this general indifference were the two men Ibrahim writes about in the following two chapters: George Kastrioti (whom the Turks called “Skanderbeg,” or “Lord Alexander — after Alexander the Great of Macedon”) and Vlad Dracula III (whom rival nobles smeared as a vampire).
Because both men were captives of the Turks for a number of years, both had personal reasons for liberating their kingdoms and a deep understanding of how the Turks operated. Like Hunyadi, Skanderbeg and Dracula turned their small numbers into a strength by picking apart large, poorly organized Turkish armies. While Skanderbeg’s previous training as a janissary (elite troops of the Turks) helped him to lead his forces efficiently and effectively, Dracula made infamous use of impalement (hence the name, Vlad the Impaler) and night raids. Both men were able to turn the tables on their foes and successfully stymie the Turkish advance into Europe.
A Worse Alternative
For some readers, the greatest strength of Defenders of the West may feel like its greatest drawback, which is Ibrahim’s graphic descriptions and lack of sympathy for the Muslim civilizations. Even if most of these gruesome details come from the sources Ibrahim weaves in, it’s apparent that he wants to cast the Moors, the Turks, and various Arab dynasties in the least flattering light — and if the descriptions aren’t enough, he draws more than a few parallels with them and modern-day Muslim terrorists.
However, the violence and the harsh descriptions give important context that helps to explain the extreme measures taken by the Crusaders, particularly Dracula. This may be off-putting for readers preferring a more sanitized and equivocating approach to history, but this would be misleading and false.
In terms of what it meant for Western civilization, Ibrahim proves that the Crusades were not only necessary but ultimately moral and justified. As ugly as they often were, the alternative of surrender and submission would have been far uglier.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.

A plague of coups plunges Africa’s Sahel into anarchy
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/July 31, 2023
Hardly a single state across Africa’s vast Sahel region has escaped the curse of coups in recent years. With Niger the latest victim of this pandemic of military mutinies, destabilization of this obscure state will have profound consequences for Africa and global security.
Just a few weeks ago, an African security analyst contextualized Niger to me as a “precarious success story.” In neighboring Mali, Burkina Faso and northeastern Nigeria, extremist groups have been expanding across vast swaths of territory — yet Niger, meanwhile, witnessed a marked decline in significant terrorist activity. President Mohammed Bazoum was voted into office just two years ago in Niger’s widely celebrated first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960.
Next door in Mali, two coups in quick succession around 2021 fundamentally destabilized the country, bringing forth a pro-Russia regime that demanded the withdrawal of all Western counterterrorism forces. This was, predictably, a disaster, as Daesh and Al-Qaeda flooded into the gigantic vacuum created by the departure of the foreign troops. Civilian and military deaths have soared, amid hundreds of reported security incidents every month.
In the aftermath of Mali’s coups, Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries made matters 100 times worse by perpetrating horrific massacres, which drove communities into the terrorists’ open arms. A further 2022 coup in Burkina Faso enabled extremists to take de facto control of about 40 percent of the country.
As recently as 2021, Daesh’s Sahel branch was ramping up its activity in Niger, building up a substantial presence among tribes within the country’s western Tillaberi region, a stone’s throw from the capital, Niamey. The plurality of extremist groups — including Boko Haram and Daesh — to the eastern Lake Chad region threatened to entrap the country from both sides within a terrorist pincer grip.
Western pressure could simply drive the new regime in Niger into Moscow’s welcoming embrace
Yet, with major security gains throughout 2022, Niger increasingly resembled a regional oasis of stability, particularly as Western forces relocated there from Mali. Over a thousand US troops have been stationed in Niger, alongside 1,500 French soldiers, with major American drone bases in Niamey and Agadez. The EU has allocated €500 million ($550 million) in aid since 2021. Niger constituted the cornerstone of the West’s Sahel strategy; not just due to counterterrorism, but also as a vital node for restricting northward flows of migrants.
The West is now threatening to fully freeze aid and cooperation if Bazoum and democracy are not restored. But coup leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tiani — having declared himself president — does not look to be going anywhere. “Our economic and security partnership with Niger — which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars — depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted by the actions in the last few days,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared.
Meanwhile, the vultures are circling over Niger, with its rich uranium reserves. Western pressure could simply drive the new regime into Moscow’s welcoming embrace. Senior Russian figures praised the coup and coup supporters jubilantly waved Russian flags in the streets of Niamey. Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin — who has recent personal expertise in staging coups — eulogized that “what happened in Niger represents the struggle of Niger’s people against colonizers, who tried to impose their own rules.” Prigozhin’s online trolls have long been pumping out polarizing anti-Western social media propaganda throughout the Sahel.
Sudan, meanwhile, was plunged into catastrophic bloodshed after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April staged its own attempted power grab, purging the regular military from most of Khartoum. The RSF concurrently embarked on a genocidal campaign against rival Darfur tribes, giving rise to levels of death and destruction comparable to the horrific zenith of the post-2003 Darfur conflict.
Despite the mediation efforts of Saudi Arabia and others, the two Sudanese sides appear hell-bent on continuing to fight each other, with Wagner and other parties reputedly adding fuel to the fire by funneling arms to the RSF. The vast influx of refugees into fragile neighboring Chad poses a further threat to regional stability.
As The New York Times noted, the Niger coup “toppled the final domino in a band across the girth of Africa, from Guinea in the west to Sudan in the east, now controlled by juntas that came to power in a coup — all but one in the past two years.” These represent profound setbacks for regionwide governance and security. Africa has witnessed 98 successful coups since 1952.
Even in states where semi-legitimate governing powers are present in national capitals, the Sahara-straddling Sahel region hosts unimaginably large ungoverned spaces; offering optimum conditions for terrorist and anti-state forces to establish themselves. The only factor preventing the likes of Daesh, Boko Haram or Al-Qaeda seizing these immense regions is the fact that these rival extremists are usually too busy fighting each other.
These rapidly growing countries need assistance in sustainably expanding their economies and providing world-class education
The worst thing the world could do now is throw up its hands and decide that the Sahel coup belt’s plenitude of crises is too vast to address. Just as Osama bin Laden established training camps for plotting attacks against the West in remote Afghanistan and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi centered his caliphate on the twin capitals of Raqqa and Mosul, the consolidation of a Sahel-wide extremist superstate is possibly only a matter of time. Opening the region’s floodgates for mass migration would have similarly immense global ramifications.
Brutal cuts to Western aid for the world’s poorest states and Russia’s on-off blockade of Ukrainian grain have further worsened this region’s plight. As China’s population falls and India’s birth rate decelerates, Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Congo will become the demographic behemoths of the 21st century. The young people from these regions will become a significant portion of the global workforce, as the continent’s population nearly doubles to about 2.5 billion by 2050, at which point more than half of Africa’s citizens will be under 25 years old.
If these young people are to be an asset rather than a burden, these rapidly growing countries will need assistance in sustainably expanding their economies and providing world-class education. Continent-wide economic growth, at around 3 percent, remains way too sluggish to even begin lifting these nations out of poverty — despite Africa’s immense mineral and agricultural resources.
For Sahel states, the distances are too impossibly vast and the resources too thinly spread for much of this strategically crucial yet desperately impoverished region to ever enjoy stability without copious and sustained international support, cultivating effective governance, facilitating long-term stability and conferring modern amenities upon far-flung, long-forgotten communities so that they do not seek succor from bloodthirsty terrorists. Meanwhile, climate change and over-farming cause millions of hectares of Sahel territories to be progressively lost to inexorable desertification.
Demographics dictate that this is to be an Africa-led 21st century. Yet it is up to the international community whether fragile Sahel states will constitute a bountiful breadbasket for exporting resources or a broken basket case for exporting terrorism and instability.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.