English LCCC Newsbulletin For Le

English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For January 10/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Saint John said to the Pharisees: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord" ’, as the prophet Isaiah said
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 01/19-28/:"This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord" ’, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, ‘Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’John answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing."

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 09-10/2023
This past January 06 was the anniversary of the Birthday of the late American Lebanese Danny Thomas, Happy Birthday Patriarch/Eblan Farris/January 09/2023
Who in Lebanon will be questioned by European judicial delegations?
Salameh won't be questioned by European delegations, at least for now
French judicial delegation to Lebanon to also tackle port file
Berri 'disgusted' by futile presidential vote sessions
Bou Saab says capital control law to be approved in next session
Report: Mikati preparing for electricity cabinet session
Mikati calls for unity to rescue the country
Mikati calls for unity to rescue the country
Hezbollah to reportedly initiate talks with FPM over presidency, understanding
Report: Lebanon urging Hezbollah to prevent local Hamas cell from attacking Israel
Grillo Renews France’s Pledge to Support Lebanon, Stay by Its Side
Lebanon: Aoun Uses Defense Minister to Settle Scores with Army Commander
Jumblat calls on Arabs to support crisis-hit Egypt

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 09-10/2023
Israel's Netanyahu races ahead with hard-line agenda
U.S. Imposes Fresh Sanctions On Six Individuals Tied To Iranian Drone Production
UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
UK summons top Iranian diplomat following latest executions
Germany says it wants to increase pressure on Iran after latest executions
Iranians protest outside French embassy against Charlie Hebdo cartoons
Anger over Executions Fuels Protests in Iran
Iran Sentences Three More to Death Over Amini Protests
."White House: Iran Could Be Contributing to War Crimes by Sending Drones to Russia
UK, France Summon Top Iranian Diplomats Following Latest Executions
Protest Outside French Embassy in Tehran against ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Cartoons
UN Extends Critical Aid from Türkiye to Syria’s Opposition North
Russia's main oil product is trading way below the $60 price cap as just a handful of buyers keep up trade with the heavily sanctioned nation
Kremlin says new Western armoured vehicles for Ukraine will 'deepen suffering'
NATO chief: Sweden has done what's needed to join alliance
FPM may Tuesday unveil name of its presidential candidate
Palestinian PM says Israel quashing anti-occupation protests
United Arab Emirates says it will teach Holocaust in schools
Biden in Mexico for talks on migrants, drugs

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 09-10/2023
The European Union's War on Israel/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/January 09, 2023
How Jesus Became ‘Isa: A Terrorist with a Heavenly Harem/Raymond Ibrahim/January 09, 2023
I Looked Behind the Curtain of American History, and This Is What I Found/Carlos Lozada/The New York Times/January 09/ 2023
Facts: Let Them Enjoy Themselves/Samir Atallah/Asharq Al-Awsat/January 09/ 2023

on January 09-10/2023
This past January 06 was the anniversary of the Birthday of the late American Lebanese Danny Thomas, Happy Birthday Patriarch!
Eblan Farris/January 09/2023
Danny was a nightclub comedian and television and film actor and producer. Danny's Lifetime Goal and Achievement was the founding of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He dedicated the hospital as a message of thanksgiving from the Lebanese American’s to all of America. When it first opened only 20% of the children could be saved and 80% of the children couldn’t be saved, today 80% of the children are saved, and no family gets charged. Danny Thomas prayed to St. Jude when he was poor with these words: “help me find my way and I will build you a shrine in your name.” St. Jude delivered and Danny’s career was set - from acting to owning the Miami Dolphins and Joe Robbie stadium, but none compared to the achievement of St. Jude being built. Proud that my dad and my Monsignor Uncle were recruited by Danny Thomas to help. My Favorite Danny Thomas Quote: "All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don't discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others." Danny Thomas

Who in Lebanon will be questioned by European judicial delegations?
Naharnet/January 09/2023
A list with the names of the Lebanese banking and financial officials who will be questioned in the coming days in Beirut by three European judicial delegations has been leaked to the media.
According to al-Akhbar newspaper, the list has been received by State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat.
Below are the names as published by the daily:
- Riad Salameh (Central Bank Governor)
- Raja Salameh (Salameh’s brother and owner of the company Forry Associates Ltd)
- Marianne Hoayek (Executive Director at Central Bank and Head of the Governor's Executive Office)
- Marwan Issa al-Khoury (Salameh’s nephew)
- Nabil Aoun (One of the main brokers working for Salameh)
- Marwan Kheireddine (Al-Mawarid Bank Chairman)
- Samir Hanna (Bank Audi Chairman)
- Rayya al-Hassan (BankMed Chairwoman)
- Joseph Tarabay (Credit Libanais bank chairman)
- Fahim Modad (BLOM Bank Chairman, served as Central Bank Vice Governor between 1997 and 2003)
- Directors of Fransabank, BBAC bank and BML bank
- Walid Nakkour (Head of the financial auditing team looking into the Central Bank’s accounts on behalf of the Ernst & Young company since 2007)
- Ramzi Accaoui (One of Ernst & Young's authorized signatories)
- Nada Maalouf (Owns a firm that has been auditing the Central Bank’s accounts since 1994)
- Auditors from the Deloitte company

Salameh won't be questioned by European delegations, at least for now
Naharnet/January 09/2023
The first European judicial delegation that will question senior Lebanese banking and financial officials will arrive in Beirut on Monday and will be followed by two other delegations over the next 10 days, media reports said. “Two delegations from Germany and Luxembourg will separately arrive first and will be followed days later by a French delegation,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported Monday. “The first delegation will be comprised of judges, specialized investigators and judicial police members, as part of an investigation involving defendants and suspects in corruption and money laundering operations carried out by Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh in cooperation with members of his family, close associates and bankers,” the daily said. The French delegation will meanwhile carry out interrogations from January 14 to January 18. Judicial sources told al-Akhbar that Salameh’s name is still on the list of those who will be questioned, seeing as “he is the main element in the investigation that is being carried out by the three countries.”“State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat’s remarks that Salameh won’t be questioned are related to the first round of interrogations and French judge Aude Borozzi has requested to interrogate him and others and she is supposed to directly question him,” the sources said. Judicial sources, however, told al-Akhbar that “the probability that Salameh won’t show up is very strong, especially that indications suggest that the French side intends to interrogate him as a suspect and that the judge might immediately file charges against him.”

French judicial delegation to Lebanon to also tackle port file
Naharnet/January 09/2023
The upcoming investigations by a French judicial delegation to Lebanon will not be limited to Riad Salameh’s case but will also tackle the Beirut port blast file, media reports said. “The memos of the European authorities included the names of investigative judges that are not working on the file of the central bank governor, especially the French memo which included the name of the French judge investigating the Beirut port bombing crime, who asked for a January 24 appointment with Attorney General Sabbouh Suleiman, who is tasked by the public prosecution to oversee the file of the port investigations,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday. “It is not known whether the French judge has also requested a meeting with Judge Tarek Bitar, knowing that the latter had met with him on May 27 accompanied by a representative of the French public prosecution. The French back then asked to look into the investigations of Bitar, who refused to comply and told them that the investigations were confidential,” the daily said. Noting that the French judge intends to “test the waters,” al-Akhbar added that Lebanon has not yet received any European information that would “make a difference” in the Lebanese file related to the port case.

Berri 'disgusted' by futile presidential vote sessions
Naharnet/January 09/2023
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has described Lebanon as “a boat lost at sea,” due to the parties’ failure to elect a new president despite having held ten electoral sessions. In remarks to Annahar newspaper published Monday, Berri said he was feeling “disgusted” by the fact that the ten presidential election sessions that were held last year had failed to produce a new president. Political sources meanwhile quoted Berri as saying, in remarks to al-Joumhouria newspaper, that the stances of the political parties have not changed and “accordingly the upcoming session will not change anything in the current impasse.”According to media reports, the upcoming voting session will be held on Thursday.

Bou Saab says capital control law to be approved in next session
Naharnet/January 09/2023
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab announced Monday that the joint parliamentary committees are expected to approve the long-awaited capital control law in their next session. “In principle, one session remains to approve the law and its amendments,” Bou Saab said after a session on Monday. The draft law will still need to be approved by the 128-member parliament. “We MPs will never agree to legislate any law that would write off the deposits,” Bou Saab reassured. “It was clear today that the capital control will be finalized by the joint committees and will only take into consideration the rights of depositors,” the Deputy Speaker added. According to TV networks, the law will allow transfers to outside the country for the exclusive purposes of education and medical care and will set a “minimum” monthly withdrawal amount of $800 for dollar accounts.

Report: Mikati preparing for electricity cabinet session
Naharnet/January 09/2023
Cabinet will convene but caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is keen on calling for it when the political climate is calm, his circles said. The sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Monday, that Mikati does not want to further complicate the situation and that he will make all the needed calls and consultations in the coming days in order to hold a cabinet session that could only discuss the electricity file. "Mikati is counting on Hezbollah's participation in the session," the sources said, adding that Hezbollah is torn between securing the session's quorum in order to solve the fuel ships problem and containing the recent rift with the Free Patriotic Movement.

Mikati calls for unity to rescue the country
Naharnet/January 09/2023
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday reassured that “the country will remain coherent, glorious and resilient.”“No one will be able to defeat it,” Mikati added, during a ceremony to inaugurate Middle East Airlines’ new general administration building. “We must close ranks to rescue and preserve our country and we must all cooperate to do what needs to be done to salvage Lebanon,” the caretaker premier went on to say.

Hezbollah to reportedly initiate talks with FPM over presidency, understanding
Naharnet/January 09/2023
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has asked officials in Hezbollah to resume the communication with the Free Patriotic Movement leadership, al-Akhbar newspaper reported Monday. The daily said that the talks will resume soon, following a decision by the Shura Council. Nasrallah had stressed last week that Hezbollah is keen on resolving the "dispute" with the FPM through “communication.” The FPM reportedly welcomed the comments. "Hezbollah will initiate a dialogue over the relation with the FPM regarding the presidential file and the understanding between the two parties," al-Akhbar said, adding that the Hezbollah-FPM meetings would take place away from the media. "The talks will be a preliminary step for high level meetings," the daily said.

Report: Lebanon urging Hezbollah to prevent local Hamas cell from attacking Israel
Times of Israel/January 09/2023
Beirut Observer news site publishes list of operatives from Palestinian terror group who are allegedly planning to launch attack from southern Lebanon. Lebanese security officials are concerned over plans by the Palestinian Hamas terror group to carry out an attack against Israel from southern Lebanon, local media reported Saturday. The Beirut Observer news site published a list of Hamas members who were allegedly involved in planning attacks without the involvement of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, which controls much of southern Lebanon. The Hamas operatives were named in the report as Samir Fendi, Hassan Farhat, Nadim Dawabsha and Ahmed Hamdan Abdullah. The Beirut Observer said Lebanese security officials criticized “Hezbollah’s lack of action… because the implementation of any operation against Israel at this particular time will endanger Lebanon and add a new tragedy to its tragedies.”
In December 2021, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that the Gaza-ruling Hamas quietly established a Lebanese branch in recent years to open up an additional front against Israel in future conflicts. The branch is based in the port city of Tyre, but it is believed to have other outposts throughout the country. A week after the report, an alleged Hamas weapons depot hidden underneath a mosque in the Burj Shamali refugee camp, near Tyre, exploded, killing a member. There have also been several instances of rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel in recent years, with most blamed on Palestinian factions in the country, not Hezbollah. However, it is unlikely that terrorists in southern Lebanon would be able to fire rockets without at least the tacit approval of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which maintains tight control over the area. Illustrative: Hezbollah fighters attend the funeral procession on May 15, 2021, of their comrade Mohammed Tahhan who was shot dead by Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border, in the southern village of Adloun, Lebanon. Saturday’s report said Lebanese security officials were urging Hezbollah to prevent the Hamas cell from carrying out an attack against Israel.
“Hezbollah completely controls southern Lebanon, and disregards UNIFIL, therefore, no one will be able to do anything without its approval, and if [it] agrees to this Hamas cell to carry out operations, then it is very dangerous for Lebanon,” the Beirut Observer said.
Hezbollah has long represented the most significant military threat on Israel’s borders, with an estimated arsenal of nearly 150,000 rockets and missiles that can reach anywhere in the country. The Israel Defense Forces has estimated that a potential military campaign as part of a several-day flare-up with Hezbollah would likely wind up killing thousands of people in Lebanon, both civilians and Hezbollah fighters.

Grillo Renews France’s Pledge to Support Lebanon, Stay by Its Side
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
France on Sunday renewed its pledge to support Lebanon and stay by its side in 2023 despite the challenges, according to a message addressed by the French ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, to the Lebanese on the occasion of the new year 2023. Grillo said her country will seriously commit to the reintegration of Lebanon into the international community, in the reforms necessary to redress the country and lay the foundations of a state of law and justice. “A year ago, on the same occasion, I promised you, in the name of the President of the Republic, that France will remain by your side in 2022, and so it did. Today, I renew this promise: in 2023, France will remain here, despite the challenges,” she said. Grillo continued that “France has supported the vitality of your initiatives in various fields, such as media, equality between women and men, preserving biodiversity, solidarity between generations, and conflict prevention.”The French ambassador has assured that her country "will still be there" by Lebanon's side in 2023. “Since 2020, the solidarity of France and the French with Lebanon has been translated, for your sake, by allocating an amount of more than 230 million euros,” the ambassador pointed out. “France will defend you and will tirelessly remind, both in international institutions and regional and international partners, of the importance of Lebanon’s stability and prosperity in the Levant, as a strategic gateway to the eastern Mediterranean.” She also hoped that those who will preside over the country's future "will finally take the full measure of the existential challenges facing Lebanon, will refuse the disappearance of the state and the widespread culture of impunity that surrounds it, and will seriously commit to the reintegration of Lebanon into the international community, in the reforms necessary to redress the country and lay the foundations of a state of law and justice."

Lebanon: Aoun Uses Defense Minister to Settle Scores with Army Commander
Beirut - Mohamed Choucair/Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Signs of a political clash began to emerge between Lebanon’s Minister of National Defense in the caretaker government, retired Brigadier General Maurice Slim, and Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, over the appointment of an officer who would manage the Army’s General Inspection Authority. The clash could have been avoided had it not been stirred by the insistence of former President Michel Aoun to settle scores with the Army general, and with the direct intervention of the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil. Bassil accused the Army chief of “leading the coup” against Aoun during the October 2019 protests. Unnamed political sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the relationship between Aoun and the Army general began to deteriorate since the beginning of the protests since the latter refused to use force against the demonstrators. The sources added that Aoun provided the minister of defense with political cover in this dispute, adding that Bassil personally sponsored incitement campaigns against the Army commander in an attempt to distort his image at home and abroad. The sources noted that the difference over the appointment of an officer in charge of managing the General Inspection in the army does not explain all this fabricated uproar. According to the sources, the clash is not exclusively related to the powers of the minister of defense but represented an opportunity for the former President and his son-in-law (Bassil) to launch a campaign against the Army general and harm his credibility at the internal and external levels, with his name topping the list of presidential candidates alongside former Minister Sleiman Franjieh.

Jumblat calls on Arabs to support crisis-hit Egypt
Naharnet/January 9, 2023
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat called Monday for the support of Egypt amid its economic crisis. "Egypt is going through very dangerous circumstances as a result of the conditions of the International Monetary Fund, the scarcity of resources, the narrowness of agricultural lands, and the high prices of imported wheat after the Ukraine war," Jumblat said in a tweet. The Egyptian economy has been hit hard by years of government austerity, the coronavirus pandemic, and the fallout from the war in Ukraine. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, with most of its imports having traditionally come from eastern Europe. Jumblat said that "the Arab world has a surplus of money and is confused about how to use it."He added that "whatever the circumstances might be, supporting Egypt means supporting Arab stability and resilience above all else." The Egyptian pound had fallen this month from around 24.7 for $1 to just over 26.3 against the dollar, some three weeks after Egypt and the IMF formally ratified the support package, approved in exchange for a number of economic reforms implemented by the country’s Central Bank, including a shift to a flexible exchange rate.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 09-10/2023
Israel's Netanyahu races ahead with hard-line agenda
JOSEF FEDERMAN/AP/Mon, January 9, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government has wasted no time implementing its ultra-nationalist agenda, including adopting a seemingly petty ban on displaying the Palestinian flag and shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy with a proposed legal assault on the Supreme Court. After barely two weeks in power, the most hard-line and religious government in Israel’s history already is fomenting divisions at home and barreling toward conflict with the Palestinians and Israel’s allies abroad.
“We are not waiting, and I think the citizens of Israel already feel this,” Netanyahu told lawmakers in his Likud Party on Monday. “We formed a different government, with different policies, and we run things differently.”Just days after taking office, his national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – a hilltop compound revered by Jews and Muslims. While Ben-Gvir respected existing norms that bar Jewish prayer at the site, the visit was seen by many as a provocation given his past calls for giving Jewish worshippers greater access. It drew Palestinian condemnations and angry statements from the U.S. and Israel’s own Arab allies. Netanyahu has also taken aim at the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians successfully lobbied the U.N. General Assembly to seek a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel’s policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the Israeli government responded with a series of punitive measures. Some of the steps have hit the Palestinians hard, such as withholding some $40 million in tax revenues and instead using the money to compensate Israeli victims of Palestinian violence. There are also plans to halt development in Palestinian villages in Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank.
Other moves have been more symbolic, such as revoking the VIP privileges of top Palestinian officials and banning displays of Palestinian flags inside Israel. Israeli authorities over the weekend even broke up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children’s school conditions in east Jerusalem. Israel claimed the meeting was funded by the Palestinian Authority but provided no supporting evidence. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Monday accused Israel of trying to “topple the authority and pushing it to the brink, financially and institutionally.”At home, Netanyahu and his allies have unveiled a sweeping plan to overhaul the country’s justice system. The centerpiece proposal would give parliament the authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority. Critics say that would destroy Israel’s democratic system of check and balances.
Thousands of Israelis joined a demonstration over the weekend against the proposed legal overhaul, and former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak warned that the plan would turn Israel into a “hollow democracy.” Benny Gantz, a former defense minister who now sits in the opposition, warned Monday that Netanyahu was pushing the country toward “civil war.”The Netanyahu policies are no surprise. After four inconclusive elections in just three years, Netanyahu was able to eke out a victory in a fifth round of voting by joining forces with a collection of far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners.
“We received a clear mandate from the public, to carry out what we promised in the elections. That’s what we will do,” Netanyahu said at Monday's faction meeting. The coalition is dominated by hard-liners who detest the Palestinians, oppose the idea of peace talks and reject the establishment an independent Palestinian state. Ben-Gvir, for instance, is a follower of a deceased radical rabbi who advocated mass expulsions of Palestinians from the country.
Convicted over a decade ago on incitement and domestic terrorism charges, Ben-Gvir is now a senior Cabinet minister overseeing the national police force. His partner, the hard-liner Bezalel Smotrich, is a settler leader who has been placed in charge of West Bank settlement construction. Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, was willing to turn over authority to his partners because they share his animosity toward a legal system they believe is elitist and hostile. It is widely believed that the legal overhaul, spearheaded by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a close confidant of Netanyahu, will eventually lead to dismissal of the charges against the prime minister.
“This is the most extreme government that Israel has ever had,” said Nadav Eyal, an Israeli commentator and author of “Revolt,” a book about the rise of populism and nationalism worldwide. “What we’re seeing right now is a manifestation of their views, and they are basically doing what they promised.”
“To a large extent, the international community and many Israelis did not understand that they intend to actually implement much of their portfolio, and they don’t have anything to counter them politically,” he added. Nahum Barnea, a veteran columnist at the Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper, said Netanyahu appears to be “testing the waters” by allowing his partners to promote their hard-line policies while he tries to deflect international criticism. But he said Netanyahu will face problems reining in his coalition partners “because he doesn’t have partners for a more moderate policy.” He said Netanyahu has no interest in picking a fight with the Biden administration. “But Netanyahu is no dictator. He has to take into consideration these very strong voices.”
Levin said last week that his plans to weaken the Supreme Court are just a first stage of action. The government’s published guidelines call for more West Bank settlement construction, the legalization of dozens of illegally built outposts and eventually the full annexation of the territory. Such proposals will almost guarantee a showdown with the U.S., the Palestinians and the broader international community. The West Bank already is in the midst of its deadliest burst of violence in nearly two decades. So far, the Biden administration has issued a series of cautious statements stressing the deep ties with Israel while reiterating the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution. The tone could sharpen when top officials – including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken – visit in the coming weeks. Israel’s new Arab allies in the Gulf, particularly the United Arab Emirates, could also play a key role. The 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab countries are among Netanyahu’s proudest accomplishments, and he has said he hopes to add Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia to the list. The UAE criticized Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Jerusalem holy site, and according to Israeli media reports, delayed Netanyahu's plan to visit. But any damage to relations was minor. The UAE is hosting Arab and Israeli and American diplomats this week ahead of a major regional summit expected this spring.

U.S. Imposes Fresh Sanctions On Six Individuals Tied To Iranian Drone Production
AP and Reuters/January 09/2023
The United States has issued new sanctions targeting six individuals linked to Iranian drone manufacturer Quds Aviation Industries, a key defense manufacturer responsible for the design and production of drones used by Russia in its war against Ukraine, the U.S. Treasury Department said on January 6. The sanctions apply to “executives and board members” of the company, which the department said transferred drones “for use in Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.”Drones have been used since October to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, including electrical power stations, causing widespread power outages as cold weather sets in. The Treasury Department said that Quds Aviation Industries, a previously sanctioned Iranian defense manufacturer, changed its name to Light Airplanes Design and Manufacturing Industries in mid-2020 to evade sanctions. “Iran has now become Russia’s top military backer,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “Iran must cease its support for Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt and delay these transfers and impose costs on actors engaged in this activity."Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States “will continue to use every tool at our disposal to deny Putin the weapons that he is using to wage his barbaric and unprovoked war on Ukraine.”The latest sanctions follow a round imposed in November on Iranian-based Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, which the United States also accused of being involved in the production of drones transferred to Russia. After those sanctions were announced, Iran’s foreign minister acknowledged that his country has supplied Russia with drones but said they were transferred before Moscow invaded Ukraine more than 10 months ago. Iranian Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said in December at a UN Security Council meeting that Iranian-made drones were not transferred to Russia for use in Ukraine. He said reports to the contrary were part of a “misinformation campaign” to divert attention from Western states transferring weaponry to Ukraine in order to prolong the conflict. The United States, however, said in December that Iran sold hundreds of attack drones to Russia during the summer. Yellen said the Kremlin’s reliance on “suppliers of last resort” like Iran shows Russia’s desperation “in the face of brave Ukrainian resistance and the success of our global coalition in disrupting Russian military supply chains.” The sanctions announced on January 6 by the Treasury Department also blacklisted the director of Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), which oversees the country’s ballistic missile programs. AIO was sanctioned by the United States in 2005. The sanctions freeze any assets the individuals have under U.S. jurisdiction, inhibit their access to global financial markets, and bar people based in the United States from dealing with them.

UK Preparing to Designate IRGC as a Terrorist Organization
FDD/January 09/2023
Latest Developments
The United Kingdom is preparing to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, according to media reports this week. The decision, which London will likely announce within weeks, apparently stems in part from Tehran’s efforts to kidnap or kill dissidents on British soil. Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said in November that Tehran had plotted to kill at least 10 British residents over the past year. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has deployed assassins as a regular tool of statecraft, regarding assassinations as a key method to ensure the regime’s survival, punish foes, and deter dissent.
Expert Analysis
“Iran’s increasing efforts to assassinate opponents overseas reflect its growing confidence that the West lacks the will to retaliate in a meaningful way. Washington and London can demonstrate otherwise by stating that they will no longer negotiate with Tehran, that they will not provide sanctions relief to Iran, and that they support the Iranian people’s calls for regime change.” — Tzvi Kahn, FDD Research Fellow
A History of Global Terror
According to the State Department, Iran committed as many as 360 targeted assassinations between 1979 and 2020. Tehran’s assassinations have occurred throughout the world, including in Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, India, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Thailand, the Philippines, and Iran itself, among other countries. Yet according to a detailed Washington Post report in December, Western officials and documents reveal that the “tempo of the plots has dramatically increased in the past two years, and they are among the most ambitious and far-reaching in recent memory.”
Iran Targets Prominent Dissidents
Some of Tehran’s targets include prominent dissidents. Tehran has plotted to kidnap and assassinate Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, a leading champion of women’s rights in Iran, on U.S. soil. In April 2022, Israel said it foiled Iranian schemes to assassinate French-Jewish journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy, a longtime critic of the Islamic Republic, in Paris; a U.S. general in Germany; and an Israeli diplomat in Turkey. In 2018, an Iranian diplomat plotted but failed to bomb an annual rally of the dissident group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) near Paris, which some 25,000 people attended.
Targeting Former U.S. Government Officials
Iran has reportedly threatened several former U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, among others. The threats likely constitute an attempt to avenge IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, whom the United States killed in January 2020. The United States designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019.
An Ideological Imperative
Tehran’s willingness to deploy assassins abroad reflects its Islamist, authoritarian, and revolutionary creed, which seeks to enshrine Iran as the regional hegemon. General Ahmad Qolampour, a senior IRGC official, said in 2016, “The Islamic Revolution does not have any borders…. The Islamic Revolution[ary] Guard Corps does not have the word ‘Iran’ in its title. This means that it seeks to defend the Islamic Revolution and its achievements without regard to particular borders.”

UK summons top Iranian diplomat following latest executions
LONDON/Reuters/Mon, January 9, 2023
Britain's foreign minister James Cleverly summoned Iran’s most senior diplomat on Monday after Iranian authorities executed protestors Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini. "Today I have summoned the Iranian Chargé d’Affaires to condemn in the strongest possible terms the abhorrent executions we witnessed over the weekend," Cleverly said in a statement. Since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini last September, Britain said it had imposed more than 40 sanctions on leading officials in Iran "for their role in serious human rights violations."The two men were hanged on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during protests that followed the death of Amini. The latest execution brings the number of protesters officially known to have been executed since the unrest to four.

Germany says it wants to increase pressure on Iran after latest executions
BERLIN/Reuters/Mon, January 9, 2023
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators, and his spokesperson said Berlin wanted to crank up pressure on the Iranian authorities with new international measures. Iran hanged two men on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, drawing condemnation from the European Union, the United States and other Western nations. "With the executions, the Iranian regime is employing the death penalty as a means of repression," Scholz wrote on Twitter. "That is horrifying."He said Iran should refrain from further executions after the killings of 22-year-old Mohammad Mehdi Karami and 39-year-old Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, whose deaths bring the number of executions linked to the protests to four. "Together with our international partners, we will increase the pressure further on the Iranian regime," the government spokesperson told a regular news conference, adding that Iran needed to see that there would be a price to pay for continuing. A German foreign ministry spokesperson said the goal was to agree a fourth package of sanctions with other European Union member states in response to the crackdown.

Iranians protest outside French embassy against Charlie Hebdo cartoons
RFI/Mon, January 9, 2023
Dozens of Iranians gathered on Sunday outside the French embassy in Tehran, protesting against the publication of cartoons of the Islamic republic's supreme leader by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Most of the demonstrators were religious seminary students. They gathered in front of the embassy in the centre of Tehran and set fire to French flags, according to the French press agency AFP. Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday published caricatures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The weekly publication has supported protests in Iran, sparked by the 16 September death of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for allegedly violating the country's dress code. Iran has warned France over the "insulting and indecent" cartoons, which appeared in a special edition to mark the anniversary of the 2015 attack on the magazine's Paris offices in which 17 people died. "France, be ashamed!", the crowd chanted.
Waving Iranian flags, protestors held pictures of Khamenei and signs reading "I will sacrifice my life for the leader", and "Shame on Charlie Hebdo"."I came to support my revolution, my leader", 17-year-old seminary student Karim Heydarpour said.
'Arrogance'
Similar pro-government rallies were held in Iran's holy city of Qom, 128 kilometres south of Tehran, the state broadcaster reported. Iranian authorities brand the months-long protests in the country as "riots" and accuse foreign countries and opposition groups of stoking the unrest.
(With agencies)

Pope Francis Condemns Iran for Using Death Penalty Against Demonstrators
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Pope Francis on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators demanding greater respect for women.
The pope's remarks, made in his yearly speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, were his strongest since the start of nationwide protests in Iran following the death last September of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody. According to Reuters, four protesters have been executed in the aftermath of the unrest in Iran.

Anger over Executions Fuels Protests in Iran
London – Tehran – Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Night demonstrations flared up in several Iranian cities, hours after the execution of two protesters, and amid international condemnation of Iranian authorities. Iran’s judiciary announced on Sunday jail terms of up to 10 years for people who called for strikes as part of a month-long protest movement. Four Iranians have been convicted against the background of inciting a strike by truck drivers. Media outlets also reported on authorities convicting Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former lawmaker, and the daughter of former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. On Sunday evening, anti-regime demonstrations resurged in the Sattar Khan neighborhood at the heart of the capital, Tehran. The day before, Iranian protesters took to the streets in 20 of Tehran’s neighborhoods against authorities executing Mehdi Karami and Sayed Mohammad Hosseini. They chanted anti-establishment slogans like “Death to Khamenei,” “We do not want the government that kills children,” “Death to the Basij,” and “Death to the Revolutionary Guards.” Protesters also warned that “poverty, corruption and hiked prices” were driving them harder towards overthrowing the regime.
A group of protesters took to the streets in the cities of Karaj and Arak, according to videos shared on social media. A group of women demonstrated in the city of Najafabad in Isfahan province on Sunday. They chanted slogans condemning the regime, according to a video clip posted on Twitter. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) published a video showing strikes in the market of the Kurdish city of Saqqez. Karami and Hosseini were hanged to death after hasty trials on charges that they participated in the killing of a member of the Basij paramilitary group in November. These executions drew widespread international condemnation and brought up the number of executions in connection to the protests to four. A previous execution of Iranians in December sparked domestic and international outrage and the imposition of new Western sanctions on Iran.

Iran Sentences Three More to Death Over Amini Protests
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Iran has sentenced to death three people accused of killing three members of the security forces during the protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, the judiciary said Monday. Iran has been rocked by civil unrest since the September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian Amini, 22, following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women. The latest sentences, which can still be appealed, bring to 17 the total number of people condemned to death in connection with the more than three months of protests, AFP reported. Four of those convicted have been executed and two others are on death row after their sentences were upheld by the country's supreme court. Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were sentenced to death on charges of "moharebeh" -- or waging "war against God" -- the judiciary's Mizan Online news website reported. Two others were handed prison terms for the incident that led to the deaths of three security force members in the central province of Isfahan on November 16, Mizan said. All the sentences can be appealed before the supreme court, it added. On Saturday, Iran executed Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini for killing a paramilitary force member in November in Karaj west of Tehran. Two other men, Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, were put to death in December after being convicted of separate attacks on security forces. The executions have sparked global outrage and new Western sanctions against Tehran.

."White House: Iran Could Be Contributing to War Crimes by Sending Drones to Russia
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Iran could be contributing to war crimes in Ukraine by providing drones to Russia, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday. "Their weapons are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness which, from our point of view, puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes," Sullivan told reporters. He added that he would be discussing threats posed by Iran when he makes a trip to Israel to meet with the country's new government. Sullivan, speaking to reporters during a trip by President Joe Biden to Mexico, said the US government has made clear that a nuclear agreement with Iran is not a priority at the moment and that it continues to believe that diplomacy is the right away to ensure that the country does not obtain a nuclear weapon. Sullivan said the Biden administration would have an opportunity to engage with the new Israeli government about the issue. "We will work through any differences we have on tactics," he said. He confirmed that he would be traveling to Israel but did not say when that trip would take place.

UK, France Summon Top Iranian Diplomats Following Latest Executions
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
The UK and France summoned on Monday Iran’s most senior diplomats in their respective countries after executions over the weekend and the ongoing violent crackdown on protesters in the country. Britain's foreign minister James Cleverly summoned the chargé d’affaires after Iranian authorities executed protestors Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini. "Today I have summoned the Iranian Chargé d’Affaires to condemn in the strongest possible terms the abhorrent executions we witnessed over the weekend," Cleverly said in a statement. The French foreign ministry said on Twitter: "He (the chargé d'affaires) was informed of our strongest condemnation of the executions and repression in Iran." It added that Paris had already voiced this point several times to the Iranian authorities. Since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini last September, Britain said it had imposed more than 40 sanctions on leading officials in Iran "for their role in serious human rights violations." The two men were hanged on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during protests that followed the death of Amini. The latest execution brings the number of protesters officially known to have been executed since the unrest to four.

Protest Outside French Embassy in Tehran against ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Cartoons
London, Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
Dozens of Iranians gathered Sunday outside the French embassy in Tehran protesting against cartoons of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The magazine on Wednesday published caricatures of Khamenei in support of the months-long protests in Iran, sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code. Dozens of protesters, most of them religious seminary students, gathered in front of the embassy in the center of the capital Tehran and set fire to French flags, AFP journalists reported. Waving Iranian flags, they held pictures of Khamenei and signs reading "I will sacrifice my life for the leader", and "Shame on Charlie Hebdo". "I came to support my revolution, my leader", 17-year-old seminary student Karim Heydarpour said. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani on Sunday said that freedom of speech should not be used as a pretext for "insulting" religion. Paris should observe the "fundamental principles of international relations -- namely mutual respect (and) non-interference in the internal affairs of others", he said. On Thursday, Iran said it was closing the Tehran-based French Institute for Research in Iran "as a first step" in response to the cartoons. Located in the center of Tehran, IFRI had been closed for many years, but was reopened under the 2013-2021 presidency of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani as a sign of warming bilateral relations.

UN Extends Critical Aid from Türkiye to Syria’s Opposition North
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 9 January, 2023
The UN Security Council voted unanimously Monday to keep a key border crossing from Türkiye to Syria’s opposition-held northwest open for critical aid deliveries for another six months. Syria's ally Russia — in a surprise move — supporting the resolution.
All eyes had been on Russia, which in the past has abstained or vetoed resolutions on cross-border aid deliveries. It has sought to replace humanitarian aid crossing the Turkish border to northwest Idlib province with convoys from government-held areas across conflict lines. Since the early years of the war, Türkiye has sided with and supported Syria’s opposition. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had warned that the already dire humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening and if the aid deliveries from Türkiye to northwestern Idlib aren’t renewed, millions of Syrians might not survive the winter. Guterres said deliveries have increased across conflict lines within the country, but he said they cannot substitute for “the size or scope of the massive cross-border United Nations operation.” On Sunday, a convoy of 18 trucks entered the area of Idlib through front lines held by Syrian government forces. The resolution put the Security Council on record as “determining that the devastating humanitarian situation in Syria continues to constitute a threat to peace and security in the region.” In July, the council approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to Idlib, which is home to 4.1 million people. Many of the people sheltering in the area have been internally displaced by the nearly 12-year conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.
The resolution will allow for aid deliveries through the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Türkiye to northwest Syria to continue for the next six months, until July 10. In addition to pushing for more cross-front-line aid deliveries, Russia has also pushed for early recovery projects in Syria.
Guterres said in the December report that at least 374 early recovery projects have taken place throughout the country since January 2021, directly benefiting over 665,000 people, but he said “further expansion” is needed. The resolution encourages efforts to improve cross-front-line aid deliveries and calls on all 193 UN member states to respond to Syria’s “complex humanitarian emergency” and meet the urgent needs of the Syrian people “in light of the profound socioeconomics and humanitarian impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
It urges stepped-up initiatives to broaden activities to include providing water, sanitation, health, education, electricity, shelter and early recovery projects.

Russia's main oil product is trading way below the $60 price cap as just a handful of buyers keep up trade with the heavily sanctioned nation
Jennifer Sor/Business Insider/January 9, 2023
Russia's Urals blend is now trading well below the $60 price cap at just $37.80 a barrel, according to data from Argus Media. That's less than half the international benchmark Brent crude, squeezing Russia's oil revenue. The nation is struggling to replace European oil customers, and has just a few large oil buyers remaining. Russia's main oil product is now trading way below the G7's $60 price cap, as the heavily sanctioned nation only has a handful of buyers to keep up its crude oil trade. Urals grade, Russia's largest crude oil export, traded at its Baltic Sea port at just $37.80 a barrel on Friday, according to data from Argus Media. In addition to lagging below the price cap, that's less than half the price of international benchmark Brent crude, which was trading at about $80 a barrel on Monday. Western nations slapped the price cap on top of the European Union's ban of Russian oil in December, part of the latest round of sanctions intended to crimp Moscow's war revenue. Europe was one of Russia's largest crude oil customers, and Russian oil suppliers are now unable to use Western shipping and insurance services unless they agree to abide by the price cap mechanism. It's been difficult for Russia to navigate those headwinds: the nation's oil export revenue fell $15 million in the last week of 2022, and there are just a few main buyers of Russian crude left, namely China, India, and Turkey, Bloomberg reported. Those customers have also been able to score steeper discounts on oil as Russia struggles to replace European oil sales. Russia had sold oil below the price cap to India, and at least one oil shipment was sold to China at $68 a barrel, just above the price cap level. President Vladimir Putin has called the price cap "stupid" and emphasized the resilience of Russia's economy, though its central bank has warned that the latest round of sanctions were new economic shocks to the nation. The damage done by sanctions could even cause Russia to become a failed state or break up by 2033, according to a recent survey of experts. Russia has refused to formally abide by the price cap mechanism and threatened to retaliate against any country that enforces it, such as by slashing its oil output by 700,000 barrels a day. That, along with the 1 million barrel-a-day drop expected from the EU ban, could cause oil prices to spike past $100 a barrel, UBS warned.

Russia is holding back on using its most advanced fighter jets over Ukraine because it's scared they'll get shot down, UK intel says
Sophia Ankel/Business Insider/January 9, 2023
It said Russia's keeping them back over worries about "reputational damage" if they're shot down.
Russia is holding back on using its most advanced fighter jets over Ukrainian airspace because it's scared they'll get shot down, the UK's defense ministry said on Monday. In its latest intelligence update, the defense ministry said Moscow had "almost certainly" used Su-57 Felon fighter jets to conduct missions against Ukraine since at least June."These missions have likely been limited to flying over Russian territory, launching long range air-to-surface or air-to-air missiles into Ukraine," the brief said. It suggested that Russia's keeping its jets on home soil because it's "avoiding the reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology which would come from any loss of FELON over Ukraine."The twin-engine and single-seat aircraft is Russia's most advanced fifth-generation supersonic combat jet. For an aircraft to be considered fifth-generation, it must possess specific technical characteristics such as the ability to fly at supersonic speeds without afterburners.The defense ministry cited a satellite image taken on December 25 indicating that five of the jets were housed at the only known Felon air base in Russia, in the southern region of Akhtubinsk. Russia's defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said in August that the Felon had already been used "brilliantly" in combat since Russia's invasion, though there was little evidence at the time that this was the case. Russia's wary tactic is indicative of its continued risk-averse approach to employing its air force in the war against Ukraine, given the risk of significant losses. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in an update on Monday that Russia had lost more than 280 airplanes since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlin says new Western armoured vehicles for Ukraine will 'deepen suffering'
Reuters/Mon, January 9, 2023
The Kremlin said on Monday that new deliveries of Western weapons, including French-made armoured vehicles, to Kyiv would "deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people" and would not change the course of the conflict. France and Germany announced last week that they would send light combat vehicles to Ukraine, ramping up their military support for Kyiv. The United States said it would also provide armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine. "This supply will not be able to change anything", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. "These supplies can only add to the pain of the Ukrainian people and prolong their suffering. They are not capable of stopping us from achieving the goals of the special military operation," Peskov said. Ukraine, which has scored some battlefield successes since Russian forces invaded last February, has asked Western allies for heavier weapons and air defences as it seeks to tip the balance of the conflict, now in its 11th month, further in its favour. The Kremlin also said on Monday that despite France's decision to send more weapons to Kyiv, Moscow appreciated President Emmanuel Macron's contribution towards maintaining dialogue between the West and Russia. "(Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Macron maintain contact, there are pauses in the dialogue, but during previous stages that contact was quite useful and constructive, despite all the differences," Peskov said. Macron was criticised in Ukraine and in some Western capitals for holding hours-long phone calls with Putin in the early weeks of Russia's invasion. Just last month Macron was rebuked by the Baltic states for saying the West should consider Russia's need for "security guarantees" in any future talks to end the fighting.

NATO chief: Sweden has done what's needed to join alliance
Associated Press/January 09, 2023
It's time for Sweden to join NATO because it has done what's necessary to secure Turkey's approval for membership, the military alliance's secretary-general said Monday. "I have said that time has come to bring to an end the ratification process for Sweden," Jens Stoltenberg told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in an interview. In May, Sweden and neighboring Finland dropped their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The move requires the unanimous approval of the alliance members. Turkey has held up the process while pressing the two Nordic countries to crack down on groups it considers to be terrorist organizations and to extradite people suspected of terror-related crimes. Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sweden was not even "halfway" through fulfilling the commitments it made to secure Ankara's support. His remarks came after a Swedish court ruled against extraditing a journalist wanted by Turkey for alleged links to a 2016 failed coup. "I am confident that Sweden will become a member of NATO. I do not want to give a precise date for when that happens," Stoltenberg said. "So far, it has been a rare, unusual and fast membership process. Normally, it takes several years." Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said that Sweden has lived up to its commitments and that the decision now "lies with Turkey."
"We have a very good process together with Finland and Turkey and are doing exactly what we said, which Turkey is now confirming," Kristersson said on Sunday, the first day of the three-day People and Defense conference in Salen, a ski resort in central Sweden. The event was attended by Stoltenberg and Swedish foreign policy and security experts. "Legislation banning participation in terrorist organizations is being implemented, and Turkey is known to name individuals it wants extradited. It is also known that Sweden has legislation that is clear and means that it is up to the courts. We also do not extradite Swedish citizens to any country." There was no immediate reaction from Turkey to the comments by Stoltenberg and Kristersson. The parliaments of 28 NATO countries have already ratified Sweden and Finland's membership. Turkey and Hungary are the only members that haven't yet given their approval. Under the memorandum, the two countries agreed to address Turkey's security concerns, including requests for the deportation and extradition of Kurdish militants and people linked to a network run by U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Turkish government accuses Gulen of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt, which he denies. However, Sweden's top court has refused to extradite journalist Bulent Kenes, whom Turkey accuses of being among the coup plotters. Kenes, who received asylum in Sweden, was the editor of the English-language Today's Zaman newspaper which was owned by the Gulen network and was closed down as part of Ankara's crackdown on the group. On Monday, Sweden's government said it was planning to reactivate civil conscription by asking the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency to prepare education for people who would be asked to serve with municipal emergency services in the event of a military conflict.

FPM may Tuesday unveil name of its presidential candidate
Naharnet/January 09, 2023
The Free Patriotic Movement might unveil the name of its presidential candidate on Tuesday. “There is an endeavor to put an article related to naming a third candidate for the presidency on the agenda of the periodic meeting of the Strong Lebanon bloc that will be held tomorrow, in an attempt to make a certain breakthrough in this regard,” an FPM lawmaker told al-Joumhouria newspaper. But sources close to FPM chief Jebran Bassil told the daily that “several MPs want this step but it might be premature.” “The final decision belongs to Bassil, seeing as he is the one who lays out the agenda,” the sources said.“We are awaiting his decision, and it doesn’t seem that it will be decisive in this direction,” the sources added.

Palestinian PM says Israel quashing anti-occupation protests
Associated Press/January 09, 2023
The Palestinian prime minister accused Israel's new ultra-nationalist government of blocking "even the most non-violent ways of fighting the occupation," according to an interview published Monday, after Israel retaliated for the Palestinians' successful effort to enlist U.N. help. Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh's comments to Haaretz came amid a flurry of punitive steps by Israel since taking office late last month, most recently banning the Palestinian flag from public spaces. Israel has stripped Palestinian officials of VIP privileges and broken up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children's education. Late on Sunday, Israel's security minister ordered the police to ban the Palestinian flag, a symbolically fraught move after what one Israeli rights group reported was the deadliest year of the conflict in decades. "Today I directed the Israel Police to enforce the prohibition of flying any PLO flag that shows identification with a terrorist organization from the public sphere and to stop any incitement against the State of Israel," Itamar Ben-Gvir announced on Twitter. It was the new government's latest retaliation after a Palestinian push for the U.N.'s highest judicial body to give its opinion on Israel's 55-year military occupation of the West Bank. Ben-Gvir, a far-right firebrand known for his anti-Arab rhetoric, drew widespread international condemnation when he visited Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site last week. Shtayyeh told Haaretz that the Israeli sanctions were designed to collapse the Palestinian Authority and would have dire consequences.
"We have the right to complain and tell the world we are in pain," he said in comments published Monday. "Israel wants to prevent even the most non-violent way of fighting the occupation." Ahmad Aldeek, assistant to the Palestinian foreign minister, said "The Israeli government is waging an open war on the symbols and components of the State of Palestine." "This increases our insistence on pursuing the Israeli government and putting it on trial in all international forums," Aldeek said Monday. Under Israeli law, flying the Palestinian flag is not a crime. An attorney general in 2014 ruled that an ordinance decades earlier granted police the authority to confiscate a flag if it results in disruption of public order or breach of peace, or is done in support of terrorism. Ben-Gvir's order, one group said, falsely implies that any public display of the Palestinian flag is itself such a disruption. "This gives the police unfettered discretion to ban the waving of the Palestinian flag under all circumstances," according to a statement from Adalah, an Arab minority legal rights group. Ben-Gvir's latest order is not the first battle over flying the Palestinian flag.The red, green and white Palestinian flag carries great symbolism in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Last May, Israeli riot police beat pallbearers at the funeral for slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, causing them to nearly drop the casket. Police ripped Palestinian flags out of people's hands and fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd.
Israel once considered the Palestinian flag that of a militant group akin to the Palestinian Hamas or the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah. But after Israel and the Palestinians signed a series of interim peace agreements known as the Oslo Accords, the flag was recognized as that of the Palestinian Authority, which was created to administer Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel opposes any official business being carried out by the PA in east Jerusalem, and police have in the past broken up events they alleged were linked to the PA. Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday the measures against the Palestinians were aimed at what he called "an extreme anti-Israel" step at the U.N. Israel's Palestinian citizens make up 20% of the population and they've had a turbulent relationship with the state since its creation in 1948. That was the year that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to flee in the events surrounding the establishment of the state of Israel. Those who remained became citizens, but have long been viewed with suspicion by some Israelis because of their ties to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future independent state. Netanyahu's new government is dominated by hard-liners who oppose Palestinian statehood.

United Arab Emirates says it will teach Holocaust in schools
Associated Press/January 09, 2023
The United Arab Emirates will begin teaching about the Holocaust in history classes in primary and secondary schools across the country, the country's embassy in the U.S. says. The embassy provided no details on the curriculum and education authorities in the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, did not immediately acknowledge the announcement on Monday. However, the announcement comes after the UAE normalized relations with Israel in 2020 as part of a deal brokered by the administration of President Donald Trump. "In the wake of the historic (hashtag)AbrahamAccords, (the UAE) will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum for primary and secondary schools," the embassy said in a tweet, referring to the normalization deal that also saw Bahrain and ultimately Morocco also recognize Israel. Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, praised the announcement in her own tweet. "Holocaust education is an imperative for humanity and too many countries, for too long, continue to downplay the Shoah for political reasons," Lipstadt wrote, using a Hebrew word for the Holocaust. "I commend the UAE for this step and expect others to follow suit soon."
The announcement comes ahead of a planned meeting of the Negev Forum Working Groups in Abu Dhabi this week, which grew out of the normalization. The meeting will see officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the UAE and the U.S. attend. Egypt has diplomatically recognized Israel for decades.
The Holocaust saw Nazi Germany systematically kill 6 million European Jews during World War II. Israel, founded in 1948 as a haven for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, grants automatic citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent. Other Arab nations have refused to diplomatically recognize Israel over its decades-long occupation of land Palestinians want for a future state. The announcement by the UAE also comes after it and other Arab nations condemned an ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet minister for visiting a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site for the first time since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new far-right government took office. The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is the holiest site in Judaism, home to the ancient biblical Temples. Today, it houses the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.

Biden in Mexico for talks on migrants, drugs
Agence France Presse/January 09, 2023
A regional migration and drug smuggling crisis is expected to dominate talks between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday.
Biden arrived in Mexico City late Sunday after a politically charged stop at the southern U.S. border -- his first since taking office.
He will meet Monday and Tuesday with Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau one-on-one and also together in what is dubbed the "Three Amigos" summit. While trade and environmental issues are also on the table, Biden has put a surge in irregular migration and dangerous drug trafficking front and center of his trip, his first to Mexico as president. "Our problems at the border didn't arise overnight," Biden tweeted after his arrival. "And they won't be solved overnight. But, we can come together to fix this broken system. We can secure the border and fix the immigration process to be orderly, fair, safe, and humane." On his way to Mexico, Biden stopped for several hours in El Paso, Texas, a city at the heart of the troubled border. He met with U.S. officials at the Bridge of the Americas crossing, watching a demonstration of the latest border enforcement technology, as well as a customs sniffer dog. He later got out of his motorcade to inspect a section of the tall fencing that snakes between El Paso and its twin city Juarez on the Mexican side. "They need a lot of resources. We're going to get it for them," Biden told reporters after his visit to the customs post.
Asylum overhaul
Biden is under huge political pressure in the face of spiraling illegal border crossings and applications for asylum by people making perilous journeys from regional countries afflicted by repression, poverty or severe crime. Adding to the crisis has been a surge in cross-border smuggling of the highly addictive and often deadly narcotic fentanyl.
Biden's visit sought to respond to Republican accusations that he has been ignoring the situation. But meeting Biden off Air Force One at El Paso's airport, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott handed him a letter blasting the visit as "$20 billion too little and two years too late."
In his meetings with Lopez Obrador and Trudeau, Biden will address the regional scope of the issue. "It's gripping the hemisphere, and a regional challenge requires a regional solution," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News, noting that migrants were on the move from as far afield as Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Biden on Thursday announced an expansion of powers to expel people showing up at the border without clearance. At the same time, a legal, strictly enforced pathway will be created for up to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
The quota will be restricted to those who already have a U.S. sponsor, while anyone attempting to cross the border illegally will be expelled in coordination with Mexico. Human rights groups harshly criticized this as closing the door on desperate people, but the Biden administration says its actions will essentially kill the market for human smuggling networks, while encouraging legitimate arrivals. On Sunday, just ahead of Biden's arrival in Mexico, a line of migrants, some with children in their arms, were deported from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, according to an AFP reporter at the scene. Venezuelan Jose David Melendez told AFP that he had been apprehended by border guards at a church where he was taking refuge. "The police officers from the border patrol came and hit us, made us run, pointed guns at us, pointed at children with firearms. Where are our human rights?" the 25-year-old said. Deported Cuban migrant Lorenzo Escobar, 36, told AFP: "People have the right to freedom, to have something better -- it's impossible to live in our country."
Drug wars vs development? -
In 2021, the United States and Mexico announced a revamp of their fight against drug trafficking to address the root causes of migration, encourage economic development and bolster curbs against cross-border arms smuggling. Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 340,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006. Days before Biden's visit, Mexican security forces captured a son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is serving a life sentence at a U.S. prison. The United States had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Ovidio Guzman's arrest, accusing him of being a key player in the Sinaloa cartel founded by his father. Climate change and cooperation in clean energy technologies will also be on the summit agenda, with Mexico hoping to benefit from Washington's efforts to reduce its reliance on Asia-based manufacturers.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 09-10/2023
The European Union's War on Israel
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/January 09, 2023
A confidential leaked document, composed by the EU mission in east Jerusalem, shows that the Europeans are actively working with, and on behalf of, the Palestinian Authority to take over Area C of the West Bank -- although the area was clearly agreed on, by both Israel and the Palestinians, until further negotiations, to be under Israeli control.
"[T]he EU... insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, EU law and charter, and also the Oslo Accord. This claim is surely defied by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel's control per the Oslo Accord which the EU claims to uphold." — Jenny Aharon, Jerusalem Post, December 28, 2022.
Aharon noted that while the EU was insisting that Israel abide by the Oslo Accords and that a Palestinian state should be established within the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement, the EU, at the same time, is trying to strip Israel of its rights according to that same agreement, which gave Israel responsibility over security, public order and all issues related to territory, including planning and zoning, in Area C.
The EU, in short, is encouraging the Palestinians not to return to the negotiating table with Israel. Instead, the EU is telling the Palestinians that the EU will help them steal land as an alternative to reaching a peaceful settlement with Israel through negotiations.
"The EU's reported clandestine activity to undermine Israeli control in Area C and to advance illegal Palestinian development in those areas constitutes a clear and present threat to the security of the State of Israel, and is an act of blatant hostility and aggression." — Letter from the Israel Defense and Security Forum, consisting of 16,000 former military, security and police officers; i24 News, December 21, 2022.
"As this document confirms, Europe's use of labels like support for 'civil society' and 'human rights' were designed to hide the millions of euros given every year to selected allied NGOs, particularly in Area C, to create facts on the ground." — Dr. Gerald Steinberg, quoted by JNS, January 5, 2023.
These revelations show that no one should be surprised when the E.U. condemns the new government for trying to save land in Yehuda and Shomron [the West Bank] — they [the EU and Palestinians] are the ones responsible for stealing it. – Dr. Eugene Kontorovich, quoted by JNS, January 5, 2023.
In 2022, illegal Palestinian construction in Area C increased by 80%. The report documents 5,535 new illegal structures built in 2022, compared to 3,076 structures in the same period in 2021. — Regavim, October 11, 2022.
The EU support for the Palestinian efforts to take over Area C is actually undermining the prospects of reaching a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and Israel. The EU has not only damaged any chance for a negotiated settlement, but has duplicitously endorsed the Palestinians' ongoing attempt to impose a solution on Israel rather than -- as both parties involved agreed -- to reach one through negotiations.
It is time to tell the EU to mind its own business and stop its anti-democratic meddling in other countries' affairs.
A confidential leaked document, composed by the European Union mission in east Jerusalem, shows that the Europeans are actively working with, and on behalf of, the Palestinian Authority to take over Area C of the West Bank -- although the area was clearly agreed on, by both Israel and the Palestinians, until further negotiations, to be under Israeli control. (Image source: iStock)
The European Union (EU) argues that it respects democracy and shares with Israel the values of an open and democratic rule-of-law-based society. If that is true, then why does the EU not respect the decision by the Arabs and the Israelis to mutually come to the table to negotiate their own borders? Why is the EU secretly helping the Palestinians take over Area C of the West Bank through illegal construction?
A confidential leaked document , composed by the EU mission in east Jerusalem, shows that the Europeans are actively working with, and on behalf of, the Palestinian Authority to take over Area C of the West Bank -- although the area was clearly agreed on, by both Israel and the Palestinians, until further negotiations, to be under Israeli control.
The Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the Palestinians, established the administrative division of the West Bank into three areas: A, B, and C.
Area A is under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority; in Area B, the Palestinian Authority exercises administrative control but shares security control with Israel. The majority of the Palestinians live in these two areas.
Area C is exclusively controlled by Israel.
The Oslo Accords are called an interim agreement because they were supposed to be the basis for subsequent negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis and the preliminary to an eventual comprehensive peace agreement. The preamble of the agreement speaks of "peaceful coexistence, mutual dignity and security, while recognizing... mutual legitimate and political rights" of the parties. The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-government Authority for the Palestinian people. By 1996, as stated in the Oslo Accords, negotiations on the permanent status issues, including borders, would be started.
The EU, however, has chosen to ignore the decision made by the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a permanent and comprehensive peace agreement through negotiations. It has also chosen to encourage the Palestinians to break the law through illegal construction and land grabs.
Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with Israel, the EU is helping the Palestinians illegally seize control of large parts of Area C -- in direct violation of the Oslo Accord.
The EU, in short, is encouraging the Palestinians not to return to the negotiating table with Israel. Instead, the EU is telling the Palestinians that the EU will help them steal land as an alternative to reaching a peaceful settlement with Israel through negotiations.
"The European Union is committed to contribute to building a Palestinian State within 1967 borders and mobilize to this purpose its political and financial tools," the document states.
"The viability of the two-state solution is being steadily eroded by the progressive fragmentation and 'creeping annexation' (by Israel) of Area C. This calls for an enhanced, articulated and robust nexus approach mobilizing European political and financial means."
According to the document:
"The EU's Area C program aims to foster the resilience of people, services and institutions, to reinforce Palestinian presence in Area C and to protect the rights of Palestinians living in Area C. The program contributes to serving Area C communities and Palestinian presence therein, so as to preserve Area C as part of a future Palestinian state."
Dr. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, told the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) that "since 1980, EU policymakers have sought to create a Palestinian state, and for the past two decades, they have used a network of NGO subcontractors to promote this objective.
"As this document confirms, Europe's use of labels like support for 'civil society' and 'human rights' were designed to hide the millions of euros given every year to selected allied NGOs, particularly in Area C, to create facts on the ground. Now that the pretense is out in the open, the potential for a major confrontation between Israel and Europe, including over support for NGOs, is very high."
Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem, told JNS the leaked EU document shows that Brussels is taking steps in anticipation of policies by Israel's incoming government to "preserve" lands in Area C.
"There is a rapid annexation of areas surrounding Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria by the P.A. and E.U. This is 'land for peace' without the fake promise of peace... These revelations show that no one should be surprised when the E.U. condemns the new government for trying to save land in Yehuda and Shomron [the West Bank] — they [the EU and Palestinians] are the ones responsible for stealing it."
Jenny Aharon, director of Golden Gate Public Affairs, who advises on EU-Israel affairs and works with EU institutions in Brussels, pointed out that the EU was acting in defiance of its own declared goal.
"In order to comprehend what has transpired with the document and Israel's reaction, it's important to look into the context: the EU has strived to remain a neutral power as it states its opinion on Israel's policies in the West Bank," Aharon remarked.
"It insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, EU law and charter, and also the Oslo Accord. This claim is surely defied by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel's control per the Oslo Accord which the EU claims to uphold."
Aharon noted that while the EU was insisting that Israel abide by the Oslo Accords and that a Palestinian state should be established within the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement, the EU, at the same time, is trying to strip Israel of its rights according to that same agreement, which gave Israel responsibility over security, public order and all issues related to territory, including planning and zoning, in Area C.
"Now that the EU's intentions are exposed, it should reconsider its positions, stop masking its political decisions with laws and put its cards on the table for an honest discussion... They should do that before EU-Israel relations deteriorate any further."
An Israeli organization consisting of more than 16,000 former military, security, and police officers called the revelation that the EU is working on a Palestinian takeover of Area C "an act of blatant hostility and aggression."
In an open letter, the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF) slammed the EU for its confidential policy document:
"According to our professional understanding of national security, the dominant terrain of Judea and Samaria in Area C is key strategic terrain that controls or can threaten most of the modern State of Israel's infrastructure and strategic assets... The EU's reported clandestine activity to undermine Israeli control in Area C and to advance illegal Palestinian development in those areas constitutes a clear and present threat to the security of the State of Israel, and is an act of blatant hostility and aggression."
The founder and director of the IDSF, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi said the EU's activity undermines the Oslo Accords, which established Israel's control over Area C:
"These areas are crucial to Israel's existence in the long term. It's an existential issue. We are the only ones who can define what we need, talking about national security, talking about the Jewish national aspirations. No European country can decide for us what we need, and certainly not go against an accord that everybody should adhere to."
A group of 40 Israeli members of Knesset (parliament) also expressed concern over the policies and actions of the EU. They called on the EU immediately to halt "illegal construction activities in Israel's sovereign territory."
Addressing the EU leaders, the Knesset members wrote:
"Yesterday, we learned of an official policy document of the European Union, a document the gravity of which cannot be overstated, one that leaves no room for doubt as to the one-sidedness and animosity of the EU towards the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The [EU] document completely ignores our people's historical affinity to our homeland, completely ignores the political agreements and the status of the State of Israel in Area C and seeks to establish the 1949 borders as Israel's final-status permanent borders – in complete disregard of the Jewish communities in the area."
The EU policy of funding and encouraging the Palestinian land-grab is beginning to bear fruit.
A report released by the Israeli NGO Regavim, which acts to prevent the illegal seizure of Israeli state land, has revealed that in 2022, illegal Palestinian construction in Area C increased by 80%. The report documents 5,535 new illegal structures built in 2022, compared to 3,076 structures in the same period in 2021.The EU's support for the Palestinian efforts to take over Area C is actually undermining the prospects of reaching a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and Israel. The EU has not only damaged any chance for a negotiated settlement, but has duplicitously endorsed the Palestinians' ongoing attempt to impose a solution on Israel rather than -- as both parties involved agreed upon -- to reach one through negotiations.
It is time to tell the EU to mind its own business and stop its anti-democratic meddling in other countries' affairs.
**Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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How Jesus Became ‘Isa: A Terrorist with a Heavenly Harem
Raymond Ibrahim/January 09, 2023
According to a recent report titled, “Jesus the Palestinian terrorist and his 72 dark-eyed virgins,”
One of the many ways in which the Palestinian Authority distorts history in order to invent a centuries-old Palestinian identity, is to turn Jesus the Judean (Jew), who promoted peace on earth, into a Palestinian terrorist who was murdered by the Israelis, thus becoming the first Palestinian “Martyr,” who is now reveling in heaven with Allah, in the arms of 72 dark-eyed virgins.
The report goes on to offer copious examples validating this charge.
What to make of all this?
First, it must be remembered that for Palestinians and Muslims in general, those who sacrifice their lives for the cause of Allah—and Allah is very much interested in things like land and territorial disputes—are the apple of that deity’s eye, deserving of the highest paradisiacal rewards. As the Koran declares:
Surely Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their belongings and in return has promised that they shall have Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah, and slay and are slain (9:111).
It follows that Jesus Christ, whom Muslims have appropriated and transformed into “Isa the prophet,” is a great martyr—not because he was crucified for the sins of mankind (Islam teaches someone else was crucified in Christ’s place at the last minute), but because he gives his life to fight infidels and uphold Allah’s law, sharia.
That’s right: the “Jesus” that we are regularly assured “Muslims love too” has little bearing with the biblical Christ.
Consider what some of the most canonical hadiths say about him (the following translations are from Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period by professors James E. Lindsay and Suleiman Mourad):
In one, Jesus approvingly quotes Muhammad saying that whoever makes him, Muhammad, Christ’s equal—and thereby contradicts the oldest Christian Creed (1 Cor. 15: 3-7)—will go to heaven: “Whoever testifies that there is no god but God, alone with no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, and that Jesus is His servant and messenger … Allah will admit him to paradise for saying that.”
In another hadith, a woman says to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that suckled you.” To this, a shocked Jesus replies: “No, but blessed is he who reads the Qur’an and follows what is in it!”
But it is only when he returns in Islam’s version of the “end times” that the Muslim Jesus truly shines. According to Islamic teaching, he will return to “break the crosses, slaughter the pigs, end the jizya tax on non-Muslims, making warfare against the People of the Book (e.g. Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc.) and others licit.”
In other words, he will usher in an end of “tolerance” to long held but “mistaken” Christian beliefs—chief among them that he was crucified, killed, and resurrected for the salvation of mankind.
In the midst of the final showdown between the forces of Allah and the forces of Antichrist (al-Dajjal), Jesus will first appear “praying behind” an Islamic leader. Then, “after Jesus finishes his prayer, he will take his lance, go toward the Antichrist and kill him. Then Jesus will die and the Muslims will wash him and bury him.”
In such a manner is he a “martyr”—no different, for many Muslims, than his supposed Palestinian kinsmen who blow themselves up in the service of Islam.
Nor is it surprising that the Muslim Jesus receives Islam’s highest paradisiacal rewards for martyrs: the houris, supernatural concubines—“big-bosomed” and “wide-eyed” says the Koran (56:22, 78:33)—created for the express purpose of pleasuring Allah’s favorites in perpetuity.
As Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, said of everyone who martyrs himself for Allah’s cause, in an oft cited and canonical hadith:
He is forgiven from the first drop of blood [he sheds]. He sees his throne in paradise. . . . Fixed atop his head will be a crown of honor, a ruby that is greater than the world and all it contains. And he will copulate with seventy-two houris. ( The Al Qaeda Reader, p.143)
That the Muslim Jesus is engaged in a libidinous afterlife should not be surprising. After all, Jesus’s mother, Mary, is also, according to the Muslim imagination, engaged in a carnal afterlife—as wife (one of several, of course) to Muhammad.
Here, then, is yet another stark reminder that Islam’s appropriation and subsequent mutilation of biblical figures is not, contrary to “ecumenical” claims, a source of “commonalities” and “bridges” between Islam on the one hand and Judaism and Christianity on the other.
Rather, it is Islam’s way of manipulating the figures of Judaism and Christianity for its own agenda and precisely to use them against Jews and Christians.

I Looked Behind the Curtain of American History, and This Is What I Found
Carlos Lozada/The New York Times/January 09/ 2023
In the realm of folklore and ancient traditions, myths are tales forever retold for their wisdom and underlying truths. Their impossibility is part of their appeal; few would pause to debunk the physics of Icarus’s wings before warning against flying too close to the sun.
In the worlds of journalism and history, however, myths are viewed as pernicious creatures that obscure more than they illuminate. They must be hunted and destroyed so that the real story can assume its proper perch. Puncturing these myths is a matter of duty and an assertion of expertise. “Actually” becomes an honored adverb.
I can claim some experience in this effort, not as a debunker of myths but as a clearinghouse for them. When I served as the editor of The Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section several years ago, I assigned and edited dozens of “5 Myths” articles in which experts tackled the most common fallacies surrounding subjects in the news. This regular exercise forced me to wrestle with the form’s basic challenges: How entrenched and widespread must a misconception be to count as an honest-to-badness myth? What is the difference between a conclusive debunking and a conflicting interpretation? And who is qualified to upend a myth or disqualified from doing so?
These questions came up frequently as I read “Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past,” a collection published this month and edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, historians at Princeton. The book, which the editors describe as an “intervention” in long-running public discussions on American politics, economics and culture, is an authoritative and fitting contribution to the myth-busting genre — authoritative for the quality of the contributions and the scope of its enterprise, fitting because it captures in one volume the possibilities and pitfalls of the form. When you face down so many myths in quick succession, the values that underpin the effort grow sharper, even if the value of myths themselves grows murkier. All of our national delusions should be exposed, but I’m not sure all should be excised. Do not some myths serve a valid purpose?
Several contributors to “Myth America” successfully eviscerate tired assumptions about their subjects. Carol Anderson of Emory University discredits the persistent notion of extensive voter fraud in US elections, showing how the politicians and activists who claim to defend election integrity are often seeking to exclude some voters from the democratic process. Daniel Immerwahr of Northwestern University puts the lie to the idea that the United States historically has lacked imperial ambitions; with its territories and tribal nations and foreign bases, he contends, the country is very much an empire today and has been so from the start. And after reading Lawrence B. Glickman’s essay on “White Backlash,” I will be careful of writing that a civil-rights protest or movement sparked or fomented or provoked a white backlash, as if such a response is instinctive and unavoidable. “Backlashers are rarely treated as agents of history, the people who participate in them seen as bit players rather than catalysts of the story, reactors rather than actors,” Glickman, a historian at Cornell, writes. Sometimes the best myth-busting is the kind that makes you want to rewrite old sentences.
The collection raises worthy arguments about the use of history in the nation’s political discourse, foremost among them that the term “revisionist history” should not be a slur. “All good historical work is at heart ‘revisionist’ in that it uses new findings from the archives or new perspectives from historians to improve, to perfect — and yes, to revise — our understanding of the past,” Kruse and Zelizer write. Yet, this revisionist impulse at times makes the myths framework feel somewhat forced, an excuse to cover topics of interest to the authors.
Sarah Churchwell’s enlightening chapter on the evolution of “America First” as a slogan and worldview, for instance, builds on her 2018 book on the subject. But to address the topic as a myth, Churchwell, a historian at the University of London, asserts that Donald Trump’s invocation of “America First” in the 2016 presidential race was “widely defended as a reasonable foreign policy doctrine.” (Her evidence is a pair of pieces by the conservative commentators Michael Barone and Michael Anton.)
In his essay defending the accomplishments of the New Deal, Eric Rauchway of the University of California, Davis, admits that the policy program’s alleged failure “is not a tale tightly woven into the national story” and that “perhaps ‘myth’ seems an inappropriate term.” He does believe the New Deal’s failure is a myth worth exploding, of course, but acknowledges that there are “many analytical categories of falsehood.” The admission deserves some kudos, but it also might just be right.
In Kruse’s chapter on the history of the Southern strategy — the Republican Party’s deliberate effort to bring white Southerners to its side as the Democratic Party grew more active in support of civil rights — the author allows that “only recently have conservative partisans challenged this well-established history.” This singling out of conservatives is not accidental. In their introduction, Kruse and Zelizer argue that the growth of right-wing media platforms and the Republican Party’s declining “commitment to truth” have fostered a boom in mythmaking. “Efforts to reshape narratives about the US past thus became a central theme of the conservative movement in general and the Trump administration in particular,” they write.
The editors note the existence of some bipartisan myths that transcend party or ideology, but overwhelmingly, the myths covered in “Myth America” originate or live on the right. In an analysis that spans 20 chapters, more than 300 pages and centuries of American history and public discourse, this emphasis is striking. Do left-wing activists and politicians in the United States never construct and propagate their own self-affirming versions of the American story? If such liberal innocence is real, let’s hear more about it. If not, it might require its own debunking.
One of those bipartisan myths, typically upheld by politicians of both major parties, is the ur-myth of the nation: American exceptionalism. In his essay on the subject, David A. Bell, another Princeton historian, can be dismissive of the term. “Most nations can be considered exceptional in one sense or another,” he writes. Today, the phrase is typically deployed as a “cudgel” in the country’s culture wars, Bell contends, a practice popularized by politicians like Newt Gingrich, who has long hailed the United States as “the most unique civilization in history” and assails anyone who does not bow before the concept. “For Gingrich, demonstrating America’s exceptionality has always mattered less than denouncing the Left for not believing in it,” Bell writes.
When exploring earlier arguments about America’s unique nature, Bell touches on John Winthrop’s 17th-century sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared that the Puritan community would be “as a city on a hill” (a line that President Ronald Reagan expanded centuries later to a “shining city upon a hill”). The reference is obligatory in any discussion of American exceptionalism, though Bell minimizes the relevance of the lay sermon to the exceptionalism debates, both because the text “breathed with agonized doubt” about whether the colonists could meet the challenge and because the sermon “remained virtually unknown until the 19th century.”
**Carlos Lozada is a journalist and author of Peruvian descent. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2019.

Facts: Let Them Enjoy Themselves
Samir Atallah/Asharq Al-Awsat/January 09/ 2023
Back when Martyr’s Square was the commercial hub of Beirut, a group of Moroccan immigrants scattered across its outskirts constituted one of its hallmarks. Each of them carried long beads with which he would foretell the future of passers-by and tell them of the fortunes about to fall into their lap. In fact, they knew people’s names as well, reading them in the lines of their palms and murmuring them. If your name was not Joseph, then it was Saleem or Haleem.
Who were the passers-by of Martyrs Square in that era? They were ordinary people who had descended from the mountains or come from the countryside in search of a new life away from their homes in an unfamiliar city they knew nothing about. The Moroccan fortune-tellers went back home, Martyrs Square was deserted, and palm readers began reading the press and foretelling the fates and diseases coming to us and the names of future presidents and prime ministers. They present free analyses of the war in Ukraine.
In their own way, a large number of journalists around the world make predictions of the events to come. Usually, they anticipate the obvious or offer us vague speculation about developments that could occur anywhere and at any time. The caliber of their analyses is often no better than that of the fortune-telling in Martyr’s Square, Saleem, or Haleem. The miserable and hopeless read their fortunes in the bottom of coffee cups. And there are entire nations who wait on the side of the road to find out whether mercy is coming their way or their crushing tribulation with go on.
Three well-intentioned parties take part in this annual festival: those who claim to see the future, TV broadcasters, and hundreds of thousands of viewers. It is a profitable sport for some that reassures everyone involved, except those who end up mired in “doom and gloom.” “I see a large question mark hanging over X politician” - a small question mark would draw little attention. He thus implants seeds of anxiety in the minds of many as they await the next year. This series of speculations is not devoid of personal interests, veneration, and praise. Some of the names involved are laughable and reminiscent of the Moroccan fortune-tellers and their long beads. The men and women who foretell the future can be divided into three categories: national, Arab, and global.
They could have an audience in China, Russia, and Mongolia waiting to hear the predictions of how their countries will be ruled. Facts are important because they are the light that illuminates our path. Positive aspirations are a human right, as are wishes and hopes, especially in countries languishing in suffering. The facts are shrouded in darkness. Besides that, let them enjoy themselves.