English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 07/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
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Bible Quotations For today
You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost
its taste
Matthew 05/13-17: “‘You are the salt of the earth;
but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no
longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. ‘You are
the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after
lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it
gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before
others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in
heaven. ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I
have come not to abolish but to fulfil:”.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 06-07/2023
Lebanon rocked by deadly quake in Turkiye, Syria
Beirut blast investigator puts off interrogations of top officials
Paris summit in effort to lift Lebanon out of political paralysis
New aftershock felt in Lebanon as minor damage reported from earthquake
Lebanon ranked 3rd in food price inflation
Lebanon offers aid to Turkey, Syria after quake
Cabinet convenes as Lebanon enters fourth month without president
Geagea says Hezbollah and its allies carrying out a 'farce'
Al-Rahi Accuses Complacent MPs of ‘Great Treason’ for Failing to Elect President
Mikati chairs cabinet session, DRM meeting at Grand Serail
Berri broaches general situation with former Minister Safadi, Derbas, meets
Tripoli and North Lebanon Order of Physicians delegation,...
Education Minister: Schools, high schools, vocational institutes, public and
private higher education institutions to close on Tuesday and Wednesday...
The Oil Consortium and the Lebanon Being Built/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/February
06/2023
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 06-07/2023
Statement by the UN Secretary-General on the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria
‘Like the apocalypse’: Videos show devastation after huge earthquakes in Turkey,
Syria
Powerful quake rocks Turkey and Syria, kills more than 2,650
Israel's Netanyahu says he has approved request to aid quake-hit Syria
Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinian gunmen in West Bank raid
Netanyahu says Syria requests quake relief, Israel ready to send it
Israel is considering sending its Iron Dome air defense system to Ukraine,
Netanyahu says
Iran ‘shamefully’ celebrates amid cover-up of ‘horror after horror’: Amnesty
Iran’s EX-President Admits ‘Widespread Discontent’
Iran Detains Journalist Whose Sister Remains in Custody
Iran singer who faces prison wins Grammy for protest anthem
Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault
'Ultra-patriots' may try to overthrow Putin because of his army's failures in
Ukraine, says Russian MP
Without supplying evidence, Russia says it's investigating alleged Ukrainian use
of chemical weapons
UN chief says world ‘sleepwalking into wider war’ in Ukraine
Ukraine's defence ministry in turmoil as Russia readies offensive
Poland redeploys Patriot missiles to capital city for drills
In pro-Putin Serbia, liberal-minded Russians seek a home
Norway looks to donate $7.3 billion in aid to Ukraine
Titles For
The Latest
English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 06-07/2023
How 'The Collective Voice of the Muslim World' Weaponizes the UN against Israel/Bassam
Tawil/Gatestone Institute/February 6, 2023
The Decisive Test for Germany Is Still to Come/Jochen Bittner/The New York
Times/February, 06/2023
Omar Screams ‘Islamophobia’ … But There’s Nothing ‘Irrational’ About Fearing
Islam/Raymond Ibrahim/February, 06/2023
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on February 06-07/2023
Lebanon rocked by deadly quake in Turkiye, Syria
Arab News/February 06, 2023
BEIRUT: Parts of Lebanon on Monday were rocked by the deadly 7.8 magnitude
earthquake that hit southern Turkiye and northern Syria, killing and injuring
thousands of people. Residents took to the streets and sheltered in cars as
several aftershocks from the quake were felt during the day. The National
Council for Scientific Research’s National Center for Geophysics recorded a 4.8
magnitude tremor at 3:18 a.m. local time, which lasted for 40 seconds, followed
by others. Many buildings in Beirut, coastal cities, and all the way to the
Bekaa Valley shook, but the Lebanese Red Cross reported no casualties apart from
a few citizens who had suffered heart attacks. The Lebanese Ministry of
Education announced that all educational institutions should remain closed until
Wednesday for the safety of students and staff, while traffic police urged
citizens not to park vehicles near trees, billboards, or objects at risk of
falling, and to keep away from beaches. A team from the Civil Defense, Red
Cross, and Beirut Fire Brigade was traveling to Turkiye to assist rescue
workers. Marilyne Brax, director of the National Center for Geophysics, said
there was little chance of a tsunami.
“We were unable to scientifically monitor the movement of waves in Lebanon due
to the loss of monitoring instruments in the sea, but in Cyprus and Turkiye,
wave height movements recorded 20 centimeters.”One resident of Ashrafieh, in
Beirut, said: “I woke up to the bed shaking and objects falling on the floor. It
was completely dark, so I used the flashlight on my phone to find my way out of
my apartment. “I could hear my neighbors crying as they came down the stairs.
Everyone looked terrified. It was a horrific night. An earthquake is the last
thing the Lebanese need right now.”
In Tripoli, northern Lebanon, young men fired shots into the air to urge people
to leave buildings and private generators were turned on to provide light for
frightened people. Fatima, a resident of the southern suburbs of Beirut, said:
“I already suffer from a phobia of earthquakes, and when I realized what was
happening and heard walls cracking, I hurried out of the house into the street
in the dark.“My neighbors and their children and sick elderly were already in
the streets praying.”A nurse at Makassed Islamic Hospital in Beirut said the
building had been designed to resist earthquakes. “As soon as everyone calmed
down, there was a strong aftershock, but we were able to continue our work about
half-an-hour later.”In the coastal city of Tyre, the earthquake caused cracks in
a road, and a house in the Rashaya Al-Wadi area of southeastern Lebanon was
reported to have collapsed. But while encouraging citizens to evacuate any older
buildings showing signs of collapse, Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister,
Bassam Mawlawi, said there had been limited damage in the country.
Many buildings in Lebanon do not meet required safety specifications as they
were constructed during the civil war. Seismic activity is common in Lebanon.
One of the worst quakes to hit the country was on March 16, 1956, in the Chouf,
Jezzine, Sidon, and Bekaa areas. It claimed the lives of around 140 people and
injured more than 600, in addition to destroying buildings, roads, and
infrastructure.
Beirut blast investigator
puts off interrogations of top officials
BEIRUT (Reuters)/February 06/2023
The judge investigating the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast said he had postponed
interrogations of senior current and former officials that had been set to begin
on Monday until a legal dispute over the extent of his powers can be resolved.
Last month Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his inquiry into the disastrous explosion
that killed more than 220 people after a 13-month suspension caused by legal
wrangling and high-level political pressure. He issued charges against some of
Lebanon's most powerful figures, including top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, who
in turn filed charges against Bitar for allegedly exceeding his powers and
ordered security forces not to obey Bitar's orders. Bitar, who denies the
accusations, had set interrogation sessions for about a dozen current and former
officials in February, beginning with former ministers Ghazi Zeaiter and Nouhad
Machnouk on Monday. He had also set sessions for former prime minister Hassan
Diab and the intelligence chief, Major General Abbas Ibrahim. But Bitar told
Reuters that he had indefinitely postponed the hearings until the dispute
between his inquiry and the public prosecutor's office could be resolved and the
investigation could "proceed in a proper manner". Some 40 Lebanese lawmakers and
groups representing judges and lawyers have called for Oueidat to reverse his
decisions and allow Bitar to resume his investigation. For his part, Oueidat has
the support of Lebanon's long entrenched establishment, including the powerful,
heavily armed Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has fiercely opposed Bitar's
investigation and accused him of bias. The judicial stand-off has left little
hope among many Lebanese of justice being served over the 2020 blast, raising
concern the case will go the way of countless others in a country where impunity
has long been the norm.
Paris summit in effort to lift Lebanon out of
political paralysis
Michael Fitzpatrick/RFI/February 6, 2023
France on Monday hosts an international meeting as part of attempts to end the
political and social deadlock in Lebanon, against a background of the worst-ever
financial crisis in the Mediterranean country. French President Emmanuel Macron
has urged Lebanon to "change its leadership" following months of deadlock that
have impeded reforms. Lebanon is being run by a caretaker government and is
without a president as lawmakers have repeatedly failed to elect a successor to
Michel Aoun, whose mandate expired at the end of October. The political impasse
has hampered efforts to lift the Mediterranean country out of its worst-ever
financial crisis. According to the International Monetary Fund, billions of
dollars in foreign aid will become available only after a stable administration
has been established. The Lebanese pound has lost more than 95 percent of its
value to the dollar since 2019, and more than 80 percent of the population of
seven million lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. The
French-based mulitnational company TotalEnergies has invested massively in the
exploitation of gas reserves off the Lebanese coast.
New aftershock felt in Lebanon as minor damage
reported from earthquake
Naharnet/February 06/2023
Residents in Lebanon on Monday felt a new 7.5-magnitude earthquake that jolted
quake-hit Turkey. The new tremor lasted for a few seconds in Lebanon, unlike the
powerful overnight quake that lasted for 40 seconds and sent panicked residents
onto the streets. The source of that tremor was a devastating and deadly
7.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked southeast Turkey and northern Syria. The
overnight quake destroyed the house of the citizen Abu Assli al-Haddad in the
Rashaya town of Ain Ata, causing no casualties, the National News Agency said.
TV networks also said that a cracked building has been evacuated in the southern
city of Sidon and that a wall has collapsed in the Bourj Hammoud area. The quake
also caused cracks in the Jumblat roundabout in Tyre.
Lebanon ranked 3rd in food price inflation
Naharnet/February 06/2023
Lebanon has been ranked third in food price inflation, according to a study by
the World Bank. Domestic food price inflation remains high around the world. The
countries affected most are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia,
Europe, and Central Asia, the World Bank said in a statement. "Information
between September to December 2022 shows high inflation in almost all low-income
and middle-income countries; 83.3% of low-income countries, 90.5% of
lower-middle-income countries, and 91% of upper-middle-income countries have
seen inflation levels above 5%, with many experiencing double-digit inflation.
The share of high-income countries with high food price inflation has risen to
85.7%," the statement added. Information from the latest month between September
and December 2022 showed high inflation in Lebanon, as the food inflation
reached 143% in Lebanon, while it reached 285% in Zimbabwe and 158% in
Venezuela.
Lebanon offers aid to Turkey, Syria after quake
Naharnet/February 06/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked Monday caretaker ministers Nasser
Yassin and Ali Hamieh to contact the Turkish and Syrian authorities in order to
provide emergency aid after the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked
southeastern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday. Mikati said, before a
cabinet session, that Lebanon might send a rescue force from the army and the
civil defense to Turkey to provide emergency relief to the populations on the
ground. Later in the day, the Lebanese Army announced that it will dispatch 20
soldiers from the Engineering Regiment to Turkey to help in the search and
rescue efforts. The 7.8-magnitude quake struck early on Monday near the Turkish
city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people and on the border
with Syria.
Hamieh will tell the Syrian authorities that Lebanon is ready to help
neighboring Syria as well, where at least 783 people were killed.
Cabinet convenes as Lebanon enters fourth
month without president
Naharnet/February 06/2023
The caretaker cabinet convened Monday for the third time as Lebanon entered a
fourth month of presidential vacuum. The session, boycotted by the Free
Patriotic Movement ministers, will discuss aid to the education and health
sectors, dubbed as "urgent" by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. At the
beginning of the session, Mikati urged all ministers to attend the sessions,
adding that Lebanon is facing many "problems and complications" that require
solutions. "We have entered the fourth month without a president, and it has
become necessary to the cabinet to convene regularly," Mikati said, calling the
meetings a "national duty." Public school teachers have been on strike,
demanding an adjustment of their LBP salaries as the Lebanese pound has lost
more than 95% of its value. During today's session, the education minister will
deliver proposals regarding the educational file and the public sector teachers
strike.
Geagea says Hezbollah and its allies carrying out a 'farce'
Naharnet/February 06/2023
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday said “Hezbollah, today more than
ever, wants to secure the election of its (presidential) candidate.”“In its
visits to independent MPs it is trying to collect votes, after having failed to
convince (Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran) Bassil to elect (Marada Movement
chief Suleiman) Franjieh,” Geagea said after a meeting for the Strong Republic
bloc. “On the one hand, Hezbollah and its allies are insisting on dialogue and
on the other they are clinging to their candidate. Accordingly, we are before a
farce,” the LF leader added, stressing that his party will not accept a
“helpless president.”As for Bkirki’s call for dialogue, Geagea said: “Our
communication with Bkirki is ongoing and we are not against any meeting, but we
are with holding meetings that would lead to a result, especially that the
people are exhausted.”Separately, the LF leader said today’s caretaker cabinet
meeting was “illegal.”He also said that the meeting that will be held Monday in
Paris by officials from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and France will not
tackle the names of any presidential candidates.
Al-Rahi Accuses Complacent MPs of ‘Great
Treason’ for Failing to Elect President
Beirut - Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al Awsat/February
06/2023
Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi launched on Sunday a scathing
attack against “complacent” MPs who have failed to elect a president since
Michel Aoun’s term ended in November. During his Sunday sermon, he said the
lawmakers’ blind following of their political leaders was tantamount to “great
treason.” The Lebanese people are suffering from poverty and hunger. They are
deprived of food and medicine. They don’t have rights and justice. All of this
is the result of the poor performance of politicians, who have betrayed the
people, declared al-Rahi. “By blindly following their leaders, the MPs are
refraining from electing a new president and consequently, deepening the crises
at constitutional and public institutions,” he continued. “They are deepening
the people’s misery and forcing them to immigrate. Isn’t this great treason?
Rather, isn’t this a great crime against the Lebanese people and state?” he
asked.
They speak of the need for dialogue to agree on a presidential candidate through
consensus, while others are clinging on to their candidate and seek to impose
him on others, added al-Rahi. Should dialogue actually happen, then Lebanon and
its people should be its top priority. This will then be followed by the search
for the best candidate who can lead the country during these conditions, he
explained. Meanwhile, parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told Asharq Al-Awsat that
he was “not pessimistic” over the presidential impasse. He revealed that he will
not call parliament to convene to elect a president until he senses that a
candidate can be chosen or senses “real competition at the polls”. He stressed
that there will be no repeat of the “charades”, a reference to previous
“routine” elections sessions that have not yielded a victor. The Lebanese
parties are the main factor in the electoral process, he stated. Any foreign
efforts to help elect a president can only be successful with a decision from
within Lebanon, he went on to say. “Everyone must realize this and not surrender
to the vacuum,” Berri urged. Moreover, the speaker said the delay in the
election of the president cannot extend to month and years, especially since the
country needs, now more than ever, every single effort to help it resolve its
crises. He underscored the need for the caretaker government to convene to
address the people’s essential and pressing concerns, remarking that its failure
to meet is a constitutional violation. He made this last statement in reference
to the Free Patriotic Movement’s (FPM) objection to the cabinet holding sessions
amid the presidential vacuum.
Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Beirut Elias Audeh, meanwhile, said that the
current state of affairs in Lebanon can be blamed on “pride and selfishness”,
“suspicious associations” and “sectarian interests, gains and
divisions”.“Stubbornness, arrogance, spite and settling scores have only led us
to the current state of collapse,” he lamented. “It is time to return to reason,
humility and the constitution that alone can set our lives straight,” he said.
“Every official, leader and citizen should perform their duty in saving this
country,” he urged. “How can parliament, which is entrusted with implementing
the constitution, hold back from electing a president? What do the obstructors
have to gain from this?” he wondered. Jaafari Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Qabalan
underlined the need to elect a president who seeks national interests. “Any
error in this regard will lead to Lebanon’s demise,” he warned.
Mikati chairs cabinet session, DRM meeting at
Grand Serail
NNA/February 06/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Monday chaired a cabinet session in
the presence of Deputy Prime Minister, Saadeh al-Shami, and ministers. Mikati
earlier chaired an emergency meeting by the "National Committee for Disaster
Risk Management", which is affiliated to the Presidency of the Lebanese
Government at the Grand Serail, to follow up on the adopted procedures during
and after the earthquake that hit Lebanon at dawn on Monday.
Berri broaches general situation with former Minister
Safadi, Derbas, meets Tripoli and North Lebanon Order of Physicians
delegation,...
NNA/February 06/2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Monday received at the Second Presidency in Ain
al-Tineh, former minister and former MP Mohammed Safadi and former minister
Rashid Derbas, where they discussed the current general situation and the latest
political developments.
Speaker Berri also received the President of the Tripoli and North Lebanon Order
of Physicians, Dr. Mohammad Safi, at the head of a delegation from the Council
of the Syndicate. Discussions reportedly touched on
syndical related affairs and demands. This afternoon, Berri received a
delegation from the Lebanese-Kuwaiti Businessmen Council, headed by Asaad Al-Sakkal,
who briefed the Speaker Berri on the Council’s activities and its future work
programs.
Education Minister: Schools, high schools, vocational institutes, public and
private higher education institutions to close on Tuesday and Wednesday...
NNA/February 06/2023
National Education Ministry's press office on Monday issued the following
statement: “In wake of the earthquake and the warning of new aftershocks, and
with the development of the prevailing climatic conditions in Lebanon and the
intensification of the storm, the Caretaker Minister of Education and Higher
Education, Dr. Abbas Al-Halabi, announced the closure of schools, high schools,
vocational schools, and all official and private higher education institutions
on Tuesday and Wednesday, until the storm subsides and the status of the roads
are cleared, and for fear of ice formation, and in the interest of the safety of
students, pupils, and members of the educational staff."
The Oil Consortium and the Lebanon Being
Built
Sam Menassa/Asharq Al Awsat/February 06/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/115574/%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%85-%d9%85%d9%86%d8%b3%d9%89-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%83%d9%88%d9%86%d8%b3%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%86%d9%81%d8%b7%d9%8a-%d9%88%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7/
Two amending annexes to the two gas exploration and production agreements in
Lebanese waters were signed over the past month, Qatar Energy entered a
partnership with the French company TotalEnergies and the Italian petroleum
company Eni.
A mere few hundred meters away from the place where the deal with the
Arab-international consortium was, a totally different picture emerged. In
developments that would make one think they are in another country, an
unprecedented judicial dispute broke out between the investigator of the Beirut
port blast and Lebanon’s public prosecutor.
The dispute spilled over to the entire judiciary, from the Supreme Judicial
Council to the bottom of the pyramid. If this were merely a question of a legal
dispute between judges, the repercussions would remain limited despite the
gravity of such a state of affairs.
The situation at hand, however, is tied to a series of collapses weighing on
state institutions, from the presidency of the Republic, which has been vacant
for three months, to the government, which has effectively resigned and is
incapable of even undertaking its caretaker role, to parliament, which has
almost been hijacked by a disjointed mosaic incapable of electing a president
and carrying out its other roles in the first place.
This extraordinary and bizarre discrepancy is indicative of many issues and
raises several questions. First, how can major international companies invest in
a country where the effectiveness and independence of the judiciary are in
doubt, as shown by its total inability to uncover the truth of the political
assassinations that have targeted prominent figures since 2005 and the Beirut
port blast crime that blew up the judiciary itself?
Investors do not venture to take risks unless they are sure of an independent
and effective judiciary that translates texts in a manner that ensures justice,
equality, rights, and respect for the law. On top of the weakness of the
judiciary, law enforcement is blatantly incapable of implementing verdicts. Are
the signatories to the agreements and those they represent signing a deal with a
different Lebanon currently being built rather than the one we know today?
Indeed, these investments have major connotations, especially given the current
instability in the region. To paint a full picture, a brief overview of what is
happening around us is needed.
Syria remains far from stable. It is hit, daily, by Israeli military attacks
against the Iranian forces who are expanding at the expense of Moscow, which is
preoccupied with Ukraine. Conditions in the north and east of the country
fluctuate with those of the mood of its Turkish neighbor, and the collapse of
its economy has led to Syria’s transformation into a drug manufacturing and
smuggling hub.
A conflict between Iran and Israel could be sparked in Syria against the
backdrop of Tehran’s nuclear enrichment, its precision and ballistic missile
program, and the actions of its allies in the region. In fact, Tel Aviv’s
conflict with Tehran seems to be undergoing strategic changes, especially since
the new Israeli government came to power. The attacks on military facilities,
deep inside Iran in Isfahan, are only a prelude to the changes we will see.
As for the situation inside Israel, it also calls for concern and threatens the
stability of the region. Indeed, tensions between the right, the left, and the
secular center have heightened, as have problems with Arabs of Israel and the
Palestinians in the rest of the occupied territories.
The fact that we are seeing investments of this kind amid the complicated state
of affairs and turmoil in the region and the country means that the Lebanon we
know is a thing of the past. Another Lebanon is being built, and the countries
involved know the shape it will take - one that does not resemble their values.
With that, they have overlooked this issue in service of their interests.
The fact is that all of the political, economic, social and security
developments we are seeing indicate that Hezbollah is the only faction capable
of making commitments and implementing them. We first saw this with the maritime
border agreement that was approved and encouraged by the party, as well as
sponsored by Iran. This was the first testament to its ability to comply. On the
other hand, the parties opposed to Hezbollah are incapable of forming a united
group to push foreign countries to reconsider their position.
The great powers understand this, and the companies making the investments
probably did so because they know who is behind the maritime border demarcation
agreement with Israel. The deal’s security and political implications reassure
these international investors, allowing these companies to begin working on the
implementation of the deal.
It seems that the heresies we are seeing come out of the Lebanese judiciary are
merely the first steps towards Hezbollah imposing its total control, which
reassures most of these companies. Indeed, this judicial infighting is little
more than Hezbollah’s most recent coup, which it launched to tighten its grip on
law enforcement.
Throughout its history, Lebanon was accustomed to leaning on its relations with
Egypt and Saudi Arabia to the East and France and the United States to the West,
as well as the Syrian tutelage that went on for nearly thirty years. The US, as
we well know, has abandoned Lebanon and withdrew from the country since the
Marines headquarters and the American embassy were bombed in 1983, leaving this
small country to manage its affairs and deal with the covetous and brutal Syrian
regime and Iran’s aggression.
The ensuing developments opened the door to the intervention of Qatar, while
France can no longer play its traditional role as Lebanon’s protector. As for
Washington, its ambitions for Lebanon do not go beyond keeping the domestic
scene quiet and preventing the security situation from deteriorating. They
merely want to avoid seeing the security forces and the army become
decapacitated and lose their role, the situation between Hezbollah and Israel
deteriorating, and the UNIFIL forces and Israel’s security being exposed to
threats.
To achieve these ends, the US did everything it could to ensure the success of
the maritime border demarcation agreement between the two countries. It is also
worth mentioning, in this context, that the Americans, the French, and others
separate, or rather distinguish, between their relationship with Iran and its
fluctuations and their relations with Hezbollah. They have insisted on dealing
with it as a purely Lebanese actor like the other forces and political parties
in the country.
Of course, ascertaining what this future Lebanon under construction will look
like is difficult. However, one matter we can be certain of is the death of
Lebanon as we know it. It has lost its role in the region and the world, to
which it owes its position, importance, and form. The Lebanon we used to know
broke down over years of tutelage, occupation, and the wanton violence of
militias and their masters.
The country used to be seen as a link between East and West, an active mediator
in the disputes of its brothers, and a reliable financial and banking center, a
place where one could find the best hospitals and universities in the region
that was a safe and attractive destination for visitors and tourists.
None of these things is true of today’s Lebanon. Retrieving its previous
functions requires something more important from the expected oil and gas
revenues. The country has been deserted, its cities have withered, and the
aspirations and interests of its rulers and citizens are short-sighted and
opportunistic. While their neighbors are taking a new, promising path, and the
entire world is undergoing challenges on several levels, the Lebanese people are
still quarreling over the rights of its sects.
To conclude, we are not at all against foreign investment in Lebanon or its oil
resources. However, just as we criticized holding the Baalbek International
Festival under Hezbollah’s protection because the festival whitewashes the
party’s image - making it seem like Hezbollah is an innocent Lebanese party open
to global art and culture - we are now saying the revenue we expect to garner
from the gas will not compensate for losing our sovereignty and identity,
becoming a piece of land controlled by a revolving door of occupiers.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 06-07/2023
Statement by the UN
Secretary-General on the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria
NNA/February 6, 2023
United Nations’ Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, issued the following
statement on Monday: “I was deeply saddened to hear of
the extensive loss of life caused by the earthquake which affected southern
Türkiye and northern Syria earlier today. More than 1,500 people have reportedly
been killed and many more injured and the toll continues to rise as rescue
efforts continue. My heart goes out to the people of Türkiye and Syria in this
hour of tragedy. I send my deepest condolences to the families of the victims
and wish speedy recovery to the injured. The United Nations is fully committed
to supporting the response. Our teams are on the ground assessing the needs and
providing assistance. We count on the international
community to help the thousands of families hit by this disaster, many of whom
were already in dire need of humanitarian aid in areas where access is a
challenge.”
‘Like the apocalypse’: Videos show devastation
after huge earthquakes in Turkey, Syria
Aspen Pflughoeft/Miami Herald/February 6, 2023
A powerful earthquake and numerous large aftershocks rocked southern Turkey and
northern Syria throughout the day on Monday, Feb. 6. Videos showed the
devastating scenes where thousands have been killed or injured.
The initial 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck near Nurdağı, Turkey, in the middle
of the night on Feb. 6, according to the United States Geological Survey. A
series of aftershocks — including a massive quake with a 7.5 magnitude — rocked
the Gaziantep region for hours. The earthquakes flattened buildings in southern
Turkey and northern Syria. Videos shared on Facebook by India Today and RTE News
showed multi-story buildings crumbling in seconds, filling the streets with dust
and rubble. Thousands of people have been killed or injured from the
earthquakes, but the exact death toll remains unclear. CNN reported that “more
than 1,500 people” were killed across both countries. The Associated Press
reported that the earthquakes have killed “more than 2,300 people.” Rescue teams
are searching to find survivors amid the rubble. Cold winter weather in the
region is complicating rescue efforts and further endangering trapped survivors,
CNN reported. The weather could reduce the time rescuers have to find and save
people trapped under the rubble. The earthquakes were felt as far as Cairo,
Egypt, and Beirut, Lebanon, The Associated Press reported.
A survivor in Atareb, Syria, told Reuters the earthquakes felt “like the
apocalypse.” Drone footage shared by The Daily Sabah, Anadolu Agency and Reuters
showed scenes of devastation from multiple cities in Turkey.
Rescue and relief operations are underway in Turkey and Syria, The
Associated Press reported. A map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows where the
earthquakes hit. Nurdağı is a city in the Turkish province of Gaziantep and
about 610 miles southeast of Istanbul. The Gaziantep region is along the
Turkey-Syria border.
Powerful quake rocks Turkey and Syria, kills more than 2,650
ADANA, Turkey (AP) /Sun, February 5, 2023
— A powerful, 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and
neighboring Syria on Monday, killing more than 2,300 people and injuring
thousands more as it toppled hundreds of buildings and trapped residents under
mounds of rubble or pancaked floors.
Authorities feared the death toll would rise further as rescuers searched
through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by more
than a decade of Syria’s civil war and a refugee crisis.
Residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside in the rain
and snow to escape falling debris, while those who were trapped cried for help.
Major aftershocks, including one nearly as strong as the initial quake,
continued to rattle the region.
“I don’t have the strength anymore,” one survivor could be heard calling out
from beneath the rubble in the Turkish city of Adana, as rescue workers tried to
reach him, said a resident, journalism student Muhammet Fatih Yavuz. He said
three buildings near his home were toppled.
The quake, which was centered on Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras,
sent residents of Damascus rushing into the street and was felt as far away as
Cairo and Beirut.
“Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the
earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will
rise,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
The quake piled more misery on a region that has seen tremendous suffering over
the past decade. On the Syrian side, the area affected is divided between
government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which
is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to
millions of refugees from the civil war.
In the rebel-held enclave, hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, the
opposition emergency organization, called the White Helmets, said in a
statement. The area is packed with some 4 million people displaced from other
parts of the country by the war. Many of them live in buildings that are already
wrecked from past bombardments.
Strained health facilities and hospitals quickly filled with injured, rescue
workers said. Others had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital,
according to the SAMS medical organization.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by
earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit
northwest Turkey in 1999.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured Monday’s pre-dawn quake at 7.8, with a depth
of 18 kilometers (11 miles). Hours later, a 7.5 magnitude one struck more than
100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
The second jolt in the afternoon caused a multistory apartment to topple
face-forward onto the street in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa, smashing into
rubble and raising a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of
the scene.
Orhan Tatar, an official from Turkey’s disaster management agency, said it was a
new earthquake, but Yaareb Altaweel, a seismologist with the USGS, said it was
considered an aftershock because it took place on the same fault line as the
first.
Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from
Syria’s cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey’s Diyarbakir, more than 330
kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast. A hospital came down in the
Mediterranean coastal city of Iskenderun, but casualties were not immediately
known, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said.
Such severe damage typically leads to a significant death toll, but bitterly
cold temperatures could make matters even worse, reducing the timeframe that
rescuers have to save trapped survivors, said Dr. Steven Godby, an expert in
natural hazards at Nottingham Trent University. He added that the difficulty of
working in areas beset by civil war would only complicate rescue efforts.
Televisions stations in Turkey aired screens split into four or five, showing
live coverage from rescue efforts in the worst-hit provinces. In the city of
Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble, and one could
be seen lying on a stretcher on the snowy ground.
Offers of help — from search-and-rescue teams to medical supplies and money —
poured in from dozens of countries, as well as the European Union and NATO. The
vast majority were for Turkey, with Russian and even an Israeli promise of help
to the Syrian government, but it was not clear if any would go to the devastated
rebel-held pocket in the northwest.
In Turkey, people trying to leave the quake-stricken regions caused traffic
jams, hampering efforts of emergency teams. Mosques around the region were
opened to provide shelter for people unable to return to damaged homes amid
temperatures that hovered around freezing.
In Diyarbakir, hundreds of rescue workers and civilians formed lines across a
mountain of wreckage, passing down broken concrete pieces, household belongings
and other debris as they searched for trapped survivors while excavators dug
through the rubble below.
In northwest Syria, the quake added new woes to the opposition-held enclave
centered on the province of Idlib, which has been under siege for years, with
frequent Russian and government airstrikes. The territory depends on a flow of
aid from nearby Turkey for everything from food to medical supplies.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense described the situation there as
“disastrous.”
At a hospital in Idlib, Osama Abdel Hamid said most of his neighbors died. He
said their shared four-story building collapsed just as he, his wife and three
children ran toward the exit. A wooden door fell on them and acted as a shield.
“God gave me a new lease on life,” he said.
In the small Syrian rebel-held town of Azmarin in the mountains by the Turkish
border, the bodies of several dead children, wrapped in blankets, were brought
to a hospital.
The Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria said the earthquake
has caused some damage to the Crusader-built Marqab, or Watchtower Castle, on a
hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Part of a tower and parts of some walls
collapsed.
In Turkey, meanwhile, the quake damaged a historic castle perched atop a hill in
the center of the provincial capital of Gaziantep, about 33 kilometers (20
miles) from the epicenter. Parts of the fortresses’ walls and watch towers were
leveled and other parts heavily damaged, images from the city showed.
More than 1,500 people were killed in 10 Turkish provinces, with some 9,700
injured, according to Turkish authorities. The death toll in government-held
areas of Syria climbed to over 460 people, with some 1,300 injured, according to
the Health Ministry. In the country’s rebel-held northwest, groups that operate
there said the death toll was at least 380, with many hundreds injured.
Huseyin Yayman, a legislator from Turkey’s Hatay province, said several of his
family members were stuck under the rubble of their collapsed homes.
“There are so many other people who are also trapped,” he told HaberTurk
television by telephone. “There are so many buildings that have been damaged.
People are on the streets. It’s raining, it’s winter.”
Israel's Netanyahu says he has approved
request to aid quake-hit Syria
Agence France Presse/February 6, 2023
Comment - inister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given the go-ahead to send aid
to earthquake-hit Syria, after receiving a request through diplomatic channels
as the neighbors have no official relations. Israel "received a request from a
diplomatic source for humanitarian aid to Syria, and I approved it", Netanyahu
told lawmakers from his hawkish Likud party, adding the aid would be sent soon.
Syria's government does not recognize Israel and the countries have fought
several wars since Israel's creation in 1948. Netanyahu's office declined to
provide further details on the source of the request to help Syria, where
hundreds of people were killed by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake Monday in
neighboring Turkey. The Israeli leader has also confirmed his government would
send humanitarian assistance to Turkey following the disaster. Israel's foreign
ministry said a team of search and rescue specialists would leave for Turkey on
Monday, and that another delegation equipped with humanitarian supplies would
follow on Tuesday.
Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinian gunmen in
West Bank raid
AQABAT JABR, West Bank (AP)/February 6, 2023
Israeli forces killed five Palestinian gunmen linked to the Islamic militant
Hamas group in a raid on refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the
latest bloodshed in the region that will likely further exacerbate tensions. The
Palestinian president's office called the violence a crime, urging the United
States to pressure Israel to hold back on its incursions. The military said the
raid was meant to apprehend a militant cell that staged a botched shooting
attack on a restaurant in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The violence
extends one of the deadliest periods in years in the West Bank and comes during
the first weeks of Israel’s new government, its most right-wing ever, which has
promised to take a tough stance against the Palestinians. The Israeli military
said it was operating in the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp to apprehend the suspects
behind a failed shooting attack last month at a West Bank restaurant, where
attackers allegedly were thwarted by a weapon malfunction. The attackers then
fled the scene, the military said, adding that they were members of Hamas, which
rules the Gaza Strip and has elements in the West Bank as well. The military
said it was searching Monday for the militant cell behind the shooting that it
said had sealed itself inside a home in the refugee camp. During the search,
troops encountered gunmen and a gun battle erupted. The military said several of
the gunmen who were killed were involved in the attempted attack on the
restaurant. “The new Israeli government is continuing its series of crimes
against our Palestinian people,” a statement from Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas' office said. In Aqabat Jabr, bullets were strewn across a blood-streaked
floor at the scene of the gunfight. Bullet marks pocked a door and glass shards
from a broken window littered the ground.
Jihad Abu al-Assal, the governor of Jericho and the Jordan Valley, said the
military was still holding on to the gunmen's bodies. Without access to the
bodies, the Palestinian Health Ministry did not immediately confirm the deaths,
saying only that three were injured, one of them critically.
Speaking at an event at the site of a recent deadly Palestinian shooting attack,
Netanyahu confirmed earlier reports by Israeli security officials that five
gunmen were killed. Hamas said all five of those killed were members of its
armed wing. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the violence would be met with a
response. “Our people and their resistance will not delay in responding to this
crime,” he said. The raid comes days after an earlier incursion in the Aqabat
Jabr camp, which is near the Palestinian city of Jericho, a desert oasis in an
area of the West Bank that rarely sees such unrest, where troops were also
searching for the suspects. Since the shooting at the nearby settlement, the
Israeli military has blocked access to several roads into Jericho — a closure
that has placed the city under a semi-blockade, disrupting business and creating
hourslong bottlenecks at checkpoints that affected even Palestinian security
forces, footage showed. Monday’s violence comes days after an Israeli military
raid on the Jenin refugee camp killed 10 Palestinians, mostly militants but also
a 61-year-old woman. The next day, a Palestinian shooting attack outside an east
Jerusalem synagogue killed seven people, including a 14-year-old. The Israeli
army has ramped up near-nightly raids in the occupied West Bank since a series
of deadly Palestinian attacks within Israel last spring. Over the last year of
escalating raids, Jericho has remained a sort of sleepy desert town, spared much
of the violence.
The Palestinian Authority, in retaliation for the raid into the Jenin refugee
camp, declared a halt to security coordination with Israel. Nearly 150
Palestinians were killed last year in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, making
it the deadliest year in those areas since 2004, according to figures by the
Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Since the start of this year, 41 Palestinians
have been killed in those territories. Palestinian attacks against Israelis
killed some 30 people in 2022. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians
killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions
and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed. Israel captured
the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The
Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
Netanyahu says Syria requests quake relief, Israel ready to
send it
Dan Williams/JERUSALEM (Reuters)/February 6, 2023
Israel said on Monday that it had received a Syrian request for assistance with
earthquake relief for the Arab state and that it was prepared to oblige, in what
would be rare cooperation between the enemy neighbours. Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said in a speech he had ordered Israeli aid sent to Turkey, the
epicentre of Monday's earthquake, with the airlifts due to depart toward
evening. "Since a request was also received to do this for many victims of the
earthquake in Syria, I instructed to do this as well," he said at a ceremony in
a hospital near Tel Aviv. In later televised remarks to his party, Netanyahu
said the request for humanitarian relief for Syria had been relayed "by a
diplomatic official" - whom he did not identify. "I approved this, and I reckon
that these things will be carried out soon," Netanyahu said. Syrian officials
have reported hundreds killed in the civil war-torn country, both in areas under
Damascus' control and in the opposition-held northwest. Asked who had made the
request regarding Syria cited by Netanyahu, an Israeli official told Reuters:
"The Syrians". Asked if this referred to opposition members or to President
Bashar al-Assad's government, the official said only: "Syria". There was no
immediate Syrian response to the Israeli statements. Israel's public broadcaster
Kan said in an unsourced report that Russia had relayed the request for Israel
to assist Syria. The Russian embassy in Israel declined comment. The aid that
Israel will send comprises blankets, tents and medication, Kan said, adding that
the Netanyahu government had also indicated willingness to take in casualties if
asked. Israeli officials did not immediately detail the aid. Israel and Syria
have been in a state of war for decades, with periods of ceasefire. For a time,
Israel helped Syrian rebels on the Golan Heights frontier, and in 2018 it worked
with Jordan and the United States to evacuate Syrian "White Helmet" rescue
workers and their families fleeing a government advance.
Israel is considering sending its Iron Dome air defense
system to Ukraine, Netanyahu says
Mia Jankowicz/Business Insider/February 6, 2023
Israel has a complex relationship with Russia and has so far held off aiding
Ukraine militarily. But Netanyahu now says he is open to considering Ukraine's
request. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his government is
considering sending its Iron Dome to Ukraine. The Iron Dome is arguably the
world's most advanced missile defense system, designed to intercept barrages of
rockets and artillery shells. In an interview with French TV outlets TF1 and LCI
broadcast on Sunday, Netanyahu was asked about sending the missile defense
system to Ukraine, in response to the country's continuing appeals for military
support. He told the interviewer: "I'm looking into it. I said I'm looking into
it and I'm doing just that," echoing a statement he made to CNN last week. While
it has sent equipment like helmets and protective vests, as well as humanitarian
aid, Israel's government has so far held off on sending lethal military aid to
Ukraine. Ukraine made a formal request to Israel for Iron Dome and other
high-tech defense weaponry in October last year, as The Times of Israel
reported. Asked when Israel might make a decision, Netanyahu — who only
re-entered office as the country's prime minister in late December — said he had
to establish his government first. "I wouldn't make any firm commitment," he
said. Israel's Prime Minsiter designate Benjamin Netanyahu presents the new
government to parliament at the Knesset in Jerusalem on December 29, 2022 in
what analysts described as the most right-wing coalition in Israel's history.
Israel has a complex relationship with Russia over both countries' activities in
Syria, as Insider's Jake Epstein reported. This is likely to be part of the
calculation. Russia wields considerable military control in Syria, but appears
to tolerate Israel's activities targeting groups there that have ties to
Israel's regional foe, Iran, experts told Insider. In late January, drones
struck an Iranian defense manufacturing site in an attack that the Pentagon has
attributed to Israel. Iran has been accused of supplying drones and other
weaponry to Russia, which are then being used to attack Ukrainian infrastructure
and troops.
Asked about the attack, Netanyahu stopped short of denying responsibility, but
gave no definitive answer as to whether Israel was responsible. He also said he
respected the US decision in January to transfer 300,000 155 mm shells from its
stockpile in Israel to Ukraine, even while calling it "a pretty big drawdown."
Iran ‘shamefully’ celebrates amid cover-up of
‘horror after horror’: Amnesty
Arab News/February 06, 2023
LONDON: The Iranian regime is systematically covering up a series of massacres
as it “shamefully” celebrates the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic,
Amnesty International said on Monday. A report by the organization details how
key officials involved in the cover-up of prison massacres in 1988 did not face
punishment for their role in disinformation campaigns, with Amnesty warning that
Iran’s current regime “employs similar strategies to weaken international
responses to crimes.”The regime aims to “extinguish any form of political
opposition” by “denying massacres, spreading misinformation and opposing
international investigations” into “horror after horror,” added Amnesty, which
has long campaigned for those involved in the cover-up of the massacres to be
brought to justice. In its report, it lists officials involved in the cover-up,
singling out former representative to the UN Mohammad Jafar Mahallati for his
role in undermining the international response to the massacres. “In November
1988, he denied reports of mass executions at a meeting with the UN rapporteur
and falsely claimed that ‘many killings had in fact occurred on the
battlefield’,” Amnesty said. Mahallati also used his influence within the UN to
“water down” resolutions condemning the Iranian regime over the massacre,
“pushing for a softer text that would merely welcome Tehran’s decision to
cooperate with the UN Human Rights Commission,” Amnesty added. Diana Eltahawy,
Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “For
decades, Iran’s government and its diplomatic representatives around the world
have orchestrated denial and misinformation campaigns to mislead the
international community and rob those affected and society at large of the right
to truth.
“It is high time for Iranian diplomats to reveal the nature and source of
instructions they received from the capital, and stop contributing to the shroud
of secrecy surrounding the 1988 prison massacres, which has only entrenched
impunity and compounded the suffering of survivors and relatives.” Amnesty’s
report drew parallels between the cover-up and the regime’s strategy toward the
nationwide protests that broke out in September last year, with officials
“resorting to similar tactics to discredit a new generation of protesters.”
Amnesty said: “Iranian officials in Geneva distributed lengthy briefings (in the
wake of protester deaths), which blamed the killings of protesters on ‘hired
terrorists,’ ‘suicides’ or ‘accidents’ or questioned the death of some victims.”
Eltahawy said Iranian authorities “have maintained an iron grip on power for
decades through the commission of horror after horror with absolute impunity.
“They continue to systematically conceal the fate and whereabouts of thousands
of political dissidents they extrajudicially killed in the 1980s and dumped in
unmarked graves. “They hide or destroy mass gravesites, and harass and
intimidate survivors and relatives seeking truth, justice and reparation. “Such
crimes are not relics of the past. The 44th anniversary arrives amid a horrific
wave of bloodshed around the latest protests, as well as arbitrary executions
and death sentences targeting protesters. “This highlights the need for urgent
global action from countries around the world to bring Iranian officials
involved in crimes under international law to justice in fair trials.”
Iran’s EX-President Admits ‘Widespread
Discontent’
London - Adil al-Salmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6
February, 2023
Iran’s former reformist President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday admitted that
reforms have reached a deadlock in his country and urged returning to the
constitution of the “Islamic Republic.”Khatami’s stance goes against his ally
Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has called for reforming the constitution and proposed
an alternative to the current government. As the 44th anniversary of the 1979
Islamic Revolution approaches, Khatami said that the Iranian society is beset by
many troubles, but he called for a return to the constitution. “Changing and
amending the constitution is in order, but by returning to the spirit of the
same constitution, many reforms can be made,” said Khatami according to Iranian
media. Unlike Khatami, Mousavi called for drafting a new constitution and
submitting it to a popular referendum for a “free and fair” vote. Mousavi said
that the aim of doing so is changing the power dynamics and the current formula
of the country’s system of government. “What is evident today is widespread
discontent,” said Khatami, according to AFP. Khatami said he hoped that the use
of “non-violent civil methods” could “force the governing system to change its
approach and accept reforms.”The former president also implicitly referred to
the widening gap between the establishment and the rest of the people,
especially the protesters, the majority of whom are young people. President from
1997 to 2005 before being forced into silence, Khatami said he regretted that
Iran’s population was “disappointed with Reformism as well as with the ruling
system.”Khatami rejected demands to overthrow the regime and said: “In terms of
the balance of power and the capabilities and strength of the state, it is not
possible to overthrow (the regime).”He warned that raising slogans for
overthrowing the establishment will only lead to more restrictions and
damages.Khatami's statements came after Mousavi sharply criticized the ruling
establishment and called for a new constitution and a popular referendum.
Iran Detains Journalist Whose Sister Remains in Custody
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 6 February, 2023
Iranian authorities have detained a journalist at a reformist publication, local
media reported Sunday, as her sister, also a journalist, remains in custody
after reporting on Mahsa Amini's death. Iran has been gripped by nationwide
protests since the September 16 death in custody of Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic
Kurd, who had been arrested for an alleged breach of strict dress rules for
women. Reformist daily Shargh reported that Elnaz Mohammadi, a reporter for
Hammihan -- another reformist newspaper -- was detained at the Evin prosecutor's
office in Tehran after going there "for an explanation". It was not immediately
clear why Mohammadi had been summoned. Her sister, Elahe Mohammadi, was arrested
on September 29 after reporting for Hammihan from Amini's funeral. The
journalist was subsequently charged with "propaganda against the system and
conspiracy to act against national security", offences punishable by death. The
funeral procession in Amini's home town of Saqez in Kurdistan province turned
into one of the first protest actions, followed by more than four months of
unrest. Authorities say hundreds of people, including dozens of security
personnel, have been killed during protests. Thousands of Iranians, including
public figures, journalists and lawyers, have been arrested. In recent weeks the
judiciary has expedited the processes to sentence or free on bail journalists
and others arrested in connection with the protests, generally described by the
authorities as "riots". Shargh reported Sunday that Hossein Yazdi, a journalist
arrested on December 5, had been sentenced to a year in prison as well as a
two-year travel ban. He was the "manager of Mobin 24 website and Iran Times news
channel", Shargh said, without elaborating on the charges against him. The
judiciary's Mizan Online news website said people charged over the protests
"will not be pardoned if they do not express remorse" and provide a written
statement committing not to repeat the offence. The judiciary has sentenced 18
people to death in connection with the protests, according to an AFP tally based
on official announcements.
Four people have been executed, triggering international outrage.
Iran singer who faces prison wins Grammy for protest anthem
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/JON GAMBRELL/Mon, February 6, 2023
An Iranian singer who faces possible prison time for his song that's become an
anthem to the ongoing protests shaking the Islamic Republic wept early Monday
after seeing he'd won a Grammy. Shervin Hajipour appeared stunned after hearing
Jill Biden, the wife of President Joe Biden, announce he'd won the Grammy's new
song for social change special merit award for “Baraye.” An online video showed
Hajipour in a darkened room, wiping tears away after the announcement.
Hajipour's song “Baraye,” or “For” in English, begins with: “For dancing in the
streets,” “for the fear we feel when we kiss.” The lyrics list reasons young
Iranians have posted on Twitter for why they had protested against Iran's ruling
theocracy. It ends with the widely chanted slogan that has become synonymous
with the protests since the September death of Iranian-Kurdish woman Masha Amini:
“For women, life, freedom.”Released on his Instagram page, the song quickly went
viral. Hajipour then was arrested and held for several days before being
released on bail in October. The 25-year-old singer faces charges of “propaganda
against the regime” and “instigating the violence,” according to Human Rights
Activists in Iran, a group that's been monitoring the monthslong protests. The
charges Hajipour faces can carry as much as six years in prison all together.
The singer is also banned from leaving Iran. Wearing a shining, off-the-shoulder
Oscar de la Renta dress at the Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles, Biden said that a
song “can unite, inspire and ultimately change the world.” “This song became the
anthem of the Mahsa Amini protests, a powerful and poetic call for freedom and
women's rights,” Biden said. “Shervin was arrested, but this song continues to
resonate around the world with its powerful theme: Women, life, freedom."
Those gathered cheered Biden's remarks. On Instagram, Hajipour simply wrote: “We
won.”There was no immediate reaction in Iranian state media or from government
officials to Hajipour’s win. The singer is among over 19,600 people arrested
amid the demonstrations, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran. At least
527 people have been killed amid a violent suppression of the demonstration by
authorities. On Sunday, Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday reportedly ordered an
amnesty or reduction in prison sentences for “tens of thousands” of people
detained amid the protests, acknowledging for the first time the scale of the
crackdown.
Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East
Brace for Russian Assault
Michael Schwirtz/The New York Times/February 6, 2023
NEVSKE, Ukraine — In a tiny village in eastern Ukraine at the epicenter of the
next phase of the war, Lyudmila Degtyaryova measures the Russian advance by
listening to the boom of incoming artillery shells.
There are more and more of them now. And they are coming more frequently, as
Russian troops grind their way forward. “You should see the fireworks here,”
said Degtyaryova, 61, as the sounds of artillery howled all around. “It is like
New Year’s.”
Russia’s military is preparing to launch a new offensive that could soon swallow
Degtyaryova’s village of Nevske, and perhaps much more in the eastern Ukrainian
region known as the Donbas. But already the impact of Russia’s stepped-up
assault is being felt in the towns and villages along the hundreds of miles of
undulating eastern front. Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already
outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its
roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. And doctors at hospitals speak of
mounting losses as they struggle to care for fighters with gruesome injuries.
The civilians standing in the way of Russia’s planned advance once again face
the agonizing decision of whether to leave or to stay and wait out the coming
calamity. This area in the northern Donbas was among the last to be liberated in
a Ukrainian blitz offensive last fall that raised hopes among local residents
that their months of trauma were over. But the war has come back. Two weeks ago,
a Russian shell landed in Degtyaryova’s yard, and as she contemplated her future
over the weekend, the remains of her barn still smoldered.
She has rabbits, ducks and three pregnant cows to care for. A chicken, its
feathers partly burned off in the recent strike, lay recovering in a bed of hay,
its small injured foot in a homemade cast.
If the Russians come back, she lamented, she’ll have to flee.
“I’ve started to pack my things, if I’m being honest,” she said. “The soldiers
will cover my back and I will leave. I’ll let my cows out and I’ll go. I don’t
want to go back there.”
When and where the new offensive will begin in earnest is still unclear, but
Ukrainian officials are gravely concerned. Ukraine’s military defied dire
assessments before the war, thwarting Russia’s early efforts to seize the
capital, Kyiv, and eventually driving Russian forces back in the northeast and
south.
But the Russian military just keeps coming. Right now, the newly mobilized
troops are finishing their training and entering the field; the forces include
as many soldiers as took part in the initial invasion last year.
They could be ready to fight in as little as two weeks, said Serhiy Haidai, the
governor of the Luhansk region, which includes Nevske — much sooner than new
Western weapons, including tanks and heavy armored fighting vehicles, are
expected to arrive in Ukraine.
“There are so many,” Haidai said of the new recruits. “These are not
professional soldiers, but it is still 200,000 people who are shooting in our
direction.”
Russia is expected to punch hard, looking to reverse nearly a year of cascading
failure. While a renewed attack on Kyiv is now considered improbable, Russian
forces will likely try to recover territories they lost last fall. as well as
take full control of the Donbas, a key objective of Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Military analysts say that one likely scenario would be for Russian forces to
swing down from the north and up from the south in an arc, creating a large claw
that would cut off Ukrainian supply lines running east and west. That would put
villages like Nevske in the direct path of Russia’s likely advance.
For locals it would be a disaster. Out here at the far edge of Ukraine’s
offensive, people have not experienced the fruits of liberation the way
Ukrainians farther west have. There is still no power or water and the fighting
has never subsided. Fields of black unharvested sunflowers are pocked with
snow-filled craters, and the area is littered with burned-out tanks and
unexploded ordnance and mines that frequently kill livestock. Passing through
the region, one occasionally comes across their frozen bodies or bones.
In Makiivka, just north of Nevske, five of Ruslan Vasilchenko’s cows have been
killed, and those that remain were huddled on a recent day in a tiny barn that
had been spackled with shrapnel. There was a burned tank in his garden and two
destroyed cars in his courtyard. He said he expected things would get much worse
soon. “Over the last few days, the soldiers have come by to tell us not to leave
our homes,” he said. The first stages of the Russian offensive have already
begun. Ukrainian troops say that Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian
forces have been trying to seize since the summer, is likely to fall soon.
Elsewhere, Russian forces are advancing in small groups and probing the front
lines looking for Ukrainian weaknesses.
The efforts are already straining Ukraine’s military, which is worn out by
nearly 12 months of heavy fighting. Troops say they have tanks and artillery
pieces, but not enough of either, and have far less ammunition than their
adversaries. Russian forces have also started to field more sophisticated
weaponry, such as the T-90 tank, which is equipped with technology capable of
detecting the targeting systems of anti-tank weapons like the U.S-made Javelins,
limiting their effectiveness.
Mostly, though, the challenge comes down to numbers.
“It’s particularly difficult when you have 50 guys and they have 300,” said a
35-year-old infantry soldier named Pavlo, who was struck in the eye with a piece
of shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade near Bakhmut. “You take them out and
they keep coming and coming. There are so many.”
Losses among Ukrainian forces have been severe. Troops in a volunteer contingent
called the Carpathian Sich, positioned near Nevske, said that some 30 fighters
from their group had died in recent weeks, and soldiers said, only partly in
jest, that just about everyone has a concussion.
“It’s winter and the positions are open; there’s nowhere to hide,” said a
soldier from the unit with the call sign Rusin.
At one front-line hospital in the Donbas, the morgue was packed with the bodies
of Ukrainian soldiers in white plastic bags. In another hospital, stretchers
with wounded troops covered in gold foil thermal blankets crowded the corridors,
and a steady stream of ambulances arrived from the front nearly all day long.
A military surgeon at that hospital, Myroslav Dubenko, 36, scrolled through
photographs of soldiers with ghastly injuries: a lower jaw blasted off, half of
a face missing. One soldier was rushed in with his throat sliced open from ear
to ear. Dubenko was able to quickly repair the damage, and the soldier survived.
“In civilian life, you know that no matter how horrible your shift is, it will
end sooner or later,” Dubenko said. “Here, you never know when it will end.”
It not just the influx of soldiers that is consuming doctors; civilians, too,
are frequent victims of Russian attacks. For Andriy Drobnytsky, a 27-year-old
military doctor, this is part of a deliberate strategy of overwhelming Ukraine’s
military hospitals. Last week, a retired prison guard was rushed into the
military hospital where Drobnytsky is deployed, his hand blown apart by a mortar
shell that exploded while he was gathering firewood. Drobnytsky assisted in
sewing his hand back together, probably saving his index finger.
“If there are lots of victims, we’ll get distracted by them,” he said. “You just
can’t abandon them, right?”
Whether Russia will be able to capitalize on its strength in numbers is an open
question. Russian soldiers, according to Ukrainian and Western assessments, are
dying in far greater numbers. U.S. officials now estimate the number of Russian
troops wounded and killed to be approaching 200,000, an astounding casualty
rate. In his sleeping quarters at a base near Bakhmut, a soldier with the call
sign Badger pulled out a cloth bag and dumped its contents onto a cot. Inside
were half a dozen knives — one with a hilt made from a deer’s hoof — trophies he
said he had taken from the bodies of dead Russian soldiers.
“We also have losses, but they have huge losses,” Badger said. “We’ve wasted
them all in huge numbers.” Back near Nevske, soldiers from the Carpathian Sich
said they had enough ammunition to hang on for now. One soldier, with the call
sign Diesel, showed videos on his phone of the bodies of Russian troops he had
killed when they came too close. As they have since the beginning of the war,
the Russians continue to make stupid mistakes, he said. From one dead officer,
Diesel said, he took a tablet computer without an access code that had the
coordinates of all of their mines and snipers.
In a video he recorded from the front, Diesel approaches a body lying in the
snow, his rifle muzzle trained on the Russian’s head.
“Hello,” he whispers after determining the man was dead. “Did you sleep well?”
© 2023 The New York Times Company
'Ultra-patriots' may try to overthrow Putin because of his
army's failures in Ukraine, says Russian MP
Sinéad Baker/Business Insider/February 6, 2023
The biggest threat to Putin is ultra-nationalists, a pro-Kremlin Russian MP
said. Oleg Matveychev said "ultra-patriots" could overthrow Putin over his
army's performance. "The situation is not so critical yet, but 2023 will be very
dangerous," Matveychev said. A leading Russian MP said that his country's
"ultra-patriots" could try to overthrow President Vladimir Putin in frustration
with their army's performance in Ukraine. Oleg Matveychev — an MP with Russia's
largest political party, United Russia, which backs Putin — said in an interview
that the biggest threat to Putin is now supporters of the Ukraine war who are
unhappy with the progress of the conflict, The Times of London reported. He said
that for Putin "the situation is not so critical yet, but 2023 will be very
dangerous," the Times reported. Matveychev is often referred to as the Kremlin's
"spin doctor" due to frequent comments on behalf of top government officials.
However, his latest comments are unlikely to please those in the Kremlin.
Matveychev said that "ultra-patriots" in the country will likely put forward a
candidate to run against Putin in next year's presidential elections, when Putin
is set to run for a fifth term. He added that the candidate would likely follow
the playbook from a series of protests in Ukraine in 2013, which ended in
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was allied with Russia, being ousted.
He referred to this as following "the Maidan scenario," referring to
Independence Square in Kyiv, where those protests largely took place. "An
ultra-patriotic Maidan with a light dose of leftism, talk about corruption —
these are a means to bring people out, and the trigger could be anything," he
said, highlighting some of the battlefield setbacks in Ukraine. Putin has become
increasingly isolated from the rest of the world since his invasion of Ukraine
in February 2022, with the West imposing further sanctions on Russia and even
his longtime allies criticizing the war. In Russia he's also faced backlash from
pro-war figures, who are unhappy with the army's performance and want even more
brutal tactics in Ukraine. A former Putin speechwriter said last month that a
coup could happen in Russia as military generals are frustrated at their troops'
defeats. "As problems pile up in the country and the army, that the authorities
are unable to solve, Putin is more steadily transforming in people's eyes from a
great strategist to an ordinary, second-rate dictator," the speechwriter said.
Without supplying evidence, Russia says it's
investigating alleged Ukrainian use of chemical weapons
(Reuters)/Mon, February 6, 2023
Russia's state Investigative Committee said on Monday it was examining the
alleged use of chemical weapons by Ukrainian forces near the towns of Soledar
and Bakhmut. Ukraine's Defence Ministry did not immediately reply to requests
for comment on the allegation, which was not accompanied by any publicly
released evidence. The Investigative Committee said the Donetsk People's
Republic - one of Russia's proxies in the territories it has seized and occupied
in eastern Ukraine - had reported the use of chemical weapons by Ukrainian
drones near the two locations.
"As a result, servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces are experiencing a
deterioration in their health and characteristic symptoms of poisoning," it
said, without providing details or naming the alleged substance. Since the start
of its invasion nearly a year ago, Russia has repeatedly warned that Ukraine
might be preparing to use non-conventional weapons, including biological weapons
or a radioactive dirty bomb. No such attack has materialised. Ukraine and its
Western allies rejected those accusations but saw them as a possible prelude to
a "false flag" attack, meaning Russia might itself resort to such tactics but
seek to blame Ukraine. Russia has dismissed that claim.
UN chief says world ‘sleepwalking into wider war’ in
Ukraine
The Independent/Michelle Nichols and Tom Balmforth/Mon, February 6, 2023
The UN secretary general has said he fears the world is "sleepwalking into a
wider war" in Ukraine. Addressing the UN General Assembly just weeks ahead of
the first anniversary of Russia's invasion, Antonio Guterres said that the
"prospects for peace keep diminishing" and that the chances of further
"escalation and bloodshed keep growing". "I fear the world is not sleepwalking
into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open," he added,
saying that war is "inflicting untold suffering on the Ukrainian people, with
profound global implications."It comes as Ukraine sent mixed messages about the
fate of its defence minister, leaving a key post in its war effort in doubt even
as it braces for what it believes will be a new Russian offensive.
The questions left dangling over the defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, are a
first public sign of serious disarray in Ukraine's wartime leadership, until now
remarkably united during almost a year of all-out Russian military assault.
A day after announcing that Mr Reznikov would be sidelined, a top ally of
President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to row back for now, saying no personnel
changes in the defence sector would be made this week. David Arakhamia, chief of
the parliamentary bloc of Mr Zelensky's party, had said the head of military
intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, would take over the defence ministry, while Mr
Reznikov would be made minister of strategic industries. But Mr Zelensky has
remained silent on the issue, while Mr Reznikov said on Sunday he had not been
informed of any move and would reject the strategic industry job if offered it.
The confusion caps a two-week crackdown on alleged corruption in Ukraine that
has led to the biggest shakeup of officials since Russia's invasion. Central and
regional officials were fired or quit, security forces raided a billionaire's
home and investigations were launched into suspected fraud at the main oil
company and refinery. The Defence Ministry was caught up in accusations it
contracted to overpay for food, although Mr Reznikov was not personally accused
of any wrongdoing.
Mr Zelensky has said the actions are intended to show that Kyiv can be a safe
steward of billions of dollars of Western aid. But they risk destabilising the
political class that had stood together against Russia's invasion. Meanwhile,
Russian forces have been advancing for the first time in six months in
relentless battles in the east. A regional governor said Moscow was pouring in
reinforcements for a new offensive that could come as soon as next week. Mr
Reznikov, a 56-year-old lawyer, has been the face of Ukraine at international
meetings when allies have pledged billions of dollars in arms, and has been
warmly received in Western capitals including Paris just last week. One obstacle
to replacing him with Mr Budanov, an enigmatic, fast-rising 37-year-old military
intelligence officer decorated for operations that remain secret, is a rule
requiring the defence minister be a civilian. Volodymyr Fesenko, a political
analyst at the Penta think tank, said he expected Mr Budanov to request
retirement from the military before his appointment, while Mr Reznikov could be
given a post of special envoy, making use of his stature abroad. Ukraine's
defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment regarding Mr Reznikov.
In announcing plans for the change, Mr Arakhamia said Ukraine's armed forces
should be overseen by people with a background in defence or security in
wartime: "War dictates changes in personnel policy," he wrote on the Telegram
messaging app. But an adviser for Mr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, noted that Mr
Reznikov was respected by allies: "Reznikov was extremely efficient in terms of
communication with our partners. And this is a very important component in this
case."The war is reaching a pivotal point as its first anniversary approaches,
with Ukraine no longer making gains as it did in the second half of 2022 and
Russia now pushing forward with hundreds of thousands of mobilised reserve
troops. Ukraine is planning its own counter offensive, but waiting on promised
Western battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
Russia was sending more reserves and equipment into eastern Ukraine, Serhiy
Haidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region said on television, adding that
shelling was no longer round-the-clock as Russian forces prepare for a
full-scale offensive. "After Feb 15 we can expect (this offensive) at any time,"
he said.
Russia's defence ministry said its forces had taken control of Mykolaivka, a
small village in the adjoining Donetsk region, according to state media. There
was no immediate response from Ukraine, which has disputed other Russian
battlefield reports. Russia's main target has been the town of Bakhmut, where
its state media said the Wagner mercenary group had gained a foothold. A
Belarusian volunteer fighting for Ukraine inside Bakhmut said earlier that
Ukrainian forces were still in control of the town, although more Russian forces
were appearing daily.
Ukraine's defence ministry in turmoil as Russia readies
offensive
Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk/KYIV (Reuters)/Mon, February 6, 2023
Ukraine sent mixed messages over the fate of its defence minister on Monday,
leaving a key post in its war effort in doubt even as it braces for a new
Russian offensive. The questions left dangling over Defence Minister Oleksii
Reznikov were the first public sign of serious disarray in Ukraine's wartime
leadership, until now remarkably united during almost a year of all-out Russian
military assault. A day after announcing that Reznikov would be sidelined, a top
ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to row back for now, saying no
personnel changes in the defence sector would be made this week.
David Arakhamia, chief of the parliamentary bloc of Zelenskiy's party, had said
the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, would take over the defence
ministry, while Reznikov would be made minister of strategic industries. But
Zelenskiy remained silent on the issue, while Reznikov said on Sunday he had not
been informed of any move and would reject the strategic industry job if offered
it. The confusion caps a two-week purge of the Kyiv leadership, the biggest
shakeup since the Russian invasion. Central and regional officials have been
swept from office, security forces raided the home of a billionaire, prosecutors
announced a huge fraud case at the biggest oil company and refinery, and ex-officals
have been stripped of citizenship. Zelenskiy has touted the crackdown as an
opportunity to demonstrate that Kyiv can be a safe steward of billions of
dollars of Western aid. But it risks destabilising the leadership after nearly a
year in which Kyiv's political class had solidly united against Russia's
invasion. Meanwhile, Russian forces have been advancing for the first time in
six months in relentless battles in the east. A regional governor said Moscow
was pouring in reinforcements for a new offensive that could come as soon as
next week.
'EVERYTHING WILL BE RESOLVED'
Reznikov, a 56-year-old lawyer, has been the face of Ukraine at international
meetings when allies have pledged billions of dollars in arms, and has been
warmly received in Western capitals including Paris just last week. Although
there have been investigations into corruption at the defence ministry, most
notably accusations that it signed a contract to overpay for food for troops, he
has not been personally accused of any wrongdoing. Two senior lawmakers on
Monday noted the defence minister must be a civilian - an apparent obstacle to
his immediate replacement by Budanov, a 37-year-old military officer. Volodymyr
Fesenko, a political analyst at the Penta think tank, said he expected Budanov
to request retirement from the military before his appointment, while Reznikov
could be given a post of special envoy, making use of his stature abroad.
"Everything will be resolved," Fesenko told Reuters. Ukraine's defence ministry
did not respond to a request for comment regarding Reznikov and Reuters could
not immediately reach Reznikov or Budanov directly. In announcing plans for the
change, Arakhamia said Ukraine's armed forces should be overseen by people with
a background in defence or security in wartime: "War dictates changes in
personnel policy," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. But Zelenskiy adviser
Mykhailo Podolyak noted on Sunday that Reznikov was respected by allies: "Reznikov
was extremely efficient in terms of communication with our partners. And this is
a very important component in this case.
"Negotiations are not just mathematical formulae but also personal
relationships. And trust. Unfortunately, today we are losing a measure of trust
in us," Podolyak said. Reznikov said on Sunday that any decision on a reshuffle
was up to Zelenskiy, but that a planned transfer to a new ministry was news to
him. As for the proposed strategic industry post, "I would refuse it, because I
do not have the expertise," Reznikov was cited as saying by Ukrainian Fakty ICTV
online media. Budanov, identified by Arakhamia as Reznikov's replacement, is an
enigmatic young officer decorated for his role in secret operations, who rapidly
rose through the ranks to head up the military's Main Directorate of
Intelligence.
OFFENSIVE AT ANY TIME
The war is reaching a pivotal point as its first anniversary approaches, with
Ukraine no longer making gains as it did in the second half of 2022 and Russia
now pushing forward with hundreds of thousands of mobilised reserve troops.
Ukraine is planning its own counter-offensive, but waiting on promised Western
battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Russia was sending more reserves
and equipment into eastern Ukraine, Serhiy Haidai, governor of the eastern
Luhansk region said on television, adding that shelling was no longer
round-the-clock as Russian forces prepare for a full-scale offensive.
"After Feb 15 we can expect (this offensive) at any time," he said. Russia's
main target has been the town of Bakhmut, where Russian state media said on
Monday the Wagner mercenary group had gained a foothold, citing Denis Pushilin,
the Russian-backed chief in Ukraine's Donetsk region. A Belarusian volunteer
fighting for Ukraine inside Bakhmut said on Sunday night that Ukrainian forces
were still in control of the town, although more Russian forces were appearing
daily. "Reinforcements are also arriving for us. As far as I know the intention
isn't to surrender Bakhmut," he said.
Poland redeploys Patriot missiles to capital city for
drills
WARSAW, Poland (AP)/Mon, February 6, 2023
Patriot missile batteries that Poland acquired from the U.S. last year have been
deployed to the country's capital Warsaw as part of military exercise, according
to Poland's defense ministry. Poland is taking additional steps to strengthen
its defensive capabilities as Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine enters its
second year later this month. At least three ground-to-air missile launchers
were seen Monday at Warsaw’s Bemowo airport. Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak
said on Twitter over the weekend that the redeployment of the missile batteries
from their base in Sochaczew, central Poland, to Warsaw was “an important
element to the training" of the 3rd Warsaw Brigade of Missile Air Defense. The
Patriot batteries are part of Poland’s multibillion dollar armaments purchases
from the U.S., South Korea and elsewhere. Poland has also received Patriot
batteries from Germany, to boost its air defenses in the east, where a stray
missile came from across the border with Ukraine and killed two civilians last
year.
In pro-Putin Serbia, liberal-minded Russians seek a home
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)/Mon, February 6, 2023
At a central square in Serbia's capital of Belgrade, dozens of Russians gathered
recently to denounce President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, holding up
photos of political prisoners from their homeland. Across the plaza, a billboard
touts the Russian propaganda outlet RT, which has launched an online news portal
in the country but is banned elsewhere in Europe. Heroic portraits of a
bare-chested Putin adorn souvenir T-shirts and coffee mugs, or are painted on
city walls. These conflicting images reflect the complex and delicate
relationship these days between Russia and Serbia. The Slavic country is
Moscow's closest ally in Europe, with historic, religious and cultural ties that
are bolstered by Kremlin political influence campaigns. Russia backs Serbia’s
claim over its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008
with Western support. And Serbia has refused to impose sanctions on Moscow over
the invasion. At the same time, Serbia wants to join the European Union.
Populist President Aleksandar Vucic has denounced the invasion, and about
200,000 Russians have flooded into the country in the past year, with many
seeking a new life in a brotherly land free of Kremlin oppression. “Here in
Belgrade, we are not perceived with hostility, and that means a lot,” said
Anastasia Demidova, who arrived in the Balkan nation from Moscow three months
ago. “I’ve been talking to a lot of Serbian people here and other foreigners.
When they ask me ‘what are you doing here,’ I say: ‘We are against Putin and for
a democratic Russia and we are against the war in Ukraine, obviously,’” she told
The Associated Press. Others say they fled to avoid being drafted or because
Western sanctions crippled their businesses or took away their jobs.
As a result, Russian can be heard spoken everywhere in Belgrade, a city of about
2 million. Russian-owned restaurants and bars have sprouted. Private Russian
enterprises have mushroomed, especially in the IT sector. The influx has sent
the price of real estate soaring.
This reminds some here of the wave of Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution
in 1917, and many of those who stayed in Serbia left their mark on its culture
and art. These modern Russians, however, are maintaining links to their
homeland, including financial ties, said historian Aleksej Timofejev. Unlike
their predecessors, he said, they can't go onward to the West because of the
sanctions and still need visas to travel to richer countries in Europe.
“They did not choose this country but came here because it is the only one that
would have them,” Timofejev added. The newcomers say they can still feel
Moscow’s heavy-handed influence, especially when it comes to Serbians' approval
for Putin, via media outlets like RT. Russian activist Petar Nikitin calls it a
“coordinated propaganda effort.”Nikitin first came to Serbia in the early 2000s.
Back then, “this admiration for the Russian government was a lot more marginal
... and I saw it grow exponentially,” he said. Russians “who recently arrived,
who didn’t know much about Serbia before, yes, many of them told me they were
completely shocked to see this idolization specifically of Putin, and this
picture of Russia that is completely divorced from reality,” Nikitin said.
Moscow has boosted this sentiment in the pro-Russia media by feeding Serbian
anger with the West over Kosovo following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the
1990s. The dispute between Serbia and Kosovo has been a source of tension since
the war in 1998-99 that ended when a NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to pull
out of the former Serbian province after a bloody crackdown against Kosovo
Albanian separatists and civilians
Serbia's rejection of Kosovo's declaration of independence has Moscow's support
— one of the reasons why Belgrade maintains friendly relations with Putin and
has refused to join Western sanctions. While Vucic has criticized the invasion
of Ukraine, he puts a uniquely Balkan spin on it. “We do support territorial
integrity of Ukraine, as we do support territorial integrity of Serbia,” he told
the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. “So … they ask me, ‘Is Crimea part
of Ukraine or Russia?’ Yes, it’s part of Ukraine. Donbas is part of Ukraine. If
you ask us."
His country "will stick to that, and we will be more loyal to territorial
integrity of U.N. member states than many others that changed their stance on
territorial integrity of Serbia,” Vucic added, referring to the support for
Kosovo's independence from Washington and other countries. Western officials
have stepped up pressure on Vucic to make a decisive turn away from Moscow if
Serbia wants to join the EU. They fear that Russia could stir trouble in the
Balkans through its Serbian proxies to avert some of the international attention
from Ukraine. Recently, the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group ran
advertisements on RT's Serbian-language outlet recruiting Serbs to fight in
Ukraine. It is illegal for Serbs to take part in conflicts outside the country,
although about a dozen joined Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine after
battles broke out there in 2014.
Owned by Putin-linked oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner has taken a prominent
and active role in Ukraine and also has sent its mercenaries to several African
countries. Last month, U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet held talks
with Vucic to voice concerns about Wagner’s activities in Serbia.
Nikitin, the Russian activist who has formed a group called Russian Democratic
Community, has teamed up with a Serbian lawyer to file a lawsuit demanding an
investigation of the mercenary group. That led to increased threats against more
liberal Russians from right-wing Serbian organizations with close links to
Wagner and Moscow. “The threats that I receive directly and to my inbox are
quite carefully worded — they are quite obvious,” Nikitin said. “They range from
‘get out of Serbia’ to very obscene insults involving my family. And veiled
threats that I am soon going to meet people who are dead.”
Nikitin said his more liberal-minded countrymen in Serbia are eager to show they
don’t support Putin’s war or his crackdown on opposition groups at home. “We
want to be very open about who we are and why we hold the views that we hold,”
he said. Artem, a 33-year-old web developer from St. Petersburg, said that he
fled to Serbia with his wife and two pets shortly after the war began on Feb.
24. He spoke with the AP on condition that his last name not be used for “safety
reasons.”Speaking at a Belgrade bar that's an unofficial hub for more liberal
Russians — its Wi-Fi password is “Nowar2402” — he said he's been helping
Ukrainian refugees in Serbia through online aid campaigns, providing information
on how to start a new life. Leaving Russia “was some kind of protest because I
didn’t agree at all with the war,” Artem said. “War for me is not an answer for
any conflict or anything.”
Norway looks to donate $7.3 billion in aid to Ukraine
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP)/February 6, 2023
Oil-rich Norway is looking to donate 75 billion kroner ($7.3 billion) to Kyiv as
part of a five-year support package that would make the Scandinavian country one
of the world’s biggest donors to war-torn Ukraine, the Norwegian government said
Monday. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the money would be split evenly
between military and humanitarian assistance over five years, broken down to 15
billion kroner ($1.5 billion) annually. The proposed aid package will be put to
a vote in parliament. Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen said that overall, the European Union’s economic, humanitarian and
military support for Ukraine now amounts to almost 50 billion euros. Earlier
this month, the EU said it would unveil its 10th package of sanctions against
Russia on the Feb. 24 anniversary of the war. It will target technology used by
Russia’s war machine, among other things.
Norway, which isn't an EU member, gave Ukraine more than 10 billion kroner ($1
billion) in civilian and military aid last year. “It will lead to an increased
use of oil money,” Gahr Støre said, adding that he's hoping “a large majority”
in the Norwegian parliament would approve the aid package. A parliamentary
majority is expected to pass the proposal. “Supporting Ukraine is supporting a
people experiencing war, but it is also support for our fundamental security,”
Gahr Støre told a press conference. “We are showing the Ukrainians that we will
support them for a long time,” adding it would make “it possible to plan better
so that the money is used where the needs are greatest.”At a conference earlier
Monday in Oslo, Gahr Støre spoke of a new Iron Curtain dividing east and west.
“The implications for Europe are hard to overestimate. A Russia in self-imposed
isolation is bad news for of us.” He also said that “Ukraine’s needs are
immense.” The government in Oslo also proposed to increase the aid to countries
that are hit by the war in Ukraine by 5 billion kroner ($490 million) -– that
money should be used on humanitarian aid and food. Last week, the Norwegian
government said that oil profits should go toward funding more aid to Ukraine.
Norway is one of Europe’s largest fossil-fuel exporters, and the conflict in
Ukraine has boosted its gas revenues. However, Norway has fended off accusations
that it’s profiting from the war in Ukraine. A rush by European countries to
secure alternative energy sources following Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly
a year ago dramatically increased the demand — and price — for Norway’s oil and
gas.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on February 06-07/2023
How 'The Collective Voice of
the Muslim World' Weaponizes the UN against Israel
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/February 6, 2023
OPEC and the OIC are infused with nearly incalculable wealth and most member
states of the OIC have found themselves upbraided for questionable ethics.
One critic suggested: "If the OIC Summiteers are serious about the burning
issues of justice, freedom and good governance, then they should schedule a
special debate on the Transparency International's (TI) 2003 Corruption
Perception Index (CPI) which ranked 38 of the 57 OIC member nations in its
latest chart of the corruption levels of 133 countries... [it] is dismal reading
for OIC as it is an overall indictment of the failures of the OIC countries to
grapple with the problem of corruption..."
The UN itself is certainly not above reproach in the corruption department, as
evidenced, among other cases, by the "Oil-for-Food Program;" the extensive
history of "food for sex" with children by "peacekeepers" who enjoy immunity
from prosecution; or the trial of Chinese executive Julia Wang, who attempted to
purchase an influential UN post.
One may wonder why Nicaragua, not an Islamic country, and with significant
problems on its own home front, would trouble itself with submitting the motion.
A cursory investigation reveals some significant motivation: "With the majority
vote of the Sandinista Caucus, the National Assembly today approved the Loan
Agreement signed between the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and
the Republic of Nicaragua... The project, which has an estimated investment of
23 million dollars, of which the OPEC Fund will finance 20.5 million..."
The OIC even attempted to co-opt UN forces as a pretext for Islamic military
support of Lebanon's offensive against Israel.
Returning to the pre-1967 lines -- simply the armistice lines from 1949 where
fighting had happened to stop -- is nothing short of suicide for Israel; it
would be virtually indefensible, and the UN and all of its sponsors are well
aware of that.
It would seem... that protecting freedom of religion, outside of Islamic
fundamentalism, is not of any particular concern to the OIC or what now stands
mostly as its legitimizing but rapidly crumbling front, the UN. The
collaboration between the OIC and UN is simply a pretext to twist international
law -- and public opinion -- to their own purposes, whether they are promoting
themselves or delegitimizing the State of Israel.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) presumptuously calls itself "The
Collective Voice of The Muslim World," and simple observation of its activities
would seem to place it as Islam's political Caliphate. One would wonder, then,
how such a single-interest organization could lay claim to such a
disproportionate amount of the United Nations' attention. Pictured: A special
meeting of the OIC in Islamabad, Pakistan on December 19, 2021. (Photo by Farooq
Naeem/AFP via Getty Images)
It is already a tired truism to say that the United Nations has a distinctly
anti-Israel bias. The US became exasperated with this laser-like focus and, in
unequivocal condemnation of the agency, withdrew from the UN Human Rights
Council (UNHRC) in 2018 and, for the same reason, from UNESCO the following
year. Predictably, a UN Committee on the Status of Women resolution singled out
Israel as the only state in the world to be condemned for violations of women's
rights, as well.
How can such an overwhelming amount of time, paperwork and energy of the UN's
extensive agencies, professedly representing global interests, be so
single-mindedly devoted to the censure of a single democratic state?
Second only to the UN, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the
world's largest intergovernmental organization.
Although the two organizations have worked in cooperation from almost the outset
of the OIC's inception, their apparent meshing of operations over the years has
become reason for significant concern to the world overall and to Israel in
particular.
The OIC presumptuously calls itself "The Collective Voice of The Muslim World,"
and simple observation of its activities would seem to place it as Islam's
political Caliphate. One would wonder, then, how such a single-interest
organization could lay claim to such a disproportionate amount of the UN's
attention, which presumably should represent the interests of the global
citizenry.
Yet, by its own admission:
"The UN has taken a number of steps to institutionalize its relationship with
the OIC by helping strengthen its capacity through mediation and electoral
assistance, and by holding desk-to-desk talks with the OIC on areas of mutual
concern, such as peace and security."
"The UN and the OIC share common objectives in promoting and facilitating the
Middle East peace process and the question of Palestine," according to Assistant
Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca.
The UN Security Council (UNSC) has adopted resolutions that are theoretically
detrimental to Israel, but they are fairly stunted in the scope of the damage
they can inflict, as the US (and the other four permanent member countries:
Russia, France, China and the UK, for that matter) retains the right to veto any
of those resolutions.
The UN agencies in general, amid a flurry of resolutions, special commissions,
rapporteurs and the like, are where more damage can be done, albeit primarily in
the court of world opinion than in any significantly binding way.
Unlike in the UNSC, the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council have no
permanently enshrined members with the power of veto. UNGA and UNHRC resolutions
are passed via consensus or majority vote.
A Venn diagram of members of the UN and members of the OIC would demonstrate
that the 56 member-states of the OIC voting bloc constitute about 30% of the
UN's ballot power -- nearly a third of the vote, but still not a majority. How
can one explain, then, the persistent anti-Israel resolutions that require
passage by a majority vote?
Expanding on the Venn diagram, by adding members of OPEC (Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries,), one gets a better understanding of why
non-Muslim countries such as Venezuela and Russia can be counted on by the OIC
voting bloc: There are former members of OPEC (Ecuador, for example), who have
no desire to alienate their OIC/OPEC friends in the event they wish to rejoin
when they can meet OPEC's quotas or afford the membership fees once again.
According to World Population Review:
"One of OPEC's most controversial actions took place in 2022 during the
Russo-Ukrainian war. Many countries around the world had boycotted Russian oil
in protest over the country's invasion of Ukraine, causing analysts to predict a
global shortage of non-Russian oil. Despite these projections, OPEC chose to
reduce production instead of increasing it. This move was seen by some... as a
clear attempt to force countries to remove their embargoes and purchase Russian
oil, thereby assisting Russia's effort to fund the war. OPEC has adamantly
maintained that politics do not factor into its decision-making.
"In recent years, OPEC has begun making agreements with not just its own member
states, but with a group of 10-11 non-OPEC oil-producing countries including
Russia, which wields strong political power within the group. This unofficial
coalition is typically referred to as OPEC+..."
It may not be so far-fetched to extend the concept of "OPEC+" to "OIC+." OPEC
and the OIC are infused with nearly incalculable wealth and most member states
of the OIC have found themselves upbraided for questionable ethics.
One critic suggested:
"If the OIC Summiteers are serious about the burning issues of justice, freedom
and good governance, then they should schedule a special debate on the
Transparency International's (TI) 2003 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which
ranked 38 of the 57 OIC member nations in its latest chart of the corruption
levels of 133 countries... [it] is dismal reading for OIC as it is an overall
indictment of the failures of the OIC countries to grapple with the problem of
corruption..."
The UN itself is certainly not above reproach in the corruption department, as
evidenced, among other cases, by the "Oil-for-Food Program;" the extensive
history of "food for sex" with children (here, here and here) by "peacekeepers"
who enjoy immunity from prosecution; or the trial of Chinese executive Julia
Wang, who attempted to purchase an influential UN post.
It is becoming a little easier to see how the UN/OIC/OPEC trinity holds sway in
the world theater and particularly how it wields its power against Israel.
In the UN's most recent demonstration of anti-Israel bias, the resolution to
subject Israel to the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) --
yet another branch of the UN -- one sees exactly how the votes actually work.
"[I]t wasn't a majority that voted in favor of the resolution," UN Watch legal
advisor Dina Rovner explains.
"There were 87 countries that voted in favor of this resolution out of 193 UN
member states; that's a minority of UN member states. 26 countries opposed the
resolution and 53 countries abstained. So, unfortunately, the way things work at
the UN is there is an automatic anti-Israel majority and... the result is kind
of preordained."
Although this UN motion was drafted by "The State of Palestine," the
Palestinians were not legally permitted to submit it, as "Palestine" is not a
full member of the UN.
One may wonder why Nicaragua, not an Islamic country, and with significant
problems on its own home front, would trouble itself with submitting the motion.
A cursory investigation reveals some significant motivation:
"With the majority vote of the Sandinista Caucus, the National Assembly today
approved the Loan Agreement signed between the OPEC Fund for International
Development (OFID) and the Republic of Nicaragua... The project, which has an
estimated investment of 23 million dollars, of which the OPEC Fund will finance
20.5 million..."
The ICJ resolution is only the most recent demonstration of a long history of
anti-Israel legislation sponsored by OIC bloc states at the UN.
After Hezbollah initiated the Second Lebanon War by attacking Israel, the OIC
made the "... demand that the UN Security Council fulfil (sic) its
responsibility..." to intervene (on Lebanon's behalf, of course).
In fact, then-OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu declared that the
"Islamic Ummah (community) is outraged," and followed with a thinly veiled
threat:
"The failure of peace initiatives will endanger not only the peace efforts in
the Middle East, but peace and stability in the whole world... another failure
in this regard can instigate further violence and terror."
The OIC even attempted to co-opt UN forces as a pretext for Islamic military
support of Lebanon's offensive against Israel. According to Al Jazeera:
"Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister and chair of the [OIC's]
57-nation body, said that Muslim countries had to commit troops for a proposed
UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He said, 'We must play a more proactive role
in the present conflict. We must show preparedness to contribute forces for
peacekeeping operations under the UN banner.'"
"Peacekeeping" by specifically Islamic troops between Lebanon and Israel via
UNIFIL as an impartial UN buffer zone? Draw your own conclusions.
Actually, no drawing is necessary: SADAT International Defense Consultancy,
owned by a top military advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has
painted a clear picture of what that would look like in an article preceding the
OIC's convention in Istanbul:
"The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint 'Army of
Islam' to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint
army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and
presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases
for the army's ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the
Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear
country, has 'a special status' among the OIC countries. An interactive map
provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the
role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.... A second
article, titled 'How to Solve the Palestinian Question?' emphasizes the need to
utilize the OIC as the basis for a permanent defense cooperation committee, and
also describes his vision of establishing military bases for the purpose of
liberating Palestine."The OIC was founded on the premise of protecting Arab
rights to Jerusalem and Haram al-Sharif (the Temple Mount), so it is not
surprising that it celebrated the ICJ resolution mentioned above and praised
"the positions of the countries that contributed to the sponsorship and support
of these decisions..."
"... stressing that these decisions express the commitment and support of the
international community to... the Palestinian people, and renewed its call on
the international community to redouble its efforts In order to put in place the
mechanisms that ensure the enforcement and implementation of United Nations
resolutions, leading to ending the Israeli occupation... and enabling the
Palestinian people to... their independent state on the borders of June 4, 1967,
with East Jerusalem as its capital."
A UN General Assembly resolution passed on December 30, 2022 itself demonstrates
disturbingly parallel rhetoric:
"Deeply regretting that 55 years have passed since the onset of the Israeli
occupation, and stressing the urgent need for efforts to... bring a complete end
to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and the resolution of all core
final status issues, without exception, leading to a...solution of the question
of Palestine." [Emphasis added.]
Then Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid commented on the resolution prior to the
vote:
"This resolution is the outcome of a concerted effort to single out Israel, to
discredit our legitimate security concerns, and to delegitimize our very
existence."
Returning to the pre-1967 lines -- simply the armistice lines from 1949 where
fighting had happened to stop -- is nothing short of suicide for Israel; it
would be virtually indefensible, and the UN and all of its sponsors are well
aware of that.
The OIC's influence at the UN is evident not only in its obsession with
delegitimizing the State of Israel at every turn, but also in how it has
harnessed the UN's agencies to further a general Islamic fundamentalist agenda.
International relations and human rights experts at the London School of
Economics and Political Science noted:
"In 1999, the OIC introduced its first UN resolution on Defamation of Islam...
The EU criticized the draft resolution for its one-sided focus on Islam, and
after negotiations (and a passionate internal debate in the OIC), the resolution
was adopted by consensus under the title Combating Defamation of Religions.
Despite this change, OIC managed to maintain the core argument that defamation
of religions is a human rights violation which fuels discrimination and
intolerance and should therefore be criminalised. The resolution was adopted
every year from 1999 to 2010 with a comfortable majority, with support coming
from far beyond the Muslim world, including many Latin American, African and
Asian states....in 2005, the OIC intensified its campaign to outlaw expressions
deemed defamatory against religion while increasingly basing its arguments on
existing legal provisions in international law."
They further observe:
"Rather than simply a violation of conservative Islamic censorship norms,
defamation of holy symbols was increasingly framed in secular human rights terms
as a manifestation of Islamophobia...On the basis of this argument, the OIC
sought to install a new ban against religious defamation in the UN's
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination [ICERD]...." [Emphasis added.]
Ironically, ICERD has acted as the OIC's double edged sword: it has been
manipulated to serve Islamic fundamentalist interests while its wording has
simultaneously been conveniently adapted to attack the State of Israel. Claims
that Israel's vital security measures constitute a form of "racial
discrimination" are simply a perversion of logic which, under the banner of
ICERD, has gone so far as incorrectly (here, here, and here) to accuse Israel of
the crime of apartheid.
The OIC's "Collective Voice of The Muslim World" is whispering intently into the
UN's ear, but -- with the corruption so clearly running rampant throughout the
UN agencies and their various cohorts -- it might as well be a shout.
A quick look at the website of the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom, a federal agency, confirms that a large number of OIC/UN members are
featured on their "Countries of Particular Concern" and "Special Watch" lists.
Among so many other points, it would seem to indicate even further that
protecting freedom of religion, outside of Islamic fundamentalism, is not of any
particular concern to the OIC or what now stands mostly as its legitimizing but
rapidly crumbling front, the UN. The collaboration between the OIC and UN is
simply a pretext to twist international law -- and public opinion -- to their
own purposes, whether they are promoting themselves or delegitimizing the State
of Israel.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
The Decisive Test for Germany Is Still to Come
Jochen Bittner/The New York Times/February, 06/2023
After months of indecision, hand-wringing and uncertainty, Germany last week
committed to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The delay was a measure of the
decision’s significance. For a country long wary of active military involvement
in conflicts, the release of its most advanced war machine for battle with
Russian troops is momentous. A taboo has been shed.
The decision has revealed something of an enigma. Who is the man leading Germany
during the fiercest conflict in Europe since World War II: a strategic genius or
a fainthearted dawdler? Over a year into his tenure, Chancellor Olaf Scholz
remains hard to decipher. On the one hand, his agreement with the United States
will bring Ukraine more military power than expected. On the other hand, it took
him half a year of ever-mounting pressure from allies, coalition partners and
large parts of the German press to move on the issue, robbing Ukraine of time it
doesn’t have.
So there’s something for both interpretations. Yet decoding Mr. Scholz is
crucial, not so much for understanding his first year in office as for
navigating the months that lie ahead. Because the decisive question for Mr.
Scholz — as well as for NATO as a whole — is not whether to send battle tanks to
Ukraine. Rather, it’s the question of what the West should do once Ukraine
starts using those tanks, especially in a potential advance toward Crimea. For
all the importance of the past week, that test is still to come.
So far, the chancellor has been notably timid: He tends to look on until, well,
push comes to Scholz. He intervened in a fight about extending nuclear power
only after his Green and Liberal ministers had spent months scratching each
other’s political eyes out. It took him an entire year to accept that his
original appointment as defense minister was clearly ill suited for the job.
Rather than sack her for a series of blunders, he waited until she resigned.
Mr. Scholz’s tendency to wait until the last minute to act — a kind of strategic
bystanderism — has been most damaging when it comes to Ukraine. In the months it
took him to forge his tank deal, thousands of Ukrainians died from Russian
bombs, rockets and artillery. Potentially even more Ukrainians and Russians are
going to die in the months that it will now take to make the tanks, both
American and German, operational.
These deaths, of course, are not Mr. Scholz’s fault. But a quicker, bolder
decision on tanks could have alleviated the situation, allowing the Ukrainians
to make decisive breakthroughs and shift the battlefield dynamics in their
favor. Instead, as the British historian Timothy Garton Ash has warned, the
conflict is in danger of becoming an “escalating stalemate,” with both sides dug
in for World War I-style trench warfare.
Securing the United States’ support, in the form of 31 M1 Abrams tanks, is
generally seen as a success. But there’s a drawback here, too. By insisting that
the United States take an equal risk in opposing Vladimir Putin with battle
tanks, Mr. Scholz has shown a lack of faith in a core principle of NATO itself.
Article 5, after all, states that an attack on one member will be considered as
an attack on all members. Forcing the issue, said Roderich Kiesewetter, a
foreign policy expert in the opposition Christian Democratic Party, “undermines
the credibility of the alliance.”
Mr. Scholz proudly calls it “responsible” to have gained an extra layer of
reassurance. He reportedly sees his move in the tradition of one of his
predecessors as chancellor, Helmut Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, also a Social Democrat,
pressed the Americans to station medium-range Pershing II missiles in Germany in
the 1980s. He wanted Washington to be able to retaliate in kind should the
Soviets attack Europe with their new SS-20 missiles.
But Mr. Schmidt’s main intention was to close a defense gap, while Mr. Scholz’s
is seemingly to fill a courage gap. The German public is split on the Leopards
decision, not least because Germany does not have a nuclear deterrent of its
own. But was it wise to leverage this anxiety against a resolute alliance
partner like the United States? Real leadership should have meant the opposite:
to use the alliance with the United States, longstanding and of indisputable
worth, to assuage German angst. The fact that Mr. Scholz didn’t chose this
option will be remembered not only in Washington but also in Moscow.
There is one last exhibit of Mr. Scholz’s slowness, one that allies in the East
and West should heed. The chancellor steadfastly refuses to utter a sentence
that most other Western leaders have said by now: that Ukraine must win this
war. Mr. Scholz goes only so far as to say that Ukraine must not lose it. Why?
The most probable reason is to signal to Ukrainian officials that a victory as
they envision it — including the reclamation of Crimea — is not what Germany has
in mind.
Here, for a change, Mr. Scholz’s caution could be justified. As much as one can
argue about Mr. Putin’s red lines, possession of Crimea is certainly one that
the Russian president is determined to stick to. The peninsula is not only holy
to Mr. Putin as the place of baptism of Vladimir the Great, the father of
Russian Christianity, but also sacred to him personally. The fate of Crimea is
very likely to determine his own.
If Mr. Putin were to lose Crimea, he would fail the promise on which the entire
war in Ukraine is founded: to restore national glory and greatness, in
compensation for the humiliations that — as Mr. Putin sees it — the West has
inflicted on Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. A Ukrainian recapture of
Crimea would not be just a territorial defeat. Psychologically, it would be
dangerously more than that: a humiliation of the effort to undo humiliation.
Nobody knows whether Mr. Putin, in a meltdown moment, might resort to a nuclear
strike to avoid this ultimate degradation.
In this setting, a push from Ukraine to win back the peninsula with Western
tanks should worry more than just the faint of heart. Mr. Scholz likes to
present his slowness as prudence that others recognize only in hindsight. Yet
when it comes to Crimea, his strategy of caution surely won’t hold. He will have
to stop playing the bystander, and act.
Omar Screams ‘Islamophobia’ … But There’s Nothing
‘Irrational’ About Fearing Islam
Raymond Ibrahim/February, 06/2023
Due to a history of making anti-Semitic and generally divisive remarks, Rep.
Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) has just been voted out from the House Foreign Affairs
Committee.
But there’s another good reason to see her gone. She is also one of the chief
purveyors of the “Islamophobia” claim—which is used to silence any meaningful
discussion on Islam. Only three days before she was voted out, she had
disparaged House Republicans of being “Ok with Islamophobia.”
And, as might be expected, her being voted out is already being chalked up
to—you guessed it—“blatant Islamophobia.”
But while it’s good to see her disempowered, those who rely on the Islamophobia
card are growing. Indeed, wherever one looks, charges of Islamophobia are
increasingly being cast against, and often negatively impact the security of,
non-Muslims. A few examples from just the month of January, 2023 follow:
The National Council of Canadian Muslims “made liberal use of the ‘Islamophobia’
charge to hinder investigations into Muslim nonprofit organizations accused of
funding terror operations in the Middle East.”
Canada appointed a rep to “fight Islamophobia,” thereby further hampering free
speech, including in the realm of national security.
Various nations around the world “condemned Islamophobia” in Sweden, after an
“extremist” burned a copy of the Koran. NATO member Turkey is going so far as to
veto Swedish attempts to join NATO.
Hamline University in Minnesota accused and fired a professor on the charge of “Islamophobia,”
only to retract after being sued for defamation.
A Paris mosque filed “a complaint against [a] French Islamophobic writer.”
“Islamophobia is an integral part” of the late Pope Benedict’s “legacy,” one of
many op-eds and “influencers” claimed.
“Global terrorism” was “created by the West,” said an important Pakistani forum,
and “has been used as a pretext for spreading Islamophobia in order to target
Muslims around the world.”
Those are just a few of the charges to surface in January, 2023. The year is
still young and many more debilitating charges of Islamophobia are no doubt
forthcoming.
Behind all of these past, present, and future accusations lays an assumption:
that no one really ever had any problems with Muslims, until a few terrorist
strikes occurred—chief among them, September 11, 2001—at which point, racist
Westerners were only too happy to jump the gun and paint all Muslims as
terrorists. As a recent Al Jazeera article titled, “Decades after 9/11, Muslims
battle Islamophobia in US,” claims: “The September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States ushered in a new era of hate crimes, racism, and xenophobia
against Muslims.”
Reality is quite different. In fact, aversion to Islam is as old as Islam
itself. In this sense, the claim that Islamophobia is an actual phenomenon is
accurate: non-Muslims have always feared Islam; but there was—and is—nothing
irrational about this fear, as the word “phobia” implies.
From the very start, Western peoples, including many of their luminaries,
portrayed Islam as a hostile and violent force—often in terms that would make
today’s “Islamophobe” blush. There’s a reason for that. In 628 AD, Muhammad
summoned the Roman (or “Byzantine”) emperor, Heraclius—the symbolic head of “the
West,” then known as “Christendom”—to submit to Islam. When the emperor refused,
a virulent jihad was unleashed against the Western world. Less than 100 years
later, Islam had conquered more than two-thirds of Christendom, and was raiding
deep into France.
While these far-reaching conquests are often allotted a sanitized sentence, if
that, in today’s textbooks, the chroniclers of the time make clear that these
were cataclysmic events that had a traumatic impact on, and played no small part
in forming, Europe proper, that is, the unconquered portion and final bastion of
Christendom. In the words of historian Franco Cardini,
[I]f we … ask ourselves how and when the modern notion of Europe and the
European identity was born, we realize the extent to which Islam was a factor
(albeit a negative one) in its creation. Repeated Muslim aggression against
Europe between the seventh to eighth centuries, then between the fourteenth and
the eighteenth centuries … was a “violent midwife” to Europe.
But it wasn’t just what they personally experienced at the hands of Muslims that
developed this ancient “phobia” to Islam. As far back as the eighth century,
Islam’s scriptures became available to those Christian communities living
adjacent to, or even under the authority of, the caliphates. Based solely on
these primary sources of Islam, Christians concluded that Muhammad was a
(possibly demon possessed) false prophet who had very obviously concocted a
creed to justify the worst depravities of man—for dominion, plunder, cruelty and
carnality.
This view prevailed for well over a millennium throughout Europe; and it was
augmented by the fact that Muslims were still, well over a millennium after
Muhammad, invading Christian territories, plundering them, and abducting their
women and children. The United States’ first conflict with Islam—indeed, its
very first war as a nation—came not after 9/11, but in response to jihadist
raids on American ships for booty and slaves in the name of Allah.
A miniscule sampling of what Europeans thought of Islam throughout the centuries
follows:
Theophanes, important Eastern Roman (“Byzantine”) chronicler (d.818):
He [Muhammad] taught those who gave ear to him that the one slaying the enemy—or
being slain by the enemy—entered into paradise [see Koran 9:111]. And he said
paradise was carnal and sensual—orgies of eating, drinking, and women. Also,
there was a river of wine … and the women were of another sort [houris], and the
duration of sex greatly prolonged and its pleasure long-enduring [e.g., Koran
56: 7-40, 78:31, 55:70-77]. And all sorts of other nonsense.
Thomas Aquinas, one of Christendom’s most influential philosophers and
scholastics (d.1274):
He [Muhamad] seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the
concupiscence of the flesh urges us …. and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure.
In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of
the truth of his doctrine…. Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his
arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants [i.e., his “proof”
that God was with him is that he was able to conquer and plunder others]….
Muhammad forced others to become his follower’s by the violence of his arms.
According to their [Muslims’] doctrine, whatever is stolen or plundered from
others of a different faith, is properly taken, and the theft is no crime;
whilst those who suffer death or injury by the hands of Christians, are
considered as martyrs. If, therefore, they were not prohibited and restrained by
the [Mongol] powers who now govern them, they would commit many outrages. These
principles are common to all Saracens.
When the Mongol khan later discovered the depraved criminality of Achmath (or
Ahmed), one of his Muslim governors, Polo writes that the khan’s
attention [went] to the doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens [i.e., Islam],
which excuse every crime, yea, even murder itself, when committed on such as are
not of their religion. And seeing that this doctrine had led the accursed
Achmath and his sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the Khan was
led to entertain the greatest disgust and abomination for it. So he summoned the
Saracens and prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined.
Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinker and philosopher, best known for
Democracy in America (d.1859):
I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the
conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as
deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal
cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less
absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my
opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence
rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.
Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States and an
accomplished student of history (d. 1919):
Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If
the peoples of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, and on up to and
including the seventeenth century, had not possessed a military equality with,
and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe,
Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be
exterminated. Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the
Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has
ultimately disappeared.
At this point, one might argue that these and other historic charges against
Islam are mere byproducts of Christian/Western xenophobia and intolerance for
the “other.” But if so, how does one explain that many of Islam’s Western
critics also praised other non-Western civilizations, as well as what is today
called “moderate Muslims.”
Aside from speaking well of the Mongols, Marco Polo also hailed the Brahmins of
India as being “most honorable,” possessing a “hatred for cheating or of taking
the goods of other persons.” And despite his criticisms of the “sect of the
Saracens,” that is, Islam, he referred to one Muslim leader as governing “with
justice,” and another who “showed himself [to be] a very good lord, and made
himself beloved by everybody.”
British statesman, Winston Churchill (d. 1965)—who likened religiosity in
Muslims to rabies in dogs—well summed up the matter as follows:
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities—but the influence of the religion
paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde
force exists in the world.
In short, fear of and aversion to Islam has been the mainstream position among
non-Muslims for nearly 1,400 years—ever since Muhammad started raiding,
plundering, massacring, and enslaving non-Muslims (“infidels”) in the name of
his god. And it is because his followers, Muslims, continue raiding, plundering,
massacring, and enslaving “infidels” that fear of and aversion to Islam—what is
called “Islamophobia”—exists to this day.
So, yes, Islamophobia is real: non-Muslims have always feared what Islam has in
store for them, rightfully so. The lie is that such a fear is irrational.
Happily, there is some good news: a chief purveyor of the Islamophobia canard,
Ilhan Omar, has just been kicked out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.