English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For January 07/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2023/english.january07.23.htm
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Bible Quotations For today
I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater
than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he
Luke 07/18-30/John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of
them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or
should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the
Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we
expect someone else?’”At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases,
sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he
replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and
heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy[a] are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to
the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” After John’s
messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go
out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you
go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive
clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 2 But what did you go out to see?
A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is the one about
whom it is written: “‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare
your way before you.’ I tell you, among those born of women there is no one
greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater
than he.” (All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’
words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by
John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for
themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on January 06-07/2023
Unfolding of new facts related to the Antonine Order scandal of selling
apartments and shops to Hezbollah/Elias Bejjani/06 January/2023
Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus on January 6
Report: FPM withdrawal from MoU with Hezbollah unlikely
US embassy says Shea still serving as ambassador to Lebanon
EU delegation set to open investigation into governor of Lebanon’s central bank
We seek to equip waste sorting stations with solar energy
Lebanese judges to end months-long strike on Monday
Hezbollah in Lebanon: Israel's greatest threat on its quietest border/Yonah
Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/January 06/2023
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on January 06-07/2023
U.N. Security Council members stress Al Aqsa mosque status quo
Top Iranian Sunni cleric says torture of protesters un-Islamic
New U.S. sanctions target supply of Iranian drones to Russia
Tehran Sentences More Protesters to Death amid Reports of Change to ‘Hijab Law’
Charlie Hebdo Strains Ties between France, Iran
Iran Says It Foiled Cyberattack on Central Bank
US Asserts Iran Presents One of its Most Complex Challenges
Iran Detains Celebrity Chef Who Posted 'Cutlets' Video on Suleimani Anniversary
Israel Releases Longest-serving Palestinian Prisoner
Israeli Settlers Insist on Rebuilding Homesh Settlement Near Jenin
Ukraine dismisses Putin's Christmas ceasefire as 'hypocrisy'
What Can Putin's Ceasefire Offer Tell Us About The Ukraine War?
Ukraine reclaims Kyiv cathedral amid church dispute
Satellite images reveal scale of devastation in Ukraine’s Bakhmut over recent
months
Ukraine war: why Russian soldiers' mothers aren't demonstrating the strong
opposition they have in previous conflicts
Putin wasted his leverage over Europe, which no longer relies on Russia for gas,
German minister says
Israel to take steps in response to Palestinian moves at World Court
Aid Workers in Syria Fear Cholera Spread If Cross-Border Support Halted
US in crisis amid once-in-a-century political standoff
Austrian soldier killed, another injured in gunfight
Titles For The
Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on January 06-07/2023
The United States and Iran Are Headed Toward a New Nuclear Normal/Geoffrey
Aronson/The National Interest/January 06/2023
Don’t Fight the Last War/Craig Singleton/Foreign Policy/January 06/2023
Europe at the Mercy of Qatar?/Drieu Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/January
06/2023
Netanyahu: The Unexpected Moderate/Amir Taheri//Asharq Al Awsat/January 06/2023
Is this a Turning Point for the US-Israeli Relationship? No!/Rami al-Rayes/Asharq
Al Awsat/January 06/2023
Turkish Political Fluctuations: Reconciliation with Assad/Ahmad Mahmoud Ajaj/Asharq
Al Awsat/January 06/2023
How the FBI Hacked Twitter ....The answer begins with Russiagate/Lee Smith/The
Tablet/January 05/2023
Cooperation can help world get through fiscal crisis/Dr. Bashayer Al-Majed/Arab
News/January 06, 2023
on January 06-07/2023
Unfolding
of new facts related to the Antonine Order scandal of selling apartments and
shops to Hezbollah
Elias Bejjani/06 January/2023
الياس بجاني: جديد جريمة وفضيحة بيع الرهبنة الأنطونية شقق ومحلات تجارية لحزب الله
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/114751/elias-bejjani-unfolding-of-new-facts-related-to-the-antonine-order-scandal-of-selling-apartments-and-shops-to-hezbollah-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%a8%d8%ac%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%ac%d8%af/
Despite the scandal, and sin of the Antonine Order, in selling numerous
residential apartments and commercial shops in the Hadath area, which are
endowment properties (waqf property), the Maronite Patriarchate, at least in
public did not comment, or take any action to stop what happened, nor did it
issue any statement in this regard, which is contrary to the laws of the Church
that prohibit selling endowment properties. The same approach of silence and
indifference applies to the Antonine Order, which committed the sin of selling
church endowment properties. It did not comment either positively or negatively,
or admit or deny, which simply means a dictatorship-authoritarian mentality,
bold deviation from faith, and indifference of all those monks in charge of
order, to Christian public opinion and church laws. Their selling act is a
blatant preachment of all church principle and laws. The Church prohibits the
sale of waqf properties.
We wonder if these monks are in reality temple merchants, clerics, and
Pharisees?
By this impeachment, are they still honoring their vows of chastity, obedience,
and poverty?
Are they above church accountability?
In conclusion, what is dangerous, disturbing, and even frightening, in regards
to this scandal is that, neither Bkerki, nor the Order explained to the public
what has happened and what is the truth.
This indifference stance of both church bodies, shows with no shed of doubt.
that they do not respect either the canons of the Church, faith, or the
intelligence of the believers.
Such derailed practices proves a mere alienation from all foundations of faith,
trust and accountability.
Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus
on January 6
Saint Of The Day site
Christ was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. “As soon as Jesus
was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and
he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a
voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
pleased.” (Matt. 3:16-17) This event marked the beginning of Jesus’ public
ministry.
Baptism with water, practiced since the beginning of the Church, represents
admission into the Christian community and is essential for salvation. “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:5) In Christianity, baptism is a sign of
“repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4) and the beginning of the life in
Christ within the Church. We are baptized in the name God: “Father, and the Son
and the Holy Spirit”(Matt. 28:19) As well, through baptism Christians associate
with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus: “And this water symbolizes
baptism that now saves you […] by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter
3:21)
Different Christian denominations have various baptismal practices. Orthodox and
Catholic Christians are receiving the sacrament when still infants. The Catholic
baptism is done by effusion, meaning pouring water over someone’s head. However,
according to the rituals of the Orthodox and some other Eastern Churches, a baby
would be completely submersed in water. Within the Anabaptist (baptised again)
and Baptist practices, a person would receive baptism as an adult in order to
understand the significance and be aware of accepting Christ as a Saviour.
Report: FPM withdrawal from MoU with Hezbollah
unlikely
Naharnet/January 06, 2023
The Free Patriotic Movement’s withdrawal from the 2006 memorandum of
understanding with Hezbollah is unlikely, a senior FPM official said, noting
that “there is no strategic alternative to the MoU in both Mirna Chalouhi and
Haret Hreik.”“The FPM’s leadership has interpreted Sayyed (Hassan) Nasrallah’s
messages in a positive way, especially that it knows his personal love for
General Michel Aoun and MP (Jebran) Bassil, which used to clearly appear in the
closed-door meetings between him and them,” the official told al-Joumhouria
newspaper in remarks published Friday. “Bassil will not remove his hand from
Hezbollah’s hand, but at the same time he will not blindly approve everything it
does,” the official added, noting that “there are things that require raising
the voice high sometimes, as happened after Hezbollah’s participation in the
cabinet session that violated the National Pact and represented a crossing of a
red line.”Accordingly, the FPM believes that “there is a dire need for improving
the MoU without any delay, and it is ready to start an instant dialogue with
Hezbollah in this regard,” the official said.
“The ball is now in Hezbollah’s court and if it decides to begin dialogue, we
will be ready for it within minutes,” the official added.
US embassy says Shea still serving as ambassador to Lebanon
Naharnet/January 06, 2023
The U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Friday announced that U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea
is still serving as her country's ambassador to Lebanon, following media reports
related to her nomination by the White House for the post of U.S. Deputy
Representative to the U.N. "Embassy Beirut is proud of (U.S.) President (Joe)
Biden’s nomination of Ambassador Shea to serve as the U.S. Deputy Representative
to the United Nations," U.S. Embassy Beirut Spokesperson Julia Groeblacher said
in a statement. "But, this is only the first step of a multi-step process for a
position that requires the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. In the
meantime, Ambassador Shea is still here in Beirut serving as the United States
Ambassador to Lebanon," Groeblacher said. She added that the Ambassador looks
forward to "continuing her role in our partnership with the Lebanese people, as
we work to help rescue the Lebanese economy and promote solutions to overcome
political paralysis, so the people can once again have an elected president and
empowered government, ideally committed to reforms, transparency, and good
governance.""As the Ambassador always says, we are in this together," the
Spokesperson went on to say.
The White House had on Tuesday nominated Shea for the posts of U.S. Deputy
Representative to the U.N. and U.S. Representative to the Sessions of the U.N.
General Assembly, sending the nominations to the U.S. Senate for approval.
According to Lebanon’s MTV, a successor to Shea as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon is
yet to be appointed. “She will stay in Beirut for a maximum period of three
months,” the TV network said on Wednesday.
EU delegation set to open investigation into
governor of Lebanon’s central bank
Najia Houssari/Arab News/January 06, 2023
Public prosecutor met diplomats from France, Germany and Luxembourg amid unease
over implications for Lebanese sovereignty
15 bankers, including current and former vice-governors of the central bank, are
expected to be questioned during the investigation, which begins on Monday
BEIRUT: A judicial delegation from France, Germany and Luxembourg will open its
investigation into the activities of Lebanon’s central bank and its governor,
Riad Salameh, in Beirut on Monday. It is expected to continue until Friday.
Salameh is facing prosecution in cases relating to money transfers from Lebanon
to banks in those European countries, the sources of the funds and the extent to
which they might be linked to corruption, money laundering and financial crimes
in Europe. Arab News understands the Central Criminal Investigation Division
affiliated with the Public Prosecution Office in Lebanon has informed those who
have been called for questioning of the dates on which they are expected to
attend the Justice Palace in Beirut, beginning early next week. They include 15
banking officials, including current and former vice-governors of the central
bank. Salameh himself will not be questioned at this stage, a judicial source
said.
FASTFACT
Fifteen bankers, including current and former vice-governors of the central
bank, are expected to be questioned during the investigation, which begins on
Monday. In March 2022, European authorities froze $130 million of Lebanese
assets, and targeted Salameh and four people close to him for investigation in
relation to alleged embezzlement of public funds. Judge Ghassan Oweidat,
Lebanon’s public prosecutor, met on Thursday with a diplomatic delegation from
the embassies of France, Germany and Luxembourg at the Justice Palace. The
Lebanese judiciary has expressed disapproval of the way it is being treated in
the case. Lebanese authorities were officially informed by letter that a
judicial delegation from the three European countries would be arriving in
Lebanon to conduct their investigation. The delegation includes public
prosecutors and specialist financial judges, who told Lebanese authorities about
their visit in the letter without formally requesting authorization to conduct
their investigation. This was a strange and an unprecedented move, according to
the judicial source, who also questioned what it means for the sovereignty and
relevance of the Lebanese state if foreign countries can simply grant themselves
the authority to conduct investigations on its soil. He also said it was
surprising that the representatives of the three European countries had only
informed the Lebanese judiciary of the date of the delegation’s arrival in
Beirut to conduct its investigation and the names of the individuals to be
questioned, without requesting the judiciary’s assistance or cooperation. This
undermines and violates the authority of the Lebanese judiciary, he added. “The
foreign judicial delegation doesn’t have the right to arrive in Lebanon and
conduct investigations without a letter of request,” the source said.
“The Convention against Corruption signed by Lebanon requires it to meet the
demands of foreign judicial authorities, provided that they comply with the
Lebanese laws.”Salameh has faced harsh criticism for his monetary policies and
financial engineering operations, which have been blamed for contributing to the
accumulation of debt and eventual collapse of Lebanon’s economy. The French
financial judiciary has been investigating him since 2021 on charges of money
laundering and embezzlement. He has been governor of the central bank since 1993
and his term is set to end in May.
Switzerland has also been investigating allegations of embezzlement in the
central bank, with Salameh and his brother the main suspects.
During their meeting, Judge Oweidat and the delegates went through the due
process followed by Lebanon in such cases. The investigation will take place at
the hall of the Court of Cassation at the Justice Palace in Beirut and the
judicial source said Oweidat and the delegates agreed a protocol to be followed
during the investigation. It requires investigators to direct their questions to
witnesses through Lebanese judges who will be present during the sessions,
rather then directly to the individuals being questioned, who have the right to
have lawyers present. “If the European judges want to make any claims, they
should do so in their countries and not during the investigation sessions in
Lebanon,” the judicial source said. “After the claim, a refund request should be
sent to Lebanon. What is certain is that no action can be taken against any
Lebanese who was interrogated and investigated during the hearing.”The source
said the Lebanese judiciary cannot extradite any Lebanese citizen to any other
country for prosecution in the case, even if there are signed conventions in
place between the countries. Any prosecution of a Lebanese citizen will take
place in Lebanese territory, similar to what happened in the case of Ziad
Takieddine, he added. Takieddine is a 72-year-old Lebanese-French businessman
accused by the French judiciary of financial crimes. He was a key witness in an
investigation into alleged Libyan financing of former French President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. He told French investigators in 2016 that he
gave Sarkozy and his office manager €5 million ($5.3 million) to fund
Sarkozy’s campaign. He was detained in Lebanon in 2020 and where he faced a
French investigation but was tried by the Lebanese judiciary. Similarly, in 2021
French investigators visited Lebanon to question Lebanese businessman Carlos
Ghosn. Their questions were directed to a Lebanese judge who, in turn, put them
to Ghosn. The judicial source added: “The French know this protocol in Lebanon
because they have experienced it before.”
We seek to equip waste sorting stations with
solar energy
NNA/January 06/2023
"We are cooperating with the UNHCR in Lebanon to supply solar energy and basic
equipment for vital facilities such as waste sorting plants and sewage pumping
stations, including the development and equipment of a "biofilter" in the solid
waste sorting plant in Jib Jenin in the western Bekaa," said caretaker minister
of environment, Nasser Yassine, via his Twitter account.
Lebanese judges to end months-long strike on Monday
Nada Maucourant Atallah/The National/January 06/2023
Decision comes after an agreement over new financial aid for judges, but details
on the source of financing are sparse
Lebanese judges are set to end their five-month strike after an agreement on
financial assistance was reached. Judicial work should resume progressively on
Monday, The National has been told.
The deal struck with the judges’ mutual fund for financial assistance aims to
improve judges' purchasing power after their salaries were slashed by more than
95 per cent amid a sharp currency depreciation. Lebanon's unprecedented economic
crisis, described by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern history, has
taken a huge toll on judicial staff — and all the public sector’s professions.
Judges started a strike in mid-August to protest against the decline of their
salaries and the deterioration of their work conditions. This led to paralysis
of the judicial system, with some of the nation’s top courts completely halting
their activities, including for urgent judiciary matters. Last week, the general
assembly of judges agreed on new financial support, “ranging between $500 and
$1200 per month, which will be financed by the Ministry of Finance, through the
judges’ mutual fund”, a judicial source told The National.
This is a type of monthly bonus, and not a salary increase, because “this would
have implied a revaluation of the end-of-service indemnities”, the person said,
who was not involved in the negotiations. Following the decision, the Supreme
Judicial Council called “judges to return to the exercise of their duties, in a
way that secures the continuity of the judicial public service”, in a statement
published on Thursday. It is not known how the cash-strapped country will
finance this new financial support in dollars, as details remain sparse. A
Ministry of Finance representative said they did not have information on the
mechanism and The National could not reach the Ministry of Justice for comment.
In early July, Lebanon's central bank implemented an informal mechanism allowing
judges to withdraw their salary at a preferential exchange rate, on a voluntary
basis. The measure was met with harsh criticism in the legal world, with some
denouncing the mechanism's lack of transparency and describing it as attempted
bribery. The government was forced to back down a few weeks after the news was
leaked in the media. “This time the central bank is not involved”, the judicial
source stressed.
The collapse of the national currency is said to have crushed judges’ pay to
around $90-$210 on the parallel market rate. Courthouses are collapsing amid a
general crumbling of the country's public infrastructure. Some magistrates are
reporting a lack of running water and electricity, and having to pay for
cleaning services and internet access.
Hezbollah in Lebanon: Israel's greatest threat on its
quietest border
Yonah Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/January 06/2023
MILITARY AFFAIRS: Though Iran still grabs more headlines, most defense
establishment officials still emphasize that Hezbollah is Israel’s greatest
threat.
An IDF soldier slips into a grassy spot next to a tree to gain a concealed
position. Two Hezbollah border spies appear for a moment from behind a tree on
their side of the Lebanese border and then briskly fade into the shadows. It is
a slow and constantly unfolding chess match.
Luckily, however, it is only an IDF drill to bolster Israel’s capabilities to
secure the Lebanese border, conducted by the IDF’s Unit 769 and special Devorah
Unit.
As recently witnessed by The Jerusalem Post near Metulla, the drill provided
clear reminders throughout that the Hezbollah danger is real and as close as can
be.
Hezbollah: Israel's greatest threat
Soldiers were positioned strategically throughout Metulla and spread along the
border fence that cuts through the town. They were playing out a scenario where
Hezbollah has already fired at and struck parts of the North, including key
roads and sensitive facilities, and attempted to invade border villages.
Though Iran still grabs more headlines, most defense establishment officials
still emphasize – behind closed doors and sometimes publicly – that Hezbollah,
with its approximately 150,000 rockets and Radwan special invasion forces, is
Israel’s greatest threat.
The Devorah Unit is made up of IDF reservists who are veterans of elite units
and who live in the North, which helps personalize the conflict, as they bring
an intense and personal commitment to protect the border from danger.
The unit’s commander, Maj. O., was born in the North, in Beit Hillel, and lives
in She’ar Yashuv, which is located in the Upper Galilee in the northeastern Hula
Valley, about 15 kilometers from Metulla – meaning from the border, which,
despite the grave threat, has been Israel’s quietest border since the 2006
Second Lebanon War.
Although most Israelis at the time viewed that war as a failure, nearly all IDF
officials today say that it was the most successful of Israel’s wars over the
last 16 years, because it has kept Hezbollah deterred.
Married, with three kids, O. works in his family’s business in agriculture and
tourism.
“I am here always. I don’t know anything at all other than the North. I have
experienced all the different eras,” he said.
“All of my family is in security,” he continued. “When I was a child, my father
was a security commander in our village, which was capable of defending itself
[and had] all of the necessary equipment, to the point that we joked it was as
if” the village was a secured fortress.
He said that, over the years, he has experienced many incidents of being under
Katyusha rocket fire.
“I, personally, was never harmed, but there were always Katyushas around. One
landed directly across the street from my house, another near my car. I grew up
in the shadow of Katyusha rockets.
“Once, a Katyusha rocket killed some cows of my neighbor and also led a shocked
driver nearby to run over my dog.”
Maj. O.
“Once, a Katyusha rocket killed some cows of my neighbor and also led a shocked
driver nearby to run over my dog,” he recounted.
In those days, O. would often run to a community bomb shelter. Now, he said, all
of the residents have their own safe rooms connected to their residences. Half
joking, he said, “I miss seeing my friends who I used to see in the community
bomb shelter” when Katyushas were fired.
He said he did his obligatory IDF service in the Northern Command’s Golani
Brigade, noting it was fun because this meant he could drop in to get coffee
from home and sleep at his house on a daily basis, instead of having to sleep on
the base like out-of-towners.
Also, he said that his brother had served in a parallel Golani unit – O. was in
Unit 13, and his brother Unit 12 – which allowed the two of them to sometimes
make plans in a seamless way, crossing the bureaucratic lines.
Further, he said that in the past he could meet up with his father at the Egel
crossing near Kfar Yuval, since his father was serving in the reserves in
Lebanon.
O. did some IDF reserve duty and spent some time as a security officer in
various overseas locations. But he eventually returned to the Israeli North and
asked “How can I fully get back into” defending Israel’s border? The challenge
was that his own village was near, but not on, the border.
Then he attended a conference where speakers discussed forming a special unit of
IDF reserve duty soldiers who live in the area, “a group of true combat troops.”
He said that he helped bring a number of friends and local people he knew into
the new unit, starting off as the unit’s deputy commander and eventually
emerging as its commander. He said that 90% of the unit is composed of local
fighters. This means that the unit’s soldiers can move from their homes to being
assembled at the border in only 15-30 minutes.
This is breakneck speed and faster than even the most rapid, more formal system
could possibly move.
Moreover, he said that they train in a formal setting multiple times a year, in
addition to regular informal training, as opposed to many reservists who often
do only one major training stint per year.
Committing to the regular informal training in order to be in better physical
condition than regular infantry units appeared to be both part of the fun and
camaraderie and a precondition for joining the special unit. But many locals are
attracted to the unit because of the close ties between the soldiers and the
ability to participate in reserve duty while still living at home.
O. emphasized that the unit is selective in a number of other ways, including
ensuring that any new recruits fit in well with the group and have clear reasons
for remaining in the North on a long-term basis.
Part of being in a special unit means having high-quality, new equipment.
O. described a complex life of always being in the face of massive danger from
Hezbollah, while in practice also being on the quietest border of conflict since
after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
REGARDING MOUNT DOV, he said there have been “unwritten rules” in which
Hezbollah would be allowed to make more mischief in occasionally taking shots at
Israeli forces, but he said this must be opposed and stopped.
Discussing current Hezbollah threats in more detail, he said, “We know they are
here, the Radwan commandos, and if there are rockets, there is no time to
evacuate to a bomb shelter,” because Metulla is so close to the border.
“Hezbollah is on the fence, so we get ready for everything. It is very real. Any
unpredictable hit in the ‘war between the wars’ campaign [with Syria] could lead
to a giant Lebanon conflict. One Katyusha rocket hits a kid’s kindergarten in
Metulla or one anti-tank missile hits someone in Misgav Am.”
Maj. O.
O. also said, “Hezbollah is on the fence, so we get ready for everything. It is
very real. Any unpredictable hit in the ‘war between the wars’ campaign [with
Syria] could lead to a giant Lebanon conflict. One Katyusha rocket hits a kid’s
kindergarten in Metulla or one anti-tank missile hits someone in Misgav Am,” and
the whole region could be on fire.
“Hezbollah soldiers gained experience in Syria. They are more independent
operators, have heavier firepower, use lookouts, battle formations. If Radwan
got to Metulla...,” he said, trailing off as if finishing the thought was too
dark of an option.
Moreover, he warned, “We are very close. We know that they can make a comeback.
Metulla has dilemmas. It does not take a [brilliant military leader like]
Napoleon to see that Hezbollah can invade from three to four directions, as well
as [Metulla] being hit by rockets.”
On the other hand, “Hezbollah has stopped using their tunnels. We took away
their ‘atomic bomb,’” he said with pride.
Regarding Nasrallah, O. said it is important for him to feel as though he is
setting the agenda and the narrative to be, “‘I saved Lebanon, and I got the IDF
to evacuate. I will conquer the Galilee.’ He has big rhetorical flourishes”
about the Galilee and “saving Lebanon’s access to its gas.”
In analyzing the natural gas deal, he said that the IDF doesn’t seem to think
there will be war tomorrow, because Nasrallah does not want a direct full
conflict. At the same time, he cautioned that there is no formal obstacle to
such a conflict breaking out, so many smaller incidents could accidentally lead
to broader fighting.
But he said that Hezbollah started building new positions a few months ago,
which they are using as lookouts. “There is a feeling that they are coming
back,” in terms of actively patrolling the border and studying IDF border
activities.
The lesson appeared to be that the quiet could be deceiving and temporary, and
having O., his forces and others constantly training and at the ready is the
only true way to remain safe. •
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-726784?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Is+Netanyahu+s+defense+minister+the+right+man+for+the+job%3F&utm_campaign=January+6%2C+2023
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on January 06-07/2023
U.N. Security Council members stress
Al Aqsa mosque status quo
Michelle Nichols/Reuters/January 06/2023
U.N. Security Council members voiced concern on Thursday and stressed the need
to maintain a status quo at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, days after
Israel's new far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir briefly visited the
site. The decades-old status quo allows only Muslim worship at the compound, a
site also revered by Jews, who call it the Temple Mount. An Israeli official
said Ben-Gvir complied with the arrangement that allows non-Muslims to visit but
not pray. Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour pushed for the Security Council
to take action - a move that was unlikely given the United States traditionally
shields Israel. The United States, Russia, China, France and Britain are all
council veto powers. "What red line does Israel need to cross for the Security
Council to finally say, enough is enough," Mansour told the 15-member council,
accusing Israel of showing "absolute contempt." Senior U.N. political affairs
official, Khaled Khiari, told the council it was the first visit to the site by
an Israeli cabinet minister since 2017. "While the visit was not accompanied or
followed by violence, it is seen as particularly inflammatory given Mr. Ben-Gvir's
past advocacy for changes to the status quo," he said. U.N. Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres has called for all parties to refrain from steps that could
escalate tensions in and around the holy sites.
Top Iranian Sunni cleric says torture of
protesters un-Islamic
DUBAI (Reuters)/January 6, 2023
A top dissident Iranian Sunni cleric on Friday denounced as un-Islamic Iran's
alleged use of forced confessions to convict detained protesters, as weekly
demonstrations continued in the county's southeast. Meanwhile, the authorities'
crackdown following nationwide protests continued with arrests, including that
of a celebrity chef and a prominent journalist. Anti-government marches have
been held on Fridays in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province as part of
protests after the death in custody on Sept. 16 of a young Iranian Kurdish woman
detained by the morality police for flouting a strict dress code for women.
"If someone does not accept the accusation, they torture him to accept it.
Confessions under coercion and the beating of the accused have no place in
sharia (Islamic law) and our country's Constitution," Molavi Abdolhamid
Ismaeelzahi said in a Friday prayers sermon, according to his website.
Ismaeelzahi is based in Zahedan, capital of the impoverished Sistan-Baluchistan
province, home to Iran's Baluch minority. Authorities have reportedly pressured
him by banning him from traveling abroad and restricting his travels and
contacts within Iran. Rights groups say convictions of dissidents in Iran's
courts are often based on forced confessions. Iran denies that. Ismaeelzahi, a
powerful dissenting Sunni voice in the Shi'ite-ruled Islamic Republic, also
denounced mass arrests in Zahedan, after state media said security forces had
arrested more than 100 "thugs and armed robbers" there in the past few days.
After the sermon, demonstrators marched in Zahedan, chanting "Death to the
Islamic Republic", according to videos posted on social media. Reuters could not
immediately verify the footage. Separately, the chef and influencer Navab
Ebrahimi was arrested in the capital Tehran and taken to Evin prison, where many
political detainees are held, the rights group HRANA said. There was no
immediate word from the judiciary on the reported arrest of Ebrahimi, who had
2.7 million followers on Instagram. His account was unavailable on Friday.
Postings on social media said his arrest may have been linked to a video showing
him preparing Persian cutlets, which may have been seen as a taunt amid
state-sponsored events marking the third anniversary of the killing of Iran's
top general Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone attack. Mehdi Beik, who headed the
political desk of the moderate newspaper Etemad, was detained by security agents
on Thursday, his wife said on Twitter. Officials are yet to announce the reasons
for the detention of Beik, who had interviewed relatives of arrested protesters.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on Twitter that, as of Jan.
5, it had documented the names of at least 84 journalists who had been arrested
in Iran amid the ongoing protests, 36 of whom had been released on bail.
New U.S. sanctions target supply of Iranian drones to
Russia
Daphne Psaledakis and Arshad Mohammed/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/Fri, January 6, 2023
The United States on Friday issued new sanctions targeting suppliers of Iranian
drones that Washington said have been used to target civilian infrastructure in
Ukraine during the conflict with Russia. Russia has been attacking vital Ukraine
infrastructure since October with barrages of missile and drones, causing
sweeping power blackouts as cold weather sets in. The U.S. Treasury Department
said it imposed sanctions on six executives and board members of Iran's Qods
Aviation Industries (QAI), also known as Light Airplanes Design and
Manufacturing Industries. The Treasury described Qods Aviation Industries (QAI),
which has been under U.S. sanctions since 2013, as a key Iranian defense
manufacturer responsible for designing and producing drones. "We will continue
to use every tool at our disposal to deny (Russian President Vladimir) Putin the
weapons that he is using to wage his barbaric and unprovoked war on Ukraine,"
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement. Iran's mission to the
United Nations in New York and Russia's embassy in Washington did not
immediately respond to requests for comment. Iran has previously acknowledged
sending drones to Russia but said they were sent before Russia's February
invasion. Moscow has denied its forces used Iranian drones in Ukraine. Friday's
sanctions reflect U.S. concerns about Iranian-Russian military cooperation and
Russia’s use of Iranian drones to hit Ukraine, a threat that could become more
potent if Tehran were to provide missiles to Moscow to shore up Russian
supplies. Among those designated was Seyed Hojatollah Ghoreish, QAI's board
chairman and senior official in Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces
Logistics who "has led Iran’s military research and development efforts and was
responsible for negotiating Iran’s agreement with Russia for the supply of
Iranian (drones) for Russia’s war in Ukraine,” the Treasury said. The Treasury
also imposed sanctions on Ghassem Damavandian, QAI’s managing director and board
member, saying he had likely facilitated QAI’s supply of drones to Iranian
military services and the training of Russian personnel on use of QAI-made
drones. Four others who have served as QAI board members were also placed under
sanctions: Hamidreza Sharifi-Tehrani, Reza Khaki, Majid Reza Niyazi-Angili and
Vali Arlanizadeh. The sanctions also targeted the director of Iran's Aerospace
Industries Organization, which the Treasury said was the key organization
responsible for overseeing Iran's ballistic missile programs. The move freezes
any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing
with them. Those engaged in certain transactions with them also risked being hit
by sanctions. The United States has previously imposed sanctions on companies
and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones that Russia
has used to attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Tehran Sentences More Protesters to Death amid Reports of Change to ‘Hijab Law’
London, Tehran – Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
An Iranian trial court sentenced to death a demonstrator who took part in
anti-regime protests. Arshia Takdastan was alleged to have led a “crowd in the
main square of the city of Nowshahr and committed significant criminal acts,”
the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported. He was charged with “corruption
on earth” and “moharebeh,” or “enmity against God,” both capital offenses in
Iran. Iranian officials have been referring to demonstrations sparked by the
death of Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of the morality police after being
arrested for allegedly breaking the country’s dress code, as “riots.” The
protests had spilled over to more than 160 Iranian cities. Since the beginning
of the protests, which erupted on Sep.16, 2022, the judiciary has sentenced 14
protesters to death, according to an AFP tally based on official information. So
far, at least 516 protesters have been killed and 19,260 others arrested,
according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). HRANA said
the death toll included 70 minors, who died in the unrest as security forces
tried to stifle widespread dissent. In other news, Iranian media reported about
a proposed draft to change the country’s hijab law. The reports emerged hours
after a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei about refraining from
ostracizing or targeting women with “loose hijabs.” The draft proposes punishing
women who do not wear the hijab in public places according to the Code of
Criminal Procedure after filing charges. “Hijab is a law in our country that
must be observed, but whoever has an objection against this law must express his
protest and send a bill to parliament,” the Fars News Agency reported Ali Nikzad,
the deputy Iranian parliament speaker, as saying.
Charlie Hebdo Strains Ties between France, Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Iran on Thursday shut down a decades-old French research institute in response
to cartoons published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that mocked
the country's ruling clerics. Iran's Foreign Ministry called the closure of the
French Institute for Research in Iran a “first step” in response to the
cartoons, which the magazine had billed as a show of support for anti-government
demonstrations that have convulsed Iran for nearly four months. The ministry
said it would “seriously pursue the case and take the required measures" to hold
France accountable. On Wednesday, Iran summoned the French ambassador to
complain about the cartoons. The shuttered research institute, which is
connected to the French Foreign Ministry, was created in 1983 through the merger
of an archaeological delegation dating back to the late 19th century and an
institute of Iran studies. It includes a library boasting some 49,000
references, including 28,000 books. On Thursday, there was a heavy security
presence around the institute and the nearby French Embassy in central Tehran.
Graffiti left on the outer walls — apparently by government supporters —
referred to France as a “place of blasphemy.” Charlie Hebdo’s latest issue
features the winners of a recent cartoon contest in which entrants were asked to
draw the most offensive caricatures of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. One
of the finalists depicts a turbaned cleric reaching for a hangman’s noose as he
drowns in blood, while another shows Khamenei clinging to a giant throne above
the raised fists of protesters. Others depict more vulgar scenes. Iran’s Foreign
Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Wednesday vowed a “decisive and effective
response” to the publication of the cartoons, which he said had insulted Iran’s
religious and political authorities. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna
accused Iran of following “bad politics.’’ Iran “is not only practicing violence
against its own people but is also practicing a policy of keeping people
hostage, which is particularly shocking,” she said Thursday on LCI television.
“In France, not only does freedom of the press exist — unlike what happens in
Iran — it is also exercised under the control of judges and an independent
justice system, which is something that Iran undoubtedly knows little about.
Also, in French law we do not have the notion of blasphemy.” She did not respond
directly to the ambassador being summoned or expressly defend Charlie Hebdo. The
French government, while defending free speech, has rebuked the privately-owned
magazine in the past for fanning tensions. Iran has been gripped by nationwide
protests for nearly four months following the death in mid-September of Mahsa
Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by Iran’s morality police for
allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.
Women have taken the lead in the protests, with many stripping off the
compulsory Islamic headscarf in public. The protesters have called for the
overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics in one of the biggest challenges to their
rule since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power.
Charlie Hebdo, which has published similarly offensive cartoons about dead child
migrants, virus victims, neo-Nazis, popes, Jewish leaders and other public
figures, presents itself as an advocate for democracy and free expression. But
it routinely pushes the limits of French hate speech laws with often sexually
explicit caricatures that target nearly everyone.
Iran Says It Foiled Cyberattack on Central Bank
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Iran has foiled a cyberattack on its central bank, the country's
telecommunications infrastructure company said on Friday. Anonymous and other
global hacking groups threatened in October to launch cyberattacks on Iranian
institutions and officials in support of anti-government protests and to bypass
internet censorship there. Amir Mohammadzadeh Lajevardi, head of the
Infrastructure Communications Company, said the central bank was targeted by a
distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Thursday night, the official IRNA
news agency quoted him as saying. DDoS attacks attempt to cripple servers by
overwhelming them with internet traffic. "These days, the largest volume of
foreign attacks is against banks and financial institutions, internet providers
and communications infrastructures, which have been repelled," Lajevardi said.
IRNA gave no further details. The central bank said in September that a
cyberattack briefly took its website offline. Internet access has been severely
limited in Iran since widespread protests erupted over the death in
mid-September of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of the
morality police over enforcement of mandatory dress code laws.
US Asserts Iran Presents One of its Most Complex Challenges
Washington - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
US administration described Iran as "one of the most complex challenges,"
stressing that military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow had become a
significant obstacle to a possible return to the 2015 nuclear deal. Special
Envoy for Iran Robert Malley is currently focusing heavily on supporting the
rights of the Iranian people and confronting the "malign activities" of the
regime in the Middle East, in addition to its support for the war that Russia is
waging in Ukraine. In a press conference, US State Department spokesman Ned
Price refused to go into details about the reasons deputy special envoy for
Iran, Jarrett Blanc, was leaving the State Department. Price said Blanc is an
employee at the Department of Energy National Nuclear Safety Administration,
noting that he was on loan to the Department of State and is returning to his
"home agency.""The Department of Energy is a critical partner in shaping US
policy on Iran's nuclear program," said the spokesman, adding that Blanc would
remain involved in this issue and returning to his home agency after two years
is a standard personnel move. Commenting on Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Jim
Risch saying that Iran is "Iran as one of the biggest crucial political
challenges that the US is facing in 2023," Price there was no denying "Iran
presents one of the most complex challenges we face." Price indicated that
Iran's nuclear program had been the focus of successive administrations, noting
that its malign activities throughout the Middle East had been the focus of
successive administrations.
He also referred to the Iranian protests and Tehran's military support and
security assistance to Russia. Price questioned recent statements of Iranian
officials about a possible return to the nuclear deal, saying there was an
opportunity to put that proposition to the test just a few short months ago in
September.
"There was a deal to mutually return to the JCPOA that was on the table that was
approved by all parties," he explained, noting that it went nowhere because the
Iranians weren't prepared to accept it, and in fact, they reneged on that deal.
He reiterated that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been off
the agenda for some months now. "At the top of our agenda has been doing
everything we can to support the universal rights of the people of Iran and to
counter this burgeoning security relationship between Iran and Russia."
Meanwhile, CNN reported that parts made by more than a dozen US and western
companies were found inside a single Iranian drone downed in Ukraine last fall.
The assessment, shared with US government officials late last year, illustrates
the extent of the Biden administration's problem, which has vowed to shut down
Iran's production of drones that Russia is launching by the hundreds into
Ukraine.
According to the assessment, of the 52 components Ukrainians removed from the
Iranian Shahed-136 drone, 40 appear to have been manufactured by 13 American
companies. The remaining 12 components were manufactured by companies in Canada,
Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, and China, according to the assessment. The White
House created an administration-wide task force to investigate how US and
Western-made technology, ranging from smaller equipment like semiconductors and
GPS modules to larger parts like engines, has ended up in Iranian drones. For
years, the United States imposed harsh export restrictions and sanctions to
prevent Iran from obtaining high-end materials. US officials are now looking at
enhanced enforcement of these sanctions, encouraging companies to monitor their
supply chains better and, perhaps most importantly, trying to identify
third-party distributors who took these products and resold them. National
Security Council (NSC) spokeswoman Adrienne Watson expressed Washington's
concerns regarding the military cooperation between Iran and Russia. "We are
assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict
Iran's access to technologies used in drones."Watson noted that the US is
"looking at ways to target Iranian UAV production through sanctions, export
controls, and talking to private companies whose parts have been used in the
production." A separate probe of Iranian drones downed in Ukraine, conducted by
the UK-based investigative firm Conflict Armament Research, found that 82
percent of the components had been manufactured by companies based in the US.
Iran Detains Celebrity Chef Who Posted 'Cutlets' Video on Suleimani Anniversary
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Iran has detained a prominent chef and Instagram influencer, known for his
videos promoting Persian cooking, in its crackdown on nationwide protests, human
rights groups and supporters said on Thursday. Navab Ebrahimi was arrested in
Tehran on Wednesday and taken to the city's Evin prison, the Human Rights
Activists News Agency (HRANA) said. No reason was given for the arrest of
Ebrahimi, who had some 2.7 million followers on Instagram enjoying his slickly
produced videos showing how to produce classic Persian dishes without pain. But
social media users said the arrest coincided with him posting a recipe to make
Persian cutlets on the day the Iranian authorities marked the third anniversary
of the killing by the United States of Revolutionary Guards General Qassem
Soleimani. Some Iranians opposed to the regime have made a habit of posting
images of cutlets on the anniversary of his death, in reference to the manner of
his killing in a US drone strike in Iraq. "Chef and influencer Navab Ebrahimi
has been arrested in Tehran. Social media users speculate that his arrest had
something to do with his Instagram story" about cutlets, said the New York-based
Center for Human Rights in Iran. Nik Yousefi, an Iranian filmmaker and
photographer who was himself arrested in October as part of the crackdown and
then released, also wrote on Twitter that Ebrahimi had been arrested and his
cafe in Tehran, Noj, shut down. Ebrahimi's Instagram account is no longer
accessible.
As the Iranian authorities organized commemorative events on Wednesday mourning
Soleimani's death, opponents shared images of people torching his image on
banners. Iran has arrested at least 14,000 people in the wave of protests
sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old
Iranian Kurdish woman who had been arrested for allegedly breaching the strict
dress code for women, according to the UN. Prominent journalists, filmmakers,
lawyers and activists have been arrested. Some have been released on bail,
including star actor Taraneh Alidoosti, but others remain in prison.
Israel Releases Longest-serving Palestinian Prisoner
Tel Aviv - Nazir Magally/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Israel released the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner Karim Younis, who spent
40 years in Israeli prisons. Younis was released on the roadside of a Jewish
town without any means of communication, but he finally arrived in his hometown,
where a grand reception and celebration were held for him. “I got out of prison
and left behind my heart with my comrades in captivity,” Younis told the crowd
gathering in the Palestinian village of Ara within Israel. Israeli police
authorities and the Israel Prison Service held a meeting on the eve of Younis’
release at the office of the Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
At the meeting, it was decided that Younis should not be released at the
penitentiary’s main gate but must instead be dropped off at a location that
turned out to be a bus station in Ranana, a town north of Tel Aviv. According to
one of the relatives, after being dropped off at the station, Younis met by
chance with Palestinian workers from the West Bank who helped him reach out to
his relatives. Younis was eventually picked up by a relative and brought to his
hometown of Ara, where he was celebrated as a hero. Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, Speaker of the Palestinian
National Council Rawhi Fattouh, the Fatah movement, and the rest of the factions
congratulated Younis on his freedom. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said
Younis “represents a symbol of the Palestinian people and the free people of the
world in steadfastness.”The Israeli government had prevented his release for 40
years, despite the conclusion of 18 prisoner exchange deals.Moreover,
authorities examined legal means that would allow them to exile Younis or put
him under administrative detention. Eventually, they decided to refer to the
attorney general justice to strip him of his Israeli citizenship. Younis,
however, openly said he won’t be trying to get his hands on an Israeli passport
which he said was the “world’s worst travel document.”“Anyone with an Israeli
passport is faced with hatred from anyone who considers themselves free,” he
said.
Israeli Settlers Insist on Rebuilding Homesh Settlement
Near Jenin
Tel Aviv/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
A group of settler leaders, headed by the chief Ashkenazi rabbi, David Lau,
toured the Homesh settlement, declaring their determination to rebuild the
region, despite US warnings, the position of High Court of Justice in West
Jerusalem, and the law that prohibits their entry to the area. The Homesh
settlement is one of four evacuated according to a 2005 law established under
Ariel Sharon's government and part of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and
northern West Bank. According to the law, the sites became closed military areas
banned for entry and residence. But Ehud Olmert's government did not demolish
the houses at the time. His government did, however, demolish all settlements
and houses in the Gaza settlements. The settlers wanted to return to the Homesh
buildings and kept revisiting the region, aiming to relocate there. They also
established a religious school there. However, entry to the area is illegal. An
indictment was filed against Rabbi Elisha Cohen, the prominent cleric in the
settlement because he visited it after its evacuation. The settlement is located
in an isolated area between Nablus and Jenin. On Thursday, Cohen toured the area
with Lau and other settler leaders, stressing that the government of Benjamin
Netanyahu "pledged to the allies" to amend the disengagement law from Gaza and
rebuild the four settlements, including Homesh. US President Joe Biden's
administration expressed opposition to building new settlements in the West
Bank, in general, and in Homesh, in particular. State Department spokesman Ned
Price asserted that the Homesh outpost in the West Bank is illegal. “It is
illegal to even under Israeli law. Our call to refrain from unilateral steps
certainly includes any decision to create a new settlement, to legalize
outposts, or allow the building of any kind deep in the West Bank adjacent to
Palestinian communities or on private Palestinian land,” Price asserted. At the
same time, the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice discussed the issue. The judges
asked the government to explain the reason for not evacuating the settlement so
far, despite the law confirming its illegality. The government said it was
looking forward to changing official policy toward Homesh in line with the
coalition agreement that called for licensing an illegal yeshiva at the site and
rebuilding the settlement. The Court responded with an order instructing the
government to answer within 90 days as to why the outpost has not been cleared.
Ukraine dismisses Putin's Christmas ceasefire
as 'hypocrisy'
Agence France Presse/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursdayhas ordered a 36-hour ceasefire in
Ukraine to run during Orthodox Christmas, a move quickly dismissed by
war-battered Kyiv and its allies. Putin's directive to his troops was announced
days after Moscow suffered its deadliest reported loss of the invasion, and as
Ukraine's supporters pledged to send armoured vehicles and a second Patriot air
defence battery to aid Kyiv. Both nations celebrate Orthodox Christmas and the
Russian leader's order came following ceasefire calls from Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's spiritual leader Patriarch Kirill, a staunch
Putin supporter. "Taking into account the appeal of His Holiness Patriarch
Kirill, I instruct the defence minister of the Russian Federation to
introduce... a ceasefire along the entire line of contact between the sides in
Ukraine," said a Kremlin statement. It will run from midday Friday (0900 GMT),
until the end of Saturday (2100 GMT), the Kremlin said. Kyiv quickly denounced
the move. Russia "must leave the occupied territories -- only then will it have
a 'temporary truce'," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on
Twitter. "Keep hypocrisy to yourself."US President Joe Biden was equally
dismissive of Putin's announcement. "He was ready to bomb hospitals and
nurseries and churches" on December 25 and on New Year's Day, he said. "I think
he's trying to find some oxygen."And British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly
wrote on Twitter: "A 36 hour pause of Russian attacks will do nothing to advance
the prospects for peace."
Orthodox Christmas
Since the invasion began on February 24 last year, Russia has occupied parts of
eastern and southern Ukraine, but Kyiv has reclaimed swathes of its territory
and this week claimed a New Year's strike that killed scores of Moscow's troops.
After votes that were internationally branded as farces, Russia annexed the
Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions -- despite not fully
controlling them. Putin is open to dialogue with Ukraine if Kyiv recognises "the
new territorial realities", said the Kremlin, in a summary of his telephone
conversation with Erdogan Thursday. "The Russian side emphasised the destructive
role of Western states, pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and military
equipment, providing it with operational information and targets," it added. The
76-year-old Patriarch Kirill has given his blessing to Russian troops fighting
in Ukraine and delivered heavily anti-Western and anti-Kyiv sermons throughout
the conflict. Kirill made his ceasefire appeal "so that Orthodox people can
attend services on Christmas Eve and on the day of the Nativity of Christ", he
said on the church's official website Thursday. The Kremlin's decision to send
troops into Ukraine resulted in many clerics who had continued to remain loyal
to Kirill turning away from Moscow. In May, the Moscow-backed branch of
Ukraine's Orthodox Church severed ties with Russia, citing his lack of
condemnation of the fighting.
More arms for Ukraine -
News of Putin's ceasefire order came as Germany and the United States pledged to
provide additional military aid for Kyiv, with Biden saying the promised
equipment comes at a "critical point" in the war. Washington and Berlin said in
a joint statement that they will respectively provide Kyiv with Bradley and
Marder infantry fighting vehicles. And "Germany will join the United States in
supplying an additional Patriot air defence battery to Ukraine," the statement
said, doubling the number of the advanced systems that have been promised to
Kyiv. Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced renewed calls to deliver
Leopard light tanks, long sought by Kyiv, after French President Emmanuel Macron
announced the delivery of French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine.Macron's
announcement on Wednesday made France the first Western country to announce the
delivery of such weapons to Ukraine.
Worst single loss -
Putin's ceasefire order came a day after Moscow lifted its reported toll in its
worst single reported loss from a Ukrainian strike to 89 dead. Ukraine's
military strategic communications unit has said nearly 400 Russian soldiers died
in the town of Makiivka in eastern Ukraine, held by pro-Russian forces. Even
Russian commentators have said the death toll may be far higher than the
Kremlin's figures. The deadly Makiivka strike came after months of discontent
within Russia towards the military following a series of battlefield defeats and
a hugely unpopular mobilisation drive.
What Can Putin's Ceasefire Offer Tell Us About
The Ukraine War?
Kate Nicholson/HuffPost UK/January 06/2023
Vladimir Putin ordered a 36-hour ceasefire among Russian troops on Friday to
honour the Orthodox Christmas – but Ukraine refused to do the same. The proposed
truce is a significant moment for this long and brutal battle, although it’s
worth noting that there have already been reports of shelling in the city of
Bakhmut. This has prompted speculation that Russia breached its own ceasefire
within hours. Even so, here’s what we can gauge from what would have been the
first major truce throughout the whole war.
Why did Putin want a truce this week?
Moscow suggested the ceasefire would allow Russia’s Orthodox Church to observe
Christmas on January 7, and any fellow followers in Ukraine.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has been a keen
supporter of the war, previously stating that “military duty washes away all
sins”, but called for a Christmas truce shortly before Putin. However, the idea
that Ukraine would be willing to halt the war effort temporarily in favour of a
religious holiday is flawed, considering the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has cut
ties with its Russian counterpart since the war began. Many Ukrainian believers
also started celebrating Christmas on December 25 in line with Europeans this
year, as another means to distance themselves from their neighbours. But the
ceasefire was not just about religion. The BBC noted that Putin’s ceasefire fits
with the domestic narrative that Russian soldiers are the “good guys” and that
the West are “threatening Russia”. “The truce is also a handy tool that can be
used to demonise Ukraine - as the Ukrainians have dismissed the proposal, Moscow
will claim that Kyiv does not respect religious believers and has no desire for
peace,” reporters Will Vernon and Samuel Horti said. CNN reported that the truce
also came after Putin spoke with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, who has
tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. After their talks, the Russian
president said he was open to “serious dialogue” regarding Ukraine, but Kyiv has
to accept “new territorial realities” going forward.
Why did Ukraine reject the ceasefire?
While it may seem bizarre that Ukraine would opt not to have a break from the
war, Kyiv’s response to the ceasefire was less than enthusiastic. Ukrainian
president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the ceasefire was only meant to be a “cover”
for Russia to resupply and stop Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region.
Zelenskyy said: “What will this accomplish? Only another increase in the
casualty count.”Serhiy Haidai, who leads the Luhansk regional military
administration, told Ukrainian media: “They [Russia] just want to get some kind
of pause for a day or two, to pull even more reserves, bring some more ammo.
Russia cannot be trusted. Not a single word they say.”Ukrainian presidential
adviser Mykhailo Podolyak also claimed on Twitter that Russia has to leave the
“occupied territories” of Ukraine before any “temporary truce”.
What does the West think?
Kyiv’s Western allies seemed to feel the same way as Ukraine.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly said such a pause would do “nothing to advance
the prospects of peace”. Similarly, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock
warned that the promise a ceasefire would not bring “either freedom or
security”. Hours after Russia’s announcement, Germany said it would follow the
US and offer a Patriot air defence missile system to Kyiv along with armoured
vehicles. France is also sending armoured fighting vehicles. US president Joe
Biden even suggested that Putin was just trying to find “oxygen” through this
proposal. Responding to reporters in the White House, he said: “I’m reluctant to
respond to anything that Putin says. I found it interesting that he was willing
to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches...on the 25th and New Year’s.”
Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, was quick to retaliate to
Biden on Facebook: “All this means [is] that Washington is set on fighting with
us ‘to the last Ukrainian’ and the fate of Ukraine’s people does not worry the
Americans at all.”
Why would Putin need “oxygen”?
Biden’s claim that the Russian president is trying to buy time touches on the
series of failures Russia has faced recently.
Not only did Moscow lose hold of its Ukrainian land grabs from the early days of
the war when Kyiv’s successful counteroffensive swept through in the autumn, but
missile strikes have started to reach deep inside Russia. Moscow has admitted
that at least 89 Russians were killed on New Year’s Eve – the most important
date in the Russian calendar. “Putin really does not want a repetition of that
on Orthodox Christmas Day,“ political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya tweeted. The
attack itself has led to backlash from respected Russian military figures too,
especially as Moscow tried to blame its own soldiers for the missile strike. The
UK’s Ministry of Defence also shone a light on some of the divisions within
Russia at the moment in its latest update. The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR)
and Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) were two of the four illegally annexed
Ukrainian regions Russia claims now belongs to Moscow.
However, both areas have effectively been controlled by Russia since 2014. As
the Ministry of Defence points out, the “status and identities” of both regions
“likely remain divisive within the Russian system”.It adds: “Even before the
February 2022 invasion, these territories represented a significant drain on
Russian finances. “Now the Kremlin has overtly committed to supporting them,
they will likely constitute a large political, diplomatic and financial cost for
Russia which will last well beyond the current phase of the conflict.”
Ukraine reclaims Kyiv cathedral amid church dispute
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/January 6, 2023
The Ukrainian government has taken the main cathedral of the revered historic
monastery from the church previously affiliated with Moscow's patriarchate and
allowed its Ukrainian rival to use it for Orthodox Christmas services. The move
comes as the long-running tensions between the two churches exacerbated amid
Russia's war in Ukraine. Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko said
Thursday that the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church of the nearly
1,000-year-old Pechersk Lavra — also known as Monastery of the Caves — in the
Ukrainian capital have been taken over by the state after the lease of them held
by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) expired on Dec. 31. On Friday, Tkachenko
said that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) — the similarly named rival
church — asked for and was granted permission to conduct the service at the
cathedral on Saturday when Orthodox Christmas is celebrated. In 2019, the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine received recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of
Constantinople. Moscow’s and most other Orthodox patriarchs refused to accept
that designation that formalized a split with the Russian church. The Ukrainian
Orthodox Church (UOC), which remained loyal to the Moscow patriarch since the
17th century, declared independence from Moscow's Patriarchate after Russia's
invasion of Ukraine. The UOC gave Moscow a liturgical cold shoulder by dropping
the commemoration of Moscow Patriarch Kirill as its leader in public worship and
blessing its own sacramental oil rather than use Moscow’s supply. But Ukrainian
security agencies have claimed that it has maintained close ties with Moscow.
They have conducted numerous raids of the church's holy sites, posting photos of
rubles, Russian passports and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch.
Prominent Ukrainian Orthodox Church leaders have rejected the allegations of
ties with Moscow, insisting that they have loyally supported Ukraine from the
start of the war and that a government crackdown will only hand a propaganda
coup to Russia.
Satellite images reveal scale of devastation in Ukraine’s
Bakhmut over recent months
Matt Mathers/The Independent/January 6, 2023
The scale of the destruction of the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine
during the past few months has been laid bare by new satellite images. Maxar
Technologies published a series of ‘before and after’ images of the city, which
has been the focal point of intense fighting between forces from Ukraine and
Russia. The images, comparing sites between August and the end of
December/beginning of January, reveal extensive damage to buildings, homes,
infrastructure and the fields in and surrounding Bakhmut, which had a
pre-Russian invasion population of around 70,000. One of the images published by
Maxar shows an overview of apartment buildings in Bakhmut that have been razed
to the ground by Russian forces. Another shows a bridge across a river in the
city completely destroyed. Mr Putin ordered a 36-hour ceasefire on the frontline
in Ukraine to coincide with Orthodox Christmas, which Moscow said had started at
midday Moscow time (9am UK) on Friday. However, there were reports that
artillery fire could be heard from the front line in Ukraine after the official
start of the unilateral ceasefire – a pause that has been rejected by Kyiv,
which has described the move as a “trick”. Kyiv has said it has no intention to
reciprocate with the truce, rejecting the purported truce as a stunt by Moscow
to buy time to reinforce troops that have taken heavy losses. Russia’s defence
ministry said its troops began observing the ceasefire from noon Moscow time
(0900 GMT) "along the entire line of contact" in the conflict, but claimed
Ukraine kept up shelling populated areas and military positions. One witness in
the Russian-occupied regional capital Donetsk, close to the front, tole Reuters
that outgoing artillery fired from pro-Russian positions on the city’s outskirts
after the truce was meant to take effect. In the hours prior, rockets slammed
into a residential building in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk close to the
eastern frontline, damaging 14 homes but with no casualties, the mayor said.
Residents described several explosions. "It’s bad, very bad. We need to pressure
them, get them to leave, maybe more air defence systems would help. This happens
often, not only on festive occasions. Every other day," said Oleksnadr, 36,
outside a supermarket at the time of the attack. One rescue worker was killed
and four others injured after Russian forces shelled a fire department in the
southern Ukrainian city of Kherson before the deadline early on Friday, the
regional governor said. Mr Putin ordered the ceasefire in the near 11-month-long
invasion in a surprise move in Thursday, but Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine
president, rejected the ceasefire out of hand as a ploy for Russia to buy time.
"They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances
of our boys ... and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilised troops closer to
our positions," he said in his Thursday night video address.
Ukraine war: why Russian soldiers' mothers aren't
demonstrating the strong opposition they have in previous conflicts
Jennifer Mathers/The Conversation/January 6, 2023
Ukraine’s military launched a devastating strike on New Year’s Day hitting a
building housing recently mobilised Russian soldiers in the occupied region of
Donetsk. Russia’s official response has been surprising. The ministry of defence
took the unusual step of swiftly announcing the deaths of 63 (later revised to
89) soldiers – the largest number of casualties so far acknowledged in any
incident since the start of Russia’s mass invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But just as surprising has been the lack of organised public opposition to this
announcement of mass military deaths from the mothers of Russia’s soldiers
fighting in Ukraine. Our ongoing research project uses analysis of words used
about the war on Russian news media and social media to examine gendered
responses to the war in Ukraine. While our research is still at an early stage,
we are finding that the responses of soldiers’ mothers are far from
straightforward. When Russia’s mass invasion of Ukraine began, many observers
expected Russia’s soldiers’ mothers to lead grassroots opposition to the
“special military operation”, and with good reason.
Mothers with power
One of Russia’s best-known and most-respected civil society organisations, the
Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia (CSMR) and its network of committees
provided a focal point for opposition to Moscow’s unpopular wars in Afghanistan
and Chechnya, particularly by defending the rights of conscripted soldiers. The
CSMR and committees across Russia provided free advice on legal ways to defer or
evade conscription, and even took the ministry of defence to court to compel the
state to fulfil its legal obligations to its own soldiers. But this movement has
changed a great deal since the 1990s. No longer “a coherent and unified force”,
they have evolved into a loose network of organisations. Some committees express
strong support for traditional values, patriotism and the military, while others
campaign for progressive human rights and against militarism. Many mothers
initially appealed to their local committees for help in getting information
about sons sent to Ukraine. As the war continued, however, soldiers’ mothers
have not been using the committees to articulate their concerns and amplify
their voices. They have, instead, turned to social media, initially to search
for posts that might provide them with information about their loved ones, and
then to create digital communities as alternatives to the old-style committees
of soldiers’ mothers. Without the backing of the committees of soldiers’
mothers, with their valuable networks and experience, the mothers of Russia’s
soldiers fighting in Ukraine are not able to speak with one voice. Instead, they
organise on a much smaller scale, typically around units that their sons serve
in, a particular military incident, or the regions where their sons were
recruited from. Their messages are therefore fragmented and often inconsistent,
although there are some themes. They are focused, first and foremost, on the
welfare of their sons, although the mothers’ concerns do not necessarily
translate into straightforward opposition to the war itself. Instead, mothers’
demands are often couched using the language of patriotism and are
simultaneously supportive of the Kremlin and critical of Russia’s military
leadership, for example by calling upon the state to prepare their sons more
effectively for combat.
Army provides employment
In many parts of Russia with high levels of socio-economic deprivation, the
family’s economic survival is dependent upon the military service of their sons.
The army offers employment and the opportunity for a respectable career. For
these mothers, a soldier son who is killed in combat is a double tragedy: the
loss of the loved one as well as the loss of the salary that sustains life for
others. It is no wonder that some of the mothers of Russia’s fallen soldiers
call upon the state to provide them with financial compensation. The “partial
mobilisation” announced by Vladimir Putin in September has added a further layer
of complexity, introducing a new category of soldiers’ mothers: mothers of men
who might unwillingly become soldiers. The reluctance of their men to be
mobilised has placed these women in direct, if covert, opposition to the state.
They have protested on the steps of military recruitment offices and helped men
to escape over borders. Given the very limited opposition shown by soldiers’
mothers to the war, the Russian state might be expected to pay little attention
to this group. In fact, it is just the opposite. The Russian state wants the
approval of soldiers’ mothers and feels the need to respond to their concerns
because, especially during wartime, they command a great deal of public respect
and moral authority. At the same time, it simply does not trust them to
spontaneously articulate the “correct” views. The Kremlin’s solution is to
create carefully staged performances that give the appearance of unity (see main
photo). A prime example was Putin’s televised meeting in November with a group
of women who may be soldiers’ mothers but who are far from ordinary. All were
carefully chosen, some for their connections to national or regional political
elites, others for their membership of patriotic organisations that openly
support the war. Where does this leave the mothers of Russia’s soldiers? Our
research is still ongoing, but we do not expect soldiers’ mothers to lead mass
protests condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We do, however, see more
subtle forms of resistance which, over time, are contributing to the erosion of
Russian society’s support for the war in Ukraine. This article is republished
from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original
article. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding
from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have
disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. ***Senior
Lecturer in International Politics, Aberystwyth University and Natasha Danilova,
Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen
Putin wasted his leverage over Europe, which no longer
relies on Russia for gas, German minister says
Tom Porter/Business Insider/January 6, 2023
German minister says Russia wasted the leverage it had in the early stage of the
conflict with Ukraine. Europe was heavily reliant on Russian gas, but countries
have now diversified their supplies.This has weakened Vladimir Putin's
geopolitical leverage as the war drags on. Russian President Vladimir Putin has
wasted the opportunity to use his country's gas supply leverage over Europe
because nations are now successfully diversifying their energy supplies,
according to Germany's vice chancellor. Robert Habeck, the German deputy head of
government and economic minister, said at a press conference on Thursday that
German had initially been left exposed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last
February due to its reliance on natural gas from Russia, supplied via the
Nordstream 1 pipeline. "The German problem, or the central European problem, was
that half of our eggs were in the basket of Putin," Habeck said at a joint press
conference with the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, The Guardian
reported. "He destroyed [those eggs]."After the invasion of Ukraine there were
fears of blackouts in Germany and other countries across Europe, as Russia
drastically reduced its gas supplies amid sharp criticism of its aggression
against its neighbor. Before the conflict, Germany had relied on Russia for
around 60% of its gas. Many other countries in Europe had similar heavy
reliance. But Germany's scramble to secure alternative energy supplies has borne
fruit, with the country switching to sources of energy including Liquefied
Natural Gas, or LNG. Habeck said that Germany was now "one-third done" with
replacing Russian energy supplies through other means, and sounded a note of
cautious optimism. "Right now, I can say the storages in Germany are full,
around 90%, we will withstand this winter, and the [gas] prices are going down,"
he said. As German and Norwegian ministers met, energy companies from the two
countries announced a deal on Thursday to increase Germany's supply of Norwegian
blue hydrogen, a low carbon emissions hydrogen fuel, DW reported.
Israel to take steps in response to Palestinian moves at
World Court
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/January 06/2023
-Israel said on Friday it would take retaliatory steps in response to a
Palestinian bid to involve the International Court of Justice in the decades-old
conflict. The measures decided on by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
right-wing security cabinet include using Palestinian money to compensate
victims of Palestinian militant attacks and imposing a moratorium on Palestinian
construction in some areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This comes as a
"response to the Palestinian Authority's decision to wage political and legal
war against the State of Israel", said Netanyahu's office. Last week, following
an appeal by the Palestinians, the U.N. General Assembly asked the Hague-based
World Court to give an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's 55-year-old
occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and
East Jerusalem - areas the Palestinians want for a state - in the 1967 Middle
East war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but, along with neighbouring Egypt,
controls the enclave's borders. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has had limited
self-rule in the West Bank under 1990s interim peace deals. The World Court is
the top U.N. court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are
binding, though it has no power to enforce them. Israel, which collects tax
money on behalf of the PA, would use 139 million shekels ($39 million) from PA
funds to compensate victims of Palestinian militant attacks and would also
offset the stipends the PA pays to Palestinians who carried out attacks and
their families, said Netanyahu's office. The moratorium on Palestinian building,
it said, would be for a part of the West Bank called Area C, which is under full
Israeli control. "These decisions are condemned and rejected both in relation to
money and other measures they are planning," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman
for PA President Mahmoud Abbas. ($1 = 3.5421 shekels)
Aid Workers in Syria Fear Cholera Spread If Cross-Border
Support Halted
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 6 January, 2023
Humanitarian workers operating in the last opposition-held part of Syria fear a
cholera outbreak sweeping the region will deepen further if the United Nations
is forced to stop aid deliveries across the border from Türkiye. The area's 4
million people live in dire conditions and rely heavily on the food and medicine
that has been brought across the border since a 2014 UN Security Council
resolution allowed such deliveries despite the Syrian government's objections.
The Security Council is due to vote on Monday, a day before the current
authorization expires, on renewing it for a further six months. Health workers
in the zone, which comprises most of the province of Idlib and parts of Aleppo
province in northwestern Syria, fear the consequences should Syria's ally Russia
veto it or place further restrictions on the program. "The capabilities of the
health sector are already very weak, and we suffer from an acute shortage of
medicines, medical supplies and serums," said Dr. Zuhair Al-Qurat, the head of
Idlib's health directorate. "Stopping cross-border aid will have a multiplier
effect on the cholera outbreak in the region," he told Reuters.
Though diplomats say Russia has indicated it will allow the authorization's
renewal, uncertainty remains. Russia's deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy
told Reuters the implementation of the current resolution - adopted in July -
was "far from our expectations" and a final decision would be made by Moscow on
Monday. Top UN officials, including aid chief Martin Griffiths, have warned that
ending the operation would be "catastrophic". Idlib has recorded more than
14,000 suspected cholera cases and Aleppo more than 11,000 since the outbreak
began in September, making them the second and fourth worst-hit in Syria
respectively. They are particularly vulnerable because they rely on water from
the Euphrates river to drink and irrigate crops, and because the health sector
in opposition-held Syria has been battered by more than a decade of war. Clean
water The UN authorization allows agencies to bring in hygiene kits, chlorine
tablets to disinfect water and equipment for eight cholera treatment centers
with more than 200 beds. Non-governmental groups also truck safe drinking water
to homes. Without it, international NGOs would not have international legal
cover and could not keep up with the pace and quantities of aid needed, three
aid workers told Reuters. That is in part because large donor countries trust
that aid brought in through the UN will not be politicized, unfairly distributed
or seized by hardline armed groups. The chlorine used to disinfect water
presents a particular challenge. The chemical has been used in Syria as a weapon
of war, prompting concerns among donors that would slow down its procurement for
cholera treatment by humanitarian organizations other than the UN, the aid
workers said. "These centers and health facilities would be suspended. Supplies
... transshipped specifically for the cholera pandemic in the northwest would be
interrupted – fluid, serums, injections, oral medications," said Mohammad Jasem,
the International Rescue Organization's northwest Syria coordinator. Even if the
resolution is renewed for another six months, health workers have already
suffered from short-term renewals, leaving them unable to plan ahead, said Osama
Abou el-Ezz, the head of the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS) in Aleppo.
US in crisis amid once-in-a-century political
standoff
Agence France Presse/January 06/2023
The U.S. House of Representatives has plunged deeper into crisis as Republican
favorite Kevin McCarthy failed again to win the speakership -- entrenching a
three-day standoff that has paralyzed the lower chamber of Congress. McCarthy, a
favorite of his party's establishment but a bete noire of the far right, has
made sweeping concessions to quell a rebellion of around 20 hardliners blocking
his bid to be the country's top lawmaker. But his overtures have fallen on deaf
ears and he failed to win over a single renegade Republican across five ballots
staged on Thursday before the House agreed to adjourn until noon (1700 GMT)
Friday. The final round of voting was the 11th in total since the chamber opened
for a new term under a narrow Republican majority this week. No speakership
contest has gone more than nine rounds since the Civil War era. Before
Thursday's defeats, McCarthy had already been humiliated by failure to secure
the gavel six times in a chaotic 48 hours, losing each round to Democrat Hakeem
Jeffries. "It's my hope that today the House Republicans will stop the
bickering, stop the backbiting and stop the backstabbing so we can have the
backs of the American people," Jeffries, who is also short of the required
majority, told reporters. An increasingly desperate McCarthy had crossed one of
his red lines overnight by agreeing to lower the threshold needed to force a
vote on ousting a speaker to just one member -- imperiling his own chances of a
long tenure. The 57-year-old also offered his right-wing opponents more power
over how floor votes are conducted, a vote on term limits and a commitment to
stop backing moderates against far-right primary candidates in safe Republican
seats.
National security fears -
No House business can take place without its presiding officer in place, meaning
lawmakers-elect have to continue voting until someone wins a majority. They can
also consider a rule change allowing the candidate with the most votes rather
than an outright majority to win -- a risky strategy given that the Democratic
leader has won every round while Republican votes have been split. Until a
winner emerges, the chamber will be unable to swear in members, set up
committees, tackle legislation or open any of the investigations Republicans
have promised into President Joe Biden. Three Republican lawmakers due to head
national security committees also warned in an open letter Thursday that the
House is currently unable to conduct oversight of the Pentagon or intelligence
community. "We cannot let personal politics place the safety and security of the
United States at risk," they said.
Trump cameo
The only significant development over 11 rounds of the contest has been a cameo
-- in spirit, at least -- from Donald Trump, who is bidding to return to the
White House and does not harbor speakership ambitions. Florida Republican Matt
Gaetz voted for the former reality TV star earlier Thursday and even nominated
and voted for him in the final ballot. The 76-year-old former president clearly
enjoyed the attention, posting an irreverent image mocked up to show him
sticking his tongue out at Biden from the speaker's chair during the annual
State of the Union address. But the two Gaetz nods were Trump's only support and
the speakership crisis is being seen as a further marker of his diminishing
influence, as his endorsement of McCarthy on Wednesday didn't move the dial at
all. McCarthy's allies were still hopeful of securing him the gavel, indicating
that a deal bringing the so-called "Never Kevins" back into the fold could
emerge in the coming hours. But the signs were not encouraging as 21 of
McCarthy's 221 Republican colleagues opposed him in every vote Thursday -- the
same number as in all three of Wednesday's votes -- and he can only afford to
lose four. In many cases, McCarthy's critics lack specific objections to his
policies, but claim instead that they find him untrustworthy, lacking a
political philosophy and motivated only by a desire for power. Meanwhile his
allies fear the risky strategy of giving away the store to the most extreme
fringe of the party will eventually spark a backlash among the moderates.
Austrian soldier killed, another injured in
gunfight
Naharnet/January 06/2023
An Austrian soldier was killed and another injured in a gunfight early Friday at
airfield barracks just outside Vienna, the army said. "A guard was killed and
another soldier injured in a gunfight shortly before 7 am today in the airfield
barracks in Wiener Neustadt," south of the capital, army spokesman Michael Bauer
wrote on Twitter. Police are investigating the incident. Austrian news agency
APA cited Bauer as saying the two men had an argument before shots were fired.
The guard shot into the air before being killed. It is not yet clear if the
injuries the guard's superior sustained were due to the gunfire, APA added. Such
fatal incidents are rare. In 2019, an Austrian soldier -- a 31-year-old dog
handler -- died when two army dogs attacked him, also in the Wiener Neustadt
barracks.
The Latest LCCC English analysis &
editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on January 06-07/2023
The United States and Iran Are Headed Toward a New Nuclear Normal
Geoffrey Aronson/The National Interest/January 06/2023
Ambiguity rather than clarity, intentions rather than capabilities, are at the
heart of an era of strategic stability now tentatively on offer by Washington
and Tehran.
President Joe Biden was not betraying any secret when he was recently caught on
a live mic observing that the effort to resuscitate the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA) is “dead.”
Everything has changed—for the worse—since the diplomatic effort to put Iran’s
nuclear program “in a box” was initialed in 2015. Tehran can now produce enough
weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in less than a week.
The search is on for a new formula that will diffuse the ongoing crisis. French
president Emmanuel Macron suggested in November that a “new framework“ is likely
to be required.
There is good reason not to despair, or to fear an overt Iranian nuclear
breakout in the wake of the JCPOA’s demise. There is indeed “a new framework” in
the making.
The JCPOA was premised on the assumption that Iran would agree to a series of
intrusive measures, many of them unprecedented, that would reduce Iran’s nuclear
“break out” period to a year by creating real obstacles to Iran’s uranium
enrichment program at a level necessary for the development of a nuclear weapon.
In return the US would lift its veto on Western investment in the Iranian
market.
Iran always saw this as an unequal and coercive bargain, which masked a
continuing effort by Washington to undermine the Iranian revolution of 1979.
Washington, for its part, proved unwilling, even in the wake of the 2015
agreement, to forego the use of ever-escalating economic sanctions at the heart
of its policy of “maximum pressure” towards Tehran.
The Trump administration’s repudiation of the agreement precipitated the
complete breakdown of this enterprise, which the Biden administration has failed
to remedy.
But there is reason to believe that the JCPOA’s failure has created an
opportunity to build a post-JCPOA understanding between Washington and Tehran
that may indeed prove more lasting and effective than the moribund JCPOA in
defusing Washington’s (if not Israel’s) concerns.
The keystone of this new phase of U.S.-Iranian nuclear diplomacy is a mutual
embrace of the concept of nuclear ambiguity.
This cautious development in U.S.-Iran relations rests on a mutual Iranian and
American interest to maintain and honor a studied uncertainty concerning Iran’s
nuclear weapons capability.
This posture stands in direct opposition to the were the key objectives at the
heart of the JCPOA: to preempt, prevent, and aggressively monitor the expansion
of an Iranian nuclear enrichment capability.
The doctrine of nuclear ambiguity has a central place in nuclear diplomacy. U.S.
and Russian doctrine are based on an openly declared nuclear capability, backed
by the promise and the opposing arsenals of mutual nuclear destruction. North
Korea maintains a declared nuclear arsenal and delivery system aimed at
deterring foreign intervention and maintaining the regime in power.
Nuclear ambiguity, in contrast, as practiced by Israel and now increasingly by
Iran, all but ignores the issue of uranium enrichment that was at the center of
the JCPOA era. It focuses instead on the deliberate decision not to declare the
existence of a nuclear weapons capability, either as a deterrent or as a weapon.
A policy of deliberate uncertainty about Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities
helps to diffuse unwelcome pressure by the international community to disarm. In
contrast, integrating nuclear weapons openly in its military doctrine could well
instigate rather than deter armed conflict.
The parameters of this new grand bargain between Tehran and Washington first
appeared last summer.
Not surprisingly, its key elements were announced in the context of U.S.
commitments to Israel.
The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration, announced on
July 14, 2022, reaffirms the longstanding “unshakeable U.S. commitment to
Israel’s security, and especially to the maintenance of its qualitative military
edge (QME).”
As long as Washington maintains Israel’s conventional superiority over Iran and
its neighbors, Jerusalem will keep its famed nuclear arsenal “in the
basement”—that is, ambiguous, undeclared, and undeployed.
Nothing new here.
But the declaration, taking note of the new post-JCPOA policy on Iran unveils an
unusually explicit and perhaps unprecedented public U.S. commitment, “to use all
elements of its national power” to ensure that “Iran does not acquire a nuclear
weapon.
It is instructive to pay close attention to the extraordinary language now
employed by the Biden administration to describe this U.S. policy. The
U.S.-Israel agreement, subsequently repeated by administration officials in
various venues, does not warn Iran against enriching uranium but rather advises
it of certain unprecedented peril (employing “all elements of [U.S.] national
power”) should it choose to acquire a nuclear bomb. The distinction is
significant, all but inviting Iran to adopt a policy of nuclear ambiguity short
of acquisition and deployment as a way of avoiding a preventative or preemptive
U.S. (nuclear) attack.
Iran appears to have internalized the new line declared by Washington.
In the wake of the U.S. announcement, Kamal Kharazi, the head of Iran’s
Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and a top aide to Iranian supreme leader
Ali Khamenei, acknowledged that Iran indeed has the ability to produce a nuclear
weapon, but it is choosing not to do so—the formula at the heart of a policy of
nuclear ambiguity. Kharazi told Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel that “In a few days
we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and we can easily produce 90% enriched
uranium ... Iran has the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb but there has
been no decision by Iran to build one.”
According to a statement by Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian,
“The window for reaching an agreement on the part of the Islamic Republic of
Iran will not always be open.” He continued: “If the Westerners want to continue
their hypocritical and interventionist behavior, we will move in the direction
of another plan.”
That other plan—Macron’s “new framework”—could well be one based upon nuclear
ambiguity.
The new nuclear era now emerging in Washington and Tehran (if not necessarily
Israel) repudiates two concepts at the heart of the moribund JCPOA. Ambiguity
rather than clarity, intentions rather than capabilities, are at the heart of an
era of strategic stability now tentatively on offer by Washington and Tehran.
Yet unlike the blossoming of Washington’s relations with Israel that followed
their nuclear understandings in the late 1960s, relations between Iran and
Washington in the wake of this emerging nuclear rapprochement are set to remain
in the deep freeze.
*Geoffrey Aronson is a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in
Washington, DC.
Don’t Fight the Last War
Craig Singleton/Foreign Policy/January 06/2023
Politicians, like generals, have a tendency to fight the last war. But Chinese
leader Xi Jinping likely understands that he cannot wage a future conflict over
Taiwan by replicating the strategy that failed Russia in Ukraine. Instead,
rather than risk a similar stalemate, Xi will almost certainly double down on
the nonmilitary, less visible, and more cost-effective war that Beijing is
already waging—and, in many ways, winning.
By declaring last September that the United States would defend Taiwan if China
attacked, U.S. President Joe Biden complicated Xi’s calculus about an amphibious
invasion—Beijing’s most ambitious and aggressive option to pursue reunification.
No doubt the military balance of power in the Taiwan Strait is trending in
China’s direction. One day, the pace of China’s military modernization and the
poor state of Taiwan’s defenses could render an invasion a rational decision for
Beijing.
For Chinese leaders, however, the war in Ukraine has laid bare the undeniable
risks and prohibitive costs associated with a full-scale assault on Taiwan.
Trying to distill only the military lessons of Russia’s war therefore distracts
from much more likely Taiwan scenarios.
Indeed, Beijing has long recognized that a direct military engagement with
Washington and its allies over Taiwan could result in a decisive defeat for
China or lead to nuclear war. Beijing likewise understands that conventional
conflict escalation often leads to strategic and political failure—even for a
superpower. With these lessons in mind, China has hewed closely to a
broad-spectrum gray-zone campaign focused on disrupting the Taiwanese
government’s functions, paralyzing the island’s infrastructure, and leveraging
an unrelenting disinformation campaign to undermine Taiwan’s political processes
and bolster pro-unification narratives. Yet the status quo remains politically
untenable for China, as Taiwanese sentiment on reunification drifts ever further
from Beijing’s goals. Moreover, China’s short-of-war strategy, in which pressure
necessarily begets more pressure, has thus far failed to achieve the degree of
political control or military supremacy that Beijing requires to shift its focus
toward more conventional military operations. Russia demonstrated the importance
of establishing these prerequisites when it successfully invaded and annexed
Crimea in 2014. In all likelihood, therefore, Beijing’s coercive campaign
against Taiwan will reach new heights in 2023.
To undermine the Taiwanese public’s faith in the ability of the armed forces to
protect the island’s sovereignty, China’s near-daily aerial and naval incursions
will likely increase in number and intensity. So, too, will media images
broadcast by Beijing about threatening military exercises—for instance,
depicting Chinese forces storming a replica of Taiwan’s presidential palace.
Beyond straining Taiwan’s defenses, such actions relentlessly reinforce China’s
narrative that reunification is inevitable, one way or the other. Nevertheless,
what seems like the next logical step in the coercion campaign—applying an
aerial or naval blockade—appears less likely, because doing so could galvanize
separatist sentiment and international sympathy for Taipei, neither of which
Beijing is currently prepared to counter.
In further weaponizing the information space, Beijing will leverage social media
platforms, online chat groups, and traditional media to bolster its
reunification narrative.
With an imminent military scenario increasingly unlikely, the bulk of China’s
strategy will fall to its Central Propaganda Department, which trains
cyberarmies and disseminates disinformation aimed at demoralizing and dividing
Taiwanese society. In further weaponizing the information space, Beijing will
progressively leverage social media platforms, online chat groups, and
traditional media companies to bolster its reunification narrative. It will also
use these channels to draw investment and tourists away from Taiwan and toward
China. Additionally, Beijing will escalate cyber- and other network attacks
against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, financial institutions, and other
targets. The goal is to exploit the island’s asymmetric economic dependence on
China to pressure its politicians from pursuing policies that would bring Taiwan
closer to formal independence.
Lastly, China will escalate its nonmilitary war of attrition on Taiwan’s
political processes and international standing. Beijing will continue covertly
funding pro-unification political parties and candidates before Taiwan’s next
national election in 2024. China will similarly sustain its efforts to
diplomatically strangle Taiwan, principally by degrading its participation in
international forums and further winnowing down the small number of countries
that recognize Taiwan.
Xi’s problem in all this—which he may not yet realize—is that China’s aggressive
attempts at maneuvering below a crisis threshold could have the unintended
effect of catalyzing the very superpower crisis he seeks to avoid. Gaming out
these gray-zone efforts suggests that seriously escalating these provocations
could lead the United States and its allies to embrace more forceful
counter-responses in the future. In other words, unchecked hybrid war against
Taiwan runs the real risk of resulting in a hot war with Washington, perhaps
sooner rather than later. Should that happen, all bets are off. Just ask Russia.
*Craig Singleton, a national security expert and former U.S. diplomat, is a
senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he
serves as the deputy director of FDD’s China Program. Follow him on Twitter @CraigMSingleton.
FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on
national security and foreign policy.
Europe at the Mercy of Qatar?
Drieu Godefridi/Gatestone Institute/January 06/2023
The stadiums for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar were built in conditions described
as slave-like and hellish. For ten years, armies of Asian workers were put to
work for miserable wages in wretched living conditions. According to the
Guardian, since the emirate was awarded the World Cup, 6,500 workers died on
Qatar's construction sites. This carnage did not predestine Qatar for praise
from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
"The recent backroom deal approved by the Bureau to appoint a new EP
Secretary-General is emblematic of an institution that thinks that rules for
ethics and integrity should only apply to others." — Michiel van Hulten,
director of Transparency International EU, December 10, 2022.
That the Socialist Group, the second-largest in the European Parliament, was so
easily bribed by little Qatar, to the extent of cheering on the "labour law
reforms" of a slave emirate, is yet to be confirmed by the courts. It is also
possibly just the "tip of the iceberg."
Other geopolitical actors, who are known to have an interest in the resolutions
of the European Parliament, have even more considerable means at their disposal.
Belgian federal police recently found €150,000 ($157,700) in cash at the
Brussels home of the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili
(pictured), who was then arrested and charged with corruption. That a small
country such as Qatar could so easily bribe the Socialist Group in the European
Parliament, to the point of causing it to say the opposite of what it supported
a week earlier, is dismaying. (Photo by Menelaos Myrillas/SOOC/AFP via Getty
Images)
Belgian federal police recently found €150,000 ($157,700) in cash at the
Brussels home of the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili (Panhellenic
Socialist Movement), who was then arrested and charged with corruption. She
remains in jail. Also arrested were Luca Visentini, secretary general of the
International Trade Union Confederation, and former socialist MEP Pier-Antonio
Panzeri. Francesco Giorgi, Kaili's domestic partner and former parliamentary
assistant to Panzeri, was also arrested. The home of MEP Marc Tarabella
(Socialist Party) was searched.
Notably, Panzeri is the president of the NGO "Fight Impunity", of which Giorgi
is one of the founders. Niccolò Figà-Talamanca was also taken into custody,
according to the Italian newswire Ansa. Figà-Talamanca is the executive director
of another NGO, "No Peace Without Justice," which is based in Rome and Brussels
and ostensibly focused on international criminal justice, human rights and the
promotion of democracy in North Africa and the Middle East. It also happens to
have the same Brussels address as Fight Impunity: 41 rue Ducale.
According to media reports, and with respect to the presumption of innocence,
this elite of European socialism and trade unionism was corrupted by Qatar to
praise the "progress" of the emirate in the field of "labour law." According to
the New York Times:
"The case, which Belgian authorities say they have been building for over a year
with the help of their secret services, has uncovered what prosecutors say was a
cash-for-favors scheme at the heart of the European Union. And it highlighted
the vulnerabilities in an opaque, notoriously bureaucratic system that decides
policies for 450 million people in the world's richest club of nations."
Faced with this information, the first reaction of a large number of Europeans,
judging by social media networks, was a feeling of humiliation. That a small
country such as Qatar could so easily bribe the Socialist Group in the European
Parliament, to the point of causing it to say the opposite of what it supported
a week earlier, is indeed dismaying.
Let us recall the facts. The stadiums for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar were built
in conditions described as slave-like and hellish. For ten years, armies of
Asian workers were put to work for miserable wages in wretched living
conditions. According to the Guardian, since the emirate was awarded the World
Cup, 6,500 workers died on Qatar's construction sites. This carnage did not
predestine Qatar for praise from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
The change in Tarabella's discourse, for example, was dazzling. Initially
hostile to Qatar hosting the World Cup, Tarabella suddenly became its advocate
on television: "Qatar has made remarkable efforts in terms of labour rights",
the socialist MEP stated on LN24 on December 11.
"Qatar, with the help of NGOs, the International Labour Organisation... has made
clear progress which is now being welcomed.... The signal to say we are going to
boycott diplomatically is a bad signal. Why is that? Because it means that even
if they have made progress, particularly in relation to the welfare of workers,
housing allowances, a decent minimum wage, working conditions in which, during
the hot summer months, people no longer work between ten in the morning and 3.30
pm, and the abandonment of slavery... not everything is perfect in Qatar, I
repeat... if, in spite of all this, you boycott, you are giving the signal that
the efforts made are useless."
Kaili visited Qatar in person and praised the emirate's "labour reforms".
According to the local press, Kaili said that she represented 500 million
European citizens who consider that "Qatar's progress represents common values".
Are Members of the European Parliament in financial need? An MEP earns a gross
€13,944 (roughly $14,000) per month, including an expenditure allowance, plus
€4,716 ($5,000) a year for travel expenses and €338 ($358) for each day of
attendance at meetings of the Parliament's bodies. Usually, though, such
considerations are irrelevant. People are generally susceptible to bribes.
"While this may be the most egregious case of alleged corruption the European
Parliament has seen in many years," explained Michiel van Hulten, director of
Transparency International EU, "it is not an isolated incident."
"Over many decades, the Parliament has allowed a culture of impunity to develop,
with a combination of lax financial rules and controls and a complete lack of
independent (or indeed any) ethics oversight. In many ways it has become a law
unto itself. Every serious attempt to improve accountability is blocked by the
Parliament's ruling Bureau, with the acquiescence of a majority of MEPs. The
recent backroom deal approved by the Bureau to appoint a new EP
Secretary-General is emblematic of an institution that thinks that rules for
ethics and integrity should only apply to others.... As a first step, the
European Commission should now publish its long-delayed proposal on the creation
of an independent EU ethics body, with powers of investigation and enforcement."
That the Socialist Group, the second-largest in the European Parliament, was so
easily bribed by little Qatar, to the extent of cheering on the "labour law
reforms" of a slave emirate, has yet to be confirmed by the courts. It is also
possibly just the "tip of the iceberg."
Other geopolitical actors, who are known to have an interest in the resolutions
of the European Parliament, have even more considerable means at their disposal.
This affair also reveals -- if it were still necessary -- the extreme energy
distress of the European continent. For 20 years, Europe has been systematically
destroying the only truly European source of energy that is being produces --
nuclear power, and has refused to even consider exploiting the underground shale
gas that is so abundant in some European regions. As a result, Europe finds
itself in a situation of extreme dependence on the regimes, generally
authoritarian, that supply its gas. This means Russia and, increasingly, Qatar.
This situation has been perfectly understood by Qatar, which published the
following statement as soon as possible retaliatory measures were announced
following discovery of the alleged corruption:
"The decision to impose... a discriminatory restriction that limits dialogue and
cooperation on Qatar before the legal process has ended, will negatively affect
regional and global security cooperation, as well as ongoing discussions around
global energy poverty and security."
The blackmail is clear.
*Drieu Godefridi is a jurist (Saint-Louis University of Louvain), a philosopher
(Saint-Louis University of Louvain) and a doctor in legal theory (Paris
IV-Sorbonne). He is the author of The Green Reich.
© 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.
Netanyahu: The Unexpected Moderate
Amir Taheri//Asharq Al Awsat/January 06/2023
There are phrases that as a student of history in the making I never thought I
would read let alone write. Now, however, such a phrase is in full circulation
and I feel no qualms about repeating it: Benjamin Netanyahu is a moderate
politician! The “comeback kid” of Israeli politics certainly cuts a moderate
figure in his new Cabinet. Some commentators even dub him “the only moderate” in
that Cabinet.Others see his return to power as a sign that, in the words of
Alain Dershowitz, Israel is “a deeply divided state.” Yet other commentators
warn that the latest general election that ended with the victory of the
right-wing parties has taken Israel “to the edge”. “What has been built in 75
years may be dismantled in a very short time,” says a writer who reminds us that
she is a descendant of a Holocaust victim.
Israel’s history as a recently revived state is full of “extremist” and
“dangerous” figures that were transformed into paragons of moderation. The
problem is that when it comes to Israel the only yardstick for measuring
moderation and extremism is a politician’s stand on the “Palestinian issue”.
Things become even more complicated when we remember that the “Palestinian
issue” has never been properly defined. It has always been approached
tangentially, first as a refugee problem with “the right of return” cliché as
leitmotiv. That resulted in keeping a growing number of Palestinians in refugee
camps in several countries without doing anything to resettle them. A straight
return to what had become Israel was out of the question because for the right
of return to operate you have to recognize the legitimacy of the state to which
you wish to return. And that, of course, was out of the question as long as Arab
states denied the very existence of Israel.
After decades, some genius pretended to have discovered the “two states”
solution. That “solution”, of course, had been offered by the United Nations and
accepted by the Israelis under the “extremist” David Ben Gurion, in 1947 but
rejected by neighboring Arab states. Its revival by Western powers, notably the
United States, was an exercise in diplomatic wild goose chasing.
For decades now almost everyone has paid lip service to that “solution” or even
imagined “roadmaps” towards achieving it without wondering whether the Israelis
and the Palestinians actually want it. The fact is that repeated opinion polls
and elections show that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians do not want the
“two-state” solution, I guess because it is not clear what it means. In Israel’s
new parliament (Knesset) only 10 out of 120 members say they support the
formula. But even they don’t say where one state would end and the other would
begin.
With that gambit getting nowhere, the “Palestinian problem” was redefined as one
of expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. But even there the curse of
opacity continued. Supporters of settlements never said how far and wide they
should be allowed while opponents never said how many of them should be
disbanded. In any case, the dismantling of all settlements in Gaza never led to
the peace expected.
As the theme of the settlement began to appear shopworn a new version of the
“Palestinian problem” was put into circulation: Israeli Apartheid. But that,
too, was never defined. In South Africa under Apartheid, black and colored
citizens were not allowed to vote or get elected.
In Israel, non-Jewish citizens can and do. Palestinians in the Left Bank do not
have those rights because they are not Israeli citizens. And to become Israeli
citizens their land must be formally annexed by Israel. Whichever way you dance
around the “Palestinian Problem” you cannot get out of the maze of
contradictions.
A majority of Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank seem to understand
that. Palestinians know that no Israeli coalition whether of left or right or
center could offer them a deal they can accept. They also know that the
“Palestinian issue” is often used by ambitious Israeli politicians to cover
their nakedness in terms of credible policies.
In 2000 Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount with a large retinue as opening
shot in an election which led to his premiership. Now the new Israeli Security
Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stages a similar show as a downsized caricature of
Sharon.
The fact that, like Sharon, Ben Gvir had visited the “holy place” on numerous
occasions before entering the government is often overlooked. Gvir and his
outfit are more interested in milking the Israeli state’s cow for this-worldly
perks and handouts than offering credible policies to the Israeli society at
large.
Dershowitz is wrong, Israel is not deeply divided. In fact, less than 10 per
cent of the electorate sported the so-called “extreme-right” bloc despite the
fact that its Haredim base, an orthodox version of Judaism, accounts for 12 per
cent of the population. The latest opinion polls show that only 31 per cent of
Israelis regard the “ Palestinian Issue” as their number-one concern. Opinion
polls in the West Bank, too, show that bread-and-butter politics and cleaning
corruption are the top concern of Palestinians.
Fixation with the “Palestinian Issue”, a problem that contrary to Pollyannaish
Cartesianism does not have a ready solution, has diverted from many here-and-now
problems facing both Israelis and Palestinians.
A nation effervescent with creativity, Israel cannot be led to sclerosis by
politicians like Ben Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich around the “Palestinian Problem”.
Life is richer than Gvir’s metaphysical conceits.
That problem might find a solution only if both Israelis and Palestinians are
convinced that solving it is in their own interest. Whichever way one looks at
it, that conviction isn’t there yet. And even if, one day, that conviction
materializes, there is no guarantee that those who have built whole carriers and
national strategies around perpetuating it will allow a solution to be agreed
and applied. In the meantime, all we have is the status quo and, it is by
pledging to maintain it, that Netanyahu, warts and all, wins unlikely accolades
as a moderate in a government of real or fake extremists. END
**Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from
1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications,
published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987
Is this a Turning Point for the US-Israeli Relationship? No!
Rami al-Rayes/Asharq Al Awsat/January 06/2023
The questions in the US about the country’s “historical” relationship with
Israel have not gone as far as forcing Washington to radically and
comprehensively rethink its deep ties with Tel Aviv, which is unlike any of the
United States’ relationships with another country. Talk on how the costs
Washington incurs due to this robust alliance outweighs the benefits, also falls
short of precipitating a shift, in its strategic approach, in this regard.
Moreover, fears about the “most radical government in Israeli history” voiced by
an array of US and Israeli figures are not enough to push Washington to adopt a
more moderate position vis a visa Palestine and the Palestinians. While US
President Joe Biden has repeatedly paid lip service to the “two-state solution,”
this rhetorical support has not led to any political or practical steps being
taken.
It is true that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statements to the
leftist pro-Israel leftist lobby group ‘J Street’ that his country intends to
“gauge the government by the policies it pursues rather than individual
personalities” might hide apprehensions regarding the future direction Israel
may take. However, this mere fact does not imply that the administration is
contemplating ways to apply pressure on Israel and certainly not “abandoning”
the alliance.
As for the many statements on this matter that we heard from members of
Congress, especially by Democrats, who expressed “concerns about human rights”
and criticized the composition of the new Israeli government, they are not an
indication that we could see Congress apply pressure as part of the game of
American politics. The fact is that both of the main parties, the Democrats and
Republicans, are in agreement over the need to protect and support Israel and to
maintain their country’s strategic relationship with it, regardless of the
circumstances. These rhetorical “complaints” are little more than attempts to
put their stance on record.
Some might point to a famous New York Times editorial published in mid-December
2022 where the paper argues that “Netanyahu’s government threatens the future of
Israel” and that “moderating forces in Israeli politics and civil society are
already planning energetic resistance… deserve support from the American public
and the Biden administration.” These statements are indeed remarkable, but they
are made in the spirit of watching out for Israel and supporting its survival as
a Jewish state. These are not absolute criticisms but rather stem from a desire
to protect Israel.
The Biden administration has avoided diving into the Palestinian - Israeli
conflict. And, it might be closer to affirming some of the facts (though not
openly), which, as far as Israel is concerned, have become gains that cannot be
conceded. The Biden administration has not reversed Trump’s 2017 decision to
relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Trump also recognized
as Israel’s capital.
Furthermore, although Washington does not see the Abraham Accords as an
alternative to Palestinian-Israeli peace, it has not reneged on them or
disparaged them either. It has encouraged and continues to encourage the steps
some Arab countries have taken to normalize relations with it, albeit while also
reintroducing aid to the Palestinians and UNRWA, which former president Donal
Trump had also suspended.
Speaking of US support for Tel Aviv, over half of American foreign aid in the
fiscal year 2022 went to Israel. Also, since the two countries signed the 2016
Memorandum of Understanding, Washington has been providing Israel with $4
billion a year, including $500 million allocated for air and missile defense.
Simple arithmetics show us that, by comparison, US support for the Palestinians
(with its political implications, of course) between 1994 and 2018, 25 years,
did not exceed $5 billion.
For decades, Israel has managed to present itself as the only democracy in the
Middle East. It has successfully made the case that the United States has a
“moral obligation” to support it because of the countries’ shared values on
human rights, freedoms, and other flashy talking points that go against the
military and security actions that Israel takes daily. The latter does not
hesitate to throw these values against the wall through policies that displace
and victimize the Palestinians, going as far as murdering them, as we saw with
the journalist Sherine Abu Akleh and dozens of innocent civilians and children.
The website of the strongest Jewish lobby group in Washington, AIPAC, boasts
that “unlike other allies, Israel insists on defending itself by itself, relying
on America only to help ensure it has the means to do so. Israel has never asked
Americans to sacrifice their lives; instead, the Israeli people defend
themselves while advancing vital US national security interests.” Israel’s
occupation doubtlessly would have been sanctioned for breaching international
law for the grave violation violations it commits on a daily basis if it weren’t
for the immense military and moral support Washington provides. Of course, we
should not ignore its readiness to use its veto power in the UN Security Council
either. It is clear that awaiting a rupture between the US and Israel in the
near is a losing bet. It defies political logic and ignores the historical
context whose trajectories and consequences have been apparent, and they are
painful, draining, and vicious.
Turkish Political Fluctuations: Reconciliation with Assad
Ahmad Mahmoud Ajaj/Asharq Al Awsat/January 06/2023
The trilateral meeting between Russia, Türkiye, and Syria may have been the most
significant event towards the end of 2022. Iran did not take part in the
discussions on this sensitive strategic matter. This meeting was not without
preludes but was rather preceded by several meetings and statements, including
Erdogan affirming that a meeting with Assad is not off the table.
There are no enemies in politics, and this announcement was preceded by the
Syrian leadership backing down on its demand that Türkiye pulls out of Syria
before talks can take place. This comes at a time when Putin needs to cool
things down in Syria to focus on the Ukrainian crisis and when Iran is busy
dealing with the protests and the fate of its regime. However, is Erdogan
serious about engaging with Assad? Can he solve the Syrian crisis?
Türkiye has doubtlessly gone back to the principle of "zero problems." This has
meant warming relations with Israel and the Gulf states. This shift in his
position on Syria is natural, as it is directly tied to Türkiye's security and
the role Türkiye plays In the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and even
Europe. Realpolitik is behind Türkiye's reversal of its position, as it seeks to
maximize its gains in a volatile region that poses threats to Turkish security.
In fact, Türkiye has made unexpected rapprochements to protect its security, and
it has turned its back on ideological religious partnerships that had been the
pillar of its foreign policy. We must recognize that Türkiye's leadership knows
that it is part of a big global game, one that might be too big for Türkiye to
handle. It knows that any misstep could have disastrous consequences, especially
given its experience in the First World War, which cost Türkiye its great
empire. Based on all of this, we can read the dialogue between Syria and Türkiye
as a ploy that aims to achieve the following:
First, overcoming the stagnation in Syria, especially since the struggle between
the US and Russia will complicate things further, and the Kurds are growing in
strength, be that in northern Iraq or Syria, which is a strategic threat to
Türkiye's national security. Since maintaining the state is the first aim of
realpolitik, Türkiye believes that, even in the worst of cases, moving things
along in Syria will benefit Türkiye. That is because progress on this front
would let Türkiye know what all the players would settle for, and if agreements
are concluded, it can curb threats to its security. Moreover, Türkiye could
compel the US to make a better offer through this move, especially since Türkiye
believes that the US does not have a plan for the future of Syria.
Second, Erdogan's character allows him to make strategic leaps, as he believes
in realpolitik and has become famous for being politically mercurial. He thus
believes that Türkiye is now capable of entering the bazaar of negotiations and
making maximum gains. Indeed Russia needs Türkiye, which controls Russia the
Black Sea, and it needs Türkiye's cooperation in the Asian countries neighboring
Russia. Additionally, the pair coordinate in Libya and Syria. Furthermore, the
US also needs Turkish cooperation in Ukraine, NATO, the Middle East, Central
Asia, and the Caucasus. That is why Erdogan believes that he earned the right to
hold talks with his friend Putin about Türkiye's security in Syria, which the
Turkish presents would also be a service to a surrounded Russia. For his part,
Putin believes that cooling things in Syria or resolving the crisis, in light of
the escalating threats by Türkiye, would present an opportunity to drag Erdogan
into holding bilateral talks with Assad through which they would come to a
mutually beneficial agreement. However, Erdogan is aware that this will not be
smooth sailing and that no tangible results will come of this process in the
short term. This course does, nonetheless, open the door to bidding in the
international and regional Syrian bazaar. He knows that Türkiye would benefit
more than any of the other players because it is the most powerful among them by
virtue of its location, the number of refugees it hosts, and its support for
Islamic movements.
Third, Erdogan believes the Arab states want to distance Assad from Iran and
that this desire has yet to crystallize into a project that can convince weighty
regional powers. For this reason, he sees dialogue with Damascus without Iran's
participation with support from Russia, which enjoys positive relations with the
Gulf states, would enhance these countries' view of Türkiye's role because it
would be the godfather of an agreement that satisfies the Arabs. Also, Erdogan
believes that an agreement with Assad that receives Arab support would guarantee
the security of his borders, stimulate his economy, and facilitate other
solutions tied to Türkiye's national security in places like Libya, which would
have implications for ties with Greece. This course would explain Iran's absence
as stemming from Türkiye seeking to avoid provocation of the Arab countries
suffering from Iran's interference in their affair, its threats to Arab national
security, and its role in weakening these countries' national fabric.
Fourth, Erdogan is aware that speaking to Assad puts his image in danger, as he
has painted himself as the leader of the faithful - a man who reads the Quran
and defends Muslims and the oppressed. This made him a popular figure in the
Muslim world, and shaking hands with Assad, whom Erdogan has accused of being a
war criminal, would obliterate that image. Erdogan has, however, left the door
to reversing course open, with his Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar making clear
that the only goal of the dialogue would be to fight terrorism, that Türkiye
seeks to ensure its security and safeguard its borders, and that the Syrian
crisis must be resolved in a comprehensive manner and in accordance with UN
Security Council Resolution No. 2254 that stipulates the peaceful transfer of
power. All of this points to the fact that, in contrast to the claims being made
in the Syrian media, there will be no meeting between Assad and Erdogan anytime
soon. Rather, the prospects of such a meeting are tied to progress in technical
and then political talks, with the Turkish foreign minister stressing that only
Erdogan will only meet with Assad after seeing progress on this front. In other
words, Erdogan only wants to meet Assad if their meeting crowns a Turkish
diplomatic victory through the implementation of the UN Security Council
resolution, which Iran would not accept. This assessment affirms that Erdogan is
not enthusiastic about meeting Assad because saving Assad would spoil Erdogan's
image and, in the long term, his security. Putin, on the other hand, does not
want to sacrifice Assad; because of the latter's strategic importance, Putin
will not allow for his removal from power. Those sitting at the negotiating
table are, of course, trying to show that they are engaging with one another in
good faith, but they have poisonous daggers behind their backs that they will
wield the moment they feel threatened.
How the FBI Hacked Twitter ....The answer
begins with Russiagate
Lee Smith/The Tablet/January 05/2023
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-the-fbi-hacked-twitter-lee-smith?fbclid=IwAR3B5fXQjG850FPtA5hvli-Tv2ZClDPqDI3Db54RP7ACTH-mSB7BvqZk788
After journalist Matt Taibbi published the first batch of internal Twitter
documents known as the Twitter files, he tweeted that the company’s deputy
general counsel, James Baker, was vetting them.
“The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone
involved,” Taibbi wrote. That apparently included even Twitter’s new boss, Elon
Musk, who added that Baker may have deleted some of the files he was supposed to
be reviewing.
Baker had been the top lawyer at the FBI when it interfered in the 2016
presidential election. News that he might have been burying evidence of the spy
service’s use of a social media company to interfere with the 2020 election, is
rightly setting off alarm bells.
In fact, the FBI’s penetration of Twitter constituted just one part of a much
larger intelligence operation—one in which the bureau offshored the machinery it
used to interfere in the 2016 election and embedded it within the private
sector. The resulting behemoth, still being built today, is a public-private
consortium made up of U.S. intelligence agencies, Big Tech companies, civil
society institutions, and major media organizations that has become the world’s
most powerful spy service—one that was powerful enough to disappear the former
president of the United States from public life, and that is now powerful enough
to do the same or worse to anyone else it chooses.
Records from the Twitter files show that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5
million, apparently for actions in connection with the 2020 election and
nominally a payout for the platform’s work censoring “dangerous” content that
had been flagged as mis- or disinformation. That “dangerous” content notably
included material that threatened Joe Biden and implicated U.S. officials who
have been curating the Biden family’s foreign corruption for decades.
The Twitter files have to date focused on FBI and, to a lesser extent, CIA
election interference. However a lesser-known U.S. government agency, the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also played a
significant role in shaping the 2020 vote. “CISA is a sub-agency at DHS that was
set up to protect real physical infrastructure, like servers, malware and
hacking threats,” said former State Department official Mike Benz, now the
executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. “But they expanded
‘infrastructure’ to mean us, the U.S. electorate. So ‘disinformation’ threatened
infrastructure and that’s how cybersecurity became cyber-censorship. CISA’s
mandate went from stopping threats of Russian malware to stopping tweets from
accounts that questioned the integrity of mail-in voting.”
We have some insight into CISA’s de facto censorship of Twitter because their
private-sector partners boasted about such activities in promotional material.
One such public-private partnership was the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP),
a censorship consortium consisting of the Stanford Internet Observatory, the
University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council’s
Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika, a D.C.-based private company
founded by former national security officials. According to a document from the
Twitter files release, Graphika is employed by the Senate Intelligence Committee
for “narrative analysis and investigations.” For CISA, Graphika and its EIP
partners served as an intermediary to censor social media during the 2020
election cycle.
CISA targeted posts questioning the election procedures introduced into the
election process on account of COVID-19, like mass mail-in ballots, early voting
drop boxes, and lack of voter ID requirements. But instead of going to the
platforms directly, CISA filed tickets with EIP, which relayed them to Twitter,
Facebook, and other tech companies. In “after-action” reports, the Election
Integrity Partnership bragged about censoring Fox News, the New York Post,
Breitbart, and other right-leaning publications for social media posts and
online links concerning the integrity of the 2020 election.
The censorship industry is based on a “whole of society model,” said Benz. “It
unifies the government and the private sector, as well as civil society in the
form of academia and NGOs and news organizations, including fact-checking
organizations. All these projects with catchphrases like building resilience,
media literacy, cognitive security, etc., are all part of a broad partnership to
help censor opponents of the Biden administration.”
Notably, Baker was enlisted in one of the civil-society organizations at the
same time he joined Twitter as deputy general counsel. According to Benz, the
National Task Force on Election Crises is something like a sister organization
to the Transition Integrity Project, the group founded by former Democratic
Party officials and Never Trump publicists who war-gamed post-2020-election
scenarios. “The outfit Baker was part of,” said Benz, “effectively handled the
public messaging for an organization that threatened street violence and
counseled violating the constitution to thwart a Trump victory.”
Baker’s presence at Twitter, then, and his review of the Twitter files, was
deeply disconcerting. “This is who is inside Twitter,” the journalist and
filmmaker Mike Cernovich tweeted at Elon Musk this spring. “He facilitated
fraud.”
Musk replied: “Sounds pretty bad.”
In fact, Musk has done more in two months to bring to light crimes committed by
U.S. officials than William Barr and John Durham did during their three-year
investigation of the FBI’s election interference activities during the 2016
election. Musk now owns what became a crucial component of the national security
apparatus that, seen in this light, is worth many times more than the $44
billion he paid for it.
The FBI prepared America’s new public-private censorship regime for the 2020
election by falsely telling Twitter, as well as other social media platforms,
press outlets, lawmakers, and staff members of the White House, that Russians
were readying a hack and leak operation to dirty the Democratic candidate.
Accordingly, when reports of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden and giving evidence
of his family’s financial ties with foreign officials were published in October
2020, Twitter blocked them.
In the week before the election, the FBI field office in charge of investigating
Hunter Biden sent multiple censorship requests to Twitter. The FBI has “some
folks in the Baltimore field office and at [FBI headquarters] that are just
doing keyword searches for violations,” a company lawyer wrote in a Nov. 3,
2020, email.
The documents also show that Twitter banished Trump after misrepresenting his
posts as incitement to violence. With U.S. intelligence services reportedly
using informants to provoke violence during the January 6th protest at the
Capitol, the trap closed on Trump. Twitter and Facebook then moved to silence
the outgoing president by denying him access to the global communications
infrastructure.
The FBI unit designated to coordinate with social media companies during the
2020 election cycle was the Foreign Influence Task Force. It was set up in the
fall of 2017 “to identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations”
through, “strategic engagement with U.S. technology companies.” During the
election cycle, according to the Twitter files, the unit “swelled to 80 agents
and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election
tampering of all kinds.”
The FBI’s chief liaison with Twitter was Elvis Chan, an agent from its Cyber
Branch. Based in the San Francisco field office, Chan was also in communication
with Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Reddit and LinkedIn. Chan demanded user
information that Twitter said it could not release outside of a “legal process.”
In exchange, Chan promised to secure temporary security clearances for 30
Twitter employees a month before the election, presumably to give staff the same
briefings on alleged Russian information operations provided to U.S. officials
in classified settings.
But Twitter executives claimed they found little evidence of Russian activity on
the site. So Chan badgered former head of site security Yoel Roth to produce
evidence the FBI was serving its advertised mission of combating foreign
influence operations when in fact it was focused on violating the First
Amendment rights of Americans.
Chan briefed Twitter extensively on an alleged Russian hacking unit, APT28, or
Fancy Bear, which was the same outfit that was claimed by Hillary Clinton
campaign contractors to have hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee
emails in 2016. According to Roth, the FBI had “primed” him to attribute reports
about Hunter Biden’s laptop to an APT28 hack-and-leak operation. Needless to
say, the FBI’s reports—and subsequent “disinformation” claims—were themselves
blatant disinformation, invented by the FBI, which had been in possession of the
laptop for nearly a year.
The FBI’s penetration of Twitter constituted just one part of a much larger
intelligence operation—one in which the bureau offshored the machinery it used
to interfere in the 2016 election and embedded it within the private sector.
Twitter was more than a one-way mirror: The FBI also seems to have embedded its
own spy structure within the social media company to siphon off the personal
data and behavior of users. Dozens of former intelligence officials were
installed within Twitter after the election of Donald Trump. Some had active top
secret security clearances. Twitter’s director of strategy was Dawn Burton,
former FBI Director James Comey’s deputy chief of staff. Perhaps most
significant was Baker himself, who appears to have led the FBI’s internal
organization at the platform. Efforts to reach Baker for comment on this story
were unsuccessful.
Baker left the FBI in 2018 under a cloud of suspicion. In 2017, the Justice
Department investigated him for leaking to the press, and the Republican-led
House of Representatives later investigated him for his role in Russiagate.
Former congressional officials say that as part of the bureau’s 2016
investigation of the Trump campaign, Baker authored the warrant to spy on
Trump’s inner circle.
After he departed the law enforcement agency, CNN rewarded him for his
“resistance” activities—which boosted the network’s ratings to record levels—by
hiring him as a legal analyst. The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution
brought Baker on board to contribute to its collusion-conspiracy website “Lawfare.”
DOJ again investigated him in 2019 for leaking to the media while at the FBI. In
June 2020, Baker joined Twitter as deputy general counsel. With his security
clearances still active, he was Twitter’s liaison with U.S. intelligence
agencies, where he reinforced the FBI’s external pressure from inside Twitter to
censor the Biden laptop story.
Under Baker, Twitter became more than just an instrument to censor the
opposition; it also spied on them. Newly released court documents show that
Twitter coordinated with the DOJ to intercept the communications of users
potentially dangerous to the Biden campaign, like Tara Reade, the former Biden
Senate staffer who alleged that Biden had sexually assaulted her decades
earlier. The DOJ subpoenaed her Twitter account, likely with the purpose of
giving the company cover for finding out which journalists had contacted her
about her allegations.
The cozy two-way relationship between the government and the social media
company, which Baker helped oversee and ultimately used to interfere in the 2020
election, was years in the making. In 2014, Twitter filed suit against the DOJ
and the FBI, Twitter v. Holder. The San Francisco-based social media platform
had been served Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to collect
the electronic communications of some of its users, and Twitter said that in the
interests of transparency, it wanted to release a public report with the precise
numbers of warrants it had been served. FBI General Counsel James Baker refused.
Twitter could disclose the number of warrants in broad, inexact ranges, for
instance between 0-249, but not the exact number, even if it was zero.
To press its case, Twitter hired Perkins Coie, a prominent Democratic
Party-aligned firm that had represented several presidential campaigns—John
Kerry’s, Barack Obama’s and eventually Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run, during which
the law firm would hire Fusion GPS to produce the discredited dossier of
Trump-Russia reports under the byline of British ex-spy Christopher Steele that
became the center of Russiagate.
The firm’s lead attorney for Twitter v. Holder was former DOJ cybersecurity
expert Michael Sussmann. He and Baker were friends. The FBI lawyer thanked him
in a September 2014 letter for a recent meeting that included Twitter’s top
lawyer Vijaya Gadde and others, but affirmed that giving specific numbers would
reveal “properly classified information.” Why that would endanger sources and
methods, as the government claimed, Baker never explained. But no one at DOJ
knew more than Baker about FISA, the most intrusive surveillance program that
U.S. intelligence services have in their arsenal.
Even during his time in the private sector Baker had worked on FISA issues. In
2008, he’d taken a job at Verizon, where George H.W. Bush’s former Attorney
General William Barr was general counsel. Baker was assistant general counsel
for national security, and thus an entry point for his former DOJ colleagues,
facilitating their access to material obtained through FISA and other
surveillance programs. It wouldn’t have occurred to him or Barr to want to
publish, as Twitter said it did, the number of FISA warrants that law
enforcement served their private-sector employer. They were DOJ men, and FISAs
are highly classified. Few outside the intelligence community had ever seen one,
until the Trump era.
An April 2017 story in The Washington Post disclosed that the FBI had obtained a
FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page, making FISA part
of the national lexicon. The Post story, sourced to law enforcement and other
U.S. officials, far exceeded what Twitter was prevented from publishing for
national security reasons. It named the subject of a FISA warrant, and revealed
that the warrant targeted a presidential candidate’s circle.
“Baker authored the Page FISA and signed off on all of it,” Kash Patel, a member
of President Trump’s National Security Council, told me. Patel also served as
Devin Nunes’ lead investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s probe of
FBI crimes and abuses committed during the bureau’s Trump-Russia investigation.
Recently, reports have also surfaced that the DOJ was spying on Patel and other
Nunes staffers while they were investigating the FBI and DOJ.
Patel continued. “When I was at DOJ,” he said, “Baker had a reputation of being
a FISA guru. The Page FISA was crafted by someone who knew what questions not to
ask, and how to use language to get it past a FISA court judge without fully
disclosing facts they knew would have disqualified the warrant.”
Baker told congress that he didn’t normally work on FISAs in his job as the
FBI’s top lawyer, but this FISA was especially sensitive: It allowed the bureau
to sweep up a presidential campaign’s electronic communications, including those
of a certain Republican candidate. So, Baker said, he “wanted to make sure that
we were filing something that would adhere to the law.”
But the Page FISA was unlawful. The FBI had simply laundered the Clinton
campaign’s anti-Trump dirt into a surveillance warrant so it could justify
spying on the candidate in support of her Democratic rival. “The FBI wanted the
warrant, so they wrote it in a way to get it even though they knew it was a
fraud, as our investigation would expose,” said Patel. But with Baker squaring
away the package, who was going to question the FISA guru?
By fall 2016, Baker had become the preferred drop box for the Clinton team to
push anti-Trump dirt into the FBI. His friend, the journalist David Corn, passed
him more Steele reports, which he handed off to FBI colleagues investigating the
GOP candidate. Baker also agreed to a meeting with a former associate who wanted
to pass on research from cyber experts about a supposed secret computer channel
between a Russian bank and Trump. That was Michael Sussmann.
Five years later, the special counsel appointed to investigate the FBI’s
Trump-Russia probe would charge Sussmann with lying to the FBI. Specifically,
he’d lied to his friend Jim Baker: When Sussmann met with him in September 2016
to pass on Trump-Russia information, he told Baker he wasn’t representing a
client when in fact he was working for the Clinton campaign.
Given what we know now, it’s clear that special counsel John Durham’s case
against Sussmann was even more troubled than it first seemed. His star witness,
Baker, wasn’t a hero in the story but a co-conspirator, to whom Durham gave a
pass so he could charge Sussmann with a process crime.
Obviously, Baker knew his friend was representing the Clinton campaign—that’s
what Perkins Coie lawyers do: represent Democratic Party presidential campaigns.
But the two would want to cover their tracks, so before their September 2016
meeting, the Clinton lawyer sent Baker a text saying that he had information to
share, and he wasn’t representing a client. This would have proven Durham’s case
about Sussman lying to his friend Baker at the FBI, except Baker never told the
prosecutor about the text. Neither did the DOJ’s inspector general, who had
Baker’s phones, until it was too late to use the evidence in court.
What few understood was that the issue wasn’t just the 2016 election but the
2020 vote, too. Baker had to tread carefully or else risk exposing the job for
which Sussmann had helped plant him at Twitter. It was one of the spy service’s
most sensitive operations—infiltrating social media platforms to fix a
presidential race. So Sussmann was acquitted—and the FBI’s hack of Twitter
continued.
The Twitter files’ disclosures about the coordination between the company and
spy agencies to fix presidential elections sheds light on the nature of Twitter
v. Holder, which was eventually decided in the government’s favor shortly before
Baker joined the company. Twitter filed the suit because it believed in
transparency—and to reassure users that the platform wasn’t being used to spy on
them, or not most of them. But something else was going on behind the scenes:
Social media platforms were already being assimilated into the intelligence
services.
Documents leaked in 2013 by former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden showed that the NSA was mining social media platforms to build profiles
on Americans. Previously, the NSA was required to stop searching the contact
chain of a foreign target when it reached a U.S. citizen, but a 2010 change in
policy allowed the intelligence services to trace the contacts of Americans so
long as there was a “foreign intelligence” purpose. That is, even at the dawn of
the social media revolution, the spy services saw social media as a surveillance
tool, like FISA.
In response to Snowden’s disclosures, then-President Barack Obama gave
high-minded speeches about balancing civil rights and national security. But by
the time Twitter filed its 2014 suit, the White House had already chosen to turn
surveillance programs against its domestic opponents. Obama’s intelligence
chiefs spied on U.S. legislators and pro-Israel activists opposed to Obama’s
signature foreign policy initiative, the Iran nuclear deal.
The Obama administration also realized that it could lean hard on monopoly
social media platforms in order to gain political advantages—and it could make
companies that weren’t compliant pay a price. First strike got you a dressing
down from the White House: Weeks after the 2016 vote, for instance, Obama pulled
Mark Zuckerberg aside at a conference in Peru and read him out about not doing
more to keep Russian disinformation off Facebook. The reality is that Russia
spent around $135,000 on Facebook ads, a small percentage of what presidential
campaigns typically spend on a single day before lunch. But Obama wasn’t worried
about Russia—he struck deals with Vladimir Putin to advance his own
idiosyncratic foreign policy goals, like the nuclear agreement with Russia’s
ally Iran. Obama’s problem was Trump.
As he was leaving office, Obama stamped the U.S. government’s seal of approval
on Russiagate, ordering his spy chiefs to draft an official assessment claiming
Putin helped put Trump in the White House. Since then, in Deep State parlance,
“Russia” equals Trump and stopping “Russian disinformation” means censoring
Trump, his supporters, and anyone else opposed to the national security
apparatus’s takeover of the public communications infrastructure. Since
Zuckerberg didn’t keep Trump off Facebook in 2016, he had to put up $400 million
to drive votes to Democrats in 2020—and even that wasn’t enough. In 2021,
Democratic Party insiders working together with Zuckerberg’s Big Tech
competitor, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, sent a fake whistleblower after him to
testify before congress that Facebook was bad for teenage girls.
The censorship regime would regulate out of existence anyone who resists it. To
make the case for the hegemony of government censors, it found an eminent
pitchman: Barack Obama.
In April, as Musk first said he wanted to buy Twitter and save free speech,
Obama embarked on a “disinformation” tour, which took him to several college
campuses to promote the un-American virtues of censorship. He first visited his
hometown to speak at a University of Chicago conference, “Disinformation and the
Erosion of Democracy.” Other guests included Anne Applebaum, an early advocate
of the collusion conspiracy theory who pushed the spy-service fiction in dozens
of her Washington Post columns. Also in attendance was former CISA head Chris
Krebs, now famous for congressional testimony in which he claimed the 2020
election was the most secure ever.
EIP principals from the Stanford Internet Observatory were featured speakers at
the daylong seminar at the Palo Alto university where Obama made the second stop
on his April “disinformation” tour. Regulation, Obama told the Stanford
audience, has to be part of the answer to solve the disinformation crisis. In
other words, he went to Silicon Valley to threaten his listeners that he would
ruin their financial model by stripping away social media’s liability
exemptions.
The purpose of Obama’s speech was to present a choice to his audience: Either
you impose a scorched-earth policy against the establishment’s opponents, or
else you will face the kind of regulation that every company knows will be its
death knell. Moreover, if they made the right choice, Obama showed, there was
money in it for them.
“In effect, Obama announced that the funding channels are open for people who
want to do disinformation work,” said Mike Benz, executive director of the
Foundation for Freedom Online. “It’s like what happened with climate change. If
you were an academic who wanted federal funding for anything, you made sure you
made reference to climate to get grants. Same now with disinformation. Obama was
saying, ‘here’s where the puck is moving, so skate here if you want federal
funding.’”
To reward EIP for greasing its path to the White House, the Biden administration
awarded all four consortium partners with grant money. The Stanford and
Washington units received $3 million from the National Science Foundation “to
study ways to apply collaborative, rapid-response research to mitigate online
disinformation.” Graphika won nearly $5 million from the Pentagon after the 2020
election for “research on cross-platform detection to counter malign influence,”
and another $2 million in 2021. Since 2021, the Atlantic Council received $4.7
million in federal grants, mostly from the State Department, a total far
exceeding its previous awards.
In retrospect, the failure of the Russiagate conspiracy theory accelerated the
spy service’s takeover of social media. Though no one is likely to be held
accountable anytime soon, or ever, it was enough that the details of the
operation were exposed by Patel and Nunes. In response, the spy agencies moved
much of their operations out of the federal government and into the private
sector, where even if congressional investigators found it, there wasn’t much
they could do. Republicans could threaten to regulate social media, but their
threats were empty. They might even find themselves—and their campaign
ads—banned from Twitter.
The public-private sector merger worked only because, as a unifying myth for the
U.S. elite, if not as a legal or political maneuver, Russiagate was a great
success. If there were any fears of how news of the FBI’s spying operation on a
presidential campaign might be received by the press, civil rights activists,
and the left, the reception to Russiagate dispelled those concerns. The media
offered itself up as a platform for information operations and published illegal
leaks of classified information while the rest of the ruling class promoted a
conspiracy theory and celebrated the assault on the constitutional rights of
their fellow Americans as a success story.
The Republican attorney general of the United States, William Barr—the ultimate
DOJ insider—knew the FBI was working to fix the 2020 election and did nothing to
stop it. His Justice Department had the laptop in its possession and Barr knew
it was authentic. He told reporters this spring that he was “shocked” Biden lied
about his son’s computer in the Oct. 22, 2020, debate with Trump. “He’s squarely
confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian
disinformation,” said Barr, “which he knew was a lie.” Yet agents under Barr’s
authority were briefing that lie to social media platforms, the press, Congress,
and even the Trump White House.
“There were 80 FBI agents in the unit working on foreign disinformation,” Patel
told me. “It was about a presidential election, so it would require
authorization from the FBI director and the attorney general. Barr knew.”
Barr resigned from the administration a month after the election, outraged that
Trump kept pushing him to investigate election fraud when, according to Barr,
there was no evidence of it. And yet on his watch, law enforcement agencies
under his authority ran the biggest election interference operation in U.S.
history. William Barr did not respond to a request for comment.
It seems Barr’s contempt for the president he served blinded him—along with the
class of people to which he belongs, Democrats and Republicans alike—to an
essential fact: A whole-of-society industry designed to shape elections and
censor, propagandize, and spy on Americans was never simply a weapon to harm
Donald Trump. It was designed to replace the republic.
Cooperation can help world get through fiscal crisis
Dr. Bashayer Al-Majed/Arab News/January 06, 2023
As we start the new year, things are definitely not looking too bright
financially for many countries, with gross domestic product forecasts pretty
flat and inflation common. The UK recently announced average annual household
fuel bill increases of £500 ($601), although Europe’s recent mild weather has
led to a drop in gas demand and a subsequent drop in the wholesale gas price in
the region. Europe certainly must be breathing a sigh of relief, as governments
had warned last year that this winter might see citizens experience planned
power cuts due to insufficient gas supply caused by the conflict in Ukraine. For
some countries, this would be for the first time in 50 years.
Nonetheless, inflation is still an issue. This reduces the value of people’s
savings and pensions, which can be problematic if people are about to retire.
Likewise, for people wishing to buy property, particularly first-time buyers,
mortgage interest rates are far higher, while banks are no longer willing to
bail out failing businesses or individuals or indeed create new money to add
into the market.
Higher interest rates are the banks’ way of discouraging those without the means
to pay back loans or mortgages to take them out in the first place. However, it
is inevitable that there will always be those who either cannot bring themselves
to wait until the uncertainty levels off or perhaps need a loan to manage the
harder times or to invest to keep their business engaging to the market. Of
those, there will be a proportion who will default on these higher-interest
loans.
This will drive a more distinct wedge between those with expendable income and
those who are just managing. Young professionals, newlyweds, people who might
have been about to buy a home or invest in new business would be wise to wait
until the market stabilizes and interest rates drop. But even for renters, the
hiked-up interest rates on mortgages will necessitate landlords raising rents.
This can only increase the recent trend of people staying at home with their
parents into their 30s and reverting to a more traditional multigenerational
family home.
Nations need to work together more than ever before to support one another and
make the best use of global resources
This puts economies on the downturn, as money has less value if wages do not
increase proportionally, people have less disposable income and they are more
selective over where they spend it, reducing spending on frivolous or
nonessential items, which may be considered luxuries. Of course, this can be a
vicious cycle — as people spend less, local economies can suffer. Local
businesses with less income may reduce staff numbers or at least reduce the
working hours they offer for zero-hours contracts, increasing unemployment and
preventing wage increases. People with reduced employment will spend less,
particularly those already on the breadline.
On the broader scale, inflation destabilizes the value of the currency or
currencies in question on the international market, so imported products or the
raw materials for home-manufactured products may greatly increase in price due
to exchange rate differences.
Occasionally, as seen in the lifting of lockdowns, these downturns can help
local economies. Instead of splashing out on big holidays abroad, people take
weekend breaks locally or treat themselves more frequently to little luxuries to
raise their spirits.
Good news for those wanting a stable, modest investment, governments needing to
borrow money to pay off COVID-19 costs and other overspending have increased the
repayment yield on 10-year gilts (government bonds), many to over 200 percent,
over the past year. Of course, even with this increase, bond yields are low
compared to the stock markets. But observing some of the devastating losses on
the cybercurrency market last year, not least FTX’s unexpected failure due to
Sam Bankman-Fried’s blatant disregard for his investors, deceptively using their
funds to ill-advisedly reinvest elsewhere, a modest interest rate may be just
right for some.
After the past couple of years, with the pandemic and its related lockdowns, an
unexpected increase in the effects of global warming (plus more to come with the
costs of preventive measures and damage control), the invasion of Ukraine
pushing up gas and oil prices and resultantly the cost of grain and logistics
(which depend on gasoline), and the crashing of the cybercurrency market, the
global market could do with some financial stability and security.
It will be interesting to see how the global powers play this out, with
forecasts predicting strong GDP growth for India, South Korea and Indonesia.
With severe downturns in growth in the richer nations, they could really play
well and drive for financial and power equality, but being more vulnerable to
the effects of climate change, they will need to push for good deals for
support.
Nations need to work together more than ever before to support one another and
make the best use of global resources, while building viable solutions for
peace, energy, crop production and transport, and mitigating the impacts of
climate change. Let us hope our governments can introduce sensible fiscal
policies and that nations worldwide can put their differences aside and build an
equal, safe and financially stable and prosperous future for us all.
*Dr. Bashayer Al-Majed is a professor of law at Kuwait University and visiting
fellow at Oxford. Twitter: @BashayerAlMajed