Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on December 20-21/2023
Video/Embracing the True Spirit of Christmas: A Call for Forgiveness and Reconciliation/مع روحية الميلاد دعوة للغفران والمسامحة
Video & Text/Embracing the True Spirit of Christmas: A Call for Forgiveness and Reconciliation/مع روحية الميلاد دعوة للغفران والمسامحة
Iran and Hezbollah Conduct Cyberattack on Israeli Hospital
Hezbollah pays growing price in Mideast conflict
US charges alleged Hezbollah member over 1994 Argentina bombing
Indictment against high-ranking Hezbollah figure says he helped plan deadly 1994 Argentina bombing
Heavy Israeli raids rock southern Lebanon
Report: Berri blamed Colonna for 'reprehensible' support for Israel
Border skirmishes: Latest developments
Berri says army chief 'consensus' can apply to presidency
Bou Saab says Berri will focus on presidential crisis after holidays
Doha to launch new presidential initiative in early 2024
Rahi meets US Ambassador on farewell visit, receives Papal Ambassador
The European Union commits an additional 40 Million euros to the education sector in Lebanon
Kataeb Foreign Affairs Department hosts Christmas gathering for foreign diplomats
Berri broaches developments with Bou Saab, meets Private School Teachers' Syndicate delegation, receives parliamentary dictionary
Mikati meets Frangieh and U.S. Ambassador, holds talks with Acting General Security Director
Bridging the gap: Proposals and challenges surrounding Resolution 1701
Joyful 'defiance': A festive rebellion 'unfolds' in Lebanon, showcasing holiday spirit amid southern conflict
Diplomatic activity unfolds in Bkerke
Lebanese luminary: Professor Niveen Khashab wins 2023 Great Arab Minds Award in Natural Science
Nicolas Lerner replaces Bernard Emie, Former Lead in Lebanon-Israel deescalation, as Head of France's Foreign Intelligence
PSP seeks naming of chief of staff as Mikati-Slim tensions resurface

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2023
10 Things to Know About Hamas and Qatar
IDF Eliminates Hamas Financier
Israel uncovers major Hamas command center in Gaza City as cease-fire talks gain momentum
Hopes rise for Israel-Hamas truce deal as Gaza toll hits 20,000
US defense secretary makes unannounced visit to aircraft carrier defending Israel
Hamas leader visits Cairo, a sign talks on another Gaza truce and hostage swap are gathering pace
Israel's top diplomat wants to fast-track humanitarian aid to Gaza via maritime corridor from Cyprus
Cameron presses for increased flow of aid to Gaza during Middle East visit
Blinken says US wants Israel to shift to targeted operations in Gaza focusing on Hamas leadership
Iran hangs child bride for murdering husband despite UK pressure
Malaysia bans Israeli ships from docking for ‘continuous cruelty’ against Palestinians
UN resolution on Gaza hampered by issues important to US: cessation of hostilities and aid monitors
US defense secretary visits aircraft carrier, hails 'lynchpin' of Middle East deterrence
Even without new Russian jets, Iran's aging air force could still win home-field advantage in a regional war
The US has a game plan for the Ukraine war which rests on Kyiv holding out until 2025: report
Russians ‘hastening attacks’ on eastern fronts, says Ukrainian military
Turkiye says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2023
Can Saudi Arabia Forge an Israel-Palestine Peace?/Haisam Hassanein/The National Interest/December 20/2023
China's "Unrestricted Warfare" Against the US/Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/December 20, 2023
Will anyone have the courage to sanction Israel?/Daoud Kuttab/Arab News/December 20, 2023
Global progress is in peril/Angus Deaton/Arab News/December 20, 2023
Is America sleepwalking into dictatorship?/Dr. Amal Mudallali/Arab News/December 20, 2023
France’s regional influence on the rise/Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/December 20, 2023
Why attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Red Sea shipping pose a clear and present danger to Israel/Rebecca Anne Proctor/Arab News/December 20, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published oon December 20-21/2023
Video/Embracing the True Spirit of Christmas: A Call for Forgiveness and Reconciliation/مع روحية الميلاد دعوة للغفران والمسامحة
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9L3K1BI8PQ&t=1s

Video & Text/Embracing the True Spirit of Christmas: A Call for Forgiveness and Reconciliation/مع روحية الميلاد دعوة للغفران والمسامحة
Elias Bejjani/December 19/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/125288/125288/
As we approach the commemoration of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine God who was incarnated for our sake, taking what is ours and giving us what is His, it is not only our duty but a profound obligation to extend our hands to those with whom we are at odds. Specifically, within our families, it becomes imperative to reconcile, forgive, and seek forgiveness from those we may be estranged from. The true essence of celebrating Christmas remains elusive unless we forgive, reconcile, and extend forgiveness to those with whom we have disagreements, particularly within our families.
Celebrating Christmas cannot be genuine unless we forgive, reconcile, and extend forgiveness to those with whom we have any form of discord. It is a call to action, mirroring the spirit of the season, and a reflection of the teachings of the Lord, whose birth we commemorate. Just as He embraced humanity with love and forgiveness, let us emulate His example by reaching out to those we may be in conflict with, especially within our own families, to foster unity, understanding, and the true spirit of Christmas.”
As the festive season envelops us in a warm embrace of twinkling lights, festive tunes, and the tantalizing aroma of holiday treats, it is imperative that we take a moment to reflect on the essence of Christmas beyond the glittering façade of festivities. Beyond the gifts and the feasts lies a profound spirit—one of love, caring, and most importantly, forgiveness.
In a world often marred by discord and strife, Christmas serves as a poignant reminder of the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is a time to mend fractured relationships, heal old wounds, and extend the hand of forgiveness to those who may have wronged us. Yet, in the midst of the jingling bells and joyful carols, it is disheartening to witness a paradox—a hypocrisy that threatens to undermine the very essence of this joyous season.
Celebrating Christmas without embracing the spirit of forgiveness is akin to adorning a festive garb while wearing a mask of indifference. The lights may sparkle, the carols may resonate, but the true meaning of Christmas remains elusive without a genuine commitment to fostering love and reconciliation. It is a call to action, a challenge to peel away the layers of resentment and pride that separate us from those we hold dear.
One of the most poignant scenarios that demand our attention is the estrangement within families. How often do fathers remain distant from children, siblings harbor grudges, and fractures persist in the very foundation of what should be a sanctuary of love? The season of Christmas beckons fathers to approach their estranged family members, to bridge the gaps that time and bitterness have forged. It is an opportunity to extend the olive branch, to rebuild the bonds that may have been strained by misunderstandings and grievances.
Similarly, the call extends to the younger generation—children who may find themselves distanced from their parents. The spirit of forgiveness is not a one-way street; it requires both parties to be willing to let go of past hurts and open their hearts to reconciliation. Children, too, must find the courage to approach their parents, to initiate conversations that transcend grievances and foster understanding. It is a chance to rediscover the warmth of familial love and the joy that comes from rebuilding connections.
Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness; it is a testament to the strength of the human spirit. It is a gift we give ourselves and others, a balm that soothes the wounds of the past and paves the way for a brighter, more harmonious future. As we gather around the Christmas tree, let us remember that the true ornament of this season is not the tinsel or baubles but the bonds of love and forgiveness that weave a tapestry of warmth and unity.
In this Christmas season of giving, let us give the invaluable gift of forgiveness—to our family members, friends, and even to ourselves. Let the spirit of Christmas be a catalyst for reconciliation, a force that transcends differences and fosters a renewed sense of togetherness. In doing so, we honor the true essence of Christmas and create a legacy of love and forgiveness that will resonate far beyond the twinkling lights and festive melodies.

Iran and Hezbollah Conduct Cyberattack on Israeli Hospital
FDD/December 20/2023
The Israeli National Cyber Directorate confirmed on December 18 that Iran was responsible for a cyberattack on an Israeli hospital in late November. The hackers, working on behalf of Iranian intelligence and led by Hezbollah operatives, penetrated the Ziv Medical Center’s information system, stealing patient records and forcing the hospital to temporarily revert to non-electronic records. The hackers boasted that they stole 500 gigabytes of data, including 100,000 health records of Israeli soldiers. The hackers intended to undermine patient care, the directorate warned. Combined action by the hospital and Israeli security forces, however, prevented the hackers from compromising medical equipment.
Expert Analysis
“FBI Director Christopher Wray warned back in October that Iran might launch cyberattacks on critical infrastructure as the Israel-Hamas war continued, and that is exactly what we are seeing. The regime in Tehran is attempting to compromise American and Israeli companies because it knows that cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure can undermine public confidence and Israel’s ability to mobilize and flow military forces. Iranian hackers have so far been unable to cause significant disruptions, but a more forceful response in cyberspace is needed to send a clearer message to Tehran to change course.” — RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, Senior Director of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and FDD Senior Fellow
“Cyberattacks on healthcare systems not only affect patient privacy and the hospital’s financial well-being. They can directly affect patient care and outcomes. When hospitals must operate at a degraded level because they do not have access to electronic records, mortality rates rise, waiting room times lengthen, and some patients go unseen. Quick incident response by the Israeli hospital staff and Israeli government operatives ensured the hackers did not succeed in their ultimate goal and provides a model of public-private collaboration that U.S. critical healthcare infrastructure can, and should, emulate.” — Michael Sugden, Research Analyst and Editorial Associate at FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation
Cyberattacks on Israel Skyrocket During the War
Cyberattacks against Israel have increased in frequency, intensity, and sophistication since the war began, according to cybersecurity firm Check Point. In recent weeks, pro-Hamas operatives and Iranian hacktivists and government-backed groups have also increased attacks against perceived allies of Israel. An Israeli group also reportedly launched retaliatory cyberattacks, temporarily disrupting the operation of gas stations in Iran. The group claimed to have conducted a “controlled” attack that avoided disrupting emergency services.
Iran Attacks American Critical Infrastructure
Iran has a long history of attacking critical infrastructure. Its first cyber operations over a decade ago included a destructive attack on Saudi Aramco and disruptive attacks on the U.S. financial system. Iran attempted to poison Israel’s water system in 2020. Two years ago, Iranian hackers targeted Boston Children’s Hospital in what FBI Director Chris Wray called “one of the most despicable cyberattacks.” And earlier this month, the FBI confirmed that Iranian hackers compromised as many as 10 small water utilities across the United States. The U.S. intelligence community has warned that Iran’s “growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations” makes its operatives a “major threat” to U.S. and allied critical infrastructure.

Hezbollah pays growing price in Mideast conflict
BEIRUT (Reuters)/December 20, 2023Hezbollah is paying a growing price in weeks of hostilities with Israel that have killed more than 100 of its fighters, but does not foresee all-out war even as the toll increases and the conflict grinds on, sources familiar with its thinking say. The Lebanese group backed by Iran buried six more of its fighters on Wednesday, their coffins draped in its yellow flag. They were the latest to die in its deadliest confrontation with Israel since they went to war in 2006. Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel at the border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, igniting a conflict that has drawn in the heavily armed group and other Iran-aligned factions across the Middle East. But the violence has largely been contained to areas at the border, shaped by what observers have called unwritten rules of engagement between adversaries that have long threatened each other with catastrophic damage in the event of war. Speaking at a funeral in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah official Sheikh Yousef Srour said the group had taken "an oath to support the Gaza front" to the end and to reduce the pressure on it "as much as possible".
But Hezbollah was acting in a way that "does not detonate the situation in general", he told Reuters. One of the sources familiar with Hezbollah thinking said "the rules" governing this confrontation "still stand", speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The assessment was echoed by two other sources. "When Israel goes a bit deeper, Hezbollah goes a bit deeper, and that's where the matter stops," the source said. The Israeli military declined to respond to Reuters questions for this story. "The southern front is governed by undeclared rules of engagement but with any big mistake, matters can spin out of control into total war," Nabil Boumonsef, deputy editor-in-chief at Lebanon's Annahar newspaper, said. Israel has said it is not seeking to open a front in the north. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Beirut would be turned "into Gaza" if Hezbollah started an all-out war.
But with more than 80,000 Israelis having fled towns and villages in the north, Israel has also said it wants to see Hezbollah pushed back from the border in line with a U.N. resolution that ended the 2006 war. "We will bring back the residents of the north to their homes on the border after full security will be restored. We prefer to do so via understanding, ensuring that the border region is clear of terrorists and does not allow the direct threats of our citizens," Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Dec. 18.
"If such a process will not be implemented diplomatically, we will not hesitate to act," he said. Tens of thousands of Lebanese have also fled the border area.
U.S. DOESN'T WANT WIDER WAR
Standing alongside Gallant, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States did not want to see the conflict widen into "a larger war or a regional war"."We call upon Hezbollah to make sure that they don't do things that would provoke a wider conflict," he said. Other Hezbollah funerals took place on Wednesday in villages just metres from the Israeli border. Hezbollah fighters in combat fatigues congregated around coffins in scenes unimaginable when the adversaries were waging all-out war in 2006. The funerals were broadcast by the group's al-Manar television. Hezbollah lost 269 fighters in the 2006 conflict.
The ferocity of the exchanges has oscillated. The violence stopped completely during a week-long ceasefire in Gaza, and resumed when it collapsed. On Dec. 10 - one of the worst days yet - Hezbollah launched explosive drones and its powerful "burkan" (volcano) rockets at Israeli positions and Israeli airstrikes rocked south Lebanon, destroying five homes in one town. Hezbollah says the flight of Israelis from the area is an accomplishment of its campaign, and that its attacks have kept the Israeli army busy on a second front as the Gaza war wages. In Lebanon, some 18 civilians have been killed. In Israel, the hostilities have killed at least seven soldiers and four civilians. Hezbollah's dead include members of its elite Radwan force. The source familiar with Hezbollah thinking said the conflict has been like a "live manoeuvre" for the group, with lessons for any future war, but at "a price".

US charges alleged Hezbollah member over 1994 Argentina bombing
NEW YORK (Reuters)/December 20, 2023 A U.S. court on Wednesday unsealed an indictment charging an alleged senior Hezbollah operative with terrorism charges, in part for coordinating a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Samuel Salman El Reda, 58, had coordinated Hezbollah's activities in South America, Asia and Lebanon since 1993. The Iran-backed, heavily armed Shi'ite group is part of Lebanon's coalition government. Prosecutors said El Reda is based in Lebanon and remains at large. The U.S. State Department in 2019 sanctioned El Reda and offered a $7 million reward for information on his whereabouts.Argentina also blames Hezbollah for a 1992 attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people.

Indictment against high-ranking Hezbollah figure says he helped plan deadly 1994 Argentina bombing
NEW YORK (AP)/Wed, December 20, 2023 
A high-ranking member of Hezbollah's Islamic Jihad Organization was charged with terrorism offenses, including the bombing of a building in Argentina in 1994 that killed 85 people, in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. Samuel Salman El Reda, 58, who remains at large and is believed to be in Lebanon, was described by federal authorities as the leader of terrorist activity carried out by Hezbollah since at least 1993. From 1993 to 2015, he conspired to support terrorists in Lebanon, Argentina, Panama, Thailand and elsewhere, the indictment said as it listed six aliases for El Reda, including “Salman Ramal,” “Sulayman Rammal,” “Salman Raouf Salman” and “Hajj.”He faces conspiracy charges and a count alleging he provided material support to a terrorist organization. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a release that El Reda nearly three decades ago “helped plan and execute the heinous attack on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center that murdered 85 innocent people and injured countless others.”The attack occurred on July 18, 1994, when the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was bombed, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds more. El Reda allegedly relayed information to Islamic Jihad Organization operatives that was used to plan and execute the bombing. In the decades afterward, he recruited, trained and managed the organization's operatives around the world, deploying them in Thailand, Panama and Peru, among other places, authorities said. They said that in May 2009, he directed an operative to go to Thailand to destroy a cache of ammonium nitrate and other explosive materials that the organization believed was under law enforcement surveillance. And, in February 2011 and in January 2012, he told an operative to go to Panama to surveil the Panama Canal and embassies maintained by the U.S. and Israel, authorities said. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said the Argentina attack was part of the terrorist operations that El Reda has led for decades on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Organization, the segment of Hezbollah that focuses on terrorism and intelligence-gathering activities outside of Lebanon. New York Police Department Commissioner Edward A. Caban said El Reda was the “on-the-ground coordinator” of the Argentina attack. Caban said he has since been “involved in plots all across the world.”The U.S. Department of Treasury designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 2001 and officials noted that the State Department in 2010 described it as the most technically capable terrorist group in the world and a continuing security threat to the United States.

Heavy Israeli raids rock southern Lebanon
Arab News/December 20, 2023
BEIRUT: Israeli missile and artillery attacks rocked areas along Lebanon’s southern border and the heart of south Lebanon on Wednesday in what observers claimed was the heaviest series of raids in recent weeks. Samer Wehde, a war correspondent located in southern Lebanon, told Arab News that “the ground shook beneath our feet.”He said that the Israelis appeared to be using new types of missiles, and added that the “terrifying sounds” could be heard in Nabatieh, Al-Zahrani and Iqlim Al-Tuffah. Israeli raids targeted the outskirts of Kfar Chouba, Kfarhamam, Salamiyah Farm and Halta in the eastern sector. The towns of Yarin and Marwahin, the outskirts of Naqoura and Labweh mountain, as well as the areas surrounding Mays Al-Jabal and Hula, were also hit. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said that it was targeting Israeli military sites, including Al-Abad and Ruwaizat Al-Alam.
The militant group said that five of its fighters were killed the past 48 hours, bringing the death toll to 113 since fighting began on Oct. 8. A security source told Arab News that the Israeli army used drones over the border area to track targets and control the field from the air. Israeli fighter jets carried out morning raids targeting forest areas between Ain Ebel and Bint Jbeil, along with the outskirts of Aita Al-Shaab, while Israeli artillery shelled Tal Al-Nhas and Talat Al-Awidah. Israeli drones flew over the villages of Majdal Zoun and Chama. In the second incident of its kind, the Israeli army targeted the funeral of a Hezbollah fighter taking place in the border town of Blida. Three artillery shells, fired from the Israeli military site of Al-Bayad, struck the northern outskirts of the town, landing meters away from the funeral of Hassan Ibrahim. No injuries were reported. The town of Aita Al-Shaab was targeted a few days ago during the funeral procession of a Hezbollah militant. Israeli spy planes flew over the border town of Rab Al-Thalatheen as mourners gathered at the funeral of a Hezbollah member killed by a drone-fired missile on Tuesday. A text message with instructions from Hezbollah to the people of the south, especially border towns, was shared on social media. Residents were warned to comply with the “regulations” in order to protect the party’s fighters “so that none of us will take part in direct or indirect bloodshed.”The Hezbollah message said: “Be discreet if you witness the movements of military or other fighters, as we are entrusted with their safety,” and warned residents against photographing missile launch sites. Sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee early on Wednesday as four Israeli interceptor missiles exploded above Blida. Israeli raids targeted the outskirts of Aita Al-Shaab and Ramiya, while Hezbollah targeted the Metula colony with two missiles. The Israeli army bombed an area near residential homes in the town of Aitaroun, with two shells falling on the outskirts of Maroun Al-Ras. Israel said on Wednesday that its warplanes bombed “Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including infrastructure and military sites.”Two missiles were launched from southern Lebanon toward the Israeli site of Metulla in the Upper Galilee, Israeli media said. Hezbollah deputy Hassan Ezzedine said on Wednesday that the group is still fighting along a front from Naqoura to the Shebaa Farms. “We are capable of deterring the enemy from its aggression, and we are mostly concerned about our homeland, Lebanon, its sovereignty, interest, and all the Lebanese,” he said. The violent escalation on Wednesday forced many of those previously unwilling to leave their villages to head to safe areas, especially the city of Tyre. More than 24,000 displaced people have registered with the Natural Disaster Management Department in the Union of Tyre Region Municipalities.

Report: Berri blamed Colonna for 'reprehensible' support for Israel
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
As France's Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna urged restraint along the Lebanon-Israel border in meetings with senior officials in Beirut Monday, Speaker Nabih Berri stressed that Israel before Lebanon must be urged to respect U.N. Resolution 1701 as it daily violates the Lebanese sovereignty by land, air and sea.
Al-Joumhouria newspaper reported Wednesday that Berri, a key ally of Hezbollah, has blamed Colonna for showing support for Israel and visiting an Israeli military base. "This is reprehensible," Berri reportedly said. Since October 8, the day after the Israel-Hamas conflict started, the frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating cross-border fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, which says it is acting in support of Gaza. Colonna met with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Berri, calling for responsibility and restraint a day after making similar appeals in meetings with Israeli officials. In Israel on Sunday, Colonna called on all parties to "de-escalate" while Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned that ensuring Israel's security meant pushing Hezbollah "north of the Litani River", some 30 kilometers north of the border, "either by diplomacy or by force". Informed sources told Asharq al-Awsat, in remarks published Wednesday, that Colonna warned the leaders in Beirut of a high risk of war if Hezbollah's armed presence south of the Litani River is not addressed. She said that Israel needs to guarantee a safe return to the residents of the north.

Border skirmishes: Latest developments
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
Hezbollah targeted Wednesday the Israeli Metulla post as Israel shelled the outskirts of Kfarkela and al-Naqoura. Israeli warplanes also struck the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, Kfarshouba, Kfarhamam and Halta. The Israeli army said it had targeted Hezbollah positions on Tuesday after intercepting fire near the border that wounded two reservists. The Gaza war has sparked fears of regional escalation and seen Israel trade deadly cross-border fire with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah joined the fray on Oct. 8 in support of Gaza. More than 130 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also a Lebanese soldier and 17 civilians, including three journalists, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, four civilians and seven soldiers have been killed, according to officials. Senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil Qaouq said on Wednesday that all the Israeli threats "will not change anything" and that Hezbollah has the upper hand on the border. Hezbollah "will continue its battle in support of Gaza, no matter the cost," Qaouq said. Hezbollah had vowed on Monday that any Israeli attacks on civilians "will be reciprocated", after an Israeli strike hit a building opposite a funeral procession for one of the group's fighters.

Berri says army chief 'consensus' can apply to presidency
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has told his visitors that the latest legislative session and its extension of the army chief’s term have proven that “without consensus nothing can be achieved.”“It is possible to apply the latest parliamentary scene to the presidential vote if there is a real consensus will among the parliamentary blocs,” Berri added. Reminiscing how parliamentary blocs had “refused to convene and sit around the dialogue table,” the Speaker lamented that “we could have saved a lot of time instead of wasting all this time.”“In the end, things can only work through following the choice of consensus, which would lead to the election of a president and the strengthening of the country and its institutions,” Berri added.

Bou Saab says Berri will focus on presidential crisis after holidays
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab said Wednesday after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, that Berri will be focused on electing a new president after the holidays. "I think that electing a president is a priority to Speaker Berri," Bou Saab said. Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October last year, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity. The Free Patriotic Movement ministers had been boycotting all cabinet sessions, including a session during which caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati signed a law passed by parliament that extended the term of army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun. Aoun's departure would have added another gap to crisis-hit Lebanon's withering and paralyzed institutions but the FPM said its lawmakers will submit an appeal against the law before the constitutional council, as it considered it unconstitutional. Tensions meanwhile rose between FPM Defense Minister Maurice Slim and Mikati over the military posts crisis. Mikati reportedly said that Slim was finished to him "since he came to the Grand Serail and started shouting.""The Prime Minister must deal with all ministers," Bou Saab said. "We need to solve the problem, not to complicate it."

Doha to launch new presidential initiative in early 2024
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
A Qatari drive regarding Lebanon’s presidential file will strongly emerge in the beginning of the year, a media report said on Wednesday. Qatari intelligence official Sheikh Jassem bin Fahad Al-Thani will carry to Beirut the names of possible presidential candidates, ad-Diyar newspaper said. The names “have been described as consensual and acceptable by the majority of political parties,” the daily added.

Rahi meets US Ambassador on farewell visit, receives Papal Ambassador
NNA/December 20, 2023
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, on Wednesday welcomed, in Bkerke, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, who paid him a farewell visit marking the end of her diplomatic mission in the country.The visit was an occasion to discuss the current situation. Patriarch Rahi also welcomed in Bkerke, the Apostolic Nuncio to Lebanon, Monsignor Paolo Borgia.

The European Union commits an additional 40 Million euros to the education sector in Lebanon
NNA/December 20, 2023
The European Union announced today an additional 40 million Euros contribution to the education sector in Lebanon to ensure that vulnerable children continue receiving quality education. This new support, which will be implemented by UNICEF, will help the most marginalized boys and girls aged 3-18 years in accessing education, by reducing enrollment barriers. The announcement was made by the Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon during a joint field visit to a public school attended by the Minister of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) and UNICEF Representative. This new funding will help the government in its plans to reform and modernize its education sector, and will contribute in particular to MEHE´s 5-Year Plan for General Education 2021-2025 and its Transition Resilience Education Fund (TREF). "I would like to extend my gratitude to the European Union and UNICEF for their unwavering support of the Ministry of Education's comprehensive five-year plan and its initiatives aimed at ensuring quality education for both Lebanese and refugee students. It is particularly noteworthy that these efforts align with the Lebanese Government's commitment to providing quality education to all children,” said Abbas Halabi, Minister of Education and Higher Education. “Our visit today to the Ghazir Mixed Secondary School is part of our ongoing efforts to monitor the progress of rehabilitation work. This school is among the first group of 26 schools that were rehabilitated this year, and I am pleased to inform you that UNICEF is working on an additional 80 public schools to be finalized next year to fostering a conducive learning environment for students across the country."Investing in education for all in Lebanon has been a priority for the European Union since 2017. More than 400,000 children in Lebanon every year now have access to formal education. With the European Union’s support, more than 4,500 children with disabilities also have access to adapted school facilities and inclusive education in 110 public schools. In addition, the European Union is funding the rehabilitation of 52 public schools in 2024, including equipping them with drinkable water and solar energy. “The school we are visiting today has been renovated and equipped to ensure an improved, inclusive, and uninterrupted learning for students, including children with disabilities.”, said EU Ambassador Sandra De Waele. “It is one of the eleven schools already upgraded with our support, out of 63 currently under rehabilitation. The European Union remains committed to supporting public education for all children in Lebanon, in light of the multiple challenges faced by students, parents, teachers, and educational institutions.”
“Schools provide a safe refuge; they are vital to improve the health and mental wellbeing of children. However, despite MEHE’s leadership to provide inclusive and quality learning opportunities for an increasing number of vulnerable children, many are still out of school,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Representative in Lebanon. “We are extremely grateful to the long-standing support of the EU and their commitment to the education sector in Lebanon as it is making sure that the costs of education do not prevent any child from attending school and that schools have what they need to remain open and provide an inclusive and safe environment for learning”.

Kataeb Foreign Affairs Department hosts Christmas gathering for foreign diplomats
NNA/December 20, 2023
Kataeb Foreign Affairs Department organized a Christmas gathering at the Kataeb Headquarters in Saifi. The event was attended by representatives from different embassies operating in Lebanon. The event was an opportunity to engage in discussions, and exchange views on the current local and regional situations. It was also an occasion to underscore the significance of safeguarding Lebanon and its people, amidst the prevailing pressures in the surrounding environment. The Kataeb Leader welcomed the attendees and briefed them on the initiatives undertaken by the Kataeb Party to safeguard Lebanon, its identity, and uphold the principles of pluralism, democracy, and public freedoms that distinguish it in the Middle East. These principles, he emphasized, form the foundation of the Kataeb Party's political program. Gemayel further elucidated the significance of a peaceful political process to rescue Lebanon amidst the current challenges.  He underscored the imperative of dismantling the dominance of illegal weapons over domestic decisions, allowing the state to reclaim its sovereignty and enabling the proper functioning of institutions. The event also featured remarks by Head of Kataeb Foreign Affairs Department Marwan Abdallah who warmly welcomed the attendees. He emphasized the critical importance of preserving Lebanon's friendships, expressing gratitude for their continuous interest in assisting and supporting the country and its citizens. The event was attended by Kataeb Leader MP Samy Gemayel, and his wife, Mrs. Karine Gemayel. It was also attended by Kataeb Lawmaker Selim Sayegh, Vice President of the Kataeb Party Dr. Bernard Gerbaka, Kataeb Political Bureau Members: Zeina Hobeika, Ghassan Abou Jaoudeh, and Joelle Bou Abboud as well as Head of Kataeb Foreign Affairs Department Marwan Abdallah, Head of Kataeb Media Department, Patrick Richa, Head of Baabda Kataeb Department George Jamhouri, Head of Kataeb Youth and Students Department Elias Semaan, and Head of Kataeb Elections Department Esperance Rizk. -- Kataeb.org

Berri broaches developments with Bou Saab, meets Private School Teachers' Syndicate delegation, receives parliamentary dictionary
NNA/December 20, 2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Wednesday received at the Second Presidency in Ain al-Tineh, Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab, with whom he discussed the current general situation, political and field developments, as well as legislative affairs. Speaker Berri later received Dean of Private School Teachers' Syndicate Nehme Mahfoud, and Syndicate Council members, in the presence of “Development and Liberation” Bloc MP Ashraf Baydoun, and Amal Movement’s Central Education Official, Dr. Ali Msheik. The delegation thanked Speaker Berri and the Parliament for approving the laws related to bringing fairness to private school teachers especially those who are retired, and approving the draft law for an advance of 650 billion to the compensation fund. Discussions also reportedly touched on educational affairs. On the other hand, Speaker Berri received from the Secretary-General of the Parliament, Adnan Daher, and the General Director of Parliament Sessions, Dr. Riad Ghannam, the Lebanese Parliamentary Dictionary.

Mikati meets Frangieh and U.S. Ambassador, holds talks with Acting General Security Director
NNA/December 20, 2023
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Wednesday welcomed MP Tony Sleiman Frangieh at the Grand Serail. The Prime Minister also welcomed US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, on a farewell visit as she departs Lebanon.Additionally, the Prime Minister held a meeting with the Acting Director-General of Lebanon’s General Security, Brigadier General Elias Al-Baisari.

Bridging the gap: Proposals and challenges surrounding Resolution 1701
LBCI/December 20, 2023
The US Senior Advisor, Amos Hockstein, will not visit Lebanon and Israel in the near future to continue the discussions on implementing Resolution 1701.Some US sources have indicated that what the Israelis proposed to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin regarding the establishment of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, with a depth of 10 kilometers, is merely another idea presented for discussion. This idea follows previous proposals for a buffer zone with a width of 30 or 40 km within Lebanese territory and another suggestion to effectively dedicate the buffer zone between the Blue Line and the Litani River, as stipulated in Resolution 1701, according to US sources. However, the proposals for implementing Resolution 1701 are assumed to be realistic, waiting for the situation in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah's stance on the matter to evolve. These sources suggested that the proposals should be realistic and executed by Lebanon and Israel, with the ultimate goal of achieving a permanent ceasefire. Furthermore, some sources indicated that the aim is to achieve a permanent ceasefire, not just a cessation of military operations, as outlined in Resolution 1701. Additionally, this should coincide with active international efforts to address Lebanon's reservations along the Blue Line and establish an arrangement for the Shebaa Farms and Kfarshuba hills involving all relevant parties, including the Syrian side. The sources also said that when this occurs, a buffer zone will automatically emerge between Lebanon and Israel, characterized by lasting tranquility. Consequently, a political settlement for the situation in the region will solidify peace along the Lebanese-Israeli border. However, discussions about increasing the Lebanese army's presence in the 1701 area without any regional political agreement will not yield the desired results in resolving border disputes and ending mutual violations.

Joyful 'defiance': A festive rebellion 'unfolds' in Lebanon, showcasing holiday spirit amid southern conflict
LBCI/December 20, 2023
In an attempt to keep their joyful nature alive, the Lebanese are trying to make the most of the holiday spirit, trying to defy all the odds amid the current regional tensions and finding "cheerful" opportunities to boost economic activity.
Always relying on the "loyal" Lebanese expatriates who still help their country despite everything, the Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport has witnessed some positive movement days before the Christmas and New Year holidays. From December 14 to January 9, 2024, reservations to Lebanon recorded a rate of 90 percent compared to 100 percent reservations last year, figures deemed acceptable under the current circumstances. Accordingly, the General Secretary of the Federation of Lebanese Touristic Syndicate, Jean Beyrouthy, previously affirmed that "we have steady domestic tourism in Lebanon," as well as tourism by Lebanese who are in the nearby region and those in distant expatriate locations. He affirmed that "despite the difficult circumstances, the Lebanese insist on coming to Lebanon and spending the holiday." In turn, the President of the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Cafes, Night-Clubs, and Pastries in Lebanon, Tony Ramy, had anticipated that Lebanon would welcome around 200,000 Lebanese citizens during the holiday season. On LBCI's "Nharkom Said" TV show, Ramy announced that restaurants and entertainment venues would be almost full from December 22 to January 2, mentioning, "The sector welcomes domestic tourism, and the restaurants are ready. Twenty new restaurants will be opened during the holiday season."He noted the economic challenges and asserted, "We are economic fighters in Lebanon."

Diplomatic activity unfolds in Bkerke
LBCI/December 20, 2023
Al-Joumhouria newspaper has learned that Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi will meet consecutively on Wednesday with both the Papal Ambassador to Lebanon, Monsignor Paolo Borgia, and the US Ambassador, Dorothy Shea. Religious and diplomatic sources told "Al-Joumhouria" that there is much discussion in Bkerke that has not yet been leaked. Diplomatic meetings have generated multiple approaches that have positively influenced new international and regional readings. It is inevitable that these approaches will eventually lead to executive stages, which can be translated into steps that have not yet been announced in more than one Arab and Western capital concerned with the Lebanese file. This includes the most intricate details, particularly those related to the situation in southern Lebanon and the major constitutional and political developments.
*This article was originally published in, translated from Lebanese newspaper Al-Joumhouria.

Lebanese luminary: Professor Niveen Khashab wins 2023 Great Arab Minds Award in Natural Science
LBCI/December 20, 2023
As Lebanon's brightest continue their many successes in various fields, a Lebanese talent shines once again, as Professor Niveen Khashab was rewarded with the 2023 Great Arab Minds Award in Natural Science for her remarkable contributions to the development, synthesis, and application of nanomaterials in healthcare, pharmaceutical, industrial, and environmental sectors. As an Associate Dean of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Division and Professor of Chemistry at KAUST, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanese Professor Niveen Khashab has more than 275 scientific research papers and publications in organic chemistry and nanotechnology. Her work concentrates on understanding molecular interactions and self-assembly to prepare and comprehend nano-assemblies. "Her significant work in the smart encapsulation of drugs, proteins, and genetic materials greatly contributes to the burgeoning fields of personalized medicine and anti-aging," said a statement. Professor Niveen's research centers around designing nanoparticles with variable porosity, which helps advance personalized healthcare by providing treatments "tailored" to individual patient needs. It is worth mentioning that the Great Arab Minds Award is a sign of appreciation, celebrating Arabs with work that contributes to building a brighter future for humanity. The award's recipients are presented with "limitless opportunities." Each year, the award goes to six individuals across six categories. At a value of AED1 million, the award is used to fund research and projects.

Nicolas Lerner replaces Bernard Emie, Former Lead in Lebanon-Israel deescalation, as Head of France's Foreign Intelligence
LBCI/December 20, 2023
France's Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Nicolas Lerner's appointment as the new head of the Directorate-General for External Security, succeeding Bernard Emie, a seasoned diplomat. The timing of this change is notable, particularly in light of Emie's recent involvement in efforts to deescalate tensions between Lebanon and Israel. Mere weeks ago, Emie engaged in discreet discussions during his visit to Beirut, meeting key officials away from the public eye. Among his discussions were dialogues with Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berry, representatives from Hezbollah, troop leader Joseph Aoun, and Elias Baissari, the acting director of General Security. Emie's objective centered on brokering an agreement to quell the ongoing border skirmishes between Lebanon and Israel.

PSP seeks naming of chief of staff as Mikati-Slim tensions resurface
Naharnet/December 20, 2023
Holding a final Cabinet session this year hinges on the possibility of reaching an agreement to name a new chief of staff and two military council members, governmental sources told al-Liwaa newspaper. The Democratic Gathering is exerting efforts to secure the appointment of the chief of staff before the end of the year and a delegation from it has visited MP Tony Franjieh of the Marada Movement, which has three ministers in the government, in a bid to facilitate the appointment of a chief of staff in Cabinet, the daily said. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has meanwhile sent a new memo to caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim, asking him to submit proposals for filling the vacant military posts. Slim responded by saying that he is awaiting the result of the appeal filed by the Free Patriotic Movement against the law that extended the term of Army chief Joseph Aoun and that he would be willing to help fill the aforementioned vacancies in the wake of that, the newspaper added. In the beginning of Tuesday’s Cabinet session, Mikati had informed ministers of the memo that he had sent to Slim two days earlier. “After Mikati recited the memo that he sent to Defense Minister Maurice Slim, one of the ministers suggested that a direct contact take place between Mikati and Minister Slim,” al-Liwaa said. “Mikati responded that the premiership cannot be insulted,” the daily added. “The moment Maurice Slim came to the Grand Serail and started shouting, I considered that he was finished to me and that from that moment dealing with him would become formal and through memos,” al-Liwaa quoted Mikati as telling ministers.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 20-21/2023
10 Things to Know About Hamas and Qatar
DOWNLOAD INSIGHT/FDD/December 20/2023
Qatar has enabled the terrorist organization Hamas politically and financially for decades. However, the tiny Gulf Arab state has successfully positioned itself as the lead negotiator in the Hamas-Israel war despite its lack of neutrality and ongoing support for terrorism. In fact, Doha hosts key members of Hamas’s senior leadership and has given an estimated $1.8 billion to Gaza’s Hamas-run government. As a designated major non-NATO ally of the United States, Qatar’s ongoing support for Hamas raises overdue questions as to whether Washington should press the Gulf country to close Hamas offices, expel Hamas officials, and turn off the financial spigot.
1. Qatar is a major Hamas financier
The former Emir of Qatar was the first world leader to visit Gaza after Hamas seized the territory by force in 2007. Sheikh Hamad, father of the current emir, visited the coastal enclave and pledged $400 million in support. Qatar has pumped an estimated $1.8 billion dollars into Hamas-run Gaza since then. Doha pledged $360 million of annual support to the enclave in January 2021, in part to subsidize government salaries. About a third of Qatari support is in the form of fuel that Hamas authorities sell for cash. Hamas also collects kickbacks from salaries and other aid flowing into Gaza.
2. Qatar blames Israel for Hamas’s attack on October 7
Qatar’s foreign ministry released a statement on October 7 holding “Israel alone responsible” for Hamas’s bloody rampage. The ministry ignored Hamas’s war crimes and accused Israel of violating international law. After failing to condemn the 10/7 attack, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Qatari emir, said on October 24 that “it is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill.”
3. Qatar harbors top Hamas leaders
Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of Hamas’s political bureau, resides in Qatar, as do Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’s communications office, and Khaled Mashal, Hamas’s former political chief and current head of the group’s diaspora office. On October 13, 2023, Mashal called for a global “Day of Jihad,” encouraging the Muslim world to “head to the squares and streets” in support of the Palestinian cause. In Doha, Hamas leaders live in five-star hotels; Haniyeh and Mashal are reportedly worth over $4 billion each.
4. Qatar hosts Hamas’s political office in Doha
Hamas opened a political office in Doha in 2012. Ismail Haniyeh currently serves as chief of the bureau. Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad al-Thani, Qatar’s ambassador to the United States, claims that Hamas set up its Doha office following “a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” An Obama White House official said there was no request from Washington, but the administration did not oppose the move either. A spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on November 5 that Doha has “no reason to close” the office if it can facilitate diplomacy. On Capitol Hill, Doha has tried to block U.S. legislation recognizing the Gulf country as a Hamas financier.
5. Qatar amplifies Hamas messaging on state-owned Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government and effectively functions as a media mouthpiece of the state. The network regularly lionizes the violent activities of Hamas, with particularly vitriolic coverage of the conflict during clashes with Israel. For years, Yusuf Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood cleric who endorsed the tactic of suicide bombings, hosted a program on the channel. After the October 7 attack, the network broadcast Hamas military chief Mohammad Deif’s call to arms. Al Jazeera also aired incendiary statements from Ismail Haniyeh and his deputy, Saleh al-Arouri. Haniyeh appeared on Al Jazeera praising Hamas’s “great triumph” and calling on “the sons of this entire nation, in their various locations, to join this battle in any way they can.”
6. Qatar backed Hamas’s political takeover of Gaza in 2007
Following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Hamas prevailed in the Palestinian elections in 2006. After a one-year stand-off with the ruling Fatah faction, Hamas fought a bloody civil war, executing some of its Fatah rivals by shoving them off buildings. Qatar sided with Hamas and endorsed its takeover of Gaza in 2007. It has provided political and financial assistance to the Islamist group in the years since while undermining the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank.
7. Qatari patronage has not moderated Hamas
“We have built relations with Hamas in order to maintain peace and stability in the region,” said Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahman al-Thani in November 2023. Yet contrary to the belief that Qatar could moderate Hamas and help stabilize the region, Doha’s support for Hamas has facilitated relentless violence. Under Qatari patronage, Hamas has fought five separate wars against Israel (2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2023). The group launched the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, killing 1,200 Israelis on October 7. Hamas leadership has remained in Doha, at the behest of the regime, throughout these terror campaigns.
8. Qatar was suspended by the Gulf Cooperation Council over its ties to terrorism
In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt severed ties with Qatar and imposed a blockade on the Gulf nation. Saudi Arabia said it cut ties to “protect national security from the dangers of terrorism and extremism,” while the UAE noted Qatar’s “ongoing policies that rattle the security and sovereignty of the region.” Both countries accused Doha of backing the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that gave rise to Hamas. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also demanded that Qatar sever all ties to terrorist organizations, stop funding those organizations, curtail its close ties to Tehran, terminate the Turkish military presence in Qatar, and shut down Al Jazeera and other incendiary news outlets funded by Doha.
9. Qatar hosts large numbers of U.S. troops
Despite its support for terrorism, Qatar has been named by the United States as a major non-NATO ally, with the country serving as a strategic hub for U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf region. Located 18 miles southwest of Doha, Al-Udeid Air Force Base hosts an estimated 10,000 U.S. troops as well as CENTCOM Forward Headquarters, from which the U.S. launches air operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In addition, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force and other foreign forces are stationed at the base built by Qatar following the 1991 Operation Desert Storm.
10. Qatar is attempting to play all sides
Qatar played a key role in establishing dialogue between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, resulting in a ceasefire and the release of Israeli civilian hostages in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners held for committing terrorism and other crimes. In an interview with a German newspaper, Qatari Prime Minister al-Thani said “We have built relations with Hamas in order to maintain peace and stability in the region.” Further, he did not rule out a future peace deal with Israel.

IDF Eliminates Hamas Financier
FDD/December 20/2023
An Israeli airstrike killed a top Hamas financier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on December 19. Israel accused Subhi Ferwana of funneling millions of dollars through a company to fund Hamas terrorists. “Ferwana transferred funds to Hamas’s military wing during the war and was aware that these funds would be vital for continuing the wing’s ability to fight. The funds were used – among other things – for intensification of military forces, the payment of terrorists’ salaries during the war, and to finance Hamas’s war activities,” the IDF asserted on X (formerly Twitter). The announcement of his death took place a day after the IDF also found cash for Hamas terrorist activities in a different Gaza residence linked to Hamas.
Expert Analysis
“Dismantling the Hamas terror funding nexus is a key element in preventing Hamas from investing in new terrorist activity in Gaza. While Hamas forces are being degraded and defeated in Israeli operations in northern and southern Gaza, the group continues to have an extensive support network abroad. This network includes its leadership, which resides in Doha and elsewhere, and supporters who send money to Hamas-linked entities. Eliminating Hamas operatives who smuggle cash for the organization is key to defeating it.” — Seth J. Frantzman, FDD Adjunct Fellow
“Hamas collects funds using various methods, including acquiring illicit resources through cryptocurrency and laundering money in nations like Turkey. Money men such as Subhi Ferwana play a crucial role in enabling the transfer of these funds, which are then utilized by Hamas to support its military apparatus.” — Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal
IDF Suffers Casualties in Gaza
The IDF announced the deaths of two more soldiers in fighting in Gaza on December 19. These included a soldier in the IDF’s elite combat engineering Yahalom unit and a soldier in the IDF’s 551st Reserve Brigade of commandos and paratroopers. Israel has now lost 131 soldiers in fighting since the ground offensive in Gaza began in late October. A total of 463 IDF soldiers have died in the war since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Fire Monitoring System Enables Precision in Gaza
The IDF revealed on December 18 that it has deployed a fire monitoring system, called Smash, that is used to precisely target explosive-carrying drones or terrorists. The sight enables soldiers to lock on a target and thereby quadruple “our forces’ chances of hitting their target,” the IDF said. The IDF developed the system more than five years ago and has updated it to a new version that has a lighter weight, the IDF noted.

Israel uncovers major Hamas command center in Gaza City as cease-fire talks gain momentum
AP/December 21, 2023
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military on Wednesday said it had uncovered a major Hamas command center in the heart of Gaza City, inflicting what it described as a serious blow to the Islamic militant group as pressure grows on Israel to scale back its devastating military offensive in the coastal enclave.
The army said it had exposed the center of a vast underground network used by Hamas to move weapons, militants and supplies throughout the Gaza Strip. Israel has said destroying the tunnels is a major objective of the offensive. The announcement came as Hamas’ top leader arrived in Egypt for talks aimed at brokering a temporary cease-fire and a new deal for Hamas to swap Israeli hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israeli leaders have vowed to press ahead with the two-month-old offensive, launched in response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas in October that killed some 1,200 people and saw 240 others taken hostage. The offensive has devastated much of northern Gaza, killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, and driven some 1.9 million people — nearly 85 percent of the population — from their homes. The widespread destruction and heavy civilian death toll has drawn increasing international calls for a cease-fire. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself while also urging greater effort to protect Gaza’s civilians. But in some of the toughest American language yet, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called on Israel to scale back its operation. “It’s clear that the conflict will move and needs to move to a lower intensity phase,” Blinken said. He said the US wants to see “more targeted operations” with smaller levels of forces focused on specific targets, such as Hamas’ leaders and the group’s tunnel network.
“As that happens, I think you’ll see as well, the harm done to civilians also decrease significantly,” he said. His comments were more pointed than statements by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who in a visit to Israel this week said the US would not dictate any timeframes to its ally.
TUNNEL NETWORK
The Israeli military escorted Israeli reporters into Palestine Square in the heart of Gaza City to show off what it described as the center of Hamas’ tunnel network. Military commanders boasted that they had uncovered offices, tunnels and elevators used by Hamas’ top leaders. The military released videos of underground offices and claimed to have found a wheelchair belonging to Hamas’ shadowy military commander, Mohammed Deif, who has not been seen in public in years. The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the army had located a vast underground complex. “They all used this infrastructure routinely, during emergencies and also at the beginning of the war on Oct. 7,” he said. He said the tunnels stretched across Gaza and into major hospitals. The claims could not be independently verified. Hagari also indicated that Israel was winding down its operations in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, where it has been battling Hamas militants for weeks. He said the army had moved into a final remaining Hamas stronghold, the Gaza City neighborhood of Tufah. But the army also acknowledged a significant misstep. An investigation into its soldiers’ mistaken shooting of three Israelis held hostage in Gaza found that, five days before the shooting, a military search dog with a body camera had captured audio of them shouting for help in Hebrew. Hagari said the recording was not reviewed until after the hostages were killed while trying to make themselves known to Israeli forces. The incident has sparked an uproar in Israel and put pressure on the government to reach a new deal with Hamas. The military chief has said the shooting was against its rules of engagement. The Israeli military campaign now is largely focused on southern Gaza, where it says Hamas’ leaders are hiding. “We will continue the war until the end. It will continue until Hamas is destroyed, until victory,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement. “Whoever thinks we will stop is detached from reality.”
CEASE-FIRE TALKS GAIN MOMENTUM
As Netanyahu vowed to continue the war, there were new signs of progress in cease-fire talks.
Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, traveled to Cairo for talks on the war, part of a flurry of diplomacy. In recent days, top Israeli, American and Qatari officials have also held cease-fire talks. “These are very serious discussions and negotiations, and we hope that they lead somewhere,” the White House’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, said aboard Air Force One while traveling with President Joe Biden to Wisconsin. Biden, however, indicated a deal was still a ways off. “There’s no expectation at this point, but we are pushing,” he said. Asked about the rising death toll in Gaza, Biden said: It’s tragic.”
Hamas says no more hostages will be released until the war ends. It is insisting on the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-level militants convicted in deadly attacks, for remaining captives. Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, said the efforts right now are focused on how to “stop this aggression, especially that our enemy now knows that it cannot achieve any of its goals.” Israel has rejected Hamas’ demands for a mass prisoner release so far. But it has a history of lopsided exchanges for captive Israelis, and the government is under heavy public pressure to bring the hostages home safely. Egypt, along with Qatar and the US, helped mediate a weeklong cease-fire in November in which Hamas freed over 100 hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of 240 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas and other militants are still holding an estimated 129 captives, though roughly 20 are believed to have died in captivity. UN Security Council members are negotiating an Arab-sponsored resolution to halt the fighting in some way to allow for an increase in desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. A vote on the resolution, first scheduled for Monday, was pushed back again on Wednesday in the hopes of getting the US to support it or allow it to pass after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
Mobile phone and Internet service was down across Gaza again on Wednesday. The outage could complicate efforts to communicate with Hamas leaders inside the territory who went into hiding after Oct. 7. The war has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people are crammed into shelters and tent camps amid shortages of food, medicine and other basic supplies. Israel’s foreign minister traveled to Cyprus to discuss the possibility of establishing a maritime corridor that would allow the delivery of large amounts of humanitarian aid to Gaza. At least 46 people were killed and more than 100 wounded early Wednesday after Israel bombarded the urban Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, according to Munir Al-Bursh, a senior Health Ministry official. At least five people were killed and dozens injured in another strike that hit three residential homes and a mosque in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah Wednesday, health officials said. The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel’s military says 134 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. Israel says it has killed some 7,000 militants, without providing evidence. It blames civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields when it fights in residential areas.

Hopes rise for Israel-Hamas truce deal as Gaza toll hits 20,000
AFP/December 20, 2023
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Hopes rose Wednesday that Israel and Hamas may be inching toward another truce and hostage-release deal in the Gaza war, following talks in Europe and a visit to Egypt by the head of the Palestinian militant group. While some talked of a truce, fighting raged and Gaza’s Hamas government said the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached 20,000. Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there can be no Gaza cease-fire until Hamas militants are destroyed, but the White House expressed hope that the truce talks can bring results.
“These are very serious discussions and negotiations and we hope that they lead somewhere,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. His comments came shortly after Netanyahu, under pressure from Washington and other allies over civilian casualties, reiterated his goal of destroying Hamas and said there will be no cease-fire until that is accomplished. “We won’t stop fighting until we’ve achieved all the objectives we’ve set ourselves: the elimination of Hamas, the release of our hostages and the end of the threat from Gaza,” Netanyahu repeated.
Late Tuesday he had told relatives of some of the remaining 129 captives held in Gaza that his spy chief was working on efforts to free them. He said he had “just sent the head of Mossad to Europe twice to promote a process to free our hostages.”
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. In response, Israel began a relentless bombardment alongside a ground invasion. Hamas authorities say most of those killed in Gaza have been women and children.
Netanyahu has faced protests from hostage relatives seeking an urgent deal to free the captives. “Every moment the hostages are there, is danger. They have no time,” Ofir Engel, 17, a Dutch-Israeli former captive, said at a press conference.Mossad director David Barnea held a “positive meeting” in Warsaw this week with CIA chief Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a source familiar with the talks told AFP, asking not to be named. Talks were ongoing “with the aim of reaching an agreement around the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for a truce and the potential release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons,” said the source. Qatar, backed by Egypt and the United States, last month helped broker a first week-long truce in which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. The Qatar-based chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on Wednesday arrived in Egypt for talks with intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.A Hamas official, speaking Wednesday on condition of anonymity, told AFP in Gaza that “a total cease-fire and a retreat of the Israeli occupation army from the Gaza Strip are a precondition for any serious negotiation” on a hostage-prisoner swap. A source close to Hamas earlier said the Egypt talks would focus on proposals including a week-long truce that would see the release of 40 Israeli hostages. Before leaving Qatar, Haniyeh met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian but no details were released. In Rafah, where fireballs and black smoke rose after explosions, residents expressed hope that talks would succeed. “I wish for a complete cease-fire, and to put an end to the series of death and suffering. It’s been more than 75 days,” said Kassem Shurrab, 25. Bassil Khoder, 63, said a cease-fire would allow displaced Palestinians like him to return home but it would also be good for Israelis. “The Jews are also our neighbors,” he said. “We won’t give up on them.”An AFPTV live camera on Wednesday filmed two bombs hitting Rafah, in southern Gaza where many of the territory’s estimated 1.9 million displaced have fled. The Hamas health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians when houses and a mosque in Rafah “were targeted.”
Crowds swarmed the rubble, digging with shovels and a backhoe to try to free the victims. One body, blackened and open-mouthed, lay under a bright blue blanket on the blood-soaked ground. “Enough, enough of this. We have lost everything and we can’t take it anymore,” Samar Abu Luli, a woman in Rafah, said after Israeli strikes on the city’s Al-Shabura neighborhood. The Israeli army reported close-quarter combat and more than 300 strikes over the past day, while the death toll among its own forces rose to 134 inside Gaza. It said “ground, aerial and naval operations were carried out on dozens” of militants and their infrastructure including rocket launch sites and military command and control centers in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza. They also found underground infrastructure “with water and electricity systems” during a raid on residences of senior Hamas figures in Khan Yunis, the military said.
The United Nations Security Council was due to vote Wednesday on a much-delayed resolution calling for a pause to the war after members wrangled over wording. The latest version of the text seen by AFP calls for the “urgent suspension” of hostilities.
The United States vetoed a previous cease-fire resolution.
Israel, which declared a total siege on Gaza at the start of the war, has since allowed in aid trucks through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and, as of this week, its own Kerem Shalom crossing. The UN’s World Food Progamme said Wednesday it had delivered food through Kerem Shalom in a first direct aid convoy from Jordan as “millions face the risk of starvation.”Fuel, water and medical supplies are also scarce, diseases are spreading, and communications have been repeatedly cut. An Israeli military agency, COGAT, said it had started laying a pipeline from Egypt to deliver drinking water from a mobile desalination plant in a project led by the United Arab Emirates. Visiting nearby Cyprus on Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen expressed support for plans to send humanitarian aid to Gaza from the Mediterranean island. “We aim to create a fast track for humanitarian aid to Gaza through this corridor,” he told reporters. The Gaza war has sparked fears of regional escalation, with exchanges of fire over the Lebanon border, and missiles from Iran-backed Yemeni rebels disrupting Red Sea shipping.

US defense secretary makes unannounced visit to aircraft carrier defending Israel
Associated Press/December 20, 2023
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin flew out to the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier Wednesday to meet with the sailors he has ordered to remain at sea to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spilling over into a deadlier regional conflict. Austin has been in the region to press Israel to shift its bombardment of Gaza to a more limited campaign and more quickly transition to address Palestinian civilians' dire humanitarian needs.At the same time, the U.S. has been concerned that Israel will launch a similar military operation along its northern border with Lebanon to expel Hezbollah militants there, potentially opening a second front and widening the war. At a news conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, Austin didn't say whether U.S. troops could be further extended to defend Israel if its campaign expands into Lebanon, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant seemed to tone down recent rhetoric that a northern front was imminent, deferring to diplomatic efforts first. Still, that leaves incredible uncertainty for the Ford and its crew, which Austin ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean to be closer to Israel the day after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. The aircraft carrier's more than 4,000 sailors and the accompanying warships were supposed to be home in early November. Using the ship's public address system, Austin thanked the sailors and their families for giving up their holidays because of the mission. "Sometimes our greatest achievements are the bad things we stop from happening," Austin told the crew. "In a moment of huge tension in the region, you all have been the lynchpin of preventing a wider regional conflict." The Ford is one of two U.S. carrier strike groups bracketing the conflict. The other, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, has recently patrolled near the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea waterway where so many commercial vessels have come under attack in recent weeks. Iranian-backed Houthis in nearby Yemen have vowed to continue striking commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones until Israel ceases its devastating bombardment of Gaza, which has now killed more than 19,000 Palestinians.
To counter the ship attacks, Austin announced a new international maritime mission Tuesday to get countries to send their warships and other assets to the southern Red Sea, to protect the roughly 400 commercial vessels that transit the waterway daily.
Since it left Norfolk in the first week of May, the Ford's fighter aircraft and surveillance planes have conducted more than 8,000 missions. The crew, Austin noted, has been moving at full speed — consuming more than 100,000 Monster energy drinks and 155,000 Red Bulls along the way.

Hamas leader visits Cairo, a sign talks on another Gaza truce and hostage swap are gathering pace
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)/December 20, 2023
Hamas’ top leader traveled to Cairo on Wednesday for talks on the war in Gaza, part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at securing another cease-fire and hostage swap at a moment when the militant group is putting up stiff resistance to Israel’s offensive. Ismail Haniyeh's visit came a day after Hamas fired rockets that set off air raid sirens in central Israel, a show of strength during a 10-week war that has devastated much of northern Gaza, killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, and driven some 1.9 million — nearly 85% of the population — from their homes. Israel has called on the rest of the world to blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organization, saying it must be eradicated in the wake of its Oct. 7 rampage across southern Israel that triggered the war. But the sides have recently relaunched indirect talks, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, aimed at instituting another cease-fire and freeing more hostages captured in that attack in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Mobile phone and internet service was down across Gaza again on Wednesday, an outage that could complicate efforts to communicate with Hamas’ leaders inside the territory who went into hiding after Oct. 7.
WIDE GAP REMAINS IN TALKS ON HOSTAGES
Despite a burst of activity by high-level officials in recent days, the two sides appeared to be far from an agreement. Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends, and is expected to insist on the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-level militants, for the captives that remain — demands Israel has thus far rejected. Egypt, along with Qatar, helped mediate a weeklong cease-fire in November in which Hamas freed over 100 hostages in exchange for Israel's release of 240 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas and other militants are still holding an estimated 129 captives. Hamas said that Haniyeh — who is believed to be based in Qatar but whose movements are rarely publicized — would discuss the war with Egyptian officials, without providing more details. Ziad Nakhaleh, the leader of the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which took part in the Oct. 7 attack and is also holding hostages, said he had also been invited to Egypt for talks and would travel there in the coming days. Egypt, which borders Gaza, is deeply concerned about a potential influx of Palestinian refugees, fearing Israel will not allow them to return.
ISRAEL SAYS ‘FINAL CLEARING’ UNDERWAY IN THE NORTH
At least 46 people were killed and more than 100 wounded early Wednesday as Israel continued to bombard the urban Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, according to Munir al-Bursh, a senior Health Ministry official.
In southern Gaza, several women and children were among those brought into Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis after strikes overnight and into Wednesday. A boy could be seen sobbing next to his wounded mother, who was laid out on a stretcher, before being lifted up and placed on her chest.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that Israeli forces were entering Hamas’ tunnel network in northern Gaza as part of a “final clearing” of militants from the region. The densely built urban north — including Gaza City, the territory's largest — has seen ferocious fighting, with Palestinian health officials reporting dozens of people killed in bombardment in recent days.
Gallant said that in southern Gaza, where the military launched a ground incursion focused on Khan Younis in early December, operations will take “months."
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack. Israel’s military says 134 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. Israel says it has killed some 7,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields when it fights in residential areas.
UN MEMBERS STILL PUSHING US ON AID RESOLUTION
U.N. Security Council members are negotiating an Arab-sponsored resolution to halt the fighting in some way to allow for an increase in desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. A vote on the resolution, first scheduled for Monday, was pushed back again until Wednesday as talks continued in the hopes of getting the U.S. to abstain or vote “yes” on the resolution after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call. France, the United Kingdom and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a cease-fire over the weekend. In Israel, protesters have called for negotiations with Hamas to facilitate the release of scores of hostages still held by the group. Israel says it will keep fighting until it has removed Hamas from power, dismantled its armed wing and returned all the hostages. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has called on Israel to take greater steps to spare civilians but has continued to provide diplomatic and military support for the offensive.

Israel's top diplomat wants to fast-track humanitarian aid to Gaza via maritime corridor from Cyprus
LARNACA, Cyprus (AP)/December 20, 2023
Israel wants to fast-track the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through a maritime corridor from Cyprus, bolstering stability in the region, the country's foreign minister said Wednesday. Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Israeli and Cypriot technical teams would spend Wednesday and Thursday hammering out the details of the initiative so that aid shipments from Cyprus' port of Larnaca, some 240 miles (385 kilometers) from Gaza, can begin as soon as possible. “Cyprus and Israel, together with other partners in the region are promoting the initiative for a secure maritime corridor to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza in an organized and well inspected manner,” Cohen said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Constantinos Kombos. Cohen was briefed on the initiative's details during a visit to the Zenon Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Larnaca, which will act as the operational center for the aid shipments. He also personally inspected storage facilities and security arrangements at Larnaca port. Cyprus pitched the idea of such an aid corridor shortly after the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas' Oct. 7 rampage across southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people. The war — now into its 10th week — has devastated much of northern Gaza, killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, and driven some 1.9 million — nearly 85% of the population — from their homes. Israel has called on the rest of the world to blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organization, saying it must be eradicated. Kombos said the Cypriot authorities have outlined a detailed plan for the “sustained flow of high-volume humanitarian assistance to the civilians in Gaza, through a dedicated one-way maritime corridor.”The idea is to use vessels able to reach the Gazan shoreline to deliver the aid directly after it has been thoroughly inspected at Larnaca port in the presence of Israeli officials and personnel from other countries. Cypriot officials have said that several countries, including Britain, have dispatched aid that is currently stored at Larnaca port. Britain has also sent a vessel to help with deliveries. "It is a commitment to commence now and evolve into what, we hope, will be a long-term enterprise," Kombos said. “Cyprus stands ready. We look forward to your green light for the first voyage.”Meanwhile, Cohen reiterated that Israel doesn't want to open another front on its northern border with Lebanon to stop Hezbollah rocket fire, but would not hesitate to do so if the international community doesn't act to stop the attacks. “A war in Lebanon can still be avoided," Cohen said. ”If the international community will not succeed in doing so, we will be left with no other choice but to take the necessary action." The Israeli minister also again ruled out a cease-fire in Gaza, saying that it would be a “gift” to Hamas and chastised nations that voted in favor of a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly calling for a cessation of hostilities. “Let me send a clear message to the international community and to the U.N. member states. If a terror organization celebrates your decision, it means you have made the wrong decisions. You are on the wrong side of history," Cohen said.

Cameron presses for increased flow of aid to Gaza during Middle East visit
Patrick Daly and Rhiannon James, PA Political Staff/PA Media/December 20, 2023
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has pressed for an increased flow of aid and fuel into Gaza during a visit to Jordan.
On his second trip to the Middle East since being appointed to the Cabinet post last month, he met Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, in the capital, Amman. The former prime minister is also set to visit Egypt this week, where he will make the argument for a sustainable ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Officials said that during his trip he will seek to progress efforts towards securing the release of all hostages by Hamas, stepping up aid into Gaza, and putting a stop to rockets being fired into Israel by Palestinian militants. Lord Cameron has said that, without Israel’s security being guaranteed, there can be no lasting peace or two-state solution. While in Jordan, accompanied by Middle East minister Lord Ahmad, he is also expected to visit the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organisation, a focal point of Jordanian humanitarian support for Gaza. The Foreign Office said that, while in conversation with leaders from the two countries neighbouring Israel, Lord Cameron will reiterate the UK’s position that leaving Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip will be a “roadblock” to reaching a long-term political solution to the crisis. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in a call echoed by Lord Cameron, has recently started pushing for a “sustainable ceasefire” in a move that appears to underline the West’s hardening attitude towards Tel Aviv’s conduct in the war. US President Joe Biden has warned that Israel is losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing”, with almost 20,000 Palestinians killed in the fighting, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Ahead of his return to the Middle East, Lord Cameron said: “This week I am making my second visit to the region to press the case for getting aid into Gaza and the remaining hostages to be released. “On aid, I will be seeking to build on Israel’s decision to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to ensure significantly more aid and fuel can reach Gaza, through as many routes as possible. “No-one wants to see this conflict go on for a moment longer than necessary. But for a ceasefire to work, it needs to be sustainable. “If Israel is still facing Hamas in Gaza with rockets and terror tactics, not only will a ceasefire not be sustainable, a two-state solution in the longer term will also not be possible.” The Conservative peer is expected to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who this week won a third six-year term in office, and foreign minister Sameh Shoukry while in Cairo.
Egyptian president UK visit.  Lord Cameron has previously met Mr el-Sisi, including in Downing Street in 2015 while prime minister. During his time in Egypt, officials said the Cabinet minister will visit Al Arish, near the Egypt-Gaza border, to see first-hand how UK aid is being administered. He will hear from the Egyptian Red Crescent about the impact the UK’s aid deliveries, such as wound care packs, are having in Gaza – the besieged territory ruled by Hamas. The Foreign Office said Lord Cameron will use the trip to welcome Israel’s decision to open the aid crossing at Kerem Shalom, a Gaza border point that lies at the junction of both the Israeli and Egyptian jurisdictions. Mr Sunak had called for the opening, including during a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week Lord Cameron announced a fresh batch of sanctions, targeting both leaders and financiers of Hamas, while also placing restrictions on Israelis responsible for settler violence in the West Bank. He visited Paris and Rome on Tuesday as part of UK efforts to help co-ordinate the European response to the Middle East conflict and the war in Ukraine. Israel and Hamas have been at war for more than two months following the Palestinian militant group’s deadly raids on October 7, which saw 1,200 people killed and more than 240 taken hostage. A week-long pause in the fighting saw some 100 hostages released in a Qatar-brokered deal, but an estimated 129 people are thought to still be held captive.

Blinken says US wants Israel to shift to targeted operations in Gaza focusing on Hamas leadership
WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters)/December 20, 2023
 The U.S. wants and expects Israel to shift its military operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase during which there will be more targeted operations focused on the Hamas leadership and its infrastructure, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Speaking at a year-end news conference, Blinken said once this shift happens, the "harm done to civilians" should decrease significantly, while repeating his calls for Israel to heed its obligation to minimize civilian casualties as it moves to destroy Hamas. "It's clear that the conflict will move and needs to move to a lower-intensity phase," Blinken told reporters. "We expect to see and want to see a shift to more targeted operations with a smaller number of forces that's really focused in on dealing with the leadership of Hamas, tunnel network and a few other critical things," he said. "As that happens, I think you'll see as well the harm done to civilians also decrease significantly."Israel has faced increasing pressure from its Western allies to curb a military onslaught in Gaza that has laid waste to much of the densely populated coastal enclave in retaliation for the Hamas killing and kidnapping spree on Oct. 7. Washington, Israel's closest ally, has called publicly over the past week for it to scale down its all-out war into a more targeted campaign against Hamas leaders and end what U.S. President Joe Biden called "indiscriminate bombing". "We continue to believe that Israel does not have to choose between removing the threat of Hamas and minimizing the toll on civilians in Gaza," Blinken said. "It has an obligation to do both and it has a strategic interest to do both." But he said he was also struck by what he described as an absence of demands by other countries for Hamas to lay down its weapons and surrender, and he called for pressure on the Islamist group to take those steps to end the war. "We hear many countries urging an end to this conflict, which we would all like to see. I hear virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender," he said. "This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that," Blinken said. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Jonathan Landay, Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Iran hangs child bride for murdering husband despite UK pressure
The Telegraph/December 20, 2023
Iran has hanged a woman convicted of murdering her husband, whom she married while still a child, defying British pressure for her to be pardoned. Samira Sabzian, who had been in prison for the past decade, was executed at dawn on Wednesday in Ghezel Hesar prison in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said. Her killing comes as concern grows over the number of people executed this year by Iran, where hundreds of people have been hanged mainly on drugs and murder charges, including more than a dozen women.
IHR said Ms Sabzian was a “child bride” who was forced to marry at the age of 15 and had been a victim of domestic violence. The Hengaw rights group also confirmed the execution of the woman, now believed to be in her late 20s or early 30s, saying that she was originally from the city of Khorramabad in the western Lorestan province. The British Government had called on Iran to spare Ms Sabzian’s life. “Samira is a victim of child marriage ... Iran must cease its appalling treatment of women and girls,” Tariq Ahmad, junior foreign minister, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.
‘Forced and early marriage’
Amnesty International said it was “horrified” by the reports of the “chilling execution”, saying the mother of two was “subjected to a forced and early marriage as a child”.The office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights said it was also “alarmed” by the killing. “We again urge Iran to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty,” it added. The execution has so far not been reported by any media inside Iran. Ms Sabzian was arrested around a decade ago when she was aged 19 on charges of murdering her husband and then subsequently sentenced to death, IHR said. She had two children whom she had not seen after her arrest until a final meeting in prison earlier this month, according to the rights group. “Samira was a victim of years of gender apartheid, child marriage and domestic violence, and today she fell victim to the incompetent and corrupt regime’s killing machine,” said Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam, IHR director. Rights groups have raised alarm over a surge in executions in Iran this year, with at least 115 people put to death in November alone, according to Amnesty International. “The international community must urgently call on Iran’s authorities to immediately establish an official moratorium on executions,” Amnesty said. According to IHR, 18 women have been executed in Iran this year. Rights groups have repeatedly said Iran’s sharia-based murder laws – based on a principle of “qesas” (retribution in kind) – fail to take into account potentially mitigating factors such as abuse or domestic violence in such cases.

Malaysia bans Israeli ships from docking for ‘continuous cruelty’ against Palestinians
Nicola Smith/The Telegraph/December 20, 2023
Malaysia has banned Israeli owned and flagged cargo ships from docking at its ports after accusing Israel of “continuous cruelty” against Palestinians. The ban, announced by the office of Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian prime minister, will prohibit any vessels heading to Israel from loading cargo at any port in the largely Muslim Southeast Asian nation. It is thought to be the first move of its kind taken since the beginning of the war in Gaza, which erupted after Hamas’s attack on Oct 7 in southern Israel. In a statement, the prime minister said: “This sanction is a response to Israel’s actions that disregard the basic humanitarian principles and violate international law through the ongoing massacre and continuous cruelty against the Palestinian people.” Malaysia does not have diplomatic ties with Israel but Israeli-registered companies and ships have been allowed to dock in the country since 2005.
These include ZIM, the Israel-based global shipping company, which was singled out in the statement as now being subject to the new boycott. Authorisation granted to it in 2002 had been rescinded, said the statement. Malaysia, like some other Muslim-majority Asian countries, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, does not recognise Israel, and it has long lobbied for Palestinian causes. Mr Anwar has personally championed Palestinian rights since his student days in the 1960s, and has been Asia’s most outspoken leader in criticising Israel’s offensive in Gaza. At a rally last month, he denounced the military action as the “height of barbarism”, and he has continued to express support for Hamas despite the threat of US sanctions. The prime minister recently told parliament, Malaysians should “unanimously back” the Palestinian cause. His comments have chimed with growing public anger in Malaysia over the Israel-Hamas conflict, with citizens marching en masse as part of protests against Israel’s conduct and boycotting fast-food outlets that are seen to have ties with the country. The sanction is thought to be the first move of its kind taken since the beginning of the war in Gaza
Analysts have also pointed out that Mr Anwar cannot afford to be seen as having weak views on the issue at a time when religious conservatism is rising in Malaysia and his ruling coalition is increasingly being challenged by a pro-Islamic opposition. Malaysia’s shipping ban comes at a time of mounting international pressure for a new truce in Gaza that could allow for increased aid to be delivered to the besieged Palestinian territory and the freeing of hostages still held by Hamas. According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, 19,667 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the war to date. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says more than 60 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged and more than 90 per cent of the enclave’s 2.3 million population uprooted. Israel has lost 132 soldiers in the fighting inside Gaza since it invaded the territory in response to Hamas’s October raid, which killed 1,200 people and saw 240 others taken hostage. A truce in late November mediated by Qatari and US diplomats lasted for a week before collapsing. A total of 110 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.

UN resolution on Gaza hampered by issues important to US: cessation of hostilities and aid monitors
EDITH M. LEDERER/UNITED NATIONS (AP)/Wed, December 20, 2023
The Security Council's adoption of a new U.N. resolution to spur desperately needed aid to Gaza has been bogged down by two issues important to the United States: a reference to a cessation of hostilities and putting the U.N. in charge of inspecting trucks to ensure they are actually carrying humanitarian goods.
A vote on the Arab-sponsored resolution, first postponed from Monday, was pushed back again until Wednesday as council members continued intense negotiations to avoid another veto by the United States. “We’re still working through the modalities of the resolution,” U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday afternoon when the vote was still set for 5 p.m. “It’s important for us that the rest of the world understand what’s at stake here and what Hamas did on the 7th of October and how Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats.”It was canceled as the U.S. asked for more time and is now scheduled to take place after an open council briefing followed by closed consultations on the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday morning. The draft resolution on the table Monday morning called for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities,” but this language was watered down in a new draft circulated early Tuesday. It now “calls for the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The United States in the past has opposed language on a cessation of hostilities, and diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private said this remains an issue for the Americans. The resolution also calls for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish a mechanism for monitoring aid deliveries to Gaza. The diplomats said this is also an issue because it bypasses the current Israeli inspection of aid entering the territory. The U.S. on Dec. 8 vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by almost all other council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. The 193-member General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a similar resolution on Dec. 12 by a vote of 153-10, with 23 abstentions. In its first unified action on Nov. 15, with the U.S. abstaining, the Security Council adopted a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, unhindered aid deliveries to civilians and the unconditional release of all hostages. The United States has repeatedly called for condemnation of Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attacks into southern Israel, and recognition of Israel’s right to self-defense, which have not been included in any of the resolutions that have been adopted – or the latest draft before the council.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said during a briefing with ambassadors Tuesday that Israel is “ready for another humanitarian pause and additional humanitarian aid in order to enable the release of hostages.”But Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the 15-member council, said Tuesday a new resolution had to go “a little bit further” than the Nov. 15 resolution. Security Council resolutions are important because they are legally binding, but in practice many parties choose to ignore the council’s requests for action. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, though they are a significant barometer of world opinion. Nearly 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry since Israel declared war on Hamas following its surprise attacks on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people — mostly civilians. The militants took about 240 hostages back to Gaza. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and its Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Thousands more Palestinians lie buried under the rubble of Gaza, the U.N. estimates.

US defense secretary visits aircraft carrier, hails 'lynchpin' of Middle East deterrence
ABOARD USS GERALD R. FORD (Reuters)/December 20, 2023
-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday, and thanked its crew for their role in helping prevent a broader conflict in the Middle East during the Israel-Hamas war. The nuclear-powered Ford, a small, floating city of over 4,000 people with eight squadrons of aircraft, became a powerful symbol of American resolve by rushing closer to Israel after it was attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Oct. 7. Austin has extended the Ford's deployment three times, hoping its presence would make Iran and Iran-aligned groups -- particularly Lebanon's Hezbollah -- think twice before joining the fight against Israel. "This carrier and crew are making history. Sometimes our greatest achievements are the bad things that we stop from happening," Austin said in an all-hands call broadcast over the ship's intercom. "And at a moment of huge tensions in the region, you all have been the lynchpin to preventing a wider regional conflict."He added: "One of our goals is to make sure that the crisis in Gaza does not expand into a regional conflict. And I think we’ve done a good job of managing that."How much longer the Ford stays in the eastern Mediterranean is unclear, as is whether it will depart for its home port in Virginia before Israel moves from high-intensity combat in Gaza to a more limited phase of the war to dismantle Hamas. Austin discussed planning for the transition with Israeli leaders on Monday in Tel Aviv, with an international outcry mounting over the high civilian death toll in Gaza. Asked whether the risk of regional war would be reduced when and if Israel shifts to a lower-intensity campaign in Gaza, Austin told reporters travelling with him on Wednesday: "If that happens... it's hard to speculate but I think it's logical that...we would see some reduction in activity."When Israel might start that transition is unclear and Austin told reporters while in Israel that he was not there to dictate timelines to the close American ally.
MARITIME SECURITY INITIATIVE
Until regional tensions subside, Austin must consider what more the U.S. and its partners can do to deter Iran's allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen -- all of whom are trying to impose costs on Israel and Washington over the Gaza conflict. In Iraq and Syria, U.S. troops have endured drone and rocket attacks by Iran-backed militia. Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen have disrupted global trade by attacking commercial tankers and container ships in the Red Sea with drones and missiles. On Tuesday, Austin announced the creation of a maritime security initiative to respond to the attacks and convened a meeting of more than 40 defense ministers, calling on them to contribute. Austin also met senior leaders in Qatar, which helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and is one of few countries with an open line of communication to both nations. U.S. and Israeli officials say the rapid deployment of the Ford and other assets after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war sent a critical message to Hezbollah, warning it of the costs of opening a major new front for Israel. Even so, experts say tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border are still high and Israel remains concerned about a possible ground incursion in the north. The Ford is the U.S. Navy's newest aircraft carrier. Its air wing has carried out more than 8,000 sorties, more than a quarter of them since repositioning to the eastern Mediterranean Sea after the war in Gaza began. Captain Rick Burgess, the commanding officer on the Ford, acknowledged that extending the vessel's deployment over the festive holidays had hit the crew hard at first, but that they were doing well now. "I think everyone went through a few days of just getting through it," Burgess told reporters. More than 3.5 million meals have been served on the aircraft carrier, and the crew has consumed more than 155,000 Red Bull energy drinks, the military says. "I'm honestly not sure what I find more impressive: That you've racked up more than 15,000 flight hours, or that you've consumed more than 155,000 Red Bulls," Austin said.

Even without new Russian jets, Iran's aging air force could still win home-field advantage in a regional war
Paul Iddon/Business Insider/December 20, 2023
Iranian state media has said the country will soon receive Russian-made fighter jets.
It's not clear when the jets will arrive, but Iran has long sought them to boost its aging air force. Even without new Russian jets, Iran may be able to gain an aerial edge over its neighbors. After years of rumors about Iran receiving Russian-made fighter jets, Tehran said in November that it was set to receive Su-35s in its first acquisition of foreign fighter jets in decades. Russian fighters, along with the training jets and attack helicopters said to be included in the deal, would be a significant upgrade for Iran's air force, which fields an aging fleet of aircraft, including US-made F-14s acquired in the 1970s. Even if the deal falls through, some analysts say Iran's current air force shouldn't be dismissed because of its advanced age. An analysis published by Shephard Media in November said that while Iran's fighter fleet might face a distinct disadvantage against modern fighters, it could still challenge a local rival, largely because it would likely be fighting over home turf and with support from the rest of Iran's military. The Shephard analysis said Iranian aircrews also have more experience than their counterparts in Arab Gulf militaries and Iran's anti-ship and air-defense missiles could take a toll during a clash in the Persian Gulf. Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk-intelligence company RANE, said Iran could probably have home-field advantages against an otherwise superior force depending on the circumstances and the "scale and scenario" of a hypothetical attack.
"A surgical stealth strike might readily overcome Iran's air defenses, but in the case of a full-scale conventional war, Iran's air defenses combined with its aging air fleet might be able to score a handful of combat successes," Bohl told Business Insider.
Bohl pointed to Serbia in the late 1990s when its small, outdated air force faced NATO air forces and "managed to still down a handful of American aircraft," including an F-117 stealth jet shot down by an antiaircraft missile.
Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military-aviation journalist, said many of Iran's outdated fighters — including US-made F-4s and Soviet-designed MiG-29As — were "powerful in their day" and had been kept flying through cannibalizing parts, reverse-engineering, and indigenously-developed components.
"The upgrades may be janky, but arguably, it's prudent to assume they do the basic job," Roblin said, adding that Iran's air force was otherwise outdated and would "struggle to achieve much" against the "world-class" US and Israeli air forces.
Ukraine-style air denial
When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, its larger and more modern air force was expected to overwhelm and destroy Ukrainian fighters and air defenses, but Ukraine's air force has survived and been able to deny Russia air superiority thanks to a combination of Russian missteps and its own ingenuity.
Roblin said the war in Ukraine showed how an "outdated air force sometimes can endure and impose costs" against a far more powerful adversary through "smart leverage" of their "planes' strengths without sacrificing them rashly and working the home field defensive advantage."
"Iran, like Ukraine, has a lot of surface-to-air missile systems and radar, which, if adroitly managed, can fence away hostile air-superiority jets and improve the survivability of aircraft," Roblin said. But the US and Israel are much better than Russia at leveraging air power, using long-range reconnaissance and strikes, stealth aircraft, and advanced suppression-of-enemy-air-defense capabilities. Roblin said that in air-to-air operations, Iranian pilots would probably face problems similar to those of "Ukrainian pilots who find they can't press home attacks due to being outranged by enemy fire-and-forget beyond-visual-range missiles.""However, I'd guess American and Israeli pilots may more aggressively close with enemy air assets than Russian ones do," Roblin added.
Bohl and Roblin both expect the eventual delivery of Su-35s to have a limited impact on Iran's overall airpower. Bohl said the jets "would ease some of Iran's defense problems by providing it with at least a limited number of advanced aircraft that might be helpful in deterring a limited air campaign."
Tehran might treat the jets as "something like prestige prize" and be reluctant to use them, in which case they may be "more of a diplomatic and political win rather than a defense breakthrough," Bohl added. Iran might also try to use its Su-35s "cautiously as a backfield airborne early-warning plane, much like it used the F-14's AWG-9 radar during the Iran-Iraq War," Roblin said. The Shephard analysis said that in a conflict with local rivals, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran's aircraft and aircrews, its air-defense and land-attack missiles, the proximity of the combat zones, and its ability to bring its navy to bear might benefit Iranian forces. Against better-armed and better-trained US and Israeli forces, however, Iran would face myriad disadvantages even if it had Su-35s. Roblin said the US and Israeli air forces had extensive advantages in training and support assets, adding that the Su-35's Irbis-E radar wasn't a stealthy active electronically scanned array radar such as those typically found on newer American and Israeli jets. The Irbis-E "basically lights up the aircraft to all observers in the neighborhood" when used at full power, Roblin said, adding that the US or Israel would probably "go out of their way" to destroy Iranian Su-35s on the ground and that it wasn't clear whether Iran could dodge those strikes as well as Ukraine.
While the Su-35 is a first step to modernizing Iran's air force, the 24 that Tehran is apparently receiving will only be a limited upgrade. "Given Iran's economic circumstances, the cost of even more 4.5-generation jets would likely be exorbitant, and the huge sums could be spent on military capabilities with a better-guaranteed bang for the buck, like ground-based air defenses, drones, or ballistic missiles," Roblin said. "Iran's air force and its tentative modernization look more useful, though, if considered as a defense against less capable regional enemies or even internal uprisings."
*Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

The US has a game plan for the Ukraine war which rests on Kyiv holding out until 2025: report
Business Insider/Wed, December 20, 2023
The US military wants Ukraine to hold out against Russia until 2025, per The New York Times. By then, Ukraine should have produced enough weapons to represent a serious threat, per the outlet. This could bring Russia closer to negotiating peace, the NYT report suggested. The US has a game plan for the Ukraine war which rests on Kyiv holding out against Russia until 2025, according to a report by The New York Times. This "hold-and-build" strategy could allow Ukraine to step up its domestic arms production capabilities next year to produce more long-range drones and missiles, the Times reported. With enough weapons, some in the US military think that Ukraine's army could bring Russia to the negotiating table at the end of 2024 or in 2025, the report said. US funding for Ukraine is running out, with about $4.4 billion left in support from Defense Department inventories, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed last week. The Biden administration will present one last aid package for Ukraine before the end of the year, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday, per Reuters. "When that one's done ... we will have no more replenishment authority available to us, and we're going to need Congress to act without delay," he said. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden sought to break a deadlock in Congress with a $111 billion assistance package to Ukraine and Israel but failed after all Republican Senators and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont opposed it, Reuters reported at the time. Meanwhile, Ukraine has taken steps to ramp up its domestic production capabilities by intensifying its production of howitzers, boosting its ammunition and drone production, and using local manufacturers whenever possible, Business Insider previously reported. However, it remains unclear whether that will be enough to make up for dwindling US and EU aid. Military analysts have warned that if US funding runs dry, Ukraine will lose against Russia.

Russians ‘hastening attacks’ on eastern fronts, says Ukrainian military
Voice of Ukraine/December 20, 2023
Russian occupiers in the east are rushing to seize new territories, but their plans are being thwarted by the Ukrainian Defense Forces, spokesperson for the Ground Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Volodymyr Fitio, said in an interview with RFE/RL on Dec. 20. “They are in a hurry. They started their offensive in early October, and at the beginning of October, more active combat actions were taking place on all fronts.” “Currently, they have short-term, medium-term, and long-term plans. However, these plans are constantly postponed because they forgot to include the Ukrainian Armed Forces in those plans, which will not let them do it,” said Fitio. The invaders have long been planning to capture Kupyansk and Chasiv Yar, but “for the third month now, they are practically stuck in the same place.” Fitio also pointed out that the occupiers have increased the use of drones on the Bakhmut direction. “The number of drones is higher. On average, the use of enemy drones on the Bakhmut direction varies from 30 to 50 units.”Fitio reported an increase in shelling in the Bakhmut area, to a level twice as much as on the Lyman-Kupyansk section of front. He added that there are continuous battles going on in the Bakhmut sector. Earlier, he reported that there were 62,000 Russian servicemen in the Bakhmut sector. Russian offensive actions are ongoing on the Kupyansk, Lyman, and Bakhmut directions, the Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Dec. 19.

Turkiye says its warplanes have hit suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq
AP/December 20, 2023
ANKARA: Turkish warplanes carried out new airstrikes Wednesday against Kurdish militant targets in neighboring Iraq, the Turkish defense ministry said, a day after Turkish and Iraqi officials held high-level security talks in Ankara. Turkiye often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkiye since the 1980s. According to a statement from the ministry, the fighter jets struck a total of 14 suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara, Hakourk and Qandil regions where the aircraft destroyed caves, shelters and warehouses used by the militants. Measures were taken to avoid harming civilians, historic or cultural heritage and the environment, the ministry added. There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the administration in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region in Iraq. Ankara maintains that PKK has sanctuaries in northern Iraq, where its leadership is also purportedly based. On Tuesday, top military and security officials led by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein met in Ankara to discuss security issues, including the threat from PKK, according to a communique released at the end of the meeting. PKK is considered a terror organization by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 20-21/2023
Can Saudi Arabia Forge an Israel-Palestine Peace?
Haisam Hassanein/The National Interest/December 20/2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qfLmZskOmc
Riyadh is trying to keep the door open for normalization with Israel by promoting a balanced dialogue about Gaza.
While many in the Arab world react somberly to news from Gaza, Saudi Arabia celebrates winning Expo 2030. Since the Hamas-Israel war started two months ago, critics of the wealthy Gulf monarchy have pointed a critical finger at the continuation of its annually state-funded entertainment festival. How, they complain, could the Saudis celebrate while Palestine is under fire?
Clearly, Riyadh is trying to keep the door open for normalization with Israel by promoting a balanced dialogue about Gaza.
Seemingly, the kingdom is giving Washington and Jerusalem the time needed to resume the plans they had discussed before the October 7 Hamas terror attacks. While official statements from the Saudi Foreign Ministry have sometimes been harsh, the government has avoided controversial actions (such as boycotting the Jewish State) or oil threats (such as those imposed during the 1973 Yom Kippur War). Instead, Riyadh extended the deadline for bids from foreign companies to build its first nuclear power plant by two months.
And why not? Just a few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia reportedly used an American-made interceptor to down a cruise missile launched by an Iranian proxy toward Israel.
Further, Saudi news coverage has been far more restrained than Egyptian and Qatari media. When Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal appeared on the Saudi-affiliated Al-Arabiya channel, he was given a hard time on air. In a widely watched interview, he was asked, “Would you apologize for what was done to Israeli civilians on October 7?” When he hesitated, the anchor pressed, “You say that this is legitimate resistance in your view, but what the people watched on Western TV screens was transgressions by Hamas against civilians.” To justify the massive Palestinian civilian causalities caused by the war his terror group initiated, Meshaal declared that nations don’t get liberated easily: “Russians sacrificed 30 million people in World War II against the Germans, and the Vietnamese sacrificed 3.5 million to defeat the Americans.”
Pro-regime Saudi intellectuals clearly blame Hamas. They fear a new wave of radicalization that could sweep the region, like what happened after the Second Intifada. Veteran journalist Abdulrahman Al-Rashed warned that “they are stealing your children for the tenth time.” He argued that many young Arabs these days are full of “blind empathy,” which could repeat what happened in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, where many Jihadists went in response to mobilization caused by inflammatory media coverage of regional conflicts. Indeed, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas, is admired in many corners of the Arab world these days, where he is described as having a “lion’s heart,” and some demand he “attack and burn Tel Aviv.”
To counter such narratives, the Al-Arabiya channel broadcast videos of civilian Palestinians mourning their losses, blaming Hamas for the deaths. Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera frequently airs clips of Palestinians glorifying their deaths as martyrdom.
Arab response to the ongoing conflict demonstrates a gap between two different regional camps—a traditionalist camp that seeks to ignite the masses emotionally and a pragmatic camp that seeks to avoid escalatory narratives. The latter should be the one with which Washington engages.
For decades, U.S. policy counted on Egypt and Jordan as the main interlocutors in any Palestinian-Israeli talks. But in recent years, both capitals have lost their places at the helm of Arab-Israel relations. This has opened the door for actors like Turkey and Iran to make mischief.
While Israel is actively dismantling Hamas, Washington should directly engage Saudi Arabia. This would create a new calculus in the Palestinian arena. Riyadh has relatively better relations with Cairo and Amman than Ankara and Tehran. Indeed, the Saudis would stand to benefit from Egyptian and Jordanian ground expertise in Gaza and the West Bank. Meanwhile, Saudi financial power would attract Palestinian loyalists who used to bypass poor Egypt and Jordan to get money from Qatar and Turkey—an important point for Palestinians, demonstrated by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh’s recent trip to Doha seeking financial support to achieve postwar aims.
Thus, direct Saudi Arabian involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to be the shortest route to a stable peace in the Middle East. First, Saudi Arabia has strong political and financial clout in the region due to its massive oil wealth and religious prestige as the birthplace of Islam. Second, the current leadership in Riyadh is heavily invested in countering extremism spread by the Iranian axis, which it sees as having hijacked the Palestinian question. Third, the Saudi regime is likely to help any future Israeli government sell a deal with the Palestinians to its own antagonized public since normalizing relations with the rich Gulf monarchy would help the economically ill Jewish state recover from the current costly war.
Clearly, a new Washington-Jerusalem-Riyadh entente is the best path to stable peace. Will U.S., Israeli, and Saudi leaders seize the opportunity?
*Haisam Hassanein is an Adjunct Fellow at FDD, where he analyzes Israel’s relations with Arab states and Muslim countries.

China's "Unrestricted Warfare" Against the US
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/December 20, 2023
The Chinese Communist Party, led by China's President Xi Jinping, has, over the years, by espionage, intellectual property theft, hacking, spying and militarizing artificial islands, initiated a bitter conflict between China and the US. China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific. Rather than fight a war, China apparently is hoping to envelop the US in Latin America by establishing Chinese-controlled ports and numerous bilateral Belt and Road Initiative projects in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina.
Is the US ready?
China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific. Pictured: Sailors and fighter jets on the deck of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy aircraft carrier Liaoning in the sea near Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on April 23, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images)
China is fully engaged in a multi-front war against the United States. This "unrestricted warfare" against America has several dimensions: technological, space, military, political, economic, digital, psychological, informational and diplomatic. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly declared a "people's war" against the US in a May 14, 2019 edition of the People's Daily.
The CCP, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has, over the years, by espionage, intellectual property theft, hacking, spying and militarizing artificial islands, initiated a bitter conflict between China and the US. CCP propaganda, however, claims that China is supposedly only responding to America's instigation of a "new cold war" against the People's Republic of China (PRC), depicted as a policy to "contain China's rise." The two all-encompassing themes of the CCP's offensive are China's Global Security Initiative (GSI) and a Global Developmental Initiative (GDI).
The GSI was fully unveiled in the September 2022 meeting of the "Heads of State Council" of the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Xi personally defined the GSI as a global alternative to "bloc politics" such as NATO.
China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific. China's proliferating ballistic missiles, tipped with nuclear warheads, appear intended as a checkmate deterrence against any sustained US-led effort to oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China already has a formidable array of weaponry based in its coastal provinces opposite Taiwan, to deter the US from engaging in armed conflict with China in the Western Pacific.
China also has more than 28,000 migrants who have illegally crossed the US southern border – many clean-cut men of military age, unaccompanied by family, who show up in groups. One cannot just leave China the way one leaves the US. It is difficult, therefore, not to suspect that these men have been sent by the CCP as sleeper cell saboteurs, waiting to inflict small but deadly strikes on American infrastructure, such as electric grids, airports, water reservoirs, communications towers, bridges, tunnels, shopping malls, apartment complexes, and so forth.
Recently a secret illegal laboratory, "filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice bioengineered 'to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus,'" was discovered in Reedley California when a municipal code enforcement officer saw a garden hose attached to a "building presumed to be vacant".
According to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, "They never had a business license.... The city was completely unaware that they were... operating under the cover of night." The lab, it turned out, was owned by a fugitive, Jiabei Zhu, who has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now active in more than 155 countries, was created ostensibly toward accomplishing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty, establishing food security. In practice, the BRI is assuring education warfare against the West, as well as presumably helping developing nations cultivate acceptance for the Chinese Communist Party model of governance. Many of the BRI projects have turned out to be debt-traps: China lends a developing country funds for a Chinese-built infrastructure project; then, if the country is unable to repay the debt, China offers to accept instead a port, airbase, rare earth minerals or other assets in lieu of repayment. China also appears determined to emerge as the world's leader in critical emerging technologies. China already is leading in some of these military applicable technologies such as: hypersonic flight, electric batteries and radio-frequency communications. One report claims that China already maintains a lead over the US in 37 out of 44 critical technologies.
In March and August of 2020, China threatened to restrict exports of life-saving medicines to the US.
Chinese operatives have been digging up genetically modified seeds in the US Midwest, for transfer to China.
China's war against the West also includes a massive effort to steal intellectual property from US and European research laboratories. This dimension of China's war is run by the CPC's United Front Work Department. The feel-good name of this CCP agency is the Chinese People's Association of Friendship with Foreign Countries. Its purpose is to facilitate the transfer of vital technologies and expertise from the West to China by creating an atmosphere of cooperation. This CCP front group's objective is to implement a global approach to acquire any defense-related data that might serve China's goals.
Beijing's intelligence collection activities include the "Thousand Talents Program," which recruits American scientists by offering research grants to study in China, and by using Confucius Institutes on university campuses to recruit talented students. The Thousand Talents Program ostensibly demonstrates to faculty and impressionable students the superiority of Chinese culture and why it is praiseworthy to embrace China's accomplishments. In reality, these CCP institutions seem, like TikTok, to be indoctrination devices, to program academics to denigrate America and support China,
An effort to close down Confucius Institutes in the US has apparently been ineffective: they simply changed their name and resumed operation. They are now also infiltrating children's education, from high schools down to kindergarten.
A darker side of these all-out intelligence-collection operations involves attempts to coerce Chinese-American professionals to cooperate with the CCP by pressuring them to return to China or threatening their family members who still reside in China.
There are, of course, many documented cases of agents of the CCP offering Americans "financial incentives" in exchange for "access" to people, information or both, as Peter Schweizer details in his book, Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win.
Theft of intellectual property also includes all companies in China being legally obligated to have Community Party officials embedded in their workforces, including in joint ventures of Chinese companies with Western companies. Such joint ventures are also required to transfer to the Chinese "partner" any privately produced advances in critical technologies.
China's theft of US technologies and co-opting of US human resources are also being aided by a vast network of digital hackers, described by FBI Director Christopher Wray as "a cyberespionage program so vast that it is bigger than all of its major competitors combined."
The diplomatic and economic dimension of China's total war strategy against the US involves establishing rival political and economic blocs such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS is designed to draw non-Western developing countries to align their economic futures with China's politically authoritarian planned economy model as opposed to the West's democratic free-market model. BRICS has recently expanded its membership, which now includes Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saydi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. China, the dominant voice in BRICS, projects a disingenuous benevolent image to its members as well as to the so-called "Global South," especially to impoverished countries in Africa. The ultimate objective of China's "Global South" strategy is to supplant Western economic and diplomatic dominance, and China is facilitating this goal by challenging the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.
China's face to neighboring states is even more threatening. Chinese diplomats display a coercive attitude toward the states of Southeast Asia with which China has conflicting territorial and maritime claims. This pattern of aggressive behavior is often referred to by critics as "wolf warrior diplomacy."
For example, China has exhibited belligerent behavior toward Japan, Australia and the Philippines. The Philippine government has accused Chinese "maritime militia" ships of swarming the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal.
In 2020, Chinese Coast Guard vessels rammed Vietnamese fishing boats in waters off the Paracel Islands.
China has also of blinded US pilots with lasers and buzzed US jets.
From ancient times, Chinese Emperors assumed that nearby states were tributary societies, using a China-centric pejoratively referred to as "nan yang," (South Seas/Southeast Asia.) Vietnam, for instance, was once referred to as "Annam," the implication being, pacified southern regions.
China's ambitious space program is also geared to create -- entirely separate from the US -- a rival constellation of global positioning satellites, a space station, and -- we are not making this up -- claims to territory on the earth's moon and ultimately on Mars. Beijing also appears poised to challenge the US in near-earth space by having launched an array of anti-satellite weapons with the capability of blinding America's satellites used collect and transmit intelligence. While the People's Liberation Army's Strategic Rocket Force is not yet on par with the US or Russian militaries in its quantity of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), in the South China and East China Seas, Beijing has recently upgraded its missile deployment with the DF-17 (Dong Feng) a hypersonic longer range missile. The CCP plans to produce and deploy hundreds more ICBMs capable of striking the US mainland.
Silos for China's additional ICBMs are already under construction in northwest China at Hami in Xinjiang Province and near Yumen in Gansu Province. China's growing ICBM nuclear warhead-equipped strategic rocket force appears to be intended as a checkmate deterrence against any sustained US-led effort to oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China already has a formidable array of weaponry based in Chinese coastal provinces opposite Taiwan, to deter the US from opposing an armed conflict with China in the Western Pacific. China's war against the US further embraces a prominent degree of deception. While US policy makers are gaming out strategies to limit China's aggression in the Pacific, Beijing is pursuing a policy of encirclement of the US. The CCP's overall gameplan resembles the Chinese game of "Go" where two opposing players attempt to surround each other. Unlike Chess, the winner conquers without seizing pieces; it triumphs by suffocating the adversary. Rather than fight a war, China apparently is hoping to envelop the US in Latin America by establishing Chinese-controlled ports and numerous bilateral Belt and Road bilateral projects in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Argentina.
Is the US ready?
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
© 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.

Will anyone have the courage to sanction Israel?
Daoud Kuttab/Arab News/December 20, 2023
Anyone observing the results of the war on Gaza can see that Israel has adopted brutal and indiscriminate policies that reflect exactly what the Israeli commanders wanted.
In fact, those in the Israeli political sector set the tone for the unimaginable brutality whenever they spoke. The dehumanizing rhetoric began with an Israeli army spokesperson publicly admitting that its airstrikes were “focused on maximum damage.” That was followed by the most harrowing statement of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said that Israel was “fighting human animals.” Then, so-called moderate President Isaac Herzog said all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza were combatants, not civilians, because they did not revolt against Hamas.
All levels of the Israeli political map made similar statements, including a Cabinet minister suggesting dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza — the first time that Israel has admitted what the world has known for decades: that it has a military nuclear program.
But despite the rhetoric and horrific results on the ground, Israel’s defenders, first among them the Americans, were still saying that Israel does not intentionally kill civilians.
Then the killing of three Israeli soldiers who had escaped from their captors occurred last week. Since the victims in this case were Israelis, the Israeli army admitted that they were fatally shot even though they had their hands in the air and were holding a white flag. The Israeli army has not investigated — and it is unlikely to in the future — the 20,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and it last year refused US pressure to investigate the killing of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Nevertheless, the Israeli army, under pressure from its public, held an initial investigation into this incident and came out with an important conclusion: The soldiers who shot at surrendering individuals violated the Israeli army’s standing orders.
No one believed that this was the case for 70 days, while Israel was shelling innocent civilians without even expressing remorse or admitting that maybe some were killed by accident. This leads all of us to believe that the killing of civilians and the destruction of hospitals, churches, mosques, schools and bakeries was done on purpose and on the orders of the very top military and political leaders. Proof. No one has yet been held responsible for the massacre.
But if the incident with the surrendering Israeli soldiers being killed because they were thought to be Palestinians was a turning point, the very next day the killing continued.
This time, two women who had taken refuge in a Catholic church in Gaza were shot dead by a sniper. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem called the killings an assassination and Pope Francis mentioned the two Palestinian Christian women in his weekly Sunday homily. Media reports state that the Vatican has been in constant touch with the White House, whose resident, President Joe Biden, is a devout Catholic. Reports from Gaza now hint at a slight easing of the danger, as the people in the area surrounding the church have been told they can move around until 4 p.m. each day.
Regardless of what happened to the Israeli soldiers and the women at the church, there is now publicly documented proof that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. The continuation of the war and Washington’s refusal to allow the UN Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire are contributing directly to this human catastrophe. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has explicitly stated that the gap between Israeli leaders’ promises of avoiding harm to civilians and their actions on the ground is huge. This is diplomatic talk for saying that the Israelis have lied to their American patrons.
International law has become a laughing stock and America has been exposed for its double standards.
Yet, despite the killing of civilians and the lying, the Americans are reportedly giving Israel until the end of the year to wind down their intensive attacks. This is unacceptable. The so-called leaders of the free world, who have clearly discarded any adherence to basic human rights and humanity, are giving the lying Israelis two more weeks to continue violating international law and their own standing orders when it comes to how they deal with Palestinians.
International law has become a laughing stock and America, which proclaims that it adheres to its human rights responsibilities, has been exposed for its double standards. Israel is not only committing war crimes and crimes against Palestinian humanity, it is also violating its own standing orders.
What started out as dehumanizing rhetoric is ending as a clear case of genocide. Will anyone have the courage to sanction such a state and force it to adhere to the basic principles set out in the Genocide Convention, which Israel and its neighboring countries have signed?
**Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist, is a director of Community Media Network. X: @daoudkuttab

Global progress is in peril
Angus Deaton/Arab News/December 20, 2023
It has been 10 years since I wrote “The Great Escape,” which tells the story of how human life improved over the past 250 years, particularly in terms of longevity and material living standards. But the past decade has been unkind to my overwhelmingly positive account. My observation that “life is better now than at any time in history” may have been true in 2013, but it probably is not today, even for the typical person. The question is whether this reversal will be temporary or whether it is only the beginning of worse to come. Do recent events demand that the basic story be retold?
It is all too easy to focus on current threats, while ignoring the past and discounting the longer-run forces that prevailed even in the face of terrible setbacks. But one must remember that we have an enormous accumulation of useful knowledge — more than any of our predecessors. It will not allow us to solve every urgent problem, but it is neither easily lost nor forgotten.
We should also remember how and why things got better in the past; how the desire to escape from poverty, disease and death brought steady improvements. Solutions were rarely immediate, but after the Enlightenment the triumph of reason over unthinking obedience and dogma increasingly produced reliable answers to questions old and new.
Still, while the long-term trends of progress are clear, history offers no support for blind optimism. Improvements in human well-being have repeatedly confronted reversals, many of them lengthy, and some characterized by unimaginable devastation.
Most recently, the World Health Organization estimates that COVID-19 has killed close to 7 million people — and possibly multiples of that number — many of them in rich countries, including nearly 1.2 million Americans. The pandemic arrested economic growth in many countries and almost certainly halted the ongoing reduction in global poverty.
Typically, after such catastrophes, progress eventually resumes, with the subsequent recoveries delivering health and wealth outcomes that exceed their previous highs. True, this historical fact offers no comfort to those who died or lost relatives and friends. Progress does not expunge previous horrors. But it does hold out the hope of better lives for the survivors and for subsequent generations.
A thousand years from now, or perhaps much sooner, the last 250 years may be seen as a bygone golden age, a flash in history’s panorama, an exception to the normal state of misery and early death. Recent events present a depressing catalog: slow or negative growth; rising global temperatures; resurgent infectious diseases; antidemocratic and right-wing populist politics; stalling globalization; stagnant life expectancy; and increased geopolitical tensions, particularly between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China. Are we returning to a pre-Enlightenment world ruled by priests and warlords or is today’s darker outlook just another temporary setback that will be overcome in time?
The single biggest threat to continued progress is climate change. Though we know what needs to be done, and though the required technologies are rapidly improving and becoming more affordable, national and international politics have not supported the necessary action. Opportunistic politicians can advance their own careers by opposing such a costly and sweeping adjustment and there are vast war chests — especially in the fossil fuel industries — committed to preserving the status quo. Even in the face of frightening weather patterns that are almost impossible to explain without reference to anthropogenic climate change, there is a real possibility that not enough will be done before it is too late.
Health threats will also remain central to the story of progress and its reversals. On the one hand, the positive story to emerge from the pandemic is about resilience. After developing vaccines with incredible speed, we achieved a relatively rapid economic rebound. Beyond the death toll and the still unclear effects of “long COVID,” the most obvious lasting damage was confined to schoolchildren, many of whom lost out on years of education. On the other hand, the negative story of the pandemic is that it was merely a preview of what awaits us.
I do not know whether to believe the positive or the negative account. Instead, I would simply stress the possibility that the future may have more morbidity and mortality than we have grown accustomed to.
Meanwhile, over the past quarter-century, national and international political arrangements have undergone profound changes, with right-wing populism spreading in rich democracies and threatening domestic and international institutions. Globalization, especially, has become a source of discontent. The fact that it helped bring about an unprecedented reduction in poverty has not assuaged domestic discontent in the rich world; it has inflamed it.
To many working people in the US and Europe, the world population’s great escape from destitution is seen as having come at their expense, by eliminating their jobs and hollowing out their communities. Even if the world overall is better off, the beneficiaries cannot vote in rich countries, leaving only those who have been hurt to complain that they did not sign up for such involuntary foreign aid. Similarly, while immigration from poorer to richer countries has helped millions leave poverty, many domestic workers in rich countries see it as a threat to their own livelihoods and status.
Whether such perceptions are inaccurate or overblown is beside the point. What matters, politically, is that the current great escape is not particularly popular in rich countries. A significant share of voters regard immigration and globalization as favoring a minority of well-educated, cosmopolitan elites. Working people who believe they have been harmed by such policies are thus tempted to abandon democratic arrangements that seem to be working for international business and domestic elites, but not for them. The risk now is that these side effects of the great escape will become so severe as to slow or reverse it.
In the US, a half-century of wage and income stagnation for the working class has been accompanied by a slow reversal of progress against mortality. Although Americans with a college education continue to enjoy reduced mortality, those without it have been losing years of life since 2010.
On a more positive note, since drug epidemics have come and gone throughout history, it is reasonable to hope that the opioid crisis will eventually recede, too. Moreover, after two decades of stagnation from 1970 to 1990, cancer rates have been falling, owing to declines in the prevalence of smoking and various medical and scientific advances. This positive trend appears to have some room to run, not least because the new knowledge is transferable between countries, several of which have participated in creating the science that is driving it. My guess is that “normal” progress in life expectancy will eventually resume, probably at a slower rate and with all the necessary caveats about pandemics and climate change.
As populism has risen in the US, China has gone from being a partner to an apparent threat. The growing hostility between the two countries has now reached a point that threatens international stability — and even international peace. Meanwhile, economic growth in China has weakened, partly because of COVID-19, but more importantly because of domestic policies and demographic factors.
A thousand years from now, or perhaps much sooner, the last 250 years may be seen as a bygone golden age.
The scope for serious miscalculation in the Sino-American rivalry has risen, along with counterproductive saber-rattling in both countries. America’s valid complaints against China have been exaggerated by politicians playing to populist sentiment.
Notwithstanding the cynical politics, we clearly cannot and should not seek a return to the era of hyper-globalization. We urgently need a new global economic order that can preserve and extend the great escape, but with greater care for domestic politics and for the well-being of non-wealthy, less-educated majorities in wealthy countries. To its credit, the current US administration’s policy agenda is directed toward this end and much now depends on its long-term success.
In retrospect, the 2008 financial crisis has had much longer-lasting negative effects than I anticipated. In the US, much of the population has lost confidence in capitalism and the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. The financiers who caused that debacle sailed off in their yachts, untouched, while smaller craft were smashed into flotsam, their passengers reduced to homelessness, joblessness and despair.
In Britain and much of Europe, the crisis was followed by austerity policies that devastated public services. With little to no economic growth ever since, it is little wonder that populism’s appeal has grown and that democracy and capitalism have fallen out of favor. This development does not bode well for the future. Populists and autocrats have little respect for institutions, including not only democratic processes and protections for minorities, but also the centers of scientific knowledge associated with educated elites.
Fifty years from now, if we are still living in an increasingly illiberal and undemocratic world, we may not even be able to tell, other than anecdotally, whether the great escape continued or was choked off.
**Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor Emeritus of Economics and International Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California, and co-author of “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” (Princeton University Press, 2020). This article was adapted from a preface to the Princeton Classics edition of “The Great Escape,” to be published in 2024. ©Project Syndicate

Is America sleepwalking into dictatorship?
Dr. Amal Mudallali/Arab News/December 20, 2023
The 2024 American election campaign is shaping up to be a referendum on the future of democracy in the country. The Democrats are making it a referendum on the constitution and on what they describe as the threat of a dictator, in former President Donald Trump, even if it is only for one day, as Trump has promised.
The question on people’s minds is whether America is really heading toward authoritarianism or dictatorship, as politicians and the media are warning. Trump is leading in the Republican primary polls and against President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate. But the prospect of a second Trump term is driving a panic campaign from his opponents, independents and serious politicians and scholars, who warn that America might be voting for a dictator if it votes for Trump. Former congresswoman Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the panel that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on Congress following the 2020 election, warned this month that the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship” ahead of the 2024 vote.
The problem for the US is that Trump’s dictator threat or promise — depending on how one feels about him — is not a figment of the country’s imagination. Candidate Trump himself is fueling the anxiety with his rhetoric and statements. Whether he is joking, as his aides claim, or if he is serious is something the Americans might find out to their detriment after the election, should he win.
Concerns about the former president’s authoritarian streak are not new and he has been vocal about going after those who opposed him or are prosecuting him. During a campaign speech in Bedminster, New Jersey, earlier this year he announced that he would “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.” He doubled down by saying: “I will totally obliterate the deep state. We know who they are. I know exactly who they are.” This sounds like he is threatening revenge.
Trump’s opponents warn that, if he becomes president again, he will be dangerous to the country and the constitution because he will rule with more executive power, use the military domestically, use the judiciary to go after his opponents and critics, including the media, and upend America’s foreign policy.
The New York Times wrote in July that Trump and his allies “are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government,” including centralizing “more power in the Oval Office and his hands.”
Trump was quoted as saying in South Dakota in September: “If I win and someone wants to run against me, I call my attorney general and say ‘listen, indict him. If he has not done anything wrong, indict him on tax evasion. You’ll figure it out.’”
And in an interview with Univision last month, he said: “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me badly, I say ‘go down and indict him.’ They will be out of business; they’ll be out of the election.”
Trump has also threatened on many occasions to use the military to quell protests and violence in American cities or to secure the border, which would violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that prohibits using the military domestically. There have also been reports that he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act, which grants the president the authority to use the military in case of an insurrection, upon the request of a state government.
The thing that Trump’s opponents fear most is the possibility of him using the president’s sweeping powers to change the US Constitution. They point to his refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election as a warning sign. They point to a post on his Truth Social account last year, in which he called for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the constitution,” and say that the country should not discount this possibility.
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Thomas Homan told Fox News that, if Trump is reelected, he sees “historic” deportations taking place. After the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Trump said he wanted to revoke the student visas of those who, according to him, have anti-American and antisemitic views. He added that he wants to put in place “ideological screenings” for immigrants.
On foreign policy, the fear that a future president Trump might withdraw the US from NATO led Congress to act and it last week passed a measure preventing any president from doing so without the approval of the Senate.
Trump says it is Biden who is a threat to the country and not him. The former president points to the multiple indictments he is facing and accuses the White House of weaponizing the Justice Department and the courts and using them against him.
The former president’s campaign and supporters discount the allegations against him and dismiss the fears that he will be a dictator as unfounded. Trump’s provocative statements are described by his allies as mere jokes or that they were meant to provoke the left and the media. But the country is not laughing. His comments have created an uproar, with a media and pundit frenzy crying “dictatorship.”
One of his staunchest supporters, Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity, gave Trump a chance to defend himself when he interviewed him at a town hall event in Iowa this month. Hannity asked Trump if he would “abuse power as retribution against anybody.” When reenacting their exchange, Trump said: “We love this guy (Hannity). He says, ‘you’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, No, No, other than day one. We are closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
Many Americans are confident that their country’s constitution, the separation of powers and the strength of US institutions can guard against any president’s authoritarian tendencies and prevent an elected official becoming a dictator or accumulating too much power. However, Cheney does not trust that these institutions can stop Trump. She said on National Public Radio that the stakes “couldn’t be higher” for the country.
Trump’s opponents warn that, if he becomes president again, he will be dangerous to the country and the constitution.
Trump may be leading in the polls, but he is also facing a myriad of indictments and legal woes, which are due before the election. He has been indicted in four cases, but a conviction does not mean he cannot still run for president and assume office. The US Constitution does not bar him from doing so, although some experts argue the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies any candidate who has engaged in insurrection, could prevent him holding office again.
The Colorado Supreme Court cited the 14th Amendment this week to remove Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot. His campaign will appeal the ruling and it could go to the Supreme Court, as the battle continues over bringing historic firsts in America. Will he become a dictator, even for one day, and change the country?
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and presidential candidate who ran against him in 2016, said voters should “take him at his word.”
It seems that Americans do believe him. A new poll by Harvard CAPS-Harris found that 56 percent of voters surveyed at least somewhat agree that Trump will act like a dictator if he is elected. But 59 percent believe Democrats are unfairly trying to scare voters over Trump by saying he wants to be a dictator, according to The Hill newspaper.
Half of the voters in the poll also believe Trump will be a threat to democracy, but the responses are split along party lines. Trump does not have to be a dictator to be a strong American president. The office of the president has strong executive powers and, if he expands them as is his reported intention, does he actually need to be a dictator?
**Dr. Amal Mudallali is a consultant on global issues. She is a former Lebanese ambassador to the UN.

France’s regional influence on the rise
Zaid M. Belbagi/Arab News/December 20, 2023
Jointly organized by Baghdad and Paris, the Baghdad Summit of August 2021 was aimed at fostering regional and international support for Iraq, while simultaneously building France’s influence in the Middle East. The guest list included the presidents of Egypt and Iraq, the prime minister of the UAE and the emir of Qatar, reflecting the growing influence of France in a region hitherto the preserve of Anglo-American strategic interests. As French relationships have grown across the region, it is clear that this summit and its successors are only one facet of Paris’ growing Middle Eastern ambitions.
Iraq has always been a linchpin of French regional policy. In 2003, it famously opposed the US invasion partly owing to the significant business interests of French oil companies Total and Elf Aquitaine in the country. Having inked a further $27 billion of energy and water deals in 2021, Iraq is once again of critical importance to France. To that end, Paris has been the second-largest contributor to the missions to support Iraq’s fight against Daesh (both Operation Inherent Resolve and NATO Mission Iraq) and an important foreign investor in a country that has struggled to attract financing.
With Jordan having hosted the last summit, much to the chagrin of Iraq, Baghdad did its utmost to organize the third meeting in November under a theme of “Economic Integration and Regional Stability.” With the previous summit having resulted in the Iraqi-French strategic partnership agreement, signed in January 2023, followed by Qatar’s plan to buy a 30 percent stake in Total’s projects in Iraq, last month’s planned meeting was an important moment for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani and French President Emmanuel Macron. They had hoped to extend partnerships in the water, energy, transportation and defense sectors, but the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas has indefinitely postponed these plans.
The delay of the meeting has not, however, tempered France’s ambitions elsewhere in the region. Despite Macron initially having a characteristically pro-Israel stance, he has recently tempered French support for Israel while simultaneously backing Qatari efforts at a truce and using the recent COP28 meeting in Dubai to further diplomatic initiatives. These efforts are part of nothing short of a boom, as French companies continue to ink deals in the region worth billions of dollars.
French defense giant Airbus has been successful in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia with recent orders of civilian aircraft, Dassault is engaged in ongoing talks with Saudi Arabia and Iraq for the sale of its Rafale jet and the UAE and Qatar are currently taking delivery of their own. Safran, the second-largest manufacturer of aircraft in the world, signed deals worth more than $1.2 billion with Emirates airline at last month’s Dubai Airshow, following a deal it signed separately with Saudi Arabian Military Industries.
These defense and aerospace sales are echoed in other sectors. The UAE has collaborated with France in the energy space and, in July 2022, TotalEnergies and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company signed an energy supply agreement amid the insecurity of energy supply due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
France also enjoys strong ties with Saudi Arabia, with which it shares strategic interests in the region and where French advisers have been key in shaping the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 plans, particularly in terms of building domestic space sector capabilities, alongside agreements on energy cooperation and the development of renewable energy.
France and Qatar continue to collaborate, built on the central role of TotalEnergies in the development of the Gulf state. Qatar has also benefited from French assistance in the field of economic diversification. Earlier this year, it agreed to provide TotalEnergies with liquefied natural gas for the next 27 years, underlining the cooperation between the two countries.
France’s cooperation in the corporate world is mirrored by its development of the cultural space around the region. French soft power is symbolized in the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the world’s first museum to be born of a bilateral diplomatic agreement and which is now “France’s largest cultural project abroad.” These efforts have been replicated in Qatar, where France has sought to support cultural initiatives, and especially in Saudi Arabia, where Paris has entered into an agreement for the development of AlUla. The open-air museum and other cultural and heritage attractions planned by the project are being led by French presidential envoy for the initiative Gerard Mestrallet, alongside the French Agency for Alula Development.
France’s cooperation in the corporate world is mirrored by its development of the cultural space around the region.
The uptick in French diplomatic activity is, therefore, unlikely to be derailed by the postponed Baghdad Summit, which is more central to the international legitimacy of the Iraqi leadership and Jordan’s future prosperity.
There is no doubt that political and societal instability at home and eight armed coups in French-speaking Africa have hurt France’s ability to project power overseas. In North Africa, as the youth in traditionally Francophone Algeria and Morocco are increasingly favoring the English language over French, the Francophonie itself is seen as a limited prism with which France can influence the wider world. However, Macron’s efforts to cultivate ties in the Gulf and wider Middle East during a period when the UK has been occupied with domestic challenges and the US has been focused on Russia and China has seen a significant increase in French influence.
Within this context, a rescheduled Baghdad Summit will merely be another political victory for a president seeking to sustain France’s influence and its international convening power.
*Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients between London and the GCC. X: @Moulay_Zaid

Why attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Red Sea shipping pose a clear and present danger to Israel
Rebecca Anne Proctor/Arab News/December 20, 2023
DUBAI: Two of the world’s biggest shipping firms, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, recently suspended the passage of container ships through the Red Sea’s Bab Al-Mandab Strait following a spate of attacks on commercial shipping by Yemen’s Houthi militia.
Disruption to the shipping route, which connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, has interrupted the flow of trade and raised geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. One economy in the region that is particularly exposed is Israel.
“Shipping coming from Asia will now have to divert and go through the Cape of Good Hope, all around Africa to reach (Israel),” Riad Kahwaji, a Dubai-based Middle East analyst and founder and director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told Arab News.
“Definitely, economically, it will be impacted. It is not good for the economies of all countries that are on the Red Sea.”
And it is not just shipping routes close to home that are feeling the squeeze.
On Wednesday, Malaysia’s government announced it was imposing a ban on all Israeli owned and flagged ships, as well as any vessels headed to Israel, from docking at its ports, in response to Israel’s conduct in its conflict with Hamas.
Attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea have increased significantly since mid-November in response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, prompting some vessels to halt operations in the region or to reroute via the southern tip of Africa.
Besides Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, oil firm BP and oil tanker group Frontline have also said they will be avoiding the Red Sea route and rerouting via Africa’s Cape of Good Hope — a detour that can take 10 days longer, adding some 3,500 nautical miles to the journey.
Oil and gas prices have surged and shipping premiums have almost doubled for some carriers in response to the disruption.
The Houthi militia, which is part of the same Axis of Resistance as the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has said that the attacks on commercial shipping are an act of retaliation for the “oppression of the Palestinian people.”
In one high-profile incident on Nov. 19, Houthi gunmen filmed themselves rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of the cargo vessel Galaxy Leader, seizing control of the ship and its 25 international crew. The Bahamas-flagged, British-owned vessel, operated by a Japanese firm but having links to an Israeli businessman, was headed from Turkiye to India when it was seized and re-routed to Yemen’s port of Hodeidah, where it has become a tourist attraction.
Experts warn that such attacks have raised the possibility of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, launched in response to the Palestinian militant group’s attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, spilling over into the wider region.
On Dec. 15, Danish shipping company Maersk instructed all its vessels in the Red Sea to pause voyages through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait after a “near-miss incident” involving a Maersk Gibraltar vessel and “yet another attack on a container vessel.”
Friday’s attacks on the Maersk Gibraltar and Hapag-Lloyd’s Al-Jasrah occurred near the Bab Al-Mandab, through which around 20,000 ships pass annually, serving ports throughout the littoral states, including Israel’s Port of Eilat.
The Maersk Gibraltar vessel was targeted by a missile while traveling from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Both the crew and the vessel were reported safe.
On Dec. 19, the US government announced “Operation Prosperity Guardian” — an international maritime coalition involving Western and Arab countries to protect shipping in the Red Sea. Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, held a virtual meeting with ministers from more than 40 countries on Tuesday, and called on more nations to contribute to efforts to keep shipping safe in the region.
“Right now, we have a multinational force led by the US, so the Israelis have been asked to not regulate (the situation) but to allow an international response force to deal with it so as not to turn it into a confrontation between the Houthis and Iran with the Israelis,” said Kahwaji. “The pretext (for this new force) is that it is an attack on international shipping, so it is a global response. Today we have a coalition of nine countries that will likely grow larger, and it will conduct operations to protect the sea lanes and will likely retaliate to the attacks on the ships.”
INNUMBERS
* 12% Proportion of annual global trade that passes through the Red Sea.
* $1tn Value of commercial goods passing through the Red Sea per year.
* 20,000 Number of ships that pass through the Bab Al-Mandab Strait annually.
* 3,500 nautical miles Added distance around the Cape of Good Hope.
In some cases, Houthi militiamen have boarded or attempted to board merchant vessels, while in other instances they have targeted cargo ships with missiles and drones. Although damage has been minimal, the situation remains tense.
According to Reuters, several container ships anchored in the Red Sea have turned off their tracking systems while they adjust course. Many ships are continuing to use the waterway, with several that have armed guards on board, according to Reuters news agency, citing data from the London Stock Exchange Group.
Although the Houthi attacks and resulting disruption to commercial shipping will likely have an impact on Israel’s economy, experts believe the country is unlikely to experience shortages or significant price inflation as a result.
“Israel has outlets on both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean,” said Kahwaji, predicting that Israeli authorities will divert all shipping to the Port of Haifa, the largest of Israel’s three major international seaports. “Yes, the Israeli economy will be affected, but does it mean that Israel will not be able to get anything? No,” he added. As one of the world’s busiest shipping channels, the Red Sea is positioned south of the Suez Canal and constitutes the most significant waterway connecting Europe to Asia and East Africa. Any ship passing through the Suez Canal to or from the Indian Ocean has to come via the strait of Bab Al-Mandab and the Red Sea.
The Suez Canal is the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe and is particularly important in the transportation of oil and liquefied natural gas.
Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, held a virtual meeting with ministers from more than 40 countries on Tuesday, and called on more nations to contribute to efforts to keep shipping safe in the region.
About 12 percent of global trade passes through the Red Sea, including 30 percent of global container traffic and $1 trillion worth of goods each year. Billions of dollars worth of commercial goods and supplies pass through the Red Sea every year. This means that delays or disruption can impact petrol prices, the availability of electronics and other aspects of global trade. The Bab Al-Mandab Strait is a particularly vulnerable choke point along the shipping route, making it a target for piracy and terrorism. Located at its southern end of the Red Sea between Djibouti and Yemen, the strait is 18 miles wide at its narrowest point. If the US-led naval operation in the Red Sea fails to deter further Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, leading to prolonged disruption, Israel may feel compelled to act against the Yemeni militia, marking a potentially dangerous regional escalation. Indeed, given that the US is eager to avoid direct involvement in a potential conflict or an escalation involving Iran and its many proxy militias throughout the region, few expect the joint naval force to do more beyond patrols.
“It all depends on the rules of engagement to be adopted by this new naval joint force,” said Kahwaji. “Will they adopt limited rules of engagement that confine them to protecting just the ships and providing defense against drones or missiles? Or will they take proactive measurements, carrying out pre-emptive strikes, retaliating against the attacks by going after the missile launchers, targeting the bases from where they are launching the drones?”As of now, the attacks on commercial shipping pose a threat to regional economies, many of which are still adjusting their supply chains following the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If Houthi attacks in the Red Sea continue or become more severe, resulting in casualties among crew, the sinking of vessels, or attacks on military targets, then the conflict has every possibility of spreading beyond Gaza and engulfing the region.